Stuffola

May 23, 2006

Older Americans Month

Only eight more days to celebrate Older Americans Month, apparently a U.S. tradition since 1963. I've developed a keen interest in all things oldster-related, probably because I turn 50 this year, but this particular bit of presidential pandering is completely new to me.

You must be asking yourself, what would Older Americans Month be without a theme? Greatly diminished, that's obvious. 1993's late and lame observation had no theme at all. But this year, I'm happy to report, we celebrate "Choices for Independence" and only cynical wisecrackers would read too much into the press release's loving description of The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, Medicare Part D.

Catchy motifs from the past include "Aging: An Experience for a Lifetime" and "Aging: A Lifetime Opportunity," so maybe the theme-building gig finally got outsourced. I can't predict future themes but given how few people have big bankrolls for retirement, I can think of a few themes that might resonate, including "Aging: Makes Dealth Look Good" and "Cat Food: Tastier Than It Looks."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 04:00 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2006

Pitching the Press: LG Mobile Phones Edition

Recently a PR practioner mailed me (and presumably many others) the following pitch. Is it good? Is it bad? Weigh in with your own critique.

"Once again, LG Mobile Phones is at the forefront of innovation in marketing efforts and initiatives. In particular, LG has entered two realms of marketing opportunity previously left untapped by mobile phone manufacturers.

"By aligning with superstar music producer Jermaine Dupri and Grammy nominated recording artist Mariah Carey, and developing 'LG Presents the Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri Post Grammy Celebration,' LG phones is intertwined with the entertainment industry on a level never before seen, with both performers and entertainment media.

"With their sponsorship of Cirque de Soleil's 'Delirium' tour, LG will have an intimate presence with the upwardly mobile, young professional audience that Cirque de Soleil performances tend to attract. These marketing initiatives have to potential to greatly expand LG's presence in key (and hard to reach) celebrity, young male and female demographics.

" 'LG Presents the Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri Post Grammy Celebration' was the hottest post-Grammy event in Hollywood. This exclusive event was attended by high-profile entertainers including Britney Spears, Anthony Keidis, Mischa Barton, Cedric the Entertainer, Carmen Electra and many more.

"All of these celebrities received their invitation on a video message featuring Mariah Carey and Jermaine Dupri, which was pre-loaded on a 'V' and sent to each individual. This opportunity offered LG the chance to supply product to the entertainment industry's most key influencers, with custom phones having been gifted to the two celebrity hosts (hi-res images of these one-of-a-kind 'V's by LG and the phone invitation are available upon request) in addition to the unique invitation.

"Another unique partnership that LG has forged during this process is with Red Engine Jeans, who have created a very tasteful co-branded jean that was included in the celebrity gift bags (images available.) Furthermore, LG's presence at this event--along with their entertainment devices like the 'V'--will give them exposure from entertainment media outlets that traditionally do not cover consumer products.

"Cirque de Soleil has long been one of the most surreal and mythical theater experiences available to audiences in North America. By signing on as one of three title sponsors, LG Mobile Phones will have the opportunity to generate greater brand awareness with the aspiring professional adults and sophisticated, affluent audience that attend Cirque performances. This 64 market tour allows LG to promote it's brand in cities and regions that are largely considered afterthoughts by mass marketing campaigns, essentially taking the form of a high-profile grassroots initiative."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2006

Google, Censorship & the Feds

When it comes to the Google flap, my friend Pete Gontier said it best in comments yesterday: "I gave up on 'don't be evil' when Google announced its IPO. Hello, Internet pundits? Google is now obligated by law to be evil, just like any other public company."

But the outcry continues. Execs from Google, Microsoft and Cisco have reportedly declined to speak at today's briefing on freedom of expression and Internet censorship in China before the Congressional Human Rights Cacus. (No word on Yahoo yet.) Can't say I blame them.

The briefing is an excellent opportunity for Amnesty International to spread the word about repressive, sucky Chinese policies and how American companies support them. And it's a fine platform for American representatives to market themselves as upstanding, freedom-loving, censorship-hating policitians who really, really deserve your vote next time around. But it's a no-win PR nightmare for company execs. Since they weren't legally compelled to show, they were smart to pass on the public grilling.

The exercise has piqued my curiosity, though. If Congress is so fired up over freedom of expression and Internet censorship, why stop at China? There's been a raft of expression-trampling behavior and censorship, Internet and otherwise, occuring right here at home.

*NASA's top climate scientist says the federal agency is trying to silence him.

*The New York Times fought OSHA for several years to get information on national injury and illness rates (which the Memory Hole, god bless it, has made public.

*Inconvenient information has a way of disappearing from federal web pages. (That a photo of President Bush and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is no longer available for public purchase and that the president refuses to authorize the release of others is really small potatos, if you ask me.)

Then again, perhaps it's best not to look to Congress for action on Internet censorship.

"The staff of U.S. Rep Marty Meehan wiped out references to his broken term-limits pledge as well as information about his huge campaign war chest in an independent biography of the Lowell Democrat" on Wikipedia, according to the Lowell Sun. "The Meehan alterations on Wikipedia.com represent just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffers at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six month."

Since there's such rampant tampering with Internet info in any case, why not turn it to your advantage? There's no Wikipedia entry for Deborah Branscum, for example, but I might warm up to rewriting history online if there was a Wikipedia article that made me seem younger, smarter and blonder than I am. My mom, Robbie Branscum, shaved a few years off her age for an autobiographical entry in a reference book. Guess she was ahead of her time.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2006

Glenn Fleishman Stalks Corporate Spin

I've long admired Glenn Fleishman for lots of reasons. He's really nice, he's really smart, he writes well (not as common as you might expect, even among professional writers) and he's alarmingly prolific. The freelance journalist, book author and blogger behind seven blogs is soft launching his eighth, about radio and the future of AM and FM right here.

Over at Wi-Fi Net News, Glenn has been covering the struggle to create municipal wireless networks for ages. He recently weighed in on plans (hopes?) to build a 1500-square-mile wireless network across Silicon Valley and highlights the gap between reality and the highly polished talking points parroted by corporate critics of municipal wireless.

“ 'Andrew Johnson, a Comcast Bay Area spokesman,…said companies that have spent billions of dollars to build wired networks shouldn’t be undermined by taxpayer funds focused toward a rival.' "

As Glenn notes, "Interestingly, virtually no municipal RFPs now involve taxpayer funds, but incumbents continue to play from that script. This RFP will involve roughy $40,000 from a few dozen cities."

” ‘The free market should be allowed to play out,’ he said. ‘A municipal subsidy, or a provision of a municipal WiFi network would not be the best use of taxpayer funds.’

"In other words, regardless of the fact that broadband firms have been spreading the notion that high-speed access is critical to individual businesses and entire communities, those communities have no right to ensure that they have what they want if they’re paying for it directly despite massive public subsidies paid to incumbents, which are never mentioned in the same breath as the 'billions' spent."

Exactly. Because if it's good for Comcast, it's good for the nation. Just keep saying it, no matter how bogus. Much of the time, spin wins.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

What Big Ears You Have, Mr. Disney

According to the Wall Street Journal (sub required), "Walt Disney Co. is in serious discussions to buy Pixar Animation Studios after months in which the two animation giants have been exploring ways to continue their lucrative partnership, according to people familiar with the matter.

"In the deal under discussion, Disney would pay a nominal premium to Pixar's current market value of $6.7 billion in a stock transaction that would make Pixar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs the largest individual shareholder in Disney."

So here's my question: If Jobs becomes, in essence, Mr. Disney, will the Mickey Mouse TV be tweaked to transmit program selection info back to the mother ship? I ask only because Apple was happy to do the same with the latest version of iTunes, at least until privacy fans got their knickers in a knot and the company backtracked. Which was only appropriate.

In any case, I prefer Target's 13-inch Hello Kitty TV/DVD player combo to the Mickey Mouse TV or the Disney Princess model. Even though all three of them are deeply twisted products. They're designed for 6 to 10 year olds. Because little kids need, deserve, and want to own personal TVs in the sick world we live in today, and their parents let them.

And that, dear reader, is even more depressing than Apple's slimy, utimately successful strategy for marketing stuff to us by monitoring the songs we click in iTunes.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2005

Conservative Punditry Pays (As Usual)

"As Tom DeLay became a king of campaign fundraising, he lived like one too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants - all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire.

"Over the past six years, the former House majority leader and his associates have visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.

"Public documents reviewed by The Associated Press tell the story: at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts with lush fairways; 100 flights aboard company planes; 200 stays at hotels, many world-class; and 500 meals at restaurants, some averaging nearly $200 for a dinner for two."

It's entertaining to read embittered AP writers carp about Tom DeLay's lavish lifestyle but it shouldn't come as a shock. Rulers are supposed to exist on a higher plane than the mere mortals who elect and support them. That's one of the reasons Time magazine was so relieved to see the last of Jimmy Carter's cardigan and embrace Ronald Reagan's imperial presidency. It was a long time ago and my memory may be going but I vividly recall reading an exceptionally gushing article about Reagan's stylish inauguration. The subtext was obvious: Washington breathes sigh of relief as low-rent peanut farmer and spouse slink home, replaced by classy, more appropriate power couple.

So Mr. DeLay represents business as usual, allbeit cranked up a notch or two compared to some of his peers. Apparently paying columnists--at least, conservative ones--is business as usual, too. Even more than I realized.

"A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients. Doug Bandow, who writes a syndicated column for Copley News Service, told BusinessWeek Online that he had accepted money from Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 articles over a period of years, beginning in the mid '90s."

How'd I miss that gravy train? Nobody offered me a bonus for my columns at Fortune.com or FamilyPC. Damn, I should have interned with the National Review instead of Mother Jones in college.

" 'It was a lapse of judgment on my part, and I take full responsibility for it,' Bandow said from a California hospital, where he's recovering from recent knee surgery." One is tempted to hope the surgery came after a kneecapping by indignant members of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Or Jon Carroll even. But that seems unlikely. As Dave Barry once noted, working journalists tend to have poor do-it-yourself skills.

"Bandow isn't the only think-tanker to have received payments from Abramoff for writing articles. Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Institute for Policy Innovation, says he, too, took money from Abramoff to write op-ed pieces boosting the lobbyist's clients. 'I do that all the time,' Ferrara says. 'I've done that in the past, and I'll do it in the future.'

"Ferrara, who has been an influential conservative voice on Social Security reform, among other issues, says he doesn't see a conflict of interest in taking undisclosed money to write op-ed pieces because his columns never violated his ideological principles."

You know the punchline: That's because he doesn't have any.

"Ferrara's boss has a very different take on the Abramoff op-ed writing than did his peers at Cato. 'If somebody pinned me down and said, Do you think this is wrong or unethical? I'd say no,' says Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation. Giovanetti says critics are applying a 'naive purity standard' to the op-ed business. 'I have a sense that there are a lot of people at think tanks who have similar arrangements.' "

I'm beginning to get that sense myself. I'm lovin' the logic here. Other people do it, so it's okay. I'd write it anyway, so it's okay. I truly believe it, so it's okay.

If these payments are on the up and up, then why weren't they public knowledge to begin with? Why were there no disclosure statements so the poor saps who read the columns and watch these guys preen during TV appearances and listen to their self-important utterances over the radio know exactly where the pundits get their paychecks?

And if payments on the side are such a fine practice, if they are simply rewards for doing what the pundits would be doing in any case, then why aren't other people getting them? Why aren't you getting a little extra from those nice lobbyists for the good job you did last month? Why isn't the grocery clerk getting a little extra for her great bagging skills? Or your doctor? (Oh, right. Maybe she is getting a little something extra, although not from Abramoff.)

There's a term of art for people like Bandow, Ferrara and Giovanetti but sleaze doesn't entirely do them justice. These folks aren't journalists or editors but they play them on TV. As a result, their slimy dealings taint actual journalists and editors. Which sucks for a lot of reasons, including the fact that we're plenty capable of screwing up on our own. So guys, give it a rest.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 02:03 PM | Comments (1)

December 19, 2005

Pharma Marketing No Threat?

An editor at a medical education company says the WSJ article I blogged about last week probably won't hurt the freelance medical ghostwriter quoted in the story. The editor doesn't seem to believe that industry marketing, at least marketing from medical education companies, is a threat to, well, anything.

"There's really not that much they can do to cook the data, since the study reports are already on file with the FDA. If any cooking is going on, it's before the FDA filing, and the medical writers for those are employed at the pharma companies.

"It's true [pharma companies] want their marketing messages in the articles, but marketing messages tend to be things like 'steroid-sparing' or 'low incidence of injection-site events.' Not really too exciting."

Dullness take my hand. At least there's real money exchanged. Unlike a big chunk of the dubious gigs available on Craig's List ("Put as much of your work on the JuiceCaster Network as you wish on any subject you want – for free"), medical companies don't expect writers to take their pay primarily in glory.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2005

The Ghostwriter in the Machine

"Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that a 2000 article it published highlighting the advantages of Merck & Co.'s Vioxx painkiller omitted information about heart attacks among patients taking the drug. The journal has said the deletions were made by someone working from a Merck computer. Merck says the heart attacks happened after the study's cutoff date and it did nothing wrong." Merck should have tried a more fashionable excuse and claimed, say, that a company editor mistook the study for a Wikkipedia entry.

Merck's not the only one suffering. Poor Michael Anello. Tuesday's front-page story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) probably didn't much help his freelance writing career. "Ghost Story" leads by describing a 2001 article in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases that was ostensibly written by one Alex J. Brown, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Why then was it included as one of Anello's writing samples on his business web site? Because he wrote it. Most of it, anyway. The pharma companies have plenty of spinmeisters on hand for the pesky press but Anello is a solo practioner. Imagine picking up the phone and having a WSJ reporter on the other end. Yikes!

Anna Wilde Mathews writes about ghostwriters as the "open secret" of medical publishing. "Many of the articles that appear in scientific journals under the bylines of prominent academics are actually written by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies. These seemingly objective articles, which doctors around the world use to guide their care of patients, are often part of a marketing campaign by companies to promote a product or play up the condition it treats."

A handy chart illustrates how pharmaceutical companies fund medical researchers to study their products, then hire medical marketing and communication companies to oversee the production of articles based on those studies and bearing the name of those researchers as primary author even though, in some cases, they may not have added so much as a comma. (The comma example is mine, based on a conversation I had with a friend in the industry.) Talk about your closed system: it's sheer genius at work and the WSJ has excerpts from various documents to prove it.

The bad PR about Merck and the New England Journal of Medicine is probably just a brief hiccip for this smoothly humming marketing machine. As Wilde Mathews points out, ghostwriters help scientists (it's easier to author lots of articles if you don't have to actually write them all), journal editors (it's easier to edit clear, professionally written articles than amateur prose) and the pharmaceutical companies that underwrite them. You can bet pharma cos pay for approved marketing messages and approved marketing messages only, no matter what the companies claim publicly. I mean, would you pay to be trashed in print, even if the damaging facts were true?

Me neither.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

Web Notes: PDF Files

Please stop assaulting me with unidentified PDF files. Hell, with PDF files generally. Not you, gentle reader, those other folks out there. Those web wieners who've decided that PDF files are so darn swell there's no need to identify links that lead to them. Which means that innocent visitors looking for more info click hopefully on what appears to be a normal html link and then blam, there's yet another unwanted PDF file on the ground. That, my friend, is crappy marketing and the result of anal-retentive management.

Here's the thing: I want to know that there's a PDF file on the other end of the link *before* I click on it because PDF files require both time and space, items that are often in short supply here at Casa Branscum. It is true that web wieners are not committing rape, robbery or arson in this case, merely thoughtlessness, but it's annoying nonetheless.

Speaking of annoying, why is so much perfectly innocent information, especially info provided for the press, in PDF format anyway? Why must I download a PDF file to get background info on an executive instead of quickly checking an html page with that info? In Adobe's case, it's because the company developed Acrobat and the format. But a supposed global leader in Internet media and market research doesn't have that excuse--and by the way, Nielsen/NetRatings, time to start labeling those Latest Breaking Press Releases as PDF files, doncha think?

There are many fine uses for the PDF format. But it is not the universal web solvent and not an appropriate format for press releases. I'm not the only critic of this practice. It's just dumb, so stop already.

In unrelated news, I'm happy to report that grillz is now a more popular search term for enticing people to Stuffola than amputee. What a relief that Stuffola is finally attracting a less disturbed group of visitors (not that Stuffola has a problem with being disturbed). Welcome!

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

December 02, 2005

Spinning Iraq: Immoral, Ineffective or Both?

Why am I not surprised to discover that the U.S. military is paying a contractor to manufacture pro-U.S. articles that Iraqi publications are secretly paid to publish? That's right: Because the administration did virtually the same damn thing here in the United States. As you may recall, the main difference is that the secret beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse here in the U.S. were freelancer (or freelancers, who knows?) and columnists rather than newspapers and radio stations. (Speaking of largesse, The Hill notes that many of the former colleagues of bribe-glutton and ex-Republication Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham "are mulling what to do with tens of thousands of dollars they received in campaign contributions from Cunningham’s co-conspirators." Hey, life's a bitch.)

"As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. The articles, written by U.S. military 'information operations' troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times."

Kudos to LAT reporters Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi for their scoop, although you gotta wonder if it was practically handed to them given one clearly pissed-off anonymous source: " 'Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it,' said a senior Pentagon official who opposes the practice of planting stories in the Iraqi media." He or she must be late to the party. All the reigning rulers plant propaganda.

The lucky contractor churning out what the LAT calls "basically factual" but one-sided news stories is the Lincoln Group. The unsurprisingly closed-mouth company "won a $100 million contract with the Special Operations Command to assist with psychological operations," according to GovExec.com, which covers the Lincoln Group's sketchy history and the founder's Republican ties. (You just know the author got carpel tunnel trying to google the company into submission.) The 30-something founder, it turns out, has a Silicon Valley connection. Hey Dan Gillmor, know anything about Christian Bailey? He apparently moved to SF in the late 1990s, started an e-commerce company called Express Action in 1999, sold it, and moved on to better and clearly bigger things.

There are a couple of amusing items in the LAT piece.

"The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media ... comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled 'The Role of Press in a Democratic Society.' Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations."

Even though many of them are enormous profit-making enterprises, standards must vary widely among U.S. newspapers as well. How else to explain this nifty new reward program? (In the U.S., government propaganda is bad, while corporate propaganda is simply business as usual.) Then there's the following quote, which made me chuckle.

"Daniel Kuehl, an information operations expert at National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, said that he did not believe that planting stories in Iraqi media was wrong. But he questioned whether the practice would help turn the Iraqi public against the insurgency. 'I don't think that there's anything evil or morally wrong with it,' he said. 'I just question whether it's effective.' "

That is the question that has always haunted the people who pay PR practioners, covert or not. But that's not an issue for the Lincoln Group. The client is always right, and the Lincoln Group has 100 million reasons not to question the project. As it happens, I have a real flair for news headlines, especially in Arabic. Just holler, Chris, if you need another freelancer.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2005

Design Disappointment

Just got back from eyeballing the fashion-designer-decorated Christmas trees at the Birger Jarl hotel, which touts its design credentials with every drop of a press release.

"This is yet another interesting angle of our image, in which Swedish colour, form and design are in focus. The concept allows for many combinations of interaction between people, material and form," claims Marianne Hultberg, Managing Director of Hotel Birger Jarl, in a press release (I'd link but it's a PDF file). "It is especially exciting to be able to unite an old tradition with completely new concepts, to the delight of our guests and everyone in general," she says.

What a disappointment. It happens that I had an errand at Immanual Church, which appears to be part of the complex housing the Birger Jarl. It's not like I made a special trip, in other words, but my ten-year-old could have turned out something more interesting. A colorful, pulsating clump of mini trees made me think of America (except for the ceramic troll in front) but not, say, Design with a capital D. None of them did.

A couple were pretty, so that was something. (There's supposedly one dressed up as a Midsommar Maypole but I didn't spot it.) The Amnesty tree was worthy but dull, a real-life representation of the organization itself. (Hope one of the nice Amnesty volunteers doesn't come into my office right now and beat me to death with an Amnesty-logo-etched drinking glass, even though I deserve it.) One amusing tree was bedecked with tree-shaped air fresheners that had glossy fashion and ad pics glued on the back. But the display, on the whole, sucked. That doesn't make it an ineffective PR ploy, of course. The hotel was able to squeeze ink out of a variety of local newspapers and blogs so I suppose it paid off. But next time, hold a contest, make a big deal out of it and actually give the designers (by donating money to their favorite causes, perhaps?) a reason to feel more passionate about their creations.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

Hack Seeks Flack for Sizzling Nordic Coffee Breaks

I miss my PR and tech marketing buddies. Maybe one of them would be willing to relocate:

Ericsson Internet Payment Exchange AB (IPX) is one of the youngest divisions within Ericsson, delivering global payment and messaging solutions for SMS, MMS, Web and WAP. IPX facilitates payment and distribution of content by seamlessly interconnecting content providers, media companies, governments and consumer brands with mobile operators. In practice, this means services such as mobile ringtones, TV voting and much more. IPX can provide digital content to end-users around the world through a single point of contact. IPX is connected to 550 million subscribers and is live in 18 countries. The IPX team currently has some 80 employees.

Job Description
As PR and Marketing Communications Manager you are responsible for managing the overall marketing and communication plan of IPX worldwide. You will develop and refine the market message of IPX and also coordinate press and PR activities. The position includes planning and organization of industry events and trade fairs where IPX needs to be seen. You will update and maintain PR material - both for internal and external use - and also take responsibility for the internet and intranet sites. Driving competitor analysis will also be a part of the position.

You will work closely with the IPX team world wide and with other Ericsson Group functions. You are expected to build excellent relations in external areas, such as with customers, media, marketing companies and public institutions.

The position is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

I dunno. Global payment: sounds like yawnsville to me. Of course, those global messaging solutions are a whole 'nother story. So who's up for relocating? Not Phil Gomes, he moved recently. Not Melody Haller. Not Sam Whitmore. (Sam, would it kill you to have a little glowing bio info in html?) Not Renee Deger. Not Abbe Patterson nor Frank O'Mahony nor Sarah Hofstetter. Why not? Because I'll never convince them to leave the U.S.

Maybe Colin Smith. Only because he's too cute to fit in with all the well-fed males that dominate WebEx management. (Subrah, that's a joke but would it kill you to give Dean a little company next time there's a management opening?) Or perhaps Tom Murphy. After all, he's already in Europe. Both would be fun to have in town. Guys, think it over. We've got less sun but better food. One of you should take the plunge. Then we'll get together with Lennart Håkansson, who heads the technology practice at GCI. (Lennart, would it kill GCI to offer an English-language option?)

A marketing ménage à trios...What could be more exciting?

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

Marketing: The Dental Connection

Sequestered in Sweden, I miss out on most developments in hip-hop. So the rage for dental jewelry is news to me. Don't miss the slideshow running with a great LA Times article by Chris Lee, who writes:

"Hip-hop has had a well-chronicled love affair with conspicuous consumption. Gold 'rope' necklaces and 'iced out' wristwatches covered in precious stones have become standard issue within the field. And over the years, rap paeans similar to Nelly's 'Grillz' have been devoted to sky pagers, Adidas sneakers, chrome hubcaps and the diamond affluence of 'bling-bling.'

"But according to Bun B, whose grill spells 'Trill,' the title of his recently released album, across six top teeth, dental jewelry is more than simply an assertion of rappers' purchasing power.

" 'Gold teeth have evolved from being just pieces of metal on your tooth,' said the hard-core rapper. 'For some people, it's an expression of who they are: their 'hood, what they represent.... It's marketing, a promotion.' "

An expression of the hood? Yeah, right. But promotion? Ubetcha. This trend didn't make any sense to me until I got to that line. The hip-hop artists profiled in the piece all got their grillz at a place owned by a fellow hip-hop star but you can get something similar from Mr. Bling. I'm rather taken with the $500 fang covers but there are plenty of choices.

I still don't get it. Gold choppers remind me of Jaws, the James Bond villain in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. Of course there's no reason this particular trend would speak to me but clearly it has an audience or Mr. Bling would not be in business.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

Sony: Weirder and Weirder

Before the move to Sweden, I envisioned my kid embracing age-old Swedish traditions. I saw her in the woods, picking berries or mushrooms. In summer I imaged her splashing in the Baltic Sea while, in winter months, she'd skate across frozen lakes. Yeah, right.

The global sway of American pop culture had completely escaped my notice before the move. These days I get frequent reminders of it. The one this morning arrived in the form of earnest 11-year-olds swaying on stage while mumbling the lyrics to "Wake Me Up When September Ends" under the considerably more energetic direction of the spiky-haired music teacher at our elementary school. (You haven't lived until you've heard class 5A sing "twenty years has gone so fast.") I like Green Day too but jeez, whatever happened to "Du Gamla, Du Fria"?

Luckily Sweden isn't so Americanized yet that corporate execs here could secretly collect information from customer computers without expecting a jail sentence. Sony's probably big enough to survive this debacle (including lawsuits and more nasty PR) but what about First4Internet, the British company that provided both the flawed copy-protection software and the flawed uninstaller? To the glee of many, it appears that some of the free code used by First4Internet in the digital-rights management software it developed for Sony was used in a way that violated the terms of its copyright. As The Register put it, "The irony of a company using code from someone who circumvented DRM to develop an even nastier form of DRM - without even saying 'Thanks!' - will surely feature in geek trivia quizzes for years to come."

Confused yet? I have been so Andrew Kantor's column in USA Today is a gift of clarity about the degree of evil Sony has wrought. I understood that Sony's DRM format caused a security problem. But not the all-important fact that Sony's patch for "removing" the original software also created a security problem--among other failings. As Kantor explains:

"In order to get the patch, you have to provide your name, e-mail address, and other personal information to Sony. When you finally download the thing, it does the patch thing, and then it installs all sorts of new stuff that Sony doesn't tell you about. And it continues to send your listening habits to Sony and its partners, but now it has a bunch of your personal information too. But wait. Incredibly, there's more. The patch itself, it turns out, opens another big security hole."

Talk about criminal cluelessness. Sony first produced CDs that 1. secretly installed software on your computer, 2. secretly sent Sony information about the songs you listened to, 3. created a security hole in your PC and finally, 4. damaged the operating system if anyone tried to remove it. Sony's considered response to the outrage provoked by this news was first to deny there was a problem, then to demand lots of personal information before giving you a software fix that 1. secretly installed software on your computer that secretly sent Sony information about the songs you listened to and 2. created another, larger security hole in your PC.

No wonder I couldn't keep the story straight. It's pure Hollywood. And while it may be Sony's biggest screwup, it's not the company only screwup. "Sony's general incompetence when it comes to digital music boggles the mind," notes David Pogue. "First there was its 'iPod killer' music players, which were initially released without the ability to play a little file format called MP3. Then there was its disastrous Connect music store, whose design was so wasteful of screen space it was almost unuseable. And now the astonishing move to copy-protect all of its music CD's--ironically, in some cases, over the strident objections of the actual bands--with software that behaves like spyware."

As David points out, angry consumers aired their complaints in public forums like Amazon reviews, where they vowed not to buy affected CDs. Information Week went to town with this headline: Bloggers Break Sony. "There's a whole new set of rules that people have to live by," Factiva CMO Alan Scott told Information Week (Factiva just happens to make text-mining software to help execs track the gossip about their companies). "Whether it's blogs or user groups or NGOs, it's all about honesty and authenticity. This is just the latest painful example of a major company finding that the old tools and the old actions don't work."

Those old tools and old actions, also known as lies and lying, do work often enough. Just not this time. And as much as we'd all like to see these go away, I'm confident that in certain circles dissembling will always be in style. Even now I bet there's a bunch of executives nationwide using Sony's situation as a case study in crisis PR when it should be a case study in ethics. Sony's actions were wrong before they became public knowledge and they're wrong now. Too bad the company hasn't figured that out.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 12:44 PM | Comments (2)

November 17, 2005

Gay Scat, Nylons & Sony: The Evil of Stealth Software

As you probably know, Sony is busy backpeddling from a boneheaded decision to use a secret form of digital rights management software on its CDs. As the London Free Press explains, "This anti-copying software would automatically install on a user's computer when the music CD was inserted in a computer disk drive. ...The application was designed to install at a 'root' or system level and be disguised so it could not be found by normal means. Also, the computer user would need to read the entire user agreement and understand the wording in order to have any awareness of the application and how it would operate.

"Second, the media player Sony used with the CDs would send the Internet protocol address of the user's computer and their listening habits back to Sony -- without notice to the user. As if that wasn't enough to create a public relations problem, the application could be co-opted by a hacker. Designed to hide a legitimate objective (preventing unauthorized copying) it could also be used to hide other objects, including malicious code taking advantage of the Sony technology. It did not take long for an exploit to appear."

Insert Scream-like expressions of horrified PR execs here.

What's interesting about Sony's stupid move (aside from reminding us of the age-old truism that companies are perfectly happy to mislead their customers when it suits them) is how much it mirrors the common, sleazy tactics of so many Internet bottom feeders. My PC was hijacked recently thanks to an unknown person in Odessa and Integrated Search Technologies, which appears to specialize in software that both forces itself upon consumers and downloads third-party software PC users haven't requested.

The hijack happened because I wondered why this blog (and others) got a slew of trackback spam that promoted mainstream branded products (including autos from Ford and Toyota and phones made by Nokia) along with the usual collection of links to gay scat (who knows?), casino and big boob sites. So I followed a trackback link to a faux Nokia 7280 review at mobile-nokia.info/ nokia-7280-high-fashion-lipstick-phone while recklessly using IE (Foxfire is my usual choice).

Quicker than you can say foolhardy, a security warning appearing on my screen and asked if I wanted to install and run something from Integrated Search Technologies (IST). The answer was no no, a thousand times no but the evil scum who engineered this particular piece of marketing madness didn't care what I wanted. The first gray box was replaced with another: "Click YES to have access now."

The bottom of the IE window said it was “installing components…ysb_regular.cab” so I shut down the PC. When I restarted, a file called download.xxx was sitting on the desktop. After I deleted the program, I used Firefox (under my settings, it should *not* allow a web site to download or install software without my permission, although I did allow Javascript, to go back to the site and saw this:“Applet Installer Applet started." In a panic, I unplugged the PC. Later I turned off Javascript in Firefox and went back to the site. No problemo.

The WHOIS registry lists an Odessa address as the registrant behind the faux Nokia wonderland that hijacked my PC but he or she is not the power behind the sneaky software. According to DOXdesk, that dubious honor belongs to IST, which provides ysb_regular.cab or the ISTbar, “an IE toolbar, homepage- and search-hijacker."

DOXdesk is wildly helpful in explaining how it works: “Installed by ActiveX drive-by download on affiliate sites; typically porn in the case of XXXToolbar, from April 2003. An ‘aggressive’ downloader is usually used: if you refuse the download, a JavaScript alert complains that it won’t take no for an answer and opens the download window again.” In my case it didn't open the download window again, it simply downloaded the program despite my frantic attempts to stop it.

According to DOXdesk, all versions of this corrupt bit of coding "also install other third-party software which includes advertising." This is not the worst part, though. The worst part is this: the software “can download and execute arbitrary unsigned code from its controlling server. This is used both to update the software and to install third-party software.”

IST describes itself as "a leading Internet marketing solutions provider, specializing in effectively targeting valuable customers at the moment they are most interested in a particular product or service. IST targets the customers through several different delivery methods such as highly effective toolbars and plugins available for Internet Explorer." Plenty of folks would disagree with that description, including those who've filed a complaint with the FTC against the company.

Until recently, I would never have compared companies like IST and Sony but now I do. Smooth move, Sony. You gotta wonder why this behavior is legal for Sony, for Integrated Search Technologies or for any other company or individual. Regulators, are you listening?

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2005

Journalism 2.0: It's Not the Meat, It's the Motion

A while back I linked to Nicholas Carr, who had some interesting things to say about the rise of Web 2.0. For a guy who appreciates diversity of opinion, Jeff Jarvis seemed quick to dismiss Carr as an elitist curmudgeon after "linkjuice." Plenty of other smart folks have hammered him as well. Carr may be wrong about some things but he's not wrong about the near-religious cult inspired by the Internet and all the delicious, gleaming possibilities that seem to hover just beyond our grasp. Jarvis dismisses that point, perhaps because he hasn't spent as many years as I have interviewing tech execs peddling products that are Going To Change The World For The Better Forever and that, ideally, we're supposed to drop to our knees and worship on the spot.

But no matter--bloggers will blog, vloggers will vlogg and professional media companies will continue to morph if they must. So fuck the amateur vs. professional debate. Fuck the Web 2.0 debate. I want to see a debate about public service and the practice of journalism. What does it mean? What should it mean? Is do-gooder journalism even possible?

Here's the media revolution so far: Individuals, such as myself, get to play pundit from the comfort of our homes, while companies have tumbled to the wisdom of hiring bloggers to promote their brands. That the blogosphere is safe for both gasbag cranks and corporate communications isn't my idea of massive progress. Yes, I'm being cranky. There's tons of great stuff as well. But where's the public service journalism? The press has a duty to keep the public informed in large matters and small. Community listings are a public service, to be sure. But where are the muckrakers? There are a few, very few, practitioners and you gotta wonder if ambitious public service journalism has a future in the United States in any medium. Lord knows it hasn't made much of a splash in the recent past. That's no surprise. There's always been a conflict between profit-driven journalism and public service, and there always will be. As well as disagreement about what constitutes public service.

Here's what I mean by public service: life-saving or life-enhancing journalism on behalf of the public good. Journalism that triggers meaningful change (hectoring Dan Rather or Trent Lott, however satisfying, doesn't qualify). Journalism has never been an especially effective means for improving life for citizens (particularly the less-powerful ones), and it seems even less effective now than it once was.

My first journalism job was as a fact-checker for Mother Jones, which was a bastion of investigative journalism. I was young enough to believe that simply working there constituted a kind of public service. I was wrong. Writing about injustice is not the same as righting injustice. Even if conventional media organizations cared about making the world better, odds are they couldn't. Tell me I'm wrong about this. Show me how journalism--not all of it, just some of it--is actually attacking corruption, eradicating pollution or maybe just making life a little easier for the elderly neighbors next door. Seriously. I'm begging you.

A smart and happy crew of true believers is busy building a better Web. Will we build a better journalism? Dan Gillmor and others are working on it and good luck to them. I hope so-called citizen journalism doesn't stop at online bulletin boards. And that journalism 2.0, once it jells, will be a genuine cause for celebration rather than business as usual in a slightly flashier suit.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 07:41 PM | Comments (1)

October 12, 2005

Biz Author Faces Critic

Earlier this week Vision Thing's Ethan Johnson posted a podcast with Laurence Haughton, who authored It's Not What You Say...It's What You Do. It's rare that critics face the authors they've slammed online or elsewhere. But Laurence, who must be a Cluetrain fan, didn't take the dressing down lying down. He invited Ethan (and me, because I linked to the review, which was hilarious if deadly) to have a conversation about his book. Ethan accepted the invitation literally.

The podcast meanders a bit initially, then the author gradually takes over center stage for a long and detailed explanation of, and plug for, his book. He isn't defensive about the original review. Ethan doesn't attack like an ego-driven media pitbull but asks questions like the business manager he is. The result, for me at least, is a fairly engaging back and forth. Nobody capitulates, both guys are respectful and the conversation is a useful introduction to the topic. As well as whip-smart book marketing.

Why isn't professional broadcasting like this more often? Hmm, could be there's a future for this podcasting stuff after all. Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2005

Marketing Beverly Hills: Where's the Upside?

Is there gold in them there hills? Seems city officials are trying to cash in on the supposed appeal of the "iconic" brown Beverly Hills signs that mark city limits. According to the LA Times (registration required), it's not the slam dunk some assumed it would be.

"Marketing experts said they are not surprised that things haven't taken off as quickly as some Beverly Hills boosters hoped. 'There's a lot of clutter in the market,' said Deborah Cours, a Cal State Northridge marketing professor who has studied the value of Los Angeles-area place names. 'Is Beverly Hills as exciting as Rodeo Drive or Armani? Most boutiques have put a lot of money in their own brand names. They don't want to market someone else.'

"Cours suggested that tourists — particularly those from abroad — might be Beverly Hills' ideal target. 'In the international market Beverly Hills has a reputation of being trendy.' "

Those wacky foreigners, they'll fall for almost anything.

"Assessing the marketing value of a government entity can be tricky, Cours said. She noted that she once took part in a study of 'Los Angeles County' as a brand and found its main appeal was its connection to 'Baywatch,' a TV show about county lifeguards."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:56 PM | Comments (3)

October 04, 2005

2005 Nobel Prize in Physics

This year three scientists working in optics are sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics. I'm watching the announcement on Swedish TV and I love, love, love that first they announce the winners in Swedish, then English, then do a longer presentation in Swedish, then English. So the winners are:

Roy Glober of Harvard wins half the prize. John Hall of the University of Colorado in Boulder (hey folks, give him a real page, will ya?) and Theodor Hänsh of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich share the rest of the prize. And since I'm a liberal arts grad with no background in physics whatsoever I will not even try to translate the presentation, especially since the Nobel Prize Foundation will have plenty of info about the winners soon. (I do hear muttering about huge rooms of equipment no longer needed, blah blah blah tech marches on.) Tomorrow they announce the winners in chemistry. These folks have mastered the art of press coverage by keeping the winners secret and then slowly releasing the news over time. If anyone wants me to cover the big dinner, I've got dancing shoes in the closet. Consider me available.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2005

Unnecessary Crap: iPod Edition

Pete Gontier has thoughtfully forwarded this exciting release, courtesy of MacTech.

NWINDOWS introduces a new entertainment content/ecommerce platform based on one of the most popular time-passing activities –flipping through catalogs and magazines.

"San Francisco, CA, September 27, 2005 NWINDOWS, an entertainment/ecommerce content provider for digital home and mobile applications, announced the availability of high quality catalog slideshows for viewing on the iPod and Mac OS X.

"NWINDOWS is the first to provide relaxing, 'low concentration' content in the form of high quality, no/low text catalog slideshows optimized for both 'big screen' (TV/monitor) and 'small screen' (iPod) use.

"Consumers may download and import catalog slideshows into iPhoto (or Quicktime) for viewing on the big screen, and relax while the 'pages' are turned for them as they listen to their own favorite music. Or they may enjoy their favorite catalogs while on the run, anywhere and any time they have a few extra minutes on their hands.

“ 'Clearly, there is strong demand for new, exciting content suitable for the red-hot iPod,' says Deborah Quinlan, President of NWINDOWS. 'Consumers are demanding more interesting content for use on mobile devices beyond another game or ring tone.'

“ 'Our slideshow catalog content is selected and designed specifically to be aesthetically pleasing –something that would be enjoyable to watch whether someone is interested in shopping, or not,' says Quinlan. 'We have initially partnered with Ujena Swimwear, a company that possesses a strong consumer brand image and an appeal to both women and men. We believe this content is something that consumers will enjoy watching and will want to show-off to others on their iPods.' "

The catalog slideshows are available as free downloads. Now I think maybe, just maybe, somebody would look at this stuff if it came preloaded on a device but who in the hell is going to go to the trouble of downloading, say, the Lillian Vernon catalog no matter how cute the personalized totes. But my pal, the award-winning, all-knowing Pete, actually paid attention while reading this announcement and understood it instantly. As he put it so aptly:

1. It's a new mode of acquiring more crap we don't need.

2. This isn't anything any real people really want, but that doesn't matter as long as catalog producers buy in.

3. They're launching it with porn.

Which is a truly popular time-passing activity, waaay more popular than browsing catalogs. But Pete, it's not porn. Not really, even if the body language says take me, I'm yours. Still, it seems clear that when Quinlan claims "this content is something that consumers will enjoy watching and will want to show-off to others on their iPods," what she really means is that men will love showing off babes in bikinis to other guys and adolescent boys will have a high time downloading this stuff to show off at school. (It's a pain in the ass, though. To get it on your iPod, you have to "1. Click on the thumbnails to download the photos. 2. Import them into iPhoto. 3. Select the photos and click 'New Slideshow.' " 4. Download the slideshow to your iPod. Since I'm not a hormonal 14-year-old named Jason, thanks but no thanks.)

Images of naked women have, famously, been the driving force behind many a technological development. It's possible that images of near-naked women might do the trick for NWINDOWS. Possible but unlikely. NWINDOWS appears to be more of a cash-generating scheme for the principals than an actual solution to any consumer problem. Here at Deborah Branscum Inc., which is more of a flawed cash-generating scheme for moi than an actual editorial solution to any specific business communications problem, I have great sympathy for Quinlan's plight.

And very little faith that she'll be hearing lots of ka-ching sounds anytime soon. Am I underestimating the power of scantily clad women? Lord knows, it wouldn't be the first time.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 08:31 AM | Comments (4)

September 22, 2005

Researching Everyday Food Culture

A marketing company called The Hartman Group (which has trademarked the term reality marketing so don't get any ideas, buster) plans to bring home the bacon by watching you, or people like you, fry it up in a pan. What the hell am I nattering on about? The Household Immersion Lab. For some reason the description below makes me think of pith-helmeted scientists going into the jungle for field work, when I know it won't be like that at all.

This fall, The Hartman Group's team of ethnographers begins the initial phase of the Household Immersion Lab. This pioneering effort opens up an entire new window onto understanding the consumption behavior of mainstream America. The initial 6-9 month Household Immersion Lab research effort is focused on eating patterns and will reveal the messy dynamics of Everyday Food Culture in America in surprising detail. While this first immersion centers on food, the Household Immersion Lab is perfectly suited to marketing and branding initiatives across a broad industry spectrum: apparel, technology, travel and leisure, hospitality, restaurant, consumer packaged goods, home improvement, telecommunications, retailing, etc.

The Household Immersion Lab is about having close encounters with consumers on their own turf. It is about reconciling the differences between what consumers say and what they do. For example, while this initial phase is built around two families (one empty nester Boomer and one family of four with children), companies can sponsor their own families and interact with them on any number of marketing initiatives, such as putting products into the family to see how they are adopted, accepted, consumed, used, shopped for, etc. Other applications may be to test messaging, labeling, packaging or if we know the families are going to stores, observe specific behaviors or look for certain shopping/buying cues, etc.

Is the Household Immersion Lab as pioneering as it claims to be? Lemme know. Yo, Hartman folks, holler the second you're able to reconcil the differences between what family members say and what they do. Now that would be a true service. Not as lucrative but darn compelling.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 11:52 AM | Comments (1)

Ringtone Marketer Must Turn Down Volume

I'm not a total luddite but I'm just elderly enough that I had no idea that there was such a thing as the Crazy Frog ringtone (based on "the sound of a revving moped"), or that it had a Swedish connection (it was "spawned seven years ago by a Swedish motorcycle enthusiast") or that in the U.K., at least, it was "the first ringtone to enter the pop charts, where it stayed in the No 1 slot for four weeks." So what's the marketing angle? Here's the London Times:

PARENTS claimed a victory over the Crazy Frog after the High Court upheld a ruling that will banish the annoying ringtone advertisements until after the watershed.The company behind the mobile telephone ringtone breached advertising restrictions by appealing to children without making clear the true cost of its products.

Almost 300 people complained that Jamba!, based in Germany, did not make clear that its mobile phone services were offered on a weekly, subscription basis rather than a one-off payment. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found that children had unwittingly run up large phone bills and ruled that the commercials cannot now be shown before 9pm.

The Crazy Frog advertisements were shown on 40,000 occasions during a single month on British television. The post-9pm restriction is intended to place it outside of children’s viewing hours. ... The ASA had previously criticised the commercials for their failure to make clear that the £3 weekly charge was not for one ringtone but a weekly subscription. The watchdog has found that the on-screen warning “16-plus and bill payer’s permission” was insufficient to stop children subscribing to the service via text message.

Not fair, whined the company:

Jamba!, which has sold 11 million Crazy Frog ringtones, argued that its advertisements were not aimed at children and produced evidence that the target purchaser of a Crazy Frog ringtone was aged between 18 and 29.

The company said that a ringtone was “a fun item, of no harm to adults or children, and no more expensive than many small items on which a child may spend pocket money”. But the ASA said that the characters had a “strong appeal” to children and that “peer pressure”, and a No 1 Crazy Frog single, had exacerbated the phenomenon.

Jamba! is appealing the ruling. Meanwhile, says the Times, "the telecoms watchdog Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services ... fined the company that supplies the Crazy Frog ringtone to Jamba! £10,000 for sending out unsolicited text messages for a premium-rate auction."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Good, Better, Best: Marketing Condoms

This irresistable report is courtesy of the Mainichi Daily News:

BEIJING -- A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky, apparently seeking to exploit the White House affair that led to the impeachment of America's 42nd president.

Spokesman Liu Wenhua of the Guangzhou Rubber Group said the company was handing out 100,000 free Clinton and Lewinsky condoms as part of a promotion to raise consumer awareness of its new products.

He said that after the promotion ends, the Clinton condoms will go on sale in southern China for 29.8 Yuan (US$3.72) for a box of 12, while the Lewinsky model will be priced at 18.8 Yuan (US$2.35) for the same quantity.

"The Clinton condom will be the top of our line," he said. "The Lewinsky condom is not quite as good."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 06:37 PM | Comments (1)

September 02, 2005

PR Vultures

Every disaster creates a promising PR opportunity in its wake and Katrina is no exception. It may be a long time before New Orleans and other hard-hit areas get all the help they need. But media types, bless 'em, will have no problem filling column inches with all manner of (loosely interpreted) Katrina-related copy. Yup, the PR vultures are circling and ready to drop in for a meal at a moment's notice. First, read this passage from "I'm Living Your Dream Life," a book by Michele VanOrt Cozzen.

...During the time I lived in California, there was no mistaking the crushing feel of an ever-expanding population. If my own personal circle of transplanted friends was any indication of what was happening to the millions of other people in the Bay Area with New York, Baltimore, Atlanta and Chicago accents, I felt that pretty soon the bridges would collapse from the weight of the populace. Adding to the mix the earthquake of 1989 and the Berkeley and Oakland Hills fire two years later, a fire that claimed the homes of many of our neighbors, the terra was anything but firma. I shouldn't forget to mention the seven-year drought we lived through where I not only learned to turn off the water while brushing my teeth, but also the catchy slogan used in the bathroom: "if it's yellow let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." So, after one long party I was ready for some quiet.

(We had that notice posted in my college dorm as well.) Now compare that lively prose with the press release below:

Cozzens Shares With Survivors of Hurricane Katrina How to Reinvent Yourself in the Wake of Disaster

Popular San Francisco journalist and author, Michele VanOrt Cozzens survived the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and the 1991 East Bay Hills Tunnel Fire.

To: National Desk

Contact: Kathleen Campbell, Campbell Public Relations, 877-540-6022, kcampbell@thecompletesolution.com

NEWS ADVISORY, Sept. 1 /Christian Wire Service/ -- AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY: Popular San Francisco journalist and author, Michele VanOrt Cozzens survived the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and the 1991 East Bay Hills "Tunnel Fire". She is a published expert on the effects of surviving disaster.

"After we survived two catastrophic events that Mother Nature threw at us, I gave up my career as a journalist and my husband, Mike, left his successful business as a stock broker.

"We learned first hand how to reinvent ourselves in the wake of disaster by deciding to live our 'dream life.' As a result, Sandy Point Resort and Disc Golf Ranch in the Northwoods of Wisconsin was born.

"Today we are successful innkeepers, living the 'dream life' and living far away from Mother Nature's latest rampage, Hurricane Katrina. We watch with trepidation as more and more people are evacuated from their flooded homes.

"Many survivors will return to find their homes and businesses--their lifestyles--completely gone. Some will rebuild. Some will flee. Some will choose to take this opportunity to reinvent themselves. The choice is up to you.

"Living your 'dream life' isn't easy. It takes hard work and determination. There are lots of do's and don'ts if you are going to be successful. The key here is to resist the victim mentality. In times like these your dream may be all you have. Only you can turn that dream into reality."

Notice any disconnect between the book's actual content and the dishonest PR tactic to publicize it? (I survived the earthquake and tunnel fire, too. Along with roughly, oh, 99.9999 percent of the state's population. Maybe I should have cobbled together a reinvention gig as well.) The release is a disservice to an apparently good book that readers seem to adore. (Of course, the Amazon reviews could be imaginary as well.) Marketers have learned that news releases are valuable these days not because they spark media coverage--that happens rarely--but because they attract search-engine traffic, which can be even more valuable. Maybe that's why so many press releases seem less like news and more like the trackback spam for cars, porn and casinos that stream into this blog daily.

So here's a message to Alan Gould: Listen up to VanOrt Cozzens and get rid of that victim routine, it's so Monday. Time to move on.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:43 PM | Comments (2)

May 31, 2005

Does the U.S. Crave Luxury Light Beer?

Is it really so wise to exceed the desires of your customers? Isn't that the lesson of New Coke, among others?

Heineken USA Introduces Luxury Light Beer

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., May 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Heineken USA confirms today that it will continue its pioneering leadership in the beer market with the introduction of its Luxury Light beer, Heineken Premium Light Lager, in the US. Heineken Premium Light Lager will be tested in four select US markets beginning in June 2005: Phoenix, Arizona; Dallas, Texas; Tampa, Florida; and Providence, Rhode Island.

I just love the image this conjures up, of hoardes of media folks jamming microphones into the face of Andy Glaser, Brand Director, and shouting, "Andy, over here. Andy, please. Can you confirm that Heineken will continue its pioneering leadership in the beer market?"

The introduction of Heineken Premium Light Lager is consistent with Heineken's strategy to expand and optimize its product portfolio and to capture an ever-growing share of the premium import specialty segment of the US beer market. The new luxury light beer will be supported in test markets with a comprehensive marketing program, including TV, print, radio, online, in-store and on-premise promotions.

"No light beer currently offers consumers the high quality drinkability coupled with the prestige and cachet of Heineken Premium Light Lager," said Andy Glaser, Brand Director, Heineken USA. "Heineken Premium Light Lager combines a lighter taste with subtle flavor cues of regular Heineken. With the introduction of Heineken Premium Light Lager, we are exceeding US consumers' desire for a higher quality, premium light beer."

But not exceeding my desire. I really, really need some high-quality drinkability after three hours of market research for a friend. Waiter?

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2005

Digital Life New Ad Vehicle for MSNBC

"MSNBC.com, a leader in breaking news and original journalism on the Internet, announces the launch of Digital Life, found within the site's Tech & Science section. This new, interactive lifestyle technology subsection allows users to enter a digital representation of various living spaces in the home and quickly discover the way technology has transformed each." The living room, anyway.

Dear reader, do we suppose Digital Life was created because actually expecting MSNBC readers to rise from their computers and walk into their own kitchens or bathrooms or bedrooms to note the vast and sweeping, if largely imaginary, technological changes they will find there is simply too much work? Do we imagine the birth of Digital Life was prompted by MSNBC's confusing organization of technology coverage until this very announcement, which signals a new an exciting trend in consumer responsiveness? Or do we believe that the most effective way for MSNBC to get Best Buy to sign up for an 11-month sponsorship and brand marketing campaign was to unveil Digital Life and, with it, spanking new sponsorship opportunities?

Need a few moments to ponder that? Didn't think so. " 'Through ingenuity and great collaboration we have created a product that has yielded the single largest sponsorship of any feature in the history of MSNBC.com,' said Kyoo Kim, Vice President of Sales of MSNBC.com, 'proof once again that advertisers understand the power of the Internet and are using online leaders like MSNBC.com to reach their key consumers.' "

Fine by me and I hope Best Buy is very happy with its purchase. I know who pays the content bills in this world. Michael Rogers, a columnist for the new section, is a real sweetie but the conceit is a stinker. In a world of podcasts and videocasts and streaming video (not that I necessarily approve) was interactive floorplans the best sponsorship fig leaf they could muster? A scary thought. Folks at Ziff Davis and MIT are bound to be pleased about MSNBC using that name but we don't care: media folks flatter each other all the time with this very special type of tribute. I'd swipe a good headline in a heartbeat.

Speaking of heartbeats, my pulse went up a notch or two after discovering this sexy branding expert, who's waiting for an opportunity to raise your pulse as well. Just how sexy is he? "His high energy and brain power are truly infectious. You will be roused into action by his stimulating presentations." Triple XXX marketing action: Who knew?

In related news the Times of London announced today that "scientists in Israel have cracked the complicated cognitive code that determines whether individuals are able to understand sarcasm. Yeah, right. No, really. The findings, published today by the American Psychological Association, could provide vital clues to the best way of helping people with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, as well as those with some forms of brain damage, to improve their communication skills."

So hey, there's hope for me yet. You too.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2005

RSS Feed Frenzy, Note-Sharing Journalist,

Don't be late to the RSS party warns Rebecca Lieb over at ClickZ: "Are you an advertiser, marketer, or publisher? Then it's time to get serious about this whole RSS thing. ... All signs point to the fact RSS is on the brink of mainstream adoption. Google, MSN, and Yahoo! are developing strategies to encourage subscribers to feed at their feeds and to monetize those feeds with ads. Major agencies, such as Carat Interactive, have launched practices around blogs and feeds. Venture capitalist funds are flowing to firms such as NewsGator and FeedBurner. Acquisitions and rollups have begun in earnest: AskJeeves bought Bloglines; NewsGator snapped up FeedDemon this week."

Not so fast, sez the fine folks at Marketing Sherpa. "Given RSS's increasing popularity among online publishers, bloggers and marketers, there's a lot of buzz on its potential to reach millions of interested consumers directly through opt-in feeds to consumers' RSS readers of choice. However, 'potential' is the key word. RSS lacks hard numbers of almost any kind, making it impossible to base a business case for relying on it as a publishing or marketing tool... at this time. And yet otherwise sensible marketers and publishers are talking about replacing email with RSS offerings (asking readers to choose format which they'd like to get info in) -- and hundreds of bloggers have chosen to *only* offer RSS feeds instead of an accompanying email alert."

The marketers I've been interviewing would probably disagree that RSS lacks hard numbers of almost any kind, but none of them would be daft enough to say marketers should put all their eggs in the RSS basket--or any other single marketing technique. That's just plain dumb.

BusinessWeek.com's Blogspotting columnist Stephen Baker is letting readers download notes from his interview with Bloglines CEO Mark Fletcher. (Thanks to Frank Barnako for the link.) These are very sketchy notes, not the kind that lead to Pulitzer prizes (those don't get shared), but I was still surprised to find them. It's not what journalists do. It's part of our intellectual capital and no, I'm not joking. It's an interesting exercise but don't look to me to emulate it.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 10:37 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Offers That Just Ain't Relevant

Yesterday I got the following request: "At the moment we are in the process of creating reciprocal link partnerships. Since both of our sites are automotive related exchanging links will increase both of our search engine rankings and we will each benefit from greater targeted traffic." I don't think so. Stuffola covers a lot of topics but guess what? Autos is not one of them. In a similar vein, I've been researching RSS-based advertising for a future article but haven't noticed an ad in Bloglines until yesterday. It came courtesy of the justly popular Boing Boing.

This ad for scalp-related products below an item about a treatment for depression is like a poster kid for the limitations of keyword buys. Click on the ad link and you get to a page with very hip, very high-tech, very relevant products. Did Boing Boing readers actually buy any of this stuff? I am skeptical but have no idea. If you've got the scoop, spill it!

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 01:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2005

AdSense for Feeds Now in Beta

UPDATE: The best practices for AdSense for Feeds includes these recommendations: "Don't include more than one ad unit per article" and "Place the ad unit at the end of articles." I thought, based on the conversation below, that Google alone determined ad frequency but apparently not. If you know better, let me know. Also, just noticed that Adam Stiles called for the creation of AdSense for Feeds last November. Looks like he got what he wanted.

***

Right about now word is out at the Syndicate conference (and soon on Google’s blog) that the company’s no-comment trials with news-feed advertising are over, replaced by a public beta called AdSense for Feeds. The ever-patient Shuman Ghosemajumder (business product manager) and way chipper Barry Schnitt (PR pro) briefed me yesterday (a lucky accident of my research) about this bit of news.

Quick facts about AdSense for Feeds:

*The ads are targeted off web articles or postings via their permalinks, not the feed itself, “so we make sure we have the full context to give our technology the most benefits to produce relevent ads.”

*The ads are rendered as images. “We have to conduct a real-time auction so that our advertisers are accurately represented in terms of their budgets and the current state of our advertising network. So rendering the ads as an image allows us to not only serve that function but also gives us the maximum amount of compatibility with feed readers."

*AdSense for Feeds fits into Google’s existing advertising framework so it uses the same technology and the same terms and conditions. “You need to be an approved AdSense publisher in order to use AdSense for Feeds.” In other words, wannabe AdSense publishing partners must check all porno and most profanity at the door. Darn.

*News feed ad frequency is predetermined by Google. And what has Google predetermined, exactly? “We're experimenting with it right now. There are different options that we have, there are many different levers that we have in the way of being able to tweak [and] enhance our targeting.”

*Flexibility is limited. Folks who want to buy advertising from Google’s network can do so. If I understood it correctly, you must buy Google search results (natch). Your ads will also run on web sites across Google’s Network, in news feeds, in Gmail (ideally on purpose and not by accident) and, if you choose, on Google’s Content Network, which has a site-targeting option. You don’t have to run ads across the entire network but you can’t choose to advertise in feeds only, for example.

The surprising bit to me was Google’s ostensible reason for the move: to make the web a better place. OK, I’m paraphrasing but how would *you* translate this quote?

“By actually giving a wide set of popular feeds access to Google's advertising network, one of the things that we want to do is encourage them to put more high-quality content in there so that it's not just interesting to those most technologically sophisticated users but also to mainstream users.

“And I think that's one of the things that's been missing for mainstream users, because a lot of their favorite publications don't have a lot of high-quality content in their feeds right now. Just because they haven't been able to be compensated for that. ...They are viewing feeds...as primarily a promotional mechanism, to bring people back to their web site, which is where monetization actually occurs.

“And what we want to do is encourage a shift in that thinking. So that publishers realize that users use RSS feeds and Atom feeds because it's convenient for them. And by making it as positive an experience as possible for those users by putting as much high-quality content in their feeds that publishers are going to attract more users who are interested in consuming their content. ...And they'll have the opportunity for monetization from our advertising.”

So does that mean Google will require full-text feeds from advertisers?

“It's part of our guidelines that we want as much high-quality content in the feed as possible. What we're encouraging publishers to do is have full-text syndication of their articles. But in many cases publishers aren't willing to be that bold immediately. So what we're asking for then is as rich a snippet as possible on the article."

And does Google define that in some way?

“It's something more than a single sentence. We don't specifically bar people because there are different ways of looking at the issue and one of the ways ... is that if someone is just putting out a headline-based feed but users are actually subscribing to it, then even though it contains advertising then maybe that trade-off is working well.”

I asked Ghosemajumder to explain one more time why Google wanted to encourage full-text feeds.

“You’re familiar with Google’s overall mission statement, to organize the world's information, making it universally accessible and useful.”

(Well, no, but I didn’t admit it. Why doesn’t anyone ever ask me about IDG’s ten corporate values? At least I remember the action-oriented, let's try it attitude.)

“One thing which is consistent with that is just being able to make sure that the world’s information is continuing to grow and that we're not being short-sighted when it comes to any of our business opportunities."

What a relief. It’s not just about making the web a better place. It’s also about making the web a better place for Google’s business. Alarmed shareholders, you may now exhale.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 09:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Microsoft and MessageCast

I'm researching RSS advertising and hoped to post excerpts from my interview with Royal Farros on the topic but an old war wound (well, an old typing injury) got in the way. To recap, Microsoft bought real-time alert and messaging service MessageCast Wednesday. When I spoke to cofounder Farros the following day, he framed the sale as a tribute, in its way, to Microsoft's innovation. Microsoft?? Yup.

"Microsoft needs to get credit for being the innovators here because they are. It's amazing that even internally they might not recognize it as much but as a third-party, we staked our business on it," he said. "They have this beautiful big network built out. Essentially, what are we adding to it? We're adding a fast on-ramp. ... We looked around and we said, this is what we want to do. We don’t want to build a network. Who’s farthest in front? That’s why we’ve been working with Microsoft for a year and a half. "

When MessageCast was founded, RSS wasn't in the picture. At that time, "we were a broadcast mechanism over an alternative channel. And that, in and of itself, was interesting because it solved some problems. It was better performing. It was completely opt-in and customer controlled. You could detect presence. It was non-spam. Good things. But the interesting twist came when you apply that with what’s exploded: RSS and relevant advertising. RSS becomes a universal data trigger for all of this information. And relevant advertising, hey, that becomes a way to pay for it all."

But exactly how will advertising pay for it all? To find out, you'll have to read the published article in a few months (ah, the world of paper publishing). Stay tuned.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 14, 2005

Baffling PR: Novel or Nonfiction?

I understand that a certain flexibility, let's call it, has crept into the definition of nonfiction. There was one author, for example, who explained to students, although not her readers, that she had tweaked various things in her memoir. (For flow? To improve the narrative? Don't recall and don't actually object to the practice if it is disclosed to readers.) But what are we to make of this newly processed chunk o' marketing communications?

"The Book That’s Sending Shock Waves Across the Nation

"Author Janice Scott-Blanton releases her debut non-fiction novel 'My Husband Is On the Down Low and I Know About It,' published by JaRon Publishing Group.

"(PRWEB) May 14, 2005 -- On March 20, 2005, Janice Scott-Blanton’s released her debut novel with a celebration at the Zanzibar on the Waterfront in Washington, DC. Scott-Blanton has written a true to life novel that is taking readers on a journey into the life of Annette Hawkins (alias), who is confronted with her military husband’s lifestyle of living on the 'down low.' ... Scott-Blanton has conducted dozens of face-to-face and telephone interviews with Annette, reviewed a video tape and read journals that Annette and Lieutenant Colonel James Hawkins maintained over the years." Gotta wonder about that videotape. Was she watching home movies of a family BBQ or something considerably hotter?

Perhaps this book is nonfiction, with names changed to protect real individuals. Maybe it's a novel that was inspired, as the movie folks like to say, by true events. Fine either way. But a nonfiction novel? Get outta Dodge. Stop scaring the horses and confusing the pitifully few readers left in our great country.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 01:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 04, 2005

Deodorant for Seven-Year-Olds

In Ad Age (reg. required), Jack Neff reports on a new campaign for kiddy deodorant using an iPod sweepstakes, samples, animated TV ads and "the brand's first blog marketing." If you read the entire piece, it's clear that kiddy deodorant is a gateway product designed to create loyal customers for other Secret products--and it's working. Can toddler deodorant be far behind? Eventually a market will be manufactured for fragrance products that bridge the now yawning gap between the baby-powder age of infancy and the body-spray generation of elementary-school consumers. (Next stop for tweener marketing people: hell.)

“ 'Girls have started using deodorant younger and younger,' said Dave Knox, assistant brand manager at P&G overseeing the body-spray launch. 'It used to be 12 or 13 was kind of the entry point, and that’s slowly ratcheted down each year. ... If you don’t target the consumer in her formative years, you’re not going to be relevant through the rest of her life.'

"Limited Too, with its target ages of 7 to 14, became a perfect fit. Having tested sampling last summer at the chain with the Secret Sparkle roll-on antiperspirant line, Mr. Knox decided it would work better still in a promotion for a body-spray product for which the onset of puberty is no requirement. ... P&G last week launched Secret’s first blog-marketing program at SparkleBody-Spray.com. ... Mr. Knox sees the body sprays as a 'safe entry into the beauty category' for girls that won’t rankle parents the way giveaways of lipstick or 'heavy perfume' might."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 11:27 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Surrender to Smooth and Creamy Galaxy: Ad Speak Gets Its Own Database

Thanks to Rhizome.org for this news: "The chipper, poignant and irksome imperatives launched from all corners of daily routine by competing companies permeate our commutes, grocery lists, and vernaculars. Current mantras like 'Laugh More. Cry More. Experience More.' (Blockbuster), 'Try Being More Of A Woman!' (Coty Perfume) and 'Get the Most Incredible Memory Ever.' (Dell) make big demands or promises to their targets! The Institute for Infinitely Small Things, based in and out of Boston, endeavors to compile authoritative research on this topic, comprising a project called The International Database of Corporate Commands."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 03, 2005

Happy Birthday Pirate Publishing

Today Dagens Nyheter profiles Piratförlaget (Pirate Publishing), an upstart book publisher that rocked the staid world of the Swedish book industry when it published its first book at the end of April five years ago. Pirate was founded when Sigge Sigfridsson, Liza Marklund and Jan Guillou--three best-selling genre novelists--abandoned their publishers to start their own publishing house with the help of Guillou's wife, Ann-Marie Skarp, who became head of the company.

The publisher Guillou left was spitting mad and called the action a declaration of war. He also said, according to DN, that the Swedish book industry was facing something entirely new: a pirate publisher. The cheeky authors adopted that as the company name and established better terms for themselves and the other authors eventually added to the roster. Those better terms included a 50-50 split on book revenues (after expenses) and a willingness to market books more aggressively than the competition. Sigfridsson eventually left to start another publishing house but Pirate has defied all predictions of failute. While other Swedish publishing houses are making an 8-percent profit margin at most (5 to 6 percent is common), Pirate has racked up a 20-percent margin this year, according to DN. (The company publishes 12 to 15 books annually, most of them crime fiction.)

Pirate's marketing moxie must be heartening for their writers. A TV commercial for Liza Marklund's fourth crime novel pushed sales up by 50 percent, according to an executive. Marklund (an attractive blonde) appears on the covers of all her books. Here's what she says about the marketing (my translation): "We have crazy ideas and do them. 'Should we blanket the entire Åhlens department store with my face?' "Sure, let's do it.' "Should we put up ads for the book at every bus stop in Sweden?' 'Sure, let's do it.' " An advertising campaign for Guillou's latest book won a prize from the national advertising industry.

I understand why the other publishers were pissed when Pirate was founded five years ago. They muttered darkly about Pirate "skimming off the cream," about the potential loss of development costs for unknown writers (the successful-authors-subsidize-new-authors theory of crappy royalty structures) and so forth. But these writers were making huge chunks of cash for the publishers; why shouldn't they get at least half?

One of Pirate's authors, Leif GW Persson, claims that "writers are the most exploited group that exists." Sigge Stark, one of the ten best-selling Swedish authors of all time, earned a mere 30,000 swedish crowns over her lifetime, he claims, while her publisher made millions. Guess the Pirate folks just wanted to even the score a little. Dunno if they anticipated the eventual competition. A couple of newer upstarts supposedly have offered Persson a 60-40 split and even better deals. So far he's stayed with Pirate. "Pirate is going to taste the same medicine it gave to others," he says. Goodness, more money for authors? Sounds like a fine idea to me.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 29, 2005

E-zines Effective Ad Vehicles

Not that this is news, but still: "Five-year-old DailyCandy and a growing stable of other free e-zines -- essentially newsletters delivered by e-mail -- that hype everything from fashion to food are becoming influential marketing vehicles for advertisers and retailers who want to connect with brand-conscious consumers," notes today's Wall St. Journal (sub required). "The word-of-mouth buzz e-zines generate, and their ability to quickly connect readers with products, is increasingly prompting marketers to seek them out over more traditional advertising vehicles. And for unknown businesses like Magpie Rings that are mentioned in e-zines' editorial copy, the plug can have as much or more pull as a page in fashion magazines such as Lucky or Vogue."

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 27, 2005

Success of Drug Ads Elates Marketers, May Depress Others. Need a Paxil?

"Actors pretending to be patients with symptoms of stress and fatigue were five times as likely to walk out of doctors' offices with a prescription when they mentioned seeing an ad for the heavily promoted antidepressant Paxil, according an unusual study being published today." That doctors are human is evident in this story from the Washington Post.

"The researchers sent actors with hidden tape recorders into general physicians' offices in three cities between May 2003 and May 2004. ...Half the actors simulated patients suffering from depression, describing lengthy periods of sadness, low energy, poor appetite and sleep, and early-morning awakening. The others described having suffered a career upheaval and having fatigue, stress and difficulty sleeping, symptoms that did not warrant medication. More than half of those without simulated depression who mentioned Paxil got a prescription, underscoring how willing doctors are to go along with patients' requests."

Amanda Gardner, writing for HealthDay News, quotes the concerns of Matthew F. Hollon, a physician who wrote an editorial about the study. " 'The system, as it stands now, is also biased against those with the least resources. ...Those at highest risk may be those that don't have health insurance,' Hollon said. 'If New Zealand passes a ban on [such advertising] this year, the U.S. will have the distinction of being the only advanced industrialized country that allows [it], does not limit pharmaceutical price increases and does not have any national policy guaranteeing health care. My patients, many without adequate insurance, pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and when you look at the money spent on [this advertising], you wonder if it's really worth it.' "

Clearly it's worth it to the companies that advertise and the companies that sell advertising. I expect that pharmaceutical and/or advertising industry executives will make sober, serious, responsible-sounding statements in response to the study, then go back to their offices, lock the doors and start dancing in glee. This study, in which actors claim they saw TV ads about Paxil, is one big sloppy kiss to mainstream advertising, which has been beaten up badly by its digital rivals. Sure the actors were being paid to utter the words Paxil and TV and ad but we know that real people do that too. The study proves that if you inundate American consumers with enough drugs ads on TV, print and elsewhere to get them to request a brand-name drug that doctors, God bless 'em, will cough up (so to speak) a prescription on the spot. That's the entire point of these pharmaceutical marketing programs, of course, but how often does Madison Avenue get independent confirmation that their wares are so effective?

I don't think this study examined the background of the physicians to see if there was any relationship between those who gave out prescriptions inappropriately and the company that makes Paxil. It's no secret that pharmaceutical companies lavish a great deal of time, attention and money on marketing to doctors. Presumably drug companies do it because it works. Maybe the rest of us will discover just how well it works in a future study.

Posted by Deborah Branscum at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

Why Shopping Magazines Suck

Material girl Stephanie Zacharek sounds off in Salon about the dismal state of shopping magazines (reg. or day pass required). "With all this thoughtful, interesting design around us, how much hand-holding do we -- or should we -- really need when it comes to deciding what we like and don't like? Domino assumes we need a lot: Feeling a sudden hankering for a chartreuse vase? Domino gives you two whole pages of them, lined up in a row. You might scrutinize them for 30 seconds, and lust after one in particular for about three seconds, but before you know it, you've turned the page and you're onto the next obsession. That might be wallpaper, or a selection of hooks and bowls to help you arrange your jewelry on a dresser, or a panoply of cool TV sets. Domino manages to increase our anxieties about having too many options even as, supposedly, it attempts to ease them."

Goodness, a publication that preys on the anxieties of its readers? How novel. (I'll probably like Domino anyway. I'm a sucker for shelter mags.) The classic American women's magazines often have good service pieces and useful, sometimes heartwarming stories but they also treat their readers like nitwits. Or if not nitwits, the kind of people y-o-u m-u-s-t s-p-e-a-k t-o s-l-o-w-l-y. So if the shopping magazines do the same, they're merely taking part in a long, if not honorable, tradition. This morning the mail person slipped Easy Shopping Magazine through my mail slot. It's produced by Bonnier Responsmedier. To a hardened American consumer, this sad publication is an outdated and pathetic form of direct mail. Outside of a masthead page with an editor's note, it's no magazine at all, just a stapled, 86-page collection of random advertisements. Buy books! Join a music club and get cheap CDs! Subscribe to three issues of a real magazine and get cheap crap as a premium! Get a low-rate loan! Or buy address labels, lots of them! As far as I can tell, Easy Shopping Magazine doesn't consider its readers nitwits; it doesn't consider them at all.

In other Swedish publishing news, the two afternoon tabloids (