TheSpunker - by Ben Popken. Published by Gattaca, Inc.

Passionate Marketing

Kathy Sierra has a post today about creating passionate marketing. Highlights from her old way/new way section:  * Old Way: Ads that imply you'll get laid if you drink/use this product... New Way: Develop and support a socially-orientated online community and/or local user groups where people might get laid for real.  * Old Way: Hire a word of mouth marketing firm. New Way: Create something worth talking about. * Old Way: Hire a creative, award-winning advertising designer. New Way: Hire a creative, user-focused product designer." Right on, even if potentially threatening to my livelihood.  Some of her other ideas, "Old Way: One 30-second commercial. New Way: 200 dairy cows for poverty-stricken families through Heifer International" are too cuddliscious. Social responsibility is nice, but it's not for every product and it's not particularly "New Way."

Who Knew File Cabinets Could be this Fetch?

Line: "Perfectly Organized" An instance of Bisley's "New Order" campaign. It might be hard to see but that's a barcode on the left and the elements of the barcode lined up nicely on the right. Won many awards. More here. They did the same thing in '03 except with countries and also won awards -- testimony to the flexibility of clean, elegant and powerful concept. Agency: Kolle Rebbe, Hamburg.

BOOK = COOL

An interesting window into youth text message morays: "On a recent TV show, British actor Stephen Fry discussed how his nephew replied ‘Book!’ when the actor gave him a PSP as a present. Book means cool. It comes from text messaging culture. When you type with predictive text on your mobile phone the world ‘cool’ the word ‘book’ first appears. Users should then flick through the list of possible words to get to ‘cool’. British youth appears to be avoiding the additional keystrokes and using the word ‘book’ instead." Via PSFK.

A Backpack to Die for

Line: "Built to Resist." From "Best Rejected Advertising Volume 3." The ad was rejected by France's Association of Professionals for Public Responsibility,  "because of an alleged violent content." I would've rejected it because the tagline doesn't really make sense with the image, better to have no line. As it stands, the promise is you resist a violent attack but you die and your backpack becomes someone else's trophy? Maybe the backpack is a collaberatuer, yes/no?

Shave My Yeti

Polartech has a new viral, "Shave my Yeti." As you can see by the distinctive S, my yeti loves to read The Spunker everyday and links to it frequently. Beware, you have to completely shave the yeti to unlock the easter egg. Doesn't quite work for me, maybe it's not campy enough, or the polartech is too prominently featured, there's just something not dexterous. Sorta like when you  have those big man mittens and you're trying to make a killer snowball. Tangentially, can we think of something else besides "viral?" The term sounds so pejorative, especially with cold and flu season upon us. Spotted at Adverblog.

Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too

There was a big ass NYT article on Google this weekend, lauding its megalithic powers and forecasting a glorious future where Google might become the clearinghouse for all ads. Centered foremost was Google's ad delivering technology. "It is a wonder....For every page...more than 100 computers evaluate more than a million variables to choose the advertisements in its database to display - and they do it in milliseconds," reports NYT. Even so, currently context ads for golf products and Babyphat on The Spunker's textad bar...? Might be wise to hold off on Google's interest in mechanizing television ad buying. "We'll return to Discovery's Wild Wild Wild Kingdom after a brief message from our Google sponsor, the NRA."

Adweek Popular Among Misogynists

Adweek has the courage, nay, moxie! to poll the Neil French debacale: "What do you think of Neil French's views about the lack of top women creatives in advertising?'"

A)  The guy is completely out of touch, and so are his ideas.
B)  He might be correct about the low numbers, but his explanations are flawed and sexist.
C)  He's pretty much right.

Current results: 41% choose C. The Spunker profers this follow up poll: Is Adweek's poll a better indicator of  A) What the majority of Adweek's online readers think B) What the majority of the advertising industry thinks or C) What the majority of the advertising industry thinks when responding anonymously?

American Apparel est moy Scary

Just in time for Halloween, our favorite sweatshop-and-enscription-free t-shirt palace  released their latest ad, showcasing their American Apparel as a Second Language program. A nice turn towards good ol' fashioned PR after their plunge into madness the past few weeks with "Pocket Rocket" and "Old People." From the ad: “My sisters and I bought some sunglasses and new clothes and tried to pass ourselves off as American girls at the Mexican/American border” [American Apparel, founded on the backs of illegal immigrants? Nobody tell INS about this ad]...a small T-shirt stand that she ran on Venice Beach…was the first American Apparel store and the success of that tiny operation was one of the inspirations for our move to retail. [Also known as the "Venice Beach of Diamonds” story] We just found out that Spring is going to have a baby, and wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate her. [By mass distributing a really heinous picture] To us, she's a reflection of what Los Angeles is all about." Indeed. Supersize version.

New use for CAPTCHA

Adverlab has a neat suggestion today. Instead of typing meaningless gobbledygook in CAPTCHA fields to verify you're not a robot, why not brand names? I see this working best with something like a Pinkerton agency, or a company that tapes paper shredded documents back together, something to do with rejoining and deciphering. Cryptologists. Forensic scientists. Marriage counselors.

Phat SlimFast Ads

Line: "Need to lose a little weight before your wedding?" Do you promise to lose weight, to love and to cherish your chocomalt nutri slough, to drink and to fast, through sickness and sleekness, until entire bag of potato chips do you part? I do. Spotted at Adblather.