Since my maternity leave is officially over, I thought I'd reprise my role of the Roger Ebert of As Seen On TV (and other similar) products. Today, I've chosen a selection of 11 items, all of which I'm sure have been on Price is Right in some way, shape or form at some time in history.

1. Cash for Gold
I need to make sure I understand what's going on with this. All I have to do is gather all that gold I have laying around and send it to some dudes...and they'll send me money?!? Scout's honor? Surely there is more to this than that. Then again, if you are stupid enough to put all of your gold in an envelope and rely on the mail to get it to these grifters and then them to send back a fat check, perhaps you deserve the simplicity of this ripoff.
Oh, and the URL has a 4 in it. Stay classy, Cash 4 Gold.

2. Roll 'n Grow
If only this product were Grow n' Roll - much more interesting, don't you think?

3. Weed Claw
I saw the name of this product and thought it was something much different than what it is. Being an avid gardener and having pulled millions of weeds in my time, I don't know why a Claw is necessary when I have a naturally-occurring (aka "free") claw on the end of each of my arms.

4. Push Up Pro
Is the push up really that complicated that you need a "professional" (at least that's what I think Pro is short for) product to help you? It's pretty much up, down, up, down. Okay, I guess there is some variation on the direction of your hands, the speed at which you move up and down, etc. But, if most 7th grade gym class students can figure this one out, I'm guessing Push Up Pro is superfluous.
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Last night I had the misfortune of walking into a TV switchback in my living room. By TV switchback, I mean one of those situations when someone else has the remote and is watching 2 programs simultaneously, switching back and forth at the most inopportune moments. Normally, around our house, the programs are usually something like "85 kids with Old Testament Names and Counting" and "Medical Mysteries: The Baby Who Was Born Inside Out", but last night the switchback was ping-ponging between the Colbert Report and something called "20/20 on We". 20/20 Ennui? I sat up straight for that one, because I was intrigued by a show about dissipation with unusual clarity.

Apparently, however, ABC has taken a cue from Dick Wolfe and is merely franchising one of its top brands. Just like the 31 flavors of "Law & Order" we see sprinkled across the TV universe on any given night, 20/20 is starting to syndicate and expand its brand's reach and frequency by broadcasting stories aimed at specific market segments. Niche broadcasting. Which seems like a lot of extra work, generating content for these new shows. As I understand it, 20/20 is a journalistic TV news magazine, so they can't really show reruns, because that isn't news. Right?

Last night, they were showing a 4 year old story about a teenager who was torn between giving her baby up to a childless couple for adoption and keeping it. Now, on other news magazine shows, they feature new stories about things that happened several years back, but this story was first aired 4 years ago. So, I'm thinking, this should be interesting; they're going to follow up with the subjects of this piece and see where they are now. Except they didn't. They slapped an awkward intro/outro on the piece and ran it as is. At least when Law & Order and CSI have spin-offs, they get different casts and storylines - they create new content.

I imagine that "20/20 on We" has a deliberate double meaning: it is 20/20 on the We network, and it is also programming for when you are so bored, you'll watch anything. Personally, I'll be watching "Dateline Insouciance".

There's a strange phenomenon taking place in the world today. Social networks http://twitter.com/, which were meant to connect people & foster friendships, are now being combed by companies searching for negative comments about their products/services. Blog alerts http://www.google.com/alerts notify CEOs when their companies are under scrutiny on the web. Call it web 2.0, call it common courtesy, the bottom line is corporate America is starting to listen to its customers –- and that's good for the little man. They can't afford not to –- their brand's integrity is at stake with each negative post from an unhappy customer on a blog or forum.

My question is, "When is the medical field going to follow suit?"

Do you have back problems that are keeping you out of work? Need to see a neurosurgeon? You'll have to wait until you can get in to see your family doctor for a referral -- "... that'll be only three days, sir. Oh, but you're gonna have to have an MRI before seeing the surgeon... gonna have to wait a week for that. Got your MRI? Great, now it'll be another week to get in to see the Neurosurgeon."

And when that glorious day comes...

The neurosurgeon will tell you that you're (essentially) over-reacting and you'll have to chase him out into the hallway asking questions because he's blatantly not concerned about your condition. "You don't need that procedure, you need this other one" -- which you've had in the past and HAS CLEARLY not helped you or you wouldn't be back. And, I hope you aren't still in pain, because he won't give you a prescription for anything. You'll have to go back to your family doctor for that (who will accuse you of "drug-seeking" & send you to ANOTHER doctor (a "pain management" specialist) in order to get some relief. "Thank you Dr. Guarnaschelli. Yes, I'm calling you out."

With all that said, will I get a response to this post from someone at his practice? I'll hold my breath.... maybe that will help with the pain.

They say that 80% of Advertising-related RFP’s (Request For Proposal) are fixed. In other words, the folks at the organization already know which agency they are going with. And often they are staying with their current agency and are just conducting the RFP to satisfy some corporate rule.

This pisses me off because folks on the agency side work very hard to create and pitch the new ideas to this potential client and it’s often all for not. Or worse, the client collects all the new ideas and decides to use a few of them over time—without paying for them.

We’ve had this experience, and have even gone back to the table—with the same client—only to be lead around the block and told “thanks, but we’re going to keep this initiative in house.”  I won’t name names. This town is too small. I’ve started a list.

There are some agencies that refuse to work on spec creative and RFP’s. They just flat out refuse. We take each one on a case-by-case basis and try to find out why they are looking and what our chances are. The work is fun because it is something new and our whole company gets into the initiative. There’s an excitement level that comes with competing and we always enjoy the rush! Plus, it’s new creative. We get to play on a new field. And of course we want to win so we do crazy things to get their attention. It’s not the additional work that bugs me. It’s the stealing that goes on. And when I speak with my friends in our business, I often hear horror stories about certain companies that go into the RFP just to steal. Shame on them. All we have to sell is our time and talent. And we prefer to work with honest and upstanding companies that have a mutual respect for us, as a business, and our need to make money too.

Got an RFP? Let me check my list. Here’s an idea: Maybe we should start a community list on the Louisville Ad Club’s website. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if some of these swindlers were black balled from local agencies and nobody responded to their RFP.

Having been on maternity leave for five weeks, I've had a lot of time (while my wee one sleeps) to watch some solid daytime TV. I could go on and on about daytime TV in and of itself, but that wouldn't really advance the cause of this blog, which is supposed to address issues of marketing and advertising ilk. So, I'll instead focus on the advertising I've seen during all of this TV watching.

First, the PedEgg. It's basically a plastic egg with a metal emery board that helps with home pedicures -- $10 for two of these things! One issue I have with this ad, other than it's thoroughly cheesy, is that I'm not sure why I would need two when there is a lifetime guarantee on one? Oh, wait, the spot answers the question -- one is for the household female and one is for the household male. No non-traditional households need bother with ordering the PedEgg, according to the spot.

Second, Free Credit Report.com. These spots are total garbage. That's the best I can say. I've seen three in the series -- all are based on this poor dunce who apparently has made a series of errant decisions he could have avoided if he'd known about and/or used freecreditreport.com. Sounds okay, right? Try again. They are all staged as if he is part of a three-man band and he sings a dreadful jingle while delivering each narrative. Bad enough, but then couple that with the fact that it's totally obvious this guy is lip synching... badly. This guy certainly is no champ at "Puttin' on the Hits."

Next, the ShamWOW!  This product is pretty neat -- my issue with the spot is that the production company couldn't bring it together enough to afford a boom mic. The talent has on a headset! I think the production company cut a few corners and just recorded this guy's performance at his booth at the state fair. And, just like the PedEgg, why does my order have to include 8 ShamWOWs? If one is so great, why do I need 8?!?

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I think Facebook, Amazon and TiVo are triplets separated at birth. Okay, so they're fraternal... but they're multiples of the same genes. Let me explain.

All three tools have been taught and molded into useful and gratifying weapons in our every day arsenals. But, they have the same personality flaw -- they presume a lot of things about us based on our previous behavior. Facebook, for example, looks at my current friends and provides me with a list of people they think I'd be interested in "friending" (love that new gerund in our lexicon, by the way). Facebook assumes that, because I went to college at Transylvania, I must know everyone else who went to Transy at any time in the past 20 years. Facebook is bigoted, essentially. I live in Louisville, therefore I must know everyone else who lives in Louisville. I have blond hair, thus I must know everyone else who has blond hair. Stop with the assumptions, Facebook!

Amazon has the same problem. Based on what I have bought in the past, it makes recommendations on what I should buy in the future. For the most part, this is actually pretty cool. I have stumbled upon quite a few little gems I'd not have otherwise discovered. But, it's the strange connections Amazon makes that cause me to lump it with its evil birth brothers. I recently purchased a CD by the band Fleet Foxes. Now, Amazon assumes I want to read a bunch of National Geographic nature books about foxes and buy the DVD of some Jodie Foster movie made in 1980. Stop, Amazon!

And the last of the demonic triplets: TiVo. Patton Oswalt does a great comedic bit about TiVo and its learning habits. I can't really do better than the bit, so I won't try... but the basic idea is that he programmed his TiVo to record a particular Western ("The Man From Laramie," I believe) and came home a few days later to find his hard drive full of everything on television that had anything to do with horses, featured horses, discussed or addressed horses or had horses anywhere in any image in the program. TiVo got a little too aggressive with its assumption that it knew what he wanted to see.

In short, all of this artificial intelligence has its advantages... and its disadvantages. Oh well, I'll take the bad with the good, I suppose!

That's what it all boils down to -- speaking to your customer on a one-to-one basis.

I remember, while studying news writing and copy writing in college, the instructors -- respected journalists and professionals teaching part-time -- talking about one-to-one communication.

"Yes, you're looking at a camera and talking to thousands of people. But, you need to write, then read, your script as though you were talking to just one person."

That was the sage advice of these respected journalists and copywriters. That was at least a couple of years before the Internet, I'm sorry to say. Today, those professionals might well be teaching blogging and Twitting. A recent Harris Interactive poll showed European consumers say the Internet is their most influential medium. It's twice as influential as television, and eight times more influential than printed newspapers.

Wow.

But why not? The Internet is a great big give-and-take free for all! One of the bummers of this research is that consumers don't quite trust the Internet, yet. While two-thirds of Brits polled say they use the Internet to "help them make better decisions," only one-fourth of that same universe trust the information they get. Maybe they're following that old programming maxim of GIGO, or maybe they're just Brits (no wonder we left the empire!). Sorry for the digression, stay with me... it'll be worth it.

Among Blogs, on YouTube, on Twitter, in Social Networks and other Internet realms of user-generated content (UGC), people are talking. People give and seek opinions of others, especially those who've built an online reputation for areas of expertise (I've seen a dozen or so wine judging sites in the last couple of weeks alone!) Those people are your customers. And your customers are talking about you. So join in the conversation! When a blogger mentions she enjoyed your product at a party the other night, Thank her for trying it. Offer her more insights into why it's made the way it is. Invite her to try brand extensions. Welcome her to send you further feedback in the future! When a c-level executive opens that dialog with a customer, you score major goodwill and build stronger relationships... not just with that consumer, but all who read her blog. And, just as importantly, you get honest insights from people who use your product.

To paraphrase the philosopher Kramer, "You're out there.... and you're loving every minute of it!"

This is a gospel we've begun preaching to our clients. Time will tell when and if they can trace sales to chatter on the 'net. But, it's one of those things that just feels like the right thing to do -- speaking to the consumer in a one-to-one environment. It's where we're headed. So, buckle up. And those college instructors' advice, those twenty-something years ago, is going to come in handy!

I visited my parents' house a few weeks ago and smashed my toe on a piece of furniture. I really crunched it and pretty much broke my little toe. I'm not much of a complainer when infirm and it was fairly painful to walk on, even after I taped it up, so I basically tried to sit quietly as much as possible.

Looking on their coffee table, I noticed a thin book that looked interesting, entitled "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. The book starts out with a joke:
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I was hooked immediately, because I'm a bit of a punctuation stickler. Bad writing drives me crazy. Bad punctuation makes me homicidal. One of my biggest pet peeves is the contraction of the word "little." Most often you see it as Lil'. Now ask yourself: What word is being contracted here? Lily? Lillith? Lilliput? The right way - wait, let me re-phrase that - the only way to contract little is to write it as li'l. Lil' Kim, Lil' Bush, Lil' Bow Wow? You're officially on notice.

I'm no expert, but I do try to correctly make use of punctuation and grammar as much as possible. I make mistakes all the time, and I'm always happy to stand corrected (as Francine the Flower Child once told me, "Mistakes are lessons to be learned; you'll keep making the same mistakes until you learn that lesson"). Punctuation, grammar and spelling are not just for snobs and smartasses. They're the means by which we communicate clearly and effectively. For too long, we've allowed our culture to devolve into a celebration of ignorance and mediocrity. Lynne Truss has struck a blow for humanity, and I encourage everyone who reads this to pick up a copy, read it over and do your small part to save civilization from the barbarians. It's also funny and the covers aren't too far apart.

I have a female friend who once told me that she had a HUGE crush on Abraham Lincoln when she was a kid. Her room was adorned with pictures of good old Honest Abe instead of tear out posters from Teen Bop or the latest movie star craze. I found this absolutely fascinating and strangely cool, and inquired what is was about Abe that gave her these feelings of butterflies, adoration and all around googoo gaagaa-ness.

She said that she's just into guys with big noses.

OK. Not really the answer I was looking for, but the fact that she FELT something for Abraham Lincoln, even as a kid, was neat to me. Ever since that fateful day, I have looked at Abraham Lincoln in a different way. I realized then and continue to realize that I DO have feelings for Abe, and I might even know why.

First off, he is a hugely recognizable character. I have never met someone who couldn't recognize Abraham Lincoln. Granted, I rarely open a conversation with his portrait in tow and the question on my lips, but perhaps I should from now on! I might be able to avoid some sticky situations this way.

Abe also did a lot for this country. Everyone knows what the Emancipation Proclamation is and everyone knows that he saw our great Nation through it's most bloody and brutal war. If you don't know what war I am talking about then just don't bother ever talking to me again. Seriously! Another crisis averted all because of Abe.

Abraham Lincoln was really smart and really funny all at the same time. I mean, looking through some of his most famous quotes makes me wish that he could have run the country and been a writer on SNL simultaneously.

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What's with the constant over-bundling of goods and services to artificially inflate the price?  Do they think we're all THAT stupid?

Satellite and cable television are a good example of why this bugs me.

See, I'm a simple guy.  I want a few news and sports channels, some neat HD adventure and travel channels, local affiliates, and not a lot more.  Instead, to get what I want, providers force a lot of what I DON'T want in the “package” and try to represent it as a good deal.

It's not.  Not for me.  Not for them.  I don't need feeds across 4 HBO time zones.

And I'll walk away first.

Yet it seems more and more that such “deals” are multiplying in the marketplace.  Retailers, restaurants, cellphone providers, car dealers, media reps...it's ubiquitous!

What if Agencies did this?  Need a logo?  Okay, I've got a logo/brochure/website package right here!  No?  How 'bout this logo/billboard/radio/texting package?  You get the point.

And it's silly, right?

So here's a solution:  next time a salesperson or a company starts to bundle what you want with what you don't, just wait patiently until they finish their pitch.

Smile.

Then offer them 'half'.

It may not work but it will certainly change the conversation.  And it's a lot more fun than just standing there fuming over the situation.