As regular readers are well aware, my brother Myles runs the television-oriented blog Cultural Learnings. His blog has a much higher readership than mine, in part because of his more-targeted focus and in part because he’s done a really great job reaching out to the online television community. He posts on message boards, reads other blogs, and openly engages in the digital conversation. His efforts are a perfect example of successful social media.
Unfortunately, somebody neglected to explain social media to CBS. In a post this past weekend, Myles calls out “viral marketers” who have been posting in his comments promoting the network’s new (and poorly reviewed) fall comedies. These efforts are absolutely laughable, foolishly transparent, and downright insulting to anyone’s intelligence. I shudder to think that it might actually be an advertising agency hired by CBS who is engaging in such tomfoolery.
Myles isn’t the only one frustrated with so-called “viral marketing.” Mitch Joel – you may remember him from my Second Life theorizing – posted his own call-to-arms at his Twist Image blog last week. Tired of clients asking him to make something “go viral,” Joel pins down exactly where the problem lies:
We don’t offer Viral Marketing as a service and I don’t think anybody with a shred of professionalism in the Digital Marketing space should even promote the fact that they can… because they can’t. Viral Marketing is not a form of marketing, so we should stop calling it Viral Marketing. Viral is an effect. It’s a strategic by-product of a successful campaign that resonated with a group of people. You can’t create viral… and those who say they can are simply collecting data of people who do tend to forward things on or Blog about them, as if “seeding” that group is viral success… it is not.
Joel makes an astute comparison to his past life in the music industry when he says that asking a marketer to make something go viral is “like asking a musician to write a one hit wonder.” A record company can do everything in its power to try and force a radio single down listeners’ throats, but unless the audience likes what they hear, they’re not going to send it up the chart.
The same principles apply in the advertising and marketing world, perhaps the only industry more obsessed with self-definition and nomenclature than the music industry. “Viral marketing” is another one of its meaningless, redundant terms; it signifies nothing more than old-fashioned word of mouth, facilitated by the communications technologies of a new digital age. And no matter how much bullshit they may spew, no marketer has ever produced one ounce of word-of-mouth. The audience creates word-of-mouth.
If a company or organization truly wants something to “go viral,” they have to start by creating something worth sharing. They need to make sure that their product or service is something valuable or unique enough that people will want to tell their friends, family and coworkers about. Or, if that product or service is similar to the competition, they can create advertising or promotional materials worth showing to others (as Blendtec and Dove have done brilliantly). These principles apply whether you’re seeking to create word-of-mouth in the digital or non-digital world, the difference being that the former allows audiences to share and recommend content on an unprecedented scope.
The reason why CBS is resorting to an embarrassing attempt at “viral marketing” is that they don’t have anything worth telling people about. They’ve got duds on their hands, television pilots that are flopping with critics and gaining no legitimate buzz online. They’ve thrown their hopes behind “viral marketing” (which their advertising agency has interpreted to mean “comment spamming”) in the faint hope of making lemonade out of their lemons. Unfortunately, the audience they’re trying to reach just isn’t thirsty.
Pop quiz, hotshots. The Simpsons is:
a) A family of five who lives at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, USA
b) The longest-running American sitcom and longest-running American animated program in television history
c) The defining television show of my generation, and a strong contender for the most culturally relevant television program ever
d) A good 8-10 years past its “best before” date
e) All of the above
I know, I know, complaining about the decline in The Simpsons’ quality in recent times is as clichéd as complaining about the weather. After all, though far less consistent than it used to be, the show is still funny. Hell, up until NBC’s Thursday night resurgence, a case could have been made for The Simpsons still being one of the best comedies on television.
The problem, of course, is that it used to be so much more. Like all truly great comedies, The Simpsons was a show about its characters, not its jokes. The brick wall that The Simpsons has run up against in the 00’s is that as the show starts its nineteenth season, there’s really nowhere left to take its characters. Every facet of the family’s personalities has been exploited for every possible plot scenario, leaving the show to rely on flashy guest stars and ripped-from-the-headlines conflicts (Springfield gets gay marriage!) to keep things fresh. And it just ain’t working like it used to.
That there’s actually a Simpsons movie in theatres right now ranks up there with the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones film on the “Holy crap, this is actually finally really happening!” scale. Gossiped about for years and then in production for almost as long, The Simpsons Movie may be arriving in the show’s twilight years but that hasn’t stopped fans from lining up in anticipation; the film’s $72 million at the box office this weekend says it all. So the question is: could the producers and writers of The Simpsons give fans a movie that overcomes the franchise’s present-day shortcomings?
The short answer is no. The Simpsons Movie falls victim to the same redundancies that its small-screen counterpart suffers from. Every plot point in the film is an extension of something that we’ve already seen before. Bart coming to see Flanders as a preferable father figure than Homer? Check. Lisa falling for a boy who shares her interest in environmentalism? Check. Homer doing something so completely stupid that it leads to separation from Marge and the family? Check. There’s absolutely nothing new here because there’s literally nothing that The Simpsons haven’t done.
But somehow, The Simpsons Movie works and works quite well in spite of this. Smartly, as if they realized they had nowhere new to go plot-wise, the Simpsons’ creative team uses the sense of scale that the big screen provides them and ramps everything up to 11. With a louder soundtrack, better visuals and a chance to draft a 90-minute plot, they succeed in actually making you believe that THIS time that Marge leaves Homer is the most serious one ever, that Bart’s pull towards Flanders is SERIOUS this time, that Lisa…well, okay, Lisa’s storyline in the film is only marginally better-developed than Maggie’s. But still, the creative team makes you believe, on some level, that The Simpsons Movie actually means something.
The movie also feels less like seasons 10-18 of the Simpsons and more like seasons 3-9 because it relies on its past strengths. Celebrity guest stars are kept to a bare minimum, and the movie brings in the always-reliable Albert Brooks to play its villain. The script provides little moments for the majority of supporting characters in the Springfield, but by-and-large it’s America’s favourite family that are the focus here.
And of course, it’s really funny. Maybe not “best episode of the Simpsons ever” funny, but more than funny enough to justify its existence. In fact, was this to be the final act for our beloved Simpsons universe, it would have been a decent note to bow out on. Too bad that after a surprisingly poignant big-screen adventure, there’s still lots of pointless small-screen ones awaiting the Simpson family.
Watch: The Simpsons Movie – trailer
Filed under: Movies
We children of the 1980s are the VHS generation, the first batch of youngsters to have grown up being able to watch Hollywood films, on demand, from the comfort of our own home. Hell, thinking back, most of my formative movie-watching experiences were on the family sofa. I recall wearing out tape after tape of Star Wars, making sure that the adventures of Indiana Jones were close by, and ensuring a steady supply of mandatory Disney viewing. In contrast, I have almost no recollection of going to the movie theatre
What was gained in convenience was lost in collective experience. There’s a reason why people still spend $10+ a person to go to the cinema when DVD-quality picture and sound are available in living rooms across North America. It’s because there’s nothing like seeing a movie with an audience, sharing in the laughs, scares and cheers with a hundred or so strangers in the dark. An animated, engaged audience can make even a mediocre film like Transformers infinately more enjoyable.
There’s no greater evidence of this than Halifax’s fantastic alFresco Film Festo, a production of the Atlantic Film Festival Association. Each summer, alFresco hosts screens an assortment of films outdoors down on the Halifax waterfront. The lineup is an eclectic mix of family favourites, cult classics, beloved blockbusters and a yearly people’s choice night where online voting determines the selection (the first several years of which were all Hitchcock films). I’ve been a patron for several years now, with highlights including a Steven Spielberg double bill of Radiers of the Lost Ark and Jaws - neither of which I had seen with an audience before, and wow what a difference it makes – and the night when almost 2,000 people turned up to watch Feris Bueller’s Day Off.
This year’s lineup kicks off tonight with a crowd-pleasing classic: Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future. The rest of the lineup continues the eclectic mix that alFresco strives for each year. It’s the second year in a row that they’ve picked a nautical film for their surround sound showcase (last year it was The Perfect Storm), and I’m not a huge fan of their people’s choice theme this year, but there’s definitely more than a couple of Fridays I’m going to be spending on the waterfront.
July 26 – Back to the Future
August 3 – The Big Lebowski/Donnie Darko (double feature)
August 10 – Shrek
August 17 – Rushmore
August 24 – Master & Commander (in Dolby digital surround sound)
August 31 – People’s Choice Firefighter Classic (see the choices and vote online here)
Screenings take place at Tall Ships Quay behind the Electropolis building. Gates open at 8 p.m. with the show starting at 9 or around dusk. Admission is a $5 suggested donation. Make sure to bring your own chair/blanket. For more details (including rain cancellations), visit the alFresco website.
Filed under: Movies
Based on the excessive number of people who ended up at my blog searching for information on the amazingly cool mystery trailer that played before Transformers, the masses want to know more about what producer J. J. Abrams has up his sleeve.
Well, today Entertainment Weekly revealed the absolutely spectacular teaser poster for the still-untitled film, brilliantly building on the word-of-mouth (and mouse) that the trailer created with its stunning final shot. EW also reveals a few more details on the film itself, including that the film’s lead is played by Michael Stahl-David (The Black Donnellys) and that, no, Abrams is not making a live-action version of the Japanese anime classic Voltron. But other than that, we’re still really in the dark about what exactly is going on with the project code-named “Cloverfield.”
But does the film actually have a title? The rumour going around Comic-Con this week is that the film is going to be called “Monstrous,” and AICN has been sent photos of the above poster with that title plastered on it. I’m going to call bullshit on this one, simply because I think “Monstrous” is an absolutely terrible title considering how cool the marketing campaign thus far has been. We’ll have to wait and see.
Filed under: Holiday Cheer
About a week and a half ago – July 14 to be exact – McNutt Against the Music marked its one-year anniversary on the Internet. Unfortunately, I was busy with my White Stripes coverage at the time, and only now have the chance to sit down and ponder what this “momentous” occasion represents. So like a good friend who forgets and is forgiven, we’ll just ignore the calendar discrepancy and celebrate anyways.
I launched McNutt Against the Music at its original Blogger location last summer with a smug and self-deprecating introduction. I wrote that the blog was created under one of two pretenses: 1. That my life is semi- to moderately-interesting and that a running commentary on it would be worthwhile reading, or 2. That my life is so uninteresting that to blog about it might actually be ironically amusing. Neither of these turned out to be true in the slightest. As the blog grew and took shape, I found myself writing less and less about my mundane personal life, to the point that it seems entirely out of place when it occasionally sneaks in.
The title of the blog, originally chosen as an ironic take-off on a Britney Spears lyric, has proven somewhat prophetic: McNutt Against the Music has not become a blog about its namesake (me), but about the music, the drone, the noise that we invite into our daily lives. Any attempt on my part to focus the blog or narrow its content has been pushed aside as our twenty-first century media torrent becomes more and more diverse and complex. Just as it is completely natural for each of us to quickly flip between various media formats and content streams – from music to movies to politics to technology – so it is for me to write that way too. So one year and 286 posts later, McNutt Against the Music continues to reflect that mantra.
All of this begs the question: “why”? After all, while this blog has had over 20,000 views since last November (when I moved to WordPress and began tracking blog stats), my regular readership is still constrained to middling double digits. Any great interest due to a certain post goes away as soon as I return to regular content. And I’ve only been able to cultivate a small – but dedicated – crew of regular commentators. So why blog?
I guess it comes down to something I was talking about with the girlfriend a while back, that with anything in human society (art, politics or otherwise) there are two different types of engaged citizenry: those who participate and those who observe and criticize. And that for all the tension between them, they each play a vital role in public discourse. Actors and participants need critics, not only to keep them honest, but because they’re often too busy doing stuff to analyze the consequences of their actions, to place their work within a broader, critical context.
The last year or so, I’ve come to realize that I’m rarely cut out to be a participant. Besides the fact that I’m not particularly talented at most things, I find myself incessantly analyzing any group or organization I find myself in, refusing to let myself get too biased or emotionally attached. For some reason – maybe it’s just the way my brain is wired – I’m condemned to be a critic. Might as well embrace it.
But enough small talk. In honour of McNutt Against the Music’s one-year anniversary, I’ve put together a whole set of facts, figures and favourites to look back on, a review of a year’s worth of content for the devoted reader or newcomer alike (party games continue after the fold).
