Advertising Advertisements

PPAI announced yesterday that it was buying advertising time on one of Time Square’s JumboTrons to run a 15-second commercial explaining the value of promotional products in general as advertising tools. If you didn’t get their initial release, Charlie has the story in the newsletter for this week.

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Like Da Vinci, Except the Opposite

I finished up research for my article on computer accessories last week, and I can’t believe all the crazy stuff I found. There are USB watches, Internet phones that are also mice, and MP3 players so complex they make iPods seem like sleekly designed doorjambs.

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Incan Pictographs and Telephones

I’m still working away on our Top 50 Distributors List, making dozens of follow-up phone calls and trying to keep track of the results with about 15 hand-written, needlessly convoluted lists. God help me when I’m doing this again next year, as I’m sure I’ll no longer recall why I have corresponding charts and notes in Spanish, German and early Incan pictographs. Being thorough has little to do with being logical, I suppose.

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Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich

It’s been a while since I’ve told a story about my rookie adventures in this fine industry of ours. It’s probably going to be a while longer too, since this post is really more of a convoluted philosophical observation than an interesting coherent narrative. Don’t worry though, I’ll work in some jokes in about pyromania or checkerboards to keep things punchy (you scoff, but let me tell you, I can tell a checkerboard joke like no other).

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