I just received an email from Chapters. Here’s what I saw:

Wow. They are going to save me 99 cents! Generous!

Usually the savings are in the range of 25-30%. I’ve gotten used to that I guess. So when I see a 9% discount (that amounts to less than $1.00!!), I think it’s pathetic, and I’m sort of irked that I bothered to open their email. I wonder if I’ll be quick to open subsequent emails from Chapters…..

I love this. Our Power - essentially localized buying clubs for residential solar energy systems. It’s so smart and simple and *important*. As a fund raiser, a complilation album has been released that includes Canadian musicians Gord Downie, Ron Sexsmith, and Steven Page alongside indie rock heros like Mike O’Neill, Jill Barber and The Violet Archers. Very cool.

Now I just have to figure out the government rules and requirements and grid-tie options for Western Quebec and get organizing.

Don’t even ask. Oh god don’t ask.

I found myself at pamelaanderson.com a moment ago. There are so so so many hilarious things at this site - from the illustrations to the content - that it’s actually worth a visit. Go, take a minute and visit the site. Go.

One of the funniest things about the site is the first line of her “Bio” page that reads: “Pneumatic blonde Pamela Anderson is an American icon, born and raised in a small town in Canada…”

Pneumatic? What? She is filled with “or pertaining to air, gases, or wind” (Dictionary.com)?? (At least now the ‘mystery’ of those enormous bazookas has been solved!)

This is the definitive case study of “When you create a website, you really should hire a writer. A real writer. Not a pneumatic writer.”

UPDATE: While I don’t take any of this back, or agree with the usage, according to the Urban Dictionary, “in the novel “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, the word ‘pneumatic’ was used to describe the sensation of sex with the main female character Lenina. In this context it means well rounded, or bouncy, in reference to her breasts and her body.”

Bouncy. Not really a surprise, I guess. But I feel like I am learning (or plagued to visualize) more about Ms. Anderson’s horizontal life than I bargained for when I made my innocent trip to her site. But then again, I guess that’s the goal, the visualizations, of most of her website visitors…… I am so not her target audience.

Really. The CEO at Home Depot believes that you, the customer, is the enemy, needing to be conquered.

From Business Week:

“In the military, we win battles and conquer the enemy,” says Ray. At Home Depot, “we do that with customers.”

There are so many shocking things in this article that it’s difficult to know where to start. I’m foaming at the mouth with disgust. Happily there’s both a Rona Depot and a Home Hardware in our village so I will never have to don fatigues and cross enemy lines in order to partake in home improvement projects. I’ve always thought that Home Depot was slightly creepy but I’ve never figured out why I felt that. It’s crystal clear to me now.

To anyone following the tale of ‘Micah the dog, the Vomit and the Dog Food Company’, I’ve posted an update. In summary, Micah is still fine, we’ve received some money but was it the best case study in excellent public relations? Hardly.

Seth Godin has posted about why the ‘marketing’ of the global warming problem has failed. He’s got some good points about the problems:
1) that the words in the name - global and warming - both inspire good, warm feelings - we think that ‘global’ is good, and warm is, of course, good. BUT GLOBAL WARMING IS BAD, DUMMIES! (The same problem arises with ‘climate change’. We’re told all of our lives that change is good’ and we know all about climates. Mmmmm. The thought of a warm climate makes me green with envy at the moment, but that’s just the northern Canadian in me.)

Seth proposes the name ‘atmosphere cancer’.

Alternately, what about ‘death by choking’ or ‘poisonous air’ or even “air flu” (given the ’success’ of ‘bird flu’ in raising global fear) - making the problem personal to each of us so that we can’t think, “atmosphere cancer? Poor guy. But cancer will never happen to me. I don’t smoke. It doesn’t run in my family.”

But ‘death by choking’ is personal. I can envision that. It’s terrifying.

2) that global warming is happening too slowly and with not enough visual impact to make good tv. How true! Yet how pathetic we as a people are! It’s all about fast moving images and bright lights.

Seth Godin is so right. This is a huge marketing challenge. It would be awesome if the best minds in the advertising business would get behind this and try to change our thinking about this issue. What about turning global warming into a reality tv show? I hear they are all the rage.

My friend Phil would like this I think - if only he lived in London. I think he’d like the mapping / running / sharing parts of this site. I am not crazy about the actual interface and while has been an attempt at added content, (such as training schedules), this stuff is pretty weak. There’s such great opportunity here - for a global running site full of visitor submitted maps, localized info and good content. I love that this site is lightly branded - seems very appropriate, value-add, yet at the same time, there’s no mistaking who is ’sponsoring’ the site.

I realize that there are a few similar, often non-branded sites on the web, such as this one, or this one or this one, but I think this RunLondon is interesting from a marketing perspective - there’s a lot of potential in this site.

Oh, this is good. So good. This is why I often hesitate to tell people I’m involved in ‘marketing’. Because this is what they think I do. Yikes.