Remember back when Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld did that TV ad for Shoe Circus. Apparently they did so good, they are being considered for a TV show loosely based on the movie, Napolean Dynamite, and the Fox TV reality show, The Simple Life. In the pilot below, Bill and Jerry are awesome playing the parts of Paris and Nicole. 4 Stars out of 4 for the clever product placement of that Microsoft giraffe toy that will be in stores, just in time for Christmas. (Warning: This video may not be suitable for viewers who are grossed-out by images of men clipping their toe-nails.)
Bonus link: Professional Microsoft observer Mary Jo Foley explains that “we now know the start of Microsoft’s campaign to rebrand and reposition Windows among consumers is ‘about nothing.’”
To any pigs who may read this blog, I’d like to apologize if I offended you when I said something about “lipstick on a pig,” buried in a long post I wrote June 24, 2007:
“Again, traditional advertising is fine in many instances, if it is helpful, honest, informative — and not merely hype. You just can’t dress up something old in a new dress and say it is something different than traditional advertising in a new dress — sidenote: if I were just talking with southerners, I would have at that point mentioned something about lipstick and a pig.)
I apologize because when I used that phrase it didn’t occur to me that it would offend any female pigs (technically, sows) who might read it. It’s just a phrase I’ve heard all my life, growing up in the south and all.
(Background: here. Amusing (to me, at least) Sidenote: Illustrator Andy Rash did some lipstick-on-a-pig art for the Wall Street Journal earlier this year and blogged at the time, “I don’t think I knew this expression before I did this for the Wall Street Journal. Now I know.”)
As I noted, on Sunday I attended the Titans-Jaguars game in Nashville. If you wondered why the game was canceled after the coin-toss, this report from The Onion Network explains Fred Taylor’s existential epiphany upon recognizing the randomness and triviality of life. Note: I was one of the fans who were shouting the imponderable.
My blogofilter is lighting up this morning with, uh, observations about the 90-second shoe-store advertisement embedded below. Personally, I think it’s one of the best ads ever created for a discount shoe retailer. How they got Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld to promote the Shoe Circus brand, I’ll never know. And during the first game of the NFL season, no less! I think it’s wonderful that Bill Gates doesn’t mind being the subject of nerd jokes and it’s good to see that now that he’s retired from Microsoft, he’s found a job as a pitchman for discount shoes.*
*Joking aside, if I were the Shoe Carnival chain, I’d be all over this ad with some fun guerilla marketing.
Today, Yahoo! announced the release of Fire Eagle, a service that, according to Search Engine Land, “is intended to be something of a ‘clearinghouse’ or ’switchboard’ for location and help users ‘manage location’ across the internet and on mobile applications.”
Those of you who know what this means, raise your hands. Okay. That’s what I thought. Actually, I’m not blogging about what the service does. I’m blogging about Fire Eagle’s logo. I’m outraged! Yahoo! would infringe on the Tennessee Titans’ famed “flaming thumbtack” logo. While I’m sure that Yahoo!’s designer intentionally meant to make their logo look like a flaming thumbtack and with the Titan’s designer’s, it was just good ol’ dumb luck, I still think consumers may be confused by the remarkably similar flaming thumbtack images.
To protest Yahoo!’s blatant disregard for my home team’s copyrighted logo, I have decided that when I attend Titans games, I will not use Fire Eagle to manage my location across the internet and on mobile applications.
Philipp’s results are so amusing, I thought I’d do another ego search on my name to see what happens. And whoa, the screen-grab below is what I found. While not me, the guy on the left is my friend, Joi Ito. He’s taken my photo a few times, and I his. So, other than him living in Japan and me in Tennessee, I guess I see the relation. As for that photo on the right that accompanies a Nick Bradbury post that mentions me, if it looks like a pregnant man, well, it is. Huh? Oddly, the pregnant man image shows up on a Google Image search for me, as well — thanks to this post related to my annual warning before April Fool’s Day. I guess the April Fool’s joke was one me.
Pardon me while I place two historic firsts in the record.
Early this morning, my wife starts off a conversation with, “I disagree with something you wrote on your blog.”
“When did you start doing that?” I respond.
“Disagreeing with you?”
“No, reading my blog?”
Second, today Gawker placed the phrase “Media and Marketing Guru” in front of my name. (Note to self: Add a side-bar blurb: “A Media & Marketing Guru,” says Gawker.)
You don’t need me to tell you that Seth Godin is a brilliant marketer. He sees marketing lessons in all of life’s journey. And because his lessons about marketing are shared with parable-like simplicity, even people like me can understand them — and be inspired.
Today, he’s having a little fun demonstrating how people will join “tribes” they think are exclusive. If you pre-order his new book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (due out October 21), you can “join Seth’s new tribe.” But hurry, because, “Membership is numbered, with low numbers getting prestige, first dibs on various assets and bragging rights.”
Wait, I’ve heard of this network before: It’s Melin Mann’s award-winning startup concept, “FlockdUP” — the maverick network for thought-leaders.
Okay, Seth. I’ll play along. Since I would purchase your book anyway, I’m also signing up for your maverick network for marketing thought-leaders — the receipt for my pre-order is in the e-mail.
The Important Part: There are those who preach that print is dead. I’m starting to believe it’s reading that’s dead. I am convinced people don’t read past the first sentence of an email, the first paragraph of a blog post, the headline of a news story, the first 30 characters of a tweet on Twitter. I’m thinking of writing a very long book on this topic, but after the first chapter it will only be greeking.
The Funny Part: I think people look at pictures and love charts — even if they don’t understand them. And video, people really love video. But only if they are how-to videos, videos of someone making a fool of themselves — or of someone else. Or if they are funny videos that allow geeks to laugh at themselves, like these:
I confess: I’m a Kristen Wiig fan. Anything the Saturday Night Live cast-member does cracks me up. I don’t know why, exactly, but her new character, “travel writer Judy Grimes,” is especially funny to me. I guess I’m amused by people who use the equivalent of emoticons in their speech or perhaps it’s her unwillingness to make any declaration without caveat. We all know that person. That and her amazing delivery. I’m not just kidding.
“Officials from the National Weather Service issued a severe weather alert for all basements in Tennessee Tuesday after a deadly new weather phenomenon ravaged scores of residential downstairs areas, leaving every other part of the houses completely untouched. The recently discovered targeted cyclones, known as basement tornadoes, tore through cellars all over the state, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.”
This explains a lot.
(Later: I agree with some Nashville readers who suggest this may not be funny in light of the killer storms that hit our area on Feb. 5. However, I also think if we can’t make fun of them, the tornadoes have won.)
Recently, I wrote about the lost art of campaign jingles. (Actually, the “jingle” is a lost art.) On this morning’s Weekend Edition, Scott Simon interviewed Jim Nayder of “The Annoying Music Show” about some really, really bad presidential campaign songs. Very funny stuff. The audio will be available at approximately 12 noon ET.
(Sidenote: Dear NPR & Chicago Public Radio powers-that-be, It sure would be great if The Annoying Music Show were available via podcast.)
2. By February 28, every event and business-media company in the country will have an “un-conference” division.
3. In June, IDG will announce that the 2009 Macworld Expo is being renamed Macworld UnExpo.
4. In July, Apple’s lawyers will sue several hundred people for using the words pod and camp in the same sentence.
5. In August, there will be a big controversy involving how corporate sponsors have taken over unconferences and how great things were back when unconferences really were unconferences — oh, and another thing, how come there are so few un-white-males attending them?
6. In September, 30,000 trade-show and association executives will attend the First Annual UnConferenceCon and UnTradeshow at Chicago’s McCormick Place.
7. In November, NPR will air a week-long series on the history of Unconferences and leave out Dave Winer because the producer forgets to Google the question, “What is an unconference?”
I have only an inkling of an idea what the friendly folks at National Instruments sell, but I’m thinking my 17-year-old son may one day want to go work there after viewing this:
Today, Yahoo! 
You don’t need me to tell you that 
