ok, for real iPhone? this isn't high school.

it isn't even elementary school.

at least i can relate to the iPhone insanity.
way back when, when the earth was cooling and i was a wee 5th grader, cell phones were on the periphery of our existence. they were something nebulous, though we were conscious of them. more importantly, someone picked up on that.

there were these walkie-talkies in ridiculously fun colours. you could "dial" your friends. they were all the rage. ALL. THE. RAGE. that was what we subjected our parents to. miles of lines outside Toys R Us. only to find they were sold out. but we had to. had to have them! it would have been the end of my little 5th grader life.

i was so excited the day i finally got my teal walkie talkie set.
except then they were banned from school the very. next. day. [sigh]

lesson here kids? yes, Apple is badass. yes, the iPhone is better than the previous iPhone. yes, it's shiny. but it will still be there tomorrow [and at least they won't be banned from work! haha]. go ahead, be the Pinnacle Of Cool and All that is Shiny Status Symbol for 5 minutes in repayment for the hours spent on line.

but here's a secret: i won't think you're any less tech savvy because you got it on Monday. in fact, since AT&T is losing stock so quickly, you'll probably wind up with it on Monday anyway. just doing up the hype doesn't do it for me [but here are some fun things that might].

i think what a lot of this has to do with is people like things to get excited over. we don't have enough space for surprise, intrigue, and excitement in our day to day lives as we did when we were children. some joke about technology being "our new toys"--but i think it's true. for some folks, this was Black Friday. the day when all the Christmas lines are ridiculous and half the fun is the insanity. but just like Black Friday... i'm staying home.

Riot's day in brands. & analysis thereof.

[the brand montage a la dear jane][see larger logos]

rather than do a TYPICAL day in the life of Riot brands, i decided to do an EXACT day in the life. and analyze what all that means to me. i realized in the doing that it wasn't exactly what i thought it would be, nor was it exactly representative. this is MAY 23 08. thoughts below. anything marked with an asterisk didn't have a Google-able logo.

THE BREAKDOWN: AM WAKEUP
08:15: verizon • LG
08:18: DELL • Adobe Photoshop • IE
08:30: Crest • Oral-B • Dove • Gilette • Axe • Tom Ford
08:33: lolo* • rave* • Saucony • TWLOHA • Style&Co
08:40: FOX • Sephora • Neutrogena • CoverGirl • Benefit • Urban Decay • MAC
08:50: Nike • Nissan Maxima • Fueled by Ramen

THE ARRIVAL: AM WORK
09:00: Apple • N.Design Studio • Intellimerge • Firefox • Entourage • iChat
09:04: Cafe Du Monde • Stop&Shop Tea • Domino Sugar
09:11: Apple • Firefox • Google • WordPress • Blogger • Twitter
10:05: Firefox • Twitter • Amazon • TextEdit • Verizon • LG
11:35: iTunes • TextEdit • Firefox • Twitter

LUNCH TIME+: AFTERNOON DAZE
01:28: Verizon • LG • Altamira* • Dickies • MasterCard • HSBC
01:50: Gino's* • Gatorade • Chase • HSBC • Twitter
02:11: TextEdit • Quark • iChat

FREEDOM: POST-WORK WIND DOWN
05:00: Verizon • LG • Nissan Maxima
05:14: DELL • IE • MSN • Chatroom*
06:45: Tina's II*
08:32: Verizon • LG
08:45: DELL • IE • MSN • Chatroom*
10:06: Verizon • LG
10:12: DELL • IE • MSN

GET THE FLOCK OUT OF HERE
11:16: Hyundai • Tom Ford • Nike • Lily Flanagan's • Blue Moon
11:43: Hyundai • Delicious • Subculture • Sambuca • More Sambuca
12:20: Black Haus • Peach Schnapps* • Southern Comfort • Rose's Lime
02:47: Hyundai
03:10: DELL • IE
03:20: Ford Taurus • Taco Bell • Ford Taurus • Crest • Oral-B

BEDTIME! Somewhere around 4AMish.

now, here are the interesting things when i consider a literal day in brands. as in what i actually used and did not use. this gets a little personal, but i promise there are deductions.

1 -- THE UN-BRANDS and their sneaky, sneaky ways: that particular day, i had a very, very casual friday. i was supposed to head onto the LIRR directly from work to see my very ill best friend in New Hyde Park, so i was in jeans, a tank, and kicks. not necessarily my daily work attire. not to mention, i couldn't have told you what bra brand and undies i was wearing that day--or socks. even though i'm usually a Vikki's Secret girl, and wear Journeys socks, i know i wasn't doing that. not to mention, i have no idea what brand of toilet paper my agency uses, nor have i any idea their faucet's brand, etc. as much as we are branded, there are still small simple places. i don't look down and see "Cottonell" imprinted on my toilet paper.

2 -- DEVIATIONS & SACRIFICE, or, Change of Plans: the best laid plans of mice and men. what happens when your brands aren't there for you? so i had to do laundry. so i didn't have Vikki's undies or Journeys socks. i had some nameless undergarments and borrowed my mom's socks. my agency was out of Tazo Earl Grey and PNGTips tea (the HORROR) so i had to drink Stop&Shop (sacrilege). i couldn't make it to my HSBC bank, so i had to use Chase, which is a bastard for charging $3 to take out my own cash and $1.50 to transfer funds. i don't like DELL or IE, but that's my laptop right now while i'm saving for a Mac(Black)book. i wear my Reverie Duel hoodie every day--except that one, because i couldn't find it. so my choices were reflective of my day, not my normal brand usage, and the psychology of pressure.

3 -- THE LIES ABOUT daily brand use: just because i use you daily, doesn't mean i'm loyal to you, or ever really like you. ie: DELL, case in point. Dove, too, whom i hate but it was there in the house. also, i only own 1 Dickies item (my wallet) and while i see the logo every day, it does nothing for me. likewise with Nike (my bag is my only Nike purchase) and FOX (my makeup bag--that's all). some things are like breathing, and i don't have to think about them--like my N.Design desktop at work. i use it, but i don't change it or interact with it, though i like the art. unlike, say, my ugly DELL's desktop, which i made using Audrey Kitching photos. yes, Lily Flanagan's is a usual haunt for me--but usually only on thursdays; had i gone to New Hyde Park, i never would have been there. to boot, all 3 cars mean nothing to me--they belong to (in order) my mom, my other best friend, and my partner.

4 -- ON TO PROM QUEENS & star quarterbacks: then, on to what really matters. what brands am i loyal to that i do actually use every day? what appears here that is typical of me, that i do think of as my personal "prom queen" brands? my alcohols, of course. i'm very picky with that. so Blue Moon, Sambuca, swedish fish shots, and Soco Lime are all pretty representative. add in Magic Hat #9, Goldschlager, Patron, Jose Cuervo, Ketel, and Reyka, and that's the short list of things i'll drink without spitting on you. my get-ready gear--Axe deodorant, Tom Ford Black Orchid perfume, my makeup, my daily tea. my style: never leave without at least a To Write Love On Her Arms button; Delicious shoes are club footwear of choice (Pleaser, too). my work habits--i need Apple, Adobe, iTunes, iChat, Twitter, Blogger, Firefox, Amazon, TextEdit. the real prom queens aren't necessarily hip; just what i can't live without.

the value isn't in the daily use, but instead in what i'd miss sacrificing. i wouldn't miss my Oral-b toothbrush, and i wouldn't cry if i had to switch from Crest. if i had to trade my Post-Its for Staples brand, that's okay by me. but don't you take my personal prom queens. don't you take Tazo Earl Grey from me; you'll be getting a fight. and don't you DARE take away my cell phone. its batteries died early yesterday. i was without it for 20 minutes. i cried a little--inside.

clearly, i'm a brandwhore.

i have so many thoughts about this already and i've only been doing it for about and hour and a half. i've taken on dear jane's brand timeline challenge. and what an excellent day to do it. it's a dress down friday and i have a long, long day ahead of me. by this time, 9:44AM, i already have 40 brands (exactly) written down. i'm trying to be really meticulous and notice every brand i use. results will be posted tuesday. i may update this post today with any worthy thoughts surrounding my conscious brand experience.

i have advertising thoughts.

so, after having the luck to engage in an interesting conversation with Ian Schafer, a very smart man, yesterday via Twitter, i decided to delve deeper into the advertising thoughts i initially considered in "huge tracks of land."

i asked what he thought of socialvibe and its implications, after reading something written in Adweek (wish i knew what it was, the link is gone now). he felt skeptical because it gives incentives for a given behavior, but felt that the fact socialvibe benefited charities may even it out. i replied that i liked it because it enabled users to choose what their profiles support, giving street cred to the ads.

he argued this would be problematic if all users were allowed to select their own advertising, because some advertisers wouldn't be selected, and users would inevitably support 'prom king' brands. which, naturally, has a lot of merit. because it's true.

but, nevertheless, the concept i'm talking about would only apply to a user's specific profile--not the apps page, or the main page, or 'common areas' owned by more than one person (ie, events or groups). in that way, less popular folks could still get the word out on the same platform, while making advertising more relevant on personal spaces. agreeing in theory, examples he offered were like nascar or skate decks.

i then asked him if he thought incentive was a bad thing to offer users, since it is the users who bring value (data) to the networks. after all, if the users weren't valuable, advertisers wouldn't be up in arms trying to sort out how to reach them effectively, and there wouldn't be such a bid on Facebook's ownership. and guess what? kids are starting to realize this. i wish i had the Facebook link, but kids were responding saying they wanted money for their data being used. i was floored.

in comparison to giving up cash flow, what's wrong with perk compensation for choice advertisements? ian replied saying that, "playing devil's advocate, isn't using a service for free compensation enough for seeing ads?" initially, i say, yes, by far it's compensation enough, even on a place like Twitter, where i'm not giving out a lot of data value. but on Facebook or Myspace? it seems the perfect way to solve the ad-relevance problem.

+ let users choose the ads their profile page sponsors.
[on social media sites in which the users offer up a lot of personal information, like Facebook and Myspace]
- give them the option of using socialvibe in its place.
[so that if they should want, they can donate to charity through their ads. not all users will opt for this, though, since i doubt socialvibe could host the multitude of sponsors kids will want, and i doubt those multitude of sponsors all want to donate to charity.]
+ use the socialvibe method for incentives
[each day the ad is up, you get 1 Entry. on a given day, there are drawings for incentives that support the user's chosen sponsor. IE, a $20 gift certificate to PacSun for those whose ads are for PacSun. this promotes brand value at the same time as not too much monetary loss. this also fosters elitism and competition, which also adds brand value.]
+ in this way, social space advertising becomes relevant
[if the ad reflects my friend's interests, i'm going to be equally as interested in his or her brand choices as their music choices. we show our sponsors on our tee shirts, from brands to clothing companies to coca cola; showing our preferences on our profiles will only add to this level of sharing. in fact, limiting the amount of sponsors a profile can have will become necessary, likely only 1-3. this increases response rate to advertisements. it also makes users feel like a worthwhile part of the cycle, rather than having ads be something purely ignored.]

these are my current advertising thoughts with regards to social media networks.
i'm already a walking advertisement. i'm supporting my socialvibe charity as i type this in my TWLOHA shirt while wearing matching MAC eyemakeup. why not capitalize on these tendencies and harness them to make advertising more useful without being more intrusive?

huge... tracks of land. yeah.

can i get another "duh" and "i was right" in this corner? kthanx.

adrants picked up a piece on SocialVibe which--guess what? makes social networking ads more relevant by appealing to peoples' ACTUAL interests.

effin' novel, i tell you. bloody hell. finally. "huge tracks of land" aside, awesome way to advertise, and even better that it's linked to charities. that gets a huge KUDOS from Riot. in fact, i'm going to go implement it. so there.

next step? have user-chosen ads REPLACE non-chosen ad placement on user-interfaced social media sites like Facebook, Myspace.

proof that dove really does suck at life.

as if you needed more evidence, here's why Dove is still guilty of failure. now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Lovefool: 1: TWLOHA.

this is the first official post of project Lovefool, wherein i promised i would:
"post about how much i love your brand. why i love your brand. and how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love your brand."

target #1: To Write Love on Her Arms.

why you should care:
unless you're entirely apathetic, have never been depressed, have never known anyone who was depressed, was never a child, never had children, and hate teenagers, you should help this cause. from their FAQ:
Q.What is To Write Love on Her Arms?
A. TWLOHA is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for those struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Q: How did TWLOHA start?
A: To Write Love on Her Arms began in Orlando, FL in February 2006 as a (written) story, the true story of five days spent with a friend who was denied entry into a drug treatment center. The story was a look at those five days, and the t-shirts were printed and sold initially as a way to pay for our friend's treatment.

why i love them:
the phrase "to write love on her arms" directly responds to the tendency of many young girls(/people) to cut their arms with razors (for a multitude of reasons). having helped many of my friends through this in our teenage years, and, having had my younger (HS aged) brother recently ask me why his friends were cutting, i believe that this organization is doing a great thing. it's giving hope and voice to a situation previously beyond (what we felt was in) our control.

how much i'm willing to talk about how much i love them:
i bought 2 tee shirts and a button pack to help fund them ($35 +S&H) so i can wear the message and talk about it in real life. i tweeted about it earlier today, and now i'm writing a blog post about it, hoping to get others to also see the value in the endeavor. to help lift up the young folks that many of our firms target for the next it-toy. as self-value plummets in teenage years leading to a multitude of situations, some created by the very media we sell, the least you can do is buy a button pack ($5) and speak up when someone asks you what "to write love on her arms" means on your stylish ironic tee shirt. please spread the word.

how much i love them/aka/the backstory:
! i first saw the phrase on "to write love on her arms" a tee shirt of a random person photographed online via google. as a poet and lover of words, the phrase stuck with me. i simply liked it. i decided that i was going to, at a later point when i had funds, scour the internet for whatever that shirt was a purchase one.

! before i could acquire the funds to do that, i had been saving up for this past weekend, where i went to the 2 day music festival Bamboozle with my friend Amanda of @reverieapparel. i was pretty much a scene queen for 2 days. it was wicked awesome. anyway.

! while i was there, i saw a shitload of young scene kids wearing these shirts. i had no idea why. i'd never seen one in real life before. confused, i turned to Amanda, who knew of my previous love of the shirt, and said, "wtf?" basically.

! Amanda told me that she had 2 or 3 of the shirts herself and that it was actually a product of a non profit organization dedicated to helping people in need battle depression, addiction, and all the malevolent behaviors that go with it. that made me love it more.

by request! a rant on dove.

the post. the culprit: dove. the question: relevancy. the verdict: fail.

but you knew that already.
the question is truly, Why exactly does Dove fail at life?

it's not that it was a flawed campaign concept, as some believe.
i think that a campaign for real beauty, and expanding definitions of beauty, is admirable, useful, and, moreover, achievable through marketing if done well. MultiCultClassics recaps and quotes Adbusters, "In this case the message is right on—it’s time to end the propagation of unrealistic ideals. But the intention—to somehow bolster women’s self-esteem while selling them firming lotion—is the problem."

i am not sure this is entirely true.
all women--and i'd argue all humans--want to feel beautiful.
beautiful means confident, which in turn leads to desirability and acceptance, which leads to the ultimate goal of communication and connection.

widening the standards to include more people into that circle of beauty is important to raise confidence in a culture which places so much emphasis on appearance. rather than change the body to fit the mold, shift the mold. that much we can agree our culture is due for.

there are a number of ways people are doing this.
for a long time, i supported--though no, i didn't model for ;)--Suicide Girls for their political stance in their own alternative industry. i then stopped supporting them because of their legal practices, but that's beside the point right now.

if Dove wanted to expand definitions of beauty and sell body lotion, i think it's possible. if you want to tell me that my body type and my facial structure fits into a new definition of beauty--and you make me believe it--i may just support you enough to buy that lotion that consequently makes my skin silky smooth (i actually do purchase one Dove product, namely this). point being? sell me on the new beauty concept, if that's what the campaign is about, and you'll sell me on the product because you'll be something i believe in.

that means depict in your ads: large girls, multiethnic girls, tattooed and pierced girls, nerdfabulous girls, feminine girls, girls with hard bodies, girls with legs for days, girls with big hips, girls with broad shoulders, girls with 'masculine' faces, girls like flowers, girls like linebackers--oh wait, i mean, ALL KINDS OF GIRLS. hey, all of them may buy lotion. especially if they play rugby. ;)

do not show me, as you are, these girls who still look like models and who don't resemble anyone i've ever met before in my life. give me girls i want to take a second look at. give me online profiles for my favourite dove girls. let me get to know her style, her hardships, and her personal beauty.

bottom line is you can't campaign for real beauty unless you actually embrace it.
through embracing it, i do think there is product support and monetization.
but if your concept and campaign don't match up--as they currently don't--that's what's causing the distrust.

because ultimately, Dove is more concerned with pushing product than pushing the importance of pluralizing beauty--and that's the failure.

branding kids young

he's adorable.
i wonder if he'll grow up to use geico.

or is there just an association between cave men and small children?
pressing times, pressing questions. haha.

if you don't sell it to me, i want it more.

isn't that how it always goes? the hard to get.

this post by AdScam got me thinking, especially in light of how i want all brands to stop txting, or never txt, me.

"That's why ultimately the big social networks will fail, because they will lose their exclusivity."

i agree with that. even in my earlier posts i talked about how i dislike facebook and how myspace is losing me. forget about the other ones--i'm not on them.

so again: it's about understanding your target in the sms process.
the more you stalk me, the creepier you are, and the less i want to give you my money. the phrase "social media" has become to the ad biz what "diversity" is to colleges: hunted after, faked for, and very rarely actualized.
--and guess what? stalkers are sketchy on both 'campuses.'

so i gave this exclusivity some thought. because really, we all want to secretly be that indie kid (even if you hate indie) because he knows what's up before everyone else does. he's heard of that band you've never heard of. there's an elitism to that. being one of the first gmail subscribers had that feel--back when you had to be invited in. this is our club. do you have the password?

also, i think it's easy to understand that sms branding works best when it's not in-your-face. interaction is the key to (gasp) interactive medias. not just throwing up a title page and hoping for some stellar recall. because of these two thoughts--subtlety and exclusivity--i do think there's a way for savvy brands to harness social networking.

because after all, who wants to be second best?
why are brands placing ads on facebook? running campaigns in friend groups?

show me a relevant brand. then show me their relevant, well done social network. social networks become brands, anyway. why not the inverse? why not the secret?

hide it from us. we'll find it.

why i'm wicked awesome at advertising.

(or, in other words: why i went into it, at all, to begin with.)

1) i am notorious for trying new things--especially "new" things, things that i've tried it twice before and hated, but i don't quite remember the intensity with which i hated them... so i try again. curiosity's a bitch, eh?

2) a propensity toward new experiences along with an emotional memory like a sieve makes me a very suggestible entity. advertising is able to woo me. even when i don't want it to. i -hate- brownies (many times have i tested this). however, i have been sold brownies via commercial. it's sad. i know it.

3) so, as someone who often fits inside the target market of the new fancy it-toy, i am an advertiser's dream. give me something memorable, repeatable, funny, thought provoking, or visually delicious (ha!), and you're likely going to sell me on it, even if i actually really, really don't want it. at least i'm aware of this.

4) i don't want to buy something i don't like. i go out once to buy brownies, but i still hate them. but, it does get me, as an advertiser, to understand any position. i can think of how i might sell it to myself--and to figure out the next step: getting someone like me (suggestible but fickle) to go back that third and fourth time.

5) i am in love with words and art, and, consequently, their collision. i was supposed to go to art school; i won a lot of young artist awards and have been featured in museums. instead i went to college for english because i love language, even if it constantly shifts. then i found out i didn't like any of my internship options as an english major. so i went into advertising.

...now i'm an early-grad; english major, writing & integrated marketing communications minors with honors. i've been writing published poetry and short stories for ten years. i've been making websites by hand (i hate dreamweaver etc) and working in interactive on my own time since age thirteen.
apart from photoshop, my preferred artistic tools are horsehair brushes, watercolours, and black ink. in my free time i like to write poetry, hiphop dance, learn to tattoo, research current sociology, and cause general havoc and mayhem with my own particular flair. not that i have much free time. viva la revolucion?