I've written about brilliant tampon ads here before and other stunts that marketers have done to target women. Some are low brow and brilliant, others are high brow despicable (yes, I review my opinions in the form of the NY Magazine Approval Matrix (coming soon to TV), so what?)
Today's low brow brilliant female marketing award goes to: lululemon. Why? Because they wrote a blog post about Camel toe and their yoga pants actually support the claims! They have a product that addresses a situation that all women talk about, just not in public. It's something we actually need and want, and lululemon did a great job of addressing it through a catchy advertisement and a blog post (with a bunch of photos) to help.
As the blog post says, "So the next time you adorn your lululemon crops, pants, or fitted shorts, maybe thank your gusset for keeping you comfortable and helping you say no to camel toe."
I will lululemon! I'm sold and I pass a store on my way home!
We knew it would happen; someone would take on the phenomenon of Chat Roulette and use it for good... or at least use the functionality in a way that's not 79% naked people dudes. That's what the fine folks at Chatville have put together. The development team from Digsby figured out a way to take the game of connecting to strangers at random and embed it within Facebook. The app mimics the same basic function of Chat Roulette; You enter into a a random video conference and hit "Next" until you find someone you want to talk with. The added difference? You can now connect to your Facebook friends and not just creepy, creepy young men surfing the web in the dark, in their beds.
A couple of other features within the game to keep you hooked:
Video/photo capture of your chat to save for future sharing
A photobooth; for those who have Macs, you know that endless hours can be spent morphing your face into a fishbowl to share with the world
The app also offers badges (because come on now, there aren't enough badges in the world with social apps right now, right?)
By earning badges though, you earn more points and climb the ranks to the be the ultimate Chatville user.
Try it out with your friends. Webchat with your parents. It's easy and penis free. Unless your friends from high school are real jokers. Not Chatville's fault.
P.S. If you miss the fun of Chat Roulette and the crazy things you've seen there penises, there's always our Bingo card to add to the fun you could have there.
This post originally appeared on my company's blog here.
I believe that you should do things out of your element. Push yourself and try until it hurts. I did that this weekend by participating in the Ragnar Relay with some new friends and old.
The race, if you're unfamiliar, is approximately 187 mile run from Woodstock, NY down to Dobbs Ferry. A team of 12, 2 vans geared with headlights, safety reflectors, endless amounts of bananas, Clif Bars, Goo Gel, flip cams, iphone chargers that almost explode (that was our van at least)and people who you have to immediately get along with, or kill because you're in a van with them for 24 hours.
The race covers hills and more hills, legs ranged from 2.7 miles to 8.5 miles and the midnight hour runs were crazy. Think running with headlights and safety gear over a bridge, through neighborhoods in New Paltz, New York while you try and stay away from the drunk college kids yelling your name. We then split 2 hotel rooms that were used mainly to shower and sleep for about an hour. Some people slept in the gym overnight but our team's version of "roughing" it was WAY better in my opinion. It ends in beautiful Dobbs Ferry where you can smell the beer garden and sense of accomplishment from the teams around you. It was really awesome.
Our team was made up of media, digital folk, foursquare-ers, marines and people who don't use Facebook or Twitter (they DO exist) We made a Tumblr and Twitter account for our friends to follow. Check it out to see the live comments from the vans. You can see how we progressively got more and more delirious. It's quite funny.
The race was an experience to remember. While we are all in tremendous pain today (we also all fell asleep at the bar last night trying to celebrate) I hope to do it again next year. And I'll train a little better. Although honestly, I don't think anyone can "train" for a ragnar unless you refuse to sleep for 2 days and climb up a hill.
Congrats to everyone on the team who participated! Van 1: Nathan, Naveen, Elizabeth, Jenn, Mark S. Van 2:Chad, Indira, Mark W, Jonathan, Brian, Denis (who joined Twitter thanks to the peer pressure of the Internet savvy) . Also congrats to others who ran including Caroline and Dave! See everyone next year! (or in Vegas in October where the after party includes a pool and a party!)
I've written about brilliant tampon ads here before and other stunts that marketers have done to target women. Some are low brow and brilliant, others are high brow despicable (yes, I review my opinions in the form of the NY Magazine Approval Matrix (coming soon to TV), so what?)
