The job is pretty much the same as the last one I was advertising, so pardon me for copying large chunks of the previous job description. However, it’s not an internship this time around… looking back, neither was the first one. I digress. By working at Evolve, you’ll get the opportunity to work with awesome companies and franchises like GOG.com, CD Projekt RED (The Witcher), TimeGate Studios, Paradox Interactive and more.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Conduct media relations – pitch stories, write press releases, follow up
• Assist in planning PR, marketing/creative and community campaigns
• Interact with people — media, fans, whoever — on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Do random marketing stuff, offering feedback on selling points, marketing copy and whatever else we have to help with
• Compile coverage/buzz/community reports
• Help with business development, securing new clients, partnerships, etc.
• Come up with cool new ways to promote clients and their products
• Contribute to this blog more often than I do

Still a pretty good gig, as far as I’m concerned. The ideal candidate has these traits:

• Excellent writing abilities, able to deliver fun, creative and enticing copy
• Knowledge of games industry necessary (consoles, PC and mobile), tech and social media knowledge nice
• Extensive network of contacts in games industry preferable
• Prior PR experience within a games developer, publisher or agency greatly preferred
• Not against working from home, wherever that may be
• Based in NYC, SF, LA or Edmonton preferable
• Able and willing to travel internationally
• Active and engaged on Twitter, Facebook and/or other social networks

This is a paid part-time position with 20-30 hours of work per week and the potential to grow to full-time in the future. If you’re interested, please submit your cover letter, resume and salary expectations to tom@evolve-pr.com. CLOSING DATE: January 6.

Essentially I’m looking for someone interested in tackling all aspects of the job I do; I don’t really want to hog all the glory, and I know that interns tend to get stuck with the crappiest possible jobs. Yes, you’ll still be responsible for compiling reports for clients, but beyond that you’ll also have a chance to do all sorts of other stuff that’s a lot more fun.

Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Compile monthly coverage/buzz/community reports.
• Conduct media relations – harass journalists endlessly for coverage,  write press releases, put together story pitches, follow up
• Do random marketing stuff, offering feedback on selling points, marketing copy and whatever else we have to help with
• Assist in planning PR, marketing/creative and community campaigns
• Interact with people — media, fans, whoever — on Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Help with business development, securing new clients, partnerships, etc.
• Come up with cool new ways to promote clients and their products
• Contribute to this blog more often than I do

Doesn’t sound so bad, right? So here’s the type of person I’m looking for:

• Awesome
• Friendly
• Can put up with my stupid jokes
• Strong communication skills – both writey and speaky
• Not against working from home, wherever that may be
• Prefer someone in NYC, SF, LA or Edmonton… not necessary, though
• Knowledge of games industry necessary, tech and web knowledge nice

This is a paid part-time position, between 10 and 20 hours per week (variable), with the potential for full-time work at some undetermined point in the future. If you’re interested, please send your resume, cover letter — anything you think will make me like you — to tom@evolve-pr.com.

For years, big-name PR agencies — and sadly, most game publishers, movie studios, record labels, plywood manufacturers, etc. — have focused most or all of their publicity and marketing efforts on scoring the big kahuna: coverage, big or small, in top-tier media. A small column on the fifth page of USA Today‘s Money section was — and still is, to some extent — a glorious achievement, to be pursued at any expense.

Quick digression: the Internet’s been around for a while. I remember having a Geocities site back in 1997 or something. Since the birth of the hideous Dancing Baby there have been countless sites run by enthusiasts — for free, simply maintained out of love for the subject matter. You could say these guys were the low-fi ancestors of today’s blogging elite. There were chat rooms, message boards (BBS anyone?), and generally a ton of places where consumers gathered to learn about products, talk about them and share their love for them.

Is that really any different than the current situation?

Even today, a lot of — if not most — PR departments spend all of their time chasing rainbows with those top-tier outlets, sacrificing a huge potential audience. We’ve long been taught that, while quantity of coverage is important, the quality of that coverage is of the utmost importance. So let’s think about this for a second: if you’re a major player in your industry or have a truly exceptional new product, then it’s quite possible for you to get great placement and positive editorial tone — high-quality coverage. If you’re repping a company that doesn’t have those things — that could still be an excellent company with a tremendous product, but one which may not be interesting to the mainstream audience — you’re going to be in for a tough climb to get to the peak of media notability. I’m currently focusing a lot of my time on GOG.com, which is in just that sort of situation: it offers an amazing product — a slick website, a great offering of games for a particular audience, and a fairly revolutionary outlook on digital distribution (DRM-free and all that jazz). However, can we really compete for media coverage with companies like Activision, with their billion-dollar-and-then-some revenue?

So what do you do? Well, back in the day we’d focus heavily on enthusiast media, and that’s definitely still the case today. You’ll always have better luck with journalists who are active in the industry in which you’re operating. But even back when I first got into the PR game with BioWare — at a time when the company was still working hard to make a name for itself — in 2000 or so, I realized that we could work with the websites and other outlets that didn’t necessarily get a million hits a month — the ones that were usually overlooked by bigger companies and agencies — to not only secure a significant amount of coverage, but also to ensure that coverage was incredibly positive.

You see, people who aren’t used to being treated as “special” — and no, I’m not talking about that kind of special — appreciate the effort that much more. I’ve long believed that, through personal attention and caring about everyone’s needs and desires, you can effectively create a massive network of evangelists to help spread the word about your products. This general concept birthed “viral marketing,” which became a big bullet point on big agencies’ service offerings a few years ago when YouTube rose to prominence and when ilovebees put Halo on the map.

Even then, a lot of marketers didn’t catch on. They pushed out some half-assed attempts at engaging fans on a more individual level. And they still spent most of their time chasing the holy grails of coverage — magazine covers and whatnot. Don’t get me wrong — that coverage is still important. But should you sacrifice close interaction with your most vocal supporters — the people who pay for your products, love them and are loyal to your company?

With the recent rise of Twitter and Facebook and other forms of social media, once again companies are hopping on the “individual people are awesome” bandwagon. They still don’t “get it,” though, and spend most of their time simply pushing info to consumers without realizing that it’s a two-way road. Check out this short post by Derek Sivers about companies’ inability to use social media effectively, equating a bad date with many companies’ social media policies. Get with the program, folks — people (as opposed to media) have always been the primary influencers. When Jimmy started his Geocities site in 1997, the 20 people who visited his site were still there to hear what he had to say. When I hopped on an IRC network in 1998 to talk about Diablo II, I was still talking to people who were passionate about the product and gaming in general. Social media has simply offered a handful of convenient and well-publicized places for individuals to convene in order to discuss their lives, their passions and their favorite products and companies.

“Public relations” isn’t “media relations,” folks. The definition of PR seems to have moved away from its literal meaning — relating to and interacting with the public. If I focus my attention on individuals — or any number of “second-tier” websites and blogs (or third-tier or fourth-tier or even the guy who only gets 3 hits a year) — I can reach a massive audience. Those individuals appreciate even a moment of your time — particularly if you’re working for a company they adore — and will become extensions of your PR efforts (not necessarily your media efforts, of course), telling their friends, Twitter followers, and everyone else about your company and its products. They want to help you succeed. Let them do that. It just takes a bit of your time.

Just like any other day for a gaming journalist on staff at a major publication, I’d imagine. Situations like this make me appreciate reviewers so much more (oh, I loved you lots before… good save?) — it makes me happy that as a consumer, I get to choose which games I play — as I’m sure they have to slog through four or five over-hyped blockbusters for one great game to cross their desks. I can get caught up in hype just like anyone else, though, and reviewers — those with integrity, at least — help me decide which games are worth spending money on.

“Shortly after the review was published, I got called into my editor’s office. Turns out the PR rep hadn’t even bothered to call me to find out what was up with the score we gave her game. She went directly to the head of the publication, insisting that I clearly didn’t play the game (I did, rather more than I’d have liked to), like the genre (actually it’s one of my favorites), had something against the platform (what?), and more.”

The previously quoted journalist isn’t alone, of course, as there have been high-profile cases of situations similar to this one — the famous Gerstmanngate saga saw Eidos seemingly force out a prominent journalist at GameSpot over a ho-hum review of a generally-perceived-as-ho-hum game, Sony made a boo-boo by blacklisting Kotaku because it posted about Home before its official announcement without Sony’s approval, and while unproven (the game looks excellent) Eidos has found itself in hot water again with allegations of trading an exclusive review for a high review score. All of those cases, of course, ended up with bad PR for the company doing the strong-arming, but whatever, let’s hope they’ve learned from their mistakes. One of the primary jobs of a PR rep is to ensure that his or her client is portrayed in the media frequently and in a positive light. It’s natural for us to want to have some impact on the tone of coverage, but where does the influence stop?

Don’t get me wrong: we have to assert influence in the hopes of garnering positive coverage. That’s PR’s job. An anonymous account manager at a gaming PR agency explains it as such: “As an agency games publicist, it’s my responsibility to identify and communicate those elements of my client’s product that are going to get people excited… Big budget blockbuster games, however, are a different animal. When piles of advertising and marketing dollars are involved, the line tends to blur.” This certainly seemed to be the case in the Gerstmann-Eidos confrontation — Eidos was spending money at GameSpot, didn’t like a review and threatened to pull ads if the review wasn’t dealt with. In that situation, Eidos ultimately… uhh… won? with Gerstmann’s firing from the popular site (again, never mind the bad PR). It’s obviously a frightening suppression of editorial freedom when the ad money dictates coverage, tone and someone’s career path.

What about the situations like those of our journalist? Or selling review scores for exclusivity? Situations in which PR feels that they can dictate the tone of coverage or barter for a glowing review are just as scary. One would assume that journalists — whether editor-in-chief or intern — would have the integrity to deny such advances, but certainly when there’s a big-budget game or a megapublisher involved, the journalist has to consider the future — what if I don’t buy into this? Could this publisher get pissed off and refuse to work with me in the future? Are they going to pull ad money so I’ll get fired by some suit whom I’ve met once and who has no regular input into editorial coverage? As we all know, it doesn’t always work out well for the publisher — a lot of reporters and outlets aren’t willing to play ball, and the ensuing exposure will likely make the company regret its actions. But let me ask this — would publishers still be engaging in these strong-arm tactics if they didn’t work? Is there a time and a place to sit down at your desk, call up a journalist (or his editor) and yell for a few minutes?

Sean Ridgeley, Content Editor at Neoseeker.com, notes that, “the writer maintaining his voice is absolutely integral to journalism, particularly with it being such a competitive field. But there are occasions where we can be out of line, and it is here the rep should step in — if a superior has not, is unaware, or feels differently — and kindly work with the writer to achieve a more constructive tone and write-up, as flagrancy really doesn’t get anyone anywhere.” Of course there are a lot of different ways to go about achieving that more constructive tone, and the extent of the PR rep’s reaction is likely aligned with his passion for the project — or his boss’s passion for kicking his ass for a negative review. I’ve read a lot of mediocre reviews of projects I was working on and thought, “man, this writer is clearly didn’t play the game, doesn’t like the genre or has something against the platform! How dare she give it a 7! Everyone else is giving it 9s!” Do I just pick up the phone and go berserk on the journalist, though? Do I call her editor? Nah. But I will pick through that review and let her know about specific things she got wrong, lines that make it clear she has no idea what a strategy game is and question whether someone who previously claimed a dislike of PC games should really be reviewing the game.

I’ve had reviews removed from sites for factual errors, and I’ve had outlets print retractions or adjustments because a reviewer hadn’t spent adequate time with a game to learn all of its features. After all, as PR reps we have to ensure that journalists give our games a fair shake. Our PR rep says, “I worked on a PC title called Desperate Housewives: The Game, which at its heart was a really well-designed, Sims-like game with engaging story-driven gameplay. We were targeting a more mature female demographic, highlighting features such as story, casual gameplay elements, and ease of play. Without someone to champion the development team’s gameplay and feature set decisions, would a game like Desperate Housewives stand a chance of getting a fair review among those who typically write reviews for young men? Would it have even gotten reviewed at all?”

That’s where PR’s real role lies, as Ridgeley explains: “My ideal PR rep is one who acts purely as a mediator between publisher, developer and the journalist; their job should not be to “manage review scores,” but to assist in seeing the most informed content possible published, regardless of whether or not the journalist agrees with everything they’ve been provided with. This is not a negative thing; it’s best to include as many views as possible in any piece of journalism, I believe, so as to include as many possible readers in the discussion, directly or indirectly. And like the rep, this is the role of the journalist, likewise: to strive for the most informed and honest work he can.”

Our journalist could have had to write some sort of retraction in the next issue. He could have been fired. Thankfully, he works for people with integrity. “To my editor’s credit, he laid out what he’d been told, listened to my refutation of the bullshit and my points in support of my negative review, and said he’d take care of it. As pissed off as I was at the PR rep – being told that you are a lazy liar who sucks at your job is never terribly pleasant – I felt vindicated by my editor’s response.” It doesn’t always work out in the PR rep’s favor, even if the complaining doesn’t make front-page news.

I’ve also been urged strongly to bitch at some journalist or another for a review I couldn’t really disagree with. In those situations, I’m the one who has to show integrity — I can argue to my client or boss (I’ve had both yell at me about reviews) about the facts, explaining how they’re being just a bit too blinded by their investment in the game to realize that some people do have opinions that differ from their own.

For all of this to work, the respect has to flow both ways. Publishers and PR reps should never try to put unjust pressure on journalists. Meanwhile, journalists should strive to be fair in their coverage of games. However, in the end, we have to go back to the way the hype machine works in this industry — publishers control the games and the assets, and as long as outlets rely on access to those assets, coverage will be bartered and will ultimately favor those with the most with which to barter.

Left, Dragon Age package. Right, Guild Wars 2 logo. Everywhere: Firey blood dragons.

I have to say I like the Guild Wars 2 dragon better — the styling is solid, and it actually looks like a 2. Dragon Age obviously had the head start, though. I’m sure none of this was intentional, of course. As a marketer, you want to ensure that you can present a strong brand — a logo or general style that persists in all of your marketing materials — that is immediately identifiable to your fans and potential fans while standing out from the competition. Are Dragon Age and Guild Wars 2 direct competitors? Probably not — they offer different gameplay experiences, and Guild Wars 2 isn’t coming out for a while (Dragon Age, presumably, will be out in December… ?). I’d still be a bit iffy about how similar the imagery is.

We recently (not so recently) went back and changed the Witcher logo at CD Projekt RED for the currently-on-hold The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf. We felt that the original logo was a bit “me-too” in the fantasy realm, and that it could use a facelift to stand out and really present the console version as a striking new product.

Left, before. Right, after awesomeification.

Does branding impact you at all? Does it bother you when two brands use similar imagery? Am I just a filthy marketing snob for even noticing?

Urban Dictionary lists the following:
bullshot: n. A screenshot fabricated by a company to misrepresent the graphics of a game; a combination of the words bullshit and screenshot.

Seems Penny Arcade coined the phrase (shit, seriously, 2005? Seems like just yesterday), but the actual practice of “creating” screenshots has been around for ages; it’s become more prevalent in recent years, as the visual quality of games has increased alongside consumer expectations. If you want to see some examples and some more insight into bullshots, you can check out Blake Snow’s piece at GamePro.com. Forget that clown, though (*blowing a kiss to Blake*) — I’m the star here! Let’s take a quick look at bullshots, shall we? More after the jump.

What happens?
Throughout a game’s PR and marketing campaign, the publisher or developer needs to create promotional screenshots to show off a game’s visuals. It’s important to note that the final polishing of a game — those extra steps that take the game to final quality — often isn’t done until the last few months of the project. That will vary, of course, from one game to another, as some teams may aim to be “art complete” much earlier in development. Anyway, these shots will usually be created with whatever game content is available — so if a game is being announced two years before its release date, there’s a good chance that the aforementioned game content is not final, only partially available or completely non-existent.

Trust me, from the PR and marketing rep standpoint — unless you’re a soulless bastard — this whole process is a bit unnerving. It makes me feel more than a little slimy… like I just ate twelve Big Macs and pigged out on Doritos while playing Fallout 3 for ten hours straight (not necessarily professing my love for any of those three things… they’re just examples of the greasiness, people). I much prefer the idea of actually capturing images from a final product and presenting them as-is. I remember working on Neverwinter Nights, creating my own levels in the toolset and snapping off hundreds (thousands?) of screenshots throughout the promo campaign. We’d pick the best ones, they’d get routed through approvals, and everything was great — we’d just toss out the shots with screwy shadows, weird textures, characters stuck in the walls, etc.

Things just aren’t that easy anymore. Advancing technology dictates that games take more manpower to develop and that dev teams usually have to work with tighter timelines. You’re constantly tweaking artwork, textures, lighting, etc. so taking a perfect screenshot a year before release is pretty much a pipe dream. So again, you take what you can get — maybe you only have a few characters finished, while the levels aren’t close to finished yet. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a good vertical-slice demo (essentially a small “slice” of the game representing its final game quality). In that very awesome case, you have at least a small area — with just a couple of characters/enemies and a few rooms in the level — to work with, merrily snapping screenshots and having to make minimal adjustments. But in other cases, you do the best you can. If lighting isn’t final, an artist has to go in and paint the lighting and shadows. If visual effects like explosions aren’t implemented yet, you have an artist add the explosions.

Why does it happen?
It seems like the most nefarious consumer-deception tactic around: Megapublisher A comes out and announces Big Shooter X from Big Studio Y, says it will be the best-looking game around in 18 months and releases “screenshots” to back it up… but they won’t show off a gameplay video for another six months. They won’t demo the game to press for another year. The screenshots are a vision of what they hope to deliver, and are meant to excite the masses.

Thus we come to the reason for bullshots’ existence: customer, shareholder and retailer) expectations. The very nature of video game PR and marketing is somewhat fucked. There are few other industries that push product visibility for such a long period of time; there’s really very little chance that a game announced two years before release will be unveiled with assets that weren’t somehow custom-produced for that particular opportunity. That being said, fans expect screenshots to be awesome… and I’m not trying to point fingers and call gamers jerks, because I do it, too. If I see a screenshot, I expect it to look cool, or else I’ll probably lose interest in that game. So let’s say a publisher takes the honest route and releases a screenshot of an in-development game without doctoring it. Imagine the outcry. NeoGAF would explode with cries of, “hahah, what a piece of shit!” Other hardcore fans would laugh at the lack of anti-aliasing. Yet others would ridicule the terrible facial expressions. Or the missing texture on the floor. You get the picture.

Companies want to create hype for their products, and unless they come out of the gate with awesome assets, they’re going to be fighting a long, uphill battle to achieve popularity or to get enough page views at GameSpot (or wherever) to warrant continued coverage. Ultimately, fans don’t seem to care if shots have been doctored. There may be some outcry early on in the publicity campaign (Killzone 2, anyone?), but in the end, all will be forgotten and a game will be left to cement its own legacy.

Anything we can do about it?
Yeah, not sure. I’d love to get to the point where we’re not announcing games too far in advance. Case in point: I was part of the effort to announce Dragon Age at E3 back in 2004. Sure, there was a big media blackout for a while, but that game has been in the public eye for five years already, and fans have expected a constant flow of assets — screenshots, videos, previews, etc. How could BioWare’s product five years ago possibly have represented the final quality of the game? Apart from a few rare cases, do you know of any movies that have been talked about for five years? How about two years? A year? We’re somewhat idiotic in this industry, though, having established long ago that we absolutely can’t have successful products without building up months or years of hype.

Could we get by with the Hollywood model? Could we feasibly just give fans minor details — talk about the people involved in the project, share the overall vision, toss out some concept art — and save the major hype for the two or three months before release? Could we skip the crazy spending in the year leading up to release, removing presence at trade shows, cutting out the trailer budget during that time, and saving it all for a big publicity and ad push at release? I think so, but it’s going to take one ambitious and daring genius to change the way the entire gaming publicity machine has worked for the past twenty years. Think about it: we’d be able to say goodbye to release delays; while you’d obviously need to provide a general timeframe for shareholders, it’d be much easier to say, “here’s the first trailer, and the game is coming out in three months!” than predicting a specific release date in advance. All assets would be final — sure, you might get ten trailers in that month, but as a fan you’d have a guarantee that all videos and screenshots are representative of the final game. For publishers, you could condense all of that spending into one huge push — how much TV time could you buy for the cost of an E3 booth?

It seems like it would work out well for everyone. But are things going to change anytime soon? Probably not. So deal with it, and enjoy all the bullshots you’ll be fed this year! They’re sure to be tasty.

Thoughts? Got a major beef with bullshots? Don’t care either way?

Splinter Cell: Conviction

The gruff stealth-action hero is back, and this time he’s Jason Bourne! Or Emo Sam Fisher. But that’s okay. I was never big on the Splinter Cell series because of the patience required to sneak around effectively, so the shift to a more action-oriented style of gameplay suits me just fine. This trailer shows off Ubisoft’s ever-increasing cinematic talents, and I, for one, welcome our new French overlords. This is how you break your media silence on a game, and coupled with the accompanying gameplay demos it seems to have effectively renewed interest in the franchise. Sure there are some people bitching that, “this isn’t Splinter Cell,” but to those people I say, “go play Metal Gear, you jerk.”

Verdict: B+

Crackdown 2

I’ll set myself up for a caning with this statement: “I’ve never played Crackdown.” It just hit while I was playing too much other stuff, and I’ve never been one to go way back and clear our my gaming backlog… there’s always something new coming down the pipe. That being said, this trailer didn’t magically spark my interest. The fact that you play as some sort of superhero-style dude comes through a bit, though perhaps the glut of games with superhero-style dudes is to blame for my lack of excitement about the whole concept. Okay, so I can jump really high, cause explosions and whatnot… fantastic. What else? Here’s to hoping that the new dev team at Ruffian can take over the reins from moved-on-to-APB Realtime Worlds and deliver something that gets me interested with gameplay footage.

Verdict: C

Crysis 2

Uhh… Shards? I have to assume that Crysis 2 isn’t too far in development, because showing off these little flecks of game footage in little bits of metal(?) just doesn’t scream, “our game is almost finished and we’re going to show it to you now!” I understand that this is just a teaser trailer, but that’s a real kick in the nuts. Crytek is going multiplatform with Crysis 2, but this trailer looks much more like fan service than anything intended to excite a wide audience. People who played Crysis to death: does this video actually show anything of interest? I can get burning buildings in a lot of other games.

Verdict: D

Assassin’s Creed 2

Oh, Ubisoft, can I have your babies? A lot of gamers lament the industry’s ongoing shift to more film-like qualities, but I welcome it. These cinematic trailers — which admittedly lack any form of gameplay — are effective mood-setters, and we do get a solid idea of what our sneaky cloaked assassin is capable of. I love the Venetian setting and the atmosphere it brings, despite the fact that the fireworks-and-noise-in-crowded-place scene reminds me of a variety of movies with similar cover for murders. I suspect some of this content will be used in what is sure to be a huge TV ad campaign when the game ships.

Verdict: A

The Beatles: Rock Band

Another caning is in order: I consider myself Beatles Agnostic. I’ve just never really cared for their music… until I watched the trailer and realized that, yes, I do actually like some of their stuff. And it does look damn cool to be able to go through their evolution from cuter-than-pie rockers to acid-tripping maniacs. The visual aesthetic is there, the music is there, the gameplay is there… yep, indeed, this trailer delivers what you would expect. And that’s a good thing. It surely won’t win over anyone who’s not enamored with Rock Band or The Beatles, but I don’t think Harmonix ever had delusions of such an event.

Verdict: B+

I shall be back with more thoughts on more videos, and if I can pry some of my fellow contributors away from the show floor for a minute, maybe someone else will chime in, too.

Give it up for the accent.

So today the mighty M is launching its McCafé brand in the US (I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to savor the flavors up here in Canada), bringing “quality espresso-based coffee” to its restaurants nationwide. They’re trying to take a bite (or gulp, if you will) out of the lucrative coffee market dominated by the likes of Starbucks and whatever other local mega-chain you have around your parts. Will it work, though?

Starbucks has been forced to close lots of shops because of decreasing demand (and overexpansion), so why would McDonald’s try to jump in now? In today’s economy, I can only imagine that higher-priced coffee is one of the first things to get chopped from people’s lists of daily purchases. Have you ever been to a McDonald’s in the prime coffee-drinking morning? It’s either people like me — hungover and ripping through the drive-thru for a full-day supply of Sausage McMuffins — or old people buying their 35-cent “senior coffee” and milking it for all the free refills they can get. I just don’t see the $5-venti-triple-soy-latte-drinking power executive stopping in at Mickey D’s on the way to his next big high-powered meeting.

I’ve seen McCafé in Europe, and the usually-discerning Europeans seem to have no problems buying espresso there… but I have a hard time associating “quality” with the McDonald’s brand. It’s always been the place to go for gluttonous, cheap meals the day after a ridiculous rum-and-tequila bender. If I want gourmet, I’ll go somewhere fancy… like Arby’s or something. That’s a big hurdle for McDonald’s to overcome.

They’ll do their best, though, in the only way corporate America really knows: bein’ baller and throwin’ cheddar. They’re set to launch a $100-million marketing campaign, which seems to be centered around the slogan, “Give it up for the accent.” Ah, wonderful; American marketers once again prove why they’re the best: they can distill a new brand that should be all about “good coffee” into a lame gimmick. Yeah, that’ll sell coffee. The website shows a few skits that convey the difference that little é makes… and… well… they don’t have much to do with coffee or quality or value or anything. I just don’t get it.

What do you think?