So many dumb moments in business, so little time. But Business 2.0 mag has their picks for the 101 dumbest of 2006.

Wal-Mart is #1, for hiring a big firm to create their "Candidate Wal-Mart" campaign. #2 is Northwest Airlines, for giving their employees a "How To Save Money" booklet after laying them off. #3 is the contest McDonald's held in Japan, with the winners getting free mp3 players with a virus on them. The rest of the top 10 are GM, Kazakhstan, Steve Wynn, The New York Times, Spirit Air, Porter County, and Comcast.

There are 101 in all, so grab a hot beverage and get comfortable. You can't see the entire list on one page, which is a little annoying, but there is a handy scroll function at the bottom.

1. If it is clear that you can have fun with this product (perhaps in unconventional ways) people will buy it.
2. If people can do something themselves, hands-on to see how cool your product is, whether it is supposed to or not, they will buy it. This is a bit oldskool, like back in the fifties, when product demonstrations were all the rage. This example is just a bit more homegrown.
3. People crave adventure, danger, fun, and genuine excitement. Another movie explosion won't do it. A real-live backyard explosion will do it, and not just once. Several times. I can't imagine how many teenage kids (and dads) are outside in the yard right now shooting the next 100 videos of domino-type mentos explosions, because they can.
4. Obviously, don't encourage consumers to break the law, very bad idea. Since this doesn't break the law, you're good here.

While restaurants try to lure in patrons with promises of great food at low prices, and fast food joints entice families by offering kid's meals with crappy little trinkets, a new type of restaurant has sprung up in Utah and Colorado with a very different, and I think very cool concept: you pay whatever you think the meal is worth.

The One World Cafe in Salt Lake City and the SAME (So All Might Eat) Cafe in Denver are what some are calling "Robin Hood" style restaurants. Patrons are served organic food and asked to pay whatever they can afford. Even those with no money can "pay" by working: washing dishes, sweeping, and other tasks. Affluent patrons are asked to pay a bit more to balance things out. It would be nice to see real "word of mouth" advertising result in more restaurants like these, and I think that just might happen. When you treat your customers with dignity, they'll want to keep coming back, and they'll tell other people about it.

I don't remember this ad - actually a bit of direct mail marketing - but it's one of the most famous ever made. And it was never seen in print or TV or heard on the radio.

Martin Conroy created a letter that was actually a marketing campaign for The Wall Street Journal. It was a two page letter that talked about two different college graduates and how they were heading toward their 25th college reunion and how they both ended up working for the same company, but one became president of the company. The letter was first used in 1975 and last used by the WSJ in 2003, though the letter itself is still taught and talked about around the industry.

Conroy died of lung cancer last week in Connecticut.

Now here's a cool yule idea: instead of just changing their main site for the holiday season, OfficeMax has created several microsites.

Fans of A Christmas Story will want to check out StuckToAPole.com, where you get to control a kid whose tongue is stuck on a pole. Get him to say "ham sandwich!" ReindeerArmWrestling.com is pretty much what it says. It's a lot of fun, though you have to be quick with the space bar. MisletoeInAnElevator.com is a Candid Camera style (oh, sorry, dating myself, I mean Punk'd) prank that's pretty funny.

There are 20 sites in all, and they're all very well done.

[Thanks to Mike for the tip.]

• Peter Hershberg and Joshua Stylman lay out for marketers exactly what changes are coming from Yahoo! as the search giant builds toward the roll-out of its revamped search advertising platform, dubbed Panama. The overall redesign will bring it much closer to the functionality campaign managers now have through Google and other such platforms.
• Clear Channel is launching two new niche-appeal radio stations, one targeting NASCAR fans and the other members of the gay and lesbian community. I'm not going to touch the 7,846 jokes that could be made about the intersection of those two groups. I'm just not.
• The FTC has decided it will not investigate how some marketers are engaging in word-of-mouth practices, a decision that could result in some previously hesitant marketers jumping into the field. The call for such an investigation had come from watchdog group Commercial Alert.

Interesting December issue of Esquire. They have a "Best and Brightest 2006" feature, where they profile people who are doing interesting and innovative things in the world. One of the people featured is David Droga, who they call this year's "advertising genius," the man who they say is reinventing advertising.

Droga thinks he can change the way the advertising world is structure, through viral marketing and videos and realistic ads that spread through word of mouth. An ad that not only presents a product or service but actually creates an experience for the consumer and sells a product.

Continue reading The reinvention of advertising

Head On...That commercial has jumped the shark.

Head On...That commercial has jumped the shark.

Head On...That commercial has jumped the shark.

It's one thing when a TV commercial will become so well-known that it becomes part of the pop culture landscape. The Head On commercials have done that. Everyone, especially in the blogging world, is talking about how annoying yet effective the ads are. But now the makers of Head On are commenting on it too - in the Head On commercials.

Don't they know that this is always a bad idea? The ads start out the same, with the repetition of the catch phrase, but then an actor or actress interrupts and says something like "Your commercial is so annoying, but your product is great!" Who the hell wants to see the company actually comment on their own commercial? Something like this has to work on it's own to be effective, and now by actually commenting on it, they've ruined the whole thing. It's like their saying "yeah, our commercials are hip, and if you haven't gotten the idea that our commercials are annoying but effective, I'm here to tell you...our commercials are annoying but effective!"

So I'm watching The Late Show With David Letterman the other night, and he announces that the show has teamed up with 7-11 stores and will give free slurpees away next week to all customers. Of course, I knew right away that it was a joke, but I also thought, wow, did they clear that with 7-11? That could cause a convenience store nightmare.

Turns out the Slurpee promotion is real, though it has nothing to do with Letterman's show. To celebrate the chain's 79th birthday this week, 7-11 is going to give free Slurpees in special Happy Birthday cups. It's while supplies last, of course, so you better hurry.