Archives: May 01, 2004

That passed the time

Monday, 31 May 2004 12:24 PM

A call for photographs of toddlers in action (or in inaction) for Stephany Aulenback's book project, Beckett for Babies:

[W]e're still looking for the perfect photograph (preferably two or three perfect photographs, actually) to go with this text:

First baby: That passed the time.

Second baby: It would have passed in any case.

First baby: Yes, but not so rapidly.

Originally I wanted a series of photos of two toddlers stacking blocks and then knocking them back down to accompany that dialogue. I am no longer so rigid. If you have a couple of shots of two babies or toddlers doing anything baby-or-toddlerish that would be suitable for that text, we'd love to see them. stephka at maudnewton dot com.

We only have so much wax

Monday, 31 May 2004 12:14 PM

Jon Stewart's commencement address to the College of William & Mary:

I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people that have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place. Seriously, it saddens me. As a person, I am honored to get it; as an alumnus, I have to say I believe we can do better. And I believe we should. But it has always been a dream of mine to receive a doctorate and to know that today, without putting in any effort, I will. It’s incredibly gratifying. Thank you. That’s very nice of you, I appreciate it.

What's in a name

Friday, 28 May 2004 10:55 AM

From brandchannel.com, a nice overview of issues in naming and branding, especially managing corporate brands alongside product brands.

Most brand consultants agree that the common factor to successful nomenclature is clarity. “Consumers have to understand you before they can appreciate you,” says Margaret Youngblood, executive creative director of Landor, “The most successful [systems] are easy to understand, relevant and differentiated. A good example is Apple. ITunes, iBook, etc., the whole system is really tight, and you know who they are from without even saying ‘Apple.’ ”

In the early 1990s a company called Federal Express, which revolutionized the process and shipping habits of businesses and individuals, was then expanding into global markets. As the shipping firm looked to modernize its corporate brand, the brand owners realized that more than a cosmetic face-lift was needed for its dated-looking purple logo. The company set about completely overhauling the identity from the visual design to the corporate name to the names of everything that it offered – from services to drop boxes to shipping containers, all of which totaled over 100 names. Research findings at the time showed that customers didn’t understand what FedEx’s services were because the service names weren’t explicitly helpful. “In some cases they were using acronyms that didn’t mean anything,” says Dave Hurlbert, then director of naming at Landor. “Even some of the people at FedEx didn’t know what they were. We made everything into plain English.”

Gayle Christensen, global brand management director of FedEx, agrees that the names were all over the map and needed to be modernized. The company implemented a nomenclature system that relies solely upon the FedEx brand married with real English words to describe the operating company, product or service clearly. The result is services and products with names like FedEx Freight, FedEx Box, and FedEx 2Day. The names still work a decade later.

The toughest receiver in football

Friday, 28 May 2004 10:22 AM

Yeah, it's a fluff piece, but this article about Hines Ward at the Steelers training camp still makes me happy. Look at that smile! So best.

Mama, liquor, trains and death

Friday, 28 May 2004 10:01 AM

Another potential birthday gift: a new Tom Waits album is scheduled to be released this fall. Titling it Real Gone and calling it "primal rhythmic blues," Waits says he's “Feelin’ good about it all. Songs about politics, rats, war, hangings, dancing, automobiles, pirates, farms, the carnival and sinning. Mama, liquor, trains and death. In other words, the same ‘ol dirty business!”

(Link via the temporarily-intermittently-accessible but always interesting Syntax of Things.)

News flash: People would watch your TV spot if it were interesting

Friday, 28 May 2004 09:55 AM

Recent surveys indicate that, despite advertisers fears of having their TV spots skipped over, users of digital video recorders (DVRs, like TiVo) pay attention to ads they are fast-forwarding past.

More than twice as many survey respondents said they always notice commercials while fast-forwarding than those who say they never notice (15 percent compared to 7 percent). This comes as good news for advertisers who are concerned that TV viewers will eliminate commercials with the push of a button.

"People are still getting exposure [to ads] but they're doing what they want with it," said Lee Smith, president and CEO of InsightExpress.

Smith added that even though viewers are fast-forwarding through commercials, there is still some recognition and they are more likely to watch a commercial they haven't seen before. The survey found that 54 percent of DVR users have rewound or paused television commercials to better understand the advertised product and 37 percent would welcome the opportunity to request additional product information via their DVR.

(Link via MarketingVOX.)

And now a word from our sponsor

Thursday, 27 May 2004 09:58 PM

As you will have noticed, I have added advertisements to My Brilliant Mistakes. It's an experiment: I'm curious whether any revenue will result. But I find I'm now more interested to see what ads Google selects to display. As they describe the service:

Google uses search-based technologies to match advertisements to the content and context of web pages - so the ads you see are related to the information you are viewing. The ads come from Google's base of more than 100,000 AdWords advertisers. These advertisers range from global brand name companies to small local businesses.

By the time you read this the ads will probably change, but at the moment most of them are promoting tools for and altenatives to dissection. Of all the content and context of this site -- dozens of posts on marketing, advertising, writing and publishing, alcohol, iPods -- Google has chosen today to focus on a single post about cutting up a virtual frog.

One ad is for gifts cards for Red Lobster restaurant. I can't even guess what triggered that.

I'm hoping to get ads for fur sinks next.

Available just in time for my birthday

Wednesday, 26 May 2004 10:24 AM

Smaller is better, or at least it will be when it's available this fall: the oqo ultra-personal computer.

Yum.

McSweeney's Twenty-Minute Stories Grand-Prize Winner

Tuesday, 25 May 2004 03:04 PM

The winning story has been published online: "Untitled," by David Kennerly. It is so short and tied together that it seems a shame to excerpt any of it, but I post the first sentence to help draw you in.

He had always tried to be a gentleman, courteous, respectful in the most thorough way, and believed he was doing his utmost to continue this philosophy when he realized he was having a heart attack, there was no way he could land the plane anywhere else, and he saw the beautifully ordered expanse of backyards open up before him like a shining path, the center line composed of fences and lit by the glint of the sun.

Too pretty to touch

Monday, 24 May 2004 10:06 PM

My copy of McSweeney's Issue 13 arrived while I was out of town, and this evening I did something unusual and special: I unwrapped it, and read a few pages.

My key beef with the McSweeney's publications, the Quarterly in particular, is that they are too beautiful to touch, let alone read. Each issue is different from every other, and they are printed by some fantastic but yet affordable printer in Iceland -- for all I know they are hand-bound by beautiful and well-paid Icelandic maidens -- with preciously-designed covers, often with special dust covers and exotic lettering and gold ink. Often I look at my subscription copy for a few minutes when it arrives in the mail, then set it on a shelf in my living room, next to the past issues, where guests can see it and note that I've been a subscriber since issue five (although sadly not since issue one, and that I haven't been able to acquire first edition of the first four issues, of which I suspect only one hundred highly-prized copies remain).

This issue is the comics issue, which means the dust cover itself is a work of art by Chris Ware, the special guest editor, and tucked into it are little comics booklets that just ask to be bent in funny ways accidentally and then lost.

For a book lover, it's a kind of torture to receive a book so beautiful and precious that one fears to hurt it through enjoying it.

The preface to this issue is by Ira Glass. To make up for my rant about the McSweeney's Quarterly's gorgeous design and its implications, let me share with you a bit of this lovely preface, which will surely compell you to order a copy of your own, so it can sit on your bookshelf and attract admiring gazes from a safe distance:

Recently, I ran into my best friend from junior high school. He'd been living in New York for years. "Lemme ask you something." He drew in close as he said it; his voice was low. "Every girlfriend I've had in New York has asked me what my favorite books were growing up. Did you read? Did anyone ever tell us to read back in Baltimore?"

We weren't dumb kids. We were expected to get "A"s and go to college. But reading was something you did for school. You plowed through the novels, figured out the themes and ideas as a way to answer questions on a test. It was like math, just another puzzle to solve. The idea of reading a book for pleasure, of taking a book personally--I didn't discover that until well into college.

Except when it came to cartoons. Somehow they slipped under the radar, because they didn't seem like reading.

It's so crowded that no one goes there any more

Monday, 24 May 2004 11:42 AM

In this week's NYT Magazine, Rob Walker notes the inherent contradiction between the public's professed distaste for advertising and its love of certain, sneaky marketing:

So, if we're all so sick of advertising, why are millions of us spending our free moments interacting with an ad and then forwarding it to all of our friends?

The answer has to be more than just some latent cultural desire to dominate the chicken-suited. Another recent online ad -- actually, just the online version of a widely broadcast TV spot for Adidas, in which the magic of special effects enables Muhammad Ali's boxer daughter to hurl punches at her father -- has been streamed more than five million times. And American Express has run television ads starring Jerry Seinfeld and Superman that are essentially teasers for longer online ads with the same characters; the first ''Webisode'' has also attracted millions of viewers. In a postmodern move, Seinfeld actually hit the talk-show circuit to promote his new Web commercials. On ''The Daily Show,'' the host, Jon Stewart, skipped the truth-to-power irreverence that has made him a hero to media-savvy young people and politely quizzed Seinfeld about his new project -- a bunch of ads.

Where's the outrage? It turns out that even Gary Ruskin draws a distinction between the ads we hate and the ads we actively seek out. ''This is not coercive,'' he says; it's basically opt-in entertainment, rather than something you can't avoid or that ''clobbers'' you to get attention. ''That strategy is going to work as people get more and more fed up with advertising,'' he adds. Alex Bogusky, a partner in the ad firm that hatched the chicken stunt, says almost the exact same thing: ''It's not all that different from just regular entertainment.''

(The NYT article is free for a limited time -- check it out before it's moved to the archive.)

Read more about consumers' love/hate relationship with marketing in this previous post.

Beyond the quick brown fox and the lazy dog

Sunday, 23 May 2004 09:48 PM

P22 type foundry is holding a pangram contest:

A pangram is a sentence that makes use of every letter of the alphabet.

The rules are simple: come up with your own pangram and enter it.

We will pick the best 20 pangrams and award a font set to the top 10. 10 runners up will get deck of P22 type specimen playing cards. One grand prize winner will also get a set of Indie Fonts (1&2) Books.

Save a little time:Before you start, check out this list of known pangrams.

Beware the snake hips

Friday, 21 May 2004 11:39 AM

Although still on vacation, I cheated a bit and hopped online just long enough to read the amusing commentary by Creating Textiles regarding strikingly retro pamphlet on how to be feminine. Unfortunately only a few pages are posted online, but they include some delightful bits:

I WANT A "NEW LOOK" IN MY OUTWARD APPEARANCE

I want to be attractive and charming, so that I will please others. I realize that this will not come about through wishful dreaming. I realize that i must work toward that goal diligently and steadfastly.

Although it seems at first amazing that this was distributed in 1992 rather than the mid-fifties, it's less shocking when compared with last year's "Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School" by Rachel Greenwald.

Turn of the screw(top)

Thursday, 20 May 2004 11:50 AM

Sorry posting has been light this week. I'm trying to enjoy a long-needed vacation. It surprises me how much trouble I have relaxing, even in the most idyllic of settings. Fortunately, there's some wine on hand to help.

On that topic, here's an interesting bit of information from Bonny Doon Vineyard on the virtues of their new screw-top bottling versus traditional corked bottles: "Are You Getting Screwed?"

Rest assured that the Stelvin(tm) is in no way an inferior form of closure to the more prevalent 17th century technology, commonly referred to as a "cork." While the Stelvin(tm) closure may not provide the cork's POP and circumstance we associate with this potent cultural signifier, there are a few other tree-bark related shortcomings that it elegantly eludes.

Specifically, wines sealed with a Stelvin(tm) closure are not susceptible to "corkiness," the noxious mustiness, which all too often taints wines sealed with even the most expensive traditional corks. In addition, extensive research shows that the Stelvin(tm) closure makes a nearly perfect airtight seal, actually more airtight than a cork. This means your bottle of Big House will age ("conserve" the wine mavens would sniff) more slowly and elegantly than if it were sealed with a conventional cork.

There is also the significant matter of convenience. One need possess neither a post-graduate degree in mechanical engineering nor superhuman strength and dexterity (or even a corkscrew, for that matter) to open the Stelvin(tm) closure. Opposable thumbs will do.

Not as easy as it looks on television

Friday, 14 May 2004 10:39 AM

Think it's easy to get fired from a low-paying job? Think again:

My goal was to find a job and get fired within three hours. But to make my challenge all the more difficult, the editors of this publication put forth the following ground rules:

1) I cannot put a single true bit of information on my job application.
2) I must be indignant during the interview process.
3) I must show up late for my first day of work.
4) I must talk in a fake foreign accent.
5) I must refuse to do things.
6) I must use the word ''motherf*cker'' as an adjective.
7) I must make up a nickname for the boss.

(Thanks to Katy for the link.)

Is it time for lunch yet?

Thursday, 13 May 2004 11:17 AM

Not as dramatic as ninth grade biology class, but also not as smelly: Froguts! Virtual Dissection Software.

(Link via Syntax of Things.)

You have less than two months to come up with something amazing

Thursday, 13 May 2004 10:26 AM

Aspiring advertisers and those with creativity to burn, take note: Maisonneuve Magazine has announced the Digital Curiosity competition, a chance to win fame (if not fortune).

WHAT: The sweetest commercial competition around WHO: Americans and Canadians WHERE: Maisonneuve Magazine WHEN: Deadline for entry July 5, 2004 HOW: Visit the quick registration page and download your entry kit today!

Breaking into the advertising industry is tough. Once you are in the commercial-making business, things do not get any easier. No matter the medium, client, concept or budget, there are always too many people to please. But the best keep trying.

Digital Curiosity is your chance to compete for public recognition of your creativity in animation or filmmaking. Maisonneuve Magazine is looking for up-and-coming animators, short-film filmmakers, video experts, ad grunts or folks with too much time on their hands, from the US and Canada, to help us show the world what this ECLECTIC CURIOSITY business is. Maisonneuve Magazine wants you to create its first ever animated or live-action commercial.

Eclectic Curiosity is what makes Maisonneuve different from other magazines. Maisonneuve is committed to showcasing a remarkably broad cross-section of life. Our goal is to synthesize disparate ideas and sources into something that is uniformly curious, eclectic, informative and entertaining itself. So to compete all you have to do is make a 120-second finished commercial about what you believe is eclectic curiosity, using any style (animation, stop motion, claymation, live action or Flash). To make it easier for you, Maisonneuve has pre-licensed an entire library of music from a custom music producer called MusicBox. It's free for your use!

I bought a fur sink. And an electric dog-polisher, that was good.

Wednesday, 12 May 2004 01:54 PM

I have just recently filled up my mini-iPod. I'm figuring out an elegant system -- I am all about the elegant system -- for swapping songs on and off. It's frustrating to be out and about and suddenly have the urge to hear a certain song, or a certain version of a certain song, and to know I have that exact song on my computer at home but that it's not on the little electronic jukebox I'm carrying.

Perhaps it would be easier to buy one of the larger iPods, with 40MB of space ... or maybe a second mini, or even a third, and to store different music on each ... or maybe I should just dive in and buy 40 iPods and a $1,500 case to carry them in.

The Juke Box was designed by German designer and iPod fanatic Karl Lagerfeld.

It is based on Lagerfeld's own iPod carrying case, an antique leather case "monogrammed for some Jazz Age aristocrat," according to a description by Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European editor at large.

Lagerfeld uses the case to stow his multiple iPods -- a dozen at last count, which translates into around 120,000 tracks, all of which he seems to know where to find, Bowles reports.

However, since Bowles' report, Lagerfeld has increased his collection significantly -- to 40 iPods. That's right, he now owns 40 iPods, according to the latest issue of French Elle. Modeling a silver jogging suit, Lagerfeld confesses to owning 40 of the devices. Although at first glance the reader may assume he means a single 40-GB iPod, he meant what he said: He has 40 iPods.

Lagerfeld has converted his collection of 60,000 compact discs to a unique iPod storage system, according to a recent report in Womens Wear Daily. Lagerfeld keeps most of the iPods scattered around his various homes, which, in turn, are scattered around the globe.

"The iPod completely changed the way people approach music," Lagerfeld told WWD.

(Link thanks to TMFTML.)

They still remind me of little clown cars

Tuesday, 11 May 2004 09:23 AM

Have you seen the booklets that pretend to be reports about a British engineer who makes robots out of Mini Cooper car parts? A friend gave me one yesterday, and coincidentally today the The New York Times has an article on this viral marketing campaign:

The advertising, presented as a debate reminiscent of "The X-Files" or "The Blair Witch Project," has been quietly under way since early March. It extends across five Web sites, postings in chat rooms and booklets inserted in magazines like Motor Trend, National Geographic Adventure and Rolling Stone. The 40-page booklets pretend to be excerpts from a book, "Men of Metal: Eyewitness Accounts of Humanoid Robots," from a fake London publisher specializing in conspiracy-theory literature covering the likes of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and U.F.O.'s.

The campaign is by the same firm that came up with Subservient Chicken for Burger King.

It's quite elaborate. The project includes several websites:

the fictional engineer's project site
the fictional engineer's other site
the fictional reporter's site
the fictional publisher's site
a site listing "sightings" of the robots

Several thoughts:

1) I can't believe that anyone would believe, even for a second, that this stuff is real. No one is that gullible. I remember when The Blair Witch Project first came out, someone at work showing me the site and all of us talking about whether it might be true, and yet this has none of that vibe for me. Perhaps it's because I noticed the Mini Cooper references in the booklet early on, and knowing what that product's marketing has been like in the past I could see that it had to be part of an unusual marketing campaign. Or perhaps it's because giant, walking robots made of car parts are just basically too improbable and silly. In either case, I'm pretty sure that the ad company is inventing not only the robot story, but also the stories of the people who are not sure whether it's advertising.

2) I think it's kind of a lame campaign. How do pretend giant robots increase the appeal of little, overengineered cars? But maybe I don't get it because it's not aimed at me. Apparently the goal is to improve the Mini Cooper's image among men ages 18-34. I think it's going to turn women off -- but maybe BMW has decided that's OK, that they need to aim the car at a different market than what it has served so far.

(NYT article link via AdRants.)

"Written from 12:26 to 12:47 (I got a phone call for one minute) in my awesome windowless office."

Friday, 07 May 2004 10:15 AM

The third-place winner in McSweeney's Twenty-Minute Stories Contest has been published: Goodbye Ernie Flynn by Wendy Molyneux.

For three days now I have been followed by an ambulance. I first noticed it while I was driving home from a lecture I gave at a museum. I am not an artist or an art historian. I work for a company called Safety Net. We help employers figure out if any of their employees are shoplifting, embezzling, or planning heists. It is my job to teach the employees how to spot colleagues who might be stealing or planning to steal. I also teach the employees how to resist if any of their colleagues try to rope them into some sort of scheme. All of our teachings are based on Christian principles, but we don't tell them that. Not everyone believes the same way, and I accept that.

Would make a memorable wedding gift

Thursday, 06 May 2004 08:18 PM

Appalling Flatware For Sale

Will anyone purchase my recently acquired 75-piece gold-plated Versace flatware set?

This flatware monstrosity once set someone back nearly ten grand. If you think that's pretty amazing, you're not the only one. Although I encourage you to purchase it at a high price, it does not mean I will respect you for it.

(Link via TMFTML.)

Who is Number One?

Thursday, 06 May 2004 03:26 PM

For The Prisoner fans who have grown tired of watching the series on DVD and are ready to start living it: Build the Village, with LEGO blocks.

(Link via The Morning News.)

Perhaps it's genetic

Thursday, 06 May 2004 03:20 PM

I may have discovered why my romantic life continues merely to limp along: I'm in the wrong country. Apparently I should move to England.

"The standard way of meeting someone in England is you get drunk and meet them at a party and end up snogging them—and then you go on a date if you like them," my new acquaintance Carolyn told me. "So I’ve been here 10 months, and I’m still single." Carolyn is stunning, blond, smart, fun. She’s early 30’s, good job in TV. "I feel sort of like we’re living in the 1950’s—like I have to wait for some guy to ask for my number and call me, and I have to play my part in it."

Actually, I did date an English fellow two years ago (was it that long ago? yeep!), but there was no snogging or drinking or other rampant easy-goingness. In fact, as I think back on the Brits I've known from grad school and elsewhere, the key common element among them has been their indirectness--a seeming combination of discomfort and self-effacement, plus a simple inability to get to the point. Perhaps they let loose only on their home turf.

This Saturday: The Songwriters Project

Wednesday, 05 May 2004 10:59 PM

The Songwriters Project
will perform from on Saturday, May 8, 7 to 9 PM at The Mattress Factory
500 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 (T: 412-231-3169, F:412-322-2231,
E: info@mattress.org)

Songwriters: Kevin Finn, Atumn Ayers, Karl Mullen, Emily Rodgers, and Audra Kubats (Detroit)
Special guests: ‘Subliminal,’ Maura Mullen (12) & Missy Reich(13)

'The Songwriters Project' is a group of Pittsburgh songwriters who meet weekly in each other’s kitchens to workshop and explore song and songwriting. Each month we have a public showcase of new material and invite a regional songwriter to come to Pittsburgh.

No smoking, please. Weather permitting, this event will be outside in the garden.
$6 per person, $5 Mattress Factory Members

ALSO hear a preview of the Songwriters Project on WYEP 91.3 FM on Saturday, May 8 at 12:30 PM.

This Friday: Black Fish

Wednesday, 05 May 2004 10:34 PM

Also from the mailbag, for those about to rock:

This FRI 07 MAY - Black Fish - rocks the house @ Thirsty's, 9:30P.

Thirsty's
301 N Craig @ Centre
412.687.0114

This Friday: Gist Street Reading Series

Wednesday, 05 May 2004 10:25 PM

From the mailbag: announcing this month's Gist Street Reading Series

Hello Gist Street! Spring is here even though the furnace just kicked on. Things are blooming, and it's time to get out of the house. So come on over to Gist Street. We're heading toward our May reading: Friday, May 7th.

We'll have Deb Bogen (who has, by the way, promised to bring brownies) coming over from Highland Park and David Young coming in from Oberlin, Ohio. If you're cross-referencing your pocket schedule with my reminders, you'll see that originally Tony Vallone was slated to read with Deb. Tony's book wasn't quit printed yet, so we're pushing him into 2005, and David, quite graciously, agreed to pinch hit. David will be reading some of his own poetry and also a brand new book of his Petrarch translations that just came out. When David isn't translating Petrarch, he's watching sports on TV and also editing the fine poetry journal: Field. When Deb isn't baking brownies, she's writing poetry. In fact, rumor has is her book manuscript is a finalist for the National Poetry Award. This is a reading not to be missed.

Full on poetry. Full on spring. Bring some daffodils. Bring some friends. Grab some wine (or beer); what the hell, bring your own brownies. Nancy is back from her residency in Wyoming at long last, so all is well. Socializing begins at 7:30; readings begin at 8:00. Come early if you'd like a seat.

305 Gist Street; James Simon's sculpture studio--Uptown, Pittsburgh. $3 suggested donation. Gist Street raffle. Antione's homemade bread and ice cream. Deb's brownies. Nancy's hospitality. Tall Jon's sound system. Poetry. Fifi the kitten. www.giststreet.org for complete bios and directions. 412-434-5629 if you're lost.

When context clues aren't enough

Wednesday, 05 May 2004 10:24 AM

We haven't yet seen one of these in person, but we're eager to: the Franklin Pagemark Dictionary, an electronic dictionary that does double-duty as a book mark.

From the product description:

An essential reading companion, this Merriam Webster electronic PageMark dictionary is ultra thin and lightweight so you can use it as a bookmark. A quick and easy reference for over 274,000 definitions, it lets you create your own word list for easy reference, and includes phonetic spell correction for over 80,000 words. Fun and convenient, it features a built-in crossword solver, word games, a clock and full-function calculator, plus a Rolodex databank to store names and phone numbers.

Sounds neat. But when they come out with the matching thesaurus, I'll be among the first to order.

Wasting away again

Wednesday, 05 May 2004 10:02 AM

It's Cinco de Mayo, one of my preferred holidays because it can arrive on any day of the week, occasioning an unscheduled and festive social hour, and yet it's not as overblown as St. Patrick's Day.

The holiday is barely noticed in Mexico, but that's no reason one can't make an event of it.

As a start, Happy Hours provides us with an overwritten portrait of the Margarita, the most interesting bit of which is the information that the Margarita is simply an evolution of the Side Car.

In other news, Samantha Bennett of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette considers the history of the day:

As you may not know any more about this Mexican holiday than can be printed on a promotional tent card in a bar, I will explain it briefly. It is often described as the Mexican version of Independence Day (what we know as Quatro de Julio), but like most things you hear from a guy who's been knocking back Dos Equis all day, that's not quite accurate.

In 1862, Mexico had stopped paying on a debt it owed to France, so France tried to repossess Mexico. The Mexicans did not care for being invaded, even though the French would have forever boosted the tourism industry by giving them Evian.

So the French landed at Corona and started marching toward Mexico City. They met strong resistance at the Mexican forts of Huevos Rancheros and Margarita and finally had their derrieres handed to them by a smaller, ill-equipped Mexican force under Gen. Jose Cuervo.

Hmm, now I'm hungry as well as thirsty.

Trademarking for the other four senses

Tuesday, 04 May 2004 01:59 PM

brandchannel.com looks at the history of trademarks and highlights the difficulties of "Trademarking Sounds, Sights, Smells and Touch":

The representation of nontraditional marks remains a problem to this day. According to Allan Poulter, a partner in the British law firm of Field Fisher Waterhouse, "There have been a number of decisions of the European Court of Justice over the past year or so that have considered the registrability of non-visual marks. Generally, these decisions have accepted that, in principle, these types of mark can be registered -- in that they may be capable of distinguishing the goods and services of one undertaking from those of another. However, where the applications have faltered is in the attempt to satisfy the requirement of the graphic representation of the mark."

Many nontraditional trademarks end up being adopted or accepted by the public well before the laws of the country concerned are amended to give specific protection to the new forms. For example, Coca-Cola, which first bottled its soft drink in 1894, began using its distinctive fluted-and-bulging bottle design in 1915. But it was not until 1960 that the company succeeded in registering the design as a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

There have, however, been relaxations in the requirements for registering nontraditional marks. In the US, applications for sound and scent marks no longer need to be accompanied by a drawing. In the United Kingdom trademarks have now been granted for “a floral fragrance/smell reminiscent of roses applied to tyres,” and to “the strong smell of bitter beer applied to flights for darts.”

(Link thanks to Agenda.)

Learning from the big boys: Sun's business blogging policy

Tuesday, 04 May 2004 10:10 AM

If you're thinking of using weblogs to generate activity on your business website -- through either a single business blog or multiple "personal" blogs by employees -- check out Sun Microsystem's recently posted Policy on Public Discourse. It's short and to-the-point, quite commonsensical, and an excellent core around which any company could craft its own policy. And it links to an interesting article on how the policy was created.

Rick E. Bruner, who highlighted this policy on Business Blog Consulting, takes this opportunity to remind everyone of the Corporate Weblog Manifesto of Robert Scoble (of Microsoft). The Corporate Weblog Manifesto is grittier than Sun's policy, and a nice complement to it.

Copyright © 2004 – 2007 Cynthia Closkey