Hee-Haw Marketing

More Stuff from Other Places

Ad Avoidance Trivia

Ilya gives a fantastic rundown of the different ways we've tried to avoid ads.

Mobile web may be big. I dunno. Just guessing.

Some nice stats from the Opera browser. Combine that with data usage on the AT&T network. Get ready for some growing pains, peeps.

The New Era of the Network Service

"So-called “network services” like Facebook...and Twitter will soon dominate the web, rather than “information services” like Google and Yahoo."

Sean Parker's Web 2.0 Summit Presentation

The personality paradox

Jonah Lehrer points out the basics of the fundamental attribution error, which I think has lots of interesting insights into how branding works. We don't tend to think of personality traits like aggressive, courageous, generous, whatever - to be an issue of context. But of course, perception and reality don't always match. Also seems to jive with what the economist called the "halo effect," or the assumption that if someone is good at A, she'll also be good at b, c, and d.

Is Mexican Coca-Cola better?

"The company principally imports the Mexican version to appeal to immigrants who grew up with it and draw nostalgia from the packaging they remember. Online you’ll find Mexican Coke cultists offering tips about tracking down grocers who serve a primarily Latino clientele. Surely this is part of the fun — nobody wants to be a snob on behalf of a product that’s easy to obtain."

The History of Hacking meets the History of Social Media

Last but not least...

Bogusky gets out of the Ad Business

"Unless you’ve been living under a copy of Ogilvy on Advertising lately you’ve noticed with a combination of curiosity, and perhaps dread, that every day what we do becomes more like the movie and television business. For some of you the lines may have blurred between what you do and the publishing business. And if you are on the cutting edge you find yourself spending time harnessing games, industrial design, architecture and interactive apps to help build our clients’ businesses.

It’s no coincidence that we find ourselves spending more and more time in these disciplines. These are our sister professions. All of us sharing a common industry. Advertising, movies, music, television, publishing, architecture, industrial design and graphic design."

Another Brisk Stroll through Stuff

Selling Music and the 1% Principle

“He forgot there was a number lower than one percent.”
Reminds me of many stories told when another banner is sold based on direct response metrics alone.

The Other Howard Gossage Quote

“To explain responsibility to advertising men is like trying to convince an eight-year-old that sexual intercourse is more fun than a chocolate ice cream cone.”

Another Economist Mag Didjaknow?

Some "Holy Shit" numbers from TIVO about timeshifting

Not surprisingly, a higher-rated show means more timeshifting which means no one watching your ad. Maybe it's better to kick it on re-runs of Three's a Company. Might only be nine people watching it, but at least they're more likely to actually see your crappy info-ad.

A Brief History of Social Media

From Phone Phreaking in the 1950's to now. Awesome stuff.

Understanding Users of Social Networks

Lots of dudes, checkin' out chicks. Facebook fancy woos the rich, while MySpace rules the hicks. Save your money on banners, cuz, money don't by you clicks. Werd. You heard?

"'To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy,' he continues. A good social strategy essentially uses the same principles that made online social networks attractive in the first place—by solving social failures in the offline world. Firms should begin to do the same and help people fulfill their social needs online."

Are Your Friends Making You Fat?

"Good health is also a product, in part, of your sheer proximity to other healthy people. By keeping in close, regular contact with other healthy friends for decades, Eileen and Joseph had quite possibly kept themselves alive and thriving. And by doing precisely the opposite, the lone obese man hadn’t."

The Marshmallow Test and Delayed Gratification

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

That's One Big Internet Right There

My Top Ten Favorite Fetishes
Arachibutyrophilia - Excessive interest in peanut butter.
"I discovered this when the couple that lived beneath me got into a bit of trouble. They'd invited another couple to join them, and the other female had a severe — and undiagnosed — allergy to peanut butter. Moments after they'd smeared her with the chunky goo, her breathing stepped up toward hyperventilation, and even when scrubbed down with wet towels, her skin took on the bloated, bubbled texture of a salted cane toad. (And I feel professionally obliged to report that while concerned, her partner nonetheless showed unmistakable signs of arousal.) Within fifteen minutes, she resembled a giant tongue, and would never be able to tolerate even the whiff of peanut butter again."

If I had a dollar... (via)

Top Ten Ironic Ads from History

The Uniform Project
As an exercise in sustainable fashion, one foxy lady wears one dress every day for an entire year. Of course, as rules sometimes do, it unleashed creativity rather than stamping it out. (via)

Radical Idea Creation from BrainStore
"Imagine a CEO, CFO and a junior sales manager of our coffee company cutting magazines together with a 40 year old mom, some students, an office guy, a travel manager and an Italian cook with some loud MTV music on background. After three minutes they will run trough the yard competing who writes ideas faster. After seven minutes they will draw pictures using gouache. After this stage, about 1000 “raw ideas” are expected to be produced."

Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video

Developing Your Own Planning Style

Developing your own planning style

View more documents from adliterate.

The Future of the Media Agency
"Making predictions for what's going to happen in media next week is hard, let alone undergo the ambitious challenge of trying to second guess the next five years. However, we believe our vision, which is based on rigorous research, conversations with key influencers and the collation of pertinent data and statistics, is not far-fetched. In fact, most of the predictions we make are grounded in today's reality; we are building the foundations now for a future-proof media agency in five years. So, take a trip into the future with us, use your imagination and tell us what you think."

From Wikipedia: The Hermeneutic Cycle
Heidegger (1927) developed the concept of the Hermeneutic Circle to envision a whole in terms of a reality that was situated in the detailed experience of everyday existence by an individual (the parts). So understanding was developed on the basis of "fore-structures" of understanding, that allow external phenomena to be interpreted or in a preliminary way. Gadamer (1975) developed this concept, leading to what is recognized as a break with previous hermeneutic traditions. But while Heidegger saw the hermeneutic process as cycles of self-reference that situated our understanding in a priori prejudices, Gadamer reconceptualized the hermeneutic circle as an iterative process through which a new understanding of a whole reality is developed by means of exploring the detail of existence. Gadamer viewed understanding as linguistically-mediated, through conversations with others in which reality is explored and an agreement is reached that represents a new understanding.^[2] The centrality of conversation to the hermeneutic circle is developed by Donald Schön (1983), who characterizes design as a hermeneutic circle that is developed by means of "a conversation with the situation."

Brooks on Psychology

David Brooks had a pretty cool article discussing the drawbacks of evolutionary psychology in Friday's NY Times. In it he says:

"But individuals aren’t formed before they enter society. Individuals are created by social interaction. Our identities are formed by the particular rhythms of maternal attunement, by the shared webs of ideas, symbols and actions that vibrate through us second by second. Shopping isn’t merely a way to broadcast permanent, inborn traits. For some people, it’s also an activity of trying things on in the never-ending process of creating and discovering who they are.'

My initial reaction to that paragraph was praise for the fantastic insight. Although, within a few minutes, the beauty of the language had worn off a bit and I was left with the sort of - well, no shit - feeling.

All these arguments tend to group themselves into neat little categories. Nature vs. nurture, good vs. bad, rational vs. emotional, when most of our world is far too complex and illogical to paint with such broad strokes. I mean really, it's in our nature to believe we are more of a product of nurture. It's our emotions that cause us to ascribe rationality to subconscious thought processes. It can be the bad in us that causes us to judge others for things we deem bad. We're all shades of gray swimming through overwhelming inputs seeking efficiency of story, often at the sacrifice of objective reality.

No real point here, but just got me thinking that a little balance, a little moderation of thought and humility could probably do us all some good.

Now time for you to say, "Well, no shit."

All the Stuff That's Fit to Type

Chances that You Will Believe This: High

Books and Music that Make You Dumb
"With his two Web sites (which have crashed from too much traffic), Booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr and Musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr, Griffith used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence."

Visualizing the US Power Grid
Cool stuff from NPR. Our power grid is ffffucked.

Google Commissions "Ads" for Chrome (which I miss since switching to Mac)

More on Anomaly and Lauren Luke
Probably worth another post to describe my man crush on Anomaly. Lauren Luke's new line is about to hit the stores. I'll be watching closely.

Smashing Pumpkins Offer Subscription to Recording Process
This makes 1998 Paul go crazy, and 2009 Paul appreciate a good idea that will translate into another mediocre album.

"Corgan said in a statement, "The goal is to create a working model that is not profit motivated but rather information and access motivated. In exchange for a fixed resource base fans will be let inside in an unprecedented way to the creative process of preparing to make the next (SMASHING PUMPKINS) album while also inspiring an interactive dialogue that will help shape the work."

The Psychology of the Sale
"Over time, the presence of sales can really diminish a brand. I used to buy all my clothes at the Gap - I'm stuck with the fashion sense of an 8 year old boy - but, starting a few years ago, I noticed that everything at the Gap appeared to be on sale. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) It triggers deflationary expectations - why buy the t-shirt now when you can buy the same t-shirt for less in two weeks, after yet another "final" sale? and 2) It erodes the quality of the brand, at least as perceived by consumers. I implicitly assume that Gap has to put t-shirts on sale because they're of lower quality, when the actual reason might have to do with the overproduction of some factory in Turkey, or an inventory accounting rule, or some other banal corporate mistake."

Chief Culture Officer...I fear for Detroit.

Ahh...consolidation over quality or cool. A great read as usual from Grant McCracken on the lack of innovation within the walls of GM. And they're certainly doing no more to solve the problem today than they were yesterday.

"There was one competitive opportunity remaining, the place were the Americans could beat the challengers.  The real chance for Detroit was design, to make cars that vibrate with the cultural moment as deeply and profoundly as they had in the 1950s (McCracken 2005).  Harley Earl was that man.  It is impossible to reckon the skill with which he spoke to (and for) the culture of the post-war period.  It is impossible to calculate how much money he made for General Motors. 

What Detroit needed was a man or a woman in every C-Suite who understood what was happening in culture.  It needed someone who understood what was happening in the minds of boomers (and why they were so deeply wedded to German luxury cars), in youth culture (when the muscle car culture was back with new and strange differences, and why cars like the funny, boxy little Scion was flourishing), in the life, the heart and the mind of the soccer mom (for many of whom the mini-van felt like the end of everything and especially their youth and their joy).  Detroit needed a senior executive who understood the consumer, and the American feeling for mobility in every sense of the word."

Read the whole thing here.

Around the Web Again.

Engagement Rings by Job Title
Apparently the idea of two-months salary for an engagement ring was an idea invented by Debeers in 1947. Artist Lee Gainer created a series of 20 prints from Lifeguard to A-list Actor.

Retail Experts are Better Placed for the Future
"Despite the 'down and dirty' reputation of retail (come on, admit it, you think retail's easy. It's all reactionary, no thinking, just do what you're ordered week in, week out), I think a background in it makes a planner, or anyone else in agency land for that matter, better placed for the future than most."

Spending Time Online is Essential for Young People
"Mizuko Ito, lead author of the study, says: "we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age."

Never Nude Land
Finally a place for me.

Republican Budget Alternative is Laughable
Seriously - they put their budget on a 70-year forecast based on completely made up information. Why am I not surprised.

Digital Media Isn't Mass Media for Cheap

Digital Media isn't Mass Media for Cheap

View more presentations from Bud Caddell.

Typographic Posters

Creative Whack Pack Gets iPhoned
The always awesome Roger von Oech brought his famous creativity exercises to the mobile phone...

The Personal Savings Rate from 1957-2007
Frightening...

Internet Equations

Cool Pop Song + Nice Childhood Memories + Clever Remixology = Propagatory Success

(Phoenix - Brat Pack Mashup - via MBV)