It's Steve (now in blog form)

Let’s play a word association game.  I’ll say a word.  You say the first word that pops into your mind.  Ready?

Nuggnuts

What word did you think of?  That’s pretty bad right?  It’s definitely something you wouldn’t say in front of your grandma.  I imagine it in contexts including:
“Hey, nuggnuts, get off my lawn!”
“He had nuggnuts, but the a round of penicillin cleared it up.”
“Nuggnuts is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Nuggnuts is actually the new massive marketing campaign from McDonalds around fans of Chicken Nuggets.  They are driving folks to nuggnuts.com.  They’ve set up a nuggnuts Facebook group (another example of poor decision making on this campaign). They are running tons of tv spots around trying to coin this term.  This is all dumb.  Until they showed the url in the commercial, I was pretty sure they were advertising numbnuts.  I am definitely not in the market for numbnuts.  This is not good.

This is an example of the agency system run amok.  Generally, bad campaigns like this are born on a “storyboard” (note: a storyboard is a tool for when you run out of good ideas and are trying to dress up a bad one).  The storyboard is then presented by the agency to the client. Usually the client is initially uncertain.  The agency then says things like:
“Don’t worry, we’re experts.”
“But this tested really well.”
“We’re co-opting youth culture.”
“Let’s get some cocktails.”

At this point most clients fall under the hypnotic sway of the agency and spend money they shouldn’t  on a campaign that isn’t going to help their brand. Or, in this case, on a campaign that sounds like a venereal disease/racial slur.

Here’s the part that blows my mind.  Not only do they think this is going to work, McDonalds+agency think people are going to love it to the point of buying t-shirts and bumper stickers.  Are they insane?  At what point do they think people are going to be sitting on their couch and say, “Holy crap, I should buy a Chicken McNugget mug!!”

Don’t get me wrong, I love Chicken McNuggets. I was practically raised on them (may have something to do with my never hitting my growth spurt).  But if continuing to order them forces me into the nuggnut category, I may have to reconsider the Fillet-o-Fish.

I don’t think I grasped how dire the global economic breakdown really is.  It all became very real for me when I saw this article.  This weekend I will be putting all of my savings into fuel, canned goods and ammunition.  Sooo scary.

Crisis forces Russians to cut back vodka drinking

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The global financial crisis has grown so bad that Russians are cutting back on vodka. [Read full story]

I admit it, I like Disneyland.  Ben likes to run around like an insane person, and I appreciate highly engineered experiences.  I thought I’d point out a couple of things that struck me the last time I was there.

These people are very sad- The Disney newlyweds are not uncommon. They are, however, tragically sad.  Thank god they found each other.  Now if only we could keep them from propagating…

This is brilliant- When I was in high school we had a class trip to Disneyland.  It was one of those overnight events.  The evening was notable on two fronts: gross misbehavior and the opening of the Indiana Jones ride.  Let’s talk about the Indian Jones ride.  While we waited in the two hour line, we all got special decoder cards.  They associated to the hieroglyphics throughout the ride.

Here’s the crazy part.  Do you remember the scene from “A Christmas Story” when he decodes the radio message and gets “Don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine”?  These are exactly the same.  AT&T was the launch partner for the ride.  All of the script decodes to messages about choosing the right long distance provider.

The amazing bit is that when AT&T obviously didn’t renew the promotion agreement, Disneyland just stopped handing out the cards.  They didn’t remove the ads from the ride.  They just stopped having them be decodeable.   So brilliant.  I wonder if AT&T wanted to cut another check if they’d start passing them out again.  Now that is a cool integrated marketing program.

I think we can all agree that despite the turbulent economic crisis it is a pretty amazing time.  When the hard work and dedication of a committed few from incredibly humble beginnings can succeed against such seemingly insurmountable odds and an establishment bent on keeping them locking them out, well, one cannot help but think that anything is possible.

I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates and their recent unbelievable seizure of a fully laden oil supertanker off the coast of Africa.  Equipped only with speed boats, machine guns, and a handful of rocket propelled grenades, they took possession of the ship and its cargo of $100 million of oil.  This was accomplished despite military attempts to protect shipping lanes and their complete lack of any sort of sophisticated operational training or equipment.  Bear in mind that supertankers are roughly three times the size of an aircraft carrier.  Imagine the audacity to even contemplate such an attempt.  This would be akin to a badger running down a rhino.

I guess if you follow your dream anything really is possible.  I feel like at this point a Somali Jiminey Cricket should start singing “When You Wish Upon a Star”.  It’s a wonderful time to be alive.

Check out the pics of my new joint.  Kim and I have been married 9 years, and this is the first free standing house we’ve had.  I’m pretty excited about it.  It’s a 1920’s bungalow across from the park.  Ben gets a backyard to get his crazies out, and it doesn’t smell like mold (unlike our current house).  Hurray!

Ben is watching Bob the Builder and I’m pounding coffee.  It’s a normal Sunday.  Here are some stay bits from the week.

Moonrise from the air- I fly a lot and had never caught a moonrise from the air when it was full.  It’s crazy to see the moon come over the horizon and be at an angle above it.  The pictures don’t do the immensity of it justice at all.

It’s a good thing helium isn’t flammable- Kim and I were rolling up Sawtelle yesterday and heard a big clank followed by a persistent hiss.  Good thing it was just the helium guy that hadn’t properly secured his tanks.  It it had been the mustard gas guy, I might have had a problem.

Dr. Pacheco!- I’m not sure what the good doctor is selling in his “Official Store”, but with a sign like this I’m totally buying.