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Well, I guess it's really for real.
This taken from the John Wiley and Sons online advance catalog.
Instructors, prepare to evaluate!
And FOPs, get ready to assemble come February and rush this one up the best seller charts.
Until then, here's a sneak peek at the book's cover.
Subtle and understated...just like its author ;)
There's customer service and then there's customer empathy.
This door opener is great, simple Pow! from a New Mexico indie copy and parcel-sending shop, a la FedEx Office but with a way more personal feel. I was only holding a bag, but picture me with armfuls or a handtrck worth of envelopes and parcels. The button is a standard, but the sign, which couldn't have cost more than ten bucks, makes it a standout.
The picture speaks 1,000 words, and saves hundreds more curse ones.
When you're driving to work this morning, or back home later today, check out the overpasses you, well, pass under. Now, I don't know where you live, but doing my best Nostradamus (or worst Kreskin), I'll bet that your passes are listless, concrete and grey. If they have any color at all, it's due to the work of a daring graffiti defacer, or of rust.
Unless, of course, you live in Santa Fe. On my recent sojourn there, I was taken by the attention to detail and style the city puts into most everything...including its highway overpasses. Check these out:
Yes, they cost a few bucks more. And yes, the money could be spent elsewhere. But how do you measure the value of converting urban blight into urban art? And what type of image does that convey versus the usual cracking cement?
Today's mission--think of something on your person, or in your business, that is industrially lackluster and serially ignored...and find a way to make it sing.
Well, the Olympics are over, and in spite of the eye-searing Opening and Closing ceremonies and heroics from humanomachines like Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, the unanimous fave amongst those who inhabit Surprise Central is Canadian longjumper Tabia Charles. That's her looking at this.
Now Tabia didn't win any medals, in fact, she came in 10th in the long jump finals (slightly behind Carolina Kluft of long jump powerhouse Sweden), but the way in which she came in 10th endeared her to all who make it their business to make others stand out in their fields.
Now some athletes, like the aforementioned swimming and running phenoms, are destined for glory. Others, despite trying their damndest and giving their all, will see hues of gold or silver only in the technicolor of their dreams.
And then there's Tabia. Realist. Opportunist. Like Phelps, she used the Olympic Games as the springboard to her future. But she didn't do it with medals; she did it with fishnet and hairtint.
You couldn't miss Tabia on the field. She wasn't the best athlete, or the hottest "sex symbol" attracting gaggles of horny photographers, but man, she was an eye magnet. Fishnet stocking on one leg. Rhianna-like hair bob that made the most out of the HD telecast. Natural post-Olympic ambition--model and fashion designer. As she told reporter Rob Vanstone:
"About three years ago, my brother was like, ‘Tab, man, if you can make it to the Olympics and do your thing there and people see you, that opens so many doors.’
"I figure why not come out here and show them my trends? So when I do come out with a fashion line, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s Tabia Charles’s stuff !’ That’s the whole goal: To make it in this aspect. This will open so many doors for me.
"My boyfriend was like, ‘Tab, go all out. Why not? You never know what can happen."
Well, here's what I hope happens--when Bolt and Phelps are hobbling along the lecture or coaching circuit, I hope Tabia Charles is the new Donna Karan or Coco Chanel, following her creations down runways all over the fashion world.
That, my friends, would be the ultimate long jump.
Don't know if this photo is intentional, a one-off, or an act of subversion, but whatever it is, it's great Pow! An Apple iPhone is "branded" with a picture of someone who made it in
China, or in the parlance of those who inhabit Surprise Central, a
classic "Timebombing" tactic. Check her/it out:
Kinda reminds me of the old Macs, which were "signed" on the inside by the team that made them.
Thanks to this un-named, anonymous worker (until next week at least, when she becomes the next 'Net cause celebre), a little personality is added to an already popular device. Via Surprise, the iPhone becomes the HiPhone. Read more here and here.
When is an airport not an airport? When it's a "Sunport."
Such is the small but defining difference that sets Albuquerque's international airport apart from any other I've ever been at (I'm actually composing this post from it while waiting for my flight to Chicago).
Seeing the word "Sunport" upon landing instills you with a sense of warmth, openness and welcoming, attributes that fit this area, and the entire state of New Mexico, perfectly.
It's only a word, and it's a little thing, but frequent visitors to Surprise Central know how important, and how disproportionately powerful, both are.
The powers that be in Albuquerque could've chosen to name their takeoff and landing place "The Albuquerque Sunshine Airport" or something like that, but the effect wouldn't be the same. Remember this the next time you have to name anything; the difference may not be in the title you bestow upon something, but the name of the thing itself.
And now, take off beckons!
I've always dug Stephan Pastis and his very popular comic strip "Pearls Before Swine," so while in the process of writing my Pow! book for John Wiley and Sons (out in February...but you guys know all that by now), I reached out to his syndicate for the rights to reprint a very telling Sunday panel of his in said book. I spoke to a very accommodating United Media, we did the deal in about a week for a price I can afford, and everyone's happy.
So, the scene shifts to me over last weekend as I stealthily stake out my favorite bookstores to dream up with innovative ways to market the Pow! book, and as I slink through the Humor section, I run face-forward into a shelf of Pastis's "Pearls" treasuries. Seeing this as some sort of divine intervention and good karma, I pick up his most recent, "The Crass Menagerie."
Good move.
Some cartoonists are best consumed in eye-dropper intervals (hence the standard daily dose, or weekly, in the case of Berkeley Breathed), and the onslaught of a compendium of their work can be overwhelming. It's just the opposite with Pastis and Pearls, where his brilliance and sense of adventure seem to be best appreciated in bulk as the outlandish story lines and characters bounce against each other and develop. (An added bonus is the DVD-like commentary by the artist on most of the strips, which gives insight into the thought process, unveils inside secrets and characters, and showcases Pastis's wicked, self-deprecating sense of humor.)
Best of all, I've seem to have found a kindred spirit. Pastis Surprises his readers by daringly toying with convention, not an easy feat on the very conservative comics pages. He has his characters inhabit other strips (like "The Family Circus," "Cathy" and "Baby Blues"), kill other characters while there (like Jeremy from "Zits"), and gets Dali-esque by running his strip upside down, sideways and even perpendicular, with equally convention-bending results (my favorite line of the upside down-strip is when Rat says: "Right now, it appears I'm looking up Blondie's dress.") As Pastis himself says in the book:
"I think every now and then it's a
good idea to Surprise readers with strips that don't match the normal tone of the comic. I believe that switching up tone every now and then helps keep the strip from becoming predictable."
So here's what I think--I may be partial after enjoying his book so much, but this guy has got to go further than the perfunctory books, mugs and t-shirts. If a British noodle snack can become a musical (see Tuesday's post), then so can Rat, Pig, Goat Zebra and the Fraternity of Crocodiles.
Perfect metaphor for a guy who's always been a solo type of player in a team game...and often seems lost.
Back in 1973, the BBC banned the singles"The Cover of the Rolling Stone" by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and "Kodachrome" by Paul Simon because--get this--the songs mentioned commercial products in their lyrics (never mind their titles). Such was the purity between the country's separation of commercial church and state.
So it's with much hypocritical delight that I read about the Edinburgh Festival debut of "Pot Noodle: The Musical," a show based on the Unilever snack product, and funded by its London-based ad agency, Mother. The show, described as "very loosely based on
Hamlet, in which a team of singing, dancing factory workers pluck
noodles from trees," stars a character who also stars in the snack's TV ads.
My, how times have changed. When I used to run Just For Laughs, I would attend the Edinburgh Fest every August and would be viewed with disdain by the omnipresent ruling lefties who would openly sneer at me for the overtly commercial act of wearing a Nike t-shirt.
Ed Warren, a creative exec at Mother, told Advertising Age that: "The age of using adverts as a megaphone to yell at people and irritate them is coming to an end. If you are smart and have a message to get across, you have to do it in a way that's agreeable, sensitive and welcome."
While the debate whether a play about noodle soup is either sensitive or agreeable still rages, it further blurs the line between what's an ad and what's content these days. An article in last week's Entertainment Weekly entitled "Ad Nauseam" pondered "Has product placement gone too far, or is it just getting started?", but facing, as Joseph Jaffe would put it "Life After the 30 Second Spot," showbiz has little choice but to acquiesce to the power of Madison Avenue...or its British equiavalent (Saatchi Square perhaps?). This is particularly true since some of the "ads" (like Blendtec's "Will it Blend?" series and its ilk) are more entertaining than the so-called content they append, interrupt, or compete against.
"Product Placement" into shows will soon be a term of the past, as shows like "Pot Noodle: The Musical" (and others like the ill-fated ABC series based on the Geico Cavemen) will usher in a new term: "Content Moulding" around products.
As brilliant and off-beat as they are, another Pot Noodle ad is just that--another ad. By smashing the boundaries into smithereens, Mother and co. have "shocked the system" (to use the parlance of Surprise Central) and given people something to talk about.
I wonder if the BBC is playing the show's soundtrack? ;)
Yeah yeah, I know I should've gotten to this one sooner, but between Airborne, the Pow! Book and Just For Laughs, I've been berry berry busy (beware the blogger with three valid crutches; he will wield them at will!).
So, some sweet vindication comes to roost in Pow!ville as the big winner at Cannes Ad Competition this year was that Burger King hidden-camera campaign called "Whopper Freakout" where customers, well, freak out when told that the big burger had been discontinued.
According to an article called "Punk'd Ads Prove Popular" by T.L. Stanley in Brandweek, this is all part of a trend where "at least a half-dozen major advertisers have dusted off the old 'gotcha' idea and made it the centerpiece of their TV and Web campaigns."
In addition to Burger King, the piece lists Volkswagen's "Talking Beetle," Coke Zero's "Taste Infringement," Carl's Jr. and Hardee's "Fake Restaurant" as other brands shocking their customers for sales' sake. Another fave, more recent, is the "Real Blood Is For Suckers" ad for Tru-Blood energy drink, which leads the curious over to trubeverage.com which ends up being...ahh, why don't I just let you find out for yourselves if you don't already know?
The point here is that just listing a product's virtues, particularly one that's been around a while (the Burger King campaign marked the restaurant's 50th anniversary), seems to be losing its punch. These Punk'd-styled ads shock clients/victims, and are then used to shock a wider swath of potential clients, proving again the power of Surprise not only to grab attention, but to sell products and ideas.
There is indeed sustenance in this nuttiness!
