Wisdumb: Smart and Not-So-Smart

Am I the only one who found Diet Coke’s Oscar ads a bit tacky? I am not criticizing the spots per se (though I saw quite a few of them and it was never communicated to me what Diet Coke is doing for women and  heart disease), my complaint is that in order for me to find out more about women heart disease issues, I have to go to MyCokeRewards.com to find out. Coca-cola couldn’t make a coke.com/heart page or something a bit more altruistic or at least helpful to the cause?

AND - once you go their rewards site, I didn’t see anything about women and heart disease until after 7 rotating banner ads came and went before I got something. These ads appeared in the lower left part of page (not particularly prime real estate), don’t even take up 10% of the screen and when the ad was finally delivered to me - it barely was on topic… all it did was reference how I could win Heidi Klum’s red dress she wore to the Oscars. It took me two more clicks after I clicked the banner ad to discover Diet Coke is donating $250,000 to a women’s heart health charity. That’s approximately only 7% of what they are spending for the placement of the ad during the broadcast (a reported $1.8M per 30 sec spot)… and I don’t know how many spots they ran, but it was a lot. AND EVEN AFTER THAT, I still didn’t learn anything about women and heart disease.

Anyway, I know they most likely got a volume discount, so the above 7% reference is likely incorrect AND they don’t have to donate any money to charity… but it seems to me that this was a fairly unabashed and calculated ploy to look more caring than they really are. The term “green washing” is being bandied about a lot lately, this to me is “charity washing.”

In case you didn’t see any of the spots, here is the final tag of the ads:

Oh, the spot mentions “The Heart Truth” but the Diet Coke site doesn’t even link you to it: The Heart Truth

This article answers Nigel Tufnel’s question of “how much more black could this be?”

In case you don’t read the article, the gist is this… Scientist have come up with a new material that is significantly blacker than anything you have seen before. This new material which uses nanotube technology has a total reflective index of 0.045 percent — more than three times darker than the previous record, which used a film deposition of nickel-phosphorous alloy. For reference, black paint typically has a 5-10% reflectance value.

What does this mean? This could have major benefits to solar power collection (less light would bounce away so the solar collectors could be more effective) and conversion, new telescopes using this material would allow astronomers to see more distant or less bright stars and it could also help with “stealth” technology.

This isn’t the most exciting news about robots or “green”, but it is the first news I have come across that is about both. Story

I found the linked article very interesting. It will likely annoy some of the journalist types but I recommend it to them as food for thought.

Sometimes you are lucky enough to see the very beginnings of that which is destined for greatness. I don’t know how many people saw this particular cable access show, but I bet the ones that did will say they have been fans of his since his early days. I know I brag about how I used to see Tina Fey live on stage when she was part of the main stage at Chicago’s Second City… just imagine how excited the fans of The Charly Show will be when he is accepting his first Emmy — or more likely, his first Oscar as I predict the small screen will not be able to contain his greatness:

I am already a huge fan of Ninja Warrior… and I am definitely sold on this new show based on this video:

I can’t believe there isn’t an American version of either show yet. American Gladiator doesn’t even come close as far as I am concerned.