Thank You, Ignorance.

In a direct contrast to yesterday’s post about how major media outlets are damaging their reputation by “sponsoring” keywords on Google and negatively associating themselves with the Virginia Tech shootings, a new story appeared this morning on Advertising Age that shows how it should be done.

Sports apparel giant, Nike, has decided to associate itself with the Don Imus/Rutgers Women’s Basketball fiasco – but in a good way. Nike, by way of their principal ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, have released a print ad and a series of online banner ads.

I’ll let the ad speak for itself.

Thank you, ignorance.
Thank you for starting the conversation.
Thank you for making an entire nation listen to the Rutgers’ team story. And for making us wonder what other great stories we’ve missed.
Thank you for reminding us to think before we speak.
Thank you for showing us how strong and poised 18 and 20-year-old women can be.
Thank you for reminding us that another basketball tournament goes on in March.
Thank you for showing us that sport includes more than the time spent on the court.
Thank you for unintentionally moving women’s sport forward.
And thank you for making all of us realize that we still have a long way to go.
Next season starts 11.16.07.

(NIKE Swoosh)

The Print Ad can be viewed here. 

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Tragedy = $$$

It seems that capitalizing on something as tragic and sacred as yesterday’s “massacre” at Virginia Tech is not out of bounds. Ken Wheaton, a writer for Advertising Age, has just reported that mainstream media such as The New York Times and Inside Edition have purchased the keywords “Virginia Shooting” on Google’s search engine. The idea being that, when someone searches for this information, the sponsoring company’s website would be at the top of the results list. In Google’s case, in a yellow bar at the top and/or a sidebar to the right of the results.

It’s sick and tacky for sure. But is it even an ethical marketing practice? The sponsoring company actually gets MONEY each time a user clicks on their links. They are, in a very real way, making money on the tragedy of the Virginia Tech shooting.

I haven’t been a fan of mainstream media, including The New York Times, for quite some time, but this just nails it home for me. How horrible.

Ad Age’s story title says it all: Proud Sponsors of the Virginia Tech Shooting?

Update: I’m still thinking about this. I feel that marketing and advertising of this nature is not only unethical and immoral, but a really bad business decision. Are the few extra bucks these companies are sure to make worth the bad PR, the bad association that people will make with them in the future, after seeing what kind of advertising they are going after? It’s bad for the victims, bad for the web users and bad for the company’s image. So why do it?

The only redeemable outcome would be if these media company’s decided to donate all proceeds from the ad links to the victim’s families. But we all know that’s not happening…

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Forecast Design

I’ve been subjected to paying closer attention to the weather the last few days. We had a Nor’Easter blow through Sunday and Monday leaving flooding and general havoc in its wake. As a visual person I have always been attracted to many variations of weather maps you see on TV and the internet. I posted just a few samples for a visual, but admittably, these samples don’t fully represent the full range of graphics, map design and color palettes out there.

My question is, are there too many variations?

Storm forecasts that impact and affect everything from safety issues, travel concerns and general preparedness seem to be very important to our modern, civilized lives. Without weather forecasts you wouldn’t know that a hail storm is schedule for your weekend bar-b-cue, or the snow is going to cancel your flight, or you better get that sump pump you’ve been putting off.

Should the National Weather Service, or some other weather entity, work with designers to set some sort of standardized graphical language in place to avoid misinterpretation by us, the audience? It’s highly critical information and should be presented in the clearest way possible. Should I, as the viewer, be required to translate each channel’s visual language for myself?

Should neon green always represent rain? Isn’t blue a more recognizable color for water? Is that white supposed to be snow or just a cloudy day? Is the blank map brown? Gray? Green?

I’m not trying to suggest that each network doesn’t put a lot of thought into their weather maps, but maybe if they worked together they could communicate to their viewers a bit clearer than they already do.

Am I being too picky? You can tell me. Go ahead.

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Update: My friend Dave’s interview with Mel Stottlemyre (that I blogged about here) has been posted at NYBaseballTalk.com. Go check it out!

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Honk If You Love…

Bumper stickers.

You either love ’em or you hate ’em.

I suppose that some people are ‘bumper sticker people,’ and some people aren’t, I don’t intend to make any judgments either way. I’m more curious as to what drives (no pun intended) people to choose a bumper sticker as a vehicle (pun intended) of self-expression.

There are all sorts of bumper stickers that I see on my hour-long commute each morning and each evening. Some funny. Some serious.

The first category would be the Religious bumper sticker… Anything from the Christian Fish emblem, to “Honk if You Love Jesus,” to “WARNING: In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned!”

Next would be the Political bumper stickers: From the iconic “W,” to the “Support our Troops” ribbon magnets, to “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him,” to “Vote Mondale in ’84!” (maybe it’s time to peel that one off…).

Then the Proud Parent bumper stickers. “My child is an honor roll student at…”to “Baby on Board” to “Soccer Mom,” to “My child can beat up your honor student.”

The Organizational bumper stickers: From The Sierra Club to the US Marine Corp to the Poofy Poodle Owners of America Club.

The very popular Oval Destination stickers: OBX, CM, ADK, and any other acronym/abbreviation you can create for your favorite vacation spot or hometown.

I’m leaving so many out, I know, but that’s a pretty good sampling.

So what’s the draw? Why choose to express yourself in this way to total strangers? I think a few answers would be evangelism (Christian bumper stickers) and lobbying (political bumper stickers). But what about all the others? Why tell everyone that you’re a proud member of the NRA? Why slap the logo sticker of the local punk band on your bumper? Who are you interested in letting know that your minivan climbed Mt. Washington?

It’s a form of marketing, isn’t it? You’re marketing yourself, your interests, your passions, for others to read at 55 mph.

There are so many questions to raise regarding bumper sticker-ology… If you put a controversial bumper sticker on your car (ala Pro-Choice/Pro-Life) could you possibly be a catalyst of road rage? If you put a witty phrase that may take a minute to read and understand, could you possibly cause an accident? Do you think you might turn a Republican into a Democrat with your “Hillary 08” sticker? Are these even the right questions to be asking? Is it even about communicating to other people? Or is it more for yourself? Self-expression by way of Decoration of your vehicle. Bumper stickers have the aura of being a fad – yet they’ve been around for decades and seem to be as popular now as they were in the 70s and 80s. Why won’t they go away? Why should anyone care if you visualize whirled peas? Should they? Maybe not. What’s your take?

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Baseball and Soccer News

This past week, my friend Dave over at NYBaseballTalk.com  had the opportunity to sit down and interview the Yankee legend Mel Stottlemyre. For those who may not know, Stottlemyre is best known for his days as a Yankees pitcher and more recently the New York Yankess Pitching Coach, retiring in 2005 after the Yankees loss in the ALDS to the Angels. Dave’s interview isn’t up yet, but when it gets posted I’ll be sure to link it.

In soccer news, 90’s Prime (our ZogSports team) suffered our season opener loss last night against the Anchorage Buccaneers, under the uneven lights of Asphalt Green in NYC. Final score was 2-4.

Also last night, Manchester United defeated Roma by an astounding score of 7-1. This win catapults United into the semi-finals of the Champions League in Europe.

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Wow, has it really been three years since I started blogging?

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Lessons in Brand Loyalty

My first car was a 1986 Honda Civic Hatchback. Powder blue. Manual transmission. It was awesome. It looked just like this. It was mostly indestructable… until it wasn’t anymore. Ever since I have loved Hondas.

I currently own two Hondas. A 2001 Civic sedan and a 2005 CR-V. I’m a Hondavangelist! I tell everyone what reliable, safe, long-lasting cars they are.

My Civic has over 147,000 miles. I just had some work done recently and in the process the battery needed to be disconnected. Honda has it set up so that when the car radio disconnects from the battery it thinks it is being stolen and so it locks itself. When I bought the car I was given a little card with the unlock code. I have since lost it. My fault. And so for the last few days I have been driving my 1-hour-each-way commute with no form of audible entertainment, save for my rather loud and animated version of American Idol (commuter edition!).

Anyhow, I called up the Honda dealership to get my unlock code. Afterall, they gave it to me – so they can get it again. They know I own the car. I can prove that. I bought the car from them. They can prove that. Honda’s solution? Bring the car in, we’ll rip out the radio to get the serial number and then we can look up the code with that. That’ll be $90.

Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. So I hit the blogs. Found this extremely helpful blog with extremely helpful comments. By reading those I was able to get my radio’s serial number simply by pressing 1 & 6 while turning the radio on. Then it was just a simple phone call to get the unlock code.

Now my question is… If I had brought my car into Honda, would they have ripped the dash apart to remove the radio to get the serial number printed on the back… or would they have pressed 1 & 6 like I did and still charged me $90?

This is the type of scenario that causes people to seriously question their brand loyalty. You can sell the best product on the planet, but if your customer service stinks you will ultimately fail. I hope Honda wakes up and fixes the little things like this, and continue to focus on the bigger things… like making great cars.

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Link Luv

My buddy Scott Hodge threw me some link love today, due to my recent IM Away Message. Check it out here (unless you followed his link here… in that case, you were just there so clicking that link would be kinda pointless… you know what? do whatever you want. You’re an adult (probably).)

It’s nice to know people actually notice custom IM away messages.

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Easter Steps

Easter 2005Easter 2006Easter 2007

(Click photos to enlarge)
Every Easter Sunday we take a photo of Erin sitting on the front steps of a brownstone near our church on the Upper East Side, NYC. 2005, 2006 and 2007 are above. This year, we got Abbie involved. She’s only 2 months younger than Erin was in the 2005 photo, but those two months are the difference between sitting by yourself and getting propped up against your big sister.

While as amazed as we are at how big Erin has gotten, we are just as amazed that tomorrow, April 9th,  Abbie will be 6 months old! Seems like yesterday we were in the hospital. What a blessing and a  joy these kids are to me… and how fun!

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Happy Easter

Happy Easter

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