Good enough isn't

I saw this headline in this morning's AdAge and I just had to laugh.

Quality matters when developing a new product? Who knew?

Whether it's an economy car, a gourmet appliance, or a local restaurant, quality is the only thing that matters.

If you're making something, anything and you find yourself saying, "that's good enough..." you're in trouble.

The world has plenty of crap that's "good enough."

Make your product special, or don't even bother.

All atwitter...

With all the Twitter faux pas that have occurred over the past year or so, it's not surprising to hear that a celebrity had bad-mouthed a brand in what they thought was a private message, then sent a positive tweet about it a few minutes later.

Oops!

That seems to have been the case Tuesday when Rainn Wilson (Dwight from the office) posted the three tweets pictured here. (If you're not a part of the twitterati, the timeline reads bottom to top).

So there are three possible explanations for this.

1. It's 100% honest. He posted all three not meaning for his fans to see the first one.
2. This was all a set up worked out between him and Del Taco to help the tweets go viral and gain more awareness for Del Taco.
3. And finally, it's a bit that 100% fabricated by Wilson with no input, direction or payment by Del Taco.

Here's why I think it's #3.

This ain't no Paris Hilton we're talking about. Wilson is a pretty smart guy and has been tweeting a long time. I can't see him making this mistake. Also why would he use the @ symbol in a "private message?"

Del Taco would never pay someone to call their food "shitty." Crappy? maybe. Lousy? Yes.

And finally, Wilson's been known to tweet some outrageous things about himself, other people and brands. On Monday one tweet from Wilson read "McRib is people! @McDonalds McRib is PEEE-PULLL!!!!!"

I doubt the folks in Oak Brook paid him to tweet that.

A fourth, more plausible, option occurred to me on my drive to work: Del Taco attempted to hire Wilson to send a positive tweet and this is his way of saying "Fuc.." I mean "no."

America's game?

Football is doing to baseball, what Ndamukong Suh does to opposing guards.

On Monday night, when the NFL was on cable (ESPN) with a terrible, essentially meaningless regular season game – the New Orleans Saints against a Peyton Manning-less Indianapolis Colts – more people watched  the NFL's 62–7 blowout than a World Series 4–0 nail biter.

I'm not saying that baseball is dead, but if a World Series that's tied at 2-2 with all-star names like Pujols, Hamilton, and La Russa can't outdraw a mid-season matchup in the NFL, America's pastime is clearly past its prime.

I get it. We don't have the biggest teams with the biggest stars so the ratings are bound to be lower than a Yankees/Cubs series, but that's exactly the point.

Nobody tuned in to MNF to watch Curtis Paynter. They tuned in to watch the game. So obviously, it doesn't matter who's playing. Even if it had been the Browns and the Seahawks, Monday Night Football would have out-drawn the baseball game.

This is baseball's biggest event. A week long festival that's supposed to be an exclamation point on the end of a grueling 162 game trek where a champion is crowned and a loser sent home saying, "There's always next year."

Can baseball ever compete with football without a series of hall-of-famers on the field? Probably not. But if TV ratings are important to MLB (and they are) at some point their going to have to objectively look at the product as it's presented and make some changes.

Until then, their long slow slide into sports niche-dom will only continue.

A fitting tribute

In case you hadn't noticed, this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Chevrolet brand.

Aside from building some of the best cars in the brand's history, they've also produced this really nice ad for the occasion.



No, the technique of holding an old photograph over the same scene isn't new (see dearphotograph.com). But expecting advertising to be original is like expecting congress to get something done. You'll waste a of energy complaining about either. The technique is artfully deployed in service of commerce to remind those who may not know of Chevrolet's distinguished past without completely overshadowing their relevance today.

Using Ray Charles' classic version of America the Beautiful sets the tone without being overly patriotic. Over the years in all the automotive research I've witnessed, the vast majority of people don't buy a car because it's American. They would gladly purchase a good car, however, that happens to be American.

Who knows what the future holds for Chevrolet? But today I feel better about the brand because of their product and this spot.

Nicely done.