Marketing Hipster

Last night, NBC‘s Sunday Night Football hosted by Bob Costas turned off the studio lights and did their entire show under candlelight to promote NBC’s new Green is Universal campaign. This could of been one of the stupidest ideas I have ever seen in my entire life. Now please do not get me wrong, doing small things to try to save this planet and the environment is a good thing. And I think NBC trying to promote a green initiative is also a good thing. But to turn off the lights in the studios during a live broadcast is beyond contrived.

I would like to list out several reasons why this could of been the dumbest idea I have ever witnessed in my life.

1. Yes, you turned out the lights, but there was still a dozen or so HUGE video monitors all running. I would be willing to take a gander that the video monitors take more power to run than the studio lights.
2. Your promoting during your lights off green event how Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry have flown to opposite sides of the earth. Hmmm, how much jet and car fuel did it take to get each of them along with I assume pretty big crews to those places at the end of the planet? Yea, once again, I bet a lot more than what you saved by shutting off the lights.
3. Most importantly, you are doing this while the color guy of the broadcast John Madden drives to each game in a GIANT tour bus that burns a hell of a lot more energy than you turning off your little studio lights.

This was beyond a dumb idea NBC. Maybe you guys can discuss it on your next corporate retreat as you fly out on several of the NBC corporate jets?

Technorati Tags: NBC, Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas, Green is Universal, stupidest ideas, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Ann Curry, John Madden

Listen up Motion Picture Association of America, a guy named Len might have just come up with a solution on how to stop people from pirating movies online. According to TorrentFreak, a guy named Len integrated some spoiler news from the recently released Harry Potter book. He not only took credit for it, but he also posted his URL for everyone to see.

That might not of been the smartest thing to do as people began leaving death threats on his web site. At the time I am writing this his web site netgraffiti.tk is presently offline. Yet another big surprise. I have a feeling Len might be staying incognito for a while until this thing blows over.

Come on MPAA, this could be a great idea to stop those movie pirates from watching illegal videos….

Ok, the video that Len did is below. I am warning everyone that the Harry Potter spoiler is in this video. DO NOT PLAY IF YOU PLAN ON READING THE BOOK. Don’t say I did not warn you.

Technorati Tags: Motion Picture Association of America, pirating movies

For all of us in the industry who continually watch and learn on how to generate buzz and excitement for our clients, this is a prime example of what NOT to do. Check out this video from Gizmodo of Peter Moore, Microsoft‘s Corporate Vice President of Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division announcing for the first time at the E3 2007 convention the upcoming release of the Halo 3 Xbox 360 console.

Coming from a company like Microsoft and such a HUGE product like Halo 3, this is nothing other than embarrassing. Are you telling me they could not of done something more interesting than this? Were there actually people there or was he just practicing? I especially liked when he had to go behind the podium to get the console. SLICK!

I think Mr. Moore needs to realize that this he might be the big cheese, but to the people who are going to buy this new console and the new Halo 3, they could give a damn about him. He is not the star, the product is.

Technorati Tags: buzz, excitement, Peter Moore, Microsoft, E3 2007, Halo 3, Xbox 360

A very interesting announcement from the largest music company in the world, Universal Music.  They have decided not to renew their contract with Apple to sell their music through iTunes. This could be a significant blow for Apple if they lose the ability to sell the huge amount of Universal music within their iTunes store. There has been a lot of speculation on why Universal has made this decision. Several pundits believe that it might involve Steve Jobs‘ “My way or the highway” negotiation tactics or that Jobs absolutely refuses to raise the $.99 per song price.

Now matter what the issue(s), all this does is hurt both Apple as well as Universal. We will see if they can kiss and make up.

Via Engadget

Technorati Tags: Universal Music, Apple, iTunes, Steve Jobs

This story I could not pass up. With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames in China, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday.

Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang. In a country of around 1.3 billion people, about 85 percent share only 100 surnames.

93 million people with the surname Wang, wow!

So if you threw a quarter into a crowd in China how many Wangs do you think you would hit?

Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities, the China Daily reported.

I was thinking what the U.S. would be like if there were 93 million people with my last name, Silverstein. (Shivers) I might have trouble sleeping tonight after that thought.

Technorati Tags: China

AT&T who through the years has always been known as a company who really cares about it’s customers (sarcasm) announced today that they will be spying on their customers for the RIAA and the MPAA. AT&T will spy on the customers that are paying them to catch users who are downloading movies and music illegally. Once they find users who are downloading copyrighted material, they will rat out their customers to the motion picture association or the recording industry association so they can sick their lawyers on them.

Hmmm, now I am no captain of industry, but it seems to me that when a company announces that they are going to play big brother and spy on their OWN customers, I would think that might hurt their business. Again sarcasm… Ok, let’s get serious here. I had to read the article twice because I could not believe what I was reading. Who in their right mind would now sign up or want to stay with AT&T when they know they are going to be spied on? Even if you are not downloading copyrighted material, would anyone really want AT&T or should we now call them Big Brother, spying on what you surf, view, type and download?

Can someone confirm for me, did former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld take over at AT&T? Or maybe Mike Brown the old FEMA head? The reason I ask is that AT&T continues to make some of the dumbest business decisions I have ever seen. First they replace the Cingular name with AT&T when Cingular had a much better brand name and now they decide and even announce that they are going to spy on their own customers. Can someone make sense of this for me?

Technorati Tags: AT&T, spying, RIAA, MPAA, big brother, Don Rumsfeld, FEMA, Cingular

Just when we went what like a week without having to hear Don Imus‘ name, bam, he’s back in the news. According the story on CNN, Imus has hired a big gun trial attorney and they will be suing CBS for firing the talk show host.  Oh goody, several new news cycles with Don Imus in it, pinch me, am I dreaming?

Technorati Tags: Don Imus, Imus, attorney, CBS

So according to the video below, a member of the Geek Squad owned by Best Buy came to a women’s house to fix two computers when he placed his cell phone in her bathroom and pressed record to tape her in the shower. The geek guy is now arrested and of course the woman is suing everyone. Now I have a couple of questions about this but watch the video first.

Ok, so here are my questions.

1. I don’t understand – was the Geek Squad guy in the house, fixing her computers when she was showering or was he planning on coming back to get his phone?

2. If the guy was still there, who showers when a total stranger is in their house?

I just get the feeling that there might be more to this story than meets the eye. What do you think?

via The Consumerist

Technorati Tags: Geek Squad, Best Buy, shower

Just for a quick laugh, please check out this old post of mine and look at comment number 9.

An ex-coworker of mine and a very insightful and talented blogger, Garrett French has a post up on Search Marketing Standard where he is asking for tales of any recent cringe-worthy moments had during the trials and tribulations of marketing campaigns. Since I tend to jump right into the deep end whether there is water in the pool or not, my issue was not having a story, but choosing which one to use. Here’s my choice.

One of the areas that my company and I have been concentrating on for our clients is employee marketing. Very simply, it is marketing internally within large corporations to try to get employees on the same page and deal with issues internally before they spill out onto discussion boards for everyone to see. Companies are beginning to understand that these communities are growing at such a fast pace that in the very near future derogatory posts by employees can change from an internal issue to a true brand issue.

I was doing some initial exploration and I was surfing around this one particular discussion group. There were a couple of discussions that interested me so I signed up and began asking questions of the community. At first, I was getting some great responses from people. Though as Adam Schultz put it in his post, then “the trolls showed up”. I pictured them more as 400 pound women in moo-moo’s chain smoking Parliaments who have more hair on their lip than I do, but that was just me.

These people see themselves as the gatekeepers and I as a newbie was invading their turf and my intentions were unknown. They immediately began to circle the wagons and accused me of being a member of human resources, the CEO and one person raised the question on whether I was a member of Al Qaeda, don’t ask me where that came from. I initially tried to laugh it off and I think I might of said a thing or two making fun of some of these “trolls”. Big mistake #1. Never make fun of the host when you weren’t even invited to the party.

This just poured gasoline on a three alarm fire. That’s when they pulled out all the stops and began calling me names that would of made a drunk sailor blush. As Adam discussed with his post, I was left in a quandary of what to do now. Do I tuck tail and run? Do I wait until the hordes have calmed down? What? At first, I just sat back and watched the carnage. Though when people are speaking badly about either things I believe in or myself, I tend to not have a whole lot of patience or the ability to keep my opinions to myself. So I did EXACTLY what I should not of done, I jumped right in and began to mix it up with any and all comers.

Needless to say, it did not end well. Though I learned a number of important lessons that I have used since this incident. I know now that I should not speak until I have a good understanding of the environment I am working in and the people I have to deal with. I learned that just like in life, many times it is not about right or wrong or black or white. There is a huge gray area that must be recognized and understood. Finally, I learned AGAIN that you should never ever type while angry. It will always lead you down a path you don’t want to go.

Technorati Tags: cringe-worthy moments