10 Worst Marketing Blunders of 2009

1) NBC GOES ALL LENO ALL THE TIME

Edsel … New Coke … Lenovision.

NBC has joined the immortals of marketing stupidity. This year the molting peacock network and president Jeff “Have They Fired Me Yet?” Zucker decided to turn five of the primest pieces of prime-time real estate — the hour between 10 and 11 PM from Monday through Friday — into the Jay Leno hour.

The result? A 28% drop in viewership (through mid-November). This has not only killed network revenues but done in affiliates who have no lead-in for their late news casts.

Despite this, Jeff “10% Of Americans Are Unemployed and I’m Not?” Zucker recently said that all is going according to plan. “Right now, in terms of its performance on the television network, at NBC, in terms of ratings it’s doing exactly what we thought it would do.” Comcast recently bought NBC in what must have been an attempt to copy the government’s cash for clunkers program. Comcast shareholders can now only hope they are being lied to. The worst case scenario is that Mr. Z believes what he is saying.

On the plus side:

1. It is now possible to buy every ad slot during the Leno show for less than the cost of a house in Detroit.
2. The federal witness protection program is using guest slots to hide people.

2) TIGER, TIGER BURNING BRIGHT

(Originally #9 — Who knew?)

Because I have a really limited imagination I thought the big celeb marketing mishap story of the year would be Michael Vick’s failed attempt to become a spokesperson for PETA. Then along came Tiger who prefers women with bad nose jobs to the Swedish bikini model he is actually married to. The story broke on Nov. 27th, when Mrs. Woods apparently decided to prove her own golfing expertise. This was unfortunate for Accenture which two days earlier had kicked off its annual Tiger campaign. A print ad which ran in the Nov. 30th Wall Street Journal featured Tiger Woods walking in the rough under the headline: “The road to high performance isn’t always paved.” And watch out for the trees and fire hydrants. Accenture has since declawed its Tiger connection.

UPDATE: File this under “Pull the other one, it’s made of wood.”

“We decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus, along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010,” Gatorade spokeswoman Jennifer Schmit said in an e-mailed statement.

3) BANKERS CUT BONUSES, INCREASE SALARY & BLAME JESUS

First the banking industry made a big show of cutting the obscene bonuses it was paying itself for going on the dole. Meanwhile they hoped no one would notice the allegedly eliminated bonuses were now being paid as plain old salary.

But wait … that’s not all!

Apparently still feeling that their efforts to destroys the economy were still underappreciated, bankers started claiming Jesus wanted them to do it.

“The injunc­tion of Jesus to love others as our­selves is an endorse­ment of self-​interest,” Goldman’s [inter­na­tional adviser Brian] Grif­fiths said Oct. 20, his voice echo­ing around the gold-​mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathe­dral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s finan­cial dis­trict. “We have to tol­er­ate the inequal­ity as a way to achiev­ing greater pros­per­ity and oppor­tu­nity for all.”

How much LSD do you have to take to interpret Scripture this way? However much it is, it is certainly being passed out at all the best financial institutions. Two weeks later, Barclays CEO John Varley spoke at the venerable St. Martin-in-the-Fields and tried to wrap the Bible around his bonus.

“There is no conflict between doing business in an ethical and responsible way and making money. We make our biggest contribution to society by being good at what we do. Profit is not satanic.”

I guess it all depends on who gets to determine how we define ethical and responsible. Perhaps Varley could have gotten away with this specious argument had he not added this gloss to the text after the service: “Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes. And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes.” (Not a good sign when a banker can’t even get his verb and subject numbers to add up.) Hey John, can we parse the word “fair” for a moment?

I believe the renowned 20th century theologian Ray Price put it best when he asked, “Would Jesus wear a Rolex on His television show?”

4: GM EXPLAINS AWAY ITS “LITTLE PROBLEM”

In the face of the greatest single corporate collapse in the history of the world, GM rolled out an ad that inadvertently explains the company’s failure.

It is a veritable symphony of weasel words.

Let’s be completely honest, no company wants to go through this.

By the end of that first sentence it is clear this ad has no intention whatsoever of living up to that initial clause. You can tell because the final pronoun is never made specific. That “this” covers billions of sins. It implies we all know what has happened without saying what that was. It is everything to everyone and thus means nothing. Is “this” an utter failure of leadership? Or is it an inability to have even the vaguest understanding of the needs of the marketplace? Sadly, I suspect “this” is “an economic calamity no one could have foreseen” – the preferred phrase of everyone from Alan Greenspan to, well, the Detroit-based car makers. There is no taking responsibility anywhere in this ad just as there has been no taking responsibility at GM for decades. (Read more here)

5) VOGUE: BLACKFACE IS THE NEW BLACK

The October issue of French Vogue had a photo spread of the very Caucasian Lara Stone painted head to toe in dark make-up. Vogue went with the old “I’m sorry if you found my words insulting” defense and told the Daily Mail “it was unaware it had caused offence, but said it could not give any further comment.” (Worth noting: Italian Vogue’s issue for the same month was filled with actual Black women.) In a keeping up with the KKK move inflight magazine EasyJet ran a photo spread featuring brooding generic models dressed in black POSING IN FRONT OF BERLIN’S HOLOCAUST MONUMENT.

Fortunately for me marketers just can’t seem to figure out that Nazi = Bad. This years examples:

• A wax museum opening in Thailand put up posters of mass murder Hitler with a slogan that said: “Hitler is not dead.”
• Two German coffee companies ran (and then pulled) an ad campaign featuring a slogan almost identical to one used at Buchenwald.
• Red Bull marketing mag calls Werner von Braun a “hero”

LATE BREAKING STUPIDITY UPDATE: NYT runs gift guide with special section devoted to:

“Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season.” (emphasis added)

Why it’s almost like they’re real people!

6) CHOCOLATES SHAPED LIKE PRESIDENT OBAMA & MORE

CandyExpress said its commemorative Barack Obama heads would only be available for a limited time, unfortunately it wasn’t limited enough. Off the top of my head I would say there are three things Mr. Obama should not be used to advertise: Chocolate, fried chicken (a German company did it), watermelon (that’s a yet). However, the Russians came up with a bunch of things I’d never thought of. They used our President to advertise a tanning salon, a dental clinic and pre-packaged ice cream with the slogan “Everyone’s talking about it: dark inside white!” The bars have a chocolate-flavored center embedded in a layer of vanilla.

However these are just idiocy, the sheer stupidity award goes to Beanie Baby maker Ty. First they decided to sell two new dolls named Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia. Then they tried to deny they were named after America’s First Kids.

“[We] chose the dolls’ names because “they are beautiful names,” not because of any resemblance to President Obama’s daughters, said spokeswoman Tania Lundeen. “There’s nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls,” Lundeen said. “It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls. They are not.”

Sorry dear, but in order to get away with a lie like that you have to be a bank.

7) STUPIDITY? THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT

The word of the year really should have been app. The ubiquitous iPhone has spawned an industry of companies trying to market their wares by providing allegedly useful and/or humorous apps. To paraphrase Pogo, this confronted Pepsi with an insurmountable opportunity. The company released an app called Before You Score for its Mountain Dew AMP brand. The app gives you 24 different types of women (sorority girl, etc.) and offers “appropriate” pick-up lines for each type and other similar information.

Not to be outdone, LawFirms.com, a legal referral site, decided to get attention with a campaign featuring the (fictitious) app iCoyote. It “packs all of the features of a real immigrant smuggler into the iPhone. Using GPS, navigate through the patrol packed desert without worrying about that pesky Border Patrol.”

The app included a variety of features such as:

• iWife. It “will take care of finding marriage prospects for you. Aggregating and analyzing data from a variety of online sources [to] match you up with only the most promising US Citizen candidates.”
• iLawyer. “Homeland Security is Cracking down. Not to worry. With iLawyer, you can find an attorney to convince the immigration court to grant Asylum Protection. A Green Card is a finger swipe away.”
• Weather Monitors. “The desert can get hot, and trying to cross it when it’s 120 degrees is not fun. Get up-to-date weather forecasts to pick the right time and ensure your trip to the US is comfortable and fun-packed.”
• City Statistics. “San Antonio? Albuquerque? Tucson? San Diego? Not sure which is best? Get unemployment statistics, current average wages, cost of living expenses and more. Get the job you want, at the right wage, tax free!”

8 AMERICAN GIRL SELLS “HOMELESS GIRL” DOLL

Your child can learn that the homeless are just like real people once you spend $95 to buy her a “less fortunate” playmate for her other American Girl doll(s). The latest addition to the American Girl line of how-do-you-justify-it-ly expensive dolls is Gwen Thompson. Ms. Thompson

and her mother Janine fell on hard times when her father lost his job; they later lost the house as they were unable to keep up payments. Soon after, Gwen’s father left them and they became homeless the fall before the start of the book’s events. Initially, Gwen’s mother has them live in their car until the winter comes; she then takes them to Sunrise House, a place for homeless women and children. Sunrise House helps them get on their feet and eventually get a new apartment.

And should you also want to teach the kid that the disabled are people too, American Girl also sells a wheelchair for $30.

9) KFC UNDERESTIMATES OPRAH’S POPULARITY

Why would you pay to have Oprah endorse your product if you didn’t know what the result be? In May the chain formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken paid Ms. Winfrey to discuss its new grilled chicken on her show. (This is part of an ongoing effort to rebrand KFC as someplace that serves something besides FC. By the time it’s over KFC will be Rhode Island Clam Shack. But I digress.) In addition to giving product to her audience — and how pissed were they? Other folks got a new car and they get a food experiment – viewers could go to a website and download a coupon for up to four free two-piece chicken meals with two sides and a biscuit. If there’s one thing the US loves more than Oprah, it’s Oprah and free food.

You’ll never guess what happened. OK, so maybe you will.

Several bajillion people downloaded the coupon and sprinted to the nearest KFC. Well, the food disappeared faster than a dollar bill on the floor of the Senate. As a result somefranchisees started refusing to accept the coupon, some told people the promotion was over for the day, some quickly pointed to the “while supplies last” clause, the more creative said that coupons with barcode numbers ending in “1234” are not valid. Look closely at the barcode below to see what that meant.

All this brought new meaning to the chain’s horrible new tagline: “Unthink What You Thought About KFC.”

Another chain, El Pollo Loco, moved smart and fast and sent out a twitter saying they’d accept the coupons on Mother’s Day. Soon Oprah was having to apologize for the stupidity and KFC issued rain checks to the disgruntled.

All of which goes to prove that whatever you have to pay Oprah, the ROI is REAL!

10) (tie) BLACKWATER, NIGERIA & SWINE INDUSTRY LAUNCH REBRANDING EFFORTS

• In an attempt to change all the nasty connotations that go along with being mercenaries, Blackwater Worldwide changed its name to Xe. That’s pronounced zee, as in “zee idiots in marketing thought of it.”

Blackwater president Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees the new name reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security. “The volume of changes over the past half-year have taken the company to an exciting place and we are now ready for two of the final, and most obvious changes,” Jackson said in the note.

That exciting place seems to include a lot of lawsuits.

• Tired of being thought of as the world’s foremost manufacturer of email con jobs, Nigeria decided to tackle it’s massive corruption problems with that most modern approach: Marketing. Its new slogan: At least we’re not AIG.

“At international airports, in trains, in shopping malls, and almost everywhere, every Nigerian is a marked person,” Dora Akunyili, information minister and self-styled chief image maker said at the launch of the re-branding campaign this week. “We are pulled aside for questioning. We are seen as potential drug pushers or fraudsters. We are unfortunately denied the benefit of the doubt.”

• Swine flu is no laughing matter. Especially if you’re the American Pork Association. They went into overdrive screaming about how it was hurting their sales and enlisted Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin who constantly referred to the “so-called swine flu.” Unfortunately humor trumps branding every time. Thus we got headlines like:
  • Pork Industry Has Beef With Swine Flu (NPR)
  • Swine flu not kosher in Israel (Reuters)

“We will call it Mexico flu. We won’t call it swine flu,” Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman, a black-garbed Orthodox Jew, told a news conference Monday, assuring the Israeli public that authorities were prepared to handle any cases.

CIO writer and friend Al Sacco came up with this: Swine flu isn’t a scary enough name. It needs a slogan, too: “Pork Plague, the (Other) White Death,” for example.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

AMAZON DELISTS GAY AND LESBIAN BOOKS

The online retailer blamed an “employee in France” for a “software glitch” which oddly delisted gay and lesbian themed books from its search listings. (Example: Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain vanished, but not her book The Shipping News in which all the sex is hetero.)

Amazon managers found that an employee who happened to work in France had filled out a field incorrectly and more than 50,000 items got flipped over to be flagged as “adult,” the source said.

CRAIGSLIST CEO SAYS SITE HAS NO SEX RELATED ADS

“I would not describe any section of our site as ’sex related,’ ” [Craigslist CEO Jim] Buckmaster wrote in response to a series of e-mailed questions from the Globe. He acknowledged that Craigslist offers an “erotic services” section that should not include more than “legitimate escort services, sensual massage, exotic dancers, etc.,” but said that offers to exchange sexual favors for money are “strictly prohibited” and removed from the site.

SPECIAL PENGUIN OF IRONY CITATION:

THE WISCONSIN TOURISM FOUNDATION
had to change its name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin

BONUS: A few other totally wrong products from the year

• Hanah Montana brand Cherries,
• Linger, mints for your lady bits all but guaranteed to cause a yeast infection.
• Godfather-branded Italian organic vodka
• Starbucks instant coffee – the exact opposite of everything the brand stands for.

Advertisement

Alcohol-enforcement official faces career-ending irony

A member of the city commission responsible for enforcing liquor laws was arrested early Thursday on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. Danny Kim, 33, was arrested shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday at Kilauea and Makapu’u avenues near Kapi’olani Community College. Kim, one of five members of the Honolulu Liquor Commission, was booked and released on $500 bail about two hours after his arrest.

Top 10 Marketing Blunders of 2008

Yeah, there’s a lot more than 10 here. What can I say? It was a very good year for very bad things.

(PS: If you liked this would you mind going here and voting for it on Digg?)

GRAND PRIZE FOR SUSTAINED ORGANIZATIONAL EFFORT

(tie)

The John McCain Presidential Campaign

• “Our economy, I think, is still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
• Has no idea how many houses he (or his wife) owns.
• Picks Sara Palin, the Broad to Nowhere who couldn’t find Russia or Africa on a map.
• Campaign adviser and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina says Palin couldn’t run a major corporation.
• Campaign adviser and former senator Phil Gramm says Americans are whiners about economic problems.
• “Shutting down” his campaign to fix the bailout.
• “Lipstick on a pig”
• Egregious attack on Dungeons & Dragons that clearly cost him the election. (OK, maybe not so much the last one).

GM

• June: with gas heading to $4-a-gallon, company announces it is trying to sell the Hummer brand. As of today, sale is still pending.
• August: with gas at $4-a-gallon, company announces it will take the bold move of investing “$500 million to build a new fuel-efficient, small car the automaker says will show it can make money in head-to-head competition with its Japanese rivals as it fights to return to profitability.”
• October: Asks Treasury Dept. for $10 billion to pay for proposed merger with Chrysler
• Early November: car company that already isn’t selling cars argues it can’t file for bankruptcy because “people won’t buy cars from a bankrupt car company.”
• Late November: leads troika of Detroit CEOs to DC to ask for taxpayer money to balance the books. Each flies in on wings of attitude and three separate corporate jets.
• December: runs weasel-word mea culpa in Automotive News: “While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today’s globally competitive industry.“

Runners Up

1. Ford features “Space Oddity” — a song about astronaut suicide — in new car campaign.
2. Framingham State College  uses the word blah 137 times in a 312-word fundraising letter.
3. Disney (multiple entries): Bans kids from DisneyWorld restaurant; Changes “It’s A Small World” to “A Salute to All Nations, But Mostly America”; and Sells “High School Musical” panties for tween girls with the phrase “Dive In” on them.
4. Woolworths (UK) launches Lolita brand of beds for young girl
5. JetBlue lives up to Southwest’s parody ad by charging for pillows.
6. Russia uses smiling kids in tourism ad for war zone
7. Residents of Lesbos sue those other lesbians over brand name
8. Motrin gets headache from viral moms video
9. Butcher’s ads feature “Meat Products, Fresh Service” on naked woman
10. Hershey asks if you’ve found Mr. Goodbar

Special Jury Awards

Co-Branding That Shouldn’t Have Been

• Windows Vista toilet paper
• The Muppets appear on DVD for Law & Order: SVU
  
• Barbie® Rice Krispies® Treats
• P&G starts hip-hop record label (Bounce® and Beyonce? Jay Z and Oral B®? 50 Cent and Febreze®? Snoop Dogg and Eukanuba®? Ghostface Killah and Ghost®? Lil Wayne & Pampers®?)

The Alpha & Omega of Over-reaching

• God’s chosen racing team loses at the Indy 500
• “Pope’s Cologne Provides Solace to Grieving Widow”
• “Can Batman Teach Spiritual Truth?”
• Email service lets you taunt friends after The Rapture
• McDonalds compares Ray Kroc to Martin Luther King Jr.

Product Failure

• LifeLock ID protection service fails to protect CEO’s identity
• Anti-shark device found to attract sharks

The Penguins Of Irony “Oh NO You Din’t” Awards

• Publisher says bankruptcy puts magazine chain in “a position poised for wonderful growth
• WaMu continues to send credit card offers after going out of business

Previous years’ lists

• Top 10 from 2007
• Dozen Dumbest Press Releases from 2006
• 10 Dumbest Business Quotes from 2006

Self-serving attempt at ballot box stuffing

OK, I’ll admit that I like getting pointless awards and such as much if not more than the next person. The voting for blogger’s choice awards is open and I’m up in the humor, business & marketing categories.

The truth is I will win none of them and shouldn’t given the categories. (I got an honorable mention in marketing when the blog started out as part of CMO magazine). If there was an award for best humor business & marketing blog, I still wouldn’t win but I’d have a shot. That said, I will now beg for your vote in one or all three of the categories above. Click on one of the pictures and it will take you to the site and yeah you have to register to vote so it’s a pain and I’m sorry. And yeah, I know these awards are even less meaningful than a people’s choice award.

All that said, allow me to list my campaign promises in an attempt to win you over:

• I will or will not (depending on your preference) take a stand on a controversial subject
• I won’t increase taxes.
• I won’t raise your cholesterol.
• I won’t wage a negative campaign — despite using won’t a lot.
• I will not coddle terrorists.
• I will not infringe on your civil liberties.
• I will support your right to bear arms as long you are not an idiot.
• I will provide universal health care for my dog and office manager Roxxy.
• I will eat my vegetables.
• I will offer you a cup of coffee (or tea).
• I will say thank you and I will say excuse me after I burp.
• I will say no to drugs — except a few like FlowMax that you really wish I wouldn’t mention.
• I will put down the toilet seat.
• I will think a lot about cleaning up my office.
• I will not start any wars.
• I will go to Disney World (although not any time real soon).
• I will brush and floss regularly.
• I will take time to smell the roses even though they aren’t my favorite flower.
• I will cackle with glee when the Yankees any team from New York loses. (Heather — is this better?)
• I will listen to both country and western musics.
• I will try to have the longest categories list of any blog anywhere.
• I will not run GM into the ground.
• I will cry havoc and loose the penguins of irony.

Remarks by the President at Ceremonial Groundbreaking of United States Institute of Peace

Cry Havoc, and Loose the Penguins of Irony!

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your kind introduction, and thank you for inviting me to join you to break ground for the United States Institute of Peace’s new home.  I’m really pleased to be here.  I appreciate what you do to resolve conflict and support new democracies and to build peace by promoting effective diplomacy.

‘Cuz I sure as hell am not going to.

Why Al Gore shouldn’t have won the Nobel Peace Prize

First my bona fides:

1. I started covering global warming in the early 1990s. I have no doubts about it and have read more on the topic than your average bear (especially the polar bears who don’t read that much anymore because they’re having to look for new homes because the polar ice cap is melting, fortunately for them this is happening just as the US real estate market is tanking … but I digress).
2. You really, really don’t want to know how much military history I’ve read. It’s a lot. I remember my cell phone number because it’s close to the year of the battle of Hastings. I know when the first battle that we have records from both sides was. (1300 BC. Hittites vs. Egyptians. The home team Hittites, under coach Muwatallis, won the contest at Kadesh but didn’t cover the spread. In case you were wondering, Muwatallis is also known to history as Mutwatallis and Mutwatalli II. His friends all called him Fred because when they tried to call him Mut he had them beheaded.) So yeah, you don’t want to go there with me.
3. Ever since he got out of politics I’ve been a big Al Gore fan. Prior to losing the 2000 election I never would have suspected he could be interesting AND funny. Love him on Futurama and Saturday Night Live. No I have never seen “Inconvenient Truth.” As the great Tim McIntyre puts it: I don’t need to study for a test I’ve already passed.
4. So…

Al Gore won the Nobel PEACE Prize? Yeah, I know environmental problems are and will cause all sorts of conflicts. So what? They always have. Dear Nobel Committee (and this is as close to it as I will ever get) what part of the phrase “peace prize” don’t you understand?

The Peace Prize goes to great groups like Doctors Without Borders and The Red Cross. It goes to people who actually stopped fighting or helped people deal with the aftermath of war. It also went to Henry Kissinger. That Peace Prize is most notable because Tom Lehrer cited it as proof that irony was indeed dead.

This is a stretch. If you want to give a prize for generally helping the planet than give one of those. Mr. Gore would certainly deserve that one. But lets give the Peace Prize to something having to do with armed conflict. Is that asking too much? So that’s why I am naming the Nobel Committee the Nat’l. Assoc. of Penguins of Irony Employee of the Month. I look forward to their acceptance speech.

Google launches on-line answer service in China

Via Read/WriteWeb:

Google China has released a Q&A site, in partnership with Tianya Club. The Make Meaning blog notes that Tianya Club was founded in 1999 and is one of the most popular discussion forums in China. Tianya has almost 20 million registered users, 80% of whom are 18-35 years old.

Some questions that will not be answered:

1. What happened at Tiananmen Square?
2. What happened to “You can make money without doing evil”?
3. Does this mean you’re rethinking your rethinking of playing footsie with the Chinese government?

Nice additional detail on this at Google Blogoscoped:

In other, related news Tianya.cn was recently involved in an attempt by the Chinese government to suppress the reporting on a bridge collapse in Fenghuang a week ago. Quote the Associated Press last Friday:

Communist authorities have banned most state media from reporting on the deadly collapse of a bridge in southern China, with local officials punching and chasing reporters from the scene, reporters said Friday.

The harassment and the accompanying news ban was issued by the Chinese Central Propaganda Department on Thursday, the AP writes. The AP cites a reporter saying that an unidentified mob of locals “roughed up” a group of five reporters who were interviewing the families of those who were killed in the bridge collapse.

You read it here first: Media, Pentagon getting their ideas from me & CD jr.

From The NY Daily News: CIVIL WAR REENACTMENT – IN BAGHDAD?

Where did they come up with this one? The Multi-National Corps-Iraq press desk sent out a release today about a new operation targeting insurgents in Baghdad, which succeeded killing two insurgents and locating a cache of “artillery rounds, mortars, cell phones, weapons, propaganda, ammunition magazines and other bomb-making materials.” The clever name of this mission? Operation Bull Run.

From CD in February 2006: The Iraq Civil War, or Operation Bull Run

Last Sunday, Secretary of State Rice made the TV rounds and dismissed an “impending” civil war. And, technically, she’s right: It’s not impending if it’s already here. Her comments sound like Gen. Westmoreland’s December 1967 dismissal of the North Vietnamese’s ability to launch an offensive anywhere in South Vietnam. The following month the North launched the Tet offensive everywhere in South Vietnam.

Two points for the Pentagon to keep in mind:

1. It was a JOKE.
2. There have been two previous battles of Bull Run. We lost ’em both.

Y’know, Tom Lehrer once said that irony died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh Tom, if only you’d been right.

(Mad props to Flagrancy To Reason for finding this.)

From Wired: How to Take Money From Kids: Sell Toys Both Physical and Virtual

Webkinz kick-started a trend in children’s gaming that ties virtual environments to real-world merchandise. Online games for kids aren’t new. Sierra Online had tot-focused games in the early ’90s, and Neopets proved a hot product six years ago with a similar concept. But the unprecedented success of Webkinz is inspiring everyone from Barbie to Disney to get children invested in both the digital and the physical.

From TheWhatchamacallit: Neopets a neoscam?

The NC Mall was the final blow though. Needing to use real money, to buy virtual items on a kids site? It should not be! I am going to write a twelve paragraph letter to neopets on this subject, after seeing how few people actually realize neopets is being taken over!

From Reuters: Program Reveals Where Wikipedia Entrees Come From

A new tracing program that reveals where Wikipedia entries come from is stirring up controversy. People using FBI and CIA computers edited entries on such topics as the “Iraq war” and the prison at “Guantanamo Bay,” presenting a conflict of interest for the nonprofit online encyclopedia, according to a company spokesperson.

From today’s New York Times: Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits

Collateral Damage: See here & here.

Collateral Damage: Today’s sarcasm is tomorrow’s news.

Headline of the day: Giant penguins may have roamed Peru

Were they tourists? Does Paddington know about this?

White House hopes Muslims will take Sesame Street to U.S.

The Administration is sending Elmo & Ernie to Malaysia in an attempt to recover brand equity lost by the George Bush Desert Classic.

The local version of the children’s show, called “Jalan Sesama,” which translates directly as Everyone’s Street, is beginning production in Jakarta and expected to air later this year after contracts with Indonesian stations are secured. The U.S. Agency for International Development had earlier set aside $8.5 million for 156 episodes, part of $157 million pledged in 2003 by the Bush administration for education in Indonesia, which Washington regards as a key voice of moderation and democracy in the Muslim world.

In addition to Tantan, an orangutuan, and Jabrik, a baby rhino, the show features “Momon, a 5-year-old boy who likes math and drawing, and Putri, a 3-1/2-year-old girl with a healthy dose of curiosity — [who] bear a closer resemblance to Elmo and Ernie from the original show.” Wonder if the show features a version of Bert, Ernie’s “life partner”?

Herewith the show’s theme song (with apologies to Tom Lehrer):

When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve,
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place, I guess,
But first send the Muppets!

We’ll send them all we’ve got,
John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
To the shores of Tripoli,
But not to Mississippoli,

What do we do? We send the Muppets!
For might makes right,
And till they’ve seen the light,
They’ve got to be protected,
All their rights respected,
‘Till somebody we like can be elected.

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war,
They’d rather kill them off by peaceful means.
Stop calling it aggression,
O we hate that expression.
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo.
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt,
Send the Muppets!

Army general made captain of The Titanic

Habamus War Czar! Gen. Douglas Lute has been named caddy for the George Bush Desert Classic. Going out on a limb here but I don’t think Lute’s name will wind up in the history books next to George C. Marshall or Henry “Old Brains” Halleck — the best that he can hope for is that it doesn’t end up next to Custer’s. Why not take the job? There’s no real downside. The blame has already been laid. They must be rejoicing in Baghdad tonight.

Latest Penguin of Irony: Head of US AIDS prevention effort quits after being questioned on use of “escort service”

Randall Tobias, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, [resigned Friday] after ABC News asked him about his use of a so-called escort service known as Pamela Martin & Associates. … Among other duties, Tobias also was responsible for implementing U.S. policy that required grant recipients to take steps against prostitution and sex trafficking and supporting efforts to fight the spread of AIDS.

First Wolfowitz — who is supposed to be fighting corruption — gets into trouble when his girlfriend who works for him over at the World Bank, gets promoted. Now this. And to think I used to question Bill Clinton’s ethics.

Penguins of irony rejoice: List of 2006’s worst marketing blunders blunders. Includes disasters from 2007.

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.

Headline of the day: Penguins being sold to Canadian buyer

Lies! All Lies! They are safe here with me!

Cry Havoc and Loose The Penguins of Irony: Illustrated

From someplace called the Irony Design Fun Shop. T-shirts, coffee mugs and more.

Has something to do with a teacher salary protest in Chile. I don’t get it either.