Accidental marketing
A key goal of marketing is to come up with a message that conveys your meaning so effectively that it goes viral. Sometimes, unfortunately, this happens by accident.
“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a longtime adviser to Mr. Romney, said in response to a question about pivoting to a matchup with Mr. Obama and appealing to moderate swing voters. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
In a book called Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath offer an acronym that describes memorable messages: SUCCES (yes, it’s one S short). It stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Story-Containing.
Unfortunately for the Romney campaign, Mr. Fehrnstrom’s remark covered the bases nicely.
Simple? Yes.
Unexpected? No question.
Concrete? What could be more concrete than the image of a toy that almost anyone can picture, and that many of us played with as children?
The Obama gift shop
Is it just me, or is there something a bit tone-deaf about the products on sale at the Obama campaign’s online shop?
Along with the Obama golf balls, there are Obama golf towels and divot replacement tools. There are Obama grilling aprons and spatulas for the barbecue, and tumblers and martini glasses for the party at the country club.
Martini glasses? Really?
On the other hand, I like the in-your-face Made in America mug and the Cats for Obama cat collar. If Dudley were willing to tolerate a collar (he’s not), we might consider it.
Nukespeak
Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I was a college freshman and (I think) the youngest member of the Boston-area Clamshell Alliance.
That’s how I first met Steve Hilgartner, the baby-faced, iron-spined antinuclear activist. A few years later I got to know Steve Hilgartner and Dick Bell a bit better when I worked one summer as an energy researcher for a nonprofit they had set up on Beacon Hill. And when their book Nukespeak came out from Sierra Club Books (with coauthor Rory O’Connor) they signed my copy, which still has an honored place on my shelf
Recently I saw that a book called Nukespeak had just been published. My first reaction was outrage: Someone stole my friends’ title! But as it turns out, Sierra Club has followed its original post-Three Mile Island edition of Nukespeak with a new post-Fukushima edition, available as an ebook (more details at the Nukespeak website).
50 documentaries to see
Yes, I know that’s not the complete title. But the title is what I like least about Morgan Spurlock’s project 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die. A title like that creates not only a sense of obligation but a sense of impending mortality. It’s not really necessary to say “before you die.” I’m not going to see them after I die, am I?
The upside is that, at least for most us, seeing 50 documentaries is not an impossible task. A motivated person could do it in a month while holding down a full-time job. The same could not be said for projects like the one posed by the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.
Various people have complained about notable films that are missing from the list, or about the fact that nearly all of them are American, and quite recent. Like some of the critics, I would have liked to see Hearts and Minds, Harlan County USA, and the 7 Up films included—not to mention Burden of Dreams, which I haven’t seen anyone else mention. But like this PBS reviewer, I think that the interest and discussion the series stirs up makes it more than worthwhile.
The complete list of 50 films is at the New York Times. Although I don’t consider myself a documentary buff, I’ve seen 16 of them, including Hoop Dreams and the rest of the top five, plus some memorable films like Grizzly Man, The Fog of War, The King of Kong, Waltz with Bashir, and Inside Job. I look forward to seeing more.
