Month: October 2007

Not again, Southwest airlines!

/ Angelo Fernando / 5 Comments

Once again Southwest Airlines attempted to make someone change his T-shirt (or wear it inside out) because it was deemed offensive. Southwest Airlines makes man change T-shirt

CONSIDER THE SIMILAR INCIDENTS:

Southwest boots woman for T-shirt: October 2005
This was the “meet the fockers” slogan with Bush, Cheney and Rice.

Southwest fashion police set no-fly zone: Sep 2007
Just last month, the Hooters girl was asked to change her mini-skirt, or else.

On the Nuts About Southwest blog the post about that mini skirt flap got 235 comments. One commenter had this to say:

“Are your guys (no sic) in advertising there clueless? … If you really want to make a statement, create a dress code for the airline, publish it and then enforce it.”

About time, huh?

If you’d like to help craft that dress code, step this way.

Defending one’s logo. Pitchforks not required.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

ASU‘s other logo, “Sparky,” is in the news. E.J. Montini of the Arizona Republic writes an interesting commentary this Sunday, looking at this as a David and Goliath story.

The story? Sparky’s likeness is being used by a Virginia, Salem high school.

  • ASU’s student newspaper The State Press reported the story last week, quoting a school official as saying “We’re 2,400 miles away from ASU, and we don’t think we’re infringing any laws.”
  • The Virginian Pilot also takes on the issue, calling it “a display of overprotective, greedy and heavy-handed behavior.”

I must admit to a bias here. Being an insider at ASU, I believe framing this as a David and Goliath story is a bit out of proportion here. The university doesn’t see someone misusing a logo or mark as the enemy. Organizations don’t defend a registered mark because they want to crush the little guy.

Last week Dan Ziegler at the Tribune reported on this story differently. He cited Fernando Morales of ASU’s trademark office saying:

“You don’t want to turn people off to ASU by being too heavy-handed,” Morales said. “If a school has invested a lot of money in a basketball floor with Sparky on it, we’re not going to make them rip it up right away. We will be flexible. You can look like an ogre if you do it wrong.”

Flexible? Definitely not a Goliath trait. But that’s not the narrative that grabs readers –or Google juice.

In time organizations realize that a settlement involves a win for both parties. If you recall, Cisco sued Apple over the word “iPhone,” one of Cisco’s registered marks. (They settled in just six weeks.) Likewise Apple settled with Apple Corp, the company that represents the Beatles after a long dispute over the name.

Should ASU stand up for it’s logo? Sure. Could it soften its stance? Certainly. I agree with Montini in one thing: A little savviness wouldn’t hurt.

Quotes of the week: 6th October 2007

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“People treat the New Marketing like a kid with a twenty-dollar bill at an ice cream parlor. They keep wanting to add more stuff—more candy bits and sprinkles and cream and cherries. The dream is simple: “If we can just add enough of [today’s hot topping], everything will take care of itself.”

Seth Godin on Meatball Mondae, a weekly post about Meatball Sundae, a book on making wise new media choices that will be published in December.

“Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.”

Thomas Friedman, on why the US should start exporting hope, not fear.

“Demographics are what media is bought by and what media properties define themselves by … targeting by customer passion rather than demographics can make your marketing messages more relevant.”

Rohit Bhargava, on the need to think outside the demographic.

“The advertising industry can only benefit from an image that’s a lot less country club and a little more Facebook.”

Editorial in Advertising Age, on why the just concluded Advertising Week showcasing veterans, mascots and luminaries has hit a wall.

Citizendium, Mahalo, Wikispaces: alternatives worth looking at

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

If all you’ve been hearing lately (even here!) is news about Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia, it’s about time to mention some alternatives I’ve been tracking.

Citizendium: a wiki for people who can’t stand the rules of engagement established by Wikipedia’s founders about NPOV or” neutral point of view.” This alternative doesn’t let people use pseudonyms such as “WizardDuck,” and welcomes the general public and experts –meaning those who represent organizations, including professional communicators, PR agencies etc. It has lofty goals, to “soon attempt to unseat Wikipedia.”

Mahalo: The human-powered search engine as it calls itself. “Say goodbye to spam, mediocre content and deceptive sites,” it says, taking a thinly-disguised whack at Google. Search results are built in a “greenhouse” where style guides and part-time guides manage content.

One more alternative if you’re thinking about creating your own Wiki.

WikiSpaces: Despite the goofy logo, it’s an easy to create wiki for any personal project. Just like PBWiki, and Wetpaint, but with a lot more intuitive functions.

Facebook profiles: proceed with caution

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

File this under “what were they thinking.”

People, or even organizations –or someone creating a Facebook profile on behalf of one– uploading stupid pictures of themselves. I am sure many universities see a lot of this, and you have to wonder how these kids expect to enter the job market in a few years when every HR person will conduct some due diligence on social networks. (BTW, good article in WIRED this month on border agents using Google!)

A recent case makes the point. Recruits of the Canadian Border Services in Quebec posted images of themselves, um, imbibing, posting lots of comments unbecoming of any organization, let alone a government agency. An investigation is going on.

Earlier this year an RA at Ohio State University found out that his Facebook pictures could cost him his job and his dorm room.

And we haven’t even touched on the stupid things people upload to YouTube.

Interesting crowdsourcing experiment on radio

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I am working on an article on citizen journalism, and came across this experiment being conducted on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC.

They’re doing a story on price gouging, and put out a call to people to “report” back on the price of three simple items at the grocery store: milk, beer and lettuce. The request went out on Sept 24th, and they have until tomorrow, Oct 4th, to file their reports in, via the web site.
They have to give the following details:

-The prices of these goods
-The neighborhood where you bought them (please give exact address, or at least the block and cross street)
-The name of the supermarket
-Any distinguishing characteristic (e.g. local bodega, high-end retailer, etc.)
-Whether or not you were surprised (yes or no)?

In a previous crowdsourced story in August, they asked listeners to report back on the number of SUVs they saw on their block. See results here. They mapped the data with pin-cushions on a Google map.

A great way to take radio into the web 2.0 era!

T-shirt protest of typeface

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

This is what happens when you let people who don’t actually understand branding or visual identity take a couple meetings with their overpriced design agency and then start “deciding.”

Sounds familiar?

This was a comment on the web site called Trajan Sucks, protesting the use of the typeface Trajan on the University of Kansas basketball shirts. It was brought in to replace an older serif typeface.

They had this to say about their loyalty to the game and their disloyalty to the typography police:

“We disenfranchised students, alumni, and fans need not acquiesce to this blunder. Make no mistake, we will support our team with zeal, but we need not accept the administration’s sartorial tastes”

FaceBook’s social surveillance

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Facebook is on everyone’s agenda. I am attending a 5-part webinar hosted by HigherEd Experts on everything Facebook. It covers a lot of the basics, but Fred Stutzman, a PhD student-turned-lecturer comes at it with a deep understanding of what’s going on in this space, in terms of offline-to-online socialization, identity production, privacy and that tricky beast called “social surveillance.”

What’s that?

It’s a phrase that has its origins in deep surveillance methods that include location monitoring and data mining. Which is what social networks have a potential to do, when you think about it. Students are using social networks to do more than upload photos of their dorm. They keep tabs on their circle of friends in a form of benign surveillance.

Because of the rapid shift in demographics, there seems to be two Facebooks separated by an invisible line. Tread carefully when crossing over from your domain into theirs. Last year, a group calling themselves “Students against Facebook” created a sort of a backlash – using Facebook! – against its tracking/surveillance feature.