Me, on the news that Intel has hired will.i.am as some kind of creative powerhouse:
For the finale of last month’s Paper Clips and Metal Fastenings 2011 show, they wheeled out the pint-sized popstress Pixie Lott.
“All the paper clips, they’ve got it going on,” she sang to a crowd of chubby middle-aged men, tears visible in the corners of her eyes.
“And when you clip that paper the feeling in your bones,” she added, dancing awkwardly, looking for all the world like someone praying for an early death.
No, not really. But it’s not that far from the truth. Like a rubbish Rutger Hauer, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.
Comments
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My God, those blurbs are painful to read. What’s wrong with “This guy’s famous and popular, which is obviously why we want him prominently holding our stuff?” I think we’re all down with that. Pepsi never felt the need to claim Michael Jackson helped with the recipe. Although I for one would be happier in a world in which he had released a song about making the stuff. “A bit more cardamom! Oo! Now carbonate! Ow!” I’ll get me coat.
I do remember years ago seeing a documentary about running a local news station, in which at one point they went to a press conference for the launch of a new cheese and the cheesemakers had brought Anika Rice along to promote it. The news desk editor explained to camera that this pissed him off because the cheesemakers seemed to think they needed some rent-a-celeb along or no-one would be interested, when in fact, as far as any sensible editor is concerned, stories about food automatially get top billing because everyone in the whole world loves food. By getting the celebrity endorsement, what they were really demonstrating was their own lack of understanding of the importance and potential popularity of their own product. Not sure to what extent the same applies in these tech cases, but I suspect that the group “People who weren’t interested in Intel until Will.i.am turned up but are now keenly studying chip architectures” is vanishingly small.
> What’s wrong with “This guy’s famous and popular, which is obviously why we want him prominently holding our stuff?†I think we’re all down with that.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s the surrounding bullshit that’s annoying.
> Not sure to what extent the same applies in these tech cases, but I suspect that the group “People who weren’t interested in Intel until Will.i.am turned up but are now keenly studying chip architectures†is vanishingly small.
Heh. The thing is, Intel doesn’t make consumer products, so the whole thing’s rather bizarre. Dre bringing Beats Audio to HP laptops makes sense in a “hey kids! HP is cool, honest! Look! Dr Dre says so, and we didn’t have to pay him *that* much!”.
I’m assuming it’s part of a wider intel awareness campaign, especially since ARM is the flaxen-haired golden child of tablet computing at the moment.
It’s still shit though :)