It was awful, it was offensive, it worked.

EA has been promoting their new videogame, Dante's Inferno. But instead of giving out demo copies, or contra merch or even paying bloggers to shill for them, they've decided to take the left-hand path.

At a recent industry trade show anti-EA protesters were out in full force, carrying placards that included such wonderful missives as "EA = electronic Antichrist". Makes you think that Christian groups are against the game right? Not so fast there. Turns out that EA hired the protesters to generate some publicity. They got caught, and made a lot of Christians angry. Whoops.

Then, because too much controversy is never enough, EA promoted the new game at Comic-Con. They invited people to "commit acts of lust" by taking photos of themselves with the EA booth-babes. Winner gets a date with two models, a limo for the night and hopefully a poke in the eye with a very sharp stick. In a biblical demonstration of irony, the supposed randomly chosen winner turned out to be a writer from GayGamer.

And on it goes. Really. They're doing more. Because if there's one thing boneheaded publicity does well, it's generate press. Ever wonder what it's like to screw up so badly that you actually go in a complete circle around to success?

When Steve Jobs gives you lemons

You make fun of the total lack of Flash support on his company's portable devices. No Farmville, no Hulu.com, no CNN and no...Bang Brothers?

So that's what my friends taste like

Facebook flavoured vitamin water.

Yes. It's true.

In cahoots with Coca Cola, the brain trust at Facebook has come up with the pinnacle of branding. They've created a flavour to associate with their brand. Apparently Facebook tastes like Black Cherry and Lime. Good. We needed that. It's another indication of how social media is advancing.

Sign number 451 of the impending apocalypse.

Gaming the system

Problem: you want frequent flier miles but don't want to purchase any of the various items that offer them.

Solution: wait until the U.S. Mint has a promotion that essentially gives you free miles.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit."

Just goes to show that ingenuity knows no bounds. And that it pays to monitor your promotions and offers from the outset to identify and prevent people from gaming the system. It works for Vegas, and it works for everything else too...

Silicon Snake Oil

(with apologies to Clifford Stoll)

Here's an interesting article from Businessweek that advocates exercising a bit of caution before you jump on the tweeting/blogging/facebooking/tag clouding/microsite/ bandwagon.

Everything comes at a cost, and so-called experts might not be as learned as they claim to be.

Caveat Emptor as they say.

Maybe if Newegg had been a bit more aware of consequences and paid attention to what they were doing, they wouldn't currently be known for this great tag cloud generated from their own in house customer support forum...

The point is...?

From the Pharmatimes.com

US consumer ads “led to higher drug prices”

A new study suggesting that US direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for a top-selling drug had no effect on prescribing rates but led to a major rise in the drug’s price needs to be followed up, say the authors.

Use of Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi-Aventis’ blood-thinner Plavix (clopidogrel), which first appeared on the market in 1998, did not increase as a result of the consumer advertising campaign for it which began in 2001. However, a “sudden and sustained increase” in the drug’s price after the ads commenced cost 27 state Medicaid programmes an additional $207 million in pharmacy expenditures during 2001-2005, say researchers led by Dr Michael Law of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, reporting their findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week.

The price of Plavix increased 12% immediately after the DTCA began in 2001, say the authors, who note that in order to recoup the “substantial” costs of DTCA – which totaled more than $350 million for Plavix during 2001-5 - drugmakers need to generate higher revenues through increased sales, higher prices or both.

“If drug price increases after DTCA initiation are common, there are important implications for payers and for policy makers in the United States and elsewhere. Future longitudinal studies should examine other drugs and settings because many other countries are currently considering whether to permit DTCA," the authors conclude. Currently, DTCA is permitted only in the USA and New Zealand.

In comments to Reuters, Dr Law added: “the public should rightly wonder why they’re paying millions in extra drug costs to pay for advertising campaigns that don’t work.”

US drugmakers’ spending for DTCA has increased more than 330% in the last 10 years, and in 2006 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that every $1 spent on DTCA generates an average $2 in sales. However, in September 2008, the first-ever controlled study into DTCA – whose authors included Dr Law - reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that money spent on such advertising has no effect whatsoever.

Nevertheless, the control or abolition of DTCA has long been a popular target for Congress, and current proposals include House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman’s call for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have powers to ban such advertising for new drugs for up to three years after approval, and New York Representative Jerrold Nalder’s reintroduced Say No to Drug Ads Act, which would abolish tax exemptions for DTCA.

It is in the first few years of a new drug's life that manufacturers "often aggressively market their products and engage in DTCA," and this "increases the number of consumers exposed to safety risks of new products long before they are truly understood," Rep Waxman has said.

Around 30 million people, or about 16% of the US population, are enrolled in the 27 state Medicaid programmes – the federal health insurance programme for those on low incomes – used in the study.

By Lynne Taylor

I've kinda gotta just do the old facepalm/headshake combo after reading this...and then be really thankful I live in Canada.

Take peoples money...

then scam them.

Great way to foster that consumer relationship.

From The Huffington Post.

Here's what's happening. Well known e-commerce companies have been sending post transaction marketing offers to consumers immediately after something is purchased. Consumers are offered cash back if they simply click a confirmation button. When they do, their credit card information is automatically passed on to a marketing company that signs them up for a credit card subscription for a package of useless services. The rebate is rarely paid. The U.S. Senate is not impressed.

Sounds dodgy doesn't it? Really unethical. The kind of thing only a really sleazy company would do, not a well known one like say...1800Flowers.com, Fandango, FTD, Orbitz, Priceline, Shutterfly, Buy.com, Barnes & Noble, Expedia, as well as many more.

It's kind of like the death of a thousand cuts. If so many well regarded and well known companies are out there finding underhanded ways to score a few more pennies from their customers, customers are going to migrate back to personal shopping where you see the person you're handing money to and have more control over your own data.

New breakthrough in outdoor promotion

This just in from the Institute For The Blindingly Obvious:

Hotels on the east coast of Canada are learning something about promotion.

It's called lit signage.

Apparently it's a big deal there. Or it was an astonishingly, appalling slow news day.

User-unfriendly design

The curtain was recently drawn back at the U.S. Patent Office and one of the gems it was hiding was an application from Apple. Nothing new there right? Those guys must patent more stuff by breakfast than most people do all day...

But wait, there's more. And more.

The geniuses at Apple have applied to patent a some 'warez that force the user to comply with a preset set of demands. Like viewing an ad. None of this waiting for the ad to finish before you watch nonsense, oh no, this is much more interactive. You have to pay attention and then click a button or answer a question to continue.

Kind of like that whole answer three questions right or you can't cross the bridge scenario in a certain movie.

I guess 1984 won't be like 1984, it'll be a hell of a lot worse. If I don't want to watch an ad, I don't. Being forced to watch an ad will only serve to promote a rather visceral reaction. Companies don't endear themselves to consumers by effecting "enforcement routines" and making users jump through hoops to get to content.

Unfortunately this application is for more than just online usage. Mobile, TV, consumer electronics in general will soon be as petulant and demanding as a roomful of two year olds.

Great.

Whose tweets are being twittered?

In the all out stampede to embrace new channels of communication things can get missed. When websites first began sprouting many companies were slow to understand what they were and even slower to register domain names. The resulting litigation was an interesting application of international and intellectual property laws.

Now it's happened again.

Nike, GM, even WalMart have been beaten to the tweet. The companies, amongst others, neglected to set up corporate twitter feeds. And now someone has done it for them. Some accounts are being handled by fans of the brands but other accounts aren't as fawning.

Those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it or so I've heard.

In other news, Big Ben tweets.

Adding fuel to the fire.

It's a given that many images used in marketing materials are photoshopped. Usually they're done to enhance or otherwise improve the objects in the image. Sometimes they don't.

The most recent disaster to hit the internets is Ralph Lauren, a photoshopped image that is on the grotesque side, and as an added bonus, threats of legal action combined with takedown notices against two sites that have reproduced and commented on the image.

So, instead of admitting that it was a mistake, performing a small mea culpa and putting the whole thing to rest, they've decided to light a big fire and invite everyone over.

Brilliant.

I won't bother commenting on the use of photoshop to promote unhealthy body-image stereotypes or the like, nope, not me.

Buy our car. Or else.

Toyota has opened up an entirely new avenue of effective communication with their target demographic.

Sheer terror.

In a misguided and ill-advised effort to promote the Matrix model, Saatchi & Saatchi decided to embark on a campaign that was meant to mimic Punk'd in style and tone.

It didn't.

Instead it mimicked a lawsuit, filed by a consumer and recipient of some target marketing by Toyota that failed to generate the sought-after emotional response. In her attorney's words "She slept with a machete next to her bed and she slept with mace. She could barely sleep or eat normally."

Well done. Any publicity is good publicity right?

Come to Denmark for the culture, the sights, the one night stands.

Viral promotion is all the rage, and the fine folks over at the tourism office in Denmark decided to jump on the wagon with their own contribution. It's a fun little video that is all about one woman's quest to find the father of her baby, the offspring of a one night stand in Copenhagen. Ah Copenhagen...where all those lovely Danish women approach lonely tourist men, get them drunk and have their babies.

Of course, the entire thing has ignited all kinds of controversy and has generated multiple apologies and mea culpa's. Sounds like it worked.

See it here before it's too late.

That's a little...weird

New, but unapproved Play-Doh print pieces out of Singapore do communicate a message, but in a rather unsettling fashion...

It's how long?

Ever go to the store and spend less than $2 on something but wind up with a receipt almost a yard long? Sure it's got all sorts of info, maybe a coupon or seven, but really, hot dogs and subs are footlongs, not receipts.

It's a trend that is growing every day, resulting in more paper waste generated, over and over. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about it.

Our target market?

Sluts, booty calls, casual encounter seekers, f**k buddies and their friends.

You'd think it might have...oh I don't know, maybe jumped off the page. Raised a flag? Rang a bell?

Unless Bell Canada is saying the internet is full of nothing but people looking for random hookups. That can't be true, can it?

Us scared of a supermodel? Impossible!

We're actually terrified.

Seems that the creative team behind a Swedish TV spot for a line of personal care products called Apoliva made a rather terrifying piece.

They used a Swedish supermodel, who shouldn't be all that all that scary. The Swedish beach volleyball team isn't scary. The chef on the Muppets isn't scary. But apparently in Sweden, supermodels are.

How scared are they? A Facebook group “I am scared of the girl in the Apoliva commercial” (“Jag är rädd för tjejen i Apolivareklamen”) has over 1,000 members, and there are quite a few other groups and sites that praise the spot or advise viewers to hide under the bed.

Personally, I've seen scarier things on the subway late on a Friday night.

No, it's not a joke

40 years ago humanity walked on a surface other than earth for the first time. 40 years later humanity has evolved to such a point of sophistication that we can now advertise on a surface other than earth for the first time.

Yes, it's true. Advertising on the moon.

I recently bought some property on the moon and am accepting offers to erect one huge billboard...

What does $100,000,000 get you?

Well if you're in Redmond, Washington, it gets your ass fired.

The numbers on Bing, Microsoft's answer to Google, are in. After a purported $100,000,000 ad campaign, they ain't good. In fact, they've taken an elevator to the basement of suck and they're still pressing the down button.

Just goes to show that all the ads in the world aren't going to make a market.

From businessinsider.com

Analysts are positively gushing about Microsoft's Bing. Initial Comscore numbers showed a pop in Bing traffic! Some observers have gone so far as to suggest that Bing will usher in a whole new era in the search war between Google and Microsoft.*

Keep dreaming.

First, there isn't a search war between Google and Microsoft. Google won what little skirmish there was about 5 years ago, and Microsoft has been gradually surrendering its last remaining territory ever since.

Second, of course traffic to Bing has increased! People are naturally curious, especially given the $80-$100 million ad campaign. Why wouldn't people check it out?

Third, yes, Bing has added some cool innovations, but nothing that Google can't and won't copy immediately.

And that gets to the heart of Microsoft's problem here: Search isn't broken. The reason almost 70% of folks use Google is that most folks like Google and most folks are used to Google. If there's a "better" search engine out there, most people probably don't know that it's better (because it's really hard to tell--in part because "better" is in the eye of the beholder), and many people who can tell probably don't care.

Sure, people will try a new search engine. Why not? Everyone's curious. But when they see that it's not obviously better, and/or when Google immediately copies anything that is actually better about it, most people will head right back to Google again. And they'll be well-served there.

Imran Khan of JP Morgan just did a survey that illustrates the uphill battle Microsoft faces here: Consumers are happy with Google. They don't see a need to switch.

Specifically, Imran's survey suggests that 98% of people won't switch to Bing and that those who do will be coming from AOL and Ask (folks Microsoft might have gotten eventually, anyway). In our opinion, that's not a happy enough prognosis to justify Micrsoft's $10 billion bet.

Now that a month has passed since the launch of Bing, we completed a nation-wide survey to over 750 people above 18 years of age to assess the impact of Bing on their search habits. In our opinion, the results showed that although roughly a quarter of survey respondents were willing to try Bing, the vast majority (~98%) will not be switching to Bing as their primary search engine. Following are the key results:

• The Bing advertising campaign has raised brand awareness and usage. 59.1% of our respondents had heard of Bing and 24.9% tried the new Bing search engine. However, we think that this behavior is more typical of testing a new product than making a permanent search engine shift. Of the respondents who had tried Bing, only 38.9% used it more than 5 times last month.

• Respondents who tried Bing had a positive experience. Of the respondents who had tried Bing, 38.3% listed the relevancy of the results as its greatest strength, with the variety of results including web, maps, images, etc. coming in second at 22.1%. Speed, organization of the results page, and the user interface also received positive reviews.

• According to our survey, it seems that most of Bing’s market share gains came at the expense of AOL and Ask. Of our total survey population, 25.8% of our respondents claim that they use AOL search less than before the Bing launch and 24.0% of our respondents claimed that they used Ask search less than before the Bing launch. Conversely, only 10.6% and 16.4% of the respondents claimed to use Google and Yahoo! search less than before the Bing launch, respectively.

• People are happy with their current search experience. From our standpoint, the biggest problem that Microsoft is facing is that 62.6% of our respondents indicated that they did not see any weaknesses in their current search experience. As such, in order to gain meaningful market share, we believe Microsoft has to 1) create a markedly better product, 2) significantly expand its distribution, or 3) invest heavily in content development on its O&O sites. While we expect competition in the search market to increase, we think it will be difficult to shift search behavior if people are completely satisfied with their current search engine.

• Results indicate a slight market share gain is possible by Bing. We roughly estimate that Microsoft would gain about 200 bps in market share based on respondents who use Microsoft more than 15 times a month. Going forward, 11.4% of respondents believe they will use Bing more than 15 times a month, which is only a 220 bp increase to comparable Microsoft usage prior to the launch of Bing. Asked another way, 9.4% of respondents expect to use Bing as their primary search engine in the future vs. Microsoft’s current primary usage by 7.1% participants. We expect most of the market share gain to be at the expense of AOL and Ask.

*This post originally said that the New York Times was one of the observers who said that Bing could usher in a new era in the search war between Google and Microsoft. This overstated the NYT's position. In fact, the NYT said, "The once-dubious prospect that Microsoft could shake up the search business has become just a bit more likely."

Lying? From a PR person? I don't believe it.

Amazing what some people will do to convince conusmers to buy their product. And coming on the heels of a study that shows people trust online reviews more than most other kinds, it begs the question, who do you trust?

From the Wall Street Journal:

By Mary Pilon

Russ Taylor was looking for a very good espresso machine.

So the Atlanta lawyer did what many of us would–he surfed to Amazon.com and began trolling user reviews for high-end espresso makers.

On the DeLonghi Perfecta Digital Super-Automatic Espresso Machine, an $1,800 metallic blue machine with a built-in burr grinder and five coffee-strength settings, he saw that user “T. Carpenter,” a self-described “espresso addict,” raved about the product. Then he saw that the same user had posted an ecstatic writeup for another, less-expensive DeLonghi model. Could it be that the espresso addict had two high-end machines?

As he chronicled on his blog, he clicked on the Amazon reviewer’s profile. (It has since been taken down by Amazon.) Taylor found that “T. Carpenter” was indeed a gadget aficionado, having written 12 reviews. All for DeLonghi products, and all raves rated with 5 stars.

He did a Google search and found that a Tara Carpenter was employed as a communications manager with the company. (Screenshots are on his blog.) He says he notified DeLonghi customer service and received a cursory email with no response to his specific questions regarding the reviews. So he contacted us.

We called DeLonghi, where a representative confirmed that Tara Carpenter is employed by DeLonghi and did write the reviews. The company issued the following response:

The Amazon.com guidelines “prohibit positive reviews for products in which the author has a financial investment in,” and for that reason only, the reviews were removed from the Amazon website. While T. Carpenter did not personally gain any financial stake in the process, we have since opted to respond to on line reviews in a more official capacity using the vendor response platform provided by Amazon to clarify product use and care issues, or address specific compliments or suggestions by the consumer community.

We find no false statements in any of the reviews posted by T. Carpenter. Our employees are passionate about the products we make and sell and this is a quality we are quite proud of in all our associates.

Carpenter will continue to be employed at DeLonghi.

Amazon user reviews are a powerful tool for shoppers. And companies know it. (Belkin experienced a similar snafu for faking positive reviews.) The thought that some would masquerade as objective users is upsetting to Taylor and poses a problem for Amazon, which hosts millions of user reviews and strives to keep them all legit.

Amazon guidelines for reviews state that a customer needs to have made a purchase on the site. They’re filtered for naughty things and allow readers to flag sketchy listings, which are then reviewed and removed, if necessary. Ratings themselves are also graded for how helpful they were, creating an incentive for constructive feedback.

They also prohibit “the use of the Service for commercial purposes such as advertising, promotion, or solicitation” and “the impersonation of any person or entity or forging of any e-mail communication or any part of a message.”

Amazon has to police a huge and exponentially growing space. So it’s up to shoppers to take any star rating or comment with a grain of salt. The real-life equivalent would be questioning someone standing outside a store yelling “shop here!”

“I think the majority of reviews are fantastic reviews,” Russell Dicker, Amazon’s senior manager of community content says.

Dicker declined to comment on specifics of how Amazon spots phony listings for security reasons. (The U.S. government isn’t going to tell us all the things that make a dollar bill special, either.) “Making reviews helpful and making them a pristine source of consumer opinion is incredibly important to us,” he says.

And as for Taylor and his espresso machine hunt?

“I’m still looking around,” he says.