Cruel Cruel Irony

The trees are dying in our front yard in Austin.  A few days before we left, a huge branch fell across the driveway. About this time, the leaves turned brown and dropped on the grass.  The leaves usually don't cover the front yard until the end of the year.  We called the arborist. Yes, It's the drought.  We had been watering with the sprinkler system according to Austin's 2-day a week restricted water schedule, but the arborist told us trees need deep, slow watering that mimics natural rainfall.

The arborist said many homes in Central Austin were losing their trees. He was going to be part of a public information campaign to educate homeowners about the special water needs of trees.

We went into New York City this Labor Day weekend to visit David's parents. On the train back to Princeton, my mom called from Austin to tell us of the devastating fires around Austin.  Yesterday, the fires in Bastrop made the cover of the New York Times. Odd to be so far away from Central Texas, yet see news from home on national media.  Like a refugee from a natural disaster, I have been pouring over every bit of news I can find...searching maps, local news sources, Facebook updates. My heart breaks as I read the news about the loss of homes around Austin.

The cruel irony is that it just won't stop raining here in New Jersey. News reports carry stories of continued flooding due to Tropical Storm Lee. We carry our umbrellas everywhere.  Flip flops are just not cutting it. We need to get some of those goofy looking rain boots. I lie awake at night and study the sound of the rain outside. It is all new: not just rain, but the sound of rain in this apartment.

Yesterday, I let Emma run and jump in all the rain puddles she could find. Splash away, sweet Emma.  Splash and splash and splash and splash. Let the rain water soak through your clothes and run inside your shoes. Feel the squishy feeling of your feet inside your rain soaked tennis shoes. With wild abandon, get your jeans wet and if you can, even your shirt.  And let me join you in this watery mess.

If I could only send some of this water back to Austin.

The End of the Road

We have reached the end of the road. Here is David and Emma standing in front of our apartment door. Except for the few times Emma got sick in the back seat of the car, it was an uneventful trip....very interesting, but uneventful (which is how I like my air travel to be too).

While hurricane Irene was working its way up the coast, we were safely tooling around the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.  Now here in New Jersey, we see remnants of the hurricane.  I discovered yesterday that Quaker Road, the quickest way from our apartment to the Wal-mart/Target/Best Buy/ shopping district of Princeton is closed due to flooding.  

We are now busy moving in (or as I like to call it, “creating space”). School starts on Thursday for Emma. I need to return my attention back to my work.  And David needs to crank up his pseudorandom generators and randomness extractors and start his work (which means simply thinking on the couch with a note pad and pen).

 

To all of our dear friends in Austin: WE MISS YOU!  Keep the AC on for us. We will be back very soon.

Here is Emma sitting on 22 U-Haul boxes full of 704 pounds of life’s essentials. The apartments at the Institute are furnished, but residents provide the personal stuff that makes a house a home.

Cracker Barrel's Outdoor Ad Campaign

We are on the last leg of our cross-country trip to Princeton.  After our Smoky Mountain mini vacation, we spent part of a day visiting with good friends Margaret, Steve and little Ella in Kingsport, Tennessee.  We then drove on and spent a couple of nights in Pittsburgh visiting David’s brother, sister-in-law and kids.  What a relief to eat some great home cooked meals, to stretch our bodies with a little exercise and to catch up with friends and family.

Regarding the road food options in Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia….Of course, there are fast food chains like McDonald's.  Then there’s casual dining like Shoney’s and Cracker Barrel.  One can't travel along I-40 in Tennessee and not notice all the billboards for Cracker Barrel.  It seems as if every exit on both sides of the interstate have a sign.  Because Cracker Barrel is based in Tennessee, it is no surprise that the main artery through the state is saturated with ads for their many locations.  Actually the chain has locations throughout the US (but not on the West coast).

As a former advertising professor/agency account planner, I can’t help but spot both good and bad advertising campaigns. I am usually not impressed with outdoor advertising, but the Cracker Barrel campaign is notable because of both creative execution and media strategy.

This year, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America awarded Cracker Barrel’s long-term outdoor agency, Buntin Out-of-Home Media, the 2011 OBIE Hall of Fame Award (like the Oscar of outdoor advertising).  Oh, but that didn’t stop Cracker Barrel from moving their business away from their Nashville ad agency in July. Chicago based Euro RSCG will now be responsible for creative strategy. When sales are slow, both ad agencies (and research) are often the first to go.

I like how the ads effectively capture the essence of the brand (homespun comfort) using less than 6 words and just a simple bold image.  Here is a sample of the outdoor campaign. 

To get a sense of what it feels like to drive along I-40 in the eastern south-central part of the US,  slide this page up and down for a while so you get exposures to all the billboard ads many, many times.