Marketing Manager Has No Idea What Customers Want

Like the sudden impact of that MasterCard Priceless Blowjob ad, Ventura Foods Marketing Manager Christina Ong in an article about legal wranglings over the proper labeling of guacamole dip and the ingredients of the company's own recently acquired Dean's Zesty Guacamole said, "I have no idea what consumers expect." Hmm. Hope that one doesn't find a home on her resume.

Metrics Idiocy Continues with 'Receptivity'

Is your head about to explode with the proliferation of stupid metric buzzwords like "engagement?" Ours certainly is after hearing Scripps Network is tossing yet another into the pot: receptivity, and finding, of course, two of their networks, DIY and HGTV rank tops on the list. Gee, let's just invent yet another metric so that our media property can come out on top. How about "blatant use of cuss words and pics of hot chics?" Adrants, number one. How about "wise-ass commentary you don't necessarily need to get through your day?" Adrants, number one. How about "most typos to piss off readers resulting in the highest level of 'engagement' as indicated by the number of bitchy complaint emails?" Adrants, number one.

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Don't Just Say Go to Hell, Send Them There

We've finally been empowered to act on the command. At You Are Damned put the name of someone or something that sucks ass (like the England Cricket Team) right on the scratch-ridden walls of hell. And if you want to play both sides, grant redemption too. If you feel like it, anyway. We very rarely do.

After damning a few people we know and cherish we got a bunch of thank-you letters from Lucifer himself, inviting us to visit anytime. Our favourite line: "You don't know how happy I am to see this lousy S.O.B. What can I say, I'm all giddy."

So are we, L. So are we. Campaign by Mono in Minneapolis and EVB in San Francisco. - Contributed by Angela Natividad

Strong Argument Made For Death of Page View

Writing on his Micro Persuasion blog, Steve Rubel concisely explains why the online metric mainstay, the page view, is becoming useless and predicts its death in 2010. Citing the rise of navigate-within-page technologies such as Ajax, Flash and widgets which negate the need to leave a particular URL to experience new content, Rubel says the media community will need to face the music very soon and stop the chest beating about the importance of page views. While there doesn't seem to be a replacement metric on the horizon, aside from already existing Time Spent and Unique Visitors, the industry may need to come up with one very soon lest the usefulness of online metrics become as useless as traffic count for billboards.