Irony in action: Climate Summit to create as much pollution as a small city

It seems attendees of the latest Climate Summit to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark have taken a page from the U.S. automaker playbook.

While huge numbers of government officials, journalists and celebrities flock toward the northern European city, they'll be doing it in an estimated 140 private jets, and more than 1,200 limos. It's so many limos, in fact, that the entire country of Denmark can't satisfy the demand, meaning that hundreds of limos will actually be imported (driven one at a time by single individuals) from hundreds of miles away in neighboring countries like Germany.

Evidently, these officials haven't taken any hints from the public flogging U.S. automakers endured when they took private luxury jets to Congressional hearings to beg for tax payer money to save their financially strapped companies.

All said and done, the Climate Summit has already become a public relations nightmare before the Summit has actually begun. Now it just remains to be seen if any of these officials and journalists care enough to adjust their behavior or if they will simply spew eco-speak from the podium that their actions can't back up.

Read more here.

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Inching closer to quieter commercials

While most advertisers love turning the volume up to 11 on their TV commercials, few realize that the practice actually makes us hate TV commercials and the companies in the more, making us less likely to buy their products and more likely to skip the ads entirely. Counterproductive, isn't it?

Well, more progress has been made toward quieting down TV commercials to a reasonable level as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, or CALM has now passed the House Communications Committee.

I'm sure many will fight it, but in reality, reasonable sound levels on TV commercials will lead to less muting, less skipping and less hating, which one can only assume would lead to greater ad effectiveness.

Read more about the CALM Act here.

One upmanship, and the lucky number 13

You may not have though it possible, or at least not likely, but someone has topped TipTipCash.com for repetition in a :60 radio spot.

While Twisted Tea doesn't actually mention their brand name quite as many times, they manage to say the word "tea" 13 times in a mere 60 seconds. That's roughly every four and a half seconds.

But how? With approved phrasing like, "Twisted tea. It's the hard iced tea that tastes like real ice tea." Evidently top quality writing is a common characteristic in ads that repeat things too much. I just KNOW they're going to set themselves apart with groundbreaking lines like, "Try Twisted Tea, it's really refreshing."

And practically comical on top of this is the fact that a brand that looks like a slightly funkier version of Snapple is trying hard to sell an iced-tea flavored alcoholic drink to young men.

The moral
I have two suggestions. First, not a lot of 18-24 males drink iced tea or want anything that tastes like it. Second, you're definitely not going to sell it to them with the voice of a chiding middle-aged woman saying, "My husband calls it his MAN-tea." Man-tea language could help you, but not if the person saying it is making fun of her man for doing it.

9th time's a charm

Getting people to remember your company's name is great, as long as you don't say it so many times they hate you. That's precisely the case with TopTopCash.com, who injects the company name into their :60 radio spot an average of once every seven seconds.

The spot starts out bland and predictable, but bearable and the whole thing sounds like it was written to be :30 long. Just past the halfway point, it becomes obvious that one of two things, or both, happened.

First, someone clearly ran out of things to say. The entire second half of the spot merely repeats the same talking points over and over in a random and non-sensical order.

Second, it seems that someone decided the best way to fill that space was by repeating the company's name as many times as possible. More than half the mentions of the company name are in the last 15 or so seconds with revolutionary writing like, "Again, that's TipTopCash.com."

The commercial is so grading that I actually change the station when it comes on, and it's practically the only reason I ever change my radio station.

The moral
It doesn't matter how well people remember your name if they hate you, and though the guy who stands on a corner yelling his own name over and over will be known to all, he will be friend to none.

Conservative talk shows find advertisers’ limits

With reality TV and “news” programs of all political ideologies sounding more and more like fear-mongering, sensationalist pundit megaphones, I begin to believe there was not longer content you could put on TV that would scare away advertisers.

I was wrong.

Glenn Beck recently discovered where advertisers draw the line when he called President Obama a racist. Within mere weeks of making the comment, 33 sponsors have pulled their advertising from Glenn Beck’s show, including the advertisers with gargantuan ad budgets like Sprint, Walmart and Clorox.

While I am a proponent of free speech, I am not a proponent of punditry parading as news, regardless of which “side of the aisle” it comes from. In an era of increasingly shocking and outrageous television, it’s nice to know there is still a line of decency somewhere, however far, that advertisers simply won’t cross.

Courtesy is a two-way street

I thought it was very timely that with so many looking for work that Yahoo recently ran this article about how often and flagrantly those who do the hiring mistreat those looking to be hired.

To the interviewees
I'm glad to say that my current employer was anything but rude. They were kind, considerate and courteous; traits I see reflected in the way they do business every day. Often the way a company conducts an interview is the way they conduct business in general, so pay attention yourself if you're the one interviewing. You may get some valuable insights into the company you're trying to work for. If you're smart, you'll even have good questions prepared to interview the the interviewers about the company. You can ask questions, too. Even though they may lie through their teeth (as one of my previous employers did), at least you tried. If successful, you can learn a great deal about the company before you ever spend a day on the job.


To the Interviewers
I know you're busy and it seems like you have all the power, but the article I linked at the beginning of this post holds some valuable nuggets you need to keep in mind.

1) You're not the only company this person is interviewing with.

Despite how bushy-tailed, prepared and pumped your interviewee seems to be about your interview, it's mostly because they want a job somewhere. Chances are that you're one of several companies they've interviewed with and if you treat them without respect, you can easily lose that candidate if another offer comes along.

2) Job seekers have long memories.

A great deal of the time job seekers are hunting for jobs frantically in a time of great need. While their interview may just be a mid-afternoon annoyance that's interrupting your concepting, to them it may be constitute days of research, preparation and expense in the quest to make sure they can continue to keep food in their mouths and a roof over their heads. If you slight someone unnecessarily in a time of need like that, they're not likely to forget.

3) Word gets around.

Job seekers who have bad experiences tell ALL of their friends, and pretty much anyone else willing to listen. As small as most industries are, you can have a terrible reputation with potential employees after mistreating candidates when filling just a few positions. Make it a habit and word can start to spread to other cities. I know of one company whose hiring (and operating) practices are so abismal that people are warning anyone they know not to work there, even hundreds of miles away from the company itself. That kind of negative word-of-mouth can really hurt your applicant pool.


Read Yahoo's article on the five most common ways employers mistreat job applicants.

Twisted Giveaway

Thanks to the kind folks over at allmodern.com, I get to reward you, my readers, with a sweet giveaway. Leave a comment on this blog entry and you'll be entered to win the red basket pictured here. And just to keep things interesting, when you comment, let me know what you WOULDN'T do with this delightful piece if you won it. Good luck!

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