From our You Can’t Be Serious desk:
New York magazine’s The Cut blog catches the New York Times in an absolute brain freeze.
STREET STYLE
What do you wear when protest and mayhem rock your world? Reports from three epicenters of street style: London, Cairo and Tokyo.
Among the stylish mayhemites:
Sign o’ the Times . . . decline.
The other day the hardworking staff noted Verizon’s advertising campaign addressing its dustup with 45,000 striking workers. The telecom’s initial ads touted the generous salaries and benefits (read: better than yours) its employees receive; the second wave of ads detail the “fair” proposals the company has proffered.
Now comes the fact-checking (via Wednesday’s Boston Globe):
Verizon Communications Inc. has taken its battle with 45,000 striking union employees to the public by running ads about how well paid its Boston technicians are, with $85,000 in annual pay, four weeks’ paid vacation, and $51,000 in total benefits to an employee and family members.
Yet what Verizon does not say is that the $85,000 includes overtime pay. Union officials contend technicians in Boston would have to work the equivalent of two months of overtime to earn $85,000 a year.
Moreover, the workers won’t be getting $51,000 in combined benefits if Verizon has its way in contract talks.
Verizon is looking to freeze pension benefits and require employees to contribute to their health insurance policies, something they don’t do right now.
But here’s the problem:
Neither side agrees on even the most basic numbers involved. It is also difficult to verify union or company claims.
For example, Verizon says its demands on health insurance premiums would cost workers $1,200 to $3,000 a year. The union said such changes would cost $3,000 for individuals and $6,800 for a family.
So it’s a classic they said, they said.
Which means it’s just one more union vs. anti-union standoff.
And we all know which way the scale tilts on those.
This fall, major department stores will be offering some exciting new brands: TV and web networks.
Via MediaBistro’s PRNewser:
The NBC network and Bloomingdale’s have entered into a two-month Fall partnership that will provide branding opportunities for both organizations: Bloomie’s catalogs will feature actors from some of NBC’s new shows (The Playboy Club and Prime Suspect are a couple of them), and Bloomingdale’s will be featured during the network’s Primetime Preview Show.
On a smaller scale, Macy’s is also synergy-efficient:
Macy’s has partnered with Alloy Entertainment (the company behind Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries) to create a Web series called ”Wendy” that will take a modern twist on the “Peter Pan” tale. According to Variety, Macy’s is launching the series to target teens and tweens — the show will feature Macy’s brands — though the company promises the product placement won’t be too over-the-top.
Right. Because we can always count on marketers to exercise restraint.
Regarding The Playboy Club/Prime Suspect tie-in, a Bloomingdale’s marketing executive told the New York Times, “It’s not to experience NBC as advertising; it’s to be part of their fall lineup.”
Hard to find a better definition of stealth marketing than that.
Originally posted on Sneak ADtack
Tuesday’s New York Times featured a front-page piece on the most dangerous cities for walking, and guess what?
Boston/Cambridge/Quincy was least dangerous. Graphic here and here:
Wait a minute:
Quincy? What the hell does Quincy have to do with Boston and Cambridge?
Ask Transportation for America, which designed the survey.
And let us know if you get a decent answer.
(The hardworking staff has sent an email as well.)
UPDATE: David Goldberg, Communications Director at Transportation for America, has graciously replied that Quincy is included with Boston and Cambridge because “It’s part of the census-defined MSA [metropolitan statistical area].”
With the chin-strokerati furiously, well, chin-stroking nowadays, the hardworking staff thought it would be a public service to keep track of their predictions.
So, Bookmark #1:
In his latest Boston Herald column, WTKK squawker Michael Graham predicts that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-Ben Bernanke Must Die!) will pulverize former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Are We in Iowa Yet?) in the GOP presidential primary.
Mitt Romney can’t even win a one-on-one with himself. Just throw the phrase “Romneycare” [actually a “term,” not to get technical about it] at him and watch him rope-a-dope himself to the mat.
Graham’s conclusion:
This will be the perfect Perry warm-up for Obama, a race where jobs and health care reform would also be front and center. Romney (47th in job creation as governor) will have to go negative. And the more negative Romney goes, the better for Perry. It lets him battle through his weaknesses before he gets to the big fight with the president.
Which leaves Romney as little more than Perry’s sparring partner. Romney’s campaign is so out of its league, staffers told reporters they thought their biggest challenger was . . . Tim Pawlenty.
Unfortunately for Mitt, that’s probably true. Pawlenty could have given Romney a run for his money. And look where he is now. Officially out of the race.
Rick Perry is the Republican Rocky Balboa [trailer]. He’s just gonna keep comin’.
Romney hasn’t got a chance.
As every journalist has said at some point: Time will tell.
Ron Paul (R-No New Nuthin’) has just released his second TV spot, another minute-long mock movie trailer, this time taking on the slick, telegenic, smooth-talking, non-Paulish politicians leading our great nation to perdition. (First spot here.)
Via the Daily Caller:
The spot ends with this voiceover: Ron Paul. The one who will stop the spending, save the dollar, create jobs, bring peace. The one who will restore liberty. Ron Paul. The one who can beat Obama and restore America now.
Back here on Planet Earth, Ron Paul is actually the one who got Krauthammered on Fox News yesterday as not having any chance of becoming president.
Make a movie trailer out of that.
The hardworking staff knows a lunatic fringe group when we see one, and the Aftershock Survival Summit folks certainly fit the bill.
But when that group takes out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal at well into six figures, it’s a good idea to pay attention.
The text of the ad:
‘It Scared the Hell Out of Me’
– Russell H, Wichita, Kan.
A 50% unemployment rate? 90% stock market collapse? And 100% ANNUAL inflation? That’s what a team of economists (with an impeccable track record – they even predicted the latest crash) see happening in 2012. Fortunately, millions across America have united during the recent Aftershock Survival Summit to hear the real story on what lies ahead. Prepare for 2012!
You can watch a private airing of this broadcast right now at http://www.AftershockNow.com
The whole shebang has been ginned up by the rightwingnuts at Newsmax, with this video (a public airing on YouTube) as its centerpiece:
The video features your standard-issue apocalyptic gobbledygook, which has been viewed on YouTube about 12,000 times. God only knows how many have seen it here via Newsmax.
But when it hits the Journal, it’s a little less fringe . . . a lot more lunatic.
The hardworking staff aren’t big Facebookers, so maybe we’re the only ones who missed this (via MediaPost):
Facebook ads often incorporate a social element, letting users see what actions their friends have taken in connection with an advertiser or ad, such as “liking” a brand page or responding to an event-related ad. Earlier this year, Facebook took that word-of-mouth concept a step further with the rollout of Sponsored Stories, a new premium format that essentially turns status updates themselves into ads. Actions such as “liking” a brand, “checking in” at a venue, or sharing an app that appears in the user’s news feed are converted into ads for the companies or products mentioned. And there’s no way for people to opt out of seeing or being featured in the ads. [emphasis added]
Here’s what one might look like:
And here’s how it would look on all your friends’ Facebook pages:
According to a Facebook video, “The reality is, when we’re making a [consumer] decision, we’re looking for information, and we want that information to come from people we trust. The Sponsored Stories, what they let advertisers do is take these word of mouth recommendations and promote them.”
Advertisers can also find helpful videos on YouTube like How to Create a Facebook Sponsored Story.
And if you’re wondering whether there’s a video How to Uncreate a Facebook Sponsored Story, there is not.
(Originally posted on Sneak ADtack)
As Barack Obama embarks on a three-day bus tour of the Midwest (second prize: a four-day bus tour), the Republican National Committee has announced that it will be (Grey)hounding him every mile of the way. Via Politico’s Playbook:
RNC brands it Obama’s “Debt-End Bus Tour (DEBT)” and goes up with radio ads in each state he’s visiting . . . The radio ads will run in each of the three states for a week. RNC Research elves also release an 11-page “Press Corps Briefing Book” for “A Totally Non-Political, Taxpayer-Funded Administration Event That Just Happens to Criss-Cross Several Battleground States Critical to the President’s Reelection.” 11-page PDF http://bit.ly/pCWQm2
The radio ads (Minnesota version here) urge people to ask specific questions of Obama when he comes to their town:
Mr. Obama, where are all the jobs you promised with your $831 billion stimulus package?
What happened to your promise to cut the deficit in half?
Why are health insurance premiums higher under Obamacare?
When are you going to take responsibility for your failed economic policies?
Why did you squander our perfect Triple-A credit rating?
“Then ask yourself,” the spot concludes, “can we afford four more years of Barack Obama?”
Of course, that’s only question of those six that will ever actually get asked and answered. But you can’t blame them for trying.
When Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-Pray with Me Now) jumped with both boots into the GOP presidential primary on Saturday, he made it clear that the centerpiece of his campaign would be his job-creation record.
Via CBS News:
Perry cited his ten-year record as governor as one basis for his campaign, saying that 40-percent of the nation’s new jobs since June 2009 have been created in Texas.
Not so fast there, boot-boy. Here’s New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:
What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is “Well, duh.” The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs — which is, whatever Mr. Perry may say, what Perrynomics amounts to in practice — involves a fallacy of composition: every state can’t lure jobs away from every other state.
(Stats from Huffington Post here.)
This will be the ultimate he said-they said dustup throughout the primary season. Stay tuned to the hardworking staff’s Rick Perry-And-Thrust (pat. pending) updates for details.
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