Every year at the Academy Awards, winners take 15 minutes thanking everyone from their agent to the pool cleaner. What about a list for
our significant others? Those of the ad and marketing grunts of the world?
This is a business like no other. Freelance. Staff. Out of work. Back to freelance. Extra weekends. Late nights that too often become early mornings. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
We’re used to it. But the other half hates it. Hates the uncertainty of what we seem to wear as a badge of honor.
Like driving seven hours to Rochester. For a presscheck. In August. In a Honda Civic. With AC that works as long as you don’t go over 60. Yeah, right. If you’ve ever driven the NY state thruway up that far, you know you can’t drive it fast enough. Ever. 300 miles of cows.
In August.
After 105 mph, the AC morphs into ‘wisps’ from the vents that create a dilemma: drive fast and sweat, or go slow, watch cows –
and not sweat as much. All because the agency didn’t book a flight.
Speaking of great meals... the same old Chinese place delivering every night. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to have been somewhere that
bought their peeps a late meal. I have, and I haven’t.
As bad as this can be for us though, families put up with the worst part of it all: the absences. Does a bonus say thanks?
Only if it’s actually handed out. Do thank-you posts on blogs have any effect? Do company barbeques on weekends do enough? Doubtful, especially when you’d rather be home chilling with family.
(Unless Los Lobos was playing, then maybe, ok, that would be cool.)
Do awards make it better? For us maybe. Not them. Not unless they attend the show and hopefully hear
their name mentioned. Odds are low. I’ll tell ya’ when I’m one day lucky enough to win a Clio though.
Or how about that call where you’re trying to convince The Better Logo that you have to stay late and that “this will lead to something, I know it!”? Pure joy. An Xbox under the tree for the kids might ease the sting for them.
Not for us however.
Not when you’re thousands of miles away and it’s Sunday. Father’s Day. Your nine-year old son is pitching in Little League for the first time ever. And all you can do is work the freakin’ event you were sent to Reno for, hoping to convince a buyer to carry (insert product name of choice here) after plying him with free barbeque and Tequila.
Families think cool, Dad’s traveling. What a party. Bring me back something. Like Chris Rock says: Hold on.
Even the truely cool-as-hell moments on photoshoots in exotic locals are tempered. Tempered by the fact that
I was the only one benefiting from the moment, and that nobody from home could be there to enjoy it as well.
Yep. Glamour alright.
So for all the significant others who suffer, soldier on and still manage to smile, here’s to you. I
was going to buy you something nice on the way home, but none of us got bonuses, and I have to work late tonight.
Tags: advertising, brands, viral
Hope one of them was the marketing director who greenlit the recent testimonial ads with 40-year olds playing teens. While this isn’t the first time a company fired someone via email, 400 all at once is pretty ballsy. I’m guessing a few of those ex-employees may come back at a later date to ‘update’ management on their job search. I’ll be looking out for that breaking news on CNN. 
Just looking over some recent blog numbers here after the revamp and noticed a spike in subscribers. (Thank you Prague.) But the lone hero all along has been Bloglines. If you blog and haven’t signed up for a free account in their directory yet, go for it. I’ve had them from the beginning and they still account for half my subscribers out of about seven directories. Feedburner’s nice, but not even close at 10%. Bloglines: berry berry better.
Via Drudge comes word that it didn’t take long for couch jumper Tom Cruise to land a deal with support from Daniel Snyder. (He may be crazy according to some in the trade papers, but apparently cRaZy still works as long as you produce.) Even a Paramount associate saw a time in the future when they would would work with Tom again. Odder still, the partnership with Daniel Snyder. Guess he didn’t have enough to do running the Redskins 
Fly Spirit Air where apparently only people with mullets get to fly to Cancun cheaply. According to their pricing structure, it’s all business up front for $116 and a $29 party goin’ on in back. Nice target demo. Can’t wait to see the discounts for people wearing polyester pant suits.
Regardless of how I feel about the ESPN anchors being apologists for every troubled athlete out there, I gotta give props to the layout and design of ESPN the mag.
No wonder former employees show up in fatigues and carrying extra clips. If you haven’t seen them, Vehix.com spots feature an Agent Smith-like boss from the Matrix who challenges two employees to IMPROVE THE USER EXPERIENCE for customers. First, Carrot Top’s special cousin suggests things like window washers for cleaning computer screens, and stuff like wild ferrets and shit. To which Agent Smith turns to the other guy: “AND YOUR IDEA?” Of course, the Uber-youth employee of the decade answers the same way in every spot: “Vehix TV!” Smiles all around. Ahhhh.
Old-school record label design meets, um, something. Not sure what but for the design freaks out there, a bunch of cool vinyl and CD covers to check out.
I’m pretty sure McDonald’s Corporate didn’t have this in mind. From my absolutely favorite new site giantmonster.com comes Super Size Me 26” rims. I’m lovin’ it. I was looking for bigfoot photos and found this. (Seriously, don’t ask.) You will not find a better time-killing blog all year, guaranteed. The site also has stuff from astrophysics references to yeti crabs.
Ad freak Rikki down under needs votes for a contest. So go here and check out her designs ad bitches.
...was to let Ricky Gervais reprise his UK Office role and have at it for two Office Values corporate training videos along with his cohort Stephen Merchant. GP/Adscam > Tim/Adfreak > and Coolzor all found them and I’m late to the party. Sue me. But they’re funny as hell and worth mentioning here for anyone who missed them. The song at the end of the first video is one of the best highlights.
Just wrapped up an 8-day/7-night all-hands-on-deck pharma pitch. One year later and it was still the same exact brand I had last been called in to work on. The following 
Or not? Saw today that Ford will be laying off more people and cutting production by 20% of one of its most profitable product lines, the SUV. Bold move, or too little, too late?
Gee, can’t figure out why we have a gambling problem in this country. (I also heard OTB is working on My First Trifecta®, just in time for the kids at Xmas.) But what’s really ‘cool’ about this ‘addictive’ game is the name: Slingo. Half-bingo, half-slots – all EXCITEment!
That’s a lot in this ad for Empire Blue Cross, even for me. I just hope the consumer knows who the ad is for. Ya’ think? Thanks to HighJive for the tip. Pharma, ya’ don’t disappoint.
Read. This. Book. It’s called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. (Yes, The Tipping Point guy.) Props to Zeke for pointing it out and making me get it. If you’re in marketing, advertising and design, you owe it to yourself to get a copy as well. Even if you’re not in the biz, read it anyway. I see a lot of advertising blogs with the usual lists of ad books, and this should definitely be among those too.
What’d I say to you about doing that?
Assaulted on the way home tonight. The perp? This transit for Sleepy’s mattresses. Where do you start here? The levitating truck that’s derailed, or maybe the add-on mattress graphic on the truck? The just plain odd headline?
I don’t ever want to see this again in public. Ever.
A thought that I’ve been stuck on. These days all you hear is “consumer this, consumer that.” Consumers are hit over the head with messaging in almost every channel you can think of: indoor, outdoor, near the door, on-the-door, in-the-door, etc.
Geez. Every hour another gajillion clicks. That’s right, I said gajillion. Simple, yet funky production value that works. Also check out a sample of my version of the video.
Who’s in? Interesting point from Peter Davis that podcasts aren’t delivering content efficiently.
One of those days means one of these posts. There are two topics that intertwine here, so hear me out.
Brent Terrazas tipped me off to this new Mini work on his Everything’s Better With Brentter blog, from BSSP. Before I saw what it was about, my take on it with Brent was that Mini just needed to maintain awareness without reinventing the wheel for its core audience. From the looks of things, it could end up being a nice littel communal promotion for them.
