(see similar recycling icons as well as what they mean here)

My hair gel comes in a plastic container that doesn’t have any such logo; rather it has a circle with the letters PET in it. For some reason, they aren’t using the standard symbols, and so I really don’t know if I can recycle it. Beauty product/consumer product companies are usually pretty responsive, so I sent an email describing the logo on the package, and the logos that I expect to find, and my concern about being able to recycle their product.

Here’s what they sent back

Thank you for visiting Garnier on the Web.

We do not have prepared information to send you in answer to your specific questions.

We want to assure you that we are committed to the protection and respect of the environment. If you are interested in learning about the significant efforts made by our company, we invite you to consult our website at www.loreal.com. You will find details on our environmental policy under About L’Oreal. The “loreal.com” website is the corporate site of the L’Oreal group of companies worldwide.

I was honestly expecting some info that I could use. Does anyone know the PET-in-a-circle icon? I don’t want to assume and ruin the batch or whatever happens if you send something non-recyclable through the system (and gee aren’t there a lot of mythologies and confused perceptions around what actually happens to stuff we put in the recycling boxes?).

Ah well.

What’s wrong with Six Feet Under? In May 2001, Tad Friend had a long article in The New Yorker (not that I can find online anywhere) about the impending premiere of this show. Alan Ball talked about all the typical TV-writing tropes and how they would stay away from them. I’m pretty sure he mentioned the example of an elderly black or Asian man projecting wisdom, and I’m sure there were others. The point of the writing, he stressed, was to move away from that, into something that was not television. That is the HBO slogan, isn’t it?

Now we watch this week’s episode. A separated wife hires a nanny, and emphasizes that she plans for her to carry in the bottles of water. The nanny arrives and instructed by the wife that the bottles are indeed too heavy for her, so if the nanny could please bring them in when they arrive. Naturally, the nanny doesn’t work out, but the estranged husband appears on the doorstep to drop off the kids, and he’s dutifully carrying the bottled water.

We’ve known these supporting characters for several seasons, through the ups and downs of their relationship (mental illness, meddling siblings, financial struggles, infidelity, lying, etc.) and this particular need – the bottled water – has never been mentioned. It was introduced in the episode purely so it could be wrapped up by the end of the episode. Indeed, the need that the bottled water symbolized was pretty much out of left field as well. Now this kind of lame trickery is exactly what Hollywood is good at. Tell you how to feel, set it up, deliver it. Bang, boom, payoff, done.

Hey, elsewhere in the episode a group of grieving/celebrating women chanted anti-men slogans, but then began to sing. One woman began to sing first, in a quavery and not-very-musical voice. But then others picked up the song, and it gathered strength, musically, as more women joined in, their voices joining together in a lovely and uplifting moment. The voices got better, the initially-quavery singer begins a call-and-response, the camera circles around their candle-lit and Womanly Faces as the song grows.

I think there’s nothing more Hollywood-in-the-past-10-years than that scene.

It seems that they created some founding principles, or a mission/values statement, but they chose not to stick to them. They might have done well to have read Built to Last, a now-classic management book that explains how other business efforts stayed successful, and if I recall, that values statement was part of the common thread.

Quote from an article about pressure being placed on Craiglist to restrict pet ads

“Backyard breeding certainly existed long before Craig, but he’s brought down the barrier of entry to where anyone can (advertise) for free, and it’s having tragic results,” said East Bay SPCA spokeswoman Kirsten Park.

It’s interesting that the SPCA, in opposing the actions of Craigslist, chooses to refer to Craig himself, rather than the similarly-named institution he symbolizes. It seems to be a form of rhetoric that doesn’t quite survive the journey from interview to story to reader. Perhaps it’s that insulting formality one may use…If Mr. Newmark feels that he’s doing this community a service…sort of haughty and bitchy?

Craig is often quoted in articles about Craigslist, but in this case, they talked to someone else at the organization, so the only mention of Craig-the-man was the above quote.

Something about this branding/perception/commnication challenge resonated with me, since I offer a professional service that shares my name. Mine is less tangible that Craig’s, so the confusion or blending is probably more common with me. Yeah, Steve Portigal, the guy that started Steve Portigal! Doesn’t happen too often.

This is pretty crazy – you can take any online image and turn it into a Polaroid. Now of course, a Polaroid has many attributes – in the taking, the developing, the texture, the quality, oh and the little spot to write on. This doesn’t really offer all of this, but it still someone qualifies (in someone’s mind) as Polaroid-ness. No doubt this is infringing on something?

Here’s an interesting brand extension story

The John Deere name will be featured on the entrance sign for the subdivision with homes ranging from roughly $375,000 to $500,000. The purchase price includes a choice of landscape designs prepared and installed by Deere. Thousands of dollars worth of riding lawnmowers, leaf-blowers and other equipment will fill one of the three garage bays.

St. Lawrence Homes vice president Rick Ohmann says the John Deere link should amount to a stamp of approval for people who care about having a beautifully landscaped yard from the day they move in.

It was that promise, not the John Deere name, that attracted Joseph Crayton to sign a contract this month to build a 3,100 square foot house. ‘It wasn’t my primary decision-driver, but it was great to have,’ Crayton, 37, said of the Deere name associated with his new home. ‘A lot of us are brand conscious.’

John Deere officials look for the strategy to help broaden their products’ appeal among people who may associate the name strictly with tractors and lawnmowers.

‘The ultimate message is to have homeowners consider John Deere as the place they can turn for all of the things they need to take care of their yard. Right now, we might only be considered as a place to buy equipment,’ said Tosh Brinkerhoff with Deere & Co.’s consumer equipment division in nearby Cary. ‘We feel like this community is a way that we can showcase our abilities.’

Read the full story

Not the first time, incidentally, that John Deere has sought an unusual co-brand. Videogames?

I’ve excerpted the best bits, but feel free to read the full story

British potato farmers demonstrated outside Parliament on Monday to publicize their bid to remove the term ‘couch potato’ from the Oxford English Dictionary, arguing that the description of slothful TV addicts harms the vegetable’s image.

The group of about 30 farmers carried signs that read ‘couch potato out’ and ‘ban the term couch potato.’ A similar rally took place in Oxford, central England.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term ‘couch potato’ as ‘a person who spends leisure time passively or idly sitting around, especially watching television or video tapes.’

The British Potato Council says the phrase makes the vegetable seem unhealthy. It wants the expression stripped from the dictionary and replaced in everyday speech with the term ‘couch slouch.’

‘The potato industry are fed up with the disservice that ‘couch potato’ does to our product when we have an inherently healthy product,’ said Kathryn Race, head of marketing at the British Potato Council, a body set up by the government to run advertising campaigns promoting potato consumption and research issues linked to the vegetable.

‘Potatoes have been around for many, many years, but increasingly, with all the coverage that dieting & healthy eating gets in general, we need to make sure that potatoes remain a popular food,’ Race said.”

It’s hard to tell how serious they are. The article makes them sound very serious. Perhaps if I lived in Britain I’d understand the tone a bit better. As a PR stunt, it’s brilliant. It will raise awareness or whatever. As a piece of consumer education, it’s obviously ridiculous. You can’t angrily protest to get people to stop thinking something or making an association. Genie is out of the bottle, right? I’m going to quietly hope it’s the former.

Haven’t we had 1-hour photo service for a very very long time? How is this a useful name? Or a useful offering? Now, slower than ever!

Doesn’t the core of Lego’s brand reside in the physical meatspace interaction with the bricks themselves? The tactile, the auditory snik? But this Star Wars Videogame recasts Lego as an aesthetic (granted, something the underground has done for many years), a style of animation, and a proxy for kid-friendly. Sure, it’ll sell a jillion units (as will anything Anakin-tastic these days) but is this good for Lego in the long, long run?

This SF Chron article was heavily blogged when the CEO of Verizon Wireless said some rather customer-unfriendly things

Seidenberg, for instance, said people often complain about mobile phone service because they have unrealistic expectations about a wireless service working everywhere. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, is the state’s largest mobile phone provider.

‘Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?’ he said. ‘The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement.’

Seidenberg said it’s not Verizon’s responsibility to correct the misconception by giving out statistics on how often Verizon’s service works inside homes or by distributing more detailed coverage maps, showing all the possible dead zones. He pointed out that there are five major wireless networks, none of which works perfectly everywhere.

while a recently published letter to the editor from a Regional President at Verizon backpedals quite a bit.

Increasingly, users do expect wireless service to work wherever they are, including at their homes and even underground.

That’s why Verizon Wireless spends roughly a billion dollars every 90 days to enhance the capacity, capabilities and coverage area of its network — downtown, along major roads, at airports, in residential areas and even in subways and tunnels across the nation.

We allow new customers to try our service for 15 days and return the phone and exit their contract if they’re not satisfied with how the service performs where they make calls.

Of course, it is impossible to make enhancements without installing new equipment, and in San Francisco residential areas, for example, it has proven to be especially challenging to gain community acceptance of new cell sites.

Nevertheless, Verizon Wireless is committed to maintaining its best, most reliable network reputation in the Bay Area and to expand its capabilities in all the places San Franciscans want to make calls.

Excellent piece from 37signals about features, innovation, and connecting with the customer in meaningful (more than functional) ways

The salesman made a big deal about a feature I’d heard a lot about already: the bud vase mounted in the middle of the dashboard. That, I thought at the time, has got to be the stupidest feature I’ve ever seen in a product. Who has time to keep fresh-cut flowers in their car? Do you really want your car smelling like dead daisies?