Nice moment this morning after I parked my car in the garage at work. Stuck my earbuds in and cued up Wilco's Summerteeth on the iPod for the five-minute walk to the office.
As the song "I'm Always in Love" came on, I walked past a Benz with this license plate:
LO IM VE
I liked that.
On the other hand, apparently Sears' tagline is "Where it begins." (I don't know if this is new or not, but it showed up on an email this morning.) I think companies that are sucking wind should stop investing money in stupid meaningless taglines just because they think they need to have a tagline. Is "Where it begins" going to get anyone to decide they have to hurry out to Sears? Or do anything, for that matter?
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Free* to be stupid
It must be nice when you can be the chief marketing officer of a company that spends tens of millions of dollars promoting a web site called freecreditreport.com (note the first four letters, F-R-E-E), make it look like your service is free while you charge unsuspecting customers money to access some jive-ass credit monitoring nonsense, and then profess that none of that seems misleading. Bet he believes it, too.
Marketing is fun.
(* Not actually free.)
Marketing is fun.
(* Not actually free.)
Friday, August 1, 2008
Lost his head, I guess
I don't really think this story is that interesting, but:
1) Remind me not to ride Greyhound in Canada. Actually, I don't think you'll have to remind me. Nothing about that sounds particularly appealing.
2) I initially read the headline wrong and thought it was going to be truly macabre, but then I realized that it was the decapitation suspect, and not the decapitation victim, who showed up in court.
Which, for a reason that'll be obvious in a moment, reminds me of one of the worst sentences written by a professional journalist that I've ever read.
In December 1994, a New Jersey man was killed by one of the last few Unabomber killings -- about a year and a half before Ted Kaczyniski was finally identified and arrested. Since the victim was in the advertising industry, the tragedy was covered by Advertising Age magazine.
I've never forgotten the offending phrase, but I just looked up the article in Lexis-Nexis to make sure I had it exactly right. I kid you not: It actually appeared in print, precisely as follows: "The bomb, postmarked Dec. 3 in San Francisco, exploded Dec. 10 at [the victim's] home, decapitating the newly promoted exec VP-general manager of Y&R Inc. and severely damaging his kitchen."
1) Remind me not to ride Greyhound in Canada. Actually, I don't think you'll have to remind me. Nothing about that sounds particularly appealing.
2) I initially read the headline wrong and thought it was going to be truly macabre, but then I realized that it was the decapitation suspect, and not the decapitation victim, who showed up in court.
Which, for a reason that'll be obvious in a moment, reminds me of one of the worst sentences written by a professional journalist that I've ever read.
In December 1994, a New Jersey man was killed by one of the last few Unabomber killings -- about a year and a half before Ted Kaczyniski was finally identified and arrested. Since the victim was in the advertising industry, the tragedy was covered by Advertising Age magazine.
I've never forgotten the offending phrase, but I just looked up the article in Lexis-Nexis to make sure I had it exactly right. I kid you not: It actually appeared in print, precisely as follows: "The bomb, postmarked Dec. 3 in San Francisco, exploded Dec. 10 at [the victim's] home, decapitating the newly promoted exec VP-general manager of Y&R Inc. and severely damaging his kitchen."
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