July 2, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Mark Wnek, chairman-chief creative officer of Lowe, New York, claims in Ad Age that he's not a great presenter, but that he has passion for the work and that's what's needed in a creative leader.

I have a confession to make: I'm a rotten presenter. When I think about the creative directors whom I most admire, they are all average presenters at best. Where their talents lie is in producing brilliant, effective work for their clients.

Most (me included) are no oil paintings. Many drink too much and throw tantrums. Mostly, they shouldn't be allowed out unaccompanied by an adult. Which reminds me of Baudelaire's definition of genius: the ability to recapture childhood at will.

The most important quality that all good creative directors share is a passion for great work. And passion isn't always pretty. Often it is messy, inconvenient, and un-house-trained. It doesn't always fit in an expensive suit or smart sports coat. It doesn't furnish its possessor with client-friendly savoir-faire.

I find it hard to believe Wnek lacks presentation skills. When I think of the Chief Creative Officers I've worked closely with--particularly Steve Stith at Integer and Scott Seymour at BFG Communications--they own the room when it is their turn to speak. Their personal presence and clear confidence in what they say and do wins clients over time and time again.

Wnek also brings up the spoiled child syndrome that threatens to discredit our industry. I have worked with whiny little babies before, but never have I thought they actually belonged in the agency. Advertising is a powerful industry full of creative and passionate people, all of whom ought to be capable of acting their age. I understand some choose to coddle the babies due to their ability to make ads, but that's a mistake in my opinion. There's lots of talent out there, so why drag yourself and your agency down with unnecessary drama?

Once a brand decides that they do in fact need to foster a deep and sustained relationship with their prospects and current customers, the question is "How?"

There are many suitable answers to this question, but one of the best answers is to stop talking incessantly about your product or service. Instead, talk about what's most interesting to the audience. Yes, it's a radical idea and one I recently helped bring to life for a big time consumer packaged goods brand.

Here's the thing: to operate successfully in a digital media environment, you need a thougtful, ever evolving content strategy. The Web is the fast click lane, and your best analog pitch won't get the job done. Instead of advertising, you need content that's worth seeking out, spending time with and sharing.

Are you with me? Good. Tell me you're committed to creating better online experiences for your customers. When I hear that kind of talk I get excited to go to work.

Please contact us to run your own Advertorial in this spot.

July 2, 2009 by danny g | Permalink | 1 Comments

News broke on Adweek yesterday that the Current Media agency review, first announced via Twitter, has been put on hold and that the person who initiated the review, Jordan Kretchmer, has left Current.

From Adweek:

When reached via e-mail, [New SVP of Marketing Michael] Streefland acknowledged the pause in the review, indicating that Current executives needed time to chart the brand's strategic course.

"The Current RFP triggered a lot of constructive internal discussion and we realized we put the cart before the horse and need to lay down some strategic direction before we engage with a creative agency to execute upon that direction," Streefland wrote. "Those discussions are happening right now and we should emerge in a few weeks with an update for the agencies."

Now, of course, some agency folks and other observers are all a-Twitter about how this whole thing was a dumb idea all along. My agency and I participated in the early stages of the review and we don't regret it for a minute.

Let's face it--the more things change, the more some things stay the same. Advertising account reviews are a shit sandwich and there's little changing that fact.

Jordan tried to inject a little transparency and open up the review to new agencies. I think it's great. It wasn't a perfect process and I don't think we'll see many others like it, but that's OK. That Current management itself doesn't have their act together has nothing to do with holding a review via Twitter. Client marketing departments are just as chaotic as agencies are these days. This surely isn't the first agency review that got stalled due to personnel changes. It won't be the last. Just more people know about it, as opposed to most mysterious, backroom, consultant-laden agency reviews.

July 1, 2009 by danny g | Permalink | 0 Comments

What can advertising pros learn from the dear departed Billy Mays?

I had a few thoughts, like this one:

Make a promise, not an overpromise. Sure, the yelling and selling makes it seem like the product being hawked will save your life, but actually, the promises made in most infomercials are much more mundane. You'll get out tough stains. You'll fix those hard-to-mend rips on clothes. While a lot of advertising implies that consumers will be sexier, happier, more powerful or more self-fulfilled, the infomercials only promise something tangible and little else. Which makes them more honest than most ads.

It's the subject of my new column on Talent Zoo, which will be on their home page tomorrow. But you can read it right now absolutely FREE thanks to this exclusive AdPulp offer! (Yeah I know, it is pretty damn annoying, isn't it?)

July 1, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Two years ago when Microsoft acquired aQuantive--a company that matches up advertisers and online publishers--the tech giant also became the new owner of Razorfish, a digital ad agency.

Reports are now circulating that Microsoft wants to offload that particular asset.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has retained the investment bank Morgan Stanley Co. to represent it in any Razorfish talks.

The approaching two-year anniversary of the $6 billion aQuantive transaction will allow Microsoft to receive more favorable tax treatment for a Razorfish sale, if it can find a willing buyer. A sale also removes any conflict of interest for Microsoft's media business units that court the almighty ad dollar from competing agencies.

June 30, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 2 Comments

Agency sites typically suck for a variety of reasons. They tend to be static affairs full of stilted language about proprietary methods and other chest beating nonsense. They also tend to sit idle for years before being swapped out, which is bad form for any company that needs to prove itself in digital media.

According to The Denver Egotist, Crispin Porter + Bogusky isn't going to play that tired old game any longer. The Boulder/Miami shop has launched a new site that Alex Bogusky describes as "a giant digital fishing net that gathers everything that's relevant about us and our clients."

Because the new design is a direct lift from Modernista's original idea, The Egotist isn't all that stoked:

In all honesty, they seem rather late to jump on this bandwagon--so the news is so-so exciting to us. For an agency that prides itself on its own PR, however, it'll be a great way to get the word out and to follow what's happening inside that giant circus tent.

I think any entity that's willing to cede control of its message, in part or in whole, to the crowd is making quite a statement (about the value of fearlessness).

June 30, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 4 Comments

Levi's is one of the most iconic brands in American history and in America today. Given that kind of solid bedrock to work with, a campaign that celebrates the Americaness of the brand seems like it might be a good fit.

Portland's Wieden + Kennedy, which picked up the $80 mil. piece of business six months ago is about to find out if it is, or not.

Stuart Elliott of The New York Times says:

The "Go forth" campaign is replete with Americana imagery, in keeping with research indicating that teenagers and 20-somethings are patriotic and optimistic about the United States. Those elements include the poetry of Walt Whitman, flags, paeans to the pioneering spirit, declarations of independence, salutes to hard work and, in the star-spangled tradition of Madison Avenue, copious amounts of nubile flesh.

Doug Sweeny, vice president for Levi's brand marketing, said the battle cry was to determine "how do we connect this 150-year-old brand with what is happening in the youth culture today."

Personally, I like the reimagining of America concept. Not because it might sell more jeans. Rather, it might get some people thinking BIG thoughts about our collective future in this nation. For instance, we will celebrate our freedom this Saturday, but when is the last time you asked yourself, "Free from what?"

Historically speaking, American independence is about freedom from British taxation. But who among us celebrates freedom from British taxation? No one. Instead, we celebrate a conjured up notion of freedom that says we are free to barbeque, drink beer and set off fireworks. I'd like to suggest there's a bolder path out there waiting to be discovered, one that isn't about "freedom from" an imposed restriction. Instead, we might focus on "freedom to" remake ourselves, our businesses, our cities and our nation.

June 29, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

"Dreams vs. Nightmares" is the latest installment in Honda's DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE documentary series. Launched in January, the series works to reveal the true essence of Honda's corporate philosophy.

"We hope to inspire our customers to see the possibilities beyond the nightmares they may read in the news," says Barbara Ponce, manager of corporate advertising for Honda.

The campaign which can be seen on Honda's Dreams Web site was developed by RPA, Honda's longstanding agency of record.

June 29, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 11 Comments

I'm pleased to see someone as prominent as Malcolm Gladwell take Chris Anderson's new book, Free apart at the binding.

Here's a passage from Gladwell's book review in The New Yorker:

His advice is pithy, his tone uncompromising, and his subject matter perfectly timed for a moment when old-line content providers are desperate for answers. That said, it is not entirely clear what distinction is being marked between "paying people to get other people to write" and paying people to write. If you can afford to pay someone to get other people to write, why can't you pay people to write? It would be nice to know, as well, just how a business goes about reorganizing itself around getting people to work for "non-monetary rewards." Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels? Anderson's reference to people who "prefer to buy their music online" carries the faint suggestion that refraining from theft should be considered a mere preference. And then there is his insistence that the relentless downward pressure on prices represents an iron law of the digital economy. Why is it a law? Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power. "Information wants to be free," Anderson tells us, "in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill." But information can't actually want anything, can it? Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle?

Up until now, my criticism of Anderson's latest effort, has mostly been about what I perceive to be horrible timing for his message that "information wants to be free" (which is something Stewart Brand first said). But then matters became much murkier when Anderson got busted for plagiarism, a charge which is typically a career killer for any writer, but apparently not for Anderson.

Virginia Quarterly Review discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources. But Anderson released an apology, citing production troubles as the cause of the oversight and Hyperion supports Anderson's explanation and promises the electronic and future versions of the book will be corrected.

Interestingly, Gladwell's review dismantles Anderson's thinking without any mention of the external realities swirling around the book.

I used to be open to the suggestions of men like Anderson, but now that I'm deep in to this journey as a mostly unpaid content producer, I'm finally asking tough questions, like why do I do this--AdPulp--for free? I thought I had some valid answers at one time, but now I see those old answers as mostly flimsy deceits. The real answer is I have no business providing this content for free. Literally, I have no business. You have a business when there is a sustainable revenue model in place. AdPulp doesn't have one. Nor does Twitter, You Tube or Facebook. I recognize what good company I'm in but ultimately I don't care about that. What I care about is that I am rewarded for my efforts, experience and skill and that my peers and co-conspirators are too.

June 28, 2009 by danny g | Permalink | 1 Comments

I'll have more to say later this week on what ad pros can learn from Mays and his ilk.

And the dude had a good sense of humor:

TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead at Florida home (from the AP)

June 27, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

A little over a year ago in Orlando, we happened to pick a Darden restaurant, Seasons 52, for Mother's Day brunch. It was a great choice and I thought at the time, Darden--which also owns and operates Red Lobster, The Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille and Bahama Breeze--must really know what they're doing.

According to a new feature in Fast Company, Darden does indeed know what it's doing. I particularly like how the article describes the careful brand caretaking that goes on.

Every year Olive Graden sends 14 top employees, many of whom have never set foot in Italy, to spend a week in an 11th-century village in Tuscany and learn from Sergio and Daniela Zingarelli, a husband and wife who operate a restaurant, winery, and inn. The couple and other local experts expose the Americans to everything from how olive oil gets pressed to how to layer flavors in a Bolognese sauce. The Olive Garden employees buy fresh vegetables at a market in Florence and prepare a multicourse Italian meal. Since 1999, some 850 employees have attended CIT; 80% of them are still with the company.

There are also "ideation trips" to Olive Garden's Culinary Institute of Tuscany, during which chefs work in local Tuscan restaurants. They have come back with dozens of ideas that have served to expand and update Olive Garden's menu. Gone are the days of puzzling hybrids like Italian nachos. Today, many items on the dinner menu carry a CIT logo, designating that they were inspired by a staffer's experience in Italy.

These experiences -- and menu items -- provide an authenticity that's rare for a chain.

The reason this is worth noting is Olive Garden understands that a superior experience in the restaurant can only come from motivated, dedicated staff. Olive Garden is helping its people believe in the brand promise, which directly impacts the customer.

Employees, Olive Garden CEO David Pickens says, need to believe that serving meals and cleaning tables and cooking pasta in a hot kitchen is meaningful. "It's very difficult for the experience of the guests to exceed the experience of the staff," he says. "We put the two together."

June 27, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Tom Peters, what have you wrought?

To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

These platitudes come rolling off the press and their shiny newness brings a crowd to ooh and aah. But that doesn't mean a solid case is being made.

It seems to me now that things are shaky shaky, people are starting to test the foundations. Nathan Burke, a Marketing Manager in Boston puts "personal branding" to the test and as you can see from his four-point argument against, personal branding fails big.

• It strips away our humanity and turns us into a fictional concept
• It describes something so inherently self-important and egotistical that borders on delusional
• I want to be a brand about as much as I want to be a building
• It's a stupid buzzword created to make something obvious seem more complicated and real

Burke adds, "I thought the ideas of 'social media' and 'transparency' were supposed to cut through all the corporate bullshit speak and promote the informal exchange of people using a human voice."

I like much of what Burke is saying, but it's also true that a digitally connected world where everyone is a content producer means that we need to organize and classify. It's a basic human response, to assign identity to others and to self. Do many people take this need to be identified way over the top and offend our finer sensibilities with their self-promo sledgehammers? For sure. But the concept of personal branding isn't the problem, in my opinion. The problem is poor execution of the concept.

June 26, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 0 Comments

Direct one-on-one advice from the world's most sage investor is priceless.

Scratch that, the price is $2.1 mil. That's the coin that Chinese Hedge Fund manager, Zhao Danyang paid to dine with Warren Buffett, a.k.a. "The Oracle of Omaha" at Smith & Wollensky's in New York yesterday..

According to Fortune, the money will go to charity. Bidding for next year's charity lunch with Buffett has already begun.

June 25, 2009 by danny g | Permalink | 0 Comments

...to remember when he was THE biggest star in the world.

June 25, 2009 by david burn | Permalink | 1 Comments

Sean Cummins, CEO of CumminsNitro in Brisbane, Australia, has enjoyed a stellar week at Cannes, winning an unprecedented three Grand Prix (in Direct, PR and Cyber) for a single campaign--the "Best Job in the World" effort for Tourism Queensland.

In related news, Dion Hughes of Persuasion thinks award shows are "crucial" for the ad biz. I don't share that sentiment, although I do see the truth in some of the driving factors Hughes' makes mention of.

The creative people working through the weekend on your business are not doing it just so they can sell your product, make you happy and keep their jobs. They're doing it because they want to come up with something better, something that will make them famous, or at least worthy.

Join the debate on Hughes' site, or get in to here.