Posts Tagged ‘jcpenney doghouse’
[facebook] free for all »
Friday, January 16th, 2009
I’ve forgone the typical ‘free for all.’ Didn’t notice? Word, thought so. Moving on…
While I don’t personally add applications to my Facebook profile(s), some are all about it. They’re ass deep in “Which Reservoir Dog Am I?” and “All the Places I’ve Been You Haven’t” boxes. Which brings me to the “Whopper Sacrifice.”
Facebook is famous for its cluttered friend lists. Some are still friends with folk they met while filling their URC‘s or those hot girls they met at freshman orientation. (With entire self-tagged albums in bikinis, tagged with “gross” or “fat,” desperate for contradictory comments.)
Why not exploit it? I think the Whopper Sacrifice is a smart concept (read: best they can do; lame). It takes commonality and provides branded incentive to address it. It’s better than the Angry Whopper or [insert recent BK campaign/promotion here] (sans, maybe, the King). And more thoughtful than JCPenney’s “Doghouse.”
Facebook shut it down, citing privacy concerns, and missed the viral publicity. (They have no financial model; you’d think they’d be keen on ideas like this.) The only infringement is a notification to the “sacrificed” they’ve been dumped for a chance at a Whopper, which is different than clearing an inflated friend list.*
For Facebook to take a stand on privacy is hypocritical at best. Their incentive is to make the site more public (promotions, growth) so the bulk of the privacy settings are near-hidden, convoluted to the point of useless (if used at all; not to mention the bugs). The default settings aren’t private.
It’s another in a list of blunders no one remembers. They’ve posted anything you were doing on third-party sites with an opt-out model (because they’re idiots), added the news feed (again, opt-out after backlash) and stupidly redesigned with an option to revert to the old site.
Facebook’s obviously blinded by dumbass so it shouldn’t surprise that they’d miss the whole point of the Whopper Sacrifice. (Is “hope no one realizes we’re inept” a business model?) To think otherwise is Memento-esque.
… Actually, show of hands: before this, how many of you knew about Whopper Sacrifice? Were pissed about the redesign for a week and then forgot how the old one looked? Remember the pre-news feed days? Knew FB and BlockBuster and others are being sued?
Seven, all, none and none of you? Hmm. Well… whatever. Still worth it.
Note: More on the Whopper Sacrifice on I’m Just Sayin’ Show. Inspired by all the projects at PhizzPop last night that were made possible by Facebook’s short-sighted, infringing adaptations.
* The de-friended could easily re-friend the de-friender after s/he’s enjoyed her/his over-sized morsel of near-beef. Whether the now re-friended is subsequently de-friended (again), without their immediate knowledge, is entirely up to the de-friender. (Follow all that? Things got a little rough toward the end there.)
dog, the discount shopper »
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008
Monday, I mentioned the new JCPenney lame in Quick Thoughts (here comes the “more” even sooner than expected). If you didn’t watch the video there, watch below. It’s about five (long) minutes:
Men are fuckwads in need of women to scold them until they realize the awe inspiring power of giving them (discount) diamonds. Oh how stupid men are and how patient and nurturing women are. What a great world of redundant stereotypical this is. (Yawn.)
Marketing is desperate for something new because no one cares anymore. Sarcastic, absurd and subversive campaigns are all they’ve managed. Now, as @alisamleo says on The Web is Social, they have far more powerful tools and are still coming out with this lame. (Seems it should be easier to sell the world’s most prolific consumers more stuff.)
I’ve gone into the “diamond issue” before so I’ll just ask: are we, as consumers, supposed to be swayed by pathetic, sexist, buzz-word-marketing afterthoughts like this? If so, here’s how every marketing meeting from now ’til you’re dead will go down:
Boss: Our sales are knee-deep and the holiday season predictions are dismal. What do you have for me? Think out of the box people! Take it to another level.
Marketing manager: (Stands up, totally stoked to prove he’s on a new level) We’ve already started running with the concept. We have an incredibly long commercial because we aren’t constrained by television airtime. We’ll put it on a promotional microsite—my daughter loved Out-of-Your-League-Girl. It’ll go viral in no time. We’ve got great visuals and incessent, repetitive talking points to really drive it home.
Marketing underling: (Excitedly passes note that reads, “tell him about the [interactive feature]“)
Marketing manager: We’ve even got another section of the site that will display uploaded photos and SMS messages. It’ll be great for those users that fit easily into one-dimensional architypes.
Boss: (After making a series of checks onto his notepad list titled: “Buzz-isms”) Is it web 2.0? What about Facebook?
Marketing underling: I have a profile. We could…
Marketing manager: They have [Feature like Facebook Connect] now. We can add it to the site and have users add their contacts so we can then draw them to the site. It’s a call to action that will viral all over the outside of the box!Boss: Sounds incredible. Go with it. Keep it simple.
Marketing underling: We could use it to add social features and create an experience…
Boss: That’s not keeping it simple. You’ve lost me. Stick to the “add contacts” thing.
Marketing underling: … but how does that engage the audience, develop a relationship?
Boss, Marketing manager: (In unison) I don’t understand the question