![We all know from Stephen Colbert’s THREATDOWN (TM) that bears are (usually) the #1 threat to our nation. Based on the story below it appears bears can be rendered docile by marijuana. SO: Legalize marijuana, bake into brownies, leave in pic-a-nic baskets, and watch our terror threat level drop to whatever is lower than orange. Oh yeah, and the taxes from marijuana sales will bail out state and national budgets. Combined with the jobs created by the marijuana industry, that should pull us right out of this recession. And we can also subdue moronic mama grizzly Sarah Palin.
These bears getting high is the best thing to ever happen to America.
thedailywhat:
When Bears Don’t Attack of the Day: A British Columbian marijuana farm attempted to protect its goods by luring thirteen black bears to the area with dog food. Not a bad idea, except for one problem: The bears were a bit too — *ahem* — mellow.
From Metro:
The five police officers were called to the marijuana plantation, near Christina Lake, to dismantle the farm and arrested two men in the process, while stumbling across the bears.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Fred Mansvield, said: “They (the bears) were tame, they just sat around watching.”
[metro / photo: ap.]](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7eri3helg1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
If current patterns continue, by Facebook will eclipse Google in traffic by 2013.
No one knows quite what the future will bring, but this chart’s prediction doesn’t surprise me. I’ve blogged before about “the end of search”—that we’re already fully in the “social web” and will soon be heading into a web where curation and filters are king.
So how soon before Facebook becomes as “Big Brother”-y as Google? (Oh, wait, it already is.)
How soon before Facebook becomes as overwhelming as Google’s hundreds of thousands of results? (Why not ask your thousands of friends?)
I’m interested in what’s next. What services are going to emerge to help us navigate, understand, and discover on the web?
We all know from Stephen Colbert’s THREATDOWN (TM) that bears are (usually) the #1 threat to our nation. Based on the story below it appears bears can be rendered docile by marijuana. SO: Legalize marijuana, bake into brownies, leave in pic-a-nic baskets, and watch our terror threat level drop to whatever is lower than orange. Oh yeah, and the taxes from marijuana sales will bail out state and national budgets. Combined with the jobs created by the marijuana industry, that should pull us right out of this recession. And we can also subdue moronic mama grizzly Sarah Palin.
These bears getting high is the best thing to ever happen to America.
When Bears Don’t Attack of the Day: A British Columbian marijuana farm attempted to protect its goods by luring thirteen black bears to the area with dog food. Not a bad idea, except for one problem: The bears were a bit too — *ahem* — mellow.
From Metro:
The five police officers were called to the marijuana plantation, near Christina Lake, to dismantle the farm and arrested two men in the process, while stumbling across the bears.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police sergeant Fred Mansvield, said: “They (the bears) were tame, they just sat around watching.”
[metro / photo: ap.]
Continuations: Net Neutrality Is Critical for Innovation -
I am glad to see the net neutrality debate raging. As Union Square Ventures and on our personal blogs (AVC, Continuations) we have long been proponents of net neutrality (the USV link is from 2006!). Our own bias here is clear: we are pro-startup and pro-innovation. Both are of course essential to the venture capital business, but we believe they are also the lifeblood of the economy. Surprisingly, a lot of people who argue against net neutrality don’t seem to make the connection to innovation and startups at all. That is even more surprising when the criticism comes from someone like Henry Blodget who is clearly the beneficiary of the level playing field provided by net neutrality.
As for the Google-Verizon proposal, my partner Brad has done a terrific job pointing out two of the key problems. I want to go a step further though. Much as I am glad that Google has been a proponent of some aspects of net neutrality, Google is no longer a startup itself! Google’s ability to cross-subsidize new markets from its amazing core business poses a potential threat to innovation that I have written about before. This access to nearly limitless funds is especially important to keep in mind when looking at net neutrality.
Because there are a lot of subtleties once one drills down, it is easy to lose sight of the most basic principle that net neutrality is trying to achieve: the ability for innovative startups to deliver their content and services on a level playing field with incumbents. It is easy to forget this because we have actually de facto had net neutrality, which is what has allowed the creation and rise of services and companies such as Google in the first place. It is hard to argue that the Internet has not unleashed a torrent of innovation that has hugely benefited endusers (at the cost of disrupting some existing businesses). Net neutrality is all about codifying this existing state of the Internet and preventing a distorted playing field that favors incumbents.
Imagine for a moment an Internet in which Google can pay Verizon and others to deliver Youtube videos faster than video content from other sites, including that of your favorite startup. Given Youtube’s existing scale and Google’s ability to cross subsidize, this would forever cement Youtube as the source of Internet video. I fail to see how this could be in anybody’s interest other than Youtube’s and Verizon’s (Business Insider included). That is exactly what the current Google-Verizon proposal would allow for the wireless Internet. Now ask yourself what will be more important in the near future — wireline or wireless delivery of the Internet?
The argument that competition among wireless carriers will take care of this seems disingenuous at best when we have all of four carriers left of which two control the bulk of the market. This is an oligopoly in which (even without any talk among carriers), the natural game theoretic equilibrium is one where none of the carriers provides net neutrality and all accept payments from incumbents.
So what could actual net neutrality look like when codified? It could be as simple as saying: carriers can charge people only for their bandwidth (up and down) and cannot accept other payments. In this scheme endusers still pay for bandwidth (as they do today) and bandwidth caps are possible. Youtube still pays for its bandwidth. But Youtube cannot pay for faster delivery, cannot pay for being excluded from consumers’ bandwidth caps etc. As it turns out — and this is again critical to emphasize — that is the status quo! A status quo that has brought us tremendous innovation and sufficient investment by carriers in bandwidth despite their griping.
Finally, to all those who would say that the government doesn’t regulate what people can pay and cannot pay for in other areas, that is of course wrong. You can pay a taxi for taking you from A to B, but paying the taxi to go above the speed limit is not legal. You can pay to get a liver transplant, but you can’t pay to get one faster than others. We full well realize that safety and ethical concerns matter. So does innovation. Net neutrality is all about protecting innovation while still providing the funds for carriers to invest in network growth.
As many of you already know, I’m a huge fan of college basketball. I’m also a big fan of Target. It’s not often I can talk about these two interests as they relate to my marketing work, but this week the gods have smiled on me (not so much on the folks below) so let’s talk about it.
First:
Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino has won his case against Karen Sypher, who was convicted of extorting money from Pitino, lying to the FBI, and retaliating against Pitino. But this is a Pyrrhic victory, to say the least.
The trial was a result of accusations Sypher made earlier that Pitino had raped her and fathered a child, which she later aborted. Pitino—a married man—denied the charge of rape but was forced, on the stand, to recount the graphic details of their apparently consensual encounter. You can read the details here, but suffice it to say they are humiliating, and that there will be many student-section taunts suggesting Pitino call a 15-second timeout next season.
Beyond the embarrassment, though, is a real blow to Pitino’s image—and by extension, the program and the school. Division I college basketball is big business, and arguably the most important part of that business is recruiting. Pitino and his staff spend countless hours and dollars courting the best talent, attempting to sell the benefits of their program and, in reality, themselves. And while many players seek out the school that will best catapault them to the NBA after a season (which itself has a lot to do with the coach’s image—exhibit A: John Calipari), just as many others and their parents, evaluate offers based more on the quality of program/people their son will be associated with. Pitino’s job just got a lot harder on that front: it can’t be easy for him to convince young men and their families that his program is the right place for them to grow into successful men.
How much would it have been worth to his reputation, and his brand, to have settled out of court and avoided this whole thing? We’ll find out by watching as the next recruiting classes are solidified and how the team performs. Pitino’s coming off a mediocre year already, and patience is not a virtue possessed by most fan bases.
Next:
News recently broke that Target donated $150,000 to MN Forward, a Republican group who supports gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, an outspoken opponent of gay rights. Target’s CEO has apologized to employees, but calls for company boycotts have continued.
Through it all, as AdaptiveMarketer has pointed out, Target’s social media presence has remained conspicuously silent, in particular letting their Facebook page devolve into an ugly, angry online space. And they’ve certainly not made any effort to suggest they’ll donate to candidates who are gay rights supporters.
Target sells itself as a fairer, hipper alternative to other big-box stores, and their customers are younger and more democratic than their competitors’. This is an issue that can hurt them badly. And yet their response to it has been poor on almost every front.
Both Pitino and Target brands have been tarnished, but what’s striking is that they’ve been damaged more than they needed to be. These are great reminders that brand management is also crisis management—knowing your audience and responding appropriately, even if it hurts to do so, is crucial. Because after all, Pitino may have been proven right and Target may have acted perfectly legally, but who cares?
“There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing.” —
Google CEO Eric Schmidt (via ReadWriteWeb)
Mindblowing.
Pretzel Crisps Pretzel Ads Encourage Anxiety About Body Weight And Image; One Resident Fights Back
NYC The Blog was on hand last night as a concerned citizen decided to embellish one of the ads on Houston Street, at a bus station shelter between Bowery and 2nd Avenue. A small act from a responsible citizen, the Lower East Side resident “adjusted” the advertisement on Houston Street near Bowery…adding text and images that clearly show you, indeed, be too thin
Who is the HWAGP behind this (actually awesome!) culture-jamming?!
Go Krucoff, go!
KRUCOFFFFFF!! In honor of this feat, now I’m gonna take a ’90s-nostalgic trip down Adbusters memory lane.
Not sure how long it would really hold most kids’ attention, but I love how this clever, memorable ad really brings the overarching marketing message to life.
1stBank: Tire your kids | Creative Criminals
We do remember the “We care about small businesses” campaign made for 1st Bank. This time they used the same medium with a different message. This ad will tire out children if they put their hands on the rotating billboard. This comes in handy for the parents who take their children with them on the airplane. 1st Bank is there to help.
“You can’t wing shit in a big city.” — Gotham Gal (via fred-wilson)
This is seriously an epic campaign that took on a whole life of it’s own over the past week. I’m sure that you have already heard all about it, but if you didn’t, they were essentially creating real-time YouTube video replies to tweets from “influential people” like Kevin Rose, Biz Stone, Guy Kawasaki, G4TV, Gizmodo, Starbucks, Ellen DeGeneres, Demi Moore, Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, and even the Chicago Blackhawks.
BUT they didn’t only respond to celebrities, they also replied to fans, randoms and prominent bloggers; making over 180 videos in total with 5.9 million views combined. (as of Tuesday - according to Mashable)
In addition to coming up with a brand icon that rivals Apple’s PC & Mac characters, Old Spice and W+K have also done a great job at letting people in on the creative process. Last year Craig and Eric did an interview with Twit.tv explaining how they shot the original ad, then this year the actor Isaiah Mustafa (wicked name BTW) did an interview with G4’s Attack of the Show explaining the new spot. And most recently W+K gave a great behind the scenes look about how they were conducting their social media takeover. Brilliant.
Wieden + Kennedy and more specifically Craig Allen (copywriter) & Eric Kallman (art director) are insanely creative and have done an amazing job creating the campaign for Old Spice. The two were also teamed up at TBWA/Chiat/Day New York where they created those amazing/hilarious skittles ads: Touch, Leak, Pinata, Transplant and Beard. They then left TBWA in 2008 after then Creative Director Gerry Graf defected to become chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi. So far they have already won a Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Lions, and I’m sure they will get a slew of digital/social awards for this stunt. Well done.
“Adbroad called it “a move that seems destined to reshape the way brands interact with consumers” , Adfreak reminds us that it all “wouldn’t have meant much without the more traditional element—a brilliant character written by Wieden + Kennedy and performed hilariously by Mustafa”. The Financial post called it a “social media tour de force” - even 4chan (yes,they went there) were amused. When Old Spice stopped working, the internet took over with Reddit users putting together Old an Spice Voicemail generator.”
(via It’s official: Old Spice wins teh intarwebs. | Adland.tv)
I’m excited to announce that I’ve accepted a position as a Senior Account Executive with Velocidi, a digital marketing agency, where I’ll begin work on July 19. Founded by the former COO of Edelman Digital, Velocidi is designed to be digitally native and forward-thinking, devoting resources both to servicing large brand clients and working with startups. I’m excited to join Velocidi’s smart, experienced partners in connecting emerging trends with marketing and brand management services.
Of course, it’s with a twinge of sadness that I leave DailyLit. I’ve learned so much over the last 2.5 years, and the opportunities and amazing people that DailyLit has brought into my life have expanded my world in many, many ways. Being DailyLit’s Marketing Manager has been an amazing way to kick off my career.
In particular I’m grateful for the thoughtful, devoted mentorship of DailyLit Founder and CEO Susan Danziger, whose unflagging support has helped me learn and grow so much. DailyLit Co-Founder and Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger has also been an amazing advisor and friend. To both of you: thank you.
I can’t wait to dive in more fully to digital and social media marketing, and I hope you’ll continue to follow my thoughts about these topics here and via Twitter.
(And just because I’m not working for a publisher right now doesn’t mean I don’t care about publishing. This is a big bowl of media soup we’re all swimming in.)