Word-of-mouthers: Advertising blows

The World of Mouth Marketing Association is hosting a conference in September titled “Word of Mouth vs. Advertising,” and has launched a blog to drum up publicity for it. Early posters to the blog have taken the group’s pugilistic ethos to heart. Zane Safrit, CEO of an online conference-calling startup, jauntily declares, “I think advertising’s a near complete waste of time except for entertainment,” and advises companies to just create good products and services that people like. A long post by George Silverman, a psychologist turned marketing consultant, offers a blistering critique of what he calls “saturation advertising.” His point? Traditional advertising kills WOM, since it makes everyone aware of a product, and people only tell other people about things they think they don’t know about. “It may be the case,” Silverman says, “that if less advertising were done, more and better WOM campaigns could do much better.” As for the agencies behind these nefarious deeds, Ian McGee, CEO of WOM firm Vocanic, has this to say: “My experience [is] the traditional agency guys are hopelessly routed [sic] in interruption advertising—a model that is going the way of the dinosaur. And most are terrified of data, and hate the idea of creating a real dialogue with the customer.” Visit the blog for plenty more non-decaf fare.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)
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iPod, cell phone, to wed in public ceremony

Finally! As we gadget-hounds are already so burdened with carrying around separate cell phones, PDA, AND iPods, a solution has been found. There have been reports over the last few days that the ubiquitous iPod is about to mate with—yes, the cell phone. That Motorola in your pocket that already rings in an embarrassing Busta Rhymes song is about to store your whole musical library as well. This story indicates that Apple Computer and Motorola plan to release a cell phone equipped with iTunes, and the big unveiling is happening Sept. 7 in San Francisco. Microsoft’s Bill Gates predicted the death of the iPod, and something tells AdFreak that a sinister force of the universe conspired with him. OK, confession time: who remembers when a calculator watch was a hot, advanced piece of tech equipment?

—Posted by Celeste Ward

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2)

White Sox present Mullet Night

I like the White Sox, mostly because I grew up south of Chicago. But today I like the White Sox more than ever, because this Friday, Sept. 2, is Mullet Night at U.S. Cellular Field, sponsored by a hair salon called Great Clips. A number of people I went to high school with will no doubt turn up for the festivities, which will include a Mullet March (not a Million Mullet March, but still). “March your mullet over to Gate 1,” the Sox Web site says, “where mulleted men and women will parade their classic cuts around the warning track. Wigged mullets will be accepted.” The first 500 mullet marchers will get a free White Sox Mullet Night T-shirt. Those who can’t make it to the ballpark can visit RateMyMullet.com instead to get their mullet fix.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Insert giant head of movie star here

So, I can’t say I’ve ever waxed nostalgic about movie posters but it seems everyone else is. Check out this missive about the blandness of today’s one sheets. He’s right, they do all look the same, giant heads of stars all trying for top billing. Even pop culture bible Entertainment Weekly, in its most recent issue, dissects the upcoming Cameron Diaz release, In Her Shoes, which showcases the starlet over her co-stars, Shirley MacLaine and Toni Collette. (Two weeks ago, the magazine—aping an Adweek favorite feature—pointed out the similarities between the posters for Just Like Heaven and My Date with Drew. Subscriptions are required for both EW links.) So maybe these people do have a point. But considering that most Hollywood films are retreads of each other (or past television shows), perhaps the trend isn’t that surprising.

—Posted by Aaron Baar

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow! Those intrepid citizen journalists!

It proved nigh impossible to stop watching cable TV coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last night, and now at least two broadcast networks are devoting an hour of prime time to the disaster tonight. Still, there’s one story, covered during every recent crisis, that we could do without: the “citizen journalist” story. You know, the one in which journalists who are paid to cover big stories express amazement at those plucky everyday folks who record the chaos around them using video, cell-phone cameras and their blogs and—wow!—post it on the Internet. Isn’t that amazing?! Of course, it’s not. What is amazing is how posts from people directly affected by the disaster are often so much more compelling than anything a paid journalist can produce. By the way, here’s a link to the Red Cross donation form.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Credit: UPI Photo/Vincent LaForet/Pool

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wal-Mart T-shirts. Always.

While on our family’s annual pilgrimage through New England over the last few weeks, we made our customary stop at the Wal-Mart in Littleton, N.H., since we live in a Wal-Mart-deprived area of the universe. On this visit, we encountered two twentysomething guys engaging in what looked like an attempt at Wal-Mart irony. One wore a T-shirt identifying him as a Wal-Mart shareholder; the other an athletic-team T-shirt that, instead of containing the name of a sports team, carried the “Wal-Mart. Always” slogan. They seemed to delight in their shopping. Anyway, when we got home, I tried to Google those T-shirts, since neither of them looked like official Wal-Mart merchandise. I didn’t find either one, but I did find a predictably impressive array of T-shirts and other paraphernalia that invokes the name of the country’s largest retailer. They range from this one, which replicates a Wal-Mart receipt on its front, to legions of anti-Wal-Mart wear. As you might expect, if you’ve followed Wal-Mart’s dust-ups with the state of Vermont, there’s a “Sprawl-Mart” T-shirt available from the Vermont Natural Resources Council. Despite the state’s historically anti-Wal-Mart stance (although at least two Vermont communities have caved), there are always about as many Vermont license plates in the parking lot of the Littleton Wal-Mart as there are ones from New Hampshire.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3)

AmEx loses its U.S. Open mojo

What a shame for American Express. The company, which based its U.S. Open ad campaign around Andy Roddick, has seen its tagline—“Have you seen Andy’s mojo?”—become a punch line, as Roddick lost in the first round of the tournament last night. Sportswriters are all over it. “Sometimes, reality is more twisted than an ad campaign,” Selena Roberts writes in The New York Times this morning. “Every disquieted fan who had been sitting in the stands had to ask, ‘Have you seen Andy’s mojo?’ ” The mojo ads, ubiquitous online in the past several days, are nowhere to be seen this morning. Now we’re curious what AmEx might do with the TV spots. UPDATE: I have run across the online ads this afternoon. They look downright sad.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

‘Weather Man’ off again, on again

The saying in New England is, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes.” Were it not for Paramount’s suddenly firmed-up release date for The Weather Man, there might be another saying: “If you think you might like The Weather Man, just wait 10 months.” For reasons termed “normal delays” by the studio, the Nicolas Cage/Michael Caine drama, directed by Clio and Cannes Lion winner Gore Verbinski, has been put off so long that it’s leading to all sorts of speculation on message boards. Paramount released the trailer months ago, pulled it and now has it back in theaters. With a release date of Oct. 28 just announced, who knows if the trailer will run until then or be pulled again? At this point, even infrequent moviegoers can doubtless recite the lines from it.

—Posted by Gregory Solman

Published on August 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pastoral personal ad is a big hit

With circulation scandals and lackluster ad sales, newspapers and magazines already have a pocketful of worries. Now comes a threat to the print medium’s classified ads: farmers who plant personal ads in their fields. Case in point is New York cattle-and-crops farmer Pieter DeHond, a 41-year-old divorced father of two. He planted a lovelorn message in his cow pasture using 50-foot (15-meter) letters made from corn stalks. The pastoral plea states: “S.W.F Got-2 [heart] Farm-n.” The response since the May planting of the cornstalk communiqué? More than 700 replies! (Most presumably got in touch after reading media reports like this one, not after flying over the farm.) DeHond has responded to only one reply so far: a California gal who had a pizza delivered to DeHond’s farmhouse. “A very attractive woman” is how DeHond described his new friend to his hometown paper, the Daily Messenger of Canandaigua, N.Y. The Messenger and other papers ought to be worried about the response rate for DeHond’s manure-enriched missive of almost 6 percent of Canandaigua’s population of 12,000. Your average direct marketer is happy with less than half that. Has DeHond stumbled upon the next great communications touch point?

—Posted by Steve McClellan

Photo: AP/Robert Mincer

Published on August 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where to place your travel-show sponsorship

Anyone can score a travel show these days. No longer the domain of British world travelers turned PBS hosts, basic cable is bringing us the glossy exploits of such seasoned adventurers as Cameron Diaz, John Ratzenberger and Tara Reid. Diaz went Trippin for MTV, bumming around Nepal, Honduras and Tanzania. Ratzenberger is blathering on, Cliff Clavin style, on the Travel Channel’s Made in America, as he scours the U.S. for vestiges of American craftsmanship and branded entertainment. (Zippo lighters and Airstream trailers have been featured.) Even Reid is reveling her way around the Mediterranean for E! in a show called Taradise (“She’s improving world relations one party at a time!”). If these shows can lure advertisers, surely Celia Sandys, granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill, can secure a title sponsor for the documentary version of her book Chasing Churchill, about her grandfather’s travels. Let’s compare: Tara (almost) ran with the bulls. Churchill escaped from a Boer prison camp in South Africa. Tara parasailed with Paris Hilton and Paris Latsis. Churchill cruised with Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas. Maybe he never toured the Grand Canyon in an Airstream or lit his cigar with a Zippo, but he did save the free world from the Nazis. I think that merits a sponsorship.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit

Published on August 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1)