If I buy Camaro can I get a case of beer too?

Ok, this is not a joke. Although the promotion ended May 31.

I ran across this little sales innovation on a blog called Church of the Consumer. Then I Googled it and discovered the source. Max Motors of Butler, Missouri. There I learned that "America loves free guns!"

Honest to God, I did not know that.

I'm not really to sure what to make of it, either. Except, I suppose that I feel one hell of a lot safer living in Bethesda, Maryland, than I would in, say, Butler, Missouri.

Car dealers, you gotta love 'em.

Mum's the word

A friend of mine sent me a link to this spot on Huffington Post, but I also found it on YouTube. It's for Heinz Mayonnaise, and I think it's great. (The spot, I mean. I'm not a big mayonnaise fan. My Reason For Living puts it on -- erk! -- hot dogs. Tomatoes too.)

The ad is part of a campaign with the tag line, "Give your BLT a little NYC". The concept is, the product tastes so good "It's as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen.'"

Watch it as many times as you want; there's just no way the concept of a Deli Man works any other way.

I don't know who did it. Wish I did.

He's got MY vote

Just when I was looking for something to put on the blog, a fun-loving client sent me this.

Good morning. What the hell do you want?

Ever call Jet Blue?

I have. Even though it’s a mostly-Internet kinda thing, there are times when you need to talk to a human. And every time I have, it’s been a great experience. They are helpful, engaging and friendly. You can hear them smiling.

I think one reason for this is that they work from home. At least most of them do. And why the hell not? All they really need is a laptop, high-speed connection and a dedicated phone line. I think it’s a terrific idea, and not just because of the money it saves Jet Blue on brick-and-mortar call centers. Because it ensures that the people working the line ― actually going one-on-one with customers ― are in a good mental place when they do it.

It’s a brand touchpoint that Jet Blue hasn’t overlooked. After all, there are very few times you will deal with an actual human before you get to the airport. That means those humans are delivering the Jet Blue brand. And they feel good about it.

Which brings me to the hospitality business.

We've done a fair amount of work in the hospitality category, and I’ve been in the “back of the house” at a lot of hotels. I’m usually surprised at where the reservations people work. These are the folks who as often as not are first in line when it comes to delivering the brand message to prospective customers. And they usually work in cubicles in windowless rooms. Drab, boring, windowless rooms. Almost no matter how nice the hotel is.

The hospitality business is very experiential. It’s not really about the beds and the tennis courts and the various F&B outlets. It’s about the experience. That includes when you call for a reservation and some information. What if the reservations agents had a view? And some personal space? Maybe a comfortable, colorful relaxed atmosphere in the call center?

I’ll bet you’d hear those smiles over the phone.

That’s delivering the brand.

I never met a man I didn't like. No wait, that's a lie.

I’m one of those casual users of LinkedIn. I always accept invitations, and I write recommendations when asked ― and sometimes when I’m not asked.

And when I do write a recommendation, I mean what I say. So if I happen to write that someone is brilliant, it means I really, no-kidding, honest-to-God think they are brilliant. And if I should happen to say someone is a congenital, practicing idiot, well, I guess I mean that too. (But I don’t plan on any such of a thing, so relax.)

So I’m poking around this morning, having received an update that tells me So-and-So is now in the Such-and-Such Group or This’n has “started a new retail project!” and on and on, like I care. But I see that someone who had written a pretty good recommendation about me and us had written an almost identical one about someone else in this town in the same line of work as we are. So how much is either one worth in that light? I don’t know. Probably not very much. Not that he didn't mean what he said. But if they are the best in the city, how come we're so brilliant? I'm confused. But that's not unusual.

The very nature of a recommendation is to say something nice, so a site full of nice things is, well, I don't know what it is. Nice, I guess. But useful?

LinkedIn fascinates me. I guess it’s a great networking tool if you really work it, but jeezy-peezy, I’ve got things to do. Collecting all those contacts and writing and asking for all those recommendations can eat up a lot of time. You know? Like Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk and rest. Just keeping up is hard work. But if anybody out there is “working on a new retail project!” believe me, I want to know about it.

ASAP.

Eight Miles High

UPDATE:
For some reason,this spot is no longer available on YouTube. I'm going to try to find it somewhere else. It's too good to ignore.


ORIGINAL POST:
With apologies to MDB and Smith+Gifford and everybody around here who has ever done a lottery spot, this is the best one I have ever seen. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to smile at the idea.

I love the penguin running after the one guy like a little kid.

Very nice. From Publicis in the West, Seattle.

I'm sorry, but this is just stupid

I've seen a couple of these ads floating around ad blogs in the past week. The other version has a man and a woman in it. Nobody seems to say whether they think they are good or bad, so I will.

They are awful. Stupid. Pathetic. Moronic. Need I go on?

With all the ways you could advertise student loans, this is the best you could come up with?

No wonder people feel insulted by advertising.

I don't know who did it, but just about everybody I know would have done a far better job.

And to think somebody got paid real money for this. Probably more than the people who did the ad in the previous post.