Metro Cat Rescue is more popular than the Curtis and Cosby show on Facebook! The talk show has 7,393 Facebook Followers and with over 16,500 we’ve got MORE THAN DOUBLE! The Curtis and Cosby show rides on a powerful 50 kw transmitter. All Metro Cat Rescue has is a computer pulled out of the garbage with some guy at the keyboard who managed to survive being bitten by a rabid bat back when he was in the 3rd grade.

Metro Cat Rescue is even more popular than 77 WABC (12,985 Likes) AND the parent company, Cumulus Media (9,556 Likes).

Email 77 WABC at comments@wabcradio.com and tell them to put Metro Cat Rescue on the radio. With the NYC airwaves, we’ll tell the everybody that EVERY CAT deserves good care!

Say hello to Michael Galdieri. Like you, and I and millions of others, he’s on Facebook. The curiosity is that he was murdered over a year ago.

I wonder what percentage of the eyeballs Facebook sells to advertisers are shut permanently?

“…

Kofuku no Kagaku and the Media:Strategies and Controversies

The use of media has been an important part of Kofuku no Kagaku’s growth from the very beginning. The leader has published more than 400 books, some of which are also available as manga (comic books and graphic novels that are massively popular in Japan), through its own publishing company IRH Shuppan, which was legally separated from the religious group in 1991. These books are sold in large bookshops and often appear in newspaper bookseller rankings. The group also publishessix magazines in Japanese and one in English.

Between 1994 and 2009, the group released six lms, most of them animated movies, or anime, based on the leader’s writings, all of which were shown at mainstream cinemas throughout the country. By 1992, Kofuku no Kagaku-inspired music had become widely available, as had CDs and videos of Okawa’s speeches. Furthermore, Kofuku no Kagaku airs a radio program every Saturday and Sunday morning called the
‘Angel’s Morning Call’ (Tenshi no moningu koru). In the early 1990s, the group broadcast some TV programs, but these have now been discontinued.

Group representatives also took part in a number of televised debates on contemporary religion, debates against academics and media
commentators as well as members of other religious groups (Astley 1995: 371). The group advertises each new publication or film with extensive campaigns, both through the mainstream press and through posters on walls and buildings in the major Japanese cities.

Just to provide an example, between March and July 1991, the group paid Dentsu, one of the best-known advertising companies in Japan, foran expensive advertising campaign. The aim of the campaign was to promote two of the leader’s books published by the IRH press: The TerrifyingRevelations of Nostradamus (Nosutoradamusu senritsu no keiji) (Okawa 1991b) and The Great Warning of Allah (Arano daikeikoku) (Okawa 1991c). In the same period, the group also advertised the book The Eternal Buddha (Eien no Buddha) (Okawa 1991a) and the event for the Commemoration of the Birth of the Founder (Kyoso otanjo kinensai), a birthday commemoration that was celebrated on July 15 at the Tokyo Dome, a massive building that usually hosts sporting events and concerts.

Between July 15 and 19, the campaign extended to include four national and 37 local newspapers, which published full-page advertisements for the books. The campaign also included 30 magazines, various television channels, and 33 radio stations. Fifty thousand stickers appeared on taxis across the country, 40 billboard trucks were rented, and an airship bearing the slogan ‘The time has come, now Science of Happiness’ (jidai wa ima, Kofuku no Kagaku) ew over Tokyo for a week (Asahi Shimbun 1991: 29). The scale of the campaign was compared to those of the presidential candidates in the United States during election season (Iwasa 1993: 33).

The massive advertising campaign for the event at the Tokyo Dome contributed to a sharp, rapid increase in membership, but also attracted attention and criticism from both scholars and the media. In particular, between the end of 1991 and the beginning of 1992, a series of critical texts appeared (Yakushi’in 1991; Yonemoto and Shimada 1992) and several newspapers published articles attacking the group or holding it up for ridicule. The attention of the press was due both to the vertiginous growth of the group and to an interest expressed by the media in what they called the ‘return to religion’ (Berthon 1991). According to the Religion Yearbook (shukyonenkan), published by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the group claimed a membership of approximately 13,000 in 1989, which had increased to about 1,500,000 by 1991. Even though the data regarding the audience could have been altered and the figure indicated by the group appears somewhat improbable, it is an undeniable fact that the sudden increase in the number of the members happened within a short space of time.

The first critical articles began appearing in May 1991 and, in tones similar to those used for scandals involving celebrities, focused their attention mainly on the donations members were asked to make to finance the advertising campaign and the event at the Tokyo Dome. Other articles alleged that the group resembled a company rather than a religious organization (Yakushi’in 1991: 60-63).

Then, a number of articles published in the magazines Friday and Genzai, by Kodansha publishing, triggered a violent reaction from some members of the group itself. These members staged demonstrations against the publishing house and blocked the telephone lines of the
Kodansha offices for five days by sending protest faxes (Astley 1995: 370). The group also published a few texts against the publishing house, such as The Hope Revolution (Kibo no kakumei, 1995). The Kodansha affair (Kodansha jiken) ended with a lawsuit that dragged on for a number of years.
…”

http://www.academia.edu/531454/Japanese_New_Religions_and_the_Internet_A_Case_Study

Are you using the right bait? And what about the line? The New York Times Book Review published an interesting essay – “How Writers Build the Brand” by Tony Perrottet – on the strategies and tactics that authors use to promote their books and themselves.

The article calls out Ernest Hemingway, who so mastered the craft that he was able to extend his author aura to a range of brands, including Pan Am, Parker Pens and Ballantine Ale.

Image: Advertisement From P. Ballantine & Sons, Newark (1951) via The New York Times

Creative destruction changes externals, but not the individual’s psyche. Disruption changes the process of thought and even state of being. In the aftermath of a storm of creative destruction, a product still is sold to the customer. With disruption (in either form) the customer is sold to a product.

Yes, Kodak should have understood that their real business was image production, not silver halide laden plastic film. Even so, the needs of the consumer did not change. New grandparents, major newspapers, police photographers, insurance investigators, medical researchers, . . . wanted and continue to want pictures produced quickly and efficiently; digital cameras better serve that need. The many users of WordPerfect, DBase and Lotus 1-2-3 on an IBM XT already were well aware that a personal computer basically had become a necessity. The Mac lowered the learning curve and took the chore out of the use of a computer. Apple did not change the what and the why of computer ownership; that had to wait for the rise of the Internet. As Mr. Sculley points out, Pepsi’s marketing used — but did not cause — a demographic shift. A glass jaw in the strategy of Coca Cola (past experience: old friends, good memories, nostalgia and tradition) left it open to a knockout by Pepsi Generation promotion.

Disruption really refers to two very different things: cognitive dissonance and dissociation / automaticity. Cognitive dissonance affects the schemas. Dissociation / automaticity sculpts identity and habit through memory. An example of disruption is Procter and Gamble’s soap products as candle sales began to contract. An initially rather rough-hewn 19th century USA had to be taught personal grooming in order to be transformed into the great washed.

The risk of ossification and then fossilization for large firms is something that I completely agree with. Procter and Gamble now faces a significant challenge from Green products.

Some years back, I worked on a political project that crafted an avant-garde, a cadre. The results are discussed here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131109182030/http://www.bretschundler.org/campaignsandelections0801.shtml

The intent was to form a group that would receive, amplify and transmit a message in the same way that a radio signal is propagated through the ionosphere. This approach implemented and melded both the General Opinion and Opinion Leader concepts. The network that we put together already was amenable to our message. Likely prospects were invited to attend talks and then were invited to provide contact information for more information and future events. The subsequent emails (or phone calls) at the very least contained talking points. Often — and increasingly so as election day approached — there was a call to action — provide the names and email addresses of like-minded family and friends and email/phone individuals in your personal circle who share the same ideas. In this way, the network was self-replicating with each of the members soon becoming the center of their own set of followers who were not in direct communication with the campaign.

From a distance, my impression is that Procter and Gamble does something very similar with their Tremor.

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“…
After getting fired from his academic post at Johns Hopkins, Watson began working for one of the biggest advertising agencies in New York City, J. Walter Thompson. (He was dismissed for his scandalous divorce. Short story: He fell in love with a graduate student while he was married to a woman who was one of his undergraduate students 17 years earlier.)

He believed that in order for advertising to be effective, it should appeal to three innate emotions: love, fear and rage.
…”

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/15/the-psychology-of-advertising/

The Jersey City Free Books Facebook Page has well over 4,600 Likes. Many people — reflecting the entire range of Jersey City demographics — visit the physical location each week.

We want to work with you! Those eager to participate can email anthony.olszewski@gmail.com

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Jersey City, NJ 07307

Jersey City Free Books is a community book store that provides something to read without charge, obligation,registration or indoctrination. Jersey City Free Books serves seniors, students, the unemployed and working families.