8.12.2005

break free!

So, around Boston I've been seeing a lot of transit billboards and posters promoting something called "Fusion Flash Concerts". The posts are meant to be very counter-culture with the image of a bar-code with the bars stretched out evoking the sense of a jail break. The posters seem to suggest a series of free concerts but doesn't provide any dates or locations. This didn't entirely surprise me, though, as "Flash Concert" immediately reminded me of "Flash Mobs" where the location and time isn't announced until the last minute before the protest. So, these posters seem to be promoting something very underground and new.

Actually, I think they are just telling us that flash mobs are now solidly passe.

We had our first inkling when they were featured on Law & Order, a bell weather for all things mainstreamed. Still, these concerts are definate confirmation. While the posters are designed to look very low cost, they really look like they were designed to look very low cost. Instead of achieving their goal, they just make it obvious. There is a diagonal print error at the top of the signs that's too obviously there. The bar code logo is too cliche and too well designed. Its clearly professional work. All of the copy is haphazard in the way it looks when you are trying to be haphazard.

Of course, most obvious is that this is clearly a major advertising campaign. The posters and billboards are all over the subway system. I've bought subway ads so I know they aren't cheap. This campaign must cost tens of thousands of dollars at least. Something underground and anarchistic like the original flash mobs wouldn't have billboards in subway stations. It takes about 2 seconds to see through the artiface to the fakeness within. Simply put, it screams viral marketing. Oh, the corporate sponser was smart enough to not put their name on the poster, but that's clearly what's going on here.

Sure enough, their website (and no, I'm not linking to them) reveals it to be the work of the Sony Corporation. A simple Google search informs me that Ford is also a corporate partner. Its not like I was into flash-mobbing to begin with, so I'm not really offended by this. Corporations do what they feel they need to do to make money, so whatever. This is essentially harmless. But I do find it generally amusing to see Ford and Sony playing pretend anarachists. There is a lot of viral marketing going around, and while its intriguing, I have to wonder how much it really is going to work in the long run. Maybe, all you get it is a short-term bounce and in the long-run you've sacked the credability of the tools you used. Just more corporations trying to brand themselves as anti-corporate. I just don't see the long-term benefit there.

8.10.2005

turning you off

Well, since I stunningly have readers all of a sudden, I guess I should try posting again. And what better to turn people away than Steroids in baseball. I'm an avid watcher of ESPN's block of sports talk shows in the early evening, "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interuption". Both programs have been consumed with talking about Rafeal Palmero's recent suspension from baseball for a positive steroids test. I've got to tell you, the indignation rings alarmingly hallow to me.

The attention baseball is getting for its steroids problem is frankly a joke. The biggest secret everyone knows in sports is that steroids are rampent in nearly every sport. Baseball is hardly even the worst offender. Track and football both have it easily beat. They do a better PR job about it, yes. They've convinced everyone in the press to not talk about how dirty their sports are, but that doesn't change anything. Steroids is a huge part of pro-football. Its a huge part of college football. Its a huge part of high school football. We have to take our heads of the sand if we really want to talk about this issue. The problem isn't just baseball. Its much much bigger, and if people are serious about doing something, they need to admit that. But I suspect people aren't serious about doing something. They just don't want to think about, so as long as a sport is pretending its doing a good job with the problem, everyone just looks the other way. There is no reason to gang up on baseball in the face of the serious problem throughout the country from high school on up.

peter jennings signs off

Just want to quickly offer my respects to the late Peter Jennings. Though I am not one of those guys who gets their news from The Daily Show, growing up I was always an ABC News guy. Jennings always conveyed a sense of dignity and honesty that I very much enjoyed. He's since proven himself a very good sport and extremely well-spoken when not reading the news. I've always really admired Jennings and its a shock to lose him. In a lot of ways, Peter Jennings will always be my anchor, just as earlier generations will always think of Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow.