Smart Cars are coming!

Hooray! Ok, slightly off subject, but ever since I went to Italy about five years ago and saw the cute little Smart cars, I knew they would do great here in the US. I was even thinking of starting a "small car" dealership with Smart cars, Mini's and some other european mini-cars. Anyway, it's good to see they're coming. No, I wouldn't drive one, I probably wouldn't fit. I'm just saying...

Record songs from your XM player

XM now has a portable player that can record songs wirelessly as you hear it on their radio (Read the L.A. Times article here). I love this function and was hoping it would happen (my vision was always one where you could purchase it wirelessly then choose whether you wanted to download it wirelessly or wait until you got home to use your fatter pipes).

Anyway, I hope it takes off (and gets all its legal issues worked out and gets cheaper).

Great commercial, like.no.other

Just had to give my props to the new ad for the Sony Bravia in Europe.

Read about the campaign here or just watch the commercial here. Also, if you like it (which you will), there's some additional video here.

Enjoy!

Finance writers... sheesh

Do me a favor -- read this article and tell me what her point was (or just laugh). Horrible. I would expect more from a woman named Bambi Frickin' Francisco.

Quick news bites...

Here are a few things that caught my eye this morning in the L.A. Times:

Public libraries are now offering checking out and downloading of digital books online!
Cool. I'm definitely going to "check this out" :) -- all I need to do is dust off my old library card from the 70's. The catch? You can only check it out for about three weeks, then it digitally goes poof.

Netscape going to a Digg Model
It's a big risk for AOL, but it's a good experiment for them. I mean, what do they have to lose, except 11.2 million people in traffic.

Nielsen is going to track TV viewing on the Web
I think this is interesting, but ultimately it's kind of retrofitting a new medium to the old way of thinking. Sure, it's a good thing for the old guard to try to compare apples to apples, but we're talking Granny Smith to Red Delicious. Not exactly the same. Not only that, but we really need to have better ways to measure things...

34% of Boys Don't Want To Be Rich!

Ok, so, the NY Times article was about how Scion is marketing their cars to kids 8- to 15-year olds through an online interactive community, which I think is a great idea. Just like putting smoking advertising at kid's eye-level in the 7-11.

BUT, the big news to me was hidden in one of the statistics. According to research from Packaged Facts, quoted in the article, only 66% of boys age 9 to 11 say they want to be rich! What the...!

Am I crazy or did everyone want to be rich when they were that age? Who didn't want to live like Richie Rich and have the world's largest lollypop or a circus in their backyard? Ok, the short shorts I could do without, but still!

I think it's a crime. Parents, do a better job. Raise your kids to be consumers and respond to marketing. It's how I make a living. ;)

Are "screens" the most powerful brand drivers? It depends.

Just read a Fast Company article that showcased a debate between Saatchi & Saatchi's Worldwide CEO and Ogilvy & Mather's Exec. Creative Director for the Brand Integration Group. Interesting discussion, but I'm not sure I quite understood what they were arguing about.

I think they both agreed that ideas can start anywhere and I think they both agreed that "screens" (e.g. PC, TV, DVD, movie, Playstation, etc.) were powerful ways to touch people, but I guess they were arguing whether screens were the most powerful driver.

Interesting thought and some really good points follow in the article, but really, who cares? After all, I believe in the beautiful but eternally frustrating phrase, "it depends." When my clients ask me a question, like, "What should we be measuring?" or "What should we have on our home page?" or "Shouldn't we be using rich media for our online ads?" hoping for that simple, succinct, strong stance that they can definitively take to their boss, I unfortunately usually have to say, "it depends." Because it does. Much of what we do in marketing has completely to do with context. What is the consumer like? How do they get their information and entertainment? I mean, how are you going to affect that consumer that gets her news from a newspaper and her entertainment from books or shopping or going to museums? What screen will you use for her?

Anyway, in that way I have to agree more (but not completely) with the Ogilvy guy. He at least acknowledges that other elements can be just as or more powerful. I think he was put in the unfortunate position of almost arguing against screens, but c'mon, they are ubiquitous and a huge part of our lives, so sometimes they are the best option.

That's why discussions like this seem kind of silly. I think both of these guys would ultimately agree with my views. But then, Fast Company wouldn't have a story, huh?

Self-Fulfilling Termination?

Reading the L.A. Times article this morning about more services moving to the web gave me chills a little bit. I mean, you saw The Terminator, right? Remember the premise? That the "machines" (read "computers"), with all the artificial intelligence research getting more and more sophisticated, finally achieved self-awareness and took over the world? It was a plausible story because right before that happened, all the world's information was digital and centralized (e.g. on the Internet).

Yes, boys and girls. This could happen. Sure, maybe not in our lifetime, but hey, maybe your kid or your kid's kid will have to travel back in time to protect you from the robots that are here to kill you. Ok, now that I say it like that, maybe it isn't so plausible. BUT, the thought still does haunt me.

Or how about they become self-aware, then they take over the world and power themselves on solar power, then we make the sky all cloudy, then they use our body heat as power and create an alternate reality for us to live in. Then there's this guy called Neo...


(<-- Neo, before becoming "the one")

Brawny's Pretty Brainy As Well

Well, I have to tip my lumberjack skull cap to them once again.

By now I'm sure you've seen a commercial or otherwise heard about the Brawny Academy. It looks to be a made-for-Internet reality show where Brawny Man teaches eight n'er-do-wells how to be a man (however, since the women in their life sent them, I think it's more how to make them have more characteristics that women want).

I saw the trailer and it definitely looks fun. I'm a sucker for reality TV and it sure sounds better than watching cats lick themselves 24/7, that's for sure.

In any case, this post is not just about Brawny and their interesting forays using the Internet as their more inexpensive way to break out and create interesting content (remember, they were doing this years ago -- check this out), it's about my assertion that TV is no longer the destination, dammit! It's the Internet, stupid!

I know that I'm not the only one saying this, but still, I feel that people just aren't really getting it. The Internet is allowing all kinds of boundaries to be pushed or shattered (or at least experimented with) and it's not going to let up.

Again, it's not always going to be about the Internet that we know and love today, the one that is usually viewable on certain screens in your home office as opposed to the living room. It's going to be delivered entirely differently in the future, sure, but that's not my point. My point is about the storage, and the searching, and the beautiful lack of regulation and the connections and the trackability and the self-selectedness...(pant, pant, pant) Ok... I'm tired now. I'm going to go lay down.

But before I do, heed my warning, you TV/movie producers and you marketers and you advertisers. Don't wait any longer. Get in the inventive/creative Internet content game instead of just repurposing your same ol' TV shows or commercials. You'll learn relatively early and be the best when the rest of the world catches up (btw, it's not that far away).