Sidewalk Life

Women Now Empowered By Everything They Do

Hilarious satire of our marketing culture in today's Mother's Day edition of the Onion. 

Green Media

Hotels are really good at reminding you to conserve.  It seems like an ideal place to communicate that kind of message while their doing their daily routines.  Something you could never do in their homes.

The trick is to get them to take the message home with them. 

I Like Williams Sonoma

I took my blender back to Williams Sonoma to ask how to fix a leaky pitcher.  Unexpectedly, they gave me a brand new one.  I felt a little guilty accepting it since I got ten good years out of the old one. 

But that kind of customer service makes me want to buy all my housewares from them.

Nielsen Maps Sanjaya's DNA

Consumer Generated Media reports that Nielsen has a new method of mapping internet chatter, or in their terms "how people really talk about brands." 

I probably wouldn't want to know how they'd map me.

Irreverence (Un)Justified?

I'd really like to know the reason behind the choice of brand name.  Is this a pun on Acme?  Or an attempt to reclaim a negative term? 

Odd choice either way.  There's just not much positivity associated with acne.

White Bored

Why so many ads with people writing on boards explaining themselves? 

adidas is doing it.

AMEX is doing it with the Clear card now being test marketed in Dallas and Boston (I couldn't find the ad).

UPS is most famously doing it and getting mocked for it.

Are we giving up on storytelling?  What happened to dramatizing to make your point?  I have trouble believing that consumers are too sophisticated to no longer want to be entertained.

The first rule of marketing (well maybe tell the truth is the first rule, but anyway) is to say what you have to say in an interesting way.  The trouble is that these ads aren't interesting.  They aren't emotional.  If you have something to teach me, or explain to me, at least make it interesting.

I feel like I'm back in school.  Bored again in the back row by the professor.

AOL Used Here

AOL should stop doing advertising and just give all their current customers one of these.  The endorsement from your friends and neighbors may be all they need,  plus you'd feel bad coming home from work everyday if you left them.

Consuming For A Cause. Sort of.

For all the hype, the RED campaign isn't pulling in the kind of dollars promised, or expected.  So far only $18 million raised for the Global Fund according to this AdAge article.

What the article fails to say is whether sales increased for the for-profit partners involved.  It may be a meager philanthropic success, but with all the PR the campaign received, I imagine the consuming for a cause idea was extremely profitable for the individual brands. 

Thanks to Agenda for the find.

Aggro Marketing

Saw these in the little boys toys section at Target yesterday.  I noticed there were no aggression toys for little girls. 

First, I was unsure if the point to try to upsell little boys from micro to ruthless to deluxe aggression?  Second, I'm not sure aggression is a behavior that needs reinforcing.

Turning Japanese

This interesting little video is part of the new "Made of Japan" campaign that takes Tiger all the way back to its Onitsuka Japanese roots.

Now what are all those runners that swear by their Asics going to think?

Download made_of_japan.pdf