1.10.03
Rose Colored Masses
-- OR --
Askew Majority
What does it take to market a cause? Some would argue that a charismatic spokesperson is the most important component to driving awareness. Others contend that the timeliness and relevance of the issue at hand determines its embrace by the masses. Still, others believe garnering press centered around the topic is the most viable solution. Surely, when coupled with cold, hard, supportive facts, each of these is a necessary facet of promoting a cause.

Don't tell that to Ben Cohen, though. The Ben & Jerry's co-founder would rather get folks to see things his way by turning everything they look at into "beautiful rainbows." After all, sporting a pair of Rainbow Glasses available on his political advocacy site, TrueMajority, is "The best way for making the world look right until we actually make it right."

As featured in a December 19 brief in the Wall Street Journal's Digits column, the organization, which has registered about 96,000 people, "attempts to aggregate left-leaning single-issue activists who focus on the environment or women's rights or child hunger." Until recently, for political progressives, donning Cat in the Hats and munching endangered species shaped tofutti pops at anti-globalization rallies were just about the only fun aspects of an otherwise grueling activist existence of hemp grocery bag weaving and NPR talk radio call-ins.

Now, that's all changed thanks to TrueMajority's madcap protest playfulness. Why be serious about the issues when you could be tooling around the country with the "True Crew" in the "Treeus," a 2001 Toyota Prius gas/electric hybrid car topped with a 7-foot tree? Or better yet, why bother writing a contemplative letter to your local congressman or engaging in a sober political discussion with your city council representative when you can unleash your emotionally driven aggression against the Bush administration through a little virtual ass whuppin'? According to the Journal story, TrueMajority makes it easy through its sister site, "SpankBush.com, where users punish a cartoon president by spanking him with a dead fish for transgressions from 'warmongering' to 'mangled English.'

Hmmm…one wonders whether Cohen and Co. ever got their bootys belted for conjuring up Ben & Jerry's-isms like Bluesberry and Karamel Sutra.

Folks who have a beef with Bush "for giving a huge tax break to the rich and trashing the economy for everyone else" and "for being a complete jerk and a total embarrassment abroad" can tan his hide with their choice of a wooden board, a bare palm, or a fish (What would PETA say?). With each backseat strike, Dubya's duff turns a light shade of crimson as he responds with phrases such as "Thank you sir; may I have another?" and the not-so-PC "Get Dick in here now!"

SpankBush.com visitors can also send the prez a canned email message which reads, "Dear President Bush….Your behavior as President has been so inexcusable-so rotten and nasty-that lesser punishments, like giving you a timeout or taking away your horsey on your ranch in Texas, will simply not do. You must be spanked. I hope that after I spank you, and the sting subsides, you will pull up your pants, look in the mirror, and resolve to be a better President."

Leave it to some ex-hippie with permanent brain-freeze to turn issues of great import like healthcare, foreign policy and the state of the economy into reasons to make merry. Silly cartoon dalliances and zany propaganda paraphernalia may work to attract attention in the short run, but like the class clown who cracks jokes to hide his learning disability, or the topless dancer struggling to conceal psychological wounds, the attention is being drawn to all the wrong things. It's one thing to amass a political base by pulling heart and funny bone strings. It's quite another to gain the ear of the folks in power when membership has been driven through inane shenanigans and an organization seems to stand more for frolicking fluffery than down-to-earth dialogue and realistic solutions.

Then again, Bush has played at that game, too. He knows there's nothin' like a scoop or two of Nukemberry Crunch to distract us all from what's going on in our own backyards.



Dr. Panderer
-- OR --
C'est la Void
No matter how much some of us complain about the way we're perceived, ultimately, the way we present ourselves can have a great impact on how others view us. The words we use, our actions, our mannerisms, the clothes we wear - our overall images - act as a guide used by others to formulate opinions and ideas about us as individuals. Thankfully, we have the ability to mold our persons over time; we're not restricted to being what we were yesterday or what we'll be tomorrow.

Like people, brands are often perceived based on how they're presented. However, brands are devised in a bubble, a closed environment which doesn't allow for outside forces to influence their development. Although outside forces may affect the way they're perceived, brands are generally thought of in the manner their creators position them. How do we know Macintosh computers are for quirky individualists or alleged underground pioneers like Tony Hawk, Michelob Ultra is for glistening, 30-something hard bodies and Abercrombie and Fitch is for materialistic, sex-crazed teens? The brand managers told us so.

The problem is once those delicately crafted brands are unleashed on the real, and often messy world, they're a lot more difficult to control. The same goes for the ads employed to reinforce those precious brand images.

Just ask Dr. Pepper. As featured in a 1/3 Yahoo News item, outside forces, like bullets to the head for instance, can disrupt well laid promo plans. When Dr. Pepper commissioned LL Cool J to pay homage to "music originals" Run-DMC as part of its "Be You" campaign, little did the fizz makers know the rap legends' DJ, Jason Mizell, a.k.a. Jam Master Jay, would receive a terminal shot to the head after the spot had been filmed. Like most companies that employ flesh and blood to package their otherwise lifeless products, Dr. Pepper aimed to equate the genuine image Run-DMC developed over time with its sugary sweet, yet empty excuse for substance.

Now that Mizell, "undisputed pioneer of the hip-hop sound," as John Clarke, chief advertising officer of Dr. Pepper/7 UP refers to him, is a stone-cold King of Rock, what's Dr. Pepper's damage control strategy? Surely it'll come as no surprise that the pop purveyors "believe this tribute spot has even more meaning now for Jam Master Jay and Run-DMC fans, as well as the entire hip-hop fan and artist community."

Man, there's nothing quite like the tingly effervescence of soda spin like this. Not only has the authentic culture created by Run-DMC been co-opted to brand Dr. Pepper as "one-of-a-kind," the fact that one of the group's members is dead doesn't faze these folks. As noted in the article, they'll simply slap a "brief memorial to Jam Master Jay" onto the end of the spot for a month or two after its January 18 launch, and not only be granted the cachet of a freshly clipped hip-hopper, but will be deemed compassionate as a result of this grotesquely pandering display of false sympathy.

According to the story, Clarke refers to the ad as a "fitting tribute," commenting that "Like Dr. Pepper, Run-DMC and Jason Mizell were one-of-a-kind." Statements like this are a dime-a-dozen in the marketing industry, and perhaps more than any other sentiment embraced by marketers, this equation of people with products represents the utter lack of respect for human beings that corrupts the ad world. This guy means as much to Dr. Pepper dead as he did alive…perhaps more. He symbolizes everything real that a hollow brand can only hope to capture on a surface level at best. To compare the two is downright offensive.

But you know, I hear Dr. Pepper bottles make for great cremation urns.



867-530 Whine
-- OR --
Phone Moan
Flag burning? Harassing an ex-employee by leaving verbal threats on her answering machine and defaming her on a cable-access show? Running ads for a specific candidate within weeks of an election? No matter what constitutes one's idea of free speech, there's no doubt that it will remain subject to debate for as long as it can be discussed freely.

Few sectors of the advertising world have grappled with the notion of free speech so often in recent times as the telemarketing industry. Now, if a recent Federal Trade Commission decision is any indication, dinner-disruption is not longer protected under the first amendment. According to a series of recent Advertising Age articles (FTC Empowers Consumers to Block Sales Calls, by Ira Teinowitz, 12/18, Will Telemarketers Lose Half Their Audience? by Hoag Levins, 12/17, and DMA Begins Attack on FTC Telemarketer Rules, by Ira Teinowitz, 12/17) a new FTC telemarketing ruling creates "a national telemarketing do-not-call list and allows consumers to call or go online to put their names on the list, where they would remain for five years." If approved by congress, the regulation should come into effect in about six months.

Besides making it easier and cheaper for consumers to block phone solicitations (some states that have similar do-not-call lists have charged consumers $5.00 to register), the ruling stipulates that each company marketing its services over the phone must purchase the do-not-call list and could be fined if they don't use it. Currently they can access the list as purchased by the telemarketing vendor. Plus, telemarketers will be responsible for covering all costs of maintaining and using the lists.

Nonprofit and political groups, as well as "marketers who had sold a consumer something in the last 18 months or received an inquiry from a consumer in the last 3 months" will not be required to abide by the new regulations.

Big surprise: the telemarketing companies and the marketers that hire them ain't happy. President and CEO of the Direct Marketers Assocation, Robert Wientzen, deems the list an "unnecessary government intrusion in the private sector marketplace." The organization plans to "pursue all legal and equitable courses of action to protect the American teleservices industry."

Matt Mattingley, director of government affairs for the American Teleservices Association, is concerned that the new federal law could severely lessen telemarketers' calling pools which have already experienced a drop of 50% in some of the 27 states where similar lists exist.

Telemarketing industry advocates are playing the "bad economy" card, contending that the FTC action will only hurt the industry during these tough times. On top of that, Mattingley employs the specious argument that consumers "who sign up for a blanket Do Not Call program deprive themselves of the choice of making a determination based on specific product information."

Yeah, right. And if some thug sticks me up, I'm sure I'd appreciate being given the option of switchblade or handgun.

Apparently, despite the existence of the DMA's industry-initiated do-not-call list which, according to the group's site, has allowed people to register for free via the postal service since 1985, the FTC maintains that the current system isn't good enough. As featured in the Ad Age coverage, Eileen Harrington, associate director for marketing practices at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, insists that after receiving "more than 64,000 written comments from individual consumers during the rulemaking process," the FTC determined "The overwhelming sentiment in these comments is that the existing system simply doesn't work for consumers."

How much do you want to bet that the majority of those people haven't bothered to register for their state's or the DMA's do-not-call lists?

Still, the question remains: is it necessary for the FTC to impose more restrictions and fees on an industry that, on top of a major drop off in ad spending recently, has been experiencing a downturn since the wide adoption of legitimate, opt-in email advertising (we'll leave spam out of this)? When a number of states, companies and the DMA already offer consumers the ability to register for do-not-call lists, is there truly a need for federal government intervention? My knee-jerk reaction to that is, "no;" but without more solid information, it's tough to determine just how well the industry- and state-led lists work.

What it comes down to is that if advertisers didn't get a good return on their investment in telemarketing, they wouldn't do it. So, until there's a complete telemarketing ban, which is highly improbable, those of us who would rather not be called oughtta just say 'no.' Or, better yet, let's set up our phones to forward all unrecognizable incoming calls to the DMA and the American Teleservices Association headquarters.


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