If you live here in he US, you realize that the majority of the population, who have never traveled outside America, yet believe it is God's gift to the world, get their news and information from Conservative TV (Fox News) and Conservative talk radio.
The worst example of this is radio chat show, blow hard, Rush Limbaugh, who may have just bitten off more than he can chew when he smeared U.S. troops who support a withdrawal policy in Iraq, calling them “phony soldiers.” Criticism from Democrats soon followed. VoteVets.org’s Jon Soltz, an Iraq vet, went first: “In what universe is a guy who never served even close to being qualified to judge those who have worn the uniform? Rush Limbaugh has never worn a uniform in his life — not even one at Mickey D’s — and somehow he’s got the moral standing to pass judgment on the men and women who risked their lives for this nation, and his right to blather smears on the airwaves? … Get the point here, Rush? You weren’t just flat out wrong, you offended a majority of those of us who actually had the courage to go to Iraq and serve, while you sat back in your nice studio, coming up with crap like this.”
I shan't hold my breath waiting for any criticism from the Republicans, even though they all just voted in favor of a resolution stating that they would condemn “any effort to attack the honor and integrity” of “all members of the United States Armed Forces.” Sometimes I wonder why the f*ck I live here... Then I remember the money. I am, after all, an Ad Ho!
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Anyone who's watched all those really bad American movies about stock car racing, or NASCAR, as they call it over here, might have the same problem I have of not being able to connect the "Good Old Boy - Super Macho" image of NASCAR with the fact that it's main sponsor has always been a so-called beer that's as close to real beer as their racing cars are to ride-on mowers.
So today's news that Budweiser will no longer sponsor NASCAR, and be replaced by a brand of brown colored water that goes by the name of Coors Light, leaves me even more mystified. Isn't this the sport that grew out of the old Moonshine runners of the deep south? I guess these guys must be confusing "EverClear" with "EverWatery!"
Although, I must say, every time I come back to Blighty, I am somewhat dismayed to see so many people in pubs downing pints of Bud and other disastrous examples of the brewers art.
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If you need proof that advertising works, but not always in the ways you expect, the news yesterday that US Senate has voted to condemn an advertisement attacking the country's top commander in Iraq as he gave key testimony on military progress there, is living proof. The ad, in the New York Times by anti-war group MoveOn.Org, sparked controversy by referring to Gen David Petraeus as "General betray us".
President Bush accused Democrats of being afraid to stand up to the group over the "disgusting" ad, conveniently forgetting the number of time the Republicans have run slime ads against Democrats, from “Willie Horton” to accusing McCain of having an illegitimate black daughter.
The most disgusting news is that The Senate voted by 72 to 25 to approve the Republican-sponsored bill to "strongly condemn personal attacks" on Gen Petraeus and US armed forces. Which means 25 Democrats voted for this joke, rather than concentrate on doing what 75% of the American public want… To get us out of Iraq. No wonder politicians are held in even more contempt than advertising people.
In case you were wondering...It's now official: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founders of Google make more money than God. Well, not exactly, but today, Forbes published its list of the richest people in the U.S. The two Google co-founders displaced four members of the Walton clan (of Wal-Mart fame, not the TV show), on the top 10 list of America's highest net worth people.
Forbes said it was the first time a member of the Walton family has not appeared on the top 10 list since 1989. It was the first time the two Googlers had ascended to the Top 10 list. Brin and Page, who are each estimated to have $18.5 billion in net worth, also jumped over poor old Michael Dell, who is No. 8 on the list with a net worth of $17.2 billion.
Two newcomers to the list were oil tycoons Charles and David Koch, each with a worth of $17 billion. And in case you were wondering, yes, Bill Gates is still the richest man in America, with a net worth of $59 billion, followed by his bridge-playing buddy Warren Buffett, who is just behind him at $52 billion (what's $7 billion among friends?) Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, and one of the world's most evil people, still can't catch up to rival Gates with his net worth of $26 billion.
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With all the bullshit about the Apple iPhone price cut, then the in-store rebate, I thought the best idea came from Mike Hinkle in web2journal.“What would be a more interesting is to come out with some special edition "early adopter" case for the iPhone attached to our $100 rebate. Make it Apple wicked cool, have Steve Jobs include 100 personally autographed, "Thanks for your support" letters in the whole batch.
Make it a Willie Wonka type event. Do it with style, make it fun, include your golden tickets in the refunds. It would create a sense of exclusivity and give those people a sense of value.” You just know the Apple Freaks would eat that up, buying ten of everything, just to get an autograph from God!
So, I'm in Los Angeles to speak at the PSFK Conference tomorrow. Loyal readers of MadScam may remember I spoke at the PSFK Confenece in London on June 1st. I am interviewing "Missy," founder of Suicide Girls, a rather extraordinary Web/blog/community that preceded all the hype about Web 2.0 by a good few years. Check out the site, then check out "MadScam" in a couple of days for my impressions of the whole thing.
So, I got NINE comments on my Apple iPhone post on September 13th. It's funny, whenever I write about Apple or "God Jobs" on a blog, or in a magazine, all the Apple crazies come out of the closet and start freaking out. It's not like complaining about a Ford car or a Sony TV... No, it's as if I have maligned a deity... Insulted a religious movement. My son, is an art director, he's a MAC bigot, My art director partner for my freelance work, is a raging MAC bigot... These people have religion.
I used to work on the Apple account, I have met Steve many times. He is a freak, everyone who works at Apple is a freak... THEY MAKE GREAT PRODUCTS... But, it's not a religion. I have been at the Moscone Center at Apple World, when the faithful are besides themselves waiting for "The Anointed One" to appear. When he does, they go apeshit, some almost cry and tear their hair out. The whole thing is bizarre. I just don't get it. I still have a classic MAC. I use it as a door stop.
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I must say, I was somewhat stunned to read in today's BrandRepublic that the parents of Madeleine McCann are possibly hiring some big time ex News of the Screws PR guy to handle their "Media Relations." Yes I understand that the UK and a good chunk of the foreign media are camped out on their doorstep, but hello... These are the couple that met with the Pope and flew to America for TV appearances amongst other insane publicity stunts.
I honestly don't know if they had anything to do with her disapearance, but they have certainly gone out of their way to seek publicity, often in places that have no bearing on their unfortunate situation. Reminds me a bit of Princess Diana who complained about the press, but could certainly manipulate them when she needed to. The McCanns should find a desert island somewhere and lay low 'til some kind of closure can be found to their unfortunate situation.
I guess everyone over there is wetting their knickers with excitement at the news that Apple Inc is calling a London news conference next Tuesday as speculation mounts that the consumer electronics guru will unveil long-awaited plans to bring its iconic iPhone - Or, the "God phone," as it's known over here - to Europe before the end of the month.
No doubt you've read about all the crap hitting the fan when Uberfuherer Steve slashed its price by $200 dollars within weeks of Apple Loonies standing in line for days to be the first on the block to get the ultimate in "Cool." Then, he does a supposed mea culpa by giving everyone a $100 store credit, so they'll go out and buy even more Apple crap.
OK, a word of advice... Don't stand in line for the initial launch, wait a couple of weeks. It'll be cheaper, and you won't have to put up with the inane chatter of all the weirdos surrounding you.
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For eleven years, I wrote a column for an AdWeek publication, Marketing Computers, which then became Technology Marketing. This is the column I wrote following the events of September the 11th, 2001. I think it's worth re-reading today.
Lessons Learned. Technology triumphed and failed on Sept. 11.
As I write this column, it is actually the third week in September, which means it's little more than a week since the cataclysmic events of Sept. 11. And so anything I could say about the current state of technology advertising would sound, at the very least, trivial and, at the very worse, crass and insensitive. Right now, I am torn between two diverse sets of feelings, because, even though I live in Idaho, I spend most of my working life in New York, with my apartment just one block from St Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village. This hospital was expected to be at the epicenter of casualty treatment for the thousands of survivors from the twin towers disaster.
But, unfortunately, as we know by now, there were very few survivors. I left New York on Monday, Sept. 10 to come back to Idaho for a couple of weeks. I sat in a cab that went within a couple of blocks of the World Trade Center, on the way to La Guardia airport, and little did I realize, as l looked up at the twin towers in the early morning sunshine, that it would be the last time I would ever see them again. Except, of course, for the thousands of times I can expect to see replays of those two airplanes smashing into those incredible skyscrapers, over the next few years.
On reflection, technology seems to have proved itself admirably in a few respects, yet failed abysmally in many more. Calling from Idaho to reach and contact friends and colleagues in New York by telephone was virtually impossible, yet, without fail, email worked like a dream.
Having said that, consider, no matter how awful it is to contemplate what your personal reaction would be, how the many people trapped on the upper floors of the World Trade Center were able to call their loved ones, and, in essence, say "goodbye." What your own reaction would be to that kind of situation is incomprehensible, but would you rather have had those final few words or no word at all?
Even worse, think about the incomparable bravery of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, who decided, as they were about to die, that they would not allow the hijackers to take hundreds of others with them. It was all made possible by cellular telephone technology. Not only were passengers on the flight able to tell their loved ones that they were in the middle of a hijack situation, their loved ones were able to tell them what had already transpired in New York and Washington in the last half hour. So the people on the airplane knew what the hijackers had in store, which shows the unbelievable and remarkable bravery on the part of those four, or perhaps more, passengers who decided to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of so many others on the ground.And how did technology fail? Because we all assume technology is the answer to everything. That terrorism will come from outerspace on the back of a missile, guided by satellites with pinpoint accuracy to a landing on some defense installation in the middle of Arizona.But it didn't happen that way. It came via a handful of people who lived among us for years, went to commercial aviation schools so they could learn to fly a giant commercial airplane straight, left or right. And then, they boarded a flying bomb (which was a jumbo jet fully fueled for a transcontinental flight) with nothing more than a couple of box-cutters hidden in shaving kits!
That's why technology failed us. Because we expect it, through sophisticated listening devices and preemptive screening systems to warn us of the possible dangers out there. We also expect the $5.50-an-hour people manning the airport baggage checks to know the difference between a stick deodorant and a box-cutter on a cheap, fuzzy X-ray device. All because the airlines and airports don't want to pay the costs of doing it right. Because they know it would add a couple of bucks to the price of our ticket, a change that we'd all bitch and moan about. And, even worse, because we don't want the inconvenience of not being able to get to an airport and board the airplane within 20 minutes.
That's why technology isn't the answer to all our ills. Technology is merely a significant part of the toolkit we have at our disposal to do good––or evil. But then again, so is a box-cutter.
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If you read about the launch of the new iPods the other day,you may also have heard that quite a few people out there in the blogosphere are saying that Steve Job's slashing the cost of the iPhone by $200, then immediately offering a credit (not cash back) of $100 to all the Apple freaks who'd stood in line for days, was all carefully scripted.
Which could be true, 'cos he is one devious bugger, but ultra smart when it comes to product announcements and launches. Prominent among the chorus was Robert X. Cringely, who says the whole series of events smacks of just the sort of ego-boosting manipulation toward which Jobs is inclined. "It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a thoughtless mistake. It was a calculated and tightly scripted exercise in marketing and ego gratification.
I think he's right. And when you consider the tons of free publicity, it could have all been very carefully scripted. Anyway, once an Apple freak, always an Apple freak. He won't lose any of the faithful.
Just 'cos you can't get enough of me, you might want to check out the piece I did for BrandWeek over here in the US. It's in today's issue. Rather droll, even if I say so myself... And if I don't, who the hell will?
The picture makes me look like I'm on crank, or something. Still, as it was taken after lunch, if I was a true "Mad Man" I would have had three martinis and been shitfaced by then. But, as I'd only had two... I'm looking quite chipper for an old fart.
Cheers/George
OK, so here's the deal... I bitched and moaned a few weeks ago about the fact that no one was leaving comments on my blog. Obviously someone stuck a sharp fork up someone's arse, and I started to get a few comments. But, what I really want to know is why no one in the UK is buying my book... MadScam... On Amazon UK. It's selling fine in the US... But not in Britain... And it's written by a bloody Brit!!! If you go to Amazon US... You can read all the glowing reviews... And if you are a true masochist, you can see a review of it on YouTube. Either way, it's the price of a couple of pints... And based on the last time I was there, within a couple of months, it'll be the price of a half!!! Bloody hell, how do you guys survive???
Here in the US, it's Labor Day. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist... That's how they spell it here. Unlike the rest of the world, which usually celebrates on the first of May. I doubt if even ten percent of the population even knows what the hell it's supposed to be celebrating. Here it's just another one of those holidays retailers and car dealers use to hype a sale, along with "President's Day," Valentine's Day," "Ground hog day." Or whatever.
The awful ads usually follow suit, with all the "St Patrick's Day Sale" ads being in green, and the "President's Day Sale," ads being full of pictures of George Washington etc. You get the idea. But I wonder if anyone has ever done a study to show if any of this crap is actually effective or not? I'm sure they have, and I'm sure all those dumb retailers will claim they do.
But then as Lloyd George once said... "There's lies, damn lies, and retail sales ad effectiveness studies." Or something like that. As you guys are currently LABOURING... I won't wish you a happy holiday,
George Parker
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