Spotted today on the side of a bus in downtown San Francisco: an advertisement for McDonald’s latest promo with the confusing and self-contradictory name of the “Double Deal Mini Meal.” How can something be “double” and “mini” at the same time?
McCrazy
April 29th, 2012Bossypants
February 29th, 2012With all due respect to Tina Fey (and much is due), I am sick and tired of ads that tell me what to do without giving me any reason to do it.
Today, walking in downtown San Francisco, I saw three campaigns that, individually, I don’t think are all that great. Fine. It happens. But collectively, they’re incredibly annoying. Golden Gate University is telling me to Shine. Levi’s is telling me to Go forth. And The Gap is telling me to Be Bright. Well, if I’m shining, I’m already bright. And maybe I’m going forth too, since lights shine the way. I think the executives from these three companies should have lunch and work it all out so consumers don’t get psychic whiplash.
But more than that — how are jeans supposed to inspire me to Go forth? How are cheap clothes supposed to make me want to Be bright? (short of wearing their bright-colored crap, but that’s hardly what the ad I saw featured…see below). I suppose a university can legitimately tell people to “Shine” but can’t any university say that? Say, like…Yale? Or maybe Harvard?
Here’s a suggestion for these brands who have clearly lost their way: How about saying something that people can actually relate to, instead of spewing vague, aspirational platitudes that say absolutely nothing about what you offer?
Thank God I have these three brands to tell me what to do. Otherwise, I might be off someplace just doing it. And we all know that doesn’t get you anywhere. Except maybe here.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go forth and shine so I can be bright.
Knowing your audience
December 3rd, 2011
I just came across a cool site called Can You Crack It? According to this ABC News article, it was set up by a British intelligence agency that’s looking to recruit web-savvy cyber-spies, and this was how they decided to find some. It’s a tough cyber code they’re asking people to crack/solve. Their thinking is that in this digital age, with highly intelligent hackers opting to make it big online instead of enrolling in university, they’re apt to find some young people to join them who would otherwise be wreaking havoc and making the agency’s life miserable. Turn them to the good side of the Force before they get too mired in the dark side. They should recruit Lisbeth Salander, too.
I thought this strategy was pretty brilliant. It’s a real good example of knowing who you’re trying to talk to, what their demographics and psychographics are, what motivates them, and how to best reach and engage them. It’s the sort of stuff I’m telling my clients all the time. I hope it’s successful for them. I think it’d be great to get a big team of potential hacktivists working for good instead of evil, especially since I’ve been working on promotional materials for the upcoming RSA Conference 2012 in San Francisco.
As for the code itself, it’s a doozy. I love trying to solve puzzles like this but it’s way beyond my ability to crack. After studying it for about five minutes, I declared myself highly unqualified for a career as a cyber-spy. The only inkling of a possible starting point I could come up with is that the code uses the numbers 0 through 9 and the letters a through f. That’s 10 numbers and six letters, totaling 16 characters. And there are 16 columns of coded pairs. So maybe each column represents a letter. Although the “keyword” field only holds 15 characters. I’m thinking the first one is blank, mirroring the site name in the upper left corner of the page. I’m either brilliant, or I’m grasping at straws that aren’t even really there. Where is Tom Hanks when you need him?
You gotta be kidding me
November 9th, 2011
And to think all these years I’ve been calling them “slippers.”
Oh, Orbitz. You disappoint.
November 6th, 2011I’ve been playing online, weighing different travel options for Thanksgiving weekend. One of the main sites I visited was Orbitz because they market pretty heavily to the GLBT segment, and even have some pages dedicated to gay travel. But what’s disappointing is the completely random and irrelevant photos those pages are sprinkled with. Take a look at the photos the Orbitz ”Gay travel” pages feature:
Now, I’m not saying that straight people shouldn’t or don’t deserve to go on vacation. Nor am I saying that gay people don’t have families. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of my friends, who happens to be a lesbian, just had a baby yesterday. What ticks me off is that Orbitz is putting forth a half-hearted effort to speak authentically to the target audience, and that it’s just so laughable. Is there no one in their entire organization who recognized the glaring stupidness of this? I went to Queerstock, a site replete with stock imagery of gay and lesbian people in a wide variety of lifestyle situations, typed “gay” and “vacation” in the search field, and came up with over 300 appropriate images on the results page. Took all of 12 seconds.
This kind of thing not only makes Orbitz look clueless, but it offends the very people they’re trying to connect with. The GLBT audience is an intensely loyal and sensitive one. Any of the easily accessible research will tell you this. Orbitz, clearly, did not read it. << sigh >>
Good music ≠ Good design
October 3rd, 2011I saw a great article on Yahoo Music the other day – The Twenty-Five Worst Album Covers of All Time. It’s fascinating, and odd, how so many music legends make such bad choices when it comes to design. Looking through these, you have to ask “What the hell were they thinking?” I guess it just goes to show you that brilliance in one creative discipline does not mean brilliance in another. Case in point: I don’t know a single graphic designer who can sing worth a damn. But at least they aren’t putting out CDs. Here are a few of my faves from the article.
I heart Apple
September 18th, 2011
Yesterday I added to my Apple family with a gorgeous, 27″ Cinema Display, a new wireless keyboard, wireless Trackpad, and battery charger. So I got to spend the majority of the day reveling in the beautiful packaging as I set up my equipment, and breathing in that awesome, new-computer-accessory smell that we all love so much. I think I got a little dizzy. Or maybe that was the bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc I cracked open in celebration of my purchases.
I’ll be a little sad to see my 7-year-old iMac go to Computer Heaven, it has served me well, but not for long because this Cinema Display is freakin’ huge, freakin’ brilliant, and freakin’ beautiful. And it has more functionality than I thought it would. I especially like the way it automatically integrates with my laptop to function as an extension of its screen. I can put my email window over there, or some notes I need to consult periodically as I write whatever I happen to be working on. I remember when you had to buy a special card to install in the CPU itself for this to work. I remember because I used to write ads, brochures and data sheets for a company that made those special cards.
On top of all that, it took approximately four minutes in the Apple store to get my merchandise, pay, and be on my way. The email receipt was in my inbox before I made it out the door. Talk about a great brand.
Hurricane Yo Mama
September 8th, 2011
My mom’s name is Maria, and she finally gets a monster storm-slash-potential natural disaster named after her. When my siblings and I were growing up, “Watch out, Maria’s on the rampage” was our fraternal I-got-your-back warning that someone had done something wrong and that someone had lived to regret it, and all the other someones in my mother’s path were going to suffer right along with the offending someone. [Confused? Sorry, there were five of us.]
To be fair, Mom wasn’t really all that bad. Neither were we, actually. She did, however, have a reputation for flaring nostrils that signified profound anger. I suppose Hurricane Maria’s equivalent are the 80 mph winds that, given the opportunity, would blow said nostrils to and fro like nobody’s business. Now that it’s finally happened, this naming thing, and I have so many funny things to say about it – things that only an adult child can get away with saying to a parent – I don’t have to worry about being sent to my room to “Think long and hard about what you just said, young man.” Cool.
I’m truly savoring this. A hurricane named after my mom, just a few weeks after the hurricane named after my cousin [Irene] wreaked havoc in New England, where Renie happens to live. Oh, the Circle of Life. Elton, you are wise.
All of this did get me to thinking about hurricane names, or “brands,” if you will. I seem to recall a few years ago when the authorities were considering the cessation of naming hurricanes after people. The especially devastating ones make a strong case for this. “Hi, this is my friend Katrina.” A perfectly fine name ruined for at least two or three decades. And weren’t some people suggesting that we let corporations sponsor them, like they do stadiums and figure skating competitions? Hurricane Depends, anyone? [It'll scare you so much, you'll s*** your pants.] Or maybe Hurricane Pixar? [Tom Hanks could do the VO, making it an approachable hurricane.] I imagine Hurricane Google would be quite easy to find if you searched for it, and easy to spot on the map, especially if you clicked “Street View.” And how about Hurricane FedEx? ["When it's absolutely, positively going to hit overnight."]
Oh, I could go on and on. The lines practically write themselves. But a really good one for Hurricane Maria escapes me; maybe I’m too close to it. Wait. One just popped into mind: “You never write. You never call. Tomorrow night, young man…landfall.” Yikes. I’d better go nail plywood over the windows.
Caution: Rant Crossing
September 3rd, 2011
I never hold out much hope that writing jobs on Craig’s List will pan out, or are even worth the time it takes to respond to them. There are exceptions, naturally, but the majority of companies/people searching for writers on CL have a long list of requirements and high expectations, yet they don’t provide the information a writer would need to meet them. Still, every once in a while I go to CL to see what’s there, if for no other reason than to enjoy a good eye-rolling session. The other day I saw a post that was yet another prime example of what I’m talking about.
After first tooting their own horn about how awesome their own company is, how fast it’s growing, what USA Today said about it, how many Fortune 500 clients they have, blah blah blah, the post asks for a “content writer” who MUST: be a creative soul ready for new challenges, believe in changing the rules of the game (whatever that means), write informative, interesting, thoughtful content full of soul, personality and wit that draws the reader in and makes him smile, know WordPress [sic] and Photoshop, hold a college degree, have excellent English spelling/grammar/proofreading skills, and an “incredible amount of passion,” as “passion is the fuel without which you cannot survive at [company].”
Whew! Well, okay. I’m not going to argue that a good writer shouldn’t have all of those qualities. But instead of asking for portfolios where all of those qualities would conceivably be reflected in the body of work, the post gives candidates a test. They send hopefuls to a url and require them to write a one-paragraph review of it. Then, in two sentences, summarize why a business owner should try the online tool they’re selling there.
But here’s the thing: You can’t ask a writer to come up with a complete appraisal of a website in one paragraph and expect to get anything of value. Especially without sharing the brand position, brand promise, target audience profile, and other key information any good writer would need to do the job. Otherwise, what are the evaluation criteria? And, as good as I like to consider myself at what I do, I would be hard-pressed to show wit, personality, soul, knowledge, thoughtfulness, charm and passion – all while making a business case to entrepreneurs – in two sentences.
Why is it that writers (and designers ) so often are expected to bend over backwards, take impossible tests, and prove themselves to people who don’t even understand what we do or how we do it? Why are our portfolios of produced work not enough for some? You never see an ad for an accountant that requires candidates to “Review the attached Excel spreadsheet and find the 3 errors hidden within it.” Where’s the post that requires a plumber to “Come to my house and change out the leaking garbage disposal” as a test before he can be considered for a job?
I feel sorry for the company that posted this ad because they will never find what they’re looking for. And if they do luck out and get a response they like, I pity the poor writer who has to deal with these people. Because he or she will be doing a lot more than writing. They’ll be doing a lot of teaching, too. And we all know how vastly underpaid teachers are.
Logo Hide ‘n Seek
August 28th, 2011
Yahoo News had an interesting article recently about hidden symbols within corporate logos. The FedEx one is probably the most famous, with the reversed-out arrow between the “e” and the “x.” And here are a few more that I found interesting.
I have to admit I never saw the bicyclist in this one, but now that I know the yellow sun is the front wheel and the “r” in “Tour” is the body, with the “o” being the back wheel, I wonder how I ever missed it.
Here’s another one I never saw until it was pointed out to me. Do you see the sideways Kiss? Look between the “k” and the “i.”
Finally, one of my favorite websites to peruse is Amazon. But I never understood the yellow half-circle under the logo, which I thought was a cheesy smile. Turns out it isn’t. It’s an arrow that goes, if you notice, from the “A” to the “z,” a subtle message that you can find just about anything at Amazon.com. Which is actually true. Still looks a little cheesy, though. But they get a pass because both A Tale of Two Cities and World War Z were great books.
