7.20.00
Got Humility?
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The Land of the Kowtowing Suits
I'll never forget the day my mom chanced upon a cockroach embedded in a block of frozen spinach she'd purchased. The brand name escapes me, but if there's one rule that's become indelible in my mind since the horrific experience, it's never, ever to buy frozen spinach.

The irony of the spinach co.'s damage control response became apparent when a large envelope stuffed with coupons for an array of free frozen vegetable products arrived in the mail one day. Although, most likely, mom refrained from purchasing the popeye eats, there's little doubt that she redeemed all of the coupons for some form of icy, tasteless shrubbery.

That's the US mentality for ya: If you don't like it, it must be because you didn't get enough of it.

Look to the East, on the other hand, and you'll find that damage control is a head-bowing, ass-kissing art form. Imagine a land in which businessmen, cash in hand, knock on household door after household door, prepared to lick the bare feet of their dissatisfied customers. You guessed it: We're talkin' the land of the rising sun.

According to coverage in the 7.12 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Snow Brand Milk Products Co. armed 2,000 of its employees (that's 13% of its entire staff) with "gift certificates from a local department store; form letters of apology bearing Snow Brand's official seal, customer complaint forms; and four types of envelopes -- including a white one, bearing the Japanese calligraphy traditionally used when giving cash to people who are ill;" and of course, yen-a-plenty.

What possibly could have warranted such a production? Was Snow Brand milking rats instead of cows? Did they print the wrong kid's face on a carton? Nope. The company's Osaka plant produced a batch of tainted moo juice, and Yumi Ito's 1 1/2-year-old daughter became ill from the stuff. As mentioned in the WSJ piece, she described the grovellers' obsequious gallantry as "painful to watch."

Apparently, over 14,000 dairy drinkers experienced tummy aches and other icky bodily functions as a result of downing the sour Snow Brand milk.

Aren't these the same people who gobble raw seafood, raw eggs and seaweed on a regular basis? Man, you'd think these folks would have guts of steel at this point.

Hmmm...something tells me that, in Japan, White Castle and KFC would have trouble meeting demands for damage control staff.

Mega Motorola Marketing Blast
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Rip-roarin' Red Herring Rant
Oh Yeah!

Motorola seems to have taken a hint from Kool-Aid®, as displayed in its new Talkabout T900 two-way pager communications device. Sure, its pricey at $200, and sure, there's that $20/month service fee to consider. But I'll be damned if kids don't drool at the thought of gadgets with colors like Mystic Blue, Razberry Ice and Totally Teal!

Plus, teeny-boppers flock like lemmings to follow in the footsteps of their fave celebrities. "Celebrities?" you repeat. "You mean like Britney Spears and those freakish NSync fellas, right?" No, not exactly -- I mean like Mariah Carey. Teens 'n' tweens totally dig Mariah, and don't forget, as featured in Red Herring's August print edition, "Motorola spokeswoman Josephine Posti [says], 'Mariah signs her Talkabout pagers 'The Hardest-Working Bitch in the industry.' ' "

Man, are those marketing dynamos at Motorola hip to the youth of America! Lord knows nine- to twelve-year-old tweens can relate completely to the hard-workin' bitch thang. I'm not so sure about the Mariah choice, though. Perhaps the electronics wizards should have approached Celine Dion with the spokes-singer deal. I hear the young'uns go cuckoo for Celine.

In essence, Red Herring's contributing editor, Niall McKay has written an extended tirade targeted at Motorola and other patronizing attempts at attracting teen pocket cash. He rants, "My instinct is that kids are smarter than the marketing folks, who, bless them, seem to be under the impression that Mariah Carey is the epitome of cool....If Motorola really wants to be cool, it should mimic Swatch, or at least try to come up with a design that's slightly different."

I hear McKay loud and clear. The thing is, as even he mentions in his article, Apple did the same shiny, happy color thing with the iMac. And even Volkswagen is pitching new bug enthusiasts with its 'vapor blue' hued rides. The fact is that people, young and not-so-young, will pay more for a newfangled tint, regardless of the product. In a world where 20-something women wear Power Puff Girl-adorned tops, and more Gen-x males are stoked for the X-Men flick than their nephews are, the line between what appeals to kids and what appeals to adults has blurred greatly. Hey, who could blame Motorola for capitalizing on it?

Inspected by #41, Worn by Fashion Prisoner #000 387
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Cat Walk Mug Shots (Turn to the Left)
"3:30pm, Saturday, July 15, N train to Brooklyn: You clutched a subway strap tenderly, and gazed into nothingness, a flip flop dangling from your lovely left foot. Your dirty blond hair was short and disheveled; you wore a shapeless, cerulean tank top with detachable collar and new calvins, strategically ripped at the right knee. I sat to your right, between an oversized, unkempt man in a navy blue velvet sweatsuit and an old Chinese lady lugging a huge sack of stale batteries and cheaply made electronics. Oh, and some kid in a doo-rag was blaring an old Geto Boys tape. I wore Buddy Holly glasses and a vintage embroidered Guayabera shirt....I think I love you."

You're thinking this is one of those ads placed by some pathetic loser in the classified section of your local entertainment rag, right? Wrong! It's your first skim.com email! Your prince has finally found you, and it's all thanks to that 6-digit code printed on your new skim.com product no. 22 top!

Revolution Magazine piece sheds light on the new clothing line by the Zurich-based company, skim.com. As noted in the story, "each item of clothing is tagged with a unique code number, which is also an email address on the company's web site, Skim.com."

The skim.com site urges its fashion prey to "activate [their] product" by registering for a "free skim.com e-mail account, with a personal mailbox and free SMS messaging."

Hey, even for me, free email and SMS messaging are tempting offers, but something tells me skim.com doesn't make cut-offs and Stooges T-shirts.

Thar's Gold in Them Thar Ads
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Panning for Promotions
"OK everybody, get into groups. Today we'll be starting our projects on medieval home life -- serfs, vassals, lords -- choose whatever you want." If you were anything like me during your school years, those words, "get into groups" induced immediate floor stomps, gutter-mouth murmurs, and cringing face contortions.

All you could hope for was an ounce of sanity and diplomacy among committee members. You'd pray, "Please, God, don't let some super geek in my group suggest that we all dress up in chain mail the day we present our project...please!"

Well, a severe abhorrence for working in groups has precluded me from joining the ad agency world. Some of you "refuses to work well with others" curmudgeons out there may not have made such a wise career move, however. No worries…the folks at Admine.com may prove to lighten those stubborn, individualistic woes of yours. "How?" you wonder. Well, now you can sell those brilliant campaigns that your fellow ad creators and clients rejected.

As reported in a recent Advertising Age news brief, the start-up "intends to license TV, print and radio ads to businesses, which can then adapt the campaigns to promote their own businesses in their own regions."

Admine.com's site copy glibly describes the ad campaign buying/selling/licensing process and ensures, "Everyone goes home happy." The capriciousness of it all leads me to wonder whether Admine.com is selling highly litigable ad campaigns or happy meals.

Yet, the response thus far to the company's "outrageously original business model" has been "overwhelmingly positive," according to Admine.com's PR director, Sonia Barbara. "85% of people are thrilled with concept," she boasts in an interview with the Lowbrow Lowdown.

My initial concern was that campaigns created for specific brands would be cookie-cut to suit the requirements of brands with entirely different identities.

"We're not going after the Nabiscos of the world," she says succinctly.

Barbara does assume, though, that once the site and its services attract attention, the branding issue may be raised.

In the meantime, I can't wait to see the next extreme Mountain Dew TV ad re-purposed for Ensure® nutritional drinks.

Reality Shucks
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Web Cam Not-So-Anti-Capitalists
All right, marketers, advertisers, product pushers: admit it. You've strained your right brains for creative ways to cash in on the reality-based baseness that's seeped its way into our "culture" lately. But how can you possibly convince the producers of Survivor to feature your fatigue-clad, glock-toting, guerrilla marketing mascot, Manuel as the unexpected villain of next week's episode?

It's time to engage in the grittiest form of broadcasted reality there is: webcam warfare!

First, you need a webcam mentor -- a company that's braved the bad cam times as well as the good. How about Garst Seed, fearless sponsor of Iowa Farmer Today's CornCam? As PR Week's July 17 print edition notes, site visitors can "literally watch corn grow" via the campy CornCam. In fact, IowaFarmer.com "has enjoyed as many as 88,000 hits in one day [and] has spurred thousands of emails to [Garst Seed]."

Next comes a truly daunting challenge: choosing which cam to sponsor. The Lowbrow Lowdown Research Flunkies have managed to track down a cam or two in need of endorsement. Perfect for clothing retailers, spray starch manufacturers or promoters of unorthodox grilled cheese sandwich recipes, the Ironing Cam is sure to steam competitors. Better yet, Native American territories hawking discount smokes have a promising sponsorship opportunity on the Ashtray Cam website.

Now, if we could only discover a webcam featuring bare-bosomed women, we'd have an ideal sponsorship candidate for BreastAug USA.