Take It Face To Face

The examples are mind-boggling: celebrities that take advantage of their fame to launch a product line. Restaurants. Perfume. Clothing. Handbags. Salad dressing. No industry has gone untouched.

The late Paul Newman (the sole food-unaffiliated celebrity I can recall to ever venture into the condiment market) turned it into an art with Newman’s Own. The company’s motto “shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good” speaks for itself.  His company didn’t take itself too seriously. If only more celebrities took a page out of Newman’s book…

Shameless exploitation is what these stars bank on. Whether simply to turn more profit, or to fulfill an alleged lifelong dream (Dear Monica Lewinsky, I’m skeptical), fans can be relied upon to pounce on whatever product their idol might choose to send their way.

It seems like a foolproof formula, but on the whole these brands don’t seem to stick around that long. They fizzle out rather quickly into relative oblivion. Remember Mariah Carey’s signature perfume? Yeah, neither do I.

The kink in the plan comes in when the products are just, well, bad. When their success hinges solely upon the popularity of the spokesperson, consumers will quickly figure out it’s not worth their money.

The onslaught of celebrities pimping out their image to sell stuff has become so intense lately that an endorsement now has the exact opposite effect of what’s intended. Oh, a celebrity developed it? It must be garbage.

A recent New York Daily News article about Justin Timberlake’s new tequila shines light on the fact. Three aficionados who pre-tasted the product were stunned, read STUNNED, that it was not only drinkable, but rather good. Said one, “it’s actually a nice product,” and another, “I gotta admit, I’m a little surprised.”

The small number of other celebrity ventures who have gotten their hooks squarely into the consumer market did so simply by proving their product was quality. Sean John, for example, doesn’t look to be going anywhere anytime soon.  Perhaps it’s becuase the company distanced itself enough from its creator image-wise that I often forget where it came from. Good work Puffy/Diddy/whatever your name is.

Moral of the story: quality product first, PR and marketing later. We can only do so much.

What’s your favorite celebrity product? Which do you think is the worst? Tell us your thoughts.

For the last three or four years, the way I listen to music at home has undergone an overhaul. I don’t own a radio, radios are for cars. So when I get bored of my iTunes collection, I start fishing around for online radio sites.

Needless to say, there are hundreds, some better than others, most I’ve never explored. I don’t purport to know which are best. Take this, instead, as one humble listener’s journey through the mire on the quest for the perfect radio experience.

It started about three years ago with Pandora. Pick an artist you like and they’ll play similar stuff. Ban whatever you don’t like. It was great for a while, but the same hundred or so songs do, believe it or not, eventually get tiresome.

And no matter which artist I input, it always tried to make me listen to Jack Johnson. No, Pandora. Stop! I do not want to listen to Jack Johnson anymore! I could ban his songs til kingdom come, but they always came back. It was time to move on.

Enter Last.fm. You can choose the specific song you want to hear, or search for a radio station based on any key word that suits you, as users can tag songs however they see fit. Snazzy. And though it was a great way for discovering new things, it was a tad too eclectic and unfocused. Though I still head back there sometimes, the unusual offerings can be enough to make your head spin.

Next in my travels came Musicovery. Not only can you select or omit entire genres (no gospel today, thank you), but you can pick what decade you’re feeling, whether you want familiar or offbeat selections, and what mood you’re in (because heaven knows energetic, positive, rock is a far cry from calm, dark rock.)

Best of all, it draws a colorful roadmap detailing the play list to come. This computerized selection, though, too came a little bit repetitive. The program is all but convinced that Kelly Clarkson is the only dark pop artist to ever walk the earth.

Innumerable accolades to Blip.fm for reviving me as a consumer of online music. This combination social media site lets users “blip” whatever song strikes them onto their own radio station. The twitter-like setup allows new djs to add commentary to their plays or chat with others. Others, user or not, can listen to you in real time or whenever else it’s convenient.

Find a dj, or 50, whose style you like on Blip.fm, and you’ll never be bored again. And really, it’s just a lot of fun, putting your favorite songs out there for others to pick up on.

So yeah, those computerized radio programs of the past were great and all. But social media, it’s the wave of the future.

Have you checked out Blip.fm? How does is compare to these other sites? Which do you like to use? Tell us your thoughts.

How many distinct uses are there for Twitter?

On the most basic level, you can keep tabs on your friends, stalk celebrities, and read up on blogs and news feeds of interest.

But beyond these most common utilities, Twitter can serve as a tool for connecting with others with similar interests. The day after I wrote a post debating whether to enroll in a Gay and Lesbian Documentary course, “LogoChannel” (whose biography describes it as “a television channel for the LGBT community), began following my tweets. Side note: Though I did enroll in the class, I must say that the content of my posts has likely been disappointingly irrelevant since.

Beyond personal ventures, however, Twitter has inevitably evolved into a powerful direct marketing tool. Case in point: last week, my coworker Anthony tweeted that he was, “hanging shelves tonight.” Shortly thereafter, he received a direct reply from another Twitter account stating, “dont forget to use [brand name] anchor to hang up your friends shelf. Go to [company’s web address] use coupon code twitter1 for 10% off.”

Well, there you have it. Who can be more effectively convinced to buy shelf hanging products (at a discount, no less!) than a person who has just admitted they’ll be performing that very activity in the near future? Probably no one.

A glance at the latest string of tweets from this user demonstrates that the account exists for the sole purpose of direct marketing. And because a Twitter account is free, this targeted coupon distribution costs only the manpower (or computer program power, as the case may be) to hunt down these relevant entries and fire a pre-written pitch in their direction.

The effectiveness of this technique, in both cost and reach, will likely lead to its widespread promulgation. As of now, a user’s only real defense against such marketers is to make their updates private. Doing so, however, has the simultaneous effect of cutting off much of Twitter’s utility as a networking service. What is the unhappily targeted consumer to do?

After its initial growth spurt, Facebook began a policy of forcibly shutting down fictional profiles, particularly those created in the name of celebrities and fictional characters (though this did have the unfortunate side effect of barring from the site all the real life Yodas and Batmans of the world). Perhaps a policy of monitoring Twitter accounts for similar dissenters is not far off.

As a consumer, do you find this marketing approach desirable because of the relevant discount offers that it’s likely to include, or is it just pesky and intrusive? How would you feel if Twitter implemented a policy that forbade accounts designed solely for marketing purposes? Tell us your thoughts.

Giving away samples is an easy way to get a product out there and maybe even hook a customer in. I know and have witnessed my friends, family, and strangers purchase products they have sampled. Samples are such a simple, genius way to market a product; they do all the work for you. No need to convince us that your product is good, let us taste it or try it on.

Some of my sample stories:

At grocery stores such as Trader Joe’s, Stew Leonard’s and Whole Foods, I have often bought items that I was able to try in the store. I wouldn’t normally buy mango salsa, frozen lasagna, or a broccoli and cheese quiche had I not been able to try a sample and gotten hooked.

When I pass by the Farmer’s Market, I immediately purchase fruits I normally wouldn’t pick up in a grocery store because the sample of a slice of pear or peach is so incredible.

Sephora.com gives away three free samples with every order, and they are usually so great that I have to buy the products in their full size.

With all of the products I have sampled, and how successful I know they can be as a marketing tool, I was shocked at what happened to my friend the other day. She was walking passed IceBerry and stopped in because she had never had it before. She asked to try the green tea frozen yogurt and they said “we don’t do samples.” So she left, angered by spending 4 dollars and change with the possibility of simply throwing it away because she didn’t like it.

Why would they not do samples? I understand if an ice cream place has 50 flavors and you don’t want the customers trying 5 flavors each, but why not one? And IceBerry only has 5 flavors to begin with so it’s not like a customer can endlessly ask to sample flavors.

What do you think about samples? Have you bought anything because you sampled it?

I’m not a huge proponent of the whole movie genre crossover thing. You know, movies based on novels, movies based on tv shows, movies based on comic books, movies based on theme park rides, movies based on…other movies. I think, generally speaking, that it’s a terrible shame that the folks in the film industry haven’t had an original thought since Hoover was in the White House.

Of course, the fact that they weren’t original conceptions doesn’t preclude these films from being excellent. Their ranks include many of my favorites, from The Shawshank Redemption, which is based off of a Stephen King short story, to my guilty pleasure, Clue based off a board game, of all things.

But overwhelmingly, particularly with book re-creations, I find these films tiresome and uninspired. The Secret Life of Bees comes immediately to mind. Great book. Unnecessary film. It felt like a movie for a movie’s sake, and had little new to offer.

But, hold the phone. My world has just been turned upside down. Have you seen the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are?

I’m going to do something that Roger Ebert would have my head for if I was a movie critic, something that Ben Lyons would do. I’m going to make a judgment about the film based solely off of the trailer. Yes, Where the Wild Things Are is an utterly fantastic film.

If you’re going to make a film about a book that’s shorter than 350 words from start to finish, you’re going to understandably have to do a bit of filling in the gaps. It is this compromise between new ideas and classic ones that gives this film so much promise. It’s not off-putting to lovers of the book, nor is it inaccessible to those that haven’t read it.

Another upcoming film based off a children’s book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, has to do some pretty fancy footwork to make up for the fact that the original was both terribly apocalyptic and lacking in any real characters. Judging from the trailer (again, I know, sorry Roger) I’m not quite sure they did so fine a job of compromising between new ideas and old. Unlike Where the Wild Things Are, this film seems unmarketable to my generation because it is too utterly unfamiliar to hold any sentimental pull.

But we shall see.

Think you know what the key is to a good film adaptation of a book? Have a favorite of your own? Share it with us!