good use of ad placement.

YES. YES YES YES.

very rarely do i find an ad placement that absolutely works.
but this absolutely works.

relevant? CHECK. Myspace users are totally the type who may be interested in seeing Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist when it comes out. actually, i intend to.

placement? CHECK. Myspace, having just launched Myspace Music which enables you to put not just 1 profile song but a whole playlist, showcases N&N's Playlist ad above YOUR playlist on your homepage.

was there an ad above your single song player before? no.
do you HAVE to upgrade to a multi-player? NO!

the ad comes with the upgrade, and if the ad continues to be this relevant, if the ads continue at all, then i have absolutely zero problem with them. nice tie-in. kudos. i'm a fan.

Rush epic fails at playing... Rush.

courtesy of @ischafer, this pretty much sums it up, but i had to share:



you can watch Rush fail at playing their own song, Tom Sawyer, on Expert in Rock Band here, courtesy of Laughing Squid.

[note: i'm not surprised. all my musically inclined friends tell me that all Rock Band/Guitar Hero do is teach you to miss, and thus fail. doesn't stop me from playing anyway! still, this gesture is really awesome, and fun to geek out to. kudos to Rush.]

talk about not much to work with.

you do the best with what you've got.

it's a phrase you hear a lot, but is hard to really wrap your head around--really get at the heart of what that means. yesterday, when i was roaming various towns on Long Island, i found a place that was inspiring: Down the Rabbit Hole Wine Boutique. they were doing exactly that.

when i first walked past the storefront, that was what happened: i walked past it. but something made me pause. it could be the "Human Tasting" sign in the front with an arrow inside, or it could have been the word "wine." i'll leave the discerning to you. i walked in; the place was not 5 feet wide. it narrowed the farther in you went. it was, literally, a hole in the wall.

as prime property--main street in Sayville--it was too good to pass up, especially right next to the renowned Sayville Chocolatier (which was why i was there in the first place). but how to make it work? the proprietors ran with what they had, literally. keeping the concept of a hole in the wall that narrows as you go, the wine shoppe took on an Alice in Wonderland theme.

"Drink Me" pointed to the daily wine tasting on the counter. the right hand wall shelved all the wines, including Guilty and Innocent (the only place on the island to sell those, by the way!), grouped by prevailing flavour: Fruity [white rabbit], Flowery [madhatter], Earthy [caterpillar], Spicy [queen of hearts], and Sparkling [cheshire cat] with paintings above each section of the respective character.

there's more fun to be had there, so if you're ever in Sayville, check it out. in the meanwhile, take a lesson: sometimes working with what little you've got could be the best thing to set you apart.

a triumph: advertising and facebook

check this out, courtesy of readwriteweb. seems facebook has quietly enabled users to vote up or down on advertisements they see, according to relevancy, redundancy, and felicity.

sure, it's not quite what i'd like to see, but it's a helluvalot better than nothing at all. kudos, and thank you, facebook.

HELP!

talk about wicked awesome packaging. check that shite out.
and while you're at it, engage in the most fun i've had all day: you can make help! shirts.

vote... i don't know which to get for myself:

OPTION A:
help
i do not have
an indoor voice

OPTION B:
help
i am a scene queen
trapped in a suit

OPTION C:
help
i want to have
a conversation

....or! tell me what you think i should be wearing. lord knows i need a lot of help.

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.

and now for something completely different.

okay, that's somewhat of a lie. it's still advertising. it's just different insofar as: i like it. these are two spots i enjoy. more friday viewing. cheers!

[yanked from agencyspy, where i can't comment because i hate registering to do so]

of course it's only airing in europe because our president may pee himself if he ever laid eyes on it. why do i like it? not just because i'm young and 'radical' (though probably that too); i like it because it offers Karis as Karis-the-person, not a story about Karis-as-tranny. it's Karis' voice (we are led to assume) and even if Karis didn't get to write his (pronoun choice based on script identifying himself as a "boy"--if in error, apologies) own material, the first-person voice makes the message more heartfelt, even if the intent was shock value. it even discusses gender issues out loud (like when Karis talks about taking his top off at the end of his routine) and doesn't just stick to a "total queen" talking about how great shaving his legs is and how smooth he feels. in fact, the product isn't even mentioned until the end. thank you, DDB and Tribal London. kudos.

--

another spot i liked... i was watching ESPN Classic last night (don't ask... flipping through, American Gladiator was on, and they were beating one another with those silly oversized cotton swabs. i couldn't help it.) and a spot came on that simply said "these [XX] seconds of silence brought to you by Karako" with some other, limited factual text beneath. it was really effective. definitely made me pause, particularly because i'm not used to hearing silence on the television. enough to make me remember the name of the brand, and, to blog about it. it's likely not the first time someone's done it, but it's the first in a long while that i've seen it. kudos there, as well.

engaging in technographics

ahhh... posting this brings me back to my middle school livejournal days.
i wonder whatever happened to those "which icon are you?" quizzes. some were hella funny. anyway, so there's the "badge of honor" and the links are here and here.

Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile Your Result: Creator   With all the blogging and video making you do, I'm surprised you had time to take this quiz. Whether podcasting or maintaining a website, the amount of content you create makes your Groundswell Social Technographic group a valuable target for social media marketers. As a creator, you join an elite 18% of the US online population. Now turn off the computer, your family misses you.
Critic
Joiner
Collector
Spectator
Inactive
Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile See All Our Quizzes

it's times like these that i reflect on quizzes.

why do i post that? do i find it relevant or accurate to how i perceive myself? yes, actually. i'm big on creating. i hate inactivity (score of 0!) and everything else i like to take in at a balance. if i didn't find it somehow accurate, i wouldn't repost it. i suppose that's a given.

the only reason i don't outright resent that quiz for asking me about being a bride or having children is that if i click the radio button for "male" it asks me the same thing. kudos for that. extra kudos for referencing Lincoln Logs. i miss those. sad face for stereotypical questions, but i should know better than to hope.

i liked a commercial how much?

enough to go out of my way to find it on youtube and embed it for you here, just in case you haven't already seen it.

this delivers. it's excellent. it speaks exactly to the target market in memorable and admirable way. how do i know? if i'd gone to grad school, they'd be talking to me. we are those kids who work our asses off to get the grades to get the school to get the bucks to get the (car/land/family/etc).

except for when we sit there in (insert office setting here), look at this well-worn path and say to ourselves, "whoa. where along the line did i agree to that? where did i get lost in here? what part of me is left in my own plans?"

breaking the cycle speaks to that "whoa" moment in the ambitious, determined group. i love it. if i had that kind of money, it might sell me on an audi--or at least get me interested enough to do my research. three cheers for poignant relevance.

a running list of congrats.

to be edited, altered, and reposted subjective to when brands piss me off.
this list is entirely personal and is not meant to be representative of anyone other than me.

brands i'm currently loyal to (congratulations)
! verizon. thank you cellphone. i can hear you now. (and yes we do say that out loud)
! apple. you stole me away from many years of dell. thank you. i needed that.
this includes iPod, namely, the shuffle. i don't need to know what's playing--i put it on there! the shuffle with all of its whirlwind colours makes me say YES to buying three to enable matching. i can even have specialized Emo/Screamo Shuffle, HipHop/Reggaeton Shuffle, and Indie/RebelGrrrl Shuffle. i love life. PS though: HELLO SHUFFLE: PASTELS?! i would -never-. your spring colours SUCK.
! mac makeup. your colours are so bright. it's like painting. or face-staining.
! i also support urban decay, who is cheaper, and who i went to first. i still buy.
! google is my only search engine. amazon is where i buy lots of stuff online.
! saucony, etnies, & vans. my feet thank you. you are comfy.
! thus: thank you journeys and pacsun for carrying these at reasonable cost.
! pleaser & delicious. my feet don't thank you, but you make me look hella hot.
! pandora.com & itunes. i now buy music. not only that, but i hear new music and buy more.
! many online shops to help me look like a rockstar. cos that's what i am.
>> props to: reverie, i love your "stop hate love something" tee shirt.
(more advertisers need to realize this: my whole age group is composed of undiscovered rock stars who may or may not play instruments)

brands i'm more or less loyal to (try harder)
! friday's. congrats on the sesame jack chicken strips. otherwise i would have never come back.
i swear they put coke or something in them. why do i go so frequently? could be the patron lemonades the local bartender makes me. mmm.
! 2cute for outfitting me in clubwear. hot topic when they don't annoy me.
>> when hot topic does annoy me, i go for trash & vaudeville. <3
and they annoy me often but it's hard to find certain must-have items locally otherwise. just gotta weed through the trash. oh well. i say that with all the bitterness of my teen years when i'd worked there for a summer.
! pacsun, aero, & ae for my tiny tees. you're all interchangeable.
i don't really care so long as you keep making extra smalls.
! macy's for trendy, office-acceptable work clothes in junior sizes.
no, i'm not 'petite' yet, you sizing bastards. i hate you too.

brands i used to be loyal to (you suck for losing me)
! myspace and facebook. sucks to be you.
you have too many ads and try to stalk me too much. i don't want to know what my friends are doing 24/7. i doubt they want you to know, either. at least i don't. if i did, i'd call them. of all of these, myspace is the least of these evils. why? because they are good for music. i like music.
! dell. okay i was never loyal but you were useful in high school. that's not the case anymore.
! at&t. or whatever you're called now. your service sucks. get over it. i left you for your sexier cousin.