Act the same

Kat Rosenfield, whose work I've linked to at least once before, has a good new article on the pretense that the corporate world--and especially the tech industry--values individuality, even eccentricity. This is something that was very big around the turn of the millennium. Free thinkers and mad innovators were supposedly the new royalty because they just might change the world.

It was always and empty sham, of course. These companies were only interested in a very narrowly defined kind of visionary, the kind that could foresee and nudge developments in their own field. And even this may have been devalued in the ensuing years, as the CEOs figure they already know everything worth knowing. Better to save up and buy a few politicians.

Anyway, one of the big relics Rosenfield talks about is Apple's Think Different™ campaign, a representative poster from which is shown below.

Notice anything that all or at least most of these people have in common? Yeah, kind of a brilliant touch, actually. They had the cachet of having shuffled off this mortal coil, and Apple didn't have to worry about them doing anything new that might be off-script or which, in today's parlance, might get them canceled. 

Mark one

Please select the option that best corresponds with your response to the article about spontaneous human combustion.

1. It wasn't that hot.
2. It made me see red.
3. I'm burning to hear more.
4. It was okay.

Java jive

The advertisemtn shown here is so nonsensical to me. "100% barista. 0% attitude."? How often do you get too much attitude from a barista. Sure, everyone gets bad or rude service somewhere. But I can count on the fingers of one hand all the times I've been mistreated by coffee shop counter help.

Reasons are various. Starbucks seems to have an impressive training program, but I've generally been pleased with the level of service at smaller chains and independents too. Part of it, of course, is that baristas are dependent on tips and don't want to alienate tippers. But also the nature of the job is that it's a social exchange. People whose exchanges with customers tend toward the negative don't last long.

I suppose it might be true that if you got a machine, even a Yuppiestein like this one, you could save money by not going out for espresso anymore. But I'd submit that the hanging-out opportunity makes the shops a net positive.

No, I think I know the target demographic here. It's people who have such a high need for deference that any human behavior at all on the part of those serving them seems like an imposition. Meet America's aristocracy, and those who aspire toward it.

Don't be a Ding-Dong

Vital news from the snack cake front:

Mediation hearings will begin Tuesday, but the original hearing to consider the wind-down plan was adjourned until Wednesday morning, just in case reconciliation talks don't work out. Production "remains shut down," according to the Irving, Texas, company.

But the scales are out of balance, with the union at a deep disadvantage, said Gene Grabowski, a Washington crisis communications expert at consulting firm Levick.

If discussions fail, Hostess probably will sell itself at a loss and wash its hands of the situation, Levick said. Buyers — potentially major food companies such as ConAgra Foods Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. or Nestle — then probably would absorb the brands into their operations without hiring former Hostess workers.

"It's hard to see what they could accomplish at this point," Grabowski said. "It looks like Hostess management is holding more cards right now than labor. This is really the last hope for employees to save their jobs."

Well management very often holds more cards than labor. It's funny how many times it works out like that. It's almost like they know the dealer or something. Still, the head Ho-Hos at Hostess should consider what the future holds if they let the company slip away. In the short term they'll still profit. But if Hostess becomes a branch of Kraft or ConAgra, it's no longer its own thing. Up till now, Twinkies and their ilk have gotten prime store placement and spandex publicity because they were the priority for their parent company. As a subsidiary they'd be one product among many, and at some point the new owners could deemphasize them in order to boost rival products they also own. Nobody's too big to become a ghost brand. All of which is to say that if the sugar pimps want the good times to keep rolling, they should listen to what their workers have to say.

Ad analysis

First, a look at the footage. Warning, curly-headed objects may be less cute than the appear.


A considered opinion.

There is so much wrong with that commercial that I don't even know where to start. Like adults should make major financial decisions based on what a kid thinks is cool? And the bad, shallow attitude! That kid reminds me of the bully that tormented me all through grade school!
Not a smart way to market.

Initially, I thought the opposite. It seemed to me a dramatic and persuasive argument. Then I realized it wasn't made by a ZPG group trying to push vasectomies and tubal ligations.

Label on a can

Am I glad not to be in college anymore. This is just wrong. When I was a younger man there was something pure about checking out a girl's ass. We wouldn't have stood for this kind of crass commercialism. Well, I wouldn't have. The frat guys would have bought more KFC.

There's also the aspect of women renting out their bodies and dignity to help move product, although there it could be worse.

Winged vanity

Today I saw one of the most hilarious wastes of money it's been my privelege to witness. A plane was dragging a banner through the air. It was all red, with a familiar yellow M on the right hand side. To the left of this were three lines of text in white. What did they say? I don't know. I couldn't read it. There is no way anyone standing on the ground could read this banner. So this pilot was paid probably thousands of dollars to tell the public that McDonalds exists. We were all so close to forgetting, I'm sure.

To be fair, they may be trying to reach out to the seagull community.