Cooper, Levy & Partners

What can a comet teach us about lead generation? Absolutely nothing. But if you happen to be leaving work around dusk, look up toward the Western sky and you might be able to see it. Zane took this awesome shot because you know he's Zane.

Remember "Hands Across America?" It was a big deal back in 1986. An event intended to raise money to fight hunger in the US. The concept was simple. Well sort of. Everyone was supposed to join hands forming a human chain connecting one coast to the other at a set time. Of course, people by and large don't follow instructions well and as a result, many got off the assigned path and the chain was broken in more than a few places (miles). Anyhow, I got to thinking. Even if you wanted to redo the event for a good cause, would it even be possible today? Would people not join because online bots/trolls would spread rumors it was a play by ____political party. If people did join, would they even be able to hold hands as most would be filming it on their phones. And if they did hold hands and had to hold the hand of a stranger, would they use a spritz of hand sanitizer after? The world has changed a lot since then.

I'm in a fantasy football league. There's no money in it, but I like the guys in the league, so I play. This year, the league draft fell right during school pick-up, so I ended up having to auto draft. For those who don't play, that means the Algorithm picks the best available player for you. After the draft, my picks were given a D- grade by the platform. Basically, this is like the AI bot/algo calling itself out saying "I did a crappy job, but since it's your team, I blame you." Amazing.

Somewhere in a warehouse caked in dust are the broken remnants of a once great band. My idea: buy the characters, get them moving again, and then use them as a wedding band you can rent online. Imagine being able to rent the Rock-A-Fire-Explosion-Band. Even if they still glitched, had patchy looking fur or smelled like moth balls and ancient puke, they'd still be better than 99.99999999% of most wedding bands. There are VC companies out there that have funded worse ideas than this.

When I joined Chiat/Day 124 years ago, they had just finished "Here's to the Crazy Ones" that beautiful commercial celebrating genius creators/inventors for Apple. The thought struck me today that maybe the reason we admire the people featured is that none of them save for Sir Richard Branson ever made it to social media. Most of them were long gone before its arrival. Thing is, social media exposes you to sides of people you simply never got to see in a world where image was less available 24/7. Now anymore, you see people online who are genius acting like lunatics and it all makes me wonder: I bet you could redo that spot today and make it a celebration of people who are boring and under-the-radar. The ones who don't seek any controversy and avoid all things social media. You could title it "Here's to the normal ones" and oddly enough, that group of people might be more interesting now.

Update on my microwave: I went outside this morning and it was gone! Yep. Despite the misspelling of Julia's last name, a neighborhood gourmand/junk collector has taken it off my hands. This is how you move goods. Questions? I'm here to help.

Forget "sell me this pen." I'm gonna convince you to take this used microwave off my hands. Edit: In my haste to get rid of this beast, I inadvertently added an "S" to Julia's last name. Despite the typo, will it still be gone in the morning...

With all that's been going on lately, I almost forgot to post the 3rd biggest news story of the year: We turned 7! Thanks much to all the wonderful clients we've had the last seven years. Let's keep making cool stuff.

Pivoting: It's a thing you hear about all the time in the start-up world. Candidly, I've never really understood it. People give you wads of cash to build out a vision and when it proves to be unattainable, you try to keep the team and infrastructure in place to quickly do something else and reach profitability. Look, there are many examples of where it has worked. Too many to list here. But put another way, if I came out with a chain of soup restaurants called "Marsupial" that of course had a cute little Koala bear as a mascot and claimed to "source the Outback" for our ingredients, and although the chicken soup was fine, something about it tasted off for too many, so I quickly pivoted to a line of lounge wear with the same name and mascot that featured a line of PJ like outfits with huge pockets made of sustainably sourced cotton to compete against fast fashion, but then realized the profit margins were very challenging, and thus quickly pivoted again to a line of tandem bicycles with the same name and mascot (although wearing a bike helmet) that were marketed as the safest in the world because of their enclosed shell, would you think I was a brilliant visionary or Richard Pryor in Brewster's Millions? I am ok with either, just curious.

It was taco night, I was in a rush, and picked this up in haste on the way home. When I finally got a chance to look at it closely, I realized the lawyers had gotten there before I did. First, notice the tiny "style" next to Mexican. Did someone bring litigation by suggesting since it's made in the US, you can't call it Mexican. I'm 100% betting yes, but the comedy isn't there. When I saw "Same amount of cheese! still 2 cups" I almost dropped the bag laughing. How defensive can a brand possibly get? But to be fair, in a world where everyone seems to want more, more, more, while feeling like they're getting a whole lot less, maybe the good people at the Veeta had to? If it were me, I'd have done it a little different. I'd have said "We give you less because our cheese is better." Or "It's less because our top cow Evita was on vacation and the juniors aren't very good." Ok, jokes aside, just say "2 cups of cheese" and call it a day. *This message was approved by Evita from Velveeta.