My Dad grew up in Vaudeville. He was a child star, from the age of 3 onward. After the war, he was touring with George Gobel, right after he was married. Gobel took a then well-known joke and made it real for my parents on their wedding night. Here’s how the joke goes… Read the rest of this entry »

I hate hackers.

If I were king of the world, morons that get their jollies by stealing passwords, infecting sites with malware, defacing sites, and any other kind of mischief, would get the death penalty. No appeals. No delays. We’d string ‘em up, preferably in public, with mandatory coverage by the networks. (Obviously, the networks are acquainted with mandatory programming – they cover every Obama presser, so they shouldn’t have a problem with a sensational, money-maker like a public execution.)

About a week ago, a client notified me that there was a problem with one of the sites I host for them. I assumed – at first – that the malicious JavaScript code that had been added to their index page without permission was an isolated incident.

Not so fast. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a huge fan of animated cartoons. One of the bright spots in the 90′s was the Steven Spielberg-produced Animaniacs, a series which proved that it was still possible to create funny, acerbic, satirical cartoons that would appeal to both children and adults. Two of the stars of the series were two lab mice (who’s genes had been spliced), Pinky and The Brain. Pinky was an idiot savant with a goofy, slightly Aussie-sounding dialect, while The Brain was a masterful take on Orson Welles. (Go to YouTube.com and search for “Pinky and The Brain” – I’ll wait.)

Back? Good. Now that you’re familiar with Pinky and The Brain, you’ve probably heard The Brain tell Pinky more than once, “Focus, Pinky…focus.” Pinky was something of a free spirit, easily distracted by the here and now, and frequently distracted from the overall plan.

If you’ve been wondering where I’m going with this, wonder no more. In marketing, you’re screwing up if you’re channeling Pinky. Let me explain, with some real life examples… Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then you know I love Jack in the Box ads. (I admit it…I’m a fanboy.) The latest Jack ad has attracted the attention of the media – specifically Bill O’Reilly. Here’s the ad – sans editorializing on my part. It strikes a little too close to home right now…and I’m too busy laughing.

News item:

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Obama Halves Chrysler’s Planned Marketing Budget

Task Force Agrees Automaker Needs Advertising — Just Not $134 Million Worth

By Jean Halliday

Published: May 11, 2009

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising over the nine weeks it’s expected to be in bankruptcy — the U.S. Treasury’s auto-industry task force gave it half that.

So if GM, which is wrestling with the possibility of a Chapter 11 filing itself, is wondering how much influence the task force will have over marketing, the answer is: plenty. However, transcripts from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, where the Chrysler case is being heard, proved for the first time that the task force at least understands that advertising is a necessary expense — even if it doesn’t think Chrysler needs $134 million for nine weeks of car ads. (continued after link)

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So it’s come to this. Anything worth managing is worth MICROmanaging – at least in the ObamaNation. Read the rest of this entry »

Believe it or not, this is not a joke…I’m not kidding. It’s not hype. And it’s not make-believe. Now when you’re talking about Trillion-dollar budgets and bailouts, I realize that 1/3 of a million dollars is probably chicken feed, inside the Beltway at least. But to paraphrase Senator Everitt Dirksen (R-IL), a third of a million here, and a third of a million there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money. So how can I save the U.S. Taxpayers some major coin? Simple. Read the rest of this entry »

…I knew you could. Every now and then, there are pardigm shifts – “game-changers,” if you will, that remake the landscape and Change Life As We Know It.™ I suppose the first one was the asteroid strikes that sent the dinosaurs packing. Like that one and hundreds since, most paradigm shifts occur in ways that are hardly noticeable – at first. It’s only later that you realize what kind of tectonic shift occurred because of one, seemingly insignificant factor. For instance, the advent of television largely killed what was left of live, variety shows in theater (vaudeville), radio plays (serials, dramas, comedies, game shows), and hurt movie theaters. Home video tape players almost killed movie theaters off, and the internet and Tivo have conspired together to remake the television landscape.

Other inventions or innovations are a lot more obvious. You can instantly understand how they will change everything. Today, I learned about one such innovation, and lemme tell you, it’s Katie bar the door time in Telecommunications Land. I speak of the imminent release of Google Voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Totally Clueless.

I’m a fan of social networking sites. I’m not big on Facebook and Twitter and MySpace – but I have a presence there, largely because they’ve each reached critical mass. They are useful for keeping track of old friends. That’s all well and good, but I’m far more interested in business-oriented sites. Keeping in touch with business contacts and former co-workers is a networker’s dream. It’s something that’s really useful, especially when you’re looking for a job, or seeking a way into a company to grab and account. Read the rest of this entry »

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Film at Eleven.

- Reuven Frank, NBC News

As I write this, every cable news outlet is providing wall-to-wall coverage of the tragic mass-shooting New York state. While it’s natural that any tragedy of this nature is newsworthy, I can’t help but wonder, is the amount of coverage more about ratings and pandering, than it is about communicating valuable information in a timely fashion? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a huge Bob Newart fan. Loved his TV shows. Love his stand-up comedy. In fact, I was lucky enough to play his show, years ago, in Shreveport. Not that he needed a band, but I was part of the house band at the old Le Bossiér Celebrity Dinner Theatre across the river in Bossier City, and we opened and closed his act, playing the theme from The Bob Newhart Show. One of his big bits in his stand-up act involves acting out one end of a phone conversation, where the audience infers and implies the other side of the conversation via their imaginations. One of Bob’s most famous bits is called Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue, where he imagines what it might have been like if Lincoln had the services of both the telephone and a modern advertising agency. The results were both absurd and hilarious. It was simultaneously funny, yet oddly respectful of one of our most beloved Presidents.

That brings us to the latest offering from the folks at Mountain Dew. Dew’s ads have long been edgy and almost too hip for the room – their Super Bowl riff on the Bohemian Rhapsody is a classic. Their latest ad features a send-up of the Lincoln-Douglass debates – a pivital moment in American History. In the Dew version, Lincoln (who was in reality a fan of Greco-Roman wrestling – NOT the stuff that passes for “wrestling” on WWE), strips to the waste and proceeds to go Medieval, waging Civil War on Douglass and others on the dias.

Color me unimpressed.

I just don’t see the humor, past the shock value of seeing an American icon strip to the waist and sport an American eagle tattoo. Newhart’s comedy was funny. This spot? Flat. Which is not a good thing for a soda ad to be.

Hopefully, the Dew ad pulls well with the 15 to 24 crowd, which I suspect is their target market. (I’m not a Mountain Dew fan – never have been, and likely never will be.) If, on the other hand, they want to reach a wider demographic, they might want to look at creating ads with a humor level somewhere above that of Jackass The Movie.