Archive for February 18th, 2011

We’re all “special” … yeah, right.

February 18, 2011

Our parents told us we were special.

But, we all knew they were just doing their jobs.

These days, “awards proliferation” is picking up where mom and dad left off … confirming that we’re all special.

In “Everyone’s a Winner,” sociologist Joel Best concentrates primarily on America’s self- congratulatory culture.

Everywhere the author turns his gaze—from bumper stickers that boast about “my kid the honor-roll student” to boosterish “employee of the month” awards — Mr. Best sees a proliferation of prizes that seems to arise from a desperate desire to exclude fewer and fewer people from the winner’s podium.

Literary prizes are now given for every kind of category, including 12 different kinds of detective fiction recognized by the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar awards. The nominees for the Best Picture Oscar (nominations themselves are awards) have recently doubled from five to 10, and the number of Grammy awards given out last Sunday night came to more than 100. Valedictorians were once unique; now some high schools have dozens.

The tendency to create social subsets in which we may be recognized for “excellence,” in Mr. Best’s view, is also evident in the explosion of rankings and “best of” lists in recent decades—including everything from colleges and plastic surgeons to car-repair shops and hamburgers.

Such prizes and rankings …  are often self-created and thus abundant.

One question that Mr. Best does not address is whether the many winners among us actually believe our own hype.

Martin Chuzzlewit noted long ago that many of us think we are among “the most remarkable people in America.”

WSJ, Why We’re All Above Average, Feb.16, 2011.

Posted in Book Summaries, Psychology | 1 Comment »

Wisc. gov’t unions to Dem Senators: “We own you !” … Dem Senators: “Let’s get outta here"

February 18, 2011

The rubber seems to have hit the road in Wisconsin.

Scott Walker was elected governor last November.

His platform: get the state budget under control.

So, he and GOPers in the Wisc statehouse drafted a law that would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage – about half of what private sector folks pay.

Currently, the Wisc gov’t workers pay ZERO towards health insurance and pensions.

So, they’re taking the proposed law pretty seriously – shutting down schools (thousands of suddenly sick teachers), marching en masse on the statehouse and the homes of the governor and legislators, carrying signs depicting the governor as Hitler and Mubarek. They’re being praised in lib media as “Midwestern Egyptians”.

In response, all of the Dem state Senators left the state for an Illinois resort — to preclude a quorum.  So, the legislature couldn’t vote the law up or down.

Police were dispatched to round up the escaped Senators, but got stalled at the Wisc state line.

President Obama piped in –- not to praise the fiscal responsibility or condemn the protesters incivility – but to assert that Wisc GOPers are simply trying to break the unions.

I guess that’s why FDR – Obama’s idol – thought that gov’t employee unions shouldn’t be allowed.

Geez.  You can’t make this stuff up.

AP, Wis. lawmakers flee state to block anti-union bill, Feb. 17, 2011

Posted in Budget - Deficit, Unions - UAW | Leave a Comment »

Mobile ads more effective than TV … ring, ring.

February 18, 2011

TakeAway: Data showing effectiveness of mobile advertising, specifically Apple’s iAd platform just released.

Folks seeing ads on their mobile devices via iAds are more likely to remember the brand, like the product and want to buy it more than those who see an ad on TV.

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Excerpted from AdAge, “Apple, Campbell’s Say iAds Twice as Effective as TV” by Kunar Patel, February 3, 2011

It’s been seven months since the first iAds — …and now that those campaigns are over, we’re seeing the first effectiveness study, funded by Apple and one of iAd’s early adopters, Campbell’s.

In it, is a fairly big claim: Those exposed to one of Campbell’s iAds were more than twice as likely to recall it than those who had seen a TV ad. …the five-week study showed that iAd consumers remembered the brand “Campbell’s” five times more often than TV ad respondents and the ad messaging three times more often.

IAd respondents intended to purchase Campbell’s four times more than the TV group and that they liked the ad five times more.

… Apple is looking for data that would persuade existing marketers to renew or increase their initial investment as well as win over new advertisers standing on the sidelines. The problem Apple is facing is for their high cost of entry — a reported $1 million minimum for first-run advertisers — many other options exist for mobile advertising, including rich-media competitors like Medialets that look and feel a lot like an iAd.

… Out of 53 million impressions, 1% of users that saw the ad clicked through and spent an average of nearly one minute perusing it. …these results for iAd also beat the marketer’s benchmarks for static banner ads.

… “This does show, in really traditionally brand metric terms, that iAd really outperformed.”… The study was put in place to validate mobile, a relatively new medium for the marketer.

The brand is struggling with preconceptions of the decades-old brand and iAd was a way to frame the brand in a new light. “

…the survey could also reflect overall demographic differences of each medium, or the targeting that Campbell’s used in their iAd campaign. The iAd sample was weighted to reflect the iPhone and iPod Touch universe in terms of age, gender and income, while TV survey results were weighted for a general TV audience.

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Posted in Mktg - Advertising, Mobile Marketing | Leave a Comment »