Back in ad school, we occasionally had The Baddys, which was an excuse to drink and display some rather pathetic concepts. But now with The Tracy Awards, anyone can upload a bad ad or comment on one. Here's a pretty easy target: There is, for each ad posted, an attempt to explain how or why the ad depicted is bad. Which I think is appropriate, otherwise making fun of bad ads is just shooting fish in a barrel. I do, …
Camp Mocs And A Fisherman’s Sweater, Man You’re Looking Good
The Wall Street Journal is noting that today's urban hipster is in search of timeless Americana and finding it in heritage brands. After years where a sexual ambiguity ruled, today's menswear designers are taking cues from yellow-paged copies of Field & Stream and L.L. Bean catalogs. Pioneering names like Barbour, Filson and Stetson are catchwords of the moment, while Gucci, Prada and Helmut Lang are sounding …
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Truly Awesome Towns Don’t Refer To Their Awesomeness By Name
Valencia, CA is Awesometown. According to Los Angeles Times, Newhall Land Development has used a variety of marketing slogans over the years to sell homes and recruit new residents to Valencia, its master-planned community in the city of Santa Clarita. But none grabbed the public's attention quite like "Awesometown." Witness, Who the fuck decided that Valencia, CA was Awesometown?, a Facebook page with over 4000 …
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It’s Not Just A Phone, It’s A Platform For Adventure And Invention
Martin Krejci of Stink has just finished another visual treat, this time to promote the launch of the new Nokia N8 via Wieden + Kennedy/London. …
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How Many People From Your Agency Went To Burning Man This Year?
Sid Lee is expanding to Toronto because its the fourth largest city in North America and the ideal place for a creative company to be. That is when the creatives themselves aren't "surviving" on the Black Rock Desert of Northwest Nevada. BTW, Sid Lee is hiring in Toronto, Montreal, Amsterdam and Paris. I wonder if Sid Lee will open an American outpost someday. …
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The Google Puts Its Display Advertising Front And Center
The Google is unveiling a new 35-foot-wide, 13-foot-tall billboard in Times Square today. According to The New York Times, the billboard will stand low to the ground and invite passers-by to touch it and watch videos about the display ad business. The billboard is part of Google's broader ad campaign called Watch This Space, which includes ads in trade magazines and other print and online media, to inform the …
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Run The Numbers
Chris Brogan, blogger, speaker and President of "Boston's Premier Social Marketing Agency," lets math help guide his business decisions. Yes, that stuff you endured in high school has real value. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking something I'm doing is really worthwhile, until I look at the number value of the things I'm doing. For instance, every time I fly somewhere, I effectively chew up 2-3 days. When I …
Are You Having Fun Yet?
Yesterday, after reading in Ad Age that creative people in advertising aren't having fun anymore, I made the following post to Twitter: Which led to some excellent "at replies" from Twitter users @missjenny and @emanuelbrown. @missjenny said, "Amen. My dad's a welder. He gets to say he's not having fun. I don't." And @emanuelbrown said, "The 'No Fun' article feels sycophantic to me. The fundamental issues facing …