FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

What were they thinking? Advertisers Gone Wild

Advertisers will tell you the point of advertising is to generate awareness, support a brand image, and motivate a target audience to take some action ( often to spend money on the product or service being advertised)

Over at WonderBranding, Michele Miller is wondering about Tampax's latest spot, dubbed the" Tampax Dance".It's an ad to get "pad" users to convert to the joys of tampons.

Click here to view

Since I'm not in the 'target market' I sought the advice of someone who is: my 17- year old daughter. As I showed her the spot, I watched her facial expression--it's best described as her WTF or  Elvis look...you know where you do the one-sided nostril scrunch.

Here are my research findings based on a sample size of one.  "I get it. If you wear  Tampax  you can be do whatever you want and you won't have leaks. Notice," said Berit, "That when she did the cartwheel they focused on  her butt."

"Would the ad make you want to use Tampax?" I asked.

"No," she said."I don't like them."

For me the problem with the spot is not the creative -- it's the entire message that if you wear a "pad' your period is not private and if you wear a tampon it is. Having worn both over a very long period of my life, let me say that ifyou want your period to be private ( no leaks) unless you are on the pill and enjoy mercifully light periods,  there are many a day when you will want to double dip-- pad plus tampon.

No mention of advertising today could go without mention of the very serious and troubling lawsuit that the

good folks at  WarrenKremer Paino Advertising have filed   against blogger Lance Dutson for copyright infringement, defamation, and trade libel/injurious falsehood.

Dutson is a Maine resident and blogger who was less than impressed with the work and dollars that Maine's Office of Tourism was spending with the New York ad agency. He found an embarrassing, and depending on your perspective, amusing "mistake" . It seems that on their 'rough drafts' of an ad for the state they used a dummy phone number . And, of course, the number they used  was for a sex phone service. Now, these dummy ads were on the state's web site for anyone to see.

For his part, Dutson is getting a lot of support from folks who see this as a First Amendment Issue.  While this case is fascinating, it also has long -term ramifications for business and bloggers. As they advised  at PR Speak,

Whatever side of the coin you're on when it comes to the effect blogs have on business, this much is true: they're a force and they're not going away.  If you don't believe me, just do a Google search on Warren Kremer Paino Advertising LLC. What pops up in the first result set?  Something positive?  Nope.  A couple more days of this and blog posts will be the only Google results for the firm. 

This is a tired theme in PR blogs, but..."note to business": you have to start working with blogs and bloggers (or at least paying attention to them), even if you don't "get" the technology or don't subscribe to the notion that blogs represent a tectonic shift in mass communications.  Spend the time to learn about blogging, or run the risk of suffering the kind of negative attention this particular advertising agency is working through today.        

Publicity specialists will tell you there is no such thing as bad publicity. The Chinese would say: Be careful for what you want...you may just get it.

Tags: blogs, advertising, tampax, branding, law, first amendment

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Tulip O'My Tulip

NOTE: The spellchecker is not working again..jeez.

It was the first post I saw when I clicked onto Blogher this morning --Liza Sabeter's provocative post Is this blog history in the making? I am 1 of 24 bloggers invited by Holland.com to visit Amsterdam

Here's the deal : the bloggers are being invited to a five day all expense-paid trip to Holland. No blogging about the trip will be required.

"In exchange for the trip each blogger will [a] be interviewed about the trip (the Dutch Tourism Board may be using this for online/offline promotions), [b] give Holland.com one month of premium adspace, and [c] put the "Bloggers in Amsterdam" logo in their nav bar for one year, linking it to this blog post to disclose the nature of the trip. The mantra here is transparency. "

Here is my response that posted on Blogher.

Is it transparency, unconscionable, or the changing of the guard?

This junket is both fascinating and a bit horrifying to me because it is forcing me to debate with myself the very core of my blogging ethics.

I think it is absolutely brilliant on the part of the tourism bureau of Holland and their marketing strategists. Money well spent.
Even before people are leaving there is attention on the program...Holland is getting exactly what it wants...media time. Bravo to them. From a marketing perspective , it is fabulous.

On a personal level I would love for someone to invite me to an all expense-paid vacation to Holland. My ego would love it that someone thought my blog was adworthy enough to be included. I would love just going and being on a junket and hanging out with a bunch of bloggers who may or may not be blogging in the spirit of "transparency' about the junket. In many ways, I would finally feel like I was getting paid for my work.

On first read,my inclination was to think I would have to decline the offer. This in no way an indictment against the bloggers invited and who accepted the junket.

It just highlights the spectrum of personal ethics and backgrounds that bloggers have.

For many ,the "transparency" of the entire vacation provides the ethical window to go, imbibe and take in the sites. Maybe you'll blog and maybe you won't. Actually you already have. And that is making some marketing person very happy. They probably have promised that the entire program would deliver X amount of coverage and this post is helping them achieve that goal.

Then there are they recovering journalists like myself --the ones who went to journalism school in an era where we were taught that it was "unethical" to accept anything in exchange for coverage. The goal was to try to be as objective as possible and the ethics said, when you are given a gift you are more likely to write favorable stuff.

But here's where my struggle erupts. Am I so steeped in old-fashioned values that I am not being realistic of the new business model?

Is accepting this junket really so different than a newspaper,TV or radio station that accepts advertising? As bloggers we are both the reporter and the advertising department-- that is if we are trying to make a living at blogging.

Traditional media outlets all exist thanks to advertisers(or grants from foundations which in my mind is advertising)so what's the problem in accepting a junket? A girl has to live and take a vacation once in awhile.

The old mantra was "don't mix advertising and 'the news'." Advertisers supposedly couldn't pressure the newsroom and say cover this story( that of course is debatable)

If, as a blogger, I would accept advertisers to my blog ( and they are very welcome) then what is my ethical problem with the junket? If an adveriser were really paying me, wouldn't I self-censor myself just as I self-censor myself about sharing stories about current business clients?

If I will accept compensation via advertising, isn't the junket just another form of compensation- a lovely one at that.

The journalist blogger in me is fascinated by this story just as I am fascinated by product placement advertising in movies and television, and advertisers trying to figure out how to out TiVo, TiVo.

So while I did not get a dance card on this one, I hope to 'cover' this story on several levels. I want to understand the ethics of it. I want to understand the personal censorship of it ( If you have a horrible hotel room, will you blog about that and face the possibility that when Saint Bart's offers a junket you may be excluded for bad blogging)and,

I want to understand---- if transparency is the new ethical standard, will truth or truthiness prevail?

Welcome to St.Paul

Some cities choose to welcome visitors with a sign saying Welcome to New Haven,we’re an All-American city.

St. Paul, Minnesota welcomes visitors who cross their city limits with a police officer standing in the middle of the street pointing a laser gun at motorists.

When asked, officials of the St. Paul police department say their greeting to the “other” city isn’t about increasing the city coffers but rather a deep abiding commitment to safety.

I’m not buying it. Completely.

If it looks like a money making scheme and it acts like a money making scheme then chances are it is a money making scheme. Just how much money St.Paul is earning from this meet, greet and tag policy is not known.

The city, according to the sources I chatted with, doesn’t’ have a database indicating which speed traps racked in the most amount of money.

Instead everything is lumped into one bit category. How convenient.

I just contributed $150 to city of St .Paul coffers. My speeding ticket was actually for $168 but by agreeing not to take it to court and risking a “guilty” verdict, I am avoiding having my insurance company notified of the violation .

As long as I don’t get another speeding ticket in 12 months it will never go on my record. If history is any indication, I won’t get another speeding ticket until 2044. Let’s just say if I’m lucky enough to make it to 2044 the only motorized vehicle I'll be commandeering will most likely be a motorized scooter.

I did hesitate in accepting the city’s generous offer to keep this unpleasantry off my driving record. In many ways, it felt like I was being bought off.By accepting their offer of not telling my insurance company there is now no public record of my complaint against the city’s policy of positioning a speed trap right at the city limit.

Here is how I was ticketed.

Usually to get to St.Paul I just take I-94. But on this particular morning I took the scenic route. For several years the Ford Ave bridge had been under repair. Now there's a beautiful four lane bridge spanning the mighty Mississippi and joining Minneapolis and St.Paul. As I was driving on the new bridge ,which just begs to be ridden at about 40 -45 miles an hour, I saw something in the distance.

I actually sped up a bit so I could see what it was. It was the police officer tagging my speed. He was standing in the middle of the street. The 30 mile an hour speed limit sign was parallel to his position.

Was I speeding? Absolutely.

Was I aware that I was speeding. No.

Was there a posted speed limit sign as I got on the bridge? No.

As I told Sr. Commander Gregory Pye of the St.Paul Police Department I wouldn't have had an issue getting ticketed if the police office had been a block past the speed limit sign.

Pye asked, " You really didn't know the speed limit was 30?"

"How would I know that? There isn't a speed limit posted when you enter the bridge."

Then Officer Pye shared this little factoid which anyone who has ever gotten a speeding ticket knows. If the speed limit isn't posted assume it's 30 MPH.

Senior Commander Pye said that traffic safety is one of the top priorities of the citizens of St.Paul. I applaud that.

And, if I had been barreling down a neighborhood street, I wouldn't have an issue. However, having the policeman in the middle of the street is #1 dangerous. #2 distracting.

If I wasn't so intrigued by what was in the middle of the road, I may have seen the speed limit sign at then end of the bridge and would have slowed down to be in compliance.

My challenge to Senior Commander Pye is this: If the goal is really to get people to pay attention to the speed limit rather than add money to the city's general fund, why not post a speed limit sign at the beginning of the bridge not at the end of it.?

If the city doesn't want to do that, then have the policeman tag people a block after they've had a chance to see the speed limit sign. Make it fair. Tagging people at the city limits before they have even seen a speed limit sign feels slimy.

Senior Commander Pye didn't make any promises but he did say it would take my suggestion under consideration.