Category: Uncategorized

So, the weekend has officially begun here in Phoenix. 

Last night Old Town Scottsdale took on a somewhat bizarre and surreal transformation.  In the middle of town square, the ESPN studio is set up.  (You have to wonder why ESPN chose a place 30 miles from the stadium to set up their Phoenix Studio.  Perhaps no one at ESPN wanted to spend any time in Glendale. I don’t know.) 

Certainly no celebrities wanted to spend any time in Glendale, and as I documented yesterday, all the mega-parties were being thrown in Old Town.  For comparison’s sake, imagine if a giant shiny new stadium was built up north of Everett for the Super Bowl.  And yet ESPN set up shop and all the celebrities threw parties in Belltown.  Just kind of bizarre.

Thus, the normal “see and be seen nightclubs” were closed for private events (or pay $200+).   Ordinary bars that normally cater to the 30-something set charged $25 cover.  And the college bars were dead.

I guess this is what happens when you schedule the biggest sporting event in the world, on the same weekend as the biggest sporting event in Phoenix, and also split the Super Bowl scene into two areas about 40 minutes apart.  Word on the street was that while Scottsdale bars were filled with tourists, Phoenicians themselves were up at the FBR Open Thursday night, and planning to return Friday and Saturday as well.  In fact, rumors are that few people from this area are going to the game at all, preferring to spend Sunday afternoon at TPC before heading home to turn on the game at 4:20.

But back to Marketing.  Coolest thing – or stupidest depending on your mood – are the walking TV sets.  How can I describe this?  There’s a guy walking.  And he has a harness on his back.  And rising up from this harness to a height of about 8-9 feet, is a flatscreen.  And that flatscreen has commercials.  So if he walks right at you, you would look up a few feet and watch the ad.  These guys are all over the place.  Walking TV Billboards.  They kind of look like Hammerhead from the Cantina on Tatooine.  I’ll try to snap a picture later today.

Now this question came up for debate yesterday.  Suppose a non Super Bowl sponsor, especially a competitor of a Super Bowl sponsor, somehow came up with 500 tickets to the game.  And they ran a contest for fans to get those free tickets.  And those fans had to wear clothing from the sponsor inside the stadium.  Could they be refused entry?  Let’s pretend it’s Burger King.  McDonald’s is a sponsor, so Burger King gets 500 tickets and puts people (maybe even rewards top employees)  in BK shirts all over the place.  Maybe they have to walk around Super Bowl events all weekend.  Now, could they also wear “King” masks?  Or does that step over the line?  Can they hand out business cards with coupons on them?  Is it Freedom of Speech?  Or do corporate rights trump the Constitution?  Just random thoughts…

Funniest and dumbest thing we saw yesterday.  A couple of guys walk in with about seven 21 year old blond girls, all  dressed in a different color of the same mini-dress.  You can’t NOT notice when something like that enters the room.  And all the guys in the bar are asking each other, “Are those dudes rolling with hookers?  Could they be anymore obvious about it?” And then we heard a girl say, “I think they are promoting jewelry, because they all have necklaces with a similar design.”  We never really figured it out.

I’m trekking out to Glendale today to see what the scene is like out there.  I expect this is where most of the corporate guys will be staying, especially those who don’t know Phoenix.  Probably a little different atmosphere.

Now I just wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t venture down to Phoenix this week to learn all the tips and tricks the professionals marketers at Super Bowl 42 can teach me.

So, this weekend I’ll be posting some thoughts, revelations and observations from the various venues making up the ecosystem that is the Big Game.

We’ll try to stop by the NFL Super Bowl Experience this afternoon which is essentially the party for the rest of us who can’t gain access to any of the cool ones.

The Arizona Republic and AZ Central Blog has some highlights from some parties, including The Big Ticket Gala, the Matt Leinart Foundation Party, a party I suppose I *could* have attended that didn’t sound too fun, Thursday night’s P.Diddy block party, and a long list of others.

Predictably, every bar in town is decked out with Super Bowl paraphernalia, even the ones 30 miles from the stadium.  It makes for a fairly misleading proposition, when a bar "Welcomes Super Bowl Fans" and then you realize that you’d have to be really really lost if you were an out of town guest.

As if this isn’t enough for one city to handle, Phoenix is also playing host to the FBR Phoenix Open, a 4 day 100,000 person party/golf tournament at TPC.  And just for fun, tonight the Suns host the World Champion San Antonio Spurs.  If anyone goes to work on Friday, I’d be shocked.

Anyway, more to come thru the week, as Marketing’s Reason for Existence approaches. 

Art Thiel has a great article lambasting Frank Chopp and other arguably ineffective Washington State Legislators.

There are definite arguments against funding the ridiculous arena package the new Sonics owners proposed.  But then it’s equally insane when the same people ignore their previous arguments to support the same package, but with the Huskies as benefactor.

Anyway, intresting read.  

I’ll be on the road for a few days and likely offline, but I want to leave you with a web site that you could easily spend a few hours on over the next few days. 

With all the talk about Social Media, YouTube,  Facebook, etc… we sometimes forget about the really cool Guerilla Marketing efforts that were (and still are) so important.  The kind of things that deliver shock and awe to a mass of potential consumers not expecting to be marketed to. 

It makes me think about the stupid restauarnt in my neighborhood that lost my business forever yesterday by putting a paper flyer on my windshield on a rainy night, so that when I got up in the morning, I had to stand in the rain and peel soggy, nasty paper off my car before driving to work.  And then I see these campaigns from Blog.GuerillaComm.com. 

And then for fun later, also check out WebUrbanist.com. Another neat place for finding unique products.

I’m playing with some stuff from Voki.com this week. Check out how to build your own Avatars as well, and I’ll be figuring out how to make them do cool stuff here.

Get a Voki now!

The PR team for Roger Clemens is certainly on the ball. In response to allegations of steroid use, they have launched a PR attack back that encompasses the Grandfather of Mainstream media, 60 Minutes, and dives all the way down into the Social Media space with a 1:30 video on YouTube.

Obviously most of us are not Roger Clemens, so we cannot call Mike Wallace and get a sit down interview whenever we want one. But even in Seattle or at any local level, we all can effectively use Social Media avenues like YouTube, by simply engaging a Social Media Agency, having a high quality video professionally shot and edited, and then leaking it into the blogosphere through respected bloggers. This is the new way to manage PR, and Roger’s team has done it very well.

Hope you got everything you wanted this holiday season.  And if you didn’t, hope you got enough cash (or at least gift receipts) to fill out your list.  Happy Holidays.

So I haven’t ever written or researched anything about healthcare, so this little rant/question is really from a sample set of one experience relayed to me by someone.  But I ask you to read along, and as you hear the story, think about your own threshhold of pain.  At what point, honestly, would you have given in?

I was at a nursing home and met a nice guy named Will.  Will was in his late 50’s, there visiting his mom, who is a patient/resident.  He shared his experience with me.

Years ago, Will had worked as an internal affairs officer for a branch of the U.S. governement.  His mother developed a degenerative back issue that placed her in a wheel chair and made her unable to walk.  Will’s mother was a U.S. Navy vet herself and a widow, so she had some pension, medical benefits and inheritance to help defray the costs of medical care, and he placed her in a nice nursing home.

The home was great, but she slowly became more and more agitated.  She was beginning to lose her sight in one eye, and her hearing.  So after a year or so, they decided to bring her to Will’s home, where he lived with his daughter and wife.

Will’s mother’s eyesight and hearing continued to diminish, and in turn she became more agitated and cranky at his wife and daughter.  Whenever they left her alone, she would end up in some predicament in the house.  It got to the point that they simply couldn’t leave her alone.  This of course caused considerable strain on the whole family, and Will developed his own illness.  Plus, she started needing round the clock care.

So, they eventually placed her back in the nursing home so she could get round the clock care.  Will had saved up more than half a million dollars from working for 30+ years for the government and retired with his pension so he could battle his own illness.

Now, 5+ years after moving her back in the nursing home, and more than 8 years since Day One, Will is just about flat broke.  Supplementing the rest of his mom’s care from his own pocketbook has dwindled his family’s entire life’s saving.  He has gone back to work, training to be a personal tax accountant for friends and family.  His mom continues to be happy and boisterous, with nary a medical ailment other than her inability to walk, or see or hear well.  Internally, she’s fine.

According to what our Privatized health care system asks for, Will and his mom have done everything right.  She was in the armed forces for 8 years and receives some government sponsored pension.  She used her husband’s life insurance and assets for her own care.Will worked until being offered retirement.  He raised his kids and shipped them off to college.  They both had health care. They utilized Medicare.  They both saved for their own retirement. 

And yet Will’s mom is outliving his money.  His next step is to sell his house and move into an apartment to pay a couple of more years of her care.  But then what?

I don’t have any answers when it comes to health care.  And it’s easy to say, "Well people should just plan accordingly."  But this is a tale of planning accordingly and still being failed by the system they planned within.   If this situation can happen to a family of patriotic, college educated government employees, how does someone else deal with it?

++ Some of my own notes:

* This makes me very scared about people who want to throw high tax rates on a "death tax." If another spouse is surviving, why do we need to take away the money that family has saved, instead of letting the spouse use it for his/her own care?

* Should the hippocratic oath start taking quality of life into consideration?  Imagine you were 80, wheelchair bound, unable to see or hear, and spent all day simply sitting in a chair looking in the hallway, waiting for your 2:30 bingo game.  And by doing that, your grandaughter doesn’t get to go to college, or your son has to sell his house.  How is your outlook on life?

* Why can’t we raise the retirement age?  If we’re living longer, don’t we need to be working longer?  If we’re living until 80, and don’t work until 21, we need more than 44 out of 80 people to be in the job force in order to sustain a standard of living.  Can we really afford for every working person to be supporting them plus another non-worker?

Looking forward to your thoughts on this. 

No, we haven’t joined the writers strike.  But the entire staff of AndyBoyer.com headed east to Virginia last week to work on some non-technology issues.  With spotty internet access, posting will be light.  And really, you should be Christmas shopping, reading a book or playing Xbox anyway – not reading blogs.  It’s the holidays, relax….

After the temporary enjoyment provided by Dropkick Monkey (story below), the real world came rushing back with a vengeance in the form of this story about the dumbest people who serve in a position of influence.

Short version of the story.  10 year old kid brings her lunch to school – in this case a steak.  Since most well mannered youth are taught not to grab a steak bone by their hands and gnaw on it like a hyena, she also brings a knife in which to cut the steak.

Now, a reasonable but anal teacher may see a 10 year old with a knife and help her cut the steak so she doesn’t get hurt.  A somewhat unreasonable and grudge-laden teacher may take the knife away and get her a plastic one.  An extreme nutcase *may* give her detention.  But you have to be psychotic to do what these teachers and sheriffs did.

Not only did they take the steak knife, they:

• Had her Arrested
• Took her to the county’s juvenile assessment center
• Suspended her from school for 10 days
• Filed FELONY charges against her for weapons possession.

The Spokesman for the school is named Kevin Christian.  He had this to say, "Anytime there’s a weapon on campus, yes, we have to report it and we aggressively report it because we don’t want to take any chances, regardless." Let me repeat – the girl is 10 years old.  Kevin – I’m sorry, but you’re stupid.

Now, lest you think everyone in Ocala is this insane, I bring you good news.  In a poll on the WFTV’s web site, the vote (at the time of this writing) was about 2850 to 150 that the school district’s punishment was too severe. (No word yet whether the 150 people who voted "No" are being supervised for dementia.)

One can only hope that the people in charge of the school board and sheriff’s office down there are voted out of office in the next election by a similar margin.