In mobile, one size definitely does NOT fit all.

My first reaction to a recent research report on mobile platforms was…DUH. But, as often happens, a little more reflection made me realize there was some important learning to be had.

The Adobe Digital Index reviewed more than 100 billion website visits around the world, and came up with interesting comparisons between tablets and smartphones…more specifically, the “shopping” behaviors consumers display on each platform. The basic takeaway from the study, which you can see in more detail here, is that tablets have overtaken smartphones as the shopping device of choice. Simply put, tablet use and prominence is growing; smartphones, not so much.

The results show that users look at 70% more web pages per visit using a tablet than they do when using a smartphone. That’s the “duh” part for me. Of course they do. It’s easier to click around a site when your flabby fingers have a lot more working room to find, isolate, and click on the links and, dare I say, actually read some of the words you find once you get there! (And while youth may give you a bit more dexterity and better eyesight for that purpose, it comes with less patience, so those things tend to cancel out.)

What this finally made me realze is that “mobile” is no more a single category than “broadcast” is.  You wouldn’t (at least wisely) use the same tactics for a Super Bowl TV spot as you would in a gas-pump video or local radio remote. So today, smart marketers shouldn’t think they are ahead of the curve simply

Arby’s anti-Subway theme pretty thin, no matter where you slice it.

I know, it’s quirky. It’s so…so… Crispin.  A “legendary” (so they tell us) former New York police detective blows the whistle on Subway’s “Eat Fresh” campaign, the big reveal being that Subway’s meats are not sliced on premises, but at “some factory in the middle of nowhere.”  Here’s what I wonder:  does anyone care?

If I were Arby’s, I don’t think I’d spend the first 23 seconds of my 30-second spot talking about (and showing) Subway, without even mentioning my own stores. Dramatic it’s not. I don’t find the fact that one place has its hunks of meat shipped to the store before slicing, while the other slices those hunks before sending, is very compelling. Frozen vs. cows grazing in the back would be significant. But exactly when and where the knife slides through it isn’t.

Besides, at Subway, I can watch as a steady stream of fresh – yes, FRESH – ingredients like lettuce, tomato, pickles, and many more are added to my sandwich. The fact that my ham, bologna, roast beef, or whatever is already sliced doesn’t translate, for me, into it being less fresh.

I’ll grant that Arby’s is good food. (Though thankfully, it is apparently no longer “good mood food.”) And if I want a hot roast beef sandwich, I’ll probably go there.  But if I want the kind of variety and “custom” experience Subway offers, Arby’s just isn’t going to cut it. No matter where they cut it.

GEICO “witch” ad needs brooming, but political ads are the real Halloween horror.

Okay, I was going to use this post as a Halloween rant at the current batch of frighteningly bad ads. And frankly, if I  hear the obnoxious whooping of that “witch in the broom factory” spot for Geico one more time, I might go Freddy Krueger myself.

Witch spot is wicked irritating.

But on a deeper level, I’m wondering if the incredibly strident campaign ads are the ones that are doing REAL damage in a way we might not even realize. Plenty has been written about negative campaigning from the general “ain’t it awful” perspective  (and credit to my old friend Mike Phillips, wherever he is, for planting that phrase in my head).

But what strikes me is that every two or four years, we suspend even our minimal expectations of advertising and tolerate all kinds of crap that would be met with all kinds of challenges and lawsuits if any company tried it against another. But we just shake our heads and say “yeah, well, that’s what they do.”

Is that REALLY our only answer?  We often cite studies about how exposure to violent movies and video games desensitizes kids to violence. (Some people argue with that, predictably, but from what I’ve seen it’s fact, case closed.) So how can this political assault on our collective senses not  have the same affect in diminishing, even further, the public’s respect for advertising in any form?

TV spots are certainly the focus here.  Information is constantly misrepresented and deftly misapplied to paint the ugliest picture possible of the opponent. Perhaps the 23 times the incumbent missed votes was out of 3000, and the lowest absentee rate in the legislature, but you won’t hear that part. And oh, the production value – don’t you love the

Misleading 5-hour Energy “medical” claim anemic.

Frankly, I’m not a fan of energy drinks in the first place. I encounter enough bad behaviors on the road and elsewhere that I don’t see a caffeine-fueled boost as a good thing.  But it is a current TV spot for 5-hour Energy that has me most annoyed. It is, at a minimum, deceptive, and in my view, deliberately misleading.

In the spot, an authoritative young woman sits next a large pile of what are supposed to be, of course, “official” reports. And in a transparent attempt to wrap 5 hour Energy in a “doctor-approved” aura, the copy references  a survey of 3,oo0 doctors and reports that “over 73% said they would recommend a low calorie energy supplement to their healthy patients who use energy supplements.”

I don’t doubt that that is true. I would also predict that those 3,000 doctors would recommend small firecrackers in the ear to their patients who insist on sticking firecrackers in their ears. Not quite the same as recommending the activity.

I suppose most people only “half listen” to commercials. It seems that 5-hour Energy is banking on that fact, hoping viewers won’t realize that this is about nothing but calories, and all those doctors really said, in effect, was “If you MUST use one, pick a low calorie one, at least.” Some endorsement.

Come on, 5-hour. Go ahead and  use your riveting pro golfer testimonial, or those other commercials that show tired workers using the product as a performance-enhancing substance. I”ll even tolerate the ones that pretend morning coffee is ONLY about the caffeine jolt, more efficiently replaced by knocking back a bottle of 5-hour and getting on your way. (Not true, of course – we enjoy drinking coffee.) But get rid of this phony “doctor” spin attempt.

Many 5-hour Energy commercials open by asking “how long is that cup of coffee going to last?  45 minutes? An hour? ”  My response to that is “maybe. But at least Starbucks didn’t have to trick me into buying it.”

Night of the Winning Dead? Maybe – in new spot for NY lottery.

Okay, so maybe we’re overdosing on zombies these days a bit.  With Zombieland, the Walking Dead and countless other incursions, the genre’ seems to be creeping in to take over pop culture.  And I love it!

Okay, hard to justify or explain, but ever since Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, folks are fascinated by zombies! One reason, I think, is that they represent such “low-tech” horror. No space-age aliens, cosmic death rays or  state-of-the-dark-art biohazard. Just  trudging ghouls. Hideous, of course, but  they’re weak, and they’re dumb, and you can outrun them for the most part.

But Zombies have still another weakness, according to a new New York State Lottery commercial. They’re greedy! This fun spot starts with a scene you feel like you’ve seen a million times, with a select group of heroes trapped in a store with a mob of zombies closing in.

Not sure how they’re going to get out, but it turns out the lottery has, uh, just the ticket!

Lottery advertising sounds like fun, but it must be pretty challenging. How many different ways can you sing the praises of suddenly having scads of money? They’re in virtually every state, and the ultimate “payoff” in every campaign is pretty much the same.  But besides the anticipation of winning, the only benefit is some level of fun. And the best lottery campaigns manage to uh, mine this vein effectively.

I still remember one spot – don’t even remember which state I was in at the time – that featured a nerdy little guy fantasizing about what he would do with his winnings.  The actor did a great job in delivering the line  ”I’m gonna be a cowboy…and sleep on the range…. and eat beeeaaaaannnnsssss!”  You can probably think of others.

Some states – where lotto proceeds go toward schools – approach it from a “good for your community” angle. But I’m partial, of course, to those that are just plain fun. Like this one from Missouri.

I do think it’s rather funny, though, when the SIZE of the jackpot is the main creative thrust. I mean, does anyone really say “$30 million? Not worth it” then get all excited when it’s $60 million?  Not like a mere $30 million is gonna change your life or anything, huh?  (Never mind, Mitt, I wasn’t talking to you.)

Geico’s latest spot leaves bad aftertaste.

In my early copywriter days, there was a premium on “different for different’s sake.” The more bizarre the idea, the more creative you obviously were.  Then maturity hit, and I actually embraced the notion that, while it was still very important to stand out and be noticed, that only mattered if, in doing so, you built it around a compelling and memorable connection to the product.

As creative director a number of years ago, I was forced to be the clueless adult who missed the “wisdom” of an idea one of my writers had – a “taste test” for a national brand of paper towels. (Interviewer:  ”Now isn’t that absorbent?”  Test Subject:  ”Psfft -spit-spit-spit.” ) She was convinced it was breakthrough. I just thought it was dumb.

But a recent spot from Geico makes that old paper towel concept a lot better – at least that pretended to relate to a feature  of paper towels. Geico doesn’t even bother.  The subjects simply taste two different drinks, and find out the tastier one “is” Geico, while the other (the foul-tasting one) is Brand X.

GEICO spot

Geico has always fascinated me with its tendency to conduct several different ad campaigns at once. And I have enjoyed many of them. Because they usually connected to a benefit, at least loosely. (I still laugh thinking of the “Abe Lincoln” spot.)  And though I don’t love the lizard, it’s becoming iconic and has a link to the name.

As far as the taste test commercial goes, sorry. I just think it’s dumb.

A final plug for an “awesome” blog.

For most blogs, the last thing they want to do is send you to someone else’s. Today, that’s exactly what I want to do. For a couple of years now, down there in my little “blogroll” is a link to 1000 Awesome Things.

The proprietor, Neil Pasricha, is a young Canadian with an interesting story and an even more interesting mission. For more than three years now, he has been counting down his idea of “awesome things”  from 1000, each day writing about one in his blog.  The list has been fascinating, from little things – like when the handle on your coffee mug points out at you  when the microwave stops, or you can remove the shell of a hard-boiled egg in two pieces – to some pretty dramatic ones. A few may seem silly or superficial – but there’s a  a stream-of-consciousness joy in almost every one. An incredible number of them have resonated with me.

I’ve never written or spoken with Neil – just enjoyed his observations from a distance, and linked to his blog.  But it’s time to give him special treatment;  the list reaches #1 -and its end – next week.  This would be a great time to trek on over there and look around – look in his archives, and call up the ones that seem interesting to you. Bet you’re there a while. You might even think about buying his book after “meeting” him.

Bottom line, advertising and public relations people can be pretty cynical, and it’s easy to get caught up in that. So I’m sure glad there are folks who can unashamedly recognize the, well, thousands of things we have to enjoy, look forward to, and be thankful for. I wish I could BE more like that instead of just admiring it.

So hey, don’t forget about me. Come on back to Marn’s Market soon. But for now, get over to 1000 Awesome Things.  And make it a “favorite.”  You never know when you just might need a little dose of awesome to get you through.

And best of luck wherever things go next, Neil. Take us along if you can!

Greyhound responds smartly to smart alec Baldwin.

Alec Baldwin is a great actor, but he’s also  clearly too smug for his own good. It’s no surprise that many of his comedic commercial roles seem to feature his pampered, spoiled brat persona. In those, it seems, he’s not acting.

So it’s not much of a surprise to picture him as the airline passenger a little too important to follow the same rules as the “little people” and refusing to turn off his electronic device when requested by the cabin crew and fli
But the great part of all this is that, in his condescending disparagement of American Airlines, he happened to describe flying on the company’s planes as a “Greyhound Bus experience.”  As if he would know.ght deck. After all, HE knows better.  (And it’s even LESS of a surprise when he appears on Saturday Night Live the next day attempting to further ridicule the airline for calling him on his sense of celebrity entitlement.)

But in a brilliant PR move, Greyhound seized the opportunity to publish an open letter to Baldwin as a result. The letter humbly admitted to some past hassles in bus travel, but invited Baldwin to come sample today’s Greyhound experience. Cleverly enough, the company pointed out he would never have had to STOP playing his “Words with Friends” game on Greyhound.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Baldwin accepts the invitation; I’m sure in his mind that would somehow make him even “cooler” and really look like the winner in all this.

But he’s not, at least in my book. Greyhound is. Good job. Way to turn Baldwin’s chicken bleep into chicken salad!

Hitting “refresh” on an old complaint.

Two things: this topic is nothing new, and people have been complaining mildly about it since my childhood, probably. And secondly, full disclosure, my current position makes me more sensitive to things like Veterans Day.

But since I “liked” Petsmart on Facebook or something like that, I am on their email list. And today it came -an exciting message about their “Veterans Day Sale.”

Sorry to be overly sensitive, but in this day and age, shouldn’t there be some connection – no matter how strained or tenuous? A 10% discount for veterans? A small part of your ad devoted to thanking them? SOMETHING?

In our town, we are completing a Military Appreciation Week leading up to Veterans Day. Many  merchants are arranging discounts or other forms of “thank you” for service members and veterans. So Veterans Day means a little more than a closed Post Office and a lame, tiresome sales theme for car dealers and other retailers.

Presidents Day? Okay, fine, be superficial. I’m sure George Washington or Abe Lincoln won’t mind you moving a few Monte Carlos on their annual celebration. Or even a few catnip mice or pooper-scoopers. But Veterans Day should be different. Lots of real living and breathing heroes out there worth remembering and thanking for what they’ve done for us, in past wars and enduring the unique stresses of our current conflicts.

Remember that today, one percent of our citizens volunteer to put their lives on the line for the rest of us. And to paraphrase a quote I recently heard, no one who deploys to a war zone comes back unwounded.

Can I just ask all retailers out there to think of Veterans Day a little differently?  It’s not an opportunity to get people into our stores. It’s a reason to take people into our hearts.

The (Burger) King is dead. Long live the…lettuce!

A few weeks ago, I was a little sad to read in USA Today that Burger King was ditching, well, the KING!  You know, the big creepy guy with the molded plastic face that kept turning up in odd places.

(Personally, I was always surprised he survived the early televisiospot in which a guy wakes up to find the King in his bed. That’s BEYOND creepy.)

The article points out that everybody is promoting their “fresh” food these day – not only competitive fast-fooders, but even the likes of Target and 7-Eleven, so Burger King finally had to step up the plate (or scale) to keep up.

So instead of watching the most awkward royal since Prince Charles lumbering around annoying people, we get to see those fresh ingredients chopped and diced to pulsating music.  Like, I’m afraid, those boring slow-pour beer spots that brewers throw in every now and then to make their real commercials look a lot more interesting!

This is a tough one for BK, though. Subway has a long head start in this “freshness” business, with those veggies sitting out there in plain site, looking pretty appetizing. And hey – what harm can a little healthy stuff do to a Sub Club anyway? Go ahead, toss it on.

But burgers are a different story. Sure, fresh is better than NOT fresh. But when there’s a burger in that bun, that’s what I’m going to judge you by. By comparison, everything else in that sandwich is small tomatoes. And a BK burger is different than a McDonald’s, is different than a Wendy’s, and…you get the idea. THAT’S what matters.

My favorite quote from the article is from the chief creative officer of McGarry/Bowen – the new agency that was the inevitable result of the new Burger King CEO and  marketing director. He said “We’re re-igniting the latent feeling that people have about Burger King.”  Wow. I’m not sure, but I think that might mean “reminding” them.

I have a nasty feeling, however,