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Ok, folks - I pose a challenge to the geekdom out there. How to disable, permanently, these obnoxious speaker boxes that are attached to every friggin’ gas pump I’ve been to in the last 6 months. The MUTE buttons are worn out (”dimple collapse”) so you gotta sit there and listen to the bloody things go on, incomprehensively, about worthless crap inside the stores. It was some brilliant marketer’s idea - I can hear it now “We need to bring people into the store from the pump, ’cause that’s where the profits are. ” I know a few out there think it’s a great idea. Muzak was bad enough, but, it was in the distance, and didn’t drown out your cell phone or NPR on the car radio. And next it will be video, where we’ll need a different solution (I am so absolutely sick of TV everywhere I go - yes I own a universal TV-off keychain. ) And finally, Google Gas Pumps will surely be next.

How about an opt-out feature where I can pay you five freakin’ bucks for a year of peace and quiet? It’s unlikely. Nielsen media reports a 70% brand recall for gas station TV. Damn, that’s good. But I wonder how many are remembering the brand so they can avoid any product annoying them at the gas pump. “Never, ever buy friggin’ Dr. Pepper again.”

So I call out to you, the Hardware Gods of the Interweb….

I figure if we can mess with the electronic voting systems, we should be able to fk with these things a bit.

So, electronics wizards, how do you disable them without opening them or beating them with an object or getting electrocuted (and starting a large fire.)

Electronic pulse?
Handheld High Output Laser?
Freon-freeze+ gentle tap?
Secret series of keypresses? (that would be ideal!)

All ideas welcome.

Required Disclaimer, Of COURSE I am not condoning vandalism in any shape or form. This is just an academic discussion.

Lighting Store in the Dark About True Cost of Arcane Policies

I recently went to get my hair cut at one of the most Mayberry-like barber shops you’ve ever seen. It’s the Facebook of the 1950s, stuck in time, the chairs are original. The smiles are authentic. Conversations filled the air. It was a pretty day, and the place was busy.

A person I know well was there with her child, and was talking about how she recently bought a lighting fixture . Once it was up, she didn’t like it. It just didn’t look right when they held it up in it’s proposed location. She it back to the store in original condition. That’s when the trouble started. (more…)

They say playing the lottery is a “special tax” for the “math challenged.” I think that’s true. In the search world Google’s new Automatic Matching setup is a special tax on the uninformed advertiser.

What I’m hearing about the new Google Automatic Matching beta is that they will look at unspent funds in your account, and “spend it for you” on terms its algorithms deem appropriate. I blew this off at first thinking it sounded like a rumor, but am now hearing more buzz about it. (more…)

I am always leveraging a company’s PPC brand (and yes, 1+1=3 when it comes to having organic and PPC presence for brand-related searches) there are roadblocks brought on by PPC networks. In the past few months we’ve been dealing with an interloper who has used broad-match on Google Adwords to get around their trademark blocking policy… Note, none of these links are to the interloper in question, I’m just linking to informative posts related to it)
According to Google’s documentation, Google Adwords will not allow competitors to actually use the trademarked keyword phrases in the text of its ads – but does not prohibit purchasing the keyword itself and presenting an ad. This seems to work most of the time, as illustrated by Shoemoney (where it kinda worked.)

For example, I do marketing for a national franchise, let’s call it “Cheeseworks” (fictional) - and I have a high quality score placement on PPC and organic rank. But competitors are able to bid AND DISPLAY “Cheesework Pizza” on Google Adwords (singular, no ’s’.)

Cheeseworks Pizza
Open a Franchise in Your Town
Excellent Opportunity - Low Cost
http://www.fabuliospizza.com

And then somebody else runs this one:

Cheesework Pizza
Are You Ready to Be Your
Own Boss? Learn More!
http://www.franchise-pizza-leads.com

(this company sells leads to franchises - again this is a fictional representation of a real case)

Yes, we filed trademark complaint about them using the singular version of this mark, but since they do character-by-character checks (apparently) - and rejected the complaint. If someone does broad-match triggering on “Cheeseworks Pizza” the ad with the singular version will show. This is wrong. Trademark/Brands are protected from confusingly similar derivatives. I don’t expect Google to become an arbiter of trademarks - they need a scalable system that does much of this - but this case (it is a real case, just as absurd) they should consider the spirit of trademark law considering “use in commerce” and how their match types work.

The interloper had private domain registration and doesn’t answer emails - we couldn’t prove it but there was evidence they were selling leads to others. We had to spend a lot of effort with attorneys to send a C&D and a real substantial threat. The ad is off now, but it required huge work. We’d not expect them to get involved in the McDowell’s vs. McDonald’s case that was in the Coming to America movie. But this was simply a singular versus plural issue that anyone could see was illegal.

Upon removal of the ad (via our legal work) our brand-specific click through rate jumped 4%. This, over the course of several months, adds up to over $6000 in traffic not to mention possible loss of business to a competitor. There is real talk about suing the other advertiser for the harm done. I know Google wants things to be handled “outside” but this is one case where it shouldn’t be.

At the very least Google needs to block by match type when infringement occurs. They should have disallowed broad match at least.

Note: I’m not an attorney - none of this is legal advice. If someone would like to chime in and clarify these issues I will be happy to hear it.

postscript:  I received an email from Google who has approved the singular version of the trademark block.  It took me three tries, and lots of damage done to my client, but at least it’s gone now.  I want to be grateful but still I’m just mad.  

Image from “Coming to America” a terrific Paramount Pictures film. Highly recommended.

I must admit, Donato’s franchise has great pizza. But when it comes to trusting their online ordering environment, they leave some things to be desired. Below find the email that came to my house after ordering online. We knew it was “real” because it came shortly after the order was placed. But Donato’s made two errors. Make sure you aren’t making them in your business.

• Donatos doesn’t use their own domain name for the feedback link, prompting Vista mail to flag the message with a phishing warning. In a world where trust is a critical part of branding, this is just foolish. My family is very advanced when it comes to the web, but many customers would just delete the message without reading it.
• Donatos sends our usernames and password in plain text in the message. You just don’t do this, especially with all of the other personal information in the same message. My family uses different passwords for our sensitive accounts such as online banking, but I am absolutely sure this isn’t the case for many customers. This means the Donato’s password may have been used for more lucrative purposes, such as paypal, etc. We all know that keylogger exploits can do worse damage, but at least they require an infection and many have basic protection.

One thing that gets me flamed inside is to see perfectly able-bodied people using disabled parking spots without the right. When I see it, it’s all I can do to not say something. This idea of a sticker struck me as a good one.

Probably wouldn’t do any good.

If you truly need a permit for your disability, check these instructions on how to get a disabled parker permit.