2010 in Review

The year started off on a high with the very successful Vancouver Winter Olympics. We watched every-day Canadians challenge themselves and the world as they rose to become Olympians. Over 14 gold medals where bestowed on Canadians. While the snow was slow in coming it finally did and the winter raged on then turn to rain…lots of rain.

The earth surprised us once again with its ability to literally shake us up with devastating earthquakes in Haiti & Chile. I also collected more scrabble words like “Eyjafjallajökull,” “Wikileaks”, “defriend”, “Glee”, and “Catastrophizing”.

In 2010 golf changed forever and so did Tiger Woods life. Oh another new word from Tiger was “priapsm”. You will have to look it up. You will also see it referenced in the advertising legal lines for Vigara. I digress.

The rains still came in summer. What summer you say. It never really appeared in Western Canada.

We saw a number of corporate brands mismanaged and damaged such as Toyota, Oilsands and BP (Big Problem) and others who keep messing up our environment.

Another word that was overused this year was “Green.” Ever brand seems to be trying to wrap themselves with the latest green fashions. In my day, “going green” referenced what you wore once a year to the Irish pub. And in those terms, sustainability was also know as alcoholics.

There was also winning brands in 2010. Technology continues to drive the appetite for consumers with the likes of Apple with their new iPad, Blackberry (I am happy user) with its smart phones, Amazon with its Kindle e-reader (I have one and I love it!), Google with its Android smart phone, Facebook and the movie didn’t hurt the cause, and sadly McDonalds.

In difficult times this means that McDonald gets a second wind with people only able to afford a Big Mac as their main food souce. In contrast, Gold reached a new frenzy price of over $1,400. China continues to drive the market and sustain commodity prices. The USA is still trying to buy their way out of disaster. Will they succeed? If so, it will be short lived – as they will have to eventually pay for the surmountable damages.

And I now find this long-winded blog coming to a close and wondering aloud, “how did I get to this point?” I guess a lot happens in a year and it’s important to reflect on it, not matter what.

Thank you for making 2010 another unique year. If I could wrap the year in to comment to pay homage, it would probably be in this short song:

“Ain’t no Eyjafjallajökull too high, ain’t no catastrophizing event too large for me to ever Wikileak your priapsm issues online with glee; as to defriend you, would be a tragic thing.”

Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year.

The Nike - Woods Ad – Brilliant or reckless opportunism

I had to come out of blog writing retirement to comment on Nike’s new Tiger Woods television campaign. I am fascinated to understand how Nike sold this concept to Tiger (or did money do all the talking). But I am more confused about how this advertising builds on the Nike brand essences of “authentic athletic performance” that has been translated into a number of slogans such as “Just do it!” and “I can.” On the surface this seems more like being opportunistic and trying to capitalizing on a situation for pure awareness sake. Benetton the Italian clothing retailer comes to mind with their outrages, shocking and provocation advertising for the pure purpose of getting noticed. There are some benefits to be controversial. Some brands make a living pushing the boundaries of free speech and defining what is or isn’t acceptable like Benetton, Calvin Klein, Jerry Springer and Howard Stern. But where is the line? How does a brand built on celebrating physical success with positive human emotions sink to the stark image of Tiger Woods being judged by his dead father? When does this type of advertising start pushing people away or at least start the conversation of whether this brand fits their image. Maybe Nike is going somewhere some people aren’t willing to go. The judgment is still unclear as to whether this campaign is brilliant or just reckless opportunism.