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Dead Horse

Six Ways Ad Agencies Are Reeling in New Business Now

Via Advergirl + AdAge.

All about agency branding, and how to have a branded, recognizable, provocative, relevant point of view that delivers customers and new business. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

AdAge's six things:

NETWORK INNOVATIVELY
SHOW YOUR SOCIAL-MEDIA SAVVY
ADOPT A RECOGNIZABLE PLATFORM
BE WILLING TO CONTORT
WRITE A BOOK
OFFER A DIRECT LINE TO THE CEO

Advergirl's take(in response to ideas presented in the third point, above):

Smart idea. Increasingly, our clients - and our potential clients - need to justify their budgets and their decision making to senior leadership. They need an easy way to say why this company / why now / what the impact will be.

Here is a reader comment from the Advergirl post:

"There can't be a more nebulous and intangible idea than the value of the advertising agency itself in the mind of the potential advertising client. If an agency can't solidify it's own abstract value in terms that are appreciated by the potential client, then what are the chances they can help the client with the same problem?"

A. Men. There isn't, and WON'T BE a more urgent time to answer the above question respectfully and honestly.

Uh. Oh. Apparently you Mac people do win

New state logo aims to boost tourism, commerce, agriculture

Live Like You Mean It

Wow. It would appear, someone slipped a story intended for the Onion, into the Wisconsin State Journal. How could this happen?! ;)

Alright, it's real. And it's abysmal. :(

Pixar makes me puke.

From unalloyed jealousy.



Bastiges!

Creative cojones

Sometimes you have to force feed the client in order for them to recognize great creative work.

Y&R did it for Craftsman.

And me, I'm working on an 8-page brochure.

There is a world out there that we know nothing about.



I am chastened. And inspired big time.
And spell-checked by my B#$%H Mistress, WhitBull.
...thank you, m'am, may I have another...(whimpers)...

WBe Wii Tourny prehighlights

New and Improved

This product advance seems a long time in coming...errr...going.

Audi Q5 ads

I really like this campaign for the new Audi Q5, obviously aimed at the upscale, affluent car buyer. It takes aim squarely at Lexus. It's creative and it gets right to the point of differentiation. And it's not a typical automobile "beauty" ad.

OMMFG! This rocks!

This is the future the RIAA is so dang worried about.



And for good reason too.

(h/t Andrew "Funkhouse" Sullivan)

Remember the T-Mobile Train Station video?

Here's what it took to make it.



Man, am I jealous.

(h/t The Daily Dish)

What type of meeting are we having?

What a simple yet powerful question. According to Seth Godin, there are only 3 types of meetings:

Information

This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it's primarily designed to inform.

Discussion

This is a meeting where the leader actually wants feedback or direction or connections. You can use this meeting to come up with an action plan, or develop a new idea, for example.

Permission

This is a meeting where the other side is supposed to say yes but has the power to say no.

More cats for the Vor Ace

Virtual Tourism

I don't know if anyone loves Google Streetview as much as I do (I tend to wander the streets of Madrid quite frequently), but I just came across this blog post (via Google's new Twitter page). Viewing popular landmarks on Streetview will now bring up user-contributed photos of that exact spot. And, if you'd like to see more from a particular author, you can connect directly to his/her Panoramio page (*gasp* social networking).

It is a small world after all.

8 week 8K Training Schedule

Whoa, your legs look Ca-razy!

Hey y'all. Don't forget to let WhitBull know if you are interested in being part of the W&B Crazylegs team. You'll get a shirt and hat (which I'm sure is really cool looking and should be worn out of the house as much as possible).

You don't have to be a runner to join - there is also a walk. This is a great way to support the new era of candy-free healthiness that is taking over the office.

For more info, click here.

The finish line in Camp Randall.

Rule to work by

Social networking: The Good/The Bad.

Seth Godin on the above. Needless to say, he's got an opinion.

"Rebranding" is a stupid idea about 90% of the time, the end. - Gawker

Amen.

(Hat tip/Durandrea McGawkerite)

The Fast Company has listed their 2009 50 most most innovative companies. Lots to be gained from looking at how these guys walk and talk.

I would say, some good goals for us would be not only to learn from(and embrace) their successes and bold thinking, but more importantly, what can we do to innovate ourselves—something others would like to copy, from us.

Instead of us twittering about what others are doing...wouldn't it be great to see someone twittering about what we're doing?! <-- That's my goal for 2009...we have the people, the creativity to do it. We just gotta make the choice, and give it some gas.

Oh man, is this great.

No Cowboy from Ritxi Ostáriz on Vimeo.

I am in awe.

In Praise of: Pure Concept.

A great example of showing without telling.
Didn't have to hire a VO either. Nice.

The Cat Guy

Has anyone else noticed that the VOR ACE has been a little obsessed about cats lately?!

I'm not a big fan of greeting cards. But man, there are some twisted people bringing some wicked good stuff. 

Advegirl

Someecards.com

Mac n' Cheese to go with your Pepsi

[via Brand New] Kraft foods announced this week a rebranding of their corporate identity.

From BrandWeek: "The new logo was conceived as part of a several month design process, where more than 7,000 employees and consumers worldwide were asked for their feedback. Kraft asked consumers in cities like Chicago, Paris and Shanghai such questions as: 'What do you look for in a food company?' 'How do you engage with food generally?' and 'What are the moments of that relationship that are important to you?' The findings resulted in a corporate logo that is 'more contemporary, the colors are more vibrant and it has a life to it,' West said."

The Brand New write-up is right-on. I do believe if you asked 7,000 people to jointly design a corporate identity logo, this is what it would look like.

This commercial is brought to you by the Tour of California

Amgen flips the script and creates a great website for road bike fans following the Tour of California. It's a wonderful example of people gratefully watching marketing messages when presented with valuable reasons to do so (lots of ongoing race stats, etc.).

Know something about everything and everything about something.

Some words of wisdom — not from me

Art directors need to understand and respect copy.

Copywriters need to understand and respect art direction.

Account planners have to be creative and recognize great work.

Read the whole list  here... from the creative folks at Makin' Ad blog

What if this was for Brennan's?

This is user-generated content at its best.
As of time of this posting, it's had 192,264 views. Wow.

Microsoft fights fire with fire...er...Alexa.

Remember how bad MicroSeinfeld and even the first "I am a PC" spot was?
This is much better.
I think this campaign has legs (as long as they keep up the quality of the kids). It's a demonstration spot that screams "this is easy."



What a novel concept for MS (where'dya think they got it?)

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

To add to what Chad posted below, there are some more examples of this abomination of a brand redesign at Brand New (saw that great interpretation of the new logo in the comments):

The Wrong Kind of Breathtaking

 

The secret design theory behind the new Pepsi logos is discovered. WOW! I never knew so much went it to logo design. Does WB have a process like this?

cell phone reunion

Are all iPhone owners like this? Hell ya booooy!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1899978

Copy or no copy?

product: Aquafresh Flex Top Toothbrush

headline copy: Cleans all gaps.

Does this ad even need the headline? I think the visual does a great job of showing how the new flex top works as well as dental floss (at least that's what I'm getting out of it) to clean all tooth surfaces. Thoughts?

Hey, I know that dude

Neil Fauerbach needs our help.

The photo was taken at the Fauerbach Brewery at the corner of Williamson and Blount on April 7, 1933 — the day Prohibition was repealed, making it legal to drink beer in Madison for the first time in more than a decade... Read the rest of the article:

Wayne, time to up your game.

You've just been served.

Word of Mouth Marketing: An interesting perspective

John Moore is a WOM blogger I like to follow.
He's got a bunch of interesting slide shows on his blog worth viewing. Here's one on Creationist vs. Evolutionary word of mouth marketing.

Happy Birthday, Claire!

Today is my daughter Claire's 8th birthday. Happy Birthday, Claire Bear!



Yesterday, however, was Basecamp's 5th birthday. I saw this and it really sums up why I'm such an evangelist for this great collaboration tool.

From Jason Fried's post:

"Today is a very significant day in the life of 37signals and Basecamp (and, indirectly, Ruby on Rails). Today Basecamp turns five years old.

We launched Basecamp with a post right here on Signal vs. Noise on February 4, 2004. No traditional PR blitz, no advertising, no real expectations of big success. Just a product and a post and “let’s see what happens.”

Basecamp was a side project. We were a web design firm at the time. We built Basecamp because our projects and client communications were a mess. We were using email to update our clients. That works for about 5 minutes, then goes from ripe to rotten pretty quicky.

We looked around at some of the industry standard project management tools at the time. The leader was Microsoft Project. We didn’t get it. Projects aren’t about charts, graphs, stats, and reports. Projects aren’t broadcasts. Projects are about people and communication and collaboration. Projects are about back-and-forth, give and take.

Collaboration, not management

We also didn’t really like the idea of “management.” Management is hard work. Management is administrative. Management gets in the way. Collaboration better described what we were after."

I second all that. Happy Birthday, Basecamp!

Real—or real lame?

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks. And in light of the previous post (that I think is a fabulous example of this technique being done the right way), I tender this counter example.



It's faker than the "Hey, I'm looking for something sweet that doesn't mess with my workout" faux-mercials in The Biggest Loser.

The snowboarder? Don't ya think he's miked a little too well.
But he said "@#$%," it must be real. Yeah right.
But he tripped. Poorly performed in IMNSHO.

How do I know for sure? My sister is the chick in the scarf about 3/4 way through. She's an improv comedian in Denver hired to "create excitement" in the crowd. Her boyfriend froze his @$$ off for hours as one of the network drones.

Lame concept + thousands of dollars in production costs = lame with extra lame sauce and a side of lamey mclame.

'Ello From Liverpool

This little advert will make you get up and dance

Top 25 Reasons Why Ad Agencies Should Start a Blog

Someone I follow on Twitter posted this article, which I found semi-relevant to a conversation the boys were having about our Web site.

Read it.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Remember those old alternate ending stories of years ago?

Meet the YouTube version.



(Hat tip: The ubiquitous Andrew Sullivan)

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

And this, B****ES, is what magic looks like.

From Jane Kramer's email (edited for brevity and my emphasis):

"Recently we produced a brand new ad for club car that will be taking our Honor The Game concept to the next level.

The visual of this ad is a club car semi truck traveling down a highway with a beautiful landscape surrounding it. It is our flagship image for this new campaign and the theme of upcoming tradeshows. using the truck as an icon for strength, reliability and dependability we are illustrating how club car is "Up to the Challenge" during these tough times for the golf industry.

With little money and no time to go shoot we found an amazing solution (by accident!!) that I find unbelievable. Originally we were going to use a stock shot and retouch it because of time issues.... But most importantly time was THE issue as the PGA show begins tomorrow and we needed to do a huge banner for their trade show booth. It was due three days after we got the assignment.

A traditional retoucher vendor of mine led me to a man named jesse zamjahn. I believe he is from wisconsin but currently lives and works in france. He does retouching/3D imaging/CGI and digital illustration. He takes 360 degree 3D models and makes them look like photographs. He places them on backgrounds for which he also has 360 degrees of options to choose from. His work is amazing and the added bonus was that because of the time change in france he would work while we were sleeping and I would always have something first thing in the morning to look at. Distance was actually a plus! We did all our work back and forth through email, ftp and ichat.

It went incredibly smoothly. He found the exact model of truck that club car uses, I picked a background and angle of the background that I liked. I picked the sky I wanted. My club car candy store! The rest is what you will see. Can you tell I'm excited about it? Anyway...

Check it out. And check out his entire site: www.pixteur.com. All the car shots you see are fake! They are 3D models that he can make look real.
It blows my mind."

(Hat tip: Jane Kramer @ NS)

Interesting art in NYC

I think it's brilliant that someone thought to do art over the subway!
@

Get Faced? Or Tweeted?

Been trying to figure this out myself.

Stolen from the linked post:

"So Which Social Network is the Best?

While zealots will immediately point to either Twitter or Facebook as being superior, the truth is that each has its advantages and disadvantages and will tend to appeal more to different types of people and for different reasons. Each can have great or little value to anyone; it really depends on what you are trying to accomplish in a given situation. Consider some of the pros and cons of each network:

Twitter Pros

• Easy to navigate and update, link to and promote anything
• Reach far beyond your inner circle of friends
• One feed pools all users; anyone can follow anyone else unless blocked
• Pure communication tool, rapid responsiveness
• You don’t have to be logged in to get updates; you can just use an RSS reader
• Very interactive, extensible messaging platform with open APIs
• Many other applications being developed (Twitterific, Summize, Twhirl, etc.)
• Potential SMS text messaging revenue from wireless networks (although Twitter states they are not currently getting any cut)
• Potential future advertising and/or enterprise subscription-based revenue streams
• With its “thin” overhead, Twitter is probably more scalable than Facebook, giving it a cost advantage

Twitter Cons

• Limited functionality; find people, send brief messages, direct replies
• Limited to 140 characters per update
• Not all people find it immediately useful
• Over-emphasis on follower counts
• Easily abused for spam and increasing the noise level
• Relatively smaller installed user base
• As yet no readily apparent monetization strategy

Facebook Pros

• Application mashup; find people, make connections, email, instant messaging, image/video sharing, etc.
• Most people can quickly grasp the value of connecting with friends, family and established contacts; some people report they use Facebook instead of email and IM
• More emphasis on deep connections with others vs. who has the most connections
• “True Friends” feature increases your transparency to selected connections; almost like having private and public profiles
• Huge, rapidly growing installed user base
• Inherit stickiness, third party applications, “gift giving” and personal data collection make Facebook a powerful advertising platform

Facebook Cons

• More difficult to navigate and update
• Requires investment of time to realize sustained benefit
• Opt in model requires a user to allow others to connect
• Less immediate responses; unless you stay logged on continually
• Overhead of mashup and “thick” applications could limit scalability, bloat cost structure"

the the impotence of proofreading

Disclaimer: Some language may not be suitable for children

TRUE campaign video

FACE BUILDER!

Veer has an addictive mini app for faces... make your profile picture here.

Our new agency video...

...will be based on this.



(That third guy? Wayne's better looking brother).

iPerfect

High technology meets low comedy.
And the results speak for themselves.



(Hat tip: Darin "CheeseCutter" Tessier)

In praise of: Editing

Great editing can make anything happen.
Billboard's Top 25 of 2008.

Goodbye 2008...or 1985

I found this via Daring Fireball, another quote from Steve Jobs, about looking forward(from an article by Steven Levy on the Mac's 25th birthday). Hate to beat a dead horse, especially in the New Year, but this hammer ain't goin' away anytime soon. To quote Axel Rose's Chinese Democracy, "all I got is precious time."

Steven Levy:

It's the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, but Steve Jobs' eyes are dry. At the company headquarters in Silicon Valley, where he was presenting a set of new laptops to the press last October, I mentioned the birthday to him. Jobs recoiled at any suggestion of nostalgia. "I don't think about that," he said. "When I got back here in 1997, I was looking for more room, and I found an archive of old Macs and other stuff. I said, 'Get it away!' and I shipped all that shit off to Stanford. If you look backward in this business, you'll be crushed. You have to look forward."