Random thoughts, dubious rants, curiosities and worthy citations on the media, politics, marketing, music, inanity, and animals, among other things. Words and pictures and stuff, mostly from south central Wisconsin USA
I've spent the better part of the afternoon and evening slogging through reading and accompanying exercises for my grad school statistics class. You'd think the last thing I'd want to look at, much less post about, would be more statistics. And you'd be correct... unless those stats were about new media and technology, and were presented in a really cool video like this one:
I only wish I could go to the third annual Media Convergence Forum in New York next month... the event the video is promoting. Sounds really cool... in the technogeek kind of way... which is even cooler.
As a member of a research group at UW, I've been helping with some of the work on a really cool project that takes a look at both professional and citizen journalism looked at California's Proposition 8 last year. A key element to this type of project is content analysis.
We looked at a lot of YouTube videos and followed a rigorous coding protocol that identified inter-coder reliability and all kinds of other stuff. We also pulled hundreds of newspaper articles from several California daily newspapers. The text of those articles will be analyzed with computer assistance. Getting that text into a format the analytical program is somewhat of a challenge, in that it needs to be formatted into a spreadsheet for importation.
Excel was not being all that cooperative in ways that would really inhibit progress. So we turned to Google Documents spreadsheet application. This was, in the big picture, a really good and workable solution. A key benefit was that we could see what one another was doing, identify problems and share solutions. I think they call that collaboration.
It's also called cloud computing. And that, in itself, is a really handy thing to be able to do. I realize that I am a little behind the world in using this technology, but I still found it really cool. Sitting with another grad student, while setting up our spreadsheets, I could watch as she tapped away on her computer, altering the same spreadsheet I was looking at on my laptop.
What made this even more cool, to me, was that I could take this show on the road. Literally. Tom and I had a lot of driving planned for last weekend, and we'd be staying in various boondock locations in Michigan for four nights. As long as one has some kind of internet connection with decent speed, one can work on a Google document anywhere. With my Verizon mobile broadband gizmo (of "WiFi in my pants," a I like to call it) I could work use the time in the car to cut and past news article text into our master document.
So there I was, as Tom drove along on I-294, cloud computing. I must have told him a dozen times how cool it was. He turned up the radio after the third time. Amazing. I was emailing back and forth with one of my research partners, and she could see what I was doing. In the internet. In the car.
Cloud computing. Google docs. Way cool.
Well, almost. We also discovered that Google Docs do have some limitations. Like their spreadsheets tend not to perform all that well when you have thousands of rows of data. And they tend to bog down when you go too fast, since each entry and alteration has to post in real time to make them collaborative. And sometimes real time takes, umm, time.
By last night, exasperated as I tried to fix a flaw of my own making, I allowed my love affair with Google docs to end. Like an unhappy ex-partner I took to slagging Google Docs in snarky Facebook posts.
By this morning, I had decided to make up with Google Docs. One of my friends put it in perspective when he asked, "What do you want for free?" Good point.
Cloud computing will only get better. As for improving my ability to manage my own expectations, that remains permanently in doubt. But you knew that already.
As
one who spent 25 years in the media planning and placement business, I
understand that advertisers don't really buy specific programs for the
most part. They package ad buys across several dayparts and even
across sibling networks. They don't buy spots; they buy aggregated
rating points.
But they can pull out of a show. And another one is out of Glenn Beck.
I was one of many who responded to the list of
advertisers airing spot on Glenn Beck's FOX News program. I went right
at one company with a more personalized appeal.
Over the past ten years or so, I worked at two different ad agencies
that handled Sargento Foods. They impressed me as a well-run company
guided by smart people. They make an excellent product that competes
with marketing behemoths like Kraft General Foods, and they are based
here in Wisconsin.
Their good name benefits not at all from being a sponsor of Beck's
crazy talk. I politely wrote to them asking why they would even want
to be associated with him. I didn't ask them not to be a Beck sponsor,
but approached the issue from the "this guy's a pox on your brand"
angle.
Initially, I received one of those "yeah, thanks, we'll share that with marketing" responses. But a day later, I received this:
We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your
comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during "The Glenn
Beck Show." We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it
and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in
any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our
future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during
that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.
The email included a personal salutation, as well as a specific name
of a customer relations director. That may seem insignificant, but it
is not. They were taking the time to personally reconnect. To me,
it's a sign of taking this issue seriously.
In the end, FOX likely will still keep whatever money Sargento Foods
is spending, with or without spots on Glenn Beck. But companies like
Sargento, and as diaried here as well... State Farm,
are listening. And they recognize that it does their brands no good to
be associated with the broadcast equivalent of terrorism.
I'm proud of Wisconsin-based Sargento, as well as another former client
of mine, State Farm. I'm happy that I can continue to feel good about
being a customer of theirs.
From The Business Insider's Silicon Alley Insider'sChart of the Day comes this chart of the day:
Sadly, even the new media part of old media is losing out to digital-only and other alternative news outlets. No stickiness means limited engagement, which in turn means it's hard to charge advertisers much for web ads.
I would love to have been in the meeting when this transit poster was sold to the BK client:
The copy doesn't disappoint either...
Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the
NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the
mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with
American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.
Rare that you fee the need for a cigarette after the usual Burger King value meal, but then this ain't your father's Whopper. Wait, that came out wrong. Whatever.
I recall telling my father, several years ago, that the advertising business just wasn't as much fun as it was when I started (in 1982). Having had a very successful career in the same business himself, he laughed and replied, "You should have been around in the 60s."
Dad might have been correct, and episodes of Mad Men certainly reinforce his position. Still, for people who have recently been working in the ad game, or like me have recently walked away from it, this video is bittersweet. Funny, true, but also rather telling.
[h/t to one-time media guy turned adjunct professor guy Dan Binder for the link]
In hindsight, I guess it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise that the man who gave us the first presidential campaign television commercials also gave mankind the sales pitch, "Melts in your mouth, and not in your hand." Rosser Reeves was that man, and he was known in his day as the dean of the school of hard-sell advertising.
I came to know Mr. Reeves, who died in 1984, in an oddly personal way this spring by spending days sifting through the extensive collection of his personal papers archived at the Wisconsin Historical Society. The treasure hunt was a part of an assignment for a graduate school course in the history of mass communication. One of the course requirements was to research and write a paper about an event or historical figure using primary sources... archives.
My original subject was Bill Bernbach, one of the most important figures in the advertising business and founder of the company where I spent most of my career. Unfortunately, Mr. Bernbach's papers reside at Columbia or somewhere back east, and grad school has no travel budget. But in reading up on him, I came across an interview with Mr. Reeves, whose papers were to be found in Madison. Once I found out he was the first to use the now standard :30 television spots to sell America a presidential candidate, I knew I found my subject.
I mean, c'mon, how could I pass up a chance to learn about the man who gave the world this:
Or this:
Or this:
To look at any or all of these spots is to understand what television advertising was like in the early 1950s. As Reeves said years later, “We were all new to television in those days, and we did not know what a thing we had… what a powerful medium we were working with.” One of the things they learned right away was to focus on a single key point, what Reeves called the unique selling proposition (USP... a term still used today). He had noted that, "Eisenhower was a singularly inept speaker," but knew that with the right wording limited to the three most important issues of the day, he could sell Ike to the public. (Reeves actually wanted to go with a single issue, but the Republican National Committee wanted three. Since they were the client, they won that battle, as is often the way in the advertising business.)
He poured over campaign documents, lifting phrases and ideas and crafting them into what were actually :20 "chain break" spots that would run between prime time programs. Then Reeves booked the General some studio time. Ike knocked out over 30 spots that Reeves ended up writing on the fly; he had figured the candidate could get through maybe ten but was apparently a quick study. Only after all the "answers" were filmed did the ad agency go out and recruit people to ask the questions. As we say in the business, they fixed it in the edit.
The result was "Eisenhower Answers America." Note the very similar production style and values in the Ike spots compared to the packaged goods spots also done by Reeves...
I love that woman. Add some drama, a little war footage, plus the convention money shot and you have your :60 version:
Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson felt putting himself on camera was undignified. Perhaps he knew he'd read cue cards even less artfully than Eisenhower. Here's what the boys over at the Stevenson campaign put together as a comeback to the Eisenhower Answers America issue-oriented ads:
All right, then. Got it. Now what the hell does it mean?
Ike's team easily trumped them by hiring Irving Berlin to score and Walt Disney Studios to animate:
What I found amazing was that most of what I read in the Reeves archives about the 1952 election was found in two file boxes that represented less than half of one of the dozen or so cubic feet of papers and other files available. It took me five trips to the Wisconsin Historical Society to get what I needed, mostly because I kept getting sidetracked by stuff that was irrelevant to my research but too interesting to ignore. My media history professor, Jim Kates, told our class this would happen, and I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. The more I read, the more I wanted to dig deeper. By the end of a day of reading Reeves' letters, handwritten notes, speeches, and phone messages, I would feel like I had been hangin' out with the dude.
I turned in the paper this week as the semester came to an end. This was a project that was both fun and satisfying to do, and in some ways, I'm sorry its over. I'm gonna miss you, Rosser, ya big lug. I may have to have a double martini -- up -- in his honor tonight.
I have to hand it to the agency. The creative does have a way of driving home the fact that product is 100% recycled. Of course, if you have a twisted mind like I do, it may leave you wondering if it's recycled as in "someone else used it once already."
Brief: Promote the fact that Silk soft is 100% recycled and generate awareness on a low budget.
Idea: To communicate that Silk soft is truly 100% recycled we put stickers on standard toilet tissue dispensers on selected public toilets around Copenhagen.
Advertising Agency: By Far, Denmark Creative Director / Art Director: Benjamin Bidstrup Copywriter: Michael Jacobsen Photographer: Hans Nygaard Released: January 2009
I absolutely love the fact that there is a credited photographer for this. What a fun photo shoot this must have been. "OK, can you give me more brown-eye? Hike the pants up a bit. I'm getting some glare; can one of you powder his left cheek?" Kudos, Hans Nygaard, where ever you are. I hope this is a crown jewel in your portfolio.
When, years ago, Kodak used the song that scores this television ad from Swedish fashion house Björn Borg, the refrain's urge to show one's true colors was pretty much about creative expression. This time, it takes on a completely different meaning.
A lot of people, primarily Catholics but others who hide behind faith as a reason for unwarranted and hateful homophobia will likely portend to take great offense at what the clothier has to say. Me? I like it and wish more American companies would grow a spine and stand up for equality for all in the face of hate fueled by fundies and ignoramuses alike.
Kudos to the Björn Borg marketing folks for producing this spot and their ownership for having the balls to run it.
