what actually helps people?

If you decided that helping people was the most important thing in your life, what would you do?  I have been thinking about this a ton lately.  What do people need?  Education?  Water?  Loans?  Shoes?  Money?  Shelter?  Peace?  Jobs?  Hospitals?

Money tends to corrupt and enable, necessities seem to be temporary band-aids, peace seems unachievable, hospitals seem reactionary.  So what would you do?  If you decided every effort and thought and action would be dedicated to helping others, where would those efforts, thoughts, and actions turn?  To be redundant: What actually helps people?

Below are two companies that believe they are making a difference.  They have chosen their way to help people, and while I'm not sure it is the one thing I would do, I am glad they're doing something.

geico made me laugh again. finally.

Geico,

It has been a while since your commercials have made me laugh.  A long while.  Remember that funny woodchuck commercial - "Hey you woodchucks! Stop chuckin' my wood!" - no? yes? Anyway, it has been a while since I got a good chuckle out of your commercials, but this new one with a possum got me.  Unfortunately, not because this commercial is necessarily better than your other's of recent, but because I lived two years in the south, and you nailed possums... just nailed 'em.

So enjoy, you fellow understanders of possums:


I am curious though... how is it that insurance becomes the industry that lends itself to funny commercials?  Hey, I need someone to be there for me, no matter what.  I know, who made me laugh!?

watch this, get warm fuzzies.

This short video may be cheesy and idealistic, but at its core I feel like it inspires altruism and charity.  To me the message is that the synergies that come from helping others are greater than the cost it takes in time and effort to serve, and that is just operationally speaking (not accounting for that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from helping others).



So get out there and do something good for someone.  Better yet, make a habit out of doing good things for other people.  Even better yet, make a life out of doing good things for other people.  Hm, I am going to go take my own advice.

...three months later at jcpenney

Why yes, I am writing a post about not writing posts.  It's like a post within a post.  [insert too easy inception joke].

So what's with the lack of posting?  We moved to suburbia at summertime, and frankly writing a blog post while enjoying the beautiful park right out our front door is harder than it sounds.

So what did we miss?  Nothing of terrible importance - although remember how I posted about jcpenney's new strategy and how cool I thought it was?  Turns out no one else thought it was cool after they lost $30 million.  The stock price tells the story (with a little help from me):

So here's my take: duh jcp is going to lose money.  It is a dinosaur of a company (huge and old) and a change this size is going to cause some growing pains.  Now I don't know if jcp will succeed or fail in the end, but my point is that it is far too early to tell.  Let's give them longer than 3 months to turn things around.  In fact, if I was a stock buying man I might buy some jcp right now.

And to a larger even more boring point, this is the danger of a publicly traded company.  When the public owns your company, they demand immediate returns ALWAYS.  It makes it difficult to invest in long term success when all you hear from shareholders is "we want money now!"

And to an even more large and more boring (and the final - I promise - expansion of this discussion), maybe that is what is wrong with our "government" and our economy.  We, the people, demand immediate gratifcation.  "Fix our debt" we scream, "but don't you dare take away our programs or tax us more," we scream louder.

That is all.

old spice believes in it's smellf

Old Spice has had some pretty terrible commercials (like anything with Terry Crews - his first and last name are separate links to stupid commercials... not bad eh?), and I have just let them all slip away into their stupid graves built out of stupidness.  That is, until now.  This commercial actual got a legitimate chuckle out of me, although it is no "I'm on a horse".



I, too, believe in my smellf. Do smyou?

how to make a store better? another store.

Target announced recently that they are going to be bringing in a bunch of little shops inside the Target store.  If they (or should I say we) can't win you over with Target, we'll win you over with "polkadogbakery" or "privet house".  Their tagline is, "The shops we stumbled upon and couldn't help but fall in love with".

Here's a little video about it.


Target's not the only brand to jump on the store inside a store, in jcp's big strategy announcement they included a little snippet about a "main street of shops" to showcase their best stuff.

If you like this, wait until they put even smaller stores inside these stores - your money will practically spend itself.  Kristy (my wifey) said it's the inception of shopping.

awesome dancing makes me want to buy

I am a huge sucker for dance, especially street dance like hip-hop, break dancing, and dubstep (my new favorite).  The adrenaline that the audience can get from seeing this kind of dance makes it a prime candidate for marketing messages.

I chose a few of my favorite to show you whazup.

This one's a bit long, but to get the idea go to :35 and watch for 30 seconds and then skip to the last 10 for the brand message.


This is one of the first I remember seeing, featuring break dancing.  Also, a funny line at the end.


Also there this "popping and locking" spot from IKEA.  If you watch So You Think You Can Dance, you'll recognize these people.