CBS Sunday Morning

 

My favorite thing to do when I wake up on Sunday morning is to watch the television program CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. This program is always full of “feel good” stories and there’s always a story that brings a tear to my eye. These tears come straight from the heart. With all the shootings and bad things you hear every day going on all over the world, this hour and a half show proves that there are still really good people out there. 

Every week there’s a commentary segment and a couple Sundays ago, I found this commentary from Paula Poundstone to be very interesting. It’s called ‘Electronics and kids’ brains don’t mix’. She talked about an addiction to smartphones, tablets and video games being no good for developing brains and asks, “Are we all spending too much time looking at screens?”

While she’s only a comedienne and not a doctor or a psychologist with the credentials to support this fact, she still brings up some very interesting comments. I guess I support her points of view because I don’t consider myself “addicted” to electronics. In this day and age, I believe there are more people addicted to electronics than those who are not. Read or view her commentary and decide for yourself. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Summer Recipes

It’s officially summer. Hurray!
And a perfect time to share some of my favorite summer recipes.

Black Bean and Couscous Salad
A fellow Eire-ite turned me on to this salad years ago and I can’t get enough of it once summer hits.  It’s healthy, refreshing, and a real crowd pleaser.

Chipotle Turkey Burgers
One day I happened to overhear Oprah (on television, not in real life!) bragging about these turkey burgers. They really are the very best. The chipotle heats them up and the chutney rounds them out with sweetness. My husband would eat these 3 days a week if I let him!

Strawberry Lemonade Bars
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t believe in cooked fruit. This recipe uses strawberry jam and I can live with that! I’m thinking about whipping up a batch for my daughter’s next lemonade stand. Show her how to enhance the customer experience and build loyalty!

Champagne Sangria
There are so many great summer coolers out there, it’s hard to pick just one. But champagne sangria is simple and bubbly and festive. Cheers!

Our Favorite Super Bowl Commercials.

The Super Bowl is all about the appetizers and commercials if your team didn’t make it to the big game (go Colts!). Days prior to the Super Bowl there was a lot of hype surrounding specific ads, as a few were released early on YouTube. I will say I had no interest in the game this year so I devoted all of my attention to the commercials and a majority of them did not disappoint. However, there were quite a few commercials that took a different route than the typical Super Bowl ads we’re used to seeing.

In the past, Super Bowl commercials use to be about which brand had the funniest commercial and generated the most laughs/buzz. This year several ads took a different approach and were very heartfelt and emotional. Some people might say they were trying to connect with viewers on a deeper level while critics categorized them as ‘depressing.’ Overall, there was a wide variety of commercials to capture all audiences. Below I have listed three takeaways from the Super Bowl commercials:

1. Featuring a puppy in a commercial is always a winner. For the third year in a row Budweiser used the ‘lost puppy’ commercial and it did not disappoint. This commercial had a lot of buzz prior to the Super Bowl. The ad went up on YouTube a few days before the Super Bowl and racked up 17.8 million views before it aired Sunday night. Budweiser won my vote for favorite commercial.

2. If you want to create a lot of buzz, feature a celebrity in your ad. Celebrities were a popular theme with this year’s commercials. They ranged from Rex Lee and Brett Favre’s Wix commercial to Liam Neeson’s Clash of Clans ad and Kim Kardashian’s T-Mobile performance. I really enjoyed Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel’s BMW commercial which starts off with a flashback to a conversation in 1994 about the new fad called the ‘Internet.’ However, my favorite celebrity commercial has to be the ‘Invisible Mindy Kaling’ Nationwide ad that also featured Matt Damon. This commercial was creative, fun, and very comical – everything I want in a super bowl commercial.

3. Ads that send positive messages regarding peace and love are bound to be a hit. Two ads that I thought shined due to their messaging were McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. McDonald’s slogan ‘I’m Loving It’ took a twist with their current promotion and ad ‘Pay with Lovin.’ In this commercial costumer’s are asked to perform a loving gesture as payment for their food. Where Coca-Cola sends the message ‘The world is what we make it #MakeItHappy’ in regards to bad internet behavior and bullying. Now these were two non-comical commercials that I enjoyed because they weren’t tear jerkers and sent positive messages

What were your favorites?

Film: Finding Vivian Maier

 

Last week I had the opportunity to go see the documentary film, Finding Vivian Maier, about a street photographer who spent the majority of her life in and around Chicago.

Vivian's story and artwork are unique because she was virtually unknown until a box of her negatives was purchased, after her death, by Chicago resident John Maloof for a book-writing project. Not quite suited for his needs, they were set aside until he eventually began scanning the negatives and created a blog posting the images. Maier's work is stunning.

The more he investigated this artist, the more he learned about her whereabouts, career as a nanny on Chicago's North Shore, and most importantly, her pursuit of photography. Literally thousands of negatives were uncovered in a storage unit, along with other memorabilia that filled the space floor to ceiling, wall to wall. There were also boxes filled with undeveloped rolls of film.

The film follows the pursuit of Maloof to uncover what he could about Vivian Maier. What unfolds is a series of interesting interviews, interspersed with image after image of Chicago and New York streets and residents, self portraits and even short "home movies" of herself and the children she helped raise. But regardless of all the clues left behind, you're still stuck asking questions and wishing there were more details. Vivian Maier was fascinating.

Without wanting to give too much away, I'll just say it's been over a week since I saw this documentary, and I find myself thinking about it daily. Wondering about this strange, complicated woman and going back again and again to look at her beautiful, tortured, stark and emotional images. If you have any interest in Chicago, photography, and eccentric artists, this is a must-see film.

*All images from website.

Um, seriously?

Here at Eire we don’t produce flashy, sexy TV spots.  (We actually don’t produce any TV spots!)  But that doesn’t mean I don’t like to critique the spots I see.  As a direct marketer, I always wonder how effective the ads I have seen are - general advertising can’t give you the quantitative results us DMers crave.  And I marvel at the ads I see that don’t actually feature the product they are selling.  One example is Walter E. Smithe, a Chicagoland furniture retailer.  This family owned business, run by three brothers who I believe come up with the commercial ideas themselves, are always producing spots that tie to current events in the Chicago area.  They are always entertaining, tend to feature someone or something recognizable, and RARELY feature the furniture.  Here are a couple of examples:





The lip sync spot brings to mind a recent Geiko spot.  I love the “popular  middle school girls” who follow this guy around to…  help him loose weight?  Again, I’m entertained but not sure how it ties to car insurance?  Sure the save message is there but:



I’m not saying that these ads aren’t effective.  In fact, they’ve clearly made an impression on me. I just wonder how we can get our clients to have a little fun like this! In the meantime, we’ll just keep doing what we do best, and let the flashy, sexy agencies sell their products without really selling them.

Watch It - My Life as a Turkey

I was so happy a friend of mine recommended I check out "My Life as a Turkey" on PBS, I've decided to recommend it to you. It's the story of Joe Hutto and his experience imprinting and raising a family of wild turkeys in a forest in Florida. Not only is the story touching and entertaining, the cinematography is incredible, and the animals and landscape are beautiful.

As Joe describes his journey:

“Had I known what was in store—the difficult nature of the study and the time I was about to invest—I would have been hard pressed to justify such an intense involvement. But, fortunately, I naively allowed myself to blunder into a two-year commitment that was at once exhausting, often overwhelming, enlightening, and one of the most inspiring and satisfying experiences of my life.”

–Joe Hutto, Illumination in the Flatwoods

It's only an hour, and you can watch the entire episode online. Catch it while you still can!

Poetry Foundation in River North.

There have been many changes in our River North neighborhood over the past six years, condo developments, new restaurants (one which hosted a dinner for none other than President Obama), and we finally got a Walgreens just around the corner. Yet the most remarkable addition has been the Poetry Foundation down the street at 61 W. Superior. 

The history of how the building came to life is classic story book stuff. In 2002 Ruth Lilly, granddaughter of pharmaceutical czar Eli Lilly, left an endowment of stock worth $100 million to the Poetry Foundation, the publisher of Poetry Magazine. In her youth Ms. Lilly, an aspiring poet, sent numerous poems to the magazine, all were rejected.  She was touched by the spirit of the rejection letters which urged her to continue her writing, and with that, decided to bequeath the gift (kind of puts failure in whole different light).

At the time, Poetry Mag had a staff of four, no permanent home, and a meager subscriber base. In August 2011, the foundation moved into its’ new building designed by John Ronan Architects. You must walk past, a view from a cab or website visit does not invoke the serenity felt from the garden that is described in PF’s brochure as “conceived of as an urban sanctuary, a space that could mediate between the street and the building, blurring the distinction between public and private”. It invites you to enter and take a look, it invites you to think about poetry. So I finally checked it out. The first floor is open to the public, offering exhibit space, theatre for open readings, a 30,000 volume library and a library listening room.

Poetry Magazine celebrates its’ 100th anniversary in 2012.  I will be there.

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” / Let us go and make our visit. – T.S. Eliot

Photos also courtesy of Marcia!

The Age of Persuasion.

Last summer I took a 6-week class at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It started at 7:30am, which meant that I was in the car at 6:30 to accommodate a stop for coffee. This may have been the only time in recent memory that I was regularly up-and-at-'em so early on a weekend. It turned out to be one of my favorite things about the class, and the whole summer, really. And what made it so great, besides no traffic on the Edens, was a show on WBEZ called "The Age of Persuasion."

I had taken the gardening class as I diversion from work, but I found the show so entertaining, informative and thought-provoking, that it ending up sticking with me for the whole day. "The Age of Persuasion" is from CBC Radio in Canada and is hosted by Terry O'Reilly and produced by Mike Tennant. The show "explores the countless ways marketers permeate your life, from media, art, and language, to politics, religion, and fashion." The show has a lot dry, even self-depreciating humor along with the history of the advertising industry. The commentary always promotes smart, creative marketing and seems to prove over and over how successful this kind of advertising can be.

At the end of the class I realized that I wouldn't be catching the radio broadcast of the show anymore and, knowing myself, knew I wouldn't wake up early on a Saturday morning to listen to it. Fortunately, there is a podcast to subscribe to on iTunes. And this has worked out even better for me. I can now listen to episodes on the El or on my drive to Michigan on Fridays.

The episodes are an easily digestible half-hour and with a good range of topics so that they don't get boring if listened to back-to-back. Some great episodes include: ""Mad Women: The Great Women of Advertising," "It's Not Easy Being Green: Green Marketing" and" Caution: Speed Bumps. The Magical Ingredient in Marketing." Also, the website has a lot of YouTube videos and pics of the ads discussed.

Here are some links if you're interested in checking out "The Age of Persuasion" for yourself.

http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/

(There is a link to subscribe to the podcast through iTunes)

http://www.wbez.org/programs

(The show airs Saturdays at 6:30am and Thursdays at 11:30am on WBEZ 91.5)