Recently in Personal Blogging Category

It's nice to have company, isn't it?

Which is why we're WICKED PYSCHED to announce that our Boston office (which includes our HQ) was just named one of the "Top 100 Places to Work in Boston" by The Boston Globe!

They're a danged great group of people to work with and we're glad to have them aboard.

And if a picture is worth 1,000 words, I wonder how much a movie is worth? You can check out the Boston team by clicking below.

Congrats!

If you're a pumpkin.

We held our annual Pumpkin Slaughter last night and oh how the flesh and seeds went flying. Did the expensive Martha Stewart pumpkin carving kit help? How about the accessory kit?

There were lessons learned (Tony found out if you mess up one side of the pumpkin, there's another side for the cutting), pizza eaten (Rocco's!), and a few glasses of wine, beer, and sparkling apple cider downed.

Believe it or not we got home in time to do last minute touches on our Halloween costumes and stand in line with everyone else to buy non-Pirate related candies at Ralph's.

We'd love your opinion on this year's contest. (Please remember, almost no one at our office went to Art School.)

The online poll is below.

Without further ado.....

The 2008 Aquent Pumpkin Slaughter!

#1 Creepy Guy

Maybe it's just because I read the LA Times Food Section every Wednesday that I've noticed this other, non-computer related, war going on.

It started, it seemed, with a full page ad from Campbell's Select Harvest shown above, letting everyone know that this Progresso soup had MSG and theirs had none.

Soon there was a full page ad from Progresso, "Campbell's has 95 soups made with MSG.  Progresso has 26 delicious soups with no MSG (and more to come)."

Then one from Campell's.

Then one from Progresso?

Actually I sort of lost count because, sorry to inform both companies, I don't really eat soup.

In fact, in the years since I was daily chowing down Maruchan Ramen Noodles (aka The Lean Years), I've really come to think of canned soups as the food item that my grandmother would beat me for eating.

So no, once again this advertisement war is not working for me.

Maybe if you put my grandmother in the ad.

You can read about the whole battle at Food Quality News, if you so wish.

I'm wondering is it just Political Fever that driving all these smear campaigns?

What say you?

I'm man enough, my friend, to admit my wife KO'd me twice last night in Wii Boxing (perhaps, though, not man enough to let you know how our Wii Tennis match turned out).

Maybe it's just that we're all under siege from both political parties and various Vote No and Vote Yes groups, but I have no idea why Apple and Microsoft have gotten into an ad war that looks like a McCain v. Obama shootout.

Microsoft launches Windows campaign with Jerry Seinfeld

Then pulls them

Microsoft launches their "I'm a PC" ads, complete with appearances from Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra (Really? Deepak Chopra? They chose Deepak Chopra?) in obvious answer to Apple's "I'm a Mac ads".




Well, now Apple counters with their own take on the $300M ad campaign by Microsoft




Media Bistro says "Clearly, the above Apple spot completely undoes the $300 million project, in one swift kick to the nards."

I can't say I agree. I use both PC and Mac and, well, they both have their issues (I'm not currently a fan of Vista, which I use at home), but are these ads really going to make me lean one way or another?

I don't know about you, but when I bought my last computer there was much more to consider than what my OS "said" about me.

How about:
 
Cost of system
 
Whether or not useful applications are included in the software bundle (Word & Excel, anyone?)

Ease of use

Look and size of system

Ease of switching platforms

There are some programs which just aren't Mac compatible (which is why I have to use Parallels at work, which is painful) and many things about a Mac are just easier to use.

I see none of these points outlined in these ads.

But maybe they're just marketing the Brand Experience.

I guess if it sells their OS, then I guess they've done their job?

You know, this just made my morning.

Here's a note an Aquent Talent wrote to our HQ, which they kindly passed along to us.

Dear Aquent:
 
Just wanted to express my gratitude for your great company! You guys
are always so helpful and professional.   I love working (at my current assignment) and thank you for making this happen.
 
Just thought I'd let you know . . .

Sincerely,
 
Beverly

I'm not lying... it's dang hot.

Here's what my Mac widget is saying:

You know, it's all I can do to try to get people to be more "eco", "green", or choose your own environmental catchphrase, without appearing to be Hitler Youth and yelling at someone every time they throw out their Coke can instead of putting it in the recycling bin.

Yelling at people is a great way to become unpopular, by the way.

I'm thinking of those heavily-accented New Yorkers yelling "Fur is murder!" at the fur clad women coming out of Neiman Marcus. (It did sound a bit like, "Fehr is Merhder!")

In fact, if there's something you take seriously: politics, hunting, fashion, baseball... there's a good chance when you get to yell mode you're going to start irritating everyone.

Which is why you've never seen Michael Jordan on TV holding up a pair of Nikes and screaming, "Hey, buy these damn shoes!"

Screaming is the easy way out. It's what you do to kids so they'll do what you need to do. And it's rarely used to get someone older than 18 to do something you want them to.

Which is why I prefer getting people on board the "Green Movement" by subtle suggestions, like those "Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail" tags on the end of people's email.

As a staffing company, we get a lot of paperwork on a monthly basis. Basically everyone who comes into the office needs to fill out an I-9, W-4, and go through about 15 other pages of paperwork. Not only is manpower involved filing all those things, it's a ton of paper. (Literally, after you get enough of it.)

Which is why I'm so happy we just moved toward filling out our I-9s electronically and offering the option of both Talent and Staff getting their pay stubs (and prior year W2s) electronically, which cuts down on paper and the real and environmental costs of getting those documents to everyone's houses.

The next big step? Getting our clients on board with signing electronic time cards.

Right now we we process nearly 300 every week in our office alone. That means Aquent Talent have to print out their time cards, have their supervisor sign them, then fax them to us, which produces another piece of paper. So that's two pieces of paper right there. Maybe 600 sheets of paper doesn't seem that much, but we have over 75 offices who do this every Monday of the year.

So is that big picture or little picture?

I think it's a step in the right direction.

If you just start changing your mind on this one thing, then it follows that you'll start looking at the world differently.

Just so you know, I'm not going to be screaming at you next time you chuck your Pelligrino water bottle into the trash.

And that I'll probably wait until you're out of sight before I take it out of the trash and toss it into the recycling bin for you.


BTW, If you're an Aquent Talent interested in getting off the paper pay stub addiction, just go to MyAquent "Work" section's new "View Pay Statements" option. If it's confusing, just email me and I'll walk you through it.


(Photo by zappowbang)

Daphne, who used to work in the LA office with me has an excuse for missing these viral Dove Ads - she's in our Sydney, Australia office.

But me, who sits at his computer all day in the second largest city in America, blogging about media stuff?

Sadly, no excuse.

But! To make up for it, in case any of the rest of you are recovering Luddites, I'm including two of the films from Dove's Self-Esteem gallery. (On a side note, I've watched these a number of times and my self-esteem remains remarkably low.)

There's been a heck of a lot of controversy about these films and Dove "taking on" the beauty industry. There's even been venting at Ogilvy, who produced these film, because they also produce ads for a well-known girl's doll that is not so loved by many women.

I'm not sure what I think of the campaign as a whole, is it whitewashing or just a step in the right direction?

Either way, the visuals in these films speak for themselves. Whether that changes your decision whether or not to pop into Victoria's Secret or Abercrombie & Fitch, is up to you.

Onslaught

Evolution

Interestingly, Greenpeace posted their own YouTube response ad (below), protesting Dove's use of palm oil in their products. They claim the palm oil industry is destroying the Paradise Forests in Indonesia and that "as the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world" they need to help stop it.

As a result, Unilever met with Greenpeace and "agreed to support the call by Greenpeace for an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil plantation".

So maybe one step in the right direction, the Real Beauty Campaign, is leading to other right steps?

Reason #21:

Giamela's Meatball Sub

I used to eat at this place back when I worked at Sunset-Gower Studios in Hollywood. You'd never suspect that I lived, literally, 7 blocks from one. Probably because the last time I got a meatball sub there was the last time I worked from home.

The trick they pull on you at Giamela's? A full sandwich (pictured) is twenty-five cents more than the half. What a heart-stopping deal!

And yes, when I biked home, Jared from Subway was standing by the road crying just like that Native American, Iron Eyes Cody, used to do in that 1970's commercial.

I'd tell you I only ate half, but I don't really like to lie on the blog.