High Priority

High Priority


News flash!  Celebrities sell!  (Quite a revelation for the day, huh?)  And sometimes, the terrible celebrity news stories beat out real, very relevant news.  It makes me laugh and metaphorically cry in the same sitting.

One of my favorite news sources is msn.com, not because of it's articulate quality, but because I find the best examples of what I'm talking about.  (Actually, I hate reading the articles on MSN.com because it's a maze to find them.  You click on the pretty headliner picture and you get taken to Marie Claire's dating advice, or worse . . . bing!)  To illustrate the lop-sided msn-scale-of-importance, I captured this screen shot yesterday:

First of all, political kids are no more news-worthy than my kids or your kids.  Second, who cares?  Sadly enough, people click on this article, read this article, tell their friends about this article, and read the subsequently-linked wonder wall about this article, and completely miss the one about the cure for HIV.  (Claimed, but not yet proven, that is.)  

I take a very neutral stance about finding a cure for HIV and AIDS, but I do think even the slightest hint of a cure is more worth reading than another review of Chelsea Clinton's wedding.  I appreciate news stations and sites that report on important topics, not Lindsey Lohan's rehab.  Maybe I'm just a little old school.  Please, MSN, if I'm going to be forced through your site on a daily basis in some way or another, at least give me an article worth my time.  (Seriously, please.)

Sublime

Sublime

This topic comes to you from the suggestion box!  If you haven’t dropped me a note in there yet, you definitely should.  (If it’s not working for you, just email me: s.cole.garrett@gmail.com) 

“Hey cole,
Why don't you write about subliminal advertising I remember you telling me about that one time and I found it incredibly interesting!”

Good suggestion!  I’m amazed by all of the controversy surrounding subliminal advertising.  Some people get really heated about one side of the argument or the other.  Does it really work?  Is it a waste of time and money?  Does it really create a propensity to buy?  Does it protect me from die-hard twilight fans?  The truth is: the evidence is piling up for both sides of the argument (with the exception of twilight fans).  So like a lot of things, you kind of have to decide for yourself.  The irony is: subliminal advertising a simple concept on the surface, but very complex the more you study it.  I can just give you the facts.

If you google “subliminal advertising,” you’ll no doubt find a slew of examples, many of them utilizing another popular advertising strategy: sex.  In an effort to keep my blog as clean as always, I’m going to present a couple of lesser-known subliminal advertising examples.  (As a matter of fact, you’re probably still wondering about sex, even though I said I wasn’t going to talk about it.) 

Exxon

When do you need to put gas in your car?  When it runs out?  (Hopefully, you don’t wait that long.  I did, once…) How do you know you’re low?  You look at your gas meter which is typically a needle pointing to an “E,” right?  Take a look at the Exxon logo.  Is it just me, or does the line crossing both x’s resemble a needle conveniently pointing to the “E” in Exxon?  Hmm…  When you see this sign enough, like, say, driving to work every day, your brain will make the connection for you and you’ll never even know it.  As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to look directly at it, your peripherals can pick up the subliminal message, “Come get gas at Exxon when you’re almost empty.”  Scary, huh?

Marlboro

Quick, what is the signature color for Marlboro?  Red!  And their spokesman was an iconic . . . cowboy!  Older people, especially, probably have a pretty good mental image of the Marlboro man right now.  Others can at least picture the Marlboro red box.  Research has been done which reveals that for Marlboro smokers, even the sight of the shade of red lights up the part of the brain where cravings come from.  Well, Altria, formerly known as Phillip Morris, is known for paying bar owners to redecorate their bars in red themes: red seats, red booths, red lights, etc. 

A side note on cigarettes.  Ever notice how big the surgeon general’s warning is on a pack of cigarettes?  It turns out, the same research mentioned above also showed that the sight of the surgeon general’s warning produced the same craving level as any other craving-causer.  Why would tobacco companies want to change it?  In a twisted way, the government is sort of, well, paying for them to sell more cigarettes.  How does that make you feel?  J

No No

No No

Geography lesson:  Texas and Mexico share a border of something like 1,200 miles.

Movement lesson:  More people immigrate from Mexico to Texas than from Texas to Mexico.  (Legally or not.)

Linguistics lesson:  We don’t speak the same language!

What happens when two very different cultures start mixing together?  It’s not actually all that bad.  We can go down the street and pick up some amazing (and as far as we know, authentic) Mexican food.  We have Taco Trucks, which are basically like ice cream trucks, except they sell burritos.  Depending on how you look at it, those migrants add to our work force, too! 

This can be good for businesses, as well.  A diverse population is also a diverse market.  (I’m making my way to my point, here.)  And dealing with a multi-lingual market demands some special accommodations.  We have English and Spanish radio stations and billboards.  We have aisles at most grocery stores with many Mexican products and ingredients.  Unfortunately, cultural progression is not immune to ignorance.

I was paying for my groceries at CVS the other day and at some point after I swiped my debit card, I got the usual “Is this the amount you would like to put on your card?” prompt.  Here are your possible selections:

Do you really think that someone who speaks Spanish but not English couldn’t translate “No” without any help?  THEY’RE EVEN SPELLED AND PRONOUNCED EXACTLY THE SAME!  I don’t think it’s assuming too much to omit the second “No” on their credit/debit prompts.  No one is going to be left scratcing their heads without it.

For the record, I’m not really offended on any level.  I just think it’s funny how sometimes accommodation defies common sense.

Thursday 6/24

I guess I'm driving a point home, here (no pun intended).  You see, product placement doesn't end with movies.  They even infiltrate video games (and even in the form of politics).  Don't like games brainwashing your kids with violence?  How about who to vote for?

I guess that's one way to hide the use of campaign discretionary funds from people who care about campaign discretionary funds.....

By: S. Cole Garrett

Tuesday

Global What?

The first day of spring this year was March 20^th.  My family and I had just polished off some delicious flounder and eel at a fantastic local sushi joint (because that’s the cool thing to do).  We walked outside and lo and behold!  Snow!  Let me be a little more specific: sideways-blowing snow!  We couldn’t see the windows from where we were sitting, so needless to say, we were surprised.  Why were we surprised?  The weatherman did say we were expecting it, but who really believes them?  Now, snow may not be a big deal for some folks, but we live in Texas.  Snow (not to be confused with sleet (or “wintery mix”)) is a big deal!

Global warming advocates are probably reeling right now.  I’ve lived in DFW my whole life and this winter past has seen more snow than all of the previous I’ve seen combined, especially with that thirteen-incher back in February.  It stuck for a week.  We even built a seven foot snow man.  Remember Washington D.C. got a record double-blasting, too!  I was never convinced about the idea of global warming, but now I have a radical counter-question.  Is this a global cooling? 

Even after asking that question, my answer is probably ‘no.’  I do believe, however, that the Earth just has some natural cycles and we may just be in the middle of a string of colder winters.  For all we know, we might have just been lucky enough to have all the right weather ingredients to have snow here.  Even further in the back of my mind, I can’t help but return to questioning global warming.  I mean, if it’s snowing in Texas, what’s going on at the North Pole?

Well, Santa’s probably freezing his butt off!  I’m no climatologist (in this life), but behind all of the cold air that brought us snow, there’s got to be even colder air, right?  It’s pretty basic knowledge that the further north you get, the colder it is.  Sometimes, the arctic puffs its cheeks and blows that mess down to Texas.  I see the temperature map of the whole country, and I see thirty-something degrees here, twenty-somethings in Kansas and Nebraska, and single digits in Minnesota.  What’s going on north of that?  They’re probably freezing mercury up there! (That’s a sweltering -37.89۫F, by the way).  I doubt there’s a whole lot of glacial meltdown going on, but remember, I’m no climatologist.

I’m not planning on starting an anti-global warming rally or anything, just raising questions.  When was the last time you heard about the ozone problem?  I thought the hurricanes were supposed to get worse and worse after 2005.  The 2006 and 2009 hurricane seasons were below average and 2007 and 2008 were average.

I realize that hurricanes and blizzards are worse for people who actually get hit by them so it’s kind of a matter of perspective, but they still choose to live there, right?  As for the polar bears, don’t hold your breath for that global summer vacation.

By: S. Cole Garrett