MIXED BLESSINGS

The Unshared Mania, Favorite Carpet Cow, Undigital Heaven, Etc. This is one of those times when the gender gap expands. It seems almost sacrilegious to say so amid the frenzy of fascination with Princess Diana, but lots of people have never been especially interested in her. In this country, at least, Dianamania was and is a predominantly female phenomenon. As the women in their lives arise at 4 a.m. to watch TV coverage of a not-quite-royal funeral, men just don't get it and don't care to get it. While they're sorry Diana died, men are also relieved it didn't happen during the NBA finals or the World Series or some other occasion when the media's all-Diana-all-the-time fixation would have intruded on male preoccupations. Since they have sports as an outlet for their own hero-worship, men relate to celebrity in a radically different way than women do. Sports heroes can't be famous just for being famous. They have to produce, in statistically quantifiable ways. Many men (and some women) revere Michael Jordan because he's amazingly good at playing a difficult game and has a fistful of championship rings to prove it. We don't need to see paparrazi photos of his private life, because his public work is so riveting. That plainly was not the case with Diana. Anyone who claims to have been more interested in photos of Diana touring land-mine sites than in photos of Diana with her new boyfriend should be required to take a lie-detector test. The kind of fascination she evoked was by its nature destructive of any dividing line between private and public. As far as men are concerned, it would be healthier for all concerned if women's basketball were to catch on and give women a fresh outlet for their hero-worship. Then women would have a rooting interest that men could understand and even share. Down with the monarchy; up with the WNBA. Honors for Nonexistent Product of the Week go to the Holsteinesque vacuum cleaner in an ad for Sharp Electronics (via Griffin Bacal, New York). Of course, if consumers happen to get a look at this ad (which is aimed at the trade), they'll start pestering dealers to shelve the boring old solid-color models and start stocking the vacuum cows for real. In the wide world of weird sports, is caber-tossing ready for prime time? Devotees of the Scottish sport will be heartened by the photo of a determined-looking fellow throwing a tree around in an ad (by The Chapman Agency, New York) for a collection of single-malt Scotches. We'll know Caledonian chic has arrived if kilts start turning up as streetwear for the young and hip. Meanwhile, it's a relief to see such an unpretentious ad for a product category that often inspires pretentiousness. If you pulled the wings off flies when you were a kid, does that make you a likely prospect to support environmentalist causes as an adult? Stranger things have happened. An enterprising ad for the Nature Conservancy of Colorado attempts to harness the considerable power of guilt on behalf of its habitat-preservation efforts. With any luck, the ad will expand the green constituency beyond the sort of nature-lover who never dreamed of "Doing a Godzilla on a village of ants" or using frogs as weapons against their sisters. Cactus Communications of Denver created the ad. Are they implying that Bill Gates is not God? Perhaps it's just that Microsoft has a bigger advertising budget. At any rate, a billboard promoting Billy Graham revival meetings in the Bay Area plays off the Microsoft slogan in a clever ploy to divert attention from this life to the afterlife. In case your taste runs more to vintage pop music than cutting-edge technology, another ad in the series asks, "Do you know the way to San Jose?" CKS Partners' Silicon Valley office created the campaign.

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MIXED BLESSINGS

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