Category: Our World

Top Chef, Williamsburg + Mayonnaise

Word from Gothamist is that the new Top Chef contestants are living in my hood at the McCarren Park Condos. When asked what was filming, a crew member deadpanned “A mayonnaise commercial. Just a mayonnaise commercial.”

Mayonnaise and Cat Food are the two tried and true classics of film set crowd control. Tell the public that’s what you’re shooting, and they’ll keep on moving – the thinking is that nobody cares about these products. No prom king, sorry.

That said, while working on set I’ve had odd conversations with passerby about the virtues of condiments and cats. And even as a filmmaker, I am not immune from such chicanery. Last week I walked by a set and paused to ask what’s shooting – in my query using code to convey my insider status – it’s OK, you can tell me what’s really on camera.
But alas no pass for me, just a stonefaced response: “Hellmann’s Mayonnaise.” I smiled and pushed on.

(Bonus Points go to whichever upstart filmmakers create a meta-text that integrates Top Chef with their Carroll Gardens brethren Real World.)

July 25, 2008
Hanging on the Telephone

Since seeing the Fiest/Sesame Street video, I’ve been moseying down a muppety memory lane. One of my faves were the Yip-Yips – cultural anthropologists from Mars, ever curious about our Earthling ways. Loved them, but often watched them whilst hiding behind the sofa, cause they scared me.

Z4VNMERVsC4
So after watching the above clip, I was reminded of a Gallup phone poll in June that had McCain and Obama in a dead heat. While it claims to source from both mobiles and landlines, I’ll wager that far fewer of the cell set partook.

As a teen I toyed with many surveys that called my parents’ landline, but have never once have had a chance in six years with my 917. And even if Gallup called my mobile, I probably wouldn’t answer their 800/private/unkown number. So while older folks do vote more than us whippersnappers, is it time for pollsters to reconsider what ‘pulse of a nation’ they truly take via telephone?

—
Adliterate says hang up

July 24, 2008
Feist x Sesame Street

9fciD_II7NI

If, like me, Apple’s bludgeoning repetition of commercials for its video-enabled iPod nano featuring the original version of this Feist’s “1 2 3 4 ” permanently turned you off to the song, you can breathe easier now. But who knew the prescription would be so simple? Add a klatch of cute monsters, interpolate the lyrics for the kiddies, and I’m right back on board.

Separately, because you need to hear it, check out the Boys Noize remix of the dulcet-voiced Canadian’s song “My Moon My Man” below.

July 22, 2008
Your Copywriter is Garbage

While I’ve always enjoyed the department of sanitation’s nickname, New York’s Strongest, and look for every opportunity to refer to the workers as San-Men, I’ve never quite gotten cozy with the department itself. Spending these couple months in New Orleans has changed my appreciation of the field. Outside of the tourist areas of the city, it seems like every third vehicle on the road is a pickup truck hauling debris and rusted nails; dumpsters are a common sight too. Garbage disposal, like construction and, um, bars, is one of the most visible industries in the city.

Unlike most places I’ve lived where garbage is collected by the city, in New Orleans it is a competitive business. As a subletter, I’ve no say in the matter of my own duplex, or even an idea how the contract is structured. But it has been curious to see how the various companies position themselves.

Garbage disposal is probably among the last businesses that I would consider ripe for whimsical contortions of the language. But that was before I became aware of River Parish Disposal, aka the biggest, meanest, garbage-eatin’ gator in town. Tagline: Our business stinks, but it’s picking up! Here’s another quote from the “Let’s talk trash” section of the website:

River Parish Disposal has been servicing the Greater New Orleans area for over 20 years. So it’s safe to say, we know where your garbage bin.

I don’t want to spoil the fun, so do check out the Gator Services section of the website yourself. It is safe to say that I would rip up my contract faster than you can say “Brett Favre” if I could have the honor of the “swamp-eater” picking up my bins every Tuesday.

July 15, 2008
Monday Chuckle: the Wilhelm Scream

4YDpuA90KEY

A history of the Wilhelm Scream here. I hope this doesn’t change the way I watch action movies. Apparently, later in his career Hitchcock moved his cameos earlier in his films so that people would focus on the story instead of watching for the cameo. Because the Wilhelm Scream strikes randomly and at the whimsy of the director or sound editor, it is impossible to predict which films will use it. One thing is for sure, however, the film geeks will have their say.

July 14, 2008
Colors of the Business

Another day, another NYC Commission on Human Rights hearing on diversity in Advertising — this one good for a couple dozen attendees. The fact that this issue is more than forty years old seems at this point to be a non-starter for everyone involved, not least of whom being the agencies themselves. That an issue of such obvious impropriety can linger for so many years points to both its lack of traction within the hearts and minds of the people running the agencies as it does to the lack of a market imperative for it to gain traction. In fact, the lack of a market imperative lays bare the fact that very few metrics have actually been invented that can accurately track and improve the usefulness of advertising to consumers. The entire field of planning has exploited this data dearth. The rise of so-called inverted agencies or others with experimental revenue models such as Anomaly points also to the opportunity for adventurous financial thinking to become a way forward for much-needed change in the industry as a whole.

One need look no further than the related entertainment industries of music and film to see examples of old-school industries struggling with the breadth of a changed marketplace. Diversity is, at its heart, an issue that stands to gain much from changed market dynamics. The discovery of the Long Tail of the marketplace which has been exploited by online mega-retailers has yet to have produced success stories in other industries such as advertising (if you don’t count Google, that is). The minority shops in particular which, because of their supposed greater knowledge of specific consumers, might have greater facility in marketing products that sit in the middle of the hit curve seem to have been hampered by business models that are overly based on (and dependent upon) business and marketers left over from the general market shops.

Whether or not vapor-ventures such as Translation Advertising, Jay-Z’s Madison Ave. shingle, can be a financial success seems beside the point ultimately. Business models are cannibalized by better business models. There is, to be sure, a competitive advantage to be found in harnessing all of the latent talent not being given its due at the major shops. The company that can use the advantages proffered by a more diverse work force in a changed marketplace will ultimately be the one that carries home the bags of cash that make the rest of the industry turn green, brown, purple and, yes, black with envy.

July 9, 2008
Personal Fireworks

There aren’t a lot of ways to say the following without sounding a wee bit like a raving lunatic, so i’m hoping that the latinish third person treatment will soften the blow: Directoris Raafmanicus was nearly split in two by Boltus Gigawattus, and caught the whole thing on video. No BS.

(more…)

July 3, 2008