NY Auto Show car porn wrap-up.

Went to the NY Auto Show for the umpteenth time and nothing’s changed much. I go to these things so you people don’t have to. (You’re welcome.) It’s cool on media-only days and not so cool with the general public. (Real hard to shoot pics.) If you have the time, read all about it on my specially modified hi-performance Flickr page with optional sport package. (Start at the top left and amble through them all, which pretty much follows how I went through the show.) Most of the pics contain notes that are either half-serious or half-snark. I don’t cover every single concept car or new production model out there, so if you need those kind of details, get a life, then go here. Most of the time, I just vented on general stuff I thought ventable.

A few impressions:

•.VW and Toyota had a genuine vibe going.
•.With rare exception, no good auto schwag. (Catalogs don’t count.)
•.Seating hasn’t improved much. Not many places to chill.
•.Major push to sell manly trucks to manly men and weekend warriors—but no tie-ins with major tool brands?
•.Show was boring overall. Lexus Axis5 was cool though. Speed Racer drew interest but more movie stuff is more better.
•.Only VW, Ford and Dodge tried to do anything interactive beyond a typical website.
•.Like Paris fashion, you see a ton of concept cars in all shapes, sizes and finishes, but at the end of the day, America just wants a better minivan. Not one soccer mom promo?
•.For video game nation, one display in the entire show for either PS or Xbox platforms?
•.Sirius isn’t enough. Scion had a wall of sound you couldn’t help but notice. Rest of the time the overall music was limited to mentions by models with mics: “And, it has seven gigs for all your mp3s!” A whole seven? Sorry, obsolete before I ever turn the key. Ford had a rock van and that thing shoulda been outside with a band playing on top of it. This ain’t rocket science.

Maybe next year.

Tags: NY Auto Show, Lexus Axis5

Like it? Good. Name it and it’s yours.

Pontiac is running this promo at the auto show to UG/crowdsource a name for their 2009 suv. Okay copywriters, day job suck? Come up with a new name for them and win a truck then. Details at Tame the Name.

Tags: Pontiac, Tame the Name

Joaquin helps you divide your chores.

I appreciate a good testimonial as much as the next person, and I love all the actors in this spot, but doesn’t it ring just a little false? Especially coming from A-list celebs who could afford any insurance they want?

And does Joaquin really do his own dishes? Kinda doubt it.

Tags: Divided We Fail

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A.I. gets framed.

And Baron Davis, Thierry Henry, Vince Young and Jelena Jankovic. (Yep on JJ, who?) More branded containment, this time from Yahoo! and Reebok Entertainment. First-time celebrity directors take a look at various athletes in a series of very short films. Hate to call them even that. A.I. comes off the most real, but as with the rest of the athletes, I think he was let down by the material. I liked his dialog, but then they bleeped it out? C’mon Reebok, really. Audience isn’t going to blush and it just undermines things.

Now, director Paz Vega at least attempted an original idea with her piece, as absurd as it is, but Baron Davis is still gonna take some shit in the locker room for that concept. Director Vega also has an interesting concept where fans ask Henry all the questions, but collectively, the results of all of these films walk the line between extended commercial and really short 60 minutes segment.

Is that due to quick cuts in the editing? The profile feel of the storylines maybe? Dunno. Maybe they’re asking the athletes to do too much. A :30 spot is one thing, but asking anything longer is really hard. It’s not what they do, unless, it’s play-by-play work in the booth or guesting on a pre-game show. When they’re off the cuff, spontaneous like A.I. in his scenes, then I think it works.

It’s in those shorter TV spots where we're used to seeing more cinematic moves in slo-mo with a dramatic VO followed by a Swoosh. I’m not seeing that here. Still, I’d probably put this collection in the same league as Wade, Spike, Kobe (misguided as it was), and maybe even the recent Nash work.

I learned a little about each athlete, but not so much that it changed my perceptions of them. If that’s even what the directors were after.

Tags: Reebok Framed

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I don’t care if it sells cars.

I mean, I probably should, especially if I was working on the brand, but screw it. Here’s another brilliant random spoof ad for the Toyota Matrix.

Contextual fun.

Well, NJ traffic has another reason to be even more insane Friday when the Prez hits town to help those in mortgage trouble. Not so fast. Take a look at the word financial in the story and see if the root of the problem doesn’t pop up. Nice™!

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Thank Apple for Web 2.0.

You remember the moment. Right when Mac OS X first came out. Ooooh. Look at the new shiny happy interface. Glossy reflections on the Apple site even. Sexy! And now? 280 Weeks Later and the virus has taken over the planet. Web 2.0? Thanks Steve. Every fucking logo now has either a faded reflection below it or that stupid glow in the background. Web 2.0 designers even pay homage to the iPhone with, wait for it, reflections on black. Need to make your own? This still works. Like I said, the Amish have it down when it comes to Web 2.0. No logos. No reflections. No reflections on logos. My work here is done.

Go with Steve.

Tags: Apple, Web 2.0

Overheard internet.

Because people are always saying something really cool, really honest,
or really stupid:

“Sweet! Chicks, video games, and prizes! I win, you win, America wins...”
___________________

“Uh people, there is no Chinese Democracy album. It is a front because everyone knows he is simply a fat, balding has-been that still beats up women.”
___________________

“Give me a fucking break. This is what happens when planners try to write ads. It's like everyone thinks they can make an ad nowadays just because they own a fucking mac. Can we bring back the professionals?”

But I’m not the fath... shit.

$29.99 lets you know for sure before Nancy Grace does. Oh, but ya gotta drop $119 on the lab fee. WHAT. We are so Orwellian fucked. What’s next, the evil thought detection home test kit?

(via.)

Hmmmm.

Funny. Our presidents used to have beards. Just sayin.

Tags: Bill Richardson

Monetizing social media.

Wish I had a sexier title for you and more fitting visual, but alas, nope.

There’s one phrase I hear way too much lately among more than a few media, agency and PR types: “How do we monetize social media?” Doesn’t matter what it is either. Widgets, apps or sites where you share little parts of your life—with 12 million others. (I offer a simple solution for another way to approach this a little later.)

Yes, brands and agencies are supposed to make money, that’s why we all do this selling thing we do. But that’s not important to the masses who use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and every other person sharing stuff or hanging out with their friends online.

They don’t see one dime of revenue—why should they care about whether it makes money or not? They’re at those places to connect with friends, not your brand—something Toad talks about often. I bring up the monetizing part because it feels like there’s just too much focus on it, yet almost nobody mentions the obsession with it.

I’d rather define what success is for social media sites just a little more clearly.

Typically, the first thing you hear from brands or new media evangelists when a site doesn’t make money: it’s a failure. From the POV of the people running the site, maybe. You can look at YouTube before they got bought to see how this was almost the case. (As I recall, their traffic generated almost a million dollar per month server bill, yet they had no real way to pay for it and faced being shut down.)

But as far as the users of the site were concerned, it was a success.

Same with MySpace and Facebook. You couldn’t tell those users that the collective millions of views their videos got were a failure. They defined themselves, (and still do), by how popular they were online. For some, it was profile or page views. Still others, it was about the friends they added or how many ‘important’ friends added them. For Gen i/Text, this equals popularity and acceptance:

I’m more popular, maybe even better than you because my MySpace or YouTube page has more subscribers, friends or views.

Which means then one brand’s failure is another user’s success. If that’s the case, why not chill when it comes to immediately focusing on profitability. Make the experience, whatever it is, cool. Make it practical. Make it work.

That last one is as important as any other factor. Why does it seem a new Facebook app or social media site is released literally every hour claiming to do what the one it appears it was cloned from couldn’t?

What about spending more time getting it ‘more’ right than rushing to get it out there. It’s as if the attitude “Let’s just get it live and fix it later” is so engrained that nobody stops to question the insanity.

(On a side note, here’s a recent look at popular Facebook apps that do work, here and here. For some that didn’t, go here. And, for an even more in-depth look at the what, how and why things work the way they do on Facebook, read this developer’s approach to designing apps. Want even more stat porn showing popularity? Here ya go.)

Okay, nuff about specific sites or apps though because I’m not here to plug Facebook. This is about making a user experience people want to be a part of no matter which way they encounter a brand. For example, assuming I never saw an Apple commercial before, I would know as soon as I step foot in one of their retail stores, it’s a very cool place to be. Likewise, I may never go into a brick and mortar version of Zappos.com, but their online ordering/return process was/is hassle-free.

The Devil’s Advocate response: “Well, why not build in monetization up front? Why is that so wrong? It’s just business.” Maybe—if it can be done. Somehow though the cool part always seems to take a back seat when it’s just about profits.

So what’s my ‘brilliant’ idea after all that to ‘monetize’ this stuff? Simple. Change the way you view it: use social media to monitor what people are saying about your brand. In other words,

Listen.

How? By Googling “I hate” + “your brand” to see what people really think—not just what the agency tells you from skewed focus groups. (And, Google’s free of charge too!) Then, if you’re really committed to improve your product or service, address the issues you hear.

Know what? You’ll likely see less abandonment of your shopping carts because you improved your online checkout—after you read a complaint on a blog.

You’ll add free wifi to your stores not because it’s what most coffee shops both big and small have already done, but because half the people online were asking for it.

You may already preach to the choir of brand evangelists, influencers and advocates, fine. But don’t forget to go after the weakest link: the annoyed customers. You’ll likely gain more converts among that group because you improved customer service after they bitched about a truly bad experience.

You’ll stop worrying so much about how to make money with the latest social media whatever and fix the ‘gadget’ you already have in front of you—your brand’s product or service.

Monetization will naturally follow, no?

Tags: social media

Hey, 15 blade phenom freaks.

Gillette and Tiger Woods are looking for phenoms with talent. (Are there any other kind.) Can you hold your breath for an hour? Can you run 40 miles an hour? Do you like to wrestle sharks? Well, upload that video. Oh, and include a ball with it or something. Look on the bright side—they finally got Tiger out of that damn Buick.

Previous YouTube prize fun:
1) Hanes. 2) Axe. 3) Novartis. 4) McDonald’s. 5) Tiger Balm. 6) Miss Horrorfest 2007.
7) Nesquik. 8) Puma. 9) LG. 10) Lions For Lambs. 11) Samsung. 12) Casio. 13) Swiffer.
14) Turbo Tax. 15) Nature’s Valley 16) Sprite. 17) Tide.

Tags: Gillette Phenom

Download this.

If you have a chance, don’t miss the weekly series Download: The True Story of the Internet on Discovery Channel, covering the names and faces of people behind the internet, as reported by John Heilemann. (The series repeats through April with times and dates here.) Bubble was the episode I caught which showed the origins of eBay and Amazon—and just how much these guys didn’t know leading up to the crash. It’s worth noting that we’re almost a decade later and from the cheap seats here, it looks like we could be headed for a similar bubble with social media sites like MySpace and Facebook. (The other thing worth noting is the irony of a show called Download that you, um, can’t?) Nits aside, catch it.

Tags: Download: The True Story of the Internet, social media

How to write a successful top 10 list.

(Naw. Just messin with the marketing/PR freaks on Google today. No such list here.)

Tags: How to write a successful top 10 list.

But wait there’s more.

•• Fuck Planet Earth.
•• Nash-made Nike, or the other way around.
•• Starbuck’s PR speakjob.
•• Because rock never needs a capo.
•• Social media logorgy.
•• You’re getting sleepy. NO, YOU ARE.
•• A Twishlist.
•• You can’t beat a good Scottish rant. Ever.
•• Yeah, except for that whole it’s still not an iPhone thing.
•• New Jersey—everything you’d expect. And less.
•• More typos than this blog.
•• What came first: Rambo or HALO?
•• Ban organic farming or the fat person gets it.

The blue dot is your f@#!ing friend.

I guess when you’re a distant 14th in the category like Cure auto insurance, you gotta spice things up a little. This customized one’s from a series of three :10 spots running together online with shiny happy Wal-Mart blue dot thing.

Tags: Cure auto insurance

Can’t beat a good cotton ball. Or two.

French. Axe. Oh yeah, you know what I’m spra... sayin.


Tags: Axe

Happy Easter kids.

Don’t be scared,
it’s just the Easter Ferret.

RIght up here in section la-di-da.

One more spot from the series I love.

(Via via.)

Tags: Miller High Life

First Amy, now Jamie.

Okay, maybe Winehouse might not make it long enough to qualify for the cover, but Jamie does.

Tags: Jamie Lee Curtis

Television IS good for kids.

Sometimes I actually stay up late working, not blogging. So while I keep doing that for the next few nights, enjoy some good old retro. Back when men were men and TV was good for kids.

Scarred for life? Earn after you burn.

When you have Gen Text looking at colleges, you come across a host of scholarship/school info. Then you apply like crazy for anything that you think could possibly throw free money your way. Usually, it just requires the student to tell a story about their goals or why they love America. If you’re lucky, the amount you win might cover their first semester’s Starbucks habit. But, I saw what may be one the strangest ones yet:

Scarred 4 Life

Okaaay, I’ll play along and see where this goes. And it goes right where you’d think. To a promo for a scar reduction medication that’s giving away a host of prizes and oh, by the way, $500 towards a scholarship. I guess there’s worse ways to get a product mention but this seems too far removed from education to qualify. Having seen enough wounds from a Dermabond freelance stint, I’ll pass on seeing little Timmy opened up before lunch thank-you very much. But maybe it’s me.

Go be scared of plants.

More trailers promoted by microsites, (aka, here’s where I go off on what I’d do if someone threw a shitload of money at me to promote a movie). The Ruins put out Human Labrat via Justin TV to show what happens when, nevermind, go see. It’s got a few hundred thousand views and it’ll probably get a bunch more, but there’s a few things I might’ve done differently—take it for what it’s worth. The goofy/humerous tone of the site seems to undermine the theme of the film, (which is vines that attack, so why would you let them grow inside you as some kind of experiment).

The whole webcam and actor experience feels too scripted for my liking also. Really creep that shit out and make it more spontaneous, almost like surveillance footage where he discovers the thing on his own. It’s obvious they money on the growing vine effect inside his face, but then the graphic that takes over the screen looks hokey. (The Facebook banner ad looked cooler.)

And for a 'viral' theme, there are no options to embed a clip anywhere for people to ‘spread’ around on blogs. Tip for any weed killer brand: get some space on those sites running these trailers.

Tags: The Ruins

Time to be inspired by the past.

Or, repulsed and saddened by it. There are worse things than dressing like that. On second thought, not really. This tribute clip of Swedish rock bands of the sixties will ruin the Beatles song accompanying it, but the imagery redeems. No, it’s not the next generation of Old Spice ad parodies either.

Summed up nicely by one comment there:

“Clearly NONE of these bands ever had groupies.........”

(Inspired by via.)

And we still haven’t checked into rehab.

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(via.)

Well, there’s one way to eliminate fake blog comments...

don’t allow them at all. See, I was going to say Forget Sarah Marshall and your movie promo blog, now I’ll just say F-You Sarah Marshall because the validation set-up on your website blocked the trailer from working. So watch a clip here instead of the new black:

thirty-something-but-not-quite-mid-life crisis-movie angst.

(I also heard there were Easter eggs in the blog’s source code with Sarah’s actual cell number.)

(Naw, just fuckin’ with the geeks.)

Tags: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

P.P.P.P.P.S. – ORDER NOW!

“So what do you do?”
“I work in direct.”
“Oh ... have I seen anything you’ve done?”

“Probably.”

Okay, let’s talk about the important stuff: NCAA brackets.

This would be the Facebook application worth installing, from Coke Zero. Until then, try this one from CBS on Facebook. I got UConn over Arkansas in the finals.

(Man do I hate Duke.)

(via)

Tags: March Madness, NCAA brackets

Because I wanna know, that’s why.

For my own edificational purposes, two polls. Excuse the semi-scientific methodology, I’m just trying to get a sense of what everyone is generally using on a daily basis to talk with people.

When talking privately with someone, what method do you use most on a daily basis?

Speak directly in-personemailphone (land line)cell phoneIM (via computer)text (via cell)FacebookTwitter(Other social media site)

What method do you most use to interact with a group of people?

In-person (at work)In-person (outside work)Email (‘Replay All’ is your friend)IM session (via computer)IM via chat room, Skype, etc.)FacebookTwitterOther social media siteBlog comments sectionConference, (phone, video, etc.)

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What the...?

Cheeseburger in a can.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
It’s so real. If you like vampire eyes.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Twitter plant. (via.)
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Veronica blog.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
My cat hates Rachael Ray.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
eBay listing of the week.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
craigslist ad of the week.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

(image via)

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Having trouble visualizing it?

Not anymore. I was digging around online and came across a collection of more visualization apps than you might ever need—for now. What’s that and why should I care you say? First, I’ll explain. Secondly, nobody said you had to. But, if I’m to live up to my mission statement of helping you kill time while you’re working, then I need to keep finding this stuff.

Visualization reorganizes data graphically in a way that’s different than what you normally experience. This may not be for everyone who just Googles whenever they need to find something, but this way of connecting and exploring new things by seemingly random characteristics will become, if it hasn’t already, second nature for Gen i/Text/Y whatevuh.

The montage above is from coverpop, which collects cover art based on your choice of genre or musical term. Hover over the collage and it then gives you an option to buy or get more album info from Amazon. (Coverpop also has collages for Flickr and other themes too.)

Worth a look to see ... how to look.

(Via laboratory101 > ReadWriteWeb)

Tags: visualization

It’s Lobsterfest time!

No, not the juicy food porn shots found in the current Red Lobster spot, I mean Kowloon’s. Mmmm. C’mon, say it with me in that Red Lobster voice: (cue moaning SFX) “Look at that succulent lobster.”

Tags: Red Lobster

More fun with dominos.

Take some Guinness, add in some Pot Noodle, then mess with it. Hilarity will ensue. Check out the dude in the elevator.

Got a political agenda? Got a video camera? Obama needs 30 seconds of your time.

So much for Hillary and that Sopranos diner thing. Whether you love MoveOn.org or hate them, give them credit for the tons of free publicity that Obama will get from Obama in 30 Seconds. Entries from anyone accepted to win a shot at $20,000 in film gear. Even though it’ll end up being flooded by pros submitting clips, why not give it a shot.

(Tip to iTed.)

Tags: Obama in 30 seconds

Quick, the boss is coming.

A Buffalo Wild Wings spot that feels like it could be for Bud. Why, it’s lol funny! I can neither confirm nor deny that this happened to me once.

Venus moving across the sun.

Why? Because I can. (And sometimes on a Friday, you blog one in.) This was taken using a Celestron NexStar 130GT and Fugi FinePix F601Zoom Digital Camera at f/5, by holding camera lens over a 25mm eyepiece with orange filter attached, and using a 2x Barlow. (Now, I myself prefer f/8 with the 130GT, but, when you’re shooting the sun, you need to live on the edge and push things a little.)

(via.)

Who said jingles were dead.

But wait there’s more.

•• Cuban blogging embargo.
•• At least their ads are cool.
•• Was it yours?
•• A digitally diversity dilemma.
•• Because you need more gloomy French circuses.
•• Not fade away.
•• Coolest kid in Lancaster. For a few days at least.
•• Not as ugly as those curtains.
•• Doilies don’t make you gay.
•• I try to be.
•• No, really, I swear I wasn’t even thinking about her. Liar.
•• Okay, but why?
•• Every Barbie needs a Ken.
•• At the rate movies hit rental shelves, the site was probably up longer.

Genius.

I don’t know where to begin with this spot from AdFreak. I almost can’t watch it’s so amazing. Echoing David’s sentiment, if this is real, then damn. But if it’s fake, like, Toyota ad fake? Then sorry Shatner, this is the best wtf? spot I have ever seen.

OK GO rocks the gloat.

Can you feel it? Can you smell it? It’s a happening! Blatant hype for OK GO, or Obama, not sure. But he is lining up the names to go with delegates, no doubt. (No confirmation yet on whether Spitzer’s girl will be switching over to Camp Obama or not.)

Tags: OK GO Obama

Overhead internet.

Because people are always saying something really cool, really honest,
or really stupid:

“I think everyone involved should hang their thieving heads in shame. Yet another rip to make our industry look worse than it already does. Please, if you're about to rip off a Youtube clip (especially as closely as this), don't. We will call you on it. There is nowhere to hide. If you are a lazy thief, the internet is a bitch.”
___________________

“wow, calling the cavemen stupid and you cant ever spell...jesus you are a retard..”
___________________

“As a rule, if you have a penis, and it's not 1977 and you are not John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," don't wear white patent leather anything, anywhere on your person.”
___________________

“Cavemen is retarded nd fyi i Can spell you idiot.”

Fictitious inspirational wisdom.

No bucks—no Buck Rogers.

(Image homaged to meet exacting DHS, NASA and Jetpack standards of quality.)

Not just any grapes, CELEBRITY grapes.

It’s grape crushing madness! I haven’t been this excited since Billy Beer. You already knew about Danny DeVito making limoncello out of a PR lemon, and you heard The Donald and P Diddy were all over the vodka thing, but since then, others have gotten into the spirit of things. (Ouch. And there’s more where that came from.)

Little John. Dan Ayckroyd. Barry Manilow. Lorraine Bracco. Paul Newman. Paris Hilton. Martha Stewart. Athletes anyone? Okay:

The Grape One Wayne Gretzky. (Double ouch.) Mike Ditka. (Guess he needed something to go along with his cheese.) Greg Norman. John Daly. (Hold up, DALY? Order now and get an iPhone widget to locate your nearest 12-step.) Arnold Palmer. Ernie Els.

Whew. Tired. I need a glass. While I go get one, check out though how unpretencious and nice Ackroyd’s site is, while Bracco’s needs serious help to even bring it up to par with the rest of the golfers. (ZING-fandel!)

Sadly missing from the spirit world though? A Crispin Glover Cabernet Sauvignon, a bitter Juliette Lewis Red and The Gary Busey White Zinfandel—which you know goes with anything.

What the kids are wearing.

Aka, that’s how we unroll. Attention all strapping men, make sure you’re strapped for life, with Strapped. Don’t forget to check out their strapping website that disappears into a MySpace too!

(via.)

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Fun with babies.

These and other great tips!

Walking under the influence...

of texting? London, what’s up?

Although, this could put a whole new spin on mobile advertising with sponsorship by Excedrin.

(via.)

This explains your unnatural love of C++ and Ajax.

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(via.)

Put broken glass in your attic, stay warm.

How else am I going to make environmentally-friendly insulation sound sexy. Got this spot for Earthwool that they made to promote it by Editz in the UK. (Part two here.) Nice payoff and all, great post, but one ironic thought comes to mind: for an eco-friendly brand, what was the carbon footprint of the production on this one. (And a tip for Earthwool: mask for the dude installing that stuff on your site. Recycled or not, lungs like any type of fiber. Yeah, I’ve installed a ton of that stuff, (*cough, cough*).

Tags: Earthwool

The one award show you can’t believe in is back.

I mean can believe. I think. It’s back people. The Speckies from Adholes is for, um, spec work. Forget imaginary ads forced on helpless store owners, enter this instead. (Details here.) Floating deadline? Genius! Enter now, ad freaks. Now I say.

Tags: The Speckies

I Heart Cavemen.

No, not like that you freaks. But yeah, I dig the campaign, ya probably know that by now, but if you’d let me finish, geez. Anyway what I mean is the new Geico Cavemen dating site iheartcavemen.com, for the discerning caveman, matched on 29 levels of evolution. Which would explain one of them asking for a threesome at SXSW last night. (Sorry Darryl, all dry here.) Site was also done in-house at Geico.

Tags: Geico Caveman, iheartcavemen

Chocolate Skittles Piñata man thing.

I dig it but apparently now the creative brief for all candy brands is anything Terry Gilliam would do.

Tags: chocolate Skittles

Pandavertising is the new...

Aka, Banksy does Beijing? Just in time for the Beijing Olympics. While some brands are more concerned with hopping on the promotional bandwagon here, let’s see what the socially conscious kids are tuning out and tuning into over in Europa, my old friend. What? Moving light projections on buildings at night, just like they first did on the outside of subway cars a few years ago? So new, so fresh! Why stop there though when you could’ve shown a burning dissident running instead, maybe even throw a Swoosh^® on that bad boy to leverage some more of your corporate railing. Push that envelope kids. Although a Burning Panda festival could be a refreshing change to the Burning Man. But that's not quite the same—it isn't, is it?

The campaign for real fresh poultry.

Cross-species spoof for Foster Farms, via Heresy.

Anonymous comments might just cost you.

First they wanted to take away my iPod, now, it seems Rep. Tim Couch wants to fine website owners for allowing anonymous comments. It’d be cheaper for me to get caught talking on my cell while driving. The proposed bill HB 775(BR-1943) goes further than comments though. As I interpret it below, it’s anyone who publishes content or allows it, from an ISP to a blogger. While it may target comments at first, it sure looks like a gateway bill aimed at ultimately shutting down sites people claim make false statements.

“Information content provider” means any person, business, or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation and dissemination of information through the Internet or any interactive service... An interactive service provider shall establish reasonable procedures to enable any person to request and obtain disclosure of the legal name, address, and valid electronic mail address of an information content provider who posts false or defamatory information about the person.

The only thing this does is show how far behind the technological curve politicians are. People will just use fake names and addresses instead, and more taxpayer money will be wasted on another bill that tries to legislate against hate. Seems we already have laws on the books for things like hate crimes, no? Yet somehow, they still keep happening. Representative Couch said himself that enforcing the bill if it became law would be a challenge.

Ya think?

(Tip via Studio Maven.)

Tags: Tim Couch

THIS is what SxSW should be about.

Forget seminars and FB interviews, it’s about the more important things, like drunk cavemen. (Or, blurry cavemen.)

(Via Darryl.)

Tags: Geico cavemen, SxSW

I’m insane for Gain!

New :30 out for Gain, (no clip yet), with a couple discovering a maid who loves their hotel sheets a little too much, ending with a url which leads you to a site I can’t quite figure out. It’s a backyard of products that play. No connection to the spots, which could’ve been a funny collection of scenarios to include somewhere. And the story section has flying bottles that just hover. While I know how people dig their household products, it’s a little hard to believe some of the comments in that story section are real:

James T: I love the smell. It's so adorably smelly...I mean that in a good way.

bob S the Gainiac: [[ Yes, I said Gainiac ]] omg i can't stop using gain. every day. i wish i could drink it. no, not really. but it does smell good.

No guys talk this way. Ever. This is yet another site with product info masquerading as eye candy that I might’ve pushed further. (Tide’s shown you can have some ‘freak’ in the same category, so why not here.) Doing laundry usually means conversation with someone, even the voices in your head. Basically, anything to kill time, right?

Take their backyard scene and create a series of gossipy neighbors who won’t leave you alone. Have a bunch of topics to choose from that they go off on. Or, do a virtual laundromat with flickering lights and the freak you met at 2:00 am with eight duffel bags of laundry. The one who asked for extra quarters because he only had a fifty.

“True story, I swear.” — Bill G.

Tags: Gain

Dawn’s love pump.

Be thankful Elvis Costello didn’t sell out and let them use Pump It Up.

Tags: Dawn Direct Foam

Hey, isn’t that...?

Rachael Harris. Commercial overload much? Been on VH1 and recently in the new ‘carmelicious’ spots for Quaker Mini Bites, (likely copywriter beaten down by client’s demands’ words, not mine), but also as Ronnie Briskman in the classic T-Mobile spot. But wait, there’s more, put down that checkbook! She’s also half of the voice of Comcast’s Slowskys too.

Tags: Rachael Harris

I been through the aisles with a shirt with no tags.

More famous name retail madness! Forget Eddie Bauer paint lines, Todd Oldham’s reimagined Navy or Martha Stewart plates, we’re talking Vera Wang and America for Kohl’s. (Maybe while she’s at it, she can do something about the crowded store layout and messy racks?)

Tags: Simply Vera Wang, Kohl’s

Toyota’s other you.

I’m always a sucker for a squirrel costume, and the wtf? potentiality is huge here, but this Toyota Matrix Your Other You site ain’t letting me get to it. I keep getting caught in an endless loop of clicks to nowhere, unless that’s part of the Jedi mind trick. (There is a section highlighting new features behind a 5th door, which is a little more engaging than the typical stuff on auto sites.)

Tags: Toyota Matrix