• eMusic Explorations Takes Music Lovers Down Amusing Path to Discover New Bands
    As a person of medium-old age, I'm lost when it comes to finding new music. It used to be that I'd turn on the MTV and avail myself of the best of what our nation's keytarists and junior-goth hookmeisters had to offer. But since the channel shifted its focus to effecting societal change, I've had only two options: To wait for younger colleagues to send pity MP3s my way or to return to teenage mainstays once anew, all the while banging my walking stick rhythmically against the armoire. So I applaud eMusic, the deep-cut ying to iTunes' hits-of-the-minute yang, for …
  • LG Does March Wrong
    The single most tone-deaf marketing campaign in recent history commences, in any number of commercials that have wallpapered TV coverage of the 2012 NCAA hoops tournament, with the following cornball flourish: "Is it 'March monotony'? Is it 'March more-of-the-same'? No-ho-ho-ho! It's 'March Madness,' people!" The campaign arrives courtesy of LG and current pundit/former college and pro star Greg Anthony, who attempt with no small measure of corporate gusto to link enjoyment of the games with the quality and character of surrounding appliances. It is overplayed and underthought, and I hate it with the unbridled heat of a thousand off-brand convection …
  • HSBC's "Serious Play" is Just That. Don't Overanalyze It.
    Even though my tastes trend toward charred meats and Bruce Willis flicks, I don't know from rugby. As it has been explained to me, the sport involves tackling, biting, mud, toothlessness and collegial beer intake. If that's the case, I don't know how it hasn't long since captured my fancy, much less lapped medium-contact pursuits like hockey or Black Friday shopping here in the U. S. of effin' A.
  • AT&T and Friskies Ads Evoke March Madness
    I am proudly, fiercely pro-adorableness and -adorability. I am blessed with the courage of my convictions in this matter, just as I am in my moral and political stances vis--vis ice cream (in favor), playgrounds (ditto) and genocide (against). Was it John F. Kennedy or John C. Mellencamp who wrote, "You've got to stand for somethin', or you're gonna fall for anything"? That's soooo me.
  • Latest Marine Corps Ad Campaign: Service-Minded Individuals Need Not Apply
    I've never understood why branches of the U.S. Armed Forces haven't been able to devise a compelling marketing campaign, at least not since the days of "Be All You Can Be." Perhaps it's a question of approach: While playing up the nobility of serving one's country and highlighting the make-the-world-a-better-place aspect of the gig are appropriate tactics, the campaigns often neglect to note that what servicemen and women do is both selfless AND way effin' cool. Loaded words like "character" and "discipline" stand in for the message that friskier members of the account team must be itching to convey. Namely: …
  • Kony 2012 and the Branding of Invisible Children
    So: the Kony video. Since I spent last week in a nightmare of my own making, I missed the opportunity to OMG about it in concert with the rest of the broadband-enabled universe. In the days since then, the video went hyperviral, awakening sincere 20-somethings to the existence of an exotic realm called "Uganda" and enduring five backlashes and six reverse-backlashes. Then everybody moved on to more pressing matters, before lapping back around for a few final flurries.
  • FDA Needs to Aim Higher with Its Web Videos
    A press release that wafted into my e-mailbox one recent morning commenced thusly: "When young children need medicine it isn't always easy to get them to take it, especially when they're feeling sick and cranky." Given that it arrived minutes after I'd endured a dark night of the soul with my kid, during which he wiggled and writhed his way through a seven-hour game of Guess Which Orifice Will Spew Next, I didn't feel that the video it teased, "Giving Medicine to Children," would offer much enlightenment. Besides, I had more immediate concerns, like the application of soothing liniments and …
  • Broadway is Behind the Times When Using Online Videos to Promote Shows
    Once every few months, filled with self-loathing after spending nine straight hours in the company of real housewives, I feel the need for some aesthetic counterbalance. I express this need by skipping off the sofa and announcing, in my most trumpety baritone, "Honey, we're goin' to the theee-AAY-turrr! Fetch me the shirt with buttons!" What I tend to forget is that coordinating a night on, off or around Broadway usually demands some forethought. After one recent low-culture TV binge, I suggested we grab tickets for The Book of Mormon. The nice lady at Telecharge subsequently informed me that she could …
  • Chevy Sonic Campaign Proves Entertaining... And That's About It
    As a member of a certain demographic subset - grunty dudes who enjoy popular entertainments in which stuff done gets all exploded up like KABOOM! - I constantly find myself under marketing siege by automakers. Usually, they highlight a particular model's contours and vroom- vroom-iness by airing it out on a sun-dappled stretch of deserted turf. Sometimes, they just repeat "bluetooth" over and over. In either instance, the message is the same: In this car, you'll be a solid 27.5 percent cooler and/or more able to transport all your gear for a rad Outward Bound expedition. So when Chevy announced …
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