Red Mercury Singer Sewing Machine
April 15, 2009
A few years back I bought a Red Mercury Singer Sewing Machine at a garage sale, kept it in my basement and sort of forgot about it, until I started hearing that they were worth $50,000 dollars.. well evidently they are worth only 50,000 dollars because of a fraud that took place. The “Red Mercury” is a joke…. but hey I did drag it up from the basement, and made a quick Youtube video for it… so if anyone wants to give me 50 grand for it.. I’ll ship it anywhere on earth for you.
BTW, the heavy breathing in the video is because those things weigh close to 100 lbs… and hauling it up the staircase wasn’t easy..
Texas threatens secession ?
April 14, 2009
Matt Drudge is running a story that states that the Texas Governor Rick Perry is virtually declaring secession. The problem is that Matt is the only one making it sound like that.. there isn’t any other reports (other than a press release) that this is in fact what Texas is looking for.
Ideas? Thoughts?
This is the full article below:
WAKE UP CALL: TEXAS GOV. BACK RESOLUTION AFFIRMING SOVEREIGNTY
Tue Apr 14 2009 08:44:54 ET
AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”
Perry continued: “Millions of Texans are tired of Washington, DC trying to come down here to tell us how to run Texas.”
A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.
It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.
Developing…
Superspy @ Media Bistro Defends Enfatico
April 14, 2009
“AdAge is wrongly assigning blame to Enfactico and yes, I’m defending them” was written by SuperSpy… yes.. the famous SuperSpy at MediaBistro!
This deserves an article by itself, mostly because SuperSpy is one of my favorite bloggers and I do consider her one of my friends, but honestly for as well versed and smart she is, she is really wrong on this one. She is lambasting the adage article written by Rupal Parekh that we cited in our article
Here are the two major tidbits on her story:
1. Agencies very, very rarely get to just go ahead and purchase URLs for clients who generally, demand all sorts of approvals before anything is ever done. We don’t have carte blanche like AdAge is implying. It’s possible that Dell stalled on Enfactico’s request and/or just decided not to purchase it. Anyone who has worked in an agency knows this is very possible. AdAge is wrongly assigning blame to Enfactico and yes, I’m defending them. I can’t believe it either, but right is right and this assumption is wrong.
The red tape problem you mentioned with this could have been settled easily with a phone call or an e-mail to Dell for approval. Afterall Dell has no problem spending 4.5 billion for advertising for 3 years, and they have a long history of buying domain names for their products.
Clearly http://www.inspiron.com goes to Dell … so why wouldn’t their other trademarked products. Such as the ADAMO covered by Trademark number:
77518661
and
77542633
Feel free to look them up at the US Patent and Trademark office There is no legal concern here, also worth noting that someone was already sitting on the domain… that had no legal right to it in the first place, Dell / Enfatico could have easily used the WIPO procedure hold up their already owned trademark and recieved the domain name using the legal framework that punishes cybersquaters and awards the trademark holder.
That being stated, I am now completely at a loss regarding how BDA’s appear to work, because we do everything in our power to help the client, including buying a domain name for them, making them the legal owner of it and just making us the technical contact. This is a no-brainer if the client already has the trademark.
Now for the worst part of this:
YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THE DOMAIN NAME AND WEBSITE HAVEN’T BEEN DISCUSSED FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS WHILE THE PRODUCT WAS BEING DEVELOPED?
This is mind baffling, Enfatico hasn’t spoken to Dell about that domain name for the past 2 years while the product was getting ramped up for launch? WTF was going on?
Generally, we are looking at domain names even before looking at Trademarks, what’s the sense of owning a trademark if you can’t even brand it properly with a corresponding domain name?
This is not rocket science, this is good business.
Now for part 2 of the article:
2. The brand isn’t actually called Adamo. It’s called Adamo by Dell, so why would they even be interested in Adamo? Often, brands purchase similar URLS for their product and have it redirect users to the main client site. We all know this, as well. Dell already owns Adamobydell.com. What it sounds like is that the company was unsure as whether to fork over $750 for a like-minded URL.
Inspiron by Dell seems to go to http://www.inspiron.com … Next time I will try go go to “Wii by Nintendo” … but that seems to go to Wii.com ..
This is 101 in online Advertising, you make it as easy as possible for your potential clients to find you, that means using the common “street name” and “plain speak” of the products you sell if not offending…
oh.. and there was a third part of the article I wanted to address:
There. Case closed.
Not. Even close.
In closing, this is a clear lack of understand of Digital advertising, it’s why SEO and SMO firms are growing at the expense of BDA’s … because it doesn’t get any plainer than this, they have no clue what they are doing.
Bill Gates gives $5 million to Leo Burnett
April 14, 2009
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has offered to fork over $5 million to the Leo Burnett advertising agency to help Libraries. The Bill Gates donated money would help libraries raise public awareness about their financial needs and help them raise money. Basically the check will be given to Chicago’s Leo Burnett advertising agency since they were appointed to be doing the campaign..
…. uhh…. Don’t believe us? read it for yourself…
Want to know our problem with it? The chances are it won’t even raise $5 million for the Libraries. He should have donated the money directly to individual libraries or given it to a lobbiest for them to grab some bailout funds that they were going to spend anyway..
Clearly there is money bailout money spent, such as $75 million to repave three miles of rough pavement on Interstate 710 in Los Angeles…. yep.. thats $25 million per mile…
Enfatico is run by idiots
April 13, 2009
Rupal Parekh at Adage really dug up the dirt on Enfatico! I had to quote the entire article, because it was so perfectly written that there is no other way to rephrase it, or add to it.
“Either Madison Avenue still has a ways to go when it comes to embracing Silicon Valley, or Enfatico’s problems are bigger than we thought. According to reports this weekend, the Dell agency refused to pony up $750 a month to lease Adamo.com — the most obvious domain for Dell’s new ultrathin laptop computer, launched recently to rival Apple’s MacBook Air. Luckily for consumers, that decision didn’t stick once Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell caught wind of the situation; the domain was eventually bought”
Did you guys read that? Michael Dell had to buy the domain name himself. What did he pay $4.5 billion dollars for when he has to go out and purchase domain names himself because of the gross incompetence of his advertising agency.
Rupal I have to say, it’s not just Enfatico, it is Madison Avenue altogether. W+K lost a nearly $2 billion dollar account for lack of SEO.. and yet still has not developed the internal skillset to do it.
What gets worse is that these holding companies and large ad agencies charge the clients for this service, yet do not have the technical skillset to implement it.
Embarrassed WPP? You need to totally revamp your business if you expect to stay in business, start off by trying to buy SEO and Social Media firms… and good luck with it… they don’t think like you do Sir Martin, and hence why you can’t see the value in it.
We hope that a potential loss of a $4.5 billion dollar account is a good shot across the bow.
10 steps for those that got laid off
April 13, 2009
This is going to be a quick, really quick outline on what your first steps should be… follow these really before you do anything else. It’s a numbered format, so literally print this off as a checklist.
1 - file for unemployment. Do not pass go, you will not collect anything until you file.
2 - clean up your resume, you’re gonna need this top notch.
3 - contact all your valid working contacts though e-mail or phone.. let them know you are ready to work.
4 - clean up your linkedin profile, facebook profile, Fire up your twitter feed, start making friends and following people that can help you get a job .etc etc. Social media CAN help you, I know of dozens of people that have landed good paying jobs in this economy using Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Log into these every day and keep them maintained.
5 - Start your blog up.. inform the public that you are ready to work, and here is your skillset… blog every single day focusing on your expertise and thoughts in your industry…. you need to be painted as an expert in the field.. reply to all questions, reply to all comments… I suggest a domain name and self installed wordpress ( wordpress.org ) it looks bad with just a free blog…
6 - look at your household expenses, start cutting back on everything you can reasonably do. Your life radically changes when you are unemployed. You have more free time than you can handle… and no money to use during that free time. The reason some companies offer a severance package is because they know that you’re going to be in deep water within months.. if not weeks… one thing you can’t afford to cut back on is Internet Access… 90% of the time this is where you will find your job.. on the internet.. e-mail.. blog posting.. social media site.. whatever.. but don’t cut back here.
7 - avoid credit cards at all costs… unless you need it to pay for a medical emergency … it’s a last option.. you are unemployed… get that though your skull that now is not the time to start participating in the stimulus program. Now is not the time to buy a new iPhone.
8 - After you have done steps 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 … now visit the job boards… there are 12-15 people looking for a job for each job available, in essence if the job is listed on Monster.Com, the chances are your resume will be #19382 for that position.. this is virtually a last step, not a first.
9 - go back every single day, and follow though with 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 … comply with whatever the timeframe is to refile for step one. I hate to say it, but this is your job until you find one that pays… so honestly 8 hours a day allocated to the above is not too much to ask.
10 - For some, they continue to follow this sheet for 1/2 a year until literally it appears that nothing will come though.. at that point… you might want to follow this guide. or follow it sooner if you feel you can pull it off.. just remember.. it’s ugly out there… really ugly… it might or might not be the right time to start a business..
Anyone have any other tips.. leave a comment…
TREASURY TELLS GM TO PREP FOR BANKRUPTCY
April 12, 2009
Drudgereport has a note that the Treasure Department has told the General Motors Corporation to prepare for bankruptcy, there is no more funds coming to the company….
Story is developing, but the most educated guess is that General Motors isn’t going to be getting any more bailout cash, and it’s pretty much game over for the company. Bankruptcy will put virtually all the financial decisions on the bankruptcy judge. Non-essential things that don’t relate to the cost of steel, payroll and power bills most likely will not get paid… a prime example will be whatever dollars they were spending with their advertising agency thrown out the window… and it’s unknown if the advertising agency will.
Chances are this will send one hell of a nasty run though all the auto suppliers and any industry that touches general motors… this is going to get ugly… fast..
Steak n Shake sues advertising agency - wants to hire JWT now
April 11, 2009
The Indianapolis Business Journal has one hell of a story regarding just how bad clients can get.
Varnson the advertising agency in question, has filed a counterclaim accuses Steak n Shake of dealing in the definition of bad faith by floating out feelers to J. Walter Thompson, Empower Media, Zimmerman and ID Media.
So evidently contracts can be tossed out and forcing the advertising agency staffers to almost live in Steak n Shake’s HQ is part of the normal practice.
Sources within the local ad industry said Steak n Shake officials insisted Varnson Group employees work out of Steak n Shake’s local headquarters to keep a close eye on them.
WTF! Enjoy… I heard Enfatico has a bunch of open space that JWT can borrow for this new client.
Enfatico Shuts Down
April 10, 2009
WPP group plc is shutting down Enfatico, the advertising agency for Dell and sending what remains of it to Young & Rubicam.
Enfatico has been slammed from day one for it’s one client business model, cost overruns, lack of production and to make matters worse, last week the ad agency lost any potential of landing another client as Vonage selected another firm for it’s advertising.
Leaving Enfatico as a one trick pony.. more exactly.. as nothing.. as it’s closing down.
Exactly what we have been saying since it’s inception. Hell we even built an Enfatico Countdown clock… The clock is now updated with what will most likely be it’s last update.
* 496 days, 8 hours, 5 minutes, 56 seconds into the contract……Enfatico Shuts Down with 599 days, 15 hours, 54 minutes, 4 seconds left in the contract…
What is unclear is what happens to the 10 year leases and if WPP group plc / Enfatico will default on 100,000 sq foot Manhattan office spaces.
There was nearly 1000 people working there, it’s widely expected that most of them will be sent to the unemployment line in short order.
Sir Martin, you really made a mess of things.
Star Trek Tribbles to be in Movie - Our Namesake!
April 9, 2009
We had to laugh that a Tribble will be in the upcoming Star Trek movie. We are such fans of Star Trek here that the Tribble Ad Agency is named after Tribbles… note our press release from 2006, and our feelings have not changed then. A Tribble is a creature that looks great to have, but boy did they consume resources and deliver nothing in return.” — namely our feelings about Advertising Agencies.
It’s great to see that JJ Abrams agrees! LOL!
Regardless we are looking forward to the new Star Trek Movie, we’ll have our Slusho Ready and set to see the tribbles
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