Whack Friday

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their holidays. I did.

I have yet to experience the phenomena that is "Black Friday." The name wreaks of evil. Maybe Cusack could've raked in a few more bucks in the box office had "2012" been named "Black Friday."

Nomenclature aside, there's more gravitas reasons as to why I choose not to partake in the "running of the bulls-esque" parade of white trash that takes every Walmart and Target by Storm the first Friday after Thanksgiving.
1. I'm still in the process of working off a gnarley turkey hangover.
2. My idea of fun does NOT include being trampled by morbidly obese Texans (usually named Bertha or Leroy or something along those lines).
3. I HATE standing in lines.

I don't care what it is I'm buying, or who I'm buying it for - lines drive me crazy. I usually have nowhere important to be, but I usually find myself criticizing the hell out of people for everything from what kind of shoes they wear, to which groceries they've decided to buy when I'm stuck in a line. I promise I'm usually not a cynical person (despite the tone that many of my posts may take) but waiting lines can bring the worst out in me.

I'm a product of my generation. The "Y" generation is noted primarily for its need of immediate satisfaction. Call it what you want, but if you want to harp on this trait, then I'll deem you nostalgic and thwarting progression. I can't have it. Luckily, the "Black Friday" circus has gone digital for the people like me who don't see the point in waiting 45 minutes for a Chipotle burritio when Freebirds is half a block away. Enter, "Cyber Monday."

No, I know what you're thinking: Cyber Monday has nothing to do with chat roulette or live webcams. It is simply the culmination of the anger from a multitude of people who share the same sentiments about Black Friday that I do.

Google "Cyber Monday," and watch what returns. The first two sponsored results are for Walmart (the hell spawn responsible for the dimensional tear that occurs every Friday after Thanksgiving) and Amazon (what I would consider the online version of Walmart, minus the low grade groceries I wouldn't give to my dog).

And rightly so. These two online storefronts, along with Target.com received the most traffic on Cyber Monday, and offered the most coupons (Google it).

Beware of "Identity Theft Tuesday."

Brubway Brandwiches

Ah! Fat Jared! I miss ol' tons 'o' fun.

I was stoked when I heard about Subway's relatively-recent entry into the fast food breakfast market. I love subway. I mean, what's not to love about a salad and two chicken breasts stuffed into a foot-long loaf for five bucks? (By the way, I love how "our" healthy fast food chain still manages to appease my mean, gluttonous streak by offering me a twelve-inch long, nearly two pound sandwich for a five spot.)

I used to LOVE McDonald's breakfast until I realized I can only sustain my body on preservatives and mechanically-separated meat for so long (eat your heart out, hot dogs!) So when I heard my favorite once-fat man, J-Red was now hittin' up Subway for breakfast and a cup of Seattle's Best Coffee, I followed suit.

Last Saturday I made my way to Subway at 9 in the a.m. to give it a go.

Last Saturday, 9 a.m. - I'm nursing a bourbon and beer-induced hangover, and in need of the fountain-of-youth-extracted elixir they call coffee. My feet and stomach select Subway as the destination in mind.

9:15 (roughly) - I arrive at Subway. My motor skills summon every ounce of coordination they can muster to mutter something along the lines of "coffee, food-coffee" to the Subway...sandwich...maker...person.

9:16 - To my demise, I'm informed that there is no coffee. I assume that the more productive members of society's needs for caffeine outweighed the incapacitation my hangover caused. I order a sandwich anyway, simply because I needed something for my mouth to do that didn't include speaking - there's no telling what kind of trouble it would have gotten me into that morning.

I have frequented Subway twice since then for breakfast: on Monday, and this morning.

Both times - disappointment.

Monday morning, my girlfriend and I went twenty minutes after this certain location (which I will leave anonymous, but is located at 1109 University Ave in Lubbock, TX for those whom it may concern) opened to find that nothing was ready. No coffee, no food, no nothin'. The dude (emphasis on "the" since he was the only employee on-site) looked beastly, like he had just rolled out of bed. By the power of deduction, I assume he was late. We left abruptly.

This morning produced similar results. The food was ready, still no coffee. Damn you, Subway breakfast.

In an increasingly-competitive and profitable fast-food breakfast market, Subway needs to perform at a higher caliber if it plans on market penetration, ESPECIALLY since an absence of drive-thrus at most locations makes it an underdog. I know my experience may be a case specific only to that certain brick and mortar location, but the powers that be at the Subway HQ (wherever that may be) need to communicate the importance of reliability when executing new ventures, to their franchises.

While their sandwiches don't, this lapse has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Back to the drawing board, kiddos.

Mmmmm! E-Bagels!

Einstein Bro's Bagels opened in Lubbock today, and you'd think Robert Pattinson made a return trip to Crickett's. You know your town is located in the center of the universe when stories of mediocre bagel shops opening fill more corridors than Ron Jerem...forget that thought.

I'm not trying to knock Einstein Bro's. It's better than a lot of breakfast places around Lubbock. I mean hell, they serve Lox sandwiches, which was enough to make me drag my ass in there at 7:00 o'clock this morning. And I have to give them credit, it was a mighty fine slab of smoked salmon on my pumpernickel bagel (yeah, I keep it kosher for my non-gentile bruhs).

The coffee-shop culture of Seattle birthed the over-priced coffee giant, Starbucks. The bagel shop culture of New York inspired (but did not create) Einstein Bros. A lot of people knock Starbucks for attempting to engineer culture from coffee, and by doing so on a massive scale - the antithesis of what a coffee shop is "supposed" to be.

Sidenote: I could give two shits about which coffee shop I go to, and which crowd it attracts. I wake up in the morning and need caffeine, and my motor systems in conjunction with my neurological lead me to my fix.

Starbucks gets props for its inclusion of its customers into its workings through social media. They allow users in the online community to have a say in products offered and promotional deals amongst other things.

Bagel shops and coffee shops have one things in common: they cater to a very niche market, so their customers have created a microcosm around the food and/or beverage.

Einstein Bro's came along in 2006, long after Starbucks had the coffee industry by the groin. Still, their attempts at replicating Starbuck's goals prove feeble. There is NO online community, and their online storefront is lackluster to say the least.

In a day and age where social media is growing more and more prevalent, it seems absurd for a company that sells a very specific product, or provides a narrowly-tailored service to ignore the wants and needs of its consumers. It's proven effective with Starbucks, Dell and Mountain Dew, so it's definitely possible with Einstein Bros.

They don't even have day-old dozen bagel specials.

"I'm Your Density...I Mean...Your Destiny."

Ferris Bueller said it best, "life moves fast, if you don't stop to take a look around, you might miss something." Forgive me if I butchered that quote, but if you've seen the movie then you know what I'm talking about.
We live in a constantly-evolving world with constantly-evolving everythings. Hell! Newspaper's about dead (so they say) and DVR is murdering the commercial.
I guess it is true: video DID kill the radio star, but it didn't kill the industry - MTV did. Kidding. The music industry is a thriving, prosperous industry regardless of how video changed it.
Internet changed it.
Internet changed everything. Early (and current) internet advertisements included banners and pop-ups. Everyone hates, or doesn't care about either. But like the "ever-evolving" (I hate saying that so I'll use "juice box" instead) world around us, internet advertising is following suit.
It seems that a shift towards interactive advertisements and content-sponsored media is the trend in internet advertising.
In this article from BMG's marketing blog, they highlight the fact that the curtain that used to exist between a company and its customers is fading as social networking becomes more prevalent. This is smart. Internet in its simplest form IS an active medium. We sift through what we want to. Users see banner ads and pop-ups as hindrances, so by allowing us, the consumers, to create the content we wish to view i.e. Facebook fan pages, advertisements become...not advertisements.
The same goes for content-sponsored media. As annoying as it may seem, Youtube needs a way to pay the bills. We can't watch videos of sleep-walking dogs if Larry the bean counter for Youtube can't balance the checkbook.
Juice box.

Going Bacterial

Ignore the title of this post...kind of. Ignore the jpeg attached to this post...if you want. I blog to you about the relatively recent phenomena in the world of advertising known as viral videos.
Viral videos themselves aren't new, but their potential reach has been recognized by advertisers, well...relatively recently.
Below I will post and discuss three advertisements that have "gone viral," that I have a particular liking for.

Phillips, the Dutch electronics company known most in the States for its expertise and advancements in the burgeoning, ever-expanding field of light bulbs, released a commercial called Carousel, which advertises, well...I don't know what it advertises. Therein lies the beauty and mystery of the reel. The video is roughly two minutes long and tells a captivating story (though hard to follow on first watch) with captivating images (making the story hard to follow on first watch.)

Hewlett Packard, the company that...never mind we all know who HP is. Anyways, they produced a fairly recent commercial for their Workstation printers. This commercial makes my list for a number of reasons, but mainly for respect for preparation. Filming this one must have been a hell of a time. The songs catchy and the whole scheme is creative. Thumbs up.

When I think European, I think sophistication. Thesaurus.com says "European" is a synonym for "sophistication." Don't look that up. Another Dutch company makes face here. Heineken provides a product I can relate to more so than Philips. I'm sure the majority of Americans can recall the Heineken walk-in closet ad. Well, this walk-in closet is much more surreal. We laughed at the actual commercial Heineken produced, this one is proof to every male that "TV" doesn't equal impossible. Plus, a wise man once said, "Beer is proof that God loves us," or something along those lines.

Bleh, Bleh, Piracy, Bleh.

Ah! The oh-so-popular subject of piracy in the music industry. We all (or at least I hope) remember Lars Ulrich of Metallica in his valiant attempt to spearhead the blossoming blessing known to the music fan as "music piracy."
Napster was the body he was attacking, and since then there have been many advances and changes as to how the masses can "pirate" their music. As far as I know, Lars gave up his fight (thank God). Since the prevalence of p2p and other music sharing software is so readily available, many bands have been welcoming of the new technology.
Radiohead released its last studio album, "In Rainbows," for free on their website, but accepted donations. Industry, follow suit.
To expect the current revenue making model for the music industry to continue doing its job is ludicrous. As all media becomes more and more narrowly tailored, and the consumer becomes more and more active and less passive, so too does the music fan.
Unless you're Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga and you're a musician, chances are the majority of your income doesn't come from album sales.
Artists should use the internet as a means of promotion. Give us your music. If it's not bullshit that the artist themselves didn't write, we will buy your concert tickets. (If not, we won't badmouth you to our friends.)
 Follow the indie music scene and you will see how quickly this paradigm is growing and catching on.
If the artist has enough work and faith in their music, somebody else is likely to.