Dave Morin

Pabst Blue Ribbon utilizes no “normal” marketing or advertising. They rely soley on viral and buzz marketing techniques. They’ve now created at PBR fraterntiy. Genius. On a second note, it’s refreshing to see comments that OSU’s vice provost has made regarding this development. There is a serious and very real difference in opinion pertaining the management of alcohol and alcohol lifestyles on college campuses and in “normal” fraternities in America.

Some believe that by taking the hard line, by banning alcohol on their campuses, it will curb the problem of binge drinking that is killing kids across America. Others believe in a more liberal approach. They still allow their campuses to be “wet” and educate their students and give their students activities to enjoy along with the traditional alcohol enhanced college nightlife.

The very same schools that forbid drinking then provide no additional on-campus programming for their students. Thus, alcohol is pushed outside of campus. This is highly apparant at most of the large university campuses where, one block off campus, bars fuel the over-21 scene and fraternities fuel the under-21 scene. This duality is a disturbing one. But fundamentally disturbing in the under-21 scene, which has no controlled or monitored outlet. This problem could be simply exacerbated by changing the drinking age back to 18. In the short term, we would see some adverse affects. But, we would see a shift in emphasis on college campuses everywhere, away from trying to “figure out” how to drink, away from “normal” fraternities having to carry multi-billion dollar liability insurance policies due to under-age drinking lawsuits, and toward living a well-rounded college educated life. This life will include alcohol. I think it best, boomers, to stop denying this fact in your policy making, and realize that we all like to sit down and have a beer. Why not allow those that can fight for our country, and those that are attending college so that they can be educated to run our great country, to sit down and have a beer with their friends.

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By The Associated Press
(10/26/04 – CORVALLIS, OR) � Now playing in Corvallis, Pi Beta Rho fraternity, brought to you by Pabst Blue Ribbon.

In what marketers believe is the first instance of a beer brand sponsoring a student group, the beer maker has adopted the unaffiliated Oregon State University fraternity.

But that doesn’t translate to an unlimited, free supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon for the fraternity brothers, all of whom are over 21. Instead, the Pi Beta Rho brothers have gotten signs, T-shirts and even a dartboard from Pabst.

Fraternity members persuaded Pabst to sign on after a barrage of emails and phone calls to the San Antonio-based company’s marketing team.

And ever since The Daily Barometer, Oregon State’s campus newspaper, wrote a story about the match-up, inquiries have been pouring in from around the country.

Students from Washington State, MIT, Purdue, North Carolina State and the University of Michigan’s rugby team, among others, have all emailed asking how they can start their own Pi Beta Rho chapter.

“I’m overwhelmed,” junior Joel Van Dyke, 21, told The Oregonian. “I didn’t think it would catch on this big.”

The 160-year-old beer brand with the red, white and blue label does no major advertising and so relies on creating a buzz with promotions such as sponsoring the fraternity.

“It’s the only one we’re aware of,” said Neal Stewart, senior brand manager at Pabst Brewing Co. “These are a group of guys who have adopted the brand. Like any subculture — bike messengers, a New York underground film festival — we support their lifestyles.”

Larry Roper, Oregon State’s vice provost for student affairs who spearheads the school’s alcohol education efforts, said the Pabst Boys are on a positive track. It’s entrepreneurial, he said.

“Our responsibility is not to mold (students) into a single lifestyle; it’s to equip them with the tools to live a life of integrity,” he said.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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This. Gives me chills.

Leave it to one of the most powerful and transformative people in music to lay down the gauntlet the week before the election. This video has a chilling, almost moving affect as you watch it. It reaches out to youth everywhere, and reaches even further than Farenheit 9/11 could have even hoped to. Amazing. I’m moved. Are you?

“In these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president… for the present � and mosh for the future of our next generation. To speak and be heard �
Mr. President? Mr. Senator?”

(Thanks Again to Ryan Bruels)

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This post has been syndicated from a new online youth marketing magazine I am writing for called ViaViral. Check It Out

I’ve been on the road at an education IT expo in Colorado all week. I grabbed a copy of the Rocky Mountain News on my way out to the plane as the headline caught my eye. “The Youth Factor.” The article stated that 1/3 of the state’s newest voters are between the ages of 18 to 24. Wow.

This simple fact states an evolution that has been taking place across America. The reason this website was created. The reason that, if you don’t listen, you will loose customers, elections, and respect.

The boomers had kids, those kids are growing up, and they have a voice. They move faster, think faster, and react faster to news and information than ever before. They want to know answers to questions and issues that affect their daily lives. They want a DMV that works, they want a drinking age that doesn’t kill their friends, they want tax and economic policy that won’t leave them jobless after achieving a college degree.

These “kids” are the most important people that you can listen to. They will show you how business is going to evolve. How elections are going to be won. How the future of this great nation will evolve. To them, the American dream is less self-rightious than their boomer parents.

“Polls have a hard time capturing data the youth vote because they tend to rely on cell phones and are mobile.”

This simply statement should and will scare you. Youth won’t listen unless you speak to them in a language that they not only understand, but want to listen to. They’ve grown up in a world filled with logos and marketing messages. They don’t know and quite frankly don’t care about Vietnam. It’s not that they have no compassion, it’s the simple fact that they look to the future. They look to making this country a better place. They don’t want more war mistakes. They want a better and more unified America.

Youth can change this vote. They are being ignored. They exist in high enough numbers to swing any of the states most important to either candidate. I think the candidates should listen.

Read Rocky Mountain News Article Here

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By Ryan Bruels
www.bruels.com

I remember September 11, 2001 very well, as I’m sure most of my generation always will. Older folks call that day our generation’s Pearl Harbor, but I’ve never subscribed to that. Pearl Harbor and September 11 were both tragic events, unique and separate, both deserved of their own mark in history. But I appreciate the sentiment.

On September 12, every American was filled with dread, confusion, and a question — would we ever return to the way things were? And here, just over three years later, we know the answer to that. Of course things could never return to the way things were before that day. But we’ve bound together, as Americans do, and pushed forward to overcome the insurmountable. But have we really?

We’ve allowed ourselves to fall victim to another enemy. Also on September 12, our nation’s Culture of Fear began to develop. Three years later, it was in its prime. Every day we hear warnings — the terrorists will strike us again. Every day we conform our lives to the latest color of our nationwide threat warning. We shed our shoes for the x-ray machines at airports, and watch as a sobbing Muslim peace activist is sent away from his former home at the whim of a vague terrorist watch list. Our fellow men and women are dying thousands of miles from their homes for an unknown cause, and we watch passively. After all, if we don’t support the war, we’re not patriots. The media concentrates on the dramatic and the controversial — the gay governors, the military record of a soldier thirty years discharged, the bump on a president’s back during a scripted debate. We pit together the two sides of our “democratic” political system, ignoring the third parties and still concentrate on the stale talking points of presidential candidates long expired. Meanwhile, in the background, voting machines crash and are left untested, law enforcement officers peruse our library records unchecked, fellow citizens are surveilled and held indefinitely without trial, and Muslim Americans look around, wondering when the next sneer or verbal attack will get thrown at them in ignorance.

Heroes have been hard to find in these troubled days. The firefighters and police officers, so revered and heralded on September 12, have been handed pink slips and decreased funding. Our soldiers kill our Middle Eastern brethren without knowing exactly why. Teachers find themselves forced to conform to a massively-underfunded education initiative, instead of doing what they do best. Our heroes are again false idols — not the teachers, not the social workers, not the firefighters. Maybe a rude and demeaning athelete selling lots of tacky yellow wristbands — trendy with the frat boys, of course — to weakly promote a self-progressing cause. Movie stars who travel the high seas to meet with savage dictators, reporting back to the world just how wonderful the “leaders” are as their citizens live under relentless fear. A president who thinks women shouldn’t have control over their bodies and has taken scientific progress in this country generations backwards. Admit it to yourself: when was the last time you looked at someone and truly felt the spiritual rise that comes when you see a true human hero?

I think I felt that feeling yesterday, and I felt it during CNN’s Crossfire. Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central’s Daily Show fame, sat across from two of the media’s talking-points sheep: Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson. He was on, officially, to promote his new book (America: The Book), but what he actually came out with may very well change the face of American media.

Stewart used his time to verbally slap the network and the media for being “dishonest” and “doing a disservice” to the American public. After co-host Tucker Carlson suggested that Stewart went easy on Senator John Kerry when the candidate was a guest on “The Daily Show,” Stewart unloaded on “Crossfire,” calling hosts Carlson and Paul Begala “partisan hacks” and chiding them for not raising the level of discourse on their show beyond sloganeering.

“What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery,” Stewart said. “You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.

“I watch your show every day, and it kills me. It’s so painful to watch,” Stewart added as it became apparent that the comedian was not joking. He went on to hammer the network, and the media in general, for its coverage of the presidential debates. Stewart said it was a disservice to viewers to immediately seek reaction from campaign insiders and presidential cheerleaders following the debates, noting that the debates’ famed “Spin Alley” should be called “Deception Lane.”

– MTV

The hosts were left completely dazed and out of their game. It left Tucker Carlson (whom Stewart called a “dick”, and was completely right in doing so) completely vulnerable, and attempting to laugh it off while being visibly shaken. Both hosts tried to get him to “be funny” and try to bring the show back under their control, but it didn’t happen. Stewart remained stalwart and fired back his complaints and his pleas to the modern America media. “I’m not going to be your monkey,” he said to Carlson.

He’s not unlike so many of our fellow citizens, who do actually go out every day and stand up for what’s right and good in this world. But in our Culture of Fear, those people don’t get much public airtime. Jon Stewart is immersed in that culture — after all, it is propogated by the media — and he could have just sat in that chair, promoted his book, and as he put it, been a good monkey to the media giants. But he didn’t. And he’ll be hated for it across the television and radio masses. But he held his ground steadfast, he stood up for his country, he stood up against all that’s wrong in the media, and you know — he stood up for us. It was an amazing moment. And it’s not his first time. That day so long ago, September 11, 2001, he stood up and did the same thing. Spoke for a confused country, and without any political buzzwords or ignorant go-get-em! speeches. He spoke as an American, and he hasn’t let up since that day. The Daily Show’s satire and political commentary has given a perspective on this country that is funny, as he says, only in its absurd truthfulness. As an outsider from the mainstream media, he can speak his mind outside the political talking points, and God help us, help people realize there are real problems in this country. We’re immune to fear and sadness now, complacent as we are three years later; maybe humor is the way into our collective minds again.

Thank you, Jon Stewart. If there were a million more like you, we’d be in a lot better of a place right now. As for your plea, I hope it worked … you may have brought a lot of people back to reality, and with luck, it can make a difference and bring back the true nature of the United States.

“‘Subliminable’ is not a punchline anymore. One day it will become that again. Lord willing, it will become that again, because it means that we will have ridden out the storm.”

Relevant Links:

• Jon Stewart’s time on Crossfire: in a variety of formats
• Jon Stewart on the first Daily Show following September 11: RealPlayer format

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Malcolm Gladwell is up to it again. He is a revered writer at The New Yorker and the author of the infamous book The Tipping Point. His new book, Blink, is liable to cause a tidal wave in the focus of minds all over the business world. It won’t be available until January, but I can almost guarantee you a good read. You can pre-order during the embargo here.

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