This is Not a Sales Call

Quick tip: If you answer your phone, and the caller says "This is not a sales call", chances are 100% that it's a sales call. It's very similar to the rule regarding anything that comes out of George Bush's lips. For instance: "This was not a political decision" means "Of course this was a political decision"

Most ridiculous co-branding example of the week.

I could do a whole blog on the stupid shit I see at the grocery store. Who thinks up this shit? What marketing moron actually came up with the idea to print Trivial Pursuit questions in the frosting of Pop-Tarts? How can such a retarded concept be born? Sure dual-branding is epidemic. There is Scope in my Crest, Downey in my Tide, and every kind of trade-marked cookie and candy bar imaginable in my ice cream. It's just the next step in the conspiracy to stretch the toothpaste aisle (or in this case, the toaster pastry aisle) another 10 feet. But who the fuck is going to buy a package of Part-Tarts in order to get in a quick game of trivia at the breakfast table.

As I've said before: All marketing people are idiots. As several commenters previously pointed out: Brand managers are a few steps dumber.

Who Wants to be a Pedophile?

That should be the new title of Dateline, since the show (which was always fake news in the worst sense of the term), has become nearly 100% Chris Hanson standing at the kitchen island confronting potential child molesters. The show is on now as often as Who Wants to be a Millionaire was a few years ago when that was briefly a ratings juggernaut. And its on all the time for the same reason as Millionaire-because it too is a ratings bonanza.

For the brief time I can stand to watch it, I don't know if I am more repulsed by the slime that come through the front door looking for their 12 year old dates; or by Hanson emerging from the back room to confront these loosers, as if being a pompous blowdried news anchor gives him licence to play cop, detective, judge, and social worker. The show has no more social value than Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, and probably less.

And now the spillover has affected MSNBC, which has become the repository for endless reruns of the show, and now has Joe Scarborough, (who I was actually starting to enjoy, if only because its fun to hear Republicans bash Bush) nothing but a shill for the show. If Olbermann starts pushing it, I'll be done with him too.

Are Bostonians ALL Complete Idiots?

First off, as a graphic designer, who has had to work with more than my share of marketing people over the years, I will state plainly that ALL MARKETING PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS. In fact, I've been working on a project for one all day today, which is why I didn't catch onto all of this Mooninite business till late this afternoon.

Clearly it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that strapping battery powered devices to bridges all over a city, might be cause for alarm by somebody!!

But how in hell did it take the entire apparatus of local, state and national government, and the mainstream media until 5:00 PM, after a full day of shutting down bridges, tying the city in complete knots, and blowing up electronic cartoon characters to figure out what was going on here. Seems like there were clues all over the place. I mean, there are pictures of this thing all over the internet, and the thing has been set up in 10 other cities for two weeks. Are Bostonians just particularly ignorant?

The most comical point in the whole day for me was Channel 7 blurring the finger (3 light bulbs) of the Mooninite so that no viewers would be offended. I'm just offended to live in such a completely nutjob society.

Police Fundraising Scams

It's the time of year when everyone comes out of the woodwork to try to separate me from my money. Thanks to the Do Not Call List, we no longer have to put up with telemarketing from businesses. But charities are another story. Once you donate to one, you are fair game for all forms of questionable charities to haunt you at every opportunity.

And nothing pisses me off more that the obviously phony, or barely legitimate, police and fire fundraising calls that I get constantly the last couple years. While it always annoyed me a bit to be hit on by my local police and fire department (what do I pay exorbitant property taxes for), I nevertheless would always donate $25 dollars to my local police and fire department.

But when I started getting calls for The New England Firefigher's Association, The American Police Officer's Association etc., and was confronted with high pressure assholes on the phone, I made a blanket policy that I would no longer give a dime to any police of fire group that call me on the phone. Sure, I'm probably tarring the legitimate calls with the scam calls, but I don't have any way to figure out who is legitimate and who is not, so that's just the way it goes. And even the most worthy charity shouldn't be haunting people for donations on the phone.

Balloons and Assault Rifles

This has shocked me the past several years. At the annual holiday parade in Beverly there are dozens of vendors pushing carts filled with balloons and stuffed animals. You got everything from Dora the Explorer to Lightning McQueen to Santa Claus. But between the giant inflatable candy canes, and the stuffed Dumbos, are a display of toy assault rifles. Seriously. I'm not talking about little squirt guns or even cap guns. I'm talking three-foot long plastic rifles with scopes, clearly labeled "assault rifles". Unfortunately the photo I snapped doesn't show the wording but trust me, it was there.

What the hell is up with that. What could possibly be the justification for selling toy assault rifles to kids at a holiday parade? They have them every year, so somebody must be buying them. But before I ask "what parent would buy their kid a toy assault rifle at the local Santa Claus parade," I do have to hesitate & picture at least a couple of the parents I have seen picking up their kids at my sons kindergarten class and think. "Oh, yeah, I guess that kind of parent just might." Here you go junior. Go stand behind the mailbox & pretend you are picking off Santa.

7-day Weather Forecasts

Weather forecasts are a pretty dubious enterprise as it is. Seems that two days ago, Thanksgiving was going to be a warm sunny day, and now it's going to be a washout. But many of the stations now seem to be doing 7-day forecasts. 7 days out there is a snowball's chance in hell of them getting it right, but that's besides the point. Like all else in local news, this started with a marketing consultant. At Channel 7, the marketing tie-in is obvious. Who cares if there is a 1% chance of them getting it right? Why pass up the chance to be able to reinforce the brand by saying Seven on 7 every time you give the weather. Now by this logic, Channel 4 would be doing only 4-day forecasts, but there must also be a page in the consultant's handbook that says you can't forecast any fewer number days than your competition, even at the expense on not being able to reinforce your brand.

I'm sure somewhere, there is a Channel 10 attempting to do 10-day forecasts. And I wouldn't be too surprised if somewhere down the road, Fox 25 jumps on the bandwagon & attempts to do 25-day forecasts. Hmm, you don't think that with Channel 7 taking over the news operation at Channel 56, they would have the balls to go for a 56-day forecast do you?

Stupid Naming Rights

There are always ridiculous examples of event naming rights: The Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl, The AutoZone Liberty Bowl etc. But having a kids breakfast food (an admission here: I've had a bit of a renewed Pop-Tart jones ever since I bought a box for my kids on vacation last summer) sponsor even a horrendous tour like this is just weird. Will fans of the show be more apt to buy Pop-Tarts? Will people be more apt to go to the show if the see it advertised on their Pop-Tart box. What's next: Captain Crunch presents the America's Next Top Model road tour?

[entertainment] [kids stuff] [marketing] [pop culture] [television]

Wipeout

My wife is wipe happy. Not being near as cynical as me, she pretty much falls for any new kind of product marketing scam that comes about. You must have noticed the proliferation of wipes. They are the outgrowth of the moist towelettes that you used to get after eating ribs or something. Now they are everywhere. Any product that you used to be able to buy in a spray bottle and then use with a cloth or paper towel, can now be purchased as a "wipe" Essentially they are presoaked paper towels.

The above photograph clearly demonstrates wipe madness. This is from a web site called PetSafe that sells pet products. They have 10 different types of pet-specific wipes including ear wipes, eye wipes, toothpaste wipes, muddy paws wipes, rabbit & small animal wipes, top and tail wipes etc. If you own an animal, I guess you must get them all, because it just wouldn't be right to wipe Fido's tail with the same product you are wiping his ears with. And you certainly wouldn't want to wipe his teeth with the same thing you wipe his eyes with. Yuk.

In my house it all started with baby wipes (Note that like Colgate, there are many different flavors). We went through thousands, and yes, they were pretty convenient. But now we have Windex wipes, Murphy's wipes. Pledge wipes, Lysol wipes, Clorox wipes, Stainless steel cleaning wipes, 409 wipes, Armor-All wipes, and probably 20 other kinds of wipes.

I'm not even sure why they suck. They are really very convenient, I guess. It's much easier to grab a Windex wipe than to grab the Windex and a roll of paper towels. The main reason they suck has to do with my natural suspicion that these companies are making a killing on them. A package of Windex wipes costs as much as a bottle of Windex, and although I haven't done any scientific research to prove this, I would bet a bundle that there is a hell of a lot less than a bottle of Windex used to make a package of Windex wipes. So where does all the money saved go? Right into the companies pockets, no doubt.

The other reason they suck, is that while the first couple out of the package work fine, by the time you get past halfway, they are always too dried out to work. So now you end up throwing out half of the already overpriced package. And I'd love to know exactly what the difference in ingredients is between doggie ear wipes, and doggie tail wipes. They are probably all just dipped in water, anyways.

Then we have something that is even more ridiculous, called Swiffer wipes. Essentially it is a package of throw-away dust clothes. Of course my wife snapped these up too, because its just so much easier to grab a nice soft static free cloth out of a box, than to go get a rag out of the basement when you need to dust. And then you can just throw it away when you are done.

4/15 UPDATE
More wipe madness today. I have to vent to you my dear readers, because the wife gets mad at me when I point of the ridiculousness of this shit to her.

So I'm cleaning off the patio furniture in time for Easter. Using the old-fashioned method: a sponge and a pail of soapy water. It's working perfectly fine. Until my wife comes home from the store. "Oh, hold on. Look what I got." Fuck no! A $5.00 can of Outdoor Patio Furniture Wipes. Another $5.00 for 1 ounce of some soapy liquid soaked into paper towels. Don't you know I just this week wrote a 500 word essay of why wipes suck! No thanks. I'll stick with the sponge.

Then tonight: "Can you help clean the appliances?" And out come the Stainless Steel Wipes. Of course they are too dried out to work, even though the package is still half full. But she just happened to have bought a new one when she bought the Patio Furniture Wipes. Another 5 bucks. So into the trash go the dried up, half full can, and out come the brand new package. Might as well use them liberally, because by the time we need them again, they will all be dried up anyways.

How 'bout a war on drug ads

How can a country that locks people up behind bars for smoking a weed, allow drug companies to peddle every conceivable type of pill for every real or imagined condition to everyone from preschoolers to alcoholics. These ads are everywhere. A dozen or so in just about every magazine you pick up. During every TV show. It's the equivalent of peddling drugs on the streetcorner.

Instead of relying on doctors to advise their patients on what might be an appropriate medication, the drug companies now go right to the consumers. So the same people that are deciding that they are taking their family to McDonald's for the third night this week, and buying Coke by the gallon because the ad on TV told them to, are now deciding that their kid has ADD, and they need to get him some Concerta.

Sure they have to get a doctor's prescription, but I doubt that's very tough once they have decided themselves what it is they need. Kids are driving me nuts. They must have ADD. Let's call the doc and get a prescription. Popping a pill into your kids these days is just like giving them a Flintstones vitamin.

And what is with these names for drugs. They are all these made-up feel-good, focus group-tested bullshit names: Lipitor, Concerta, Levitra, Paxil, Zoloft...

These ads are crap, and should be banned. Doctors, not marketers, should be educating their patients. For you Republicans big on the free market, consider that a good deal of this stuff is no doubt marketed to people on government assistance who watch Dr. Phil, so it is ultimately being paid for by you.

Lost in the supermarket

Do you ever wonder why every drug store is a superstore now? It's because we have 20 different kinds of Colgate. Right next to 15 different kinds of Crest. Next to 50 other brands of toothpaste in a dozen flavors each.

And that's only the toothpaste aisle. Then there is the deodorant aisle. I like one kind of deodorant. The kind that's a gel, but not a liquid gel. Sort of a hard gel. But I can go to the CVS, stand there for ten minutes, looking at 500 kinds of deodorant, and still not find the one I'm looking for. See. I'm adding to the problem, because I have to have just the right kind of deodorant. I guess there are people out there who support each of the other 499 variations too.

And what about the cold medicine aisle. Must be 20 kinds of Robitussin alone. One for each possible symptom: cough, sneezing, congestion, sore throat. Then one with every combination of two symptoms. Then one with all the symptoms. Then each of those possible options in Cherry. Then the generic versions. CVSTussin in all the same options. So you stand there thinking. Well, I have sniffles and a cough, but I don't really have a sore throat. Where's the version for that? Oh, fuck it, just buy the one that covers everything, and get me out of this place!

It's nuts.

You know what causes this. Same thing that causes all the other ills of consumerism. Marketing! It's a thing called shelf-space. If there are more kinds of Colgate, then Colgate will take up more space in the aisle than Crest. And if you walk in and see more Colgate, then chances are you are going to walk out with Colgate. Why do you think I buy Robitussin? Because you walk into the cold aisle, and all you see is fuckin Robitussin.

So this is why the CVS is now as big as the supermarket was when I was a kid. And why the supermarket is the size of football stadium.

Fucking marketing.

[marketing] [products] [society] [suburbia]

TV Lawyers

These personal injury lawyers that advertise on TV are the biggest slimeballs going. The best known locally is James Sokolove. You see his ads mainly during the noon news, or during daytime TV. Targeting all the soap opera watchers. If I ever needed a lawyer he'd be the last guy I'd call. Looks like a dick.

They are ambulance chasers. Whatever the hot buzz is in the media about bad medicine or dangerous products, they are on the case. Asbestos poisoning, Vioxx, securities fraud. Anything you want to sue somebody for, they're there to help, collect their 33%, and add to the country's litigation madness.

Here's a website urging lawyers to advertise on TV because "TV advertising reaches people with serious injuries IN BED at home or in the hospital where they don't have access to the Internet or Yellow Pages." Gee how "equal-access" of you. Just dial 1-800-HURT-911. Very clever.

And here's an even better one. This may be related to the above. A blog about lawyer advertising. This post warns about the costs of redoing your billboard or other advertising campaigns if one of your partners is suspended or disbarred and you have to change your firm's name. It suggests that if you think you may have been caught doing anything wrong, you might want to hold off on advertising for a while. The post ends with "The moral of this story is that when advertising, always be on your best behavior and make sure that everyone in the firm is." Then I guess if you weren't advertising, you could behave as badly as you wanted?

I don't have much use for lawyers period, but these guys are the scum of the earth.

Shit work I've done for cash

As requested, another post about my day job.

I could fill a whole blog with crappy shit that I've been forced to do by clients or bosses during my life as a designer: having to use crappy photos for political or budget reasons; having some senior marketing dufus come up with a "brilliant" idea that he forces me to do, that is really the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life; clients who say they want something "edgy" but are terrified of doing anything they haven't seen before. On and on and on.

Every day, the life of a designer is filled with compromises. Usually I grumble a bit, argue why some other solution would be better, and then "do what the client wants," while trying to save the thing as much as possible from completely sucking. I can generally live with the results, even if most of the shit I do these days isn't award-winning. It pays the bills. As a former creative director used to say. "If 5% of the work you are doing is cool, then you are doing OK" Basically I feel that most of the cool work I've done is stuff I've managed to sneak by when somebody wasn't paying attention.

So looking back over the past year to find the worst example of shit I've done for money, there was one particularly horrifying job I worked on (for a client I would never work for again, so I could care less if they see this). It was during a slow period last fall that I agreed to be an interim art director for a couple weeks at a local business magazine.

INSIDE BASEBALL WARNING

Turns out it was one of these "all-advertorial" magazines. For those of you not in the business, "advertorials" are those little sections in the middle of "real" magazines that are really ads designed to look like a special editorial section of the magazine. They are totally bogus, but like stadium naming rights, are here to stay. Most legitimate magazines label them in very small type at the top "special advertising section"

But there is a particularly awful new breed of magazine where every article in it is bought, written by, approved by, art supplied for free by, or somehow else completely controlled by the company the story is about. To the average dope, they may look like a real magazine, but to anybody with a brain in their head, the real purpose is pretty obvious. In general these rags are horrible looking.

They are sort of the bastard stepchild of custom publishing, a slightly more legitimate branch of marketing where businesses will publish a marketing brochure disguised as a magazine. Starbucks had one for a while that was pretty cool looking. While those are still pretty dubious as far as having a legitimate editorial mission, at least they are professionally designed and produced for the most part.



So anyway, the above is a spread from the issue of this rag that I worked on. The red circles point out all the reasons why to someone who loves magazine design, this was such a stench-inducing job to work on.

• 1: Every feature in the entire 120 page magazine must follow this exact grid


• 2: Story is a 100% puff piece bought by the subject company, and either written by, edited by, or approved by the company it is about


• 3: Cheesy use of "vignettes" is required in all features


• 4: For some stupid reason there is a full line space after each paragraph, which looks ridiculous


• 5a: Every piece of art in the entire magazine is either supplied free by the client (aka, the subject of the story) or royalty free stock art. The art budget is $0. Note first use on the page of businessmen-shaking-hand partnership cliche photograph.


• 5b: Hard to make out, but there is a second businessmen-shaking-hand cliche in this cheeseball section icon, which is repeated 34 times in the issue.


• 6: Bio of the whore who wrote the story


• Not labeled: Had to chase this client down for nearly three months to be paid

If you have made it this far, and still care about this subject, first, get a life, second, here's a link to another blog that talks about this particular magazine, and its ilk.

Bush's simplistic slogans

Who needs a coherent policy on anything when you can boil every issue, no matter how complicated or controversial, down to three or four words, that nobody could possibly be against, and slap them up behind W. Then morons watching the news can say, "Yeah, he really does have a plan for victory. Look, the sign says it." Or, "You know what? I am an American and I am favor of jobs. This guy is alright." Not, many people are gonna say, "No, let's break our promise to Grandma," or "No, I think our schools are strong enough already. Let's weaken them."

These signs have followed Bush everywhere, almost since the beginning of his presidency. You may not understand what the hell he is talking about, but all you have to do is look at the sign, to know he is your man. Promoting a policy for the Republicans is no different than selling fast food. I'm lovin' it.

Of course, who could forget Bush's most infamous banner. The Mission Accomplished banner hung on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the night Bush delivered his speech announcing that major hostilities in Iraq were over. Let's see, that was about three years ago. Gee, the White House website seems to have gone to particular pains to scrub that banner from its page about that event. I'm surprised they still have the flight-jacket photo up there.

A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors

You too can write headlines for Channel 7 news. It's a very simple concept. You have two formulas you MUST follow. Please don't try to think outside the box or you will be fired. Remember this is about marketing, not news.

• Formula one: Headline must have two words that start with the same letter.


• Formula two: Headline must have two words that rhyme.


• Bonus points for headlines that follow BOTH of the above formulas

Keep this in mind, and watch. Rarely does a headline not follow this formula. If you are not in Boston, or watch another channel, this works too, but to a lesser degree. Channel 7 is the master. I'm sure Channels 7's clone in Miami has this mastered this just as well. They must have a full time enforcer of the policy.

Here are some example, all from the last couple of days.

• Soap Opera Shocker (about an explosion on the set of a soap opera)


• Dolphin In Danger (some stranded dolphins)


• Kinky Closing (closing arguments in the dominatrix case)


• Movie Mixup (DVD rental customers getting a porno movie instead of Finding Nemo)


• Dealing with Demons: (a man trying to free his body and mind of evil spirits)


• Predator on your Property: (about coyotes moving into the cities)


• Hit by Hate: (about the New Bedford gay bar shooting)


• Murder Mystery: (about the Hopkington murder now, but pretty much all purpose)


• Eye in the Sky: (about a fish sculpture in Boston Harbor)


• The Real Deal: (their consumer report series)


• The Style File: (their fashion report series)

Haven't heard a bonus example, but I'll keep you posted. I know I have in the past.

Often they will have two different headlines for the same story that both follow the formula. It's like they came up with two headlines so clever they couldn't decide, so they ran them both. My personal favorite is for an upcoming story they have been teasing all week about people looking for food thrown out by restaurants. It's either Grub from the Garbage or Dinner from the Dumpster, depending on when you are watching.

It's really pretty funny to start watching for this, and guessing what they will come up with. It works nearly every time. But the fact that they are actually that focused on this again shows that its all about marketing, and not about delivering the news.

Prime time lineup as news

This bugs the shit out of me. Local TV news, doing news reports on their network's prime time lineup. Channel 4 just did a story on Boston connections to the new season of Survivor, which of course just had its season premier tonight on CBS. The Apprentice is always news on Channel 7. Ed Harding gets all giddy talking about the happenings on Desperate Housewives. When Barbara Walters has done some lame interview on 20/20, it's news at 11 on Channel 5. And of course there is always something important happening on American Idol that Channel 25 needs to waste five minutes of news time on. Hardly a day goes by when there is not a least one story that is nothing more than a shameless plug for the network.

It's just such an annoying, obvious attempt to plug the prime time lineup, as well as get "lead-in" ratings by advertising the story about the show during the show. It also costs them nothing to do, compared to the cost of sending a reporter out to get news.
Whenever one of these things come on, I just switch the station immediately.

More Breaking News

The bulletin, apparently official: A manhole cover has lifted in Watertown tonight.



This is an update to my Breaking News post of last week.

Double Breaking News tonight on Channel 7. First a car crash on the south shore. But the second one was a real breaker. Big news... full screen graphic...alert music...cut to the out of breath reporter. We've just learned there has been a manhole fire in Watertown tonight. Two manhole covers have "lifted," (guess it wasn't quite an explosion) 200 people are without power. I repeat, two manhole covers have lifted, 200 people are without power.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Breaking News

Remember when Breaking News meant that something truly important had happened. The President had been shot or the Space Shuttle had exploded. Today, Breaking News is nothing more that a consultant-driven marketing ploy. It's a constant. Used almost nightly, sometimes multiple times, on every channel to bring a false sense of urgency to every newscast. Breaking News can be anything: a run-or-the-mill car crash, a snow storm, Jen and Brad breaking up. I'm gonna do an experiment for the next couple days. Let's see exactly what qualifies as Breaking News in Boston, and on cable.

1.23.06 Report
No Breaking News tonight, but there was one Developing Story which is the same thing isn't it? Bunch of people evacuated from an apartment building in Brookline because of a carbon monoxide leak.

1.24.06 Report
BIG Breaking News tonight on Headline News. Drama music in the background and everything. The same kind of music they played in the background the night of Reagan's funeral, or during other times of national mourning. Stunning new developments (Nancy Grace said stunning 5 times in a minute) in the Natalee Holloway case. Police from Aruba are traveling to her hometown to re-interview her friends that were with her in Aruba. I listened for a while, and can't get too much more than that. Lots of speculation from NG. "What does this mean..." "They must be close to solving the case..." Doesn't seem to be much new here, but it says Breaking News so this must be important. Lots more sensationalism, and manipulation of the poor girl's mother.

More late Breaking News locally on Channel 56. The bus carrying the BC basketball team hit and killed a bike rider in North Carolina. No more details at this time or anything, but why wait for details, when you can say Breaking News. This is big Breaking News at 11 too on Channel 5 too. Big red full screen banner. Smaller banner Breaking News on Channel 7. Channel 4 decided that the murder of a mother and her baby in Hopkington was more important. Gee, someone with news judgment? Amazing. Bus story isn't even in the top 5 on Channel 4.

No Thank You, my Penis is Fine

What's up with all the penis spam. Every day, I get dozens of spam emails to enlarge my penis, buy cheap Viagra, "improve my results in bed" , buy a vibrator. You name it. If I wanted any of this, I certainly wouldn't buy it from an email. Do people really respond to this stuff. It's just nuts. Biggest annoyance is the legitimate emails that get sucked out by my spam filter, while all this stuff still gets by.