Can you imagine superheroes for lgbt rights in Colorado? If you can't, you aren't imaginative enough, because the GLBT Community Center of Colorado has just launched a website and a youtube cartoon featuring these spandex-wearing characters:
My only question is, where's Scoobie-Doo? There is also a full website where you can sign on for updates and take advantage of viral email to let other people know.
Recently, a Canadian "dating" website started running an ad campaign that is less about the romance. After all, so many dating websites are really about hookups — this site simply dispenses with any of the romantic imagery and cuts to the chase. Clearly their competition is not e-harmony. Of course, given that Craig's List is free, I'm not sure what the market for this is. I will say the campaign is equal opportunity, without shying away from queer sex. And that in itself is worth comment, even if this is a site I wouldn't want to sign up for.
Then, there was the on site marketing in straight bars....
So much for the art of seduction.
Describing itself as a " not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites" this bizarre little site offers an odd selection based supposedly on requests from, uh, listeners. See, uh, hear for yourself.
Thanks to Digicynic.wordpress.com
Esther Schindler has written a great story about some wild keyboards over at CIO Magazine, starting with the de rigueur Steampunk keyboard, which inspires my consumerist lust. However, there are some other hot new items, including the Bluetooth virtual keyboard, which is not only wireless, but really, keyboardless, since the letters are projected onto a surface. Then there is the hyper-ergonomic kinesis keyboard. All, however, are qwerty keyboards except for the Optimus Maximus, which uses an LCD display that can be customized for each key, making it useful for any language or symbol set, or enabling you to position the keys exactly where you want them: qwerty, dvorak, abcd or your own invention. As long as I can use my typewriter keyboard software — which mimics the sound of using an old Remington and available free from alphaomega software — as I hit the keys, I am happy.
I am horrified, and not surprised at all, to discover that according to this site I am 133 years old. This very funny quiz is a snobbish look at what makes a career. So that by adding years in direct marketing or in pharma advertising you add on decades to your age. I remember an old colleague saying that pharma is where you go in your career to die. Of course, this was from someone in direct, who hated being looked down on by the snotty boys in brand advertising. Go ahead if you dare, learn you age in ad years.It's the self promotion brainchild of a writer/art director team. Of course. It could only be an inside job.
When I started years ago at Compton (swallowed up by a boutique firm they owned a share in called Saatchi) there was a story about an account guy who had worked on Cunard's Queen Elizabeth cruise ship advertising for 10 years. Then he was transferred to Alpo. When asked how he felt about the switch to dog food, he replied "It's all dog food."
A funny and sad story. But for this copywriter, it's all about play. If you can't approach a creative assignment as a puzzle that's fun to solve, you don't belong in the business. Or that particular piece of business. No matter the discipline or the channel.
No, the interrobang is not a new style of violent interrogation akin to waterboarding. It is a punctuation mark created by a real Mad Man, advertising executive Martin K. Speckter in 1962. A combination of the question mark and exclamation point, it is used at the end of a sentence to convey astonishment, disbelief or to ask a rhetorical question.
The word itself comes from a combination of the printer’s jargon for the question mark “the interrogation point” and the exclamation point — the “bang.” Unfortunately, the use of an interrobang at the end of the question in the headline is appropriate, since the fact that we are torturing prisoners is astonishing, unbelievable, and unfortunately true as Jane Mayer's appalling book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” proves beyond a doubt. Perhaps we will read a headline that ends with an interrobang someday that says "Bush Administration Officials Arrested For War Crimes!?"
Speckter's new punctuation mark never caught on, even though Specter used it in ads his agency created for accounts like The Wall Street Journal. Seems much more appropriate to use for a tabloid though.
It actually appeared on a typewriter (not however the Hermes model used by Douglas Adams that is currently up for auction) in the 60s. It was on a Remington that I’d like to add to my collection of Empires, Royals, Olivettis, Hammonds, Olivers, Smiths and Franklins. (Yes, I am afflicted with the collecting bug, and as a writer, typewriters speak to me.
And typographers include it with some fonts. It’s even available on many computers. On a Mac, four different versions can be found in the wingdings 2 font. Simply hit the ` ~ key, the ] } key, the 6 ^ key, or the - _ key and you'll be able to add this unusual punctuation to your documents.
I have to say, I don’t like the use of it in advertising. It’s kind of cheap, like the star burst, which is hated by creatives and loved by clients everywhere. In fact, a rather amusing ad was posted today to adsoftheworld by an agency in Columbia that addressed just this issue of the star burst. You can see it below — it adds to my collection of print ads that use a toilet as the location of the action.
However, I do think the interrobang works well in comic books, and one typographer has created a
variation of the interrobang for the Fritz font that I like very much, seen at right. And I do think the more traditional(!) interrobang works well in a
tabloid. Both are less formal venues. Which brings me to this venue: while the interrobang exists in some Unicode fonts, I can’t seem to be able to use it here except as a graphic. Too bad.
Then there is the symbol that appears almost entirely on the web: the copyright question mark. I have yet to determine its proper use though. Unlike copyleft, which offers up the usage of the material for non-profit use with proper attribution, I assume the copyright question mark is used when a web publisher uses material of uncertain copyright status, and wishes to make that known.
So what would a copyright interrobang mean?
Häagen Dazs has placed an entertaining if somewhat long video on YouTube to drive viewers to a site about the urgent problem of colony collapse and mass die-offs of bees.
The die off is just another sign that we are destroying our environment, and that the system that supports our own food chain is in serious danger. But that’s not why I bring up the campaign.
As an advertising creative, I get frustrated when an interesting and fun idea to publicize an important issue is ruined by poor user experience. Just another sign that the social network environment is being polluted by poorly thought through work.
At least the video is fun. But if you decide to go to the site, helpthehoneybee.com it’s first and foremost a site for Häagen Dazs, that requires yet another click to if you want to do something to help. So once you click again, you get another introductory screen, no product this time, but you still have to click again to “join the mission.” To top it off, loading time is for the animation is slow and the show isn't worth the wait. But I waited for two reasons — first because the cause interests me. And of course out of professional intereste.
So finally we get to a page with bees in a field and a hive menu that takes yet another minute to reveal itself. Finally there is a choice that says “How You Can Help.” First time I click on it, all I get is an instruction to explore the meadow. Tells me that different plants and flowers are important. Stop the presses on this news. So I try the “How You Can Help” menu again.
This time it takes me to some copy that offers me a lesson plan (I didn’t see where this was directed to teachers, but okay) and several other paths to take: Plant a Seed, Donate, Help The Beekeepers, and Tell A Friend.
Seems donating might be something to do to help. Click there and you learn Häagen Dazs is giving money to two
universities to study the problem. And you can too. Okay, so if you decide to donate to Penn State you’re sent to a Penn page that doesn’t refer to bees at all. You’re just giving money to the university. Not very satisfying. But you’ve taken a lot of time to learn that Häagen Dazs is giving money to solve this problem. They could have told me that at the end of the video. Well. What else? Okay, if you click back on the main menu to learn what else they are doing they repeat the donation claim, and then mention their new ice cream flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee.
Tell A Friend? Here is at least a fun viral component where you get to design your own cool looking bee and send it to friends so they can learn Häagen Dazs is giving money on a slow and clunky site. Not very original, but cute nonetheless. Why do I feel Ben & Jerry would have done a better job?
Good idea. Lame execution. And I don't feel that I've helped the bees in any way. I feel I've taken a long time for a PR message. Not so sweet guys.
