1.18.01
eE.S.P.
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Opt-in Indoctrination
Don't you love it when you walk into your local watering hole and the barkeep begins pouring your usual cocktail of choice, as if she can read your mind? How about when your main squeeze puts your favorite tune on the jukebox without you even requesting it? It makes you feel special, acknowledged. (Either that, or it makes you feel like a drunk who's too damn stubborn to try something different.) It's just as comforting when online services seem to know your desires before you've even expressed them, isn't it?

Take eBay's recent display of telepathy. The online auctioneer knows what its customers really want, even when they've requested the exact opposite! As featured in a 1/10 article on The Register, "Users have received an email from eBay telling them that their preferences have being changed so that they will receive marketing messages from 23 January."

Hey, the good folks at eBay only have the best interests of "the eBay community" at heart. They realize that site registrants can be fickle and exhibit passive/aggressive tendencies that only serve to spite themselves in the end. That's why they've set users straight once and for all. According to the story, "The message to users said: 'eBay sends out valuable email communications with news, offers and special events that help you buy and sell.... Many of your notification preference defaults were set to 'no' rather than to 'yes', which means that unlike other eBay members, you're not receiving these types of communications. We'd like to resolve this problem quickly and efficiently. Therefore, on 1/8/01, we returned all your notification preferences to the standard default of 'yes' to put you in line with the rest of the eBay community.'"

Wait a tick; I'm confused. Isn't the Internet supposed to transfer power to the consumer rather than away from him? What's next, the establishment of an eBay Ministry of Brainwashing? Perhaps someday teenage users will have the privilege of attending eBay Youth functions in order to learn the importance of keeping "in line with the rest of the eBay community." If anything, let's hope that this truly patronizing action will inspire previously loyal eBay users to explore other auction sites. Already, I can think of one that's taken an official anti-Nazi stance....

Billboards Against Beelzebub
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Parish the Thought
Sometimes it seems as though certain things would be better left un-advertised, like revolutionary surgical treatments for testicular cancer, adult diapers, or Broadway musicals starring Skid Row's Sebastian Bach and that guy from Knight Rider.

For some reason, I always thought that places of worship were above all of this temporal commercialization. Ha! A recent L.A. Times article bursts that sacred bubble.

It looks as though good ol' fashioned bake sales, pancake breakfasts and ice cream socials just ain't good enough for some parishes. Take Pastor Joe LaCognata's Southern Baptist congregation near Chicago, where according to the Times piece, the placement of a "turquoise and white electronic sign with bright red lights flashing the time, temperature and a short saying 24 hours a day" was meant to "convey 'the unchanging message of the Bible in a contemporary way.' " Hmmm...you'd think a modern and perhaps more tasteful display of graffiti would be a lot more cost efficient than the $40,000 marquee.

For some reason, local residents found it difficult to sleep with Pastor Joe's plugged-in prayer pitch illuminating the area throughout the night. They complained, and "The dispute reached the Palatine Village Council, which tightened requirements for electronic signs and prompted the church to dim the sign at night." Why anyone would dare not accept the light of Christ into his life is beyond me.

The witty Pastor Rowland Chandler of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Granada Hills, CA seems to think of himself as a true master of sign messaging. Chandler hopes to induce chuckles, and perhaps attract some new congregation members with such thought-provoking, and oddly farm-animal inspired questions as "Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?" "Do sheep shrink when it rains?" and "If a pig loses its voice, is it Disgruntled?" Perhaps he forgot to ask himself the most important question of all: "Does Jesus think you're a dumb ass?"

Ya know, it's the seepage of secular things such as advertising, shameless promotion and goofy signage into what should be strictly spiritual that's contributed to the disillusionment of many an ex-churchgoer. There's little doubt that the worlds of brand devotion and celebrity worship are colliding with those of the religious, or possibly overtaking them. Really though, I'll start worrying when the Pope endorses Pokemon*, or becomes an honorary Globetrotter. Uh oh....

*See the 4/28/00 kateClips story on ChannelSeven.com entitled, "My Temple Should Be a House of -- (Pokemon) Cards!"

Audiences Get the Shaft -- Express Delivery
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Branding the Big Screen
So, the U.S. Postal Service has finally given into its rival now that it's signed a deal that allows FedEx to transport some USPS packages and place a drop box in all U.S. post offices. Could it be that the agreement sheds light on why the USPS went hobnobbing with Hollywood recently through its cross-promotion with Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment for The Grinch? We should have known the postal promoters were just getting warmed up for their relationship with "the world's largest express transportation company." After all, if you've seen, heard or read anything about the movie Cast Away, you know that Tom Hanks' wannabe Robinson Crusoe character is none other than a FedEx employee.

If the flick's blatant corporate presence doesn't shock you, consider this: according to a 1/8 PR Week story (Hit movie delivers great PR for FedEx by Julia Hood), "FedEx had significant input into script development and directed its image at every step." In fact, "A group from FedEx's global brand marketing team reviewed 20 scripts over two years." Hmmm...that seems like quite a lot of control to afford a company that "did not pay anything to have its name featured in the film."

No worries, though. FedEx is quite content with its portrayal. Comments Carla Boyd, FedEx spokesperson, "The brand comes across in a very positive way, our employees come across as caring, we come across like a global company, and our pilots come across as heroic." Well, it's too bad the film comes across as a waste of $9.50.

Wherefore the FedEx involvement in the first place? What would be so incredulous about the main character working for an imaginary company like Acme Delivery, or GloboChem Express? I mean, c'mon, isn't it unbelievable enough that the movie's producers expected audiences to enjoy watching some obnoxious, whiny and overrated bosom buddy blabbing to a volleyball?

Hooked on Profits
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Book Worms Get Slimy
We'd all heard the stories, but little did we know they were actually true. The halls were flooded with rumors: