Gen Wow

User Study Reveals What Your Choice of Social Networks Says About You

Love LinkedIn? You probably like soap operas. Facebook? You might be forgettable. Twitter? You might like a two-way.  MySpace? You might be a fat ass.

At least that's the gist of a new study from Anderson Analytics, according to AD AGE. Apparent, research on users of popular social networking sites reveal some personal attributes:

FACEBOOK: The site might just be boresville, mainly because it has the most users, which can skew things to the average. Facebookers are more likely to be married (40%), white (80%), and a bit older.

LINKEDIN: Mostly guys, mostly business, mostly affluent. The surprising twist: a penchant for gambling and, of all things, soap operas.

MYSPACE: Young, fun, less affluent, single, and a little more sedentary than users of the other socnets. 

TWITTER: Super users to tend to use the service to promote their blogs or businesses. Particularly interested in news, restaurants, sports, politics, finance, religion, movies, you name it. But not particularly into the site - 43% say they could do with out Twitter. Apparently more likely to be interested in sex than the average Facebook, MYSpace or LinkedIn users. Which may just mean they're young and single.

You can read all about it here. That is, before you switch social networks because you don't like what you learn. Can a study on those who use more than one socnet be far behind?

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Forrester: Interactive To Reach 21% Of Ad Spend By 2014

Interactive marketing will top $55 billion by 2014 - and account for 21% of all marketing expenditures by 2014, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

According to the firm, it's not like this means people are spending more on interactive; rather, 60% of the 200 marketers surveyed said most of the growth will come from budget cuts to traditional advertising. Social media, mobile, search, email and display ads will see a lot of that growth.

To be clear, I doubt this is a dollar-for-dollar transition. I think it's just less money to go around everywhere, and more being allocated to interactive. For instance, the report says the biggest growth area will be through social networks. Well you'd have to spend a lot of money to advertise on social networks because it's dirt cheap - and has never shown to be especially effective. Creating branded social networks can make sense for some brands, but there again, that doesn't necessarily mean a huge amount of spend.

Here's the net-net part for ad industry folks: According to PR Week, the report warns traditional agencies that “can't transition from pushing out messages to nurturing customer connections aren't long for this world,” and will be usurped as the AOR for big brands by interactive firms like Razorfish.

In my new book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I look at this dynamic, and talk to Derek Robson, managing director of advertising powerhouse Goodby, Silverstein & Partners about the agency's efforts to transform itself from a shop best known for eye-popping TV commercials to a kick-ass digital marketing machine. Along the way, they went from about 20% digital, 80% traditional to 60% digital, 40% traditional in a matter of just a few years. 

As a side note, a current favorite initiative of theirs is the new augmented reality experience for Doritos.

Change is here, and agencies had better get with it - or get left behind. 

Read more about the Forrester study, here.

Read more about the new book, coming Spring 2010, by clicking the link below:

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Doritos Launches Augmented Reality Chips Bag Starring Blink 182

Pretty cool. Hold your bag of Doritos Late Night Tacos or what not to your webcam and onscreen, the bag explodes and out comes Blink 182, floating before your eyes. My understanding is that the band will even do an encore based on how loud you and those around your computer get.

Goodby does it again.

My upcoming book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND looks how Goodby's using augmented reality for brands like Doritos and GE, and how brands like Coca-Cola, Fanta and even Ford are turning to this amazing (if a little glitchy) technology is engaging consumers like nothing before it. And I talk to Derek Robson, managing partner of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners about how Goodby transformed itself from a shop best known for eye-popping TV commercials to a kick-ass digital marketing machine.

Click on the link below for a sneak peak (be sure to sign up for free previews and updates while you're there.

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Levi's 'Go Forth' Does Not Just Go Lightly

"Go Forth," proclaims Levi's.

But to where?

I'm still processing the Levi's "Go Forth" campaign, what with its hypnotic TV spots and its highly engaging website. What to make of it?

The campaign, from Wieden & Kennedy, features video of an American wreckage juxtaposed with a voiceover of Walt Whitman reciting a poem about the opportunities of America. Visuals include symbols of decline as well as hope, a kind of Obama-era assessment (indictment?) of the state of our union, and a call for unification in moving forward, together, a "new declaration for the United States of America," as the website puts it.

And the website! While (what I believe to be) official copy features lighthearted lines like "When in the course of the human work week, it becomes necessary for one to drink 29 cups of coffee, check email 344 times, and add 92 Twitter friends, all while avoiding..." entries from visitors tend toward the undeniably thoughtful, even provocative. This is not just a consumer republic enamored of Americana; it's a nation of critiques and challenges as much as it is one of celebration and can-do spirit.

But the inevitable questions arise: What does this have to do with selling jeans?

And does the campaign succeed in repositioning a brand that has always been an icon of rugged individuality into one geared around a "one for all" mentality - all while hocking "510 Super Skinny Jeans" and the "569 Loose Straight Jean" and describing the difference between washes running from "Bjorn Blue" to "Super Destructed Light"?

(As a side note, the print campaign feels more traditionally Levi's, featuring colorful images of individuals out in the natural world, with headlines such as "Will work for better times.")

 Will this campaign reset the brand for the "Yes we can" age?

Will "go forth" work at both the individual and societal (or at least group) level?

Will this campaign come to symbolize something larger than itself?

Time will tell. But undoubtedly, the campaign does work on an emotional level, and could be perfect for Levi's target demographic - or it could completely miss the mark.

How much it moves the sales needle remains to be seen.

But on its face - and judging from the activity on the website - it's striking a chord with someone.

Which is not too bad at all, for a product made of dyed, destructed, or otherwise adorned thread.

What do you think about the campaign? Go forth and tell us what you think!

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Quantcast Launches Ad Targeting Service

With apologies to one cable television operator, an online start up hopes we'll all find it simply Quantcastic.

Quantcast, the website traffic monitor and ad broker, is launching a new online targeting service designed to help media buyers take advantage of the company's site traffic analysis to run better, more compelling advertising.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Quantcast Media Program allows advertisers to create a detailed profile of the types of people they want to reach, and then finds sites that are attracting those types of people. It takes a cut of the revenue from the resulting ads sold by the Web sites.

As the Journal points out, the model is different than the likes of say, Yahoo, which can offer up targeted ads based on data from its own network. Quantcast, by contrast, is network independent.

NBC Universal is a prominent early adopter, and others are sure to follow what is a logical extension of some of the things Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman revealed to me in a recent interview.

Time will tell if the service takes off, and if advertisers beyond NBC are seeing Quantcastic results from the effort.

Read more here.

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Half of All Twitterers Have Never Tweeted; Half Have Zero Followers

Thus says the new June 2009 State of the Twittersphere (such as it is) from HubSpot (via MarketingVox) - despite a growth rate of 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts per day.

Among the Stats:

• 55% have never sent a single tweet

• 53% have no followers

• 56% do not follow anyone

To be fair, those who do actively use the service are active:

• The average user tweets .97 times per day

• The average user has tweeted 119.34 times total

• The average user has a following-to-follower ratio of .7738

I actually have to wonder how many followers are even real. We already know many people become followers only to never log onto Twitter again. But a number of followers are probably spam - porn sites and what not that sign on so that the Twitterer or his/her followers who check the link get some kind of spam message.

For more on the new report, click here.

For more on the growing problem of Twitter spam and malicious attacks, click here.

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Microsoft Pulls 'Nauseating' Online Ad

If Vista leaves you queasy, Internet Explorer 8 wants to do you one better.

The Seattle Times is reporting that Microsoft has pulled an an ad, featuring Dean Cain promoting the company's Internet Explorer 8 web browser.

As the Times describes the ad:

A wife gets online after her husband has used the computer, and is so horrified by what she sees, she repeatedly spits up on the floor. He slips, falls on the floor, and she continues to spit up on him. The tag line is O.M.G.I.G.P., as in "Oh my god, I'm gonna puke."

The ad promotes Internet Explorer's privacy browsing feature, which many have dubbed a porn mode. It allows the user to browse without leaving a trail in the browser.

I found this version of the ad, but it could be gone by the time you view this. Which is probably a good thing. I don't know. I'm thinking Microsoft should make Office less obnoxious to use before it uses puke in a commercial.

You can read the Seattle Times piece, here.

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Bluetooth 'Big Brother' Tracks Festival-goers To ID Future Retail Apps

Scientists are using Bluetooth to track attendees of the Rock Werchter concert in Europe this weekend in hopes of finding new ways to track numbers of people entering retail stores, to track suspicious movements, or to track evacuations at mass events, according to a report from Reuters.

None of that sounds very good (or all that interesting). but one possible application that retailers would find useful is the chance to track items as they move around stores. Not just to prevent theft, but to know what items were picked up and where they were left behind in the store to better understand shopper behavior and to better strategize their product mix and placement.

If I pick up one CD but then put it down by another CD, and then buy that second CD, it could offer insights into where to place that CD to better promote it, for example.

Tie it all to loyalty cards or mobile apps, and suddenly digital store displays can make recommendations based on what I've got in my hand, what I've before, and/or items I've expressed interest in, and that kind of tracking can generate revenues in short order.

And it's a lot more fun than imagining all the less benign ways this kind of technology can be used to spy on us.

Read more, here.

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In Beta: Customizable Burger King Site Lets You 'Have It Your Way'

The slider controls on a new Burger King site say it all: You can choose the level of "fun," "food" or "king" you want in your online experience.

The site, now in beta, lets you prioritize what entertainment or information elements you want access to at any time.

The site, from Crispin, pre-sets for fun, not surprisingly, though I'm not completely sure many site visitors are going to care as much about a link to a "Simpsonize Me" app or the Burger King/Seth McFarlane web comedy (though the "Angry Gram" app that lets you send a mean Whopper to recipients is fun) as they are to special offers, but hey, the site fits nicely with BK's irrerant "superfan" clientele.

The site comes from Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, which has made a name for itself - and Burger King - through quirky digital initiatives that have demonstrably boosted sales, in some cases, 10% or more.

(Sidenote: Ales Bogusky offers many insights into CPB's approach to helping Burger King conquer the world in my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND; click on the link below to find out more.)

Whatever your feelings about BK, take a look at the site as it does point to a new model of customizable user interfaces - which is, after all, one expression of the on-demand brand.

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Business Week Takes Me To Task For Obama Cannes Comments

Business Week took me to task for slamming the fact that the Obama Campaign won two Grands Prix awards at Cannes.

In a post the other day, I argue that in my view, the campaign should not have won for a couple of reasons:

1. Cannes is about creativity. The Obama campaign was not about creativity, but about strategy - using myriad channels to get out the message and the vote. Sure, there was the idea that strong community building enabled consumers to help build the Obama brand. Yes there was all the text messaging and what not. But there was nothing especially creative about that, or any particular element or mix or elements.

2. Some are arguing the campaign won for effectiveness. Well A.) Cannes has never been about effectiveness (alone) - if it were, any number of infomercials would win over creative work. And B) though this may sound contrarian, I'd argue there was nothing especially effective about the campaign, despite the candidate's decisive win.

Here's why: There was not a lot more transformative than what Howard Dean, and to some extent, John Kerrey, had accomplished in terms of social media four years ago.

The 2008 election was a referendum on Republicans in general, and President Bush-style Republicanism in particular. In my opinion, whoever the Democratic nominee was, they'd have won.

Indeed, considering the difficulty Obama faced winning his own primary - Hillary Clinton had to give him her delegates to even cement the nomination - the integrated campaign was not phenomenally successful. Just sufficiently so.

Business Week's David Kiley took me to task over these contentions. He writes:

"It’s interesting that Mathieson says that the most effective campaign of the last 12 months shouldn’t have won anything. The chatter this year, more than any other, was whether the Cannes festival still carries relevance.

"I don’t think, as Mathieson says, that the awards should be about creativity alone, as in creativity of copy, art direction and cinematography. The awards should reward creativity of idea and execution no matter who it is achieved. And divorcing creativity from effectiveness seems like an irrelevant notion to me...Having a really well orchestrated, multi-dimensional and creative campaign win at Cannes is a good lesson for the industry."

Actually, we're not in (complete) disagreement on what makes for a good winner - we just disagree on whether the Obama campaign really met the criteria.

First of all, I would have been more exact to say “Cannes has never been about effectiveness alone.” (I have since amended the post to reflect this.) And that was what I was trying to say about informercials. If Cannes was about effectiveness alone, we’d see infomercials win all the awards.

I did not intend to suggest that creativity and effectiveness should be divorced. Quite the opposite.

In fact, as far as Cannes goes, that's my entire point about the Obama campaign. The campaigns that win should be represent a marriage of the two. And that's something, in my opinion, the Obama campaign didn't really pull off.

Kiley calls the campaign "well orchestrated, multi-dimensional and creative campaign win at Cannes is a good lesson for the industry." I call it well-orchestrated, multi-dimensional and (on its face, anyway) effective. I just don't think it was that that creative.

While it was strategic in its application of media, digital and otherwise, in my humble opinion, there was little that was different than what Howard Dean – the real trailblazer – and to a lesser extent, John Kerry, accomplished in 2004.

It’s also my (apparently contrarian) belief that the Democratic candidate was going to win this election whatever they did or did not do in digital media. And that's not a slam of those involved with the initiative - they did their jobs well.

As for his comments about the relevancy of some of the work entered at Cannes, I agree with Kiley. Too many campaigns put creative above effectiveness. And too many agencies enter work that's very creative, but did not move the needle appreciably for their clients.

But Cannes is supposed to be about the creative application of strategy (and the strategic application of creativity).

To put effectiveness over creativity at Cannes would be like giving the Oscar to "Transformers 2." The movie is extremely effective at selling tickets, is surely creative in its application of digital technologies and is brilliant in its marketing. But is it truly a work of creative inspiration that also moves the needle?

In my humble opinion, a Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” (or this year, even a lot of Crispin's work for Burger King) beats the Obama campaign any day. It’s creative and effective. Not just effective alone.

Personally, I think there’s a difference - though obviously many will disagree.

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Google Responds To My Post About Targeting Ads Based On Your Credit Score

Okay, collective sigh of relief: Sandra Heikkinen of Google's Global Communications & Public Affairs group contacted me to alert me to the fact that Google's initiative with Compete isn't as scary as it seems on the surface.

Earlier today, I posted about a report from Marketing Vox about the fact that Google was making plans to target ads based on a user's FICO score, by working with Compete, which is said to have a database of about two million web users who apparently agreed to give out their credit scores when they applied for new credit cards.

Thankfully, this is not a situation where those people get special ads based on their credit score.

Rather, Google and Compete analyzed the clickstream of people who'd agreed to share their credit scores so that Google could build profiles of people like them - in other words, by analyzing their clickstreams, they knew essentially where people in various credit ranges surfed within the Google Content Network (GCN).

That (anonymous) data in hand, Google can then match its clients' ads to sites (and probably search words) that people in certain demographic segments use.

So this is not a case of "Oh, you have this credit score, so you get this ad."

It's a case of "Oh, you're visiting this site, so you're probably something like the other people in a 'focus group' that visited this site, too."

Google not only doesn't know who you are, but it's largely irrelevant - it's making an educated guess about the kind of person you are. Put another way, Google was profiling sites, not people.

Which, of course, is a completely different matter than targeting ads to specific individuals based on credit scores. This is basic research and profiling. Which was not as clear as it might have been in news reports, and I appreciate Heikkinen's follow up.

Here's a little more on the methodology Google and Compete used, which Heikkinen was nice enough to share:

Methodology:
Compete conducted a clickstream analysis on their opt-in panel of 2 million US online consumers, to associate FICO score categories with sites in the Google Content Network. 

• The analysis took a look at the online behavior of Compete's opt-in panelists who shopped for or applied for a credit card online between January and March 2009, for the 30 days prior to the application and/or research. 

• Compete, via a sister company that provides secure matching of certain characteristics (one of which is FICO scores) to anonymous/anonymized individuals in the Compete panel, segmented the opt-in panelists into one of three categories, based on their FICO score: Super Prime (720 and above), Prime (600 to 719), and Sub-Prime (below 600). 

• Individual scores and personally identifiable information were not used by Compete, nor were they received by Google.
 
• Google provided Compete with a list of all sites in the Google Content Network.
  
• Compete compared how panelists in each FICO band searched and where the panelists spent time on the GCN, and ranked each GCN site based on its ability to reach consumers in particular FICO score bands. 

• Google received information about the ranking/scoring of the GCN sites from Compete. Google did not receive any information about individuals or their credit scores.

Some general notes:
• Compete and Google did not attach individual FICO scores to its data. 

• There are no plans for Google to use FICO related targeting for any of its products or offerings. We don't collect or serve ads based on personal information without user permission.
In short:

    • Google did not get — and does not have — information about the credit scores of individuals.

    • Google received information about the scoring/ranking of the GCN sites from Compete — not any information about the credit scores of individuals. 

    • The research has given Google more insight into the demographic(s) reached by GCN sites, without sacrificing privacy; individual data was not tracked or received by Google.

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I look at pro's and cons to many new ways to target consumers, as well as new technologies that may soon give consumers the upper hand in keeping their privacy just that - private.

Fortunately, this is one case where privacy is not really at issue.

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Google To Target Ads Based On Your Credit Score

UPDATE: See Google's response to this posting here (Hint: It's not as scary as it seems on its face.)

If you liked receiving ads based on your age, gender, geographic location, online activities and online purchase behavior, you're going to love being targeted based on your credit score.

Google is reported to be planning to target ads based on a user's FICO score, by working with Compete, which is said to have a database of about two million web users who apparently agreed to give out their credit scores when they applied for new credit cards (yeah right, I'm sure it was something hidden that they had to opt out of rather than opt in to do.)

The idea here is to target luxury goods to rich folks, and crap to the less so.

MarketingVox reports that Google insists it "did not see, and will not see, consumer credit scores."

"The distinction is incredibly important, as consumer privacy is incredibly important to us," says Google's Sandra Heikkinen. "There are no plans for Google to use FICO related targeting for any of its products or offerings, and we don't collect or serve ads based on personal information without user permission."

I'd love to hear the process by which one of those consumers actually opts out of such a thing. Look for rationalizers to emerge in the next week saying people want to be targeted by credit score.

In my view, Google's missing the point all together. Consumers should turn on such functionality - explicitly inform marketers of the information they want to give out, when they give it out, solely for the duration of the time they want it out out there.

It's a notion I explore in my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (which its stores next spring). In interviews with Peter Schwartz, CEO of the Global Business Network; Paul Stevens, a director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse; Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda and Simulmedia, and many others, I look at pro's and cons to many new ways to target consumers, as well as new technologies that may soon give consumers the upper hand.

For more on Google's FICO moves, click here.

For more on THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, click the link below.

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Why The Obama Campaign Should Not Have Won At Cannes

(UPDATED: See my response to Business Week's reaction to my comments, here.)

Call it the audacity of hype.

There's a lot of commentary right now about the Obama Campaign for America winning  two Grands Prix in the Titanium and Integrated Lions categories at the Cannes Advertising Festival last week.

But in my opinion, the campaign should not have won these prizes for a couple of reasons:

1. Cannes is about creativity. The Obama campaign was not about creativity, but about strategy - using myriad channels to get out the message and the vote. Sure, there was the idea that strong community building enabled consumers to help build the Obama brand. Yes there was all the text messaging and what not. But there was nothing especially creative about that, or any particular element or mix or elements.

2. Some are arguing the campaign won for effectiveness. Well A.) Cannes has never been about effectiveness alone - any number of infomercials would win over creative work. And B) though this may sound contrarian, I'd argue there was nothing especially effective about the campaign, despite the candidate's decisive win.

Here's why: There was not a lot more transformative than what Howard Dean, and to some extent, John Kerrey, had accomplished in terms of social media four years ago. And, most important of all, if John McCain had done everything Obama had done in digital and otherwise - and if Obama had done none of it - the results of the election would still have been the same.

The 2008 election was a referendum on Republicans in general, and President Bush-style Republicanism in particular. Whoever the Democratic nominee was, they'd have won.

Indeed, considering the difficultly Obama faced winning his own primary - Hillary Clinton had to give him her delegates to even cement the nomination - the integrated campaign was not phenomenally successful.

Just sufficiently so.

And that doesn't sound convincingly Cannes at all.

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Philips' Cinema TV's 'Carousel' Wins Cannes Grand Prix For Interactive Online Film

However downsized the Cannes Advertising Festival may have been this year, it still made some history.

For the first time ever, the Grand Prix for Film has gone not to a TV ad, but to a captivating, interactive online video for Philips' home-cinema TV. This is for grownups only - but wow. The linear video is shown here (along with a making-of video), but you'll want to interact with the experience, from Tribal DDB Amsterdam, here.

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Betcha Can't Click Just Once: The Pringles Ad You Can't Stop Clicking

Let's face it: We all pretty much ignore banner ads.

But from a creative standpoint, this Pringles banner is elegantly entertaining - to the point that you might just find yourself clicking it over and over again.

In fact, the banner, from Bridge Worldwide, won Procter & Gamble the Gold Cyber Lion at last week's Cannes Advertising Festival.

In real life, I would have ignored it. But once you know about it, it's addictive.

Try it yourself, here.

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Hardee's Wants You To Taste Its Holes

I guess desperate times call for desperate promotions - mobile or otherwise.

Fast fooder Hardee's has launched a new mobile marketing effort as part of its integrated campaign for its Biscuit Hole product.

You have to try hard to come up with a name like Biscuit Holes, but that appears to be the big idea. The campaign's tagline: "Sounds so wrong but tastes so right." The concept: Have consumers enter names for the product, which apparently is some kind of biscuit rolled in cinnamon and sugar and served with icing for dipping.

The multimedia, integrated platform including advertising, online, mobile and social media: Centered around TV spots where suggested names include "Breakfast Holes," "Frosty Nuts" and "Heavenly Balls." Key among the campaign elements is a new microsite called www.NameOurHoles.com, where consumers can submit their own name ideas.

“We love to entertain our customers, but we also like to create ways for our customers to interact with the brand to entertain themselves,” says Brad Rosenberg, Hardee’s manager of digital strategy and marketing, in a statement. “The NameOurHoles.com microsite does just that. Think you can come up with a funnier or more creative name than Biscuit Holes? We want to hear it. If it makes the cut, we’ll share it with all of our online fans.”

After submitting a creative hole name to the microsite, visitors can then automatically Tweet their hole name to their followers or post it on their Facebook wall for their friends to see. Visitors can also make video submissions, some of which will be pushed to the Hardee’s YouTube channel where there are additional options to share with friends.

The mobile component: A mobile site developed by iLoop Mobile, where consumers with web-enabled mobile phones can name their Holes, and a mobile ad buy via Jumptap. Mobile fans can also see product information and photos, watch the Biscuit Holes commercials through streaming video, share the site and even send personalized Hardee’s mobile greeting cards to friends.

Insert your own "this campaign leaves a bad taste in my mouth" joke here.

And read more about the effort exerted on Hardee's Holes, here.

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Gen Wow Readies For New Book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND

Gen Wow readers will want to keep an eye out for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, which is coming spring 2010 from Amacom Books, publishers of my book BRANDING UNBOUND.

Like Gen Wow, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND is focused on how marketers are using digital to reach today's iPhone-toTing, blog-hopping, videogame-fragging, Twitter-tapping, I-want-what-I-want, when-where-and-how-I-want-it" generation.

Best of all, you'll get insights and inspiration from today's top innovators and thought leaders, including Alex Bogusky, the ad world's ulimate rock star; Laura Klauberg, the $4 billion a year Queen of All Media; Courteney Monroe, EVP of consumer marketing for HBO; Adrian Si, head of interactive for Toyota's youth-skewing Scion auto brand; Tome Bedecarré, CEO of AKQA; Andy Bates, CEO of Interbrand and many, many more.

Click here or below for a first look. A full site is coming soon, as will more information, the ability to pre-order the book, and even the chance to win signed galleys months in advance of the book hitting stores.

If you liked BRANDING UNBOUND, you're going to love THE ON-DEMAND BRAND:

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Slacker.Com Launches Michael Jackson Tribute Station

I was a little kid playing at the beach when I overheard someone's radio with the report that Elvis Presley had died.

The unexpected reaction from grownups when I broke the news seemed to be "Good riddance."

I never did understand why people who were teens during The King of Rock's heyday would react that way. I guess I just happened to know a lot of curmudgeons.

Now, I'm about the age those adults were then, and reaction to The King of Pop's death seems to be generating quite the opposite reaction among my peers, who were teens during his heyday.

Yes, this week's US Magazine features a full page making fun of "Wacko Jacko's" women's clothes, obviously printed before news broke of the singer's death yesterday.

But since word of the gloved one's death, radio, television and online chatter seems to be looking past all the controversies to celebrate Jackson's considerable oeuvre, which is as it should be.

For those of you who need to get the walk down memory lane while at their desks today, and who may need one last dose of PYT's, Taas,  and Mamasaymamasamumakosas, you can beat it to slacker.com's Michael Jackson tribute station, where they can get their fill of Thriller, Off The Wall and more.

Of course, another icon of my youth passed away yesterday as well.

While I was never a gigantic fan of Michael Jackson's, Farrah Fawcett, well that was another thing all together.

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BRANDING UNBOUND WAS JUST THE BEGINNING:

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Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of The Heart' Gets 'Literal' In Hilarious Spoof

For those of you who enjoyed "Take On Me: The Literal Version," Bonnie Tyler's warped wonder "Total Eclipse of the Heart" gets the literal treatment that's part spoof, one part re-igniter of 1980's musical properties.

In other words, look for iTunes sales of this hellishly-bad song to go up for a few weeks before being banished from consciousness for another 25 years. 

I don't know if this spoof is from the same group that took on Aha's hit, but this one's actually funnier.

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IBM's Mobile Augmented Reality App for Wimbeldon: Grand Slam, or Junk Ball?

IBM is hoping attendees at Wimbledon will be staring into their camera phones instead of at the court.

TechCrunch is reporting that the official technology partner for Wimbledon is serving up an augmented reality app that will give fans the ability to hold their camera phone up and access player stats along with information on the nearest restroom, food concession stands and more, layered atop whatever it is they see through the phone screen. GPS helps the app, built using Android Seer, anchors information to physical objects and locations. 

Which is all very cool, but the sight of people doing what the guy in this video is doing seems like stretching it a bit. Seems like far too much effort - and really, how hard is it to find the concession stand?

Frankly, IBM would have achieved more user interest if it had created an augmented reality game like Fanta's, which enables you to play 3D holographic tennis using your phone as your racket, ala a real-world/virtual world version of Wii. You can even connect with an opponent via Bluetooth.

By comparison, it seems like advantage: Fanta.

But it's not too late for IBM to get into the game.

Read more here.

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BRANDING UNBOUND WAS JUST THE BEGINNING:

THE ON-DEMAND BRAND: The New Book By Rick Mathieson - Details Coming Soon

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Quick Links:

BRANDING UNBOUND The Blog
BRANDING UNBOUND The Book
ADWEEK Magazines Excerpt
Rick Mathieson.com