A-Roid: Some PR advice from a baseball fan

So Alex Rodriguez has officially joined the nefarious list of juicers in baseball. Rewind to his 60 Minutes interview less than two years ago and listen as he climbs astride his sanctimonious high horse, stares down Katie Couric, denies ever using steroids, and scoffs at the idea that he'd ever need them in the first place.



Fast forward to reality, where an "older, wiser" A-Rod offers a half-assed mea culpa. Of course, everyone knows he's not really sorry he did it. He's sorry he got caught.



And here's the biggest problem: He trots out the trite, form letter apology that all fallen heroes probably carry in their wallets, complete with the standard caveats (I was young, I was naive, I was under a lot of pressure). It transcends pathetic. It's a blazing, stinking pile of arrogance.

When you demand and are awarded the richest contract in baseball history, you don't get to complain about pressure. Your pity card is revoked. It's part and parcel of the job. You can't expect to win the sympathies of the American public when you're making more in one at-bat than most people make in a year.

I'm going to offer A-Rod some free advice:

Be humble, Rodriguez. Not PR-humble. Human humble. In fact, take it a step further. Release a statement saying that you don't deserve a place in the Hall of Fame. And mean it. Tell fans you don't expect or deserve their respect, but that you'll spend the rest of your life working to earn it.

Be authentic and genuine - not in word, but in deed.

And if that doesn't win a few fans over, try rending your clothes, rubbing dirt in your hair, and whipping yourself in the town center of Cooperstown.

Now that's a public relations stunt people can feel good about. Particularly us Orioles fans.

Previous posts that tested positive for content enhancement: Oh that Barry; Sticking it to Bonds for Fun and Profit; Sticking it to Bonds: Epilogue.

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Antithesis to a timeless tagline

"The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup."


For some reason, I think restless photographer (and fellow b compatriot) Brian Krista could have a sugar bowl of cocaine and a car battery hooked up to the junk under his jammies, and he'd still have a problem waking up, much less finding the best part of it.

He puts together an intriguing, if not exceptional photo study nonetheless, capturing over three years of what getting out of bed looks like.

If anything, it's an ironic homage to all of us working class shlubs who schlep out into the cold every morning to chase down the American dream - one tenuous step at a time.

Here's to the nearly four million folks across America who may have recently lost their reason to get out of bed every morning - but will somehow find the strength to do it anyway.

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Friday Ad Haiku: Intern Sweatshop

My first month as Renegade’s new Creative Department Intern is drawing to a close. I have toured the office (and gotten lost), met everyone at least twice and moved up from a spot on the couch to a spot in the hallway.

I dreamed about my first day for weeks, but unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly as I imagined. If I could give an advice haiku to future interns on their first day, it would go something like this:

Mad Men martinis,
look good on TV, but here
there’s no drinking. Boo.

So here’s to Friday and travel mugs that hide what you’re drinking! Happy Hour at 3, anyone?

--Erica Campbell, Creative Department Intern

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The Superbowl, Dragons, and Bizarro DVR

DVRs have changed advertising, and they're doing it again, in reverse. This weekend I watched the Superbowl for the first time since 2001, the year the Ravens took home the trophy. I'm not much for football, but I enjoy a game every now and then (every seven years to be exact.)

But I have, in the past, been tempted to tune in sporadically to catch a few commercials. I never do though. Does anyone? It's always seemed to me that the money companies spend on Superbowl ads is almost completely wasted. The Superbowl has two things going for it that prevent commercial consumption. One, it's an event that true-believers don't want to miss a second of. And two, those same viewers are consuming large quantities of beer, necessitating that some portion of the program be missed while the dragon is watered. That leaves the commercial breaks as the only viable option. And all that ad money is flushed away in a refreshing one minute span. And let's be honest. By the second half many of those viewers are themselves completely wasted and don't remember the commercials regardless of whether they actually saw them.

But I realized watching the game this year that DVRs have completely changed things, and in exactly the opposite way they originally shook up our industry. DVRs are generally credited with giving people the ability to skip over commercials, themselves negating millions of ad dollars. However, in the case of the Superbowl, where the ads are just as much of a draw as the game itself, DVRs are suddenly a boon. You can rewind and watch commercials you missed. You can watch them over and over again. And we did in a couple of instances. Suddenly there is no part of the game, including the commercials, that you have to miss.

Pair DVRs with the internet and viral video, and those Superbowl ad buys seem pretty smart. The lesson to learn here is that buzz-worthy spots get viewed. DVRs impede ad viewership. But if you can create singularly interesting campaigns, or couch them amongst other spots that are singularly interesting, the DVR creates viewing options that never existed before. I regularly use my DVR to buzz through commercial breaks. But if my eye catches the unmistakable signature of an Apple "Mac vs. PC" commercial, I stop and rewind. None of the other spots win my eyes, but an Apple spot will every time. So DVRs actually create a greater opportunity than ever before to stand out from the din.

Is this all true? I don't know. I've been making it up as I go. But it seems pretty likely. Or at least mostly plausible. So yes. It's true.

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7 (Future) Things About Me

So I was tagged by my pal Jetpacks to provide a view into my inner workings, as per the popular blogger meme, 7 Things About Me. He added a twist to it though: I've got to write seven unknown things about my future self. Seeing as how men in my family rarely make it out of their 50s, this will be mercifully easier than straining to get a glimpse at a future with me as a bawdy, tush-grabbing octogenarian casing the IHOP for sugar packets.

Here they are:

1. After years of hard work, I managed to launch a viable third political party: The Pragmacrats. Unfortunately, I came in last in every local Pragmacratic primary I ran in.

2. I served a three-day prison sentence for trying to re-enact Apple's "1984" ad in a Best Buy.

3. I had my Achilles tendon severed by a broken Jameson bottle in a bar fight with Mickey Rourke's clone.

4. One of the last ad accounts of my career was for a company that surgically implanted Kindle readers into the backs of people's retinas. Unfortunately, the company folded shortly after Oprah Winfrey was blinded during the procedure.

5. I won the lottery, but was unable to cash in after inadvertently composting the lottery ticket - along with 98% of our household waste - in my ZeroCarbonFootprint-o-Matic™ .

6. I was invited to give the keynote address at WalMart University's School of Twittermetrics. Twitter v. 35.2 was down so I did not receive the DM.

7. The Huffington Post fired me from my position as Senior Baltimore news correspondent after realizing the city had been swallowed by the rising waters of the Chesapeake Bay 5 years before I was given the job as Senior Baltimore news correspondent.

And now, I pass the torch to 7 blogger buddies:
TRAC's own Captain Awesome
AdRant's Angela Natividad
Shaun from Prostituted Thoughts
The thoughtful gal over at Thinking in Vain
Ryan @ MGHWOM
Garret Ohm @ Sutter Group
Jorden Bartel from b.

Go forth to taggeth other bloggers, anointed gentlefolk. With great power comes great responsibility.

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Banned Ad or Brilliant Ploy

By now you've probably already heard about the recently banned PETA Super Bowl spot. If not, watch it here.


Here's the thing, did PETA really think this ad would get past the Super Bowl censors? No way. Ever since the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" networks are uber-sensitive about upsetting the public, namely the Parent Television Council. I have a feeling PETA knew this spot would get banned. I bet they planned on it. Because this way the get all of the media exposure of a racy, banned Super Bowl ad, plus they save themselves $3 million dollars that they can spend on more fruitless nude protests. And I have to say, pretty smooth. The only sad thing about the spot not making the game (trust me, I have no love lost for PETA) is that their message would actually resonate with their audience.

Brilliant ploy or poor foresight, PETA got one right.

--Captain Awesome, Copywriter

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Trust Me vs. Mad Men: A Visual Review

Things happen when you click the photo.

UPDATE: Just after posting, we got a Twitter follow from TNT's Seth Miller. Now that's the immediacy and interactive sexiness of social media, friends. Good to see the folks over at Turner have a sense of humor. He's got some decent stuff, so give him a follow @tntweknowdrama. If you're, you know, into that kinda thing. Note to A&E: This is how you handle twitter buzz.

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