We lost some big names in entertainment this year, I just wanted the chance to say one last goodbye to some of my favorites.

• Actor Patrick Swayze, 57 – I really enjoyed Dirty Dancing and many more of his movies.
• Director John Hughes, 59 – His films were some of the first that I rented from video stores and watched over and over again.
• Actress Farrah Fawcett, 62 – What a courageous documentary she made at the end of her life.
• Actor Dom DeLuise, 75 – Always made me laugh.
• Actor Ricardo Montalban, 88 – I still want to visit Fantasy Island.
• George Michael, sports broadcaster, 70 – I watched his ‘Sports Machine’ show for years in DC.
• Vic Chesnutt, singer/songwriter, 45 – Just an amazing talent.
• Actress Brittany Murphy, 32 – I loved her voice work for King of the Hill.
• Ed McMahon, 86 – I’ll remember him from Star Search, way before American Idol.
• Pitchman Billy Mays, 50 – He could sell me the shoes on my feet, what a guy.
• Walter Cronkite, 92 – Sad to see him go, but that’s the way it is.

There were many more notable deaths, as The New York Times notes in their annual review.

My mom just sent me this photo she dug up of my 13th birthday. You’ll see I’m proudly displaying my new ‘boom’ box. (hah.) Not too long after receiving this, I joined, much to my dad’s chagrin, the Columbia House Record & Tape Club. Remember that?

The deal was always similar – you get a dozen albums or so up front for a penny (or nothing) and buy some number at Club Price in the future to fulfill your agreement. The Club Price was expensive, and then there was shipping and handling. And of course, like other mail order clubs, there was the required rejection card or else you automatically got the monthly selection and a bill to go with it.

I joined when cassettes were the prevailing format, although you could opt to get a vinyl LP if you wanted. VHS movies snuck in at some point, then DVDs became available. They eventually added a frequent buyer program. Reflecting back, it was an amazing transition of direct marketing and music sales.

Now, it’s http://www.columbiahouse.com/ and they’re focusing on DVDs.

I don’t remember all of the tapes in my first order, but some of them were:

• Duran Duran – Rio
• Styx – Kilroy Was Here
• Van Halen – 1984
• Eddie Murphy S/T (the parents did not like that one)
• Def Leppard – Pyromania
• Michael Jackson – Thriller
• Wierd Al Yankovic in 3-D
• Men At Work – Business as Usual

Here’s good old Dick Clark’s commercial for Columbia House on YouTube for you:

Did you ever belong to the Columbia House Record & Tape Club? Did you fill in the gold box or tape a penny to an order form? Do you remember your first 12 albums you ordered?

It’s almost here, and the Internet is aflurry with Superbowl predictions. About the ads. And the advertisers are all happy to be talked about. In previous years there was huge secrecy about what each ad was going to be about, but this year, if you want to see the ad ahead of time, watch it! Watch it again! Show it to your friends!

I love the buzz, I always watch the game, partly for the ads, and partly because it would be un-American not to. Go Steelers! Enjoy the ads!

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/brendan-collins/do-right-thing/super-bowl-commercials-roundup

Update: this is now running in English in America.

Today, the Alliance for Climate Protection, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club launched the “Reality” Coalition, a national grassroots/advertising effort to establish that in reality, there is no such thing as “clean coal.”

The reality is that there’s not a single home or business in America today powered by clean coal,” said Brian Hardwick of the Alliance for Climate Protection. “If coal really wants to be part of America’s energy future, the industry can start by making a real commitment to eliminating their pollution that is a leading cause of global warming.”

The “Reality” Coalition will launch a multi-million dollar ad campaign, running in print, broadcast and online media and supported by the website, www.ThisIsReality.org.

The “Reality” Coalition’s main point is that there are no clean coal plants in the U.S. at this time, and until there are, stop talking like we have them.

The coal industry has spent hundreds of millions promoting ‘clean coal’ technology, but in reality, there is not a single large-scale demonstration project in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of coal’s CO2 emissions,” Vice President Gore said. “The industry must make good on its promise if they truly want to do their part to solve the climate crisis. Until that happens, coal cannot be called ‘clean’.”

Here is Reality’s first TV ad. Find ways to support their cause at www.ThisIsReality.org.

I really enjoyed the DC Ad Club’s luncheon speakers today, Brad Beckstrom of ApolloBravo Mobile Marketing and Rohit Bhargava, Sr. VP of Ogilvy’s Digital Influence group, author of “Personality Not Included” and Word of Mouth Marketing and Social Media expert.

Rohit talked about word of mouth marketing and how it can be integrated into your advertising, marketing or PR. His philosophy was interesting, and I was impressed to see that Guy Kawasaki wrote a foreword for his book. So I bought one of the signed copies he had there. Reading it now.

Brad filled us in on some recent stats from the CTIA (cellphone industry association) that are pretty astounding. Overall, I was impressed to know that cellphone ownership in the USA has now surpassed that of home PCs and web access. Plus, while more and more people have phones, the number of minutes Americans spend making phone calls has stayed pretty static. But the number of text messages (SMS) has grown exponentially. Of course these SMS messages can be used by companies to contribute to word of mouth campaigns.

Besides the book, I took away one big idea: word of mouth marketing is not something you can buy. But you can push it with advertising you buy or create, whether it’s guerilla marketing, or print, radio, TV advertising or SMS messages with three little words: “tell a friend.”

Here we have two angles of video proliferation, and how you can use video to market somewhere other than a plain old television commercial.

One is Truveo.com, a new indexing platform coming out of AOL, which is bringing in YouTube videos and videos from other sources and allowing you to search them all in one place. Their next step will be monetizing that discovery.

More interesting is NBC Universal, which to me falls along the line of stuff that we’ve seen in those post-apocalyptic movies, where you step up to a counter at your local grocery store and a screen knows you’re you and knows what movies you like and immediately starts advertising that a movie that you want to see is about to start in one hour at a theater one block away.

This is getting much closer to reality, and as an advertiser, sounds very cool! NBC Universal has screens in taxis, at gas pumps, in grocery stores, in sports arenas, in maternity wards, and in commuter trains.

You can (should) customize your message for the medium, and they’re working very closely with creative teams to do so. It’s quite impressive, it’s hyper-local, and it’s getting a lot of results. Their next step is unified metrics so they can really track their results reliably across vendors.

For more: Truveo.com
NBC Universal packages are available through NBC representatives.