How cool is this recruitment ad??

While browsing through Cool Hunter, I saw this very cool recruitment ad from Diesel. No, not the lame jpeg on this post. WAAAY cooler.

You have to take a moral aptitude test.

Turns out I'm wicked.

Second Life...Creepy Life?

At precisely 8:05:45 AM PDT on October 18, 2006, 1 million virtual citizens inhabit this online world called Second Life. It's essentially a virtual world where you can live your virtual life exactly as you script it: you can buy real estate, run a business, even go to a music concert by a real-world band (Duran Duran!). There's even a Wikipedia entry about it.

About 5% of of land owners in SL are corporations, and GM's Pontiac brand recently acquired an island, naming it MotoratiLife. Leo Burnett is the first ad agency to hang its shingles in the virtual world.

On the one hand, I find this fascinating. It's like Star Trek but better! And man, here's my big chance to look this good!

On the other hand, there's something creepy about this whole alt-world and virtual-reality reality that makes my skin crawl in ways that I can't yet articulate. It'll come to me.

Staples Easy Button

I like the new Staples Easy Button campaign. It's everywhere, and it radiates. I like that word much better than integrated. That's a bit of a 4-letter word to me; along with BCE, that whole myth of convergence has thankfully been exploded. But I digress.

The Staples Easy Button is everywhere: on TV, in print, and now, in a Staples store near you! Gotta love it!

When I first saw it, I thought, "Oh brother, WHO would donate $5.98 plus taxes to the Staples cause?" So, I came home and did a focus group...of, well, one. My SO loves marketing, all aspects of it...most days, he enjoys the ads on TV better than the programming. Anyway, he actually claims he would buy one as a gag gift.

It's obvious, I'll grant you that. I just know that the folks that dreamt this idea up are salivating at their visions of millions (OK maybe a slight exaggeration) of office types with this button on their desk, enacting their own Easy Button scenes. Voilà! Viral! Beautiful.

But sometimes, the obvious can work.

Guess who's getting an Easy Button in his Christmas stocking this year?