Announcing the launch of AdPulp.com. A blog dedicated to covering the ad industry, in our own inimitable style, of course.
Digitas just completed the first acquisition in its 24-year history, the $160 million stock-for-stock purchase of Modem Media.
Starting with the open of the market on Monday, the combined company will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol DTAS, and Modem shares (MMPT) will cease to be traded.
While Dr. Phil is busy selling parents on the values of discipline for their children, Dr. Angus has unleashed a new diet on the American public. This diet advocates eating burgers made of angus beef, or steak burgers you might refer to them as. Pull up to any BK in the nation and get your steak on today. Doctor ordered. He even has a book out.
The book is also available in PDF form or for online viewing at the Angus Diet web site. Coffee table editions are available for the collector.
I've recently come upon three new sites that deserve some props.
1) Viral + Buzz Marketing Association, a European-based site concerned, as I am, with bringing customers' voices into the marketing mix.
2) Change This, a well designed place to publish one's manifesto (provided the proposal receives support from the site's users). You can visit my "New Tactics | New Tools" proposal now and vote for the piece, should you find it sufficiently intriguing.
Print My Blog, an Oregon outfit offering bloggers the chance to wrap their digital work in traditional clothing.
Howard Gossage was an inspiring man. A rogue gentleman who plied his trade in the city by the Bay. An academic who taught advertising at Penn State and wrote eloquently about the business. A man who saw himself as a critic and reformer. A man of the people. A man with big ideas for the brands is his charge. He had an agency in a restored firehouse, with characters like Marshall McCluhan and Tom Wolfe dropping by for an afternoon chat and tea. He was also a man of outrageous, but dead-on statements, like this one:
"Is advertising worth saving? From an economic point of view I don't think that most of it is. From an aesthetic point of view I'm damn sure it's not; it's thoughtless, boring, and there is simply too much of it." _HG
Euro RSCG has been in the news this week. The New York office is struggling to hold the Intel account, reportedly worth a cool 300 mil. Out west, creative hot shop, Black Rocket which sold an 80 percent interest to the Parisians a few years ago say they now want their shop back. But Havas rightly has some desire to hold on to this entity. Not pretty.
In Chicago the shop has been beaten down with client departures. But last summer some hope--Steffan Postaer was announced as President and Chief Creative Officer. Mr. Postaer who took the helm after Labor Day this year is the man behind the famed Altoids work, which surely supplants the Absolut campaign as the new iconic king of the culture. He also ran LB Works before it was shuttered last winter by Leo Burnett higher ups. Now this native Chicagoan and member of a famous ad family--his mother, father and brother are all prominent ad folk--has the chance to make his mark in this city, and in the ad business, in a much bigger way. This is Steffan's chance to create a more pronounced footprint than any one campaign, even one as good as Altoids, can provide. And this rescue by the Ad Superman could not come at a better time (if it is to come) since the parent company needs some wins.
"Politicians can't be overexposed. Since they can have a life and death effect on us, no one gets tired of them. This is not, 'Am I going to get tired of Bruce Willis?' We're stuck with them. Given how much power they have, eight months of campaigning is a drop. They are the only people selling a product you can't return. You're buying a president for four years." -Jerry Della Femina
Candidates today, particularly at the national level, are in many ways treated as a product, not as a man. For certain, they are packaged in a way meant to attract buyers. They are often promoted in much the same way as everyday packaged goods. But most of the ads for these men bite. Which is too bad. With the kind of budgets these campaigns come armed with, they could easily have the very best brand advertising minds working on their business. The Army has Leo Burnett, and their "Army of One" thinking. I contend that Kerry and Bush could be made more appealing, at least on TV and in print, with the help of Arnold, Martin, Goodby, Fallon, Wieden and the like.
Here we are on night one, and we can already report a reader. Thanks to Steve Rubel, "Mr. Micropersuasion," for dropping by and for linking to us.
It should come as no surprise that a lifestyle magazine would fall in love with advertising, and those who make it and place it. In their annual run down of the best places to work (available on news stands now), Chicago Magazine, gives first place to DDB; FCB comes in at #11; Draft is #17 and BBDO gets an honorable mention. The total field covers but 25 firms, so percentage wise advertising agencies rank incredibly high.
AdPulp has been live for a day now, and already two top influencers have dropped by to comment. Steve Hall of Adrants and Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion. This is the "internet speed" I've been hearing so much about, but not experiencing in previous blogger incarnations.
The answer is a tight focus. By concerning ourselves with one topic—and advertising is a rich topic—one's blog, or media property, makes instant sense to the audience it courts. Everyone's speaking the same language. Hopefully, if the new kids are any good, they have new and different things to say in that same language, so they can help enrich the conversation.
"Business is a numbers game and we should never forget it. A Mitsubishi and a BMW both weigh about 4,000 pounds. The BMW costs twice as much. Those are numbers. How many people get MBAs in order to be able to afford a Mitsubishi? Branding is not a numbers game and we shouldn’t forget that, either. As Winston Churchill once said, 'People will give you a lot of good reasons why they do something, then there’s the real reason.' Branding is about finding and appealing to the real reason." -Steve Laughlin of Laughlin Constable
There has been plenty of talk about where "the business" is headed. Is TiVo destroying the 30-second spot, once and for all? People want to know. If you listen to Steve Laughlin, and I do, the ad business has more meaning today than in any time in history. With more brands and more media channels, it's essential for brands to make a real investment in their image and in their story. To neglect this type of brand building in a saturated market is to blend in, and blending in is a lose-lose proposition for a brand.
Rarely are rejection notices considered a marketing opportunity. But everything is marketing when it involves your brand. For instance, these notices often arrive on letterhead, with a big fat logo prominently displayed. That's a marketing opportunity.
The other day, I got such a notice from High Country News, where I had applied to be News Editor. This letter thoughtfully detailed the search process, thanked all the participants and made mention of the person who got the job and the reasons why. Here's a niche media brand willing to share. I like people who want to share with me. Thus, the HCN rejection letter achieved the unthinkable—it brought me even closer to the HCN brand.
Is advertising art? This question has been there from the beginning. For sure, most advertising has been rendered so poorly, the claims that it might be an art form seem ludicrous. Yet, there are reasons to believe ads do constitute an art form. For one, if anyone could do it, the writers and art directors responsible for making ads would be put out to pasture. Creative endeavors require a leap of faith, no matter how much science must be infused into the work. These leaps of faith are taken by artists first, and then by a few brave suits who decide to follow.
Speaking of leaps of faith, I love to ponder the exaggerated claims typical of early 20th century advertising. Here Jantzen claims they invented the sport of swimming.
Adweek's Joan Voight published an article today about the importance setting has on an agency. Naturally, she leads with Mike Shine, since Butler Shine and Stern occupy offices in Sausalito—one of the most romantic and inspiring communities in America. She also touches on the movie set qualities and rush of energy available in Manhattan, the ease of Minneapolis and the access to nature in Salt Lake City.
I left my relatively cush job in suburban Denver over a year ago to move to Chicago. Prior to my arrival here, I'd heard rumblings that Chicago was not a creative's city. That it is an account driven, suit wearing kind of place. There's clearly some truth in that. One reason for it may be the environment itself. Almost all agencies here are located in high-rise buildings. While the interior of some, notably Zipatoni and Upshot, are indeed stellar, the larger context is overwhelmingly corporate.
Yet, Chicago is a city with an abundance of warehouses ripe for remodel. Not surprisingly, Hadrian's Wall, which has been doing its part to lend the city a creative reputation, has found such a home near North and Clyborne, nowhere near Michigan and Wacker. Thinking different, it appears, extends beyond the ad to architecture and urban planning.
Sun Times advertising columnist, Lewis Lazare, just phoned to ask me several questions about AdPulp, blogs, my industry experience and whether I wouldn't prefer to be writing the great American novel. Look for his write up next week. It will be interesting to see how he breaks it down. He can be a tough critic, so I'm not exactly expecting a fluff piece.
The future just arrived. Welcome to it. AdAge editor, Scott Donaton writing today about how consumers now hold all the cards, not marketers, said, "Make no mistake, it's nothing short of a revolution. Those who don't embrace it -- and resistance to change remains disappointingly strong -- will be crushed by it."
Scott Donaton, editor of AdAge
Further insights from Donaton's article:
Larry Light, global chief marketing officer at McDonald's, declared the death of the broadcast-centric ad model: "Mass marketing today is a mass mistake." McDonald's used to spend two-thirds of its ad budget on network prime time; that figure is now down to less than one-third.
General Motors' Roger Adams, noting the automaker's experimentation with less-intrusive forms of marketing, said, "The consumer wants to be in control, and we want to put them in control." Echoed Saatchi & Saatchi chief Kevin Roberts, "The consumer now has absolute power. It is not your goddamn brand," he told marketers.
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These sentiments from the big guys echo the wisdom of characters from the fringe, San Francisco brand consultancy, Plan B, in particular. But it matters little who came up with the revelations. Those in the know will benefit, whether they are credited as primary drivers, or not.
In four Monterrey, Mexico churches, Israeli-made cell phone jammers the size of paperbacks have been tucked unobtrusively among paintings of the Madonna and statues of the saints.
AdBusters seeks to "jam" our pervasive media culture, TiVo helps content hungry viewers jam commercials and now we have priests in Mexico jamming cell phone usage. I applaud the holy men and their quest for sanctity.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer ads that dramatize the product benefit. Apparently, Outback Steakhouse knows nothing about this time-honored approach. One of their current efforts features three hunks that come to the table to serve three adoring, but rather shy, ladies. No mention of the food at all.
What happens when a lonely lady decides to dine at Outback, only to find her server is nasty, or of the same sex? She could then rightly claim Outback seduced her with false advertising.
Clairol's Herbal Essences, when applied, no longer produces orgasms. The beauty product does lead Jadyn Maria to sing, however.
Too bad. Any old shampoo can lead one to sing in the shower.
Blogs are being discussed just about everywhere in mainstream media today. CNBC and other news programs have even begun to feature bloggers like Ana Marie Cox, a.k.a. Wonkette, as talking heads. Now wiki is having its day in the sun. Business Week and Red Herring recently ran articles on this open source publishing technology.
While speaking yesterday with Sun Times advertising columnist, Lewis Lazare, I mentioned my efforts to bring the power of wiki (and other Conversational Media tools) to branded communications. I'm not sure how well I described wiki's potential upsides, but tech startup Jotspot does a wonderful job of outlining the many uses.
"A product is an artifact of a truth of a promise. A brand is a promise. The promise of Gateway is to be the wagon-master across the silicon prairie. It was more interesting to me that Gateway opened stores than Barnes & Noble went dot-com. It doesn't matter whether Gateway sells anything in its stores because retailing is the retelling of the tale. So you open stores to tell the story of being the wagon-master. You’re on a perilous journey and Gateway can help you get there. When you apply the wagon-master metaphor, you realize that inventors invent, and pioneers discover, and wagon-masters commercialize inventions or discoveries. So we decided, why would you have an R&D department if all you do is commercialize other people’s discoveries? So guess what Gateway did? They chucked their R&D department, and put $95 million to the bottom line. And I knew it was a success when -- five months later -- Dell did the same thing." -Watts Wacker
Starbucks Gossip is an interesting new site from Jim Romenesko, veteran journalist, editor and pioneering blogger. With his work for Poynter and his Obscure Store blog, you'd think this uberblogger would have no time for keeping tabs on the coffee behemoth. But no. He does have time, and Starbucks haters everywhere are grateful.
More marketers today are empowering brand evangelists, or in simpler terms, a company's best customers. There are several new ways to go about this, then there's the old school way, patented by recreational clothing manufacturer, Patagonia.
Patagonia is led by one of our time's true corporate visionaries—climber, kayaker, surfer and fly-fishing enthusiast, Yvon Chouinard. Yvon understood instinctively (and early on) that his customers were also his product testers—real people out in the wilds putting Patagonia's best efforts to the ultimate test. He also grasped that these same people were better than any models he could ever hire. And to take it even further, he understood they were also better than any photographer he could hire. From the beginning, the Patagonia catalog has relied on Patagoniacs to send in photos of their most active friends doing fun things in remote settings. Whether or not they happened to be wearing Patagonia gear at the time has always been secondary to the pursuit at hand.
To summarize, Patagonia has saved millions on photo shoots and product testing. But much more important than any amount of dollars saved is the relationship this Ventura-based firm has with its customers. You cannot put a price on that kind of commitment.
In Green Bay, Wisconsin a city known for takes downs (on the grid iron), comes Dana VanDen Heuvel, a marketing consultant who has put together a great look at what traditional P.R. offers versus blogs. It's a game-winning open field tackle for the blogs.
"Most copywriters are uninspired hacks with only a small bag of smartass tricks separating themselves and oblivion. Very few of them bring any seriously original thinking to their client�s problems. And very few clients ask copywriters for serious thinking as a result. They ask other people instead." -Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void
Hugh's words are often provoking. A sure sign of a good writer. Brand managers ought to ask a guy like this what they might do to improve their marketing efforts, because a writer is exactly the person able to tell the brand's story.
Advertising has been a visual medium, ever since Bernbach's "Think Small," the hallmark campaign of the Creative Revolution. But now, with the rise of blogs, writers will be needed to engage customers in one-on-one conversations. Traditional advertising is impersonal. It's a brand speaking to everyone. What leading brands need to do, and in some cases are about to do (in this writer's opinion) is employ individual voices—�customers, associates, agency staff, freelance writers and consultants�—to carry on a daily conversation with their customers.
Vaughn Whelan & Partners Advertising Inc., a 12-person Toronto firm wanted to pitch the Molson and Coors account (the two brewers are merging), but they were not invited to the party. So, the agency came up with a guerilla approach. VW&P created a bootleg TV spot and paid to run it on Canadian television, and also in Vermont.
You have to admire the initiative here, but this move has some major problems in my book. If I'm the client and I'm spending millions of dollars to create a brand image and someone I don't even know makes a spot for my product and runs it on TV, the spot better be brilliant. This spot is far from it. For one, it creates confusion in the marketplace. TV viewers who saw this spot when it ran had no idea whatsoever that it was a self-promo piece for the agency. The agency is never named, nor is their intent revealed. It's simply a shoddy, low budget spot for Molson Canadian.
Misleading the beer drinking public to think, "Oh here's a new, not very good, pitch from Molson" serves no one. The brewer loses. The public loses. And the agency loses.
Late Breaking Update: Vaughn Whelan—clearly, a smart, well spoken and sharply dressed man—appeared on Canadian news program, Report On Business, to explain his version of events surrounding this media stunt, which he readily admits it was. He said Molson is none too pleased and that the brewer asked him to remove the streaming media version of the commercial from his agency's web site. Whelan added he's so far received positive reinforcement from all corners of the world, and three calls from prospective clients who like his initiative.
Corporate blogs are proliferating, according to the founder of Technorati.
There are significant numbers of individual bloggers at Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, but their blogs are personal, not official. For a closer look at how a blog fits into a firm's marketing strategy, take a look at Stonyfield Farms, a New Hampshire-based organic dairy with a great story to tell, and four blogs with which to tell it.
Huskerpedia, a site that follows Nebraska athletics from "deep behind enemy lines in Jefferson County, CO" offers Husker football fans brand supremacy in this merchandising opportunity:
An empowered organization is one where the CEO enables her managers and staff. An empowered communications strategy is one where the marketer enables the customer. This is good enabling, not the A.A. kind.
...for the chart lover within.
For more iconic brand mascots see TV Acres.
Well known author and blogger, Doc Searls quoted us yesterday in a piece about how branding is dead. We are flattered and honored.
Doc points to the fourth chapter of The Cluetrain Manifesto and asks rhetorically, "Sound familiar?" The title of the chapter is "Markets Are Conversations," and without a doubt much of what we're working on is the application of the ideals, set down by Searls, Weinberger, and company.
A close reader questions whether advertising icons are as GRRR-E-A-T as they once were. I say, how can you argue with this dear reader. This man cried a tear for America.
The AFL-CIO and seniors groups in California have banded together and filed a false advertising lawsuit against the little purple pill's manufacturer, AstraZeneca.
According to AdWeek, the suit alleges that the drug company sought to preserve market share and profits as the patent on Prilosec was set to expire by scheming to convince consumers that its new drug, Nexium, was significantly better than Prilosec. Prilosec, a competing purple pill is now available over the counter and is marketed by Procter & Gamble.
OTC baby. Power to the people!
The Commodore, a.k.a., J. Walter Thompson, late 19th cent.
JWT likes to hang The Commodore's image in its offices around the globe. Which makes me wonder how odd Jeff Goodby, for instance, might appear to future observers. Better yet, what will anthropologists make of Lew Clow's refusal to wear shoes?
Paul Hamm gets to keep his gold medal, an Olympic panel ruled today. But seeing Hamm speak on TV is a real buzz kill. Someone get this man a handler.
You don't stand there in front of the world and say, "I knew it was mine all along. I'm glad the judges finally agreed. Now I can put this all behind me." Dude.
Say, "I leave it all on the mat every single day and that's the only thing I care about." We're talking Wheaties box here.
Marketers of the art form known as poetry have resorted to the retail art of gumball machines, in order to capture market share for well placed meaning in words. Gots to give it up to 'em. This is a great distribution method. A quarter for your thoughts.
Hey, let's invent one for the ad biz. Who wants to partner with us on this?
It's official. Coke takes over parts of the brain Pepsi can't reach.
According to UK Independent's Science Editor, the mind-altering power of advertising has been demonstrated in a remarkable study of the way in which brand recognition affects the workings of the human brain. A well-known label is so influential, say researchers, that it can alter consumers' perception of the product's taste. The experiment, a laboratory-controlled version of the famous Pepsi Challenge, revealed that flavour seems to be the last thing that consumers rely on in their preference for Pepsi or Coca-Cola.
The above paragraph is best absorbed with the theme-track from The Twilight Zone playing under.
from Adweek: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has rehired copywriter John Matejczyk, who spent the last 15 months heading up the Citibank "Identity theft" campaign at Fallon. Goodby partner and creative director Steve Simpson called Matejcyzk an "amazing talent."
While there could be a dozens good reasons for this, I'm guessing he needed a new pair of Sorel's, and when confronted with that North County necessity, decided to move back to San Francisco instead.
Word-of-mouth has always been the ultimate approach. Now, there's an industry group dedicated to promoting its use. A core goal of WOMMA is to help grow the acceptance and legitimacy of word-of-mouth as part of the broader marketing mix.
Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research offers a cool-eyed assessment of some possible pitfalls for corporate blogs and also for individuals who talk about work on their personal blogs.
Microsoft's cheif blog evangelist chimes in:
Corporate Fear.
Fear of being different. Fear of telling your boss your ideas. Fear of speaking up in meetings. Fear of going up to someone you don't know and introducing yourself. Fear of doing something that might destroy your career.
Fear of weblogging.
It's time we get over our fears.
I meet a lot of people around the industry. Almost everytime I meet someone, I ask them "do you have a weblog?" That's my way of saying "I like you and want to hear more of your ideas." Even deeper: I want a permanent relationship with you (and not of the sexual kind, either).
I've asked this question of people at Apple. Google. IBM. eBay. Real Networks. Cisco. Intel. HP. Amazon. And, yes, here at Microsoft.
Too often the answer is "I couldn't do that."
"Why not?" I ask.
"Because I might get fired," is often the answer. I hate that answer. It's an example of corporate fear. An artifact of a management system that doesn't empower its employees to act on behalf of customers.
I find this fear disturbing. Imagine being a flight attendant with this kind of fear. "Sorry, I can't talk to the passengers in this plane today cause I might get fired."
The Scobleizer's official disclaimer: Robert Scoble works at Microsoft (title: technical evangelist). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
It's good to be reminded now and again that the designer working on your annual report is actually an artist. This painting is new work from Jill Rizzo, an award-winning graphic designer at David Day + Associates.
from Business Week: Anyone in a company or department can post material on these wikis, and anyone else, subject to approval by the creator, can edit or add to them. They've become a cheaper, more flexible collaboration alternative to both overtaxed e-mail and complex groupware such as IBM's Lotus Notes.
Essentially, Ross Mayfield's Socialtext wiki software allows everybody in a group or even a whole company to literally stay on the same page -- that is, on their shared Web pages. That speeds up everything that involves coordination, helping to cut costs.
Mayfield, a tall, gangly Palo Alto native, stumbled onto wikis via an unlikely route. He landed in Eastern Europe in 1995 as a $300-a-month special adviser to Lennart Meri, Estonia's first post-Soviet President. He wrote some of Meri's speeches and ultimately developed a Web site for the President's office, where he caught the Internet bug. "I realized I could have a greater impact being an Internet entrepreneur than as a bureaucrat," he says.
TV-B-Gone is a new key chain fob that shuts off most televisions. After posting the product on the firm's web site earlier this week the entire stock sold out in two days. They're working on getting more TV-B-Gone's made and delivered as soon as possible.
You know one could truly wreak havoc with this device at any sports bar USA, say Sunday around 1:00 pm. One could also get one's butt kicked. Don't wave the thing around, is my advice.
from Inc.: But here's the thing about the guerrilla information war that Kalle Lasn and his rotating crew of two dozen or so employees at Adbusters were fighting: "We were losing," he admits. While the Adbusters Media Foundation has built enough of an audience to keep it out of the red -- the magazine sells for $7.95 an issue and has international circulation of 120,000, according to Lasn -- it has had little success getting its incendiary anti-ads into any mainstream venue. So rather than just attack Nike -- although, as we'll see, that's still his obsession -- Adbusters would produce a rival shoe of its own, with environmentally friendly materials and ethical labor. Like many a brand before it, Blackspot would be designed to stand for big ideas: in this case, socially minded entrepreneurialism and grass-roots capitalism. "And, of course, coming up with an antilogo ," Lasn proclaims, sounding excited, as he often does, "we're moving from whining into action."
Here's my translation, "Buy my shoes brother. They're totally organic. Every step you take will be another step forward for the earth and its people."
Netfilx is a great service. It's also an important one, due to its disruptive impact on an entire category. People talk about TiVo changing the ad biz. A better bet is that the Netfilx's mail-based model will take out the Blockbuster retail model altogether. No late fees—ever—is a big idea. A category killer.
Netflix is also a company that listens to its customers and responds in real ways. Here's the latest customer communication from them:
Over the last five years, we've grown the Netflix community to over 2.2 million satisfied members. We appreciate your business, and our goal has always been to provide you great service.
Since our price increase in June, some of our members have expressed concerns about the new pricing. We've listened to this feedback and are pleased to inform you that we're lowering the price of your Netflix 3-at-a-time program from $21.99 per month to 17.99 per month.
You don't need to do anything. Your membership will automatically move to the lower 17.99 price. The lower price will appear on your next bill on or after November 1, 2004. You will still get the same great service and convenience, but now you will pay less for it. So please sit back, relax and enjoy your movies!
-Your Friends at Netflix
Job seeker asks for whom the blog scrolls
BY LEWIS LAZARE SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
What do you do while you're searching for an advertising job in a market where jobs are tough to come by?
If you like to write and have a yen to serve up your observations on the industry, you start an advertising blog. About 10 days ago, that's exactly what David Burn, 39, did when he launched www.AdPulp.com from an apartment on the city's Northwest Side.
The uneven collection of postings so far include an item about Euro RSCG's new chief creative officer Steffan Postaer, with whom Burn has traded e-mails discussing interactive advertising, as well as job possibilities at Euro RSCG, which Postaer is trying to rebuild as a creative powerhouse. Not surprisingly, Burn seems to be sucking up to Postaer when he suggests in his blog that the ad exec now has a chance to make his mark in the city in a much bigger way than he did when previously employed at the shuttered LB Works and its parent Leo Burnett.
But Burn also displays some healthy skepticism in an entry about a recent Chicago magazine article on the 25 best places to work. He points out that three ad agencies -- DDB, Foote Cone & Belding and Draft -- all made the list, while BBDO scored an honorable mention. Burn also suggested it made sense for a magazine that solicits advertising to make nice with ad agencies.
Because we happened to call to find out what he was up to, we were turned into a posting in which Burn mused about what we'd make of his new project so far. Well, Burn still has a ways to go to make his online effort as juicy and opinionated as it needs to be to draw readers regularly.
Having arrived here a year ago to be with his girlfriend and following stints in the ad business in Denver, Omaha and Salt Lake City (where he fell into the business as a copywriter at a technology agency called BOWG), Burn is still trying to figure out the local advertising community and what aspects of it might make the best fodder for his blog.
If nothing else, Burn has discovered it's not easy finding full-time work in advertising here. But while he's looking, he hopes to turn AdPulp.com into a money-making business.
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This story was also picked up by Red Streak, but with a different header.
Crain's Chicago Business reports that Rick Bayless likes to eat at Logan Square's Lula Cafe when he's not nibbling from the grill at Frontera.
With two booming Chicago restaurants, a TV show, books and a Frontera product line, Rick Bayless is a chef and a brand. You could even say he's the Oprah of Mexican food. So, when he kindly endorses someone's restaurant, it's word-of-mouth advertising that cannot be topped.
Clyde Hogg, of Norfolk, VA, a Sun Times reader and a former award-winning staffer at a number of name brand agencies advises AdPulp to, "Name names, and let those in charge be held accountable. Of course, it might preclude you ever from working in the "biz" in Chicago, but from my experience, other than the money, unless you're into corporate politics you aren't missing anything."
Here's more Hoggian angst:
"I was not into politics, which, to many at these larger agencies, is the very lifeblood of the business, and the way they got to the top. It certainly wasn't the product they created. As a result, too often I watched people who couldn't do the work rise to the top and achieve the position of being able to tell those who could do the work how to do it. The Peter Principle at its finest.
The end result is that, today, advertising has evolved into an industry led by people who, by and large, can't do the work. Or train people to do the work, or how to think, or utilize the brains of those they hire. Or do work that is startling, innovative, intelligent, creative or breakthrough. This leads to the generation of inanity and ineffectiveness and sophomoric humor that currently passes for advertising, with intelligence and connecting with an audience a thing of the past. It also makes advertising far more expensive and less quantifying, for results are elusive to say the least.
Unless fart jokes are considered an intelligent way to connect with an audience. Who knows? Maybe that IS the way to connect with 24-year olds.
If that's the case, a breakthrough creative plan might be to print ads on whoopie cushions and pass them out in bars.
No charge for that idea.
mumble, mumble..."
If there's anyone left wondering what the gold band that John Kerry wears on his wrist is about, it's about curing cancer. The bracelets, or bands, are available from the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Here's a case where viral and buzz marketing, word-of-mouth advertising and traditional media all work together flawlessly.
Why would Philadelphia's Metrocorp—publisher of Home & Garden, Philadelphia Magazine and Elegant Wedding—want to acquire Boston's Weekly Dig, an alternative newspaper with 30,000 readers?
The Dig's readers are 18 to 34. That's Y.
Business Week is reporting on Old Spice's attempt to sell the old brand to a new breed. Maybe this P&G brand ought to run ads on pizza boxes. In another story from Business Week, the venerable business mag describes the allure of the new cardboard medium:
"...with pizza, 'everybody is happy to see it.' Indeed, Americans eat more than 100 acres of pizza a day, according to the Web site Pizzaware.com, which has prepared a fact sheet on the ubiquitous pie. Plus, pizza is a favorite with the demographic long coveted by advertisers, the 18- to 34-year-olds. A large box is typically viewed by three to four people at a time. And particularly at bachelor households, pizza boxes tend to stick around for weeks."
Iron City, in conjunction with Alcoa, is making their beer available in aluminum bottles. The idea is that aluminum bottles will keep beer colder for as much as 50 minutes longer than a glass bottle, according to Alcoa. The bottles are also lighter, resealable and unbreakable. Alcoa suggests the innovation--which is already used for beer in Japan--is in line with early reforms like the pull-top aluminum can, which they say they introduced, also with Pittsburgh Brewing, in 1962.
Screenwriter and film director, Scott Hicks, was tapped to direct a series of ten new spots for Chicago-based Hyatt. Hicks is best known for his work on the 1999 film, Snow Falling On Cedars. The commercials were produced through Hyatt's agency, Cramer-Krasselt, the independent shop with offices in Chicago, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Orlando and New York.
Taco Bell is thinking outside the bun again. Two years ago, the nation's flagship Mexican QSR placed a 12' x 12' floating target in the South Pacific, promising a free taco to all Americans if Russia's Mir satellite hit it upon reentering our atmosphere. Didn't happen. Fast forward to tonight and Game 3 of the World Series in St. Louis. The free taco target now resides in St. Louis' home run alley. If any player for the Red Sox or Cardinals launch a long ball that connects with the target, millions of hungry Americans will eat for free. Simple. Cost-effective. And more powerful than any thirty-second spot could slam home.
Thanks to Jay Roth for help with this entry.
Last week, Sun Microsystems put their ad account in review as a creative consolidation move. The current agency of record is Arnell Group (Omnicom) of New York. Interestingly, only shops with offices in the Bay Area are being invited to the table, likely dropping the incumbent from the pitch altogether. See Ad Age (reg. req.) for more details.
Granted, the majority of Sun's marketing staffers are in the Bay Area, but does the agency shift from New York to NorCal signify upcoming changes to the rest of the advertising landscape?
What do our readers have to say? Sound off in the comments.
"Blogging is not about starring in a conversation, it's about having a conversation with stars!" -Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion
When speaking with Lewis Lazare of the Sun Times last week, he called AdPulp a gossip site. He also wanted to know why we chose the word, "Pulp" and if you read his piece on us, he clearly would like to see more lurid content in these pages. I suspect there will be some juicy details from time to time. But we're actually much more interested in facilitating an industry conversation.
To further that end, we are looking for contributing writers interested in, and capable of, holding conversations with the stars and would-be stars in and around the ad world. It would help if you've had some blogging experience, but your thirst for sharing the best ideas is even more essential. Send us your URL or some relevant writing examples if you're interested.
Intersticials are the flash-based commercials that keep you from the page you actually want to view until the intrusive messaging plays out. Here's the root of the now widely used industryism:
interstice \in-TUR-stus\, noun;
plural interstices \in-TUR-stuh-seez; -suz\:
1. A space between things or parts, especially a space between things closely set; a narrow chink; a crack; a crevice; an interval.
2. An interval of time.
Why would you ever choose to have interactive media go against its nature and become instrusive media? Pop ups, spam and intersticials are annoying and totally contrary to the user experience online. Online, the user has control. When you mess with that, you're risking your firm's reputation.
One of my favorite pastimes is railing against elitism, wherever I happen to find it. The ad industry is bloated with it. TV is better than print is better than direct is better than promotions. New York is better than Chicago and L.A., but Minneapolis, Boston and San Francisco are where it's at. Unless you work in Richmond, Portland or Austin.
Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Bend, Oregon and meeting with the owner of Ralston360, Kevin Archer. Kevin, an art director by trade, fled his native San Francisco ten years or more ago. With a growing family and business in Bend--a beautiful community in central Oregon, nestled against the east side of the Cascades--there's no reason to look back.
Bend is also home to The Mandala Agency and tbd advertising, where there are "no preconceived ideas." Uh huh.
Apple, which enjoys an 80%+ share of the digital player market, today announced the next stage in their co-marketing relationship with uber-band, U2, the iPod U2 Special Edition.
Just a couple of short years ago Moby was criticized and branded a sell-out for licensing the commercial rights to the individual tracks on his album Play, a move that was designed to maximize the exposure of an album that pretty much ignored by radio and MTV. Today, whether right or wrong, it has become the norm in popular music.
U2, the rock band of the last 25 years, has continually managed to reinvent and redefine their music enough to appeal to the hardcore fan, yet still manage to attract new fans with every release. U2, and especially front man Bono, are masters of the music marketing game. Apple has long been the 'luxury brand' of the computer world and the iPod is the gold standard for digital music, or as Apple likes to say, "The digital lifestyle." Together, the two are making more waves in markets they already dominate.
McDonald's, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast food purveyor has moved its Oven Selects business from roster shop Leo Burnett, back to DDB Chicago. DDB is also a roster shop and the former agency on the account. The Oven Selects line includes Crispy Buffalo Chicken, Beef 'n' Provolone, Leaning Tower Italian, two New York Reubens -- one with turkey, one with corned beef -- and the turkey sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomato. According to Bloomberg, the six sandwiches culminate 15 years of trial and error including a mid-1990s test of McStuffin's, which were too expensive to make for what customers were willing to pay.
“The social equation will become more significant than the legal one. Copyright, intellectual property and power will eventually become subservient to the social exchange that will exist between artists and their audience, between any buyer and their supplier.” -The Tarlows in Digital Aboriginal
My monthly hard copy of Wired came in the mail yesterday. The inside front cover spread is brought to readers by Wired and Larry Lessig's Creative Commons. A compact disc of free music is attached, and the musicians involved encourage users to { -Rip. Sample. Mash. Share. } That is, they want to be heard and they are willing to give their work away for free in order to be heard.
The ad has a real Howard Gossage feel to it. It's traditional media encouraging interactivity, with the ad itself and also with peers, family and friends.
On Sept. 13, WPP announced it would buy Grey for $1,005 a share or $1.52 billion. According to AdAge, Grey Global Group will now pay its chairman-CEO, Ed Meyer, as much as $87 million cash when WPP Group buys Grey. And Mr. Meyer gets to keep his job. The cash payments don't include Mr. Meyer's Grey stock and stock options, worth about $351 million based on this morning's valuation.
That's $438 million for the pinstriped guy in the corner suite. I've always held that advertising is a great place to learn the art of the deal—a skill which can later be applied in Hollywood, for instance, or on Wall Street.
Madison Avenue ponders the potential of web logs says Times.
The lead: "WEB logs have had an astonishing season this year, enough to freckle the faces of bloggers who do not, as a rule, get much time outdoors. Although political blogs have received the most attention, advertising agencies and communications professionals are using blogs to create discussion about ideas within their industries."
Nat Ives, the journalist who writes about blogs, must ride his bike to work, or something.