Andy’s Pairty*

Inspired by actual events! Sanctioned by law! Well, not our law, but still...

Join us November 30th for what might well be Houston’s best celebration of St. Andrew’s Day, as officially enacted by The Scottish Parliament just last year. A real party – and we’re counting on real Scots (as well as Anglophiles, Beer Lovers and Party Goers) to come down and help us out.

“Us” includes Cameron Wallace of Helix ESG; and Rob Schoenbeck and Richard Laurence Baron (operating under the guise of area51, our strategic marketing consulting firm). We’re setting the stage, you buy your own beer.

Party, party, party. “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled?” or in this case, “drink?”

We’re gathering at Houston’s Stag’s Head Pub. A wonderful location, Michael Holliday himself has set us up in a nice area of our own – thanks for that. There are ales and stouts, porters and ciders, lagers, even light beers. Rob’s turned Old Speckeld Hen into something of a favorite; Cameron’s likely to start with Stella Artois, the creature.

Now get this: The party’s actually on St. Andrew’s Day, Friday, November 30th, 2007, from 4-8 PM or later. Come on, it’s after Thanksgiving, no excuses and no fooling. Celebrating on Saturday wouldn’t be right.

We invite you to take advantage of your legal rights on the very St. Andrew’s Day honoured by custom and practice: Workers will be allowed to take the day off if they can swap the day for one of their existing public holidays: the most likely option is the autumn holiday in September or October, which varies from region to region.

(However, the day off will not be made statutory and it will be up to employers to decide whether they want to give staff the time off. There has been considerable doubt as to how many private companies will do so.)

But the confusion as to who would benefit from the holiday did nothing to curb the enthusiasm of MSPs [Members of the Scottish Parliament] for the plan – all of whom will get the holiday, with the rest of the public sector.

Do NOT let this opportunity get away from you over some company quibble or more ordinary (mundane) commitment that can be fulfilled on any other day. We’re talking about the majesty of the law here. We anticipate that the beer will flow and the food will be eaten, to honor the Patron Saint of Scotland.

Spouses of all sorts entirely welcome. Scottish National Dress encouraged – sporrans optional. Designated drivers are also, perhaps, a good idea. That address again: 2128 Portsmouth, Houston 77098 – the Stag’s Head Pub, one block south of Richmond Avenue, one block east of Shepherd.

Come early. Stay late.

*According to The Online Scots Dictionary. Perhaps you would prefer the word “foy?” Our thanks to the owners, managers and staff of the Stag's Head Pub for their enthusiasm.

Krafty Publishing

We all know technology rushes things to death…but some things don’t die so easily.

Last week, one senior ad agency told Signalwriter that printed magazines were dead; that they couldn’t deliver the audiences any more. Felix Dennis, the Brit entrepreneur who publishes titles like Maxxim, was quoted in The Economist (September 29, 2007), saying, “It’s a long, slow sunset for ink-on-paper magazines…”

Technology is banging the business model for consumer magazines pretty hard. Print magazines are increasingly more expensive to publish (there’s only so much tech can do for printing presses and the cost of newsprint). And a lot of publications that have expanded to the Worldwide Web aren’t coining money from their sites, either. Mostly.

Still, print magazines have been in the hot seat before. Mass-circ mags seemed to be dying off – then along comes something like People and changes the model. More exhaustive databanking has meant that dozens of specially targeted niches deliver profitable audiences that could be identified and persuaded to subscribe, or buy the products advertised in these specialty magazines. F’rinstance…

We get a free magazine from Kraft Foods called Food & Family. It’s a substantial, attractive publication that involves its readers in a range of subjects revolving around “delicious ideas.” Everything in it is a Kraft brand.

By publishing and sending the magazine to homemakers without charge, Kraft generates both tactical and strategic benefits for consumers and for itself.

First, the magazine stays near to hand around the house. CPG companies learned a long time ago that recipes are ever-popular and attention-getting (that’s why you see so many recipes in magazine food ads). All the recipes involve Kraft products as ingredients: a key sales driver.

Second, Kraft gets to use its huge ad bank in the magazine: it’s filled with advertising for various Kraft brands. How many print ads do you think Kraft and its business units generate in a year? I don’t know – but it’s a lot! So in addition to running the ads in other magazines, Kraft gets extra mileage from them when they appear in Food & Family.

Third, Kraft has tied the magazine to an inviting, involving website that doesn’t simply duplicate the content of the magazine. It has promotions (of course); it also has a terrific “Welcome to Our Community” section where recipes and other household tips are shared – there’s quite a bit of sharing and it’s valuable for stakeholder involvement. All in all, the package is a good one in terms of branding, content and product sales programs.

This is hardly the only example of a magazine published for and distributed to product consumers. Car companies like Ford and Chrysler, published “owner’s magazines” for years. There’s a big difference, however, between the cost of a box of Jell-O and the price sticker on a car window…and the combination of Kraft brand ingredients makes for effective cross-selling.

Magazines’ fires are only smoored, not completely extinguished. Publisher Dennis completed his Economist quote thusly: “…but sunsets can produce vast sums of money.”

They can also generate an startling amount of reader responsiveness, whether they’re highlighting a busty starlet or a breakfast omelet that the entire family will enjoy.

Gittelsohn’s Sermon, 1945: A Veterans Day Post.

The first Jewish chaplain the Marine Corps ever appointed, Lt Roland B Gittelsohn, ChC, USNR, was assigned to the Fifth Marine Division.

When the US Armed Forces invaded Iwo Jima in February, 1945, Rabbi Gittelsohn was in the thick of the fighting, ministering to Marines of all faiths in the combat zone. His tireless efforts to comfort the wounded and encourage the fearful won him three service ribbons.

When the fighting was over, Gittelsohn was asked to deliver the memorial sermon at a combined religious service dedicating the Marine Cemetery. Unfortunately, racial and religious prejudice led to problems with the ceremony. What happened next immortalized Gittelsohn and his sermon forever.

The Division Chaplain and Protestant minister, Cmdr Warren Cuthriell, originally asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to deliver the memorial sermon. Cuthriell wanted all the fallen Marines (Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, black and white) to be honored in a single, nondenominational ceremony. However, according to Rabbi Gittelsohn's autobiography, the majority of Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach over predominantly Christian graves. The Catholic chaplains, in keeping with church doctrine, opposed any form of joint religious service.

To his credit, Cuthriell refused to alter his plans. Gittelsohn, on the other hand, wanted to save his friend Cuthriell further embarrassment and so decided it was best not to deliver his sermon. Instead, three separate religious services were held.

At the Jewish service, to a congregation of 70 or so who attended, Rabbi Gittelsohn delivered the powerful eulogy he originally wrote for the combined service:

Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores.

Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed.

Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy! Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery.

To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price.

We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.

Among Gittelsohn’s listeners were three Protestant chaplains so incensed by the prejudice voiced by their colleagues that they boycotted their own service to attend Gittelsohn’s.

One of them borrowed the manuscript and, unknown to Gittelsohn, circulated several thousand copies to his regiment. Some Marines enclosed the copies in letters to their families.

An avalanche of coverage was the result. Time published excerpts; the wire services spread the sermon even further. The entire sermon was inserted into the Congressional Record; the Army released the eulogy for short-wave broadcast to American troops throughout the world; and it has been read on many succeeding days that commemorate our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines..

It’s Veteran’s Day today – 62 years after Iwo Jima and the Rabbi’s sermon. Join me in thinking about those you know, who have served and are serving throughout the world, defending our freedoms. As long as we remember the names, they won’t fade.

Paul Hirsch Baron, Emmanuel Katz, Herman Eisenberg and Sam Slavik. Phil Slavik. Norman Sabel and Sherman Sabel. Joel Hirsch Goldberg. Thomas Biddulph, Richard Dailey, Richard Fox, Bill Gay and Richard Sutter. David Starr. Chris Hrabe. AJ Smith and Paul Hoven. Alan Vera. Nathanael Charles Yonka, Jr. Hoi Nguyen and Ellis Alexander. And the names from the Gunroom (you know who you are): Paul Johnson, KCMO, and “Charlezzzzz” Muñoz. And me.

Special thanks to Rabbi Leigh Lerner of Montreal, Canada; and the American Jewish Historical Society. Photo: Fifth Marine Division Cemetary, Iwo Jima.

Information Mismanagement*

The belt had broken on the household vacuum cleaner. The Husband knew that the part number was listed in the cleaner’s instruction manual.

Simple enough: find the manual, copy out the part number, and order it. The result would be a delivered part and a repaired vacuum cleaner. QED.

He looked for that manual in all the places where the couple filed paperwork; he was certain it was near to hand but couldn’t find it. He flipped through more files. When this failed, he called to his wife in the next room. “Dear, where’s the manual for the vacuum cleaner?”

The Wife responded, “Did you look in the file cabinet?”

“I’m in there right now.”

“It should be right in front of you,” said the Wife. “Did you look under ‘H’?”

“Huh?” The Husband shook his head. “Why not under ‘V’ for vacuum cleaner?”

“‘H’ – look under ‘H’,” the Wife called back.

The Husband wondered why the vacuum cleaner manual would be under ‘H’ - and then realized the Wife had filed the booklet under ‘H’ for ‘Hoover.’ And sure enough, he plucked out the ‘H’ file and found the manual.

He was quiet for a moment. Then: “Dear, you do realize that our vacuum cleaner is a Dyson?”

The withering silence was no more than he deserved.

*As told to Signalwriter. The Husband remains anonymous for obvious reasons.

Elephant Brand

One of the world’s most famous brands – or mascots, take your pick – was born 133 years ago today. The Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant for the first time. (I have been from time to time associated with it myself.)

“The Third-Term Panic” by Thomas Nast originally appeared in Harper's Magazine on November 7th, 1874. You can read all about it on the magazine’s website. Most people won’t recall that America’s then-most-famous political cartoonist was commenting on the possibility of a third term for President Ulysses S Grant.

Depending on your POV, it’s still going strong. Check it out: CaféPress says it has “over 2080 unique, Republican elephant designs on more than 51100 T-Shirts and Gifts.” That’s a plethora of pachyderms.

Conjecture: Another way to build the strength of your own brand is to found a political party. Win elections. Don’t forget to involve the public by establish a “netroots” organization – a fine new term that’s rapidly replacing “grassroots.” Put Presidents in the White House.

The American press (including cartoonists) will do the rest. Honestly, there are some days when I think it has to be easier than marketing.

Database Synonyms?

Your help is urgently needed.

Semanticists, IT types, even followers of William Safire are required: Signalwriter seeks a synonym for “database.”

You can’t bend your elbow without smacking it on the word “database.” It occurs 12 times in an article in The Economist’s 29 September number; my favorite’s a paragraph about the emergence of a “database state.” In another case, one client’s rough draft used the word four times in two short sentences.

The lack of a synonym threatens us all (except, apparently, The Economist writers: The article actually reads extremely well and contributes the alternative “databank”).

Still, SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

No, you cannot offer “information silo.” It ain’t elegant. Unless I’ve missed a major source, I reckon a euphonious (nice-sounding) synonym seems to be among the missing.

I’ve trolled the Internet, wandering among online thesauruses – no luck to speak of. Try out The Visual Thesaurus (which is a mighty cute gimmick) and what you get is “database” surrounded by a modest galaxy of adjectival modifiers such as “computer” and “online.” Little help there…though it does take you from “information” to “skinny.”

Fingering through the modern mish-mash, I Googled up the National Science Foundation: One of the recent visions is that of Semantic Web, which proposed semantic annotation of data, so that programs can understand it, and help in making decisions. Right.

I even went to The Source: Mary Jo Martin, Database Goddess. After a long period of grappling with this major mystery, she asked: “Ummm, can I use two words? If I can, then I’d say Information Repository.” But, of course, observed Martin: “Richard would say that I couldn’t do that.” So the principal of Cynapsus, the marketing research firm, gave it her best consideration. After deconstructing the word and consulting with Bill’s Thesaurus in MS Word on the pieces, she offered three possibilities: The first is “factcenter.” This one is very to-the-point and descriptive, but boring. Then “statisticsource” – I love the alliteration with all those Ss rolling around. Of course, it would not be good for those with a lisp. Finally, there’s “figureheart” for the sentimentalists.

I’d enter the last one into the competition, for fun. Otherwise, can we hear a shout-out for “infosource” or “bytebank” as alternatives? Ought we to give “databank” a renewed push? I’m willing to take up the cudgels for a neologistic, pleasant-sounding synonym or two, to give doughty “database” some blessed relief.

We need the gifted Seamus Heaney, his art with “swan’s road” and “frothing wave-vat,” his supple word-hoard. A poet who can whip Beowulf into shape would be my perfect synonym-generating hero.

On the other hand, honest Anglo-Saxon may be helpless in the face of 21st Century complexity. What would Beowulf have made of “laptop?”

Odile’s Mosaïque

For the American cousins of Odile Suganas, there’s good news and bad.

The good news: Suganas has begun a blog about what happened to her family (plus some of our) and French Jews generally during the years of the Holocaust. She, who spent so many years with UNESCO traveling the world, now travels to Poland and Lithuania, searching out the stories of our European family.

She has published a book, Mosaïque, about some of these travels and researches, with photographs of family members never seen before here in America, except perhaps by some of our very elderly relatives. Suganas visited with the Chicago part of the family last year, researching additional information. Several of us have a rough English manuscript of the book.

Now she continues to travel and lecture about the Holocaust. She’s a member of the French Committee of the Days of the Memory, which was founded on the 50th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto in 1943. And she blogs.

Oh – bad news. It’s in French. Some of the blog, also called “Mosaïque,” can be machine-translated; other parts are pdfs of articles and documents. But Francophone or not, check into this new blog. I think you’ll be able to get a flavor of what this very able relation of ours has to tell us and the world about a specially provocative and saddened part of Europe so many years ago.

DrillingInfo’s “Waltz”

Every year, DrillingInfo takes its show on the road and I got a chance to see one of the Houston iterations of its “Waltz Across the Patch” yesterday. As the company’s Director of Marketing would say, it was a good ‘ern.

It really is a form of dance, organizing a 10-city tour with a two-and-a-half-hour show twice a day at each stop. But as a talking platform of a particular type, getting the latest word about the company and its data products out to its customer base, it was also a neat, compact example of its type.

Doesn’t matter if you’re a large-scale exploration services company or a small G&G firm, you know that you have a stake in the usability of the products and services you work with.

You are stakeholders in the company(s) behind those products and services.

DrillingInfo has a superb open-source delivery platform for its extensive collection of land, well and production data. Director of Marketing & Planning Roger Edmondson made it clear at the outset that it was encouraging its users – landmen, exploration team members and deal-makers – to be “missionaries” for its subscription-based services. The audience responded in kind, with plenty of interaction with the speakers.

Then DrillingInfo’s CEO, Allen Gilmer, waltzed us through the company’s DI LandTrăC Unified Land and Exploration Suite and its Virtual Scout utility (which I think is particularly clever); and gave us a glimpse of the company’s forthcoming new DNA product. He tells good stories – which made it even more entertaining.

Gilmer made a significant point about oil and gas exploration: explorationists don’t take a second look at their existing properties because they’re too busy chasing new opportunities. Which means that, potentially, there’s a whole lot of production left on the table.

Well, this is really about stakeholder involvement. It’s clear that the DrillingInfo team has taken this to heart. Gilmer, Edmondson and the rest of the Austin-based team conducted a credible and well-organized event, putting their customers first on the dance card. Way to waltz, guys.

Baltika WOM

You’re gonna start thinking that Signalwriter is a beer blog – back-to-back posts about the world’s oldest beverage and all. Sue me.

This is really about word-of-mouth, WOM for the uninitiated.

I ran across and sampled Baltika (“The famous beer of Russia”) when Barbara and I had dinner at a new Houston restaurant, Bohemia. Don’t rush, despite the B4-U-EAT reviews; but it had several varieties of this Russian beer. I had the Baltika No. 9. It turns out that [a] the number on the label indicates the alcoholic strength of the beer and [b] the Baltika line includes 2-9. No. 9 was a fine pale beer…and strong like bull. Reminded me of a Bulgarian beer I had in Athens last year, but crisper.

Last week, we attended the birthday party of artist Howard Sherman, at his Commerce Street Art Warehouse studio. We brought some beer along for the party and gifted him with a smuggled-in bottle of He’Brew Monumental Jewbilation beer.

He pulled out a couple of bottles of Baltika No. 4 which is a dark beer with 5.6% alcohol: very tasty. I like a dark beer. He said a friend of his turned him on to it and he’s been drinking it for the past few weeks. There’s a No. 6, a porter that I’d like to try, and No. 8 is Baltika’s wheat beer. (Jewish beer, Russian beer...maybe we can have a progrom.)

Off I went to the website (by Web Design New York), which has a pleasant Flash opening with balalaika music. Along with Baltika Beer history and descriptions, there’s a long segment from CNBC’s “Lunch Break.” Somebody really did a great PR job on this: the talking heads taste-tested Baltika against Heineken and Beck’s on camera and had some fun doing it.

So here’s this broad line of beers from Russia. I get the impression that its US marketing is mostly WOM, backed up with a good website and some decent public relations activity. There’s an opportunity for premium imports here in America, though beer sales are “sluggish” domestically, according last week’s Wall Street Journal. The same article (October 18, 2007) notes that Baltika could end up being owned by the giant Danish brewer Carlsburg, because of consolidation efforts.

How come? Economics. Jean-Francois van Boxmeer, Heineken’s chief executive, said in an interview last month that the beer industry today takes so much capital, it isn’t worth the expense being in many of the world’s markets unless your company is either the No. 1 or No. 2 player.

Baltika is the No. 1 selling beer in Russia. Its website proclaims, “…the OAO Baltika Brewery is in no way inferior to the world’s leaders in beer production.” I suppose the question is, will WOM be enough to make Baltika Nos. 2-9 a bigger player in our market? Likely not. But if the brand gets big-brewer horsepower (and advertising) behind it, there’s no reason why it can’t be right up there with the other premium Euro-imports. Besides, it’s good beer.

Orange Miller?

Signalwriter thought it was a Halloween promotion: the Miller High Life beer can in orange and black. It feels like Halloween, complete with the famous “Girl in the Moon” symbol; she looks somewhat like a witch sitting on the crescent, that age-old symbol of the Old Religion. This is actually a very attractive can in traditional trick-or-treat dress.

It’s really all about this year’s hunting season, part of a special promo for hunters, announced back at the end of August:

Since its introduction in 1903, Miller High Life has joined countless hunting trips throughout the United States, providing high-quality refreshment as hunters swap stories after a day in the woods, field or marsh. This fall, Miller High Life is donning its own blaze orange attire and hunting-themed packaging to make sure consumers are properly equipped for their post-hunt celebrations.

To this day, I’m more familiar with the clear glass bottles (my daddy used to drink Miller High Life, way back before “Miller Time.” Miller Brewing Company of Milwaukee was a house staple in those days, a regular part of the Paul Baron Saturday lunch.)

Any road, Miller intro’d a complete package for hunters – the carton has a hunting motif and the cans are supposed to be blaze orange. Interesting, because the photograph Miller itself released makes the can look golden.

According to High Life senior brand manager Kevin Oglesby, quoted in the company news release, “Miller High Life has been closely associated with the outdoors and hunting for more than 100 years, so this initiative is truly a reflection of many of our consumers, and a way to acknowledge their support of Miller High Life.”

“Plus, now it will be even easier to spot a can of Miller High Life in a hunter’s crowded refrigerator.” That’s one option, though it wouldn’t have occurred to me…I’ve never had any trouble locating the beer on any hunting trip I’ve ever been on.

Better yet, because the orange-and-black cans really do carry the Halloween spirit forward, I’m thinking I’ll get a couple dozen and use them as handouts when the little Britney Spearses and Spider Men come ringing our doorbell on October 31st.

“Trick or treat,” they’ll say. And I’ll deposit a beautifully themed can of Miller High Life in every sack and bag. Conscientious parents, checking their kids’ take for the evening, will appreciate that – for them – it really is Miller Time.

Tree Assignment

This is a test of the Emergency Poetry Writing System.
Your assignment is “Tree,”
The thing you never hope to see
Something more beautiful than.

You plain don’t see a tree the way you see a cloud.
You’re never on your back beneath one
Thinking of the leaves’ mast: There’s a rabbit.
There’s a running man.

You do hear it warning, though, on windy days.
Shaking its head to slip the blow, it hopes.
What can it do but stand tall, take it
As only a big tree can.

If this had been an actual emergency, your assignment would be “God.”

Copyright © 2003, Richard Laurence Baron. Photo courtesy of University of California at Santa Cruz, with thanks.

Bean Price

“I hear you have a potent magic,” Shabaka finally said to the far older man in front of the hillside cave.

Shabaka was dark; the ancient darker still. By firelight, half their bodies were in shadow but their faces gleamed as they drank beer and made polite conversation. There was silence for a time. Then: “If I had such magic,” answered the old man, “would I reveal it to every traveler who passes by?”

Long before he was King of Nubia, Shabaka walked the length and breadth of Kush, from Abu Simbel to Meroe. He met many people and listened carefully to many tales, always enjoying a good one himself. “I just wondered if there was a story in it.”

“Well. A good story is a different matter. I do have a powerful magic,” the old man began. “I have it from my own travels across the Sunrise Sea, in a land where the men and women take small berries from trees.”

“A magic plant then?” asked Shabaka. “Not the plant, but the berries of the tree – the beans,” replied the oldster, turning his face away from the fire. “They are much stronger than this beer we have been drinking.”

“You have shared your beer with me,” replied Shabaka. “Will you share your magic?”

The old man sighed heavily. “It will take some time to prepare. Tell an old man a story and you will get your magic.”

So while the oldster puttered about in the cave, Shabaka told about the women of the Lower Nile and their strange ways (one woman in particular). As the man filled a pot with water and put it on the fire, Shabaka described the unsettling animal-headed gods of other lands.

Finally, the old man threw out Shabaka’s beer and filled the cup with a hot, dark brew. “It will at first seem bitter, but then you’ll know its magic,” he said. Shabaka sniffed the cup and a wonderful smell filled his senses. Before he took his first sip, he poured a tiny quantity on the ground – “For our own gods,” he said.

Then he drank. The liquid was bitter alright, but not unpleasant. Being young, though, he drank off the entire cup. The old man refilled it and Shabaka drank more. “I can feel it! I can kill a lion tonight – maybe two!”

“The bean gives power indeed,” cautioned the old man. “But it comes with a price, youngster. Two prices, really. Two curses.”

“What are the curses?” asked Shabaka, who could feel the effects of the brew in his fingers and his toes. His senses were suddenly sharper. “Have you poisoned me, a guest at your fire?”

“No, no – no poison, but there are curses nonetheless,” answered the man. “It is late. We should sleep now and soon you’ll see what I mean.”

The two men lay on the ground near the fire and closed their eyes to sleep. Shabaka turned on his side. Turned back the other way. Moved a small pebble from under his back. Rolled over on his belly, then on to his back again. The moon rose and set and still Shabaka could find no rest, no sleep. He sat up suddenly, realizing that he’d been restless and wakeful through the entire night. In the gray of dawn, he could see the old man resting on an elbow, staring at him across the dead fire.

“I didn’t sleep.” I found no rest,” Shabaka mumbled.

“That’s the first curse,” said the old man. “The beans rob men of their sleep. Come, we will find something to eat and welcome the new day. You’ll feel better with something besides my magic in your belly.”

As Shabaka groaned to his feet and tried to shake off the effects of a sleepless night, he asked. “That’s quite a price to pay, old man, to have my sleep so disturbed. Can the second curse be worse than the first?”

“Oh yes,” replied the oldster with a tiny smile. “In all your travels, have you ever heard of a cardiologist?”

“Coffee Cup II” by Mary Beth Zeitz, from Allposters.com. All rights reserved.

Spice Islands

I’m a fan of companies who use their own products in creative ways. I wasn’t aware that Spice Islands was doing this ‘til Barbara showed me one of its new ads in Cooking Pleasures magazine. The company has launched a fresh print and online campaign targeting “consumers who love to cook,” according to Amy Corr, writing for MediaPost.

In the ad above, Ed Tadiello used Spice Island products like curry, turmeric, cumin and mustard to create “Curry Heat,” complete with palm trees, sand dunes and a pair of tiny camels. (You can see a video of artist Tadiello at work on the current Spice Islands website.) The copy is punchy-quick: “Spices so intense you can taste the world in a single teaspoon.”

The advertising campaign was created by a great, long-time agency, Cramer-Krasselt in Milwaukee. It’s supposed to drive traffic to a redesigned SpiceIslands.com website that’s set to relaunch 15th October.

I hope they hurry: two years back, brand blogger Robert Roth nutshelled his thinking about the then-new company tagline, “What the world tastes like.”

So why do I like their tag line so much? First, it elevates the Spice Islands brand position, differentiating Spice Island spices from commodity spice brands. Second, it delivers the Spice Islands brand promise in a smart way. Third, and perhaps most important, the tag line is clever without being corny or awkward.

But he hit one nail on the head when he wondered why the heck Spice Islands didn’t use the tag line anywhere on its website. So far, it still doesn’t.

Paul Progresses

After years in the Houston market, art director Paul Leigh has progressed to the Northeast:

Here's a photo of me in front of the Total Wine sign outside my office door. I’m loving my job. Don’t mind the early morning (point me to the nearest Starbucks) or the dressing up part. People are really nice. Very diverse group.

He’s moved to the Washington, DC area and gone in-house, putting his creative talent to work for Total Wine & More.

Until he took the job, I hadn’t heard of “America’s Wine Superstore.” It doesn’t have units in Texas yet. But that’s what it is: a big-box operation with each of its stores carrying approximately 8,000 different types of wine, 2,000 types of spirits and 1,000 different beers. You can imagine that the last part caught my attention, but the retailer really does have a handle on grape products: their wine consultants are knowledgeable and passionate about wine. Opinion: Leigh will add strong talent to the superstore’s bench.

Having been in Houston for so many years, Leigh was (and still is) one of my favorite art directors. For those of you with good memories, he and I created the award-winning ad campaign for Aquila Energy pre-crash – he’s the one that talked us into using an outstanding German illustrator for the ads. We branded, re-branded and marketed a lot of companies when we worked at The Quest Business Agency together. He created a dozen logos that generated high visibility and more awards. I’m grateful to have had him batting art director and designer for me.

He’s spent the last several years working on Mister William, a children’s character with a rich sense of learning and childhood wonder (if I do say so); and at other design firms here in town.

It’s hard to write an au revoir (not a goodbye) that doesn’t sound like a puff piece, as you can read. I don’t mean to do him that disservice. Paul has been a friend as well as a colleague. His recent note to me concluded with the best line of all:

What’s the best way to ship a case of He'brew beer?

Keep in touch, Paul: live long and prosper.

Purina® Diet*

I have two dogs and I was buying a large bag of Purina at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her no: I was starting The Purina Diet again, though I probably shouldn’t because I’d ended up in the hospital last time, but that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet. The way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.)

Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned.

I said, “No. I was sitting in the street licking my balls and a car hit me.”

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack – he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Stupid lady...why else would I buy dog food?!?

*This is a true story, according to its contributor. He has asked to remain anonymous. See how urban legends get started?

WEDGE Revamped

The new website for WEDGE Group has just gone live. It’s handsome and, if I do say so, elegant in form and simplicity. (I’m the co-creator and copywriter.)

Napoleon’s epigram about time is quoted often: “Ask me for anything but…” It’s sadly and particularly true of the investment business, especially in publicly held companies. For these unfortunates, the next quarter’s performance is far more important to the stock analysts on The Street than long-term returns.

Privately held WEDGE Group uses time to distinguish itself from other investment firms. It constitutes a unique selling proposition, a rarity in today’s financial world where millions of dollars are spent on hammering common-or-garden brand statements onto customers’ mental church doors.

To realize WEDGE Group’s USP, we combined outstanding input from the company’s management and transformed the brand presentation – while maintaining the brand itself.

“Time is the most valuable asset,” according to WEDGE. “Time enables its companies to gain noteworthy competitive advantages and achieve strong returns.”

Together, designer Kay Krenek and I created a high-concept website that relies on clean white space, dramatic visuals and stately copy that continually reveal brand attributes in layered detail, a scalpel instead of a hammer. It’s the kind of brand image quite a number of companies would like to have but don’t always achieve…because they’re rushing to sell something.

WEDGE Group’s “gift of time” is an unusual characteristic, a terrific contrast to the ordinary pace of commerce.

Krenek, whom I am fortunate to have as a design colleague, found the most marvelous clockwork photograph for the home page (as you can see). Her sensibility carries the website through a set of pages wherein we concentrate on imagery and brand-related text instead of overwhelming details and tricks. Bob Marberry is the web developer. The result is a purposeful re-presentation of the WEDGE Group.

Please: Review the new site and tell me what you think it does for the WEDGE brand.

“Tinieblo” Explained

The Starbucks prize for uncovering the meaning of tinieblo goes to NYC’s Peter Yonka – my brother-in-law, no less. Congratulations!

Jose Jaramillo Mejia is a columnist for the Colombian newspaper La Patria. I get the impression he’s this paper’s version of William Safire, writing about the meaning of words and phrases.

His article covers the meaning of tinieblo in detail: “a furtive lover of a lady” according to my machine translation. Señor Jaramillo calls it a neologism – a new coinage – with roots in the Latin word for “darkness,” the dark, lack of light.

Paraphrasing his column, ordinary lovers and young men are different from this guy: El Tinieblo does not fall in love with anybody; nobody falls in love with him. It is a pastime, a resource for sexual gratification without roots or commitments.

Unless Mexican Spanish is wildly different than Colombian Spanish – which it may well be – we’re drinking a mezcal whose brand name implies a Don Juan, a Casanova….perhaps a little bit more. (No, I don’t feel any different, thanks.)

Señor Jaramillo nominates tinieblo for the Royal Academy’s official dictionary of the Spanish language with the meaning of the occasional lover. Uh-huh. Peter deserves today’s award for “best research.” Happy drinking.

Photo by Corazón Girl with thanks.

El Tinieblo

On the back of the bottle of El Tinieblo mezcal I bought in Abasolo, the label describes the “close relationship between man and maguey from time immemorial.” Stirring words for a guy who’s more comfortable with gin and craft-brewed beers.

South of the border (down Mexico way), we stopped at the El Tinieblo mezcal distillery and museum, on the side of the highway from Reynosa down to our hunting rancho. Son Doug (the one on the right, apparently standing in a pothole) and I gave pride of place in the photo above to the distillery’s signage – it’s a big sign. You can read more about the distillery itself here. Also, I offer a mystery. Read on and language experts will find a challenge built right into this post.

Any road, why not collect…evidence…of an interesting brand, since the popularity of tequilas and mezcals continues to grow? A half-empty bottle of just such evidence is sitting beside my computer right now…76 proof.

A Spanish-language explanation of El Tinieblo reveals that the rancho began producing mezcal in 1865, using the “juice of the maguey.” One of the best known forms of mezcal, if I understand this correctly, is tequila – in fact, agave-based liquors that aren’t tequilas are, well, mezcals. Or…tequilas have to be made with blue agave while mezcal can be made with any: blue, white or silver agave…depending on how you read Spanish. One website says, “Mezcal is made from the agave plant. The agave is also used to make tequila but in a different process.”

If this is confusing, Google up “tequila” and “mezcal.” Wade through the details for yourself.

This post is about the brand – which does not appear anywhere on one of the best tequila-related sites, www.tequila.net. We’ll just have to wing it.

El Tinieblo mezcals (joven, reposado, añejo) are made by Mezcales de Tamaulipas in Jiminez – a good thing since Jimenez is one of just 11 municipalities in the state that have been officially designated Envasado de Origen by the government. The registered proprietor is Alfredo Perez Salinas.

Part of its most recent incarnation as a brand and an attempt to recapture the spirit of mezcaleras (or mezcal-making artisans) is the marketing help the company has received from 706 Design. The firm’s new website is under construction; the existing one doesn’t work too well but the outfit seems to have several offices throughout Mexico, plus locations in Argentina and the US.

706 Design has done the promotional materials for El Tinieblo mezcal, as well as the brand’s website (which also doesn’t work too well, but has a lot of information if you can get to it). It is difficult to determine just what parts of the brand the design firm has worked on, since the mezcal label’s antlered deer head seems to be an older element. It’s related to the hunting rancho of the same name, in the same area of Tamps. The 706 Design firm has done this work, too.

The freshest elements of the brand look are the logotype, surrounded by Mexican flag-colored bars and a starburst of agave in the center. El Tinieblo has a homemade air, though, when you compare it to better-known mezcal brands like La Fogata and (especially) the sophisticated Divino.

That may be purposeful. If the State of Tamaulipas, for example, is trying to revive the handcrafted mezcal industry and using the effort to establish jobs and grow tourism, then slightly “crafty” brand design fits the bill. Shuffling through websites, you can find other, better executions of the folk-art persuasion among the mezcals of Oaxaca far to the south.

Support your “local” brands. To try hand-crafted mezcal, just drive 150 kilometers south of McAllen, TX – a couple of hours by car. Otherwise, you’ll end up in a big-city liquor store buying some fakey corporate brand off the shelf.

Oh – the language challenge. I’m offering a contest-winning Starbucks gift card to anyone who can tell me the origin and English meaning of the word “tinieblo” – and I don’t mean the Colombian version you can find with a little digging on Google. First, I can’t believe that anyone would consciously name a consumer product after what’s obviously Colombian slang usage. Second, wouldn’t you think the product name would have something to do with the area or the rancho?

If you’re a fan of fine mezcals and tequilas, you might want to start stocking up now. A recent article in The Monitor newspaper which covers the Rio Grande Valley here in Texas announced that there’ll be a shortage of agave – in about seven years.

Yipes! Stripes!

The things I discover when I take a road trip: a total rebranding job southwest of Houston that I’d not been aware of before. (And no, it’s not an excuse to put a pretty girl up on the blog…merely an example...really.)

As I headed southwest for Mexico, to hunt the wily whitewing, I ran across my first Stripes© store in Goliad, TX. It’s a C-store (convenience store) hiding under a Valero gas canopy, my first sight of a new trade dress campaign that’s a year old. Apparently, I don’t get out enough.

I asked the counter clerk who operated Stripes. She could only tell me that the chain sold Valero gasoline and she thought its headquarters was in Corpus Christi. It is.

Susser Holdings Corporation tapped Houston-based BrandExtract to: help define and launch the new brand. BrandExtract crafted a complete identity package, including new logos and exterior store signage. The new look and feel will be taken to market via outdoor boards, weekly radio spots, in-store point-of-purchase signage, Stripes cups and other packaging. (It’s very thoughtful of Susser to mention the agency on its website.)

Then I arrived (with six of our eventual 10-man hunting party) in McAllen and found Stripes everywhere – the eastern Valley area alone has 60+ stores in the phone book. According to Susser, it’s one of the Top 20 operators of C-stores nationwide…and Stripes is the “new face” of the old Circle-K brand.

It’s a very good job – despite the apparent dissonance between the Stripes and Valero trade dressings. It doesn’t seem to hurt the company’s business at retail. And there may be some not-really-hidden reason behind the brand change.

According to a company press release, Susser began re-branding its convenience stores from the Circle-K licensed brand to Stripes in the second quarter of 2006. At approximately the same time, Susser began re-branding its fueling islands to Valero from CITGO after signing a new 12-year supply agreement in July 2006 – in the third quarter.

All the retail stores that were supplied by CITGO were to be supplied by Valero. It looks like Susser was one of the breakaways from CITGO in the wake of the remarks by Venezuelan President Chavez that so upset CITGO marketing partners here in the US.

The same February 2007 press release quoted Ron Coben, Susser’s CMO: “The main goal of this campaign was to transfer the goodwill that we have earned over the last decade as Circle K into even stronger customer loyalty as Stripes.”

One valid reason to re-brand a company or operating unit (especially one long-established) is to signal a change in direction – in this case, leaving behind old or no-longer-appropriate marks (Circle-K and CITGO) for new offerings (Valero).

Whether you agree that Valero’s teal-and-yellow looks a bit odd against the Stripes red-and-white, Coben’s team and BrandExtract have come up with a very strong identity – and you can see executions in addition to “Bikini Girl” here.

On the one hand, Wall Street doesn’t seem to have given Susser much credit for this particular effort. But given that it’s a year after the new brand’s rollout and every Stripes store I saw was crowded, I’d have to say the campaign is very successful: Customers have picked up on the brand transference. What’s the disconnect among Susser stakeholders? I’ll write Ron Coben to find out.

And hats off to Jonathan Fisher and the BrandExtract team for a neat ongoing campaign.

PS: Circle-K is still a going concern. Susser was a major licensee.

Spackle® Gone?

Dear Mr. Norton: the morning paper (see above) reminded me that another great trademark has bitten the dust – yours. Like “escalator," it seems to have happened over a number of years…and no one (including yourself and the other members of your family) seems to have noticed.

A trademark used for a powder to be mixed with water or a ready-to-use plastic paste, SPACKLE was designed to fill cracks and holes in plaster before painting or papering. Today, the name usually appears in print in lowercase, either as a noun or as a verb. It’s actually a registered trademark of The Muralo Company of Bayonne, NJ. The original SPACKLE brand of products was introduced in 1926 and there’s plenty of information about it here.

The Muralo Company (Jim Norton, President) favors to independent paint and decorating products dealers – it doesn’t distribute through big-box/Home Center stores. Unlike Sherwin-Williams, another great brand, Muralo doesn’t own retail stores; it depends on “discriminating do-it-yourselfers and professional painting contractors.”

Other companies, including the aforementioned Sherwin-Williams and DAP, Inc., make “spackling paste.”

Despite a 100-year-plus history, the company hasn’t gone out of its way to protect its brand, though. The 1970 edition of The American College Dictionary doesn’t portray the word, whereas “Spackle” is clearly identified as a trademark in the ’99 edition of Encarta® World English Dictionary.

Why wouldn’t a small, family-owned company protect its valuable trademark? One answer may be distraction: The Muralo Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003, to protect itself against asbestos claims – the same kinds of claims the brought down Johns-Manville. Although the company website’s latest press releases are almost a year old, there’s still a Contractor Incentive Program that’s good ‘til the end of this year: Muralo is still going.

I’m not sure distraction counts as an excuse. My daddy was using the word “spackle” as a verb back when I was a young ‘un…the practice is clearly an old one, despite the Encarta entry. And as you can see in “Zits,” it continues to this day.

Maybe someone from the company will let Signalwriter know why it has let its trademark slip into common usage. A trademark’s age doesn’t mean it has to lose its standing, as Coca-Cola proves.

“Zits” by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman. © 2007 King Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.

Opportunity Ads

Did you find yourself in a conversation about HACs and BOBs at last night’s art gallery opening? Didn’t think so. How about “High TAN crudes?” Not those either, huh?

Up and down every value chain, there are corners, segments and niches where the language gets arcane and the buzzwords turn mysterious. But somebody is working in these areas and that’s how these new print ads for Baker Petrolite came to be created.

The basic subject is crude oil. In the oil-refining business, operators have to control the costs of the crudes they process: the hydrocarbons that are turned into gasoline (among many other things). Crude oil streams are big cost items; so when refiners can get them, the least expensive crude oils really help margins. These are “opportunity crudes.”

They could be bottom-of-the-barrel stuff (BOBs) or high-acid crudes (HACs). They can be refined but they cause their own set of problems, like unanticipated corrosion. The cost of the crude will be lower, but the cost of refining them could be much higher unless you control the effects on your plant.
That’s the problem with opportunity: you can get a really good deal on something, but you ought to be prepared to deal with the consequences.

I’ve had an opportunity myself: to help Baker Petrolite create fractional-page ads that let refiners know and understand what the issues are – and how to be prepared. Controlling the potential damage caused by high-TAN or high metals crudes is one of the Baker Petrolite specialties.

“Be Prepared” is the main message of the ad series, in which we demonstrate one approach to conveying messages: headlines and copy say one thing while the photos portray a different but complementary theme.

Visually, we borrowed interest. We portray teamwork and partnership in challenging situations – specifically, alpine sports like ice-climbing or competitive bobsledding. Working with its customers is another Baker Petrolite specialty and we convey this with photographs. Visually, we borrowed interest.

Our copy, however, is specific: each of the ads in the series reveals a solution to the challenges of processing a particular kind of opportunity crude. The benefits are bullet-pointed.

It’s the headlines that generate the targeting in this advertising approach. Aside from appearing in specific magazines, this series is designed to (and will) attract readers who know what refining high-TAN crude, for example, entails.

Recognizing the specialized knowledge that’s involved in this niche creates “targets of opportunity” for the advertiser. No head-scratching over HACs and BOBs…just good readership.

Creating the ads was a team effort as well. Thanks to the Baker Petrolite team here and abroad for the opportunity to produce interesting work for marketing to refineries.

Tunguska Blast

Okay, I can’t help this. I stopped by my local pack-and-mail store, owned by Amir Brohi like since forever. I needed to send a fax (that really smacks of the 20th Century, doesn’t it?). There were these bottles on the counter, large, oddly shaped bottles and tiny oddly shaped bottles. Such is my introduction to Tunguska Blast. This is an energy drink apparently distributed like Amway products.

It comes from a company called CyberWize and it introduced Tunguska Blast to the world with...a unique and powerful platform of claims defensible only because of the power attributed to the Tunguska Effect: the most unique boost to energy and stamina, support to the immune system, increase of mental clarity, and enhancement of physical performance ever provided by a nutritional supplement.

Holy monkey fritters! What a marketing scheme. Beautifully done. According to CyberWize, it “absolutely changes” people’s lives.

Now for a little history: at 7.18AM on Tuesday, June 30, 1908, a meteor struck eastern Russia. According to, say, Matt Datillo: Central Siberia was a remote, hard-to-reach wilderness in 1908, but even so, there were witnesses to the event. Near Lake Baikal, villagers saw a bluish light move across the sky…they described it as being brighter than the sun…10 minutes later, there was a bright flash and a sharp noise that sounded like artillery fire.

When the shock wave arrived, it knocked people off their feet and broke windows. It was so strong that people felt it’s force hundreds of miles away. In England, barographs, used to measure atmospheric pressure, showed fluctuations from the explosion. That night, and for weeks thereafter, night skies in the northern hemisphere contained a strange glow so bright it allowed people to read outside.

As far as CyberWize is concerned, this remarkable event has yielded this Tunguska Effect, amazing growth and energy fully certified by genuine Czarist Russian scientists. Which is all duplicated in this energy drink.

You have absolutely positively got to see the Tunguska Blast website ‘cause the brand story is…amazing. The testimonials are remarkable. Certainly you’ll believe them and in case you do, you can order a 4-pack of 32-ounce bottles right off the site for just $210!

Tunguska has always had a certain von Däniken appeal, like Chariots of the Gods, you know? Most of the serious literature, however, doesn’t mention CyberWize’s trademarked Tunguska Effect (although you can read, listen and see all about it on the website).

And the September 2007 number of Consumer Reports didn’t include this product in its “Upfront” review of an even dozen energy drinks – some with names that might actually be understood by the energy-drinking public: Amp, Full Throttle, Red Bull and so on.

Normally I would say that Tunguska Blast is pretty arcane, but the branding guys have really done their packaging and story-telling homework. This is brand marketing at its most fabulous and I use that word in its original denotation: like a fable.

The standard nutrition label is available online – buried in here somewhere may be the amount of caffeine or its equivalent. You’ll note when you read it that CyberWize cautions a consumer to drink just one ounce daily. That makes it about $1.64 an ounce…which is a heck of a lot more than even Starbucks charges for its “energy drink.”

Like I said, though, if you want to be trendy and cool, check out the brand story. It’s all in the brand story.

Naughty Lola

I want you to go right this minute to a blog post by Sunil Shibad, copywriting correspondent in Mumbai. He offers much more detail and plenty of samples from a new book of the same name – a compilation of the best lonely hearts ads from “The London Review of Books” – by David Rose.

The basis of the title: “They call me Naughty Lola. Run-of-the-mill beardy physicist (M, 46).”

Shibad really picks up on the weird and the witty and if that’s not enough, you can also a story on the NPR website. Read all about the ads and consider the people behind them.

What’s telling, from my POV, is that such messages from the heart (or from the mind) are often better and more freely expressed than ad messages. “Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away.” Messages – headlines – we create for clients are far more constrained than hopeful or forthright blurbs from people who will, as long as they wish it, remain anonymous. “Romance is dead. So is my mother. Man, 42, inherited wealth.” Each one is self-marketing and lead generation rolled into a single appeal.

Reading these personals reminds me that good copywriters ought to be learning from life – not from textbooks. What will attract readers, listeners or viewers? The human condition…and if they’re witty or wry, so much the better.

Thanks, Sunil, for a great intro to a terrific writer’s manual.

Salsa Mystery

If you want a bottle of Del Monte Thick & Chunky Salsa (Medium), you’ll find it on our table – and nowhere else. Del Monte stopped making its glass-jarred salsas “a few years ago,” according to the Del Monte Consumer Affairs people in Pittsburgh, PA.

Now don’t you go thinking that I’ve begun to specialize in condiments (even though I posted about pickles at end of July). No, salsas and hot sauces are now outselling ketchup in the US – and that makes writing about their sales and marketing quirks worthwhile. America’s growing Hispanic population is something we don’t tend to notice in Texas but it’s increasingly apparent to the rest of the nation.

Salsa is No. 2 behind tortillas in the “Top 10 Hispanic Food and Beverage Categories.” The research organization Packaged Facts projects that this segment of the US retail marketplace will reach $8.4 billion by 2011, up 48% from 2006.

These days, choose among “major’ US brands like Pace (Campbell Soup Company) and Old El Paso (General Mills); brand extensions like Doritos’ salsa, store brands; restaurant and private labels; Mexican competitors such as Victoria and Ortega; specialty brands like Frontera Foods’ Salpica. Some of these are obviously better than others. True confession: I’m not brand-loyal in this crowded category. I’m always willing to try a different brand or flavor variation. Heck, I even hang out at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival, suffering agonies in my search for the good, the bad and the ugly salsas.

If forced to select one brand, I’d go with Goldwater’s salsas out of Arizona…I mail-order them sometimes. Not a lot of heat but plenty of fruity taste.

Taste tests abound – and most of the marketing and advertising work is accomplished by [a] Valassis couponing and [b] store sampling – this is a kind of “trial by mouth.”

But I didn’t recall Del Monte’s branded salsa until Barbara pulled it out of the back of the cupboard. Reading the label was a little like stepping back in time, because there’s no nutrition information, no “best by” date. So I went to the Web to look it up. Surprise! No Del Monte Thick & Chunky Salsa. Del Monte has a lot of sites – food, corporate, even Fresh Del Monte. A little confusing but understandable in a company that’s been around so long.

Finally, I called the Del Monte Consumer Affairs hotline: 1-800-543-3090. This is answered, as I noted above, in Pittsburgh…not exactly the place I’d pick for salsa information. The TSR was very polite, became puzzled and then engaged. She’d never heard of Del Monte Thick & Chunky Salsa. After checking with her supervisor and discovering that Barbara had purchased our bottle at a dollar store some years back, she was finally able to explain that Del Monte had made salsas in the early ‘90s, but ceased production “five or six years ago.” (Thanks, Niki!)

Too bad in a way: It’s pretty good salsa, even long past its freshness date – Barbara insists it’s the preservatives. (And Niki was able to tell me it was made in America. My “customer experience” with Del Monte’s hotline was a good one.)

Del Monte is a great trademark. It’s the kind of company that could bring real muscle to the salsa category in terms of its experience with packing fresh fruits and vegetables.

I guess Del Monte’s management couldn’t wait for the salsa boom to arrive. Today, it would take a lot of horsepower to grab some market share out of the crowded salsa category and Del Monte’s got a lot of tomatoes to pick.

Still, I would have liked to try Del Monte Thick & Chunky Salsa (Hot).

Mambo Floridiana

Chip Weber of Rubber Chicken for the Soul commented on my blog post about my new Moon Dog shirt. He loaded up on classic Mambo Loud Shirts from Australia and sells the remainder of the stock on eBay as well as on his own site. Now he cruises the Web for people who write about wild and crazy tropicals and offers them even better deals on these out-of-production spectaculars: a form of word-of-mouth advertising that’s perhaps a little slow, but he sure does hit his targets: the best kind of shout-out there is.

He’s 52 and 6”5” tall – he thinks that size has a lot to do with Mambo. He met some Aussies in Hong Kong in the mid-90s who were wearing Mambo shirts and fell in love with ‘em. (These days, Chip and his wife Jenny hang out down on Merritt Island in Florida.) He picked up a few shirts a decade ago.

When Mambo sold out, Weber found a “secret” source for these shirts and bought them all – the whole story will come out when he’s sold them. Instead of having a couple in his collection, he’s got, like, 85.

Dare Jennings, who started Mambo Graphics in Oz, originally asked Reg Mombassa to design t-shirts and Loud Shirts for him. Mombassa has said, “A pair of oscillating buttocks or a heaving chest provide an excellent perpetual motion armature over which to stretch the illustrated fabric, giving the images on the cloth the illusion of life and self-motivation.”

I’m glad to think of these loud shirts as having a life of their own – even if the buttocks and chests Mombassa was thinking about little resemble my own. Hey, I’m just a collector here.

So I did ask Weber to send along “Day of the Dead” (pictures above) as well as “Mambo Tropicana Lounge,” which will shock those who know me: this one’s a little quieter than usual. Still, it’s got a great chest on it. Thanks to the big guy from Florida.

PS: What I heard from Weber is that Mambo is actually Jennings’ acronym for Means for Acquiring Models, Bucks and Opiates.

“Flash” Spoilt?

I could hardly do worse to the just-premiered “Flash Gordon” series on Sci-Fi than the lemony Tom Shales has done here – so I won’t. I will say (though you know I don’t normally review anything from the small screen) that Alex Raymond, who first drew the original “Flash Gordon” in 1934, is hardly spinning in his grave.

Unless, of course, you think of him as “Spinner” Raymond. Because “Flash Gordon” is a brand that’s been stepped on so many times, it’s like street dope.

In fact, Raymond was commissioned to draw up Flash to compete with the already popular “Buck Rogers” comic strip. It was a knock-off brand from the get-go. Ruling the spaceways and battling Ming the Merciless 10 years before I was born, that’s a long run…fueled by a huge variety of updates, re-makes, homages, parodies and other variations. Today, Jim Keefe is drawing the strip.

Let’s not forget the Flash Gordon brand t-shirts, action figures and an absolutely spiffy toy ray gun, too.

Come, come: let’s not get too bothered that the current generation of Sci-Fi channeleers will never know who Jean Rogers, Melody Anderson and Ornella Muti were (but whom you can read about here). We’ll just keep our own memories of this great character brand to ourselves. Save Mongo!

Truth Expected

The day before the integrity article appeared in Advertising Age (see below), Jim Blackburn wrote an opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle “Outlook” section. You can read the entire article here – or read this take-out:

I want truth from the corporations in my community. I know that corporations must make a profit. I acknowledge that aspect of a corporation, and so should the company. By definition, a corporation is an entity that is created to generate profit (unless the entity is a nonprofit corporation). I hope that other goals and objectives enter into corporate thinking, but all of us should recognize that profit is a primary concern – and please do not disrespect me by pretending otherwise.

Similarly, when there is a crisis or a problem, I expect the truth. Don’t tell us that there is no problem when one exists. The priority in an accident is the safety and health of the community.

Blackburn is not only an environmental lawyer. He’s a professor of the subject in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice University. This is clearly stated in the article’s descriptive paragraph about him.

I point this out because this blog is supposed to be about marketing and advertising and so is this post. Blackburn specifically asks, “What should we ask of corporations in our lives?” His answers are as much about marketing as they are about environmentalism.

Blackburn’s expectations, in order, include competency, truth (see above), relationship, respect and trust, conscience, social contract, a view to the future, and partnership. It seems to him that these concepts are “good starting points” for change. They’re just as valid for advertising as they are for production or operations.

(So yes, we’re talking about the Stakeholder Rule© again). Am I belaboring this unmercifully? I’m waiting for more advertisers to catch on to the idea that social interactions can influence how brands are perceived in the marketplace, and how the companies behind those brands perform.

This is an issue for every worker, every consumer…every stakeholder, in fact. Join the vanguard of our particular “proletariat” – the class of people who want to hold the owners of capital and the means of production responsible and responsive. Besides, if you always tell the truth, you won’t have to remember what stories you make up.

“Stakeholder Rule” © Richard Laurence Baron. All rights reserved.

Truth “Official”

Praise be to God, it’s now fully endorsed: “Integrity in marketing is not optional.” I know this is the new hosanna because Lynn Upshaw says so in a July 30 article in Advertising Age, addressed to Chief Marketing Officers.

Upshaw is a marketing consultant and a faculty member at the UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His book proclaims “truth” is the answer in a skeptical world and I’m glad he’s has written it.

What amuses me is that by publishing his article, Ad Age endorses the concept. By implication, truth is the next big thing.

If companies (and governments) would adopt this odd idea of telling the truth, it would make a nice change from screwing every stakeholder in sight – I do believe I’ve mentioned this a time or two.

Think of Upshaw’s article (if you can access it) as necessary reading, if only to help reinforce the idea that ethical behavior is good for business: “Last year, more than 75% of Opinion Research respondents said they preferred to buy from a company that operates ethically, even if they have to pay more.”

I’d like to thank the editors of Ad Age for agreeing to portray this truth thingy where many readers might be able to read it.

Bettter yet, buy Upshaw’s book and review the companies (such as Herman Miller and Johnson & Johnson) he accuses of telling the truth to stakeholders. They’re practicing what he preaches.

Thanks to Susan Kirkland for bringing this article to my attention.

Hoven’s Joke

An old-time Southern, hellfire-and-brimstone country preacher had a teenage son, and it was getting time the boy should give some thought to choosing a profession. Like many young men, the boy didn’t really know what he wanted to do, and he didn’t seem too concerned about it.

One day, while the boy was away at school, his father decided to try an experiment. He went into the boy’s room and placed on his study table four objects: a Bible, a silver dollar, a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey and a Playboy magazine.

“I’ll just hide behind the door,” the old preacher said to himself. “When he comes home from school this afternoon, I’ll see which object he picks up.

“If it’s the Holy Bible, he’s going to be a preacher like me, and what a blessing that would be!

“If he picks up the dollar, he’s going to be a businessman, and that would be okay, too.

“But Lord, if he picks up the bottle, he’s going to be a no-good, low-down drunkard. What a shame that would be! And worst of all.... if he picks up that magazine, he’s gonna be a skirt-chasin’ no-good bum.”

The old man waited anxiously, and soon heard his son’s footsteps as he entered the house whistling and headed for his room. The boy tossed his books on the bed. As he turned to leave the room, he spotted the objects on the table. With curiosity in his eye, he walked over to inspect them.

Finally, he reached out and placed the Bible under his arm. He picked up the silver dollar, flipped it once in the air and dropped it into his pocket. Then he uncorked the bottle and took a big drink while he admired Playboy’s Miss July.

“Lord, have mercy!” the old preacher disgustedly whispered. “He’s gonna be a Congressman!”

There’s no gag like an old one, so thanks to Paul Hoven for this great story; and Wikipedia Commons for the photo.