Say what you will about the mindset of Hollywood executives, they do like to reuse and recycle, even if the concept of “reduce” remains beyond their grasp.

We’ve seen the bigscreen reboots of such classics (I use that term loosely) as Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazard, Get Smart, The Fugitive, Bewitched and Shaft, with The A-Team on its way in 2009. It’s seen to be a safer bet to hang your hat on a franchise with some pedigree, than try to woo consumers with something entirely fresh and unique. Of course, there’s no shortage of examples where such caution has resulted in a bomb at the box office. Treading the line between attracting older consumers nostalgic for classic television and engaging younger consumers with something updated and current in the same package can be a risky proposition. As is always the case in product marketing, trying to be too many things to too many people can backfire.

All this to introduce the reboot of the mother of all franchises - Star Trek. Yes, I contend, it is bigger than Bond. All that’s left after this is the return of Gunsmoke.  

After six television series (including the animated one) and 10 theatrical releases, the entire franchise is being rebooted with a new movie and new actors in the roles immortalized by the old series, anchored around the characters of Captain James T. Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCoy and Mr. Spock. They have dared to recast these pop culture icons with fresh faces who portray them a few years prior to the time period encompassed by the original TV series. The first trailers have just hit the Internet. This isn’t your daddy’s Star Trek. It’s fast, slick and the starship interior looks like it was designed by Apple engineers. There’s even a clip in the trailer where it looks like Spock loses his temper with Kirk and takes a swing at him. (Where’s the logic in that?)

The studio is obviously hoping to engage a younger audience, after a somewhat feeble response to the last television series and theatrical movie. It remains to be seen if they are beating a dead horse with an offering that will only serve to alienate the core fanbase that has stood by the franchise all these years. With the release date still far off in May 2009, the studio has lots of time to kick the marketing and promotion into high gear (no doubt with the affiliated merchandising to pad any softness in box office revenue).

Whatever the outcome and the general audience reaction to this franchise reboot, I think there will be interesting lessons learned about marketing and managing audience expectations when meddling with such an iconic brand, much like Coca-Cola’s experience with New Coke.

Technorati Tags: marketing, promotion, Hollywood, branding, Star Trek,  Coca-Cola 

Over on the BBC web site, readers have submitted their personal choices for the most-hated cliches in current circulation. Reading through the article was a painful exercise, and I’m sure most of you will also recognize many of the expressions as appearing frequently in your own day-to-day vocabulary.

The technology sector is rife with such cliches, and I’ve summarized a few of these into a Top 10 list, some of which I must admit I still use “on an ongoing basis”, so to speak.

1: Going forward
2: Leading (as in “a leading provider of…”)
3: At the end of the day
4: Touch base
5: Mission-critical
6: Value-add
7: Downsizing
8: Out-of-the-box
9: Best practices
10: 110%

Got your own “favourites” or, better yet, can you truthfully say you’ve never used any of the above? Let me know.

Technorati Tags: writing tips, cliches, BBC

More words will be written today, perhaps, about yesterday’s presidential election in the United States than have ever been written about a single event in living memory, but I feel compelled to add my own few since rarely in my life have I seen something transpire that I frankly never expected to witness.

U.S. president-elect Barack Obama will enter the White House in January arguably the least experienced person that office has ever seen. He will take up power atop a nation that has been wounded, perhaps irreparably, by grave errors of judgment and downright malicious intent at almost every level. He has ridden a wave of expectation, entirely of his own deliberate manufacture, that no human could ever fulfill, and this may eventually be his undoing.

But this morning, as the world awoke to a tectonic shift in the geology of human endeavour that few thought possible, Obama must be recognized for achieving the unimaginable, for forging a campaign and a connection with millions of Americans that overturned our every expectation about race and its supposed immutable place in the politics of that amazing, capricious, expansive and divisive country.

I lived in southern Africa for many years as a child and never thought I would witness the emancipation of South Africa this side of a bloody and protracted uprising. My parents are Irish, and I went to school in Ireland for two years, and never thought I’d witness the laying down of arms and the embracing of democratic means in Northern Ireland by men wedded to the gun and the laws of violence. And I never, ever thought I’d see a black man in the Oval Office.

The audacity of the human spirit, a force that Obama harnessed to his own equally outrageous personal ambition and rode to the most powerful job in the world, is boundless. Whatever he manages to do with the power he now has, this one man has demonstrated that anything we dream, we can accomplish.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama

Most of us in Canada are no doubt familiar with that amusing commercial from Rogers about a fellow bragging to his friend about his new high-definition flatscreen television, despite the fact that the picture quality is horrible because he lacks the HD box for his television to display a true HD signal.

Well, this week my eight-year-old antique gave up the ghost. I had long ago decided that, should the day come, I would go with a Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD television. Within 24 hours of the old TV’s death, I had the new one on the wall.

Now, to set up the new TV, I simply connected my standard cable without any HD box, fully expecting to be confronted by god-awful picture quality that would be unbearable to watch.

But, to my utter amazement, the picture quality was at least as good as it was on my old TV. There was none of the blurry distortion dramatized in that Rogers commercial. Maybe I am not enjoying the full HD experience, but I certainly do not feel a pressing need to rush out and buy the HD box.

Granted, this is my personal experience after having the new TV set up for only an hour. Perhaps I am missing something.

But before I even got the TV home, I was in the electronics store shaking my head at a split screen comparison of the quality difference between a regular DVD picture and a high-definition Blu-ray disc picture. Again, there appeared to be a little exaggeration at work. Later at home, I played a standard DVD movie on my standard DVD player through the new LCD TV. When compared to the split-screen comparison I saw in the store, the picture quality was much closer to that of the Blu-ray than it was to the standard DVD as it was portrayed.

Comparisons can be a very effective means of selling buyers on the merits of your product or service, but in the bid to create that ”wow” factor that allows your product to fly off the shelves, be cautious about massaging the facts. Your product may clearly be better than your competitor’s, or the status quo, but be careful about trying to present those advantages more dramatically than they really are. Sure, you may dupe the unsophisticated buyer, but, guaranteed, there are plenty of savvy people who will see through the gimmick and out you on — oh, I don’t know — a blog, perhaps?

Technorati Tags: high definition, HD, Sharp Aquos, LCD, Blu-ray,  DVD, Rogers, marketing, advertising, product comparison

Labarge Weinstein hosted yet another well-attended and informative Startup Drop-in event last night for The Ottawa Network, and the theme of the evening demonstrated how seemingly innocuous things can have a most profound impact when duplicated on a large scale.

The theme was cleantech, featuring Ron Dizy of Sempa Power Systems, a Vancouver firm that specializes in hybrid power systems that help cut utility bills for commercial and industrial buildings. Ron talked about how customers can cut their power bills by 10 to 30 per cent by switching to electrical heating during off-peak hours and back to fossil fuel-based heating when the demand for, and the cost of, electricity is at its highest.

The evening also featured three of Ottawa’s rising stars in the cleantech sphere.

Energate, which helps consumers and utilities manage and reduce energy use in the home, was represented by chairman and CEO Niraj Bhargava. He emphasized the simple truth that we’re all creatures of habit unlikely to adopt methods of energy conservation if they mean curbing our use of the domestic comforts we’ve all come to take for granted, such as heating and air-conditioning. Energate’s speciality is managing energy use in ways we can bear to live with.

Dave Gerwing, president of Menova Energy, talked about how much power there is untapped in the rays of the sun. (I believe he said enough sunlight strikes the earth in one minute to power the planet for six months. Any error in that statement is entirely mine). But the trick is to capture it. Menova has developed a high-efficiency solar concentrator that captures this clean power source for electrical power, heating and lighting, hundreds of times more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost of traditional solar power technology.

But the most profound illustration of how the little things can add up to monumental proportions came from Scott Feagan, CEO of TireStamp. His company is in the business of making devices that allow corporate fleets to monitor and manage tire pressure and condition. Sounds like a practical enough solution, but not much of a “Wow” factor, is there?

Well, then Scott started talking about how quickly an under-inflated tire wears out, how under-inflation impacts fuel efficiency, how many gallons of oil are needed to make a replacement tire, the highway fatalities attributed every year to blowouts on commercial vehicles, and the billions some of the big parcel companies pay each year in fuel, no one in that room was left with any doubt that proper tire inflation and maintenance is a huge factor in reducing global pollution and resource consumption.

As individuals, we often wonder what we can do to make a difference. The truth is, there is no magic bullet to cure our environmental challenges. But, as last night’s event demonstrated, all those little things we can do, either at home, on the road or in the workplace, can add up in a big way.

Technorati Tags: The Ottawa Network, Start Up Drop-in, Labarge Weinstein, Tirestamp, Energate, Menova, Sempa Power, clean tech, green tech

Before I head off to a long weekend of turkey, ham and all the various and sundry other foodstuffs that go along with it, I’m joining what promises to be an A-list crowd peppered with big names from the NHL for tonight is the annual CEO of the Year gala hosted by my former colleagues at the Ottawa Business Journal.

It promises to be a memorable evening, even for one such as myself who has only a lukewarm interest in the professional hockey season, with tributes from Wayne Gretzky and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

They’re coming, of course, to honour the 2008 CEO of the Year, Ottawa Senators chief executive Roy Mlakar. This year’s pick, as determined by OBJ senior staff and the winners from previous years, is a departure from the typical private-sector executive one would expect in a tech-heavy town like Ottawa, but as this week’s profile in the OBJ attests,  Mlakar has proven himself a savvy and successful CEO who has confidently guided the franchise through some shaky times.

Congrats to Mlakar and hats off to the team at the OBJ for the work they do to recognize business excellence in our fair city.

Technorati Tags: Roy Mlakar, Ottawa Business Journal, CEO of the Year, NHL, Ottawa Senators, Wayne Gretzky, Gary Bettman

Okay, this has nothing whatsoever to do with technology or marketing but I just had to write about this joyous new oasis in the heart of our city.

All summer long, as I trundled to and from work, I have been monitoring activity at a small city park on Main Street in Ottawa east. The neighbourhood, badly mauled when the Queensway — what our British readers would call a motorway and our American readers a freeway — split it in two more than 20 years ago, is gradually recovering. New residential developments have gone in, a lively farmers market on the grounds of Saint Paul University draws crowds every Saturday and the highly desirable blocks between Main Street and the Rideau River contain, by my reckoning, some of the most attractive housing to be found in Ottawa.

A couple of weekends ago, there were crowds of children and adults working on the park site so I knew some big changes were pending. Just what they were up to was immediately evident when I biked down Main Street on my way to work the following Monday and was greeted with this joyous burst of colour and life. It was such a happy scene I actually burst out laughing as I pedaled past.

One of the mainstays of Main Street, in operation for more than 100 years, has been Lady Evelyn Alternative School, which my two lads attended, first at the excellent Rainbow Kids’ School, a preschool housed in the same building, and then through eight years of kindergarten and elementary school. A few blocks up from the park, Lady Evelyn is an amazing institution in this city, even if its decided lack of emphasis on academic performance has teachers at other schools rolling their eyes. It is, rather, a warm, community-oriented and nurturing place, where a dozen or more languages can be heard spoken at any school gathering and where my boys thrived in their personal development and did well enough academically to qualify for competitive arts and enriched programs when they moved on to junior and senior high school.

The new kids park, formally known as the Old Ottawa East Children’s Garden, is very much a partnership between students at Lady Evelyn and a group called Sustainable Living Ottawa East. According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, each student at the school painted one of the 300 pickets that border the park while corporations such as Home Depot, Microsoft Canada and UPS kicked in materials and money. Despite a late start, an organic vegetable garden has yielded some produce this year and other plants, many of them donated by neighbours, abound.

It’s a beautiful thing, and I salute everyone involved.

Technorati Tags: Old Ottawa East Children’s Garden, Ottawa, Main Street, Lady Evelyn Alternative School

I’ve commented before on the impending death of print and how this funeral dirge has evolved to include all traditional media since the rise of social media in all its various incarnations. Many enthusiastic proponents would have us believe that social media will soon emerge triumphant as the medium of choice for people to keep abreast of the latest news and information.

Who needs such staid institutions as daily newspapers and national television networks when citizen journalism can deliver in real-time a street-level perspective of what’s going on in the world through such avenues as Twitter, YouTube and the blogosphere?

Well, perhaps we’re turning in that direction, but there’s a long way to go yet, at least according to a report carried this week on Bulldog Reporter. According to a survey of more than 1,000 adults across the U.S., television, newspapers and radio (in that order) are still considered the most reliable sources of information ahead of online sources.

Now, we are left to assume that “online sources” refers to sources on the web other than the websites of those same television networks, newspapers and radio stations.

I contend that there will always be a distinction between in-depth coverage and analysis of the day’s news and events and the quick blurb or sound bite, from whatever source, that can be easily digested while on the go. They compliment each other, rather than cannibalize. And when it comes to seeing social media displace traditional media, I wholeheartedly agree with the viewpoint that there will always be a need for trusted sources of information with a track record of accuracy and impartiality.

As we increasingly turn to online sources of news and information that we can readily access while mobile, non-traditional sources of information will compete for our attention with the traditional. And print, radio and television will increasingly have to offer competitive online services to grab and hold readers. But it’s the commercial printing industry, in the business of killing trees, that will feel the most profound pain from this shift in our habits as consumers of news and information.

Technorati Tags: media, social media, journalism, Bulldog Reporter, radio, television, print

We have often talked about the merits, methods and tools for media monitoring on inmedialog, but it’s the amusing and bizarre aspects of the exercise that I want to illustrate today.

Media monitoring is, of course, the process of scanning media coverage for specific keywords and issues and presenting them to clients in the format that will best meet their needs. There are a number of free online tools and subscription-based services available for this. Some allow for extreme fine-tuning to narrow down search results with surgical precision. Others less so.

It’s the tools that fall into the latter category that often yield the most bizarre, and off base, search results. For one of our clients, upper limb prosthetics maker Touch Bionics, for example, I’ve learned far more than I wanted to about the new Bionic Commando video game, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and several other companies with bionic in their name that offer everything from energy drinks to home and office furnishings.

But it’s the news headlines picked up by search terms such as prosthetic, prostheses and amputee that are the most quirky, shocking or sad, as the case may be. The examples below all date from the past month or so and picked up a fair amount of press (I should know, I was deleting the hits from my inbox for days):

Horse gets prosthetic leg

Skydiver’s prosthetic leg falls off - and then vanishes into thin air - during jump

Police hunting for man who carries weapons in fake leg. Wife ‘could be in very serious danger’ 

Neb. man sues prosecutor to get his leg back

James Franco isn’t all natural down there

One-legged hooker slain

Cross-dressing mugger leaves breast behind

Wheelchair-bound thief steals condoms from Dallas 7-Eleven

Technorati Tags: media monitoring, news, bizarre

Although no inmedianauts were stranded yesterday when Ottawa-based Zoom Airlines suspended operations as it sought bankruptcy protection in the face of actions by several of its leaseholders and creditors, we very easily could have been. Ever since our Danny Sullivan repatriated himself to his native Scotland and set up office for us in Glasgow a few years back, we have been enthusiastic and regular passengers on this quirky little airline that offered good prices, excellent service and a peculiar schedule that gave us direct, non-stop flights for most of the year between Ottawa and Glasgow. It’s as though Zoom was made for us.

Our best experience happened when we flew Danny on Zoom to Ottawa on fairly short notice when a long-time client hired a new marketing vice president and wanted to talk about an aggressive new program. The veep, who had flown in from San Jose, did not believe that Danny had come to town just for that meeting. Turned out, however, that it cost less and took less time for Danny to get there than it did for the veep!

Zoom was a favoured carrier for my family, too. In the winter, Zoom used to offer non-stop weekend service between Ottawa and St. Maarten that could see a winter-weary citizen of this frozen northern capital get on a plane at about 6:30 a.m. and be frolicking in the warm Caribbean by noon. And three summers ago, we flew Zoom to Scotland for a family vacation in England, Scotland and Ireland.

From a PR and crisis communications perspective, though, Zoom does not seem to be managing this potentially fatal setback nearly as well as it managed its early growth and success. News stories have focused on the suddeness of the shut down, the lack of communication to stranded passengers and the apparent abandoning of their posts by Zoom personnel at airports. This does not create the kind of forgiveness and understanding a company needs to successfully emerge from such a crisis. And that would be too bad for Zoom and those of us who enjoyed flying with them.

Technorati Tags: Zoom Airlines, travel, bankruptcy protection, crisis communications