Some select items for your enjoyment. I really tried to see if there was a theme to connect them, but I couldn’t find one. Perhaps it will come to you.
- From the “Meet Ronald, Your Barista Today” Department: The clown is taking on the mermaid. Or, to put it another way, McDonalds is taking on Starbuck’s caffeinated market. Now, I’m not a coffee drinker (my opinion is that coffee should either be in ice cream or covered in dark chocolate), but the marketing angle of all of this is interesting… as well as the writing of the article. McDonalds is evidently blizting the media with ads for its new McCafe, and I find advertising interesting (perhaps it is the Stan Freberg in me). I think these four paragraphs say it all:
Sensing the opportunity to peel off some of Starbucks’ priced-out customers, the Ronald is launching a menu of cheaper cappuccinos, lattes, iced coffees and hot chocolate, most of which — judging by the first TV commercials — will be smothered in a foot of whipped cream. A series of three commercials will begin running this week: One, set in a nightclub and featuring Detroit soul singer Dwele, is directed at the African American community and highlights the sweet, chocolate-y McCafé options; a Spanish language spot has a young woman walking to work, daydreaming about her iced mocha, which apparently “complements all” her “desires” with sugar and caffeine. Me encanta.
Speaking of being lost in translation: This campaign has a bit of a language problem, doesn’t it? “McCafé” is hard to say — having three stressed syllables — and American audiences have almost no experience with diacritical marks, so the acute accent mark on the final é is going to leave some fast-fooders bewildered.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, the diacritical issue, the campaign’s general-audience TV spot (DDB Chicago) features ordinary people’s daily drudgery being transformed by a McCafé drink, so that “commute,” becomes “commuté” and cubicle becomes “cubiclé.” That seems somewhat lamé.
In response to the McCafé campaign, Starbucks is pushing back with print ads this week touting the quality of its coffee. It needn’t fret its little mermaid head. McDonald’s isn’t selling coffee so much as caffeinated milkshakes, and the visuals associated with the first round of ads are likely to send dietitians screaming into the night.
Mmmmm. caffeinated milkshakes.
- From the “Avoiding the Screams” Department: Of course, if the screams are getting to you, you just need to concentrate more. The New York Times has an interesting article on concentration… and why we can’t concentrate. This explains the “ohhh, shiney” phenomemon (do do do do do phenomenom do do do do…, but I digress). Anyway, as I was saying:
When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain’s attention, but that involuntary bottom-up impulse can be voluntarily overridden through a top-down process that Dr. Desimone calls “biased competition.” He and colleagues have found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex — the brain’s planning center — start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else.
More significantly, according to this researcher “It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial. If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.” Now, my opinion of this is … oh, look, another article.
- From the “You Can’t Blame Dreamwidth For This” Department: Ever wonder why frank hasn’t been posting lately. Simple answer: LJ isn’t paying him enough, so he’s working at Google.
- From the “I’m a Pepper, You’re a Pepper” Department: Frequent antique stores. You might find something valuable… like one of Dr. Pepper’s Earliest Formulas. Doesn’t sound very tasty, though…. Maybe frank will eat it.
