Sterling Cooper: Meet the guy who stole Dr. Scholl's

His name is still on the door—for a reason.

Why we need to hire Dan Schmidt

Dem brats look tasty.

Denver sucks less today 'cause of these guys. Now about Madison...

THE DENVER POST ON THE DENVER EGOTIST

"One of the blogs at The Denver Post just interviewed us on our views on Denver’s creative, its suckiness and our theory on how it can suck less. Check it out.

BSOA: Why is “attempting to help denver suck less, daily” your tagline?

TDE: Back when we started our site in July 2007, 416 days ago today, we put up a post that summarized our reasoning for The Denver Egotist’s existence. That post is here for reference.
To summarize, the creators of our site were off doing very creative things in very creative cities. We returned to Denver for individual reasons and collectively found Colorado dreadfully uninspiring and lethargic in its creative output.

Everyone worked in a silo. Everyone was fiercely protective of their work, afraid some other agency might sneak in and steal their clients. Everyone was looking inward for inspiration, instead of looking outward at shops in their own city and to the world beyond. There was no collective dialog or driver of provoking thought. Denver sucked. We wanted to create a place to open the eyes of the creative class and show them the bar they need to hit to play on a larger stage – and become the city we think we can become."

Sound familiar?

Amen.

Could. Not. Have. Said. It. Better.
The money shot:

"I suspect I’m spoiled because once, long ago, I worked at an agency that held creative briefs in the highest regard. They actually allotted more time in the schedule for the brief than was given to doing the creative. But, it worked. The brief was a thing of beauty; concise, well-written, full of pertinent information and lovingly crafted onto a single page. Not four pages. Not six. Just one page.

In a strong, bold face at the very top of the page was the USP; you could tell people had sweated over this sucker to get it spot on. Nights had been spent working on the direction and the strategy. The background work was done, but wasn’t overwhelming. It was simply there to give as much support as was necessary, nothing less and nothing more. The target audience was so clear, I could picture this person in my mind and have a conversation. The objective was definite and achievable. The supporting arguments were solid. From this one page, this advertising treasure map, any half-decent creative team in the land could have picked it up and churned out great work within a few days. That was, and is, the power of a good brief. And man, I miss it."

Kudos to Felix @ The DenverLongmont Egotist





(hat tip: DuranDurandrea)

The aroma of alcohol on your breath is apparent.

http://www.nicecritic.com/

The anonymous way to send a helpful message.

(For instance, to send "Your skirt may be tucked into your pantyhose", simply enter Wayne, wdk@waldbest.com and send this message)

Bang Bang

Frustrated? Need to release some tension? Help The Republik destroy their old Web site. Once you've cooled down, poke around their new site that has a different take on reaching it's visitors.

Click here for gunfire.

The Steve Show. How-To

Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs

1. Set the theme

2. Demonstrate enthusiasm

3. Provide an outline

4. Make numbers meaningful

5. Try for an unforgettable moment

6. Create visual slides

7. Give 'em a show (The Final Countdown possibly???)

8. Don't sweat the small stuff

9. Sell the benefit

10. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

The Business Week article goes into greater depth on each of the ten points.

He's got a point.

Shorter Seth:
Slick is the enemy of real—unless it's really, really slick (think iPhone et al).

Wayne, your new issue arrived.

Seth Godin on creating stories that resonate

Good take here on telling a story that resonates with people in the market. If we do it right—tell a story that resonates based on truth, we and our clients will be successful, and we can abandon the old notion that we, as advertisers, lie for a living in one fell swoop. 

William Drenttel on being a Mad Man

William Drenttel writes a great essay at Design Observer about being a Mad Man...some entertaining little stories are contained within.

About Mad Men

JC Penney teaches girls to avoid Wayne

Man, if Carrie had had this, there'd be no Leo. Woh.

Read more about it here.

Virtual Swag?

A good post and discussion going on over at 37 Signals about swag:

Enough with the USB-Key swag already!

Seems like every 6 mo. or so we have a project where we're discussing similar promotional items for projects. One poster mentions that at a conference he attended, everyone was giving out candy...one company, knowing what most of the exhibitors/sheep would give out, handed out small tubes of toothpaste with their logo on it, and it was the hit of the show...and tied in nicely with their brand/product.

The thought of virtual swag also came up, as a lot of the physical junk we get either in the mail or at shows ends up in a landfill somewhere.

Meet Web 5.0

This is what I'm talking about!

http://www.tunerooms.com/default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Hat tip to Cheryl Tessier.

Word of Mouth Advertising/What is is--Why we should care

Here are a couple blogs about WOM that are interesting and offer a good primer on this growing marketing discipline. Check it out--and let's get talking about it.

http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/

http://www.damniwish.com/

Think'n 'bout our crib...

A creative shop down the road from us (in a global sense), called GS Design has a wiggity-wacked workspace, and they do a great job showing it off via their website:

GS Design - just click on CRIB to take a tour...I love the little elevated (lightening round) nook where two people are reviewing concepts up on the wall. Good inspiration for our current space and wherever we land next.

Eulda - European Logo Design Annual

Eulda Logo Design Annual highlights some of the best logo work done in Europe.

European design trends

Design in Europe highlights some of the best design and creative being done in the EU. Lots of juicy inspiration and very current.

This is what I'm talking about.

http://yourethemannowdog.com/

Note to Wayne: You're the man now, Dawg!

Thanks for getting this up and running. This is 100% UpDog.

Rock the ferret.

dp

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