---
title: "South Park meets WebSphere at IBM's Impact2009"
date: 2009-05-01T15:51:19Z
modified: 2009-05-01T15:51:19Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/south-park-meets-websphere-at-ibms-impact2009/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 1992
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2009-05-01T15:51:19Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

Successful marketing is often a little edgy. Throughout the late 1990s IBM was good at using humour to drive conversations around the brand, particularly in its advertising. But the firm lost its Madison Avenue mojo somewhere along the line, culminating in the recent “What The Hell is the Other IBM And What Is This Ad About?” series

But social media and the youtube revolution seems to be pepping things up again. Anything [Tim Washer](http://www.timwasher.com/) is associated with, for example, is laugh out loud funny – [even mainframe sales](http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/3EFBFFFF00EBC5130017001D012A/).

But while mocking yourself is one thing, using South Park to mock yourself is quite another. So I have to salute my friend Sandy Carter, promoted just this week from vp of SOA and WebSphere Marketing to vp of worldwide business partner sales, for being brave enough to pull the trigger on the video embedded above.

> **“SOA? What the hell is that crap?”**

I will be at Impact in Las Vegas next week and I am looking forward to learning more about Smart Planet. I will be presenting on SOA for Sustainability on Wednesday afternoon. For more context Sandy interviews me about Impact [here](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/SOA_Off_the_Record?entry=redmonk_s_provokive_and_need).