Blend This Book! by Jim Kukral

It’s all about attention, and Jetblue knows it. They’re offering customers the chance to fly unlimited on their airlines from Sept 8 – Oct 8 for only $599. Story here.

“This is a way to get people to pay attention, with publicity that doesn’t cost the company much,” McAdoo said. “They’re doing this at a time when there are probably a lot of seats available anyway.”

Alright, it’s not really that great of a deal? I mean, you’re going to have to fly probably 5-6 times at least to make your money back. But that’s against the point.

The point is this is drawing all kinds of attention for Jetblue. Tweets, retweets, articles, blog posts, back links and probably mentions in podcast, Google groups, email newsletters, etc… You name it.

I love this concept. Why? Because it’s a zig when every other airline else is zagging.

I agree with Copyblogger. There is such a thing as bad publicity. Case in point, read his latest post about a company called Horizon who is, in Brian’s words…

Horizon Realty might be the most loveable, fair, decent and true company in the world. Right now, their name recognition has about as much appeal as Saddam Hussein. With mold.

But in my opinion, and this isn’t to argue with anyone, it’s just to give my thoughts, I see a clear difference between “attention” and “publicity”.

You cannot have bad attention, but you can have bad publicity. They are two different things. I’ll go into more detail in the book. Which, by the way, should be published by winter 2010.

Joel Comm did it again. His iFart iPhone application has made it into prime time with a piece on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Check it out.

Joel will tell you that all attention is good attention, and he’s pretty much right. Watch this mainstream piece sell him a few more hundred thousands apps at 99 cents a pop.

Sorry, even if you think it’s silly… that’s money in the bank from a fun idea and good marketing.

Attention works. You can read more about Joel’s The Daily Show story here.

Grasshopper just officially released the case study results of their rebranding offer. It’s worth sharing.

http://grasshopper.com/5000casestudy/

Here’s a link to our past coverage.

More proof positive that people love dancing babies. The video below was released 2-days ago and at the time of this posting, it has close to 3-million views.

Want attention? Just make dancing baby stuff. Can it be that simple?

Need more proof? Here’s 20+ million views.

Here’s more.

In the past, if you made a customer angry by being negligent, you could pretty much ensure it would be swept under the rug. But as we’ve seen with Domino’s pizza and now with United Airlines, social media and the quick spread of content now makes it VERY easy to get noticed, in a bad way.

This band had their guitars broken on a flight and because they didn’t get any assistance/help from United, they made a song about it. I’m sure United wasn’t too happy about a few hundred thousand people learning about this.

This ad probably won’t run on network television in the USA because the networks believe that American’s find this offensive. Watch this and you decide.

From Huffpost… This new television commercial for Hardee’s “biscuit holes” probably won’t entice your appetite — but it is likely to grab some attention.

One thing is for sure, it gets your attention.

So is this video really from Microsoft? Or is it a fake to make it look like it’s official? The link off the video page goes to a site that is copy written by Microsoft. So it must be real?

If it’s really from them. Is it so over the top and gross on purpose so that we’ll all talk about it like I’m doing right now? Hmmm… At what point do you have to scream so loud to get attention?

For example… does anyone really care about Internet Explorer 8? I sure don’t, and frankly, it’s going to take something just like this to make me even think about it. Interesting marketing/attention for sure. What’s your take?

You can’t make this stuff up. Check out this story my friend Dave M. pointed me to.

An advertisement for Burger King’s latest sandwich leaves little to the imagination and should be discontinued due to “distasteful” and unappetizing references to oral sex, advertising experts told FOXNews.com.

The print ad for the “BK Super Seven Incher” — a limited time promotion in Singapore, a society known around the world for its strict government controls of social conduct — shows the “mind-blowing” sandwich near the open mouth of a wide-eyed, red-lipsticked woman accompanied by the suggestive tagline: “It’ll blow your mind away.”

“Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled,” the ad continues.

Mark Duffy, a blogger and an advertising copywriter at a major New York City firm, said the advertisement is among the “worst” he’s ever seen in more than 17 years of industry experience.

“I’ve seen a lot of sexual innuendo ads and this is about the worst, especially for something as mainstream as Burger King,” Duffy told FOXNews.com. “I was a little repulsed by it. It’s really misogynistic to women and it’s also unappetizing.”

But did it get your attention? And frankly, is it going to resonate with their target market, which might possibly be men who are probably laughing, and happy, about this imagery?

Time will tell. The bottom line is the agency for Burger King is pushing boundaries and they should be commended for getting noticed. Not for their subtlety.

There are a million examples of how negativity brings tons of attention. This is common sense. People love to pile on and love to hear more about negative than positive. Hey, we’re human, it’s just the way we are.

You’ll find this out if you write a blog. 90% of the people who read your blog will never comment. They lurk, and wait…

If you really want to get some reaction… go negative. Write a negative post. Complain about something. Put somebody else down. Do something that people can commiserate with. Be a jerk!

Yep, I said be a jerk… for ratings.

Ok, now, before you go do that, think about the consequences of “being a jerk” or “going blue”.

For one, you have to be able to take the heat. If you’re a nice person and not used to controversy, and you’re trying to “shock” people in a way that’s out of your own character… it’s going to hit you in your gut hard, and you may not recover.

It’s very hard to go blue and come back from it too. Once you go down that path, you may not be able to come back. And remember, you’ll always most likely be remembered for that one shocking thing you did, not all the good things you’ve done for years.

Are you sure you want to go there for ratings? For traffic? Think long and hard before you decide to go down the dark path.