Copywriting can lead you down some strange rabbit holes. While hacking together some draft web copy this morning, I typed out “bring home the bacon” as a reference to earning income. I then paused to wonder about the phrase’s origin. Pomodoro be damned; a quick Google search brought me to
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Politics, Re-Spun: Mental Health and The Hypocrisy of #BellLetsTalk
Bell didn’t actually start any conversation about mental health, despite their PR. So now that Bell has enjoyed PR-pimping mental health as a self-aggrandizing excuse to give money to Canadian mental health programs, I didn’t actually expect to see #MentalHealth trending in Twitter like #BellLetsTalk did yesterday, and to a
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A True Gateway Drug
For those who believe in the virtues of unfettered capitalism, you might want to read up on how teens and pre-teens are now ingesting nicotine, many for the first time, thanks to the diabolical marketing of e-cigarettes to them. Available in flavours that include bubblegum, cherry and strawberry, the lure
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Stop Applying Marketing-Think To Government, It’s Disgusting.
CBC, with some analysis on Harper’s expected cabinet shuffle provides this quote from former Mulroney Chief of Staff David McLaughlin: “There’s a staleness about some of the ministry and some of the cabinet and how they’re communicating with Canadians; the look and feel of it. So there’s a chance to
Continue readingRob Maguire: The New Rockstar Philosophy:a marketing bible for DIY musicians
Every musician and their dog knows that the music industry ain’t what is used to be. Heck, it’s not even what it was ten years ago when I was still packing gear into rusted-out Econolines and pulling red-eye shifts along the Trans-Canada. So how do emerging artists get noticed these
Continue readingRob Maguire: The danger of contextual advertising
Clipped from CBC.ca last year, this unfortunate little gem illustrates how contextual advertising may not always showcase your brand in a flattering environment. As they say, buyer beware. (Click the image to enlarge.)
Continue readingRob Maguire: The $700 plate of noodles
When I moved to Vancouver last year, I found this tiny Thai restaurant in my neighbourhood. As a lunch special, they offered a tasty plate of pad thai for $7 from 11am–3pm. I was soon eating there once or twice a week, often bringing along my partner or a hungry
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Rebranding Thor in the Age of Facebook
The account rep jumped right into it: “we’re thrilled to have your account, but I’m afraid your numbers are down since our initial chat.” “You’re kiddin’ me.” “I’m afraid not, and I don’t wa…
Continue readingRob Maguire: Email marketing is not a membership perk
Your email newsletter can be one of your most powerful marketing tools. Why a few arts organizations still think newsletters are an exclusive benefit requiring paid access completely stumps me. I get newsletters from many major art galleries, including MOMA, AGO and the Tate. For each, I signed up painlessly
Continue readingdjkelly.ca: Discipline and ‘stuff’
Good ideas come and go. Some of us have difficulty with the ‘coming’ of ideas – we work hard at having good ones and thinking them through – however everyone has difficulty with the ‘going’ of ideas. Implementing has a way to make a quitter out of many. When the
Continue readingRob Maguire: An Olympic lesson on how to botch a mobile marketing campaign
I’m no fan of Coca-Cola. That said, their television ad running throughout the Olympics is quite clever. It features British DJ, producer and musician Mark Ronson, who sampled sounds produced by five Olympics athletes doing their thing. There’s the thud of a taekwondo competitor kicking her opponent, the thwack of
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Fine Example of Culture Jamming
The Yes Men are at it again and this time with Greenpeace to show how efficient Shell is….at killing all of us. They created a website called Arctic Ready that looks like Shell is looking for crowd sourced advertising content, and of course, people around the net have submitted some
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Understanding the Current Canadian Political Situation
So much is going on in the Canadian political landscape, I really didn’t know where to start. That said, this article tries to cover a lot of the problems that are emerging as a result of treating Canadian voters like commodities to be traded and bought (or suppressed) using modern
Continue readingZorg Report: Sleepin’ Forzanis
Sportchek – a business going sideways, fast. A close friend was talking about getting some new shoes lately, and that made me think back on Sportchek, a business that used to be private, but that is now part of a public, shareholder-driven conglomerate, Forzani Group. You may know Sportchek as
Continue readingRob Maguire: Shake things up with snail mail
Disclaimer: I’m not talking about direct mail campaigns here. I figure you can come up with much more interesting ways to waste money on your own. I was listening to the always interesting Spark radio program on CBC Radio yesterday, and they were discussing A Month of Letters, an open
Continue readingThings Are Good: Vancouver Reduces Sexual Assaults by 10% Using Male-Targeted Ads
It’s unfortunate that we still need ad campaigns to remind women to be safe from sexual assault, it’s even more unfortunate that we target these campaigns at women when men cause the vast majority of assaults. In Vancouver they launched a campaign targeted at men called ‘Don’t Be That Guy’.
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Epic Fail Snail Mail
If you wanted to promote something that was better than ever, especially high definition television, you certainly wouldn’t like to use a piece of snail mail that wound up in your humble e-scribbler’s snail mailbox looking like this: The ultimate HD experience does not mean heavy water damage and tattered
Continue readingZorg Report: Can’t Get a Decent Sandwich? Blame Subway’s Advertising Budget
Man am I getting sick of saturation Subway advertising. There is no nook or cranny they can’t squeeze themselves into. Canadian radio, American radio, TV, shows on my computer, you name it. One ad trumpets how healthy they are, the next shows you a new cholesterol bomb they’re pushing. That
Continue readingArt Threat: Why is CBC running sexist Volkswagen ads?
A sexist Volkswagen ad speaks to the dangers of North America’s corporate car culture. (Illustration by Coco Riot.) Over recent weeks, viewing news updates at CBC online has become increasingly frustrating, due to a high-rotation, pre-roll spot given to an intensely sexist Volkswagen Canada ad for the 2012 Passat, which
Continue readingZorg Report: Rogers, Nissan Lead in Christmas Crassness Sweepstakes
Oh, I like Christmas. I’m lucky to live in a place where there’s often snow at Christmas, and I like the lights, the crowds, and so on. Sure, the commercialism is soul-destroying, but for anyone with a long historical perspective, one knows that it was ever thus. I see no
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