Kerfuffle

Don Draper introduces Facebook Timeline

UPDATE: As is often the case for some of the best videos that borrow from copyrighted material, this one got yanked down.  I found alternative links and recoded this post twice but they also have been shot down.  Understandable.  Too bad the Mad Men producers don't realize that videos like this actually promote their product.  A lost opportunity for them, I suppose.

............

An excellent mashup...


From Mashable:

In this Facebook Timeline and Mad Men video mashup, Donald Draper pitches the idea of a nostalgia-infused social network that “lets us travel the way a child travels — round and round, and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.”

The video pulls from Mad Men‘s “The Wheel” episode — in which Draper conceives an ad campaign for the Kodak Carousel — and applies its dialogue to the Facebook Timeline. It was created by Eric Leist, a technology strategist with Allen & Gerritsen.

“The most compelling elements of Facebook’s Timeline are the ones that made Kodak’s Carousel popular,” Leist explains in the video description. “Reminiscing is a social activity. It always has been and now Facebook is bringing that activity online.”

I still have a Kodak Carousel.  In fact, I may have appropriated it from an ad agency I used to work for.  A cool machine if there ever was one.  And Mr. Draper is dead-on when he talks about the power of nostalgia.

What FOX and Google put on last night wasn't a debate...

This was a debate:

 

Fifty one years ago this coming Monday.

Back then, candidates took real positions, respected one another, and didn't bullshit their way through softball questions while crowd hooted, hollered, and booed.  There was still some honor among candidates and debaters.  Now it looks like some twisted reality show.  Ugh.

Madison: Be proud of your geeky self!

Tom and I moved to Madison from Chicago about seven years ago.  For as close as we had been before heading up here, we actually knew little about the city.  Sure, we had heard the jokes about the "People's Republic of Madison" and "77 square miles surrounded by reality."  But one visit to see how strikingly beautiful, fun and vibrant the city is turned out to be all we needed to know that we wanted to move here.

We quickly figured out once here that the local population has some interesting traits.  The locals are really friendly.  They are (no surprise) liberal and progressive thinkers (perhaps to a fault sometimes).  People here, for the most part, are very active and healthy compared to the rest of the state (and country).  And people here seem to be pretty smart.

On that last point, the numbers back it up. 

(Reuters) - Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the United States and New York is the financial hub but Madison, Wisconsin gets the highest marks as the most educated American city.

The midwestern metropolis, which Men's Health magazine described as the city "where the average household has more degrees than a thermometer" edged past Plano, Texas and Raleigh, North Carolina to score the highest grades in magazine's ranking of the 100 cities with the best educated population.

:::

"It is all about education there," said David Zinczenko, editor-in-chief of Men's Health and editorial director of Women's Health, about Madison.

At times, people in other parts of the state -- and even our own governor -- complain about Madison and deride its citizens... often without the ability to back up their criticism.  Reminds me of how the jocks and stoners made fun of the geeks in high school.  Then, as now, I'm happy to be on the side of the geeks.

Well done, people of Madison!

In case you need a refresher in how magazines work...

Definitely easier than an iPad.  Usually a larger view too.

[click for larger image; h/t @ProfSpiker]

McDonald's gives a word to something Starbucks has been doing for years

I agree with the guy who blogs at copyranter:  I hate when advertisers make up words.  Erudite as it may sound, I think it diminishes the quality of our language.

In this billboard by the Leo Burnett Company, McDonald's is now claiming that your beverage is an accessory.

"Drinkcessorize!"

Really?

Sure, fashion is part of our self expression, our self definition, and our cultural interaction.  It's why people proudly wear merchandise with prominent brand logos, why they drive the cars they do, why one is either a Mac or PC user (mostly Mac, I'd say...), and why we share the music we do.  And that's all good.  Anything can be fashion.  Even beverages.  At its core, that's a lot of what Starbucks is all about.  It's a badge, a token of one's self.  That's why they (and most smart marketers) protect their trademark so aggressively.  That's totally fine by me.

But, jeez, don't make up stupid words.  It's already done too much.  As comedian Hal Sparks notes, "unsweetened" is a made up term.  "I want a plain iced tea."  "You mean 'unsweetended'?"  "No, I mean plain!  What kind of person would sweeten a beverage and then go through a process to take the sweetener out of it?  It makes no sense!"

Yeah, maybe I should let it go.  But it still bugs me.

[cross-posted at J646Overtime, my course blog]

Republican presidential candidate debate: short version

This is the best that's out there?

 

<sigh>

Selling a mild energy boost to your inner 12-year-old

Coffee is big business these days.  After all, how else can we get that jolt we need in the morning?  Don't really like coffee?  Well, there are all kinds of energy drinks out there.  There's old-school Mountain Dew too.  Too much to deal with when trying to travel light?  How about what these guys are selling...

Clever, huh?

These little things, individually wrapped and similar to those Listerine breath strips (gelatin based, dissolves quickly) actually started out as a patch, but people thought that was dumb.  So they changed to little sheets you slap on your tongue.  They offer a smattering of vitamins and 100 mg of caffeine... about what you'd get in a weak cup of coffee.

There's certainly a convenience factor, in as much as you can throw a package of 10 in your backpack for $5.95.  Of course it takes more than three Sheets to give you the same buzz as the 330 mg of caffeine in a Starbucks Grande (almost the same price per mg according to my math).  By comparison, these are a bargain compared to those little bottles of 5-Hour Energy, which only offer a 120 mg jolt (twice a can of Mountain Dew).  So... cheaper than some things, more expensive than others.

What about the "cool" factor?  As it turns out, I found out by posting this video on my Facebook page that the brother of one of my friends is the one marketing Sheets.  And we just happened to be going to last week's Badger game.  So we stopped by one of the many pre-game gatherings near Camp Randall with some samples and did a little focus group work.

The porch full of Wisconsin students were impressed.  Well, I think they were impressed.  They were very receptive, liked the few "Take a Sheet" t-shirts we had to give away, and were more than happy to try the product.  I mean really happy.  Screaming happy.  One guy ate four of them, which we tried to discourage... mostly because we only had a single pack of ten.  (He claimed he was hoping to offset the effects of the liquid refreshment he was enjoying... since maybe noon.  Whatever.  All I know is the damn things were popular.  And they turn your tongue red.

I have to admit I love a good pun, bathroom humor, and anything that can make me laugh out loud the first time.  But I doubt I'll ever buy any of this stuff.

And yes, there is a Take A Sheet website.

[cross-posted at J646 Overtime, my course blog)