Lindsey’s Daily Deal: Take Life By the Pickles, Get a Raise the Old Fashioned Way, and You Will

By Lindsey Campbell, Captains of Industry

Hey Captains’ readers,

Here’s your Wednesday Deal:

1. Take life by the pickles

In my opinion, some consumer brands need to learn how to loosen up a bit. Let’s admit it, straight-laced and stone cold serious aren’t exactly the qualities that consumers look for in a brand during the age of social media. I know, I know. SOME brands have to be serious, because well, their products are serious. But when it comes to certain industries (like the food and beverage, travel and automobile), I think a little fun can go a long way. In fact, according to David Burn of AdPulp, McDonald’s has created an online Mad Libs-esque microsite that implores their Angus-loving consumers to engage with them. When you enter the site, you can choose one of three of McDonald’s new Angus Wraps. I chose the Deluxe, because well, I go big. Once you’ve chosen your wrap, you’re asked a few random questions. When you’re done with the Q&A, your McDonald’s axiom appears. Mine was, “Take life by the pickles, run with the perfect pack and bring out the inner baseball fan.” It’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s engaging. Although, it would have been better if the consumer could understand what axioms have to do with Angus. But otherwise, I dig it.

What do you think?

2. Get a raise the old fashioned way

You’ve got to walk a fine line when peddling feminine hygiene products. These days, some ads provide too much information, and others dance around the topic so much that you wouldn’t even know that women HAD vaginas. But at the end of the day, almost every feminine hygiene brand can agree that the key insight into WHY women buy these products is the same—they simply want to keep everything down there in normal, working order. End of story. But according to Tim Nudd at AdFreak, Summer’s Eve recently produced a print ad for their product that suggested how their consumers could learn to muster up enough confidence to ask their boss for a raise.

What?!

The headline read, “Confidence at Work: How to Ask for a Raise” and the copy stated, “If there’s one thing in life that can make us uneasy, it’s asking a boss for the money we deserve. To get your mind in the right place, visualize the day and follow a few of these simple steps.” And so on and so forth. Long story short, Summer’s Eve managed to hurl us ladies back to the days when using our womanly wiles was the only way to get what we wanted in the work place. According to Nudd, Angela Bryant, Summer’s Eve Brand Manager, made a public apology for not “making the connection” that Women’s Day readers did about their product. Even though they’re in a code red situation, at least they’re acknowledging the issue and doing their best to turn it all around.

Thoughts?

3. You will

Twenty years ago, it was difficult to imagine a talking box that could direct you from one side of the country to the other, or that you would be able to conduct a meeting with colleagues virtually. But, it happened. And the company that predicted it? AT&T. According to David Meerman Scott’s latest post on Web Ink Now, there’s an AT&T commercial montage from a couple of decades ago titled “You Will.” The spots predicted a lot of gadgets and gismos that we now think nothing of—GPS, iPad, online ticket purchase, virtual meeting software, and even in-home on demand movie rental. There were also some predictions that weren’t as on the ball. For example, the use of phone booths. How I miss the privacy of a phone booth. Sigh.

Anyway, Scott finds it ironic that it was AT&T that made these predictions when the only reason AT&T even has a heartbeat is because of its association with the iPhone. When you think about it, Apple is now seen as the predominant technology leader. But who knows, maybe AT&T has an ace up its sleeve that we don’t know about, and our commercials today will be laughable 20 years from now. Only time will tell.

Do you have any predictions for our technological future?

Until tomorrow,

Captain Lindsey