How is it that I can order custom imprinted Fruit Roll Ups, but I can’t get a pound of pink only Starbursts? I can get any color of M&M (same parent company) separated out and their colors don’t even taste different!
Mars, if you are out there, please hear my plea and end the forced variety of lemon, cherry and orange Startbursts with your pristine strawberry concoction. I suppose you are trying to encourage me to be friends with people who can tolerate these other flavors so we can split a pack, but that’s an awful lot to ask for a candy fix. I am ready to customize you and order you in bulk if only you’ll provide and outlet.
Maybe it’s because I work. Maybe it’s because I am new to the Mom game. Maybe it’s because I don’t DVR Ellen. Whatever the reason, I missed “In the MotherHood” when it debuted last Mother’s Day. MotherHood is a series of 5 webisodes. The situations are submitted by and voted on by real life moms responding to assignments such as sharing their child’s most public meltdown or most embarrassing potty training story. Professional screen writers turn the winning plots into truly funny scripts that are then acted by Leah Remini and Chelsea Handler and directed by Peter Lauer (who automatically has my respect because he has 3 director turns on Arrested Development on his long resume).
The site is “co-conceived” by Suave & Sprint and hosted by Microsoft. I’m not sure what those 3 brands have to do with each other, but the numbers, submissions, and end creative product seem to indicate success in creating a hub for mothers to share stories. The series was promoted and aired on the “Ellen” show which drove online viewership. On a quick peruse of the forums, I saw that many of the threads are still active months after the voting and content closed. I look forward to checking back to see what choices the brands will make to continue the engagement now that they have assembled such a large audience. Maybe the goal is just to host the conversation, advertise on the margin, and benefit from the brand glow.
By the way, the reason I found out about this expos facto was on an “encore” presentation of Leah Remini’s guest appearance on Chelsea Lately. Now that, I DVR.
I am lucky enough to still be on the holiday mailing list for my long lost friends on the left coast – Cole & Weber United. This year, their greeting was so good that I feel moved to share. Instead of sending a boring paper card, they sent an integrated media map for spreading CWU holiday cheer through every buzzy vehicle of the year – including YouTube, flash mobs, gaming product placement, street teams and a Times Square execution. My favorite inclusion here is the new mandatory new marketing element – the Facebook strategy. That will make this piece carbon datable to 2007 in years to come.
I’m guessing that CWU, like most agencies, feel the pressure satisfying the request of clients who want to include every shiny new marketing vehicle in their programs – regardless of their appropriateness. While some may be just the ticket to reaching your audience, starting with a foregone conclusion inhibit client/agency partnership in putting together a strategy to reach customers where they are and engage them in a meaningful conversation or brand experience. In the interest of full disclosure, I once did this to CWU when I was their client and they were trying to indulge me by experimenting with a branded character MySpace integration. That sounds “so 2005″ now, doesn’t it? Let’s hope 2008 is the year of meaningful customer engagement and less meaningless noise.
Like the rest of us, I am thinking about resolutions today. 2008 is going to hold a lot of change for my family – a move, new jobs, and a new city among them. Because of the impending changes and my past resolution success record, I am going to start off making resolutions for what I am going to tackle for the next 13 days until I begin my new gig and my weekly commute to Washington, D.C. Every day for the next 13 days, I commit to:
a) Spend 30 quality minutes interacting with the baby with no distractions
b) Blog (this one does not count – a little too meta)
c) Work out
d) Take a family walk – fresh air is good for everyone
e) NOT eat French Fries or any other member of the tasty friend potato class – including tots, browns, and the wedge. If my life was a cartoon, my arch nemesis would be a perfectly crisped golden brown french fry wearing a black hat and cape who lurks around every corner, waiting to tempt me to the dark side.
f) Not feel guilty about everything else I am not working on while I’m trying to be diligent about the above.
Happy New Year everyone! I wish you luck thinking about your own resolutions – be they new year or new fortnight.
When I say I am a Bruce Hornsby fan, I do not say so lightly. I have been a fan for more than half of my years on this earth and, because of the web bringing niche audiences together, there has never been a better time to be a fanatic. The live shows will make you a convert – there is never a setlist, always improvisation, and songs from the BH catalog get sewn into the Dead, classical, bluegrass, and folk – no 2 shows are the same. Like most jam band followers, Bruce fans are hungry for news of setlists and live recordings. I frequently visit the definitive fan site and, less frequently, check his official site.
The holiday update of the official site is indeed worthwhile. Instead of just writing a holiday greeting to fans (in fact the photo in the greeting is laughably bad with lots of closed eyes), Bruce & his band gave fans what they really want – a collection of live tracks from the summer 2007 shows that are downloadable FOR FREE for a limited time. Bruce makes a few live shows available for purchase each year at Bruce Hornsby Live, but surprising diehards with free tracks recognizes that we’re in it for the music and will keep us engaged in the long droughts between live experiences. My guess is that this will also get some folks thinking about buying even more.
If you haven’t heard a Bruce track since “The Way It Is”, download Disc 1, Part 2 and check out “Gonna Be Some Changes Made”, or Disc 2, Part 1’s “Fortunate Son -> Comfortably Numb”.
