Author: Drew Neisser

Was a bit heavy handed yesterday so I thought I’d go light today, as in Bud Light. Like the rest of college bball fans and the folks still in the money for the office pool, I caught a lot of hoops over the last couple of weeks. The most memorable moment for me (other than watching Carolina lose the weekend before AND the 5 days or so I held first place in the pool**) was the Bud Light commercial featuring Walter the Squirrel. If you haven’t seen this one, take a peak on YouTube.

Walter the Squirrel is an inspired character. He is asked to guard a beer and when an unsuspecting friend steals it, Walter launches his assault, ultimately hammering a walnut into the cowering thief’s head. Talk about a morality tail! Walter dispenses swift justice in an era where petty theft often goes overlooked. At the end of the spot, Walter hisses when asked if he likes nachos. Walter is no fool. Those nachos probably have the same radioactive cheese sauce you find in the movie theaters. Besides, everyone knows squirrels prefer nuts.

Walter cracked me up. And as you know if you’ve been reading along, Marketing for Good takes laughter very seriously. Laughter is a service to mankind. It brings us together. It breaks down barriers. I hope Walter returns for more laughs. Maybe he can have a series of his own on Bud.TV. Maybe Walter can even become a spokes-squirrel for responsible drinking (this is the one issue I can see with this spot–watch groups may see this as appealing to kids as has happened with other popular spokes-animals like Spuds).  So, yes, this spot cracked me up and sometimes that’s enough.

**–for the record, I finished third in the pool which is my best finish ever! My winnings slightly exceeded my investment but nonetheless I’m buying Bud Lights for the best responses to my posts.  Have at it.

A fellow Renegade asked me what I thought about the new Uncle Ben’s campaign and if it was Marketing for Good. If you missed Stuart Elliott’s column Friday in the New York Times, he chronicled how Uncle Ben, the character, has been brought back to life, now as the Chairman of the Board:

A racially charged advertising character, who for decades has been relegated to a minor role in the marketing of the products that still carry his name, is taking center stage in a campaign that gives him a makeover — Madison Avenue style — by promoting him to chairman of the company.

The character is Uncle Ben, the symbol for more than 60 years of the Uncle Ben’s line of rices and side dishes now sold by the food giant Mars. The challenges confronting Mars in reviving a character as racially fraught as Uncle Ben were evidenced in the reactions of experts to a redesigned Web site (unclebens.com), which went live this week.

The answer I gave to my colleague was that the Uncle Ben campaign as it currently stands was neither Marketing for Good nor Marketing for Bad. Essentially, its a traditional spokesman-driven advertising campaign. There is nothing spectacularly entertaining about the advertising or the website. Though it may be good for the brand by generating renewed interest in Uncle Ben’s rice is does little to affect the world around us. It’s simply advertising. And undoubtedly that’s all it was meant to be.

That said, imagine for a moment if the creator’s of this campaign were committed to Marketing for Good. They would have considered the implications of calling Uncle Ben the Chairman of the Board. In the real world, there are only a handful of African American Chairman. Certainly, Mars Incorporated could have used this campaign to announce an ambitious commitment to affirmative action and diversity in the board room. At minimum, they could have used this campaign to create a dialog about the challenges for a family-run company like Mars Incorporated to build a diverse work force. Another approach would have been to establish a scholarship to fund MBA’s for African Americans. This scholarship could have been promoted on every box and funded with a small percentage of the purchase price. Mars Incorporated could also commit to hiring their scholarship recipients thus creating the possibility of African American chairman. Taking an approach like this would have made Uncle Ben, the Chairman, an aspirational figure instead of a disingenuous cartoon. If we start thinking of marketing as a service instead of merely messaging, the possibilities for Marketing for Good are endless.

As newspapers across the country struggle to be profitable, their survival will be dependent on being able to engage their readers anywhere they happen to be and turn that engagement into revenue. A report in yesterday’s MediaPost described how the New York Times is extending their crossword puzzle franchise online:

The New York Times has created a free variation of its popular online crossword puzzle called Classic Crossword Widget, available as a Google home page personalization feature.The widget will update each Monday with a rotating selection from the Times‘ Classic Crossword Archive of more than 1,000 puzzles and will introduce some enhanced functionality, including new ways to manipulate the individual puzzle cells to reveal letters.

There is no separate sponsor for the launch product, but a link under the word “advertisement” takes the user back to the banner advertisement/sponsorship that is currently running on the Games page section front of NYtimes.com, according to spokesperson Stacy Green.

“Our puzzles have a huge following,” said Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com. “Now our crossword fans can engage with our puzzles right on their Google home page.”

Several of my fellow Renegades count on their daily dose of the Times crossword puzzle much the way I rely on my poor man’s mochaccino (coffee and hot chocolate from my coffee cart guy). A day without it seems incomplete. The pros, of course, only use pen and get through the Monday through Friday puzzles in rapid measure. I’m not sure yet how they will feel about the new widgetized version and if they will find a virtual quill quite as stimulating. Hopefully, they’ll let us know (Stef?)

For me, the widget is a nice compliment to my otherwise dutifully dull Google home page (though its starting to get a bit crowded what with the various news, sports and weather feeds). Given a few other daily distractions (like Renegade;-) I can’t guarantee I’ll be enjoying the puzzle all that often but it’s nice to know it’s there just in case I need a brain tease. As for the New York Times, I applaud this digital extension and hope it encourages numerous puzzle devotees to subscribe to the more robust puzzle offering online. Many of us take the Times for granted, a great institution that will always be there–without new revenue streams to offset declining newspaper readership, the Times as we know it and love it might not be there. As Bob Dylan put it, “the Times they are a changin’.”

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If you’ve been reading along with our viewers at home, you already know I’m big fan of laughter and I, perhaps naively, believe laughter can save the planet. My weekly dose of The Onion is usually good for a quick laugh. Brief bouts with Comedy Central generally provoke prolonged gales of guffaws. Season One of Get Smart, a birthday gift from an old friend, has happily reunited me with my inner 14 year-old. Then there is South Park which makes me laugh as an adult and cry as a parent. Nothing is sacred on South Park, a show that boldly goes where no show has gone before or should after. Nothing is more complex than telling your 14 year-old son why one moment you are laughing hysterically and another why that particular episode was completely inappropriate and not to be shared with anyone, not even our dog Pinky. Admittedly these are complex times.

So yesterday I learned that Comedy Central is about to introduce a South Park game for cellphones. Here’s what the New York Times said about it:

In the midst of mostly grim days for comedy, the cable channel that is self-proclaimedly in the comedy business, Comedy Central, has never been merrier. Ratings for the channel’s prime-time shows have increased 12 months in a row, and its all-day schedule is on pace to score its best season ever.

Some of that is explainable by the continuing strength of the channel’s signature shows, like “South Park” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Both of these shows continue to generate audiences and attention for the network. Today the channel’s parent company, Viacom, is scheduled to announce plans for a cellphone game based on “South Park,” the first time that franchise has jumped into the gaming world.

The move is designed to play to Comedy Central’s core audience of young men and boys. Few channels other than ESPN have such a heavy concentration of male viewers; audiences for some Comedy Central shows are more than 70 percent male.

I have little doubt that my son will be asking soon if he can download the South Park game he heard about through the grapevine. And frankly I should probably consider it a victory if he asks because he might be able to download it without asking. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it won’t play on Verizon phones. If he does ask, my answer will be “No, not yet, you’re too young.” Or at least that’s what I think I’ll say until he somehow convinces me that its harmless fun. He might even say “But Dad, I thought you said laughter can save the planet–aren’t I just doing my part?” Hmmm…

Let me get my cards out on the table–I’ve been a George Lucas fan since I first saw THX-1138 in college. I have seen the original Star Wars trilogy at least fifteen times, a couple of time in the theaters during the first runs, then again when he re-mastered them, through various TV marathons and of course on wide-screen VHS and more recently with the DVD “collectors” edition. I even forgive him for creating Jar Jar Binks and casting Hayden Christensen in the second trilogy. R2-D2 is like the little brother I always wanted–fearless, smart, adventurous and a great companion. So it should come as as no surprise that I am totally and completely thrilled that the US Postal Service decided to shrink wrap 400 mailboxes in 200 cities to look like R2-D2.

A number of media outlets have covered this story in the last couple of weeks. Gizmodo has some great pictures. Cinematical provides all the background info including the fact that this promotional effort celebrates the 30th anniversary of Star Wars and a commemorative stamp being launched by the US Postal Service. Political Fallout takes the satirist point-of-view describing this effort of how the US Post Office is joining the rebel alliance against Bush. And Adfreak offers the comical headline “near sighted scrap pile gets post office job” with the commentary:

If you are feeling a disturbance in the Force, it may be because the U.S. Postal Service is siphoning what goodwill remains toward the Star Wars franchise with these R2-D2 mailboxes.

So yes, in my humble opinion, this too is Marketing for Good. Postal boxes should be an inspiration to anyone who still writes letter and who still dreams of getting an actual letter from somebody instead of an electronic message. With R2-D2 on the boxes, they are suddenly transformed from an anachronistic icon to a literary hero who maybe, just maybe will inspire some young kid to want to be the next George Lucas, and write the myths for their generation. May the force be with them.

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A lot of you may have read the extraordinary story in last Thursday’s New York Times about a Manhattan family trying to live a “no impact” lifestyle. The extremes that this family went to live an eco-friendly lifestyle were well beyond the norm:

• unplugged their refrigerator and turned it into an “icebox”
• unplugged their TV
• no carbon-fueled transportation
• only consume organic food grown within 250 miles of NYC
• no elevator up/down to their 9th floor apartment
• make their own bread leaving a stinky “mother” sourdough on the shelf
• have a compost pile inside their apartment
• and the headliner, they plan to go “the year without toilet paper”

Not surprisingly, this story inspired a lot of chatter in blogland. Many people felt bad for the baby subjected to organic cotton diapers without disposable wipes. Others noted that there were little things all of us could do to live a greener life. Bert, for example, outlined these “little steps” on Tribe

• bikes are obvious, composting, buying from the farmers market, etc…
• an easy thing is putting a big bucket in your shower and under your sink to collect excess water and then using that water to gravity flush your toilet or to water plants with…
• another is to reuse bags and ziplocs and container…
• also the better you eat..the less TP you will need.

So, what’s all this have to do with Marketing for Good? First, the story about the Beavan’s (the “no impact” family) is news because of the extreme nature of their approach. No one I know would go this far but everyone I know is fascinated by someone who would try especially with a kid in diapers. Very few of us are inspired or entertained by the ordinary. Even Marketing for Good needs to highlight the extraordinary. Second, the motive for the Beavan’s extraordinary lifestyle is not purely altruistic. Mr. Beavan is a writer and needed a new book project. “The No Impact year was the only one of four possibilities his agent thought would sell” and Mr. Beavan is chronicling his family’s adventure on noimpactman.com. Cynics might even call this an elaborate publicity stunt for his book (and the documentary) and they would be right. So what? Anybody who is willing to forgo Charmin Ultra (my personal favorite) and its competition has earned my attention… I want to write more about this by have to get back to my day job.

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