Spies in the Backyard of America

I Don’t Regret This Post.

I stumbled across something pretty interesting on the Internet last night. And when I say stumbled, I mean that one of my best friends sent it to me to get my opinion. She has a pretty rock star taste in music and was wondering what I thought of Chris Blake’s music promotion. The video promotes one of his songs and there is a really intriguing concept behind the video content. He simply “Googled” for people’s “biggest regrets” and compiled them together to go with his song.

Here’s the video, which is definitely worth watching. My favorite line is about the Stars Wars Micro Machines. I miss those.

Pretty cool song and video. Although, I will admit that I had to listen to it without watching the video to really pay attention to the song. It immediately loses something without the video. I’m not so sure what exactly it is, but I wonder if Mr. Blake intended for that to happen. Regardless of his intention, I dig it.
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Tags: biggest regrets, Chris Blake, music promotion | No Comments »

Random spying in the ad world

I’d like to share some thoughts on two ad-related things I saw this weekend. I’ll start negative and then flip it to the positive to end on a good note.

Exhibit A:

I hate Long John Silver’s tagline. “Throw Boring Overboard.” I’m just not on board. Ha. Nice pun! And you know what? That’s all I’m going to say about it. I just don’t like it. I think it is the opposite of brilliant and I am extremely unimpressed with someone’s creative decision in this matter. Boo. Hiss.

Exhibit B:

I love this ad. It always pops up on AdAge. And every time I see it I get this little tingle in my belly. Snoop Dogg sent me a message! Nice. It just works for me. It makes me happy. And though I’ve never clicked on the ad (and probably never will) and I don’t even recall the company sponsoring the ad or the product they’re selling (which I guess means the ad has not done its job…) it makes me smile every time. Funny how that works out.

Tags: Ads, Bad tagline | 1 Comment »

STICKY SITUATION

Countdown: four days to go. As Election Day 2008 nears closer and closer, tensions are high and people are anticipating one of the biggest events in our history.

Throughout this entire process, I’ve been somewhat amazed by the huge impact this election has had on people, specifically those “younger voters,” such as myself. The amount of guerilla style involvement seen throughout pop culture, art and pretty much everywhere you turn has been unparalleled.

Which is exactly why this interactive poster for the Gum Election is so cool. Positioned throughout some of the larger cities in the U.S., passberbys have the chance to spit out their gum and slap it on the candidate who “sucks the most.”

It’s fun. It’s clever. And it’s just another example of the ways in which this election is already making history.

Tags: Election, The Gum Election | No Comments »

Internet Saved the Video Star

MTV and the Buggles made a pretty big statement with their very first music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Unfortunately, MTV would later decide that music videos were going to kill their station as well, and over time they have moved further away from videos and closer to traditional programming.

As a closet Laguna Beach fan, I can’t completely complain. But there still feels like there is something wrong in the world when the Music Television channel doesn’t even show music videos.

Enter the Internet. A few days ago, MTV launched a new site, MTV Music. And it’s about time.

Aside from being a giant “in your face, YouTube!” (as if the $1 billion lawsuit wasn’t enough), the site is probably the first thing MTV has done correctly in its attempt to save face on the world wide web. (You may recall they infamously passed up on the opportunity to buy MySpace several years ago.)

Now, with over 16,000 videos and counting, fans of music videos finally have a place to call home.

Tags: Buggles, MTV Music, YouTube | No Comments »

The Death of Rolling Stone

Kevin wrote a post two months ago…that I didn’t pay much attention to. It was about the downsizing of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Yesterday, I got home from work and was rummaging through my pile of mail (well really, call it a pile of junk…mostly catalogs and a few of the magazines I still subscribe to — TimeOut Chicago, Wine Spectator, New York Magazine, and People, of course) and there it was, this awful rendition of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Rock my world, why don’t you? I’ve either subscribed to or purchased Rolling Stone for 25+ years. Every two weeks, the tabloid-ish (well, it had already been downsized once) pub was there. Never one to conform, Rolling Stone always looked and felt different than other magazines. Not now. I actually mistook it for NY Magazine at first , which looks and feels just like this did — a glossy cover, perfect binding! I thought it was a spoof, with Obama on the cover. I actually had to look inside the magazine to understand the truth. Rolling Stone sold out. To advertisers. Hard to stomach, coming from them. After all, as Kevin notes, “For a magazine that built itself on controversial journalism, the shaping of pop culture, and a rock and roll mentality in everything it did, Rolling Stone appears to be falling into line with mass production and consumerism.”

What next?

Tags: Rolling Stone Magazine | 1 Comment »