Life Insurance Awareness Month

March 28, 2008


Life Insurance Awareness MonthThis is about six months early (or late), but did you know that September is Life Insurance Awareness Month?

With so many Awareness Months claiming their cause, This shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s just kind of, I don’t know, disingenuous, like we’re promoting FLEX Spending Awareness Month or Flight Insurance Awareness Month.

My favorite, though, might be that the 2007 spokesperson for Life Insurance Awareness Month was Molly Shannon. Molly Shannon? What, Chris Kattan wasn’t available? Kevin McDonald was busy?

Listen. I understand the need for life insurance. I get how important it is. But a Life Insurance Awareness Month? It kind of doesn’t have the same ring as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Excuse me for thinking this, but it smacks of opportunism and commercial pandering.

The big question: I wonder what the cause ribbon looks like. And do they make lapel pins?

Tags: Annoyances |

3 Comments

Writing a blog

March 10, 2008


Hold on for a few seconds. I’m going to get curmudgeony.

You don’t write a blog. You don’t post a blog. You don’t tell people about the blog you just wrote, about how you’ll talk about it on a forthcoming blog.

Blog is short for weblog, the entire entity that contains your writing. The Web site itself. The series of writings arranged in a descending chronological order. That’s a blog. Not the individual piece.

You write posts. Or articles. Or synopses. Stories. Reviews. But not blogs.

You write ON a blog. You write FOR a blog. But you don’t write a blog. That is, unless you’re talking in the technical sense; writing the code that will form a blog could be considered “writing a blog.” It’s like writing an article for a publication and saying “I just wrote a magazine,” or “You can read about in my latest magazine.”

That’s all. Semantics, I know. But it’s just something I’m tired of reading.

Tags: Annoyances, Blogging, Words |

4 Comments

Shack-ing up with the past

February 28, 2008


The power of an old message can be rather surprising.

I’ve seen a sudden spike in interest for my mini three-part rant on Radio Shack, a nearly two-year-old sore spot that has since dissipated into consumer lore like an Alka Seltzer. The main issue: a local Radio Shack store sold us a Sirius satellite radio receiver under erroneous pretenses and, when pressed, made little effort to help us.

I was pretty angry - and totally duped - about the situation, and after three months I finally just wrote a letter to the district manager.

I didn’t expect much. But I was a dissatisfied customer making his voice heard. I am a multi-year veteran of retail and know that, as an employee, your ultimate job is to make your customer happy. You may not like it. You may not do it. And your bosses might not even care. But it’s your job, or at least it should be.

Though it may be a long lost chivalric deed nowadays, I still feel that a retail establishment has a duty to its customers, if only because those customers ultimately keep a store in business.

Anyway, I received a response (after finding my own solution) and found it lacking. A few hours later, I got a call from the district manager with a personal apology - an apology that I was both surprised and pleased to receive. It was the way customer service should be - filled with actual concern and not just simple avoidance. I held a grudge for about six months, then (naturally) gave in and started shopping at Radio Shack again.

I’m not old fashioned, I hope. I think a company best maintains its brand by promoting positive customer experiences. I didn’t ask for anything more than respect, and I didn’t offer anything but my disappointment. I posted the letter and responses to let others know what I had gone through, to see if I was the only one, to see if I could rouse up some solidarity.

My posts returned several types of comments.
1. Other customers who were equally upset.
2. Employees of Radio Shack who corroborated my issues.
3. Employees of Radio Shack who tried to justify the issue by saying, “What do you expect? We’re here to sell things.”

A great number of responses were either of a “Radio Shack Iz Dum!” or, even worse, “Yer Dum!” nature. I fought for my position when needed and still feel I was justified. I passed off moronic and insulting comments as immaturity. I was at ease with my thoughts, and as nearly two years passed, and I figured the ordeal was in the past.

It wasn’t. Thanks Google.

Go ahead. Search “Radio Shack Sucks.” See what you get. There’s a good chance it looks like this:

Google Search #1!!!

Yup. That’s me. #1. The old URL, too - cdub.driscocity.com, not blackmarks.net. You get the same post and the same comments either way. Amazingly, the comments have gotten more pro-Radio Shack. And the reasoning goes back to #3 above: What do you expect? We’re here to sell things!

Please. Most of us want to be treated with respect when we enter a store. Unfortunately, that respect can be difficult to find. There’s a large number of retail employees who might not care about the customers they serve - and who can blame them? It’s hard to care when you’re being paid peanuts, or when you’re pressured to make sales above and beyond the capacity of the community.

But does that make it okay? Do the ends justify the means? Are we really supposed to simply shrug our shoulders and accept the fact that, sometimes, at some stores, we’re going to be lied to in order to appease some corporate sales level?

Whatever. Unless I lock the comments, I’m sure I’ll continue to get comments from both sides. I’m at peace with the situation, and most of the comments I continue to get are rather funny. In fact, I’ve helped those coming to the page by added links to the other posts - now readers won’t assume the letter was the last word. Now readers can follow the situation to its thrilling conclusion.

And I can sit back and revel in the fact that I’m #1 in terms of such a seemingly common theme - corporation malaise; the hatred for the big - a search term that could rank in the top ten of “INSERT STORE” Sucks, somewhere after Best Buy Sucks and WalMart Sucks.

I have to be careful though. In the grand scheme of things, I’d hate for this mini-rant to be my legacy.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances, Blogging, Meta |

1 Comment

Social (Network) Retardation

January 3, 2008


I just checked my MySpace account. And my Facebook account.

I hadn’t done that in three weeks. Before that, it had been two weeks.

I’m burned out on social networks, and I’m coming around to realizing that they ultimately serve no purpose whatsoever in my life. None. They don’t do anything for me. They don’t improve my life, though they often serve to neglect my life through a virus-like spreading of time wastage.

I signed up for MySpace a while ago, back before the Facebook explosion, because I had friends on MySpace. I customized my page and then started searching. I came into contact with people I hadn’t heard from in years, commented on people’s pages and felt voyeuristic in my search for more and more obscure lives that had at one time passed through my own.

And when I quickly grew tired of the MySpace monster, I switched to Facebook, just a few months after they opened the sluices and took the “organizations and schools only” barrier off of the front door.

Now I can barely tell the two apart. MySpace has added all of Facebook’s best features, while Facebook keeps slipping further and further into the gadget market. Those people I had yearned to rediscover? They’ve been rediscovered. Those voyeuristic natures? They’re commonplace.

When the luster wore off of the social networking sites, they were exposed for what they were - an inefficient system of keeping in contact with your friends, a black hole of non-productivity. It has an allure to some people, I’m sure. But I’m tired of collecting friends like baseball cards, and I’m exhausted with keeping up with 50-75 people. At once. I refuse to add more applications to my Facebook page, and I’m tired of finding seventeen friends replaced by spam monsters through MySpace.

So the sites sit, neglected. Wasting away, comments trickled to nothing, birthdays going ignored, messages thinning and winnowing. They sit, waiting for me to return. But aside from checking for news every few weeks, like an abandoned Hotmail account filled with junk mail, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just fall away all together.

I can’t be the only one already letting go of 2.0. Can I?

Tags: Annoyances, Friends |

1 Comment

Design flaws of Method soap

December 19, 2007


I love good design. No surprise there.

However, there’s a time when sharp design clouds common sense - when the idea of making something look great takes precedence over usability. Sure, that font might look cool, but what happens if it causes an “i” and “r” to fuse together? That shirt you’re talking about just turned into shit.

For weeks, I’ve experienced the sad triumph of design over usability every time I try to wash the dishes.

We often purchase Method cleaning products - a design-friendly, super-green company, an antithesis of your typical mass-market mega-companies (Proctor and Gamble, for instance). They’re available at Target, and now at our local HyVee stores.

The company is founded on two things: biodegradable, Earth-positive products and great design. In fact, one of the founders was a graphic designer. He had experience in style and branding, and sought a way to introduce design to the home care industry.

Admittedly, this is a selling point to Kerrie and me. We enjoy nicely designed products, so we were instantly drawn in by Method’s clean bottles and unobtrusive labels. When you look at the over-bright, seizure-inducing labels that appear on most home care product, you understand the allure.

Unfortunately, Method’s dish soap holds a serious flaw.

The plastic bottle it comes in is impossible to use.

Method soapTake a look. The bottle looks pretty sharp. It’s sleek and it would look nice on your counter. You would pick up the bottle at the store and hold it and fall in love with the design.

Then you take it home. With wet hands, you reach for it.

*SLOOP!*

Right out of your hands. Into the water. Go ahead - try turning the top knob to get soap out. Haha - the joke’s on you! Our soap happens to be under the counter, so we have to try to pick the bottle up from the top - a near impossible feat with wet hands.

The tapered top looks great. But it’s not practical. The rounded corners of the spout make the bottle look modern. But they’re also not practical. This is a product designed to look great. Not to work great. Those strong, sturdy shoulders on the typical bottle of Dawn? They seem so necessary now.

I will buy things because they are designed well. I will stop and read ads that look good. I will be drawn to people who put forth a well-designed personality. And the most frustrating thing in these cases is when the design is just that - all design, no substance, lacking the most common sense workability functions. It’s as if the ideas were never bounced off of anyone, the product created in a vacuum with hopes of a grand unveiling.

Do you have the next great design idea? Lay it on us. But make sure that it’s more than just packaging. Make sure that you test it out first before sending it out into the world to fend for itself. Because if no one will ever remember your art if they can’t get the soap out.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances |

2 Comments

Skydiving = great education!

November 20, 2007


Saw the following commercial for Dakota State University – a smaller state school about an hour or two north of Sioux Falls - on a random local channel

ANNCR:
The world moves pretty fast.
An adequate education is not enough when it’s time to be a leader.
Dakota State University offers you the edge you need to stay ahead of the game.
You only live once. Make it count!
Dare to do, at DSU. Dakota State University, Madison, SD.

VIDEO:
ANNCR always talks to camera.
ANNCR in suit, inexplicably on top of building, holding arms in air. Cut to shot of ANNCR walking through computer server room. Cut to generic campus shots. Cut to ANNCR sitting behind a random, nondescript desk, pointing at camera. ANNCR gets up, dives through doorway…
…and cut to gratuitous shot of ANNCR skydiving. ANNCR gives thumbs up. Cut to DSU graphic. End.

My questions.

1. Does the degree come packed with as many clichés as you see here? I hope so. This is worse than a half-time interview with Bill Belichick. “We played hard and gave 110%, and we have a lot of respect for those guys, but we’re just taking the season one game at a time.”

2. Do shots of a desk signify your ability to secure a high paying job? Does a computer server room signify the school’s dedication to high technology? Does a shot from on top of a roof show limitless potential? I hope so, and not that these shots came at the whim of the announcer character. “Hey, let’s take a shot on top of the roof! Whoa!”

3. Skydiving? Seriously. What? Skydiving?

I wish you could see the spot. Alas, it’s not on YouTube. Just another reason you shouldn’t rely on your student editors to create your commercials.

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UPDATE: I seem to have upset someone - I’m guessing someone involved with the production of the spot.

My apologies if I’ve upset anyone. Please contact me in person next time - or at least leave an e-mail address that I can properly respond to.

——————————–

SECOND UPDATE: I realize I haven’t mentioned something - it is obvious by the comments and by people I’ve talked to that this spot wasn’t produced by students at DSU. This was done by an outside agency. So ignore the comment that says “Just another reason you shouldn’t rely on your student editors to create your commercials.” And apologies to student editors for the insult.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances |

5 Comments

A going problem

November 5, 2007


Just a quick question.

Why is it that incontinence drug commercials are afraid to say “urinate?”

Why is it always called “going?”

As in - “If you have problems going frequently, going at inopportune times or going with pain…”

Or, if you have prostate problems, you might hear that “Your going problem might be a growing problem.”

You mean urinating?

These are adult drugs, right? Let’s just go ahead and refrain from the euphemisms. What’s next - peepee? Make water? Jeez.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Annoyances |

3 Comments

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