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

Sprint is Hiring Bloggers

Sprint is hiring bloggers. Here's what I just got in my inbox: "Saw your resume on Monster, and wanting to see if you might be interested in a Marketing Analyst II positon at Sprint.

The ideal candidate would be responsible for developing and implementing strategies around Blogs, Chat Rooms, Bulletin Boards and other non-traditional online media opportunities for the new local company. These efforts will establish an incremental presence for the new local company and drive incremental, targeted traffic to the New Local Company web site. In addition to setting the strategy, these efforts would include monitoring content and managing talent/content for Blogs, chat rooms and etc. as appropriate.

Knowledge/Skills:
Required:
1. BA/BS or equivalent work experience. MBA preferred.
2. Up to 10+ years of progressive, relevant work experience.
3. Proven marketing skills
4. Strong online strategy and program development skills.
5. Sound planning, decision and analytical making capabilities.

Preferred:
6. Prior experience in online strategy, including Blogs/Chats/etc.
7. Exemplary oral, written and presentation skills.
8. Creative and innovative change agent background.
 
If you feel you meet the above position requirements, please e-mail your resume to
[email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennie"

• I don't understand why if she "saw my resume" I now have to email it to her.
• In second grade for career day I said I wanted to be Marketing Anaylist II.
• Will Sprint "get" blogging? After the utter crapitude of their recent viral attempt they could definitely use the help.

George Parker Bumped

George Parker, our favorite hoary adblogger/hurler, was not on Today Show this morning as promised. His appearance has been rescheduled for 7:15 AM tomorrow (Wednesday). via.

BK Ladykiller Strikes Again

As these pictures reveal, the Burger King and Brooke Burke are not only dating but it looks like they're engaged to be King and Queen -- of all burgerdom or something. via Adrants via The Superficial. Prediction: The  fantastical dancing whopperette Super Bowl commercial will be a showstopping buildup to BK and Brooke getting married on national TV.

International Hot Twins Searched For

In a quest on the order of magnitude of the searches for the holy grail, the last scion and the spear of destiny, Body Doubles will hold their next International Hot Twins Search in Las Vegas on Feb 2. I know this because they spammed me:

"Sports, Sexy Women, and Celebrities… What more do you need? Imagine the most beautiful women in the world on one stage competing in an unprecedented extravaganza!?!? "

Yes, that is exactly what I need!?!? to imagine?!!!?! The spam continues, undaunted by spelling and grammar check, "Now picture having double the beauty, double the drama, double the pleasure, and you have got the first ever Body Doubles International Twin search competition, 2006.  During the world-wide search for the most beautiful twins, the Body Doubles Team will stop in Detroit to kickoff Super Bowl weekend. Sexy Women and Football… Double the Fun!"

Revealing the dark, desperate truth behind twinhood, when Sydney Canada winners Christina and Vanessa Milanja (pictured) were asked, "Have you ever had an embarrassing moment due to the fact that you're a twin (i.e. a boyfriend mistaking you for your sister, etc)?" they responded, "When I (Christina) was 12, I was looking in the mirror without realizing - and was trying to call my sister to come over. Then I realized it was the mirror I was speaking to."

Here's a video of their Vancouver search. There will also be a performance by Nelly and the St. Lunatics. Super duper. I'm sure this will be followed up with an email asking me what times they should buy the airplane tickets for, right? That's how these things work? Please tell me because it's my first international twin search competition too. If you're an accredited member of the press and would like to attend and cover the event, email [email protected]. Otherwise, tough shit because these girls have twice as many better things to do.

Linkdump!

• Utlimate, boring truth behind infamous spunky Puma ads revealed.
• Potty-mouthed ad blogger to appear on Today Show tomorrow.
• Consider retarded robots for your next package design.
• The new episode of American Copywriter makes you feel good.
• Creative team realizes they ripped off "Grr" mid-presentation.             But it's okay, they're cartoons.
• New trunk monkey videos (thanks Bill!).

Inside the Mini Pitch is a Caramel Pony

Inside the convoluted fun land of the MINI pitch, Business Week reports that the four finalist agencies were subjected to a Double Dare gauntlet of deeds to determine their quick thinking and reflexes. In addition to making name tags on the spot and answering grueling questions like, "If Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for President, who should be his running mate?" the competing agencies, "were sent out into nasty rainy weather to drive MINI Coopers and go on a kind of scavenger hunt for ideas and props to be used for a scrapbook. The book would tell a MINI story that the agencies and the client would all review over cocktails. Butler Shine's scrapbook centered on a story about a mannequin the team named Darlene, which it snitched from a local electronics store. Darlene and team motored in a MINI to a pumpkin patch, but the caper ended up, for real, with the team being grilled at the local police station." Sounds both 1) better than the usual staid agency review boards and 2) queer. MINI's CEO is said to have given the account to Butler because, "[h]e especially liked its work for Converse sneakers, including a campaign in which Converse enthusiasts, rather than hired hands, created short Internet films, which also ran on TV." Converse has been swinging more and more mainstream and will only continue to amp up efforts towards gaining market share while sacrificing brand identity. Likewise, McDowell task for Butler is to take the culty MINI and blow it up even bigger while maintaining its idiosyncratic "je ne sais what the fuck" -- in essence, to make MINI the Altoids of compact cars. We'll be watching to see whether Butler can keep MINI advertising innovative or whether the work ends up all "creativey." via.

Neil French's Parthian Shot

Neil French composed a full reply, finally, to October’s sexist comment scandal. It’s awesome and done up in his classic copywriting style and will be published in the Trade Press. He retrenches, but he’s definitely chastened and even apologizes, but not for what you think. You get to learn a new word, anoraked, meaning “hooded,” as in “those dastardly cloaked bloggers.” Good for him for making a full response but demerits for waiting and seeing how it played out before doing so.  Truly revealing, however, is the intro prefacing the ad on his site...word to Mr. French, they're called it's femi-nazis, not feminist nazis...  via. archival version.

Google: There's a Good Kind of Evil in China

One of Google's main tenets is to "Not be Evil." When they launched Google.cn in human rights oblivious China, it was a censored version heavily biased towards displaying results in sync with the party line. Criticism was immediate and fierce. Google responded on the 27th, saying censorship is bad, but not when it's for a good cause. They're right. Google.cn is an important communications inroad. Although censored, the proliferation of any non-government sponsored information is an important inroad for the oppressed peoples of China. Encouraging the use of Google enables people to find the information to help them form independent ideas. From there reform may be one day possible. Less torturing of dissidents -- perhaps because increased access to search results makes hiding human rights violations harder?  -- would be nice. Plus now there's like a gabillion, I mean, a googol, more people to advertise to. Will they be buying democracy?

Bunnies beat Owls in Advertsing

Last week we dissected the ad-free blog initiative, bothered by its superior attitude and precious little vegan owl graphic, not to mention their stance being antithetical to our entire mission statement (if there's no ads, there's nothing to niptuck). Now capitalism strikes back with Pro-Ad Blog! By posting the happy little ad-bunny you declare, “1. That I am not opposed to the use of advertising on blogs. 2. That I believe making profits from my blog motivates me to write better posts every day. 3. That I also have no problem with people who choose not to display advertising on their blogs. 4. That I am responsible for the advertising on my blog." Word. Over at Stay Free! Eliot took issue with my statement that the author links on the bottom of the Ad-Free site undermine their thesis. Eliot said, "There's an immense difference between an advertisement and a credit. For instance, there's a link to my typekey profile in the signature to this comment -- that's a signature, not an ad. Are you arguing that websites shouldn't disclose their own authors?" I retorted,”Websites that are all about being anti-advertising on blogs needn't provide such a fluid means for driving traffic to its author's blogs. I disagree that the difference between a credit [and] an advertisement is as immense as you say. A classic advertising tactic is to write, in a completely non-salesy way, a white paper or treatise on an industry event phenomenon or reveal strategies that can help other businesses. The sponsoring company doesn't put their website or street address or phone number in the material, simply their company name discreetly in the bottom corner. This piece of communication is just as much an ad as a Burger King commercial." There's been no response to this comment in three days after a steady back and forth... perhaps they're roosting? via.

UPDATE: An apparently different eliot responded today, "That's a bit nuts. There absolutely is a huge difference between "[that] piece of communication" and "a Burger King commercial." Attribution is not an advertisement for yourself - it's a way for readers to know who you are. Should people wear burquas in public to increase anonymity there too?

Maybe fascist liberals really do exist..."

Which provoked me to reply, "How does attribution not advertise the authors? Please parse the difference. Let's not confuse [connotative] and denotative definitions, especially if for you, personally, advertising has a negative connotation. The American Heritage Dictionary defines advertising as  1. To make public announcement of, especially to proclaim the qualities or advantages of (a product or business) so as to increase sales. See Synonyms at announce.
2. To make known; call attention to: advertised my intention to resign.
3. To warn or notify: “This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death” (Henry David Thoreau).

Nowhere do I see the distinction you claim. Please illuminate the matter.

You say, “Attribution is not an advertisement for yourself - it's a way for readers to know who you are.” That may be your *purpose* in using attribution, but *functionally* it also serves as an advertisement.

Furthermore, your "mandatory burqua wearing" analogy doesn't work. People, in the general sense, randomly walking around in public, have little to nothing to do with advertising, authorship, full disclosure, or attribution. I'm not advocating ubiquitous anonymity! Transparency is fantastic *except* when you make a site that says ads on blogs are bad and the hyperlinked attribution at the bottom functions as an ad. I have nothing against ad-free blogs, people can make blogs however they want, that’s what’s great about ‘em. Simply put, it would better serve Kerri and Jeff’s message to communicate their campaign anonymously. (snip)

I understand the concern about corporate dollars swaying the keystrokes of lily-livered bloggers as utopianhell worries about. For an example of blog advertising right, watch the Rocketboom kids. (snip)

I genuinely like your "fascist liberal" line. I'd like to make it into a t-shirt and/or a graphitti stencil. Would you like me to include a URL to your blog on it?"

Okay, this conversation is growing asinine and is hurtling towards zero-sum game territory so this shall be the last unless a real stunner emerges.

God is a DJ

God is a DJ. A pair of hands from above manipulates these two European traffic circles as if they were hiphop battle-scratching turntables. The video promotes Pro X Fade Advanced Crossfader Technology, a high-end, customizable crossfading device designed for turntabilists.