Airplane Food
One of the weirdest (and worst) airplane food experiences, when the
cart got to me, my only option was a carton of potato chips
Smart Thinking In A Sea Of Stupid
For all the airports, and all of the security checks I’ve been
through, Tucson was the first i’ve seen to take the stuff collected &
donate it to charity.
For all the times i’ve felt disgusted seeing that stuff get thrown
away, hopefully this trend will continue if the ridiculous rule remains.
Vice’s Go Green
Things do seem to be reaching a critical mass when it comes to the marketing of “green”. This is nothing new, its just that most large consumer goods companies are realizing they can’t ignore the voice of this audience, especially when it comes to the production, packaging, and energy methods are becoming more accessible and cost effective. The fact is, there is a significant number of consumers who care about this movement deeply. Newsweek has a good article about the greening of our “vices“, including junk food and liquor.
It discusses a new “green” vodka called 360. It has an environmentally sound production process and packaging…but what about the product? As the Chairman of the company says, “With our packaging and our message, we’re on the cutting edge.”
While that is a critical part of the appeal, I would argue that the product itself - the vodka - needs to consider organic production to really provide an environmentally sound product that is interesting to the consumer, and a quality that improves on the others in the marketplace rather than hoping to hinge on the green appeal alone. Of course, determining the quality and taste of vodka…is always a tough one to quantify.
Scientists Are No Fun
Well, so much for telling that girl I dated 7 years ago was the love of my life. Looks like traveling back in time, has been ruled out.
Changes Afoot
Why do I feel sometimes that the New York Times is always a few steps behind lately. We’ve been preaching this for a while and we’ve got one of the great designers from the Nike+ work with us at thehappycorp now.
Sobering Stats For The Future of Newspapers
From the Center for Media Research…
Newspapers Use a Billion Dollars Worth of Postage…(holy shit!)
According to a national survey by the Newspaper Association of America, the nation’s daily newspapers are spending nearly $1 billion on postage for services from the U.S. Postal Service. Newspapers spent more than $972 million in 2006 compared with $901 million in 2004 and $700 million in 2002.
John F. Sturm, president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, said “Along with door-to-door delivery, on-street boxes, specialty publications and digital transmission, mail is one of many different platforms newspapers use to guarantee an audience to their advertising customers. Collectively, daily newspapers are a leading customer of the U.S. Postal Service and many of our member newspapers are the largest mailers in their local markets.”
On a bright note, if they could drastically reduce this line item from your costs, by leveraging the digital mediums to retain your distribution levels, reach new customers, and provide unique advertising program opportunities, without losing advertising revenue, Newspapers will be in great shape. To all the grey ladies out there, give us a call, we’d be happy to help you try to figure it out.
The Results
As a caveat to my last post, and in all fairness to Mr. Bonds: I received clarification from friend Mitch Caplan, that “Bond’s has actually never denied taking steroids, he just doesn’t answer the question when asked”. This is indeed true, so I thank him for the correction.
Vote For Barry’s Ball: A Viral Masterpiece?
Marc Ecko is an accomplished entrepreneur, a white jewish kid who built a hip-hop apparel armada before the age of 35. I have followed his success in the press and view him as an entrepreneur who continually pushes to open the communication channels about sensitive issues in our culture (graffiti being a major example). Two weeks ago, Marc Ecko bought Barry Bonds 756 home run record breaking ball on Ebay for $756,000 so he could put a vote online and let what should happen to the ball be decided by the public. This is one of the most interesting, bold and savvy moves I have seen from a person who has seen past success with viral hits: Still Free.
Sensationalist? Clearly. Brilliant? Absolutely. Worth the money? I’m guessing if you look at the advertising and publicity budget or Ecko’s billion dollar apparel conglomerate, $750,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of exposure and positive street cred he is getting from this promotion. The story has appeared on numerous televisions shows and received features in every national press outlet. This is its own kind of Meta-Entertainment, a stunt that interacts with current pop culture and becomes something you follow and interact with. As marketers, it is our job to get more brands to think aggressively about the value of this kind of exposure vs. their traditional spends.
The beauty of this is how it transcends marketing and becomes a personal statement for our loss of democracy and the rise of user generated media. Like a modern day pied piper, Mark is walking the streets of NYC filming peoples opinions and using the populist media channels to broadcast the public’s different thoughts. Too often our government process takes the democracy and power out of the hands of the people. That is why voting apathy needs to become more of an issue, and why this upcoming election is so critical in my mind. I love that entrepreneurs like Ecko, who have done it themselves, are taking this kind of process in their own hands and giving it back to the people to decide. So far nearly 10 million people have voted on the outcome of the ball. If you have an opinion about sports records or cheating in general, then cast your VOTE.
My humble opinion:
The testing system for steroids is a joke. The head of BALCO called it “taking candy from a baby”. If you look at the photos of Barry and follow his body’s development over the years, it could not be more obvious that he used substances to become stronger, faster, and more powerful (see the Time magazine expose tracking his bodies development related to his increase in home run output). Open your eyes.
There has been a long list of people directly involved with providing Barry Bonds growth hormone who have admitted he took them. Just because Barry claims its not true, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Sadly, lying is one of the most common things in the world and continual denial is a modern day technique used methodically by leaders to suppress topics until its out of favor to even pose the question. Open your ears.
The evidence of his development and subsequent explosion in HR production numbers is scientific fact. He cheated.
Now, just because he took the substances, does it allow him to be a great home run hitter? Not at all. But the fact of the matter is that if you are already a good hitter, which he was, by becoming stronger and faster, you can hit with more power and do so at a later age (a huge factor in breaking the record).
Brand it with an asterisk and send it to The Hall. It belongs there because he is a great player, but he would not have broken the total home run record without cheating and taking banned substances for an extra advantage.
Would love to hear more opinions on this. From your vote, to your opinion on its impact as a marketing move for the Ecko brand.
WPP Loves Schematic
The big boy continues to swallow digital shops in the hopes to reach Sir Martin Sorrell’s desire to see that 25 percent of WPP revenue come from digital within five years.
The holding company bought Los Angeles-based Schematic for an undisclosed amount, reports The Guardian Led by Trevor Kaufman, Schematic has big-name clients and offices in Boston, New York, Atlanta and San Jose, employing 255. A couple of its recent wins were developing CNN’s Pipeline video player and the new-look ITV.com, which the British broadcaster unveiled this summer with on-demand TV catch-up video and live streaming of its four TV channels. Schematic’s annual revenue of $29.6 million make me think that the purchase price was somewhere around 100 million.
A tempting offer for any digital agency stakeholder for sure. This is clearly not the end of this consolidation as I believe that the percentage of digital business for WPP will have to end up being closer to 30-40 % five years from now.
Schematic will sit within WPP Digital and will work primarily with its media investment management arm GroupM, according to the release. That seems to be consistent with the re-consolidation of media and digital that my friend Mitch Caplan spoke about on his blog What’s Next.
Buy Apple Stock
Middle of the day Friday, people lining up to spend money on Apple
products.
