ragu is getting rag-diculous

Ragu is trying on silly for size.  They just released a new commercial marketing campaign that hosts the numerous predicaments that getting children to eat can pose, and silly solutions.

I guess you can be the judge of how silly suits Ragu's size, and see some seriously sickening solutions to some of the sticky situations these parent's encounter.  Yeah, I got carried away with my alliteration just now.  Oh, and there are more after the jump, this one's just my favie-fave.

 

target says color changes everything

I've spent plenty of time highlighting the neatnesses of other companies.  It is about time I show some home-crowd favoritism and talk about Target.

Target released a full blown spring marketing campaign all around color ("color changes everything"), and while it has nothing to do with food (I work in grocery at Target), it does make me say, "awesome".  It also makes me say, "That commercial was brilliant; the colors, the music, and the touch of parkour really came together to make a timely and relevant message that was hard to ignore, not to mention the..." well, you get the point.  I like it, and I think it is amazing and fun, and I am now sharing it with you:

commercial:


Jason Wu (exclusive design partner) commercial:xx


In store marketing:

the bible and book of mormon

It's Sunday.  Why not do a religious post?

Remember Tagxedo, the word cloud making site?  Well I found plain text versions of the bible and the book of mormon, two books I believe to be the word of God, and turned them into word clouds.  Then I compared 'em to see which words were prominent.  Here's what I saw:

Not trying to prove a point, just thought it was an interesting comparison using a cool tool.

can you spot all the viral web content?

This particularly fantastic commercial is brought to you by Vitamin Water (owned by Coke).  Now, other commercials have tried to incorporate viral web content (videos/pictures/fads/whatever), but I've never seen anyone do it as well as Vitamin Water does here.  So can you spot all the viral web content?


I took screen shots of each after the jump.

me in an apple

So Kristy found this awesome website (Tagxedo) that can create a word cloud based on text you enter, a URL, Twitter account, and many other sources.  You can then choose a shape and font and color.  It is amazing. 

So of all the things I could choose to showcase this neat tool, I chose me.  Surprised "narcissism" didn't pop up in there; although, now I suppose it will. 

why healthcare costs so much

I had a most enlightening chit chat with a good friend of mine.  We will call him... "Rayqwan Jose Peters", but "Ray" for short (to protect my friend's true identity, I changed hist name to a racially ambiguous smorgasbord).

ANYway, Ray works for a large hospital now and is currently in an MHA program.  In short, Ray knows his stuff when it comes to healthcare.  But that's not all, his current job in the large hospital chain is to determine the cost of new services.  Ray decides how much you and I will pay for our healthcare.

I made a visual for what he told me.  I was fascinated.  He didn't use the example of a shower, but I thought I would.

So here's what I took away:  healthcare is so expensive because half of the patients in the U.S. are on government aid, a program which doesn't reimburse hospitals for what they need to have a viable business model.  To stay in existence hospitals are forced to charge people who pay twice as much.  Let me put this in other words:

We are taxed through our healthcare payments.

Here's another way to put it:

We fund medicare and medicaid when we go to the doctor.

I totally understand the motives behind government assistance programs.  Helping others who cannot help themselves is a great source of joy for me in my life.  I also don't feel comfortable being forced (in yet another way) to incentivize dependency. Unfortunately,  I don't have a solution to the problem.  Hopefully whoever's president will figure it out.

mormon infographic

I thought this infographic was neat, being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (AKA a Mormon).  Okay let's be honest, that sentence should have read, "I thought this infographic was neat, being a total nerd.

Anyway, my business/numbers-minded head thought this was a fun snap shot of some Mormon stats.



Source: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101#C3