Bing title tag fail.

…or Google algorithm win?

NASA is great at social media! Oh wait, the video above was created by someone who couldn’t stand how bad NASA was at social media.

On the one hand, this does show that NASA has fans and supporters passionate enough about the direction and future of aerospace research to take it upon themselves to improve the brand.

On the other hand, it’s a bit troubling that a governmental agency with such great brand recognition and funding could fail so miserably in the online space.

Link: Awesome Viral Video Bashes NASA’s Social Media Efforts

“The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie

I have this longstanding tradition with my childhood friends, James Riso and his brother Chris. Almost every New Years Eve since 2001, I’ve gone to a family party at their house in Brooklyn. We’d eat food, play old school video games, pop champagne, play some cards, and engage in other stereotypical festivities.

However, we do have one (somewhat unique) tradition. Sometime after midnight, we’d listen to the song “The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie (off the 2003 album “Transatlanticism”). I remember the first year, we listened to a burned CD. The next was when MP3 players became more commonplace, and I had the song on a tiny flash-drive type music device. Some other years, it was on a new laptop, or on a personal media player with video. Then came the rise of smartphones, and here we are.

I suppose the purpose of this post is to highlight that tradition and technology are not always at odds, which is an archaic sentiment I see a lot, working in Internet marketing. In fact, technology can make traditions more efficient (kitchen appliances with computer chips in them), more memorable (increasingly affordable point-and-shoot digital cameras), more spreadable (smartphones and social media platforms), and generally easier to carry on over time or through iterations of the digital age.

Technology is an ally, and not a foe. Just a reminder for the new year, that we should embrace technology, as it augments our lives, and will only replace our traditions if we allow it to.

We all associate celebrities and public figures with brands and products. There’s Jared from Subway, Justin Long and Apple, Paul Reiser and AT&T One Rate Plus. OK, that last one was a joke, but true (though I’m sure this newest generation is neither familiar with the actor or service… or touch-tone phones).

Sometimes, a person transcends a brand or becomes their own- Michael Jordan with Air Jordan, Derek Jeter’s 24 Hour Fitness, and countless fashion designers. But there are also in-between scenarios when people become so synonymous with a brand that they become the face of a company- for better or for worse.

Sometimes, it makes perfect sense- like Dave Thomas and Wendy’s (he was the founder). Other times, it’s a stroke of luck, like Andy Azula (you may never have known his name, but you’ve definitely seen his face. He’s the UPS whiteboard guy, and actually the creative director who had a hand in thinking up the commercial concept).

So is it prudent to put all of your eggs in one basket in terms of branding/presenting the face of your company?

Let’s take the Dave Thomas Wendy’s example. He had been a great spokesman for 13 years and was perfect for the brand (since the company was in essence his). But when he died in 2002, due to health complications, the company took a huge hit in the advertising space. Wendy’s no longer had a face and was forced to reinvent itself. They tried to leverage Wendy herself (a caricature of Dave’s daughter), but that was very forgettable. In fact, it’s been 8 years, and I doubt if any significant number of people could name a specific Wendy’s ad campaign from the last two (sorry Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners). We certainly haven’t had another “Where’s the beef?” moment.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at Tiger Woods. He was, at one point, an almost ideal spokesperson for sports-related products. We had the Nike and the Gatorade sponsorships. But then all of his many sexual infidelities reared their ugly heads, and the companies that endorsed him had to make an important choice. Nike famously backed Woods and acknowledged his problems. Gatorade, however, dropped him quickly. The sports drink company could afford to. The Gatorade brand was already well-positioned and built up. The company also had a slew of other available sports stars at their disposal to take Tiger’s place. Now imagine if instead of Gatorade, a smaller up-and-coming company paid for the face of Tiger as its exclusive spokesperson. It probably wouldn’t have the luxury of a star-studded celebrity supporting lineup. But their brand would also suffer a huge blow from which a smaller company might not recover.

So back to the question at hand: should you trust your brand identity to a single person? Well, it depends. Sometimes you take what you can get. Other times, you keep backup options, because scandal and death could always be around the corner. Either way, you should always have a backup plan. No excuses.

One more extreme example- anyone remember those ShamWow commercials with their overly annoying spokesperson Vince? Well, he was charged with beating up a prostitute. Not exactly great PR…