I do love the tv show Family Guy.
The first time I heard Stewie’s voice in a Fox Network promo, I laughed out loud and usually the promos aren’t THAT funny.
It was a treat for me to come across this footage of the “Family Guy” voice actors working on a show. I hope you enjoy it too.
My friend Stephanie from the voiceover service Voices.com sent me an email a few days ago about a new contest they are running through July 20, 2007. You can grab the full details on it here but as a brief summary for those who prefer such things, The 60 Second Pitch is based on the ever famous “elevator speech” in which you have from 30-60 seconds to tell/engage someone (with whom you would hypothetically be riding in an elevator) about your business…in this case, the voice over business.
It’s a great tool for voice talent who haven’t gone through this exercise and terrific for those who want to refine their speech. And the contest has over $4,000 in prizes.
I will NOT be participating.
Why?
I am not above contests or competitions, I think they are fun and can bring together some great creativity.
But I’ve got a business to run and I have sales goals to achieve and to be in the contest and win, one would have to share some of the secrets of one’s success, in this case the elevator speech.
I’ve got a pretty great one, one that has served me well and its worth a lot more than $4,000. Even if the prize money were higher (and there’s nothing wrong with $4K worth of stuff) I wouldn’t do it.
The voiceover community is a helpful and sharing community…we’re voice actors and the acting community has usually been a group that wants everyone to succeed. I do too and have helped many folks with my time, talent and treasure to improve their voice over talents.
But while I may teach some everything they know about voice over and running a business, I won’t teach them everything I know. It’s not practical and it doesn’t make good business sense. The contest is not bad for all….its just not right for me.
Although we’ve got something like 500+ days left before the next United States Presidential election, candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties are already having debates on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The debates are summarily ignored by the majority of the voting public even though they are covered ad-nauseum by the networks. It’s a vicious cycle.
This Presidential election has gotten the earliest campaign start in history I have been told and yet I’m convinced more people vote for singers on American Idol than for a President. I’ve nothing to back this up, research-wise, it’s more of a “gut” thing. Yet what choice do candidates have, especially those running for president?
The branding and marketing of a political candidate, public referendum or issue has become a real art or a fascinating battle depending on your perspective. How would YOU create a brand (and hopefully buzz…positive buzz) about a candidate or policy while competing for the attention of an ever more diversified and distracted voting public? Oh yeah, and you have to do it on a budget based solely on how well your candidate can fund raise…assuming he/she can get enough people who know him/her as well as who thehave money to even contribute to a campaign. That is why I guess we’re starting so early on each party’s “horse race” for the presidential brass ring. In politics as in life: follow the money.
And with the election season comes the political ads…some good, some questionable (again, trying to gain attention) but always thought provoking. Political consultants will again do their level best to map out a salient strategy for their candidate clients. These strategies will include a “theme” or “message” that consultants and candidates hope will resonate with the voters. Likely, TV and radio political ad campaigns will remain the mediums of choice to spread that political message to the widest audience.
Voice over scripts for political commercials are a great deal of fun for most voice talents (for me I refer to some of these political spots as requiring “vocal summersaults“). But overall today’s political spots are really not that different than commercials for any other brand. Political advertisers need to gain the public’s attention, summarize a key message and elicit an emotion in anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds. Sometimes the audience is uplifted by the message (“It’s morning, again, in America,)” and sometimes some mud is slung (politics didn’t invent attack ads; a quick example: wasn’t “The Pepsi Challenge” mud slinging at some of its most famous?).
I’m looking forward to the coming political advertising season whether from a presidential, congressional, state, regional or local election level. It gets citizens more involved in the democratic process for a while and I just don’t see how that can ever be a bad thing.
Some things just strike me as funny.
That includes the minor misfortune of others and in this case, the “others’ happens to be the citizens of London, England.
London, you see, is home to the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, which I have no doubt will be a smashing success as Olympics go…great athletic achievements, dramatic stories of accomplishment, amazing new venues and some boon to the UK economy. All of it very impressive and deservedly so.
Except for the logo.
Every Olympics has a logo. Without it, you can’t sell Olympic t-shirts and mugs and hats and cups and lighters and bookmark and underpants and baby bibs and earrings…all of which add up to a sizable revenue chunk in any Olympic budget. So the logo has to evoke something positive about the Olympic experience, the flavor of the city the Games are being held in and ultimately be attractive. Or at least not unattractive. Or at least not suck.
Oh my but does the 2012 Olympic Summer Games logo suck…on a global scale.
The committee in London, led by Committee chairman and former British distance runner Sebastian Coe, paid the design firm of Wolff Olins over $800,000 to design the logo that all of London and eventually the world was to embrace and promote.
Except London didn’t embrace the logo. They hated it.
A BBC on-line vote with nearly 11,000 votes cast showed 85% hated the logo with 4% saying they really liked it. When introducing a new brand, these are NOT the numbers you hope for.
Need a few more facts?
This design, which comes in a variety of color schemes, when animated caused 10 people to complain about the animation of logo because some of them suffered seizures when they saw it on the official Olympic web site.
Are you going to buy a logoed product that may cause seizures?
Bless the government’s leaders as they stood by this awful design. Outgoing Prime Minster Tony Blair said “When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life.” Maybe it’s me but I don’t see having seizures from looking at a logo to be a positive change in my life.
The London Olympics branding web site has a gallery of “civilian” logo submissions and I think there are plenty in those galleries that would been a much better branding icon than the $800K klunker.
As an icon, there may be been uglier or dumber looking images, but from a branding stand point, London’s Olympics are not starting out well.
From a humor stand point, they are starting out great!
My advice for this logo or any others going forward can be summed up in two words: focus groups.
P.S. Here’s a link with some other more attractive logos (I especially liked the Paris logo…I think that would have been a huge hit, you know, had they…won the bid).
So I’m checking my Treo today and up flashes as “news bulletin” from All Access, a radio industry e-zine.
“XM SATELLITE RADIO has suspended OPIE AND ANTHONY for 30 days, effective immediately. The suspension follows the airing of the “HOMELESS CHARLIE” rant about Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE last week for which XM and O&A apologized”. That “rant” included a guest musing about raping Secretary of State Rice, First Lady Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth, according to the New York Daily News. I did not hear the broadcast.
It went on to note that the suspension was a result of recent statements that O&A made on air that “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the (“HOMELESS CHARLIE” broadcast) matter.”
Yes, this IS satellite radio that these former terrestrial radio shock jocks got suspended from…the very “panacea” that was to be the safe haven of “naughty” former terrestrial radio shock jocks everywhere. I’ll leave it to the more suspicious of you out there to determine if this firing had more to do with the mix of politics and business (i.e. the pending merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio which would need governmental approval the FCC commissioner had previous to this incident indicated he is loathe to offer) rather than anything resembling broadcast standards.
Back track a few days earlier when WFNY/New York (former radio home of Howard Stern and
Comedian Donnell Rawlings was fired from New York’s Power 105.1 FM last week for making an anti-Semitic remark on air. I did not hear the broadcast.
And then you remember the whole Imus thing.
So with all these disc jockeys fired or suspended, when do we get to fire the audience?
Yes, the audience.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if a radio station General Manager thought he or she could make their company money by broadcasting knitting and crocheting 24/7, you’d be listening to “Yarn 105.3” right now!
But people are listening to what I consider crap radio. Lots of people. And advertisers are spending money to have their products and services featured on these shows. Lots of money.
So since these listeners have made a choice that they are free to make and these advertisers have made a business decision that they are free to make, why are we blaming the disc jockeys?
Sure what they are saying is vile and crude and abhorrent to most of the citizens of the free world. Their humor is at best sophomoric most of the time. The problem is there is an audience…a big one…for these types of broadcasts.
Who is taking THEM to task?
It is the audience who is the truly guilty party in these matters. it certainly isn’t only about the broadcasters and the stations. In fact, I don’t think it’s even mostly about them.
I’m not sure if the audiences for these crap radio shows are getting what they want or getting what they deserve. I’m just glad there’s still an “off” switch and that I know where it is.
There are many good reasons to subscribe to blogs. One of the reasons I like to subscribe to certain blogs is that I feel fairly confident I’m going to find hard, useful information or the “Cliff Notes” version of same as a subscribee (this may be a new word cause I just thought it up in my head as I was writing and if it is I am copyrighting it right now subscribee©).
Sometimes I come across great writing in my on going searches and sometimes I met individuals at conferences whose presentations and general knowledge (nay, disposition) impress me so much that I want to see if their blogs convey that positive impression. Usually they do.
Such was the case when I met Mitch Joel of Twist Image at Podcamp Toronto. As much as I took away from that experience regarding podcasting and blogging, in Mitch I also came across a savvy marketing thinker (and because there are so few of us…oh to finish that sentence would just be bragging}kidding). Point is he’s a sharp marketing guy.
Like me, on a constant search for good, summary data, Mitch got a heads up on the Digital Fact Pack Guide To The Digital Marketing World, produced by Ad Age. I’ve finished going through it once (and I imagine I’ll be culling more data from it soon) but it would be worth your time to visit Mitch’s site and see for yourself.
Thanks Mitch.
