VeggieTales: Faith + Clean Sense of Humor sells OR Marketing Lesson 101

Ah, VeggieTales. After more than a decade, I am still marveled at their success. I am sure a lot of people watching their explosive success, have banged their heads against the wall, wailing, "Why didn't I think of that?" Since 2006, the animated veggies (with very expressive eyes and mouths since they have no limbs!) have also been part of the NBC network Saturday Morning Cartoon line-up.

So now they have expanded to selling seeds in the gardening section. Amazing! But if you think about it, this is probably one of the few marketing / branding efforts that actually make sense. Who better to sell vegetable plant seeds other than Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber?!

Even though I am not Christian, I can see the draw of morality tales cloaked in cartoons full of catchy songs and silly jokes for parents who are at a loss in finding a moral compass in this world dominated by mass media. (Wow. That's a long, and probably grammatically incorrect sentence....)

Plus it really does help that Larry the Cucumber is completely insane and the champion of non sequitur humors, as can be witnessed in his perennial favorites: Silly Songs with Larry. The song that always makes me laugh and want to dance is Barbara Manatee...

How Nordstrom honors the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month...

First of all, for all of ya who are uninitiated: May is designated by the U.S. Congress as the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Don't fret if you didn't know until now. The first week of May is actually Asian Pacific American Heritage WEEK. Between the Swine Flu and the Oprah-KFC debacle (Seriously, folks. How much does it cost to just pay for those grilled chicken? They look extremely unappetizing to me anyway...), I don't think the mainstream media even remembered. So, you are forgiven.

Secondly, I promise I will not get on my soap box. There are many books/articles/websites out there if you are interested in reading about stereotypes, underrepresentation, Fu Man Chu, Lotus Blossoms vs. Dragon Ladies, blah blah blah. (That would be me preaching to the choir - the conundrum is if you are, you would have known already. If you don't care, you are not going to check it out anyway...) Yup. Otherwise known to the "mainstream" society as, cough cough, "whining"... I say that because the common comment, from the "mainstream" society, to the critics of stereotypes is, "It's just a joke. YOU PEOPLE have no sense of humor!"

"You people". I wince every time I read or hear it. In real life. In the movie, Tropic Thunder, it was hilarious how they played with it.

Anyway, I digress.

So in honor of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Nordstrom is hawking designer t-shirts by, you guessed it! Asian American designers. Anna Sui and Koi Suwannagate. YES! Represent, girls! (I just have to ask: Was the ubiquitous Vera Wang too busy or too expensive?) Don't get me wrong. These are extremely gorgeous tees, at $60 a pop. And the profits will go to the scholarship fund for OCA, an organization dedicated to advancing the cause for Asian Americans.

I am sure Nordstrom's efforts are appreciated but I am quite amused by the irony in this shirt.

Call me nitpicking if you wish. And I assure you, I have a great sense of humor.

A flower for Joey Roth, the designer of Sorapot

Humbleville, Interweb - Local woman awoken from her solipsistic stupor by designer's sincere, genuine interest in feedback of his creation. Submom received a wake-up call when designer Joey Roth replied directly to her random vent of his creation, Sorapot. When asked to reflect more carefully, Submom admitted that she DID enjoy watching the Chinese flower tea bloom in front of her eyes inside the ingeniously designed Sorapot, when she had time to do so. "The last time I remember when I was able to sit down and relax was the day after Christmas. I have been on my feet ever since." Her defense for her unfair criticism? "I only have one hand now because of my Twitter thumb, and I was getting frustrated last night because you cannot disassemble this teapot with only one hand!" Submom vowed to refrain from being a spoiled bitch, and to stop and smell, eh, drink the flowers. She compared Mr. Roth's reaction to her complaints to the likes carried out by "Lands' End who has my undying loyalty as a customer." After a pause, Submom said quietly, "Honestly? I didn't think that an artist living in NYC would care about the feelings of a suburban mom. We must seem like philistines..."

Posted via email from submom's posterous

Moment: JetBlue & Southwest tweeting each other...

Saw this on my Twitter homepage. It strikes me as really adorable. I do hope that the actual airlines remain competitors since a collaboration between the two little giants (and they are really not little any more despite the images they are trying to cultivate...) will be the end of low airfares.

I am intrigued. Wouldn't you? How one employee single-handedly MAKE the hotel...

This has just come to my attention that the number 1 rated hotel in Beijing is... Drum roll please...

A frigging Holiday Inn!

Yes, they do have true 5 star hotels in Beijing.

Granted Holiday Inns do get a worse rep in the U.S. than in many other places around the world. Don't think it is because we are more pampered here: it is true that Holiday Inns outside of the U.S. seem to be a bit more than meeting your daily bare necessities. But, Number 1 out of 1,168 hotels reviewed on TripAdvisor??!!

Apparently, it is also the Winner of Traveler's Choice for Best Bargain/Best In Top 25 Cities.

Morevoer, the spread of the ratings are quite convincing: of 165 reviews, 127 rated the hotel as a 5 overall, 28 - 4, 5 - 3, and 5 - 2. Not too shabby. So there does not seem to be any major argument against this hotel's #1 standing.

But still, a Holiday Inn? So naturally, I am intrigued. Wouldn't you? Especially since many, and I mean MANY, of the reviews specifically mentioned the one employee, Storm, in their titles. This Storm is the most famous in Beijing next to Sand Storm, as far as Western tourists are concerned, it seems. And he is much much much beloved. Some choice examples of the review titles: "Loved Storm", "One word: Storm", "Storm makes it great", "Wonderful Hotel, Wonderful Storm"... You get the idea. Even some travel blogs gave Storm honorable mentions. This one employee basically single-handedly made the Holiday Inn Central Plaza in Beijing a gem, stand out amongst all the other similar surrounding hotels. (Sort of like how HoJo Annheim has become a legend and best-kept secret amongst all the Disneyland aficionados...) Storm has taken on almost a legendary status judging by the reviews I had time to go through. It is amazing what this guy would go through in the name of Customer Service.

Unfortunately, I cannot find a picture of him online. Is he even real? Maybe this is one of the biggest Internet hoaxes: that Storm is actually a fictional character? Maybe Holiday Inn Beijing has employed many Customer Service "handlers of white people" and they all call themselves Storm? Somebody needs to profile this man named Storm! I need to know that he has been recognized and appreciated for all those extra steps (literally in many stories) that he took for the guests staying at the hotel. Somebody needs to call InterContinental Hotels Group and confirm that they do take notice of the employee who was cited as THE best feature of the hotel.

Barring the not-yet-written profile/interview, I wonder whether I need to travel to Beijing so I can confirm that Storm is not a high-tech robot designed to carry out the most mind-boggling, highest standard, Customer Service, ever experienced by Western tourists.

Mr. President Obama TXT me today!

and thousands of others... 

 

No matter.  I feel special and am as happy as a clam. 

"It's an Obamanation!" musings on commercialism hitching a ride to the Obama Fever by Salon.com writer

Sarah Hepola, thank you! Her humourous, yet sobering, look into the world of Obama-fever merchandising begins thus,

"The other day, curious how far the Obama madness had spread, I Googled the words 'Obama sex toy.' God bless America: I was not disappointed..."

Go straight to the slide show of some of the choice merchandise being sold if you want some visual evidence on why so glum, or if you just want some good old laugh over "Oh, only in America!" while shaking your head...

As for me, I cannot decide whether to laugh or cry.

It is 6:05 AM. When does the broadcast of the Inauguration start?

"Pay-As-You-Go Airline Charges by the Minute"

This from one of my fav magazines, Wired.

 

When I saw the headline, I thought to myself, "Great, now they have run out of things to charge us for, since they are asking the passengers to pay for everything including tiny bags of pretzels and water, they are going to charge us for sitting on the runway too?"  Luckily for travelers, the upstart airline, Airtime Airlines based in South Africa, will not be charging their passengers more for time spent by the plane idling and waiting in line to take off.  Whew. Now that's a relief.

 

This reminds me of the "Onion-esque" unveiling of the fictional airliner Derrie-Air threatening to charge by individual passenger's weight: "the more you weigh, the more you'll pay. After all, it takes more fuel—more energy—to get more weight from point A to point B..."  (It's a shame really. That would be one urgent reason for me to finally follow my default annual New Year resolution of getting on a diet...)  Only that Airtime Airlines is not fictional, it is a real airline, or, well, almost a real one, as soon as they get their hands on real aircraft that can fly real passengers... 

 

"Taking a cue from the cellphone industry, an upstart South African airline is selling flights by the minute and allowing customers to buy tickets and book flights via text message...  passengers will buy minutes instead of a traditional point-to-point ticket. They can buy a "starter pack" of prepaid minutes and top off their accounts by purchasing more minutes — by text message — at the going rate of 5 Rand (about 53 cents) a minute. Flight times have been mapped out in advance, so sitting on a runway for three hours won't triple the cost of your ticket.

Topping off accounts is where things get interesting. The cost for Airtime minutes can fluctuate, presumably according to promotions and market factors, so topping off becomes an exercise comparable to fuel hedging. Buy a big block of minutes when you think they're at their cheapest and you look smart, unless the price drops again the next day. Then again, it might go up. The price recently rose from 3 Rand to 5 Rand, meaning the cost of a round-trip flight from Durban to Cape Town climbed from about 750 Rand ($81) to 1,250 Rand (about $134). Still that's cheaper than the $200 it would cost on South African Airlines."

Read the entire article here.