Every animal has its day
I just read a story on
Money.CNN.com on how a Taco bell just got its door closed because it was infested with rats. Notice I said RATS, because this are quite large creatures, not your typical little white mice you might run into from time to time.
It is actually quite disgusting to see this as we are not talking about one or two critters, but actually dozens of them running around between counters and tables and climbing on children's high chairs. Make sure to check out
the video.
I have never been more disgusted in my life. I don't like to eat at fast food restaurants, typically for health reasons, but on the rare occasion I do go, my place of choice has always been Taco Bell. As a matter of fact, I was thinking I would head down to the local Taco Bell, here in Norwalk CT for lunch today, but seeing this has not only deterred me from going, but actually killed my appetite.
The bottom line is that in today's consumer conscious market, it is surprising to see a chain go down the drain like this. First it was the
E.coli outbreaks and now this. If this restaurant chain is going to make it they have better start cleaning up their act or they are going to find themselves in the same spot as other chains in the past. Chains that live on but only as a memory in people's mind such of the likes of
Roy Rogers, now I want a burger!
Google Inaccuracies
Recently I was discussing with some colleagues how Google is acting and behaving funny. Further, I mentioned how I have started to use Yahoo again for my searches as I'm not able to obtained great results from Google any longer.
Interestingly enough, I came across an article on
SEO Chat today which shed some light and somewhat scared the beejesus out of me. Apparently Google was suffering from lack of space on their servers last year and as such they wrote some algorithms to dump irrelevant pages from their servers to free up space. The trouble was that the robot accidentally dumped too many pages, even pages that mattered.
This whole problem compounded with the delete happy robot caused Google to reconsider their strategies. As such, it seems that Google, going forward in the very near future will start indexing and ranking pages based on the number of clicks a particular page/site receives as opposed to their standard link popularity system of the past. Don't get me wrong, Google is still based on how popular a site is, the change becomes in the fact that link farms will no longer work as well as in the past as they won't count unless people start clicking those links.
The bottom line is that Google is now thinking through their strategies in preventing gamers from ranking sites higher. On the other hand, it is a very scary concept because it is now placing more relevancy on click thrus. Does this means that the PPC Google model will actually increase your rankings? This goes against their philosophy of money doesn't change your rankings. Are they saying that only media sites which get far greater click thrus than consumer sites will rank higher? This is all very confusing, why can the Google folks come clean and stop scamming us.
What's is wrong with the media
It seems to me that the media companies have forgotten what being newscasters is all about. For the past two weeks I have had no choice but to stop watching or listening to the TV and radio, as all they want to speak about all the celebrities scandals.
Last week every Web site, TV, and radio were portraying the events of the astronaut woman who in a moment of craziness attach another woman for the love of a fellow astronaut. As outrageous as this sounds, worse was the fact that we were told minute by minute by the media through all its mediums as the details, of this poor woman's life, as her life was unraveling.
This week we are now faced with the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the custody and paternity battle that her 4 month child is facing.
The bottom line is that the media is after eyeballs and I take it that they have figured out that scandals attract more eyeballs than important issues. They cover 30 seconds of nuclear weapons, which can bring more death to the masses, and focus the next 10 minutes on the life of a stripper turn celebrity. It must be me, as I just don't see the fascination with crimes and death of celebrities. Further I think that some stuff is rather personal and should be kept private.
Advertising is out of control
First there was Superbowl ads, then incorporating animals into ads, the latest, incorporating ads on eggs.
Reuters is reporting today of a new marketing campaign design towards consumers buying eggs. This, the first of its kind in Japan, will feature stickers posted onto eggs in supermarkets. Ramen Noodles is spending $58,000-$66,000 US dollars on the promotion of it's new chicken ramen instant noodles product.
As we know this kind of campaign is very targeted and promotes good brand recognition. If you don't believe me, then let me postulate this question, what brand of bananas do you buy?
The bottom line is that in the US we have informed consumers to death and it's always refreshing to find someone using a new design and approach to brand and market a product. Although, the sticker on food items is not new, I haven't seen this kind of cross promotion in the market place before. Very ingenious, but does it affect the quality or sanitation of the eggs, only time will tell when we heard of the sticky bird flu.
Labels: advertising, brand, Design, eggs, reuters
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