Brand New Day

Award Winning Honda Ad From UK Shows Ads Can Be Great and Compelling

Most advertising I see on TV is total crap, the stuff for which TiiVo was invented. It is for this reason that I point out a Honda ad from the U.K. produced by agency Wieden & Kennedy, which won the British Television Advertising Awards.

The ad is for the Honda diesel engine. The spot uses a compelling style of animation that reminds me of the British Teletubbies kids' program, and employs host of radio program Prairie Home Companion and author Garrison Keillor to croon a song about how Honda looked at diesel engine technology, which people universally hated because of the smell and noise, and turned it into something that is now beloved and sought after in Europe.

There is much debate in the U.S. about the benefits of clean diesel to power our cars. Car companies want clean diesel fuel on the market yesterday, while oil companies want it to spread as slowly as possible because of the investment required in refineries, the scarcity of diesel cars and U.S. consumers' resistance to diesel.

I have heard people like Ford Motor Co. CEO Bill Ford say companies may have to resort to perfuming diesel fuel in order to get American consumers to bite for a wonderful technology that faces mostly irrational opposition. That might work for some. But car companies and the diesel industry could fund advertising as clever and compelling as Honda's U.K. ad, and maybe people would start to change their perceptions.

McDonald's Turning Brand Placement Into Junk

McDonalds Corp., reports Advertising Age, has hired an entertainment marketing firm to get hip-hop artists to integrate its the Big Mac sandwich into their upcoming songs. My fingers are pinching my nose as I tilt my head upward.

Isn't this exactly what smart marketing people have been warning against? Hamfisted, forced product placement in songs, books and TV shows that feel like the artist/writer/producer has clearly and obviously been bought and paid for by the sponsor?

The firm, Lanham, Md. based Maven Strategies, has reportedly approached record labels, producers and individual artists with the idea, which calls on them to write lyrics around the sandwichs name.

As I have written in this space before, I happen to think McDonald's, for all the flack it gets about the childhood obesity problem, has a perfect right to sell Big Macs. But here's where the logic of this hip-hop plan jumps the rails for me. McDonald's just kicked off a campaign to advertise healthy eating and promoting physical activity to couch potato kids. Statistics are pretty clear that the obesity problem is especially bad among minorities in urban neighborhoods, arguably because there are more fast food joints in poor neighborhoods than produce stands and good quality supermarkets.

Hip Hop music and culture certainly transcends minority consumers and city neighborhoods. But the timing and juxtaposition of the two efforts is striking.

Music acts, reports Ad Age, will not receive payment upfront. Instead, they will earn anywhere from $1 to $5 each time their song is played on the radio. Maven executives say they have received numerous songs for consideration. McDonald's gets final approval of song lyrics. Yipes!!! What happened to the anti-establishment rappers? Is it all about the money and nothing else now? Is this really the spirit of Tupac?

But before criticism gets heaped on McD's for the seemingly contradictory efforts, let's just look at Big Mac peppered hip-hop lyrics as a really bad idea for everybody, and especially for the music. What if an artist sets out to write lyrics that rhymes Big Mac and "heart attack." Will he or she get paid? How about, "A Big Mac a Day keeps the ladies away, cuz when you're too fat, she's gonna tell you to scat. Cuz fat aint phat. Cuz fat aint phat. Cuz fat aint phat."

Will they only get paid for rhyming Big Mac with "snack" or "track," as in "Get your life on track with a delicious Big Mac?" If a rapper cuts a video talking about Big Macs and uses footrage of the late Biggie Smalls, the infamous and enormous rapper, will McD's pay up?

And will the artists who sign on for this deal still deserve to be called "artists." I don't think so.

FCC and GOP May Over Reach If They Go After Cable TV

The FCC and prominent Republicans seem interested in regulating decency on cable TV the way they do on the broadcast networks. It's an interesting prospect. But one that could bite them at the polls if they continue to misread the public.

The rumblings in Washington is that new F.C.C. chairman Kevin Martin may be interested in cleaning up Tony Soprano's gutter mouth and Michael Chiklis's tough-talking skin-flashing squadroom on The Shield on FX just to name a few. The trouble with this strategy, of course, is that cable TV, not to mention the racier shows on network like ABC's Desperate Housewives, is as popular in red states as those shaded blue.

In reading the public's responses in surveys, one has to be careful not to read too much. Ask a parent, for example, "Do You think there is too much sex and violence on TV and would you support regulation that would set tighter standards of decency?," and I suspect that more than 50% will say "yes." What parent wouldn't want to be on the record with that thought. That "yes," though, may well have very little do with how that parent behaves at home. Parents who do not watch The Sopranos at 9PM when their adolescent kids are still awake, will watch it at 11:30 or record the show and watch it whenever.

I don't think I'm off base when I suggest that consumers, red state or blue, are not that keen on having choices removed by the government. Witness the scant support Congress received when they intervened in the Terry Schiavo case. The degree to which even right-of-center consumer/voters want the Feds mucking around in their lives, limiting choices and acting like an Extreme Nanny can easily be over-estimated.

Conservatives seem poised to over-reach in President Bush's second term. They have been winning thir battle to deny same-sex marriage rights, because it's easy to demonize gay people. Who do you demonize when you go after people who watch the Sopranos or The Shield? The answer" voters. They can paint Hollywood as out of touch with mainstream values, but why is The Sopranos so successful? NYPD Blue? Desperate Housewives? The Shield? It's because people choose to watch them. I don't think the conservatives can make David Chase (Sopranos creator) or Steven Bochko (NYPD Blue) the villains in this fight without also accusing the people watching the shows of being indecent.

And that just doesn't sound like good politics.

Citizen Imus Under Fire. But It's the Critics Who Will Get Burned.

Don Imus, as obnoxious as he can be some mornings on his syndicated radio show, does a lot of good work. And if he's guilty of anything reported in today's Wall Street Journal, it's probably indulging his own sense of how he and his wife, Diedre, want to do good works rather than listen to other people tell him what he ought to do and how he should do it.

A month or so ago, Imus mentioned that he spends $1.8 million a year to host 100 sick kids a year at the Imus Ranch in New Mexico. "Wow," I thought. That's $18,000 a kid so they can ride some horses and pet some chickens. Surely, there must be more kids that could be helped with all that money? I thought about doing a story on it. What I mostly found, though, was that as indulgent as spending that much money per sick kid may be, Imus was doing exactly what he said he wanted to do in 1999 when he began raising millions of dollars. He wanted a real, working cattle ranch where kids would learn responsibility and a sense of purpose as he did when he was a kid. Imus admitted to me Thursday that he can see how people would view it as indulgent. But he doesn't care. That's honest. One of the reasons they only handle 100 kids--ten kids per week for ten weeks, from May to September--he and Diedre told me, is that summer break is the only time the kids can come. Seems logical.

The Imuses are adamant in pursuing the anti-McDonald's strategy of ministering to sick kids. It's Diedre who invokes the McDonald's analogy of emphasizing quantity over quality. The Imus ranch, she says, is about giving kids in-depth constructive experiences, organic food, a no-toxin (no toxin-laden cleaning supplies or insecticides) environment and a comfortable place to sleep and eat. Charity professionals say a lot more kids could be helped with the $20 million start-up costs for the ranch and the nearly $2 million a year operating costs if it was spent another way. "I reject that," says Imus. The Imuses say their ranch is a different proposition than a summer camp where kids "eat junk food and sleep on army cots."

Besides the kids, advertisers who have ponied up millions, including Readers Digest, The New York Stock Exchange, American Express and others have gotten much mileage out of their donations. One sponsorsing executive who said he didn't want to be named because of the current dust-up told me: "It's marketing for us. We've gotten much more in positive chatter about our brand than if we had bought the air time on his show."

Imus cows the most influential lawmakers and corporate power-brokers. His weekly guest list looks like "Meet The Press's" list. John Edwards even did interviews on the show after Imus's producer had repeatedly insulted his wife's looks on the air. His current mission, aided by Diedre, is to spotight the controversy over a possible link between mercury preservatives used in vaccinations, like those for small-pox and measles, and autism rates. He has been raking his lawmaker guests like Arizona Sen. John McCain and Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum over the coals warning them not to exempt pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits over this until the link is proved one way or the other. He has been a prime mover in legislation to increase life insurance benefits for veterans.
The DJ says some have suggested to him that attention to the Ranch's tax filings from New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer and now the WSJ story may have been provoked by angry pharmaceutical companies who want him to give up the mercury cause. That seems dodgy. I was first attracted to the story by Imus himself. And I doubt Spitzer, who is running for Governor of New York, would be swayed by Big Pharma. He knows that to win, he won't want Imus running against him on his show every morning. A supportive Imus will be worth far more to Spitzer than a million or two dollars from Big Pharma. He who takes on Imus pretty much always comes out on the worse end of the stick.

GM Doesn't Have a Bad Image. It Has A Bad Reality.

Paraphrasing a line written by David E. Davis, the dean of automotive journalism, about the city of Detroit, "General Motors (Davis wrote of the City of Detroit) doesn't have a bad image. It has a bad reality."
GM's market share is sliding despite heavy incentives. It has a union, the United Auto Workers Union, that blackmails GM, as well as other automakers, into keeping plants open it doesn't need. The threat is this: close the plant you don't need and take our jobs away and we'll close the plants you do need by picketing. That's a reality. Rank and file members use that same leverage pay far less than salaried workers as a percentage of pay in healthcare premiums, while GM's costs go up 18% a year. More reality: GM used to have have twice the market share it has today with Chevy, GMC, Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac and Cadillac. Since then GM has subtracted Olds, but added Hummer, Saturn and Saab. More brands and half the share? That's a problem. GM's Bob Lutz suggested yesterday that Buick or Pontiac could go the way of Olds if things don't improve. Buick is the obvious choice.

But let's look at the stuff GM can control and has botched. New products and advertising. Pontiac and Buick have had recent marketing makeovers, yet GM marketing chief Mark LaNeve says they aren't right yet. Huh? How'd you get through a process, practically a new brand strategy every year for the last four years for those brands and still not get it right. Press GM executives on Saturn and Saab, and they'll tell you that the marketing strategies hatched for those brands aren't right either.

GM produces some solid, competent products, but far too few that stir any emotion. Worse yet, dreary images of Buick, Saab, Chevy and Saturn passenger car brands do not wrap competently produced cars in a blanket of appeal the way, say, Toyota's image of quality and reliability wraps a bland Camry or Corolla in an attractive coverlet.

As one rival car executive commented about Buick and Pontiac, "These aren't brands for the 21st Century."

The trouble at GM is that it has a bad image to go with a bad reality.

Tasteless Beer Advertising

No, this is not about buxom bikini-clad women riding Clydesdales or SpongeBob holding a longneck. It's about this ad war between Miller and Anheuser-Busch about whether Lite or Bud Light tastes better, or has "more taste."

The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus says it is now referring Anheuser-Busch's challenge of Miller Brewing's "More flavor, more taste" claims to the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which already is reviewing the Milwaukee brewer's campaign for fairness and truthfulness.

Miller points to blind taste "perception" tests of 400,000 consumers conducted by the Institute for Perception, Richmond, Va., pitting A-B versus Miller products. A-B charged that the tests were improperly conducted and the ads may leave consumers to think Miller beers were preferred over the AB's brands.

I know taste is subjective. And one man's beer is another man's gerbil p*ss. But seriously folks: Is anybody drinking either of these brews for taste? Both products come under the heading of " I want to drink beer, any beer, and if I can save a few calories, I'd like to." I'd like to suggest a different kind of taste test. Let's have a blind taste test of Miller Lite, Bud Light and any of the following: Harp, Labatts, Molson, Fosters. Then, let's get a tally on which taste better. Labatts and Molson both have light versions, though the best way to cut calories in half when drinking beer is to drink half as much of the good stuff.

I'm sorry, but Lite and Bud Light fighting over taste reminds me of a story I heard once about "actors" Bob (Gilligan) Denver and George (Goober from "The Andy Griffith Show") Lindsey getting into an actual fist-fight in the late 1960s over which was the better actor.

Subaru Tries "Think. Feel. Drive." as New Ad Idea With New Agency.

Subaru of America on Monday will start a new advertising campaign with a new brand strategy from a new ad agency that will begin a process by which the Japanese automaker long known as the sensible shoes of the auto industry will attempt to be taken more seriously as a competitor to Volvo and Acura instead of Volkswagen and Honda.

Think. Feel. Drive is the new ad theme for the automaker in the U.S., and the new campaign has been created by DDB Needham, New York, which won the account last Fall. Subaru already uses the line in Japan and U.K., and is committed to rolling it out globally. Ironically, the slogan was written by TM Advertising, Irving, Texas, which was fired last year.

The first ads under the new theme include a newspaper ad and TV spot. The newspaper ad is a wordy manifesto explaining what Subaru means by advertising Think. Feel. Drive, and directs people to www.thinkfeeldrive.com. Its hard to say how many consumers will actually read it, but it works to get dealers on board with the campaign. The TV spot that breaks Monday night is a clever piece of work that communicates relevance to the fact that all Subarus come with all-wheel drive as standard equipment. All of the cars on the road except the Subaru Legacy are driving on just their two front wheels, tails in the air. The voiceover says that it never made sense to Subaru to only use two wheels if there are four on the car.

Subaru is an icon brand to those who buy them. [disclaimer: I have owned two Subarus and currently drive one]. It is not uncommon, especially in Great Lakes states and New England, which experience harsh winters and road conditions, to button-hole people at backyard barbecues and talk about how Subarus are far superior to SUVs in worrisome road conditions. Subaru owners all have Subaru stories. Car and Driver writer Ron Kiino says Subaru owners... are like malamutes. We dont mean to imply that they have fluffy, long hair or that they thrive in frigid weather or that they bounce when they walkokay, maybe we are implying thatbut rather that they are loyal. Plain and simple: They love their cars so much they lapse into baby talk and call them Subies.

For all that satisfaction, though, the one thing Subaru hasnt given its owners up to now is a legitimate SUV or minivan that can carry seven passengers. That comes later this year in the form of the B9 Tribeca, a sleekly sculptured piece of work carved by a former Alfa-Romeo designer. But with pricing expected well North of $35,000 properly featured, its going to enter comparisons against Acura MDX, Volvo XC90 and Volkswagen Touareg (which shares a body platform with the Porsche Cayenne and thus gives it clearer luxe bonafides).

U.S. Subaru ownersd are used to thinking of their brand as an LL Beane backpack or trusty pair of Birkenstock or Dr. Marten shoes. In Japan, though, Subaru is thought of more as an entry-level BMW. Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, wants the BMW comparisons to trump those of Birkenstocks.

Theres a certain amount of education that has to be tackled in the advertising, admits DDB chief creative officer Lee Garfinkel who worked on Subaru advertising in the 1980s when the companys slogan was Inexpensive. And Built To Stay That Way. Not even Garfinkel in those days could envision a $40,000 Subaru. Let's see if the Subaru loyalists can. In any case, the new ads look like a good start.

Answering The Blog Mail

About my blant (blog entry that becomes a rant) on being charged (had I gone through with it) $200 to change a Continental Airlines flight reservation two months before the flight:

From one reader: "...when you bought the ticket on Continental or if you buy on an other carrier either via web or phone you were advised of the penalties for change...Most domestic tickets have a minimum $100 penalty for change and have had that for a number of years and international tickets vary by the rules of the particular fare. All the airlines are very competitive and to single out just one because you didn't...read what you were agreeing to when you purchase the ticket is not the airline's fault."

My response: Certainly, I bear some responsibility for changing my mind. The larger point here is that the airlines move in lockstep to deny good customer service and handling, and to ultimately create bad feelings toward themselves as an entire industry. By singling out one, I am citing all of them, because with a very few exceptions, airlines have become a commodity business sold purely on price, especially when it comes to the leisure traveler.

About my criticism of President Bush's choice of Karen Hughes to a State Dept. post where she is in charge of marketing the U.S. abroad, especially to the Muslim world: many of the responses were obscene (no surprise) from right wing zealots. A few criticized me for being an openly liberal Democrat. (For the record, I have voted for candidates in both parties, including on the Republican side--George H.W. Bush, N.J. Governor Tom Keane and the late Congresswoman Milicent Fenwick. But my voting record is not the point). I was also criticized for writing about politics in a marketing blog. But in case those critics hadn't noticed, there is a helluva lot of marketing baked into politics, and on many a day, it's more interesting to write about than the latest ads for Crest. Just yesterday, President Bush defended the use of fake news reports distributed as video-news-releases to TV stations as a marketing device for his Administration's programs. In any case, it's my blog. Get your own if you don't like it.

The cleanest response I could find to recent political marketing entries was this: "Hello! Mr. Kiley must be in hibernation. Doesn't he know that Bush's push for Democracy in the Middle-east is the biggest foreign policy accomplisment since the demise of Communism. And it was accomplished by Bush and his think-alikes such as Karen Hughes?"

My response: "Have you ever taken a ake out of the oven and try to cut it before it's done?"

And one from the dull crayon brigaide: "Do you understand the difference between a "lie" and a "mistake"? If Bush believed his WMD statements at the time he uttered them, then they ARE NOT LIES? Got it you fat * Kiley says our attitude is that it is "our oil" under the Middle East, yet why did I just pay $2.30 a gallon if we see it as "our oil" huh *?? Stick to subjects you know about like DONUTS you fat *! Geez....."

I enter this response because one of the reasons I sometimes blog about the intersection of marketing, media and politics is that the quality of debate in the U.S. often sinks to the level of second graders at recess (i.e. Hardball, Insanity and Colmes, Scarborough Country, Michael Reagan, Air America). And I learned a long time ago that when someone has absolutely run out of rational things to say about their argument, they resort to calling someone "fat," "ugly," "n**ger," "queer" or worse. Show me a person who can't discuss an issue or problem without calling his opponent names, and I'll show you a.....current or future member of Congress.

BMW Deal With Sirius Shows Road To More Successful Business Model for Sat Radio

BMW struck a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to promote its new 3-series car. The partnership is the first such for Sirius, giving BMW access to the satellite radio service's growing audience of 1.24 million subscribers.

The effort launches March 26 and features a 44-day cross-country travelogue style show, "3 Across America." It will winds up on May 6 with an 18-hour broadcast on a new Sirius outlet for the carmaker: BMW Channel, and a live concert starring top performers yet to be named.

Sirius and competitor XM Radio are grappling with how to raise revenue through other means besides higher subscription fees and tiered services. Advertising is the obvious way to go, but both services are walking carefully so they don't spoil the commercial-light Sat Radio experience, especially the largely commercial free music channels.

Terms of the agreement are not disclosed, so we don't know how much BMW is paying for the deal. But we'll be listening to see if the German automaker has found a way to weave its brand messages into radio content as deftly as it did with BMWFilms.com.

If successful, count on seeing a lot more such branded content channels on the sat radio services. The BMW model is sure to be copied. Another idea to look for--shopping on the radio. It's not much of a reach to think of a channel or two featuring people selling music collections, DVD box sets (the audio from the shows or movies could be featured, tools, consumer electronics, travel packages. The model here would be for goods where seeing the product is not crucial, as it is with apparel.

Democrats Are talking about "Re-Branding"

Two articles I have read in the last 24 hours--one in The New Yorker about Joe Biden and Nicholas Kristof's op-ed piece in the New York Times today--specifically talk about the Democrats "re-branding" themselves. I have an idea: Dems could stake out being the party for "The Truth" between now and 2008.

Truth in advertising is an ideal that the best brands embrace, and around which what little ad regulations we have are built. It is all the rage right now to be tough talking on terrorists, and it is not advisable, so say the pundits, to go against the GOP on issues of Democratizing the Middle East. With elections in Iraq, and rumblings of Democracy in Egypt and Lebanon, it's not looking too good right now to just say President Bush was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Where Biden, Clinton, Kerry and whoever decides to take on Bill Frist or Newt Gingrich in 2008 could stake out some fresh ground is to talk about picking up where Bush's policies leave off in 2008, but advancing them on the gasoline of basic truth telling. There is little doubt that the War on Iraq, last year's Medicare Rx Bill and the current GOP case for Social Security private accounts have been based on lies right out of the box. That's not partisan talk. We know there were no WMDS in Iraq. We know the Medicare bill will cost around 30-40% more than The Administration told its own GOP legislators who were on the fence. And we know that private accounts won't add a dime's worth of solidity to the looming Social Security shortfall a few decades away. Also, if the Democratic strategists can't paint GOP House Majority leader Tom Delay as a pol who is allergic to truth-telling than they ought to concede the mid-term elections.

Democrats have an annoying habit of criticizing the GOP policies without articulating much of their own that sounds original. This is just an idea, but I think that spreading Democratic ideals and principles around the world when those ideals are wrapped tightly in truth-telling (like fessing up to any Middle Easterner who will listen that the West has selfishly mucked around their business for a century in order to get oil as cheaply as possible and we want to get to a place where we aren't doing that any more) they have a better chance of taking hold. People, or peoples, who speak the truth have a better chance of being taken at their word. Don't they? Another idea--put together a coherent energy policy that makes it easier and more attractive for Americans to buy more fuel effecient vehicles, and tie that to avoiding costly wars in the Middle East in future, and voters will listen. That would seem to be a genuine Democratic idea that could take off if marketed and articulated right.

Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden seem to be talking about re-branding the party by making it more like the GOP. Sounding tougher on terror and abortion and talking more about prayer-life seems a bit contrived to me. And besides, that ground is staked out already. I'd like to point out to them that the GOP got stronger when they moved away from the middle and went further to the right.

Here's a parting thought to the other Democrats trying to plan their brand strategy for the party and themselves. The truth will set ye free.

Karen Hughes a Predictable, and Troubling, Choice To Market the U.S. Abroad

Karen Hughes, a longtime adviser to President George W. Bush has reportedly accepted a key post at the State Department, leading efforts to promote US values and improve America's image abroad. It's tough to call this move surprising. And it seems destined to advance the decline of America's image abroad.

Hughes job, in a nutshell, is to market the image of America abroad, especially in the Arab world. Yikes. Hughes has been George Bush's ideological "buddy" for years now. One of the reasons America and George Bush's image is so damaged abroad is that the Administration's policy and rhetoric is so devoid of truth and historical perspective. Hughes is a Bush cheerleader, not a strategist with an independent mind or opinion about how we might seriously affect the silent majority of Muslims who probably want to live with more freedom than a theocracy would allow, but don't trust America to deliver it to them.
Why don't they trust us? When was the last time you heard the Bush Administration, and Donald Rumsfeld specifically, talk about how the Reagan Administration, for example, sided with Saddam Hussein in the mid 1980s, funneled him intelligence and and facilitated arm sales he could use in his war against Iran. And that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the West has sought to screw the Middle East over the decades.

The closest I have ever heard this President come to acknowledging the U.S. century-long abuse of the Middle East was this statement in 2003: "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," said Bush in 2003.

If you care to read some great histories on the topic, such as Stephen Kinzer's "All The Shah's Men," or Christopher Catherwood's: "Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq," you can't help come away with the conclusion that the reason the U.S., and Great Britain, are greeted with such ambivalence and hostility in the Middle East is that the West's policy can be summed up in one simple idea: "That's our oil under your sand." That's not exactly a policy grounded in Christian, let alone Democratic, values.

The choice of Hughes, while predictable in a long line of Bush appointees chosen more for loyalty than achievement, is an indication that the President is at least elevating this job to a higher level of importance than it had when it was held by Charlotte Beers and Margaret Tutwiler, neither of whom could accomplish anything. If nothing else, Ms. Hughes has a track record for being listened to inside the Administration.

If Ms. Hughes can set out to do her job with a glimmer of the truth, a smattering of historical honesty, a bit of humility and a lot of mea culpas on behalf of a nation, then I'd say she has a chance. But I doubt that will be the case. I also doubt that she has read these books on the subject. The whole effort to reach out to Muslim peoples with an honest and attractive message will more likely resemble an effort to recruit veiled Muslim women to a cheerleading tryout at the The University of Houston.

But I hope I'm wrong.

Johns Hopkins Ads Make Some Odd Choices

Johns Hopkins Medicine has been running image ads during Sunday morning TV that seek to promote the idea that better funded research at Johns Hopkins could lengthen the lives of remarkable and special people who were taken from us too soon. If only we had the medical breakthroughs to keep them with us longer...

It's not a bad idea, but the choices of people strike me as strange. Baseball great Lou Gehrig--striken by ALS in his mid 30s? Sure. Seems logical. But Lucille Ball? Lucy lived to be 77, had pretty much stopped performing, and by all accounts had her life cut short, if 77 is short, by a life of chain-smoking cigarettes. Leonard Bernstein? He died at 72, arguably to soon. But Bernstein, too, was a life-long chain smoker. Seems to me we have known for decades what kills chain smokers. Alexander Graham Bell? He died in 1922 at the age of 75. Seventy-five in those days was a pretty darn good life. And Winston Churchill? Winny died in 1965 at the age of 91 following decades of staying up all night and habitual cigar smoking. Seems like a great run for anyone.

With the exception of Gehrig, I'm struggling to see here what medical research could have done for these folks to extend their lives. The implication of the ads is that we would have reaped more greatness from these people if they had lived longer. I wonder. In the 1950s, Churchill helped overthrow the last Democratically elected leader of Iran because he planned to nationalize Iran's oil industry, which would have meant more expensive oil for Great Britain and the loss of a Brit-owned refinery. The Brits and the U.S. installed The Shah, and we know where that jewel of foreign policy got us. Churchill, as great as he was in World War Two in holding together British resistance to the Nazis, also had been the architect of forming the country of what we know today as Iraq, colonially and arbitrarily coppled together from territories occupied by three tribes that don't get along very well. Why? To make Britain's claim on Middle East oil easier to manage.

The point here: that Johns Hopkins could have chosen some people who made more sense for the ads, people who clearly died of disease and who had great work and accomplishments ahead of them. A few suggestions: Gilda Radner, Humphrey Bogart, Andy Kauffman, Mozart, Babe Didrikson Zaharias. And that's just a start.

Can Anyone Elighten Me About The Rudest Cell Phone Behavior of All?

I ride the train from New Jersey to Manhattan on most days, and I have recently become aware of a growing trend of the rudest cell-phone behavior of all.

These are the people who not only talk the whole time, filling the car with blather, but they use the speaker function of the phone to boot. In this case, what we get is a garbled fuzz of blather from the sap we can't see, a beep when they are done blathering, and then our train companion's back-chatter. This is roughly like sitting next to a security guard in a mall for the duration of the trip as he monitors all his checkpoints or monitoring a police channel.

At first, I thought this was an isolated incident. But No. This is a bonafide trend. Here goes another Andy Rooney moment I am having. Can anyone explain to me: What is the attraction of using a cell-phone like a walkie talkie or a speaker phone on a crowded train? And, more importantly, what the hell were you people doing when the creator was handing out sense and manners?

What does this have to do with marketing? Cultural trends are always pertinent to marketing. Rudeness run amok must be some sort of flash point for advertisers and their agencies.

So far, this is a trend advanced mostly by young people under the age of 25 in and around New York City, as I observe. However, I'd peg the last phone-goon doing this on my train at about 30 years old.

Soon, I am going to retaliate, as I did a few months ago when some corporate chieftain was blathering through an entire conference call while standing shoulder to shoulder with me on the train. Trying to read my paper in peace, I became so fed up that I began reading the Times op-ed column aloud into his face. When he stopped, I stopped. That was a good day.

McDonalds New Campaign Is The Appearance of a Good Start

About five or six months ago I sat in a meeting here at Businessweek and said, " You know, we ought to do a story about McDonald's and how I imagine they are re-thinking its whole business model and culture right down to the bones of the company in the face of the obesity issues surrounding children." Sadly, the story didn't catch fire around here. But I believe the campaign McDonald's kicked off this week is not an end of the beginning of a process, but rather the beginning of a much deeper make-over at the fast-food company than just offering a few new healthier products and ads about fitness.

McDonald's has been rapidly becoming the international poster-brand for the costs and tragedy of people, especially children, getting fatter and sicker. Abroad, while the French, Spanish, Italians, Greeks, Japanese, etc. make McDonald's rich overseas, health-conscious natives of those countries who treasure their unique food cultures hold up McDonald's not only as an exporter of sickness, but the lead messenger of everything that is wrong with America. I think that may be putting too much on Ronald McDonald's shoulders, but that's what I take away from what I have read and heard over the years. Though, I have to admit, the scene in "Supersize Me" in which grade-school children could by far more easily recognize Ronald McDonald than U.S. presidents or Jesus Christ was troubling.

In short, the campaign, themed, "It's what I eat and what I do ... I'm lovin' it," consists of fitness-message commercials that largely dispense with showing product or people eating. One TV spot even says, "Maybe you should spend less time with your TV" There are six TV spots to start. A pot featuring Serena and Venus Williams includes the lyrics "I'm burnin' calories like a fiend. ... Leafy greens so right for you. I'm making good choices, you can, too," while shots of salads and other menu items are interspersed with shots of the tennis stars on the court. McDonald's has been doing well with its salads and introducing items such as apple slices to menu offerings, too.

The company has realized that it has to get the stink off it. We have in the U.S. what George Carlin calls, "The cult of the child." As a parent of a three-year old, I can attest to this. Unlike my parents, my wife and I often try to micro-manage our son's development. We spend far more time talking about him and his development than I believe our parents ever did about us. My parents did a great job, I believe. I just don't recall them obsessing like we do.
The national conversation has turned for McDonald's. Across the country, parents are being made to feel bad for buying food for their kids at McDonald's. That's not good for business.

This week's campaign, which kicks off in Europe and Asia as well, is the real beginning of the de-stinking process. But here's what McDonald's combatants and concerned parents will be looking for:
-Spending at least 20% of its ad budget on messages infused with healthy eating and living content.
-Wider use and application of Ronald McDonald to promote fitness and eating at McDonald's as a treat, not a habit.
-Leading an effort in the food industry to voluntarily restricts advertising food directly to children under age 12 on TV, print, out-of-home and on the Internet unless that food meets certain dietary guidelines agreed upon by a panel of food execs and nutritionists.

Booze Industry's Self Regulating Ad Model Shows Promise. Food companies next?

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States today released its first report detailing how it has been policing liquor marketers who overtly or inadvertantly take the low road in their advertising or aim too closely to under-age drinking. (Click on the report here to see the actual ads and violations). The report makes for interesting reading, and could be a model for other industries facing stiffer regulatory action, such as the food industry and pharmaceuticals.

The report lists 14 violations of its code of ad practices by members, which include such things as: no liquor ad should run in a media venue which has more than 30% of its audience below legal drinking age; ads should not depict situations where alcohol is being consumed excessively; marketing materials should not rely on sexual prowess.

One ad, for example, from non-DISCUS member TC Specialty Brand LLC for Sex Vodka (the name itself is a violation) shows a shape meant to mimic that of a woman's body filled with cherries. The headline: You Gettin' Any???" Another ad by non-DISCUS member Spirits Marque One LLC for Svedka Vodka shows a stripper down on all fours. Spirits Marque has so far blown off DISCUS's complaints. DISCUS non-member Charles Jacquin ET Cie Inc. was cited for an ad that shows a scantily clad woman worthy of a high-priced strip club sitting in a man's lap, cradling the bottle of Chambord Liqueur by her crotch while her supposed patron is toasting with a glass next to her breasts.

DISCUS members had a much better record for responding. Sidney Frank Importing, marketer of frat-house favorite Jagrmeister, was cited for an ad showing a shotglass at a man's crotch with the headline, "Ride This." The company withdrew the ad. Schieffelin & Somerset, marketer of Hennessy cognac, was cited for advertising in Vibe Magazine, whose newsstand under-age readership exceeds 30%. The company withdrew the ad and now only advertises in the magazine's subscription issue, which meets the demographic standard. DISCUS member companies had a 100% compliance rate in addressing ad standard violations.

The DISCUS approach to revealing all its policing actions is a breath of fresh air that food companies might consider in their quest to avoid heavier handed regulation, especially when it comes to advertising junky products to kids. The trick for DISCUS and for food companies if they go this route will be to get as many companies as possible to sign on to the standards. Lack of compliance by non-DISCUS members shows that self regulation has it limits.

Those Fox Ratings Don't Necessarily Mean The Country is Moving To The Right

I confess to a guilty pleasure. Though I know TV and radio blatherers like Sean Hannity and just about everybody on Air America, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are full of (my Mother reads this) beans, I find myself listening to the shows, especially the righty shows, on Sirius radio on my way home from work. This might explain the following bad news for CNN. The cable networks ratings dipped 16 percent overall and 21 percent in prime time during February, according to Nielsen Media Research, as some of the cable news channel's biggest stars lost viewers. Fox News was the only one among the four cable news networks to post ratings gains during the month.

The right wingnuts think that their ratings are proof that the country is moving to the right on cultural issues. Im not so sure. My take is this: The Prime Time Shows on Fox are killing their counterparts on CNN in prime time because they are more entertaining to listen to or watch, not because more people agree with the loony positions of the hosts.

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Why Nobody in The Airline Industry Should Carry a Marketing Title

I have a new reason why almost no one in the airline industry has the right to hold the title, director of marketing. As I understand the concept of "marketing," it doesn't exist in this industry.

Here's my latest: I book a flight to France for this May. I pay a decent, but not fabulous fare to fly Continental Airlines, which by the way is touting its international service these days. I decide a week ago that I'd like to spend an extra day. I call to see about it, expecting I may have to pay the annoying $75 change fee. Nope. $200.00!! Two hundred bucks for a lady in a call-center to hit a few keystrokes to move me from Thursday to Wednesday, involving two flights, each with plenty of seats, two months away. I passed on changing my flight. And so here I sit, totally torqued off at this airline.

By comparison, I just returned a shirt to Men's Wearhouse I bought almost two months ago. It was too big, and I've been lazy about returning it. They exchanged it--no questions asked. Which company do you think gets my repeat business? I'll eat dirt before I book another flight on Continental. Men's Wearhouse will see me next week, and several times more this year, and next year, and the year after.

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Podcasting Could be an Ad Creative's Delight

Steal This Idea. Please! As advertisers get more interested in pod casting, one way to get their brand messages in without polluting the medium would be to write and produce interesting radio plays that are so damned entertaining that podcastees don't mind the embedded message.

Podcasting is a small media, I will grant you. But it's very interesting and part of the overall organism devouring the future of commercial radio (which should be eaten in similar fashion to the way Jaws took Quint right off the deck of his boat). For the uninitiated, it works like this. I record the equivalent of a radio program in my basement, stream it on the Net. You folks with MP3 players download it and play it back just like you are tuned to a radio station.

The people who do this well are attracting followers. Enterprising business folks are rounding up podcasts and selling podcast network sponsorships. Advertisers are interested because the demos of podcastees are very attractive--tech oriented people with money and education. Volvo is sponsoring podcasts, for example.

I love good radio, and I especially love radio plays in long or short form. Think of it: young creatives at ad agencies writing two and three minute stories unbridled by the 30-second or 60-second format or the FCC. It could be great. One problem, though. Today, I asked two big-time creative directors, each at huge, creative ad agencies, what they thought of my idea. You know what they said..."What's a podcast?"

Yipes. Maybe I'm ahead of my time.

Booze Ads Proliferating on TV. Not Such a Bad Thing.

As my story in this week's magazine shows, the days of TV stations not carrying liquor ads are all but over. Sure, the broadcast networks like NBC and FOX, still voluntarily balk at liquor ads. But over 600 local stations last year carried booze ads, many of them network affiliates. As long as the liquor companies mind standards and stay heavy on the "drink responsibly" messaging," it doesn't seem like the big deal it once was to see liquor ads on TV.

Stuart Elliott in today's New York Times notes Bacardi's Grey Goose Vodka would soon begin running TV ads on CNN, along with other liquor brands taking advantage of CNN's new-found liberality, a development first reported in Businessweek.

Let's face it, the viewer at home doesn't know if he's watching a locally placed ad or one placed by the network. Cable stations are awash with booze ads too. And who among us makes a distinction between an ad running at 9PM on NBC or CNN? So, what's the big issue?

The American Medical Association, Commercial Alert and The Center for Science in the Public Interest are all against the TV walls coming down for liquor. They all seem to have kids in mind, and its hard to argue against that.

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