Carol of the Ads

Da dada da
Da dada da
Hear it?

DA dada da
DA dada da
There it is again!

DA DA dada DA DA -- Ok, enough already!

No wonder the repetitive, catchy melody of "Carol of the Bells" is stuck in my head. I seem hear it every time I turn on the TV these days. There's a choir singing it -- using "duhs" instead of "das" -- to promote Hyundai's cars. There it is in the background of a Verizon Wireless ad, and Walmart.com is using it as well. A GPS manufacturer has come up with its own lyrics for the tune, culminating with the insistent: "Give-a give-a give-a Garmin! Give-a give-a give-a Garmin!"

Only problem is that I had to go on the Web to refresh my memory of which companies are using this carol in their ads. The Garmin folks were smart, embedding their brand name into their jingle, so admittedly I did remember that one. But I couldn't have told you what car brand the choir ad was pushing without checking.

A random and completely unscientific survey of colleagues and friends yielded similar results. When I asked what people thought of after I hummed the first few bars, most said "Christmas music!" or "I don't know; holiday shopping?" From those who named products, I got: "Jewelry." (one Kay's, one Zales), "Gilette?" "Champagne? Or some brand of wine?" "Batteries?" One person did say "Hyundai." No Verizon, no Walmart, and no Garmin.

"No, not any products," said one colleague, "but there was this viral video thing that went around the Web…" Ah yes, "Ding, Fries Are Done." Alas, for me, too, this old Ukrainian folk song will now forever be associated with a pudgy guy in bright blue, polyester uniform intoning, "I work at Burger King making flame-broiled Whoppers; I wear paper hats."

So, why do so many firms and their ad agencies continually use this particular carol in their commercials year after year? Especially now that it has been spoofed on the Web in an infectious video that gained even wider notoriety when it was redone with the lead character from Fox's cartoon show, "The Family Guy?"

Is it that the lilting, rapid melody excites people to get up and do something active -- like shopping -- in the same way that strobing lights propel people out of their seats? If so, seems it's just as likely they might go rearrange the ornaments on the Christmas tree or bake a batch of cookies or something.

Is it that because of its repetitive nature, it cements itself into the brain like year-old gum on the underside of a movie theater seat? If so, that doesn't guarantee folks will remember the product when they find themselves humming "da dada da" for the fifth time that day. And if they do, they just may want to go heave a brick at said product for getting this interminable tune stuck in their heads.

What do you think?

Hark! The Herald Cashiers Ring!

What would compel good citizens to abandon their turkey dinners and football games to camp out in folding chairs along the sidewalks and parking lots of the local outlet mall? Yankee Candles.

According to some crack shopper-on-the-street -- er, sidewalk -- interviewing by the local NBC affiliate in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., folks started lining up mid-afternoon on Thursday to get a jump on the early-bird super sales at Carolina Premium Outlet mall in Smithfield, where most stores planned to open their doors as early as midnight. The Yankee Candle store outmaneuvered the competition by opening up at 9:30 p.m. Eighteen-inch candles could be had for 12 bucks! Why sit around yacking with relatives you might see once or twice a year when you could save $5 per peppermint-scented candle? Ok, I enjoy a festive candle as much as the next gal, but THIS WAS THANKSGIVING DAY!

I shouldn't be harsh on those whose Thanksgiving festivities included catching up on cousins' and uncles' latest accomplishments and escapades in the line outside a mall rather than in the living room. After all, one woman interviewed by the local news station explained her goal was to snag a couple of laptops for two kids in college -- something that with the steady increase in gas prices, groceries, and other daily life expenses, those getting by on a modest income may not be able to swing without sacrificing half a holiday to get a super discount. Anyone able to scoff at getting up in time for a 4 a.m. holiday kick-off sale should count their ability to blithely forgo doorbuster deals among their Thanksgiving blessings.

Black Friday -- a rather oddly macabre moniker for a supposedly festive event -- has come and gone, and if the scene at Southpoint mall in Durham, N.C., was indicative of the rest the nation, it passed with a bit of a fizzle, though not a flop. Going out with my mom- and sis-in-law, we didn't have to drive long through the full parking lot before finding an open space and didn't even have to play chicken with two or three other cars to see which of us could squeeze in first. Inside, there were lines at cash registers, but not more than a half-dozen deep at any one.

Mark spent part of Friday afternoon in the Crossroads shopping area in nearby Cary with his brother and his sister's boyfriend. They spent their time at Best Buy, where the TSA could learn a thing about efficiently moving a crowd through a line. Checkout was nearly instantaneous, despite a respectable mob. The parking lot was full too, but there was plenty of elbowroom at the back of the store, where shoppers tried to figure out how the esoteric specs of various big-screen, high-def TVs explained the rather wide range of prices for similarly sized models.

Forecasters have been predicting less than stellar retail sales this year, and early indications are they may be right. According to the Raleigh News & Observer's next-day article on the big post-Thanksgiving day of sales, a significant number of shoppers said they were tightening their Christmas budgets this year, mainly because of high gas prices.

Will that mean desperate deep discounts for lazy slackers like me who slept in till 9 a.m. on Black Friday and didn't hit the mall till after the latest early-bird specials ended at 1 p.m.? Stay tuned.

(Screen Grab: WNCN-TV, NBC 17, Raleigh-Durham, N.C.)

'Tis the Season to See Turkeys

To everything there is a season, says Ecclesiates. But that was before Corporate America got its hands on Christmas. Nowadays, the ho-ho-holiday marketing and spirit-stoking starts so early, you could be forgiven if you forgot there's this little old holiday about a month earlier called Thanksgiving. Besides the grocery stores, what businesses bother to decorate for Thanksgiving? Many department stores began serenading shoppers with Christmas carols a couple of weeks ago.

But one corner of Fairfax, Va. has the Thanksgiving holiday spirit well on display. Come up to the intersection of Route 50 and Jermantown Road, and a trio of plump, 7-foot-tall turkeys wearing pilgrim hats nod in the breeze and shake their red wattles in greeting at you from the lawn of the Jermantown Shell station. Stop at the light, and you just want to hop out of your car and run over and give these fat, cartoony gobblers a big hug.

The inflatable gaggle went up shortly after a motley crew of ghosties and ghoulies and jack-o-lanterns that celebrated the spooky fun of Halloween came down.

Now this is a business that knows its seasons!

Owner Charles "Chick" Beaulieu first started decorating his station for Christmas 21 years ago and the tableaux and the holidays they celebrate have expanded ever since. Christmas commands the most elaborate lighting and decorations, but the station also marks Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July.

Chick started decorating his franchise for Christmas for his own holiday amusement and for his then young children. Today it's still about the children. "It's for the kids; that's what it's about," he says, describing how families will pull into the station or come from the hotel on the opposite corner to snap photos of their children amidst the displays. And it's for their parents, too. "Everyone's kind of upset right now about gas prices and the economy. This gives them a little smile."

The displays also set the station apart from others in town, and many people from all over the area know which Shell station you mean when you mention the decorations. Plus, customers as well as family, friends, and colleagues get in on the fun by helping Chick find new and unique items to add to the displays. He changes some of them up every year so that area residents always look forward to seeing what's new and different, and he strives to get props that no one else in the area will have yet.

But Chick wouldn't recommend decorations as a way to increase business. For one thing, people who pull in eager to snap photos of the displays sometimes block access to the station's pumps. For another, the city has not been overly enthusiatic about his displays, particularly the more elaborate efforts, and has scolded him on occasion for overstepping signage rules and other ordinances. He used to use large light bulbs that "looked really pretty, but they really made the meter spin!"

Given the cost of purchasing new decorations and the labor that goes into setting them up -- Chick predicts it'll take three days to set up this year's Christmas tableau -- how many businesses would expend such resources on something not guaranteed to yield a measureable percentage increase in revenues? And how many would do it not just once, but several times a year?

But Chick sums up the why in one succinct phrase: "Customers love it."

This year's Christmas display at the Jermantown Shell will start going up on Friday, Nov. 30. We'll post an update with photos of the Christmasy delights in early December.

Tactics of the Tanenbaum

While I love real Christmas trees in all their needley glory, my wife and I are usually on the road visiting family for the holidays, which makes decking our halls with an authentic pine or fir a challenge. Friends of ours gave us a small artificial tree to hang some of our ornaments, some of which have been in our family for several generations. It helps us get into the holiday spirit before we head for the airport -- and provides a pretty base for dozens of enticing seasonal cat toys.

But are we contaminating the Earth with our decorating choices?

The National Christmas Tree Association has cranked up its annual campaign to warn the public about the evils of artificial trees like ours, as a St. Petersburg Times article by Homes and Garden Editor Judy Stark reported a couple of weeks ago. Stark focused on the association's environmental argument, which emphasizes that artificial trees are non-biodegradable, non-renewable, landfill-filling petroleum byproducts that are mostly made in China.

To underscore its argument, the association has an online game -- Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees. And this year, in an attempt to tap that whole user-generated, viral-marketing thing, the group is holding a YouTube "Get Real" video contest. Contestants are encouraged to submit short homemade videos "showing why a Real Tree is the best choice this Christmas season. Tell us why Real is better than fake, why a Real Tree is better for the environment, what a Real Tree means to you, whatever -- but be creative!" There are three cash prizes with the first-place winner collecting $500.

The campaign is largely the work of Smith & Harroff Inc., a public affairs and marketing firm based in Alexandria, Va., which has worked with the Christmas Tree Association and its management company for several years. The firm has won several p.r. awards for its Christmas tree work, which it also uses as a case study on its Web site.

Why all the big-league p.r.? Because Christmas trees are big business. As Stark noted in her St. Petersburg Times article, Americans spent more than $1.8 billion on Christmas trees last year -- $1.2 billion on real trees and another $631 million on artificial trees. That works out to 28.6 million real trees, more than three times the number of artificial trees. But most people reuse their artificial trees, which increases their longterm threat to the real tree growers and sellers.

As best as I can tell, there is no association for artificial Christmas tree manufacturers. But I'll be on the lookout for the case for their products, whose boughs are green in summer's glow and do not fade in winter's snow.

Now I Believe

Update to my earlier post about the SantaTrackingStation Web site. Santa did in fact reply to my e-mail this afternoon. I should never have doubted! Alas, he ducked my question about the recalled toys. Here's what he had to say:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your thoughtful note. I love to hear from my friends around the world. As you know, I've been very busy getting ready for the BIG day! The workshop is buzzing with excitement and the decorations are as beautiful as ever!

Mrs. Claus has been in the kitchen baking her famous cookies for all the hardworking elves. That wonderful aroma reminds me its almost time to pack the sleigh and hitch up reindeer for our trip 'round the world! Thanks for writing!

Your friend,
Santa

Dear Santa.....

I stopped by SantaTrackingStation.com the other day to chat with Oliver D. Elf. But Oliver's chat page said he was busy "reporting for the Candy Cane Post" and updating his blog, "Diary of an Elf." So instead I decided to write to the Big Man himself and ask about the recent toy recalls, especially the ones that were pulled because their surface paints might contain excessive levels of lead:

Dear Santa: Last year you brought me a Cookie Monster Saxophone but my mom took it away. She said it was bad for me. If I'm good this year can I have a new one that I can keep? We will leave you an extra cookie! Thank you, Santa. Love, Mark

The Cookie Monster Saxophone was one of the toys that Fisher-Price and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced was being recalled back in August. In fact my message was not all that fair to St. Nick, since the recalled saxophones were all manufactured between April and July -- well after last Christmas. Toy expert that he is, Santa probably saw right through my note -- which may well be why I have not heard back from him yet. The Web site said to "expect a prompt reply. Santa is now email savvy and responds quickly to his favorite kids." Guess I should keep my Christmas morning expectations in check this year.

SantaTrackingStation is a Web site built and maintained by Macerich Co., a Santa Monica, Calif., development company that owns and operates dozens of shopping malls -- more than 77 million square feet of shopping space at 73 centers across the country.

The site lets customers know when Santa will be arriving at their local Macerich mall. But, as its privacy policy makes clear, the site also collects information that Macerich can use "to update you on sales, specials, programs, events, promotions, services, products or other opportunities provided by us, our merchants and/or our business partners, remind you of important occasions, and/or personalize your shopping experience."

The privacy policy emphasizes that protecting children under the age of 13 "is of the utmost importance to Macerich. . . . We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children without parental or guardian consent." However, many functions of SantaTrackingStation.com seem to be designed specifically to harvest contact info from kids. In addition to the Elf chat and the "Letter to Santa" functions, there's a "Create a Card" tool and a "Tell a Friend" feature (illustrated by a photo of two young girls whispering to one another). And none of these features asks users to confirm that they are 13 or older -- as if that would matter anyway.

I'll let you know if I hear back from Santa or Oliver D. Elf on any of this -- including the Cookie Monster Saxophone.

Nightmare Way Before Christmas

A little while back, I was in a Michael's craft store shopping for pipe-cleaners, glitter, fabric tack, and other accouterments to create a Halloween costume for our friend's annual masquerade. Y'know, Halloween, that momentarily-noticed-and-forgotten-in-a-minute holiday that falls right at the tail end of October. A good two whole months before reindeer start flying and stockings should get hung.

One front corner of the store is devoted to those little Dickensian village scenes -- miniature houses, general stores, churches, ice skating ponds, etc. -- that people purchase to assemble mini villages of some idyllic, never-existed yesteryear in their cookie-cutter, suburban tract houses or McMansions. Due to the apparent popularity of these things, they've expanded the offerings well beyond houses, libraries, and public parks. Now you can buy all the pieces-parts of your own little Coney Island-like boardwalk or a three-ring circus or a haunted Halloween Town or the elaborate Santa's Workshop and Christmas Village. And forget just static houses whose most elaborate feature is windows that light up. Now they have moving parts and sound effects. So the haunted carousel in Spooky Town spins around as a witch's voice cackles, "Hey, kiddies, want to ride for freeee?" Meanwhile, a few shelves away, a children's chorus sings "Jingle Bells" punctuated by a jolly Santa laugh.

What I want to know is what drugs are they feeding the staff in these stores to keep them so placid and courteous? Standing in line at the cash register for five minutes, I was ready to go postal listening to the witch's cackle compete with the Santa's chortle:

"Heeheeheeheehee!!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"
"Heeheeheeheehee!!"
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Aurgh!!! For the love of all that's sacred and holy, here's $20 for the pipe-cleaners! Just let me out of here!

San Diego Snow Globe

Meteorology is the branch of science that studies changes in the atmosphere, so by meteorological standards San Diego is one of the most boring places on the planet. The weather for the five months I spent interning there after I graduated from college in 1990 was relentlessly perfect -- mid- to upper-seventies and sunny every day. So by the time I prepared to head back east, songs like "Let It Snow" had an entirely different meaning to me. Let it snow? Heck, let a cloud pass overhead. Anything resembling weather or seasonal variability would have suited me.

Perhaps this explains one of the happiest moments of my time in San Diego: It was summer and I was at a shopping mall, hunting through a bin of heavily discounted cassette tapes at a record store, when I found a copy of the Vince Guaraldi Trio's music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas." It was the best $2 or $3 I ever spent. I played that tape over and and over as I drove up and down The Five. Who cared if Christmas was four or five months away? I cranked up the volume and the AC and could almost imagine the smell of fireplaces in the night air. It might have been 77 degrees outside my white Mercury Sable, but inside my little snow globe it was Christmas time.

So I have some appreciation for those who have unseasonable yearnings for Yule. And yet my feelings were very mixed on Thursday, Nov. 9, when I stopped by my local Starbucks on my way to work and saw that the coffee of the day was Christmas Blend and that the tell-tale red holiday cups were already out.

With 46 Shopping Days still left until Christmas?! These days, actually, just over six weeks constitutes commercial restraint.

I happen to like Christmas Blend, but I especially admire the craft that Starbucks puts into describing it, emphasizing the blend's "coziness" and its "joyful, spicy warmth" in a description on its Web site. The wording alone stirs my holiday spirit.

My wife, Christine, and I have decided to devote this blog to looking at Christmas Marketing -- not because we have have some sort of purist indignation about the crass commercialization of a holiday we look forward to, but because we appreciate it when it is done well. And so much Christmas marketing is, well, bad. That's what we plan to celebrate here -- at least for the next six weeks. So happy holidays!