Cartoon Cause For Congratulations
November 30, 2005 | By Jack Yoest
Your audience can laugh with you. Or at you. Today's case study has the blog Reasoned Audacity as the subject of both.
First, the gentle, genteel example:
Mike Wallster at Ipso Facto uses the subjects as props to generate chuckles. To laugh with all involved. A pro can pull this off. Do not attempt without professional advice. Comedy is hard work. Humour doesn't have to hurt.
Sometimes.
The second example is somewhat brutal. Marketing expert Seth Godin explains.
Seth Godin's
Purple Cow
In his bestseller, Purple Cow, Seth says that your marketing campaign must stand out from the herd of common "brown cows" to be noticed.
A "Purple Cow" would be eye-catching.
Today's products and services must "be different, remarkable, extraordinary, exciting...challenging" to standout. To succeed.
So how would you know if you got it right?
Seth reminds us that:
For decades, mass marketing through television worked wonders and it sold billions of dollars worth of products. It even worked for the internet...for awhile.
But no longer. Seth, once the President of Direct Marketing for Yahoo, gives a number of benchmarks for success today. One that caught my attention was parody.
An advertising and marketing program might be labeled a success when it is cited as comedy or satire. If Saturday Night Live makes fun of your brand -- you've got a winner. Seth writes:
If you can show up in a parody, it means you've got something unique, something worth poking fun at.It means there's a Purple Cow at work.
By this parody definition, Your Business Blogger has become a "success." And wife Charmaine. We got hit by Tbogg.
Quite an honor. I think.
Tbogg, was the winner of the 2003 Koufax Most Humorous Award for left/liberal blogs. He gets over 7,900 visits daily. (And to his credit he unmasks his sitemeter.)
A link from Tbogg is almost as good as an insta-launch from Glenn Reynolds in the blogosphere.
The anonymous Tbogg described one of my posts as paste-eating stupid and Charmaine as a fat drunken cow. Funny.
It'd be funnier if Tbogg called her a purple fat cow.
Later, Tbogg criticises Charmaine's spelling. For comparison, Michelle Malkin is merely a crazy-a** bi*ch.
Parody, as I think Seth would correctly describe, is a bit different from being the butt of a joke.
But it sure feels the same. In any event, Seth is right: Sales and marketing and advertising these days requires being a Purple Cow, with a thick hide.
Thank you (foot)notes:
The reader will note that Mike Wallster publishes under his own name. Tbogg does not.
Our friend Mike (aka "Waco Kid") has made the code to his Ipso Facto cartoon available. Be sure to visit Ipso Facto headquarters to check out some past ones you might have missed. And, then, tell a friend.
Seth's Blog has more with his new book, The Big Moo. Good reviews from readers. I will be joining fellow Seth supporters and reviewing also.
Mudville Gazette is running a test on Open Post.
More Than Fire has more on Cow and Moo.
Outside the Beltway has Traffic Jam.
The Indepundit has Liberty Call.
This is an update from 24 October 2005.
Update 20 Dec 05: Don Surber is on TBogg's radar.
