Pop Culture Images of the Decade

Oh Man. Who can forget this crazy lady, with her crazy eyes? Is she the craziest looking person ever?

So why was everyone so surprised when the "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared in 2005? As you'll recall, she went out for a jog in her ritzy Atlanta neighborhood and disappeared.

I'm not certain, but I think this was kinda the kickoff to the news media's "missing white girl" fetish. Or maybe it was Chandra Levy? But that was more of a political thriller.

Anyway, Wilcox hadn't been abducted and taken to Albuquerque by a Hispanic man as she claimed. She had just gone nuts.

Calling Sparks. SOS. Knox Trial Drawing to a Close

Sparks!!! WTF? Weren't you going to be our Knox Trial correspondent? Months and months of silence, and then I read today this thing is nearing an end?

What should I be thinking? What do I need to know? Is she a monster? Or is Italy the monster? What impact will this have on other slutty American girls who want to dodge a semester of academics in favor of drug fueled orgies? And how do we pursue a teaching post at these places? Do they need a High Flying Marketing Professor?

Sincerity

Question for all of you Hosers: What sign-off do you use for your work emails? I do not mean quick little blackberry missives; I'm talking real emails, to clients and superiors and what not.

I used to use “Regards” on all of my office emails. In fact, I had it as part of my auto-signature, so even Catjjy would get a nice “Regards” if I wrote to her from that account. I became bored with it a few years ago. Now I end with “Thank you” if thanks are warranted, or, more often, I don’t put any sign-off at all. The latter looks a little odd at the end of a formal, letter-style email, but I don’t know what else to do.

Some of this is cultural. If I were English, I would absolutely use “Cheers;” if Italian, “Ciao.” Those are great, but Americans look sorta lame using either of those.

One guy I work with uses abbreviations that he leaves the reader to figure out. Two of his favorites are “VTY” and “HTH”, which I’ve guessed to mean “Very Truly Yours,“ and “Happy to Help.” OMFG.

Sometimes I get things like “Warmest regards” or “Very Truly Yours,” but those feel WAY too personal to me. I feel like they can be used in court to prove a common law marriage.

So, what are you using?

XOXOXO,

Sparks

The Hosecast Episode 11: Celebrity Death Roundtable

Evil, Killer B #1 and Killer B #2 stop by to discuss the recent run of celebrity deaths and muse on who might be next.

Programming Note - This was actually recorded almost immediately after Michael Jackson died but given the tone of 'cast we decided to hold off till people had some time to reflect and mourn.

Listen to the whole discussion here.

Subscribe via iTunes here

Calling on Marketing Types

Yesterday the Sparkseses watched the US play Brazil in the finals of the Confederations Cup – the premiere soccer event in this non-World Cup year. I think xTian might post about the game. I would like to post about the business. Here is the question for you marketing types: do the major networks want soccer to become a legitimate 5th professional team sport in the US (on par with football, basketball, baseball, and hockey)?

My initial reaction is yes. Event-driven telecasts, like sports or American Idol, continue to draw large numbers of viewers even while the rest of the TV audience splinters. Plus, that is the only segment in which people still watch commercials (viewers are much less likely to TiVo a live event than a sitcom). If American viewers suddenly take an interest in soccer, the networks get to add hundreds of hours of additional event broadcasting.

But as I sat there watching the game, I began to think that maybe networks wouldn’t be so happy with soccer after all. Soccer games are divided into two one-hour blocks that cannot be interrupted, with one 20-minute halftime in between. How do you make the add revenue work with that? Yes, maybe you get a lot of eyeballs, but how does that pay the piper when you cannot break for a beer commercial? Would a network make more money just showing A Few Good Men instead?

Well?

Manolo Has A Question for KillerB

I either DVR or illegally download everything I watch so watching TV commercials is something I haven’t done in years.

Recently, I have been watching some live telecasts and started seeing those Ashton Kutcher camera commercials selling SLRs...

The question to our resident high flying marketing executive is…WHY?

I am trying to figure out the thought process why someone at an ad agency picks Ashton Kutcher to sell high-end cameras…Is Ashton Kutcher that creative? Is he like a good photographer? Is there a gallery somewhere in LA hosting his pictures?

Then, as I was looking for the ad to include with the post, I came across other ads with Ashton living it up in the party circuit surrounded by hot chicks. Why can’t the marketing executives respect the fact that he is in a relationship with Demi Moore. Don’t get me wrong, he is not free of sin either….Why isn't he at home with Demi, Bruce and Rumer, Scout, and Tallulah? Why is he going around taking pictures of other chicks? If I was Demi Moore, I would be very upset…

Also, what kind of utopian society does he live in? He leaves his camera behind and girls start taking pictures of themselves. I have left my camera behind all that happens is that I am out a camera…

I am just saying….

Stop the Presses

The news has been busy reporting on how the news is going under. Newspapers, specifically. People are consuming more news than ever, but they are getting it online (often times from newspaper-run sites) which kills the economic model. I don’t understand this.

Someone on NPR last week did an interesting analysis. I’ll spare you the details, but the conclusion was that hard copy sales (subscription + newsstand) don’t quite cover the costs of the blank cut paper that newspapers use. Just the paper here…no content, no editing, no reporting, no headquarters building, etc. Everything else is paid for by ad revenue.

In theory, going online should be great. Papers don’t make money on subscriptions anyway, since that portion of their revenue doesn’t quite cover the paper costs. But they are all still having trouble with the online switch because they can’t make as much with online ad sales as they do with hard copy ad sales. This is apparently because online ads sell for a very small fraction of the price of hard copy ads.

For me, the Macy’s ad next to the wedding announcements in the hard-copy NYTimes is just as effective as the Orbitz ad next to the same section in the online version; I pay very little attention to either. In fact, the online one is probably more effective because there is some chance that I’ll throw out my hard copy NYTimes before I even get to that section, whereas if I’m on the weddings section online, I’m certainly looking at it. I thus find the price differential surprising.

Question for Evil and KillerB and anyone else working in the marketing world: are advertisers paying too much for hard copy newspaper ads, or are they paying too little for online newspaper ads? Why is there such a huge difference? I know online ads have miniscule click-through rates, but hard copy ads have no click-throughs at all. Why do advertisers assume one is more effective than the other?