Funniest Send-Up of Marketing Ever
If the marketing team had to develop the stop sign. Props to my good buddy Peter Shankman of shankman.com and helpareporter.com for turning me on to this – he’s got it posted on his home page at the moment.
Category: Arts & Entertainment
"Shut Up and Sing": The Dixie Chicks and Freedom of Speech
By Shel Horowitz
I’ve been wanting to see the Dixie Chicks movie “Shut Up and Sing” since I saw a trailer for it about a year ago. Last night, we watched it on video.
It tells a gripping story about free speech and repression that started on the eve of U.S. invasion of Iraq. Lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” And all of a sudden, the biggest selling women’s band in the country couldn’t get radio airplay, was picketed, watched right-wingers engage in mass collection and destruction of their CDs, and lost a big chunk of their conservative country music audience.
Interestingly, their sold-out 2003 concert tour continued to draw wild throngs of enthusiastic fans–but their next tour didn’t do so well. And their next album–an album that contained sharp, penatring original songwriting about the whole experience, a first for this former cover band–was deliberately (and very succesfully) launched through other channels than country radio.
It is a sad, sad day when the U.S., the country that not only pioneered free speech but enshrined it as a founding principle, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, can be so vicious to its dissenters. These women received death threats for speaking out!
I want to know how is that when Bill O’Reilly said on national TV that they “deserve to be slapped around,” there was no boycott of his books, no mainstream call to get an advocate of violence against women thrown off the air. How come he wasn’t Imused while the Dixie Chicks got Dixie Chicked?
Let’s go back to the First Amendment for a moment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It seems to be that in the “with us or against us” years of the GWB administration, a lot of people seem all-too-willing to forget this powerful language that has kept us reasonably safe from internal tyranny for years. Yes, I know there are some very unpleasant exceptions, including not only the McCarthy era of the 40s and 50s but also the Palmer Raids following World War I. And Jefferson, a slaveholder himself, “forgot” to block discrimination on the basis of religion or ethnicity, which was a shame. It would have been helpful to have an early, consistent, and strong legal argument against slavery.
We got that protection decades later, in the Fourteenth Amendment–and even that wasn’t enough to stop the extreme segregation that followed for a hundred years after the Civil War…the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II–but not German- or Italian-Americans…and the roundups of Arabs and Muslims without due process that took place during the current administration.
Now, I happen to be a First Amendment absolutist. In fact, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson principal authors of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution) were absolutist as well–saying in the original draft and in later statements that the First Amendment means “there shall be no law abridging”…from Congress or anyone else (i.e., the states, the executive branch). I actually did some research on this back in 1972, for a high school paper, although I’m not turning up the citation in Google. But it has stuck with me all those years.
In other words, I think Bill O’Reilly and Don Imus have the right to spew their filth–and their employers have the right to terminate their employment. I think the pro-war faction has every right to stop patronizing the Dixie Chicks, and to picket, and to make noses impugning their patriotism, event hough I happen to think the DCs are the patriotic ones here. But I have issues when that broadens to actual suppression of dissent.
The DCs were suppressed. Word came from on high from the headquarters of at least two radio networks: Don’t play their music, or else. It was not left to the individual DJs, or even the individual stations. In the movie, we see Senators John McCain (in the days when he hadn’t yet thrown away his integrity) and Barbara Boxer skeptically quizzing record company executives about this. Not shown in the movie but also very much at issue was the “guideline” from Clear Channel to its 1170 stations: don’t play these hundreds of songs, including John Lennon’s Imagine! And the pressure on journalists to go along with the war and beat the drums–and to exclude opposing viewpoints from mainstream channels (casualties included Bill Moyers and Phil Donahue, among many others)…the attempt to suppress Michael Moore’s latest book at the time…and a gazillion other examples.
(My friends Charlie King and Karen Brandow sing a wonderful song by the Prince Myshkins about this: “Why Aren’t WE On the List?”
Yes, we must be vigilant against attacks on our fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, press, and assembly. I think I just might go out this weekend and buy that Dixie Chicks album.
Kevin Kelly: Hope for Struggling Artists/Authors
Artists, authors, and other creatives, take note: Kevin Kelly, the guru of Wired Magazine, says you don’t have to be a starving artist anymore. Instead of grabbing for crumbs at the very end of the long tail, build a base of 1000 uber-fans. All you have to do is add one person a day for three years (not that long to pay your dues, really–historically, many artists spent decades to achieve this kind of fan base).
Better yet, Kelly outlines how to make this self-funding without anyone worrying about not getting their money back if you don’t make your goal, through a very cool Web 2.0 website, Fundable.org
Over the years, I’ve always liked Kelly’s work–although sometimes the layout of Wired makes it rather unapproachable. This article, however, is on a blog called The Technium, and it’s very easy to read.
Strip-Poker and Pelosi's Challenger
Copywriter Drayton Bird recently talked about the element of surprise. Here are two brilliant ads that harness that principle.
First, Shirley Golub, who is a progressive candidate challenging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Democratic Party nomination for Congress. Watch her video here (scroll down about half a screen).
This is an example of how to be extremely effective on basically zero budget. One camera, one talking head, no special effects, I’m guessing a single take–and twisting a metaphor of Pelosi’s in an unforgettable way. And then spreading it through the power of social networks like the People’s Email Network, which put up that page and notified its thousands of activists.
If I were directing the shoot, the only advice I’d give Golub is to not look down so much–put the script somewhere you can see it while appearing to look at the camera.
On to the other ad: a slick, commercially produced, expensive (large cast), quite salacious and extremely funny bit that’s rapidly making its way around the Net. And boy does it ever harness the element of surprise (Yes, I have some issues with the politics of the surprise but to say more would spoil it–suffice it to say I recognize and criticize the issue). Don’t watch this one if you wouldn’t see an R-rated movie.
The surprise is there, all right, and it will get tons of viral exposure–I got the whole huge Youtube video e-mailed to me, and I’m betting it’s making the rounds on MySpace, Facebook, etc. But I wonder how many people will remember the product 24 hours later. In other words, was it a good investment for the manufacturer?
Bet someone does some research on this, eventually.
Amazing! An Airport Bookstore with Great-Sounding Books!
Maybe there’s hope for our society. I stopped into Simply Books in the C concourse of Atlanta’s massive Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, not expecting much. After all, most airport bookstores, and even a lot of chain-owned downtown and mall stores lately, cram their shelves with trashy mass-market novels by the likes of Danielle Steel.
I don’t mind a good yarn; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Harry Potter books, Kite Runner, and even the occasional Stephen King–but when I dragged myself through one of Steel’s, I found it one of the most uninteresting and poorly written novels I’d ever encountered.
This bookstore, despite its very limited shelf space, was great. I saw literally dozens of books I’d have been happy to read–including some you may eventually read about in my monthly review column. In my brief foray, I saw these among others:
It is soooo refreshing to see an ariport store whose buyer values intelligent discourse! (And don’t worry, there were plenty of beach novels, too.
BenMack's Amazing 'Poker Without Cards'
Novels have been used to persuade since at least the days of Gulliver’s Travels. Books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Huckleberry Finn had a major influence on 19th century social policy; in more modern times, authors from Ayn Rand to Joseph Heller to Phillip Campbell have used novels as a platform for their agenda.
Now comes a novel that teaches the very skills of persuasion–something I’m not sure has been done before (though the late Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus trilogy skirts the edges).
Advertising maven Ben Mack’s Poker Without Cards goes deeper into the human psyche than even the very provocative Daniel Quinn, and with the same kind of unexpected mind twists. Set up as a dialogue over several months between Mack’s alter ego Howard W. Campbell and a hospital psychiatrist who believes Campbell holds the key to understanding a particularly difficult case, the book is a page-turner even without trying to have any kind of real plot. The places the two men go in their discussions may change your mind to the whole idea of what’s possible and how the brain actually works–while providing a gripping, if not particularly easy, read.
And speaking of persuasion, he’s managed to persuade people who seldom write blurbs to endorse his book, including not only Wilson himself but also Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Brodie (author of Virus of the Mind as well as the original MS Word) and Internet marketer supreme Mark Joyner, among others.
As a marketer, I recommend this book without hesitation to marketers who want to understand persuasion on a deeper, more personal level than you can get from nonfiction. And as a planetary citizen, I recommend it to consumers who want to understand what’s being done to them by forces they may want to understand.
Sony's Paint-Fireworks Commercial: Marketing Lessons
Watch the stunning commercial Sony made showing fireworks made of paint instead of the usual substances.
Then watch the behind-the-scenes story of the making of this commercial.
As a marketer, what conclusions can you draw? Here are a few of mine:
The logistics involved in this 60-second spot are as complex as a general’s decisions on the battlefield
f you don’t have several million dollars to play with, making TV commercials may not be the best use of your marketing resources, because you cannot compete with this level of craftsmanship
If the purpose of the ad is to get me to buy this particular TV, the ad is an utter failure; at no time does it show me any benefit to this set over any other
However, if the purpose is to draw a positive association with the theater, the excitement the art of it, and the viral thrill of sharing it with your friends, then the ad is a rip-roaring success–but whether that will translate to enough additional sales to justify the costs of producing and airing the ad, I don’t know
Lou Dobbs, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales: Spin & Spin Control
TV pundit and talk show host Lou Dobbs is a master manipulator. He did an interview with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now–an arena that he clearly considered hostile territory–and he used every sleazoid right-wing media manipulation technique I’ve ever seen: interrupting, name calling, avoiding the topic with a twisted answer changing the subject, denying he said something until it was proven on tape, claiming to hold a high standard only to be caught out on fact-checking issues, demanding to be allowed to finish the question but not granting his interlocuters the same courtesy…and plenty more. This interview demonstrates a lot of what’s wrong with “punditocracy.” Oh yes, and he cleverly started the interview by focusing on areas that his audience would actually agree with. But most of his hour focused on immigration, and especially on exposing his rather bizarre sources for his politics on that issue.
Fortunately, Goodman and Gonzales were up to the challenge and kept him honest–territory that seems, from listening to the interview, to be terra incognita: unknown.
I particularly liked Juan Gonzales’ response here:
LOU DOBBS: What in the world is your point?
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I’m getting to my point, but give me the time to do it. We have time on this show, unlike—we don’t do soundbites here, alright?
Go to the link and don’t just read the transcript. Listen or watch, and examine this interview through the lens of media manipulation by a right-wing punditocracy that doesn’t want to give air to opposing views, makes up facts when the real ones are inconvenient and resorts to personal attacks when nothing else seems to be working.
Lou Dobbs embodies much that is wrong with contemporary journalism–but Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales, and the entire Democracy Now staff (which does an amazing job digging up news that doesn’t make the mainstream media, five whole hours a week), embody much of what is right.
Wonderfully Scathing Attack on "Jargonauts"
Jargonaut: noun: someone who expresses him or herself in meaningless babble. Word invented by Shel Horowitz (that’s me) as I commented on Drayton Bird’s Bird Droppings blog.
He has a fabulously funny essay about jargonauts. Go read it.
Has Ann Coulter Stepped Over the Line?
I have always found Ann Coulter’s blend of racism, homophobia, and general bitchiness extremely distasteful. Proof, if you will (along with Bill O’Reilly), that good looks and brains are not enough; a certain degree of compassion is necessary as well. And that’s sorely lacking here.
Coulter’s latest crazy idea is that Jews need to be “perfected” by converting to Christianity. I didn’t make this up. I couldn’t make this up. It’s right here in the pages of one of Israel’s premier daily newspapers.
If you want to see the full range of Coulter’s insults against Jewish talk show host Donny Deutsch, you have to go here. I won’t dignify them by repeating them but they are classic Coulter.
I put this filth in the same category as Don Imus’s words about the women’s basketball team–a slur that eventually, when CBS finally woke up, cost him his job.
Isn’t it time for the major media to stop condoning Coulter’s hate speech and toss her off the air? Shouldn’t they have done this years ago? Free speech does not mean you need to buy and pay for a platform for people expressing this continuous level of vileness. If she were a high school student and said those words to another student in the school yard, she’d be prosecuted for hate speech. If the hate speech laws mean anything, she should not be allowed on mainstream media. That’s not censorship; it’s refusing to condone disgusting behavior. Censorship would be if she were prevented from writing or speaking, but it’s not censorship to say, go bring that trash somewhere else.
Let her buy her own damn TV network!