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Sprint’s new “Yes-man” campaign is effective because it’s taking a negative phrase, redefining it, taking ownership of it and getting you to pay attention. Verizon pulled a similar power play through its “Can you hear me now” campaign, embracing a phrase muttered by everyone who has had a bad cell phone connection.
Both companies understand that consumers are not literalists and appreciate a spin on the obvious. Any time a tagline, a name, an ad or a story contains both positive and negative qualities, they become more powerful.
McDonald's current campaign slogan sings, "i'm lovin' it." But that doesn't reflect the feelings of the customers, today. These days, people feel overwhelmed, beat-up, sick and tired. They've had about enough. They deserve a break.
Looking back at McDonald's
advertising slogans of the past 50 years, they seem to reflect the feelings of the people at the time.
1960 — All American Menu - A Hamburger, Fries and a Shake
1961 — Look for the Golden Arches
1962 — Go For the Goodness at McDonald's
1965 — McDonald's - Where Quality Starts Fresh Everyday
1966 — McDonald's ... The Closest Thing to Home
1967 — McDonald's is Your Kind of Place
1971 — You Deserve a Break Today
1974 — McDonald’s Sure is Good to Have Around
1975 — We Do It All for You
1976 — You, You’re the One
1979 — Nobody Can Do It Like McDonald’s Can
1980 — Nobody Makes Your Day Like McDonald’s Can
1981 — You Deserve a Break Today (reintroduction)
1983 — McDonald’s and You
1984 — It’s a Good Time for the Great Taste of McDonald’s
1988 — Good Time. Great Taste
1991 — Food, Folks and Fun
1992 — What You Want is What You Get
1995 — Have You Had Your Break Today?
1997 — My McDonald’s / Did Somebody Say McDonald’s?
2000 — We Love To See You Smile
2003 — i’m lovin’ it
In this
50th year of McDonald's Corporation, is it time for celebration, or time to reflect and get in touch with the feelings of their customers again?
Pajamas Media is getting dressed and going to work. After years of blogging in bed, the founders have picked the lint out of their navels and taken a good look in the mirror. They didn't even recognize themselves.
Why We'll Be Changing Our Name
When the bloggers who started this company first came together it was almost natural we would call ourselves Pajamas Media. It was a playful tip of the hat to that moment when bloggers exposed the misreporting of CBS anchor Dan Rather. At that time, an ex-executive for CBS tried to dismiss us as riffraff in "pajamas." But the bloggers were right, CBS was wrong, Rather retired (without apologizing) and the rest is history.
But as we have gone forward putting together this company, it has become clear to us that we do not wish to be defined merely as gadflies in opposition to mainstream media. We owe our readers and our colleagues something bigger, an alternative to the structures we have lived with all our lives. It's not enough to criticize. We also have to build something new. To do that, we needed a name that would allow us to grow. And that name we are in the process of deciding.
Let us assure you that whatever it may be, we do not intend to lose our sense of fun or to forget our raffish roots. We only want to be more and hope you will join us in that quest.
Their BIG LAUNCH is on November 16 at a major conference center and hotel in New York City (both to be revealed shortly) at which their production operation will go live under its new name and logo. The launch will include panel discussions on the future of the media, with well-known bloggers and mainstream media folks (to be blogged live), a luncheon and press conference and, of course, a party! Heh. Indeed.
Ask Jeeves has decided to axe Jeeves, and he had to hear it from
the Beeb.
Citing "user confusion" over what the butler character represents the search site has said that Jeeves will soon be phased out.
There is no firm date for when the character will disappear from the Ask site, but it will soon stop being the brand's most prominent icon.
No decision has been made about a new name for the Ask search site.
Ask is a very common word, making it nearly impossible for a company or product to attach a distinct brand identity to the
word and make it a recognizable
name. If you want some idea how they are going to attempt to deal with this problem,
just ask.
Hasbro just launched their new Igor-named online play zone for kids, Monkeybar.
Check it out for games, activities and Zen koans!
Beyond cigarettes, Altria would also like to sell you individually plastic wrapped processed cheese food products and take you for a walk in the woods. Or something like that. The San Francisco Chronicle tries to figure it out.
We're not talking about
Salma Hayek. That's so last year's celebrity news.
Kate Moss is allegedly the new face of coke. Okay, that's probably a wee bit unkind, but somebody had to use the headline in connection with this tabloid story. It's reported that Kate Moss has been dumped by
H&M,
Chanel, and
Burberry since the
Daily Mirror photo exposé of "Cocaine Kate", as the tabloid named her, and Babyshambles frontman, Pete Doherty, allegedly taking drugs. It's just
not something supermodels do, you know.
Really? Do tell,
not Kate Moss! Now, everyone must know, for sure. According to
press reports, even the British police want to
probe her:
Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of Metropolitan Police, told reporters that he had been involved in the decision to investigate Moss.
He said he didn't wish to comment directly on the case, but said: "We have to look at the impact of this kind of behavior on impressionable young people and if there is evidence something should be done about it.
"I can remember being asked a question about a previous individual who was given a caution. I think that was a wrong decision."
London's police generally investigate drug dealers rather than users, but that policy is "adaptable to the impact of events," Blair said.
This is the same Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair who's in charge of investigating the London tube bombings by Al Qaeda terrorists, when he's not involved in looking into Kate Moss's coke habit.
Anyway, any decision about charges, London's police chief said, should take account of the impact of the case on impressionable young people. Perhaps, while they're at it, they might take into consideration the impact of the fashion industry on impressionable teenage supermodels.
Kate Moss model of imperfection, an unauthorized look at fashion's unlikeliest supermodel, seems a fitting title for her biography.
SaveMyAss is a personal assistant that keeps your girlfriend or wife happy by sending her flowers on your behalf, on a regular but semi-random basis.
Before you entrust us with enhancing the quality of your relationship, you'll probably want to know a little about the people behind Save My Ass!
One of the promoters of SaveMyAss.com is
James Hong, better known as one half of the
Hot or Not founding partners,
Jim and James. I don't know if you think these guys are hot or not, but you probably never heard of them.
But most people
would recognize the name of
Rachel McAdams, whose
famous name is being used by these no-names to promote their new business. Yeah, she's definitely hot. It probably won't be long before these guys are looking for a good intellectual property lawyer to save their asses.
Still, it might be a service worth using,
if you're a dork for life. Remember stalkers, it takes more than flowers to win the heart of Rachel McAdams, who shared this intimate secret:
The most romantic thing, a lovely boy bought me a dress once. He got my measurements, actually they were from "The Notebook" and I had them sitting somewhere, and he found them and bought me this dress, tailor-made, this beautiful little black cocktail dress. And I thought that was very, very classy.
The Smoking Gun has
the smoking gun.
With dead bodies still floating in the streets of New Orleans, a pair of Louisiana lawyers are seeking to cash in on the killer hurricane by slapping the name Katrina on alcoholic beverages. In a new filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Andrew Vicknair and Harold Ehrenberg provided federal officials with a logo--reproduced above--bearing the word Katrina, the phrase "Get Blown Away," and a small satellite image of the deadly storm.
The trademark application was filed on September 4, just six days after the hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1000 residents and leaving thousands homeless. The filing by Vicknair, 31, and the 47-year-old Ehrenberg--both of whom are graduates of New Orleans-based Loyola University's law school--does not detail what kind of booze products will bear the Katrina name. But it's a safe bet that these wannabe profiteers are plotting some variation on The Hurricane, the Bourbon Street staple.
The Smoking Gun website is owned by Courtroom Television Network LLC, of
Court TV fame, so hopefully they've done some background research on these lawyers, who might just be representing the sleaziest clients in
The Big Easy. If there's any justice, their trademark application will get blown away.
The Cerne Abbas Giant, or "
Rude Man" as he's sometimes called, is the largest hillfigure in Britain; carved in solid lines from the chalk bedrock, measuring 180 feet high, with a huge knobbled club 120 feet in length.
According to one tradition, recorded from a farm labourer in the Gentleman's Magazine, the figure is the representation of a Danish giant who had led an invasion of England from the coast. He had fallen asleep on the side of the hill, and the local villagers had taken advantage of his slumber and cut off his head. They had then drawn around his prone body in the manner of a gigantic police chalk line, to show where he met his doom. However, the chalk figure sometimes rose from the dead on dark nights, to quench his thirst in the local stream, a habit also common to certain standing stones.
The giant's obvious sexuality and virility was put to use in fertility folk magic. Local women who wanted to conceive would spend a night alone on the hillside - most productively within the confines of his giant phallus, and young couples would make love on the giant to ensure conception.
Not to be outdone, the Italians have erected a
giant pink bunny on the side of the 5,000 foot high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy's Piedmont region. It's hard to know if this thing is real, or not. The story first appeared on the Internet news site
Ananova, which regularly reports
quirkies, but it has also been reported by
Sploid, Gawker Media's unusually reliable online tabloid. Nobody knows how
the rabbit died, but it might be some kind of marketing stunt for a new fertility test.
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