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- Reminder that the Web is AwesomeYesterday
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So we're all in agreement that the internet is awesome but links like these make you pause and realize just how awesome it is. Where else could you read an exchange between a guy who owes money and the person trying to collect (via Charles of RD4T) where the guys offers a drawing of a spider in exchange? (While I doubt it's true, it's amazingly funny.) Or, where else would you find out about the unlikely economic indicator of gifts to mistresses? "The current economic conditions have caused 82% of the men surveyed to cut back on allowances and gifts to their mistresses." (Women, it turns out have increased gifts and there are some theories on why that might be in the piece.)
I love this thing.
- Bailing Out the Auto IndustryNovember 17
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I was in the middle of reading yet another article on the auto industry bailout when I realized something really interesting: I genuinely haven't made up my mind yet. It seems like such a quaint idea that I was actually reading all this stuff and getting swayed from one side to the other, still unable to make up my mind on what move I think is right. On one side you've got folks arguing that whether you believe in what they've been up to or not, the eventual net effect on the economy of not bailing them out will be greater than the cost. Further supporting just how far this ripple effect could go, when I picked up AdAge from my mailbox this evening the cover page outlines just what roll Detroit plays in the ad industry: 3.3% of total US measured spending, 5.9% of US network TV spending, etc. (For the record, the most interesting and compelling argument I've read so far comes on this side as Jonathan Cohn argues in the New Republic that a) they may be forced into Chapter 7 not Chapter 11 and b) that the auto industry has
- Don't Let Poets Lie to YouNovember 17
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This video of Bjork explaining how television works is well worth three minutes of your life (plus you'll understand where the title of this post comes from). Really makes me think someone should give Bjork a web show where she dispatches pieces of absurd advice and explanation. It would be kind of like David Lynch's daily weather report.
Maybe this is a new genre. Other examples?
- When Too Much Listening is a Bad ThingNovember 17
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There's a lot of chatter out there, how do you know when to listen and when not to?
This one's been germinating for awhile now. About a month ago I was having drinks with my friend Matt and he made a point I hadn't heard before about the election: "Sarah Palin's handlers let the chatter get to them." Basically what he was saying is that if they had really been good at their jobs they never would have let her go on with Katie Couric and that the only reason they did is because everyone (media talking heads, DC folks) was saying that you can't have a VP candidate that doesn't do any interviews. But who says so? Who makes the rules?
Now I don't know whether I agree with the hypothesis or not, but I think it nicely frames an issue which seems to be coming up more and more lately (thought its really not new). In some ways its related to Alan's Nascar Blindness (the ad industry's tendency to miss out on that which they can't see) but in the opposite direction. This is actually about paying too much attention to the chatter and losing site of your goals. In the case of Sarah Palin, it seems safe to say that her role was to sure up the base of the party (I don't even think that's a controversial statement at this point). So if that's the case, what do you get out of putting her on with Katie Couric other than the
- Marketing FIOSNovember 16
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This is as much a lazyweb request as it is thinking out loud: Looking at the way Verizon has spread FIOS seems to me like a classic case of old-school advertising working just as its supposed. They've bought tons of TV, used claim-based messaging ("X times faster than cable/DSL") and every one and their mother knows about them. I haven't seen a Facebook page, heard about blogger outreach or anything else of that ilk (though they certainly may be doing all of it). Anyway, I guess my point is that you can still build a brand the old-fashioned way: By buying a whole lot of television ads. Think about it, where did you hear about FIOS?
(Usual caveats apply: I don't think this is the only answer, I know you need lots of different stuff and every brand is different. Just wanted to make the point.)