Quotes for the week ending 14 March, 2009

“Stewart’s attack on CNBC is not some cable cockfight. At the heart of this spectacle is a lesson that reporters, anchors, editors, news directors and anyone with a stake in a vital American fourth estate should heed.”

Joe Vince, blogging about the Jon Stewart – Jim Kramer fight, where Stewartwho has a popular Comedy Central show, attacked Cramer of CNBC for failing to warn people about the risky Wall Street conduct.

“lot of people will actually get to see the Internet”

Tim Berners-Lee, the farther of the World Wide Web, talking about how mobile devices will be the main access points for the web in much of the developed world. He however warned of the vulnerability of being able to be snooped on.

“Guava threw together this spot in which a Blackberry literally shoots through Apple.”

A fruity quote by AdRants about a story about a new TV spot by Blackberry taking aim at the iPhone, without mentioning the latter.

“So is advertising really adding value to our brands or not? I am sure agencies fail their clients from time to time … But the difference is that civilians don’t attempt to do the job of a military man. That is why they are set apart and called civilians and military.”

Udara, a blogger at JWT Sri Lanka, commenting on the eternal problem of how anyone with a Mac and a designer may not be in the ideas business.

“So far “McCain” in gothic letters on the back of my neck is winning my unofficial survey.

Meghan McCain, commenting on her latest media tour and writing stint.

“We’re going to attempt to conduct a full interview exclusively on Twitter — complete with the 140-character limit!”

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News announcing his attempt to ‘twinterview’ John McCain on twitter next Tuesday

“Some of the communications I see haven’t changed since the 1960s. Same bad photos, same jargon (we need to leverage our core competencies and strive for World Class synergy), same platitudes … same spin.”

Steve Crescenzo, in an interview with ValleyPRBlog, on why he he speaks out against corpoorate-speak. Crescenzo will hold a full-day seminar for IABC-Phoenix on Thursday 19 March.

“You don’t have to have your fingers in every social media pie. All these channels are grouped under one category but … If a chat forum works best then stick to that.”

Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcru, on the ROI and reasons for using social media.

“The more we can do to open the process to the public, the greater the public understanding – the more legitimacy the public system will have in the eyes of the public”

A Kansas Judge J. Thomas Marten, who allowed a court reporter to use Twitter slthough jurors are told to avout newspaper, broadcasts and online media.

Quotes for the week ending 27 February, 2009

“Orbiting swarms of junk careen into each other like billiard balls, creating unpredictable sprays of debris, which in turn meld with other space garbage to weave a moving net around the atmosphere.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s Robert Lee Hotz, on the debris of space junk caused by colliding satellites.

“My love of TweetDeck just keeps growing …Love, love, love it.”

IABC Chair, Barbara Gibson, on the new features of Tweetdeck.

“Twitter users may donate their avatar and replace it with an image of the red female sign.”

“NCMFathom, which is asking Twitter users to micro-blog to raise 0.10 a tweet from March 2 – 5 this year.

“After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to and supporting you.”

Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz, on her blog, Yodel Anecdotal, about her first one and a half months on the job, and the changes being made.

“Sometimes the face of a brand is a fictional character.”

Chris Brogan, on the Bigelow Tea company’s project, Constant Comments. The company’s president Cindi Bigelow is a prominent figure in its communication.

“There is a differance (sic) between op/eds and news.”

Reader comment on the Rocky Mountain News web site, in response to the last story of the newspaper, “Goodbye, Colorado.” The paper began in 1859. The reader suggested that it demonstrated market forces were doing the right thing.

The “soft-tissue of all our consumers”

There’s an old, but relevant video from BringBackTheLove, about the failing, dysfunctional relation between two people –actually two institutions, Advertisers and Consumers.

More telling than this  story –a messy ‘breakup’– is the sequel where the advertiser, talks to his agency to try to repair the relationship.

At one point, the advertiser takes him to a flip chart and violently circles a messy diagram saying they could  “blitzkrieg the soft tissue of all our consumers!” Funny? Sure. But it’s also a sad statement of how marketers see consumers –as some thin layer of tissue.

Truth is, the consumer ain’t ‘soft’ (insert other 4- and 5-letter words like ‘dumb,’ ‘easy,’ ‘loyal’ etc ) as people think. She makes hard choices, whether wanting to pay $1.75 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, or $1.07 for a refill (by taking in her own coffee mug) at Einstein Brothers. Empathy, not advertising, intimacy not infiltration will get through the soft tissue.

As the recession deepens, marketers will have to learn how to reconnect with their customers in more intimate ways, minus the lame, expensive blitzkrieg type tactics.

Quotes for the week ending 15 Feb 2009

“To the young people of China, please learn a lesson from this…”

Michael Phelps, in a another apology, this time to Chinese fans on a video call.

“Mass for us is a business that doesn’t work.”

Tom Ascheim, Newsweek‘s chief executive, on the redesign of the magazine that will focus on a narrow segment.

“Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader gets slimmer”

Amazon.com’s release of a slimmer version of its Kindle electronic reading device for $359

“I watched Nadya’s publicist on Dr. Phil the other night, and was ashamed for our profession.”

Linda VandeVrede, on ValleyPRBlog.com, commenting on a post about PR becoming tainted by ‘publicists.’

“The worst thing about the Suleman story is the way the freak-hungry media has rewarded her delinquency every step of the way.”

Tina Brown, writing for The Daily Beast, about the media’s swooning over Nadya Suleman and the cctuplets story

“Possibly in his law office, his feet on a cluttered desk, …his clothes a bit too small to fit his uncommon frame — maybe wondering if somebody might call him up and ask him to be commerce secretary.”

Barack Obama, using Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as a way of making light about how yet another nominee, Judd Greg, for the commerce secretary post withdrew from the post.

“It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs.”

Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute, one of those making symbolic but noisy objections to the new stimulus package that was approved by the Senate and the House this week.

“Reporters, bloggers, and the general public are being denied an opportunity to review one of the most important pieces of legislation sent through Congress in a long time.”

The Sunlight Foundation’s Paul Blumenthal, on the dangerous practice of ‘hiding’ the stimulus bill from the public and slamming it through.

“It could have been a computer failure or a human error.”

Russian space expert, Igor Lisov, on the collision of a Russian and US satellite, that raised the questions about the need for some type of international air traffic control with so much of space junk.

“Yesterday I testified before the Senate Budget Committee…”

Douglas Elmendor, Director of the government’s Congresional Budget Office, in a blog post about controlling health care costs. His no-frills blog is one of the many social media initiatives taken by the Federal government.

Quotes for the week ending 7 February, 2009

“If people have ideas about how better to use these tools, please let me know…”

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton at a town hall meeting with state employees on the need to use new technologies to communicate with people across the world.

“Dear Orlando Hilton: Your coffee is tasty, but $4.50 4 a bottle of water?”

Tweet from IABC’s Leadership Institute event in Florida, an event covered by many IABC tweeps.

“We have many measures in place to reduce the likelihood of your posts being seen as SPAM, but instead look much more natural and real.”

The latest attempt to automate twitter, and let marketers target people with ‘pre-defined messages’ to followers. If it smells like SPAM….

“Reckless”.

Britain’s Tory party, opposing the government’s use of Big Brother-type use of millions of closed circuit cameras and a DNA database for surveillance.

“I engaged in behaviour which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment.”

Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps, apologizing after a British newspaper published a picture of him smoking marijuana.

“It says it’s sunny in Arizona!”

Child in video for GE about the ‘smart grid’ that has a companion web site with some clever animation about alternative energy.

“From icy Davos to snowy London. No10 admin is gazing at a foot of the stuff outside his apartment window. Thank heavens for remote working!”

Tweet by Number 10, Downing Street, suggesting Gordon may have been telecommuting, too while London froze.

“Obama summoned a conga line of Anderson, Katie, Brian, Chris and Charlie…”

Syndicated columnist Maureen Dowd on President Obama’s use of the media to get past the Tom Daschle faux pas

“bad script, lame sets, and horrific acting.”

Blabbermouth‘s Jeff Goodman on the success of GoDaddy Super Bowl ads that use misogyny and a risqué script to drive viewers to the ‘store.’

Miller’s hundred-dollar a second joke could payoff

Miller High Life ad that will air today tries to gain some edge by taking a whack at the absurd cost of the Superbowl ad.

What a *great* way to spend a client’s money by coming up with a storyboard that questions the logic of the ad! I get the feeling that it’s not the ad that will get traction, but the several “one-second ad” cuts that apparently got left behind on the editing floor a.k.a. Mahalo, YouTube etc! Watch them here.

Watch all the other commercials here!

Great response to spam question

Someone asked this question at Mahalo Answers about web site promotion using the service.

“What’s the best way to promote a web site on Mahalo without indulging in spam?”

Many chimed in about etiquette, plugs, helpfulness etc, but one at the top was all that someone needs to know:

“How about this: Please don’t.”

In case you haven’t noticed, the ‘Answers’ model is catching fire. Mahalo has fired a shot across the bow of Yahoo Answers. And then there’s the mobile version of this that’s like the flame thrower aimed at both – ChaCha.

Basically ChaCha is a way to text a question (to short code 242242) and have a live person research the answer and send you back the answer via return text. How cool is that?

Let’s just hope spammers and marketers don’t try to pollute that model. Don’t think they would? Consider this: The “Answers’ model is a real-time, human version the one that made Search –and Google — a key part of marketing.

Quotes for the week ending 10 Jan, 2009

“Any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that.”

Daniel Seaman, director of Israel’s Government Press Office, in the New York Times article on media restrictions in reporting from Gaza

“Think of it as real-time show notes created by me, our show hosts, and our community. Let’s call this stream the “river.” This is an experiment..”

Leo Laport, host of the amazing This Week in Tech, on starting to use a live text stream of links, comments, and notes via Twitter, FriendFeed, TwitArmy etc for his show.

“The comparisons to Twitter need to stop, and stop now. FriendFeed is not the same as Twitter.”

Allen Stern, at InformationWeek, commenting on the fact that many internet users don’t have enough services that need to be aggregated on FriendFeed.

“The manure storm is about to hit!”

Steve Hall, at AdRants, predicting the wrath of Mommy Cow Bloggers aimed at  Ray-ban, which has an ad featuring a cow giving birth to a man with sunglasses.

“If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.”

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

“Sri Lanka has lost one of its more talented, courageous and iconoclastic journalists.”

Reporters Without Borders, commenting on the murder of the editor of a newspaper in Sri Lanka, Lasantha Wickramatunge.

“He is a person of integrity.”

Bernie Madoff’s lawyer, after his client, the former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested for a giant Ponzi scheme that lost up to $50 billion of investors’ money.

Imagine there’s no…laptop

Not sure if this is an insult to John Lennon or a clever way to imagine about the world where the people have access to information.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I must not be the only one to notice the bad lip syncing and pixelated image. Which does not exactly flatter the product being advertised –the XO Laptop, which is a wonderful idea by itself.

I think the ‘imagine’ idea, works quite well in this version, minus Lennon.

Quotes for the week ending 3 January, 2009

“Resuscitating a dead guy — particularly one whose yearning for peace has been used to sell everything from diapers to ice cream — never works in your favor.”

AdRants, on John Negroponte’s use of John Lennon for a campaign to promote One Laptop Per Child.

“Social Media is right-hemisphere brain function…which is why the left-hemispherical ROI evangelists have a hard time understanding it.”

Ron Ploof, new media evangelist and consultant.

“It can be a trivial and childish realm, filled with blather about bodily functions, pet excrement and what users had for breakfast, lunch or dinner.”

Julio Ojeda-Zapata, in the book, Twitter: From Blather to Business.

“Health care is one of the best messengers of peace between nations.”

Mike Leavitt, US Secretary of Health, blogging about what Iraq Prime Minister Maliki told him.

“I have decided that my goal for 2009 and beyond is to be famous for relevance.”

Nathan Wagner, blogger at RelevantChews.com

“You have proven that Wikipedia matters to you, and that you support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising. You’ve helped make and keep Wikipedia available for the whole world.”

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, at the conclusion of the fundraiser since July 1st, 2008 to raise $6 million.