Bad Example: How to Draw Attention to Your Product

Found this one from Harvey:

Bad Example: How to Draw Attention to Your Product

The story behind Band-Aids. Who knew that a clumsy wife could lead to such fame and fortune.

Apple's rotten logic. Or is it?

Word is that Apple has pulled advertising from Fox News.

That's either the stupidest thing they've ever done ... or the smartest thing they've ever done.

The whole issue is Glenn Beck. Howard Kurtz, writing for the Washington Post, says Apple is one of many to pull their advertising:

More than 200 companies have joined a boycott of Beck's program, making it difficult for Fox to sell ads. The time has instead been sold to smaller firms offering such products as Kaopectate, Carbonite, 1-800-PetMeds and Goldline International. A handful of advertisers, such as Apple, have abandoned Fox altogether. Network executives say they believe they could charge higher rates if the host were more widely acceptable to advertisers.

An intelligent person would say that if Glenn Beck is the problem, don't advertise on Glenn Beck. Pulling all ads from Fox News, when they have such higher ratings than all the other news outlets, seems silly.

Unless it's smart.

You see, Apple has delayed shipping the iPad.

Perhaps Apple is growing too fast. They've had a niche market for so long, success may spoil them. So, pulling ads from the highest rated news channel -- and the number two overall cable network, behind USA -- may be a way of keeping themselves from straining themselves, while, at the same time, making the loony left happy.

Maybe the Apple Geniuses aren't all at the stores. Maybe some are in the marketing department.

Targeting ads to targets

Yesterday, Maggie's Notebook wrote about a comment made by Florida governor Charlie Crist. It's wasn't flattering:

Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio were on FOX News Sunday today with Chris Wallace. Wallace asked Crist who his favorite senators were. Crist answered "John McCain and Lindsay Graham." Deadman Walking. Death knell tolling.

Like this little blog, Maggie has ads from Google on her blog.

Google will target ads based on content. Only, it's not perfect. As you can see here in this ad that appeared above her post:



It happens.

There are two schools of thought:

1. It's good, since it's a way for Maggie to make money off of people who feel differently about topics than she does, essentially allowing the opposition to fund you. Capitalists feel this way.
2. It's a waste of space since it prevents a potentially more audience-centric ad from displaying. Capitalists feel this way, too.

I'm certainly not being critical of, or even poking fun at, Maggie. This is simply the instance that happened while I felt like blogging about it.

And, it'll happen here. I have configured the ads here to refrain from showing certain ads (I fall into camp 2, above). But there's no way to catch them all. Which is fine (I also fall into camp 1, above).

It's good to be capitalist.

Super? I wasn't bowled over.

Super Bowl good news: the game was close and the outcome in doubt until late.

Super Bowl bad news: now we have to put up with a bunch of Saints fans that, until this year, weren't Saints fans.

After seeing the Tebow ad, my first thought was "Don't those who were complaining about the ad without seeing it feel silly now?" Turns out that they are now saying it promotes violence against women.


[YouTube direct link]

Video: Focus on the Family: Tebow

You can see the full spot, plus a second spot that didn't air, here.

The best commercial? I thought the Snickers spot was really funny:

[YouTube direct link]

The rest of the spots? So-so. Except one. The Late Show with David Letterman commercial that had Jay Leno was funny:

[YouTube direct link]

Yes, I did TiVo the game. And, used the fast-forward a lot. To get to the commercials. Overall, it was a waste of time.

What a weiner

For some reason, I thought this was funny.




"Gotcha" - video powered by Metacafe

Heh.

I'll buy that for a dollar!

Went shopping at Dollar Tree the other day.

If you're not familiar with Dollar Tree, it's a store where everything's a dollar. They're headquartered in Virginia, although their first store opened in Georgia.

Anyway, lot of cheap stuff ... and I don't just mean in price. Lots of stuff about like what you might expect for a dollar.

Still, you can find some good deals on some stuff.

So, we'll look for a deal there.

And, the other day, we were there.

Now, hold that thought.

Let's move over to, say, Winn Dixie, K-Mart, or some other store. When you go in, you pick up a sale flyer. At least, I do. To see what's on sale, you understand.

Okay, back to Dollar Tree.

We were there the other day, and there, inside the door, were posted some flyers.

Think about that.

Stuff that's normally a dollar, was on sale for ... a dollar.

Yes, just look at the flyer. Everything listed is a dollar. Items that normally are ... a dollar.

Yeah, I pondered that one for a minute, too.

I'm not sure what I think about it.

I think it might just be best if I don't think about it. After all, I'm not sure they thought about it, either.

Run for the border ... before I catch them

The Wife and I went to Taco Bell today. Haven't been there in a while. There's one close to where we often get gas. For the car. That wasn't a food joke. I was filling up the car, and she decided to go on inside and order lunch. When I was finished ... another $45 dollars spent keeping the House of Saud in power ... I pulled around and went inside. The Wife was still in line, but was at the front of the line by then. And still undecided on what to order. Looking at all the fancy pictures of menu items ... the specials ... we decided to try the "Cheese Gordita Crunch". It looked good. The picture, I mean. Look at it. Packed with meat. Topped with lettuce. Cheese running out the side. It looked delicious. So, we ordered that. What we got was a tablespoon of beef, some soggy lettuce, and a little bit of cheese hidden deep in the bowels of the flatbread. Sure, I know, the food you order never looks exactly like the pictures of the food on the posters. But, seriously! I figured it'd at least be close. Yeah, it tasted okay. Taco Bell always tastes okay. I wouldn't eat there every day, but I'll admit I like the food. It tasted fine. Just the difference between the poster and the real food that left a bad taste in my mouth.