Weekly What the...?

• Liza Minnelli is sick of sex – No really. She is.
• Let go of my Mego – In keeping with the ‘rhymes with Lego’ theme established last week. (Hey, I don’t make this stuff up.)
• iBuzz – I’ve officially seen it all now. (via gizmag.)
Tags: bizarre, iBuzz, Liza Minnelli, odd,weird

Here’s Something You Never See.

Another outdoor from a spirit brand in a lower-income neighborhood. What a shock. Strange, the few times I took the family to Cape Cod on vacation, I never saw any outdoor signs in Hyannis with Ted Kennedy hawking Gordon’s Gin.

Why is that?

I have no problem with using John Leguizamo in any ad. I love his work. You have only to see his HBO specials or movies to know that the dude has skillz. And, advertising to your customer base using someone of the same background or ethnicity is hardly new.

But, how obvious, how easy was it to place this where they did: In this case, a lower-income Hispanic neighborhood. The obvious lack of placement of these outdoor signs anywhere but in urban settings speaks volumes of the brand’s intent: Let’s get them drunk, after all, they’re our best customer, right?

If I had a better shot, you’d see the rest of the street and some pretty beat-down buildings. Not to mention what appeared to be a temporary carwash leaning so far to the left I swear it was going to fall on my car. What an excellent media buy by the agency. Just excellent!

Also worth noting is the 12-point disclaimer on the lower left. The one about drinking responsibly that you would never see driving by at even 20 mph. Hey Hennessey - how about placing responsibly?

Charles Barkley once said he wasn’t a role-model, and that he wasn’t here to raise my kids. Ok, fair enough. But don’t celebrities still have a responsibility to know where their image will be used, and the stereotype it reinforces when it’s this blatant?

I was going to post this some time back, but copyranter put up an article on race in advertising the same day and I didn’t want this treading on that. It’s still a topic that needs discussing–not ignoring. Hadji Williams, a Chicago creative, also writes about this in his book which I’m tearing through now, Knock the Hustle.

I’ve worked in a few of these so-called specialty/multi-cultural/ethnic agencies a few years back. But few brands, if any, will acknowledge what’s really at play here. The “specialty” agency will do this kind of work because, while a brand wants to get all the market share it can, it really doesn’t want to be associated with, you know, a “certain type of people.” Brands will say “That’s what our partner agency is for.”

You mean the partner you don’t even think enough of to have in the same building with you?

Tags: advertising, brands

Wah, Nobody Reads My Blog, Wahhhh.

How many of us have thought that when we first started out? Well, Dr. Dennis Leary is here to help with increasing your blog traffic, whining blog freaks. Go from zero to hero in like, eight months with a few tricks. I’m huge in Budapest now thanks to them. Several people have given good advice, such as B.L. Ochman’s column. I first learned from Ben Popken, editor of Consumerist.com. If you’re using Blogger, go here too.

This advice is mostly for the newbie trying to increase views once you have your blog set up and have a unique ‘voice’ for what your blog is all about. I can’t help you there, that part’s up to you. So, if you have a well-known name with a built-in audience already, or you pulled a stunt to help launch a blog, you probably don’t need my advice on traffic. Otherwise, the average blogger will find it takes a fair amount of time to build site traffic.

1) Blog Self-promotion. Start treating the whole process of promoting your blog like any other thing you do to promote yourself, (especially if you’re a freelancer.) Blogs need love too. Remember kids, 32.1 million blogs and counting. Poor grammar here but, you won’t get noticed doing nothing amongst numbers like that. For any of these tips, it really comes down to out of sight, out of mind. What are you doing to make sure people see your blog?

2) Start posting at other blogs too. Not just comments for comment’s sake either. Post only on those blogs that match what your blog is all about. Make sure you put your blog’s URL in the username section.

3) Then, link to others. In addition to sites I really like, my blogroll to the right includes names of blogs who have either linked to me, or who are popular. Reference any article you find with a trackback link if you can. People on other blogs will see your blog links to what they’re reading, and just may visit you. A lot of sites like technorati will also display who links to who. (And follow up with blogs who link to yours, like a new one I discovered today linking back to me, Adverb, run by Mack Simpson: Adman of Action. Thanks Mack, the check is in the mail, just don’t cash it right away.)

4) Get a sitemeter account. Or any FREE site-monitoring tool to show you who is viewing your blog from where. Once you see where people are viewing from, you can show up at their blog and leave a post, which might spur them to stop lurking at yours and post.

5) Register with blog directories. Look at my “HELPING SPREAD BLOG LOVE” list. All those are FREE directories I registered my blog name at. Go to each one and fill out a directory listing for your blog. Add relevant tags for each that accurately describe your blog.

6) Ping your blog. (Keep it clean.) Right after this is posted, I will go to my bookmarked page, and it will automatically ping all the servers I selected when I registered with Blogflux.com. This refreshes your blog listing and lets their servers know new content has been added to your blog.

7) Use Tags. When someone goes to technorati to type in “Barbie,” or some other term, and you have “Barbie” as a tag, your blog shows up in their search results. Make your tags relevant to the topic at hand though.

8) RSS feeds. Make sure there are both RSS and email subscription links for your blog displayed at or near the top of your page. I use feedblitz.com for email subscriptions. Don’t make readers work too hard to get in touch with you or link. Keep all other contact info like a regular email address above the fold, (for the rooks - that term means keep stuff on the top half of a web page, like a newspaper, hence 'fold.')

With so many blogs out there, you have to make it easy for people to access yours. This stuff will help.

Tags: blogging, promoting blogs, site traffic, tags

Search by Color at Retrievr.

From the more cool art director stuff department...

So the other day I’m thinking why hasn’t anyone invented a search engine based on the use of visual images? Too late. Retrievr uses colors. Select a color or even a tint of one from the palette on the left, and images with those hues start appearing. Bizzare? Useful? Not sure. But it’s cool. Via Copyranter, which lead me to They Call Me Concha, which led me to Nobody Reads This. And by now you’re probably going, why all the links chief? Well, I tell ya’ sport, sometimes, chasing links can lead to some cool stuff. Why not spend a few minutes and see where things lead from time to time? Not to mention, you have to give props to the people or site where you find stuff.

Tags: advertising, art director, image search, Retrievr

My Treehouse Never Looked Like This.

Now, I know I’m pretty good with a router and circular saw, but I doubt I’ll be making anything that looks like this in the near future. Via aNYthing comes these Free Spirit Spheres from British Columbia.

Tags: woodworking

Cool Sidewalk Art.

Don’t worry, I bring the AD stuff when I feel like it yo. Via Compfused.com is this series of very cool trompe l'oeil illustrations on the street. And if any creative out there even has to ask about that term, I have one of these ready for you. Thanks jOjO.

Tags: drawings, illustrations, trompe l'oeil

Brand Lag

Brand lag: That period of time where brands try and catch up to what its consumers are currently doing. (Ok, I’m a Wiki protologism whore, sue me.) There’s a few relevant discussions going on at Micro Persuasion and Church of the Customer about social sites like YouTube, Myspace and Flickr acting as a brand’s focus group for what’s being said about them. Sometimes, brands and brand managers just take forever to catch up and listen to what their consumers want.

These days though, that can negatively affect a brand more than it ever has because bad word-of-mouse can make or break you sooner, rather than later, while good wom can put you on the map. Worth noting is a manifesto at Cluetrain I discovered a while back and linked to, but still is very relevant to the issue of consumers rising up.


Tags: brands, consumer, marketing

Voice Blah-Blah-Blogging

First, if you read this blog regularly, you know I’ve given shit to Google for their political sellout in both this country as well in China. Their position is indefensible as far as I am concerned, no matter how many Google bloogers who work on Blogger talk about the Power of Google. (Jim Jones talked about the power of Kool-Aid if I’m not mistaken too. For the newbies, swap out Jim for David Koresh at Waco.) I’d be a hypocrite for at least not acknowledging the sugar-daddy connection, since after all, this blog is run by Blogger under Google.

Ok, disclaimer out of the way. A friend tipped me off to a few sites that offer free voice blogging services. One of them is Blogger’s version called Audioblogger.com. It offers you the chance to call in and post a 5-minute recorded message converted to an audio file that you save on your blog. More time is available, but for a quick podcast, it’s pretty damn cool. Is this the end of the 30 minute podcast? Doubtful, but worth a try.

Tags: audio blogging, podcast, voiceblog

The Day We All Got Replaced.

Mark it down: March 27th, 2006. That’s so when you look back 50 years from now as you’re on the run from large machines with guns, you’ll wonder exactly when was the precise date that Terminator and Hal got their start. Via Drudge comes word that scientists have fused brain cells with a computer chip. This is isn’t simply six million dollar man stuff. This will be the basis for cognitive thought in computers.

Ok, so we land a guy on the moon, then we invent this computer brain, but still can’t invent something that makes a decent creative brief?

Tags: computers, HAL, terminator

She Blinded Me With... Blogs.

Since I mentioned Hammer’s blog, I have to mention Thomas Dolby’s. (The Dolby of She Blinded Me With Science fame for the new-school out there.) I’ll bring the old school when I think you kids are nodding off. He’s back on tour and hitting NYC among other places in May, although I’m seeing one of the shows in PA.

My work here is done.

Tags: Thomas Dolby

New IBM spot. Shades of Life of Brian.

Just caught the new spot from IBM and the fluttering butterfly-thing-type objects flying around. Here’s what gets me. Not the funky effects - it’s the masses repeating a single mantra of individuality like robots. Life of Brian flashback: Brian implores his followers to get a life by asking “Repeat after me – I am an individual!” And of course they all repeat “I am an individual!”

IBM just doesn’t get it.

Tags: IBM, Life of Brian

NEW FEATURE: What the...?

Because I’m all about added value here, I want to reward the 23 readers out there. A lot of blogs have weekly summaries covering the best of that week. Not me. I plan on covering the oddest. It could be stuff that is off-topic, bizarre or cool that might not normally warrant regular inclusion, but otherwise deserving of a brief mention. And so, without further delay:

• The Brick Testament The Lego Parables of Jesus.

• BorgBlog (Not a sci-fi thing, but Jim Borgman, an editorial cartoonist whose work you’ll instantly recognize. Cool look at how a cartoonist refines an idea.)

Tags: bizarre, Jim Borgman, odd, weird

Congrats! You’re Our 100 Millionth Blog!

According to technorati, they were monitoring 29 million blogs not less than three weeks ago. Today it’s up around 31.2 million. At that rate, they will exceed 100 million blogs in about 16 months. That’s almost 1 million blogs a week. (One for every voice in my head.) But seriously, I have three blogs, so I’m sure blogamists like me skew the numbers. (Blogamist and blogamy both being new protologisms I coined today at Wiki referrring to people who have more than one blog at a time.) Either way, that blog growth rate is insane if it holds up. And the way things in the computer world tend to grow exponentially, I think we could see that mark sooner rather than later. Watch, it’ll be reached by some guy named Bob, in like, Wyoming with a flyfishing blog.

Ah, so many Bob blogs, so little time...

Tags: blogs, trends

Dieter thanks you. I thank you.

Ok monkey bitches. Thanks to your votes, a lot of them, my homies The Zambonis, (America’s only real Rock ’n Roll Hockey band), won for Best Monkey Song over at Blender. What does that mean exactly? Well, no cash for me or anyone reading this. Just knowing you helped put a boot in The Beastie Boys’ ass though, should be reward enough.

Tags: bands, Dieter, hockey, sprockets, zamboni, The Zambonis

Co-branding Run Amok?

Co-branding hell. I know it’s generally a good idea: get brands to cross promote each other. A tried and true tactic of even your’s truly. .MAKE THE LOGO BIGGER ...But this 6-page menage-a-brand spread currently running seems really forced. Details, Puma and NBC’s The Office, all together. A virtual logo orgy in print.

The disclaimers listed throughout are as tacky as the subject matter usually is: golf fashion. This could have been a really cool idea had Puma not talked down to its audience and broken the fourth wall. Is the message that they don’t know if they want this to be satire, ...MAKE THE LOGO BIGGER... or something so real you’ll confuse it with the magazine? Are we that stupid that we can’t tell the difference? The line that kills me though is “No celebrity endorsment implied.” Like Walken said to Hopper in True Romance: “Come again?”

Both Puma and Details are doing just that by using the popularity of the actual show to endorse their products! Maybe it’s fitting in a way that this whole layout is executed in a less-than-deft manner, considering most golf clothes suck and the fact that the US version of The Office went over the brilliant edge established by the UK version.

All I can think is that Diet Pepsi was too busy in the recording studio to take part.

*Click image to enlarge sample page, because you’re so stupid, you wouldn’t have figured this out on your own.

**Diet Pepsi, Puma, Details Magazines and NBC’s The Office in no way have endorsed this post. I can’t even confirm if they’ve read it. No animals were hurt in the making of this post. Furthermore, no animals were paid to be in this post, including a monkey. Reader makes no implied warranty comparison as seen by a doctor for erections lasting longer than a :30 second spot.

Tags: Details magazine, Puma sneakers, The Office

“I” vs. “We”

My Pledge of Quality to you, my loyal audience from Bejing to Ohio: I will never use the word “We” when reviewing an ad, viral or anything remotely related to marketing. After all, if you’re just one individual running a blog, “We here at...” doesn’t really sound right.

Simple Photoshop & PowerPoint tricks.

Yes, I actually talk about stuff relating to art direction and offer Stupid Art Director tips from time to time, imagine that. There are two simple things I just picked up, and I thought I knew it all. One for Photoshop and the other for Powerpoint.

In Photoshop, to select any color on your screen, including windows in the background, do this: open any doc > click on the eye dropper tool > click, hold and drag the eye dropper across the entire screen to select a foreground color. To get a background swatch color, hold down the “option” key then click, hold and drag across the screen. (Useful when you want to sample a color of a stock photo without downloading then opening it.) This may not work on all Photoshop versions and operating systems. Tip courtesy of Lifehacker.

As for PowerPoint, it can be annoying to have to hit the ‘down arrow’ key to advance to page 600 in a 642-page deck during a presentation. Not any more kids. To view a master list of all the slides in your presentation at once, make sure you’re in Slide Show mode, and simply right click your mouse – the list pops up.

Tags: Photoshop tips, PowerPoint tips

PR Makeovers

This one’s for all the peeps coming over from Idea Grove, where Scott Baradell has been kind enough to ask me to help out doing a guest co-host stint on his blog in April. So for those visitors, what I normally riff on here is anything related to marketing, design and advertising, in both serious and not so serious ways. Most of the Idea Grove material will capture that and hopefully bring a different POV to the PR profession. Or it will ruin blogging as we know it.

In honor of that, I thought I’d throw out a quick topic on something that people like myself who are in the non-PR world assume happens all the time: You get a call late at night from a manager of a celebrity or athlete who was caught with a quart of (insert favorite alcoholic beverage here) and (insert name of favorite other celebrity or athlete you love to hate here) in the back of (insert closed quarter space here). The fallout from that one event haunts them and you for years while you’re left picking up the pieces. Or, if skillfully manipulated, a series of these mishaps could actually make a career. Mike Rourke, or was that Mickey Tyson, comes to mind.

So here are a few potential clients seemingly in need of a PR makeover this year:

1) Mr. Britney Spears. (Really, ’nuff said. Just hope Kev teaches the baby that the H on the faucett doesn’t stand for Hookah.)

2) Terrell Owens. (His agent Drew says he’s a changed person, so you know I believe him. Just like he was in Philly, and S.F. before that.)

3) The Axis of Evil. (I mean, you collectively threaten a few countries and a few million people, and you’re labeled. SO unfair.)

4) Canada. (They didn’t do anything. That’s the problem. They just kinda sit there.)

5) The Amish. (Same deal. Maybe they can attack Canada. Give themselves a little street cred.)

And your choices?

Tags: Idea Grove, PR

Consumer Generated Make The Logo Bigger

Ok, with all the talk of CGM and CGC lately, I thought I’d give you bitches a shot at generating your own consumer versions of Make The Logo Bigger. Use a Post-it and a Sharpie. Use an Etch-O-Sketch. (Bonus for guessing the original name for it too.) Use anything you want. Scan it. Email it. I’ll post it.

Tags: cgc, cgm, Etch-O-Sketch, logo, Post-it note, sharpie

Job Opening: Spam Copywriter

Who doesn’t want to add 10 inches to their PhD when they invest in overseas real estate? Hey, I don’t mind spam, as long as it’s written well. Most spam isn’t however. Almost every subject line I see looks like someone dropped a kickball on a keyboard and went with the first combination of letters that came up. Can’t we get some copywriters to help out? The following spam I received shows the depth of the problem.

(Oh, and if you were kind enough to send me any of it, I would be remiss if I didn’t share your name and email with the world, seeing that you felt it important enough to share your valuable ‘once-in-a-lifetime offer’ with me.) [My comments in brackets]

Gibbs Golden says: She was doing well after the surgery...
[Glad to hear it. Thought it was touch and go for a while.]

Susanna Gage tells me there’s a: New Breed of Equity Trader
[Susanna Gage - UFC Stock Champion!]

YSavannahDeczkyi5@hawk.igs.net from K-PAX says: it's Gaultiero recriminatory
[Ok, timeout. What the fuck does that even mean?]

Andra-fStoneg6@exis.net: Siegfried Bottoms elmer
[see above]

Bhtxsn@ambassadordivers.com wants me to know: it cough so clinic uncompromising
[Yes it does, doesn’t it.]

Pennington_Brockv@esbe.co.uk warns: apostrophe policemen suntanning
[Apparently, the UK has a few bobbies possessive about their SPF.]

WeKarlenTw@imailbox.net warns: it's calcium Georgianna
[That's why you keep breaking your hip - you don’t take enough.]

BwShellysheldonVz@ghg.net lites it up when he says: Cameron, in cannabis chemistry
[Duuuuuuuuuude!]

I think after reading, you’ll agree: if we all act fast, we can improve spam for all of us. Won’t you please help? After all, a 10" PhD is a terrible thing to waste.

Tags: spam

This House Fire Brought to You by Kingsford Charcoal.

As creatives, we always look for new avenues where we can try and promote brands. Apparently, that now includes your local newscast at dinnertime. (If anyone is home to actually eat dinner or watch TV at that time.) Not exactly a new concept, placement, excuse me, ‘integrated commercial content’ on morning news shows has been around since before Hank Kingsley, er, Willard Scott pushed Smucker’s jam on the Today show. ABC, NBC and CBS all say they allow no production integration on their morning shows. Hmmm, GMA broadcasting segments from a Norwegian Cruise Line doesn’t count I guess. Newsflash to the big three: if a product is in your show, whether the brand paid for it or not? It’s still placement.

Scarier though, is the threat of placement directly into real news stories. All so stations can be competitive and save on production costs. (That’s the justification by stations in the article at least.) Still looks though like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic that is network TV. When’s the last time my loyal audience got their news at 6:00 pm via TV anyway? On the other hand, this might work if more sponsors sign on. In addition to the Kingsford Daily House Fire report, what about a 60-second Shooting Round-up sponsored by Smith & Wesson? Or, an online investment firm for the story on the corrupt city councilman?

(Via Drudge.)

Tags: news, placement

Vote For Monkey! Touch the Monkey!

You know I like monkeys. Especially songs about them. So twisting the words of both Christopher Walken and Dieter, I implore you to go down this road and vote for Monkey! A friend of mine, Mat O., copywriter and drummer for the hockey band The Zambonis, needs people to vote for their song on Blender.com as best monkey song. The title is Hockey Monkey, and is edging out some fierce competition from Beastie Boys and Foo Fighters. Once there, scroll down below the Dave Chapelle pic on the right. And remember bitches: vote early – and often.

Tags: bands, Dieter, hockey, sprockets, zamboni, Zambonis

FREE STARBUCKS COFFEE

Sorry for the cheap trick, but who doesn’t want free? Check out this simple, yet cool Starbucks promo using a simple two-frame animated banner. (Good tomorrow, 3/15/06 between 10 am - 12 noon.) Now, the subtle We ‘Heart’ You using a cup for the heart is stretching the visual metaphor a little, but it’s little stuff like this ad that gets attention. Shows you don’t need a huge marketing effort to run something like this either.

Online banner ad drives traffic to store and also to a mobile phone for a reminder, (text “STARBUCKS” to “94637” billed at regular mobile rates). Seems integrated to me. Naysayers might go, yeah, it’s a no-brainer when you give your product away. Well, ok, but they’re not giving all their product away. You have a set time to take part in the offer at your closest Starbuck’s. Joe Jaffe is nodding as we speak.


Tags: brand, coffee, mobile phone, Starbuck’s, viral

Can’t Blog This!

That’s right kids. Much love to the Hammer. The internet saves yet another former star from Fox Reality Show Hell. However, I’m still looking for the blogs of Vanilla Ice and Tone Loc, who are both apparently now on tour. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.


Tags: Hammer Time, MC hammer, Vanilla Ice

My 15 nanoseconds of fame.

In case you missed it, I made it to the big time. Listen for yourself, courtesy of NPR. (Real Player required.) In case you’re coming over from NPR or the Consumerist Worst Company competition, welcome to Make The Logo Bigger. Yet another blog on advertising, marketing and whatever else it is an art director does.

Tags: bracket, consumer, Enron, Halliburton, March Madness, npr

Do people hate a company because of its logo?

Lest I get sued for implying Wonder bread is the official choice of the Nazi party while they Google facts about Enron, I’m not. During my NPR Market Watch interview segment about the Consumerist Worst Company debate, (airing this Monday, time TBD), an interesting question came up from reporter Ian Chillag which I hope makes it in:

Do people hate a company because of its logo?

After thinking of 22 responses in 3,000 words, I basically said no. My answer now is the one I wish I had given then: Don’t kill the messenger. The negative or positive feeling you have for a company or a brand is influenced by the quality of its product, and how it conducts business. Nothing more – nothing less.

A great logo won’t help a company that people despise. (Great pr might, but that’s another topic.) And likewise, a symbol that’s been around minding its own business can have negative associations attributed to it after the fact. The obvious example is the symbol of the swastika originally found in Hindu culture, later adopted by Native Americans and later, the Nazi party.

The high-profile logos above were chosen to represent various industries, from consumer products to a political movement. Some bad, some good. Again, as with any logo, how you react to it is based on how you feel about the brand. You can even test the theory without a logo if you prefer:

Coke. Halliburton. Sprint. Wal-Mart.

You probably reacted the same way, simply based on the emotion and experiences you have invested with those names. In all cases, your reactions transcend the vessel chosen to manifest the particular corporate image. In other words:

Don’t kill the messenger.

Tags: Enron, Google, logos, pr, swastika


The "Google" logo is a trademark of Google. The Wonder logo is a registered trademark of Interstate Bakeries Corporation.

Honda Element and animals use cutting-edge technology.

On the way into Manhattan tonight via the West Side Highway, I passed an outdoor for the Honda Element and its Animal campaign. As you might already know, the regular quarter-page print ads are a series of pithy comments between the Element and various animals. (That’s right, I said pithy.) The outdoor though poses a question and asks the driver whizzing by in two nano seconds to find the answer by using that most advanced of technologies – am radio. I then tune to 1630 am. (I did even though it was out of range after a mile or so.) However, considering the length of copy on the outdoor, it grabbed attention quite well. Once you tune into the radio station, the audio from the website spot plays. Great use of one media drving you to another, and great repurposing of existing content as a little editing turns a :30 TV spot into a radio spot.

Tags: advertising, am radio, Honda Element, viral

Make the logo bigger on NPR’s Market Watch

Ok, I’m a media whore. I admit it. Later today I’ll be interviewed on a segment for Market Watch on NPR related to the Consumerist Worst Company debate. Air time and date to be announced. I promise I won’t forget the little people on my way to the middle.

Tags: advertising, blogs, brands, npr

Do companies only use 10% of their brands?

Over at Ernie Schenck’s blog, there’s a debate on brands not utilizing non-traditional methods of marketing as much as we thought they might by now. It’s said we only use 10% of our brains. Well, can’t the same be said of agencies and companies using only 10% of their brand?

Instead of simply being waitstaff taking orders from the client, (say to make the logo bigger on the latest brochure), don’t both agency and client have a responsibility as partners to help develop the brand together in new ways that reflect the changes we’re seeing today?
(Continued here.)
I thought about this a little more after several recent pitches I was involved with. In both cases, there was only a narrow focus given to just one aspect of the brand, and almost no thought given to non-traditional techniques. With so many other avenues besides print available, it’s frustrating to watch agencies cling to what they’ve always done in past situations, just because it’s in their comfort zone. Evolve or die.

The old model says that spec is a four-letter word. Forget about showing new ideas without being paid for it! Well, I have to think that since more brands like Sprint will offer demos of their product to customers to have at it and give feedback, agencies might have to start doing that with their creative and their clients more and more. In my experience, I’ve watched a few clients take their brands elsewhere because they weren’t being shown new thinking by their existing agencies.

It seems like an obvious thing to try, but how many agencies actually do it? Would it be such a bad thing? Creatives and account group might actually get to break out of their routine and flex a little. Showing some far out ideas once in a while might just keep the client interested longer.

And for brands, those new ideas can come from anywhere, even though the vast number of agencies working on a brand don’t believe in this practice. Heaven forbid the sales promo agency comes up with a tagline the ad agency didn’t think of.

Check out a great book – Life After The 30-Second Spot from Joe Jaffe – a must-read for brands and agencies afraid or unsure of just how to take the journey into the modern age. I found myself nodding in agreement at the same mistakes agencies and brands make time after time.

I’ve always felt it’s not just one aspect of your marketing efforts (like print) that will promote or sell your brand – it’s all the things working together. You have to integrate everything, from the promotion, to the display, to the online component and beyond. This doesn’t mean either that you have to be a Crispin or W+K working on Coke or VW to apply this to your day-to-day brands.

Tags: brands, einstein, marketing, viral

Good-bye anonymous comments, we hardly knew yee?

My immortal beloved transplanted state NJ, is proposing a ban on all anonymous posts in internet forums. It’s intended to prevent potential defamatory remarks about someone that may damage a person’s image or reputation. Thing is, anonymous comments are what make the internet great. Like Alan Smithee at the end of a bad movie when the director wants to disassociate themselves from it, what better way to save your career from further damage?

In this case, write a bad post? No problem. Anonymous has you covered. Write a good post? No problem there either. Anonymous did it. And if it’s a great post, it may even go down in quote history: “When in Rome... .” Yeah, he wrote that. Anonymous can also be plural. Anonymous persons. In fact, Seinfeld rode to fame on the back of anonymous. “Who are these people?” Why, they’re anonymous Jerry.

(Continued here.)

While the intention may be good, this just smacks of a kneejerk reaction to an isolated case where someone got their feelings hurt online, and now they want a little internet justice. Another example of a scenario least likely to happen dictating policy for everyone. Great going NJ, but I got you beat before this is even signed into law:

1) More people will just sign up for even more fake yahoo usernames like ‘Ilovedisco1976’ and post comments through a series of proxy sites OR,

2) It will force them to become lawyers who smoke, and start including editorial disclaimers along with the words, ‘allegedly.’ Not to mention, chalking the post up to being nothing more than one’s own ‘opinion.’ You only need look at talk radio and all the comments made under the guise of ‘commentary’ to see how much shit they get away with.

Yo, NJ, there’s really an easier way. Just have the webmasters turn off the anonymous comments feature found in most forums. Works like a charm. Besides, anonymous comments are the training wheels of internet forum lurkers everywhere while they get their courage up to use a real user name like, makethelogobigger.

Yeah, no fake name there.



Tags: forums, law, New Jersey

Crispin podcast.

No, not Crispin Glover. Although THAT would be cool as hell. CP&B kids. I’m surprised more of the large agencies don’t have them. Check it out here, The Hook, with Katie Kempner. Big thanks to Tom at It’s All Advertising for the tip. It’s on webmasterfmradio.com, another online radio station. Listen deep to the cognitive anthropologists at work. The cast with Jeff Benjamin, their interactive CD is worth a listen, covering subservient chicken and a whole bunch of stuff.

Two words: sound quality. A cell phone to record the show? If you could afford to give everyone video iPods for x-mas, can’t you afford an iTalk mic on top of the iPod to record the show at least, or a $29 Logitech USB Mic?

Tags: CP&B, crispin, podcast, internet radio

It’s official: smokers more hated than lawyers.

Based on the seven people that actually visit here, smoking wins hands down as the one industry people wouldn’t work for in the recent poll. Which means lawyers actually win a popularity contest for once. Unless you’re a smoking lawyer, then it’s back to hell for you. (And in Australia, if you’re a smoking lawyer driving your BMW, watch out.)

Nintendo: Real fake viral?

By way of Tom who runs It’s All Advertising blog, comes this series of Nintendo virals. Whether created by the brand or consumers, it’s hard to tell. But, it seems like the way a true brand spot of the future could be. (Well, in advertising time, that word future usually means two weeks.) The people on stage recreating a scene from Super Mario is brilliant. Ok, that may be a bit much. A cure for cancer is brilliant. But, when you see these regular people doing cool things with your product, hats off. I have to agree with Tom: Nintendo, if you’re listening, this is how you get consumers to support a brand.



Tags: advertising, blogs, brands, Nintendo,

New AXE brandfotainment.

Brand. Informercial. Game show. Entertainment. Ad.

Brandfotainment? Where will this eventually end up. New AXE spots breaking this weekend tie-in with a 30-minute Spike TV special on Exposing The Order of The Serpentine. First, Druids for Emerald, now Serpentines. (Next up – Warlocks?) The reason for the campaign is to make guys shed their shame of the questionable hook up. Website is standard on this model naturally. What better way than through a serpentine wrapped in the style of a late-night local-access style spot. Funky on the order of the recent Slim Jim Fairy Snapmother spots. Definitely a departure from the more subtle “How Dirty Boys Get Clean” campaign.



Tags: advertising, axe, brands, viral

What type of client would you not work for?

I was thinking of this after reading the critique of Kobe’s new ad in several blogs. It got me thinking what would I do, if I was at WK and had a chance to work on that spot. (I wouldn’t have as much time to blog for one), but I would say to Kobe, be 100% honest or don’t do it at all.

Charles Barkley wants to tell me he’s not a role model for my kids. Fine I could deal, because that's his disclaimer which basically says “After I go out and drop 87 on the Clippers tonight, I’m hitting the town.” At least you know where you stand, and that with Charles, anything’s possible later that evening.

But, it also shows that we don’t have as much say in who our agencies take work from unless you’re high up in the food chain. Do we have a choice? Yes. Always. We can be the hero with principles and quit, or shut-up and take the check. (And I’ve refused a few checks and taken others over the years depending.)

Having said that, which industries would you rather not take on work from? Either due to moral priniciple or because it’s a creative black hole:

	Tobacco
	Gaming
	Alcohol
	Pharmaceutical
	Legal/Law
	Celebrity/Athlete with questionable past
Free polls from Pollhost.com