ColemanMedia Report

The sudden and seemingly inexplicable deaths of thousands of birds over Arkansas and Louisiana over the last two days was revealed early this morning to be an organized protest by the Audobon Society against the annoyingly popular mobile game Angry Birds. The deaths, which occurred over Bette, AK and Pointe Coupee Parish, LA, and have religious zealots praying for salvation, were the Audobon Society’s not-so-subtle plea for people to stop playing the addicting game by Rovio on their iPhone and Android handsets. “Normally we don’t harm the animals we’re sworn to protect,” said Reginald Abernathy, Director for the Audobon Society, “but this has gotten out of control. Mothers are playing it instead of watching their kids, employees are playing it instead of working, and yesterday, I caught my 12-year-old son playing it in the shower. I don’t care how many birds we have to sacrifice. People need to stop playing this, and now. Wait, did you just get the 16th Golden Egg? I’ve been trying to do that for weeks!”

Just hours after Goldman Sachs’ highly-publicized $450 million investment in Facebook, investment firm and credit rating agency Booty’s released a brief valuing the ubiquitous social network at “one million trillion dollars,” nearly 67 thousand times the current GDP of the United States. Juergen Riesling, chief analyst for Booty’s, justified the valuation based on Facebook’s recent usurping of Google and the 405 freeway in Los Angeles as the most trafficked site in the world. “To be perfectly honest, we just threw that number out there to see if people would buy it,” said Riesling about the valuation. “It was a bet between me and Clyde, and he won. So if you’re the proud owner of any of those privately traded shares, um, now might be a good time to think about shorting them. Or not, if you don’t mind taking a rather expensive bubble bath. I’m off to buy the first of twelve lunches for Clyde.”

The out of office auto-responder of Director of Southwest Sales Chase Atkinson sent an email message to Junior Media Planner Jared Kleinsmith early Monday afternoon, just minutes after Kleinsmith reportedly replied to Atkinson’s meeting request earlier that morning. According to email server logs at Ogilvy & Lather, Atkinson sent a message with the subject line of “Happy New Year” at 8:43 a.m., which Kleinsmith replied to just after 1:15 p.m. Two minutes and 12 seconds later, a message with the subject line “Out of Office” was received by Kleinsmith. “Really?” said Kleinsmith. “It’s annoying enough that people send emails the very first second I get to the office after a holiday. But when they don’t even know how to turn their auto-responder off, it makes me want to punch someone. My eight-year-old brother could program that to turn off at 9:00 a.m. How does this guy still have a job?”

Seven data miners rescued after eight grueling hours of being trapped in non-operational meta data were greeted with a decidedly lukewarm reception on the 14th floor offices of Foote, Cone & Mr. Belding early Monday evening, according to several witnesses at the scene. The miners, all employees of FCB, were released just after 5:37 p.m. to a crowd of 6-8 co-workers, who had gathered nearby to watch an Antoine Dodson video. “This is the greatest moment of my life,” said Garrett Knowbody, one of the last miners to be pulled from the data, to a crowd of disinterested co-workers. “After 2:30, we thought we were goners for sure. I feel like we couldn’t have made it out without the tireless support of all of you out there. But frankly, I thought you’d be more excited to see us. I mean, we’re not Chilean, but we do make a positive contribution to the company.” Immediately after Knowbody’s statement, witness reported hearing Alexis from Account Services say: “Did one of those data guys just say something? Eww. Omigod, this part is so funny!”

Erstwhile online social network and stalking ground MySpace quietly announced a complete re-launch last week, according to the six reporters that attended a press conference led by CEO Mike Jones. The forgotten social network reportedly re-tooled itself to be an entertainment portal where users can find and consume music, video, and gossip, prompting many media pundits to say: “wait, MySpace is still around?” “No f*cking way!” said Jamichael Carrington of popular online blog TechCrunchBerries. “MySpace is still in business? I wonder if I still have a profile over there. I don’t even know how I’d check, though. I mean, I have no clue what my user name was. Wow, this is far out!” In a related story, a 122-year-old Coast Redwood tree fell in a remote area just south of Spring Lake in Sequoia National Park, according to the National Audobon Society. The exact time of the fall is not known.

Junior Media Planner Jesse Atwater has grown increasingly annoyed with the now common use of the term “new normal,” according to several co-workers at the Chicago office of Foote, Cone, & Mr. Belding. The term, often used to describe potentially permanent changes in behavior due to recent economic conditions, reportedly exasperates Atwater “to the bone.” “If I hear someone say that social couponing or flat budgets are the ‘new normal’ again, I’m gonna lose it,” said Atwater. “Yes, I know people – and clients – are keeping more of a watchful eye over their finances, but for the love of God, please stop calling it the ‘new normal.’ People change. It’s this thing called life. And we had just gotten over everyone saying that something is the ‘new black.’ Why do we have to replace it with something that’s 10 times more annoying and pretentious?”

Non-partisan group Pew Center of American Life reported Wednesday morning that electronics manufacturer and unavoidable tastemaker Apple Computers spent nearly $1.4 billion on attack ads criticizing rival Adobe’s Flash technology in the weeks leading up to the November 2nd midterm election. The ads, which ran in popular broadcast TV, print and online outlets, portrayed Flash for being “anti-open development,” “weak on security,” and “beholden to the same policies that got us in this mess.” “Flash is stuck in the past,” said Apple political spokesman Chet Michaels, “in a world of PCs and mice. FACT. We can’t afford to let their policies of proprietary source code, security flaws, and battery-draining requirements drag us deeper into the hole they’ve already dug for us. It’s time get someone new in your phone, who’s not part of the old guard. And who, frankly, helps us sell more phones.”

An email sent to Junior Media Planner Julia Levinworth Tuesday morning by Western Region Sales Director Saul Silver, expressing wishes that the email would “find [her] well,” actually found Levinworth doing well, according to eyewitnesses at the scene. The 26-year-old planner was reportedly in very good spirits around the time server logs indicate that she opened the message. “It was kind of weird,” said Levinworth. “Usually, lines like that in a sales email tend to make me roll my eyes, because I know it’s there just to butter you up for the sales pitch. But for some reason I was in a really great mood on Tuesday. I don’t know, maybe there was something in the coffee or something. I have no clue what he was trying to sell, but it was very sweet of him to wish me well. I almost felt bad deleting it instead of taking the time to reply.”

In an attempt to become more relevant with socially-connected teens and tweens, the California Department of Education announced Monday afternoon that it will enact a 140-character limit for all English, Literature, and Social Sciences essays written by high school and junior high school students throughout the state. The limit, which effects grades 7 through 12, is also seen as a key way to plug a nearly $1 billion budget gap. “Let’s face it,” said State Superintendent Jack O’Connell. “Students these days can’t concentrate on one subject for more than 8 seconds, or about the time it takes the average 16-year old to text 4 of their friends. So why try to fight it? It will free up time for teachers as well, so it’s a win-win for everyone. Besides, I’m more than confident that the complex moral and social themes explored in, say, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter can be adequately addressed in 140 characters or less. Or at least they can express how much the book ‘sckd’”

A report issued late Tuesday by the Center for Shamelessly Bad Puns revealed that the “new frugality,” which may have permanently changed consumer purchase behavior, is negatively affecting sales for Rich Media firms, as marketers look to cut costs that may be perceived as frivolous or ostentatious. According to the report, the sector has lost nearly $400 million so far this year, prompting long-standing Rich Media provider Eyeblaster to re-brand itself as the more modest MediaMind, reportedly to distance itself from any profligate associations. “As budgets get cut, marketers start to more closely scrutinize their spend,” said MediaMind VP of Sales Rick Astbury. “We had clients who would get a bill for Rich Media serving fees and say ‘what do we look like to you, a luxury brand? Our customers are trading down to store brands, and you want us to pay a $2 premium for interactivity?’ So we had to look at repackaging our product to be more in line with the ‘thinking man.’”