Tune In Saturdays: Fionn Regan

Fionn Regan, a solo artist from Dublin, is incredibly skilled at crafting quiet, finger-plucked melodies full of hope and confidence.  Most of the songs on the newly released End of History have a tendency to meander, and slowly get to the point.  But it's not really in a bad way, the journey is really the thing with his music.  It's not about the hooks, it's just about a guy and his guitar, for the most part.

Get started with the video for "Put a Penny in the Slot" below, then head over to the MySpace page and listen to one of the fuller songs on the record, "Blackwater Child."

Tune In Saturdays: Oranger

Oranger sounds like Spoon with some weird thrown in.  They're a California quintet, playing excitable, straight forward pop tunes that you would expect to hear on the beach. 

After touring with the likes of Pavement, Elliot Smith, Wilco, and Apples in Stereo, they've matured into rock powerhouse, with all the hooks and psychedelia you can muster. 

MySpace.
Eenie Meenie Records.
Home.

PS. Could this be the shortest Tune In Saturdays ever? Answer. Yes.  Forgive me, I feel like crap.

The Death of the Common Experience

Who would have thought Stephen Colbert would have me up thinking about shared experience? Last night's episode (link - click on "cable") was a knowing nod towards netizens everywhere, and left me thinking of cultural and marketing repercussions of our loss of commonality.

Colbert made the point that Jaffe made in Life After the 30 Second Spot; our television hits are not the pop-culture phenomena they once were.  In the 50's, 62% of the nation could be found snuggled in front of their television sets for Lucy; in the 80's, still 51% saw the Cosby Show; but today, only 25% sit to watch a top-rated show like CSI, and those numbers will continue to dwindle, probably faster than ever.

Obviously, advertising's reach and cultural place has diminished, as well.  It's not as easy to find a plop, plop, fizz, fizz these days. 

Our homes and our nationality are less and less defined by the experiences we share en masse, but resemble more of a loose affiliation of geographical boundaries.  Of course, the boundary has always been there, but we defined ourselves based on more than that.  Our cities', states', country's personalities blurred the lines, or at least, made them less necessary.

While this does open us up to an explosion of choice and a celebration of individuality, our fragmented media could point to a fractured nation.  Now that it's easier to find like-minded people all over the world, and build communities based on our interests, not necessarily by location, there is a much greater risk in the trap of the confirmation bias.  Instead of challenging ourselves, we, by human nature, seek to confirm our own ideas, and gravitate towards those that help us towards that end.

Unless we actively invite opposition, it could be likely that we further dig in our heels when we're wrong, and fail to develop our ideas when we're right.  It's incumbent upon ourselves to connect and learn, not just from our congratulators, but from the detractors and naysayers, because they may be the ones that push us to greater things that we may not have accomplished otherwise.  Our affiliations will then be measured by our willingness to share and debate, not the similarity of our thoughts. 

Luckily, we live in a country that celebrates these freedoms, even if they may be under attack right now.

photo from kitsh via flickr

Agency.com Pulls Out!

...leaves blogosphere mostly unsatisfied.

David Armano alerts us to Agency.com pulling out of the Subway pitch before they even really got started.

A representative of the Omnicom Group agency here said it withdrew from consideration when it reached the finals of a pitch for a conflicting account, which he declined to name. Subway's account selection process was taking longer than anticipated, and Agency.com decided to take itself out of the running, he said.

So, here's my advice for agency.com.  Pull the ballsiest of all ballsy moves and do the same damn thing again, but this time follow Karl's rules, don't act like dicks (leave the fist bumps for the frat boys), and make your blog a conversation, not a link receptacle.

If they do this, I will forever bow in submission.

Across the Sound turns 50. No date set for move to the Senior Center.

It's a party people.  Sunday morning, I scraped myself out of bed at the crack of 11 to celebrate the 50th birthday (that is to say 50 episodes, not 50 years)  of Joe Jaffe's Across the Sound.  The party was a Skypecast moderated by the birthday boy himself featuring some notable webrities from the communications blog universe.

Some of the attendees:
Shel Hotz, of For Immediate Release
Bryan Pearson, of New Comm Road
John Keehler, a fellow Dallasite of Chaos Scenario, Random Culture, and Lostcasts
Mitch Joel, of Six Pixels of Separation
Jill Pyle, of Less than 3, who I found out shortly after the show actually interviewed Jason Calacanis on her second podcast.  Not bad!
Terry Fallis, of Inside PR

Download here.
ITunes here.

You're Dead to Me, Pop-up

Pop-ups, Interstitials, and any ads that start screaming their message without my a-ok, earn a spot on BLACKLIST.COM.  These companies will never again gain a dollar from my pocket, and are dead and buried until these evil, selfish practices have been stopped, and an apology has been made.

This weeks additions:
American Express
apartmentguide.com
ITT Technical Institute
classmates.com

These are added to last week's list of:
Jack in the Box
Jamster.com
questionmarket.com

If you guys see any ads that generally piss you off, send them my way at paul.mcenany@gmail.com, and I'll give them the axe.

Advertising: The Industry of Consumer Advocacy

Somewhere along the way, advertising stopped just being about alerting or reminding consumers about our client's existence, or letting them know about some new product offering. It became about ruthlessly fighting and scratching for any dollar that's in the marketplace that has chance to be ours.  Competitiveness, responsibility to shareholders, and shear greed has since replaced our simple duty, and demanded ruthlessness in a world that didn't know any better.

But, now we do, and now the consumer does as well.  They know our client's flaws, sometimes better than the competitors do.  They know when the goal is only the sale, at the cost of good or decency.  So, our job now has to become advocation for our client's customers, to be protectors of the marketplace.  It's only us who can purge the selfishness so pervasive in the industry today.

How do we become advocates for the consumer?

1) Follow the Golden Rule, as in, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  We are an industry full of shame and abhorrence for what we do.  We are the tax collectors.  Why do we do the things that we, ourselves, hate?  If we fucking hate a mailbox full of spam, sales calls during dinner, or holding for an hour to talk to some inept dumbass of a "customer service" rep, why do we feel that it's somehow okay to treat someone else in such a manner?  Who gave us this free pass to be assholes?

2) Walk a mile in their shows.  Experience the product in every way possible.  Recognize and track these experiences, and how they make you feel.  Were you ever surprised?  Get mad, and see how they react.

3) Show some color, and make the color something other than gray.  Being a consumer advocate doesn't mean making product experiences that are palatable to everyone, but making those that are meaningful to someone.  Give consumers something to rally around.

4) Be trustworthy, and someone who not only lives up to, but exceeds consumer expectations.  And, no, you can't do that with just a magazine ad or a billboard.  Make consistent experiences that bleed off the page and radiate through every store, every employee, every interaction.

5) Involve the customers in the big decisions.  Let them be on your team, and help to guide you in directions that are meaningful to both of you.  Who could know better what the consumer wants most?  And there's no better way to keep the best customers happy than to just simply ask them what they need.

6) Go beyond the Google motto. Don't be just not evil, be good.

photo from mjutabor via flickr

http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf

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BLACKLIST.COM

Go ahead, asshole, steal my time and bug the shit out of me for the hope of a few click throughs. I don’t fucking think so.

No more.

Instead, you’ll get exactly what you deserved, and really, exactly what you asked for, my attention. And with this attention, I’ll simply work to avoid you, to loathe you, and to ensure that my dollars will never be wasted on you again. I’m tired of your money grubbing bullshit, and today, it stops.

BLACKLIST.COM is a listing of companies that don’t give a shit about our time, about what we want, and what’s best for us.  These companies use pop-ups, interstitials, expanding ads, and ads that shout at us without permission to hijack our attention and waste our time. The boycott starts today.

No longer will we waste our dollars on you. Our wallets are closed.

In the inaugural list of BLACKLIST.COM, there are only three companies.  These assholes stole my time, so I will no longer patronize them until they not only stop these tactics, but also apologize for them.

Jack in the Box – MySpace.com
Jamster – MySpace.com
questionmarket.com – Bolt.com

These are only the beginning.  Each Monday, I'll add to the list, and more and more companies will be dead to me.  If you hate these thieves as much as I do, e-mail your annoying intrusions to paul.mcenany@gmail.com, and these companies, too, will be added to the list.  I also encourage you to join the cause, and boycott these frauds for the selfish bastards they are.

photo from emperominge via flickr

Tune In Saturdays: Land of Talk

Oh, Canada...ok, I was going to start with the words from the Canadian anthem, but then it hit me, I don't know shit about the Canadian anthem.  Maybe Ben can help me out there...

Land of Talk, a trio from Le Montreal, sounds very familiar.  I can't put my finger on it, so I'll let them describe themselves:

Where Rock meets Rock. Fronted by the daughter of North America's first female alligator wrestler. Backed by Montreal's skinniest drummer and fattest bass player. Land of Talk are a very good band to listen to.

Is that good enough?  No?  Ok, they're brilliantly haunting, heavy on guitars, and this girls voice is just amazing.  These cuts are very raw, but are a good taste of what we can expect to hear. I'll emphasize the raw, because they are, but they have the tinge of greatness that could mean big things.

Head to their MySpace page, and start with Sea Foam.  Then send me ten dollars and your neverending gratitude.

Home.
MySpace.

The Saddest Fist Bump: How a Viral Video Just Became a Virus

Last night, very patheticly, I lay in my bed at 1:15 in the morning contemplating the pros and cons of this whole Agency.com debacle, now that the debate has softened, bloggers have sent out their thank you cards, and have slowly began to pack up and move on....

But there I was, still struggling with my own agency.com demons.  I could feel it coming.  It was the great souring of my opinion of the fist-bumping band of virulent marketers.  I have argued repeatedly that agency.com wins and have already won because of the buzz they gained, and the balls they showed. 

But last night, I made this realization:  Great viral marketing isn't nearly as much about creating the buzz as it is what you do with it.  100,000 views on YouTube doesn't mean shit if there's no point, or nowhere else for the viewer to go.

Agency.com started to get it right.  They were mocked for rolling big, so they joined in on the yucks by starting the whenwerollwerollbig blog.  It was a promising beginning that shamefully death spiraled into it's current role as merely a link aggregator.  They did the job any blog search engine could easily do.

They had the opportunity to bring us all in further.  We could have gotten to know them better, heard their words, and started a conversation with them.  They could have shown that they had real balls, which means to answer your critics.  Ultimately, when they could have taken the platform that they smartly created for themselves, they chose to wuss out, and not take it further, to where it counts.

So, what is Subway to think?  They have proven that they can make a video go viral, but they didn't prove that they understood the megaphone they gave themselves.  They sprinted in the beginning, and collapsed before the finish. 

So, there you go.  I now recant my previous statements in support of Team Fist Bump.  All they did is prove what they couldn't do.  But, at least I'm better for it.