Take It Face To Face

If I was on top of my game, I would have written this post three weeks ago, but I really just didn’t expect this thing to take off the way it did.

Though it’s less than 6 months old, the blog F*** My Life has already developed something of a cult following within certain circles. The concept is pretty simple. Users submit a 3 or 4 sentence blurb about something terrible that just happened in their lives. The end.

Some entries are undeniably funny: “Today, I was talking to my parents about feeling insecure with my “beach body” as Spring Break keeps getting closer and closer. My dad proceeded to warn me by saying, ‘Don’t wear a gray swimsuit. People will try to roll you back into the ocean’. FML .”

But most are just tragically ironic: “Today, I walked into my house to find everyone sitting around the table and looking sad. I thought it would be a good time to crack a joke and said “What’s wrong? Grandma finally die?” Turns out she had. FML. ”

The site’s not meant to be depressing, of course, but rather funny. And people eat it up. Who knew misery was so marketable? But after reading hundreds of these entries, it’s time to step back and give a little more thought to this rather twisted recipe for comedy.

It’s been 37 years since George Carlin taught the world the comedic value of profanity. The occasionally well-placed expletive will make people laugh every time for no explicable reason. And irony, irony is also a fabulous comedic device when used appropriately and sparingly.

I am acutely aware that analyzing a joke is a failsafe way to ensure that it’s no longer funny. But this is, to some degree, the point I’m trying to make. Though the blog has built a following by melding these two marketable devices together, they have nothing else in their bag of tricks, and that will likely be their undoing.

I don’t anticipate that F*** My Life will stay at the forefront of public consciousness for too much longer. Their formula, when used over an over, will inevitably exhaust itself. It will cease to surprise, and when it does people will cease to read.

What are your thoughts about the blog? Is there anything wrong with this type of humor? Do you think its popularity will last?

For those of you who have been following my posts on FaceTime’s site, you’ll probably have noticed the trend. Aspiring food critic that I am, if I can find a way to talk about the food industry, I will. (Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D). Because it bears only minor relevance to my actual job, I imagine that pretty soon I’ll be banned from the subject altogether.

But even if it had come to that already, there’s no way I could nor would ever bypass the opportunity I’ve just been presented.  This time there’s an incentive wrapped up in it, beyond simply telling you fine people my opinion (not that I don’t enjoy that too).

Check this out: Dairy Queen announced on Wednesday, via its blog, a number of interesting things. In addition to filling in consumers in on the details of their new value menu, they made bloggers (and that means me!) a pretty sweet offer.

The first 250 bloggers to write a public post entailing “what sweet deal you’d make with [DQ] to try [their] Sweet Deals for free” will get a $5 gift certificate to Dairy Queen. Now, in my never ending quest for free food, this is a pretty exciting thing. The cherry on top of it all (Ah! Sorry. I try to stop the puns but they just keep coming) is that the author of the best and most creative blog post earns weekly free food for a year. Wow, I suddenly wish that I was better at thinking under pressure.

Now here I am typing away furiously, with the knowledge that two days have elapsed since this information went public and I probably have an icecream cone’s chance in…whatever that this quota hasn’t been fulfilled yet.

What brought me to this link in the first place was actually a poll on PR Week’s website asking visitors whether they thought that this campaign was brilliant or simply shameless. Good question.

By virtue of the fact that I’m participating, I think you have my answer. The cost-effectiveness of this idea in comparison with its potential reach? So worthwhile.

In the ever-growing good/evil dichotomy of restaurants presented in my posts, Dairy Queen goes, without question, on the side with Denny’s, Z-Burger and other generally awesome venues when it comes to their marketing successes. And in truth, they’re not exactly buying my accolades here, just assurance that I’ll mention them at all.

So here’s where honesty sets in: I can’t remember the last time I ate at a Dairy Queen. Must’ve been more than a decade. I must also admit that I find it kind of bizarre that the place serves hamburgers and fries. I think they should probably go back and have a long, hard look at their mission statement. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Back to the issue at hand: What sweet deal would I, Abby Horowitz, make with Dairy Queen to try their Sweet Deals for free? Would I shave my head? Mmm. No. Would I tattoo my person? Absolutely not. Name my first two children Dairy and Queen? Maybe.

Think, think, think.

Got it.

For the opportunity to try Dairy Queen’s Sweet Deals for free, I would drop all the important things I’m doing at work; I would, by doing so, put my job on the line (this is an exaggeration, but go with it for dramatic effect); I would risk eliciting a frosty, disproving stare from my boss (also not terribly likely, but still possible); Simultaneously, I would write Dairy Queen a blog post. It doesn’t sound like much, I know, but my future children sure appreciate it.

While I am never one to say image is everything… It is important. An image frames what your customers think of you and more importantly it frames what you think of yourself.

A little known fact about me was I served in the United States Navy (beat Army). While in the Navy I learned the value of ‘looking the part’. You wore a uniform that said what you would do. That is not to say if you were in a particular uniform you wouldn’t do what was asked of you, but you know what you were going to do by what you were wearing.

Marketing and PR is no different, if a firm wants to create a certain feel in the company culture it should take a look at the face it puts forward to clients. We at FaceTime have been going through a bit of re-branding trying to figure out what we wanted to present as our face.

We are planning to launch our new website with all of our new collateral in the near future but I wanted to put out a blog post to gauge what people thought. Not only do we have a new company logo but our site will be changing soon. But I wanted to start with the blog.

Any company’s blog is a great place to launch a rebranding campaign. It is a direct link to the people you are trying to reach and it allows for them to comment back on the changes you have made. I am hoping to gauge a bit of what the public thinks about our new look before we launch the official site.

Have any of you out there launched a rebranding campaign and started with a blog? What do you think of our new look compared to our older (scarier) one? Let me know.