The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

While it is impolitic for one person in advertising to criticize another's "work,"* I feel that the rules are different when the effort in question is produced by a conglomerate.

(* It is also only fair to submit a competing idea, as I will do. Maybe it sucks more. So. I live here too.) 

I am questioning the effort put forth recently by a number of design and public relations firms (at the pleasure of Rybak and that guy in St. Paul) to promote Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The theme is "MSP. More to LIfe."  

What?

So I have a friend who's kind of a conspiracy theorist. Which is fine, because conspiracy theorists can sometimes help one see the broader picture. Global warming is a scam put on by Ben and Jerry's to sell more ice cream, which in turn helps the Canadian GDP because - unbeknownst to anyone who isn't paying attention - that's where B & J get their milk? Okay. In short, hanging around with a conspiracy theorist is a pretty good substitute for smoking pot.

For all this talk about the decline of literary reading in America, there's really been very little offered in the way of solution. As per usual, I'm probably unqualified to be writing this (caveats seem to have worked for Britt; maybe they will for me too), but I think I have an idea that might possibly save the book world: Better advertising. At the very least, it's worth a shot.

It was on the far right, literally. A tiny block of space someone had purchased to help The Rake live another day. Pay up, and you can paste your sign/add your link/sing your song on my web page/television/telephone/window/door/floor/car/bus/butt/etc...

In the ultimate capitalist pervasion of everyday life, this heat-seeking piranha of an ad jumped at me, propelled by the finely tuned instincts of specialized software, somewhere in cyberspace, sensing Barack Obama's name on the page and inferring from it the presence of intellectual prey.

How do you feel about ads being served up to you according to your web surfing history? On one hand, it only goes to prove Big Brother is watching (as if we didn't know that). On the other hand, the ads you see are more likely to suit your interests, which might not be a bad thing in the long run — unless you're surfing a lot of porn at work. 

Here's an email I received on the matter from MediaPosts's MediaDailyNews. 


Monday, April 14, 2008 by Wendy Davis

Schick got themselves into infernally hot water for this one. Apparently Turbo Terry has been sourcing her likeness out to more than one razor company and automotive resource.

The good news for The Road Rake is that Turbo Terry (indeed the honey on the lower right) is no longer capable of suing me for creating a verbally accurate picture of her likeness.

Schick, on the other hand, is about to be sued by Pontiac for essentially using the same model that is in discussions with Gillette to cross-promote the "smoothest handling on the planet."

Tim Alevizos is a man who lives his art.

Show up at his posh Uptown condo on a Saturday morning around 10. He will open the front door and take your coat. Then, if you’re someone he likes (and believe me, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here) he’ll usher you into the “owner’s suite” of his 8-foot Italian couch and bring you a cup of coffee so strong it’ll make your nasal hairs sing.

Growing up on the East Side of St. Paul in the sixties, I always took Hamm’s beer for granted. The giant brewery was simply part of the neighborhood scenery, little more than a dependable source of jobs—at least until the seventies, when it was sold and started succumbing to fickle consumer tastes and corporate mismanagement, entering what turned out to be a drawn-out death spiral.

He is responsible for getting Paul and Jesse elected. Minnesota's premier political ad consultant is the very best in the business. So why’s Bill Hillsman sitting this one out?

Photos by John Noltner