“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