Marobella's Branding SoapBox

From The "Are You Kidding Me? Department"

There have been many natural disasters over the past few years, some on our soil and some in other countries. Countless lives have been lost, families torn apart and history changed forever. After reading this quote in the Wall Street Journal from people in Greenwich, CT, I am sick to my stomach that the current economic meltdown could be related to events that took so many lives.

A deeper analysis was offered by local Democrat Ned Lamont, who in one fell swoop compared Greenwich’s money woes to the Japan malaise, Asian tsunami and the New Orleans flood.

“It really is a financial tsunami, and it could go either way,” said the multimillionaire telecommunications mogul who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006. “It took Japan 20 years to recover from their buying binge. How long does it take us to work through excessive leverage? That could take years not months. This is our Katrina.”

You be the judge.

Where Is The Line Between Informed & Saturated?

Speaking with my wife today about the state of the economy and all that is happening with the bailout, credit crisis and the war. She sees the Wall Street Journal open on the table every morning and hears my grumbling every time there is a headline on the front page declaring the end of the financial world is upon us. Today, she told me that she would appreciate it if I stopped reading the newspaper, watching CNN or reading blogs. Some people are of the belief that the economy is a group-think phenomenon and that we can all will ourselves out of crisis and work together to make it better. To a degree they are correct. Wall Street is very much a psychological animal where a piece of news can have the sentiment of the street move in one direction or another.

If we believe what we read and hear, we are upon the next Great Depression, that we will spiral into despair and all of us will be standing in bread lines. I have to say it is hard not to freak out a little and watch your spending even on essentials, just in case something does happen. The fact remains that 94% of us are gainfully employed and are working hard to make ends meet. Yes, that number is higher than it was in the recent past - but I believe we are a resilient, intelligent society and will find a way out of this mess.

Will anyone be surprised by the upcoming holiday spending decline? Will anyone be shocked when retailers report smaller than expected gains on holiday spending?

Until the media straightens out, maybe I will get my news from happynews.com

3 Reasons Why Jerry Matters To Microsoft

The debate over the quick pull of the Jerry/Bill 'Connect' campaign is wonderful to watch. When the 4:30 second episode with the parsed moments made into :30 spots hit the air/web waves the buzz began shortly after. Here, I attempt to put forth why Jerry made sense for Microsoft.

1. Jerry Was The Trojan Horse - Many blogs have written about whether or not the 'Connect With Real People' campaign was pulled early because of bad feedback or was it a planned strategy by the brand and their agency Crispin+Porter. Sure, it wasn't on the air very long but it was around long enough to seed into our consciousness. The spots were so different and obtuse that we couldn't help ourselves in fueling a debate. Especially amongst the ad trade - everyone has an opinion as to why or why not it doesn't work. Here is the deal: Crispin and Microsoft knew that they had to do something dramatic to pull the attention and collective love for Apple in their direction. Just launching with a response to the I'm an Apple campaign wouldn't be enough. Having Bill Gates shopping at Payless and Jerry cutting his toe nails is shock value. Once the buzz rose, the campaign switches to I'm A PC. If you watched closely, you noticed at the end of the Jerry spots, PC stood for different things - Perpetually Connecting, To Be Connected etc. Think about it... The I'm A PC campaign had so many moving parts to it that there is now way that CPB and Microsoft could have responded that quickly to poor feedback. This is especially related to the Life Without Walls website that has deep ties to media executions including on MTV. This was a planned 1-2 punch and it was genius.

2. The 3rd Leg Of The Campaign Stool - With all the buzz about the I'm A PC and Connect With Real People, nobody has paid attention to the Windows Mojave experiment. This campaign attempts to reintroduce people to the Vista operating system without the stigma of the Vista brand. This is what they are actually selling, it is the activation element of the advertising strategy. Real people giving real feedback. Not so subtely reminding us to give Vista another look.

3. The Lore Of $10,000,000.00 - There have been rumors all over the web that Jerry Seinfeld was paid $10,000.000.00 for his appearance in the Microsoft campaigns. True or not it contributes to the overall buzz of the campaign. Sure, Jerry is a huge star but what has he done lately? He is all set from Seinfeld royalties and good for him if he was paid 10 stacks for his deadpan delivery of asking Gates to power down the robot. The point is that CPB wanted you to know what he was paid. It only added to the buzz, in fact I would bet that the buzz value wasn't far from what they paid for the campaign.