Use of Clients Products

Eariler this week, Microsoft announced that it selected Crispin Porter & Bogusky for creative on its consumer products.  In particular, they’ve selected Crispin to counteract Apple’s effective “Mac and PC” ads.  However, it got me to thinking… if Crispin is like most advertising and design shops, most of their machines are probably Macs.  Most ad people make a habit of using and living their clients’ brands so they can understand it better.  In fact, I have a friend who’s wife is an ad salesperson, and they won’t even buy products from a competing brand or advertiser – so they can show their loyalty to her clients. 

It got me to thinking, will Crispin switch over to PCs instead of Macs?  Do you have to be a user yourself to understand the brand and its customers, or is it better to be an outsider and come at it from an un-biased point of view?  Some would say that in order to sell a product you really need to believe in it… so do you think it’s possible to believe in a product, but at the same time, not be a user of the product because you’re not their target audience?

Wi-Fi on Weather Balloons?

I just read an article from the Wall Street Journal that discussed the potential for Google to utilize weather balloons with (essentially) cell-phone receivers attached to them so people in more remote locations could access high-speed internet.  Seriously… weather balloons?  You’d think with all the technological advances we have nowadays that there would be something a little more sophisticated than weather balloons.  However, I guess it’s right up there with a ship dropping its anchor and cutting whole countries off of the Internet.

Collectable Cleaning Towels?

I’m not a huge NASCAR fan, but I did catch the beginning of the Daytona 500 today. One of the commercials I saw was for Shell… and along with advertising their gas, they were promoting the fact that you could come in and get a “collectable microfiber cleaning towel in 3 different colors.” Seriously… collector cleaning towels?

I went to the Shell website hoping to find out more about these cool collectable towels… I couldn’t find more, but I did find this page which I thought was funny… it helps drivers find Shell’s “Loyalty Schemes” in different countries.