Focusing on strengths and differentiation is nothing new to marketing, but those basic tenets seem to get lost in favor of cleverness and “wow” factors.

Southwest’s latest campaign really resonates, though.

Bags are important to flyers.  How often do you hear horror stories about airlines losing bags?  I know my Facebook news stream is littered with stories this holiday season of airlines losing their bags.

Southwest recognizes bags’ importance to customers, and plays off of that.

“Bags fly free” isn’t just about saving the customer money. Where other airlines are saying, “your bags are 1) an inconvenience and 2) an opportunity for us to make a few more dollars”, Southwest uses bags as an opportunity.

Their latest commercial paints a picture of burly men handling bags personally, and getting teary-eyed when they get on the plane and fly away.

“Bags are my life,” one handler says.

“I love bags,” another says, waving goodbye to his traveling friends.

That message, combined with the lack of fees, is Southwest saying to its customer that bags are important to you, so they’re important to the airline.   The implication is they won’t lose your bags, because they care — and the humans behind the actual baggage handling care.

It’s a starkly different picture than that of the “stereotypical baggage handler” — an angry man that’s doing his best to test the structural integrity of your baggage.

And it’s a refreshing change.  Travelers are tired of the “same old” from airlines, which includes late flights, nickel and dime charges at every opportunity, and lost luggage.

Southwest’s message, which revolves around something as simple as the lack of a fee around the first piece of luggage, effectively points out that they are an airline intent on bucking the trends set by their industry. And of winning the customer satisfaction battle.

But then there are the run of the mill banner ads.  Ones that have very little or no relevance to the content and whose sole method of gathering attention is being annoying.  Previously, this meant garish colors, annoying Flash animations or animated GIFs.  But, for some reason — perhaps file size limitations, perhaps content providers refusing to break a certain threshold of annoyance — sound had been blissfully missing from the majority of banner ads.  You saw it every now and then, but it wasn’t that widespread.  (At least, it wasn’t that widespread at the sites I was visiting.)

But now there’s a series of banner ads pointing out that I’ve won an iPod or a computer or a boat or something.  I don’t actually remember.  Nothing new, really.  The same ad has been around forever in some incarnation or another (which means it must actually be effective, which makes me worry about the IQ of the human race).

But this ad has added voices, now.  Sometimes, a perky female reads the copy to me, telling me I’ve won.  Sometimes it’s a fresh-sounding male.  Either way, it’s annoying.  Very annoying.

So, I’m sitting here listening to some tunes and reading a website that will remain unnamed and unlinked because it carries this ad.  Then the perky female starts reading the ad out loud while I try to read some content.  The ad runs its course while I’m reading and find a link that I decide to follow.  I click the link, a new page loads, and the ad reloads.  Which means… guess what!  I may have won!  I repeat this process one more time before running away from the site with my speakers muted.

To recap: I click on the ad exactly zero times and leave the site and am very reluctant to go back.  Was it worth it, content provider?  I’m probably not the only reader thinking this.  Remember content providers — make sure the ads on your site won’t cost you readers.

Several people suggested I try Fiji water (and by “several people” I mean “several females”), because it tastes better.  I decided to take the recommendation.

I was driving by Whole Foods Market, and I figured as long as I was buying yuppie water for $0.99 cents for a small bottle, I might as well go all out and get it from a yuppie store like Whole Foods.  I bought a single bottle in the trademark Fiji light blue yet squarish bottle.  I got to my car, took a gulp, and decided that it tasted suspiciously like water.  It did have a bit less taste than most water I’ve had, probably because of fewer impurities or something.  But doggone it, I think I’m getting used to my impurities — I prefer other waters, I reckon.

But the dealbreaker for me is the squarish bottle.  As I started to drive out of the Whole Foods parking lot, I tried to put the Fiji bottle into my car’s cupholder.  But it was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole — literally.  Despite the bottle not being very big, the square shape ensured it didn’t fit into my cupholder.  Totally annoying.

I understand why the Fiji Water Company would want to have a unique design for their bottle, to make it recognizable.  And it doesn’t appear to be hurting their business.  But I feel it’s an example of form being placed above function unecessarily.  It’s a nice looking bottle.  But round bottles just make more sense sometimes, even if everyone else uses them.  Maybe I’m just overly practical sometimes, and a little old fashioned, but I like my bottles round.

That’s a lousy promo, if you ask me.  Your odds of winning are small, and odds are the winner will be some guy buying a spindle of CD-Rs for $10.  It’s not enough of an incentive for me to make my purchase on this specific day and at a CompUSA, at that.  “Get Comped” sounds great as a copyline but in practice isn’t a great promotion.  I’d be far more inclined to visit the store for a “Big Sale” type of promotion.

But!  If you happen to be in the area of a CompUSA and have nothing better to do but stop in, you can win without actually having to buy something (I think there’s some sort of law that requires it).  If you read the fine print (pdf), you will find:

To enter without purchase or obligation: Tell any CompUSA cashier that you want to play for free and he/she will scan a game card at the register to see if you are a winner (“Free Play”). Limit one Free Play per person per hour of the Game Period. The official time (time stamp) of a CompUSA purchase transaction is the second when the Free Play is first recognized by CompUSA’s POS System as an authorized Free Play as determined by CompUSA in its sole discretion.

So just go in and ask for your “Free Play.”  You probably won’t win, but at least you did’t spend $2000 on a Sony Vaio to find out.  Another plan, if you have room on your credit card — buy that $4000 HDTV and return it the second you realize you didn’t win.

It’s not so much that the new Geico campaign is bad, but more that their previous campaign was really good.  Why move away from it?

The old campaign, featuring someone delivering really bad news but capping it by exclaiming that he/she saved money by switching to Geico, was funny and easily memorable.  The tagline “but I saved money by switching to Geico!” was entering the realm of standard pop culture vernacular.  People were saying it left and right, raising Geico awareness (heck, I switched to Geico) and getting people to the web site for a free insurance quote.

Not only that, the commercials were surely cheap to make, as far as production.  No special effects, no fancy scenes — just some people in a common, everyday setting, like a doctor’s office.  The new gecko is entirely computer rendered — and that costs significantly more than a few struggling actors on a makeshift set.

I can understand the argument that Geico wanted to avoid the commercials becoming stale, but I think the campaign was far from reaching that stage.  There were plenty of more creative and funny scenarios a good writer could have come up with.

The way I see it, a company went from a successful campaign that’s all over pop culture to a new one that’s far less creative, less memorable, and more expensive.  Change isn’t necessarily a good thing.  Change has to have strong backing reasons and strong execution to be effective.  If you have a good thing going, why change it?  Stick to it until it starts to show more signs of leaking water before trying to move in a new direction.  Businesses too often make changes for the sake of making changes — which often moves them further from success than they were previously.

I found out about this in a commercial, but the commercial was so bad and the product so pointless that I can’t remember the brand or the manufacturer. 

What’s the point of using the same product in your hair as on the rest of your body?  What advantage does this give you?  Yes, you have one less bottle in the shower.  Yes, you have one less product to buy at the grocery store, but you have to buy it twice as often.  And you still have to carry around conditioner, unless this includes that.  Maybe they can also mix in some gel, aftershave, and toothpaste while they’re at it.  Not only that, your entire person, from head to toe, will smell the same.  I find the concept kind of weird.

The commercial is pointless.  There’s a guy in the shower, all soapy and just doing his bathing thing.  Also in the room, outside the shower, is his wife applying makeup in front of a mirror.  She asks him which of her friends he would be most interested in hooking up with.  Camera goes back to the husband in the shower, with a clearly worried look, saying nothing.  He takes the same soap he was using on his body, puts some in his hair, and shampoos away.  The wife gives suggestions.  The husband says nothing and shampoos his hair.  Bring on the tagline, end the commercial.

What in the world does that exchange have to do with a soap/shampoo combo?  I am thoroughly baffled.  The guy could have used separate shampoo and soap, despite his wife’s questioning. 

I wish I could remember the product name, but my brain was busy trying to figure out the point of the commercial to be bothered with such details.  How do commercials like this make it all the way to the air?  When the company pays the ad agency a ton of money to make a commercial, and the agency delivers this, how does everyone in the company say, “Wow, good stuff!  Air it!”  Surely somewhere along the line someone must have had a clue.  Go figure.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and had a little trouble getting back to sleep, so I turned on the TV and flipped through a few channels. First thing on the screen was an infomercial on the local ABC affiliate for a program that supposedly gets you rich by trading in the exchanges market. A lady in a newsroom-like setting was asking a suit clearly rehearsed questions that he happily answered, the gist of all of his answers being that it’s easy and everyone, including you personally, will get rich if you follow their instructions. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the screen was the fine print, explaining that NOT everyone, including you personally, will get rich, and in fact could lose all your money. But no one wants to hear that.

I stayed on the channel for about 30 seconds before switching to another channel and seeing another infomercial. This was in the Oprah-like setup, a few people on a stage in front of a Live Studio Audience ™. My brain escaped out my left ear before I could make a mental note of what they were selling, but I’m sure it was available in 5 small payments.

Now, the question is — who actually watches these things? Somebody must be watching them, and buying the products, if they stay on TV. Not that many people, though, or else these things would be on during prime-time (Ross Perot style) — but enough people that half the channels on TV at any given post-2am time are showing infomercials.

It’s ingrained into my head to be skeptical of infomercials — even though I’m not instantly skeptical of commercials. I’m even thinking about going to Burger King for lunch today after seeing countless commercials featuring that creepy mute king playing football or being King Kong. But if I see a product in an infomercial, I will immediately not give it any consideration — even if it’s something I could really use, like a little machine that puts little plastic things back on the end of your shoelaces (wow, that’s such a good idea I might just write a separate post about it sometime soon). I’m sure a lot of people think that way — but not everyone. At what point do you become totally jaded to infomercials? Or maybe I’m just in the minority?

In a way, I kind of feel bad for Creative. I remember when every computer had a Sound Blaster sound card in it (I even shelled out major bucks for a Wave Blaster so I could listen to MIDIs in super-high quality back in 1994 or so). Now, computers have on-board sound and hardcore gamers, movie watchers, and recording specialists are the only people that buy sound cards (many of whom don’t touch Creative products — such as the recording industry).

Then Apple came along and swiped the portable digital player market out from under them (Creative was in the portable digital media business in 1999, the iPod didn’t come along until 2001). Apple’s iPod was so successful and market-dominant that the term “Podcast” was coined when broadcasting via RSS notifications became popular — even though the technology for Podcasting predates the popularity explosion of digital portable music players.

Companies not named Apple hate the fact that Apple’s product gets a mention in association with a generic technology. Microsoft fought back by declaring that Podcasts are actually blogcasts.

Creative is fighting back by trying to deny the existence of the iPod and its widespread popularity:

Podcasts, short for Personal On Demand broadCast, are audio files you can download into any MP3 player or computer.

Great thinking Creative! Try to deny the entire etymology of a word. Try to pretend it is what it isn’t. Face it, Creative. The term Podcast exists because iPods are extremely popular. It doesn’t necessarily mean your product stinks, which it really doesn’t — it just means Apple has a stranglehold on the market and thus the slang that comes from that market. Besides, look on the bright side! Kleenex doesn’t dominate the tissue market anymore, does it?

You heard it here first: the McRib will never really go away. McDonalds loves the attention too much. Like Mallory said, there will probably be cockroaches ruling a post-meteor-hit Earth, happily dining on McRib sandwiches.

McDonalds even went so far as to leave themselves an out, this time. “It’s going away super forever really superduper not lying!! But we’ll sponsor a petition and encourage everyone to sign it so we don’t get rid of it.” The McRib website, as of this writing, reports a bit over 100,000 signatures to the petition. For an internet petition, that’s nothing. Someone could start a petition to give Screech from Saved by the Bell his own late-night talk show focusing on barnyard animals, and it’d have more signatures in a couple of days.

Not only that, who starts a petition against themselves? People start petitions to combat something a company or the government is doing. McDonalds is begging us to give them the attention they want by getting us to combat retiring the McRib. You know what? Good riddance. That sandwich is messy and tastes gross. I got one once, had half of it on my face and shirt, and wished that more of it had missed my stomach. If you like barbeque products, get some good stuff. Here in Dallas, at least, there are barbeque sandwich shops everywhere. You won’t pay that much more and you’ll get a better culinary experience.

On the bright side, McDonalds does have some cool tshirts to go with the promotion. We were giving them out at the Mavericks game the other night. There were two versions, both all black — one had a “McRib Farewell Tour” on the front in a cool font, and the other simply had a drawing of a bone crossed out Ghostbusters style. “No bone.” I wanted to keep one of those for myself, for use in non-McRib situations, but we gave them all away.

Not only was McDonalds giving us tshirts to give out, though, but also free coupons for McRibs. Why try so hard to promote a menu item you’re getting rid of? Only because you’re obviously not getting rid of it.

The example Mark gives is a pretty ideal one — get a big site, such as the New York Times, to pay the smaller sites that link to them when those links result in extra ad views or ad clicks, depending on the ad model at the large site.

I’m all for this, personally. I’d love to see a little change come my way if I happen to link to CNN.com. The problem comes in the challenges in keeping the system legitimate and free from scams, as well as in tracking what users are actually revenue generators.

If you pay for every click through to your site, then you have the current simple ad system as it is now. Now, if you only pay if the click through to your site becomes an ad click through, then we have a new system. As with cost per click systems, robots that just click through things to generate revenue will have to be tracked. The trail of clicks to track has become longer, and with every extra step, the harder it is to keep the system clean, from a technical standpoint.

Advertisers will also be curious about this sytem — how likely are these visitors to buy their products? They’ll want to know what kind of sites are benefitting from this revenue sharing and they’ll want to know whether the extra ad clickers are actually well-formed leads or casual browsers.

I’m always in favor of monetizing every last inch of the long tail, but I’m skeptical (as are many of the commenters on Mark’s site) of the effectiveness and plausibility of it.

But I’d love to be proven wrong.

Well, I’ve changed back to Yahoo.

Google did do a better job of giving me more relevant ads — a post about the Dallas Cowboys gave ads to buy Cowboy tickets and memorabelia. With Yahoo, the same post got me ads about San Diego web design (one of the comments mentioned Dallas’ opponent, the San Diego Chargers).

But the even with the lower clickthrough rates, Yahoo is bringing in more revenue. So I’ve switched back to Yahoo.

While the ads aren’t as relevant as Google’s, Yahoo’s ability to label your blog audience as being interested in specific types of ads is useful in generating different ads. My blog front page tends to see the same Yahoo ads fairly regularly — so I plan to experiment with changing my blog “focus” on occasion to see if that boosts ad variety and clickthrough rates. As my blog tends to focus on several different topics (whatever happens to be on my mind), there isn’t one single category that I feel is a significantly closer fit than any of the others.

I like Yahoo Publisher Network a lot, but I’d like to see more relevant ads. And let me know if you’re seeing any exceedingly funky ads.

It featured people in various uniforms from “respected” jobs — a doctor, a nurse, a policeman (if my memory serves me) — but each of their uniforms had a McDonald’s nametag. They later revealed that each of those people’s first jobs was working at McDonald’s. It concluded by asking you to show appreciation for the McDonald’s employee.

McDonald’s employees do have a bad rap; they’re often portrayed as being rude, uneducated, and poor. The term “McJob” isn’t a compliment. This spot aimed to try to ease the harshness of the usual portrayal.

I’m curious as to whether there was an incident that caused McDonald’s to decide to spend the money to make such a campaign; I can’t imagine the spot will help sell many Big Macs. Are they having trouble recruiting workers because of the stigma attached to working the drivethrough? I can’t say I’d want to work at McDonald’s, but it’s honest work. At least those people are trying to earn a living, rather than trying to live off handouts.

Up to this point, good job Braum’s! Now here’s the kicker: the billboard doesn’t say WHERE there’s a Braum’s to get said ice cream. I’m fairly familiar with that area, too, and couldn’t think of where there was a Braum’s anywhere nearby.

So after dropping Tim off and then going to the gym, I stopped at TCBY for some frozen yogurt. Good job, Braum’s, you got TCBY a customer!

The campaign may not be sending iTunes downloads or Slurpee sales skyrocketing, but it’s getting me to buy more Slurpees. I was already familliar with iTunes, so a free “introduction” isn’t a selling point to me; I already know iTunes rocks. And I also already know Slurpees are quite the tasty summer treat. I’ve bought more Slurpees, but I’m sure those downloads aren’t coming free to 7-11. All in all, I’d call it good brand awareness but probably not a big sales boost.

Brand awareness has its merits, though, so I certainly am not questioning the campaign. My question is in the implementation. I was expecting 7-11 to do a usual scratch-off or peel-off — peel off a sticker and get a redemption code, or maybe a better prize for a few lucky people. But I was surprised to see they have the redemption code printed directly on the Slurpee cup. Enter the code in the cup into iTunes, get your free download.

Once, in high school, I threw out a Slurpee cup because the Slurpee looked all watery and I didn’t want it anymore, so I got another cup for another flavor. The guy behind the register got upset, because he said they did inventory on Slurpees based on the number of cups missing, and people throwing out cups messed up their counts. He said next time to either rinse out the cup, or if I didn’t want a Slurpee at all anymore, to give it to him. After that, though, I was just more surreptitious about throwing out my Slurpee cups. (In high school. I didn’t realize the importance of inventory counts.) My point? They never caught me throwing out a cup again. So 7-11 employees probably aren’t going to be carefully monitoring the Slurpee stand for possible Slurpee fraud.

I’m surprised they have such a low-security method. There would seem to be tons of ways of getting extra downloads. A cameraphone in the Slurpee department? “Accidentally” grabbing two cups instead of one, and stacking them?

I wouldn’t do any of those things, but it rides along a blurry moral line, much like piracy. It becomes easier to justify the theft. Most people realize theft is wrong, but if the justification combined with odds of getting caught are right, many people who wouldn’t kill a fly might commit an act of theft.

People who wouldn’t steal a bag of chips because it has a cash value might steal a cup — it’s just a one-cent plastic cup, right? Those same people might download a song of KaZaa, though, or borrow a friend’s software. And if you take a picture of the cup, I mean, you’re not even stealing from the store! The next person can still use the cup, and get the Slurpee they paid for. They just wouldn’t get their free song on the off chance they happened to use iTunes. Or maybe the 7-11 is in a poor part of town; those people buying the Slurpees won’t have iPods and iTunes and computers, so the song would just be wasted, right?

Of course, none of those things make it right. But I could see otherwise law-abiding citizens doing it. I’m sure 7-11 and Apple are aware of human nature, and it surprises me that they would let there be such a risk for fraudulent redemptions.

Unless you’ve been hiding out from televisions, you’ve seen the ad — Paris Hilton wears next to nothing, writhes around sexily for a bit, and eats a burger from Carl’s Jr. It’s created a storm of controversy of what’s appropriate and what’s not.

Regardless of whether or not it should be aired, Carl’s Jr. is getting a ton of publicity. Sure, they had to pay a lot for the Vapid One to appear in their commercial, and they’ve had to pay for airtime, but I think they’re getting a bargain, anyway. Personally, I haven’t seen the ad on TV as what it is — an advertisement during a commercial break. I have, however, seen it all over the place on news shows, stills on websites, etc.

All those media outlets picking up and airing the commercial for free are doing Carl’s a favor. Nothing like a firestorm of outrage to get you some attention. Just ask Mark Cuban. And, of course, Paris Hilton is probably glad for just a little more attention (the stopwatch shows 20 minutes… 5 minutes over her allotment…), it’s hard to make money if on your latest TV show you’re just an intern. Everyone knows interns don’t make the big bucks.

So did the advertising campaign make Carl’s money? I’d say, over the long term, yes. Are people that watch TV saying, “whoa… Paris Hilton… hamburger… hmm… I need a Carl’s Jr. right now!”? Not likely. But today at lunch, I was kind of hungry, and wondered whether there was a Carl’s nearby. Went to their website (and was subjected to Paris’s skinny self writhing around some more — complete with an ad touting the DVD-esque “extra footage” version of the ad) to find out; none are nearby. But if there were one nearby, would I have visited? Probably.

Carl’s is clearly not one of “big” fast food restaurants; they’re not a McDonald’s or Burger King or even Sonic or Jack in the Box. But if they want to play on that turf, they have to get into the public consciousness. One way to do it fast is with some free publicity that doesn’t portray their food negatively — in other words, better a controversy about a mostly naked spoiled rich girl than with a string of people finding severed fingers in their food.

The stodgy, boring software maker Microsoft has been trying for years to be hip, going back to the Windows 95 launch (or was it Windows 98? My memory isn’t so great…) featuring the Rolling Stones and “Start Me Up.” With the unveiling of the Xbox 360, Microsoft put its hippest minds to work in creating a brilliant, lavish event — who decided they were far too boring for the task and turned to MTV for help.

I was going to write a brief blog entry about this, the 30 minute “event” (by “event” I mean “infomercial”) was so jam-packed with… something, that I decided it warranted a minute-by-minute journal-style entry. Unfortunately, I decided this AFTER I took my notes about the show, so all the timestamps are approximate. If you look at your notes and see that West Coast Customs showed up at 8:39 and not at 8:40, please don’t send me angry letters. I’m sure you’re right.

8:32: Who better to emcee the unveiling of a Microsoft product than longtime Microsoft icon… Elijah Wood? Does he really represent hip young culture today? Like, seriously? The hobbit? I kept waiting for his eyes to start glowing and demand everyone get away from his ring.

8:34: “And now… the Xbox 360!” Or… at least a model carrying a messenger bag and swinging her hips unnaturally. At first I thought it was Denise Richards, but then I remembered she was busy being pregnant and divorcing Charlie Sheen.

8:35: Oh, ok, there’s the Xbox. They put it on a glass table with green lasers shooting everywhere. The green and black make the theme of the evening clearly “Riddler.” This is straight out of Batman Forever, when E. Nygma unveils his brain-sucking device. Seriously. Watch the movie again (no, seriously, go watch it. It’s not THAT bad a movie. And you can’t tell me Michael Keaton had you fully convinced he could actually beat up his small animals, let alone criminal masterminds).

8:36: MTV’s production values are all over this thing. There’s flashing lights, screaming fans, hip young cameos everywhere, and a general mosh-pit feel. All that’s missing is Carson Daly.

8:37: And now, it’s time for a random musical guest! Introducing… the Killers! How about that Xbox! At least we know what it looks like now. Wait, we’ve known that for a while now.

8:38: OK, I know I just made fun of MTV bringing on the Killers, but I take it back. This is the best part of the presentation so far. Great song — Mr. Brightside. MTV can’t produce a product unveiling, but they know how to produce a rock show. The flashing lights fit, the camera angles are good, and the sound quality is good. And they’re not overfocusing on the lead singer — the whole band is getting some time. Nothing annoys me more than when the poor band gets ignored and the lead singer gets all the facetime.

8:41: Speaking of random cameos, it’s the West Coast Customs guys! For those of you older than 23, they’re the guys that “pimp your ride.” For those of you over 30, that means they accessorize your car with tons of crazy gadgets and fun toys that no normal person can afford. They turn an old scrap heap into a roving entertainment center. It’s like Trading Spaces or Extreme Makeover, but for your car. What they’re doing at a computer hardware device unveiling is beyond me.

8:42: Oh, I get it! This is a “segue” so that “young people” can understand why they “need a new Xbox RIGHT NOW.” West Coast Customs pimps your old ride — and Microsoft is going to pimp your Xbox! Ha ha ha!”

8:43: The first bit of information comes out — the Xbox 360 will have a removable face plate so you can customize your Xbox! Hooray! I’m going to get just the face plate, and tell all my friends I have an Xbox 360, but when they try to play it, I’ll explain I don’t believe in electricity.

8:44: An MTV guy interviews some Microsoft engineers, and brilliantly deduces for the audience that the Xb0x 260 is a “full entertainment experience.” And he deduced that only given the information that the Xbox 360 will let you shop and do auctions online and stuff and has wireless controllers. Impressive!

8:46: Interesting — a commercial for Pantex featuring a large red dot symbolizing a woman’s period. The gaming demographic has truly shifted — it’s not just for teenaged boys anymore. Girls are into it too — all the more of an audience for Microsoft to reach!

8:50: Ryan Cabrera makes an appearance. I’m not sure why. But this gives me an opportunity to point out that I’ve seen his former band, Rubix Groove, like, a lot. Rubix Groove was Dallas based, and somehow managed to show up wherever I was. Any time I went to see a local band, Rubix Groove was opening for them / the other band was opening for Rubix Groove. They weren’t bad. But I certainly didn’t predict a nationwide craze. Pretty average stuff, I thought. Oh yeah, nothing has changed, if you ask me. But props to the local SMU guy for “making it.” You know you’ve “made it” when MTV has you appear in their Microsoft Xbox promotion even though you have nothing to do with video games.

8:52: Some professional gamers go to Rare and get “training” on Perfect Dark 0, including by talking to a motion capture actress. Now there’s two careers I’d like to have — professional gamer and motion capture actor. Do any movies or video games need a short guy motion captured?

8:53: One of the gamers grills an engineer about Perfect Circle 0 and the Xbox. It shows his questions, but not really many of the engineer’s answers. He did say there could be 50 playable characters per match — that is impressive. Not much information outside of that though. MTV did show his answer to the final question, though: “Well, is it FUN?” “YES!” Microsoft apparently believes not in giving information but just telling you that hey, it’s fun! Take our word for it!

8:55: After extensive trash talking and very little actual Xbox related content, the two teams of professional gamers duke it out with a Perfect Dark shootout. The cameras jump from gamer to gamer, showing expressions of joy and disgust and featuring plenty more trash talking. Every now and then, they even get a brief moment of the game in. But they sure are having fun! In case you were confused whether or not they were having fun, though, a gamer points out that “this is the most fun I’ve ever had!” The Xbox 360 — bringing unmatched levels of fun! With technology! And wireless controllers!

What little actual game footage they showed was impressive but nothing made me say, “Holy cow, I have to have an Xbox 360 RIGHT NOW!” The whole production was a giant informercial that was so thinly veiled it was almost embarassing. I almost felt embarassed for Elijah Wood — except for that he looked like he was genuinely tickled about being a corporate spokesman.

I wonder if Microsoft actually believes this 30 minute thing will make people want to buy an Xbox 360. Or maybe I’m being naive in thinking that I don’t think people will be fooled — that they have more sense than to go buy an Xbox 360 just because Microsoft told them to. The Xbox 360 might end up being a great system, but this bit of marketing didn’t do anything to prove it. At best, it might produce some buzz — but buzz that I think should be negative for trying to mask a commercial as an event.

If you want some real information, try http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-2/the-xbox-360-103338.php.

They did outro the show with the Killers — who were definitely the highlight of the “event.”

Robert Clark, a freelance photographer whose portfolio includes photos published in National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated, is working with American PHOTO on a project wherein Clark wanders around the U.S. in a van and documents his findings by posting images to an online photo blog.

The catch? All the photos have been taken with a Sony Ericsson s710a cameraphone — a $400 (with Cingular activiation, via Amazon) rotating-flip cell phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera.

Sony Ericsson has devised a brilliant plan to gain credibility in the photo enthusiast market — and at a fairly low cost. Here’s this beautiful website filled with stunning images taken only with a publically available (albeit high-end) cameraphone. What better way to dispel the notion that all photos that come from a cameraphone are a useless, grainy blur?

Of course, the site does a good job of hiding the phones weaknesses. First off, your average consumer simply isn’t Robert Clark. There’s a reason he’s an award winning photographer whose work is constantly gracing magazine covers while the rest of us have a scrapbook filled with slightly off-center shots with poor lighting. Then, only the best photos were selected for display — I’d be willing to bet that Clark took at least 10 photos for every 1 posted on the site. Even professionals throw plenty of shots away; and with a comparatively slow-reacting cameraphone, that throwaway ratio is probably higher. Also, notice that many of the shots are outdoor shots taken in strong lighting. Most cameraphones simply don’t handle harsh lighting conditions well — even ones with a built-in flash. Throw in some likely Photoshop sharpening, great use of black and white photos for effect, and small image sizes (the images are all about 320×240, despite the camera’s ability to take 1024×740 shots), and you have a collection that isn’t deceiving, but is definitely optimized.

And that optimization is what makes it so brilliant. I don’t believe the site is at all deceptive — it simply does a great job of showing the s710a’s capabilities. And you know what? Those really are great shots, and Clark really did take them with the s710a. Highlighting a product’s strengths is good advertising — and a strong word of mouth spreading the site to photo enthusiasts across the internet is effective advertising. Not only that, it’s placed well — American PHOTO’s readership is filled with photo enthusiasts who may be interested in taking more shots or making a photoblog without having to always carry around a separate digital camera.

I’m looking into getting a new cell phone, and the s710a has jumped to the top of my list of phones to consider. It’s bluetooth-enabled, has flash-card storage, and has a decent 1.3 megapixel camera in a digital camera form factor. I’d consider myself an amateur photo enthusiast, and the Clark photos really got my imagination going — I’d like to do that with my phone.

And that’s how great creative advertising should make you react.