Marketing, Part III: Run over by “Cars”

The promoters of the movie Cars have rented the entire automotive journalism establishment for a month. It’s amazing. Every car magazine, tv show, web site, blog-where-people-are-paid, everything is simultaneously doing “stories” relating to that movie.

I realized things were headed this way in publishing some time in the 1980s when I walked by the big newsstand on Cahuenga in Hollywood and saw the same actress’s face literally 15 in a row, 15 different magazines, all the same month, promoting the same star of the same movie.

In artillery, a “time on target” is a technique in which different batteries at different locations and distances from a target time each of their firings so that all of the shells arrive in the same place at the same time, multiplying their effect with terrifying simultaneity from all directions.

The marketers have us bracketed and they are firing for effect. Help!

More Marketing Prose! DNA

This stuff is on the Extinct Beverages page, so I guess it’s gone. It was water, with a little fruit flavoring, and 5% alcohol. Yeah. Its marketing website lives on, and says:

DNA: It’s Water with an Attitude! The world’s one and only alcoholic spring water.

I AM DNA

A refreshing combination of clear spring water, natural fruit flavor, with an alcohol level of 5%.

DRINK THIS

DNA explodes onto the beverage market. The wild child of alcoholic drinks will hijack your imagination. You don’t have to understand it. Just get on the ride.

BIG OPPORTUNITY

DNA launches its asault on North America in Spring of 2000. Alternative alcohol products have been the rage of lifestyle cities around the world. Thrill seekers and tastemakers in your market are eager to try DNA. It’s an “Australian original.” Go for it…with a vengeance!

I AM SERIOUS

The combined strengths of Wet Planet Beverage and Canadaigua Brands, Inc. will lead DNA among market movers and shakers. DNA will be pumpin’ with bar & club sampling programs along with consumer promotions. A mega-cool press campaign is sure to prompt word-of-mouth and great demand!

motion in the ocean (oo wah)

beachparty

  1. AIIGH! The Paxil is self-replicating and attacking the other Paxil!
  2. YOW! The water down there is so hot, it’s entered a weird different state of matter!
  3. YOICKS! The Luba people of central Africa have a totally awesome memory board technology!
  4. Shut up and make your own Custom Loaf, damnit!

Edit: Maciej got all up in my grill about the phrase “weird different state of matter”. Let the record show that I am aware that super extra hot steam is not strictly speaking a state of matter, even if it is supercritical. However, I do maintain that supercritical water is still totally weird. Thank you. Does anyone have some cashews and/or Paypal?

Local characters: The landscaper

The gardener

Here is the gardener for my neighbors. She is in her late fifties or early sixties. She does their whole yard, lawn and plants, with one helper, once a week. Her pickup truck is stickered with patriotism. She clearly has arthritis or knee injuries and walks with a kind of swiveling cowboy swagger that says: I am in pain and I don’t give a damn. She chain smokes. While she is working she does not stop except to take stock of progress or give instruction to her assistant. She’s so focused that it takes two or three attempts to contact her before she’ll break away from work.

She is a force of nature.

The gardener

The unspeakable lured by the unreadable

I try not to to be too hard on hack writers most of the time. It’s hard to make a living in journalism, and a lot of jobs are at boring and stultifying industry house organs or shilltalk ad rags. These are people who wanted to be ink-stained front page reporters or film critics and they get to write about aluminum foil or fabulous getaway weekends. Sometimes, though, they cross a line. This piece, from a credit card company’s luxury travel magazine, is… well, I’ll pay you a quarter if you read the whole thing straight through. It’s for our local South County seaside resort, and the writers decided that instead of the usual luxury porn template that bored them so, they’d use an alternative literary form for thier puff piece: A film script! Because that’s what they really wanted to do anyway.

THE SCRIPT

For the Cheese Crew: Head… Injury… REPORT!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/5027868.stm

A teenager who knocked himself out while chasing a Double Gloucester cheese down a hill was among 25 people hurt in a Cheese Rolling competition.

Chris Anderson, 18, won one of the five races which make up the annual contest, in which dozens of people race down a 1:2 gradient hill after a large cheese.

St John Ambulance workers at the race, on Coopers Hill in Brockworth, said two people were taken to hospital.

One spectator was given treatment after being hit by a runaway cheese…

Memorial Day: Lions led by Donkeys

From Lions Led By Donkeys

The problem is, these yahoos have managed an ugly trick. They have turned criticism of the policies of Bastards in Suits into criticism of The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. This, of course, is completely wrong, as one can easily tell the difference between the Bastards in Suits and The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. One group is in Suits, and Not Getting Shot At, while another is in Uniform, and Getting Shot At. Please, try to grasp this. Not the same.

[…]

The first war I read about extensively was World War I, where I encountered the magnificently British term “Lions led by donkeys.” If there’s a more apt description of our current thrill-ride, I can’t think of it. Here’s the thing: you folk on the other side of this particular argumentative aisle may like the Donkeys. You may trust the Donkeys. But never, ever forget the goddam difference.

Some people even seem confused on how we are criticizing the Bastards in Suits. The Bastards have a job to do. They are not doing it. Period. Tommy Franks recently trotted out the classic bit of misdirection, attacking critics of Donald Rumsfeld.

“I don’t care about your politics. I don’t. Don Rumsfeld is an American patriot.”

Yes, well, that’s lovely. But we’re not criticizing his patriotism. We’re criticizing his job performance. One of the great mysteries of the last six years was how and when the Bush Administration turned public policy into Special Olympics. “Oh, I know Donny knocked over all the hurdles, but HE LOVES THE RACE, so you SHUT YOUR FILTHY, CYNICAL MOUTH.” Jesus H. Christ.

The problem is, there is no single word in English for a man risking absolutely nothing, who demands someone else risk absolutely everything. I’m sure there’s a word in German — they are a whizzer with those kicky compound nouns — but none in English for that precise combination.

So, for now, we must let “chickenhawk” be its placeholder.

Thanks to the Aardvark.