Marketing Artist L.L.C.

Corporate Communications Consulting by Andrew Tytla

Results for category "bad move"

License Plates

Renewed our car’s registration online yesterday, and paused for a moment when asked whether I wanted a special one. No, I don’t need one of those. Vanity plate? No, thank you. Although people can get pretty creative. Locally, there’s a commuter who drives U.S. Route 1 in the Princeton area that some of us have seen with “IH8RT1.”

But this one is in poor taste, via Jalopnik and Andrew Ross Sorkin…

Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the book “Too Big to Fail,” brings us this personalized license plate belonging to Morgan Stanley Vice-Chairman Rob Kindler who thought it appropriate to make a joke of the current financial mess.

If I were him, I’d change it promptly. This is not good P.R.

Remember the John DeLorean joke from the early 80’s? He used to make cars, now he’s making license plates!

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Not Free: CNN iPhone App

Interesting item in Mediabistro’s Mobile Content Today:

It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between foolhardiness and marketing genius. I still haven’t decided which category to place CNN in with their decision to charge $1.99 for…

CNN Mobile 1.0 (iTunes App Store)

…for the iPhone. After all, everyone else (MSNBC, ABC, Reuters, etc.) are giving away their news apps. It doesn’t even seem to have a push feature for breaking news like the AP News app does. Its one differentiation point is the ability for your to contribute to CNN iReport. This seems a bit backwards to me (paying for the privilege of contributing news).

I also found it odd that CNN’s news app received a 12+ rating with the following warnings:

– Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity
– Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco or Drug Use or References
– Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
– Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes

Um, this is the “news”, right? Strange. MSNBC and Reuters apps do not have any warnings associated with them. ABC News (owned by Walt Disney) has three of the four warnings CNN received. ABC’s app does not include a warning for “Sexual Content or Nudity” (it is a Disney company, I guess 🙂

Will CNN create an iPhone app paradigm shift by charging $1.99 for its apparently risque content? I suspect not. My guess is people will continue to view their nicely designed free website and continue to use the various free iPhone news apps already available.

Good luck. If Ted was still around, he’d probably call it “awful.”

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