The Living Room Guest That Won't Leave

It sounds so easy! (from eHow)

We’ve finally upgraded to a flat-screen HD TV set in our living room.  The new 32-inch Toshiba fits perfectly on the wall between two windows.

We also have another new piece of living room furniture – a 120-pound coffee table! Ok, it’s actually our old, anything-but-flat, 32-inch RCA set, circa mid-‘90s.  But we’re kind of getting used to it staying around.

Not that we haven’t tried to get rid of the behemoth.

Right off, my sister’s boyfriend told me that, when he had a similar problem, the Salvation Army was more than happy to come and pick up his set.

Apparently, the Salvation Army marches differently on Long Island than here in Brooklyn.

“I’d like to donate a giant working TV set,” I tell the charity’s representative.

“Great,” he responds. “What do you have with it?”

“Uh, I have the remote control and the instruction manual.”

“No, what other furniture are you donating?”

“Isn’t a large TV set enough?”

“We require two pieces of furniture for a pick-up.  You can drop the TV off.”

“I don’t have a car – and it weighs 120 pounds!”

No other charity seemed willing to pick up a TV set in Brooklyn, either, so we decided to give the monster away to a regular citizen. 

Having heard that Freecycle was the way to go in these matters, I joined that Yahoo group and posted the following listing: “working 32" RCA Entertainment Series TV set, complete with remote
control and instruction book -- but estimated weight of more than 100
 pounds!”     

Within a day, I’d received three responses.  The first two were extremely polite -- “Can I have it please!” and “When can I get it please?” – and the third a bit more direct: “I am interested.”

To each, I replied, “Great, do you have a way to move it?”

And that was my last interaction with anyone from Freecycle.

A while later, doing some more research on the Internet, I discovered 4thbin, dubbed “the ethical e-waste rescue solution.”  4thbin offers to pick up used TV sets in New York City – for a price.  "Well," I told my wife, "we knew from the start we couldn’t sell our oversized box. Then, we found out we couldn’t give it away. So maybe it’s time that we pay someone to take it away."

Facing the inevitable -- that nobody would ever watch a TV show again on our still perfectly functioning, but now obsolete old set -- I was now reconciled to happily paying for it to be demolished in the name of a sustainable planet.  So I filled out the form on the 4thbin website for a free estimate.

A day or so later, I received an email with the price.  My reply: “Ok, what’s the next step?”

And that was my last interaction with 4thbin.

And so this enormous “coffee table” still sits in our living room. 

The next step, of course, is to push the set out to the curb (we do live on the ground floor, after all!).  Then, inevitably -- regardless of any forecast-- it will begin to rain, forcing us to remove the “It works!” sign taped onto the TV. And the city’s Department of Environmental Protection will undoubtedly ticket us for illegal curbside disposal.

In the meantime, please wipe that coffee stain off the glass top of our table!

Dispatchers & Dispatches: Airlines & Newspapers Meet Their Connections at Gate Greed

This was the summer when two good friends of ours finally had long-gestating books published -- Dave Astor’s Comic (and Column) Confessional and Bill McGee’s Attention All Passengers.  (But please note: Those of you Googling the latter book who don’t know Mr. McGee on a personal level must refer to him as “William J.”! And Amazon insists that Dave's book was published in 2008!)

What are these two books about? Let their subtitles explain.

Astor: Finding Myself While Covering Syndicates, Celebrities and a Changing Media World

McGee: The Airlines' Dangerous Descent---and How to Reclaim Our Skies

While Bill’s book is obviously about the descent of the airline industry, Dave’s has a similar theme -- the descent of newspaper syndication in particular and newspapers themselves by extension.  No, I wouldn’t call it a “dangerous” descent – the death of a bunch of newspapers can’t be compared with the deaths of hundreds of airplane passengers.

McGee

But the causes of each industry's decline, as detailed by Dave and Bill, are remarkably similar – the greed of corporate America and its executives. That greed leads to the downsizing of good jobs, to mergers and acquisitions, to the maximizing of profits over the considerations of employees and consumers. It’s no surprise that Ralph Nader appears prominently in both tomes.

While Dave and Bill argue eloquently about how the industries they cover have specific attributes leading to unique corporate arrogance, they would both probably agree that newspapers and airlines don’t have any monopolies in this area. Take trade publishing, for example. Dave’s book – being a memoir of his 25 years at Editor & Publisher magazine before he was, well, himself downsized – also provides a good look at how business-to-business media play the same corporate game.

Astor

Indeed, I met Dave while we both worked at Marketing Communications magazine, and my wife met Bill when they were colleagues at Travel Agent. While Dave then stayed in one place for 25 years, I spent a few years traveling from one corporately mishandled trade pub to another. I covered the TV industry, where deregulation led to the consolidation of TV station owners (comparable to individual newspapers). Combined with the consolidation of content suppliers (as with the newspapers, also called syndicators), this reduced the numbers of both potential readers and potential advertisers, leading to, well, the consolidation of TV trade pubs.

Hey, I could write a book! Hell no, that’s an awful lot of work. I’m sure Dave and Bill were holed up in a cave the past couple of years!

But I could write something under my own name for a change. Or under my first name, at least. And so I have.

(photos by Les)

              

                                                                               

Influencing the Influencers

It’s well known that the late Amy Winehouse was heavily influenced by the girl groups and female soul singers of the ‘60s.  She, in turn, greatly influenced many artists who burst on the scene after her, such as  Duffy, Lily Allen and Adele.  But she also left her mark by pulling off a truly rare accomplishment -- influencing some of the original influencers!

Cover songs, of course, are a great indicator of influences. So you would expect Winehouse to cover various oldies she loved (her version of The Shirelle’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow is one standout).  But you wouldn’t necessarily expect oldies artists to cover Winehouse – or indeed to include any contemporary songs at all in their nostalgia-filled live shows. Audiences attend oldies shows to, well, hear oldies.

Yet, last Wednesday at Central Park Summerstage, “Queen of Rockabilly” Wanda Jackson stopped her show in its tracks with a moving rendition of Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good.  Then on Saturday, at Lincoln Center Out of Doors – during a day otherwise devoted entirely to old girl group songs – Ronnie Spector sang Back to Black midpoint in a show she dedicated to Winehouse.

Neither Jackson nor Spector was pandering to grief-stricken fans. For one thing, the prime audiences for these two shows hardly consisted of Winehouse's crowd. For another, both singers had been including Winehouse in their repertoires since before the singer's death.

Spector, as is well known, heavily influenced Winehouse’s look as well as her sound.  Last week, in a touching Rolling Stone tribute to the deceased star,  she wrote that Winehouse's "lyrics were so amazing that I couldn't help but sing one of her songs."

But Wanda Jackson?  When I was promoting a documentary about this virtually forgotten rock pioneer in 2006  (the film's title eventually became The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice),  Amy Winehouse was just achieving breakout status and Jackson had released an Elvis tribute album.  She was simply not  doing new material. But last year, Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then released a new album -- The Party Ain't Over -- produced by Jack White of the White Stripes. At White's suggestion, the CD included one contemporary song -- by Winehouse, of course.

Now, after hearing Ronnie Spector and Wanda Jackson do justice (albeit with expurgated lyrics) to Amy Winehouse this past week, I have to wonder what's next.  A quick look at the schedule finds Aretha Franklin in Coney Island on Thursday for the free concert we've been looking forward to since last summer. The Los Angeles Times, for one, says Winehouse's voice channeled Franklin's.

Aretha recently released her first studio album in eight years...but Jack White (or an equivalent) wasn't involved.  So don't expect to hear her version of Just Friends or Rehab.  Just relish her voice and be thankful she's still with us well past that tragic age of 27.  That's another way of leaving your mark.

Turner Classic Television?

  Al 'n Yetta by Allan Sherman

For fans of classic TV, like me, these are both the best and worst of times. 

Best, because at least three networks – Antenna TV, Me-TV and Retro TV – are now vying for the audience once coveted by the likes of TV Land and Nick at Nite. 

Worst, because I can only see one of those channels – Antenna TV – here in Brooklyn, and, well, the show selection is still rather limited.

What's needed is a channel that culls from the entire history of classic television – just as Turner Classic Movies does for that other filmed entertainment genre.  

As with older movies, most of today’s audience has no first-hand memories from when vintage television programs first aired.  Thus, these shows are no longer nostalgia – they’re history. And as TCM does with classic movies, classic TV needs to be taken seriously.

When Viacom’s TV Land began 15 years ago, that seemed to be its mission. The network even ran one-shot historically significant shows under the umbrella title, “Museum of TV and Radio Showcase.”  And we loved their airing of vintage commercials, dubbed “retromercials.”  But, in an era when even the Museum of TV and Radio couldn’t stomach the connotation of “old” that came with the word “museum” – and morphed into the “Paley Center” – TV Land soon abandoned its focus of "preserving our television heritage."

Both David Bianculli and Diane Werts over at TV Worth Watching have done a good job of bemoaning the descent of TV Land into the home of tired rerun retreads and derivative reality fare.

That’s a shame, since Viacom – born out of the original CBS Films – controlled one of the richest libraries of classic TV anywhere, at least until the company split in two in 2005, with the old TV shows becoming part of the new CBS, and TV Land remaining at Viacom. 

Yes, who exactly owns the rights to what can get confusing in the TV distribution world. 

Once upon a time (well, the early ‘90s), MCA Television found a way to monetize its old ‘50s TV shows by incorporating clips from them into its innovative HBO sitcom Dream On. Those old clips now lie buried somewhere deep in Comcast’s Universal Media library. 

Other rights-holders are more active in classic TV distribution. Antenna TV, for example, is essentially a 24-hour channel for old shows and movies from Sony’s Columbia/Screen Gems library.  Me-TV runs lots of product from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer catalog.

But what about the classic Warner Bros. shows that practically invented the studio system in network television back in the '50s and ‘60s? From what I can tell, such historic and trend-setting series as Maverick  and 77 Sunset Strip haven’t run anywhere since AmericanLife TV  stopped showing them a few years back (full disclosure: I once handled public relations for AmericanLife.)  They also figured prominently in what was perhaps TV Land’s final nod to vintage TV -- a 50-hour tribute to the 50^th anniversary of Warner Bros. Television in 2005.

Now, guess who owns all those old Warner Bros. shows?  That’s right – the same Time Warner that owns Turner Classic Movies!  And they’d make a great starting point for a TV-centric equivalent to TCM.  This new channel could put TV shows in historic context, support preservation efforts, and, of course, group them together by theme – for example, a month of Emmy-winning episodes during awards season; a salute to Betty White’s 60 years in TV, from Life With Elizabeth  to The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls to Hot in Cleveland; or a marathon of the nine episodes of WB’s The Roaring 20’s directed by esteemed director Robert Altman (similar to a sampling of Altman’s Combat! episodes that worked well for AmericanLife). 

So, from one who’d much rather watch Bachelor Father (here’s Mary Tyler Moore in an early guest appearance) than The Bachelor any day, let’s hear it for TCT – Turner Classic Television.
 

Robert Altman directed nine episodes of WB's The Roaring 20's.

It Could Happen Tomorrow...

During this winter of New York City’s discontent, I’ve occasionally thought back five years – to my involvement in a massive PR push for the premiere of The Weather Channel series, “It Could Happen Tomorrow.” Over the Christmas holiday season, as a strike stopped mass transit for a couple of days, we feverishly worked to promote the upcoming premiere episode – about what could happen if a massive hurricane struck the city.

Flash forward to this past holiday season – mass transit was again disrupted for a couple of days, this time by a blizzard.  So were lots of other things, from car traffic to garbage pickups to mayoral approval ratings. And since then, the entire city has seemed to be playing its own version of “It Could Happen Tomorrow.”  But let's not forget the key second word of that title –  could, not will.

Ok, New York this winter has endured a couple of massive snowstorms, including that blizzard, along with a fair number of smaller ones.  And the nasty weather has certainly caused a mess.  On my own block, the Sanitation Department didn’t pick up the paper recyclables for some five weeks – corner-to-corner, our sidewalk looked like the remnants of a print publishing empire mixed in with cereal boxes, all laid out on a bed of dirty white carpeting.

Brooklyn, Winter 2011

(photo by Les Luchter)

So folks certainly have a right to be concerned. And we all need to be prepared for any potential storm. But there’s a difference between prepared and pre-emptive, between could and will.

A couple of weeks ago, my niece was all geared up to fly from JFK to Europe to begin a much-anticipated semester abroad. Due to a winter storm “warning,” her flight was canceled more than a full day in advance, yet the “storm” turned into a light dusting.  

Earlier this week, I was supposed to have a doctor’s appointment.  It didn’t happen because, two days prior, the MD’s office called to say that all appointments were being canceled due to another winter storm warning. The streets were going to be icy and they were looking out for our safety. Well thanks.

By the following day, the storm “warning” had been downgraded down to an “advisory,” but then got transformed into an even scarier “Ice Storm Warning.” (I know all this because I get handy alerts from my pals at The Weather Channel!)

And yes, it was icy that morning -- before the precipitation turned to rain at around 8 a.m.  I ran an errand late morning when I could have been on the way to my appointment, and the streets were quite navigable.

What everyone seems to have forgotten in the wake of our giant snowfalls is that weather forecasts, by their very nature, are apt to change. Since when have they been seen as infallible?

For years, I've complained about the "snowmongering" of local media, especially local television news. "Snow is coming," they would blare during station breaks.  "Details at 11." Then, if you stuck around, you'd learn that there was half-an-inch expected up in the Catskills, or at least in the infamous "Northern New Jersey." (thanks to my Weather Channel alerts, I can now forgo this process :) )

I always thought I had invented the term "snowmongering" as one of my major contributions to contemporary civilization. But great minds think alike, I guess. I just did a Google search, and "snowmongering" is right there in the Urban Dictionary: "when someone over exaggerates how much snow there truly is...."

These days, snowmongering has extended from the media to the government, private enterprises and seemingly everyone on the block. If there's a flake in the forecast, the entire city starts preparing for a deluge. The departments of Sanitation and Emergency Management issue their own "snow alerts," one of several terrorism-like levels preceding an actual emergency. The local Trader Joe's gets mobbed midday (trust me, it's usually rather manageable at 3 p.m.!) as folks rush to stock their pantries. The hardware store runs out of salt. The kids start praying for another day off from school.

Trust me, I don't take snowstorms lightly. I don’t relish climbing out the ground-floor window to help excavate our front door, as I did in December. All that white stuff isn't fun, unless you're building snowmen or igloos, or sledding, or throwing snowballs (and, quite often, as was the case last week, the snow can be quite pretty). But I guess my college days in Syracuse, where two-foot storms were routine and the city handled the cleanup with a minimum of fuss, has enured me somewhat to the phenomenon.

By the way, the last blizzard to hit New York City before this winter happened about a month after the  premiere of "It Could Happen Tomorrow." On Feb. 11-12, a record 26.9 inches fell in Central Park.  The snowmongerers had a field day. I woke up ready for some heavy-duty shoveling.  But somehow the brunt of the storm had completely missed Brooklyn and even lower Manhattan. We had just a few inches on the ground.

So, it could have happened, but didn’t.  Could it happen tomorrow, though?

The forecast now calls for a “wintry mix.”

Let's at least wait for the first flake to fall before falling all over ourselves in panic.

        

Deliverables: The Main Thing?

"If you're so obsessed with deliverables, hire Santa!"

That's what I felt like shouting to a recent new client prospect (no. not the woman in the video above!) who could have cared less about my PR abilities, knowledge or experience. All this self-professed "geek" could focus on were "deliverables."

That should have been my clue for  to bail out. After all, I pride myself on avoiding corporate jargon in all communications. But the first paragraph of Wikipedia's entry on "deliverables" states definitively that "the word is considered corporate jargon." The Wikipedia writer knows the latter area well, having started the entry with this: "Deliverable is a term used in project management to describe a tangible or intangible object produced as a result of the project that is intended to be delivered to a customer (either internal or external)."

I felt better, though, when I read next: "A deliverable could be a report, a document, a server upgrade or any other building block of an overall project."

Ok, that was tangible enough for me. I proceeded to offer the prospective client a full list of PR deliverables, bullet point by bullet point:

• press releases
• bylined articles
• pitch letters  
• status reports
• clip reports
• timelines
• media lists
• tweets

And so on,. But I wouldn't offer press pickups as a deliverable, Ultimate coverage by journalists is simply out of my control, I explained.  "PR is an art, not a science."

In essence, I was asking him to trust me. "I'll provide the maximum effort and you'll get results," I promised, "but I can't guarantee those results in advance."

But the prospective client didn't believe in me that much.  He went elsewhere, probably to someone who promised him Oprah ("she must be planning a panel on Internet advertising for her farewell season!") and pickups in Google News and Yahoo (now there's an achievement!).

Perhaps he did hire Santa, a proven deliverer of deliverables. 'Tis the season, after all. But, truth be told, I don't really believe in Santa that much. What I continue to believe in are the intangibles of public relations. Work your media contacts to the max and you'll get results -- your story might not be great enough for The New York Times but you may have enough to deliver some key industry bloggers.

Well, gotta go now. I'm waiting for a deliverable from UPS, and the doorbell is ringing. Happy holidays!

One Year Anniversary

www.colbertnation.com

Today marks exactly one year since my first posting of "More of Les"!

Anniversaries have long been great excuses for putting out press releases. Clients come to their PR people declaring, "We're celebrating our first anniversary. That's big news in the start-up field!"

"But nobody cares about that," retorts the despondent publicist (me). "Please come back when you have real news. Like new partners, new clients, new products...or at least a fifth anniversary!"

So I won't use the anniversary of this blog as an excuse for a press release. Instead, I'll use it as an excuse for another blog posting.

First, let's see who else is publicizing an anniversary today.

• CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE–Atlantic Cape Community College invites local residents to Community Day, a celebration of the five-year anniversary of the opening of the Cape May County Campus, 2 to 6 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 13, at CMCC, 341 Court House-South Dennis Road.

Not earth-shattering, but in addition to keeping with the five-year rule, it actually becomes news by creating a tie-in with a real event -- like the time my then-client CABLEready celebrated a key anniversary by launching a major scholarship program.

Then, there's this:

• Integrated Marketing Summit Celebrates First Anniversary  
  

  30 Marketing Experts Coming to Kansas City October 12 + 13

  KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Top thought leaders behind some of America's most celebrated brands will gather for an exceptional two-day event as Kansas City hosts the Integrated Marketing Summit (IMS) on Tuesday, October 12th and Wednesday, October 13th at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center.
   

Stop the presses! The Marketing Summit is celebrating the anniversary of its first event! Oh, btw, they're running another one too. And it's exceptional! 

Actually, the agenda doesn't look too bad. Indeed, despite the Summit's own press release, PR Newswire's Director of Emerging Media Michael Pranikoff spoke yesterday on the topic, "Forget what you THINK you know about PR....it's a Whole New World." 

Sure is. In sports too. Right there in Kansas City, in fact, the Chiefs -- despite losing Sunday -- stand atop football's AFC West. In baseball, the Texas Rangers last night advanced in the playoffs for the first time ever.

But some sports certainties remain. The Yankees win, for instance, and the Pittsburgh Pirates lose (18 straight losing seasons).

So no wonder the only real significant anniversary being celebrated today is in Pittsburgh:  

• 1960 World Series Celebration and Mazeroski Plaque Dedication

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy is partnering with Pirates Charities on Wednesday, October 13 to mark the 50th anniversary of Bill Mazeroski's home run that made the Pittsburgh Pirates the 1960 World Series Champions.  The day will begin at 11:45 a.m. with a public unveiling of a sidewalk plaque honoring Mazeroski for his walk-off home run.  The ceremony will take place near the old Forbes Field wall at the intersection of Schenley and Roberto Clemente Drives in Oakland.

Yes, 50 years ago today, Bill Mazeroski's epic home run propelled the upstart Pirates to World Series victory over the Yankees.

While there's long been newsreel footage of this classic moment, the complete NBC telecast of what has been dubbed "the best game ever" was thought lost forever -- until film of it was recently discovered in Bing Crosby's wine cellar. The late great crooner, you see, was not only a pioneer in the recording of radio and TV shows (before him, everything was done live) but also part-owner of the Pirates.

That's why Crosby has a cameo in the original 1951 Angels in the Outfield, which I recently viewed on Turner Classic Movies. It's a fantasy film where the Pirates miraculously win the pennant during another multi-year period when the real-life team was just plain awful.

At this point, I planned to conclude this celebration of "More of Les"' first anniversary with a video or audio of Crosby singing "It Was a Very Good Year," but apparently Bing never sang that Sinatra standard.

So instead, I'll turn to the co-star of Angels in the Outfield, Janet Leigh. At the time of the movie's release, she had just married Tony Curtis, who passed away two weeks ago today. Curtis is renowned in PR circles because six years later, he would star as sleazy "press agent" Sidney Falco in undoubtedly the greatest movie ever made about PR, The Sweet Smell of Success. Like me, Falco ran a small independent shop, but he definitely had a different approach to landing clients -- pushing his way in and then guaranteeing placements in is his equally sleazy abettor JJ Hunsecker's hugely influential newspaper column, as shown here:

Wow, I bet Falco never needed to hang a press release on an anniversary hook. Maybe I should have used his new business approach to land a client or two at ShowBiz Expo this past weekend?

No, wouldn't have worked. I don't know any JJ Hunseckers, thank god.

But I've got my own "column" to fill, and to end. Thanks for reading. It's been a very good year.

It Was a Very Good Year

 

Radio, Newspapers: Back to the Agency Silos?

 via Tales of Future Past - http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm

At the OMMA (Online Media, Marketing & Advertising) conference, keynote speaker Arianna Huffington takes pains to note the continued viability of newspapers. She gets seven papers delivered daily and reads them all, she declares.

I glance about. It's around 9:30 am. For the first time in a long history of attending morning business meetings, no newspaper is in sight. And most of the attendees are not teens or millenials. But all are in the ad industry.

Huffington is so old-fashioned that's she's also made a commitment to sleep eight hours nightly -- and she  wants to find common cause between right and left political partisans. Not only does she read newspapers, she probably even listens to the radio.

My mind is on that ancient audio medium, because I'm heading next to a big Advertising Week event -- more a rally in fact -- thrown by NYMRAD (New York Market Radio). Radio execs, of course, have little interest in taming rabid partisans (almost entirely right-wing) because that's where the listeners and revenues lie. 

The first speaker is former TV star/liberal turned radio talk show host/conservative Dennis Miller who, unlike Huffington, can't separate his politics from the business pitch. Miller''s there to sell radio as an ad medium, but he can hardly utter a sentence without bashing President Obama, Speaker Pelosi or Secretary Clinton. Yet he insists that he's holding back his worst vitriol in deference to what he terms a Democratic audience.

But if Democrats don't listen to talk radio, and media buyers are Democrats, where does that leave the radio industry? During the event's cocktail party, I strike up a conversation with a typical media buyer.

"Radio's not something we ordinarily think about," she admits. "Who listens to radio in New York?"
So I start thinking. Ad folks obviously watch TV.  Even OMMA has a Time Warner cable exec on one of its panels. Of course, that's because cable has begun including the Internet in its ad sales mix. But so have newspapers and radio.

Weren't "silos" supposed to be a thing of the past at media agencies, and integrated media now all the rage? Yet if buyers are so obsessed with checking out sponsored tweets and testing the latest mobile apps that they can't bother to pick up a Sunday newspaper circular to see how Target garners store traffic, or turn on the radio to hear how Dennis Miller sells sump pumps (the things you learn at industry events!), perhaps online has become the new TV -- the only thing that really matters now in the ad world.

So while Huffington hypes newspapers and Miller talks radio, I...well, I admit it,  I too don't have a newspaper with me during Advertising Week -- I'm getting the news I want via my Blackberry. And I'm not listening to drive-time radio on the way to the conference either -- that's impossible on the subway, for one thing, but I can hear all the tunes I want on my iPad anyway. Who needs radio these days after all? Who needs newspapers?

Oh well, time to stop pontificating and get back to the real world,  I've got online advertising companies to promote. Hmm, let's see. That client's story should be just perfect for Stuart Elliott in the Times. That other client keeps pestering me to get mentioned by Mossberg in the Journal.  And that book about politics and technology?  Well, a radio tour is the only way to go.

Skidoo, Credits? Not So Fast!

Peggy Olson on Mad Men has been pissed because she didn't receive credit for her work on an award-winning Glo-Coat commercial. 

Who can blame her?  Commercials have never included on-air credits for the myriad folks involved in their creation, so awards are really the only way for anyone to receive recognition. Compare commercials to their long-form cousins in moving images -- TV and movies --  whose end credits have always allowed interested viewers to know every single person involved in their production, from the actors and directors down to the lowly gofers and shoe-shiners.

Well in Peggy's time, at least. Nowadays, while a few folks still stay to the bitter end in movie theaters, try viewing the end credits to any movie or show episode on broadcast TV or basic cable (except thankfully on Turner Movie Classics). They're squeezed onto the left side of the screen, squished onto the bottom, and/or fly by so fast that even Howard Stephen Berg probably can't capture more than a word or two.

Of course, networks do this so that viewers have less time to change the channel, keeping them engaged in the current parlance. End credits, it seems, can bore viewers even more than the similarly attention-afflicted commercials -- whose agencies have spent the last few years teaming up with broadcasters on all sorts of creative approaches to keep folks tuned in, such as shorter pods, in-show tie-ins and the like,.

Mad Men is a virtual creative lab in this area. AMC, for instance, runs historical factoids about the show's sponsors before and after their spots. And some Mad Men advertisers have now begun naval-gazing. They've become ad-industry obsessed, incorporating the process (albeit fictional) of creating ad campaigns into the commercials themselves.  

The creative agencies obviously relish the spotlight Mad Men has thrown onto their profession (although they seem reluctant to move the depiction of the ad creation process into the 21st Century). So here's a modest proposal: toot your own horn with credits! 

No, not end credits on the end of a 15-second spot (imagine how fast they'd need to fly by!). Rather, an idea borrowed from MTV, which some 20 years ago took another short-form TV medium, the music video, and slapped director credits onto them.

Wouldn't it be cool to see who directed the current Hotels.com Claymation commercial while it airs instead of via YouTube, where you'll find out it's Rich Webber.  Perhaps he and others could become  ad industry equivalents of Spike Jonze and other music video directors, who by the time they directed their first features were already familiar names to MTV watchers.

And while we're at it, let's give some on-air recognition to Y&R Chicago!  Yes, Don Draper was jealous of Y&R's spacious New York offices earlier this season, but, really (fictionally?), that was 45 years ago. Maybe viewers would get a kick out of seeing that while Sterling Cooper has vanished from the ad game, several of its rivals that Mad Men sometimes mentions are still alive and breathing...and dressed in modern clothes, not as if they're about to attend a John Lindsay fund-raiser.

Unfortunately, for someone in Peggy's position, recognition and credit will always be dependent on the awards process -- and thus with whomever at the agency handles the nomination process. I'd suggest bonding with that person over coffee and a sandwich at Chock Full o' Nuts or the Automat. Or, if credit is so important, moving over to the TV business. In fact, thanks to my presence in 2010, I have evidence that Peggy will soon do exactly that. Her IMDB credits prove it!

Skidoo, Credits? Not So Fast!

Written, produced and directed by Les Luchter

Finding a Needle in a Haystack

Movies in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Concerts in Prospect Park and Coney Island. Yes, summer in Brooklyn means lots of free entertainment. In 2010, it also means crowds. Very large crowds.

It's bad enough that you can now arrive ahead of time and end up wishing you had brought binoculars to better see The Big Lebowski. Or honed up on your tree-climbing skills for an unobstructed view of The Swell Season.

Turns out that one of the worst parts of being way back in the crowd is being forced to listen to folks around you providing rendezvous directions to wayward friends.

You'd think that mobile capabilities would have made this whole process easier. Maybe people are finding each other easily via texting or social networks. Perhaps there's an app that brings two people  together via incredibly accurate GPS. But, scrunched on our blanket in Brooklyn Bridge Park, hemmed in by sweaty bodies, enduring the wafting smell of cheese and bug repellent, my wife and I are oblivious to any of that.

Instead, we hear a French-accented twenty-something guy, who's already appropriated the upper back quadrant of our blanket, shouting in our ear. No, he's talking very loudly into his cell phone: "Walk to zee bock, you'll see a bleu awning on zee right. I'm on zee left een front of zee tall light tower."

I look around. About 2,000 people are in this section of the park, surrounded by five tall light towers, with some 100 people directly in front of each. But, depending on what angle Pierre's friend is looking from, in "front" of the light pole can mean just about anywhere. Like finding a needle in a haystack!

I suppress a giggle and try to lose myself in a book. (By coincidence, I'm reading "Thomas Wolfe's "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" in the anthology Brooklyn Noir 2. It's 1935, and the locals know how to give directions, with the proper accent: "Yuh take duh Fourt' Avenoo express, get off at Fifty-nint' Street, change to a Sea Beach local deh, get off at Eighteent" Avenoo an' Sixty-toid, an' den walk down foeh blocks.")

But back to the present. The minutes roll by and so do more silly directions in the background. Finally, somehow, Pierre's friend shows up. The brie spreads. Our blanket gets more crowded. The movie starts and I get up on my knees to see over the basketball player in front of me.

In Prospect Park, the crowd is twice as large. We're ensconced beyond the fences of the main concert area. Stage way right, but we would actually see it if not for the portable toilets lined up and taunting us from inside the parameters. Expecting to get real seats, we brought no blanket. But we have room to stretch on the grass. And to enjoy the distant music amidst running kids and scampering dogs,

Then, from behind, we hear the booming voice of a Park Slope dad: "We're in the back, on the left side of the stage, near some bicycles, in front of a tree." I won't tell you how many bicycles are around or how many trees. Or how large an area he's talking about. My wife and I look at each other, and this time we burst out laughing. Rather than wait for the continuing directions, we pick ourselves up, scramble through the strollers, and move to a better vantage point.

A decade or so ago, when cell phones were not yet ubiquitous, we would frequently go to the even more crowded Bryant Park movies in Manhattan. And guess what? Latecomers found their friends. People would agree on pre-established locations, or folks would hold up distinct umbrellas with floppy bunny ears, or pitch posts adorned with colorful pennants.

In today's world of Facebook, Foursquare and Flashmob, gathering people together is the easy part. But Google the terms "finding people in a crowd" or "finding someone in a crowd" and you'll receive a mere handful of results. Pretty strange for a generation raised on "Where's Waldo!"

Anyone with any solutions to this problem, please chime in.  Because providing your location via voice over a cell phone just doesn't seem to be the answer.

It's an old joke that men never ask for directions; they'd rather get lost seeking their way. I would venture that they shouldn't give directions and get others lost too, except that giving bad instructions in crowds cuts across gender lines.

In the midst of a throng of people exiting Prospect Park, a sweet feminine voice behind us cut through the chatter: "As you come into the park, you'll see a whole bunch of people leaving.  Look for me."

Ok! And look for me when the Aretha Franklin concert gets rescheduled. I'll be in the back surrounded by a bunch of people, a lot of whom have lawn chairs.  In front of some trees....

 

More of Les: The Album

Turns out if you're looking for this blog and Google the terms "More of Les" and "blogspot," your top result will transport you to a rare record album of that name by Les Elgart and his Orchestra on the out-of-print music blog "Hooked on Stereophonic."

Before this discovery, I knew of neither Les Elgart nor his music. Of course, I immediately downloaded the album, hoping to add an overlooked masterpiece - with a great title - to my music collection. Alas, I was greatly disappointed. "More of Les," the LP version, proved to be passable swing music, but nothing that would have set the world afire upon its release in 1956.  

Yes, just as rock 'n roll was catching fire, Les Elgart started one of the last Big Bands! 

A sure recipe for failure, you say? Maybe not. For starters, in an ironic twist, one of Elgart's compositions would become a rock institution - he wrote the theme for Dick Clark's long-running American Bandstand (with lyrics later added by Barry Manilow!) And 50-odd years later, the Les Elgart Orchestra is still around - 15 years after the bandleader's death in 1995 just shy of his 78th birthday. I'd love to steer you to a Les Elgart Orchestra show near you, but the last gig listed on the band's website was this past Sunday afternoon at a Vietnamese restaurant in Plano, Texas.

So, as Gary Vaynerchuk might say, follow your passions! There's an audience for what you love, and you'll be able to cash in on it. Even if it means decades of playing weddings and cruise ships.

But I haven't actually come to blogland today to talk about Les Elgart's music. Les Elgart might as well be Les Brown, for all my knowledge of big bands. I'm really writing because "Hooked on Stereophonic" has got me hooked on the "More of Les" album cover pictured above.

The art is a great example of what so many have missed since music distribution switched first to cassettes, then to CDs, and now to online. As the "Hooked on Stereophonic" blogger wrote, the "More of Les" art is both "amazing and obscure." And, I'd add, a good example of a collage cover a decade before Sgt. Pepper.

Seems that when record buyers got "More of Les," they got all sides of his personality.  He's serious, he's playful, he's menacing, he's got a childish streak... he's even got a feminine side!

But most of all, he's self-denigrating - having fun at the expense of himself.  I like that. 

Besides the art, I also like the album's title, of course. And since Columbia Records (and its current parent Sony) has kept this record out of print, and has objected neither to my use of the title nor "Hooked on Stereophonic's" use of the music, perhaps they also wouldn't care if I borrowed the art permanently?

After all, I've been bombarded recently by blog postings, email newsletters, etc., etc., imploring me to improve my personal branding. And  visual representation is certainly part of any brand's image. Apparently, this blog needs a logo, and some anonymous record album designer from a half-century ago may just have supplied me with one. Today, I'm sure he or she would be a web designer!

Elvis Presents E! Entertainment Television

Too bad nobody won this blog's "guess that group" contest a few posts back.  One item destined for the prize package was a rare "Elvis" audio cassette involved in the launch of E! Entertainment Television 20 years ago come June 1. 

Don't expect the network of Chelsea Handler, celebrity scandals and salaciousness, however, to say anything about the role the King of Rock played in its launch. So I will.

Actually, I said it all two decades ago in a trade magazine called Cable Marketing. The May 1990 issue marked the magazine's relaunch, with a spiffy new design and editorial attitude (we later won an Ozzie Award for best mag relaunch, given by another now-defunct pub called Magazine Design & Production). And, inaugurating a new section reviewing industry marketing campaigns, the spotlight turned to E!

Nobody's put the Cable Marketing archives online yet, so I've typed in the article I penned back then, which follows.  In 1990, we included the text of the Elvis song lyrics alongside the article. In 2010, you don't have to read the lyrics - you can hear them through this link:

Market Review
Why We're All Shook Up About E! Entertainment Television

Elvis teased us, but we loved it.  
A launch announcement that worked.


This was originally going to be a news story about how Movietime announced its upcoming name change via a masterful Elvis Presley tease campaign to the press and major MSOs.  The story was scheduled to go in our "Promotional Showcase" column, but was pulled because we couldn't get details about the campaign from the main source -- Movietime.  So we decided to write this review instead.

Sheri Herman, senior vp of marketing for Movietime, feels a news story about the Elvis campaign would convey the wrong impression about the new E! Entertainment Television.  We disagree.  In the press release delivered to our office by one of E!'s Elvis impersonators, network president and ceo Lee Masters called E!'s attitude "fun, stylish and imaginative."  And that's exactly what the Elvis campaign was all about.


The month-long tease began on Valentine's Day with delivery of red roses and a card with the message, "You're in my thoughts" and signed by Elvis.  A few days later, a mailgram arrived.  It read simply, "Are you ready to get all shook up?" and was again signed by you-know-how.  Future mailgrams read "I hope you're as excited as I am" and "Are you lonesome tonight?  I'll be with you tomorrow."


Sometime during this process, we also received a full-color postcard with Elvis' picture and the message, "And soon I'll be with you in  person."


Finally, there was the phone call: Elvis himself, somehow using his song titles to tell us he'd be seeing us the next day.


And, sure enough, the next morning, we were buzzed by our hysterical receptionist, Bea.  "Someone's here to see you," she managed to get out between laughs.  We knew immediately who had arrived, and we scurried downstairs from our penthouse digs to meet The King.


There was Elvis, in his blue jumpsuit, sequins aglittering -- accompanied by a guy in dark suit and shades who we assumed to be his combination promotion man/bodyguard/...maybe guardian angel?

Anyway, we all went into the publisher's office where, to everyone's delight, Elvis commenced to belt out -- to the tune of Heartbreak Hotel -- the story of Movietime's transition into E!  No, not the Elvis  network, but Entertainment Television.


Well, let me tell you.  Our parent company, Jobson Publishing, puts out magazines on everything from eyeglasses to beverages to pharmaceuticals.  And what do you thing the secretaries and other office help -- yes, even the ad salespeople -- were talking about for the next couple of days?  Certainly not the latest lens design, wine cooler or anti-baldness drug.  No, they were all abuzz about Elvis -- and  full of questions about which cable network was so innovative promotion-wise.


Without Movietime/E's cooperation, we can't tell you how much this all cost, or how many Elvises were sent around, or even who came up with the idea in the first place.  We do know something about effective promotion, however,  And we're willing to bet Movietime/E! got its money's worth with Elvis.  After all, we haven't even the foggiest memory of how HBO first announced The Comedy Channel or how MTV unveiled its plans for HA!

As this month's issue shows, Cable Marketing -- like Movietime/E! -- is  itself involved in a relaunch, with our own new logo, graphics and editorial format.  Part our change is to run reviews such as this, even at the risk of offending industry suppliers.  Masters, in fact, could have been describing the new Cable Marketing when he called E! "vibrant, contemporary and forward-looking."


So, here's to the future, E!  Continue the good work.  Keep to your vision of an entertainment network, and we're sure you'll make strides.  At the same time, we'll keep to our vision of a marketing magazine.  But we promise, we'll try to never mention Elvis and E! in the same sentence again.

Alas, E!'s vision proved far more enduring than Cable Marketing's -- Jobson pulled the plug on us less than six months later. But somehow, that editorial encapsulated my world view on PR, marketing and journalism. Indeed, after I went into PR, I framed the article and  hung it on my office wall -- until the main protagonist Sheri Herman became a client of our agency. By then, she was president of the ambitious and far-too-ahead-of-its-time (1995-97) American Cybercast, whose pioneering online video shows included the soap opera series The Spot, described here in a now-amusing clip from the syndicated series Extra:

I'm sure that E! also covered The Spot, although no clip has yet surfaced on YouTube. Because as irritating as the network may seem to those of us who take our television seriously, there's no denying that E!'s always kept up with the pulse of the public, not to mention the Kardashians.

So happy birthday E!  What were you expecting? Another tongue-lashing?