One such ad brought me to a very tall landing page with the expected “sales letter” style copy. What struck me, though, was the hilarious call to action button at the bottom of the page.

And so I give you (drum roll, please) the Call to Action of The Day!

Do you Grok readers have any good (bad) examples you’d like to nominate for a Call to Action of the Day?  Leave us a comment.  The only rule is that it has to be silly!  Oh, and let’s keep it classy, folks

In my last post, I made use of a brick and mortar analogy to the current online behavior of some e-commerce Websites, and even recommended the use of those analogies when analyzing online persuasion strategies.

And since at least a few readers responded positively to the idea, I thought I’d share one of Get Elastic’s videos  dramatizing exactly one of those analogies, as well as sharing a link to their whole series.

So welcome to The Crazy, Messed-up World of E-commerce!

And if you haven’t already bookmarked Get Elastic’s blog, go ahead and do that now.

Take a look at the screen shot I took of the landing page.  What do you think most caught my eye?  Here’s a hint: think layout and bolding.

Straight out of The Ogilvy Playbook

Here are two relevant quotes taken from pages 73 and 90 of Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When you advertise in local newspapers, you get better results if you include the name of each city in your headline.  People are mostly interested in what is happening where they live.”

“There is no law which says that advertisements have to look like advertisements.  If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract more readers.”

Notice how much the landing page has been formatted to look like a blog (the editorial pages of the Web), complete with the “About Me” section at the top of the right-hand column.  And have you noticed that Pensacola, FL has been bolded twice, both in the “About Me” section AND the first sentence of body copy?

Other blog-like touches include a “temporarily closed” comments section and a very chatty / best-friend-name-dropping authorial voice.  But it was the bolded hometown that stood out most.

Now, as a copywriter, I only bold key persuasive points, so that visitors’ eyes will still pick out the important parts of my messaging during a quick scan of the page. Obviously, someone really wanted me to know that this girl was from Pensacola.

And oddly enough, I’m from Pensacola.  What a weird crazy happenstance, huh?

Jenny Has A Lot of Hometowns

So I asked Bryan Eisenberg to go to the same site.  Here’s what he saw:

So, yes, some, uh, creature decided that a hometown girl would be more persuasive than a stranger, and then had absolutely no problem blatantly lying about it.  Makes you proud to be associated with Internet Marketing, doesn’t it?

Still, it’d be a cunning technique, if only it could be de-sleazed first.

Any thoughts on how you might (more ethically) apply this same technique?  If you’re a semi-local supplier, could you get a bunch of enthusiastic customers to “represent” for their hometowns on a templated landing page and then present the testimonial-esque copy based on visitor IP addresses?

What do you think?  And (Michele and Holly, this one’s to you) do you think women are more likely than men to be swayed by a hometown spokesperson?

Your faithful Friend and Servant,
The Grok
December, 2000

(With all due respects and a wink to the spirit of C. Dickens)

The Grok was from Mars. There was no doubt whatever about that. His arrival was duly noted and registered by the various authorities at NASA and the governmental agencies associated with Immigration and Naturalization. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Self-styled e-commerce guru Ebenezer Marketer followed news of The Grok’s arrival. He read the Martian decided to hook up with FutureNow, a consultancy passionately advocating the application of traditional offline sales techniques to the wild, wooly and entirely new frontiers of commerce on the Internet. “Traditional sales techniques? Bah-humbug!” Marketer blathered as he proceeded to overwhelm his staff with demands to devise many new and improved forms of e-mail, banner advertising and newsletter campaigns, and to research the latest bleeding-edge technological innovations.

One December day, one of E. Marketer’s clients called on him.

“Yes, Tiny Tom? What can I do for you?” Marketer continued at his calculations, paying little real attention to his client.

“Excuse me for bothering you, Sir Guru, but the wife freshly made these Christmas cookies. The family’s quite amazed with our Stick Shoppe being on The Internet and all. To think our sticks, canes, walking supports and umbrellas can now be available to anyone anywhere.” Then his voice trailed off, “Even though it’s nearly paupered us so far.”

E. Marketer waved a casual hand at Tiny Tom, ignoring his last comment and indicating where he might place the plate of cookies. “And so they should be amazed! And imagine how much more amazed they’ll be when we add this new layer of technology to your website.” He turned to his computer, called up a program and demonstrated an animation of an umbrella that opened and pirouetted on the screen. “This is just a small part of what we have in mind for your online 3-D store. Next best thing to being there, Tom,” he said with the certainty of an astronomer predicting the sun will rise.

“Well yes. That would certainly be novel. Can’t say as I’ve seen anything like it.” Tom hesitated, “But that’s going to cost, isn’t it?”

“Entertainment, Tom. That’s what these savvy online shoppers crave. Sure, it’s going to cost something up front. But you’ll recover that and more in no time when the profits start rolling in like never before. You’ll see.”

“Well, it’s about those profits, now that you mention it. I don’t think we’ve turned one yet. Sales just don’t seem to be what they ought to be, and I keep getting the feeling I ought to be selling these folks, helping them along like I’d do in my real store. And with my current closing ratios, I can’t see how I’m going to manage paying for this ‘new layer of technology’. There’s little enough now, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to bring home a Christmas turkey for the missus.”

“Patience, Tom. Traffic is the key. And the more cool stuff you show people, the more traffic you’ll get, don’t you see? That’s why you’re lucky to have an expert like me helping you. Besides, you can’t ’sell’ people on the web – you’ve got to lure them.” He dragged out the word ‘lure’ as if he were trolling for dupes. “I’ll have the design boys work up that 3-D store concept, and we’ll have it on the site by end of the week. Then you can sit back, put your feet up and watch the money roll in.” Marketer cut short any further discussion by clapping Tiny Tom on the shoulder and escorting him out the door. As he returned to his calculations of click-through rates, he shook his head and muttered again, “Sales techniques? Bah-humbug.”

That night, E. Marketer climbed into bed with a mug of warm milk and the latest issue of The Annals of Advertising, which contained an article on targeting banner ads so they reached the right eyeballs. During a passage about incorporating Flash, he drifted off to sleep.

E. Marketer woke suddenly to find a short, green creature with five eyeballs tapping him on the arm.

“Hey dude!” His smile reached all the way out to where his ears would have been if he had any.

E. Marketer blinked. “I know you from somewhere.” He blinked and looked again. “You’re that Grok thing from Mars.”

“Actually, just now I’m the Spirit of Commerce Past. I’ve got some cool stuff to show you.” The Spirit held out his hand.

“I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Call my secretary and schedule an appointment, would you? Maybe we can do lunch.” E. Marketer rolled over dismissively.

“Hey!” The Spirit sounded irreverently cheerful. “The fun’s just starting, Ebbie. Let’s go.” The Spirit took E. Marketer’s arm and led him into an ethereal mist.

“Where are we?” E. Marketer pinched himself to make certain he was awake.

“We are in the past, Eb. I’m here to show you what commerce has always been about.” And with that, the Spirit escorted E. Marketer through a history of sales. They witnessed the early practice of barter, the specialization of vendors, the emergence of a money economy. The Spirit toured E. Marketer through the development of centralized markets, then retail stores, road shows, door-to-door sales, direct mail and telemarketing. The Spirit pointed out the various technological advances along the way that aided seller-buyer communications, from smoke signals and lights to the telegraph, telephone, television, fax and finally, the personal computer.

Every now and then, the Spirit stopped so E. Marketer could overhear conversations. He listened to customers asking lots of questions that salespeople happily answered. He saw the smiles on the faces of buyers as they left with parcels in hand, feeling confident of their purchases. Along the way, the Spirit pointed out dynamic examples of the critical five steps that comprise the sales process.

They returned to E. Marketer’s bedroom. Crossing his arms and tapping his toe on the carpet, he frowned at the Spirit. “So what was all that supposed to be about?”

“People, Eb. That’s what commerce is all about.” The Spirit smiled broadly. “I know it’s strange, but even after all those years, humans still cling to their basic ways of thinking about and doing things. They’ve got needs, Ebbie. They want to buy, and they want to be sold. They like getting nose-to-nose; they want to feel there’s an understanding human somewhere on the other end of the exchange. They want information, persuading, reassurance. They want to trust the dude they buy from.”

E. Marketer looked unimpressed. “Yeah? Well, it’s a brave new world out there. The Internet has changed everything. It’s revolutionized the way we do business. People will cope.”

The Grok rolled three of his five eyes. “Did you notice something real important while I was giving you the Grand Tour? No matter what technological advance was wowing the folks, successful business still sold to their customers in the same way. Wake up, Ebbie. Technology is only the medium; it’s not the message. It never was. Didn’t I just show you that?”

“Right. So, can I go back to bed now? As I said, tomorrow’s a busy day.”

“No, Spirit! Oh no, no!” he cried. “This can’t be written in stone. Oh, tell me there’s a different future possible, a happier future, one I have a hand in helping to create and not destroy.”

When last we left Ebenezer Marketer, he was standing in the middle of his bedroom after a three-Advil- night of being escorted through the Ages of e-Business Past and Present by a parade of exceptionally brilliant Green Spirits, each of which bore a striking resemblance to yours truly.

Wanna know what happens next? As if you couldn’t guess!

E. Marketer gave himself a pinch and winced at the result, then raced to his mirror. Looking in and finding his own reflection, he took to laughing a little insanely, “I’m here. This is really me! And I’m not standing on the precipice of my office building.” He raced to his window and threw open the sash, craning his head far into the crisp morning air. Everything looked comfortingly normal.

His first act was to buy a turkey, which he delivered in person, for Tiny Tom’s Christmas dinner. The missus invited him to dine, and he obliged, spending his day and evening picking more at the wealth of Tiny Tom’s sales knowledge than the meal’s trimmings. In fact, on the spot, he offered Tiny Tom a consulting position with his firm (and was to retain several other new staff with backgrounds in sales and consumer psychology).

During the days that followed, E. Marketer gnomed away in his office, leaving his staff to muse at the explosions of chuckles that would emerge from behind his closed door and wonder if they should start looking for new jobs. But the chuckles only reflected his growing enthusiasm for a whole new way of looking at online sales. Soon, they became very familiar with previously unknown considerations such as AIDAS, the sales funnel, what makes people buy, scent, trust and privacy, customer service, loyalty, web analytics, the continuous improvement process, A/B and Multivariate testing and the now-famous term E. Marketer coined: EON (Ease of Navigation).

People still marvel at the complete change that came over E. Marketer and his e-commerce philosophies. It wasn’t just that he became far less pompous in his dealings with folks; the new leaf he turned over that day wound up making both his own business and the businesses of his clients more profitable than any had imagined. Old E. Marketer was showered with praise and became a model for all thriving e-enterprises. True success and satisfaction were his at last.

Everyone knows E. Marketer wound up subscribing to Grokdotcom. What they do not know is this: every time a new issue appeared on his computer screen, the small green character in the upper left-hand corner gave him a salutary wink!

THE END

This story was originally written in 2000 by Lisa T. Davis and edited recently by Bryan Eisenberg to refresh the links in the story.

Happy Holidays from the FutureNow family.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the question: what do you want to bet that Apple has been just waiting – even itching – for Microsoft to release that kind of response to their “I’m a Mac” campaign?

Why do I ask that?  Because I’d bet anything that Mac’s marketing was smart enough to engage in what Mike Smock has termed The Three Move Set.  You see, when you try to take market share from a competitor, it’s usually a fair bet that they’ll react with some kind of countermeasure.  And that means smart marketers think at least far enough in advance to consider their response to the competition’s countermeasures.  Ideally, one wants to make sure this response is decisive, or at least hurts the competition as much as the initial challenge.  Here’s how Mike breaks it down:

Move 1: Challenger attacks Leader

Move 2: Leader reacts to Challenger.

Move 3: Challenger reacts to Leader.

And here’s how to view the current Mac/PC ad campaigns in light of that:

• Move 1: Mac challenges PC by personifying Macs as hip, cool, and reliably workable and PCs as nerdy, problematic (especially with the release of Vista), and behind the curve in user experience.

• Move 2: Microsoft responds by creating an ad that actively evokes Apple’s framing of the issue and that essentially says, hey, PCs are cool, too.

• Move 3: Mac slams Microsoft for covering up real problems with Vista by creating fancy advertising campaigns.

Do you see?  Most strategists could have – and should have – seen this one coming.  Apple goads you into advertising to respond to their ads and then they slam you for being more concerned with creating ad campaigns than fixing your software, as in the case with the ad I posted yesterday or Apple’s PC Bake Sale ad:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what should have (or could have) Microsoft done?

Well, leaving aside the obvious bit about getting Vista right before releasing it to the public, they probably should have:

1. Responded to Mac in a matter of weeks, or at least months, rather than years.  This one is sort of a no-brainer.
2. Come up with a response that re-framed the issue rather than responding to Mac’s frame.  Saying, “I’m not a dweeb” is a bit like saying “I’m not a crook” – it just forces people to think of you within the frame of dweeb/not dweeb (or Crook/Not Crook).  This is actually a well known phenomenon that is actively used by modern politicians.  Just as asking people not to think of white bears is actually counterproductive, so too is Microsoft’s denial of Mac’s characterization of PCs.
3. Possibly take a page out of Trout and Ries’ playbook and attack the weakness inherent in Mac’s strength.  In this case, it’s Apple’s closed system and (lower but still there) price premium.  William Thomas alluded to the limitations of a closed system in a comment to my previous post when he compared Linux to catching and gutting your own fish and Apple to ordering fish at the restaurant.  And I’m guessing here, but it’s also what Microsoft might be getting at with the “Life without walls” slogan.  Of course, Microsoft will have to be as creative and sharp witted in pressing this point as Mac has been with their campaigns, and, well, their ad above hardly qualifies.  The slogan is nothing but an afterthought.

So what do you think Microsoft should do?

Seattle’s Chow Foods runs six restaurants, and recently sent an email blast with an inventive promotion.  The one-day promotion adjusted their menu item pricing based on the close of the DOW and the NASDAQ – the tumultuous DOW set the food menu pricing, and the NASDAQ set the price of house wine, draft beers, and well drinks.

The DOW closed at 8,979, which brought all menu items to a price of $8.79, and the NASDAQ closed at 1,717, which brought drink prices down to $1.71!  I walked by one of their restaurants last night at dinner time, and the line was out the door and down the block.

Here are the lessons I see in their promotion:

1. Be innovative – basing prices on market closes, which have been painful news lately, actually worked to the customer’s benefit.  I had the promotion forwarded to me, so they also came up with something Viral-worthy.
2. Put some skin in the game – the business took some risk here, and customers sensed that and respond favorably.
3. Tap in to something already on customers’ minds – I guess that’s the point of this whole story.
4. Write great copy – their copywriter obviously had some fun with this (samples below).

What other clever ways can you leverage the economy (or the political races) to promote your business or your site?  Need some support as you innovate?

Tasty copy excerpts:

Dow’d but not Out at CHOW on Oct. 16

CHOW Foods is executing a short term Main Street bailout plan far more delicious than the one the goofs in congress passed last week.

The lower the Dow closes on Thursday, the less your entrée costs–no food on the menu will be priced more than the Dow. If it closes at 8300 (gulp!) then you won’t pay any more than $8.30 for any item on our food menus.

If Chowin’ on the DOW isn’t enough to whet your appetite, keep in mind that our house red & white wine, draft beers and well drinks will be priced at the NASDAQ close for the day.  If it dips to 1250, then our depression era pricing on these libations will be just a buck twenty five!

There is nothing like social media to make people feel connected. However, that feeling can some times overwhelm people. Social Media Addiction (SMA) is a real concern. Please understand as a former counselor and social worker I have seen the impact that addiction can have.

If you find yourself with several of the following conditions you may be suffering from this affliction.

1. You have more “friends” than the population of Tyre, NY.

2. You find yourself calling family member by their @Name.

3. You start using extra consonants everywhere (ie. Digg, Sphinn, Mixx, etc.)

4. You find that you limit all your sentences to 140 characters.

5. You know all the words to Numa Numa and know all the dance moves from How to Dance Properly by Ze Frank.

6. You tell everyone you have a Mac even if you are a PC.

7. You have nightmares that involve whales, mob wars, or being buried.

If you find yourself addicted, the first step is to admit it. The second step is to realize you are not alone. Some well respected and suspected addicts include Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Mitch Joel, Joseph Jaffe, Valeria Maltoni, C.C. Chapman and Linda Bustos. I think I may be getting dangerously close myself. Be social and make sure to friend these folks so you don’t have to face your addiction alone.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My favorite feature of this tool is how it breaks down by percentage how much of each genders’ browsing habits you exhibit, and correlates them to the results you receive. I cleared my browsing history and visited, what I though to be, a range of sites. Here are my results:

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 54%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 46%

Click here to find your own. How accurate is it with you?

“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”

And second-best part? Just get a load of his Bio and cited influences:

“The winner of 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Garrison Spik (pronounced “speak”), a 41-year-old communications director and writer from Washington, D.C. Hailing from Moon Township, Pennsylvania, he has worked in Tokyo, Bucharest, and Nitro, West Virginia, and cites DEVO, Nathaniel Hawthorne, B horror films, and historiography as major life influences”

Who knew DEVO could be such a potent muse… And the best part? They actually have winners in separate categories for Adventure, Fantasy, Children’s Literature, and such, with my favorite being this winner in the “Purple Prose” category:

“The mongrel dog began to lick her cheek voraciously with his sopping wet tongue, so wide and flat and soft, a miniature pink fleshy cape soaked through and oozing with liquid salivary gratitude; after all, she had rescued him from the clutches of Bernard, the curmudgeonly one-eyed dogcatcher, whose own tongue — she remembered vividly the tongues of all her lovers — was coarse and lethargic, like a slug in a sandpaper trenchcoat.”

So go find your own favorite and treat yourself to some fine Friday reading..

Go ahead, treat yourself to a well-deserved belly laugh:

http://www.thecopygod.com/

[Hat tip to Bob Bly]

As a former music journalist and current karaoke champion [in my own mind], I know a bad remix when I hear one. That’s why I’m particularly impressed with this outlandishly cheesy/brilliant rework of Extreme’s soft “rock” hair ballad chart-topper from 1991, “More Than Words” — one of the most yack-inducing songs known to man — used by our pals at Bazaarvoice to kick off last week’s Social Media Summit in Austin, TX. Watch this video and see how a few men in wigs can pick an even worse song and still do a better job of inspiring brand affinity and laughter than Mr. Softy himself:

Lyrics:

Sayin’ you should buy this, are not the words they will believe from you
It’s just they have YouTube, and every search brings up blog entries too
How easy it could be to find out how they feel

More than words is all you had to use to make it real
Then you wouldn’t have to cry over costs per click
‘Cause you’re Google’s top guy

What you do with Ratings and Reviews?
More than words to keep it real
Let them say just how they feel
What would you say
If they took those words away
Then they wouldn’t buy things new
Without reading a review…

Now your market wants to
Talk for you and help others understand
All that you have to do is open up and just reach out your brand
Then you’ll see word of mouth for you and me to read
More than words is all you ever needed to make more sales
Then you could easily say “Mr. Bossman, it’s time I get a raise”

How sweet it’d be
A freed marketing annuity
More than words to show they feel
That they like a brand that’s real
Why would you pay
For research to guess and play
More than words to show what’s true
Then hear your market say “I love you”

. .

Hat tip to Linda for transcribing these righteously dorky lyrics.

He showed the “Bra Scientist” video clip by Zafu that I blogged about last year.

As the audience was watching the clip, I noticed something interesting: There were certain points when the men were laughing and the women weren’t. And there were other points when the women were guffawing but the men weren’t even smiling.

The guys laughed when the scientist asked the woman in the parking lot if she would talk about her “um, well… you know, uh… breasts.” It’s a funny line, well delivered. (The guys found it funny, anyway.) She responds “Sure” and the scientist is quite pleased the interview can continue. But then she kicks his head off. Literally.

Some of the women looked a little shocked, but for other women, it garnered full-on belly laughs.

Why is this important? Because humor is one of the most pervasive devices advertisers use to try to sell products. Is that humor hitting the mark with target audiences? A recent Advertising Age article claims that “Snide Advertising is Bad for Business and Society” (subscription required but it’s available here).

In the article, Richard Rapaport discusses “the nasty tone that seems to dominate advertising” and “commercials built on sadism, on derision, on one-upsmanship — in a word, ’snide.’” He gives this example:

Another building block of snide advertising is physical aggression. Consider the quite literally shocking ad for Priceline.com in which William Shatner enters the house of a frustrated online vacation shopper and stuns him with a Taser before sitting down at the man’s computer. “Did I zap your daddy?” Shatner coos at the man’s disquieted child. “Yes, I did,” he admits, “but I saved him lots of money.”

I’m not sure what percentage of Priceline’s audience is women, but women book more online travel than men do. I wonder how they feel about that ad.

While I do believe some humor is universal, I think there are certain types of jokes and subject matter that men find funny that women don’t, and vice-versa. Part of what makes something funny is that it rings true to you (”Oh my God, I’ve so been there!”). Different content may speak more to one gender than the other.

Eric Berger at the Sci Guy blog asked if women have a better sense of humor. One comment grabbed my attention. A reader named Scott has this to say:

The women in my office say that the reason they have less expectation of a reward is that most guys tell such bad jokes, and repeat them over and over. Women don’t tend to be entertained by jokes about bodily functions, sexual performance, or many of the other common topics of guy jokes. I’ve never heard a woman tell a Christa Macaullife/Space Shuttle Challenger joke, yet there are guys who still crack up over them. So perhaps women have a more “refined” sense of humor, not necessarily a “better” sense of humor.

Interesting. There’s a fascinating study done by Professor Hugo Carretero Dios at the University of Granada that finds that humor depends on the person. Or, as the press release claims, “Scientific research on sense of humor sheds light on psychological profiles.”

Carretero Dios observed a generational change in the women’s preferences to the different types of humour. “There has been change in women’s values and roles in our society,” says Carretero Dios. “In people over 45-50, we observed that both men and women laughed more at jokes degrading to women than those degrading to men”. At the same time, both men and women showed more rejection to jokes degrading to men.

However, among the participants between 18-25 years old, the trend was different and men and women had different reactions. Men laugh more at jokes degrading to women and reject those degrading to men. By contrast, women laugh more at jokes degrading to men and reject those degrading to women. Indeed, this trend is more pronounced in women.

“Could these findings show a change in educational values or even a new pattern in the roles played by women”

I think the whole subject deserves more analysis, but it underscores the importance of understanding who your audience is and how gender could affect whether that audience thinks your ads are funny.

What ads have you seen recently that you found funny — or unfunny — and why?

. .

About the Author: Holly Buchanan is a Persuasion Architect at FutureNow and co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth — Today’s Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys.

In case you missed his farewell tribute, enjoy…

But will Gates actually stop making headlines? Probably not so much.

Gates still retains his title as one of the richest dudes in the world and, of course, he will now focus on making the world a better place. It’s enough for even the biggest Mac fanboy to have a few warm fuzzies for Gates.

Everyone raves about the charisma of Apple’s Steve Jobs, but can you picture Jobs poking fun at himself like this? Where will we find Bill Gates next?

It’s been a good week for personal brands & authenticity; first Hillary sobs, then Gates makes Jobs looks a little like a statue.

Who woulda thunk it?

“So and so Jones” has added you as a trusted contact on Spock. By accepting trust, you will be able to search each others’ network, share contact information, and get news.”

It continued…

“Since you are a person I trust, I would like you to join my network on Spock so we can always stay up to date on how to contact each other.”

Now it’s like a Klingon invasion! First, on impulse power, came another invite, and then another, until now, when they are approaching warp speed. In the name of tribbles, what gives?

First it was LinkedIn and Facebook, and now we all feel compelled to “socialize” using the latest shiny new object. Any ideas what will start appearing on my tricorder in the near future?

Spock said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” so consider that, lest you photon torpedo contacts from your address book with similar invites — your friends may not have their phaser on stun. Besides, we wouldn’t want you to wind up a casualty of the Social Network Wars of the early 21st century.

I’m in a no-win situation. I would have sent you to StarTrek.com to help you fetch a universal translator to decipher this post, but it’s shutting down.

The solution to my own Kobiyashi Maru test is to go where all the fans have gone before.

Live long and prosper!

P.S. The t-shirt reads, “More People Have Read This Shirt Than Your Blog.”

P.S. #2 During one of the sessions at SES, Kevin asked “Should I make a video of me hitting myself with a ball ping hammer?” What do you think?

Let’s face it: English is a stupid language.
There’s no egg in the eggplant.
No ham in the hamburger.
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England.
French fries were not invented in France.
Quicksand takes you down slowly.
Boxing rings are square.
And a guinea pig is neither from
Guinea nor is it a pig.
If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing?
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn’t the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?
If the teacher taught
Why didn’t the preacher praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!
English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn’t a race at all)
That is why
When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts
But when I wind up this observation
It ends.

More funny English…

————————————————————-

An English professor wrote the words, “Woman without her man is nothing” on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.

The men wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”

The women wrote: “Woman: Without her, man is nothing.”

(Hat tip for Rick)

————————————————————-
The Importance of Correct Punctuation

Dear John I want a man who knows
what love is all about you generous
kind thoughtful people who are not like
you admit to being useless and inferior
you have ruined me for other men i
yearn for you i have no feelings
whatsover when we are apart i can be
forever happy will you let me yours
marsha

————————————————————-

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. more…

Have a great wekeend

Poor Al. Not only has he endured the pain of winning the popular vote, then losing the 2000 presidential election in a landmark court case — now this?

Recently, Wired Magazine editor — and bestselling author of The Long Tail — Chris Anderson elaborated on Tim O’Reilly’s Facebook application research, which found that “87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications! Only 45 applications [out of approximately 5,000] have more than 100,000 active users.”

Although it’s unclear whether the “Election ‘08″ app is one of the popular ones, it’s not doing much to boost Gore’s imaginary campaign. Still, he’s still coming in at #4 for the Democrats, according to last month’s CNN poll (see thumbnail image). Not bad for someone who’s not running!

So, what gives? Is all this social networking stuff better left to “the kids” (and I don’t mean Al Gore’s kids)? Robert Scoble doesn’t think so.

[Hat tip to Miguel Senquiz at Flavorpill.net for nabbing the Facebook screenshot.]

It’s a great example of how to spice up your PR without making it seem like you’re only after the cash booty. Pirates base their careers on the element of surprise. Likewise, marketers — the lily-livered bilge rats they be — need to make Broca walk the plank.

Have fun with you email campaigns. Talk like a pirate, even. Just don’t get too carried away…

Zafu.com is a company actually providing a solution to this problem. But is their advertising helping or hurting them?

Would you buy a bra from this man?

This ad on YouTube has gotten mixed reactions. Some women find it funny, some find it offensive.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. In the meantime, here are some of the pros and cons from my perspective…

Cons:

- The “spokesman” for Zafu.com is a geeky, kind of creepy, young guy in a lab coat, making weird boob gestures with his hands. It’s a powerful image — one of the reasons why the spot is so funny — but is this really the first mental image they want associated with their brand?

- As the Heath brothers point out in their book Made to Stick, some companies suffer from “The Curse of Knowledge.” In other words, we’re all so familiar with the benefits of our own brand, it’s easy to forget others don’t share this knowledge. Zafu.com has this whole “scientific” set of questions they ask in order to guide women into the right size bra. But, as someone whose never heard of Zafu.com, I didn’t know that. The only information this video gives is the tag-line at the end (”The perfect bra in 3 minutes”). And saying “It works better online” isn’t entirely clear. Are they saying that having a creepy guy feeling you up works better online? For the person unfamiliar with Zafu.com, the whole scientific tie-in falls flat, so to say.

- They could very well be offending the same new customers they’re trying to attract.

Pros:

- I can’t speak for everyone, but I thought it was funny. It got my attention. I love the unexpected twist of the woman karate kicking the guy’s head off. The use of humor definitely gives it a “viral” aspect.

- For customers already familiar with Zafu.com, it makes sense. They already know and understand the scientific fitting tie-in. Once armed with that information, the spot makes more sense and, in my opinion, is less offensive.

This video was brought to my attention by Bryan Eisenberg, whose wife is a big fan of Zafu.com. This is the email they sent her (click thumbnail to view), introducing her to the video.

As I said, I think the video is much less offensive for existing customers. But the whole point of creating a video that will go viral is that new, potential customers will see it.

Suggestion for improvement…

Do a better job of explaining the scientific fitting and how that is actually the brand’s Unique Value Proposition. “The perfect bra in 3 minutes” is a nice final tag-line, but inserting information earlier that better explains the fitting process to women unfamiliar with Zafu.com would help tremendously.

What was your reaction to the video?

It’s a tragic tale of copyright hygiene turned hijinks.

You can read the full story at E! Online if you want, but NewTeeVee’s Jackson West gives us a fine example of truthiness (define) in action with this spoof on what might happen when Colbert and Stewart testify in court:

New York Southern District court, the Honorable Louis Stanton presiding. Defense counsel Philip Beck calls Stephen Colbert to the witness stand.

Philip Beck: Mr. Colbert, did you not encourage viewers to re-use material from your show?

Stephen Colbert: Yes, but I didn’t ask them to put their work on YouTube for just anyone to watch for free. I asked them to send their submissions to me. As the legal property of Viacom International, my plan was to publish a special commemorative Colbert Report: Green Screen Challenge DVD, available for only $9.95 exclusively at Wal-Mart, where you can find everyday low prices. My friend Bill Gates was working on an especially restrictive new Digital Rights Management technology just for the occasion — it would check to make sure you weren’t on Homeland Security’s “No Fly” list, preventing terrorists from funding their attacks on freedom with profits from illegal piracy.

Beck: But wouldn’t that amount to free work on the part of your viewers for your benefit?

Colbert: Look, profits make me happy, and I have a constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness. And how better to make profits than to have people working for you for free? I’m a traditionalist, and as a country we have a long tradition of making people work for free — and I, good sir, am proud to support other people who are willing to give their lives to protect those values.

Beck: So you do believe that fans posting clips from shows serves a promotional purpose?

Stewart: Whoa, doctor! When pundits with books to sell and candidates with a demographic to reach out to agree to appear on the show, it’s with the understanding that I’m beholden to the same media overlords that they are. As a fake news professional, I treat that obligation with respect. You can’t trust the fake news amateurs on the Internet to provide the kind of nuanced context that, say, a double-entendre in an over-the-shoulder title graphic provides.

Keep reading… if you can handle the truthiness.

UPDATE — Here’s how the Daily Show parodied the Viacom/YouTube suit. The video has been slightly doctored by a fan, making it a supposedly legal parody of a parody. (Is there an intellectual property attorney in the house?)

What kind of blog would consistently dominate the charts at Today.GrokDotCom?

You see, other than deleting an irrelevant post here and there, stories bubble up from a link-based popularity algorithm on our RSS Discovery Engine that monitors over 5,000 marketing-related blogs. (Say that 10 times!) It’s especially good on days like today when Bloglines hasn’t updated all morning.  Anyway, I used to think the answer was simply blogging about Google. Now I think it’s this:

“A blog about blogging about how to optimize your unofficial Facebook blog for Google.”

Any other suggestions for would-be popular blogs?

Feed readers can get it here.

Lyrics:
Come on and Google me baby.
Go ahead and ask Jeeves.
Type in the query:
“Eddy Boston, please.”
But you ain’t gonna find me,
Not even on broadband,
‘Cause I’m a page-rank zero
In the internet wasteland.

I don’t care about your space;
I can’t even find mine.
I’ve been lost since the days of
America Online.
And you ain’t gonna find me,
Add me to your top eight friends,
‘Cause I’m drowning in the bitstream
Of this internet wasteland.

And the Web 2.0 is driving me insane,
The internet wasteland is pushin’ in my brain
With Ajax, PDF, page not found,
Javascript, CSS, the server’s down
In the wasteland.

What, are you still designing
With tables and forms?
You’re not ready for the desktop.
You’re so 2004.
And they ain’t gonna find you
In your parents’ basement.
You’ll be just another dead link
In the internet wasteland.

And you though you could code it all in XML
But the internet wasteland put you through Hell,
So it’s quirks mode, browser checks, transparent GIFs,
The scent of information’s down to barely just a whiff
In the wasteland.

You wanna be the next eBay.
You’re more like Pets Dot Com.
You want an Adword payday,
But the links are all wrong.
And you ain’t gonna find it,
Even with Ruby on the backend
No Rail’s gonna save you
In the internet wasteland.

It’s an internet wasteland.

Which one of the 3 blogs are you?

The burglary at Bigg City, formerly Mr. Bigg’s Family Fun Center, turned into a comedy of errors early June 10. The burglars tried to disable a security camera by repeatedly spraying it with WD-40 . . . and spent an hour and 15 minutes trying to open three safes, apparently unaware that some types require the dial to be turned two or three times.

They finally did a Google search for “how to open a safe” and “how to crack a safe” on a computer in the next room.

“They’re not professional safe people,” said Colorado Springs police detective Chuck Ackerman. “No, they’re not.”

On the other hand, the Google query apparently worked: The burglars haven’t been caught, and they did get about $12,000.

…But if they had done their homework on Bigg City, they hadn’t studied other principles of burglary. The WD-40 dripped off the camera within 30 seconds, Ackerman said. They did it eight or nine more times.

“The first few times it actually cleaned the lens and made it a better picture,” Ackerman said.

They also sprayed a fire alarm, apparently thinking it was a camera.

An hour and 15 minutes, eh? How’s that for “time spent“?