Lawrence Gee | Marketing, Internet, Creativity, Strategy

The “American” Way

The American way of life is an expression often used to explain the freedoms we experience and our country’s principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  It is often used to describe all that we hold sacred and perserving this way of life often quoted as a reason for the actions of our leaders and government.

Last Friday, American Airlines announced that it was seeking damages from Google for selling search terms that use or were related to its name.  Capitalism is definitely part of the American way and so is greed.  While I agree to a certain extent that companies shouldn’t be able to make money from the direct use of someone else’s trademark name, I do question whether companies should be allowed to hold (or trademark) names that are as generic as American Airlines.  Apparently there has been contradicting rulings in the past to buying search terms of trademark names.  There really needs to be some standard for generic company names and genericized brand names like Kleenex, Xerox, and Band-Aids. Until there is clarity and a landmark ruling on this topic, I guess its the “American Way” to keep fighting for a share of the profits.

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Monkey See, Monkey Do

There was recently an article about a study which concluded that obesity is contagious.  If you had obese friends, you yourself had a greater chance of being obese.  The opposite was also true — if you had very fit friends, you would be more likely to be fit yourself. 

This makes sense as behavior is learned and is definitely influenced by your environment.  These conclusions can also be translated to other areas.  Look at celebrities who are in the news today — Michael Vick had a higher chance of getting into his current legal troubles due to the company he kept; Lindsay Lohan is wrapped up in drinking and drug issues because of the party culture she hangs out in. 

This is why word of mouth and viral marketing works.  The things you do and products you buy are definitely influenced by your friends and the environment you live in.  Monkey see, monkey do. 

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Not just another Obama YouTube Video

This Monday marks the first time that UGC (user-generated content) will be used to ask questions in a political debate.  Videos have been submitted via YouTube and the questions will be edited and selected by CNN.

This begs the question if this will be any different then any other debate.  The questions will probably not be the true questions that popular America wants to have answered but rather a water-down, edited version.  Instead of using the web as a submission tool for questions, wouldn’t it be better utilized as a voting tool to determine the most pressing issues?  That way instead of having a 3rd party like CNN pick the questions, questions are asked based on popular vote.

Going a step further, all the candidates responses to the questions should be posted online as well where they can be shared via websites like YouTube and rated by users.  It would be great to see how America rates the candidates responses versus the political “experts”.

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