SEO Werkt!

I get a righteous buzz from Grey New York's latest ads for Mike's Hard Lemonade, designed to portray the beverage as "always different, always refreshing." Scruffy young dudes hang out in a house, swigging the product, and each of three spots—directed by Harold Einstein of Station Films—presents a different tipsy scenario based on who or what rings the doorbell. Visitors include a gnarly scarecrow who really loves his work; a 30-foot-tall woman in search of the giant red high-heeled shoe she left behind the night before; and best of all, a headless deer (its face and antlers are hanging on the wall). Note how the torso just stands there, its sides undulating as if it's drawing in breath. Not so tough now, eh, bucko! I enjoyed this batch of ads just as much as Mike's recent golf-course vignettes and its series about two guys fishing on a lake. Sweet stuff, Mike's—so far, not a lemon in the bunch! Two more spots plus credits after the jump.

CREDITS
Client: Mike's Hard Lemonade
Spots: House Deer, House 30 Ft Woman, House Scarecrow
Agency: Grey, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Tor Myhren
Executive Creative Directors: Eric Segal, Jeff Odiorne
Creative Director: Andy Currie
Art Directors: Liem Nguyen, Alex Kaplan
Copywriters: Duc Nguyen, Barry Katz
Agency Producer: Diana Gay
Production Company: Station Films
Director: Harold Einstein
Editing: Mackenzie Cutler
Editors: Gavin Cutler and Dave Koza
Music/Sound Design: Sam Shaffer; Mackenzie Cutler

With so many niche charitable causes for celebrities to choose, how could you possibly pick just one? In his new PSA, Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon goes for sheer quantity, tackling everything from infantile baldness and bulimic insomnia to out-of-work astronauts and texting while scuba diving. Bad news for the night vomiters, though: It's actually just an ad (made by TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles) encouraging pet adoptions and neutering. "There are a lot of problems out there, and unfortunately we can't do much about a lot of them," Nealon concludes. "But here's one you can do something about: homeless pets." Sure, it's pretty funny. But what about all those scruffy ex-astronauts panhandling down by the car wash? You could have been their hero, Kevin. Via Copyranter.

European newcomer Shavenu is now offering shaving blade subscriptions to scruffy Brits, Canadians, and Deutschlanders using the DollarShaveClub.com model that set the shaving world alight last month.

For £1 per month, a five-pack of two-blade cartridges is sent to your home every month, with a handle in the first package. Unfortunately, this competitive price does not include shipping cost. If you have higher standards, cartridges with three and five blades are available as well for £5 and £8 per month, respectively. For these models, shipping is included.

Shavenu’s founder Marc Uthay hated to wait in line at the supermarket in order to buy new Gillette cartridges he lacked at home. He faced the dilemma of losing some precious time or keeping his stubble for the day — something he would have liked to avoid. Then he came up with the idea of Shavenu.

Subscriptions are now available in Germany, the UK and Canada. But Shavenu has plans to scale its business up rapidly and sell in other countries. “The market is huge, nearly every man in the world needs a razor,” Uthay says.

Gillette and Wilkinson are the overwhelmingly dominant players in the shaving industry when it comes to high-end wet shaving products, as opposed to electric shaving products and Bic disposable razors. Evidence of the importance of Gillette lies in its buyout by Procter & Gamble for a whopping price of $57 billion in 2005.

“We can’t compete with Gillette with a $1 billion marketing campaign,” Uthay says. “People don’t know there are alternatives. I want to say: ‘Hey, we have the same products — or even better products — but cheaper,’” he continues. Shavenu’s prices stack up well against Gillette prices. On Amazon, 12 Gillette Mach3 cartridges cost $24.99, 8 Wilkinson Quattro cartridges cost $14.74. So that means $2.08 per cartridge for Gillette, $1.84 for Wilkinson, and $1.25 for Shavenu. And I am not even considering the fancier Gillette models with LEDs and vibrators.

The company is based in Germany and has not raised any funds. They are considering potential investors so that they can expand their product line, with lady shavers for example, and sell in more countries.

Samsung will try hard to sell us a line about Apple in its upcoming Super Bowl commercial from 72andSunny, but I'm not buying. As in the client's similarly themed spot from November, Apple's presence is suggested by a nameless technology store with a long line of fans waiting outside. A scruffy, bespectacled tech-head in the queue, miffed that Samsung's Galaxy S II features a free turn-by-turn directions app, while his favorite brand's release does not, moans, "Aw, we've been Samsunged." Wearing stripes and a dark cap and seated on the sidewalk behind a barricade, he looks like a prisoner. That's a neat visual touch, and the teaser for the commercial (below) is mildly amusing. Still, more than anything else, the overall approach puts the Apple brand in my mind—and reminds me that some folks routinely wait for hours on line for products from the House That Jobs Built—without even referencing Apple by name. It gives Apple a Super Bowl presence of sorts, as all discussions of the Samsung spot have and will reference Apple. Moreover, a mocking tone and assertions of superiority based on a free app do not add up to a compelling brand message. The challenger seems Granny Smith-green with envy, dreaming that its products might command the same round-the-block loyalty as its rival. Sure, Samsung will get a perception bump just by running a Super Bowl spot, like every other brand on the telecast, but such gains will likely be as lasting as, oh, Motorola's 2011 big-game ad for its Xoom device, which, as Mashable notes, "did not become a hit and did little to dent Apple's commanding lead in the tablet market." Bottom line: Samsung has about as much chance of stopping Apple as the Giants have of winning the Super Bowl. Go Pats!

#OccupyWallStreet has been drawing complaints that it doesn’t have a demand and a goal. But I say that is precisely its significance.

#OccupyWallStreet is a hashtag revolt. As I learned with my own little #FuckYouWashington uprising, a hashtag has no owner, no heirarchy, no canon or credo. It is a blank slate onto which anyone may impose his or her frustrations, complaints, demands, wishes, or principles.

So I will impose mine. #OccupyWallStreet, to me, is about institutional failure. And so it is appropriate that #OccupyWallStreet itself is not run as an institution.

We don’t trust institutions anymore. Name a bank or financial institution you can trust today. That industry was built entirely on trust — we entrusted our money to their cloud — and they failed us. Government? The other day, I heard a cabinet member from a prior administration call Washington “paralyzed and poisonous” — and he’s an insider. Media? Pew released a study last week saying that three-quarters of Americans don’t believe journalists get their facts straight (which is their only job). Education? Built for a prior, institutional era. Religion? Various of its outlets are abusing children or espousing bigotry or encouraging violence. The #OccupyWallStreet troops are demonizing practically all of corporate America and with it, capitalism. What institutions are left? I can’t name one.

In a Foreign Affairs essay in 2008, Richard Haass argued that the world is moving from bi- and unipolarity (that is, the Cold War and its aftermath) to nonpolarity (i.e., no one’s in charge). “We now operate in an open marketplace of influence,” I wrote in my last book. “One need no longer control institutions to control agendas.”

Now one needs a network. #OccupyWallStreet is that network, the headless tail. Even it’s not sure what it is. Indeed, I think it would have been better off not issuing a manifesto written by a committee of the whole park, going after even animal rights and ending with its own Ninth Amendment: “*These grievances are not all-inclusive.” Henry Blodget mocks many of their demands. Feminisnt says they aren’t specific enough. They can’t win.

But I think they are already winning. #OccupyWallStreet is a start and it is growing, as Micah Sifry wrote: “There’s something happening here, Mr. Jones.”

What’s happening is an attempt to define a new public, now that we can. Iceland, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are all countries being reimagined and remade: start-up nations. Hear Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir talk about building a new constitution, using Facebook, on the principles of “equality, transparency, accountability, and honesty” — liberté, égalité, fraternité, updated for the networked age.

In the end, this is why I wrote Public Parts, because we have the tools and thus the opportunity to rethink and reorganize our publics and decide what they stand for. The power and freedom that Gutenberg’s press brought to the early modern era, our networked tools now bring everyone in this, the early digital age. “They empower us. They grant us the ability to create, to connect, to organize, and to aggregate our knowledge…. They lower borders, even challenging our notion of nations.” That’s what the youth of these countries are doing.

Media have mocked the denizens of #OccupyWallStreet as scruffy, young hippies. But you should have seen me — and more of media’s bosses than you can imagine — in ‘68. Scruffy, simplistic, bombastic, angry, determined, self-righteous, right, and high — that was us. Media dismissed us just as they dismiss the denizens of Zuccotti Park. Authorities thought they could round up all the ‘68ers in Grant Park, just as they do now on the Brooklyn Bridge.

When I visited #OccupyWallStreet’s park Friday, I wore a sport coat. I had to because earlier that day, I had a meeting at a place where they wear them. But I’m glad I brought it, for it’s time to show that #OccupyWallStreet represents more than scruffy young leftists. I don’t say that for a moment to denigrate them and their spirit. They built #OccupyWallStreet. No, I say it’s time for more of us to follow their leadership and join them, to show that what they represent — the anger, the determination, and the inherent hope — speaks for more of us, even people in suits.

What #OccupyWallStreet has done with considerable success — as the best hashtags and publics do — is open a conversation, one we must have, about the shape of our nation and society and future. If you don’t like their manifesto and demands, fine: What are yours?

At the end of Public Parts, I present mine, knowing they aren’t the right ones but urging people to enter a conversation not about complaints or demands but instead about the principles of our new and open society.

I don’t think #OccupyWallStreet is or should be about just venting anger or demonizing business or complaining or demanding. Indeed, of whom are we making these demands? The failed institutions? The ones our networks will disrupt if not displace? I say the message of #OccupyWallStreet should be more hopeful than that: building a new and open public based on the principles of a society that will replace the dying institutions and their ways.

Before the TouchPad dove head first into the bargain bin, HP tried a little pricing experiment. Early in August, they dropped the TouchPad’s price by $50, and very shortly after, the discount was bumped up to $100.

It was a sweet deal, but in retrospect, some buyers may not be too happy with pulling the trigger when they did. Woot sold the TouchPad for $379, but they reportedly feel like “scruffy nerf herders” about it and are offering buyers a $100 partial credit and an email laden with Star Wars jokes.

Slashgear was sent a copy of the email, and it states that people who bought Woot TouchPads and like them enough to keep them should have already seen the credit post to their account. Even so, affected users may want to fire up their banking website of choice just to check. If the whole price drop situation just has you seeing red, don’t fret: after a quick email to Woot’s support line, you’ll be able to return the thing for a full refund.

Alternately, at Woot’s suggestion, you could “dress up as a palace guard, sneak into some alien crime lord’s fortress, and put some mystic revenge plan into motion.” Best of luck if you go that route.

Woot is personally one of my favorite online retailers in general, and stuff like this just seals the deal: they didn’t have to do a thing, but they’re reaching out to customers and taking the hit on returns and credits just to make sure those people stick around. I only wish they’d get their Star Wars references straight: those pigfaced trolls on Cloud City were called Ugnaughts, and Lobot wasn’t a droid but a guy with electronic earmuffs.