I want to be so famous that movie stars hang out with me and talk about what
a bummer their lives are. I want to beat up photographers who catch me in
hotel lobbies with Winona Ryder. I want to be implicated in vicious rumors
about Drew Barrymore's sex parties. And, finally, I want to be pronounced
DOA in a small, tired LA hospital after doing speedballs with Matt Damon.
I want it all. I want the American dream.
The average person has three million-dollar ideas per year.
Scat, an unemployed marketing graduate who knows you don't get noticed
calling yourself Michael, has
had his first. It's a sure-fire ticket to the
life of shallow fame and fleeting celebrity he craves.
But first he has
to deal with 6, who is possibly the love of Scat's
life or possibly ripping him off, and
Sneaky Pete, marketing genius, refugee from Tokyo, and
Scat's best friend—as far as Scat knows.
I won!
Thanks to
your votes, many of which probably came from
outside my home state and thus were blatant moral, if not
technical, violations of the competition’s integrity,
Company
rode to joint victory as the State Library of Victoria’s “Most
Popular Book.”
Now, some might view this as a shameful exercise
in depriving a more deserving author of their rightful
prize. Possibly this group includes the State Library,
since they declared me “Joint Winner,” implying quite the statistical event. But no, no, I have to
take their word for it that there really was a genuine tie.
This makes me pretty glad
I voted for myself. And means that my wife—who the
morning of the award ceremony said, “I was supposed to
vote?”—is in big trouble.
I didn’t mention this in my acceptance speech. What I did say,
and would like to repeat here for those who (ahem) couldn’t make it
to the ceremony, is that it’s continually amazing to me that people read
something I wrote and care enough about it or me to send me an email,
or mention it on their blog, or vote in a competition like this. I
get so much personal joy out of writing, but to feel that response
from people as well is truly touching, and makes what I do a
privilege.
While I’m talking home town news, I’m stepping out for the launch
of the new Australian Syrup edition, Wednesday 12th March,
6:30pm in the Sun Theatre foyer, 10 Ballarat St, Yarraville. They
say “bookings are essential” (03 9689 0661), but I don’t
know about that. I mean, it’s a foyer. And it’s me.
By the way, I just moved house, and I’m writing this blog on dial-up.
Dial-up! It’s like being blind.
Holy
crap! I thought I might get some great can designs,
because, well, not to boast, but my readers tend to be smart, talented,
and exceptionally good-looking. I’m sure you’ve noticed this.
But still: holy crap! I am getting some great designs here. It
is only a matter of time before Coke or Pepsi blatantly rip
these off and launch them as new products. And a special
mention to Lucia Suarez for coming up with the brilliant
“Kinetic Beverage.” You know in two years they’ll all be called that.
Lots of people emailed me questions about how to enter, so
let me answer some of those here: you should get your
entry in this week. A web-friendly JPEG is ideal for submission,
but hang on to your high-res original, which we’ll need if you win.
And yes, the product’s name is “Fu*k,” asterisk and all.
Next week I’ll create a gallery of all entries, for the film producers
to peruse. You’ll be able to do that, too. If you submitted a
design but don’t want me to post it or put your name on it,
please let me know.
Update 2:
Congratulations Mat! Chosen
as the best submission from an excellent bunch. When the cans get
mocked up, I’ll post a pic. Thanks again to everyone who worked on
a design.
The Syrup film producers want to mock up some cans
of Fukk. I think they are hatching some kind of promotion. They asked if
I had a design in mind, and I said not really, but I bet if I mentioned it
on my web site, somebody would come up with something good.
So here we are. If you invent a graphic design the producers
like, they’ll mail you some of the mocked-up cans, and
I’ll send you an autographed book, and the next time we’re all in a limo
with Natalie Portman and she says, “I don’t wanna go home! Where can
we party?”, we’ll suggest your place. Although that last
one has never happened yet, so I wouldn’t count on it. Still:
cans and book.
Your design should:
be for an energy drink called “Fu*k”
(as opposed to a cola called Fukk; that’s changed in the script)
be shaped appropriately to be used on a can
probably have a black background
be cool
I’m thinking you may not need to be particularly fancy on this one, because
understated is cool. But whatever you think. If you want to enter,
email me.
I’ve been working on a Syrup screenplay for
a while now. Longer than I like to think about, really. Anyway, there’s
a bit I’m using from the book where our hero, Scat, is trying
to come up with a brilliant new idea for a Coke TV ad, and instead
has a bad one:
I have started to wonder about the beach: about variations on a
giant inflatable beach ball. I am thinking about this ball rolling
through a major American city, with people running and screaming.
It’s the kind of idea that is stupid yet oddly attractive. I have
lots of those.
So,
apparently does Pepsi.
Now come on. That’s Scat’s stupid idea. The only difference
is it’s Pepsi instead of Coke, and people having fun instead
of being crushed to death. And that change, frankly, was disappointing.
I really thought I was about to see some mayhem.
A
reader named Richard e-mailed me about the new energy
drink “Cocaine.” He did this when it was still quite topical, but I’ve been
falling behind on my e-mail again, so I only just found out. In a few weeks
time I’m planning to find out how those mid-term elections are shaping up.
Anyway, my thought today isn’t about Cocaine specifically, because everything
about that product turns out to be exactly as you’d expect:
The inventor came up with the name at 1 a.m.
The name offended a bunch of people, who complained, which generated a lot
of publicity, which helped sales
It’s anyone’s guess what it tastes like, because the articles about it
and even the product’s own website
consider that an irrelevant side detail
The complaints, of course, were that the product glamorizes and legitimizes
the illegal drug cocaine. Just as obviously, the manufacturers were shocked that
anyone could imply there was some kind of connection between the drug cocaine
and their product, Cocaine. They wrote:
Well, we think that kids today are neither ignorant, nor uninformed. As a matter
of fact, we think that you are the brightest and most informed generation in the
history of the world. How else would you be able to navigate your way to our MySpace?
I was intrigued by how impressed these guys are with their customers. I mean,
they really think they’re clever. That seemed like an odd conclusion to reach
about people who buy sodas just because they have a funny name. And it occurred
to me that whenever I hear a company telling their customers how smart they
are, it seems they’re selling a stupid product.
Take cigarettes. I’m not saying you have to be stupid
to smoke. But it certainly helps if you have a poorly developed ability to
anticipate logical consequences. Yet it’s hard to find an industry more
deeply moved by their customers’ intellectual powers than tobacco.
If you ask Altria,*
smokers aren’t just customers, they’re proud warriors for freedom of choice, fighting
against nanny-government interference in our personal lives. In fact, you
probably don’t realize it, but many people smoke even though they hate it,
just to express their refusal to bow to the military-industrial complex.
Similar, sometimes companies implore you to
“make up your own mind.”
Their argument seems to be that if you’re smart, you’ll ignore the overwhelming body
of evidence that says their product is dangerous, and instead
reach an independent conclusion based on their promotional web site.
To test the apparent correlation between how smart companies
tell you they think you are and how stupid their product is,
I plugged the phrase “our customers are intelligent” into Google and noted
the top product categories to come up. If companies tended to say that
because they really did have smart customers, you might expect to see telescopes
and pocket protectors. If, on the other hand, companies tended
to tell their customers they were smart as a piece of transparent marketing,
you might see:
Shoes
Diamond engagement rings
Domain name hosting
Web site design
…which is what came up. That seems about right to me: two products that
are sold for an order of magnitude more than they cost to manufacture, a service
that offers the exact same thing as two thousand other companies, and a web site design
company that claims, “When Microsoft begged us to help them with their
website we were far too busy with other projects and had to turn them down.”
Although, to be fair, companies offering domain name hosting and web
site design come up no
matter what you put into Google. They’re just part of the landscape, like
insects, or Paris Hilton.
(* “Altria” used to be called Phillip Morris. According to its web site, the
company changed its name “to better clarify its identity as the owner of food and
tobacco companies that manage some of the world’s most successful brands.” That’s
good to know. I’d thought they did it just so people wouldn’t realize they were
the same pack of lying, murderous bastards.)
Well, you must have heard the big news. The story, essentially,
is this: three people, one a Coca-Cola employee,
tried to sell Pepsi some of Coke’s secret recipes.
Pepsi called the Feds, and, because spreading a
person’s secrets is bad manners but spreading a corporation’s secrets
is illegal, those three people are now probably going to prison.
I have a couple of thoughts about this.
First, if I was Pepsi, I’d be a little insulted. I mean, what’s
the implication: that the only reason my cola tastes like that is
because I don’t know how to make it more like Coke? The hell with
that! If you ask me, Coke should be trying to buy
my secret recipes! I’ll tell you something for free,
mister: we here at Pepsi already know how to make Coke. Coke, that’s what we
scrape off the bottom of our vats and give away to pig farmers
and the homeless.
Second, if I was Coke, I’d be insulted, too. These guys were
offering up Coke’s newest product, which hasn’t even been
released yet, and for that they wanted $75,000. I bet that’s less than you
can win if you look under the right bottle cap of that
product, when it comes out. And not only that, but Pepsi wasn’t
interested. That’s got to be deflating. Those Coke developers
probably spent months, maybe years, creeping around and looking
over their shoulders for Pepsi spies. Then the recipe gets out,
Pepsi takes a look, and says, “Nah, we’re good, thanks.” How
is Coke meant to market that now? It could come up with the most
brilliant campaign in advertising history, and
all Pepsi needs to do is say, “Yeah, we got offered
that. Didn’t want it.”
The only good for either company is that it encourages
people to believe that colas are the result of secret, mystical
recipes, and not cough syrup plus sugar. (I mean, come on. What’s
all that advertising for? Because you’ve never heard of Coke or
Pepsi? I get very suspicious about products that need
to teach people why they like them. And food is the worst;
we already know that what we think of as “taste”
only bears a tenuous relationship to the chemical composition
of what we put in our mouths. Taste is mostly marketing. All you
need to do to prove that is try to feed a three-year-old.)