Amazon targets Apple's iPad in Kindle ad [video]

Amazon has a new advertisement that lauds the e-ink styling of its traditional Kindle e-reader and the low price of its new tablet, the Kindle Fire. What's the target? Apple's iPad, of course, carried along by a dorky dude. The smart Amazon buyer is a bright-eyed bikini-clad mother of two.

Amazon's point: She bought three Kindles for the price of an iPad.

Gizmodo isn't buying the argument. The technology blog says the Kindle Fire is "significantly less capable" than the iPad, adding, "you're basically making fun of a Lexus for not being a Kia."

Meanwhile, those low-cost Kindles actually cost more to manufacture than they do to buy. Both the $79 Kindle e-reader and the Kindle Fire tablet are loss leaders. It costs Amazon $84.25 to make the $79 Kindle, and the $199 Kindle Fire costs Amazon $201.70. The bikini mom's gain is, literally, Amazon's loss.

Exactly how many Kindles Amazon has sold at this losing rate is uncertain. While analysts regularly make predictions and estimates, Amazon has never released specific sales numbers for its line of e-readers.

Amazon ad-watchers may recognize the bikini mom. Just 18 months ago, she was the bikini girl who bragged that her Kindle cost less than her sunglasses, stirring a brief online controversy. Back then, she didn't have any kids; now they look to be about 10. They grow up so fast when you raise them in a surreal beach-side environment, don't they?

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

 

 

 

Like that Chrysler Super Bowl ad with Clint Eastwood? Thank a poet

The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of advertising -- wait, there must be a better way to say that. But heck, I write about books. What do I know about sports, or major media buys, or the business of writing ad copy?

I admit, very little.

But one thing I do know is that of the three people credited as copywriters on the powerful Chrysler advertisement above, the one featuring Clint Eastwood that aired for the first time during Sunday's Super Bowl, one is poet Matthew Dickman.

Dickman -- whose twin brother, Michael, is also a poet -- is the poetry editor of Tin House magazine. He's got one collection, "All-American Poem," and has been published by many fine magazines, including Narrative and the New Yorker. He's won a number of prestigious awards. But none of those things makes him a shoo-in for a Chrysler Super Bowl ad.

The advertising firm that created the spot is Wieden & Kennedy, the Portland, Ore., firm known for its seminal Nike ads. Dickman, too, is based in Portland.

Maybe that explains it. But it wouldn't explain one of Dickman's co-authors, Smith Henderson. I suspect he is the short story writer Smith Henderson, a recipient of the 2011 PEN American Center Emerging Writers award.

Maybe more literary writers should give advertising a try.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

A new 'Hunger Games' movie poster! OMG!

Some people will be very excited about this. Other people will see an embedded flash file and think, huh, well, I suppose it's better than an ani-gif.

The movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins' young adult series "The Hunger Games" -- the trilogy includes "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay" -- is much anticipated. Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence will portray the heroine, Katniss, who must be a young warrior in a post-apocalyptic America.

The film version of "The Hunger Games" will not coming to the screen for 247 more days, but whoever is behind the promotion manages to sends out an average of a news release a week, if not more, to build excitement.

For some people, this works. For other people, it's caused a certain amount of "Hunger Games" fatigue.

Today's news release was about a poster, or rather, a "poster," which is actually a screen image with moving flames in a rectangle shaped that kind of resembles a poster. OMG.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

10 'Mad Men' books to keep you going until 2012

  Tuesday's news that AMC's hit show, "Mad Men," won't be back until 2012 was devastating to many; viewers have so many unanswered questions: Does Don marry his secretary? Will the new dress code include miniskirts and bell-bottoms? Will Sally run away to Woodstock?

Current contract disputes have also delayed the publication of a Benedikt Taschen-Matt Weiner collaboration on a behind-the-scenes guide in Taschen's sleek XL edition style. The book was tentatively scheduled for a fall release date.

In the meantime, as fans wait, here's a list of "Mad Men"-related books that hopefully will take care of their withdrawals for at least a few months.

1. "Mad Men (Reading Contemporary Television)," by Gary R. Edgerton (I. B. Tauris): a collection of essays and analytical observations by television scholars on the effect of the show on popular culture.

 2. "The Ultimate Guide to 'Mad Men': The Guardian Companion to the Slickest Show on Television," by Will Dean (Random House UK): For those not initiated into Don Draper's world, this episode-by-episode guide covers through Season 3 and includes interviews with the show's creators and stars.

3. "Analyzing 'Mad Men': Critical Essays on the Series," by Scott F. Stoddart (McFarland) (forthcoming in July): Here are 12 critical essays that offer a scholarly and psychoanalytical approach to the relevance of the show with parallels to contemporary issues such as consumerism, capitalism and sexism.

 4. "Mid-Century Ads: Advertisements from the 'Mad Men' Era," by Steven Heller, Jim Heimann (Taschen) (forthcoming in the fall): The authors present 800 color pages of American print advertising from the 1950s and 1960s that give insight into the industry and campaigns on which the show and its storylines are based, including Lucky Strike, Honda and Jantzen.

5. "Mad Men's Manhattan," by Mark Bernardo (Roaring Forties Press): A guide to New York City taverns, restaurants, hotels and other locations that inspired memorable scenes.

 6. " 'Mad Men' Unbuttoned: A Romp through 1960s America," by Natasha Vargas-Cooper (Harper Design): A historical look at the news and artifacts of the time period in which "Man Men" takes place. The book is filled with trivia, a profile of real-life ad man Leo Burnett and events and people linked to episodes, including skinny ties, "Think Small" Volkswagen ad campaign, John Cheever and Jackie Kennedy's White House tour on CBS.

Which Nobel Prizewinner makes the list? He's after the jump at No. 7.

Adventures in book marketing

While there are other industries with bigger margins and swankier swag, we do get a few book marketing materials at the office. This seems, at first, like a good idea: We get so many books that, more than once, stacked boxes of book packages have toppled over in the office, leaving a flood of manila envelopes blocking the hallway. Why wouldn't a publisher want to draw a little extra attention to its book?

But what's the best kind of book swag? Some of the marketing materials we've gotten:

• The book tucked into the cellophane gift bag with soap, a back scratcher and a candy bar.
• The book that came with a T-shirt.
• The book packed in wooden box liked a smoked salmon.
• The artificial flower with a memory card attached with a personalized video message. The book came in a separate package.
• The book packed around the bottle of wine. It was too curved to read.
• And also the book inside the (fake) potato chip bag filled with yellow packing Styrofoam "potato chips."

While I appreciate a free candy bar as much as the next book reviewer, I'm afraid that no amount of sugar can make a not-so-good book sweeter. Just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge a book by the swag that comes along with it. The fact is, some of these books are good, and some, well, not so good. Just like books that didn't come with any goodies at all.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo credit: Carolyn Kellogg

Bret Easton Ellis talks about his novels and the films they spawned

There was a big turnout Sunday afternoon at the Festival of Books session featuring Bret Easton Ellis in conversation with music journalist Erik Himmelsbach. Ellis’ seventh novel, “Imperial Bedrooms,” will be published later this year — the occasion for his “first public appearance in four to five years.” The book has been described as a sequel to his first novel, “Less Than Zero,” though Ellis insists the new book is more a continuation of the life of the character Clay than a sequel (no matter how much that might sound like a sequel).

Himmelsbach asked whether Ellis views himself as a screenwriter, having adapted his novel “The Informers” into a 2008 film. This led to an extended discussion of Ellis’ views on adaptations of all his novels, past and forthcoming. He feels the film version of “Less Than Zero” got everything wrong – for example, all the blonds were turned into brunets – but he did develop a sentimental fondness for the film.

He most likes Roger Avary’s 2002 adaptation of “The Rules of Attraction,” but he feels Mary Harron’s adaptation of “American Psycho” in 2000 did not succeed as well because film is forced to clarify things that a novel doesn’t.  He said he's most disappointed in “The Informers” and hated seeing his best intentions “destroyed,” regretting not having learned more about the perils of screenwriting from F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner.

Truth and lodging in Amsterdam

Author Mark Haskell Smith went to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam to learn more about competitive marijuana growing, the subject of his next novel, "Baked"; he writes about his trip in today's book pages. He doesn't mention where he stayed.

If he'd wanted, he could have checked into the worst hotel in the world. Well, it might not be the absolute worst, but that's how it's billed itself to tourists looking for a hostelry with a sense of humor. The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel has lauded its lack of amenities, its questionable cleanliness and more lowlights in ads for more than a decade. They're all commemorated in "The Worst Hotel In the World," a picture-heavy book that resembles an oversize hotel-room Bible.

The book is mostly a chronological showcase of the ad campaigns, led by Erik Kessels and his company, KesselsKramer. They've worked, if you judge by the percentage of the hotel's 513 beds that are occupied these days. And the comments in the guestbook also would indicate the ads are working; they fall along the lines of "It's not as bad as I thought it would be."

"All advertising is dishonest," says Rob Penris, the hotel's manager. "We overdo it. It's not as bad as we make out. They [the guests] think it is so bad they feel they have to go there. So even our ads are dishonest."

The book explains that the ads began saying what the hotel did have -- keys, doors, beds -- with bright, simplistic designs by Anthony Burrill (above left). They were followed by those bragging about outdated fabulous luxuries, noting, in the small print, that none were available. Later, the "unique design" series (above right) satirized high-end-design hotels with silhouettes of broken forks, mugs, chairs and a shower drain with a curled hair.

The ad agency was never afraid of getting gross. One campaign, inspired by a news report that we're becoming more susceptible to illness because of overly clean environments, featured images of pathogens and the words "improve your immune system." In another, playing off a Burrill poster with dog poo in the hotel's doorway, tiny flags were printed up bearing the words, "Now even more of this at our main entrance" with the hotel's information -- and planted regularly in fresh dog feces around the city by hotel staff. (Amsterdam, it turns out, has many dogs that use the sidewalks as toilets).

Although this generated lots of publicity, the gross-out tactic has sometimes gone wrong. One series of advertisements likened the conditions of the hotel to the places its residents had left behind -- mattresses on the floor, empty rooms, dirty sheets. But, the book says, MTV declined to air a TV ad that depicted a hungover girl stumbling through a messy bedroom and stepping on a used condom. The ad, the book promises, is on the DVD in the back of the book.

Except there is no DVD. Because if the hotel's idea of an amenity is a piece of paper with the word "shampoo," the book shouldn't have any extras.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Images: Advertising by the KesselsKramer agency