This article at The Economist has nothing to do with marketing, and yet possibly everything to do with it in the near future.  A fascinating study found that men with high testosterone levels make economic decisions in an entirely different way than those with lesser amounts.

Researchers made an alteration to the classic game theory experiment where one subject splits a pot of money with another subject.  The splitter obviously wants to keep as much to himself but the catch is, the “splitee” has the right to accept or reject the offer.  Either both get money, or neither.

In a one-off game, pure logic would dictate you always take the offer.  Hey, free money!  But experimentally, this is never the outcome.  People will sacrifice their own well-being to punish Scrooges.  Evidently, especially so for men with high testosterone.  From the article:

As he [Dr. Terence Burnham of Harvard University] describes in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the responders who rejected a low final offer had an average testosterone level more than 50% higher than the average of those who accepted. Five of the seven men with the highest testosterone levels in the study rejected a $5 ultimate offer but only one of the 19 others made the same decision.

That’s right, the chemicals coursing through our veins actually influence economic decisions.  Can you imagine it?  Marketing groups determining “molecular demographics” and tailoring their marketing accordingingly?  Very ”1984″ (ya know, that ref just doesn’t pack the same punch now that it’s 20 years in the past).  Wait!  Have you ever noticed how the grandma handing out bratwurst samples at the grocery store has a little cup (not a trashcan!) in which to put your used toothpick?!  Holy shit!  They’re taking saliva samples!  They’re already tracking us - get out your hats! 

A man is suing Novartis AG - the makers of the meal replacement beverage, Boost Plus - for giving him an erection that wouldn’t go down.  The CEO of Novartis could not immediately be reached for comment, as he was too busy tap-dancing and shouting with childish glee through the halls of their corporate headquarters.

Said Novartis’s new spokesman, ‘Bob’: “We are truly shocked and sorry that our inexpensive, nutritious beverage has been found to cause rock hard, long-lasting erections.  With all the money and research that has gone into prescription drugs such as Viagra, how could we have possibly predicted that we had made a drink that, at a fraction of the cost of Viagra and availabe without a prescription, could lead to massive hard-ons that can go all night?  Trust me when I say that an investigation has been initiated to determine exactly where we took such a wrong turn that I must stand humbly before you today and admit that, for $1.99 at your grocery store down the street, you can purchase a low-calorie drink that tastes like chocolate milk, is highly nutritious, and will leave your wife or girlfriend screaming in delight and begging for mercy.”

Sometimes, figuring out how to market a product is a near-impossible task, full of meetings, focus group studies, powerpoint slides, conference calls, cocaine-fueled afterhours parties with the strippers you and the client met that night… Excel spreadsheets.  And then other times, the marketing just pops into your lap.  So to speak.  So to the R&D department at Novartis: Well done, mates.  Well done.

Tania Derveaux wants your vote for (Belgian) Senate.  No, I mean really wants your vote..

Upon hearing a challenger promise 400,000 new jobs for Belgium once elected, Ms. Derveaux called “bullshit” and opted to make her own outrageous claim: forty thousand blowjobs over the course of 500 days.  Outstanding!  Obviously a joke, but I’ll give her credit for “selling” the fantasy with an official “Terms of {ahem} ’service’ “ page, which may go down as the funniest TOS I’ve ever read (just an excerpt follows):

Description of Services
The Services consist of Tania performing fellatio on selected individuals who have requested the Services through this form. Travel and other expenses will be covered by NEE…  We adhere to high standards of service but due to time limitations each performance can last no longer than 5 minutes, no exceptions will be made under any circumstance.

General Requirements and Rules of Conduct

Any attempt to influence the depth of insertion by the user will
result in immediate end of service

Tania may deny service for hygiene reasons

 

Now, apart from the inherent and timeless Coolness of a beautiful woman offering blowjobs for votes, I have to commend the printwork of her entire campaign.  Some really provocative (no, not just sexually), artistic pics.  See here for the full, high-res collection.

Beautiful, funny, artistic, politically savvy, and probably has one hell of a sexy accent - I would sooo marry this girl…well, assuming the “40,000 blowjobs” thing is a joke.  I mean, talk about awkwardness at company picnics:

Me:  “Rick, I’d like you to meet my wife–”

Rick: “Tania!!  How are you?!  Congratulations on your win!”

Tania: “Rick..Rick.. oh yeah!  “30,145″!  Good to see you!”

Btw, anyone who knows me or has even read a few posts on this site does not even have to wonder as to whether or not I signed up for a blowie.  I’ll be sure to keep you updated on fulfillment of the TOS.

Found at AdRants

Did I get your attention?  I would assume at least somewhat if you’re reading this.  Now, do you actually think cocaine is currently being stocked on retail store shelves?  I would guess that answer as “no”.  After all, you’re probably not a dumbshit - after all, you have impeccable tastes in blogs ;) .

Unfortunately, the Guardians of our Republic do think we’re dumbshits.  They have forced the makers of Cocaine energy drink to pull their product from the shelves.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a big fan of the name.  I think it’s kind of weak to tie your product to something illicit just for cheap shock value.  But did it merit being “warned” by the FDA?  Threats of legal action by Attorneys General?  Said Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal, “Our goal is to literally flush Cocaine down the drain across the nation”, proving that one does not need to know the meaning of “literally” to pass the Bar exam in Connecticut. (btw, Blumenthal seems to have a nasty habit of skirting the law)

Yours and my tax dollars have funded the time and efforts of a bunch of govt assholes to basically bully a marketing campaign into pulling their product, despite the fact they couldn’t find one law that had been broken!  The best they could come up with is that it “glamourizes cocaine usage”.  Really.  I know young adults are, by definition, stupid, but I find it hard to believe that an energy drink - no matter the name - is going to be a “gateway” to anything more than a couple cavities.  Grand Theft Auto “glamourizes” stealing cars and beating up hookers; yet I haven’t seen an increase in auto theft, and my call girl still looks great!  (Kidding, Mom)

Left alone, Cocaine energy drink sales would have probably emulated its namesake - enjoying a quick high from the marketing buzz, then a nasty come-down once the fad-appeal wore off.  I doubt it would have lasted 3 years.  Now that they’ve changed their name to “Censored” and gained a rebel image, they could do quite well.

I guess to those of you marketing folks out there, watch your ass.  Our country has douchebags in high places… literally.

All the speculation and investigations can finally be dropped:  there is now definitive proof of an Ark on Mount Ararat.  Or, one in progress anyway.  Greenpeace is constructing an Ark there as an appeal to world leaders to combat global warming.

 Said Greenpeace activist Hilal Atici: “Global warming is real.  An impending climate crisis is real.  So we have fired up the chainsaws and are cutting down all these trees to build a boat that will never be used on the top of a mountain to make a statement against the senseless overconsumption that is destroying our Earth!  Oh wait… shit!”

I kid Greenpeace, of course.  This is some very clever marketing in my opinion.  But how sad is it, really, that a valid persuasion tool for world leaders is to appeal to their fundamental belief that a long time ago, some guy built a boat and collected two of every living thing on Earth (except dragons, unicorns, and minotaurs.. they showed up late) so that God could kill off everyone else?  These people run nations!

(quoted title taken from Sky News article.  Why try to improve upon a title like that?)

German All-Star fussballers Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn have just won a lawsuit against the country’s largest porn retailer Beate Uhse for marketing two of their new vibrators as the “Ollie K” and “Michael B”.  Personally, I can think of nothing better than Die Frauleinen across Germany screaming my name at the heights of pleasure, but I guess if you get as many women as international footballers do, you get blase’ about it!

While - um, “researching”? - this post I stumbled upon a pretty funny, yet insightful article regarding the sports/sex marketing connection.  We must remember that to most of the rest of the world, soccer is about the equivalent of football, baseball, and basketball combined here (London alone has something like 8 pro teams).  And I am sure that such fanaticism leaves many women feeling a bit neglected by their husbands.  So what better way to get your Missus behind the home team, eh?  Now, on match day, both of you can be screaming, “Come on, England!  Come on, Eng-a-lund!! Hit it, ya wanker!  That’s it!”

Granted, no sport over here is as big.  But I still thing there are some missed opportunities here.  The “Bucking Bronco”?  “The Tennesse Titan”?  “The Houston Pocket Rocket”?  I mean christ, you don’t even have to change the damn team name!

And for us guys, I still think condoms with your team’s colors/emblem is a goldmine.

I cannot even imagine how many female scientists were killed by their male colleagues, trying to bring these findings to the public.. but they finally succeeded:  oral sex can cause throat cancer .

 Spottswoode: “I’m HPV free.  Now suck..my..cock!”

Yeah, if you think your partner’s not going down enough now, you haven’t seen nothing yet!  No more “I have a headache”, the new tact will be “Of course I want to, but I don’t want throat cancer.  You do care about my health, don’t you honey??”

But there is hope!.. which will probably amount to the best marketing campaign of all time (see how I did that?  I really just wanted to make some smarmy comments about getting head, but this is a marketing site).  The throat cancer is caused by transmission of the HPV virus:

… a new FDA-approved vaccine, known by its tradename Gardasil, can prevent genital HPV infection..

Gardasil officially takes the place of Viagra as “Most Marketable Product, Ever”.  A retarded chimp could make these ads:  “Want her back on your banana?  Gardasil.” (I would think all ad campaigns written by chimps involve bananas, don’t you think?).

Of course, my choice for campaign spokesman is Spottswoode.

Life imitates marketing. A man on Death Row in Tennessee ordered for his last meal that free vegetarian pizza be delivered to all the local homeless. Why vegetarian, you ask. Said convict Workman, “Cuz I’m the only grilled meat on the menu tonight, bitches!” (Actually, I made that up, but how pimp would it be if he said that? I would totally say that on my way to the chair, between rapidfire bouts of pissing and shitting myself.)

Yep, good ol’ Phillip Workman just had to outdo newly elected Pizza Hut Vice President of Pizza, Nick Mathis (who recently offered up a free slice of pizza to the nation last month). Of course, the prison had to be dicks about it and didn’t honor his request, so the residents of Nashville answered the call, ordering thousands of dollars worth of pizza to be delivered to area homeless shelters.

Workman’s reported last words were: “I’m Phillip Workman, and I am the new Vice President of P-p-p-pizzzzzg-g-gg-g-GGGAAAGGHHH! THE PAAAAIINNN! FFUUCCKK!” (Again, made it up.. but that totally would have won the video submission contest. Hands down!)

Global warming is the issue of our time.  I realize that our grandfathers fought in the Great War.  I realize they ran onto Nazi machine gun nests, liberated Europe, stormed Siribachi.  They are called the Greatest Generation.  But I’m telling you right now, if we beat global warming, we will be the Greatest Generation (or if we do nothing, the Most Vilified Generation).  I have friends who laugh at this notion, but we’ll see who’s laughing in 100 years.  After all, which is more important, stopping a tyrant?  Or reversing 150 years of industrial pollution, saving hundreds of millions of people from famine/flooding, and saving hundreds of thousands of species from going extinct?

With that being said, Green Marketing is just at its infancy, and where every company needs to be.  Some big companies already “get it”.  The absolutely breath-taking Planet Earth series by Discovery Channel has been fully sponsored by Bank of America, who are going even further by incorporating green solutions into their practices.  Mega-oil company BP has also been making large strides toward environmental responsibility, consistently scoring high on green rankings.  And then there’s GE’s Ecomagination campaign - they have committed billions of dollars and an entire branch of their company to mastering sustainable energy.

The planet’s atmosphere is going to be saved by individuals - individuals deciding they give enough of a damn to take personal action, cut down their carbon footprint and lobby their governments.  But a few companies are taking up the fight.  This is only the beginning - increasingly, consumers are going to be checking the Green Creds of the companies they’re doing business with.  I now buy gas exclusively at BP, and am switching my Commerce bank account (that I’ve had since I was 8 years old) to Bank of America.  I guarantee you I’m not the only one!  Getting out front with green ad campaigns is a sure-fire way to get business and be seen as one of “the good guys”.

Some links of interest:

Ceres.org - great site reporting on how business is tackling climate change.

Power of Green - good NY Times article by Thomas Friedman regarding the present and future of the Green movement.

FightGlobalWarming.com - what you can do personally.

Get off your ass.  Write your Congressional representatives!  {stepping off soapbox}

According to a recent article I read, MySpace will be entering the News market.  MySpacers read the news???  Look for “Suppress news from my home page!” MySpace skins to be a big marketing opportunity.