“We got caught up in the moment of filming, and we made a mistake…”
Billy Ray Cyrus, not about his daughter’s latest photo shoot, however. This was in February, after being called on not wearing a seatbelt in a Hannah Montana movie.
Media
Quotes for the week ending 26 April, 2008
“He’s getting his ass kicked.”
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, on the ‘credibility’ of Jeff Immelt, GE’s present CEO
“Nothing, nothing, nothing is as disgusting to me as some old CEO chirping away about how things aren’t as good under the new guy as they were under him.”
Jack Welch, on CNBC, making up for his previous criticism Jeff Immelt.
“Don’t pollute Earth Day with irrelevant advertising.”
Editorial in Advertising Age about marketers’ attempt to saturate the day with “Hey, look at us! We love trees” type of advertising.
“No happy label on toxic or wasteful product will ever change its contents.”
Abby Strauss, NY, a reader of Fast Company, commenting on Green Business practices article (“Another Inconvenient Truth“)
“Change everything…except for your wife and children.”
A 1993 quote attributed to Samsung chairman, Lee Kun Hee, to his chief executives. He now under government investigation.
“For the iced coffee drinks. Make them with ice cubes made from coffee.”
A consumer-generated idea on MyStarbucksIdea.com, that received 13,050 votes
“Phoenix is sprawling at a rate that seems to rival Moore’s Law.”
Matthew Power, in WIRED magazine in an extensive article (Peak Water) about ground water.
Quotes for the week ending 19 April, 2008
“We’ve been waiting for the internet bubble to burst.”
Nick Denton, founder and publisher of Gawker Media, on selling off Wonkette a gossip blog, and two other blogs.
“The Internet, which is shorthand for ‘interconnected network’ …is often broken because applications don’t interact.”
Robert Scoble, in Fast Company
“SugarSync may be just as sweet as you like it.”
Stephen Wildstrom, Tech columnist in BusinessWeek, on a new service that keeps stores the most resent files on a server and synchronizes them with all devices.
“It’s a good idea to have a chief blogger.”
Mack Collier, social media consultant and blogger at Viral Garden, in a round table conversation hosted by Advertising Age.
“The drug industry appears to treat scientific data as if it were a marketing tool.”
Bruce Psaty, co-author of an article in the Journal of American Medical Association, on Merck & Co’s “studies” on Vioxx.
“Never use an agency to buy mobile media.”
Are Traasdahl, president-CEO of Thumbplay.
“They are being ignored by the Western media.”
Alicia Chen, senior at Arizona State University, on the too much attention in the news to politics, and not enough focus on the sports.
Quotes for the week ending 12 April, 2008
“Nobody has the right to say ‘shut up’.”
The Dalai Lama in Japan, saying he supports the Olympics in China, but that protesters have their freedom to speak.
“experience great nights out without the fatigue.”
Description of Burn Alter Ego, a Facebook application from energy drink, Burn (a Coca Cola product) that lets people’s avatars go out and mingle with others, and have an automatic blog post about the encounters.
“Geoffrey Moore’s “late majority” and “laggards” have yet to join the party, but they will.”
Shel Holtz, interviewed by ValleyPRBlog, on the adoption of social media and its impact on PR.
“It’s a dreamer’s ad.”
Barb Rechterman, Exec VP at domain registrar GoDaddy, on the un-risque ad, “Kart” featuring (finally) a message about web sites.
“It is depressing that sound bites have replaced sound judgement, and that character assassination of one’s opponent has become expected political strategy.”
Cal Thomas, Tribune Media Services
“I just wonder why the torch was running away from the people.”
Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, on the tactics used to protect the Olympic torch in San Francisco.
“That, ladies and gentleman, is what you call your ‘marketing challenge’.”
Bob Garfield, Advertising Age, about an ad by John McCain that makes us forget the Iraq war, but unhelpfully invokes Vietnam.
Soft drinks and presidential candidates
Someone asked me to describe the “positioning” of the three candidates in the race for the White House. Were we facing tough choices between the first possible Black president, the first potential woman in the White House, and an “veteran” candidate?
I tried to explain how while their positioning is blurred, they were good studies of branding. Their cross-over ideologies and mutual respect for one another (Clinton’s not in this camp) make them less a Coke vs Pepsi, and more like Mountain Dew vs Red Bull –which are now called “functional soft drinks.” Yes, McCain exhibits exhibits characteristics of an energy drink, with functional benefits. His packaging is very strong, and his positioning is very shrewd.
On the beverage side, all this election interest has not escaped Mountain Dew, which is holding its own “Dew-mocracy” to find the elixir of freedom.
As for Red Bull, WIRED’s (What’s Inside) analysis of Taurine, an elixir, called it a mild sedative, an age-defying antioxidant with “the potential to steady irregular heartbeats.”
Sounds like Obama?
Cameras kill participation
The pastor at a church in Pinetop, Arizona made a point that got me rethinking the role of photography. “Like the Pueblos and the Navajos ask,” he said, “come in and join us, don’t observe us…please no photography.”
I’ve been into photography for a long time. At conferences, weddings and children’s school events I switch between participation and observation, making an effort to blend in and be as non intrusive as possible. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself that I could make the switch.
Photo journalists face another part of this join-us-don’t-observe-us dilemma when covering events: should they stop what they came to do and get involved, or stand back and be objective? Through their lens, they see monks getting tear gassed, accident victims traumatized, children fleeing attacks, and natural disasters. Often see journalists among the first responders. Minutes after Nik Ut captured the Pulitzer prize winning photograph of children fleeing a North Vietnam attack on a village, he and another journalist poured water from their canteens on the burned child. He then drove her to hospital.
Where does the word “engagement” stack up in this line of work? Read this story and you will realize it’s not a black and white issue. Marc Halevi of the Eagle-Tribune went to cover a rescue on Plum Island. He first saw the took pictures of a woman on a sand bank of the stormy ocean. “Seconds later as he was looking through his viewfinder, he saw a wave crash against the embankment on which she was standing, knocking down the sand and pulling the woman into the water.” So he did what any photographer would do. He clicked. He also shouted to the rescuers on the scene. “Rather than do it myself,” said Halevi, “I just made this immediate decision that (these people) would be better than I (at rescuing her).”
Participation or Observation?
Quotes for the week ending 5 April, 2008
“So why not bridge the gap between reader interest ad reader engagement by adding SMS codes, 2D barcodes, coupon codes and keyword search?”
Copy in Google ad about the value of adding encoded 2D bar codes (left) in newspaper ads that could be photographed with a mobile phone, and link reader to a virtual bookmark.
“During the inadequate training days prior to the opening, any staff questions were bounced back with ‘I don’t know’ “
British Airways baggage handler, quoted on BBC, about the chaos in Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
“Between information overload, globalization, and the sheer complexity of modern business, we’ve got to be more visual and less language dependent in communicating ideas.”
Dan Roam, visual consultant and author of The back of the napkin.
“Virgle”
Google’s April Fool’s joke (complete with maps and a Press Release) about Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin enabling users to colonize Mars.
“Simultaneity of input.”
Mark Vacay, director of the architecture firm, SmithGroup, on the need for builders to take into account the Millennial generation’s use of space, and using electronics for multiple inputs and interaction.
Should web brands reflect the mother ship?
Lots of discussion around the new AZCentral web site. It’s a discussion around whether the new site reflects the newspaper brand. It doesn’t, and I wondered if that was accident or intentional heresy. Take a look at AZCentral. If you’re in Arizona, you probably remember the cluttered site that bore no resemblance to the newspaper it was an extension of — The Arizona Republic.
We all worry about two things when it comes to online presence: Usability and Branding. Often we get all fired up over the latter, and pay lip service to the former.
The rhetorical question I often ask is, does an online product need to reflect the branding of the mothership? And often the answer is, “Yes of course!” But if we probe a bit deeper, we may find that the audience for the online product may be looking for a different experience than the audience of the physical product. Even if some part of the audience patronizes both. Do users walk away from an online experience because it is different from the physical entity? Will a McDonald‘s user walk away from the site because there is no giant golden arch on the landing page? The McDonald’s.com site is quite plain in comparison to the physical store. Mcdonald’s USA on the other hand is a lot more interactive than its mothership.
If we design web sites based on who our users are, and how they visit us, maybe our online brand deserves its own identity. Ikea is one huge confusing place that encourages people to get lost, and find plants and window drapes when they only came in to buy a ice bucket. But the Ikea site is organized by the way people search, not the way store customers go to get lost. There are just seven tabs for seven rooms, and one more for three others. It’s that simple. The store is supposed to slow down customers. The site is supposed to speed things up. Usability took home the trophy, for a good reason.
Citizen Op-Ed writers enlarge Spitzer story
Lorenzo Sierra has a great theory. He may not have hyped it enough, but it’s worth a considering. It’s called the “cyclone of influence.” It has a neat way of explaining, in communication terms, the ever widening circle of influence. It’s very different from the ripple metaphor, he explains. Nor can the cyclone concept be illustrated by your typical PowerPoint icon. It almost requires a 3D perspective spinning and moving in unpredictable paths in real time.
Communication, like some climatic events, are triggered by deliberate or inadvertent human events. The recent Elliot Spitzer cyclone was whipped up in a high pressure area we call infidelity. You could track the scandal on Twitter, as the digital cyclone moved outward, aided by not just gossip publishers, and talk show rants but citizen op-ed writers. People, who were not your typical pundits, were enhancing the story with 140-character Op-eds.
One Michael Parekh wrote: “apparently, Paterson, the likely successor to Spitzer is also a Clinton super-delegate, though apparently not as committed.” Another wrote: Eliot Spitzer is getting Googled today from all over. 10 of the 11 big movers deal with him.
There were those outraged, some funny, and others with insider information like this and this that even journalists covering (enlarging) the event would have appreciated.
Which brings me back to the cyclone concept. Whether the news has the elements (sex scandal, politically incorrect speech, money…) that make it spiral, or is simply hyped by people on a slow news-tweet day, the op-ed factor broadens its footprint. Better get used to it. Especially so if you’re someone who blasts The Media (“Media content has gotten more graphic … “) as Spitzer did.
Quotes for the week ending March 29, 2008
“In our rush to create social networks in cyberspace, we often forget that we already have a start (at least) of our social network in our physical spaces that just need some cultivation.”
Chief Experience Officer, David Polinchock, quoted in Ad Age, about an audience game using a motion sensor and the movements of the wisdom of the crowd.
“Let’s take a look at social media. It doesn’t have hard edges.”
Steve Rubel, on why three internet careers (“Social Media Consultant,” “Internet Advertising Sales,” “Digital Talent Agent”) that will soon disappear.
“Writing a business plan: that can be taught… but a really good idea, you can’t teach that.”
Rhett Wilson, community and entrepreneurial liaison at Arizona State University, in The State Press, on the $25,000 grant for a faculty of staff member with a winning business idea.
“What is the purview of a county sheriff, at least our county sheriff, is publicity.”
E. J. Montini on Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio’s losing a Supreme Court case, but winning free PR.
“I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.”
Hillary Clinton about her “just words” moment, when she recounted visiting Bosnia under sniper fire 12 years ago.
“Guess what I think the fifth ‘P’ (in marketing) should be ?”
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