Archive for the 'Advertising' Category

Page 2 of 8

Two Significant Anniversaries That You Probably Would Have Ignored Were It Not For Moi

Published on January 27, 2009 in Advertising, Birthdays, Education, Entertainment and Technology. 1 Comment

While you were away, two important anniversaries came around and you didn’t even make plans to pop a cork or pop a top did you! Two defining moments for Boomers everywhere, and because I wasn’t at my computer to hound you, you would have just let them slip past on your calendar with no fanfare. I should make you all turn in your Boomer Cards immediately.

The seamless Aluminum beer can will be 50 years old this month. Before fine people at Coors introduced the seamless aluminum can, we were forced to drink from tin cans with a seam. Heavy, man. Heavier, man. It’s no wonder Boomer boys are less physically fit, it would take twice as many aluminum cans to equal the weight of the tin can. Pumping iron indeed. Boomers invented it: we called it pumping tin.

That can ultimately spelled the demise of the tin beverage can developed in the mid-1800s. Industry officials say the development of the Coors aluminum can forever changed the way people drink beer and other beverages.

Needless to say while one industry died, two others sprang springed sprung to take it’s place: the sheet aluminum business and the recycling of aluminum business.

But of course we really know that it’s what’s inside that is truly recyclable.

The Apple Macintosh Computer was introduced on January 24, 1984. When Bill Gates was saying there was no reason to build a computer for the masses, Steve Jobs (who isn’t dead) was saying, here Bill, let me take that Graphic User Interface (GUI) you aren’t using off your hands. He and some other guys who aren’t dead ( Kawasaki and Woz ), made and marketed a cute little computer than had happy faces and little trash cans. The place where you put things looked like – gasp – file folders!

The Mac was the first computer for many Boomers where one could actually focus on being productive rather than learning how to make an application actually work! I won’t rant and rave about Apple and how it sucks that it isn’t the dominant computer in the whole world. Bill Gates is a Prick.

But this was a defining moment in marketing -

Happy Anniversary Seamless Beer Cans and Apple Macintosh. I’ve learned to live without both. But it was fun back in the day!

Black Friday Survival: Always Buy Knives

Published on November 28, 2008 in Advertising, Money and Shopping. 2 Comments

Nancy butt dialed me three times this morning. She headed out about 6:30 because she loves to shop. This isn’t her earliest venture into the Black Friday dawn. She and a friend actually hit some 4 a.m. sales a couple years back. She did get a helluva bargain today … some $150 knives for $39.99. But she had to “game” the system. She stood in line for 45 minutes only to find out when she reached the checkout that the knives she picked up didn’t scan at the sale price.

The last butt dial was her standing at the checkout. She raised a suitable stink… she can be really killer kind when motivated… quietly explaining to the checker that she didn’t stand in line for 45 minutes only to give up her knives. Twelve knives. One extra long, one with a serrated edge, one cleaver, one boning knife, and eight steak knives. Her voice was rising in pitch and volume from a very calm level as she read the label listing all the knives she held in her hand.

You know who needs to have Black Friday sales?

Liquor stores – red wines, absinthe, blackberry wine, Black Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, oh hell, put it all on sale!
Pharmacies – the drug counter
Bible stores – what says Christmas more than knocking a Christian out of the way to buy an Advent Calendar for 75% off?
Funeral Homes – preplanning is important. Black means mourning. It’s a natural. BTW: I have my arrangements put on my credit card with instructions that my heirs should protest the charges to see if Citibank has a resurrection plan.
Dermatologists – for blackhead removal
and the piece de resistance: the electric utility – a rolling blackout!

Feel Guilty About Raising Prices? Time to Quit

Published on October 7, 2008 in Advertising, Politics and Shopping. 6 Comments Tags: no more signs.

Signs pretty much irritate the crap out of me. Can you name a sign that we couldn’t live without? Signs are a visual blight on my line of sight. If I can see a sign, I don’t like it. If driving or walking with my eyes closed was an option, I’m there.

C’mon. Can you imagine if every time Wally World or ShellEssoSpeedway changed their prices they put up a sign “explaining.”

Dear Wally World Customers:

Because of the dramatic decrease in our costs by not providing health care for our part-time employees, and because we hammered our vendors into unprofitability, and because we are buying from ShenZowie, China, we are lowering our prices. We have tried to keep prices high to help our share price and reward stockholders and line our corporate executive’s pockets with higher bonuses, but there is a limited supply of outrageous luxuries in Bentonville. So we are lowering our prices. We regret this and will raise them again as soon possible and will post a sign indicating our intentions.

It’s a bakery fer chrissakes. Who knows the daily price of scones? Is there a futures market for scones?

By the way, don’t forget to visit DogsWithScones.com

Yeah, let’s just do away with all signs. Except this one.

The Geezer Betrayal: The Unkindest of Them All

Published on May 6, 2008 in Advertising and Empty Nesters. 2 Comments Tags: boomer marketing, tom peters.

If you had to guess, wouldn’t you think this guy

would believe the best way to market to people like him, would be to hire people like him?
Wrongo – Chemo Sapiens!

The New York Times recently reported on Lee’s (edit: the guy pictured) remarks at a big ad world confab. He seems to have said that the key to getting with it in the New World Order of advertising-marketing is hiring lots of youngsters and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future.

I’ve read one excellent management book in my life. Read it more than once. It was written by Tom Peters. I liked it so well I had the four managers that reported to me read it and we discussed it one chapter at a time. That was about 30 years ago. Every once in a while, I’ll bump up against his writing and he is still railing away.

He seems pretty cool, sent me a cap once. And he’s Sixty+.

I normally avoid reading about marketing to boomers because it’s just too big a topic and unless you are in marketing, it’s pretty boring stuff. But there have been enough posts and comments on this blog others I read about marketing to us, that his reaction struck a chord.

Here’s what Peters thinks (about marketing to boomers):
Awful.
Dumb.
Disgraceful.
Insane.
Stupid.
Pitiful.
Embarrassing.
It fits right in here! I’ve been all those things.

A couple weeks ago, I approached Valueclick to start putting ads on my site. Turns out, I wasn’t the right “fit” for their advertisers. Their loss. I think they are waiting for me to get over 10,000 readers a day.

There may be a couple dozen individual bloggers – without a political agenda – that write for boomers. Most of them The great ones are in my blog roll.

Smart marketers would have a whole houseful of geezers yapping away if they really wanted to be successful.

I’m working on Sergey and Brin, so I’ll leave it to Peters to work on Clow. While I’m pissing in the wind, he can be pissing in Clow’s ear.

BFD and Dildoos and Dutch Bags

Published on May 1, 2008 in Advertising. 9 Comments

Have you seen the commercial where the guy is having an out of body experience and he calls himself a “dildoo?”

Am I the only one that thinks the real word “they” wanted to use was “dildo?” Kind of like Domino’s used BFD, and said it stood for Big Fantastic Deal.

Next up: “Buy this or you’re a dutch bag.”