Facebook appears to be selling virtual gifts like crazy. 

What’s a virtual gift?  It’s an image of something (a birthday cake, a beer, a rose, a bottle of champagne) that you can send to a fellow Facebooker for his or her birthday, new job or… just because.  The image is then posted to the recipient’s Facebook profile, and the gift giver can specify whether her name and message are visible to the public or only to the recipient.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is now estimating that 10% of Facebook’s revenue ($35 million) comes from the sale of these virtual gifts.  In assessing what seems to sell the best, Lightspeed says that holiday-themed gifts are a bonanza in November and December and account for 40% of the year’s sales.  They have also observed that 80% of all sales are made off the first visible page of gifts.

I suppose none of this should be a huge surprise:

• At a price of $1 for something that is delivered instantly, it’s a nice ADD-like way to wish someone a happy birthday, or an even easier way to suck up to someone you’ve neglected.

• Holidays – big pain.  Very few people have the time or energy to send (real) cards anymore.  And, frankly, after factoring in the cost of a good card and the stamp, $1 isn’t too bad.

• We ride in herds.  Wisdom of crowds, and all that.  If it’s not on the first result page of Google – or on the first page of Facebook virtual gifts – forget it.

$35 million for tiny images that cost Facebook essentially zero is impressive.  I believe I’ve given Facebook $20-30 myself for the privilege of sending little blue robots and flowers now and then.

Facebook   Virtual gift

With the help of some of the best and brightest in the advertising community, Adweek is paying homage to the absurdity of campaign advertising by asking a number of agencies to “sell the next President.”

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners does the best job at drawing out the single issue on each side that will be the determining factor for many voters. “We didn’t dig too deep for the two campaign strategies,” says Jamie Barrett, CD and Partner at Goodby.  The truth is they didn’t have to.

Posted at www.stunninglybad.com, Barrett hopes that the agency’s work will cause viewers to “pay less attention to half-truths they see on commercials and think a little bit more for themselves.”  That’s an admirable statement from an ad man.  And we at SF:MOGD certainly hope that Barrett is right, but - with the Republican party believing that women will vote for a candidate because she has 5 kids, a gun and similar body parts - we can’t help but be sadly skeptical.

www.stunninglybad.com

Campaign advertising   Obama advertising   McCain advertising   Presidential campaign

As many of you know, the CMO Club is near and dear to SF: MOGD’s heart, and we’re not alone.  With 800+ members, national summits, a members-only online forum and monthly dinners in over 10 cities across the U.S., the organization is becoming an increasingly important resource in the Chief Marketing Officer community.

To wit, we’ve been looking for ways to draw attention to the Club and its founder, Pete Krainik.  We think we’ve found it.  We’re running Pete for President.  After all, campaigning is all about marketing, isn’t it?  

And come on - tell me this guy doesn’t look presidential.  Here is our candidate deep in thought about Darfur:

 CLICK ON THE PICTURE ABOVE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE
“PETE FOR PRESIDENT” CAMPAIGN

We thank you for your support. 
CMO ClubPete Krainik

Westin’s current ad campaign promotes its hotels as veritable oases of renewal and inspiration.  On everything from TV to print to outdoor, the ads beacon with beautiful imagery and the line “This is how it should feel.”

Since I stayed at a Westin recently - and the bathroom was dirty - the only thing I’m feeling is slightly annoyed and a little skeevy.

The latest execution I noticed is a print execution in Fortune.  It’s a full-color ad showing nothing but rows of what looks like lettuce, growing in ripe, red soil, bathed in sunlight.  Tell me again why my hotel stay is supposed to feel like rows of lettuce? 

ChiefMarketer chose “Breathe” as the best 15-second TV promo because (the site was trying to be nice and) it’s the only one that comes anywhere close to presenting a consumer benefit.  A soft-focus swirl transforms into the word “Breathe” on-screen, after which a text line informs the viewer that Westin is the first major hotel chain to go smoke-free.  That is a long, long way from the way harangued travelers actually want to ”feel” which, for many, would be closer to hoping that the batteries in the TV remote work, the wireless Internet access is easy to use and the bedspread has been washed since the last Presidential election.

Part of my overall philosophy is that a brand must do what it is supposed to do, and do it well, before a consumer can give it emotional permission to venture into untested waters.  If ”core” doesn’t come before ”quirky,” the latter will be met with indifference, at best, and frustration or even disgust, at worst.

Prior to the “This is how it should feel” mantra, Westin focused on the Heavenly Bed - remember that?  It is actually a pretty great bed and - unlike lettuce - this message delivered on one of the core expectations of every hotel guest:  a good night’s sleep.
WestinStarwoodHeavenly Bed

Microsoft is  launching a new $300 million advertising campaign to promote Windows, and Jerry Seinfeld is going to be one of the key celebrities at the center of the campaign. 

I don’t get it.

I most definitely understand why Microsoft thinks this is a good time to refresh (reboot?) the Windows message:  both Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 have been getting bashed, and Windows accounted for 28% of Microsoft’s $60.4 billion in revenue last year.  It’s a franchise that deserves some love.  And sleepy, lumbering Microsoft can certainly spare the cash.

But Jerry Seinfeld?  I would propose that a good celebrity spokesperson should ideally be (a) believable and/or memorable as an authority on the topic, (b) a good representation of the mission and message of the organization, and (c) able to create an emotional link between the company and consumer. 

Seinfeld is 54 years old, hasn’t been on TV for over ten years and, when he was, his computer of choice was A MAC.  A Mac! Watch this early ad:



I love Seinfeld, but not for Microsoft.  Even without Seinfeld’s known preference in computing, the choice only reinforces Microsoft’s reputation as stodgy and outdated.  And in the thriving universe of the Internet and open source, the campaign’s very tag - ”Windows, Not Walls” - doesn’t bode well for the lumbering company’s ability to creating a new, fresh message that’s going to win any serious consideration.
MicrosoftSeinfeldCrispin Porter

The wild popularity of AMC’s “Mad Men” is an easy and fun target for SF: MOGD’s favorite cartoonist, David T. Jones:

I admit that I probably look at Google News every weekday or maybe every other day.  I’m not actually sure why, because it always seems to be a bit of a hodge-podge.

Too bad I missed it on August 14, when Google News announced Russia’s horrible invasion of (Savannah) Georgia.  I mean, it must have been real:  there was a map printed alongside the article!

Let us use this, gentle reader, as a not-so-gentle reminder that you can’t believe everything you read on (or off) the Web…

Avis’ 45-year-old tagline, ”We try harder,” is well-known and highly successful.  For its owner, the line cleverly communicated the idea that being #2 is not only OK, but might be even better for those interested in service.  For me it always seemed slightly apologetic, though:  as if the line should start with “Yeah, but…”

Now we have a different kind of #2 in Mark Spitz.

There’s a great profile of Spitz in The Wall Street Journal today in which he talks about what it’s like to now be the second-best swimmer in history.  Spitz hasn’t lived in the past glory of 1972 for quite some time, so he appears to be handling Michael Phelps’ ascendancy as well as anyone could possible expect.

There has got to be a brand out there for whom Mark Spitz would now be the greatest spokesperson in the world.  Not in Avis’ slightly defensive sense, but a great brand in and of itself that simply isn’t standing under the brightest lights:  a brand that represents excellence, and perhaps a bit of emotion for its current and future customers.

What brand could Mark Spitz most gracefully represent now that he’s #2?
Mark SpitzMichael PhelpsOlympics

There are a bunch of automated phone services that are free to use if you’re willing to sit through an advertising pitch first.  1-800-FREE411 may be the most well known one.  So far, none of them have seemed worth it to me.

Slydial changes all that.

Dig this:  By calling 267-SLYDIAL, you can call any person’s cell phone number and go directly to voicemail.  Want to call in sick, but afraid your boss might actually answer her phone?  No worries!  Just leave a voicemail, and tell her that you’re *cough* going back to bed.  

Slydial’s website offers some very nice, innocent use cases - you want to remind your traveling spouse of something but know he’s in a meeting - but come on:  this is the best slacker tool since people discovered Microsoft Outlook’s Email Scheduler function (for that 3am I’m-slaving-away missive to your boss).

The New York Times has an interesting article tying Slydial to technology-driven communication trends such as the increasing popularity of one-way communication vehicles (think Twitter and Facebook) and services that help people fib a little (such as the service that adds traffic or office background noise when you’re actually calling from home).

Slydial is a service from Mobilesphere which says the idea was developed while it was working on a routing technology intended to reduce international roaming costs on cell phones.  But however it works… You know that person you really have to call, but you just can’t bring yourself to listen to him/her go on and on for 20 minutes?  I might even be willing to listen to two ads to escape that. 

London is so cool (cooler than my beloved NYC, perhaps… but I say that quietly).

This past month, we missed the London Festival of Architecture (LFA2008), self-described as a biennial “celebration and exploration of the city’s buildings, streets and spaces.”  And what a celebration it is!  250,000 attended, and thousands more enjoyed the sight of large-scale street installations, exhibitions of music, art and dance, parties, talks and more.  

At the core of the event is an ongoing discussion about how architecture impacts the environment and can make London a better place to live and work.

Marvelous.  But what a lost opportunity for Kraft (yes, that came out of the blue)!

One of the festival’s highlights is surely the Architectural Jelly Competition, where firms compete in the hopes that their entry will be named the best building made from fresh fruit gelatin. 

Tokion Liu won the Fresh Flower Jelly award for its movable pavilion designed for the festival’s own events.  Another firm entered a jellified version of the London Millennium Bridge. Here is a picture of it (see right):

Banquet attendees were encouraged to come dressed as a “trifle or tasty dessert,” and jelly wrestling was on the agenda.  Perhaps the wrestling was choreographed to the competition’s soundtrack created from the sound of wobbling gelatin.

So what am I trying to say??

The 2010 Architectural Jelly Competition brought to you by Jell-O! 

It’d be jellitastic!  A jellextravaganza!

Perhaps many things from childhood could be transformed into something cool as we age.  Goodness knows, I thought my mother’s gelatin molds (with *gag* canned fruit) were jelloffensive, and look at me now!  All hepped up about jello architecture…

Lifebooker.com is a pretty nice idea.  The site says it’s my “personal online concierge” to real-time discounted spa appointments. 

Every woman knows that getting a last-minute spa appointment (let alone finding a good deal) is essentially impossible.  But on Saturday around noon, the site informed me that I could get my eyebrows shaped at 4:30 at Rita Hazan at 15% off, and my guy could get a 50% off man’s mani-pedi at Sunpoint on the same day. 

Great site, especially for us hurried ladies in the big city.  I would add the ability to sort not only be service and time, but also by specific salon or spa.
LifebookerRita Hazan

They’re falling fast.

Mrs. Fields is the latest in-the-middle company to go bankrupt. 

Many of us remember when Debbi Fields burst onto the scene.  The very embodiment of the American Dream, Fields was a 20 year old housewife with zero business experience and an unbelievable cookie recipe.  Since the opening of her first store in Palo Alto in 1977 (where she famously offered free food samples out on the sidewalk), the company grew to over 1,200 franchises, including TCBY locations.

She did, at least at one point, make the best chocolate chip cookie in the world.  But it’s another example of a company that landed solidly in the middle:  it lost its cache at the high end, but remained one of the most expensive cookies on the generic cookie shelf.  Bad place to be.

Mrs. Fields RIP.

I was trying to think of a clever title for this post, but I can’t.  It’s just, well, it’s just gross!  I’ve certainly flagged interesting ads in the past, but this may be the first that made me want to throw up.

Is that a category at Cannes?

I wonder if this will actually sell more rooms…

I think this is very interesting:  apparel retailers are finding that back-to-schoolers and other customers are buying tops, not bottoms.  The theory is that consumers are planning to recycle last year’s still-fashionable skinny jeans, plaid skirts and straight pants and save money by focusing on items worn from the waist up.  An analyst at fashion consulting firm Tobe says, “If you’re sitting at a desk or a table, people notice what you’re wearing on top, not bottom.”

True enough.

I feel as if this may be the first time we’ve seen such a specific buying trend in recent history: one that isn’t about the rush to buy this hot shoe or sweater but is, instead, an across-the -board crafty response to hard times. 

Aeropostale is responding with half-price t-shirts and low-priced sweaters and vests; J Crew is featuring patterned scarves that can be used to dress up last year’s top or jacket. 

I would work very hard to keep bottoms inventories lean, and merchandise both my bricks-and-mortar and online stores to show the many different outfits that could be put together with a customer’s existing pieces and cute new tops.  Consumers aren’t all that creative:  we tend to wear the same things with - well - the same things.  Promote multiple options and usage occasions to help the buyer feel that the piece is worth the investment.
Aeropostale”back to school”shopping

In July, Crain’s New York published a letter written by Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, part of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

Representing 100,000 union members in the US and Canada, Appelbaum holds the view that Wal-Mart would be bad for New York because of the company’s history of low wages, problematic benefits and its past tendency to, shall we say, sidestep US labor laws.  The UFCW has been trying to unionize Wal-Mart for years, a topic made all the more topical by a Page One Wall Street Journal story on August 1, “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win,” which describes mandatory meetings held with store managers and senior staff during which Wal-Mart HR predicts the apocalypse if Obama wins. 

At the end of June, the NLRB ruled that Wal-Mart had broken the law when it fired an employee who supported the UFCW and threatened to withhold pay increases for those employees who vote for a union.

So I certainly wasn’t surprised to see a rebuttal of sorts in the paper’s Letters to the Editor section last week - I was, however, surprised to see that the response was written by… Wal-Mart!  More specifically, the blurb was written by a lobbyist for Wal-Mart.

Whatever you think of Wal-Mart - even if you support Wal-Mart coming to New York - I thought this was sort of amusing.  Sort of like asking me to read a letter the big bad wolf wrote to the three little pigs assuring them that everything would be ok, or a quick note penned by the old woman to Hansel and Gretel.  Of course Wal-Mart is going to feel differently. Wouldn’t there be something wrong with them if they didn’t?

So why would a reputable paper bother?  And even if there’s an answer to that (and I freely admit that there might be), why would Wal-Mart bother?  For me as a consumer and businessperson, such a completely unnecessary action smacks of smarminess and a shove-it-down-your-throat, can’t-let-it-go attitude.  Pay attention to your CEO, H. Lee Scott.  He was right.  And even if you’re still working on good ol’ New York - be a little smarter about it, huh?
Walmart

There is a blog at photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com, where folks send in photos that have clearly been butchered at the hands of a dangerous individual wielding Adobe Photoshop software, along with their own captions.  It’s pretty funny.

Check it out.  Here’s one - can you detect the missing body part?

“Summer Rayne Oakes (warning: stripper name) is that most mundane of species, a stunningly beautiful environmental scientist who helps injured kittens against the the decepticons, or something equally unlikely. Because of global warming she frequently has to take off her clothes, as shown here in Austria’s Weekend magazine. Her belly button is currently in Sweden accepting the Nobel prize for narcissism.” (Caption by Anna K copied from here.)
**** 

“A charming piece of ethnic cleansing by The Sun”

Marketing Observations Daily is on hiatus during the week of August 4-8.
Happy Summering!
- Stephanie Fierman

I am watching a movie on the Lifetime Network called “A Job To Kill For.”  Sean Young plays the head of an ad agency who takes on a promising young protege.  Unfortunately, the girl is a murderous psycho.  So far she’s killed two people, and it’s not looking good for that uncooperative creative director.

This has me thinking about the mentor-mentee relationship and how many of these movies are out there.  I think I saw one with Sherilyn Finn, one with Billy Moses (or I am thinking about the one where he played a professor who kills a female student?) and one with Lara Flynn Boyle, at the very least.  Then there’s also Nicole Kidman’s “To Die For,” probably the poster child for the “I’ll do anything for this job” genre.

What do these movies say about power?  What deep emotional vein are these flicks trying to tap into?  Is it, “You don’t want power because it makes everyone else want to kill you?” or, conversely, that to make it up the ladder you might have to bump off a couple co-workers?  Hmmm….
Sean YoungNicole Kidman

Every week’s AdAge has a “Creativity” feature in the back that highlights some of the more interesting work from around the world.

This week, the trade featured an amazing outdoor execution that Leo Burnett created to remind you that McDonald’s is a great place for breakfast.

What - you’ve never seen a giant egg on a pole before??  Each morning the humungous egg starts cracking and is fully open when it’s time for breakfast, and the yellow yolk inside the egg says “Fresh Eggs Daily.”  The egg stays open from 6am to 10:30am, then it closes and waits for the dawn.  It’s worth clicking HERE to get the full effect.

I think this is fresh (pardon the pun) and fun - it grabs attention, which outdoor has to work extra-hard to do - and delivers the exact message the company intends.  Great!

This stunt made me think that I’d actually seen a few other unusual outdoor treatments recently and, lo and behold, the New York Times has, as well.

Check out this elevator at NYC’s Manhattan Mall decked out to look like a giant Oreo getting dipped into a cold glass of milk!

billboardOreoMcDonalds

Another piece of late 20th-century Americana bites the dust:  Bennigan’s is closing.

The chain was founded in 1976 in Atlanta and grew rapidly in the following two decades.  Home to the Monte Cristo sandwich, it was better known when I was a high school student in Dallas (living in a dry county…) as a cool, dark place where a courteous teenager could probably get drunk.

I agree with the Wall Street Journal’s assessment that this is yet another reflection of the recession’s effect on the in-betweeners, which I’ve written about in the past.  Low-end and high-end dining and retail are doing well, but if you’re in the middle?  Tough sledding.

Bennigan’s R.I.P.