Dear Young Professor:

Congratulations, you’ve been hired by a Top 20 business school… well, it WAS a Top 20 business school, but you know how these things go. So let’s just say, congrats, you’ve got a job with health insurance!

But now is no time to rest on your laurels, because first of all, newbie, you have no laurels. You have to earn those. And around here, you accomplish that by getting published.

Sorry, your letter to the editor in Forbes doesn’t count. In fact, nothing in Forbes is worth even thinking about… except maybe those ads with hot models. Those you can think about. But to advance your career, you must strive for publication in those exalted tomes of intellectual discourse known as “academic journals.”

How, you ask? What, you didn’t learn that in post-doc? Oh, you were buzzed on peyote buds in post-doc. Well, fear not, Young Professor, Cool Rules Pronto is here to enlighten and edify. First, let’s reveal some truths about academic journals:

1. They don’t really care about your ideas.
2. They don’t really care whether your ideas really work in real business situations.
3. They don’t really care about you. So you went to Harvard — get in line, rookie, and no, we don’t validate parking for anyone whose last name isn’t Kanter or Porter.

So what is the key to getting published? One word: METAPHOR. Choose one nice, fat metaphor to shape your entire article — indeed, your entire premise. The best metaphors evoke physical structures, like Bridges, Pyramids, Diamonds, Pools, Streams, Chains and Curves. But those have already been used. So as a public service, Cool Rules Pronto has compiled this list of fresh metaphors you may use freely:

Vestibules
Rivulets
Trapezoids
Gazebos
Jacuzzis
Lemurs
Soupcons
Bundt Cakes
Nimbuses
Butter Pads
Archbishops
Bacon Strips
Water Closets

True, catch phrases like “Sustainable Competitive Advantage” pack greater staying power than metaphors, but they’re also harder to craft and say. So for your first article, we recommend sticking to the literary bunny slopes.

Now here’s how it works: If you concoct a memorable metaphor, business reporters will steal it from your executive summary. No, they won’t read the entire article — remember, these are business reporters — but that’s OK, because being published is all that matters.

Your metaphor will then be shanghaied by corporate middle managers who will bandy it about to impress senior managers and nubile flight attendants from Tulsa. And if it’s a bona fide killer metaphor, it just might appear in “Dilbert” — The Holy Grail of business publishing — or in MBA programs. “Dilbert” is better because it has a larger audience (at least one that’s occasionally sober).

Now how do you turn that metaphor into an actual article?

First, the more obfuscation the better. Obfuscation obscures the fact that you have nothing truly original to say. Don’t be offended — we’re talking the study of business here. How much undiscovered knowledge is left out there? Your article merely needs to convey the impression of brilliance, so follow these…

Top 10 Steps To Academic Writing Excellence

1. Change all active verbs into “be” verbs (am, is, was, were, etc.).
2. Use passive voice, as in, “passive voice should be used.”
3. Insert all references and notes directly into your writing to prevent any danger of “flow.”
4. Use at least three prepositional phrases per sentence.
5. Clog all sentences with empty phrases like “in order to,” “in the event of,” and the classic “needless to say.”
6. Use grandiloquent words where simple ones will do.
7. Subordinate-clause the hell out of everything. The ideal: a sentence consisting entirely of subordinate clauses. This should baffle most business students, who think “subordinate clauses” are Santa’s little helpers.
8. Never assert, just propose. As an academic, you’re not allowed certainty about anything. Everything is theoretical: globalization, business cycles, your sex life. So soften all statements with qualifiers like “maybe,” “might,” “possibly,” and “theoretically.”
9. Eschew all humor. Attempts at levity will result in eternal banishment from academia. As everyone knows, the study of business mandates greater seriousness than cancer research. If an urge to be creative arises, pretend you’re from the University of Chicago and it will go away.
10. Create lots of Top 10 lists. They make your theory appear layered, and give students something else to memorize. Remember, memorization is the most important skill taught in business schools. That, and how to make a Goldschläger martini.

Here is an example of sentence butchery, i.e., academic prose:

Original: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Revised: “The dog (Canis familiaris, from the Old English docga: The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1973, p. 422), in a state of prostrate indolence, is being hurdled in an alacritous manner by a specimen of the genus Vulpes (ibid, p. 562) that is, in this case, a particular shade of the color most often, but not always, described as ‘brown,’ depending on one’s perspective, native language, and the nature of light at the moment, since color, strictly speaking, is a function of light-wave refraction, at least according to widely accepted scientific theory, or so we believe.”

You’ll notice that academic style imparts girth. And that’s critical. Succinctness is the antithesis of obfuscation. (Say that three times fast.) And you don’t want that. To make your article publishable, you need to SUPERSIZE it. Obesity is the American way. So make like a Wonderbra and pad, pad, pad…

Size Matters Tip 1: Quote liberally from other articles. Plagiarizing — er — quoting several other articles turns your article into a tower of babble. And if you quote tenured professors, they might subcontract their research to you.

Size Matters Tip 2: Use at least three long business anecdotes. These anecdotes don’t have to prove anything except that you know the names of actual companies. Of course, your students must perform multivariate regression to substantiate their hypotheses, since anecdotal evidence is worthless. But you need to get published. So tell random stories about the MBA standards — Wal-Mart, Dell, Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, FedEx and Wal-Mart — then twist them to fit your argument.

Size Matters Tip 3: Should a publisher offer to turn your article into a book, add more girth by interviewing CEO’s. This also enhances your odds of landing fat consulting gigs.

NOW DO THE MATH. Nothing makes common sense look like a science more than quantifying it and putting it into a graph. Economists mastered this years ago. To illustrate, let’s quantify the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” First, create some variables:

CK = degree of avian Common Kinship
F = propensity to Flock
μ = a coefficient to qualify the theory and make it harder to judge

Then express the relationship as a formula:

F = μCK

Tell your readers to take the first derivative of this formula to find the maximum propensity to flock. This means absolutely nothing, but it sounds like you’re dropping mad science, you beautiful mind, you.

Now graph it and remember to curve your correlation line, since straight lines appear naïve. Now draw a line from the origin to a point tangent to that curve. It doesn’t matter that this point has no point — having to calculate and graph it will make former liberal artists curse your name, and since they have actual communication skills, that constitutes additional publicity.

To wrap up your argument, emasculate it with qualifications. Qualifications add girth and protect you from critical eyes (most likely, your rival junior professors). The following qualifications appear in 98% of all academic journal articles:

1. This recommendation must be personally implemented and supervised by senior management.
2. This recommendation must be adapted to your company’s needs.
3. This recommendation must be supported by clear and open communications.

These cover-your-ass caveats apply to any corporate behavior, from solitary confinement of marketing executives, to compensation of new hires with onion bagels. And since no American corporation is capable of executing all three recommendations simultaneously, your theory can’t be proven wrong.

Finally, stew all the above into a badly typed article. Mail the finished piece to the home of any journal editor with a cashier’s check for $300, and within months you’ll be published. A few dozen of these later, and you’re on your way to academic stardom. Mmmm, catch a whiff of that new-consulting-firm smell…

And that, dear young professor, brings us to a critical phase in your career — a phase we’ll cover next time in a post entitled “Gluteal Osculation: The Fine Art Of Getting Tenure”…

What’s that sound? It can’t be… Yes it is: that’s me applauding Fox! What the hell is going on here?

Nothing short of the clouds parting in media land…

Fox TV has a long history of upsetting the status quo. At its launch, it gave the finger to the mainstream (as defined by the other networks) and introduced edgier shows such as “The Simpsons,” “In Living Color” and “Married With Children.” Sure, this meant smaller overall audiences than its rivals, but it scored highly with the ever desirable youth market, whom advertisers love.

Now it’s raised eyebrows in the ad world again, this time by insisting on selling fewer ads during select primetime broadcasts (namely, JJ Abrams’ “Fringe” and Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse”). From my perspective as both an ad guy and TV viewer, it’s overdue brilliance.

For advertisers: This reduces the clutter, so that their ads stand out more and generate more recall (the number of viewers who can remember seeing the ad). Ideally, it also means fewer viewers flipping away or skipping commercials on TiVo.

For viewers: This means more actual show (approximately 50 minutes per hour, as opposed to the current 42), fewer interruptions and overall less advertising. Since advertisers will have to pay more per spot, it will also hopefully inspire the agencies to produce better ads. Why blow all that media-buying money on weak creative?

It’s a move many of my colleagues in advertising have been recommending for years — ad clutter benefits no one. But for this to happen, it took viewer migration to the Internet, TiVo teaching people how to skip commercials, and Fox’s ad sales president being assaulted by commercials while watching a workout-room TV. (Don’t you wish more TV executives would actually watch TV?)

My only question: Why stop there? As a football fan, I’d love to see the same reduction applied to games, where it seems a commercial is inserted between every other play. Seriously, do we need commercial breaks before and after kickoffs?

So high-five to Fox — now keep going.

“There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are known as ‘nutty methods.’ Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as ‘a complete waste of time.’” — Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future

I recently attended a meeting at one of the world’s largest PR agencies. In the midst of a luxurious high-tech conference room featuring an HDTV and a tower of high-quality donuts, the agency told its client — an Internet start-up — that it needed to conduct more research. The client was visibly shocked…

This start-up company was on the verge of launching its beta site. It had already worked with this PR agency for nearly a year. The additional research would have cost thousands of dollars and set the launch back several more months. Why was this recommendation coming now?

My typical cynical thought: That’s just like a giant PR agency to recommend yet more research rather than do any actual work for a small client. (That’s why I prefer small to mid-sized PR firms — feel free to ask for my recommendation.)

I also thought of the value of research: certainly, it helps, but too much research can leave you stricken with that deadly disease known as “paralysis by analysis.” That’s when action is delayed again and again because somebody wants to do more studies. (That might sound familiar to anyone who’s been following the so-called Environmental Protection Agency.) By the time the company completes its studies, the rapidly evolving business world has changed to the degree that the original findings no longer apply. So the company decides to do more studies on these new developments…

Example: I know a guy who’s been talking about starting a business for three years now. He’s jumped through all the official hoops from incorporating to designing a logo. He’s also visited prospective manufacturers for his low-tech consumer product. But he’s yet to officially launch or manufacture a single item; instead, he’s been sending out one marketing survey after another to friends and family. I recently discovered that someone else has launched a product similar to his idea, so while he’s been researching, a competitor has appeared where there was none before. On top of that, there’s this little matter of the recession, which makes him even more nervous about quitting his job and launching a consumer product. Oh, to be back in the sunny days of 2005…

Private sector advocates often criticize the public sector for “paralysis by analysis,” but this viral contagion is spreading to the private sector from business schools (where most professors exist for the sake of doing research) through a vector called “MBA’s.” As a recovering MBA myself who now teaches MBA students, my goal is to stress the importance of strategically thinking through decisions, and not just blindly accepting traditional processes or so-called “best practices.” (How I loathe that term.) That’s especially true of research.

Criteria: The Right Amount at the Right Time

I do think research is absolutely essential before launching any business or major marketing campaign — but only the right amount at the right time. No amount of planning can prepare you for everything. You can’t know exactly what your competitors are planning (unless you’re the New England Patriots). You can’t predict disasters or the stock market. But research and planning are far superior to just working from gut instinct — just look at W’s follies in Iraq as proof of that.

I also endorse as much research as possible in such categories as warfare, medicine, product safety and potential spouses. But when it comes to marketing, I recommend moderating one’s research urges based on these three criteria:

1. The urgency of your situation. Is there a deadline? Is your competition preparing to launch a similar product? Are your investors breathing down your neck and telling you to get on with it already?

2. Your financial resources. Can you afford to hire a professional research firm? I knew a barely competent researcher who charged $10,000 to conduct a simple focus group with 10 people, the results of which were completely ignored by the client. (I don’t blame him. I personally find little value in focus groups, which have notoriously rejected everything from telephone answering machines to minivans to the TV series “Seinfeld.”) Are you better off searching the Web for the information you need? The site Marketing Sherpa, for example, offers a number of reasonably priced reports, and if you subscribe to their free newsletter, you get the fresh reports at no charge.

3. The size of your investment. How much is at risk? If you’re launching a multi-million-dollar project, by all means, conduct extensive research before beginning. If you’re running an ad in a magazine, just run the ad. I once worked with a dotcom “VP of Marketing” (little more than a former computer engineer with a Stanford MBA) who asked me to create a spreadsheet projecting the full range of possible returns of a $3000 print ad. I questioned the value of the research, since not all benefits of advertising can be projected or measured, but did as requested. At my rates, the spreadsheet cost $1000. After reading it, she declined to run the ad. So essentially, her risk aversion guaranteed a loss of $1000 and a 0% chance of success. Not surprisingly, a year later, the company still has no audience growth despite being in a hot sector.

The Alternative

If none of the above criteria justifies conducting research, then I suggest learning by doing. Not exactly a revolutionary concept there. The key is to test your idea on a small basis — small being larger than a focus group, but smaller than a worldwide campaign. For example, you can launch your product in a representative mid-sized city like Portland, Peoria or Pittsburgh before conducting a national rollout. Hollywood often does this with its more experimental films, such as “Juno”: releasing them on a limited basis, then gradually extending that release based on reviews and audience reaction.

Learning by doing is what that client of the giant PR agency decided to do. Rather than conduct additional extensive and expensive research at this stage of the game, the company decided to go ahead with its beta launch: after all, the point of a beta release is to learn by doing. Will they make mistakes that could have been prevented by research? Perhaps. But they’ll actually be in business and interacting with customers, whom they’ve asked to help them through their beta period. And that beats sitting around staring at spreadsheets, even if the donuts are good.

So I’m thumbing through my favorite geek magazine, Wired, when I’m suddenly confronted by this Belvedere Vodka ad that features a woman applying lipstick in the reflection of a belt buckle. (If any of my female readers have ever executed such a task, please let me know… What? None of you have? Gee, what a surprise…) With Freudian symbol in hand, she’s got that deer-ho in the headlights look. Not exactly what you expect to find in Wired amidst ads for Zune, Casio and the Discovery Channel. (Hey, have we got a discovery for you…)

I’m all for creative media placement, and I reckon VC-funded geeks drink expensive vodka and fantasize about women crouching down and, um, touching up their lips. But this seems way out of character for an upscale liquor brand. And I’m not sure how this image relates to the tagline “Luxury Reborn,” unless what constitutes “luxury” has taken one hell of a dive…So as part of my civic duty as Blogger in Chief of Cool Rules Pronto, I have to investigate. I type in the web address, which Belvedere smartly included for Wired’s web-addicted readership (not all advertisers seem to get this point). Note: I usually disapprove of Web addresses containing hyphens or underscores since they’re difficult to remember and communicate orally, but I’m willing to endure this one for the sake of my readers.

I come upon the Belvedere site, which asks me to confirm that I am of “legal drinking age in my country of residence.” Like a savvy 13-year-old, I simply click “Yes.” (The absurdity of Web morals is enough to drive me to drink.)

I then hear a trippy trance riff as sung by some inebriated chanteuse. I’m also invited to click on “Discover Luxury Reborn” and am happy to see that Belvedere gets integrated marketing. No disconnect here. And what I see is a film trailer featuring misbehaving nouveau riche New Yorkers throwing air kisses and generally being uber-hipper than thou. Look, they’re vandalizing artwork! How edgy! How au courant! How Jack Nicholson in Batman 1989! (By the way, how do you feel knowing that the first Batman movie is now older than a college freshman?)

This trailer, I’m guessing, is for a forthcoming online Belvedere film, since there’s no explanation anywhere. As a producer of branded content, and a fan of BMW’s pioneering online films, I’m thrilled to see it. So I check out who’s starring in this one… Oh, of course: Vincent Gallo.

I sincerely loved Gallo’s film Buffalo ‘66 which contains perhaps the most creative effort in cinematic history to get viewers to sympathize with a character. No petting the dog here — we follow Gallo as he’s released from prison and desperately tries to find a place to take a leak. It just gets funnier and more creative from there.

But Gallo is more infamous for other deeds. As the Trivia section of Gallo’s IMDB bio poetically puts it, “Known for his outspoken views and the outspoken way of speaking them out.” Gallo was also the writer-director of The Brown Bunny, in which actress Chloe Sevigny goes the next step beyond applying lipstick using a belt buckle.

We’ve got a theme going here, people.

The site also features interviews with other artsy New Yorkers talking about what it means to live downtown and be “underground” and “unpredictable.” Maybe Belvedere felt the need to wildly differentiate itself from all the other “preppie vodkas” flooding the market, and that they had to literally stoop to extremes to make a Polish potato vodka appear edgy. I’m also thinking that Belvedere confused Wired with Conde-Nast’s other publications (Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, etc.), or that Conde-Nast sold them a package deal. Unfortunately for Belvedere, there’s no way for them to measure if this Wired ad is successful since it doesn’t contain a dedicated URL or special offer just for this publication.

Regardless of the reason, all of this should fly miles over the heads of Wired’s Silicon Valley readers (average age 37, 78% male), who define a “good time” as a Wii competition with guys from other start-ups. It remains to be seen if this ad makes them buy expensive vodka — or just really shiny belt buckles.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” — George W. Bush

Phineas Taylor Barnum was the consummate 19th Century showman and one deceptive bastard…

Barnum’s reputation for duplicity was so potent, to this day he’s erroneously credited with the saying “a sucker is born every minute.” One of Barnum’s greatest stunts was almost too easy: to move crowds quickly through his infamous museum, he posted signs exclaiming “This way to the egress.” Excited patrons who didn’t know the meaning of “egress” soon found themselves standing outside — the 19th Century version of an “exit strategy.”

(Interesting link: Barnum’s museum mysteriously burned down, but has been virtually rebuilt by the City University of New York. Check out the Lost Museum here — just watch out for the egress.)

Today, Barnum would make a killing in marketing, particularly online, where potential suckers are more accessible than ever. That’s why every square inch of the Internet has been tagged with spam. Here at Cool Rules Pronto, I just received my 501st spam comment. I reflexively delete the spam I get, but someone out there — in fact, a lot of someones out there are responding to those ludicrous offers, otherwise those Nigerian millionaires would stop asking for help.

One Slimy Step Up

Just up the food chain from the criminal element are the simply deceptive. I blogged about one such maestro of misdirection in my post, Are You For Real, Monica Rockle? The perpetrator is a guy posing as a pretty college coed, “Monica Rockle,” who invites people to a Facebook Group disguised as a “Psychology Marketing Project.” Turns out he’s really promoting his T-shirt shop on Café Press. This scheme eventually hooked over 700,000 people in a month — more than the total paid circulation of Wired magazine. PT Barnum would have been proud.

Too bad it’s a complete waste.

Maybe Monica has sold some shirts, but since this campaign is based on a fraudulent premise, the marketer can’t build upon it. He can’t generate loyalty from people who’ve been deceived. You can sense their annoyance and even anger in their comments on my blog or on the anti-Monica group (“Monica Rockle is a Bald-Faced Liar”). So while this modern-day Barnum far surpassed his short-term objectives — generating traffic and memberships — he’s got zero long-term prospects. His T-shirt store has no brand equity, perhaps even negative equity, since no one will trust anything he says or does again.

From a marketing tactics perspective, here’s what else he did wrong:

1. He killed the discussion: Many people join large Facebook Groups simply to interact with other members. They don’t even care about the Group topic as long as it’s a “hot scene” (the Facebook version of clubbing). Consequently, the bulletin board and comment wall of this “Psychology Marketing Project” buzzed with hundreds of posts that had nothing to do with psychology, marketing or even T-shirts. Many of the posts consisted of feverish rants by religious zealots, homophobes and other extremists, happy to have free access to 700,000 people. Of course, all these people attracted other spammers, like sharks drawn to chum, so you had the phenomenon of spammers spamming a spam site — meta-spam? Then some spoilsports, i.e., moi, started posting the truth about “Monica Rockle.” Our marketer overreacted by taking down all of the Group’s discussion opportunities. (How un-Web 2.0 of him.) The result? The Group’s growth slowed to a trickle.

2. He faked the girl: It would not have cost much to hire an aspiring model or a real college student to be Monica and interact with her fans. (Think lonelygirl15.) That way he could have built relationships with consumers — or even built a brand around her. Consider the massive success of Obama Girl, a creation of BarelyPolitical.com, who has become a brand with a blog of her own. Instead, our Facebook marketer used a free stock photo (how cheap can you get?), and when that was exposed, he hid her face entirely and changed the spelling of her name (it’s now “Monic Rokel”).

3. He didn’t capitalize on what was working: Monica Rockle became such a Facebook phenomenon that one of those putrid domain squatters snatched up all the web addresses containing “Monica Rockle.” But instead of selling Monica merchandise, her creator sold political T-shirts. It was a complete disconnect (more on this in a sec).

Compare that to Tiki Bar TV (one of my guilty pleasures), which funds its online cocktail party by selling appropriately themed merchandise, including a calendar featuring the show’s bubbly buzzed brunette, Lala. (Lala’s calendar even has its own Facebook page.)

Borrowed Interest and the Great Disconnect

Basing one’s advertising on a completely unrelated attention-getter (like a pretty girl, cute animal, celebrity, or Hollywood movie tie-in) is called “borrowed interest.” The problem is that it creates a complete disconnect in the minds of consumers, who say, what the hell does this have to do with the product? Does Tiger Woods really drive a Buick? Do talking forest animals make Frontier Airlines worth flying?

The most common form of borrowed interest is the gratuitous use of sex to sell something unrelated, like a car battery. (I know some of you use car batteries for amorous purposes, but I’m talking to normal people here, OK?) GoDaddy.com attained worldwide notoriety with their Super Bowl ad featuring a porn star in a tight top, which had nothing to do with their product: web hosting services. They avoided a complete disconnect by featuring the racy Super Bowl ad and its sequels on their site, but what now? One of the many problems with “borrowed interest” is that its lack of genuine connection to a business makes it difficult to build a sustainable campaign. The company constantly has to shift gears to maintain consumer interest.

Of course, that keeps us agencies in business…

A classic example of borrowed interest that created a massive disconnect is Cyberian Outpost, a case that I teach in my marketing class. Cyberian Outpost was an electronics ecommerce site back in Web 1.0. In 1998, they hired Cliff Freeman to create their TV campaign. Freeman was famous for comedic commercials that boosted such clients as Wendy’s, York Peppermint Patty, Fox Sports, and Little Caesars. And if he could sell Little Caesars’ mediocre pizza, what could he do for a leading dotcom?

Sure enough, in true Freeman tradition, the commercials for Outpost.com were edgy and (for some viewers) hilarious. I’ve found some examples still living on YouTube (pardon the low quality — these were obviously transferred from old school videotape).

The first is the original, featuring gerbils:

Here’s my favorite, featuring a high school marching band:

And then there’s the one with babies that seems to disturb a lot of viewers:

My current students at the University of Wales/Robert Kennedy College don’t share my enthusiasm. Many of them are from the Middle East and find the ads appalling and offensive. I have to explain that these ads were targeting young American males, who dominated Web surfing at that time, and who were also imitating Beavis & Butthead, reciting scenes from Monty Python, and buying tickets to movies spit up by the Farrelly Brothers.

I also explain that the target of the ads wasn’t just consumers, but Cyberian Outpost’s current and potential employees. Again, mostly young males. At the height of the first dot-com boom, heavily-funded companies competed aggressively for techies, forking out big bucks for programmers who had the luxury of hopping from one start-up to another. These alpha-geeks based their employment decisions not only on money, but on the “coolness” of a particular start-up. These ads might have persuaded a few to join — or, if they were already employed at Outpost, to stay.

Another factor was that Cyberian Outpost was cash rich but awareness poor. They had raised $70 million through their IPO and needed to reassure their shareholders that they were serious about becoming a major player. They were up against the likes of Circuit City and Best Buy, and while they couldn’t outspend those electronics giants, they could try to out-funny them.

Regardless of whether you personally like these ads, they did create a buzz and are still actively watched on YouTube a decade later. (Wow, does time fly…) But at the end of the day, I have to agree with my students: these aren’t good ads. The reason? You got it: total disconnect.

Viewers who responded to the ads by typing in Outpost.com came across a bland electronics website, with millions of pixels of gadgetry, but not a touch of humor in sight. Maybe some of the geeks who responded were excited by the tech spread and not only bought something but also applied for a job. But for most consumers, the payoff was complete boredom and disappointment. The consumers felt conned, as if the ghost of PT Barnum had just led them through the wrong door.

To complete this story, Cyberian Outpost’s stock once hit a high of $60 per share. After the dotcom bubble burst, the company was sold for $0.25 per share (that’s right, twenty-five cents) to Fry’s, which has maintained Outpost.com as a bland electronics website with almost zero awareness.

AIDA, Integration and Continuity

A trite marketing framework states that an ad should create the following:

1. Awareness: Consumers know about your product or company.
2. Interest: Consumers want to find out more.
3. Desire: Consumers want to own the product.
4. Action: Consumers actually make the purchase.

The acronym, AIDA, is now widely taught, even in pure design schools. But obviously, not every advertiser pays much allegiance to it. While the Monica Rockle and Outpost experiments certainly created awareness and interest, very little desire was generated, and not much action beyond checking out the sites.

However, I don’t agree that every ad needs to generate desire or action. Hollywood has successfully mastered the teaser campaign that creates massive interest long before a movie is in the theaters — consider the recent buzz around the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” That campaign featured somewhat cryptic posters and billboards with such lines as “I’m so over you Sarah Marshall” and “You suck Sarah Marshall,” and was the topic of newspaper articles and consumer conversations.

I began my marketing career in Hollywood, so I prefer a different standard than AIDA: my own. In typical pretentious self-indulgent marketer fashion, I made sure that all of my criteria started with the same letter:

1. Brand: Does the ad reinforce or enhance the company’s (or product’s) brand?
2. Buzz: Does the ad inspire conversation about the ad or the product?
3. Behavior: Does the ad lead to any particular action, even if it’s simply to check out the website?

Using Freddy’s 3B’s standard, the Sarah Marshall campaign was a complete success. People talked about the campaign and wound up buying tickets to the movie, which opened a strong #2 at the box office. And the ads were edgy and original, which is how the critics are also describing the movie.

On the flip side, the Monica Rockle and Outpost promotions were a bust. They certainly created a buzz. They also led to some desired behavior: joining Monica’s group and checking out Outpost.com (respectively). But neither reinforced or enhanced their brands. As mentioned, the T-shirt shop had nothing to do with a pretty college coed, and the Cyberian Outpost site had nothing to do with flying gerbils or ravenous wolves. The promotions appear to be advertising some completely different ventures than the main intended business.

The Marketing 101 rules here:

1. It’s critical that all of a company’s marketing materials have brand continuity. Do the promotions display the same values and personality as the overall company? Is there similarity in tone and appearance? Note: the promotions need not be identical — not every Nike ad looks the same, but there’s a definite Nike vibe and attitude that permeates all their ads, from their TV commercials to their website.

2. There should also be well thought-out integration, which means that certain elements need to be carried over from one medium to another. Monica should have been a model in the T-shirts store, with pictures of her wearing the T-shirts on her college campus. The latest Outpost ads should have appeared on their website with perhaps a video game that involved shooting gerbils through a giant letter O in hopes of winning an Outpost.com shopping spree.

The ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky does a phenomenal job of ensuring continuity and integration in their campaigns. Their creepy Burger King was a featured character on a video game that could only be purchased in Burger King restaurants. Their talking VW Beetle appears in both newspaper ads on VW’s website. Their previous work for MINI Cooper created a distinct persona for the brand that was reflected in every piece of media that MINI put out. Everything is connected. And the results are strong brands, considerable buzz, and increased buying by their target consumers.

And no one has to be fooled along the way.

If you lust after automobiles like I do, then the one writer you need - yes, NEED - to read is Dan Neil of the L.A. Times.

Now, if you’re more of the century 21.0 “printed words scare me” generation, there’s always the video option:

But the place to savor Neil at his red-line, high-octane best is in print. After all, how many other car critics do you know have a master’s degree in English lit and, more significantly, a Pulitzer Prize?

Just check out the opening salvo from his review of the Nissan GT-R:

I know what you want from me. You think I’m just your little word slut, that I’m here just to arouse you with steamy descriptions of the new and instantly legendary Nissan GT-R. You want me to parade around in frilly verbiage, like: “The acceleration of the twin-turbo, all-wheel-drive, 480-hp GT-R is much like a 50-yard field goal in the NFL, wherein your butt is the football.” Sigh. I feel so used.

So even if you don’t care about cars, you’ll love reading his column, “Rumble Seat.” As a former writer for Toyota, Nissan & Infiniti, I relish every syllable.

Now the reason I bring up Neil years after he was discovered by the media is because of the boneheads over at NBC, a.k.a. the No Balls Channel. NBC had stirred up excitement amongst American auto-aficionados by announcing that it was going to produce its version of the hit BBC automotive series “Top Gear.” But rather than follow “Top Gear’s” tested-and-true style, NBC decided to follow the American tradition of taking a killer British idea and watering it the hell down. (See “The Office” or “Coupling” or Miller Beer.) According to Autoblog, “indications are that the scathing rhetoric that makes the BBC show such a hit will be severely curtailed by NBC, who fear a backlash from sponsors.”

And the TV execs wonder why viewers are abandoning the networks for YouTube and other online video options.

What irks me and inspired me to write this post is that Neil was originally supposed to be part of the series, but then was booted ostensibly for “lack of on-air personality.” Instead, NBC is giving us that paragon of taste and acumen, Adam “The Man Show” Carolla.

I’ll stick to reading “Rumble Seat.” Rev it up, Dan…

PS: Neil doesn’t just write about cars, as this hilarious article about marriage attests.

The liberal blog Daily Kos just unleashed a scathing and hilarious spoof of the “uproar” around Barack Obama’s supposed “elitism.” It perfectly captures the pathetic state of American journalism, where “freedom of the press” has become “freedom to act like squirrel monkeys.”

He sits there before his microphone, round and retro, emanating the cuteness that made him an icon in America. On this occasion, he’s in somber black, though he’s usually seen decked out like a jelly bean. And then he speaks…

And out comes the voice of a German man.
And he’s saying, “I know what the people want.”

Yeah, right…

I usually applaud and occasionally bow down before the work done by ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. For VW, they brought over the daring quirkiness they honed with the MINI Cooper. (MINI’s ads have been rather uninspired, even banal, since Crispin ditched that account.) I love Crispin’s 2006 “Unpimp Your Ride” ads for the VW GTI, with the German engineer from the hood (”Een da haus!”) and his dominatrix assistant, Helga…

But the talking Beetle?
Can we have Helga back?

First, there’s the issue of the voice. It didn’t bug me (no pun intended), but my wife, who’s a proud Beetle owner, was expecting something cuter and, well, groovier, as in the flower-child era the Beetle represents.

Then there’s the presumption that this German import knows what Americans want, and that might irk some people, even if many of the statements are user-generated. On the VW site, there’s some pseudo-participatory democracy, with polls submitted and answered by users. Some are pretty funny…

Others are a little more controversial, touching on subjects like private school vouchers. Or this one: “86% of the people want to tie management compensation to company performance.” Let’s see how that goes over at VW USA. Or at Crispin. (And I dare CBS News to report on that.)

Then there’s the cat issue…

Uh, nein. As I reported in my silly book, there are significantly more cats registered as pets in America than dogs. (According to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, pet cats outnumber pet dogs in the U.S. 88.3 million to 74.8 million.)

Most VW Beetle owners are women, and women are widely regarded to prefer cats, so is it wise for our German dude to be making that assertion? (Rule #1 of marketing: know your customer.)

Now, mascots have proven to be wildly effective in advertising, whether they’re human (yes, Jared of Subway, you’re a mascot) or a talking gecko (do I even need to mention that I’m referring to GEICO here?). So why not a talking car?

When I first heard about this new VW campaign, I thought it was brilliant. I grew up watching Herbie the Love Bug, and I always saw the Beetle as having a personality. In an industry filled with such drab soulless lumps of sheet metal as the Camry, a car with personality goes a long way.

But I’m not so sure about this.

I can’t say I know what “The People” want on this issue, but I seriously doubt that this new incarnation of the Beetle will have a whole lot of mileage.

“… While the internet is new and exciting for creative people, it hasn’t matured as a distribution mechanism… It will be a few years before digital distribution of media on the Internet can be monetized to an extent that necessitates content producers to forgo their fair value in more traditional media…” - Kyle, South Park

I know, I shouldn’t be quoting cartoon characters as proof of anything, but sometimes the greatest truth is found in satire. And the April 2 episode of South Park, “Canada on Strike,” is satire at its best, skewering everyone from the Writers Guild of America to Denmark to the stars of YouTube…

I tried embedding the original Comedy Central clip, but ironically, it’s easier to embed the pirated version from YouTube:

I couldn’t agree more with South Park’s sentiments on this issue. As a media junkie, I love Web 2.0; from a business perspective, it’s 2.Overrated.

Be sure to watch the entire episode, “Canada on Strike.” (Warning — for immature audiences only: The online version of South Park is uncensored.)

According to the New York Times, three prominent bloggers suffered serious heart attacks in the past five months — Russell Shaw, Marc Orchant, and Om Malik — with Shaw and Orchant going to that big blogosphere in the sky. (May you have infinite comments and pingbacks for all eternity.)

Apparently, in a quest to become the next big online pundit, many home-based bloggers have created their own one-person sweatshops. (”If that bag of flatulence Matt Drudge can become a celebrity, so can I!”) So they hover over their computers scanning for news breaks 24/7 and try to out-type their rivals. See the following report by Barely Political…

I told my wife about this, and she asked me not to commit suicide by blogging. (Though I’m sure several of my critics wish I would.) I told her, don’t worry, honey — but let me blog about it first…

American Apparel CEO Dov Charney acts like he’s missing his calling. The controversial and flamboyant entrepreneur could parlay his promotional genius and predilection for the prurient to become one hell of a porn producer. (The San Fernando Valley, the porn capital of the world, is just over the hill from American Apparel’s headquarters.) It would certainly suit his notorious lifestyle…

Charney even looks the part, with his oversized 70s glasses and facial hair. Instead, he makes T-shirts. And sweatpants. And underwear.

Charney’s very proud of his underwear. I know, because as an MBA student, I visited his company along with several classmates. In his office, in the middle of a profanity-filled rant about how all good marketing is about sex, Charney dropped his pants to show us the American Apparel briefs he was wearing. He wasn’t threatening about it — it seemed spontaneous and, coming from Charney, almost natural. Considering some of the stories of his alleged misbehavior, it could have been worse. (See the comments in this blog for an infamous article from Jane Magazine.)

Now, I say it’s a good thing that a CEO uses his own products. Perhaps all American-made products — from cars to airlines to fast food — would be much better if all American CEO’s were forced to use their own products on a regular basis. Daily even. And although Charney in his briefs wasn’t a pretty picture, it was cool to get a backstage look at the mindset that’s made American Apparel a hot brand…

For the uninitiated, American Apparel sells basic clothing — colorful, but nothing that would look out of place in a Target. The clothing doesn’t even bear artwork or flaunt the company’s logo, like, say, Abercrombie & Fitch shamelessly does. And yet American Apparel has become a trendy and profitable brand with its own stores. Here’s how inspired marketing turned an ordinary product into a hot item:

1. Made in the USA. Unlike all the other mass-market clothing brands, which have sought out lower and lower manufacturing costs in third-world countries, American Apparel clothing is made in downtown L.A. — and always will be — since that’s an essential cornerstone of the brand. The workers receive above average wages and benefits — far better than what Wal-Mart offers its serfs — which is also something that Charney is rightfully proud of. I saw the factory in action, and it appeared to be a far better workplace than most of the dotcoms I endured.

2. Sex. American Apparel’s ads feature scantily clad young amateur models, many recruited and photographed by Charney himself. The photos are stark, flatly lit, with no make-up or other embellishment. They appear jarringly honest and some could qualify as softcore. Charney then places these photos on full-page ads in alternative papers and fashion mags across the country. (How can I not love a guy who sees the value of a big marketing investment?) The look has since been copied by other fashion brands.

3. Branded stores. Every cult brand needs a church or some other venue for its minions to gather without intrusion from non-believers. Trekkies have conventions. Harley-Davidson has rallies. Apple built its own stores. And American Apparel launched branded boutiques in hip, sometimes gritty neighborhoods around the world. The brightly lit stores are filled with the colorful clothing on racks, throbbing music, and more of the notorious photos plastering the walls.

The combo is working: according to The Economist, American Apparel’s T-shirts (as plain as they are) generate an 80% profit margin, while the industry average is 60%. Who says you can’t make money by manufacturing in America?

But American Apparel wanted more.

Recently, the company began running billboards in New York and L.A. featuring Woody Allen in an image from his film “Annie Hall”. That’s right, Woody Allen, the 72-year-old director — not exactly a sex symbol. And American Apparel allegedly ran these billboards without Allen’s permission. Allen has since sued American Apparel for $10 million (case pending).

Now, why would American Apparel stray from young amateur models to a celebrity senior citizen who isn’t even wearing American Apparel attire? The official explanation (from Zap2it.com):

The company claims “the image of Allen dressed as a Hassidic character alongside Yiddish text was meant strictly as a social parody” and that the company sometimes uses billboards “for non-commercial social and political commentary.”

True, on the American Apparel website, there is a slideshow featuring a Hassidic clothing store. However…

The Cool Rules Pronto conspiracy theory:

You could say that Charney and Allen share a lot in common: they’re two successful, egomaniacal Jewish intellectuals who love young women. Allen’s best films were made in the 70s, an era that Charney appears to still be living.

Allen is also an unusual choice, while an overexposed cliché like Paris Hilton would have interested nobody. He is a favorite of New York’s media intelligentsia, which enabled the L.A.-based apparel manufacturer to turn heads in New York’s snotty fashion circles.

Still, American Apparel has avoided celebrity anything to date, so it’s a bit disappointing to see it start down this route away from the amateur models that built the brand.

And why would American Apparel use Allen’s image without permission? Charney’s an intelligent, informed businessman living in L.A. — he knows about celebrity-image rights issues. Well, consider this: Allen’s lawsuit is for only $10 million. And if you see that as a marketing expenditure, that’s not a lot for an international brand with 2006 sales of $300 million. Super Bowl ads now top $2 million just for the time slot, and they don’t guarantee the kind of press coverage and controversy that this Woody Allen imbroglio is scoring.

I’m speculating that Charney took a calculated risk — let’s get sued, because the publicity will be worth millions of dollars in media placement, and it will thrust American Apparel back into the limelight, now that journalists are bored writing about our sex angle. It enhances our bad-boy-with-a-golden-heart image, and it’s far less risky and more creative than going even more pornographic to score attention.

Now here’s an even more devious angle:

What if Woody Allen were in on this? Imagine this scenario: Allen and Charney are talking on the phone about some of American Apparel’s latest young models, and they strike a deal — Allen appears in the ads with an old photo, acts offended, files a very public lawsuit, and then they “settle” later. Sounds crazy, but consider who the two men are — and what Allen is working on.

Woody Allen has a film coming out in September, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, featuring a lesbian sex scene between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson (film image from IMDB.com). According to WENN, quoting the British tabloid The Sun:

Allen’s aiming for one of the most erotic scenes in movie history. A source tells the publication, “People will be blown away and even shocked. Penelope and Scarlett go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and the whole scene will leave the audience gasping.”

Hmm, I wonder if either of them is wearing American Apparel underwear in the scene?

I’m not sure that using the American court system to promote clothing and a movie is the safest possible idea, particularly with Neocon fascists running the government. (Unless the White House is in on it, too…)

But there’s no question that the campaign and ensuing lawsuit might benefit both men. There’s a lot more money in using sex and controversy to sell mainstream products than in actually making yet another boring porn film. Ethical? You be the judge. Effective? All the way to the bank.

The epic saga continues…

I’ve received a few messages and comments from upset college women about my Monica Rockle article. They think that I’m harassing one of their own. Please let me assure you that, as a professor, I would never ever pick on a legitimate student doing a legitimate project.

In this case, I didn’t believe the premise or the project from the beginning, and subsequent research appears to support my skepticism. My wife and female friends would also pulverize me if they thought “Monica Rockle” was real. (Considering that I go to the Woody Allen School of Bodybuilding, they could pulverize me pretty easily, too.)

The Photo has been Sourced

Supersleuth Jen R of Busan, South Korea, emailed me the source of the original “Monica Rockle” profile photo that had guys drooling and willing to do her bidding: The U.S. Census Bureau Photo Services section of its Newsroom. You can have both high-res and low-res versions of specimen #04-07-6-10a (aka “Monica”) free for use in your “news media and public information products.” Do Facebook promotions for T-shirt vendors count as “public information”?

And then there’s the possible haunting…

I just noted my daily traffic patterns. The spikes in the chart below coincide with this article. As you can see, I was generating about 50 to 100 views per day pre-Monica. Then I wrote about something people actually want to read. (I really should do more of that.) The eerie thing? Look at what letter of the alphabet those spikes form… Is Monica haunting me?

As a writer, I love learning new words and phrases…

Just today, while reading GOOD Magazine (that bastion of liberal living), I came across the expression “vegetarian inclined,” which describes omnivores who are eating less meat for health reasons. (You can count me amongst them — and wow, do I miss bacon.)

Then, just last night, I had a dream where this attractive woman tells me that she likes men with “gypsy necks”: perfectly smooth flawless necks that look like “wisps of smoke that have been cut off.” I can’t tell you what the rest of the dream was about (this isn’t that kind of blog), but I will say that I should avoid drinking pumpkin ales before bedtime.

One of my favorite terms of the past decade is “anticipointment,” which is the inevitable disappointment you feel when you finally experience something that’s been over-hyped. For example, early viewers of “The Blair Witch Project” touted its brilliance, which essentially set the low-budget horror film up for a vicious fall among later viewers — who were acutely anticipointed, to say the least. I’m guessing many people who finally see “No Country for Old Men” will also be anticipointed now that it’s won the Oscar for Best Picture. (For the record, I thought “Michael Clayton” was a far better flick. Seriously, I love the Coen Brothers, but 20 minutes to move a suitcase from one motel room to another?)

Hot Urban Dictionary Action

I just learned about an entire site dedicated to the joy of crafting new words and phrases: Urban Dictionary features neologisms created by its users. (I know, it’s been around for nine years, and I’m late to the game.) For example, I love this term from yesterday:

Lawyer Ball: The art of playing the rules instead of playing a game. For example, trying to work out a walk in slow-pitch softball. Swing the bat, you puss! Also applicable to weenies who demand free throws after the slightest contact in a pick-up basketball game and d-bags who take yardage penalties in backyard football games.
Pops: Hit it out of the park, boy!
Son: Don’t pressure me, I’m trying to work the count.
Pops: Don’t play lawyer ball, son.

Urban Dictionary is supported by sales of its own compilations in book form, and by advertising. (By the way, one of its advertisers, Busted Tees, has some hilarious T-shirts, such as, “Pedro Lacks Political Experience.” Who says I’m anti-T-shirt marketers?)

In the spirit of Web 2.0, Urban Dictionary lets you submit your own words. Claire Barry, the CEO of  multimedia-design agency Click Media, is both a “pixel vixen” (as it says on her business card) and a word freak. And late one night, she coined a word of her own:

Lushaliscious: A hottie that drinks too much, but is still in the first phase of buzz that she’s still hot enough to be alluring, but not embarrassing yet. The perfect time to hit it up. Serena was lushaliscious by about 12:30am - she was still grinding on the dance floor, not rolling around on it.

According to Claire, “It was Saturday afternoon, and I was on Perez and TMZ, looking at the post-Hollywood ‘hot mess’ club carnage from the night before. That’s what prompted the challenge to come up with the word to replace the term ‘hot mess.’” The oops moment? Claire tried to email her new word and sample sentence (using her own name, not “Serena”) to herself, but inadvertently sent it to her company-wide email address. I had the fortune of being there when she saw her 30 employees for the first time the next day. The grins at their boss were priceless.

P.S. I met Claire through Cool Rules Pronto, since she was the first to comment on my article Are You For Real, Monica Rockle?, thus proving that there’s value in mad blogging. There should be a word for that…

Update 4/26/8: I just coined my own word at the Urban Dictionary: unitarded. It’s a politically correct substitute for the word “retarded” that describes something so silly or lame that it’s laughably dysfunctional. It’s derived from the item of clothing known as the “unitard” that makes most people look ludicrous.

Dear Monica Rockle:

I got an invite to your “Psychology Marketing Project” on Facebook. (Note: Facebook has since removed this “Project.” Too bad.) And as someone who professionally conducts and teaches marketing I have to hand it to you: pretty damn clever…

First of all, it’s written just like a college student would write it — no whiff of advertising copywriter here:

I’m doing a paper in my Human Behaviors - The Psychology of Marketing class. The paper is about the marketing world and the changes that have taken place in the last 5 years. One of the main points that I’m trying to make is how influential viral marketing can be. One individual with an average facebook account can reach (screw it) 400,000+ people in less than 10 days just by making a group and inviting people. There have been other experiments where this worked, my paper talks about the likelihood that it can be duplicated.

What you need to do to help me is:

1. Join this group.
2. Click on “Invite People to Join” from the menu on the right.
3. Select all your friends (for this to work you must do this).
4. Click on “Send invitation”
5. Add me as a friend! (only if you want!!:))

The experiment begins now!!(Friday March 14th 4:45 PM PST). The paper is due when I get back from spring break on March 31st!!

Thank you to everyone in advance!!!

It’s complete with smileys and typos and triple exclamation points. How very coed. And so far, this “student group” of yours appears to be working: as of March 22, you have 383,082 members. Nice! It’s rare that any kind of promotion on Facebook generates this kind of following — least of all, gets people to spam their friends.

Now I love supporting the future marketers of the world, and if you were in my class, I might have given you an “A” for creating awareness. The problem is, only real people are allowed to take my marketing class, and I’m not quite convinced that you’re, well, real.

First of all, your “contact info” is a link to a Café Press store for La La Land Shirts. I guess you could be a junior entrepreneur trying to sell T-shirts to finance your college education. But that’s not the only thing that makes me a little suspicious.

True, there’s a link to your Facebook profile complete with a stock-photo-caliber picture of you studying (nice of you to let the US Census Bureau distribute your photo free of charge). Your profile is nicely detailed, listing your hobbies (”I like hanging out with my friends, playing basketball, school, having some fun on the interent.” [sic]), etc.

But what, exactly, is your school? Most students who are on Facebook proudly display their school affiliation. Plus, it makes networking much easier. Since your profile puts you at age 28, I assume you’re in grad school and have several schools in your background. If you are a real aspiring marketer, I would suggest tapping into those alumni networks as soon as possible.

And, by the way, when are you going to post more photos? Most young people I know on Facebook post tons of photos of themselves and their friends on their profiles. I do, however, see more images of T-shirts from La La Land, which seems to specialize in politically themed merchandise.

Speaking of politics, I’m a little confused about your orientation. You claim to be a Democrat, but you also joined clubs supporting Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for president. Indeed, you’ve joined 207 clubs on Facebook — but not a single one about marketing or business. Kind of odd for a graduate marketing student…

But maybe I’m being too harsh. If you’re a real person, I apologize. Just confirm that you’re legit and I’ll retract this entire article. Since you can’t email in fear of having your Facebook account deleted, why don’t we meet up? I see we’re both in Los Angeles, so why don’t you pick a Starbucks where I can interview you about your marketing project? (Though if you’re in L.A., why is the top location for your friends Toronto, with your next most friend-intensive cities London, Australia, Alberta…?) You should really get to know more people in Southern California. I can introduce you to some great ones.

I also tried Googling you, but for a 28-year-old marketer, you’ve left hardly any trail on the Internet. There is some arcane post about you being a plagiarist — which maybe isn’t so arcane, when I think about it.

But honestly, Monica, if it turns out that you’re just an employee of La La Land T-shirts, that your real name is Akash and you’re a 33-year-old Canadian who hasn’t left his apartment in three years, that’s even better. ‘Cause this really is a killer piece of viral marketing you’ve got going on here. Seriously. Hell, you’ve racked up nearly 400,000 converts on Facebook in just over a week! Most companies haven’t generated that much of a following their entire time on Facebook, despite running banners and contests. You also added a face to your company — a young attractive single female face at that. How very Lonelygirl15 of you! Persona-driven marketing is so Web 2.0! Just let me know how many T-shirts you’ve sold through this campaign so I can complete my case study — and hire you to promote my clients.

I look forward to hearing from you, Monica Rockle — but I won’t hold my breath.

Sincerely,
Freddy

PS: Thanks to Jen R of Busan, South Korea for finding the source of your photo on the U.S. Government Census website!

Update 3/26/2008: Reader Doug Cone did a little detective work and found this lalalandshirts profile on my.barackobama.com (see clipping below). The author, James McMinn Jr., claims to work in advertising and design, and suggests “engaging crowds with flash mobs and pr stunts.” So if it’s you, James, behind this Monica Rockle sensation, then, seriously, high-five on the brilliant crowd work! You’re good at this. Really good. Forget T-shirts: you could be making serious money selling your hype skills in Silicon Valley or Hollywood…

Updated 4/4/8: I took a look at the my.barackobama.com address today, and the name in the upper left hand corner was changed to you know who.

Note: James is following this blog, so he has changed it once again since this post.

For bonus features on this story, see Are You For Real, Monica II: The Updates, the Photo, and… the Haunting?