Social Media Top 5: Ads Need to Clean Up Act; Wave is Still a Preemie; RT “I Do”

A Madness to Method with”Edgy” Cleaner Spot Raises Questions

In its zeal to raise awareness of regulations for labeling cleaning products, the people behind household cleaning product company Method’s latest spot created a shower scene that got some folks peeved. Actually, that’s kind; people actually said it “condoned rape.” The spot was pulled after the criticism. I won’t embed the spot here, but you can see it at AdAge and judge for yourself.

The question this raises for me; are advertisers being forced to kowtow to a very vocal minority (add the “Motrin Moms” case to the topic for context)? Or, are advertising creatives being forced to be more accountable when their “cleverness” gets the better of their good taste and ethics? In this case, I might have to say, “Ad people, go to your room.”

Equal Time for Positive News About a Campaign: “Men of a Certain Age”

My friend C.C. Chapman was lucky enough to be one of the blogger targets of the marketing campaign for the new TNT program “Men of a Certain Age.” He wrote a really nice post about how it stood out from the legions of crappy pitches he gets, and ow it even turned around his thinking about the show’s star, Ray Romano (he was not a fan- -I can understand that). Have a look at the post. The only thing I will steal from it here is C.C.’s photo of the cassette-shaped USB drive. “A Certain Age” indeed:

Remember Folks: Google Wave is in “Preview” (aka “Alpha”) Release

I have been trying to fool around with Google Wave lately. My biggest problem has been that it is not at all intuitive, so I have been following the more tech-savvy folks who are also there, like Dan York. Dan’s latest complaint is that the lack of admin controls– the ability to remove people from the collaborative Waves– makes the tool useless to him– for now. “For now” is instructive. I hope people are remembering that Wave is in “Preview,” or “Alpha” release, meaning it is nowhere near complete. I went through a similar process with the original Seesmic social video network. In the best cases, the Alpha users are patient and work with the developers to fix bugs and add features to make a better overall product. Patience, people.

RT @TheSoftwareJedi: Can’t Come Out tonight Boys, the Ol’ Ball & Chain Has Me Tonight

Wow, a groom Tweets from the altar. Was this just a stunt? Dana Hanna certainly found a clever use of Twitter. I know there’s no way my marriage would have lasted more than 140 characters if I had tried this.

Laid-Off Editor to USA Today: Drop Dead

Well, not really, I just like making references to the famous Daily News headline. Chris Gray Faust, recently laid-off travel editor of USA Today, did say “Good luck steering the Titanic,” though, which may be an even better line.