George Simpson writes in MediaLife about Madison Avenue's ridiculous pursuit of the so-called "metrosexual" saying "A metrosexual is nothing more than a guy who finally figured out he'd get laid a lot more with a haircut, clean fingernails, his shirttail tucked in, and thus empowered, able to entrap dates in his apartment by cooking them meals."
He says Madison Avenue has forced us to "endure this fiction that metrosexuals are an important new marketing niche squeezed, tweezed and teased somewhere between gay men, and the "hysterical heterosexuality of tits, beer, sports, cars, and fart-lighting."
He claims the media has gone too far in trying to cater to this very small target group when me simply do not care about looking good and shopping saying, "Unlike women, whose lives are often caught in cyclical indecision while considering every possible option before making a choice, men are utterly linear in the buying process. See it. My size? Not a bad color. A third off? In the bag."
Even more scathing to marketers who foist this on us is this statement: "We (men) are simply not at the dawn of a new age in which men, suddenly in touch with their feminine sides, redefine what it means sartorially to be men. Rather we are caught in a trendy dust devil spawned by the gaseous hope of Madison Avenue that men will become voracious consumers of all sorts of upscale crap they don't need or particularly want."
Take that, Madison Avenue.
Are We In Or Out?
Us Weekly and Brand Republic are reporting that following the BenLo/Bennifer/Afflo/Jffleck wedding media fiasco, Miramax has decided to remove any likeness of Affleck and Lopez from upcoming Kevin Smith movie "Jersey Girl" promotional material and instead promote it solely as a Kevin Smith film. Reportedly, Miramax is skittish about the public perception of the Loffleck wedding nightmare and the pair's disaterous turn in "Gigli."
This story, originally appearing in Us Weekly has been denied by Kevin Smith directly. Thanks to Brendan from Brendoman (see comment section) for the tip. Here is Kevin's denial:
"Speaking as a guy who's about as close to this movie and the marketing plans as it gets, I can tell you that there's no truth to that story. Market the movie on me? So fucking ridiculous.
Trust me: I've seen the marketing concepts on this movie from as early on as when we were still shooting up to just yesterday. EVERY poster is centered around Affleck. Some show Affleck and Jen, some show Affleck and the kid (which would make the most sense), some show Affleck and Liv Tyler. None show me. And as with every flick I've made, this is not billed as "A Film By Kevin Smith" - the hallmark of any marketing campaign built on the director.
"The Fourth Film by Quentin Tarantino"? THAT'S a director-driven marketing campaign. A standard "Written and Directed by Kevin Smith"? That's hardly what I'd call selling a flick on the director's back.
Smells like some editor at Us Magazine was desperate for a Ben and Jen story. That this bogus tidbit fit the bill shows a surprising amount of creativity on their part, but further solidifies their reputation in the print community as little more than a glossy version of the Enquirer"
Well said, Kevin.
TiVo has launched a campaign created by UNCLE that is a 20 minute advertorial following people as they become TiVo subscribers. This, perhaps, is an example of what TiVo envisions advertisers to place on its service. Other campaigns this week reviewed in Amy Corr's MediaPost Out to Launch column include a campaign for Yahoo placed in the New Yorker, a new campaign for Motor Trend, a Hispanic campaign for Honey Nut Cherios, a campaign from American Business Media extolling the virtues of B to B advertising, a CR-ROM based campaign for the Marines and a relaunch of the Diageo Smirnoff brand.
Oh hell...why try to write anything about this. All you have to do is look and enjoy. Oh, and I just noticed. It's actually an ad for Omega watches. Sorry, I was distracted.
Thanks to ApeChild for this.
The new $20 bill is getting 1.6 million $20's put behind it to let everyone now it really is a $20 and not Monopoly money. The U.S. government is launching a $32 million campaign to let us know about the redesigned $20 bill. Subsequent campaigns will follow to promote the new $50 and $100 bills that will begin circulation in 2004 and 2005 respectively.
