2008 June archive at Gypsy Bandito

Archive for June, 2008

One Degree of Separation

Published June 30, 2008 in Search Engine Optimization, PR, Marketing and Video. 1 Comment

So it’s been a while since I’ve regularly vlogged my mouth off about tech, web 2.0, and how it’s changing marketing, PR, and all those other things that my ~~peers~~ friends despise me for doing for a living. In fact, it often seems like this has become a place where I have fun with video, and to a certain degree it has.

The truth is that now that I’m armed and dangerous with some new toys, I’ve been working on a couple things that are bit more serious and, consequently, take up all the free time I used to use to vlog — and one of them is launching very, very soon.

Being aloof here, though, doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped doing what I do. I still have a 9-5, and I still get out to play with others from time to time. I’ve also been doing a lot more writing — especially in other places.

Well, the newest of those place is OneDegree.ca, which is a “central gathering place for Canadian Online Marketers.” My first contribution went up yesterday (Sunday, June 29th), and it’s about Using Video for Blended Search Optimization.

Hoorah, I do know what I’m talking about after all! And I intend to keep running my ~~mouth~~ keyboard off to that effect, as soon as the OneDegree staff return from their summer hiatus in August.

Share This

JC Penny is Astroturfing?

Published June 25, 2008 in Advertising and Video. 1 Comment

This is a fake JC Penny ad created that won international advertising award at Cannes this past weekend. The retailer is apparently pissed about it, and are blaming their ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi for it being produced and then leaked onto YouTube.

Personally, I think this whole thing smells of a viral astrotrufing campaign. Everyone is pointing fingers at someone else, and the only ones who seem to be able to answer any questions (the people that entered the ad spot at Cannes in the first place) is stranggely silent. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer for the Plano, Texas, retailer, said he was “terribly disappointed” when he first saw the video Monday, after another Penney official noticed it on blogs that described the video as a Penney ad.

Mr. Boylson said he still was questioning Saatchi late Monday to find out how the video got made […]

In a statement late Monday, Saatchi, a unit of Publicis Groupe SA, said the ad was created by a third-party vendor “without J.C. Penney’s knowledge or consent…Saatchi & Saatchi did not enter the spot and deeply regrets the message this ad presents.” Epoch Films, the New York production company that was listed as entering the ad in the Cannes Lions Awards, declined to comment.

I suspect that JC Penny is pulling an Edelman. After all, by creating an ad that would appeal to a new target demographic but offend (or by offending) their current one and then denouncing the spot, JC Penny gets to cover all its bases. As the WSJ article concludes:

While the ad could anger parents who shop at Penney, it also has the potential to make the retailer seem “sassy, fun and irreverent” to teens, said Alan Siegel, chief executive of New York strategic-branding company Siegel + Gale.

“It’s not going to reflect well on the brand in Middle America, but the ad is nicely done and the people in it are attractive; young people in New York and L.A. will get a kick out of it,” he said.

The reason I think this might all be premeditated is that JC Penny is a very net savvy brand, and they will be throwing a s**t load of cash at their online marketing efforts this year. At the recent IRCE 2008, the same Mike Boylson that denounced the video admitted that:

JC Penney has a budget for $1.4 billion to spend on marketing initiatives and hinted that most of that money would go to jcp.com.

Companies don’t shred that kind of cheddar on online marketing unless they think that they reall get it. Granted, if they really got it, the might know better than to pull off some kind of subversive viral astroturfing stunt, but maybe they learned from Edelman’s example insofar as setting it up so they won’t get caught.

Now, I know this all sounding a bit like a conspiracy theory, and unless it’s all premeditated and they actually get outed for it I’ll never be able to substantiate any of my suspicions. But the great thing about a conspiracy theory is that it’s a lot like the existence of G*d: although it can’t be proved, it also can’t be disproved

Video via Free Williamsburg.

Share This

Plurk Sounds Like Poop

Published June 13, 2008 in Web 2.0 and Social Media. 0 Comments

I’m getting tired of people hating on Twitter for having problems. I mean, yeah, they’re having trouble scaling, but so f**king what? Who the f**k are you to criticize?

First of all, it’s a free service, so you don’t get to say shit about their level of service. If you don’t like it: fine, don’t use it — which would suck for them, but doesn’t change the fact that you have nothing more than your blogging/tweeting ego invested in them.

The fact of the matter is that Twitter was a brilliant f**king idea (albeit an accidental one — which most brilliant ideas are), and all you whiney haters weren’t the one who had it. So there! Just ’cause you can use a web app and blog about how to get the most out of it, that doesn’t mean that you know shit.

It’s easy to see the value of something once someone else shows it to you. It’s another thing altogether to come up with that something, and that’s what separates the shepherds from the sheep.

That being said, Plurk has been riding on the woes of Twitter, so I thought I’d check it out and get a Plurk account. I don’t really like the interface, and maybe I will get used to it, but that’s not the point.

Rather, my point is that while Twitter has really been transparent about being overwhelmed by theirsuccess, the folks over at Plurk who’ve basically been lucky enough to ~~profit~~ benefit from Twitter’s woes have no fucking class. While importing my friends over from my Twitter account, I got this screenshot.

It’s not good enough that Plurk is succeeding because Twitter is failing, but they have to f**king rub it in. I mean, f**k you Plurk!. The only reason you even got the idea to exist is because Twitter came along first.

And yeah, that’s a problem with being an innovator: your version 1.0 is going to be lacking, and if you’re not quick enough to move on your shortcomings, a competitor is going to enter the marketplace and f**k your shit up. But hey, that only detracts from your profits, not from your inherent bad-assness as a creative and forward-thinking mind.

Think Nikola Tesla. He invented all kinds shit, got very little credit for most of it, and died poor. I’m not, however, putting Biz Stone on par with Tesla.

Anyway, Plurk: good for you, you managed to get lucky. That’s one hell of a business model. I hope that that luck keeps you from getting your ass sued by Universal TV for violating their copyrights, or at least stops you from losing your shirt if you do. Besides, you named your service after th noise that those hard, nugget-like poops make when they hit the water.

Share This