My new mom.

Meet Phyllis: Kleenex says we’re made for each other!

(Image credit)

They say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Well, you can scrap that old adage now – Kleenex is letting you choose... your mom.

Wish she was more like your best friend? Try Jessica. Need some of that down-home kinda lovin’? Try Magnolia. Or how about down-to-earth lovin’? Check out Amber. Want mom around only when you’ve got time for her? Swap schedules with Veronica.

Even if you’re not sure what type of mothering you need, you can take the online quiz to see which one is best for you.

Kleenex’s getmommed.com is a campaign that really puts the “viral” in viral advertising by taking advantage of the widespread concern over H1N1 and what they say are people’s increased need for tissues and TLC during this year’s cold and flu season.

Kleenex gives people the opportunity to get that extra mothering via the Internet, and as for the tissues, don’t worry – they’ve programmed every mom on their site to insist that the best way to conqer an illness is “(insert character appropriate phrase) and a big box of Kleenex tissues.” (That’s the first sign something’s amiss – since when does mom ask if you want a “Kleenex tissue”? It’s “Kleenex”!)

The website alone has enough mom stuff to keep you occupied for a couple of hours (make that multiple hours if you’ve got even a moderate internet connection – there’s a lot of graphics to load), but if that doesn’t satisfy your mommy cravings, you can sign up to get email, text messages, phone audio, and Facebook messages from the mom of your choice (you can even “friend” your mom on Facebook – each character comes equipped with their own page.)

Without a doubt, Kleenex’s campaign is entertaining (watch out: you’ll end up spending all your free time listening to the spiels of all 10 mothers vying to be chosen as yours), but it is also highly effective.

According to Ad Age, the 30-second TV commercial titled “Homecoming” has had the strongest persuasion scores and ability to break through ad clutter in more than 10 years of copy tests for Kleenex.

It also reinforces what many advertisers have said for years: empathy works. If you can do empathy, you’re on your way to a great campaign.

That being said, it doesn’t take long before you realise that not only is the campaign is targeted at Americans, but it also targets American stereotypes.

Take the quiz to see which mom suits you, and you’ll be asked which is your favourite on-screen mom: all of which are well known, but all of which are also from good old American family programs.

Go and sign up for a Kleenex account to get emails from your chosen mom, and you’ll be asked where you shop – in the States.

But more than that, getmommed.com presents stereotypes galore. BrandChannel sums it up nicely:

”Kleenex also knows that "mother" and "motherhood" can't be defined singularly. Motherhood is a rich and dynamic tapestry, made up of women from various walks of life and nurturing styles. Unless you're a minority!”

It’s true. While the Caucasian moms are a little more unique in their characteristics, the African-American mother, the Asian mother, and the Hispanic mother are pigeonholed when it comes to their traits.

I’ll quote BrandChannel again, since they phrase it so eloquently:

“Perhaps you need some tough love? For that there's Sue, the Asian mother with a purely coincidental accent. More interested in a feisty mom? Okay, try Lisa. Everything about her is sassy! A sassy African-American woman? Unheard of. Are you from a big family? Well, say "Hola" to Ana Maria. You can't miss her, she's festively attired in a vibrant outfit.”

As for all the attention Kleenex is getting, there’s still no word yet on how real moms are reacting when they find out their son or daughter is going to the computer for affection and advice from their virtual mother.

But in any case, getmommed.com is the perfect procrastinator site for us CreComms. Go on over and take the quiz and let me know “who’s your mommy?”

Personality Profile: Kevin Miller

Kevin Miller is easily one of the most athletic people I know, and the most knowledgeable when it comes to environmentalism and athleticism.

I went through the same cross-country ski program as did his kids, and I remember when I was little occasionally seeing him on the ski trails decked out in all that professional gear.

Today, he gives off the same impression as he did back then. Kevin is serious about physical activity – but in talking with him, I discovered that his interest extends not only to performance, but to the advocacy and education aspects as well.

After speaking with him for a generous 75 minutes, I could just as easily have written my 700 word assignment on cycling in Winnipeg (even better: winter cycling in Winnipeg), the advocacy approach of Bike to the Future, elite vs. performance athletes, gender neutrality in sports, the benefits of individual vs. team sports, or the challenges of being a high performance athlete in your 50s and overcoming the various health related obstacles.

But my journalism assignment required me to include a balance of work and personal information to help others understand the person I’m profiling. In other words, to try and discover, then explain in words, what makes Kevin Miller “tick”. I knew there had to be something; after all, using the bicycle as personal transportation 24-7-365 since 1993 can’t just be all for the fun of it.... right?

Despite the first snowfall of the season, Kevin Miller rode his bicycle to work today. Look closely, and what appears to be plastic wrap covers his helmet vents to keep out the cold. Wearing cycling glasses, spandex bike pants and a triathlon jersey, the tall and slim built Miller gives the impression he just finished the Tour de France. In reality, he’s just serious about cycling.

Miller is co-chair of Bike to the Future, a Winnipeg lobby group that advocates cycling as transportation, but first and foremost, he’s a performance athlete: Miller completed his 583rd race this past Thanksgiving in the Linden Woods Fall Classic. He is also among the few who’ve beaten Cindy Klassen at in-line skating – at least once: Miller finished 4th in the 1998 North of the 49th Inline Marathon, where Klassen placed 5th.

Besides running, in-line skating, mountain biking, and year-round commuter cycling, Miller has taken up triathlons with his wife and two children, thriving on the individuality and motivation that comes from setting personal goals. “It’s the drive, the internal drive to prove to yourself what you can do and to use it as a motivating tool to get better.”

This mindset helps Miller bring the same passion he puts into cycling into his volunteer work at Bike to the Future. Since 2001, Miller works only 60 per cent as a software programmer at Great-West Lifeco Inc. to devote more time to organizations like Bike to the Future, a commitment which speaks to the value Miller has placed on cycling for most of his life.

In 1974, at 18, Miller started saving for university and found commuting by bicycle, instead of the bus, gave him more time, money, and freedom. “When you take the bus, you’re on its schedule, and I found out really quickly that cycling is faster than a bus,” he said, admitting personal fitness and environmentalism were not the major incentives they are for him now, at 53.

These days, Miller chooses to cycle to work, though he could afford to drive by car. “I could fly six or seven times a year, generate greenhouse gases and have three cars – I could afford all that. But I’m ideologically driven, so I don’t do all that because I don’t believe in it.”

Believing in cycling and its potential for Winnipeg brought Miller to Bike to the Future. As co-chair, he tends to “be a little bit of a glue”: producing the majority of the organization’s communications, orchestrating monthly meetings, and doing his share of lobbying.

This month, Miller began promoting the “STOP signs as YIELD signs for cyclists” campaign, urging the city to allow cyclists to yield at stop signs when no traffic or pedestrians are present. On Oct. 5, he advocated the issue on CBC radio.

Janice Lukes, co-ordinator of the Winnipeg Trails Association – one of Bike to the Future’s partner organizations – said the radio interview demonstrates why Miller is an effective lobbyist. “He explained [the campaign] in very simplistic terms, for the masses – he wasn’t talking above anyone’s head. He has a way of bringing things down to a very simple, black and white way to look at things.”

Ron Brown, executive director of the Manitoba Cycling Association and Bike to the Future member, agrees Miller is “quick to the point”. But what impresses him most is Miller’s ability to admit his own strengths and limitations. “He’ll bluntly say ‘I really don’t want to do that’, or, ‘that’s not my strength and it’s better that others do it’.”

Under Miller’s leadership, Bike to the Future successfully lobbied for a pedestrian/bike bridge on the Disraeli Bridges Project, created the first Winnipeg Cycling Map in 2009 in partnership with the city, and is a key organizer of Bike to Work Day.

His position comes up for renewal this November, but Miller hopes to continue volunteering as co-chair, striving to make cycling part of everyone’s lives. “Whether we’re talking about the environment, personal fitness, [or] livable cities, the bicycle is the answer [and] when I believe in something, I don’t have to have a personal payback-in-my-pocket type of thing to do it.”

If you’d like to read more, you can check out some of my classmates’ profile assignments here and here.

War of the Worlds

CJOB broadcasted Orson Welles’ radio play this past Halloween, marking the 71st anniversary since it’s original broadcast on CBS in 1938.

Orson Welles, courtesy of GoogleImages

If you’re looking to get some tips on how to produce radio creatively, War of the Worlds is definitely one of those classic radio stints that you would do well to have in your back pocket.

Just one listen will help you realise why so many Americans believed the play was real, and why War of the Worlds is still just as entertaining as it was 70 years ago.

It's realistic. War of the Worlds is crafted to sound like a breaking news story about martians invading Earth, and the formatting and reporter lingo is spot-on (albeit dated). Imagine yourself in the 1930s, and it sounds pretty convincing.

In the event of a martian attack, who wouldn’t expect the media to have journalists swarming in disaster areas, reporting live on the scene? Or the U.S. army storming over to the crash site, boasting their military strength and telling citizens “not to worry, we’ll have them blown to pieces in no time”, before being beaten to dust?

War of the Worlds also touches on something that I think we know, but are reluctant to admit: that even with all our defenses, we are defenseless; even though we think we’re prepared, we’re not prepared (hello, H1N1!).

This theme is repeated throughout the radio play as populations are easily killed off one by one, despite the best efforts of the military. The broadcast actually ends with a rather ironic twist on the theme as we discover the fate of the martians.

But most importantly, only three times during the course of the radio play is it mentioned that what people are listening to is fiction: once at the beginning, again at the 40 minutes interval, and then once more at the end of the broadcast.

In other words, a considerable amount of time for those tuning in late to believe that the martian invasion is real. Combine that with the fact that those who called their local police department discovered the police also thought the invasion was real, and you’ve got yourself nationwide panic.

But would it create the same public uproar today?

We are obsessed with our own destruction. Countless books, movies, and other works of art have been based on the fall of humanity: by our own hands, by someone else's hands, by rabid animals, by the supernatural, by disease, or by the brute force of nature, and I’m not sure why this is. Maybe we think we’ve got it too good here at the top of the food chain that something’s bound to attack us sometime. Or maybe we’re still mystified by death and what happens when we ‘stop being’.

Appealing to this innate obsession and taking advantage of the tense atmosphere at the time (the original broadcast aired just before the outbreak of the Second World War), Orson Welles’ production is structured perfectly for public captivation.

The journalist as human. Maybe it’s just me, but any news report suddenly becomes all the more captivating when journalists go off-script.

This tends to happen during a disaster, when journalists are thrown out into the field, and told to “report” on what they see. No preparation, no script – they are reacting to the event at the same time, and in the same way, that the rest of us citizens would. Only they have a mic and a camera, and more often than not, are being broadcast nationwide.

And I think others would agree that it (usually) takes a lot to shake journalists out of their professional demeanor. So when it does happen, we pay attention. For just a couple minutes, they are no longer the stoic figure of the media, they are human.

There’s a lot of this in War of the Worlds, and the “last broadcast” is probably my favourite example.

A reporter is standing on top of the CBS building, describing the scene as the martians advance upon New York City. He begins rather objectively and professionally, albeit incredulously, recounting in simple terms what is obviously a terrifying and devastating sight: people “dropping like flies” as they run from the martian’s poison gas that is quickly overtaking the city.

Finally he begins a countdown of the martian’s progress towards him where we start to hear the panic in his voice, knowing what is to come. Sure enough, he chokes out the last position of the martians at 50 feet away, then collapses. A long silence follows, before we hear the lone, despairing voice of a radio operator: “2X2L calling CQ New York. Is there anyone on the air? Is there anyone on the air? Isn't there.... anyone?”

War of the Worlds can be downloaded here.