Lindsey’s Daily Deal: Listen My Children And You Shall Hear, Back To School Isn’t For Kids and Alyssa Milano Follow Me On Twitter!

By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry

Hey Captains’ readers,

Here’s your Wednesday Deal:

1. Listen my children, and you shall hear

Of Brett Favre’s fickle nature on the blogosphere.

A lot of NFL fans recently had some issues with Brett Favre’s wavering decision to retire—particularly in the blogs. Some thought he should play, some thought he should retire, but almost everyone could agree that he should’ve at least set the record straight in a more timely manner. What does this have to do with marketing and advertising? Well, everything for starters.

By tapping into what’s happening in real life, advertisers can find better ways to connect with their audience. Not only does it make for a more relevant ad, but it can also make light of an otherwise turbulent situation. For instance, in their latest spot, ESPN employees explain how they had grown so tired of keeping track of Brett Favre’s retirement status that they decided to use an old stand-by system to make the process a little easier on themselves—Paul Revere’s lanterns.

Now, is it one if retired, two if unretired?

2.  Back to school isn’t for kids

When I was a kid, I never wanted summer to end. In fact, I refused to even keep a calendar because I didn’t want a daily reminder of how many more days of freedom I had left. But inevitably, the telltale signs were always there. The air starts to get a little cooler, the fall fashions were put on display, and those damn back to school ads start taunting me wherever I went. When you’re a kid, just their mere existence is enough to make you give those advertisers a piece of your mind. I remember thinking, “Who do you think you are coming in and reminding my parents that they have to send me back to school? Thanks a lot!”

Then, I grew up and got a job in marketing. It all makes sense now. All this time it never occurred to me that the stores weren’t trying to peddle their brand of papers, pencils and books to ME, they were targeting my parents. And do you know what time of year moms and dads love more than anything? Back to school! No wonder the commercials were always so happy and peppy, the advertisers understood that their target market was ELATED that their kids were going to be out of the house and back on a routine. In other words, back to school is for parents what Christmas is to kids—a time for celebration.

Which brings me to BBC School’s new back to school commercial. Now looking at it through the eyes of an adult, I think it’s quite effective. I particularly like the copy, “Every September, thousands of children begin the biggest adventures of their lives. Are we sending them in the right direction?” But then I think about the kids who are just T-minus five days away from doomsday, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they’re silently willing summer to last just a little longer. And hoping, beyond hope, that they won’t wake up one morning soon and hear the nine words that will end their lives as they now know it– “Honey, wake up! It’s the first day of school!”

What do you think of back to school time?

3. Alyssa Milano Please Follow Me On Twitter!!!

I don’t know about you, but I think @whoisthebaldguy wants Alyssa Milano to start following him on Twitter. In case you couldn’t tell, he created a dedicated webpage with a giant photo of Milano and three web videos in which he demonstrates the consequences of what will happen if Ms. Milano decides NOT to follow a random bald guy on Twitter. Don’t worry it’s nothing scary. According to the videos, he’ll get a hamburger smushed into his head, his newspaper crumpled until it’s unreadable, and his t-shirt ripped and ruined. I haven’t decided yet whether I think this idea is genius, or a little too eager (that’s my nice way of saying creepy). Either way, the guy has cojones and should be given props for putting himself, and Alyssa’s lingerie-clad body, out there.

What do you think Alyssa should do?

Until tomorrow,

Captain Lindsey