"Big companies are always doing stupid things"

You've heard about Pepsi's Amp energy drink, and its "Before You Score" iPhone application aimed at helping young men to objectify, stalk and bed young women?

Lots of great commentary all over the Web as marketing experts debate whether this is sheer genius ("they understand their target market!") or sheer stupidity ("Let's boycott everything Pepsi makes!").

I rather liked this comment on Linked-In by Keith Thirgood, Partner with Capstone Communications Group in Toronto. He puts Pepsi's stupidity into context.

"As far as a backlashes go, big companies are always doing stupid things with their ad campaigns and they survive. It's the small companies who attempt to emulate the big guys who really suffer, because they don't realize that big guys botch these things more often than they succeed. Big companies breeze through these mistakes because of their size and momentum. Small companies are really hurt by emulating the bad marketing moves the big guys make."

Weird key, wrong chain

I've stayed lately in two Best Western hotels: the lovely, dated Sands by the Sea in Vancouver, and the newly modernized Lamplighter in London, Ont.

No complaints about either place (despite the growth of high-rises across the street, the Sands' balconies still have a slight sightline on the harbour). But my room "keycard" at the Lamplighter came bearing an unusual graphic: a photo of another company's hotel. With a terrible editing job that can only be called Early Photoshop.

What gremlin accentuated the roofline with a Sharpie? And whose idea was it to put the Banff Springs Hotel, crown jewel of the Fairmont chain, on a Best Western keycard?

New management wanted.
As well as a reason to go to Banff this winter.