Mark Ritson

Mark Ritson is a fun fellow. And a troublemaker. I like him.

I don’t follow him on Twitter (actually, I do now, just clicked follow as I write this) but I really don’t have to follow him. His posts are always mucking up my feed because over a dozen people I do follow retweet him. Sometimes there are four or five retweets almost in a row of the same Ritson tweet.

Now there’ll be one more.

Dick Stroud tossed up a video of a recent Ritson talk:

Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Is marketing in such a bad state as depicted by Mark Ritson - probably
… When reading about the exploits of marketers I spend more and more of my time shaking my head in disbelief. How can they be so dumb?

Click the YouTube logo for the wide-screen version:

At 2:20 Mark goes on a waggish rant about the death of. Everything in marketing and advertising is dead and replaced by ……?

I’ve laughed about this for years. A few moldy posts:

01 May 2010
Foretellings
… Television, print, radio, and billboard ads will continue to have the visceral power they’ve always had – if only for their sheer size, simplicity, and cutting-edge audio/visual qualities.

18 May 2010
Advertising Is Dead. Again. (Part I)
It’s official.  The last sixty-four years of advertising has been declared ‘ineffectual’.

19 May 2010
Advertising Is Dead. Again. (Part II)
But … what about social media marketing?  That’s the new thing, what everyone’s talking about, the only way to go nowadays. It’s the greatest thing since the telephone.

21 July 2017
The Interminable Death of Television
Nothing I can think of is as lively and chipper as television in its final throes. If we all began dying as happily, healthily, slowly, and painlessly as TV, we wouldn’t fear the process - but welcome it.

At 12:18 in the video, Mark talks about one of my favorite subjects (because it doesn’t exist), Brand Purpose. He does a funny bit where he asks the audience to match the brand purpose with the product/company.  I did pretty much the same thing a decade or so ago when talking about Baby Boomer sites and their mission statements:

14 September 2006
INVASION OF THE BABY BOOMER POD PEOPLE

27 August 2009
Advertising to Baby Boomers Can Be Tricky Business
… “Now, take out a pencil and paper.  It’s time for a test.  Match the graphics with the tag lines.”

Around 19:40 he’s all over digital nonsense. Again, very funny. Reminded me of some of my takes on digital nonsense:

07 December 2012
What is Digital Advertising?
… Television is now digital, commercials are shot with digital cameras – so are commercials digital advertising?  Are digital spots on digital radio digital advertising?  Print ads are created on computers, usually rendered as PDFs, delivered digitally. Digital advertising?  Magazines, both editorial and ads, are digitally produced.  Digital advertising?

04 November 2013
Smartphones & Tablets, Apples & Oranges
Clients and just about everybody else seem to be confused about advertising on all these new-fangled gadgets.  Added to the mix are odd, stupefying concepts like digital and mobile and native. Most of this stuff is gobbledygook, but I’ll try to separate the chaff from the chaff …

Keep watching Mark Ritson’s video for more laughs and insight.

Joining Forces with Boomer/neXt

You will now encounter my beaming countenance on
The  Boomer/neXt site (it’ll take a few scrolls):

Consultant Team

With offices in Boulder, Colorado, and New York, Boomer/neXt is a national network of age-appropriate professional consultants, communications experts, market researchers and strategists who train brands to re-imagine and re-generate in the 50+ space.

After a few emails and phone chats with Barry Robertson, we agreed that joining forces would be a good idea. So we did it.

He’s put together an impressive collection of hot-shot associates. Hope I can keep up.

Even Another Pointless Press Release

I keep getting them. Hundreds a week. Here’s one from a few months ago:

12 December 2017
Another Pointless Press Release
… What’s not mentioned, not even considered, is that 95% of advertising is targeted to Millennials.  Of course they would be influenced.

Today’s pointless press release (no linking to silliness) has something to do with a book about aging in place and technology.

I opened the email because I’d never heard of this person – and I know most of them. The best: Laurie Orlov and Louis Tenenbaum. You could also check out yours truly:

Aging In Place & Universal Design

I clicked the first link in the press release. It sent me to the book’s Amazon.com Kindle page:

This book is currently unavailable because there are significant quality issues with the source file supplied by the publisher.

The publisher has been notified and we will make the book available as soon as we receive a corrected file. As always, we value customer feedback.

Someone probably bought the Kindle book, it was a mess, had technical problems, reported it to Amazon.

If you can’t get it technologically correct, or you hire someone who bollixes the whole thing, do I really want to read what the author has to say about technology?

Just for fun, I clicked on

and the only thing there was the cover of the book.  It should’ve read Look outside …

Do I really want to check out someone who hires a PR firm that is incompetent, one that sends out a press release with a link to something that is an embarrassment to the client?

Deliver us from newfangled flack news.

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More PR shenanigans:

October 2017
The Press Release Parade: Halloween Personality Profiling

02 November 2011
The Press Release Parade Marches On

19 July 2013
Do PR outfits vet press releases anymore?

Helen Mirren

I hate it when I love someone everybody else loves. I feel like I’m just a boring, average, celebrity-obsessed dunderhead.

But I do love Helen Mirren.

Not just lately. I remember her in the 1970s (Oh, Lucky Man!), before long she hid out (from me) doing theatre in England, then popped up again in the 1990s. Ms. Mirren was great in The Madness of King George. 

Since then she’s made a few flicks and TV shows.

And is a spokesperson for L’Oreal:

What she did a few days ago knocked me out:

Helen Mirren Praised For Sharing Makeup-Free Photo Taken Before Oscars Glam Squad Got To Work
“I’m not setting standards for others. All I can do is be who I am. I’ve always loved makeup,” she said, according to The Telegraph.

Did I get suckered into thinking she just ‘did it’ on Instagram – or was this a L’Oreal publicity stunt? 

I don’t care. Love is unconditional.

Automobiles

We still buy them, we still want to know all about them before we buy them.

A few posts ago:

13 December 2017
We’re always sick.
… I googled the car and it’s a pretty good car. But the spot tells me nothing about the car. Of course, why would I want to know anything about the car? All I need to know is that it has healing powers …

I won’t take you on a whirlwind of moldy posts about cars and advertising and the 50+ market.  The first was in 2005, there have been dozens since then, here’s just one:

03 May 2012
67% Of All Sales…
… Those age 50 and older are buying more than three of every five new vehicles sold, or about 62% … For the Detroit Three, boomers now account for 67% of all sales …

Today:

Ford’s Facelifted Van Aimed at Baby Boomers Reliving Glory Days
By Keith Naughton
Ford Motor Co. is looking to revive an aging workhorse with a facelift, technology injection and appeal to baby boomers looking to relive their “magic bus” days …

Somehow I doubt that, Keith. It probably has more to do with grandkids, dogs, short vacations, trips to Costco and Home Depot. Unless they’re offering a model in day-glow colors with a built-in bong in the back seat. 

For many, grandchildren are the glory days.

What about accessories for us? (Do they call accessories accessories anymore? I’m sure there’s a new, cutting-edge techno-term for them, but I don’t know what it is.)

Essential New-Car Features For Baby Boomers
by Jim Gorzelany

1. Push-Button Entry/Start
2. Tilt/Telescoping Steering Wheel
3. Extendable Sun Visors
4. Digital Speedometer
5. Head-Up Display
6. Rear Backup Camera
7. Parking Proximity Alarms
8. Self-Parking System
9. Navigation System
10. Automatic Day/Night Mirrors
11. Adaptive Headlamps
12. Adaptive Cruise Control
13. Blind Spot Warning

No bong? Oh, well.

I’m one of those old fogies who thinks less is more. Give me a big windshield, some strategically-placed mirrors, a comfy seat, and I’m gone like a cool breeze.

An accessory is a cup holder.