Collateral Damage

First, the one that won me the coveted Satan beat: Companies Have Devil Of A Time Denying Rumors

Next is this week’s installment of The 16th Minute: Pet food recall catches brands with their product down.

Then there’s the full-length story on the problems with marketers and Second Life: Are marketers dying on Second Life?

A Manhattan art gallery is reconsidering showing a life-size sculpture of a naked Jesus made out of chocolate — entitled “My Sweet Lord.”

My read: Transubstantiation from bread and wine is OK but any of the later courses of the meal are out of bounds.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t illustrate?

The Marines are banning any new, extra-large tattoos below the elbow or the knee, saying such body art is harmful to the Corps’ spit-and-polish image.

On the brights side, that’s one more way to stay out of the Marines.

As a tie-in with the upcoming Simpson’s movie, the convenience store chain will remodel 11 of its stores to resemble Apu Nahasapeemapetilon’s place of business. “Customers also will be able to buy products inspired by the nearly two-decades-old show, including KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola and iced Squishees (the cup says Squishee, but the contents will be Slurpee). The chain also will use pictures of Simpsons characters to promote 7-Eleven’s line of fresh foods, such as placing the face of Homer and his classic “Mmmm . . . sandwich” quip on sandwich wrappers.” Gotta say, fresh food is NOT the first thing I think of when you say Kwik-E-Mart. More like year-old hot dogs and over-priced everything.

Oddly there’s no indication that any of the converted stores will be in anywhere named Springfield.

FYI: Here’s a link to the official list of the locations of Kwik-E-7-Elevens. And a Flickr group of photos can be seen here.

The junior senator from Virginia has turned a potential felony into a brilliant marketing move. Yesterday one of Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s aides got busted  for taking a loaded weapon belonging to the lawmaker into a Senate office building. Today Sen. Webb explained he felt the need to carry a gun to protect himself.

“I believe it’s important, it’s important for me personally and for a lot of people in a situation that I am in, to be able to defend myself and my family,” said the veteran and former Reagan cabinet member.

Now that’s taking away a Republican issue.

If nothing else it pretty much guarantees that Webb will carry Texas should he ever be masochistic enough to run for president. As of today Texas seems to have removed whatever remaining limits the state had on being able to shoot your fellow human being.

A law signed today by Gov. Rick Perry allows for the reasonable use of lethal force if an intruder is:

1. Committing certain violent crimes, such as murder or sexual assault, or is attempting to commit such crimes
2. Unlawfully trying to enter a protected place
3. Unlawfully trying to remove a person from a protected place.

OK, I can sort of see #’s 1 & 3. But No. 2 suggests I can shoot anyone who comes to my house and bugs me. “Look out honey! It’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses!”

Master Sgt. Big Brother Collateral Damage (USArmy) is our official ambassador to Gun-Nut Nation and even he gets nervous whenever they broaden the “right to shoot” laws. He’s already spent enough time in a country filled with untrained amateurs who felt no compuntction about firing their weapons. It was called Iraq.

“Other state’s are trying to abolish the death penalty… mine’s putting in an express lane.” — Ron White, one of my favorite comedians, on his home state of Texas.

(Graphic via Star Spangled Ice Cream.)

This story just gets better and better (see original post here).

Chelsea have banned three of their fans after they were caught throwing celery during the team’s FA Cup win at Tottenham Hotspur … Two of them were arrested for throwing celery during the quarter-final replay on March 19, while a third was spotted throwing the vegetable and later identified to the club.

That means somewhere out there we have a celery snitch.

Broke Hoedown reports Disney ran into some collateral damage when it renamed it’s soon-to-open Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club to just plain old Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor which gives it the acronym MiLF.

In case you needed further proof that we’ve fallen off the deep-end here in Beantown:

An argument at an after-hours party erupted in gunfire, killing a woman and prompting the mayor to call for an end to the late-night parties. “It’s crazy. It’s nuts,” Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Globe. “We know all those parties bring bad events in our city. They always end up in some kind of violence.”

Thankfully, Hizzoner has not yet put forward a plan for curfews on gatherings between consenting adults in their own homes.

Next time you’re in Omaha, Nebraska, take a quick stop by the corner of 129th & Q. There you will see the first location of Terror Free Oil, a new company that promises to only sell “Oil that does not come from the Middle East (Persian Gulf) or other countries whose regimes and/or populations are hostile towards the United States and its allies.” Which basically means the US and Canada, unless the Canadians get uppity. (Why do I think that for most of us the phrase “terror free gas” means it sells for less than $2 a gallon?)

Should you not have the fortune of living in Omaha but still wish to avoid terrifying gas, the TFEC maintains a list of oil companies that it believes only buy domestic dead dinosaur. These include Hess, Sunoco and a wonderful brand that I didn’t even realize was still with us: Sinclair.

I’m not sure exactly how you discern the provenance of petroleum. Does the 2007 Alaskan Sweet Crude really taste different than the same vintage from the Mid East? The TFEC itself admits that it can be difficult to make sure all their gas is devoid of corruption: “Oil is a fungible commodity, and gasoline from the international community gets mixed into the pipeline.” That said they do buy all their gas from Sinclair which the Dept. of Energy says only uses home brew.

Doing some driving abroad and want to top off with Good Guy Gas? In Brazil it’s safe to use Petrobras. Oddly, Yukos has also received the TFEC seal of Clean Living. Are we talking about the same Yukos that the Russian government basically took over? I don’t mean to speak ill of an ethnic group I’m descended from, but if Yukos isn’t paying off terrorists and mobsters to do business then they are the only such business in The Motherland.

Also, if this seems like an incredible business opportunity TFEC is offering the most reasonable franchise opportunities I’ve ever seen. Franchise fee: $1. In addition to only selling Good Guy Gas, franchisees must donate 1% of revenues to a counter-terrorism organization. Dibs on the CIA!

I feel safer already.

Turns out that barking is not protected by the first amendment. “The North Dakota Supreme Court has rejected a claim that an anti-barking ordinance is unconstitutional.” Fortunately the plaintiff has promised to appeal. Woof.

My favorite NPR show is actually making news … of exactly the sort it should.

The headline: Justice Breyer goes 0-3 on NPR news quiz

The Lede: WASHINGTON - Here’s what Justice Stephen Breyer revealed about the Supreme Court in his appearance on a radio quiz show: His judicial robe gathers no lint because it’s synthetic.

If it had happened anywhere else it would have been perfect fodder for the show.

Quote of the day: “McDonald’s has a lot of power and we need to use that power for good,” so says Dan Coudreaut, a.k.a Executive Chef Man.

Last year Toni Kay Scott, a student at Napa Valley’s Redwood Middle School, was sent to an in-school suspension program (with the wonderfully Orwellian-name of Students With Attitude Problems). Her crime? Violating a dress code by wearing socks with Tigger on them, along with a denim skirt and a brown shirt with a pink border.

Said code requires clothes with solid colors in blue, white, green, yellow, khaki, gray, brown and black. Permitted fabrics are cotton twill, corduroy and chino, but not denim.

To no one’s surprise a lawsuit has resulted. I fully expect Lee, Levis, Disney and (RED) to file amicus curiae brief on behalf of Ms. Scott. I, on the other hand, will try to trademark the phrase Students With Attitude Problems.

CNN is running a story listing four of 10 biggest marketing blunders of 2006 as compiled by “Kelly O’Keefe, an independent branding consultant and CEO of O’Keefe Brands.” (Apparently it takes Kelly three months to come up with a Top 10 list as the person/company always puts out the list in March.) The big problem is that two of the four listed — TBS Aqua Teen Hunger Force silliness and JetBlue — took place in 2007. Maybe they meant biggest marketing blunders for the fiscal year ending March 07?

In CNN’s defense they do say “last year and even early this year,” but it sure reads like a very late Top 10 of 2006.

According to me (in my other blog –The 16th Minute):

The German marketing research agency Komjuniti surveyed 200 Second Life users and found: 

• 72% of respondents expressed themselves as being disappointed with the activities of the companies in Second Life. 
• Over a third of them were unaware of the branded presence.
• 42% said they thought it constituted nothing more than a short-term trend, lacking durable commitment from the companies.
• 7% consider that it has a positive influence on brand image and their future buying behaviour.

The buzz is definitely off the bloom.