ErinIs.com

I am horrible with cell phones. I’ve lost or broken every phone I’ve ever had.

Their deaths were hard on me from the graphite flip phone runaway that was never found to the a red Nokia who suffocated under couch cushions and the most tragic, a silver Moto who committed suicide by jumping into a mosh pit.

Forced to buy the cheapest replacement phone once a year, I was never able to acquire the coolest new phone. My cell shame grew as I started to attend more web conferences. The hot pink razr that replaced the suicide jumper was a poor fool compared to the iphones, Blackberys, Sidekicks and the rest of the rad phones of the web savvy professionals.

Then I had my first phone crush….I lusted after the Sony Ericsson W580i Walkman. An adorable jungle green slider, I fell in love with its useless apps. I thought being able to record and identify songs on my phone would make my life complete. But after a few months, TrackID, Pocket Fitness and VideoDJ have lost their luster and my eyes have started wandering…

SlideRocket is awesome and provided great customer service to this overly geeked out beta tester.

A few weeks ago I posted this about my failed beta testing. SlideRocket responded with a comment on my post and within a few hours of my email back to them, I was signed in and happily playing around with their app.

I was interested in them before. Now I’m in love.

Another fantastically responsive company is Plaid – the agency that went on their van tour down the west coast and kindly offered up some agency swag to any bloggers who wrote about them. After writing my post I responded to their offer because I’m never above a free t-shirt and received my sweet Plaid van tour shirt within a week or two.

Customer service and responsiveness are really the keys to winning me over.

If I were to ever run some sort of internet scamming business I would spend any available funds on a copywriter and a translator.

I posted a $150,000 special edition Mustang on behalf of a client and this is just one of many money laundering email scams I’ve received. On slow days I reply to their emails and see just how riled up I can get them…does anyone believe these things?

Here is the actual email in response to the listing:

From: faithy cole [faithysmart005@yahoo.com]

To: Erin

New Facebook layout is nice. Streamlined, clean and easy to navigate.

I realize they’re trying to live up to their price tag but they ads feel so much more intrusive on the right hand side, constantly refreshing with every tab I navigate to.

Thankfully the horrid Shaun White ads are gone, but I have yet to find a facebook ad that makes me want to click on any of them. And shoving more ads at my eyeballs will increase the likelihood of my clicking on them.

By far my absolute favorite stunt – sending a someone dressed up in a toilet costume to run across the field and get tackled to show that Running Toilets are bad. Haha.

Simple. Smart. Brilliant.

Thanks AdFreak.

Traditional media buyers are obsessed with categorizing and rating people.

Demos. Indexes. Market Segments. Blah blah blah.

Who is more likely to buy this? Read this paper? Watch that show? Listen to the radio? Visit that website?

Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the categories we try to define people in. That is until you try to define yourself.

Based on my zip code I’m a Boomtown Single who is a young single, young professional or “techie” who likes music and outdoor activities and I am more likely to:

• Bank Online;
• Own a Sailboat;
• Drink Tequila;
• Buy Adidas athletic shoes;
• Listen to rock radio;
• and read Rolling Stone.

Or maybe Money & Brains and Young Digerati mixed with a Up-and-Comers/Young Influentials.

Can’t we do better than 67 categoires to catergorize millions of people?

Dr.Horrible that is.

A co-worker passed along the Dr.Horrible sing along blog mini series to me yesterday and I haven’t stopped listening/watching them at work. I heard about the series here and there out in the web but never made the effort to go out and find it.

Joss Whedon is genius.

Neil Patrick Harris is brilliant.

Download them from I-Tunes. I promise it’s totally worth it.

As an advertiser I’m not sure if THIS makes me sad because clearly direct mail is an ineffective advertising media or happy because at least it’ll keep top of mind!

I toss out junk direct mail that is irrelevant to me, but actually do read/use the pieces directed at me, not just sent to everyone in the city.

I’m not a copywriter. I’m a media planner/buyer/new business girl. However, all my research, planning and negotiations are pointless if an ineffective spot makes on my buy. So when I see an brand that fits my demo but the spot makes me dislike the brand, then I’m mad.

Secret failed at this and now Victoria’s Secret is playing advertising ad libs with their copy points instead of actually trying to create spots.

Usually Vicky’s spots are pretty normal- show gorgeous Brazilian girl in underwear and announcer talks about a sale or a new line of bras. Relevant, succinct, informative with good visuals.

Then came this spot introducing the BioFit Bra

“A bra so revolutionary…” really, because the last 12 new bras you came out with were supposedly revolutionary but they were all pretty much the same. I have a hard time swallowing the word ‘revolutionary’ for a bra that does the exact same thing the last one did. Let’s see a real innovation before you start plugging revolutionary into your ad copy.

“…your shape, your cup size” (bottom copy A-D) Are they really expecting me to be impressed that this bra also comes in the standard sizes? Maybe if they started carrying half sizes, or they created some new sizing for this style, but when it’s the same basic sizes, does this fact really belong in your 15 second spot?

“As close to custom as a bra will ever get!” Actually you can buy a custom bra….so no this mass produced standard thing is not as close to custom as a bra will ever get. So far the only custom thing is that it comes in the same basic sizes as every other bra. How does that make it custom?

Either the new BioFit is a horrible product and they creatives didn’t have a chance in hell of making this a good spot, or the creatives were lazy. Whatever the reason this spot made it on air, I certainly don’t intend to buy it and I just might retire my Vicky’s credit card.

I’m off on vacation for the next week.

So no new blogs while I’m having fun, but I have a bunch a drafts in the works!