Late Night TV Marketing Fail: Vermont Teddy Bear and Law and Order

I pulled an all nighter a few nights ago...not because I had some crazy work deadline or was working on finishing my second novel...I was trying to finish the Valentine gift my son had requested for his classmates.  And I had really underestimated how long it was going to take.

After mid-night TV gets weird.  And I was happy to find a Law and Order marathon to have on the background while I crocheted until my fingers cramped up.  My learning from that night is not how many stuffed giraffes I can make in a 12 hour period (the answer is 11), but that there are few companies willing to advertise that late.  Between midnight and 6am I must have seen 20 ads for Vermont Teddy Bears 4 foot tall bear.  Also advertising was a company wanting to help me sign up for health care, a company who wanted my husband to buy me roses and Sherries Berries who successfully convinced me I would never want to be friends with a couple who purchased from them.

Except for the health care company who was gender neutral in their ads, everyone else was targeting men.  And not subtly.  Watch the Vermont Teddy Bear ad (link above) and see what I mean...these were ads that were not meant to appeal to me as a women at all.  As a marketer I am intrigued by these types of ads so I did a quick Google search to find out who exactly watches Law and Order...and the whole first page of results came back with articles about how much WOMEN watch the show.  And not just the show that runs new episodes, but the re-runs that TNT plays, and that I was watching.  If you visit the TNT viewer profile more women watch then men.  This makes me question the companies running ads...did they do their research?  By excluding an entire gender from their ads they no doubt lost business...Vermont Teddy Bear could have just as easily created that ad to be geared towards both genders, or parents, since the only person I know that wants a 4 foot bear is my 3 year old.  And who knows...if they had done that, they probably would have made a 3am sale to me.

Share a Coke with...Reflections of a Viral Campaign

I am a marketer by trade.  And most days I will tell you by passion as well.  I appreciate good advertising, applaud promotions that actually get me into a store and have no problem completing surveys and answering questions because I understand the underlying goal.  This makes me a boring dinner date.

I am also brand loyal.  To a fault.  When I like a company or product I don't even consider the alternatives and when I don't, well no promotion will get me in the door.  I have been drinking Coke, Diet Coke and now Coke Zero since I was in utero.  I am the horrible person in the restaurant who when asked "Is Pepsi OK?" I say no and order something else.  For years Coke has been my go to brand, without hesitation. 

Until this past summer...

You see, I didn't want to share a Coke with my BFF or a wingman.  I didn't want to think about what my high school boyfriend Zack is doing or my nemesis from elementary school Anna has going on these days.  If I want to be reminded of my past I will visit Facebook on #TBT.  I just want to drink a Coke Zero.  In peace.  No memories of people, no reminders that I don't have more friends, no suggestions for who I should interact with today.  I have actually stood in convenient stores looking through the Coke bottles to find one with a name or reference that did not conjure a memory.

From a marketing standpoint this campaign was genius.  Lots of opportunity for viral advertising, lots of images posted, connections created between consumer and product...from a marketing perspective they did everything right and then some.  But for me, for the person, not the marketer, my loyalty eroded with every suggestion that I should share a Coke with a legend, with Jared, with Samantha.  And I know I am not the only one who felt that way...

The making of a snowflake

There are things in our lives that we don't need to know.  Because in knowing them it can change the very lens through which we see the world.  I happened upon a detail today about how snowflakes were formed.  Turns out I had been missing an important piece of the formula.  From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association:

"A snowflake begins to form when an extremely cold water droplet freezes onto a pollen or dust particle in the sky." (http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/snowflakes_2013.html)

So what?  You may at first glance think yeah that makes sense.  But really think about what that means...when your lawn is blanketed in a bed of white snow, really it is blanketed in a bed of dust.  And what is dust?  It is particles from roads, pollen, human skin, animal hair, pollution.  It is everywhere and I prefer to not normally think about it.

But now I have two inches of snow...two inches of "dust" on my front lawn...and those tiny white specs falling from the sky are not really something you want to catch on your tongue.  The upside to this discovery is that it at least fits with my world view.  That, like most things, when you dig into their core, they are rotten.

Ellipses

The word is from Ancient Greek and means "falling short". I think of it as those three periods that I can use to create run-on sentences at will. But I like its original meaning...that by using them, I am letting you the reader know that this sentence is going to fall short. That something is going to be omitted, or left out or left up to you.

I feel my life as a parent is an ellipses. Like I am constantly trying to play catch-up over falling short in some way. That while I am at work I am slowly being omitted from my children's lives...replaced by the real life version of three periods in a row.

For you little girl

I thought my destiny was a house full of boys.  I imagined a mud room full of sports equipment and rooms cluttered with sports magazines and dirty cloths.  I imagined a loud, messy house with lots of laundry and snack food.  But that all changed when my daughter was born.  A tiny little strawberry blond (who am I kidding, mostly bald) girl.  She was a surprise and came into our family during one of our hardest times.  It always felt like she knew that and so she took it easy on me.  Instead of being what I thought a daughter would be, she was the light that pulled us through.

Her blond hair fits in pigtails now and she is the total boss of her older brother.  She is the girl I never thought I wanted and I couldn't imagine being
without.  Here are my lessons and hopes for her...

1.  You will probably never be happy with your hair

No matter if is straight or curly or thick or thin or short or long, red, blond or brown.  It may always bother you.  I promise to help you embrace what you have and also to teach you how to use curlers, straightening irons and blow dryers.  And I won't get mad no matter how you cut it, or what color you dye it.

2. It's a man's world

Sorry princess but it is.  And the best advice I have to to not play their game.  Even though you grew up with a stay at home dad and have been surrounded by strong women who have followed and achieved their dreams, you will make less than your brother because you are a girl.  You will be held to a different standard.  So embrace the gloriousness that is you...and make your own rules.

3.  You don't need to "live up to your potential"

You can exceed it.  Or not.  It's up to you.  Don't listen to the teachers who tell you "you aren't trying hard enough."  Don't succumb to peer pressure and think it's cool not to get good grades.  If you follow your dreams, you'll find them coming true.  Except when they don't...and when that happens...see number 11.

4.  Don't be an idiot

Try to make decisions that won't get you into trouble...I would say avoid getting pregnant until you are ready, don't get arrested for doing drugs or driving under the influence, and because you are three now, try not to eat any batteries.  That gives you a lot of ground.  If you want to have sex, tell me.  I won't ask questions and I don't want to hear the details, but I will make sure you go to the doctor and talk to them about birth control.  If you decide to try drugs or drink don't do it on school property and don't get in a car.  If you decide to eat a battery...well I'm just going to take it away from you.

5.  You are smart + clever + kind + thoughtful + patient...

You are so much more than beautiful.  Your generosity and kindness radiate from you.  You are more patient with me than I deserve.  Yes, you are also beautiful.  But you are more than that and I will spend as much time as I can reminding you of that.  We spend too much time telling our girls they are beautiful and our boys they are smart.  Don't ever forget no matter how beautiful you become that doesn't define you.  Just like how old you were when you started talking doesn't, or your reputation in high school doesn't.  You will always be more than one word, even if that one word is a good one.

6.  Be your own princess

A princess doesn't have to wait around for her prince or take the passive road through life.  Even Disney is on-board with this now (mostly).  Being a princess means you value yourself above all else.  That you treat yourself well.  But it is more than how you feel about yourself...it is how you treat others.  A princess is kind and thoughtful to others.  A princess doesn't judge those who are different from her and seeks to be good to everyone (even though you won't always be and that's OK).

7.  I hope you fail

Not at the big things of course, but at a few small things along the way.  While success is awesome and aspirational we learn a lot more from our failures than our successes.  It is through failure that we find our strength and re-examine ourselves.  My fear is that failure will break you.  It becomes all to easy to use failure as an excuse to put our dreams aside for the safe, but less fulfilling path.

I promise to always encourage you and remind you of your dreams.  To help you reach them and to be here when/if you don't.  Failure should never define you...

8.  You are wicked cool


It doesn't matter how much others love you.  One of the secrets to a happy life is to love who you are, what you stand for and what you do.  This is not as easy as it sounds for some.  I promise to remind you of how cool you are.  How amazing you are.  How you are and have always been my light.  But you will have to feel that on the inside...and that my girl is something only you can do.

9.  It's your body

...and you only get one.  This means think twice about what you do to it.  That means boys and girls.  It means tattoos and piercings and drugs.  You're smart and I trust your judgment.  The tattoo you get when you're 18 won't bother me...neither will the nose ring...or dating a lot of guys or girls.  But what I want to make sure is that you respect yourself enough to make decisions that make you feel good about yourself.  I promise to try and model that behavior...and to never judge you...and to love you...no matter what.

10.  Don't compromise on your dreams

Write and dream and paint and pretend acorn tops are fairy hats and the cat is magic.  Your youth and your life are more valuable than to be spent behind a desk.  Do something you love and when you find someone you love don't ever compromise your dreams for theirs.

11.  Welcome Home!

You can always come home.  For breaks from school, for dinner, for the holidays, to stay awhile if life has thrown you a curve ball.  That's what family is.  It means always having a place where people love you no matter what.  And who will always be excited to see you.  I promise to always have a place for you, because little girl I was your first home.  And I figure that is the least I can do.

I love you Fia girl...

Mom

Villains and Frozen spoilers...

Writing villains is always a challenge for me.  I walk the line between creating a character who is so hated that they are one sided and shallow or so wishy-washy that you are never really sure if they are bad, or just confused.  I was watching Frozen for the hundredth time (ah kids...) and it occurred to me that Frozen suffers from a similar problem.  Unlike previous movies where step-mothers transformed into dragons or tricked their daughters into taking poison or locking themselves in a tower, this movie is missing a true villain.

Sure, sure that Hans guy is evil...except he also kept the people of the town safe while the princess and the queen battled it out in the mountains.  Did he have an ulterior motive?  Sure!  But does that make him evil?  Does he try to kill the queen in the end?  Well yeah, so maybe that does make him the bad guy...And what about Elsa...she doesn't seem to have intent behind her actions but all that means is the court would get her for manslaughter instead of first degree murder if Ana had stayed frozen.  Is that evil?  Does freezing your home town and then running off the mountains and refusing to fix the problem make a you a villain?  And then there is the little guy from Weisledon.  He outright says he wants to exploit the country's resources and certainly seems to be behind the plot to kill the queen...yet he never evokes enough anything to be feared.

So what is the larger implication of this?  I know the first time I watched Frozen I walked away feeling disappointed.  Was it because for the first time the hero didn't save the princess?  That true loves kiss was not the answer to thaw a broken heart?  Or was it because without someone to root against how do we know who to root for?

Life is made up of shades of gray...do we want our movies and literature to mimic this?  Or to provide us with the black and white, cut and dry world of good and evil?  Where things may not always work out, but its usually because there is a sequel in the works...

Conversation Hearts and Rape Culture

So since quitting smoking my biggest vice is seasonal candy.  You can find it in my house year round...Candy Corn in March, Mint MnM's in August and Conversation Hearts in September. 

I don't buy Conversation Hearts for their clever sayings.  But I do only eat certain colors (I know OCD right), so I like to separate out the greens and oranges and throw them away when I first open the bag.  This year in doing that, I noticed a "don't tell" heart in the bags.  I know it is not new this year and have found references made to this phrase back to 2006. 

Now, perhaps I just watch too much Law and Order SUV but it seems to me that this messaging, done in this way, is just another tool to condition people to rape culture.  Where secrets are kept, victims suffer in silence and their abusers (sometimes) don't even realize they committed a crime.  In a society where, more than ever, the line between no and yes seems to be blurred by the media, celebrities, government and the courts, it seems like we need to demand more, even from our candy.