UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING BLOG

This Blog Post is by Chris Kieff
Editor of Unconventional Thinking

Most of our readers get this blog via our email system. This means that you’ve most likely missed the lively debate that’s running on the blog about whether we are, to use the words of another blogger; “Rude, Crude and Socially Unacceptable“

Since the “Mark Stevens Vs. Warren Buffet” blog has received 25+ comments (as of Thursday) we felt that there is enough interest to reprint the excerpts from some of the best comments for all of our readers to see and consider.

I’ve found it interesting that while the comments on our blog are very nearly 50/50. Which may be because of the back and forth dialog. The voting on BrandSizzle is clearly running 89% that Clear Channel should not have violated their contract with MSCO, vs. 11% that Clear Channel was right in removing the ad. While several of the commenter’s noted that it was purely the use of that term in the title of Mark’s books which caused them to pick the books up, and ultimately buy them.

There was much speculation that Mark and by extension the rest of us here are childless, which is quite wrong- the children of staffers exceed the employee count (as it should). However, we do live in the NYC area and so believe that we may be more tolerant than some other areas. But that didn’t stop our friend over at Net Jets.

The one point I found conspicuous by it’s absence was that offensive ads for all manner of things were never brought into the discussion. Blatant sexuality is tolerable, but the mention of a word that has one meaning of a sexual nature is unacceptable? Look at the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine that any 6 year old can see in the supermarket, I’m embarrassed by the language used.

Does Mr. Net Jet worry about explaining these to his daughter?

“Sex Tricks He’s Never Seen Before: The Outrageous ‘Rock’ Technique And 21 Other Moves That Will Make His Thighs Go Up in Flames!”

“Turn your man into a YOU pleasing sex genius”

“The Sex he’ll die for!”

I would propose that in common usage today; “that sucks” doesn’t carry any sexual meaning, while “that blows” certainly does. I think that the Net Jets executive is a little behind the times, while perhaps MSCO is a little on the leading edge in our usage of “sucks”. In another 5 years the point will be moot, (a word that’s reversed it’s meaning in the last 15 years,) by which I mean it is not going to be worthy of discussion.

I think that the real issue here is that some fat cat Net Jet executive threw his weight around simply because he could make the little guy suffer. There are many other egregious abuses of social standards that could and should be fought. But this jerk decided that he would take on MSCO purely because he would win, because he’s working from a position of the Big against the Little. He doesn’t fight against Cosmo because it’s strength against strength and he won’t win that one.

And finally a message for our clients, and those who read this blog looking for business insights. In order to engage your prospects- you must engage with them to create a dialog. While this discussion is only thinly related to the business of marketing, it is highly engaging to many intelligent people who read it. Now our task it is transitioning this engagement into a business engagement with those who have found us anew as a result.

Selected Excerpts from comments to Mark Stevens vs. Warren Buffet:

You can read the full comments here:

Mark (not Mark Stevens) says,

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Advertising, Branding, Management, Marketing, Million $$ Marketing Mistakes, Public Relations, Small Business, Unconventional Thinking . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.