Billboards, Farewell

I suppose it is official, now that it’s been announced: the City of Houston has struck a deal with Clear Channel Outdoor to make 831 outdoor boards “disappear” before the end of 2008. Another source indicates that Clear Channel Outdoor has 4,500 facings in Houston, so it’ll lose 18% or so of its displays. (Is my math right?)

Everyone that could be reached before press time is elated: Mayor Bill White, Ed Wulfe of Scenic Houston, Mack Fowler of the Quality of Life Coalition. Clear Channel Outdoor lawyers, however, could not be reached for comment. Clearing out the “visual pollution” of billboards is part of a renewed national trend.

Elation is no doubt a relative thing. Clear Channel Outdoor is the world’s largest outdoor advertising company: “In the United States, the company operates just under 200,000 advertising displays.” This makes the boards it will remove from the Houston area a drop in its national bucket. In any case, there’s been a deal cut and the company gets some profitable arrangements for its trouble, as you can read from the article.

The deal just affects the Clear Channel Outdoor boards – don’t you be thinking that outdoor advertising’s going to vanish from the city. There are other owners and operators like CBS Outdoor, SignAd, Reliant Media…the deal doesn’t have anything to say about these hoardings.

If you’re a true believer in the evils of outdoor signage, history is against you. Billboards (UK: hoardings) have been around for centuries. There’s a marvelous engraving of “Modern Advertising: A Railways Station” in A History of Advertising that shows outdoor ads for everything from sherry to insurance policies of Ede’s Patent American Eye Liquid – “Every Disease of the Eye Cured.”

That same book indicated that the growth of advertising in general “has been attended by an almost entire revulsion of mode.” That’s in 1874, mind you. I suppose the anti-billboard crowd is filled with such revulsion.

Now I am against your general overall ugly city look. As Houston (especially under Mayor White) becomes greener and more attractive, taking down 800 or so billboards may be a help.

However, here’s my self-confessed that’s-how-I-make-my-living aspect.

A great billboard is a thing of beauty – often a visual delight, like the one above created for Adidas for the 2006 World Cup. Anita Bath blogged last year, “Due to the abundance of bad roadside ads, I typically admire cool, funny, or just amazingly creative billboards while driving.”

Me, too. Because, in print, you just don’t get many opportunities to make people laugh or cry or buy when they’re driving past your message at 60 miles per hour.

Bye-bye, billboards.

Yarrow’s “Thoughtcrime”

If you’re of a certain age and thinking (even distantly) about getting out of your 9-to-5 job, Andrew L Yarrow will scare the living crap out of you.

In advance of the publication of his new book, Forgive Us Our Debts, Yarrow is hitting the opinion pages (like this one) and university campuses with a message that talks about baby boomers behind their backs – and accuses every one of them of being “unpatriotic.”

Why? Because he’s convinced that Americans who retire early are unpatriotic and selfish…and his telling the world about it is being powered by a fairly impressive media push. So this is a post about propaganda rather than PR…or the borderline between the two.

In his opinion pieces, Yarrow says that “dropping out of the workforce while still in one’s prime means ending one’s contributions to American’s strength.” He’d have us believe that deciding to stop working after 20 or 30 years (35 in my case) means “mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s future and leeching trillions of taxpayer dollars from the economy.”

This is profoundly wrong on many levels. Since when is freedom of choice in this country unpatriotic? If I choose to retire from the workforce, surely that’s my option and not the government’s to mandate? Yet here is Professor Yarrow lauding the efforts of US Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill) for attempting to eliminate this choice by increasing federal taxation on Social Security payments.

People who retire after decades of work are NOT leeching millions of taxpayer dollars from the economy – they have [1] created those dollars in the first place because they are the taxpayers; and [2] paid into the Social Security system for all those years, working hard to secure their own futures.

Yarrow would seem to be well qualified to make these accusations, since he’s vice president and Washington director of “non-partisan” Public Agenda, teaches modern US history at American University, and is a former reporter for The New York Times. He’s also, it is clear, a big fan of the book by George Orwell called 1984. Because Yarrow’s screed against baby boomer retirement is a classic example of double-think – when a set of words is given an entirely new meaning and we buy into it.

Yarrow’s vision – and his deep misunderstanding of the American workforce – is dystopian in the extreme. He wants the government to step in and make it difficult (if not criminal) to retire “early” because retirement is not patriotic, because there’s something about the “middle age retirement program” that deeply disturbs him. He seriously wishes to “help middle-age workers fund their retraining and education.”

Yarrow is dangerous to the American way of work because he appears to be convinced that the only class of people who can continue to support our way of life are between the ages of 55 and 65, it seems.

What’s going to happen to this country if the baby boomers take a time-out? Yarrow calls people who think of retiring “profoundly selfish.” This IS propaganda. And it is a remarkable accusation considering that it’s precisely today’s so-called young-old workforce that has built this nation into one of the economic wonders of the world.

We have kept America at the top of the list when it comes to productivity in virtually every global ranking. I can only presume that Yarrow recognizes that 20-somethings or 30-somethings aren’t going to be able to contribute their share of the national tax base. Lower tax revenues always frighten Liberals.

It’s like the next chapter in the 1984 Thought Police manual. And recall if you will that thoughtcrime does not entail death – merely indoctrination.

Gecko Gaffe

I’m certain you’ve heard something like this before. It probably happens all the time, in fact. (I’ve never been charmed by the appeal of the Geico gecko – preferring the Neanderthals myself. I don’t buy the rationale behind the Brit accent; but viewers find it…hilarious.) I do know that the real heavy lifting of the brand itself comes from its outstanding customer service. The company really tries to support its stakeholder.

Maybe Geico is trying too hard, because this is hilarious. As some of you know, Barbara’s brother, Jeff Slavik, died this past February. He suffered a brain aneurysm and never regained consciousness. Barbara used copies of the death certificate to notify various companies that her brother was deceased, and that they should cancel various subscriptions, policies, etc. this letter arrived in today’s mail from Geico.

Jeffrey Martin Slavik
2743 Quincannon Lane
Houston, TX 77-43-1602

Policy Number: XXXXXXXXX

Dear Jeffrey Slavik:

This letter is to confirm your written correspondence dates March 14, 2008. We will cancel the above numbered policy as you requested and you will be advised of any refund or premium due.

As you requested, the policy will be canceled as of 12:01 A.M. on January 20, 2008.

PLEASE CALL US IMMEDIATELY AT 1-800-841-3000 IF ANY OF THE INFORMATION ABOVE IS CORRECT.

We are truly sorry to lose a policyholder like you and hope that your relationship with us was a pleasant one. Thank you for allowing us to provide your insurance coverage. We would welcome your inquiries at any time.

Best wishes for the future.

Sincerely,

[signature]

Debra Benjamin
Customer Service

REMINDER: Please surrender your plates to the Department of Motor Vehicles, if you are required to do so.

Dear Debra Benjamin, I’m thinking, maybe your CRM system could use a bit of tweakin’. Jeff is dead. If he has any inquiries, he’s going to keep them to himself.

Watch Obama

“Time for a change” has taken on new meaning for Jack Goldenberg, long-time AdRants buddy, experienced creative macher and all-round inventive guy.

Jack’s company, Einstein, da Vinci & Goldenberg, has introduced a new line of Barack Obama Watches: High-touch, limited-edition quartz timepieces...just in time for the Democratic blood-letting in Denver. Rather than wearing your heart on your sleeve, Jack is hoping you’ll wear your political convictions on your wrist.

Jack told me, when we had lunch last time he visited Houston, that he wanted to do something like this. Now – like the Illinois senator – he believes this is his time. (Help me, Lord, there are way too many puns available here.)

I was just a bit miffed that I wasn’t offered one of these undoubtedly fine watches in return for some ringing endorsement on this blog. Then I realized that Jack really was protecting me. By altruistically flacking the fine watches and how easy they are to purchase, I wouldn’t be accused by my fellow Republicans of selling out.

No! Unlike Barak Obama and Tony Rezko, Jack has not purchased the house next to mine here in Houston – he’s staying in New Jersey (apparently because he likes it there). I am writing about these watches because [a] Jack is a friend who has a neat line of products to sell; and [b] I believe that a key part of the American democratic process is the chance to make an extra buck or two at election time. If you can’t sell your vote, how about a nice watch? And when you buy one, you will be supporting the growth of e-tailing at the same time.

Look at it this way: If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, these watches will be collector’s items. If he wins the general election – and becomes America’s first black President – Jack’s Obama Watches could easily earn you hundreds, maybe thousands on eBay.

Besides, you’ve got to admit that “Love Your Mama/Vote Obama” is cute.

Swanndri Style

When I heard about this “rural clothing company” way down yonder – New Zealand – I thought, here’s an outfit that ought to have stores in Texas. I guess I got excited about the headline.

Swanndri has been kickin’ it in Kiwi-land since 1913, based on a waterproof work shirt made from 100% New Zealand wool. The company expanded its line over the years; I must have seen some of this stuff when I visited a sheep station above Christchurch area back in 1971.

Because the country was/is so rural (“Lord of the Rings” giving you a good overall glimpse), you can understand that Swanndri became symbolic of a lifestyle – and the company took itself in the same direction that Levi Strauss did here in the States.

Then, in 2005, new owners picked up the company and went to a local ad agency, Simon Inc, to rebrand the firm: to emphasize the position of Swanndri as a great, iconic Kiwi brand, reinforcing its reputation among the core rural market and bringing it to the high street throughout the cities of New Zealand and Australia. Simon did a great job – take a look here.

Nevertheless, as you look through the excellent company website, you’ll notice a growing similarity to other world brands that emphasize the outdoors. I suspect that the new, 2005 owners decided to expand the company’s appeal way beyond Kiwi farm-and-ranch gun-toters.

Then, this past November, Swanndri sold up to Longbeach Holdings Ltd. The outgoing chairman, Bryan Pearson, said in a press release: We all felt the time was right for a company like Longbeach to come in and take Swanndri to the next level.

If other such buyouts (e.g., Mambo Loud Shirts) are any example, the quality of Swanndri clothing will maintain its high level – I hope – but the brand’s going to go broad and urban in its appeal. That Texas-style headline is just a vestige of its past. Too bad.

Barilla Condemns

It must be true, because I finally read the words of Guido Barilla himself. He’s the Chairman of the 130-year-old Parma, Italy-based company that happens to be the world’s largest producer of pasta. And if I get him in trouble with the US side of the firm and its ad agencies, hard wheat.

Referring to a box of the company’s penne – and responding to an immense outcry among the Italian people over the in-store price jump of pasta throughout the country – he noted that one of the reasons that prices are going up is because of the growing use of agricultural crops to make…ethanol. “Agriculture for energy is an extremely stupid thing.” (You can read more about the outrage in Fortune.)

Here’s total disclosure: I work for clients in both the hydrocarbon and ethanol sectors. But having a wide variety of resources available for review, I have to say that using American corn to produce ethanol for our vehicles is precisely what Barilla says it is.

Our food prices are going up. And every bushel of corn that’s diverted from our food chain to make ethanol means that our food is going to cost more. Yep – it’s very admirable that the gas pumps in Bellaire, TX, dispense E85, the “magic” mixture of hydrocarbon-based gasoline and corn-based ethanol. Yep – it’s terrific that there’s an entire energy sector out there in the heartland, represented by blenders like POET LLC that have devoted themselves to alternative energy.

Ethanol is a poor energy source – it doesn’t come close to providing the power of hydrocarbons. And even though it burns poorly, it consumes other natural resources really well. An ethanol production factory requires huge amounts of water; a new one being planned for Tampa, FL, is on record requesting the use of 400,000 gallons of city water per day.

Ethanol is only an alternative energy source only because you and I are paying for it through the nose.

My colleague Rob Schoenbeck is preparing an area51 insight – I’ll let you know when it’s up. He notes: Follow the money. Huge subsidies, huge profits, lots of votes. The politicians (Dems & Republicans alike) are all for it. They’re doing the math. In 2006, the Feds paid ethanol blenders $2.5 billion and ethanol corn farmers $0.9 billion. We paid an extra $3.6 billion at the pump. The total was $2.21 extra per gallon of gasoline replaced. Of all that, $5.4 billion went for windfall profits, creating what USDA’s chief economist called ethanol euphoria.

I have been marketing in the energy sector for years; It is difficult to make any kind of case for food-based alternative fuels.

Some industry marketers have suggested that a balanced approach to future energy sufficiency is critical. I agree. But not perched on the back of everyone who benefits from our food chain – and that would be...everyone. No matter how much of a glow you get from the ethanol alternative fuel concept, I’m on Signor Barilla’s side: Pasta to the People!

Silly Kohler

I’d meant to write this post when this new appeared on the back cover of Wired but events intervened…some of them related to personal plumbing. It's appropriate.

Plumbing fixtures are necessary component of Western civilization that some companies have turned into art forms. So have some ad agencies.

There’s no doubt that the creative done for Kohler Company by GSDM deserves all the awards and the fame it’s gained over the past few years. In broadcast alone, GSDM has set a very high bar, featuring “The Bold Look of KOHLER®” in some of the most marvelous commercials. You can watch them on the company’s website here (click on the TV Ads tab) – I’d direct your attention to “Dilemma” especially which for some reason I find hilariously funny.

The same has mostly applied to the Kohler print advertising over the years. The company and the agency have used some of the world’s most remarkable and imaginative photographers to create downright funny or highly provocative visualizations of Kohler bathroom fixtures – and you can see many of the executions here.

In fact, there’s a significant lesson in this creative for other advertisers: with these executions, Kohler has drawn a bright line between its products and all others. If you’re hip enough, in this case, you will be using Kohler.

[Many homeowners and plumbers prefer Toto – its creative is focused on product. I’ve been told that they rather have quality than quirkiness.]

Nevertheless, there’s funny and there’s silly. The first image in the new, 2008 “As I See It” Kohler ad series, an imaginative photo by Mark Holthusen featuring the MargauxTM faucet, is silly.

Holthusen is much caressed for his imagination and his style. It’s also appears (as many of Wired readers will know) that this execution was inspired by the failed 2004 Kerry Conran film, “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” – a great cast and a terrific CG effort wrecked by a piece-of-crap script.

The ad, which envisions the little Margaux faucet handle as the control stick of an aircraft, falls into the Steampunk category – nothing wrong with that. But doesn’t anyone at the agency have a shred of sense? Steampunk systems are supposed to be workable in theory. Portraying faux combat jets with fixed landing gear (no matter if they’re wearing spats) is silly.

Just as ridiculous: The missing cockpit canopy. Without a canopy, what keeps the pilot from sticking her elbow into the stream of fire from the rifle-caliber machine guns mounted behind her? (As she appears to be perfectly capable of doing, thanks to the easy, one-handed control of the faucet handle.)

Altitude? Forget it. No cockpit canopy, no pressurization. Streamlining? Add all the gear spats you like, what about the open cockpit as a wind trap? And speaking of the open cockpit, check out the pilot’s all-white flying leathers. Perhaps no JP-5 fuel residue or hydraulic fluid afflict the aircraft; nor, unless it’s heated, will the fancy costume protect the blonde from the chill of zooming around the sky at 300 or 400 mph.

Silliest of all, the pilot isn’t strapped into the cockpit. There doesn’t seem to be any flight harness. Now you can look this up here: “The aspiring fighter pilot is taught basic air combat maneuvers, some defensive, others offensive…the Break, the High-G Barrel Roll…the Vertical Rolling Scissors…the Immelmann.”

The first time Blondie pulls an Immelmann, she’s coming right out of that cockpit.

I presume the spiffy Margaux faucet and the stylish Undertone® sink are under warranty. This is one dogfight Kohler isn’t going to walk away from; but don't worry. As Rob Schoenbeck says in his comment, the company is bulletproof.

Medtronic Customer

I’d like to report that I chose the ICD (Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator) that’s currently in my left “subclavian” space. I did not.

That task fell to Alex Drtil, the cardiologist who installed it this past Thursday morning, Of the “Big Three” companies involved in cardiac pacing and defibrillation, Medtronic was his choice...probably because it was before noon and the weather was cloudy. (Medtronic, like the others, doesn’t much advertise to its prospective patients except in the vaguest ways.)

Woowhee! I got me a Medtronic VirtuosoTM tachyarrhythmia management system complete with ConnexusTM wireless telemetry – so many trademarks on the Medtronic website you’d think every Tom, Dick and Harry was in the pacemaker business…and that cardiologists actually remember all these trade names. I doubt it.

I did work on Medtronic business years and years ago, in Minnesota. Then the big problem was getting cardiologists to select a brand name out of the (then) dozen or so pacemakers available. Now, there’s even a Medtronic sales technician in the cath lab with the implantation team, monitoring the performance of the ICD over what I suppose is Connexus wireless.

This same, very pleasant young woman became a little confused when I asked her if I could use the ICD’s WiFi capability for my own laptop. When she confessed that the Virtuoso unit did not allow for this, I asked about the coupons.

“Coupons?” she responded blankly. “Yes,” I replied strongly. “I’m sure I read that Medtronic was offering its customers half-price dinners and suchlike in coupon booklets if they had one of its units installed. Don’t you know about the coupon program?” She admitted she didn’t know anything about coupons and retired to her console in confusion. (I apologized to her the next day when she stopped by my palatial medical suite to check the unit – again via the Connexus system. I’d like to think she’s checked with the Medtronic marketing people about the coupon book.)

I was pretty much awake during the entire procedure though I couldn’t see anything – they’d draped my head in a tent-like structure. Possibly so I couldn’t see that the doctor was actually implanting a used crankcase cam from a 1948 Chrysler boat engine in my chest. At least, that what I thought he told me. But the procedure went smoothly. I’d like to thank everyone in the room (including me for not screaming like a little girl). The procedure went smoothly – despite the fact that I was wearing a strobe light on my head throughout the entire procedure.

You see, I attended the Subsea Tieback Forum in Galveston earlier in the week. While visiting with Esmeralda McLeane and Tom Taylor at the WellDynamics booth, they gave me this nifty, hang-around-your-neck colored strobe light with the company name on it – I told them I’d wear it for the operation.

So I did. Barbara attached it to my forehead with a piece of tape and I switched it on while the nurses were wheeling me into the cath lab. I told them, “It’s my connection with the higher ethereal plane – I won’t need anesthesia, you see.” I could tell this wasn’t entirely believed. But the cardiologist took one look at it, burst out laughing and told me I had to wear it throughout the entire procedure. Afterwards, he took a cellphone picture of it and if he shares it with me, you’ll see it here eventually.

So extra thanks to WellDynamics for the laugh – higher plane or not, it works just as well as the Medtronic Virtuoso ICD with Connexus wireless telemetry. And I bet it cost a whole lot less.

Next post: “Exploring Subclavian Space with Captain Kirk and the Crew of the Starship Enterprise.”

More Hardware

Kind of Susan Reeves of Prism Design to protray “What every great ad man needs” when he’s going in to have a defibrillator installed. More information to come after I’ve had my session with the cardioelectrician – I wonder if he’s a member of the IBEW? I’ll report on the brand, of course. Thanks to all for advance good wishes. Ta for Thursday…Richard “Three Stents” Baron.

Laptopism Convert

Dammit, Gary, the thing worked just the way you said it would.

Years of resisting the pull of a laptop have disappeared in just a couple of uses, so it’s good thing TFW Computers built it for me.

All its innards appear to be operating. Yesterday, though, was a bit humbling. Meeting with a client in Park 10, both he and I brought our laptops to the conference room – that’s when the room arranger told us the space didn’t have WiFi. , Sure enough, the automatic-wireless-network-seeker or whatever you call it told me in a dialogue box that there was no WiFi capability. The client asked if the company computer specialist could do anything for us – his office was just down the hall three doors.

We powered up the computers and started talking; I could see the computer guy walk out of his office, step up to the conference room door and ask, “Don’t you guys see the cables? They’re right there on the floor.”

While the client and I looked at each other like the instantaneous idjits we were, the computer guy politely picked up the in-room computer cables and plugged one into each of our laptops. While we stammered out thank-yous, he left the room with the kind of over-the-shoulder grin IT professionals reserve for the hopelessly maladroit.

Still, having tested it at Starbucks as well, the talks-into-thin-air business works just fine. The itsy-bitsy picture-taking camera thingy functions as it’s supposed to. And I must say that both the size (12.1” LCD) and the color (mine’s the high-gloss yellow one, remember?) have generated a lot of positive, even admiring comments, especially from colleagues of the graphic design persuasion.

I’m uncertain why I am so pleased that the notebook computer functions as advertised. But I’m a believer now. Thanks to you and the TFW gang for building it so neatly. All the best for Leap-Day…RLB.

Gordon Gorrie

“The only problem with press releases is that they go to the press.”

Flunking Ozarka

I’m going to ask Ozarka® Brand Natural Spring Water one more time: Please sell me just one of your Bottle Mate® XL water-bottle carriers. Here an extra opportunity to be responsive to your customers (well, me anyway).

I am getting older – you probably didn’t know this. As large as I am, I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t easily wrestle with the 5-gallon bottles (40 lbs or so each) in which Ozarka delivers water to us. The Ozarka routeman leaves them at the front door; our dispenser is at the back of the house.

Yesterday, I saw our routeman, Alex, use this really neat plastic handle to move the bottles. The specialized, easy-to-use tool is made of nylon and glass-reinforced polymers and it slips over the neck of the bottle so someone can just lift it with one hand. The name “Bottle Mate XL” is molded right into the handle. This is some good trick. I immediately wanted one of my own.

I asked Alex where I could buy one; he answered that it was issued to him by the company, it was the only one he had. He didn’t think the company sold them, and the only thing he could suggest was to call Ozarka’s 800 number. (BTW, Alex humped those bottles to the back of the house – the kind of nice gesture I’ve come to expect from Ozarka drivers – thank you.)

Okay, on to the telephone number, 1-800-678-4448. I called Ozarka (it’s one of many water brands owned by Nestlé Waters North America Inc.) and spoke with a very nice woman in Massachusetts. I explained what I was seeking, told her I was a long-time customer – and she replied that the company’s Bottle Mate XL was not available for Ozarka customers. Why not? She didn’t know.

I told her I’d be glad to pay for it...she still didn’t care; just repeated that the Bottle Mate XL wasn’t available for us civilians.

Now, do I waste more of my time trying to get one from Ozarka? Or search the web to find another source? According to the Internet, the Bottle Mate XL, so called because “In response to popular demand,” it has “an improved hand grip 33% larger for big hands or gloves in cold climates,” is manufactured by the Bottle Mate Company – which only sells the items 10 at a time. I’ll keep looking – I’ll find a singleton somewhere.

But right here, right now, there’s an opportunity for Ozarka (which I generally respect) to offer a relevant item, an adjunct to its normal line of products, to fit the changing needs of some of its customers…older guys who’d like to think they can lift 5-gallon water jugs but can’t do it as effortlessly as they used to. Don’t flunk this.

So attention, Kim Jeffery, President and CEO of Nestlé Waters North America. Listen up, Bob Davino, Nestlé Vice President of Marketing. Why not give me a call (713.598.4238)? Tell me you’ll sell one of these Bottle Mate XLs to me. I promise I won’t tell anybody else about it.

PS: If you can’t bend your rules for a good, long-term customer like me, I’ll call Pittsburgh Water Cooler Service in Glenshaw, PA…there’s a Bottle Mate XL for sale right on its website. Then won’t you be embarrassed?

Lazy Goldman

For art directors – even whole advertising agencies – see this simple lesson in how to ruin an ad message. The Asset Management arm of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), “the world’s most prestigious securities firm” according to AdBrands.net, has a new print advertisement.

In case you can’t read the scan, its headline proclaims, “With more choice, it’s easier to tailor your portfolio.”

To play off this headline, an art director has used eight spools, each with a different colored thread. Eight photos, eight colors; fair enough. If you expect the average magazine reader to look at your ad for, say, two seconds. This art director was lazy, though.

Each of the eight photos is the same – except for the color of the thread. Take as close a look as you can. Each spool is the same as the others, including the printing on top. Each needle is stuck into the thread on the spool in precisely the same place, and threaded identically.

The art director (or production artist, or whoever) simply Photoshopped a different color onto each picture. Job over.

By running this ad, Goldman Sachs demonstrates that it will “tailor your portfolio” with pretty much the identical products they use for every other client. “We believe it’s important,” says the ad copy, “to consider diversification not only across different investment areas, but within those areas as well.”

Because some communications person wanted to cheap out (or sleep in), Goldman Sach’s important diversification consists of…different colors.

How much do you think the multi-billion-dollar outfit paid for this ad?

Donna Giles

Two elements appear today by popular demand. The “Chicken” version of the LACTROL® ad series is one. You can plainly see that this is a chicken. I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything. (This is a follow-up to the post just below.)

The other is the name of the tireless, imaginative CMS executive who spearheads the PhibroChem account: Donna Giles. I hadn’t meant to overlook her contribution to the campaign – which was actually turning it into a campaign in the first place. That’s Donna Giles, with my additional thanks.

LACTROL© Mooves

When you haven’t had a chance to use a cow or a pig in an ad campaign for a couple of decades, it’s nice to put ‘em up on the board. So thanks to Houston agency CMS for getting me involved, along with designer/art director Dan Fisler, in creating this new campaign.

Now appearing in ethanol-related publications, the new ads for PhibroChem’s LACTROL antimicrobial gave me a chance focus on consumers: Cows, pigs and chickens. (There’s a third ad with the chicken, that didn’t make it out of the hen house.)

As usual in business-to-business advertising, this wasn’t a straightforward assignment. PhibroChem Division of Phibro manufactures this LACTROL brand of virginiamyacin to effectively control the bacteria that occurs when corn ferments into alcohol. The bacteria reduces the production of ethanol.

At the same time, it contaminates “distiller’s grains” – the afterproduct of ethanol production that is used for animal feeds. Which means that animal feeds could be contaminated as well. Use LACTROL and ethanol producers can produce uncontaminated byproduct, which they can then sell for safer feeds.

Market-proven LACTROL also happens to have a “No Objection” letter from the US Food and Drug Administration. It’s a safety point and a selling point…the reasons behind PhibroChem’s moove into the feed contamination issue. (There’s another one of those awful puns – mark it up to Saturday.)

I’m glad to have had the chance to create the headlines and copy – a well done to Fisler for the art direction.

Bat Radarless

The Associated Press wired a story this morning about a newly discovered bat fossil. The fossilized remains answered a scientific question: When did bats gain their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night?

The answer is: After they started flying – as is evident to paleobiologists from this 152-million-year-old fossil.

This is well-known among avionics companies, however. A distant forerunner of existing airborne systems such as the E-10A aircraft’s Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) was ordered and installed in relatively early models of the bat family only as far back as 45 or 50 million years ago, according to Johann Flogl, airborne systems program manager for Raytheon. “The fossil microbat, Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon, from Germany’s Messel deposits is over 45 million years old – there is an obvious installation, in fact.”

Although early contracts are no longer available for inspection, installations for a number of models of the Vespertilionidae family have been going on for millions of years. No information about the value of the orders for early airborne electronic systems is available.

Current airborne radar systems have far surpassed bats’ echo-location models; modern offensive radar can track evasive cars and wagons through city streets, and simultaneously track low-flying cruise missiles. Bats, on the other hand, have “ceased to be an economic market for most multi-national companies today,” says an anonymous spokesman for the US Defense Consortium.

The very early Wyoming bat lacks the airframe structure necessary to support the emission of “squeaky sounds” and the reception of resulting echoes. “This would have prevented a retrofit program. Too bat for him,” jokes Flogl.

Photo: Royal Ontario Museum and Nature.

Leaving Footprints?

What’s a social networker to do? There’s no doubt that marketers don’t (or no longer ought to) broadcast messages to a massive, passive audience. There’s a reason which the term “opinion leaders” goes back to 1955…but you can contrast this idea to some of the recent Super Bowl XLII – interesting if you have a leading opinion about Dalmatians or Richard Simmons (I was bemused by the Bridgestone commercials, so sue me).

“The Cluetrain Manifesto” was written almost 10 years back and it is now accepted that markets are conversations. I won’t even put that in quotes, it’s becoming a bit tattered.

More and more new mechanisms – like Facebook – are being used for marketing. More social conversations. More prospective marketing interactions. So web marketers are hoping that social networks like Facebook will take Internet advertising into its “fourth phase,” beyond search advertising. Marketers not only want to observe consumers’ conversations (via tracking), they want to participate in those conversations.

Okay – social media is on the right path. One possible challenge, though, is that you may not be able to leave the party once you’ve joined it – I mean like the Communist Party, not the St. Andrew’s Day bash at your local.

Too long a lead? Apparently, you never actually disappear from Facebook. Even if you opt out of sharing information. Even if you deactivate your account. According to a copyrighted story by Maria Aspan in yesterday’s New York Times, “Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.”

As Aspan says, disenchanted users can’t disappear from the site without leaving footprints unless they rigorously delete their data, line by line, and then deactivate. (You can read more, by blogger Steven Mansour, in his own dramatic post here – which is also mentioned in the NYT article…very in-your-face.)

So it’s social interaction vs personal privacy. On the one side, you ought to be responsible enough to realize that your personal stuff is, like, on billboards where everyone can see it, right? Yep, you may very well regret showing off those tattoos (or body parts) at some future point in your life. But there’s no 1984 here, no way to go back most of the time and erase those embarrassing – or even worse – items. So social interaction websites ought to be touched with some human thought…yours.

On the other side, (most) marketers don’t really want to know in detail what you did after leaving the bar with your work buddies Friday night. Marketers normally want “you” in specific portions, not you in particular and personally. Why? Principally, I think, because they don’t have the time for one-to-one selling, though this does occur. I choose not to speak for the government.

I was just invited to join the Only in Houston group on Facebook and since I use the site, I thought, “Why not?” Maybe Ann Iverson will buy me a Martini. I don’t believe any information I have on Facebook will horrify anyone, I don’t care about that. Maybe I’ll have more conversations this way.

But do consider that every participant in a conversation leaves footprints (I know, it’s a mixed metaphor). A talented marketer, advertiser or publicist will follow those footprints and, perhaps, try to engage you in additional conversations. That’s what we’re paid to do, we want to involve you somehow in the brands we represent. The real trick is to make the action – and the conversation – meaningful to both parties in the conversation. How come? The Internet is a two-way street. The person leaving the footprints can easily track yours as well.

If you want to stop leaving footprints altogether, it’s going to you take a lot of work.

Big Read

I meant to write about the Big Read on Sunday but I was involved with a “big read” of my own, trying to finish The Age of Turbulence. It’s not exactly portable. Plus, this post is meant to be a preview; something fun’s coming later in the year.

The idea that reading needs to be marketed is a little strange to me – but then I remember Woody Allen saying, “I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It was about Russia.”

The Big Read is “an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts to restore reading to American culture.” I’m in favor of it and there’s a strong push nationally for the program.

Our First Lady, Laura Bush, has been touring the country about The Big Read – good PR for the initiative from the nicest First Lady (so I hear) that’s been in The White House since…well…her mother-in-law. Maybe nicer. The most significant promoter of reading in this country is Oprah Winfrey and more power to her (although she seems to be doing fine even without my best wishes).

What are you doing to help? Suppose you’re an ad agency, or PR firm, or graphic design outfit – and you think reading is vitally important not only to America but to democracy as a concept.

And you want to do some pro bono work that’ll get you more noticed? (Most agencies have to turn this kind of thing away ‘cause it eats their lunch, right? This is not a topic I want to get into right now.) You go to The Big Read website, maybe read some of the very good blog by David Kipen. And you’re inspired to find out where in your neighborhood, city or county you can lend a hand…as a professional marketer and communicator. Go ahead. I think it’ll be a great idea. Plenty of books to choose from, too.

Some advertising agencies get publicly involved in promoting The Big Read but they’re hard to find. White Light Advertising in Bridgeport, CT, worked on the media plan for The Big Read initiative in the southwestern part of the state – the agency used radio, cable TV ads, bus wraps and grassroots programs. The news is on the agency’s website, which is where the ad above came from.

I would have liked to see some results of this particular campaign – but maybe it shows up with kids checking out more library books…or adults getting turned on to something they would no otherwise have even considered. (“I only read the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for the articles!”)

Maybe this is a good time to get the Houston chapter of the American Marketing Association involved…an organization filled with enthusiasts! Any road, keep an ear cocked for the next Big Read initiative that comes your way. There are plenty of worthy causes but this one won’t force you to pedal 180 miles to Austin.

Daughter Downunder

A quick Saturday note: I’m directing you to the “Australia or Bust! ‘08” blog (remember, just click on that word and you’ll go there). Over the next four months, it will describe the adventures of Rachel Elizabeth Baron and Alison Bond in Oz, where they’ve traveled to work, hang out and get away from the New York winter.

First, there’s the obligatory joke; you know, the one that starts with the Texan rancher who goes to Australia for a vacation – and because a little “bidness” never hurts, he drops by a National Farmers’ Federation party.

There he meets an Aussie farmer and they get to talking…which leads to a visit to the Australian’s farm – called a station down under.

Followed by the Aussie’s faithful bluey, they stroll around the station and the Australian shows off his extensive wheat field. The Texan says, “Oh! We have wheat fields that are at least twice as big as that.”

They walk a little further, and the Aussie points out his herd of cattle (no sheep on this station). The Texan immediately says, “Well dang, we’ve got longhorns that are at least twice as big as your critters.”

The conversation is, pretty obviously, dying out when the Texan sees a herd of kangaroos hopping through the field. He double-takes, then asks, "What are hell are those?”

The Aussie replies offhandedly, “Don't you have any grasshoppers in Texas, mate?”

Now Rachel and Alison are a long way from home. I know they’d appreciate hearing from you, especially since it’s so easy. Under any particular post, click on the word “comments.” That’ll take you to a fill-in-the-blanks area in which you can…uh…comment.

They’d appreciate hearing from you, I bet, especially with the size of them grasshoppers.

Coffee Plantation

Before there was Starbucks in Phoenix, Arizona, there was Coffee Plantation. I met an elderly medico, Dr. Joe Kennedy of the VA, in the chain’s Biltmore Fashion Park store on East Camelback Road. “You used to come in, it would be crowded, and you’d hear every language on the planet!”

It’s still popular but to a visitor, it has the feel on an also-ran – Starbucks in the measuring stick now, the brand to which other coffee chains are compared. The fact of the matter is, Barbara and I were in Phoenix for family business, weren’t really out to enjoy ourselves – and could hardly find a good cup of coffee. (We stayed in the McDowell & 32nd Street area…not much around there.) First, anybody who thinks Dunkin’ Donuts is a challenge for Starbucks needs to drop into one or two of the DDs in Phoenix: Yuck. Second, even McDonalds coffee didn’t seem to have a good taste.

Yes – I’m a coffee snob. Then somebody told me about Coffee Plantation and I thought riding the brand would be worthwhile. I ought to be clear: the cup of “Ethiopian” coffee I had at Coffee Plantation was as good, as fresh and powerful as any African I’ve had. Thanks for that.

On the other hand, this isn’t a chain that goes (or has gone) out of its way to make itself more competitive, at least not based on my single visit. Because of the ubiquitous nature of Starbucks trade dress, this Coffee Plantation store looks similar, but a bit bigger. It offers a couple of computers and plenty of seating. There are fresh pastries available.

But there’s a real sense of has-been to the Coffee Plantation store. (As far as I can tell, the chain was once owned by Diedrich Coffee, but no longer – perhaps some managers bought it out?) No billboards I could find. No strong brand merchandizing, no back-story material. None of the customer involvement devices for which Starbucks is famous. Presuming I’ve even got the right website, Coffee Plantation is stuck in the last century electronically. There’s worse, and I’m not alone in perceiving it.

Take a look at the store reviews on Yelp.com. Scottsdale’s Christy L noted, “As I approached the counter the employees were bent over by the milk cooler, so engrossed in a conversation that they failed to notice my presence.” Thomas S of Phoenix chimed in, “Just because you have the word Plantation, implying old Southern American charm, in your name doesn't mean you can’t provide modern services like clean restrooms? Perhaps you could sweep the floor. And wipe down the counter. Oh, I know, maybe the pigeon poo could be scraped off the tables.”

The feeling of the store is cheap goods and cheap labor– the polar opposite of bustling, smiling Starbucks baristas. And yes again, this is based on a single visit.

Bad service drives out good customers. No matter how popular the chain was once upon a time, it seems as though Phoenix’s Coffee Plantation brand could use a double shot of espresso right about now.