Odd

Strange stuff.

I’m with the brand

Bob PageLeave a comment

Advertising Week is, well, just what it sounds like. A week of the ad industry celebrating itself. Among the highlights, the “Procession of the Great Icons”, where you can get a glimpse of Mr. Clean, Smokey Bear, Cap’n Crunch, McGruff the Crime Dog and dozens of other advertising icons strutting through Times Square and up Madison Avenue.

Brand Icons in NYC

Also (drumroll please) the award ceremony for the winners of this year’s brand icons. Last year, the winners were M&M’s brand characters, the AFLAC Duck, Mr. Peanut, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger. Who might it be this year? Coffee addicts are hoping for an upset by Juan Valdez, maybe riding on Charlie the Tuna. Or will the Doublemint Twins ride off with Snap, Crackle & Pop?

Notably absent, I would think, would be the makeover edition icons. Yes, Twinkie is absent, but LL Koolaid may grab the young urban vote, especially doing his “fat guy in a little coat” routine.

Oh and lest you think that only icons were winners, Advertising Week will also announce this year’s slogan hall of fame winners.

What’s your favorite advertising icon? Slogan? Cast your vote! and check out the previous year’s winners.

I’m with the brand

Secrets

Bob PageLeave a comment

At work, people (and programs!) using email who mistakenly type subjects containing the word “page” into the “To:” or “Cc:” line instead of the “Subject:” line end up sending me email. Given the nature of our business, the word “page” comes up frequently in emails.

I never reply to these, just delete them. But I see some strange stuff.

At a previous company, a co-worker had the user name “asdf” .. he once got a confession of infidelity. Delete!

Back when the Web was young, Brian Behlendorf had (if I remember correctly) nowhere.com. He got lots of interesting email to user ”nobody“ at that address. And would reply to it.

Secrets

Oops

Bob PageLeave a comment

The new Hertz web site is miles and miles better than the one it replaces. More functionality, easier to find your way around, and it even works in non-IE browsers now.

Not all the bugs are worked out, however:

Oops

Click Me

Bob PageLeave a comment

Jeremy wonders how much anchor text matters, and opines that a company named “Click Here” would never make it to the first page of the search results.

So true. Or is it? Another common word used as anchor text is “download”:

While download.com appears at the top (which I suppose you’d want), this query may also be an indicator for the most popular downloads on the net.

Perhaps contextual or clustered search would help with these kinds of “signal vs. noise” problems.

Speaking of noise, I’ve often said that if I wanted to disappear from search results, all I’d have to do is change my first name to “Web” …

(yes, it’s Friday!)

Click Me

Consistency

Bob PageLeave a comment

OK, nothing to do with analytics or Yahoo. I was reading news feeds today and came across a press release where a PR person announced he has started a blog, “to Share Insight and Observations on Society, Politics and Business” (his caps).

I dunno, maybe it’s the coffee, but I think this is funny. Who else would issue a press release when they start a blog? I guess when you’re a promoter, that’s what you do. I hope he doesn’t issue a press release every time he posts a new blog entry, or gets a Flickr account.

Consistency