Contains odor-fighting “atomic robots” that “shoot lasers” at your “stench monsters” an replaces them with fresh, clean, masculine “stench elves.”

That might be the best product description I’ve ever read.

Lately, some prophets of doom have been predicting the end of native applications. Well, we don’t agree. After all, can you imagine playing “Plants vs. Zombies” in a browser. At the same time, we’re sad about the state of mobile web development. Does it have to be quite so primitive? So hard to develop cross-platform? And so… well, so ugly? We think not.

Next week, a new company will introduce a new generation of mobile application frameworks. It uses HTML5 to produce amazing user experiences. It’s cross platform, it’s easy to develop with, but most of all, it’s really quite beautiful. We think it will gladden your hearts and lift your souls.

Their marketing was a real purple cow in action. I just hope their product is as good as they say, otherwise it will be all for naught.

Here are his five basic principles, in order of use:

1. Negotiate just prior to the other side’s deadlines.
2. Make them negotiate against themselves.
3. Use a “flinch” whenever someone mentions their first discounted offer.
4. Increase value while lowering price.
5. Never be the ultimate decision maker.
6. Use intelligent “bracketing.”
7. Practice using the “firm offer.”

This is a great way for the President to bypass the media (and their inevitable lame commentary) and communicate directly to the people each week. My guess is this will only increase Obama’s image.

Here’s the first one:

Canceling your reservation … will result in a charge for the entire stay per room to your credit card.

Policies like this don’t make people love your company. It makes it look greedy, impersonal, and unfair.

No one wants to settle for the bad table, your worst salesperson, your second-rate items. Not the new customers and not the loyal ones…

Which means you need to figure out how to improve your lesser offerings. Maybe the table in the worst location comes with a special menu or a special wine list or even a visit from the chef. Maybe the worst table, for some people, becomes the best table because of the way you treat people when they sit there…

Treat different people differently. But don’t treat anyone worse.

When my generation of women walked away from the kitchen we were escorted down that path by a profiteering industry that knew a tired, vulnerable marketing target when they saw it. “Hey, ladies,” it said to us, “go ahead, get liberated. We’ll take care of dinner.” They threw open the door and we walked into a nutritional crisis and genuinely toxic food supply.

—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (HarperCollins: 2007), p. 126.

On the whole (with the exception of movie and theater advertising) ads are better designed than anytime I can remember since the sixties. The concepts are smarter, the layouts are more sophisticated, type choices are more appropriate, and art direction is more nuanced.