It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

I know – we still have Halloween to contend with, but this gets me just as excited. Macy’s has redesigned its Thanksgiving Day Parade website for 2007 and it went online today: http://www.macys.com/campaign/parade/parade.jsp. The site features some of last year’s elements – namely the 80th parade line-up and some of the character balloon art – but also features a new layout and the television air times and channels. I’m sure it’s still a work in progress and will be further updated as we get closer to the parade and as they reveal more about this year’s "holiday ambassador" balloon (read more about that character below).

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A few months back I signed up for a google alert for “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” I have it set for “as it happens,” which may have been a mistake. At least four times daily I receive google alert messages in my mailbox. It has a weird break-down in terms of usable information and looks roughly like this:

Forty-five percent of the alerts link to blogs where the author uses the term in conjunction with the phrase “like a balloon in…,” often referring to how much someone ate recently or how much weight someone has gained. [I want to say useless; however, it indicates the cultural impact the parade has on this country.]

Thirty-five percent of the alerts link to the same blog posting about the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s 1997 parade appearance on the Jell-O “falloon”. [Absolutely useless information and sad-but-true: I ‘went to the video-tape’ (DVD actually) and they were in the 1997 parade.]

Ten percent of the time the alerts link to blogs whose authors either have participated previously or will be participating in this or next year’s parade carrying an instrument.
[Occasionally interesting/amusing accounts of people who are experiencing November weather in New York and/or the city itself for the first time.]

The remaining ten percent linked to useful articles, websites or press releases about entertainers, bands and characters scheduled to make appearances in this year’s parade. [So far I’ve learned that Wynonna will be performing something from her new Christmas album this year, Shrek will make an appearance in balloon-form (McDonald’s May ad campaign should have been a dead giveaway – it featured several Shrek the Third supporting cast members freeing and floating away on a giant Shrek inflatable tethered to a restaurant roof] - and as Macy’s holiday ambassador - and it costs on average about $500,000 to transport a marching band across the country.]