In on-going Subservient Chicken coverage, here’s a concise and well-explained analysis by Joseph Jaffe on the brilliance of the campaign:

The one question that seems to be continuously asked is, “But did it sell chicken?” This is completely the wrong question to be asking. Perhaps a more appropriate question you should be asking is, “Does Burger King sell chicken?” (hint: think BURGER King). The answer is an emphatic “yes” — and if you didn’t know it before, you certainly do now.

Subservient Chicken is cocky, to be sure, but without question a smart and strategic campaign. It almost single-handedly put BK in the news for all the right reasons, when it seemed the only news that was worthy for this flailing brand was bad news — at a time when the only flame-grilled item on the menu was the company itself.

(Link via the excellent MarketingVox, which also is maintaining a list of other relevant Subservient Chicken and viral marketing links.)

Oh, how I wish I’d thought of this inside joke/buzz marketing stroke of genius:

Labels on most of the backpacks, messenger and laptop bags made and sold by Tom Bihn have his company’s contact information along with washing instructions in English and French along with a message reading: “Nous sommes desoles que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n’avons pas vote pour lui.”

The translation reads: “We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We did not vote for him.”

Tom Bihn, who designs and makes bags for his eponymous company of 10 employees in Port Angeles, a seaside city 60 miles northwest of Seattle, claims he has no idea how the phrase got onto the label, but credits it with doubling bag sales.

“We don’t know how it got there,” Bihn said in a dead-pan manner.

Asked if the message refers to President Bush (news – web sites) or French President Jacques Chirac, Bihn said he had no clue whom the insult referred to.

“I’m going with the idea that it refers to me, the president of the company,” Bihn said, “I do have to say it seems to have struck a chord. A lot of people seem to think that it refers to another president.”

You can read the company’s official response to questions about the label on a dedicated page on their website. The companies products are quite sharp-looking, very stylish, and seem really functional. I’d love to hear from anyone who has one of the laptop totes. (Also, a gift-giving hint: I’m digging the Small Cafe Bag in Wasabi.) Please also see the page on the company dog.

(The headline for this post was unrepentantly stolen in entirety from Wonkette, who commented amusingly on this very subject nearly a week ago. But it’s still funny.)

UPDATE: Heeding my request for reviews of the Tom Bihn bags, Christina at Inner Bitch posts a lovely and thorough review, with pictures.

How to create support among your existing fans for your new work, exhibit A: David Bowie invites fans to remix his new songs with his back catalog.

Singer David Bowie (news) has invited his fans to mix two of his songs together, extending a hand of friendship to underground bootlegging enthusiasts.

The rocker, currently touring with his 26th album “Reality,” has invited his supporters to splice a song from the album with any other track from his back catalog as part of a six-week contest.

Bowie is on the panel of judges who will pick a winner and runners-up from among a publicly voted shortlist of entrants.

Some articles related to changes in consumers’ acceptance or rejection of marketing and advertising:

MediaDailyNews reports that “[a]bout half of consumers surveyed say they’ve noticed brands involved in product placements in movies and television, according to a recent Mediaedge:cia study.” More significantly, the study found that “60 percent of those consumers are willing to try the brands advertised, with the percentages a little higher for TV than movies.”

And the New York Times says that “branded entertainment, in which advertisers show their wares in longer-form narrative films instead of commercials, is barreling ahead.” One key to the approach is subtlety: “The new productions work to avoid seeming like traditional, hard-selling commercials. In the 17 minutes of “The Ecology of Love,” for instance, the protagonist’s Visa card appears for only moments. Likewise, the groundskeeper of “The Scout” rides a Craftsman tractor, but the focus remains on the characters.”

Apparently such new approaches are needed, because, according to the Direct Marketing Association, “[t]he growing intrusiveness of marketing and advertising has led to a saturated marketplace, pushing consumer resistance to an all-time high and causing marketing productivity to plummet, according to a proprietary study by Yankelovich Partners, a leading marketing services consultancy.” Specifically, “60% of consumers have a much more negative opinion of marketing and advertising now than a few years ago; 61% feel the amount of marketing and advertising is out of control; and 65% feel constantly bombarded with too much marketing and advertising.”

Advertising watchdog organization Commercial Alert claims this survey demonstrates that consumers are disgusted by the ubiquity of advertising messages. From an opinion piece by Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert in today’s AdAge: “Most Americans accept advertising as a part of the circus of life. We at Commercial Alert certainly do. But the advertising industry seems caught up in a death spiral of disrespect. In its desperate clamor to claim the attention of potential shoppers, the industry invents a new intrusive ad mechanism almost every week, until citizens are driven nuts by all the billboards, product placement, junk faxes, pop-unders and all the rest of it.” (Note that the rest of the column is even more histrionic than this paragraph.)

This website seems to be intended to help franchisees create McDonald’s promotional materials.

But it’s quite easy to use it in other ways.

In actuality, I expect that the wording of the banners must be approved by someone before anything is printed. And the fact that the physical banners cost money should prevent this little tool from being misused/abused in the way the Bush-Cheney 2004 Campaign Sloganator was.

(Banner generator link and fake franchisee banner via Adrants.)