The creative gang bang. Don’t fret, it is nothing that would land me in a sexual harassment lawsuit. It is a Darwinian approach, common at most agencies, where the best work rises to the top through creative team (writer/art director) competition. Only now, with the proliferation of the internet, the concept is going global. Clients can post their creative brief and creatives do the assignment pro bono hoping they can win a grand or so for their time and effort. Is this a good idea? For a one-off, perhaps. Or for clients who have no relative brand identity. Or for clients that burn through agencies because they hate trusting anyone besides themselves. But while a former art director partner of mine is worried about the ramifications of such trends, this creative director is not. Great work comes from great relationships. Shared passion for the brand. Greater insight working together from strategy to focus groups to production. I would think clients would want an agency who was 100% invested and cared about the work working, the phone ringing, the web hits rising. And I’m glad I work at that kind of agency. So if you want to work with us, we’ll pitch you some great ideas. But we won’t pitch them through the internet.
A while ago a group of my friends and I started a Monday tradition, Michigan Mexi Monday, or M3 for short. It’s something we all have in common – a love for Michigan and Mexican food.
Basically whoever hosts the dinner has to spend $10 of the grocery bill on Michigan products.
We were inspired by an article on mlive that talked about the need to keep Michigan money in MI. The Michigan Department of Agriculture chief was quoted within the article saying, “If every Michigan household spent just $10 of their weekly grocery budget on local foods, we would keep more than $37 million each week circulating within the state.” Yes, you read that right, $37 million each WEEK.
I’m also trying to incorporate the buy local idea into our company. We just signed up for a local farm share program and anytime possible we use vendors and materials made here. But I need more ideas - what are you or your company doing to keep money in Michigan?
Speaking of - if you are in the market for a local ad agency, I know just the place ; )
A lot of the talk these days is that the end is coming for the newspaper industry. It seems like just about every day I am hearing about another newspaper that is closing its doors after serving communities for 50 plus years. Being that I have grown up, in what use to be a top 10 DMA, I turned to Detroit News and Detroit Free Press to see what they are doing to weather the storm. After close examination it seems like there isn’t even a storm for them to weather. They have reinvented themselves to stay ahead of the ever-changing world of print. They have created multiple platforms for you to get your daily news: home delivery, newsstand, online, as well as an electronic edition. An even more exciting way to get the news is on e-reader. They have changed the delivery days, but still give you access no matter what. In addition to having an outstanding news product they have fantastic reporters that win Pulitzer Prizes. The paper is evolving all around from reporting to delivery structure. They have created a model that is well ahead of the curve and that other papers across the nation will soon take notice. How is your hometown paper weathering the storm?
Again we ask: “How far is too far”, in advertising? Being in the ad business I can imagine looking at this spot for domestic abuse as a potential award-winner (and it probably will win something), however I wonder how it makes people who aren’t in the business feel shocked that someone would produce such a commercial. ABC’s Good Morning America asks the same question whether this spot is too graphic. What do you think? The statistics on how many women are abused are shocking enough!
With a headline worthy of the Weekly World News, AdAge.com reports on an interesting promotional icon that has arrived in Times Square. The 20-foot reproduction of a human colon is part of a colorectal-cancer awareness campaign presented by the Prevent Cancer Foundation and pharmacetical giant Sanofi-Aventis. The video outlines a smart, converged campaign that involves PR, promotions and social media. Yes, evidently the colon even has its own Facebook page. You can view a video of the story here: http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1266084202
The campaign is really smart and actually makes me yearn to be the one in charge of writing the press releases for this. Can you think of some headlines of your own? Please comment with your best creative headline for the Giant Human Colon. Here is mine:
Giant Human Colon is Number Two Attraction in Times Square
Layoffs. Budget cuts. Credit crunches. Looking for the silver lining? Brogan & Partners is offering an opportunity for FREE recession strategy brainstorming sessions. It’s three hours with one of Detroit’s most innovative ad agencies. You’ll get our top marketing, media and creative minds — with no cost, obligation or strings. If you’re looking for creative new ways to make your brand work harder, today may be your lucky day.
No, I’m not talking about the game – that was awesome! I’m talking about the advertising.
Yes, the economy is in the tank. And yes, the general public probably doesn’t want to see an over-the-top 30 or 60 second commercial that cost more than the budget of a small country to produce. But for pete’s sake, if you’re going to spend $3 million (or more) on a Super Bowl ad, with all of those eyeballs glued to the tube to watch your pitch, then do something interesting!!!
Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of laugh-out-loud moments (Ed McMahon/MC Hammer shilling for Cash4Gold and the Monster.com moose head spots), but overall I think most brands played it way to safe. And I don’t think we’ll be remembering any of these spots 1, 5 or 10 years from now (especially the Danica Patrick spots for GoDaddy.com).
Thankfully for viewers the game was great, but it’s too bad the advertisers didn’t even come close to a touchdown this year.
Let us know what you thought.
But before you do, take another look at a spot from LAST YEAR’s game that I think is one of the all time greats. It’s got nostalgia, humor, great special effects, drama and an unexpected ending that is the icing on the cake. Man, I can watch this spot over and over and never get tired of it. Enjoy!
I have all the symptoms: Those familiar nervous sweats watching television, unexplained competitive edge for really non-competitive things (like walking up the stairs), and an urge to start chanting “U-S-A” at inappropriate times.
Yep, you guessed my affliction: Olympic fever.
As long as I, and a bunch of other people (a few billion), still have this affliction, advertisers will be using every single break in the action to sell us their products. As if the whole event were some drawn out Super Bowl, the same Olympic-themed ads keeping playing over and over.
So, what makes a good ad? Well, here is what I’ve got so far…
Visa:
When asked what ads they remember from the Olympic games, 2 out of 3 (67%) Brogan & Partners employees mentioned Visa’s “Go World” ad first. In these spots we get Morgan Freeman speaking about the wonders of Olympic glory as we see, what looks like old newsreels, of previous Olympics.
If there is one ad campaign that fully grasps the amazing feeling of human achievement and pride those who suffer from Olympic fever truly enjoy, it’s this. I’m not sure what Visa’s Go World thing is all about, but I just love how great these ads make me feel about humankind.
I posted one of the best below. Morgan Freeman talks about how Michael Phelps is like a dolphin. Just classic!
Coca-Cola:
As an official sponsor, no one business could possibly spend more than Coke on advertising on TV, and in Beijing. NPR reported last week that Coke has spent an estimated $70 million to be one of the top 12 Olympic sponsors — and perhaps $5 million to $15 million more sponsoring the controversial torch relay (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93389797&ft=1&f=1001).The Coke TV ad we’ve been seeing most is one with people rollerblading around in, what looks like, southern California, drinking coke, and the music plays in the background: “Dance all night, we’re gonna dance all night, dance all night to this DJ.”
The ad might have nothing to do with the Olympics, and only a vague sport theme, but it is one of the most memorable ads because the song (Paul Oakenfold’s “Starry Eyed Surprise”) is catchy, fun to watch, and, most importantly, the ad is so short you aren’t worried that you are going to miss the next event.
If you are like me, and having a hard time getting “Starry Eyed Surprise” out of your head, just go over to Paul Oakenfold’s myspace page for a free listen: http://www.myspace.com/pauloakenfold
NBC:
As with any sporting event, the only way the station can actually benefit from broadcasting them, is if they advertise heavily for their own shows. One thing unique about all the ads for returning shows, like Chuck and 30 Rock, is that they are emphasizing NBC’s website and telling viewers to “chime in.”
Unsure of what that exactly “chime in” meant, I decided to investigate. I found nothing on NBC.com about chiming in and chimein.com does not exist. So, I checked out You Tube and found a longer NBC “chime in” commercial. The only clue I could find to the message’s meaning was the guy from The Office saying, “when you hear the chimes, you know it’s going to be good” in some apparent reference to the upcoming fall season.
Well, if anyone can tell me what this campaign is all about, I’d love to know.
AT&T Wireless:
In one of the funniest ads I’ve seen in a long time, a huge Michael Phelps fan, Mary, is seen walking around her apartment in a “Phelps Phan” T-shirt, kissing a huge Phelps poster, and watching him competing on TV. Mary’s phone (represented by the same actress) complains that it doesn’t get any wireless signal in her new town and, because of this, missed Phelps when he came to town and told funny stories about eating Chinese food. Mary’s phone then turns to her and says, “One day we’ll look back at this and laugh…or cry!”
Prepare to laugh:
McCain/Obama:With the added exposure of viewers, it’s only natural that the wealthiest presidential candidates are spending millions on advertisements. Obama’s ads have focused on using the word ‘change’ over and over, showing him meeting with “real people”, focus on his plans for the environment, and pretty much bore you to death. His campaign would be better off playing the hit You Tube video, “I got a crush…on Obama”, by Obama girl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU).
Taking the controversial route, McCain’s now famous (it’s been out for two weeks –so that’s like two years in political advertising), “Celebrity Obama” ad shows Paris Hilton and Britney Spears superimposed over Obama. The ad is supposed to use subtle clues to show that Obama is just another celebrity, and not someone you want as president. Well, the clues are hardly subtle, and the ad itself has been made into a huge joke - commented on by everyone for Brian Williams to David Letterman. Yet, McCain’s campaign keeps using it. Watch the ad here:
I know I’m treading dangerously on this topic, but I did find a Republican blogger, Richard Bliss, slamming the ad as “stupid” and benefiting Barack Obama (http://gwbliss.blogspot.com/2008/08/olympic-advertising-good-and-stupid.html). I can’t tell you exactly how effective or ineffective this ad is without a lot of market research, but I will say that it is my opinion is that people aren’t as dumb as an ad like this would have you believe; TV viewers know when an ad is trying to trick them and this one couldn’t be more obvious.Well, that’s all for now. The Olympics aren’t over yet and I’m sure I’ll still have a lot more to comment on before it is all said and done!
Do you like using white boards? Or does the very idea of a “brainstorming meeting” make you want to run for cover? Our advertising agency trade association Second Wind, www.secondwindonline.com, recently had a discussion about how their member ad agencies approached concepting and developing ideas. Here are some of the techniques used:
Floor-to-ceiling cloth tack boards: good for tacking up sketches and concepts, fun for cats
Galvanized metal walls: add giant magnets, large pads and markers and voila, your industrial space is instantly creative times ten
Gigantic sticky notes: Any smooth surface becomes a showplace for your creative energy. Great for those-who-will-not-be-ignored
Cork boards: Old school, and remember tacks can be tons of fun. Cork is ugly too.
Erasable white boards: Beware of the danger of sniffing the erasable markers. Also, for big fun, mix in a few permanent markers with the erasable ones.
Walls painted with chalkboard paint: Now any workspace can become a chalk dust choked den of creative output.
The absolute very best thing about a creative wall is the idea of just leaving things up for collective individual commentary. Now all the snarky comments you were afraid to voice publicly can be posted anonymously, provided you can disguise your handwriting.
What do you use? Does it enhance productivity? Do you have a “community comment wall”? What is best about it? Is it fun or a time waster?
The advertising person’s role on any side of the business is to help a company understand its customers and their needs better; to help a company respond to and speak to those needs, efficiently and effectively. Advertising is an honest business, a noble business, the engine of the American economy.-Bob Lauterborn
Lauterborn, James L. Knight Professor of Advertising a the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina, can take a complex concept and condense it to its most brilliant and concise truthfulness. Really, the guy creates intellectual diamonds.
So what does that quote mean to us in the advertising business? Simply said, everything in advertising starts with the customer, involves the customer and ends with the customer. The minute advertising becomes “to” the customer instead of “about” the customer, it begins to be a waste of time and money.
Look at the best advertising: it tell the customer more about THEMSELF than the PRODUCT. Every aspect of the message addresses the customer and the customer’s need.
When you see an advertisement that you don’t get, know that you are NOT SUPPOSED to get it. It isn’t about you and it isn’t for you. And then try to figure out how you happened to see the message… are you a 60-something watching MTV?
“Know thy customer” is worth repeating. And Bob Lauterborn explains why so well.
The other day, I was asked to speak at Robert Lauterborn’s class at UNC-Chapel Hill. He teaches a really interesting class on how to be a good client. Last year after I spoke to the same class, I wrote ten ways to be a good advertising client on my other blog, Life Is Marketing.
This year, Bob passed out an article by Lee Anne Morgan where she talks about the relationship between clients and agencies. She makes some excellent comments, including:
Many advertisers no longer perceive their agencies as partners but as vendors. There are differences though between being a partner and being a vendor. And these differences affect motivation, inspiration, dedication, truth, skin-on-the table…and an environment where creativity is easily birthed.
Lee Anne understands that agency-client relationships are not all about analytics. Check out this comment:
Every time an agency is fired, every time an advertiser feels it is not receiving value for their investment, and every time an advertiser and agency split asunder before taking all the steps they can towards partnership retention, then some ‘thing’ more intangible than metrics and profits, yet equally yoked, is at stake: that fragile space in which human values and creativity are cradled.
Well said, Lee Anne. Her whole article is worth reading. I hope you’ll spend the time to do so.
With more and more traditional and non-traditional marketing opportunities available to companies these days to build their brand, it’s no wonder the death of the 30 second spot continues to be a topic of much conversation. And one example of the untruth to that discussion is coffee juggernaut Starbucks’ recent launch of their first national TV campaign earlier this month.
Starbucks, a company who has mastered the art of non-traditional marketing with a storefront on almost every corner, and has traditionally turned up their nose at TV advertising, is suddenly embracing the idea of mass media advertising through TV. Yes, they’ve run spots before for their packaged product Doubleshot (the “Gene, Gene, Gene” spot is still one of my favorites), but with increased competition in the retail coffee biz, and more importantly slower sales and decreasing share price, Starbucks believes it needs to reach out to a broader audience.
“As a national leader, we have an opportunity to make sure our voice is heard in the all-important media of TV. This is the beginning of a new opportunity for us,” Chairman Howard Schultz said at the announcement of the campaign. “We are up for the defense, and we will get on the offense.”
So in an effort to get people in the doors and sales and share value moving upward again, Starbucks decided that their plan of attack in the coffee wars would be through a new warm, fuzzy, animated TV holiday campaign that uses the tagline “Pass the Cheer.”
But on top of all the competition with other coffee chains and independents, Starbucks also has to defend against the deep pockets of McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts who are spending considerable budget on marketing their coffee drinks.
Will the “new” tactic work? Only time will tell who’ll win this over-caffinated battle, but it’s nice to see recognition of the power TV advertising is to the importance to a brand.
interesting class on how to be a good client. Last year after I spoke to the same class, I wrote 
