Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
Coming soon: Kevin Spacey sells pink sparkly jewellery
December 15th, 2009 | 
Author: 
He's all class.
Some celebrities will do anything for money.
They must get a taste for it — having a bank account so far in the black that it’s a scientific phenomenon studied by astronomers, closing down entire boulevards on a whim because they feel like shopping without the pesky plebs around, owning garages stuffed to the hilt with ridiculously expensive gleaming gold-plated automobiles… Well, I’m sure that one gets accustomed to such a lavish lifestyle.
But then the recession comes along and wipes out chunks of celebrity fortunes, and suddenly, terrifying normality is knocking at the door.
So what do they do? They sell out.
Mission accomplished! iPhone apps in the Air Force
Flying a fighter jet: there's an app for that.
Ever been on a top secret mission for the US Air Force and wondered, “is there an app for this?” Well, now there is: Northrup Grumman have confirmed that they will be releasing a variety of ‘apps’ on iTunes in an effort to broaden their market.
“The combat aeronautics market has definitely had a difficult year,” Mike Hock, Northrup Grumman VP, told IWDTFM this morning, “Five years ago, we would have sold five jets already today. But now no one wants to spend money because of the recession, no matter how many signed pictures of Val Kilmer we throw in.”
Tags: big business, iphone, marketing, media, military, music, northrup grumman, us air force | 
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Host your own Windows-themed parade of forced corporate tastiness!
Don't worry! Just mash Ctrl+Alt+Del twice if you're in a hurry...
Microsoft can’t be arsed to take Windows 7 to exhibitions or expos this year. Instead they encourage their beta testers to invite everyone to their house and have a Windows 7 themed party.
The hammyness is only occluded by the strained range of genders, ethnicities and age groups on display here. The idea is to gather the most unlikely bunch of “friends” on the planet, and instead of playing Ring of Fire, Spin the Bottle or Rude Guess Who? let’s exchange lessons in desktop customisation and taskbar organisation. WOOHOO SPRING BREAK!
“We’ve all had a head start” gushes the soccer-mom typecast in the promo.
“You may want to begin installing Windows 7 a few days in advance” the plaid shirt and thick-glasses clad barely palatable techie guy meaningfully warns us.
Social revolution: rising up against online marketing
I submitted this to Threadless.com and got knocked back.
A friend of mine – who is about my age – asked me recently what ‘tweeting’ is. I gave him the stock, Twitter-approved answer that every tweet is an answer to the question, “What are you doing right now?”. My friend then asked me what blogging is, then wondered how such a big internet could fit down those really thin phone lines.*
I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you now that I like Twitter. I like being able to see what my friends are doing, and tell them in return what inane shite I find interesting right this second. Considering mobile phones and text messages didn’t become commonplace until well after I left university, my acceptance of this culture of being socially visible has been nothing short of startling.
I disagree with Daniel, who states that Twitter began as a “medium of communication for lazy bloggers and self-important narcissists three years ago”. I also disagree that dead bloggers are a bad thing. I find it genuinely impressive that the deceased find the time and energy to tweet regularly. However, I do agree that Twitter has since been hijacked by the lazy bloggers and narcissists, although I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. What infuriates me is how, as Daniel points out, Twitter has become just another marketing tool.
Tags: advertising, big business, email, exploitation, gaffes, marketing, media, pr, social media, spam, twitter |
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Alive and tweeting
Twitter bird finally giving up the ghost
The whole developed world is in the grip of #TwitterMania – even the interred are getting in on the action.
The bizarre movement of providing a global audience with a play-by-play of sordid exploits began life as a medium of communication for lazy bloggers and self-important narcissists three years ago. Some purport that its name is an acronym for the unnatural phrase “text (of) what I’m thinking toward everyone reading”. This is unconfirmed by the bastard who created the damn thing, Jack Dorsey.
@somepointmid2008 the corporations got their sleazy mitts on it and turned it into an advertising medium more sinister and asinine than TV – something I never thought possible.
Now, with a new and inevitably bleaker decade approaching, and with nearly all the good old celebs dead, metaphysical brainfarts from our loved and lost idols are beamed in from both realms of the afterlife, lest we should miss out on a single minute of the infernal quandary or unbridled paradise of famous souls milling about waiting for The Final Judgement.
Where the elite have no shame
Only a truly self-righteous prick would want everything they own to be red.
Bono is widely accredited with being smug, arrogant and self-righteous. Not content with this public stance he continually goes on to prove everyone right by using the plight of the third world as a marketing outlet.
Project Red customises popular wares with a unique red fascia. Phones, iPods, t-shirts and what have you all come in red so that people just as bare-faced can simultaneously accessorise and brag about their tireless charitable efforts.
Purchasing the Motorola Red phone sends £10 straight to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, and £130 to Motorola. I daren’t suggest what proportion of this went to the Global Fund to Kit Bono out with a Limitless Collection of Ostentatious Commodities (GFKBLCOC).
Celebrity gossip – a value proposition
More relevant and relatable than you: Banff National Park squirrel shot to fame accidentally - his upcoming album is now tipped to be Christmas #1
Imagine Iran launched a nuke right in the middle of the Baftas, or Grammys, and it was aimed at the hypothetical venue in question, killing everyone important in the world (everything crossed! – alas, I jest.)
Our tabloids would be devoid of content after a week.
They have Sunday supplements and obits prepared eons ago, waiting to be sent to press at the touch of a button. But what then? There will probably be attempts to make icons out of grieving relatives, but I have little enough faith in humanity to expect this to be met with widespread derision and the eventual collapse of the gossip tabloid market. Yay! Here’s hoping!
Tags: celebrities, dumbasses, exploitation, fashion, gossip, marketing, media, money waste, publishing, tv |
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MTV: happily eroding the attention span of an entire generation
Nelly: revered even though he deserves nothing but contempt
Don’t you just love the system? It has taken Rupert Murdoch and his equally odious contemporaries just a hundred years to mould the economy so that everyone’s money goes to him.
Gone is the traditional type of capitalism where everyone worked hard for a salary they genuinely deserved. Spend what you need and accrue some savings along the way? Out the window with it. Instead, we have a system where saving is pointless unless you earn megabucks, and wanton spending is encouraged, if not passively enforced.
Abbey Sherwell and the art of offending online
Abbey Sherwell: not laughing now
You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Abbey Sherwell.
On Friday, Kate tripped her way across the iwilldothatformoney office with a big excited smile on her face. You can always tell when Kate’s happy because she loses all sense of coordination. Once we’d picked her up off the floor and mopped the blood off her face, she told us to check our inboxes for – and I quote – “the most awesome email [she’s] ever read ever”. We then packed Kate into an airtight box and posted her to A&E.
The email was indeed awesome. It was incredibly funny in a “I can’t believe someone would be stupid enough to write this” sort of way. Even better, it had then been sent to exactly the wrong person, who had then forwarded it on to all his business contacts. And they’d forwarded it to their friends, who forwarded it again and within a day it was sat in Kate’s boyfriend’s inbox. That’s how we got it. That’s how the internet works these days.
So you’ve got to feel a bit sorry for Abbey Sherwell. She made a huge mistake – a proper schoolboy error – and now look what’s happened. She’s a budding internet meme.
How not to do business: a lesson by Abbey Sherwell
The following “oops I can’t believe somebody actually wrote and sent that” email arrived in my inbox today. I removed the addresses & contact details, and here it is for your enjoyment on a Friday. Read from the bottom up for a lesson hard learned on insulting customers!
So what do you think – should Abbey Sherwell be saved?
