You go, library.
Promoting something I love, and could afford to love more...the public library. Courtesy of Amy Corr at MediaPost.
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Chevy Silverado 2012
No telling if Toyota owners will make it through the Mayan apocalypse in 2012, but I'll plan to be driving mine on December 21st just in case. This clever Super Bowl ad for Chevy shows a preview of the fallout and what will remain. Where are the cockroaches, I wonder?
Pepperidge Farms and Fame-lust
by Sam Van Eman
Henri Nouwen once spent seven months in a Trappist monastery in an attempt to escape from his fame-lust; to find, as he put it, "a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world" (The Genesee Diary, 14). While in the monastery, Nouwen worked on their assembly line which produced 15,000 loaves of raisin bread (Monk's Bread) each week.
Consider this journal entry about an observation he made:
"Theodore found a little piece of metal between the thousands of raisins he pushed through the raisin washing machine. He showed it to me. It looked as sharp as a razor blade. Well, someone eating his raisin bread is saved from a bleeding stomach, thanks to Theodore, who will never hear a grateful word for it. That is the drawback of preventative medicine" (112).Drawback of preventative medicine? Yikes. This is exactly why someone with fame-lust like Nouwen's needs a time out.
But hold on a minute, Sam. You know precisely what he means. Mixed with even the few generous acts of your own—especially the unrecognized ones—is a hope for praise. You admire Spider-Man for his masked altruism, but you also love the moment when Mary Jane is about to find out who's behind all those good deeds. Don't be too quick to judge.
The Pepperidge Farms magazine advertisement here says, "We're bakers. But we're parents, too. That's why we bake our wholesome bread the way we do. With plump, juicy raisins, sweet swirls of cinnamon—and lots of love." I appreciate the heart at the center of this image. Maybe it's real. I hope, at least, that it's more than a clever graphic, because I'm sure that some of those who made this ad (and this bread) care less about the customer and more about fame.
There are many problems in popular advertising that call for Spider-men and women to address. And there are also many elements that require Theodores to execute selflessly, year after year. Theodores may need to extract the occasional metal shard, but their main focus is on "lots of love," and on the continual production of beneficial goods and services. Not fame.
Theodore found more value in making good bread than in heroically avoiding dangerous bread, or in people knowing he made bread at all. It feels impossible for me to be Theodore. Dreams of accolades and promotions too often over-shadow the importance of the work itself, and I find myself needing to remember why it's been given to me in the first place.
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Vocational Surfing: Will Someone Puhleeze Ride that Wave?
by Sam Van Eman
Transcript for this recording:
Hey, it's Friday and you're either glad the work week is over or you're bummed it's coming to an end. My friend and stump-preaching vocation specialist, Byron Borger, refuses to eat at TGI Friday’s for theological reasons. Work was given to us before the fall of humankind, not after. So for that reason, despite the callouses, work is a good thing. And, honestly, because it has service and cultivation at its roots, work brings goodness into the mess that surrounds us. Byron may be onto something.
This morning I came across a surfing video. It's amazing. I've surfed only once but even my three-foot waves made me appreciate water's power and the need I would have for excellence to both understand and work within the ways of that power. In the video scenes where you look into the empty curl, you'll wonder if a surfer will emerge. In the scenes where you watch the surfer under a closing wave, you'll wonder if he will make it.
I didn’t intend to share this in order to create a point, but I couldn't help thinking about the surfing montage and work. TGIF (not the restaurant) is the relief statement of someone who can't seem to emerge. They either lack the vision, or the know-how, or the willingness to ride out what seems like pending doom. And sometimes it is pending doom. Plenty of jobs will eventually reach right over our heads and take us under. But every time?
I would like to see more of us ride this thing beyond Friday.
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Enjoy the video below. If you don’t think about work while you watch it, that’s okay. The wave is still amazing.
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Super Bowl Commercials and My Spiritual Tipping Point
by Sam Van Eman
It's early January and the perennial conversation about the Super Bowl game versus Super Bowl commercials has reached the living room already. Last night, after an overtime loss took the Steelers out of the running, a friend surrendered: "Well, there will always be the commercials." Even my seven-year old reminded me this week why she likes watching football: "I love the commercials, Daddy."
Of course, behind-the-scenes talk began months ago. This year's 30-second spot line-up was sold out before Thanksgiving. At a record-high $3.5 million a piece (about $117,000 per second), NBC is more than happy to host both the game and the high-fare entertainment.
Seth Winter, senior vice president of sales and marketing at NBC’s sports group, said, “We have shattered any recent revenue stories in regards to the Super Bowl."
Super Bowl commercials aren't predictably Jack's beanstalk for companies who commission them, but companies certainly hope their millions will become that. At the very least, with Ash Wednesday only weeks behind America's favorite game, it's as if they hope this will be the Mardi Gras of consumption until Black Friday resurrects their sales again.
My Mardi Gras
The Super Bowl is also my Mardi Gras; a last hurrah of pleasure and shiny lights before the darkness sets in; a cultural feast followed by a religious fast. I give up television each year for Lent because I watch too much tube leading up the Super Bowl. Charlie Brown specials, mid-winter sit-com reruns, play-off games, more play-off games. By the time I wake up the morning after the big event, I can't watch another minute of anything.
(Well...except for Netflix.)
The cycle does my body good. Unplugged, I'm invited to have expectations beyond wanting to see which Doritos' submission got chosen out of the more than 6000 entries for its 30 seconds of fame. Unplugged, I'm invited to wait for provision - the Easter kind no ad or product can produce.
For now - and since my team is officially out - we'll be talking about the commercials around here. I'll call my kids into the room when age-appropriate gems air, I'll talk with peers about their favorites, I'll reflect on the influence of advertising on our 21st-century hearts and minds. I'll also hope for more neighbor-sensitive commercials, pray for those creative types behind the scenes who have more power than they realize, and reflect on my own role in the machine that is consumerism.
And then, on February 6th, a day after partying with food and friends, I'll come home from work and find something else to do besides watch TV.
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Streetwalking in 2012
by Sam Van Eman
Transcript of this recording:
Here's how it feels. I've come just around a city block corner onto 2012 Avenue and I'm thinking about both the last street and this one. The last one wasn't ugly or dark. It feels more like a friend's house with a decent dinner and pretty good company; the experience keeps me warm on the walk home.
More of my mind is on the next street. I've just popped out of the New York City subway and turned the corner. I've got a meeting address in my pocket. Haven't been there, haven't met the people. But the city scape is alive and the meeting promises. I see it as a brainstorming session of sorts on a topic I love to discuss. That's the feeling, anyway, rounding this corner.
As critical as I am, and as often as I complain about this issue or that discomfort, I get this feeling every year. I'm glad for a perennial optimism. I won't set New Year's resolutions (I wouldn't keep them). I'm not trying to clean last year's slate with a fabricated belief that this year will be my year. I won't even lie to myself about what potential I might or might not have. I know what I have to work with, and but for grace, those tools could sink me or save me in a few short steps.
So here I am, looking forward, eager to get to this meeting but not wanting to rush it either. The conversation I'll have there has significant implications on my work, family, and faith, all of which, as I get older, mean more to me. For everything that shapes these implications, I thank the Lord.
Here's to a walk with anticipated stops along the way and an unusual measure of grace to help 2012 surprise all of us.
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Jesus and Three Movies You’ve Never Watched at Christmas
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| Image by Marko Milošević |
My sister and I fought our own desires to maintain tradition. What we proposed was taboo, even scandalous. Okay, I admit that all we did was save a little money, but it was hard!
I want to tell you about three movie characters who are truly taboo. The summaries, I feel, are rather dry, but they convey uncanny similarities between Babette, Vianne, and Mary, characters who changed my Christmas this year.
Read more about these three at The High Calling. The High Calling hosts everyday conversations about work, life, and God. Read more...
But MAAAaaaAAAHM!
by Sam Van Eman
Transcript of this recording:
Welcome to New Breed of Advertisers. The following Christmas post is called “But, MAAAaaaAAAHM!”
Parents have it rough. Toy companies market directly at kids, and the kids respond, "Yes!" while parents' wallets say "No!"
But who's to blame? The parents, for not setting good boundaries for their kids? The kids, for having low discernment skills? Or the advertisers, for putting on an irresistible show? Perhaps a little of all three.
I read an article about parents complaining to toy companies. The organization leading the push-back was Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and they wanted ads to stop being aimed at kids. Let parents make the decisions, they said.
I like this idea, but even I want half of the toys on TV, and I'm pushing 40. Maybe it's because I only had one Star Wars action figure as a kid: no spaceships, no detailed model of a far away planet, no accompanying action-figure troops, and certainly no special effects like the kids in TV commercials had.
Commercials have come a long, tempting, way since my childhood, and kids are even more seduced now. Only the strongest could resist such an onslaught of allure. I want to say to the marketing minds behind this brilliance, "Stop sucking us in. Enough is enough. Help us to lead simple lives. Quit enticing me...er, my children!"
But my first responsibility is not to change the market. It's to curb my own desires and to teach discernment to my kids. My kids have to learn the difference between wants and needs, quality and junk, genuine interests and peer pressure. I can't protect them forever.
And what about the advertisers? They certainly carry guilt, but how much? Well, just imagine how toy advertising would change if they cared more about our kids than about profit. We might be able to say – and you might want to brace yourself for this – "Johnny, if the advertiser says it's a good toy, then it's a good toy because she loves you and wants the best for you."
Without all of us – parents, kids and advertisers – doing more than we’re doing now, Christmas will always be a commercial holiday.
Here’s to a simple, commercial-free, whine-free, generous Christmas.
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Visit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
Ingredients
Transcript + link to an exercise:
Try thinking about every item you see and every act you do in terms of the raw ingredients that form them. Just as flour and baking soda go into cookies, so do wood and cotton go into chairs, and creativity and ink (and pixels) go into a logo.
Your work – my work – is a combination of a long list of raw ingredients. How we
assemble them makes a world of difference. Some recipes produce work that tastes great, but isn’t healthy; other times it’s loaded with nutrition but lacks anything resembling flavor. This presents a challenge. We need to assemble ingredients that end up tasting great and benefiting the consumer. Not always an easy task.
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For more thoughts on ingredients and their relation to media consumption, read A Recipe for Film Consumption. You'll find an exercise at the end with a downloadable TV commercial (one of my all-time faves).
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