Marketing dumb

I love this video--it's of two crooks in New Zealand who run into a pole. After thinking about it a bit it reminded me of some companies and how they do their advertising and marketing. Too often a marketing campaign says one thing, but the reality of the what the company does is completely different. Why do companies continue to make such fundamental mistakes? Because the two halves aren't talking to each other... like in this video.

See the result:

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Another reason movie studio executives hurt themselves

I know, some of you are my friends.. but some movie studio executives are morons.

Someone at a movie studio--they will remain nameless--made YouTube yank down a video from blogger Kevin Lee because it had copyrighted material in it. Here is the irony, he was doing a movie review on video. Yeah, he was reviewing the movie and used clips. You know, like the guy on your late night news channel does.

Everyone gets away with it because its fair use. And because this wasn't first time someone complained about Kevin Lee, yes there are two other moronic movie studios out there, he got dropped from YouTube completely. All 70 of his videos. YouTube was put in a bad position--but there is no way Lee would be convicted.

Does anyone know what bad PR is anymore? This is as bad a PR move as you'll see. The big bad corporate giant going after someone promote their product. What's next--some movie exec trying to sue me for libel while bashing "Bride Wars" to my friends?

Why I love to hate movies

I love movies. I love to see new movies. I'd love to see all of them every single weekend. But do you know what I hate about movies?

- Getting into my car and driving a minimum of 20 minutes to the theater
- Waiting in line to buy tickets (although I'm glad I can buy some online to save this grief)
- Shuffling across dozens of feet down the aisles and shuffling back out to go to the bathroom.
- Listening to crying babies, people talking, people shuffling across my feet to go to the bathroom and phones ringing.
- The cost of popcorn, pop, and snacks.
- Dirty bathrooms.
- Walking ten minutes to my car when its 20 degrees or worse snowing or raining?

Here are the facts. I can avoid movie theaters and wait for the DVD version. But I'm impatient. I want new movies now. But I have options. I could steal them from BitTorrents or drag myself and family to a movie theater.

It costs me at least forty bucks to go to the theater with the family and that's with going cheap on popcorn, etc. (If I smuggle in water and a snack or two). A date night is probably between $23-30 with my wife.

Why isn't there a third option? If I want to see a UFC fight or some other pay-per-view event I must pay a premium to watch it. Why not offer that option for newly released movies? Not everyone is going to pay that price but someone like me, who likes to complain and hates leaving his warm house and snacks, might. And that might also mean I watch a more movies a month than the one I see now.

Who's to blame for the newspaper business?

That's easy to answer. Newspapers are to blame. Elitism is to blame. Arrogance is to blame. I could go on but I won't.

This is a sore that has been festering for a while. And no, his name isn't Craig, well it is, sort of. Newspapers keep crying that classifieds are killing them--taking away up to 40% of their profits. Newspapers, which once had dozens of pages of classified ads, now have only one or two pages of classifieds. So is it Craig's fault or the newspaper industry's fault?

Same answer as before. If someone handed me the keys to the kingdom I'd give away my classified ads. I know, you are saying 'so what, that is being done.' But what newspapers aren't doing is to print them for free, too.

Why?

1. Printed newspapers don't matter at all in job searches anymore. Why? Multiple reasons. First, no one looks at classifieds in newspapers because there are no classifieds. The second reason is all the job sites that exist. So how do you solve that?

2. Get dozens of pages of classifieds again. And thousands upon thousands of classifieds on your website. Then you become the go to place for that city or region or state. Instead newspapers are being nitched to death by Craig and his list, Ebay, Monster, Career Builder, The Ladders and more.

3. Everyone can give classifieds away online for free. Almost no one but a newspaper can print them. Did someone forget business 101 and the power of the good old strategic competitive advantage? Craig, Ebay, etc. aren't going to be buying printing presses any time soon.

4. The more eyeballs you bring, the more advertising you can sell. It's that simple.