11.30.00
Hollywood Hawks
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Brand Names Get Top Billing
Eyes glazed, I sat, most likely prattling absentmindedly about the unrealistic S.A.T word-saturation of Pacey and Joey's last bicker blowout. In a flawless segue, a berry blast of fruitilicious color flooded the screen in iMac glory. Soon after, the all-too-familiar phrase, "You've Got Mail" fluttered by my fickle ears. Yes, it was Dawson's Creek night in the Lowbrow Lowdown lair. And no, a commercial break this was not. In fact, the stolid Jack had just received an email message via his trusty computer, from his post-drug dabblin' pal, Jen.

Hey, what can you expect from a show that serves as an extended video for the latest Warner Bros. releases? Surely, a shameless product plug or two could do nothing to offend someone with a penchant for gratuitous teen dramas sponsored by Old Navy. Well, at least the silver screen is still safe from blatant commercial influence.

OK, you know where this set-up is leading. Big Hollywood movies are bringing a whole new level to the term commercial. As featured in the Jan/Dec issue of the brownest of brown-nosed movie mags, Movieline, "It used to be that audiences would snicker when a brand-name product blatantly showed up on the big screen, but moviegoers nowadays are not only used to it, some of us actually look forward to seeing just how commercial stuff will be maneuvered onto the screen. And there've been some real corkers lately."

In Return to Me, Minnie Driver plays a waitress who totes a dubious array of pricey Kate Spade bags. Overt references to jewelry-maker Bulgari slip their way into Mission: Impossible 2 and The Thomas Crown Affair. Julia Roberts and Michael Douglas don Frederic Beausoleil sunglasses in Erin Brockovich and Wonder Boys, respectively. Also noted in the article, Puffy princess, Jennifer Lopez will sport a pair of the shades, decadent enough to afford the description "designer eyewear," in her upcoming study in mediocrity, The Wedding Planner. No worries, though... anonymous Lowbrow Lowdown spies (cunningly disguised as an enormous box of Ho Hos) infiltrated Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News headquarters to verify that the Beausoleil frames will be custom-crafted to detract attention from Lopez' infamous backside.

The Movieline story fails to mention one of the more obvious corporate kowtows, the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan sap-fest, You've Got Mail. However, it does discuss another Hanks flick, Cast Away, in which the bosom buddy plays a FedEx inspector who lands on a deserted island. Evidently, "the prominence of FedEx's logo in the movie trailer was so obvious that audiences audibly snickered."

Even more startling is the Wal-Mart-centric setting of Where the Heart Is, in which Natalie Portman plays a "pregnant, penniless teen" who "secretly moves into Wal-Mart and each night oohs and aahs over the 'luxurious goods'...." Coincidentally, as discovered during our covert visit to the Ain't It Cool News headquarters, folks can look forward to the next installment of the Star Wars onslaught, in which Portman will, in fact, visit Deep Space Home Depot in search of servant druids and hairdo-holding chicken wire.

Double Bogey-ed Media Buy
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Franken-placement
How's this for poetic ad placement justice? A large ad for Fox Sports' Third Annual Sun Microsystems Par 3 Challenge that ran in the Wall Street Journal on 11/2 prominently featured an ear of corn poked with golf tee holders. The corny visual just so happened to appear directly to the right of this headline: Genetically Altered Protein Is Found In Still More Corn. Aw shucks....

Branded Barter Bash
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Schmoozers, Boozers and Losers
A few weeks ago I received an email message promoting the next "Pink Slip Party" to be thrown by NYC's consulting firm, the hired guns. This particular invite specifically requested party-goers to bring promotional paraphernalia of defunct dot-coms. Notes the most recent invitation, "Like a right [sic] of passage, we'll display these items next month at our Year-End Pink Slip Holiday Glamorama...." At this point, unless a writing assignment or work-related instance necessitates my attendance, industry schmooze events are avoided at all costs, so I was only present in spirit (gin to be specific). I'd venture to guess though, that the pink slip recipients arrived with an array of useless marketing budget-busters.

In a similarly pathetic attempt at Internet industry culture validation, yet another of the Web's ubiquitous community cultivators, SFGirl.com recently hosted a "Schwag Exchange" at San Francisco's Potrero Brewing Company. In a nutshell, net-vets came together to swap branded thing-a-ma-jigs for other office desk clutter of equally negligible value. As featured in the 11/27 Industry Standard coverage, an Evolve clock was traded for a roll of cushiony soft Ezboard toilet paper. In another exchange, the previous possessor of an Egghead calculator became the lucky owner of a PicklePilot T-shirt, no doubt becoming beer-pickled in the process....

Overall, according to the Standard story, the event was one "where even the lamest corporate tchotchkes had a second chance to be loved." The story failed to mention whether the lame corporate attendees will ever find love outside of their over-inflated dot-com balloon....

Project NoTrust.com
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Customer Service Crackdown
This past year, you've digested article after article on enduring the holiday shopping season. You've studied research report after research report on the importance of implementing customer relationship management strategies. Your fulfillment system is lean and mean. Hell, you've even personalized your site's error message pages. Yet, as far as the feds are concerned, that just ain't good enough. And they've sent out a memo to prove it.

Yes, in order to ensure that slimy business folks follow the rules of our over-protective big brother, an 11/17 Yahoo! News story reports that "the Federal Trade Commission...is warning more than 100 e-tailers about making promises about deliveries they cannot fulfill."

The FTC decrees that sellers must alert buyers when late shipments are expected to be delivered, as well as "provide the option of canceling the order with a full and quick refund." Also, the customer must be notified "within the original shipment time promised," according to the report.

Further investigation on the trade commission's site sheds light on the history of this safeguarding mission. As noted in an 11/17 press release, various FTC staff "conducted a 'surf' of more than 200 Internet retailer sites… [and] found that nearly 100 of these sites made 'quick-ship claims.'"

Apparently, this is the latest installment of "Project TooLate.com" through which the FTC punished "seven well-known e-tailers" for violating "the Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule." The rule "spells out the ground rules for making promises about shipment time periods, notifying consumers about unexpected delays, and refunding consumers' money."

Of course, one of the commission's operatives is to protect consumers from fraud, but this is a bit much, isn't it? Since when is the FTC in the CRM-consultation biz? I mean, first of all, one can surmise that many online shops that failed in the fulfillment and customer relations departments last year are no longer in business. Perhaps more significant in this case, the FTC's reach is over-extended and completely disregards basic capitalistic principles. I'm no economics expert, but as far as I know, poor service oftentimes contributes to low sales figures. On the whole, people refuse to purchase from vendors who don't satisfy expectations. This is what dictates the survival of the fittest ecommerce outfits, not pandering shopper hand-holding on the part of the boundary-crossing federal government.

Gambling Site Deal Hits the Crapper
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Vegas Name Remains Untarnished
Distinguishing your site from its sea of competitors can be a daunting task. Branding is an expensive, clock-consuming endeavor, so what can you do without the time or pocketbook to fuel such efforts? You could always hook up your company's name with that of a respected offline affiliate. At least that's what online gambling site vegasone.com aims to do.

The site wanted "to distinguish itself among the 1,100 or so sites offering betting on the Internet, and to give customers a sense that the site is safe," according to an 11/16 Las Vegas Review Journal report (Backers of vegasone.com withdraw proposal, by Jan Moller). And so, about a month ago, it offered the city 5% of its gross revenue and 25% of its profits in exchange for usage of the City of Las Vegas name and official seal.

"[T]he city could receive a tremendous sum of money," marveled Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in a 10/19 story (Internet Gambling: Goodman touts plan, by Jeff Simpson) in the same paper, "millions and millions of dollars, that could fix some of the city's problems, problems that only money could fix." Of course, in the meantime, a $4.99 early-bird prime rib dinner and complimentary cocktails could help to alleviate some citizen distress.

Well, now vegasone.com has withdrawn its proposal from the proverbial poker table. As featured in the 11/16 article, the site's attorney, Jim Jimmerson, "believes the project will succeed, but said council members got cold feet about giving the city's official blessing to an activity that's been banned at the state and federal level." You see, online gambling is a no-no according to Nevada.

That's not it for the site, though. "A backer of vegasone.com recently met with Atlantic City Mayor James Whelan," notes the story, "to see if leaders of the New Jersey gambling city would be interested in a partnership similar to the one offered Las Vegas officials." Plus, according to anonymous Lowbrow Lowdown sources, the Mohawk, Seneca and Iroquois nations of New York have expressed interest in a deal with vegasone.com, too, "as long as no demeaning, goofy-faced mascots are involved."

Sales Scheme Gets a Bum Wrap
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Pulled Pork Promo
Attention marketers: Have you been promoting a quality product to no avail? Are you confident that all of the appropriate markets have been targeted strategically, yet sales continue to wane? Of course, you've tried your damnedest, but have you really explored all possible paths to success? Well, unless you've convinced the youngsters to pitch your product, that answer just might be 'no.'

That's how Florida's Northview High School journalism teacher, Vicki Baggett ensured a healthy bottom line for sales of her pappy's smoked pork butts. It was simple, really. All Baggett had to do was set up a system by which her students' grades were contingent upon their ability to push swine behinds. To be fair though, Pa Baggett didn't pocket all the butt bucks; evidently some went "to raise money for the newspaper and yearbook," according to the 11/18 Orlando Sentinel coverage.

School Advisory Council Secretary Pat Brown bemoans the asinine requirement: "I was told if my daughter sold 10 Boston butts, she made 100; nine of them, a 90 and so on." Man, talk about grading on a curve....

And now, after several years, the end has come for the porky promo project. Yep... besides the questionable extortion-like grading practice, the pork production itself violates health codes, as decided by the Escambia County Health Department.

So, what's to become of the tasty tuchas? Baggett, who "admitted [that butt sales] counted for 10 percent of a student's grade and were an essential part of her class," has decided to scrap the school sales effort. She laments, "This is why public educators and great teachers are getting out of the profession." Hmmm... something tells me the ptomaine has seeped its way into her brain.

Well, I guess we're all lucky that Baggett opted for a teaching career in Florida as opposed to a political one. Otherwise, the whole country would be gobbling pork bottom right now. After all, who knows how many butt sales it could've taken to win the sunshine state?