With an abundance of billboards lined up and down the freeway, they all start looking the same. Until someone comes along and puts a creative spin on a traditional medium. Check it out: Billboard With Sun and Rising Water Level
I eat this stuff up so if you see a creative spin on something that has been around since the stone ages, send it my way! We’ll get it on the merlog.
Journalists have been given a hard time lately and rightfully so. They editorialize when they should be reporting. And the traditional tough questions have been replaced with ’softballs.’ Friday, June 13th was a sad day for journalism because we lost areal journalist. A man that worked hard, asked tough questions and did his job the way it was meant to be done. He didn’t have ‘Ditto heads’ or ask ‘What say you?’ He wasn’t lumped into the ‘liberal media elite,’ he was simply regarded as a talented journalist and a well-liked and respected professional. Tim Russert was known for his straight-forward interviewing style and was one of the first journalists to actually ‘quote’ his guests and have them explain the true meaning behind it. When the guest tried to talk around the question, he’d re-read them their exact quote and ask them to explain the rationale behind their words. Now that’s a journalist! When watching him interview someone, I never walked away wondering why he didn’t ask the obvious questions, because he did. He asked the questions his guests didn’t necessarily want to answer, but that all of us wanted to hear. It seems as though our journalists are getting younger and prettier instead of smarter and simply better at their jobs. Unfortunately, for us the viewers, with the loss of Tim Russert, we will most likely be stuck watching wanna-be actors and actresses more interested in their white teeth than the White House.
This week I attended a press junket at the Disneyland theme park. The resort was opening a new attraction in Tomorrowland called the Innovations Dream Home and the exhibit featured one of Merlot’s clients, Eldorado Stone. As a marketing professional, it is always a treat to visit the world of Disney because it is fascinating to experience an environment driven by marketing. However, as a PR professional, I was eager to experience Disney’s PR style and expertise. A strong believer in the best practices approach, I wanted to see if they did things better or differently.
One of the Walt Disney mission values is “Fanatical attention to consistency and detail.” This event did not meet this mission. Maybe, I just had high expectations because 1). I always do and 2). IT’S DISNEY! For example, the day started at 10:00 a.m. with a self-guided tour in the air conditioned Innovations Dream Home. It ended outside at 1:30 p.m. in the 90 degree weather (mind you, we are all wearing suits) with a 45 minute presentation from a variety of sponsors, including the president of Disney. Doesn’t this seem backwards to you? The day should have started with the presentation in the morning (when the weather was comfortable) so that the sponsors could explain what the press was going to see when they toured the house. Instead, they let the press tour the house by themselves in the morning without any idea of what they were supposed to be observing and then made them sit outside in the sun, waiting for the presenters to begin (don’t even get me started on the presentation).
In the end, what I realized is that if you are a marketing giant like Disney, you just expect the media to write about you and don’t really stress over the details of their experience researching the story. Needless to say, from a PR perspective, I left the “Happiest Place on Earth” a little disappointed.
However, my colleague and I did try to catch a ride on Space Mountain before heading to the airport and the line had a three hour wait. Disney is obviously doing something right.
If you thought you enjoyed reading blogs, hold on to your ‘wine glass’ because we’re creating a Merlog – two, in fact (see our agency Merlog “The Water Cooler”). “Get to the Grapes” is just that – a place to gain insight and access to the world of marketing (and other things of interest to me. In this industry blog (or Merlog as we like to call it), I’ll forego pretentious ponderings and simply get to the grapes about what’s happening in marketing and the world. Agency life is our life and we’d like to share with you our thoughts, ideas, and expertise from the agency perspective – and trust me, in this business, it’s a unique perspective. So, come back often and leave us a line – we encourage the conversation.
