The small stickers on her face were unexpected, but she was also wearing two different socks, crocs decorated with chunks of tiny things, while engulfed in a secret audio world thanks to her enormous headphones.
I’m finally at the age where youth perplexes me, so observing different looks and actions that are different from my generation are a new hobby. I saw the crocs accessories coming. The mismatched mid-calf high socks have been a growing trend for years. The headphone ear muffs also trendy, thank you Beats. But what’s with the face stickers?
Well, I found out and my head is still cocked in confusion. You make the call. Here’s the flip: camouflage has been outed. The newest acceptable way to deal with a pimple is to point to it. Make it known. Show it off. A rare strategy that mocks embarrassment and celebrates imperfection. Uncommon, to say the least. But hey, when you can’t fight ’em, join ’em.
We’ve seen this in practice before… the fat kid who makes fun of his large size… the amputee who uses his fake leg to freak people out… the politician who doubles down on denial of proven facts. When it comes to dealing with negative attention, the human response is fascinating. Some hide. Some seek the stage.
So when you see folks sporting colorful little stickers of stars, hearts, or moons on their faces, no need to stare. Now you know. Pimples are in.
Do you ever hear a word that you pronounce differently than others? Do you make note? Ask? Give a rat’s patooty? Another hobby of mine is to bring the offensive pronunciation into the ring. I love this kind of battle, where common word pronunciations are positioned against each other.
The following stories are all true. The names and places have not been changed to protect the truth.
Eat Your Fruits + Vegetables
A good friend of mine likes to say tow-MAH-toes, poh-TAH-toes, and even BAH-zil. Since this word debate actually has a battle song, they seem to be the most socially acceptable pronunciation discrepancies in American English. Despite the way we say it, we both agree, surprisingly, that tomatoes are fruits and potatoes are vegetables. <Ding> Round Two…
You Mean, Annoy
I was in my late twenties and vacationing in the oh-so-creative Cancun. Hey, it was the 90’s. I never could have guessed that this trip would haunt me for life. For Life.
Put yourself in a fine hotel retail store, the one that sells 2-3 overpriced yacht outfits , suitcases for some reason, and other bawdy accessories we know today that we never really needed. So, it’s the mid 90’s and I’m in the store because I unfortunately also had the decade’s mentality of more sun means beautiful tan. I burned like butter in pan. I knew I needed relief and I knew what I needed to do to get it. I asked the now-I-can-say snotty woman behind the counter, “Do you have any aloe?” I pronounced it correctly. Let the court make note of that solid memory backed up by diary entries, Exhibit D.
The saleswoman replied, “You mean, “ah-LOY”? It was fate that my travel buddies entered the store at this exact moment heard the woman’s response. Knowing me well, they removed me from the potential verbal crime scene quickly. I never did get that ah-LOH lotion. The “Ah-LOY” experience never leaves me. I mean, come ON. Look at that sha-LOY stream? What’s in the ha-LOY log? Did you have any mah-LOY-mars? I need to find that woman.
Howda Hell
My BAH-zil friend was over and she had brought gouda cheese, a favorite of both of ours. As she pulled it out, she called it “GOW-da”. Now… I can be overly confident and wrong, but c’mon, gouda? It’s GOO-da and everyone knows it, so I felt good about challenging her to the dictionary pronunciation and smiled as I typed in gouda (not just a cheese, also a town).
On the gouda reference page there is one little speaker icon, revealing the proper way to say what I knew was goo-da. I tap the little icon and we both lean in, and the damn voice comes back, “GOO-da…. or sometimes HOW-da”. I think I heard the man’s recorded voice even spit a little when he said it. WTH? While my word war is still 0:0, as my friend was close-but-no-cigar with GOW-da I have to admit my friend not only was closer, she knew it wasn’t just GOO-da. Pass the poh-TAH-toes, BAH-zil.
Not Pot
Ahh, another joyous workplace experience with words.
[Scene] The company meeting and the issue had been that storm waters had made the city provided water unpotable. I said “un-POH-ta-bul” and an elderly woman in the meeting corrected me and declared it was “un-POT-uh-bul”. Get those Oxford folks on the horn.
And the answer for how to pronounce unpotable <insert winning drum roll> is “un-POH-ta-bul”. Score! Let the games continue.
With what words have you disagreed on pronunciation?
Have you seen the enormous volume of publicly available data, as well as written analyses, tables and maps? Whatever stats make your skirt fly up, you’ll find them at the US Census Data website.
You may find some interesting bits of info to share with your client or maps to to add depth to your next pitch or proposal. I could go down the Census Data rabbit hole for days, literally. In addition to raw data, they provide analysis tools as well as written analyses on a ton of topics. Quick Facts, cross-tabs, and even infographic maps can be conjured up with a few clicks.
Have you heard of Megalopolis? Thanks to this jaw dropping visual, it’s easy to see why this population dense region was so named. It’s also fun to say. Megalopolis.
Jean Gottmann penned the term in his 1961 study about urban trends. He determined Megalopolis to be a region within the northeastern United States that extends from northern Virginia to southern New Hampshire. The area includes popular cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
Today, approximately 50 million people live in this band of 103 counties, representing about 15% of all Americans.
While I listen to Bill Withers singing””Lean on Me”, the human need to connect and feel love sinks in. We live in a world of kinetic chaos that could squash the human spirit, but yet somehow, we find the good. The media offers up these happy bits and we cling to them like life savers. It is my pleasure to throw you one of my favorites.
Austin’s Altruism
Austin is a superhero and it’s not just because he dons a cape. He helps feed the homeless in Birmingham, Alabama. The fact that Austin has been on this earth just 4 years is almost irrelevant. He’s single handedly making a difference. Using his allowance and lunch money, he politely provides and reminds all to “don’t forget to show love”. How did this happen?
Austin’s dad seems just as perplexed, but equally supportive and proud. My favorite part of Austin’s story is that his superhero name is President Austin, as he believes this is what a President does. May we be so fortunate. You have my vote, Austin!
“Target market”, “SWOT”, “Unique Selling Proposition”, “Influencer” and whatever comes next – if you’re in the field of advertising, marketing, or market research, you best hop on the bandwagon and learn your client’s love language.
While promotional fields of study have been around longer than you probably realized, the popular words used to describe the practice change over time. Time moves forward. Culture changes. People age out of the business as new ideas from younger professionals enter into the ring. Whatever you want to point to as the reason, the fact is: change happens.
Over time, we have learned to use the terms our clients are using. We also are quick to ask them to describe and define what their words mean to them. The latter is the key. The different perspectives are vast.
Brand positioning? Brand identity? Graphic identity? Brand image? Brand Building? Brand repositioning? So many variations of intent. As a result, we move forward with what the client needs to move forward, all the while using their marketing love language. When in Rome.
“Full service or DIY”, “user experience or usability”, “iterative learning or agile research”, “unmet needs or voice of the customer” – the terms are definitive to those using them, and it’s up to us to be curious, fluid, and purposeful.
What marketing terms have populated your world and why?
In the US today, the 2nd Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November, most of the country recognizes Daylight Savings Time (DST).
From the human desire to commune with nature to the yearning for a longer golf game, nothing was enough to win the argument for change until the trump card came calling: the great war. It took the need to save energy to officially move the needles.
Despite popular belief, Daylight Savings Time (DST) was not implemented in the US to benefit farmers. It was first used in the US in 1918 for 7 months as a means to conserve energy for the wartime efforts of WWI. It was repealed until implemented once more during WW2, referred to as “War Time”.
DST wasn’t a uniform policy in the US until 1966, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act into law on April 13, 1966. It took 8 years for the law to be fully and effectively implemented across the US.
Arizona and Hawaii have never recognized Daylight Savings Time. US Territories closer to the equator also do not recognize DST, including Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
Did you know… Daylight Savings Time in the US is called Summer Time in most of Europe.
Did you know… India is also under one time zone (India Standard Time, IST), yet it’s on the half hour (UTC +5:30) and nobody knows why. Theories include the fact that New Delhi is halfway between meridians, so instead of choosing one over the other, they split the difference and applied it across the country.
When Covid 19 hit the US with a punch in the Spring of 2020, how did it affect you? How did it affect your family? Your work? Well, if you are a sports caster and there is suddenly no sports to discuss, you, like many, turn your time and talents inward and start taking a long hard look at your home surroundings.
Andrew Cotter transitioned his sports broadcasting skills to his favorite companions: his dogs. Not what you might be expecting, we encourage you to take just a few minutes to enjoy Andrew’s two favorite players. Welcome, Olive and Mabel…
More people have cell phones than toilets, revealing a true shift in priorities and a serious need to get areas in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa plumbed.
Go Chiefs! And go Usher! Super Bowl 58 did not disappoint.
Perhaps you pondered where all the electricity for the whole endeavor was coming from. 621,000 solar panels, to be exact. And that’s a number Las Vegas can take to the bank. With over 300 sunny days per year, the area is prime for receiving and storing solar energy.
