Complex Numbers

Wave Function Collapse

Not a lot of commentary today. I started late and I want to hurry up and get to the drinking part of my evening.

But Contest results below!

http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/how-to-make-sense-of-quantum-physics

How to Make Sense of Quantum Physics
Superdeterminism, a long-abandoned idea, may help us overcome the current crisis in physics.

Mostly I'm just leaving this here because it touches on a lot of subjects I tend to post on, and it starts out as a pretty good explanation of quantum physics. It goes on to branch out into philosophy and even questions of free will. Recommended reading -- just remember the entire second part is speculation.

So on with the marketing question from yesterday.

Mini-Contest Results!

Great entries, and tough to pick just one -- but I managed. As usual, everyone will get another chance in a few days.

Annette , the phrases "tone-deaf," "bad optics," and "read the damn room" come to mind there.

Sumojo , this is exactly why I try to stay away from hot-button issues. I don't always succeed.

⭐Princette♥PengthuluWrites , how that got past the number of people who would have had to have been involved is a mystery. Perhaps they were all drunk.

prettypoetry, yeah, I remember that. You do one thing and you've been doing it for decades, and all of a sudden you want to change the formula that works (that is, without seismic macroeconomic shifts as with JC Penny and Sears, see below)? See also: New Coke.

Wordsmitty ✍️ , what in the hell were they thinking?

Lostwordsmith , true, not really what I was looking for, but darkly hilarious.

Charity Marie - <3 , I could say the same thing about Sears. Sears built its entire brand by people in remote areas being able to order stuff from them through the mail, from a catalog. They were huge; at one point, they had their name on the tallest building in the world, and they were a household name. The Internet comes along, and Sears sticks to its b&m model; Amazon adopts an updated Sears strategy and becomes a juggernaut. Sears gets gutted by private equity and turns to vapor. As for Sherwin Williams, true story (at least as far as my memory might be reliable): the first time I saw an SW logo as a kid -- it hasn't changed in at least 50 years afaik -- I remember thinking, "but where is the gravity coming from that's letting the paint drip off the planet? Point being, I was a huge nerd even as a child.

Everyone who commented without an example, I appreciated your responses too -- thanks!

In awarding the winner, I wanted to consider something as close as possible to the Tropicana and Coke fails, and the idea of a marketing strategy being so outrageously bad that it led to the company becoming not-a-company, so:

Wordsmitty ✍️ gets the Merit Badge for: Just For Feet, a giant shoe retailer, decided to take the plunge with a Super Bowl ad to an estimated 120 Million plus viewers on January 31, 1999. Unfortunately, ...

The commercial began with four caucasian-looking men in a Humvee with the license plate "Just For Feet." They track footprints in Kenya until they overtake a black man and offer him water. He collapses (drugged?) and they put a pair of Nikes on him. When he wakes and sees the shoes, he screams "Nooooooo!" and runs off trying to shake the shoes from his feet.

Quoting the book, "The backlash from the ad was immediate and fierce." The company didn't survive to see the new century.

Thanks again and we'll do this again soon!