Airbrushing, retouching and photoshopping are techniques that are broadly used with all manner of model and celebrity on a regular basis (see Kate Winslet, Jennifer Love Hewitt et al).  Do it with your own photos, and your always-on-a-diet Aunt Nancy will thank you for shaving off that extra 30 pounds.

Some of the applications of photoshopping are so bad, there are entire sites dedicated to the worst photoshop crimes, like PhotoshopDisasters.  One of my personal faves is a recent hot mess from Ralph Lauren, who took the idea of using really thin models just a little too far.  If you don’t see the photo on the right, click HERE.  Now that’s a tiny waist.

Anyway, what all of these generally have in common is the notion of creating personal desire – the desire to be the person in the photo (by buying the product, natch).   This almost seems normal by now, but… could our food be wishing it could look a little more attractive, as well??

Witness the innocent Thanksgiving turkey. We think of them being saved by the President or, more likely, waiting for us at the grocery store.  Who knew that your turkey might have had a little work done?  The folks at Food & Wine, Bon Appetit and Every Day with Rachael Ray all admit to photoshopping turkeys that are too fat, too thin or just not quite right.

“Turkey, as a model, is very much like a fashion magazine with fashion models. There are plump turkeys, and, I’m not kidding you, there are skinny turkeys, there are chesty turkeys, breasty turkeys, there are flat-chested turkeys,” says the EIC of Food & Wine. ““We have,” she admits, ”enhanced the breasts of turkeys.”

Enhanced the breasts of turkeys. Turkeys. What kind of world do we live in where even our birds want boob jobs?  Are flat-chested turkeys laughed at in high school? Don’t mama turkeys tell their babies that they are beautiful just the way they are? 

Oh well. I’ve asked for retouching on my share of advertisements, so I’m hardly innocent.  We marketers will do anything to get the shot. 

Here’s a quick post about an article about Disney in the The New York Times today.

The piece is all about a Disney researcher considered to be “the kid whisperer.”  Her job is to help the company understand the needs, wants and desires of boys age 6 to 14, and then use this information to drive incremental revenue.  While 40% of the audience for Disney Channel is male, for example, girls continue to drive an outsized percentage of  (merchandise) sales.

The article follows Kelly Peña as she walks through boys’ homes, unearthing insights such as – while a 12 year old is trying to be tough and mature – he still as stuffed animals on his bed.

While in-home anthropological research is becoming de rigueur in consumer packaged goods, it’s a pretty big deal in the entertainment space, where executives or creatives often believe they “know the target” and pursue a product development process not necessarily informed by real people and their real behavior.

This is a huge simplification, but there is a fundamental difference in both B2B and B2C companies alike that build something new by starting with their customer target’s belief systems and behavior vs. those who start with the best product development process.  I was trained in customer segmentation – start with the consumer (or business target) – and build “to suit” – but not everyone is.

If pursued with rigor, I think this type of development work could be extremely helpful to the process of creating new entertainment vehicles and entertainment-inspired merchandise. 

If you have any reason to want to drive an individual to a webpage, consider using a PURL.  Click on the image to the right for an interesting example.

A PURL is a personalized URL – one that can be created to include an individual’s name.  It usually looks like this http://firstname.lastname.yourdomain.com or firstname.lastname.yourdomain.com.  Several companies can now use variable digital printing to automate the creation and management of PURLs for every direct mail or email recipient you may have, whether that list includes 1 or 1 million names.  The PURL takes the recipient to a page of content that may be the same as all the others or that may content custom content intended just for that individual.

One company estimates that PURLs can improve direct mail response rates by 34% and I believe it.  From a psychological standpoint, using a person’s own name next to your URL creates trust -and curiosity.  A company that goes to the effort of greeting you by name seems to be sending a signal that it appreciates your business:  and PURLs aren’t so overused yet that the effect has worn itself out.

PURLs are fun!  Sending a party, conference or wedding invitation online?  Anyone that has their own website can create multiple PURLs.  Try it out. 

Most people think that comic book fans are all single men who either live in their parents’ basements and/or have entire rooms filled with action figures.  

It’s not true. Some of them are married (budumbum!). 

But seriously folks… I’m not going to share proprietary research here, but chicks are a growth business in the comics world.  I met plenty of great women during my years at DC Comics who love comics and graphic novels, and manga has only fueled female awareness in the US.   Several recent superhero movies, such as Ironman and The Dark Knight, have also featured storylines and characters that made them watchable for a widening swath of women.

So it’s only sensible that Marvel would come out with an updated line of Halloween costumes for women.  This is a really smart, fun idea that will bring new customers into the fold and get devotees to ditch their handmade Spider-Girl costumes in favor of a “real” one.  One-third of adults say they plan to buy costumes for themselves this year, with 62.5% of women saying they plan to celebrate the holiday vs. 54.7% of men.  and the witch thing is so old-school.

The costumes will not only sell, but they also give Marvel additional moderately-priced SKUs to position at mass retail.

Marvel Comics

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”

Starbucks has announced that they are getting out of the music business.  This is a follow-up to the recent re-org at their entertainment division (read: they ousted the president).  Apparently the chain is still selling books.  And although Shultz’s recent re-ascendance to the CEO role came with a vow that the company would return to its roots, all the Starbucks I frequent in New York still sell food and, specifically, the stinky breakfast sandwiches that Schultz said would be discontinued.

I believe that the company’s foray into entertainment, in particular, was fundamentally flawed at the start.  Starbucks has evolved not into a vacation spot (where fiction and music would make sense), but into my “third place” (computer = third screen, Starbucks = third place).  If I’m in a hurry, I want my cup of coffee and a decent customer experience.  If I’m there for an extended period of time, you can be sure that it’s likely to be business related:  a meeting, the prep for a meeting or sitting with my computer doing work.  This is why keeping wi-fi makes sense:  it’s completely unobstrusive and it helps customers execute on what they’re already doing.  The rest of these add-ons represent a blind spot at the company.  They somehow failed to get underneath the fundamental perceptions and habits of their customers.

The impact of this blind spot, though, would not have been so profound if they’d succeeded in continuing to fulfill their destiny as a coffee house.  It’s not that a brand can’t expand in nutty directions:  it’s that it has to successfully execute on its core mission before consumers can give it “permission” to extend itself.  Standing in a long, unorganized line for a cup of java – noting that the music spinner rack is full but the condiments bar is a mess – only makes me mad. 

I’m really rooting for Starbucks but, man, they’re not making it easy.

Most folks don’t think about the custom publishing business, per se; they may receive a magazine from Four Seasons Hotels or WebMD or AT&T, but don’t really notice that these publications were created by Pace, TMG and Time Inc., respectively).  Media people think about it, though, and have helped make it $55 billion business in the US, with 38.7 billion publications being distributed in 2008 alone.

This is one of the many reasons that Wal-Mart is smart to partner with Hearst on the store chain’s first custom publishing endeavor, 30 Days of Home.  The retailer is using the publication to promote its new line of home furnishings and distributed it with June issues of Good Housekeeping, Country Living, House Beautiful, two Oprah mags and Redbook (all Heart pubs).

A custom pub, created in partnership with mainstream publishers is typically welcomed into and kept in the home at much higher rates than a product-focused catalog.  30 Days offers editorial, useful photography and captions and video content that help the recipient see herself in a home featuring Wal-Mart furnishings:  the mag becomes something that is about her (the buyer), not the retailer (the seller).

It’s a good idea.

Does anyone believe that big, bad Annie Leibovitz forced/tricked/cajoled/hypnotized Miley Cyrus into posing seemingly without a shirt on?  I hope not.

There are two possibilities here, in my opinion:

(1) This was a considered effort on the part of the Cyrus family to begin marketing Miley – have someone even be able to envision Miley – as an adult performer.  If this is the case, it was probably more trouble than it was worth, based on the fact that Miley is frequently seen looking, uh, older.  Additionally, one must wonder about the judgments made on the set, as I think this photo with her dad is a lot creepier than the one causing all the brouhaha. 

Like any product, the handlers of child stars eventually begin to struggle to keep their product relevant and current – no one wants to be a child star has-been (or worse), or let the gravy train grind to a halt. Unfortunately, things don’t always go your way. 

(2) Some experienced media observers think that it just sort of happened.  That there’s no dramatic story here at all.  You’re getting your photo taken by the Annie Liebowitz!  She’s an artiste!  If she says do a one-handed cartwheel (or look like I’m half-naked) I’m gonna do it!  Then you go home, sober up and suddenly Disney’s holding on Line 2.

Either way, it seems that marketers forget the lessons of the past.  What does America love more than anything else?  Contrition.  An apology.  And sometimes, these are actually quite sincere (think Tylenol) and the “product” is embraced even more intensely than before.  This is not only a “teachable” moment that Miley could deliver on a silver platter to parents, but she can come out and make a big deal out of this being a mistake.

The problem is not Vanity Fair – it’s that anything Miley might do or say regarding this one photo shoot looks hollow in the face of her own, voluntary behavior.  The Cyrus family and Disney have a tremendous franchise here.  But no one, really, has figured out how to turn child stars into automatons that don’t do what all their friends do:  that is, act stupid for a while and then grow up.
DisneyDisney ChannelVanity FairMiley CyrusBilly Ray Cyrus

* A Yahoo-AOL merger

* Why everyone is so up in arms over the idea of Microsoft buying Yahoo that they’re coming out of the woodwork to “save” Yahoo.  I mean, isn’t the Microsoft-Is-Evil-And-Wants-To-Eat-Your-Face thing over yet?  And – wait – News Corp.?  So MSN-Yahoo-MySpace-AOL… ?  Look, I’ve read everything you’ve read.  I understand how non-competitive people think this could be.  I just don’t think it’s relevant.  All of the Internet efforts these companies are holding aloft (paging Hulu) because they don’t want someone else to figure things out first – and G-d bless them all (Hulu) - will see another inevitable shake-out (Hulu).  There is too much online chaos, these companies are too big, there’s too little money being made outside of Google and I just don’t buy the old anti-trust worries here.  We “web people” need to move on to the business of building and promoting sites that customers actually want.  And P.S. Yahoo is testing Google AdSense – so they’re getting on with it while they’re not getting on with it.  Neeeeext!

* RushmoreDrive.com.

* Why the NY State legislature would pass the NY Internet State Tax, and how NY residents could possibly look at this as anything other than a new tax.

* CBS denying the inevitable

* The Pinkberry craze (so tasty, but… what’s in this stuff?)

* I’m just recovering from HSM2…. now it’s HSM4!? 

* How a sweet young woman, Melissa Riggio, could pass away.  When I met her, there was practically a halo of energy and vitality around her.  Our thoughts are with the Riggio family.

For the past three years, I’ve worked for the greatest comic book company in the universe, DC Comics(yes, the whole universe, and we comics people know our universes…). 

And as I’ve written before, certainly one of the most significant boosts to the comics business and the U.S. publishing business overall has been the rise of the graphic novel, essentially a long-form comic in book form.  A graphic novel can be about anything, just like a “regular” book:  life, death, war, biography, sex, fantasy, you name it.  The business has gotten an enormous push into the mainstream thanks to efforts including Art Spiegelman’s In The Shadow Of No Towers and several non-superhero graphic-novel-based movies in recent years including V For Vendetta , Constantine and A History of Violence (all DC/Warner Bros. Entertainment films, natch).  The graphic novel business in the U.S. and Canada was pegged at $330 million at the end of 2006 and is likely to see another 10%+ growth when final numbers for 2007 are tabulated.

Now comes the first business-oriented graphic novel, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko:  The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. Billed as a career advice manual for just about anyone who wishes for a better career, the “first business comic book” is written by Dan Pink, a former speechwriter for Al Gore and the author of several influential books on the changing workplace, including Free Agent Nation (2002) and A Whole New Mind (2006).




Told through the eyes of a cublicle-dweller named Johnny Bunko, Pink’s overall message is that there is power in making career decisions for basic, true reasons, such as doing something you love, rather than tactical ones, like taking a job because you think it will be lead to something else.

The book itself looks great.  In the U.S., graphic novels provide a fresh and new way to tell any story.  It’ll be interesting to see how the book sells.  Watch this space.
graphic novelmangaJohnny BunkoDaniel Pink

Web 2.0 is impacting just about every industry, and publishing is no exception.  Audiobooks on your iPod.  The Kindle.  Google Book Search. Viral book promotions.  Full book downloads available for purchase.  Websites promoting new imprints (like the one we launched at DC Comics for a very special line of graphic novels for teen girls, Minx).

I may have just stumbled on the most engaging new-agey book promotion yet.  It’s for a book called “Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure.” 

And it’s not just the promotion, but also the actual book that’s Web 2.0ey from beginning to end.  Smith Magazine teamed with Twitter in 2006 and held a Six-Word Memoir Contest.  11,000 submissions later, Larry Smith and his partner had a book deal.  Here are a few pages courtesy of Amazon OnlineReader. 

This video experience held my attention for 3 transformative minutes (actually 6, because I played it twice):



Not only did I want to read the book, but I began scribbling my 6 words… It got me thinking.  It charmed my spirit, if only for awhile.  I’ll take for awhile, won’t you? 

Check it out.  Find your favorites and click here to enter Smith’s new 6-word memoir contest yourself.  See if you can better Hemingway (For sale: baby shoes, never worn),  Po Bronson (Stole wife.  Lost friends. Now happy) or Tucker Frazier (I managed not to destroy anything). 

The only way I might have improved this is to add a relationship element – try to capture some emails.  I think their take rate would have been pretty good, particularly after a person had watched the video, and the pitch is a natural:  “Give us your email and we’ll send you the next round of winning entries.”  The names could have been added to Smith Magazine’s list, as well.