Saying "fuck you" to Time Magazine, blogger Tony Pierce disagrees with the magazine's choice of the American soldier as person of the year. While he respects the American soldier, he also wonders what is was they did that was so deserving of a Time cover writing, "they did their fucking jobs. just like school teachers and firemen and cops and bloggers."
Tony claims terrorist Osama Bin Laden should have been named Person of the Year stating:
the terrorists have won. and you told us he was terrorist number one, and the president told us, and the vice president told us, as did colin and donald and candy and everyone.
and im sorry if i look at the scoreboard and on one side i see the fucking terror alert at nearly the top of the scale, airports not allowing me to kiss a cheerleader goodbye at the gate any more, and her not allowed to pack a fucking nail file in her coach bag.
and on the other side i don't see osama getting found for the second full year in a row, but i do see george bush's approval rating creeping up only six points after he "got" saddam.
osama is the phantom menace and he is the golden ticket and whoever finds him wins and im sorry aol time warner but your person of the year did not find the real person of the year and you know it and they know it and its fucked up but that's what time it really is.
While he does have a point, I'm not sure I completely agree with Tony. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that my neighbor's son is over there in the Marines and has been there off and on since 9/11. While he may have "just been doing his job," watching the faces of his parents, always wondering where and how he is, made me wonder if there wasn't just a little something special about what he was doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And perhaps we might want to show a little appreciation of that effort.
This week's Ad Age sums up the year with several top ten lists including Ten Most Watched Videos (Devo Swiffer number one), Ten Top Marketers (A.G. Lafley President-CEO, Procter & Gamble number one), Ten Non-Traditional Ad Campaigns (Nike's Roy Jones documentary number one), Ten Ads America Won't See (Nativity birth ad number one), Ten Most Successful Product Launches (Apple's iPod growth and iTunes launch number one) and the Ten Most Read Stories (Chevy Chases Turkish Cola Ads number one).
FOX is launching a new reality series called, "Forever Eden," which will follow the lives of single men and women in isolation on a luxury resort but unlike "Paradise Hotel," the show will have no conclusion. The idea is that the cameras will roll as long as there's something worth filming. While we wonder why the cameras would roll in the first place, the show will be spiced up by new participants joining the group, other being voted off, old contestants coming back and special visits from family and friends. Maybe if the show resembles reality, it might be worth watching. That is, if the mindless conversation between players gets edited out. Oh wait, there will be nothing left to air then.
FOX has ordered 25 hours of the series to fill holes in their schedule and will begin in the next month or so.
For a contrarian viewpoint on cable's growth and importance, a look at the numbers puts broadcast TV in a very comfortable place for the year. To hush the cable cheerleaders, the Television Bureau of Advertising has put out a list of the top TV shows for 2003. Cable doesn't even show up until number 258.
Working in the media department at an ad agency has its many perks. Free tickets to anything you want. Great seats at any event you can think of. Free lunches and dinners. Great parties. And for what? All for handing millions of dollars over to the media. Oh, it's legit business of course and we do love out Christmas presents but can we stop with the fruit baskets?
I will say I did get a beautiful clock as a gift this year from MNI and the most incredibly delicious coffee cake from Clear Channel Outdoor. Oh, and wine from a local radio station. I'm not complaining but I will say the worst gift a sales person can give to a media person as anything with a logo on it. If anyone thinks that will make a jaded media person think more highly of a media outlet, their thinking is flawed. We buy on the numbers. Nothing more, nothing less. Unless, of course, you give us cruise tickets. Then we'll buy whether or not you are right for the client. Oh, come one, just kidding. All the free stuff we get goes the clients anyway. Sure.
So tanks to all the wonderful media outlets for making our lives in media so much better than the lives of the "suits" in the client service department. Free tickets are so much more fun than those weekly status reports AE's have to do for clients who never read them.
Reality Blurred's Andy Dehnart wraps up the year of reality television giving us his "best nine things about reality TV in 2003." Topping the list, of course, is the breakout success of 'The Simple Life' Fox could not have hoped for a better outing on this one. Also on Andy's list are the "Survivor Pearl Island" twist bringing Burton and Lill back into the game, the celebrity invasion of reality TV and reality TV as the new dating scene among others.
The legendary Elton John will perfom on the January 1 episode of "World Idol." It's perhaps a warm up for a planned three year tour which will include 75 concerts around the world, kicking off at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas February 13.
On January 12, 2004, Moby, Michael Stipe. Michael Moore, Jack Black and other judges will be in attendance at the MoveOn.org's announcement of the winning "Bush in 30 Seconds" award. MoveOn.org solicited entries for the creation of an ad that illustrates the apparently poor job Bush has done as President. More than 1,500 entries were submitted.
"The basic idea was to try to some extent to involve the creative community more in the political process," Moby told Rolling Stone earlier this month, "and to disseminate information about what a dreadful president George Bush has been. There are myriad causes with which I'm involved, and I have friends who work for a lot of different non-profits, and we all feel the same way: The one cause that seems to take precedence over all the others is to do everything in our power to make sure George Bush is sent back to Texas in 2004. Every cause would benefit immeasurably."
Obviously, Moby hates Bush.
�sk W�ppling, Swedish freelancer and editor of the Adland advertising weblog, has put together a fantastic two-part review of 2003 advertising activity. Covering not only the best and the worst of 2003, �sk also gives us the biggest ad scandal, the best and worst marketing ideas, ads that should never have run, ads that were banned and ads the shouldn't have been, bizarre ads, innovative ads, viral ads, most overrated and underrated ads, best and worst new taglines, and best parodies. It's the most complete review complete annual review you will find anywhere.
The Wall Street Journal gives its take on the five best and five worst ads of 2003. It rates Hummer's "The Great Race" ad the best and KFC's amazingly stupid effort to pass fried chicken off as a healthy food item. The rest are here. (Subscription required)
|
|
