Marketing Type

Nappy-Headed Ho Movie Planned

From the one-man's-trash-is-another-man's-treasure department:

According to a press release, adult video company KickAss Pictures plans a DVD titled "Nappy Headed Ho's." A portion of the proceeds will be donated to a retirement fund for ousted radio personality Don Imus. Those of you who have been concerned that Imus would die penniless can now rest easy. The full text of the press release follows.
______________________

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2007

“Nappy Headed Ho’s” Movie May Fund Imus Retirement

$1 From Each DVD to be Donated to Imus

 
Glendale, CA – Adult video company Kick Ass Pictures today announced that it is releasing a movie called "Nappy Headed Ho’s," and that $1 from each DVD sold will be donated to a retirement fund for radio personality Don Imus. Pre-sales and more information about the movie can be found at web site nappydvd.com

“We see this as a free speech issue,” stated Kick Ass president Mark Kulkis. “As an adult media company, we’re especially defensive of free speech. Don Imus is a loudmouth and perhaps a bigot. However, CBS Radio was hypocritical in hiring Imus to be blunt and outspoken, then firing him for the same reason. Fellow broadcast personalities Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson spew anti-gay slurs, yet they are not fired by their networks.”

On April 12, syndicated radio personality Don Imus was fired by CBS Radio for calling the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy headed ho’s.” The incident gained worldwide publicity and is still ongoing. Just last week, it was reported that Imus is suing CBS Radio for money owed on his contract.

“If Imus doesn’t prevail, then there’s a good chance he’ll need some help with his retirement fund,” said Kulkis. “If he doesn’t choose to accept the money we collect, then we’ll donate it to the United Negro College Fund.”

Nappy Headed Ho’s stars girls with closely twisted or curled hair (the dictionary definition of “nappy”), who have sex for money (the dictionary definition of “ho”).

Kick Ass Pictures is headquartered in Glendale, California and is the only porn company in the world to guarantee all natural breasts in all of its movies.

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References

See also:

nappy - definition of nappy by the Free Online Dictionary ...

ho - definition of ho by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and ...

scuzzball, scuzzballs- WordWeb dictionary definition

Marketing Miscellany

• The Blooker shortlist showed up on the Amazon.com Bookstore Blog. While I no longer track Lulu-related news very closely, it's obvious that the announcement of the shortlist has so far produced a nice, long ripple effect in the blogosphere.
• Although deadlines loom, I still have not decided whether to attend SES NYC or Danny Sullivan's new gig, SMX in Seattle. When it comes to spending money, I am capable of a truly incredible degree of procrastination.
• Enjoyed coffee recently with Eric Holter of Newfangled Web Factory in the neighboring town of Carrboro, North Carolina. Eric started the company in 1995, which is ancient history in this industry. His agency has quite a bit of experience and offers web design with a built-in content management system.
• Scot Wingo, noted eBay Strategies blogger and CEO of ChannelAdvisor, was also generous enough to invite me to share coffee recently. In addition to being surprisingly approachable for a guy trying to run a company with several hundred employees in five cities (while blogging and raising a family to boot), Scot struck me as a very bright, focused guy.
• If  you happen to be (or know of) a WordPress expert and you run across this blog entry, please drop me a line and introduce yourself. I'm particularly keen to find someone really good in the UK.
• It has become fashionable to depict Google  -- with its professed philosophy of 'don't be evil' -- as a modern arch villain. I'm not really inclined toward that sort of thinking, but I am also genuinely inspired by this sort of thing: an announcement that Google Apps (email, calendars, etc.) will now power the entire educational systems of Kenya and Rwanda. If that works, it will put their elementary and secondary systems leaps and bounds ahead of ours in terms of the available communications infrastructure.

John Edwards is good and so is his marketing

[Reposting from Salutor.com]

Via Triangle-area political blogger Ruby Sinreich of LotusMedia, I'm tickled to discover that part of the web strategy of the John Edwards campaign is a charmingly ambiguous slogan, "John Edwards is good."

This marketing is also good for a couple of reasons:

1. The slogan's ambiguity allows individuals to inhabit it with their own meaning.
2. The assertion intrinsically conveys a positive message, which suits Edwards' apparent temperament and strengths, such as they are.
3. The simplicity of the phrase is reminiscent of that other great political slogan, "I like Ike."

Another compelling aspect of the strategy, apart from its appeal to the young and web savvy (is that a soap opera title yet?), is that no one appears to have tried to stake a proprietary claim to the slogan. It is not really clear, in fact, what if any role the official campaign might be playing.

This not only strengthens its appeal to web savvy, creative commons, "influencer-types," it keeps a positive message from being compromised by negative associations that would accompany trying to enforce exclusivity. People can, as Ruby points out, really make it their own.

By way of illustration: I like Edwards even though I don't particularly agree with him on several issues. . . . My positive feelings toward Edwards arise from two (arguably silly) things:

• His wife, who is likable and in every way speaks well of his character.
• A comment he made in response to a set of questions during the last election about his favorite way to spend downtime, which was something along the lines of "sitting on the couch watching Scooby-Doo with my kids."

These small details made me feel as if I might actually enjoy having the Edwards to a backyard cookout, a sentiment for which during the last election John Kerry offered nothing comparable. It is interesting but not relevant to my feelings toward Edwards that an old friend of mine, Matt Gross, is apparently advising the campaign on Internet strategy (no doubt he is one of many). For what it's worth, I also like John McCain.

Introducing Britopian

The first Google news link below is from a British marketing blog/company called Britopian. It is new to me, but they seem to have combined the blog/agency idea very smoothly.

30 Second Superbowl Ad or Youtube?
By Michael Brito
As social media begins to dominate the marketplace, it is imperative for marketers to include this growing channel into their overall strategy planning; millions of impressions are at stake. Dove has done an excellent job in leveraging ...
Online Marketing Blog - Britopian... - http://www.britopian.com/blog

Zango to Pay $3 Million, Settles FTC Charges
The former 180solutions, one of the world's largest distributors of adware, and its two principals have agreed to...
MarketingVOX - The Voice of Online... - http://www.marketingvox.com/

Media, Online Marketing and Sales Experts Bring Strong Industry ...
Atlanta. – On the heels of its round of strategic funding from Comcast Interactive Capital and Turner Broadcasting, ViTrue, Inc., pioneer of the world's first user-created advertising platform, today announced the appointment of three ...
American Venture Magazine News Feed - http://www.americanventuremagazine.com/

Online Marketing in Second Place
If you aren’t already marketing on the web you should be. According to a new whitepaper from Omniture, online marketing ranks second as the preferential advertising medium behind only in-person advertising efforts for B2B campaigns.
BizReport - http://www.bizreport.com/