Big Pharma Outsources all “Bad Stuff” to Sri Lanka

The Pharma Side, August 30, 2007 
In a surprise move today, the heads of the Top Twenty Big Pharma companies announced that all mistakes, scandals, negative side effects, approval delays, and “other bad staff” would all be outsourced to the tiny country of Sri Lanka. “Frankly, we’re sick of dealing with it all,” said Hank McSpinnell, [...]

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What’s Wrong with these Names?

Shopping for a projector? Take a look at these distinctive model names, straight out of the Alfred E. Neuman “What, me Worry?” guide to branding:

Sony VPL-FX40
Panasonic PT-DW10000U
NEC NP60
Sharp XR-30X
Toshiba TDP-FF1AU
Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080

Full article on the Small Business Branding blog here…
(Alfred E. Neuman copyright Mad Magazine)

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Potential Work, if You’re Interested

Came across this RFP (Request for Proposal) today. These folks are looking for a marketing/advertising agency. I don’t know the group, and what they want is not in my sweet spot, but it looks interesting, and maybe one of my readers will want to pursue it…

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A Pilot Customer Service Program

From today’s Wall Street Journal (may be subscription fee for on-line article):
Capt. Denny Flanagan is a rare bird in today’s frustration-filled air-travel world — a pilot who goes out of his way to make flying fun for passengers.
When pets travel in cargo compartments, the United Airlines veteran snaps pictures of them with his cellphone camera, [...]

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Re-Sizing Graphics – a very cool approach

If you’re involved in graphic design – even if you’re not – check out this very cool demonstration of a technique for dynamically re-sizing graphics. Fascinating. (hat tip – TechCrunch)

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Get Curious World Tour – Playing with Crayons!

Curious George has managed to worm his way into another household, this time making himself right at home with the Verdino’s. Greg Verdino of Crayon is the current stop on the Get Curious World Tour, in which a Curious George plush toy is visiting all 103 of the Age of Conversation authors. However, the Tour [...]

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Steve’s Sticky Stuff 8_24

Steve’s Sticky Stuff is a weekly collection of random interesting stuff I’ve found during my voyages hither and yon. Enjoy!
Is Steve Woodruff actually a Swedish policeman toting an AK-47 to work?
I wish I’d know about this sooner. Kids are now being diagnosed with Youthful Tendency Disorder.
Google Earth now expands to Google Sky. Very, very cool. [...]

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Get Curious World Tour – George Invades NYC!

The first cross-border handoff of Curious George, the Age of Conversation mascot, occurred successfully when Steve Roesler made a visit to Greg Verdino to move George from the relative quiet of NJ into the bright lights of The City. Here is a pic of the handoff.
Steve Roesler had a fun time with George, as this [...]

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Marketing a Flop

My wife recently got something that’s a brilliant marketing move. What does Jelly Belly do with all their “defective” jelly beans? Well, they sell them – just packaged into 2-lb. bags called Belly Flops!
They taste just like regular Jelly Belly beans, but the shapes are somewhat…creative. I have a jar of them 3 feet behind [...]

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Blogger Social – Welcome to the Neighborhood (sort of)

The stage was set. We were going to pull off the heist of the still-young century.
Las Vegas, they thought. Maybe Arizona. Some been-there-done-that-what-happens-there-stays-there destination – a shoo-in for the very first Marketing Blogger Social.
But the write-in campaign was all set. The survey software was hacked. Soon everyone would know that the vast majority of marketing [...]

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Curious George meets New Jersey

CB Whittemore, on her Flooring the Consumer blog, has put up an extensive post on the Curious George mascot handoff for the Age of Conversation Get Curious World Tour (CB also put up extra photos on the AoC wiki).
And she captures what this is all about – making connections.
George is now making his visit with [...]

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Ad Value or Adding Value?

Are you adding value to your target audience? Or just calculating the value of your ads?
Your comments welcome on a post just published over at the Small Business Branding blog.

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Get Curious World Tour – George is Floored!

Friday, Curious George, the mascot for the Age of Conversation project (and it really is more than a book now – it’s a project!), made his first stop on the Worldwide Author tour. This time, however, it was a face-to-face handoff – turns out that one of the authors, CB Whittemore (who blogs at Flooring [...]

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J&J and the American Red Cross – What’s a Symbol to do?

The recent legal spat between the American Red Cross (ARC) and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) (back story here, with more reportage and comment here, here, and here) brings to the surface a very important issue. While many have focused on the public relations aspect of this messy situation, and some see it as just another [...]

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Love Technology? Check this out…

I have a pretty good grasp of technology, in general. But this…I’m not sure I can parallel-process all the implications. In fact, I’m not even sure I can explain what this is. How would this be used for some emergent marketing approaches that have only been dreamed of thus far?
Watch and wonder.

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Paul Potts – now on CD-ROM!

You remember Paul Potts, the winner this spring of Britain’s Got Talent? His astounding performance of opera captured many hearts, certainly including my own.
His first CD is now out. We just got it in from Amazon. I am not, natively, an opera fan, but if you enjoyed Paul’s performances from BGT, you’ll like this disk [...]

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Web 3.0 – What is it?

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, attempts a brief thumbnail (90 second) overview, with some compelling concepts.

What do you think?

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Get Curious! – Announcing the AOC Worldwide Tour

A short while back, I contacted the 103 authors of the Age of Conversation book about the possibility of a worldwide tour, by a famous figure who has “volunteered” (well, I found him at Wal-Mart…) to be our mascot.
The goal is for this mascot to visit every one of the authors on their “home turf,” [...]

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Driving Away Customers

The title of this post pretty well sums up how I view the typical auto dealer experience. I think that entire sales/service model is on a downhill slide.
Not that every single experience I have had has been negative. I can think of a couple semi-positive ones, actually. And they were good strictly because the individual [...]

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Marketing R.I.P.? Consumer R.I.P.?

A post over at Brandflakes for Breakfast linked to a provocative article at This blog sits at the… site, with the slightly self-important title of Death of Marketing? The issue being addressed is whether the term Marketing is truly relevant and accurate anymore. Should it be replaced? The discussion in the comments is lively and [...]

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Next up on BrandingWire…(tune in Monday)

Yep, it’s the beginning of another month, and that means another posting on BrandingWire, coming Monday.
The BrandingWire posse will be commenting on an experience that most or all of us have had…usually, an unpleasant one.
Any guesses?

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A New Face on Facebook

OK, I finally decided to hop on Facebook, and noticed this morning that Luc (Mindblob) Debaisieux just did as well.
For all of you “veteran” Facebookers…what are the three most important things to do on this platform to make the experience worthwhile?

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The Golden Rule – Pick One!

Golden Rule #1 – treat others the way you’d wish to be treated
Golden Rule #2 – do what’s necessary to maximize my gold
Business ethics can seem complicated. Frankly, I think most of it boils to down to a pretty straightforward choice:
Do I do what’s right? Or do I do what is expedient to try to [...]

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BrandDad and BrandMom

All brands ultimately want to create an enduring relationship with you. They seek to create a lot of positive experiences so that you’ll always be attached, and return to the brand. The ultimate brand attachment can easily be called a form of love.
Which leads me to think about BrandDad and BrandMom.
What is the most enduring [...]

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