Month: October 2010

The Stewart and Colbert Team: Part I

Post author By sgtcanuck
Post date October 31, 2010
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This is the first part of a 3 part series analyzing the Stewart/Colbert mania that has gripped North America. The first two parts will briefly summarize the content, success, and marketing strategies of the two respective shows, and the third will look into the recent held rally the pair have held. You may have heard of it:

The above rallies are occurring in Washington, D.C as we speak, and are drawing in crowds in excess of 250,000 people. John Stewart first announced this, or more like announced that he had a pending announcement, almost a month and half ago, and Colbert quickly counter-announced John’s announcement with his own announcement of a far greater pending announcement (if you don’t watch the shows, you may not get this).

Now before I continue further, let me give you a quick introduction into these 2 shows. (Daily Show only for Part I)

The Daily Show

Hosted by John Stewart, the Daily Show has grown to be one of the most popular shows on Comedy Network. It’s a comedy news show that highlights real news and events from around the world (with a focus on political commentary in America) and adds some bizarre humor and perspective to it. In recent years, its really transformed into a loud critic of established news channels/shows (such as Glen Beck, CNN, FOX), and unlike the aforementioned programs, is praised for delivering an unbiased and impartial view of global events with no agenda. The newsworthy content that appears on the Daily Show is rated on par with news delivered through “real” news programs such as CNN and Fox. John Stewart has a pragmatic, realistic, and cut-the-BS approach to news and delivers it in a 25 minute show punctuated with silly jokes and dry wit. On top of this, John Stewart frequently interviews high-profile politicians, authors and even celebrities (most recently, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama). To the dismay of many (see video below), John Stewart seemingly holds the power to sway popular opinion with his show. He can make a mockery of respected shows and people (see Crossfire, Jim Kramer, or Rick Sanchez), and ruin their careers. The show has a cult like status, although in recent years its become much more mainstream.

Success

It’s true that John Stewart’s success is largely attributed to the merits of his analysis and content. If he never delivered quality news and humor, then he would just be that show that came on after “Puppets that make crank phone calls” on the Comedy Network. His pragmatism and unbiased view of important news from around the world (including news that does not make it onto mainstream news outlets) has been the tale of his success.

However, a key factor in this success has been the marketing of his show. John Stewart’s advertisements are humble, patriotic, and generally reflective of his show. The ads make it clear that its a comedy show commentating on the state of the world. John Stewart doesn’t claim to have an important opinion in his ads, or claim he has any opinion for that matter unlike some programs (Glenn Back?). Even Comedy Network’s advertisements of his show don’t mislead viewers into believing this is a legitimation news show. However, when viewers do watch his program, they are often shocked to find the quality and validity of the news content he provides. In this way, John Stewart undersells and overdelivers. The show itself is not constructed or designed for any particular person or political ideology; his show is neither republican nor democratic, even though both would point their fingers the other way. He slams whoever is “in the wrong,” and if this has been Liberals or Republicans 30 times in a row, he has no qualms with saying it (to be fair, Republicans have been on the receiving end of his stick more often than not ever since Dubya took control, correlation or causation?). In that sense, anyone can watch his show and laugh at the hypocritical and exaggerated political landscape that leads their country.

Another key factor for its success has been the distribution of the show. It comes on 12’o clock in the night, so its certain that not many people get to watch it before they sleep, so how does he draw in such a large crowd? Being the shrewd political commentator he is, John Stewart recognizes that most of his audience is in Generation X and Y, and as such, he should communicate to them in their desired format; the internet. Comedy Network streams the Daily Show for free over the web, and was actually one of the first to do so before all major networks put their most popular shows up on the web. This supplied his show to a far greater proportion of his target market, and the show took off from there. I remember seeing and reading about John Stewart’s program since Day 1 (aka June 2005) in a variety of blogs, news aggregators (Digg, Reddit), and the general web.

I’ll end this post on that, and continue next week with a similar analysis of the Colbert Report. I’ll leave you with what will probably be the most famous interview ever conducted by John Stewart (this link may be removed for violating YouTube’s terms of use, so just in case, head over to Comedy Network’s official video archives to view the full interview).

Marketing Rant

There goes decency (this is why I’ll always hate marketing)

Post author By sgtcanuck
Post date October 24, 2010
No Comments on There goes decency (this is why I’ll always hate marketing)

(Be prepared, this post is a little darker than usual. Must be my mood, exam week)

I don’t even have to explain myself with this ad.

A lot of people have seen these around, and I’d say that a good guess is that only half of those people would realize this is a poster for a movie. Look at it again, and try to find exactly where it says this is a movie poster. That’s right, down at the bottom in size 12 font.

It’s just shock-and-awe-blast-some-acid-in-your-face tactic with a blatantly condescending and derogatory poster that is masking itself pretty realistically as a self help phone line. I’m sure the thought process of whichever ingenious marketer came up with this was “ZOMG! It makes you look once, blink your eyes, and then again to see if its real!!! MARKETERS DREAM, HIGH FIVE!!”

I don’t consider myself a prude when it comes to sex or anything, but things like this just boil my blood. I just don’t like it when people think they are being secretly clever with such shocking nonsense to get peoples attention (note: Lady Gaga). Do they really think they came across something that no one else thought to do before? Again, the thought process is roughly around “ZOMG we can be like so shocking and so obnoxious and like soooooo mean but funny, and do somethin that like nobody ever does in their right mind but that like totally makes it different and ppl will totally think its hilarious and they’ll take notice and omg they’ll think we’re sooooo smart for not being stupid conformist.” Anyone with an IQ in double digits knows that they can be insensitive or shocking to get a point across, but the only difference is that we have things like ethics, morals, and a sense of decency in our daily lives.

This is also the reason I hate marketing and I’m a finance kind of guy. Specifically, the part of marketing called “advertising” where the boss man simply says “sell my product, I don’t care how.” This means using whatever means necessary to promote your product, taking advantage of whatever comes their way and not thinking about any implications of anything. It has no morals, no ethical values, and its laughable to think that advertising brings any value to the product that wasn’t already there (if any). Truth is, if your movie about 14 year olds having sex, cough -SEX DRIVE – has any value at all (note: see “felony“), it should be able to sell without the marketing division deciding they need to pursue it at a certain “angle.” Simply communicating your movie should be enough, and a little creativity couldn’t hurt. But nope, there is no limit or line in marketing. Take this for example (and you see this everywhere): A guy tries to sell you a car through the cars own merits, or a guy sell you the same car by having a half-naked girl (or guy I suppose) sitting on the hood; which salesman do you buy from? What value did the second salesman add to the product?

I digress. What I’m saying is that I hope advertising like that above dies out of this world, and I’ll be sure to never watch this movie, whatever it is called. If an advertiser has to skirt the boundaries of ethics to sell a product (and I don’t mean showing skin or demeaning women, I’m desensitized to that), then chances are I won’t be buying that product. I don’t find you clever, nor do I laugh at your funny take on your product; just go away.

Marketing

Ingenious Business Cards

I came across this article the other day about clever business cards. I thought I’d share it with you guys because the creativity and ingenuity behind these cards are pretty impressive.

Business cards don’t simply have to convey your contact details. If done right, they can be as useful as any marketing tool. I like to think of it like “self-marketing.” What I mean by that is exactly how it sounds, marketing yourself (not necessarily your company or line of work). It’s like a free pass to boast or toot your own horn. Even if you choose not to go that route, you can at least add some color and humor to it. Good self-marketing isn’t an easy task – you can either go overboard or undersell. Getting the right mix, and still coming across as clever is very rare. If done right, the business card practically becomes an added salesman.

Here are some of my favorites:

Debt Collector — Either way, you're paying

Divorce Lawyer — Add some humor to your messy divorce

Artist — Just don't keep it near your babies

Plastic Surgeon — Subtlety isn't this doctor's specialty

Theres more in the link, but I thought I’d highlight these ones. How would you design your business card if you have to?

Uncategorized

I like it on the floor…..?

Post author By sgtcanuck
Post date October 7, 2010
No Comments on I like it on the floor…..?

Anyone with facebook probably saw a bunch of girls put over-sexualized status updates like:

“I like it on the counter”

“I like it on the bed”

I like it in the closet”

Worried yet?

Relax grandpa and put your cane down, all the girls in this country haven’t lost their minds. This is a new promotional campaign for “Breast Cancer Awareness Month.” As always, it’s sassy, independant, and is actually just an open-ended innuendo. And how is that? Well, girls are actually implying “I like my handbag on the bed” or “I like my handbag in the closet.” So you’re the dirty one.

Pretty clever right? Anyways, it’s generating a lot of buzz from people freaking out about this, which only draws more attention to the campaign. People would probably get upset if this were a campaign to promote condoms or even a chocolate bar, but because its to raise awareness for breast cancer, they turn the other cheek. The reason most of the population hasn’t heard of this is because its not actually campaigned or promoted to the public. It just crept along, seemingly by word-of-mouth, and girls all collectively changed their status updates to this. I personally took notice when all the innocent and tame girls changed their status to “I like it on the washing machine.” I mean, true that wasn’t the first time I saw that update, but because the girls I first saw the update from were questionably… urm… “open”… I just figured they actually meant it.

It’s a very clever marketing ploy, almost like a bait and switch. They lur attention and anger in with the ambiguous sexual status, but once you realize what it actually is, you just go along with it because its for a good cause. Kind of like standing up and just yelling “SEEEEXXX” to get everyones attention, but for charity or some good cause(*ahem* PETA *cough*).

Marketing TV Commercials

Toyota Sienna tries to bring back the mini-van

Post author By sgtcanuck
Post date October 5, 2010
No Comments on Toyota Sienna tries to bring back the mini-van

Everyone knows mini-vans are lame, hell even Toyota knows mini-vans are lame. But they still have a daunting task to market and make profit off of producing one. So how do they go about this?

Meet these guys: the “Sienna” family, a suburban family of 4 who are not like conventional (advertising) couples. They understand that they are a mature couple and have a responsibility to their children (hence the mini-van), but they are also light-hearted, quirky, and young at heart.

This is Toyota’s latest campaign to curb the image mini-van’s have of being lame and old-fashioned. As shown above, we see that a pair of hip, modern, and funny parents chose to buy the Sienna. The style of this compaign parodies reality television as they keep chasing this couple and finding out what they think of the Sienna. Below, we see the same hip and modern couple rapping about how they cool they think the mini-van really is (ironically of course).

Sure they talk about their responsibilities and duties as parents, but at least they rap it to us with gangsta’ beats in the backgrounds so we can also see how ironic and hilarious they are (……. those guys aren’t hardcore!!!1!11!!!!11).

So exactly what is Toyota trying to accomplish? Many TV commercials go for the funny bone with ho-hum gags or punchlines. Toyota tried to up the funny with this latest campaign, and possibly aimed to start a viral sensation (didn’t happen).

But beyond just have an funny and ironic commercial, they are trying to tackle a fundamental insecurity of a lot of current and prospective mini-van drivers. They’re trying to convince people they can drive the Sienna and still be a “cool” and funny couple, just like these guys on TV. They keep the humor and quirks of the couple believable and replicable, so that people can not only identify where they fit in with the van, but how they can be more like the couple. They want families to be comfortable driving the van, and not feel that they need a sportscar or luxury sedan to be the hip and modern couple. If they can succeed with this and associate their Sienna as the “cool” mini-van, then they have succeeded in their goals and will likely experience increasing revenue.

But are people buying it? I don’t think so. My personal opinion is that this campaign is a failure. I find the commercials overly-ironic and the parents patronizing and cliché, all of which will merely turn people off of it. Furthermore, the dad has a really creepy hipster + Steve Job’s look about him that makes him even more of a cliché.

ps. the song is actually really good