Tag Archives: New York Times

February 15, 2012 · 10:02 AM

Privacy, Weblining and a Government That Knows Best

I was amused by Scott Canon’s article in yesterday’s edition of The Kansas City Star on his ever-growing dependency on all things Google and concerns about privacy issues. One notable quote:

“I’ve long understood that I have been engaged in a digital disrobing that reveals my digital self click by click, and byte by byte. I dropped almost all my veils, eagerly, in full view of the computer mind of a multinational corporation. It’s just that living in a Google world is so easy.”

Canon’s point is delivered tongue-in-cheek, but raises a broader and more serious concern, expressed on Sunday by  Chicago-Kent School of Law Professor Lori Andrews in her New York Times essay, “Facebook is Using You.”

“Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages. Employers sometimes decide whether to hire people based on their online profiles, with one study indicating that 70 percent of recruiters and human resource professionals in the United States have rejected candidates based on data found online. A company called Spokeo gathers online data for employers, the public and anyone else who wants it. The company even posts ads urging ‘HR Recruiters — Click Here Now!’ and asking women to submit their boyfriends’ e-mail addresses for an analysis of their online photos and activities to learn ‘Is He Cheating on You?’”

It’s not all bad, of course. As Jeffrey S. Trachtman points out in this response to Ms. Andrews’ piece, oftentimes, a site’s ability to deliver advertising offers that directly benefit both the site and the user, represents a win-win and is a positive outcome of data aggregation.

But the issue becomes more sinister when data are used to discriminate. More from Andrews:

“Now the map used in redlining is not a geographic map, but the map of your travels across the Web. The term Weblining describes the practice of denying people opportunities based on their digital selves. You might be refused health insurance based on a Google search you did about a medical condition. You might be shown a credit card with a lower credit limit, not because of your credit history, but because of your race, sex or ZIP code or the types of Web sites you visit.”

The key for me is the term “Weblining,” which could become a convenient excuse for greater government regulation of online sales and marketing practices. How many disgruntled consumers will it take before someone makes it his personal mission to ensure that no one is discriminated against due to his or her Web-surfing habits?

Where does efficient direct marketing end and Weblining begin? And is Weblining inherently a bad thing?

Stay tuned, sports fans. This is only the beginning.

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September 27, 2011 · 2:10 PM

Ad Campaign May Make Me Smarter and More Distinguished

The good people at Boston University hit the jackpot yesterday with an article in The New York Times profiling their new ad campaign.

As a proud alum (B.S., College of Communication, 1990), I’m hoping the ads resonate with the folks who compile all those “best colleges” lists and help drive applications. According to the story, the campaign, developed by Watertown, Mass. agency Allen & Garritsen, seeks to position B.U. as, “among the ‘leading,’ ‘most respected’ or ‘great’ centers of ‘research and knowledge’.” Each ad bears the tagline, “The World Needs to Know.”

“The World Needs to Know?”

Although I’m 20 years removed from my own rain-soaked graduation in the Commonwealth Avenue Howard Johnson’s parking lot, I’m having some trouble accepting this new brand position from B.U., even though I hope it succeeds.

If memory serves, the only research going on at B.U. back in the day involved the best ways to sneak alcohol into Warren Towers and why the eagle is a stupid mascot, especially for a school that calls itself “Boston College” despite being located in Newton.

The good news for me is that I chose to apply to B.U. at the right time; they probably wouldn’t even sniff at my S.A.T. scores today. I also had the advantage of being one of the five in my freshman class not from Long Island or New England.

And I suppose that’s the real point of the campaign, which is designed to take B.U. beyond its “commuter school” legacy and persuade those who participate in the school-ranking surveys to bump B.U. from its current perch at #59 in the 2010-11 edition of The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, to somewhere less mediocre.

The hope is that a higher rank will beget more applications from better students, which in turn will boost the school’s rankings.

At a robust 50 grand per year, B.U. is like every other institution of higher learning fighting to fill its freshman classes. In tough economic times and population in decline following the Gen Y bubble, they need every warm body they can get. And if they still have the College of Basic Studies, it’s the ultimate safety school.

My favorite part of the article are the quotes from Allen & Gerritsen Creative Director Doug Gould, which include:

“We were skeptical to begin with…[W]hen they told us how much they’re doing, our minds were changed.” (Translation: “When they told us they had a half-million-dollar budget, our minds were changed.”)

“We haven’t done anything with a heavy amount of spin.” (Just the normal amount of spin we’d use in any campaign we create. Okay, maybe a little bit more than normal.)

“Running an ad about knowledge and learning should be interesting on its own merits.” (I’m sorry? Oh,  I must have been daydreaming. Could you repeat what you just said?)

In all seriousness, I applaud B.U. and A&G for this campaign and sincerely hope it works. And then B.U. can quit sending me those letters asking for money.

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June 14, 2011 · 8:39 AM

Good #PR Will Kill a Bad Product

Interesting story from yesterday’s New York Times on the circus known as Comic-Con International.

The annual convention, which is expected to draw 130,000 participants to San Diego this July 21-24, is the place where you’ll see folks dressed up as their favorite Star Trek characters and where fans are truly fanatical.

While most of us gave up Dungeons & Dragons when we hit high school, the Comic-Con set is known for attracting freaks and geeks who are both hardcore and hard-wired, and are widely sought after for their social media savvy and buzz-building power.

Warner Brothers Television Group Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Gregorian calls them “evangelists,” and rightly so.

It makes sense, then, that the big movie studios and television production companies would choose Comic-Con as the launching pad for big-budget projects such as “Tron: Legacy” or “Sucker Punch.”

But not so fast.

Fishing where the fish are makes perfect sense, except that sometimes the fish don’t bite. And worse, they sometimes tell everyone else in the pond that the bait is not worth the bite. Both “Tron” and “Sucker Punch” failed to deliver at the box office.

Fans of the HBO show “Entourage” may fondly remember an episode from Season 2, in which Vince is troubled at Comic-Con when a well-known blogger, portrayed by Rainn Wilson, promises to write a scathing review of Vince’s new movie, “Aquaman.” (Never mind how Vince manages to score a positive review in the end.)

Imagine the power of 130,000 Rainn Wilsons dissing your movie in the months leading up to opening, and the ripple effect these evangelists create via Facebook, Twitter, message boards and chat rooms.

Betting big sometimes means losing big. Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs but he also struck out 1,383 times.

Next time you’re thinking about launching your “next big thing” at the industry’s largest trade show, consider first building buzz among your most loyal and vocal following and allowing them to carry the message to the masses.

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February 3, 2011 · 10:32 AM

Is CEO Always Synonymous with SOB?

Outstanding piece by Jay Goltz in yesterday’s New York Times.

The author, who owns five small businesses in the Chicago area, relates a story from a friend, whose young son was ridiculed by classmates after he told them his father was a CEO.

From a branding perspective, it’s curious to note that widely reported corporate malfeasance and generally bad behavior by a few CEOs (Lay, Ebbers, Kozlowski, et al.) has tainted the CEO “brand” in the eyes of the public.

Goltz stresses that there are two kinds of CEOs—those who lead large corporations and those who run small businesses. He uses the analogy of the chicken and the pig when it comes to breakfast time—the chicken is involved; the pig is committed.

Goltz observes that most small business CEOs don’t receive golden parachutes when they fail. Many lose their homes and their savings. Some lose their families. Some take their own lives.

My favorite statistics: 80 percent of the businesses and two-thirds of the jobs in this country are created by small businesses.

Too often, the small business owner is lumped in with the big business bosses when government leaders and the news media talk about “the rich” or “corporate America.” But most of us are just regular guys and gals trying to make a living doing what we do.

Along the way, we create the jobs and generate the tax dollars (generally without any assistance from the government) that make this country run. And some of our small businesses grow to be major corporations.

“There are two kinds of CEOs,” says Goltz. I’m thankful for the reminder.

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August 19, 2010 · 9:47 AM

How Much Would You Pay for Journalism?

Thanks to Stuart Elliott at The New York Times for passing along this little ditty.

It seems the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram & Gazette has started charging online readers for access to local news.

According to the story, readers will get 10 free articles per month, but then have to pay for additional stories.

I’ve been following the online news industry for a while now, and I’m skeptical about whether or not anyone can truly make the online newsroom model work.

The Times Sunday Magazine had a great story a while back on the subject.

And there’s even talk about online news being driven by search engine optimization, meaning that the news you get is the “news” that everyone is surfing to find. So plenty of stuff about Brad & Angelina, the Bachelorette, Lindsay Lohan, etc.

My friend, Eileen Hawley, told me recently about a chance meeting she once had with the late Walter Cronkite, who remarked, “we used to give folks the news they needed to know; now we give them what they want.”

This trend is the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night.

What I find particularly interesting are the comments at the bottom of the most recent Times story.

Many of the commentators state that they would be willing to pay for solid journalism.

And people ARE doing that right now. Only they’re buying magazines and not newspapers.

According to the Magazine Publishers of America (okay, they’re biased), the growth in magazine readership in the period from 2005 to 2009 outpaced all other media except the internet. (For the record, magazine subscriptions peaked in 2007.)

Many of my friends at magazines report that circulation, ad pages and revenues are climbing, due in large part to the “anti-internet” feel that comes from reading long copy at a leisurely pace.

I predict that technologies such as the iPad will likely help, and not hurt, magazine sales, as it will reduce printing and shipping costs for publishers, while enabling them to provide multimedia content to subscribers and multimedia messaging for advertisers.

If newspapers were to provide in-depth content, greater local news and more geo-specific features, they might have a chance.

But if I were a betting man, I’d be looking for a new way to wrap fish in the future.

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August 9, 2010 · 1:41 PM

Flag Waving and Hypocrisy

Spotted something in Stuart Elliott’s advertising blast from The New York Times.

Scroll down to the second question, in which a reader takes Levi Strauss to task for its recent commercial spotlighting the hard-working folks in Braddock, Penn. You can watch the video on Levi’s Ready to Work YouTube channel by clicking HERE:

Levi Strauss and its peers in the clothing industry have outsourced or off-shored nearly all of their manufacturing in the last 10 to 20 years. Now that there are towns like Braddock all across the United States — which used to have strong local economies based on manufacturing, but now have weak economies based on unemployment benefits — Levi Strauss wants to be seen as saluting the workers.

The reader continues:

It is nearly impossible anymore to find clothes made in the United States, but I refuse to buy from these “flag-waver” companies that promote themselves as pro-worker when they are just the opposite.

It’s a beautiful video and an inspiring campaign. And certainly, Levi’s is one of the great American brands of all time.

And, to be fair, Levi’s did just launch a new line with Brooks Brothers featuring jeans made in the USA. But I don’t see a lot of B-squared types in the Braddock ad.

Someone may have wanted to employ a bull$hit detector before approving this campaign. It’s certainly a disconnect—at least on the surface.

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