By Ted Page, Captains of Industry


Here at Captains of Industry, we went out on a limb a while back and declared traditional advertising as we’ve know it to be dead, and went so far as to hold a classic Irish wake in its honor. Yesterday, however, I learned that there is a tenet of traditional advertising that’s as effective as ever – endless repetition. The best-selling book Incognito describes new findings on the subconscious workings of the brain, and lessons we take away to communicate more effectively. Research shows that if you have heard something once, you are more likely to believe it is true when you hear it again. Even when the thing you heard is untrue, your brain plays a trick on you and makes it seem true because it’s familiar. So it’s no wonder that commercials over the years repeated statements within the same 30 second spot, and it shows the value of repeating the commercial multiple times in a thirty minute program. Within the same chapter, the author points out a similar principle. If you’ve seen a face once (say, on a website, or on TV), you are more likely to perceive the face as good looking when you see it again. That’s why you should include a photo of yourself in proposals. What does all this mean for marketers? It means Captains of Industry is the best agency you could ever work with. Tomorrow, I’m going to say the same thing.

Happy Friday, enjoy the weekend!

By Sarah Lombardi, Captains of Industry

For as many women like me as there are in the United States who can’t stand the color pink, think clothes shopping is to be done only when existing clothing is full of holes, and don’t buy into the whole gender roles thing, I’m sure there are at least as many who want nothing more than shoes out of life, or who aspire to be a MILF. And that’s fine. After all, variety is the spice of life.

My grievances on this subject lie with the overwhelming amount of ads that reinforce what masculinity and femininity are “supposed” to be. Yes, people, I’m talking about ad equality. If I see one more woman selling me candles or a vacuum/glass/toilet cleaner, I will continue to be disgusted but honestly, I won’t be surprised. Clearly, Smelly Candlemakers, Inc. is selling candles hand over fist because their ads feature a loving wife experiencing absolute euphoria every time she snorts their whimsical Forestfresh Pine-O-Matic scent. And as far as memory serves, Smelly Candlemakers’ ads have always been this way. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I merely suggest that once in a blue moon, someone market to me. My (male) partner does most of the cooking—AND the dishes. Don’t worry, I pull my weight in our household. More or less. He does not want to buy dish soap that keeps hands supple and soft and smells like lavender. I’m sure there is a neglected demographic of men that do, but you wouldn’t know it because dish soap ads target women and the scents and colors of the soap reflect this. Maybe companies that advertise as if women still do all the household chores—in the tradition of 1950s America—are not alienating a large segment of consumers, but they’re not appealing to many of us, either.

Thus we have the product that has purposely been re-branded so as to be gender-specific. A distillery has recently introduced wine in bottles resembling perfume, complete with scents that are numbered, to mimic a certain perfume manufacturer’s offerings. If that weren’t enough, a major brewer jumped on the bandwagon and is now offering pink beer. Pink. Beer. I can only imagine that there are women who do actually pick their beverages to match their shoes but really, beer? Pink? The poll within the article announcing this product asks, “Would you be more likely to drink a ‘girlier’ beer?” Ninety-six percent of respondents chose, “If it tasted good, sure.” I think it’s pretty clear that the color is not the selling point. It is the—what?—TASTE that respondents are interested in.

It is insulting to assume every consumer shares the same lifestyle based on his or her sex. Even narrowing it down to man and woman is to exclude people that identify as transgender. A small segment of the population to be sure, but a segment all the same. My point is this: If your product really is sex specific, say because your product is tampons, then at least have a hilarious tongue-in-cheek commentary acknowledging that not all women are the same, like this flawless one from Kotex.

In the end, women are not going to continue buying beer because it offsets the color of their tan or purchase wine because it smells like jasmine, for crying out loud. They will continue to buy it because it is delicious. So sell me a product because it’s a good product, not because it reinforces society’s idea of what I should be. It’s just another way of dumbing down advertising. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go powder my nose.

By Mike Kennedy, Captains of Industry

I like TV. I like to watch it. Dissect it. Talk about it. I have even studied it in the classroom. What I do not like is product placement on TV. Okay, what I do not like is BAD product placement in scripted TV shows.

The consumer eyeballs are not on ye olde blurbs / commercials like they used to be, so folks at the Howard-Fine-Howard ad-pub agencies hope that “gently” pushing their product into my shows and into the hands of my beloved characters will endear their product into the same soft spot of my TV heart. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

For me and my TV-loving wife, bad product placement not only calls negative attention to that product but, worse, it also takes us out of the story and makes us mad at our TV-friends.

Here are some examples of bad product placement from older shows that still to this day make me wince:

“Everwood” – This great show was dropped by the WB in favor of programs like “One Tree Hill.” Yuck. But I digress. Hannah, played by Sarah Drew (who would later pop up in “Mad Men” as Sal’s wife), actually says ”I can’t believe my mom bought me a new Mercury Milan….I love the headlights! Aren’t they the coolest shape ever?” GRR ARGGH. No. No, they are not cool.

“Heroes” – Hayden Panettiere’s Claire gets a Nissan Rogue and it is blatantly obvious what is going on. But we had our revenge when Claire and her NISSAN ROGUE later got kidnapped by bad guys. Hah!

More recent infractions in my newer TV faves also put black marks on otherwise blissful TV-watching minutes:

“Burn Notice” – This show has a great placement opportunity with yogurt because Michael Westen, played by cool hand local dude Jeffrey Donovan, eats lots of the stuff. It is a constant reminder of his character’s quirkiness. He eats yogurt annnnd he blows stuff up. It is like the “A-team’s” Hannibal and his cigars.

“Bones” – Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz are wicked awesome on “Bones.” They have a modern day “His Girl Friday” repartee. But this season they actually took precious plot seconds to awkwardly talk about a car. A car!?! In the middle of discussing the finer points of a murder investigation!! It rang hollow. It interrupted the story. You might as well break for a regular commercial at that point. You could hear the writers moaning; you could see the actors cringing as they spouted the sales catalog-ripped lines. At least we thought we could. Okay, at least we hoped they were moaning and cringing. But even more importantly, for the next few moments of the show, we actually had no idea what Booth and Brennan said because we were too busy discussing how we hated them for talking about that stupid car. Last year, Michaela Conlin’s Angela Montenegro character promo’ed her mini-van. Angela!? The rebel and non-conformist artist drives a mini-van? My advice is to keep the product within the framework of the character. We know these characters. When it is forced, it is feels fake. So instead, give a mini-van to love-able nerd Dr. Sweets / actor John Francis Daley (of “Freaks and Geeks” another great show canceled because people didn’t watch… sniff sniff… Jerks). That makes sense; Dr. Sweets would totally drive that mini-van.

“Men of a Certain Age” – I know, no one watched it. Shame, shame, shame on you. Shame! And now it is dead. Thanks, Jerks! But the show also had great product placement that was integrated into the characters and their stories. For example, Andre Braugher (oh “Homicide,” I still miss you) played Owen who works at a Chevy car dealership. And every week there was drama in and around a bevy of products. The cars were vital to Owen’s story and did not serve as simple background objects or – worse – annoying foreground objects. The vehicles had a reason for being on screen. They had purpose. What better way to subtly convince a consumer that the same product should have purpose in their lives too? I did not even care when Joe, who was an aspiring senior tour golfer, took some swings and there was the close-up of a Titleist golf ball. That ball had not one close-up but two! The Titleist golf ball was integral to Joe’s actions, which were all part of his character’s wants and his dramatic arc. Plus, from a filmmaker’s and a viewer’s perspective, the shot selection makes perfect sense too: we see Joe swinging then we see the golf ball. Good placement is not an interruption of the story. It is the story.

There you have it. Product placement on TV. We can do better. Please.

And people, watch the good TV shows. You know, shows without “Housewives” in the title. But I digress.

By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry


It can get expensive to have your web company make a change on your site every time something in your business changes. That’s why the Internet Gods gave us WordPress. At Captains, we build all of our sites on a content management system, and WordPress is by far my favorite, for several reasons.

The first, and arguably most important, reason is because WordPress can be figured out by the least technical people on the planet – Moms (sorry, Mom). Developed first as a free blogging platform, the interface was designed to give non-programmers a voice online, for better or worse. As such, many people are already familiar with the system. For those who aren’t, the sections are very clearly labeled, and finding the page or post that you want to edit is as easy as a search. Anyone familiar with MS Word and internet conventions could probably figure out how to use 75% of the CMS without any training at all – but don’t worry, we won’t turn you lose on the CMS without detailed training.

The second reason I like WordPress is precisely because it started as a blogging software. Blogging can be a powerful corporate tool, both to improve SEO and to give customers a reason to continue coming back to your site. While blogging doesn’t make sense for everyone, we do encourage our clients to consider it. If the client thinks they have something to say and the resources to say it with, we build the site on WordPress.

Finally, I like WordPress because I’ve found it a bit easier for programmers unfamiliar with the system to work with than standard CMSs. While we never recommend our clients hire a programmer unfamiliar with WordPress to mess with the underlying structure of the site, anyone familiar with HTML, CSS, and PHP can go in and make updates and changes to the site very easily. There’s little need to mess around on the server itself or get lost in an ftp site – everything is accessible from within the CMS.

Happy Friday everybody!

By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry


I’m a big fan of Family Guy, so when I saw a panel discussion with Seth MacFarlane and the whole cast on Hulu, I wanted to see what they would have to say about the show. Before I could watch the video, I was forced to watch an ad for some “all-natural” energy drink. No big deal – I accept that if I’m going to access hilarious content for free, Hulu needs me to zone out through a message from one of their sponsors. They were even nice about it – they asked me in the upper right if this ad was relevant to me. Not being someone who drinks energy drinks, I said no, and then went on to my show.

Turns out that this was only a clip from a larger show, and after five minutes, I loaded the next video in the series. Again, an ad popped up. Interestingly enough, the same ad. I clicked no again on the relevancy gauge.

Third video in the series was preceded by the same ad.

OK, two things.

First, why would you show me the same ad three times in a row? That’s obnoxious. If you’re going to show me ads for the same product (who knows, maybe this company bought the exclusive rights to all Family Guy-related content), then can you at least show me a different ad? Especially when the first ad was boring?

Second, I told you twice that this ad wasn’t relevant to me, and yet you showed it to me a third time. What was the point of asking? If you’re going to ask for my opinion and preferences, then you probably ought to react to them. Hell, I’d take “We know you saw this already, and said you weren’t interested, but we’re contractually obligated to show it to you twice more, just to make sure you weren’t kidding. Sorry – we know it’s annoying.” Something to acknowledge that you heard me. But ignoring my input completely?

As with so many things in the advertising industry, I think that we can do better.

By Sarah Lombardi, Captains of Industry

Consol Glass’s recent campaign was nominated as one of the finalists in the New York Festival’s World’s Best Advertising award. No surprise here; the ad is spot-on (pardon the pun). My take is that it answers the fundamental questions any advertisement should: “Why should I choose your product?” and “What can it do for me?”

Consol’s spot has a personal spin, taking the approach that even if you couldn’t care less about whether or not you’re doing something good for the environment (although all the better if you do!), you care about your health, don’t you? Seems to be an approach the environmental advocates might want to take for a spin. People may not care about climate change, but they care about themselves.

On the flipside, you have a spot like this one from Greenpeace that seems to be pointing the finger at oil executives. That’s fine if you want to make people angry, but it’s not asking for change on the viewer’s part, so what’s the viewer supposed to do? Think a little harder? The time to think is over. At this point, it hardly matters who should take the blame for global warming, all that matters is that we as individuals take steps to curb its expansion and, call me crazy, but maybe even reverse its effects. It is getting people to make changes on an individual level that is at once so tricky and yet so vital. So how do we get them to make changes? By talking to one little buckaroo. By addressing your health. How is it, by the way? Pretty good? Would it be better if you drank out of glass more often? Couldn’t hurt!

Of course, flattery almost never fails. After all, “You’re an extraordinary species.”

By Ted Dillon, Captains of Industry

I made my Google+ account last week, and I’ll probably never use it. Conversely, Pandora began rolling out its own social network last week, and I’m killing to get in it.

With so many social networks out there, and only so many hours in the day, I’ve had to get picky. I want a network that solves a problem or is just fun. The new Pandora network helps me widen my music selections with better recommendations, and allows me to share my current playlists with friends as well as purchase music from Amazon or iTunes. That’s a convenience that Facebook, and certainly Google+, can’t provide for me.

Google has yet to prove to me the value of putting friends in custom ‘circles’ and having G Chat right there. I’m still struggling to see why it’s better than sharing photos through Facebook and connecting with colleagues through LinkedIn.

New social networks have to concentrate on what original angle they’re bringing to the table, and how easy it is for me to start using their network.

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

Ok, I’ll tell you what the company does, and you tell me what its name is. It’s a website portal that lets you upload your own homemade videos so everyone on the web can watch, share and rank them. Its name is Atom.com. They came out of the gate years before YouTube, with nearly the exact same business model, but they never really took off. Why? Some would say that having “first mover advantage” doesn’t help, because all the first movers do is demonstrate that the model works, then the second or third movers come in with a few improvements and steal the show. In the case of YouTube, it wasn’t that they had a more technically advanced website, it was their brand. Atom films was named based on the idea that web videos were tiny and powerful, like atoms. YouTube’s name and tagline – Broadcast Yourself – was absolutely spot-on and brilliant. It wasn’t about making small movies. YouTube is about you; the fun of making video that conveys your amazing personality and creativity, and sharing it with your friends. The site gives you the freedom to broadcast yourself to the whole world. And they said it all with one logo and two words. They crushed every other video sharing website out there, and became the phenomenon they are today. The lesson for other companies is that the invention of your brand is just as important as the invention of your technology or service. Any marketing manager reading this will likely respond, “Duh!” But how many start up firms, or even more established companies, are willing to invest in a brand that’s really, really good?

Watch the original Cat Lover and the remix, and happy friday!

Original

Remix

Can’t Hug Every Cat -Autotune Remix – Watch more Funny Videos

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry

If your website doesn’t answer this question on the home page, prominently, it’s time to make a change.  Having worked with dozens of clients on their messaging strategies and web redesigns, I can tell you that the number one problem companies have is that they get mired in the details of their products or services up front, resulting in completely incomprehensible web sites. It’s actually a fairly simple thing to correct. Pretend you’re meeting someone at a conference for the first time. Here’s what you might say, “Hi, I’m [name here] and I’m with [company name]. We make [product here] that helps [X kind of company] to [problem solving solution here].”  People are actually pretty good at doing this when it’s a conversation, but when it comes to actually writing it down they fall into jargon-laden mush. So, think of your web site’s home page as the start of a conversation, and write it down that way. It works.