Well, another soulless and derivative attempt to manipulate two generations at once: JC Penney’s new back-to-school ad plays on the heartstrings of Generation X with its recreation of The Breakfast Club.

Snappy little number, but it misses all the character, teenage angst, conflict with authority and pop psychology of the original. (I didn’t hold out much hope for the repeated references to Vitamin M either)

Strangely, Ally Sheedy’s poor diet DOES make it into the clip.

Really, what did the creative brief for this ad look like? Was it actually produced by someone who was a teen in the 80s?  Take a coming-of-age movie that had a serious impact on a generation, then polish the hell out of it?

The only way this could be worse is if Ashley Simpson starred in a remake, and Zach Efron played Emilio Estevez’ role.

It’s a childhood staple, it’s amusing, it has many vibrant colours that catch and engage the eye. The storyline is simple but engaging.

And it really reminds me of walking past the roadside food stalls in Delhi - sensing adventure, anticipation, surprise, but also fearing potentially disastrous consequences.

For a lot of illustrators, authors and marketers, Green Eggs and Ham provides a common point of reference for their images, stories and unique selling propositions.

As Faris points out, borrowed interest can be a useful tool across all these applications.

It’s just the marketers that can manage to spend a million dollars, remain true to the vision of the original creator, and still be chided for cheapening and despoiling that vision.

Emerge from your marketing coffee klatch with the goal of developing something “viral,” and borrowed interest becomes a lot more appealing.

After all, the appeal of borrowed interest means that someone else has done all the creative heavy lifting. Whether through artistic style, lyrical quality or appropriated cultural properties, the work of the marketer is simplified AND magnified.

That all to say that the effort by Yobi.tv, Spam I am, Or A Different Sort of Beginner Book: A Viral Marketing Story Suitable for Bedtime, caught my attention.

In a “hey, this book could be about me” sort of way. It’s a viral effort designed to speak to people who spend a lot of time thinking about viral efforts.

In the annals of Green Eggs and Ham appropriation, however, I prefer the Moxy Fruvous treatment. A great live band, they don’t seem to place much emphasis on developing an online presence (their website still brags of being Y2K compliant). The best I could find was a fan video:

The long tail finally snaps at something I’m interested in and have been looking for: music from the late 70s / early 80s mod revival.

The Lambrettas, The Creation, The Purple Hearts: a treasure trove can be found at The Songs That People Sing.

Enjoy.

Ferrari Designer Dies in Vespa Crash - Bloomberg and the Ottawa Citizen

Unfortunately, the story only gets worse - Andrea Pininfarina died when his Vespa scooter hit a Ford Fiesta. While Ford may have a reputation for model development and contemporary design in Europe, most North Americans remember a distinctly underwhelming Fiesta model.

Miss Teen Canada. The Spoons. Canadian television production values from the 80s.

Childhood favourites the Famous Five will be returning to our lives, but in an animated series for the Disney Channel. And they seem to have gone poncey and high falutin’.

“… The children, who wear iPods and use mobile phones, also discover subliminal messages in DVDs to brainwash children into buying Fudgie Fries sweets …” (Northern Echo)

As a child of the British Empire, I was raised on Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series (and the Mr. Men books, but that’s a story for another day) and I always wondered …

WHERE DID THEY FIND ALL THAT FOOD? Dick, Anne, George and Julian were always eating!

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Three snippets from music blogs - and all pointers to longer articles that are well worth the read.

“… I have a deep love for a very specific and short period in musical history - I don’t even think it has a name. Let’s name it right now: it’s When the Prog Rockers Got Real - Just Before They Got Plastic*.

In and right around 1980, several bands from the Progressive Rock age grew up and laid off the mushrooms. The result was a tiny period of very good rock music, where technical proficiency was still central, but the massive energies in King Crimson, Genesis, Rush, and Yes were boiled down into greatness, rather than sprawled out in pomp and crapenstance …” (Monkey X)

And this from Jeff Giles, writing at Popdose on Debbie Gibson:

“… We hear a lot about the sophomore jinx in music, and rightly so; making the jump from hit debut release to Greatest Hits, Volume 1 is a long road, and it’s got a big ol’ pothole where Album Number Two is supposed to be.

For a minute, it looked like Debbie Gibson was going to make that jump — her second album, 1989’s Electric Youth, was an even bigger hit than her debut, and since all anyone ever talked about was how Debbie wrote, produced, arranged, and played on all her songs, she seemed to have what it took to stick around for the long haul.

And then the little-known third-album jinx snuck up behind her, said “Not so fast, bitch,” and punched Debbie Gibson right in her face …”

David Caruso is Jack Lord? Robert Cass, also at Popdose, dissects David Caruso’s acting as Horatio Sanz … no Horatio Caine:

“… But while Baywatch had beefcake mannequin David Hasselhoff as its lead actor, CSI: Miami has David Caruso, whose performance makes the show endlessly watchable. (Of course, Bruce Fretts of TV Guide said in January that Caruso is “rapidly turning into the new Hasselhoff.” Please, Bruce, don’t piss all over my thesis just yet, okay?) …”

Technorati Tags: progressive rock, Rush, Genesis, popdose, Debbie Gibson, David Caruso, CSI Miami

… but I must remind everyone that grey-haired John Roberts of CNN fame used to have a respectable career as a music journalist and video jockey up here in Canada.

I found this choice picture while watching a video compiled of clips from Soundproof, a 1980s cable television show that brought breaking alternative bands into a very rough set.

Note the mullet, faux hawk and parachute silk jacket with far too many tabs and buttons.

I may have mentioned this - my daughter is surfing our wi-fi at home using her new iPod Touch.

I am very jealous, and increasingly convinced that my childhood was a period of despair and deprivation.

Just like anyone who eagerly anticipated the x86 chipset.

Sure, I had a Casio calculator watch. And I had a transistor radio the size of a match book (with a single ear bud, much like an old man’s hearing aid).

A portable music player was never out of reach. That was an advantage we held over our parents’ generation.

But a device is always a reflection of existing technology - and contemporary society’s perception of innovation, utility and coolness.

That perception rapidly changes, to the point where cutting edge seems obsolete and burdensome.

When Grandmaster Flash first whipped out his ghetto blaster and showed it to the neighbourhood in The Message, the sheer size of the device was meant to impress and cower.

Back then, you chose a ghetto blaster based on its cassette replay features (two sided play, anyone?) and its speaker range. No - not the range of the speakers, but the range of sizes of speakers.

Of course you had to have speakers that pretended to mimic woofers and subwoofers. (They were the big speakers, usually at the back)

Key to the device was sharing the music - with everyone in a forty yard range. Music was to be shared, and maybe prompt some breaking.

That’s a big change from today, where portable music players are one more element in our defenses against our immediate neighbours, whether on the bus, at the mall, at the office or in the gym.

The glowing green Miami Vice suit was optional, though.

image from Taschen Books (and Sony as well)

Technorati Tags: stereo, D cell batteries, ghetto blaster, cassette tape

Eleven years ago, I was in university, analyzing intelligence activities related to the surrender of the German forces in Italy. Looks like someone else likes the subject:

“Gerhard Krebs, “Operation Super Sunrise? Japanese-United States Peace Feelers in Switzerland, 1945,” The Journal of Military History 69 (October 2005):�1081-1120.

In early 1945 Japanese navy circles in Berlin tried to begin peace negotiations with the United States. Using their contacts with the arms trader Friedrich Wilhelm Hack, they sent Commander Fujimura Yoshikazu to Switzerland, where he opened talks with Allen W. Dulles of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. Though the Japanese navy and Foreign Ministry showed some interest, the peace attempts finally failed since neither side took the initiative to an official level. Fujimura confused his government by claiming that the Americans had made the first step, while the U.S. side waited for proof that the administration in Tokyo was backing the navy officer’s initiative.”

Go ahead. Try to draw the career path that led me to public relations.

The Beastie Boys’ new compilation, Solid Gold Hits, drops November 8 in celebration of their 24th anniversary together.

In 1981, my music preferences were very much A/C: Kim Carnes, Soft Cell and Air Supply. And a little Diana Ross/Lionel Richie “Endless Love.” It would take another three years for me to hear The Specials’ “Ghost Town.” And another five to hear the Beastie’s “Brass Monkey”.

What could have contaminated my mind in such a horrid manner? My weekly dose of disco and pop music: Solid Gold. Who could forget the stilted intros and throws from Dionne Warwick? The addled ramblings of Andy Gibb? Or the shoutouts from the dancers?

What a brand! There was the board game! Resurrecting the career Wayland Flowers’s puppet, Madame! All the spin-off exercise videos!

Long before blogs and The Onion, a much simpler folk had to stand by the mailbox, waiting for the delivery of their monthly National Lampoon magazine to have their minds poisoned by satirical jabs at popular culture icons. For instance, take a look at the Lampoon’s “Golden Heat: My Life as a Solid Gold Dancer.”

Hmmm. Teri Hatcher’s 1982 graduating class named her the most likely to become a Solid Gold Dancer.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization has just launched a retrospective of Canadian Design in the 1960’s. Featured are such Canuck icons as Northern Telecom’s Contempra phone, the Thermos jug, and the Ball B-Q.

I have some quibble with the presentation of the new exhibition on the museum’s website: it takes three clicks to actually get to a picture of 60’s design from the museum’s splash page, and five to get to more than one picture.

Compare that to the National Gallery’s exhibition on 60’s art, which is featured on the first page of content.

The CBC’s website has plenty of clips dealing with 60’s cluture, including this one on a revolutonary new product for increasingly busy housewives: ready-to-eat turkey roll.

Recently, Dame Ellen MacArthur finished a quick circumnavigation of the globe, sponsored by the home improvement giant B&Q. A friend assures me the following letter ran in the Times of London recently:

“Dear B&Q, congratulations on getting your boat round the world in 71 days, 13 hours and 19 minutes.

Can you please explain why the kitchen set that I ordered from my local B&Q 96 days ago still hasn’t managed the 13 mile trip from the store to my house?”

MacArthur’s return to old blighty is well-timed: B&Q has been getting grief after a recent downturn in sales, and there’s nothing better to distract questioning analysts than a look at an expensive boat.

And don’t think B&Q hasn’t been trumpeting their association with the sailor at every opportunity - to nearly absurd levels. Here’s some marketing hyperbole, as cited by The Friday Project:

‘B&Q’s own brand power tools from the Performance Power range were used to build the B&Q trimaran. This has proven that the tools have been challenged to extreme limits and demonstrates to our customers that if they can help protect the B&Q trimaran against the dramas of the high seas, they can be trusted to improve the comfort of their homes!’

First, a thought about the humble (and unbranded) typewriter from March 1905:

“It is a far cry from the monkish calligrapher, working in his cell in silence, to the brisk ‘click, click’ of the modern writing machine, which in a quarter of a century has revolutionized and reformed business. Its introduction marks an era of progress not inferior to that brought about by the telegraph and telephone.” (Scientific American, sub. req. )

Now, some quotes from Apple execs introducing the Apple Newton in 1993:

“We want to show how this technology, which still has a bit of Buck Rogers in it for most of us, will change the world.”

“This is not about shrinking a computer down,” Sculley said. “It’s about making things easier than the things I already think are easy, like the telephone.”

“The Macintosh was a revolution for the desktop. The Newton is a revolution for the pocket,” [said] Sculley.”

“When PDAs become a reality, we’ll be very well positioned,” Sculley asserted. “We’ll make money at every step of the value chain, and so will our third-party developers.”

Ouch. Sometimes it hurts to run ahead of the pack.

Well, another local newscaster from my youth is dead. Bob McAdorey, a Southern Ontario broadcaster for nearly forty years, passed away this weekend.

Of course, I only I remember his later career as entertainment editor on Global News - with his giant [irish] afro, tweed jackets and outsized glasses.

But in the 1960s, working the afternoon drive time slot, McAdorey helped set the agenda for popular music in Toronto - meeting the Beatles and the Stones along the way.

“We kept it all clean up here. There was no payola as in the U.S. and we deliberately helped a lot of Canadians. It was personality radio. We were promoted like crazy back then. And the pressures were unbelievable. We dictated what records were going to go. And what kids would eat, drink.” (Toronto Star, r.r.)

Correction (17/02): I originally referred to Bob’s scottish afro.

MarketingWonk pointed to a new web site for Dean supporters today: Songs For Dean.

Political campaigns have long used music to motivate and energize their workers and supporters. As the result of endless repetition at campaign events, advertising and news coverage, some adopted campaign songs are more recognized for their political connotations than their original success.

The War Room, the successful documentary about the ‘92 Clinton campaign for President, emphasized the influence of Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow) - especially in setting the stage at the Democratic Convention in New York and at the Inauguration in Washington.

Farther back in time, Ronald Reagan used Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” as a 1984 campaign theme. Walter Mondale tried to counterattack, and hard, with a brutal ad juxtaposing pictures of children with missles launching, set to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Teach your Children.”

Tim Robbins mined this vein of thought in his “mockumentary” about the political campaign of Bob Roberts, a right-wing guitar-playing candidate for the Senate.

Vincent Camby of the NYT nails the character: He’s young, healthy and sincere. More important, he appropriates gestures and language associated with 1960’s protest movements and uses them in the cause of his own brand of 1990’s right-wing rabble-rousing. He calls himself a “rebel conservative.”

One of my favourite singers, Billy Bragg, made similar comments about the Labour Party’s choice of song in 2001: it was “bland” and evoked “watered-down Conservatism”. He said: “I think so much of New Labour is about presentation rather than detail. “They are hoping we won’t listen to the verse and just hear the chorus - it’s style over content.”

Camby’s comment about appropriating the cultural indicators of the 60’s can
be applied to a number of candidates over the past thirty years, Dean included. On Songs for Dean, you can find titles like “I Want My Country Back,” “Battle Hymn of the Blog,” “Take Me Out To the Blog Game,” and, interestingly, “With Dean We’re Marching On” - which is sung to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. (warning: this wav is a real church school organ rendition)

Some more historic ditties can be found on Presidential Campaign Songs 1789 - 1996 (with some sound clips). Here’s a snappy LAT article on the subject, with choice selections from he 2000 election.