Everyday lies

One marketing guy says to another marketing guy, “We spent a $bazillion last year marketing our brands, and we don’t have a clue if all that money did any good or not. I’ve developed this consumer survey to find out.”

Second marketing guy: “That looks like a very long survey. I hope you remember that we spent $750,000 last year to discover that consumers don’t like long surveys.”

First marketing guy: “I though of that. At first I considered just telling them it was a short survey and leaving it at that, but the research department tells me bare-faced lies don’t work as well as they used to. So, I settled on the lie by innuendo. Look at the survey screen shot below. Do you notice anything?”

Second marketing guy: “Brilliant! They will look at that graphic at the bottom and calculate the whole survey is only 5 questions. They won’t figure out that it is really 20 to 30 questions until it’s too late.”

What I think is they should have a comment form where I can free-form type in what I think, except they’d have to pay somebody to read what I think, and they wouldn’t like it much.

Made in my town, U. S. A.

I’m not a student of big business, except in the sense that a mouse can be said to study the habits of cats. I do know that with the relationship between manufacturer and customer, a pride and loyalty to geography plays a part. I learned this back in the 1970’s when a redneck in a pickup truck tried to run me off the road just because I was driving a MGB. Foreign made cars were evil, and by extension in the eyes of many, I was evil to own one and deserved to be punished.

Japanese auto manufactures solved this problem by building car factories in the United States. I personally know more people who have worked at the Kentucky Toyota plant than I do those at the local Ford plant. The concrete presence of a manufacturing facility trumps the abstract notion of foreign corporate ownership in my perception. Toyota is no longer distant and threatening, it is local and friendly.

The marketing significance of down home flavor may be a generational thing, but after 40 years I still know the words to the Oscar Mayer wiener song.

“Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
That is what I truly want to be
‘Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
Everyone would be in love with me.”

. . . and I think the Wienermobile is one of the coolest things ever imagined. Yet I always and will forever buy Fischer wieners because they operated a meat packing plant locally for many years.  The packing plant is gone, but my loyalty remains.  The same thing with the Colgate-Palmolive plant in the Louisville area that produced wholesome soap and toothpaste, rather than the foreign Proctor & Gamble up the river in Cincinnati that produced strange and alien products.

So, I’d like to take a ride in the Oscar Mayer wienermobile, but I’m not going to buy their hot dogs.

We be monkey with your stuff

Why monkey with your stuff?

We monkey with your stuff because that is what we do. Because it’s possible. Si se puede.

The setup:

• Seth Godin’s post 7 Tips for Amateur Type Designers today linked to . . .
• a new Squidoo lens Three type/page design books worth a look that contained . . .
• a Plexo that was a list titled “Add your own amateur tips” . . .
• which was also a portable widget that could be added to a blog . . .
• that was a perfect fit for my Bodacious business card blog . . .

Except it didn’t fit!

The Squidoo Plexo sidebar widget was pre-set to a width of 200 pixels, and my blog sidebar is 250 pixels wide. Unhappy me.

The monkey:

• So, we snoop the widget code . . .
• and snitch the javascript . . .
• and change the widget width . . .
• and host the modified javascript somewhere else . . .
• and voilà! Now we have a perfect fit! Happy me!

Oh no! Copyright police be busting down the door.

Goodbye.

Can also place Plexo in another Squidoo lens, like here.

A theory of sheepdogs

While I was at university, one of my neighbors owned an Old English Sheepdog. You know, the dog with the fur over its eyes. I had the opportunity to observe this dog at close range for about nine months. It was the only Old English Sheepdog I had gotten to know this way, before or since. I was surprised by what I discovered.

My image of sheepdogs was based upon watching Border Collies in action. Border Collies are exceptionally quick-witted and intelligent creatures, so I assumed that all sheepdogs were quick-witted and intelligent, but I was wrong. This Old English Sheepdog I had for a neighbor was one of the dumbest animals I’ve ever encountered.

This puzzled me. How could a slow-thinking and not too smart dog ever function herding sheep?

The thing is, I didn’t know anything about sheep either. It was only some years later I discovered that sheep were even dumber than Old English Sheepdogs.

Thus was born my sheepdog theory. Bosses and supervisors don’t have to be exceptionally smart to get the job, they just have to be a little bit smarter. You don’t necessarily need the world’s best expert, you need the one who knows enough more than you to do in order to solve the problem.

This marketing fad flops soon I hope

Yesterday we learned that Tide needs your help!

In this evening’s inbox, I am implored by Pepsico to lend a hand.

Do people get paid to come up with this stuff? I’ve got a whole bushel full of bad ideas you can have for half price.

Note: The survey link in this email compromises your personal data, including your email address. See comments 2 and 3.