Todd at A Penny For is sick of all the blog hype. I too, am growing tired of the generalizations, overstatements and inner circle elitism. Speaking of cliques, check out this cartoon from Hugh MacLeod.

Here's the comment I left at his site.

It's all downhill after you do (jump the shark). Right?

Regarding the C-listers comment, is it not funny that a technology that purports to free us from such hierarchies, does not?

We're humans, regardless of which tools we employ. And humans want order/structure, just like wolves.

So, when I see Steve Rubel make a post about how Scoble and Dave Winer are coming to NYC for tomorrow's Geek Dinner, I'm at a loss. This is worthy of a post? It's only news if you're deep inside that clique.

I generally enjoy Rubel's blog, and he certainly has every right to post whatever he wants. Winer and Scoble add star power to the event in question, and for people coming to the Geek Dinner, or considering, that star power is important. What I'm saying is screw blogging stars. I know nothing can be done about it. It's human nature to want stars, and want to be a star. Maybe I'm in a mood, but the whole idea rubs me the wrong way.

According to Advertising Age magazine’s 61st annual Agency Report, revenue from U.S.-based traditional and marketing-services agencies rose to $17.59 billion in the U.S. for a solid 8.6% growth, compared to a 1.7% decline in 2001, and 3.1% and 3.7% upticks in 2002 and 2003, respectively.

Strong gains in both advertising and marketing services could reflect what agency executives are identifying as a marketing mixture in which marketing services is moving from below-the-line to around the table.

from San Francisco Chronicle: MindManager, a program for organizing and presenting ideas offers an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous PowerPoint. MindManager is based on the theories of mind mapping, a graphics-heavy philosophy of organizing and presenting ideas using circles and lines. The technique was developed by author Tony Buzan in the late 1960s.

With MindManager, a user can present ideas on a computer the way one lays out ideas on a whiteboard using diagrams and words.

Users create circles or boxes, type ideas in them and link them with lines and arrows. Users can include Web site links and other files like videos, photos, a Microsoft Word or Excel document, or a database.

Executives and analysts who have tried it say MindManager offers a more dynamic way to make presentations than PowerPoint, in which a user lays out ideas in a series of slides.

"You see PowerPoint presentations that go on and on," said Claire Schooley, a senior industry analyst with Forrester Research. "It's very linear. ... With MindManager, you can go in many directions."

Stephen Wehrenberg, director of Future Force, a Coast Guard program for improving the agency, has used MindManager for years and says the visual approach is more conducive to discussing plans and projects.

"You can see more complexity," he said. "It's more conducive to telling a story with its complexities and feedbacks and delays and so on than a linear method of transmitting information."

from Palm Beach Post: Seven men of Middle Eastern descent have sued a South Florida Denny's restaurant franchisee and one of its managers for $28 million, saying they were kicked out because of their ancestry and compared to Osama Bin Laden.

The men, who are all U.S. citizens, are seeking $4 million each from Restaurant Collection Inc., which owns the Denny's franchise, and shift manager Eduardo Ascano, whom they say compared them to the Al-Qaida terrorist leader.

Denny's restaurants have long been the targets of discrimination lawsuits across the country.

The 1,600-restaurant chain, which has annual sales that exceed $2 billion, settled a 1994 lawsuit for $54.4 million that accused the chain of asking blacks to prepay for meals. Since then, it has faced at least six more discrimination lawsuits filed by African-Americans and Hispanics and has been investigated in at least two cases involving discrimination against people of Middle Eastern descent.

Debbie Atkins, a spokeswoman at Denny's Spartanburg, S.C., headquarters said Thursday that the company stands by the independent investigation that cleared Restaurant Collection, but reiterated "we have zero tolerance for discrimination." She said the company has instituted several diversity and anti-discrimination programs in recent years.

"We are a very different company" compared to a decade ago when it was facing the earlier discrimination charges, Atkins said.

Wired brings more info to the table about Project Apollo

Marketers are testing new techniques to measure whether advertisers' messages are getting across, and they are prepared to spend vast sums and deploy astonishingly complex technologies to do so.

To measure the impact of ad campaigns, VNU, the parent company of television-audience measurement firm Nielsen Media Research, and Arbitron, the media research firm, are developing an experimental program called Project Apollo that takes the concept of viewer tracking to a level of unprecedented detail.

The project, which the companies hope to roll out on a trial basis next year, will require participants to carry a pager-sized device that records all advertising messages to which its wearer is exposed. Participants will also record everything they buy, so that advertisers can figure out exactly which messages made an impact.

Read the whole story at Wired.com

Archie McPhee, Outfitters of Popular Culture.® Since 1980. present Bacon Strips Adhesive Bandages.

These bandages really don't need any copy support, but Archie McPhee provides some anyway.

And if a fancy bandage isn't enough to dry up your tears, how about a FREE TOY! Each comes in a 3-3/4" tall metal pocket tin and contains a small plastic trinket to help make even the ouchiest owies feel all better in no time.

Thanks to Cheesedip and Hustler of Culture for the pointers.

According to Adweek, Mad Dogs & Englishmen in New York City is facing an uncertain future following a major reduction in spending by Atkins Nutritionals, one of its major clients.

While I hope they stay in business, there's a lesson here:

When I was in school 10 years ago, Mad Dogs was THE hot shop everyone wanted to work for. Their work for The Village Voice and Thom McAn was refreshingly funny at the time, and Nick Cohen, the agency's founder, was thought to be a savior of the ad business. People I know went to intern (read: produce ads for them) there for free.

It's a phenomenon I've written about before. Somewhere along the line, they Jumped The Shark. For some reason, ad agencies have a tendency to do that.

from USA Today: Toyota started its Scion division from scratch to aim straight at the teens and twentysomethings of Generation Y, roughly those born after 1977.

To attract Gen Y's attention, Scion created a traveling art show featuring works by artists with names such as Buff Monster and Stay High 149. Gordon Wangers of Automotive Marketing Consultants, which did some of the outreach for Scion, says his "tattooed, pierced and dreadlocked crew" held test-drive events in front of popular restaurants, clubs and record stores.

Like other automakers, Scion has embraced music as a way of getting through. In Scion's case, that meant creating an alternative record label for such bands as the Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra.

It also takes part in Hot Import Nights, a festival of cars and music that has proved to be a showcase for several automakers.

Toyota's tactics seems to be working. When Gen Y consumers are asked to name the brands they will consider for their next new car purchase, Scion rocketed from 30th place last year to ninth place today, says Rick Wainschel of Kelley Blue Book.

I drive a 1995 Mitsubishi Montero with 140,000 miles on it. I love it, but at the rate the automaker is going, I won't be able to buy one to replace it.

Adweek reports on the departure of two more marketing executives from Mitsubishi, the latest in a long string of 'em.

Mitusbishi's sales declined 39% in the first quarter this year. Only Isuzu (remember them??) had a larger decline at 45%.

Mitsubishi's ad account is now at BBDO New York, having left Deutsch/LA last December. I'd say David Lubars & Co. have their hands full on this one--provided there's anything left to advertise.

Interestingly, Isuzu pulled their advertising account away from Goodby and moved it to a retail ad shop named Malone Advertising in Akron, Ohio. I suppose it was a move to get away from flashy brand advertising in an attempt to drive sales, but the only thing Malone's driven are nails into Isuzu's coffin.

from Adweek: Luckie & Co. is launching a new television campaign for Express Oil Change and Service Centers next week that will introduce Otis, an opossum, as the company's spokescharacter, the shop said.

Not Otis

"In a category where we are outnumbered and outspent, our goal was to find a way to break through the clutter and the obvious choice was with an opossum," said Brad White, the independent Birmingham, Ala., shop's executive creative director. "An opossum spends more time on the road than most people."

Express Oil Change and Service Centers of Birmingham, Ala., operates 149 locations in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

Ego is the biggest reason that corporate blogging may be an oxymoron. Working for the man often means subsuming your ego to that of the organization, and blogging makes that difficult. It's one reason that there have been high profile firings of corporate bloggers at places like Google. It's hard to have two voices (the writer's and the shareholders') competing and often conflicting." -Seth Godin

While the exploration of ego and the blog is happening over at Seth's place, Robert Patterson is examining the recent case of Los Alamos National Labratory employees outing their dictatorial chief executive via a blog.

Much of the issue about blogging and the corporation will revolve around the culture. No one will be able to control blogging now. The issue for leaders is will they behave in a way that is socially acceptable. The same is true for marketing. The issue will be how good is your product or your service. Blogging will expose lies in marketing as it will expose an authoritarian culture. -Robert Patterson

These two explorations make for an interesting juxtaposition. No?

All sorts of interesting characters are writing books these days. As previously reported here, Dr. Angus has a diet book out. Now soap stars are getting in on the act.

from New York Times: A little more than a year ago, Marcie Walsh decided to write a mystery novel. It was a big step, considering that she was a college student and part-time receptionist. Also, she had picked up a rare disease after being thrown into a Dumpster (long story) and given it to her boyfriend, who died. But she got over all that and sent her manuscript to an editor at Hyperion named Gretchen Young, who accepted it. Chip Kidd, the sought-after book-jacket designer, did the cover. The book was published this past February and made it onto The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller lists.

Marcie Walsh may not be as celebrated a young author as, say, Jonathan Safran Foer. But on the other hand, she didn't have the advantage of an Ivy League education and the support of critics who see her as a master of experimental fiction. In fact, she doesn't even exist. Her book, ''The Killing Club,'' is quite real. It was written ''with'' Michael Malone, the prize-winning (and nonfictional) author of several mysteries, and there are 150,000 copies in print. Walsh, however, is a character on the ABC soap opera ''One Life to Live,'' which pulls in about 3 million viewers a day; the big author photo on the back cover is of Kathy Brier, the actress who plays Walsh on the show.

If you'd prefer to read a real book by a real author, advertising is full of them (real writers with real books, that is). For instance, former BJK&E copywriter, Bob Drake, has a new book out, Paper Boys: A Novel In Five Part Harmony.

Michael Stodola, an Amazon reviewer says, "My sense of Norman-Rockwellesque-American-Childhood was brutally mugged by Bob Drake's Paper Boys." That's quite an endorsement.

Last month Adweek held an online poll where you could rate certain agencies in certain categories.

I can't find an online link to the full report, but I've seen it in print. Here are some of the top category vote getters:

Most Competitive: Crispin Porter & Bogusky
Most Complacent: Grey
Most Overrated: Deutsch
Most Underrated: GSD&M
Most Like a Playground: Crispin
Most Like a Sweatshop: Grey (ironically, Crispin came in second here)
Most Likely to Languish: Young & Rubicam
Most Like to Disappear: Lowe
Best at Consumer Insight: Goodby
Best at Branded Entertainment: Fallon
Best Run Holding Company: Omnicom

In all fairness, the winning margins weren't overwheming, but it's interesting to see how people respond. The quick take from all of the polls: Crispin's great, Grey & Y&R suck, Goodby's still pretty good.

Sounds like high school all over again. The popular kids end up in the yearbook most often.

from USA Today: Delta Faucet announced recently that it would spend 60% more on advertising this year than last. Delta's media blitz is designed to alert consumers to nearly a dozen products it will debut next week at the National Kitchen & Bath Association trade show in Las Vegas.

At the show, Delta will try to entertain and entice plumbing and building professionals at a haute couture-style fashion show with strutting models in dresses decorated with patterns of Delta's high-end Brizo faucets. Delta also will advertise Brizo in such magazines as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

Delta's strategy is twofold. It first must keep up with consumers' demand for more choices as they decide which faucets they want in their homes. But Delta also must fend off its biggest competitor, Moen, whose growth drove strong profits for its parent company, Fortune Brands, last month.

Delta will also target its customers with more spots on such cable channels as HGTV, DIY and the Food Network rather than fewer ads on channels with broader audiences. Delta also is trying to reach potential customers right before they make a purchase by fighting for larger and more attractive displays at home improvement stores.

Delta projects the campaign will reach 90% of the home improvement audience almost 15 times each.

The Huckabees corporation is dedicated to bringing value to communities across the country and the world. While our low retail prices are one way that we accomplish this goal, it is our commitment to our shared values as Americans that is the guiding principle we rely on to guarantee success.

Okay, I know I'm a little slow, but I finally watched I Heart Huckabees last night, thanks to our trusty Netflix account. This film reminds me of The Big Lebowski. It's highly stylized and oozing with satire. I love satire. In a world gone mad, there may be no better way to address substantive issues (hence, the rise of Jon Stewart). And this work shies away from no issues. It's all here—environmental crisis, post-modern angst, corporate greed, willful deceit and spiritual impoverishment.

Anchoring the story line is fictitious retail giant, Huckabees. Much of the drama in the film is played out inside the corporate headquarters of this Wal-Mart-like firm. Brad Stand played by Jude Law is the sales exec hell bent on a corner office. His girlfriend Dawn Campbell, played by Naomi Watts, is the Huckabees spokesmodel/cheerleader. Given the setting, I suppose it's fitting that Fox Searchlight helps promote the film with a fake website, complete with fake Huckabees TV Spots. This is good fake, unlike some fake blogs I'll refrain from mentioning.

This article in the New York Times reports that Nike has decided to stop selling its shoes and clothing at Sears. The speculation is that Nike is afraid of having its brand end up at whatever types of low-end stores emerge from the Sears/Kmart merger.

I actually think this is a great move by Nike. They're protecting their brand. Many brands have been hurt by the get-our-stuff-into-big-box-retailers-at-all-costs mentality. Sometimes, exclusivity pays off. (The opposite here is Levi's, which you can buy at Wal-Mart now.)

And as an aside, I think Kmart's troubles are all Rain Man's fault. He had the best tagline of all time:
"Kmart sucks."

from Ad Age: In its latest bid to attract teenage males, Gillette Co.'s Tag body spray is offering them a date with a 33-year-old married woman -- MTV reality star Carmen Electra -- with bidding so far topping out at $17,200 on eBay.

Males ages 15 to 20 are eligible for the date with Ms. Electra, born Tara Leigh Patrick near Cincinnati. Winner of the auction receives an all-expense-paid trip to Los Angeles to have dinner with Carmen Electra at "one of Hollywood's hottest restaurants," according to Gillette -- but nothing more.

Proceeds of the auction benefit the National Prostate Cancer Coalition.

At the 4A's management conference in Bermuda, Volvo CEO Anne Belec made a speech in which she announced to the crowd that she was looking for new ideas for her auto brand. And she did it right in front of Ron Berger, the CEO of her current agency Euro RSCG, who introduced her to the crowd before she made her speech. Ad Age has the scoop.

This isn't the first time a car client has pulled a stunt like this. As I wrote about some time back, GM's CJ Fraleigh gave a speech in which notoriously held up a blank check that he promised to give to any shop who presented him with a killer idea.

Fraleigh was inundated with ideas, as I'm sure Belec will be. But agencies looking for a piece of Volvo will be wasting their time. This is an attention-getting trick, not a serious request or account review. And by the way, Fraleigh left his post as GM's Exec VP of Marketing and Advertising not long after he made his speech. Which proves that clients are sometimes as unstable as agencies are.

Another fake blog has reared its hideous head. This time P+G is the culprit. I understand, and can even sympathize with clients wanting to jump on the blog bandwagon. But please, will someone from the agency sector please help these clueless marketers do it right? Wrting tripe is not doing it right.

Posted by "Rose" at sparklebodyspray.com:

I am SO into poetry these days. It was, like, the rap music of the ancients, you know? Of course, not all poetry rhymes...I mean, those Greek guys wrote books of it like the Odyssey by Homer (I love the part about Helen of Troy being soooo beautiful that they started a war over her). They made a movie version last year called Troy starring Brad Pitt (yummy!!). Anyhow, lately I've moved from Greeks to great Americans like Robert Frost. He was such an individualist, you know (not like all of those clones at school…there is another store in the mall besides Abercrombie, people!!) You've heard his most famous poem, I'm sure: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." SIGH. Will I ever be that good?! I've been writing a poem in my journal all week and scratching lines out. Here's all I've got…promise not to laugh?!?!

I am one girl,
In a big world,
Trying to make my way.
Every day,
I wonder what it will take,
To make you say,
“I see you.”

What do you think? It doesn’t feel finished yet. Suggestions?

Thanks to Modern Marketing for the pointer.

from USA Today: Taking a marketing feud between the nation's two largest brewers to new heights, Northwest Airlines has tapped Miller Lite to replace top-selling Bud Light on all of its flights worldwide.

Northwest and Northwest Airlink — offering beverage service on roughly 2,800 of the 3,012 flights they operate worldwide to 247 cities in 23 countries — expects to buy more than 700,000 cans of Miller Lite a year to be served aboard its 659-aircraft fleet.

Northwest made the switch because of passenger demand for "increasingly popular" Miller Lite in Milwaukee and Minneapolis, two of Northwest's biggest markets. With Miller's presence in Milwaukee, "Northwest also wanted to support one of our largest companies in one of our most-important U.S. markets," airline spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said.

A bunch of fat cat ad execs descended upon the Fairmont Southhampton hotel in Bermuda this week, as part of the 4As management conference. Stuart Elliott of the New York Times was there.

Madison Avenue was warned yesterday that it risked being marginalized by profound changes in technology and demographics that are fundamentally changing the ways products are sold to consumers.

"Get past the notion the advertising process is an assembly line," said Jack Klues, chief executive of the Starcom MediaVest Group in Chicago, part of the Publicis Groupe, which handles media planning and buying for marketers like Procter & Gamble.

"We have to stop arguing about who owns the process," Mr. Klues said. "The consumer is boss, and there is plenty of room for anyone who can get us closer to the boss.

"Our failure to move now, and aggressively, will lead us to be held back," he warned, "perhaps forever."

Sounds like the media guy knows what's up. That's a start.

from Chicago Tribune: Steve Dahl thought he could be at the forefront of the so-called podcasting trend, which was virtually unknown a year ago.

Last month he began making his WCKG-FM 105.9 afternoon show available online as a digital audio file, so those with iPods and other portable media devices can download them and listen at leisure around the world.

But this re-purposing of Dahl's show has come to an abrupt halt because of copyright and royalty issues.

Lawyers for station-owner Infinity Broadcasting, a division of Viacom, have determined that the rights agreements covering live streaming of programs do not necessarily cover downloadable versions of those same shows.

As a result, the downloads of Dahl's show that had been available to fans for years also have been halted, though Dahl expects his weekday 2 to 7 p.m. show to be available for live Internet streaming by mid-July.

"Dialogues are more productive than monologues. We believe in teamwork, both internally and with clients. That's why we make our clients part of the community during the entire work process. It's an exchange focused on making the client's business grow. We help each other to become better."

My favorite part about subscribing to CA is the bi-monthly article featuring a particularly great agency. Having worked at more than a handful in my career, and harboring dreams of running my own someday, I pick up a piece here and a piece there, storing these scraps of precious information for future use. Sometimes it's about what not to do, other times it's the opposite.

The current CA zeros in on La Comunidad, an agency run by the Mollá brothers, with offices in Miami and Buenos Aires. José and Joaquín Mollá, both writers with careers in full swing at Wieden and BBDO respectively when they decided to disembark, have advertising in the blood. Their father and grandfather both opened and operated successful agencies in Buenos Aires. "We knew we would never be ready, so we just did it," José told CA's Matthew Porter, taking the crazy leap of faith that is the exclusive province of entrepreneurs.

The agency's state secret is actually revealed in its name, la comunidad, "the community." The operation is really more village than office—where everyone's contribution is honored and essential, where the whole is greater than its parts.

Taking a look at the shop's web site, one can view the two offices. Both are housed in houses. The house in Miami has a pool. I can almost hear José now. "I'll take that call out at the pool." Nice work if you can find it, or create it, as the case may be.

Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media's bevy of blogs, debunks the revolutionary nature of blogs in the New York Times, calling them, "just the latest iteration of Internet media." It's an interesting piece, given that Denton's a leading figure in the "blogs as business" movement. Perhaps, that's his point though—that it's just business, and nothing to get all worked up about. I do agree that blog hype is out of bounds. Yet, I do not agree that it's all just business as usual.

Contradicting the idea that blogs are nothing special, "A blog," he says, "is much better at tearing things down - people, careers, brands - than it is at building them up."

Hugh MacLeod has an insightful write up on the story, wherein he paints Denton as an Old Media guy, whose nanopublishing concept has nothing new to offer.

Our good friends and sponsors at Talent Zoo have relaunched their web site with a new look and feel. Talent Zoo offers services for both jobseekers and employers in the advertising and marketing industries. Plus, there's all sorts of original content (some of which I write), ad industry guest columns, a salary monitor and career advice.

Check it out and let 'em know what you think.

After receiving the dubious award of "Worst Agency Reel" by the readers of Adweek, the folks at Grey decided to put their work up for everyone to see.

The Grey reel is online at worstagencyreel.com

I suppose I have seen worse, but I sure know I've seen better.

from C21 Media: Looking beyond the traditional TV world for inspiration, Fox Television Studios has inked a first-look deal with US ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) for new programme ideas.

The deal gives FtvS first refusal on any of CP+B's ideas for scripted and unscripted series, and comes as networks, TV producers and advertisers the world over forge closer relationships with branded entertainment and sponsored content.

Award-winning CP+B, based in Miami, is best-known for its Truth anti-smoking campaign, and also works for the likes of BMW, Burger King, Google, Earthlink, Gateway and Virgin Atlantic Airways.

“CP+B is universally recognized for its cutting edge campaigns and highly successful approach to branded content,” explained FtvS president Angela Shapiro-Mathes, adding that the agency's "unique creativity and out-of-the-box thinking will complement our development across all media."

“Our goal is to create franchises and find innovative ways of reaching the audience," she added. "To do that, we’re bringing in the most talented people we can identify from all over the world. The relationship with CP+B underscores our commitment to reach out into varied arenas to effectively execute that strategy."

Thanks to Adrants for the pointer.

Weblogs, Inc. CEO, Jason Calacanis, claims he's being stalked by a deranged European cartoonist.

The stalker’s basic claim is that I’m a slave master who is taking over the blogosphere… you see, I’ve got this massive plan to own all 8 million blogs out there and have everyone in the world either come to work for me or get crushed by my might Jedi Powers!

Sending out dozens and dozens of checks a month to bloggers paying them for writing whatever they want is obviously evil…

Stalking is not funny, but this cartoon is (sort of).

The third frame references the now infamous Winer vs. Calacanis RSS bout.

from Rebecca Bolin at Law Meme: A group of undergraduates painted the whole area in front of the main library with a bright Yale blue and white Louis Vuitton® signature print--easily the most pretentious thing I'd seen yet here at Yale. My first thought was that this was trademark dilution in advertising for some unrelated event. I expected this article to be about Vuitton's fiercely policed trademark. But it turns out this was just a tasteless advertisement, guerilla trademark enhancement if you will.

This was a professional advertising operation that didn't even benefit the school in the way other advertising, for example sponsorship in school papers, does. I fear the kind of advertising it may herald. Yale has plenty more spaces to chalk, tons more sidewalk and even brick, and plenty of students to do it. Why not chalk the whole school? When it rains, just go out the next day with your Pepsi® stencil again. Maybe this time you can get the space Coke® got last time.

Ad Age editor, Scott Donaton, talks tough in his recent column.

Marketers don’t want partners.

They want ideas. They want results. They want creative solutions to business challenges.

The faster big global agency networks recognize that -- and stop pining for some mystical, transcendent client relationship that bears no resemblance to their current status or worth -- the faster they can define their actual value and compete for a spot on the roster.

Of course, Donaton couldn't be any more correct in his assessment. Yet, there's a didactic tone here that I find distasteful. It's like being scolded by a teacher, who takes pains to carefully explain what's already plainly obvious.

Erwin Penland of Greenville, SC created the following print ad for the Greenville Bombers, a class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.

I wonder if the brass in Beantown got to see the ad before it ran.

Hello fellow ad creatives. It’s almost June, and you know what that means. Time for Cannes! What’s that you say? You’re not going? Fiddlesticks. You must be one of the poor suckers at the agency who actually has work to do. If so, see if any of the following rings true.

First, for those of you unfamiliar with the inner-workings of large advertising agencies (and the perks a select few in said mega-corps still allow themselves), the event I’m referring to is the advertising industry equivalent of the famous Cannes Film Festival. You know, the annual festival in France that honors mostly good films with the occasional nod to Hollywood crap thrown in for good measure? Well, Ad Cannes (my name for it) purports to honor the best in advertising (an oxymoron to anyone outside the ad world, I know), but unlike the aforementioned nod to Hollywood crap, Ad Cannes consists almost entirely of nods to self-indulgent, trendy art films with logos at the end masquerading as TV commercials. (Preferably ones with nudity, because that makes them edgy. Even to Europeans, apparently. But I digress.) There are also categories for print, outdoor and internet advertising, but it’s really all about TV. How important is Ad Cannes to ad creatives? So important that they managed to keep it a secret from their clients for a long, long, long time. But then the clients found out and started going, too. You know the old saying: if you can’t beat ‘em as they expense a trip to the French Riviera every year, join ‘em.

Not that Ad Cannes is all silly extravagance, of course. As with any awards show, there are always a few deserving souls in attendance who rose to the challenge of creating insightful, memorable and effective work. And they deserve all the recognition they get. Far too many, however, can be described thusly:

1. Young Hot Shot Creatives. The so-called creative “stars” of the industry. They tend to travel in small packs, going from award show to award show where they take turns judging each others’ work and accepting awards from each other. Sort of like the way people spread herpes. Basically, they do just enough work each year to have something to enter, and then the cycle continues. Also, all Young Hot Shot Creatives are pre-D/D/D. (Divorce/Drinking/Drug problem).

2. Old Hot Shot Creatives. They were once YHSCs, but after their own personal D/D/D they live vicariously through the YHSCs by giving them phony project briefs, then “running” the resulting “ads” by securing a single media location just long enough to claim the “ad” actually ran. For TV, this means a single, late-night cable buy somewhere in Montana. For outdoor, hanging something on your brother-in-law’s garage will do, as long as it provides a good photo for the entry kit. But that’s not the only trick the OHSCs have up their sleeve. After all, who are the judging panels at all major award shows headed by? That’s right, your friendly neighborhood OHSC. Nothing tops the shows where the Best Of Show award goes to work from the Judging Chairman’s own agency. Nice one, dude. Your parents must be proud.

2. Agency Recruiters. This is an overwhelmingly female group (nudge, nudge) who have somehow (nudge, nudge) convinced the overwhelmingly male Creative Directors (nudge, nudge) that going to Cannes is absolutely vital to recruiting the best and brightest Young Hot Shot Creatives for next year’s trip to Cannes.

3. The Regulars. This small-but-hearty group of ad professionals has been attending Cannes since the days agency employees other than themselves actually got bonuses (yeah, that long ago), and will continue to attend until they die, retire, or their respective deals with Lucifer come due, whichever comes first. These guys were all fortunate enough to have their prime earning years accented quite nicely by the stock market booms and IPOs of the 80s and 90s, yet to hear them talk you’d think they all founded the agencies that provide the gravy train they’ve been riding on ever since. You know the layoffs that constantly occur in the ad industry? The members of this group decide who gets the axe. They see going to Cannes as their chance to forget about how hard it is laying people off all the time. It’s also when they get their picture in Ad Age.

Hey, it’s nice work if you can get it. And like I said, there will definitely be a few deserving people there. But it all reminds me of something I heard John Stewart say once (while he was hosting the One Show, as a matter of fact) about the plethora of ad award shows. It was something along the lines of “Jeez, pat yourselves on the back much, people?”

Yes, ad people sure do. And nowhere is that more apparent (and often more ridiculous) than at Cannes.

Today's LA Times has a great story on the continuing preoccupation with marketing to 18-to-49 year olds.

The article suggests that today's 50+ consumers aren't the fuddy-duddy, set-in-their-ways people their parents were; rather they're people with money to spend and a desire to try new brands and new experiences.

Since few people in advertising (or anyone who writes the ads on a day-to-day basis), media or marketing is over 50, obviously the ad industry ignores that audience. Out of sight, out of mind.

I wrote about this before. Perhaps there's a place for all the supposed "over the hill" ad people--by marketing to people their own age. Who could do it better?

A shameless plug for my new column on Talent Zoo.

I've noticed for a long time how many ad people get away with being igorant about the new media landscape. It's rather odd timing, since I began working on it prior to last week's AAAA conference.

Admittedly, I don't think anyone reading AdPulp has the problem I describe in the column. Y'all are staying well-informed and relevant.

Seth Godin recently wrote a list of "What Every Good Marketer Should Know" and the folks at BrandPlay have designed his words as a downloadable PDF poster.

You can download it by clicking here.

Among the nuggets I particularly like are:

"Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy."

and

"People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants."

It's all good advice. Check it out.

from Reuters: Robert Redford's Sundance Channel has partnered with Grey Goose Vodka to produce a six-part series called "Iconoclasts," which will start airing on the cable outlet beginning in November,

Each episode will bring together two innovators from different fields, including film and television, architecture and design, fashion, food, music and sports. One will act as a guide into the world of the other to explore each individual's creative process, inspirations and passions. The producers said they have not yet cast any "Iconoclasts."

The series is the first project for Grey Goose Entertainment, the new production arm of Bacardi's Grey Goose Vodka, which hopes to extend its high-end vodka brand by creating entertainment that appeals to its consumer base.

Grey Goose Vodka is not expected to be featured in the show but likely will show up off-air at series launch events planned for the top 25 media markets, said Sundance Channel vp marketing Kirk Iwanowski. Because Sundance Channel does not run commercials, there will be no spots for Grey Goose Vodka surrounding the series.

"You will see Grey Goose utilize this as an off-air marketing platform," Iwanowski said. "Grey Goose Entertainment is in and of itself a brand extension (of Grey Goose Vodka). It's an opportunity for them to reach out to their target demographic beyond traditional advertising or their core product," Iwanowski said.

John Podhoretz writing in the New York Post yesterday had this to say:

The mass-media melt down is happening everywhere you look — from the multiplex to the newsstand, from late-night television to drive-time radio.

It can't be a coincidence that the five major pillars of the American media — movies, television, radio, recorded music and newspapers — are all suffering at the same time. And it isn't. Something major has changed over the past year, as the availability of alternative sources of information and entertainment has finally reached critical mass.

Newly empowered consumers are letting the producers, creators and managers of the nation's creative and news content know that they are dissatisfied with the product they're being peddled.

Mike Elgan writing in Personal Tech Pipeline considers the Podhoretz piece and has five more points to add. Here's a taste of what he has to say:

The mainstream media outlets, particularly the various news media, are obsessed with blogs. But as institutions they seem unable or unwilling to truly understand their appeal -- or to grasp that blogs have already transformed the public.

Blogs deliver ideas and information in a much more "real" way. They tend to be delivered in plain language by people who know they'll be "called" on their baloney. Falsehoods are immediately exposed on other blogs. Incomplete coverage is completed. So when people spend time getting news and opinions from blogs, then return to TV, they find it a strange and alien land. The pancake makeup, hairdos, bizarre body language and vocal intonations and forced, informal chit-chat delivered through a clenched-teeth grimace that passes for a TV smile -- all that suddenly looks like a bunch of crazy people with nothing to say.

I think we can safely say that mainstream marketers can be lumped in to the clueless pile, when it comes to blogs, and the more important part of the equation here—communicating with honesty and integrity.

As the media vehicles pull in to the garage for repairs, ad men and women have the same obligation to look at their own outdated assumptions and mechanisms. The fix is not about moving to blogs, or top-down word-of-mouth or idiotic viral tactis. The fix is at the root, and the root is rotten.

Dumbing everything down to the least common denominator is a lose-lose situation, because markets (and the people who make them up) have gotten smarter. The mass-market once courted on three TV stations is gone. The market today is fractured into thousands of collectives, grouped by interest. The customer can still be reached and possibly even persuaded, but it will be on the customer's terms and turf.

To my mind, there's nothing to fear here. Prognosticators calling for the death of Madison Avenue are doing a lot of wishful thinking. Yes, those refusing to change will fall to the wayside. Everyone can't be saved. Oh well. For those willing to adapt, the future of branded communications is as bright, if not brighter, than ever. Why? Because the work must get smarter to garner results. Having a fondness for smart work, I see the future as a better place. You can argue with me, if you'd like. That's the way we do it now.

The top story in the ad world today--Ad Age and Adweek both report on the $3.2 Billion GM Media business being awarded to Starcom MediaVest based in Chicago.

The incumbents were GM Mediaworks in Warren, Mich., and LCI in New York.

I can't even concieve of the numbers involved. It just blows my mind how a review like this could be conducted and how the decision gets made.

from New York Times: Wolfgang Puck introduced a new line of lattes this month. That the Los Angeles chef has stamped his name on yet another product isn't surprising. But the container is. It heats itself.

The coffee, which comes in four flavors, goes on sale at Kroger grocery stores this month and will eventually move to other retailers.

Thanks to Brand Noise for the pointer.

You can download a list of the winners at last night's One Show here.

A quick perusal of the list reveals very few American winners--and a whole bunch of countries are represented.

What this means is that, in least in the judges' minds, ideas that are simple, visual, and universal tend to win awards at the One Show. Ads full of American colloquialisms and language don't.

So what chance do you have if you need to have some words and information in an ad?

from CNN Money: Wendy's restaurants are giving away free Frostys frozen desserts this weekend as a thank you to customers who supported the burger chain following an embarrassing incident in California where a women allegedly planted a severed finger in a bowl of chili.

"Our customers stood by us while we defended our good name and protected our employees' livelihoods, so now we're showing our appreciation with free Frostys," Tom Mueller, Wendy's chief executive, said in a press release. "We're moving on."

The incident has hurt Wendy's business, particularly on the West Coast, with the company estimating same store sales took a 2 to 2.5 percent hit in the most recent quarter.

The company estimates it will give away 14 million Junior Frostys during the event, which runs nationwide from Friday through Sunday. No other purchase is required.

If the medium is the message, then environmental consciousness is oh so fashionable and hip today. Could it be that Ms. Hilton is more caring (and clever) than she lets on?

Thanks to A Socialite's Life for the image.

Influx recently interviewed Karl Carter, Current TV's VP of Marketing.

Karl talks to us about Current's new advertising model and its radical plan to involve the consumer in the development of both programming and advertising.

Is it true Current's ad model is radically different from other networks-if so why?

Actually, the Current ad model is able to work with both traditional and non-traditional spots. We will accommodate the traditional :30 and:60 spots, but we'll also try longer-format ads, up to two minutes in length, and reduce clutter and cluster by running some spots by themselves between programming segments. This has the potential to prevent people with DVR from skipping over our ads, making us "Tivo-proof".

In addition, were also exploring new forms of creative, having our viewers produce spots for our advertisers, which has the potential to more effectively reach the audience they're trying to communicate with.

So far, we're getting a lot of interest.

How does Current intend to connect and engage its audience in programming?

Were already running contests to get Viewer-Contributed Content (VC2) submissions, and with relatively little promotion, weve already received a few thousand submissions. Our latest contest will give the winner a development deal, where well work with them to produce a piece that will air on the network.

In addition, we will utilize grassroots, online and mass media vehicles to reach out and ask people to tell us whats on their minds.

Who do you believe will advertise on the network?

We have already started to receive strong commitments and are in the enviable position of working with cool, smart and passionate leaders in the advertising industry. What is more interesting is that due to developments in the media world, more and more advertisers are producing short-form content or long-form advertising, depending on who youre talking to.

So many advertisers are already interested in what were doing.

Its a great time to be Current, the industry seems ready for some major changes.

Dawn and Drew, a married couple with a popular podcast emanating from their 1895 Wisconsin farmhouse, have struck a deal with condom maker, Durex, according to Ad Age.

Durex last month launched an unusual brand integration campaign featuring unscripted X-rated banter on the “The Dawn and Drew Show,” the No. 2 podcast as currently ranked by visitors to PodcastAlley.com.

“We’ve always got TV on the radar,” said Ted Conley, vice president of consumer marketing of Durex, but for now he believes, radio, integration into online gaming and emerging media like podcasts make more sense.

He has himself gotten hooked on Dawn and Drew, a kinder, gentler yet even more foul-mouthed take on such radio-cum-satellite personalities as Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony. Mr. Conley now makes room on his packed 40-gigabyte iPod for regular downloads of the Dawn and Dave podcasts.

“Particularly since this has been an underground medium, we don’t want to take it too commercial too fast or transform it into something it isn’t,” he said, so Durex never considered running a conventional radio spot on the podcast. “We want to craft the message so it fits into the show.”

He also likes the ease of doing podcast deals. “We did the negotiations with Drew,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of advertisers knocking at their door.”

Given the present day mass-media meltdown, more knocks on the farmhouse door, as well as knocks on other "citizen media" doors, may well be forthcoming.

Coors Light (or Cold Light, if you will) has found their point of difference—that their beer is colder than the competition—and they're intent on milking it for all it's worth. Which is fine. What I don't get is why it matters.

Do you care that Cold Light is colder than Miller Lite of Bud Light? I know I don't. I care about what the beer tastes like, and if it'll give me a headache or not.

Thanks to Optimus Prime for the image and Adjab for the pointer.

There have been a lot of creative uses of eBay of late. People have been auctioning off their names and their bodies (as human billboards) to advertisers. Here's a new twist.

My name is Jellio, and I write for a blog called YesButNoButYes.com, proclaimed by almost all our writers to be the greatest pop culture blog on the net. We've been around for about six months now, and the response has been amazing. At this point, you might not call us wildly successful, or even moderately succesful. The thing is, we have huge potential.

Now here's the deal...if you win this auction, I will write about you (anything you want*) for FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT!!! That's right, I will post five articles about you, or any subject you wish, once a day for an entire week.

The YesButNoButYes traffic is consistently in the 1,000 - 1,200 visitors a day range. THAT'S LIKE 10,000 VISITORS OVER THE FIVE DAY PERIOD. And when you take out repeat traffic, we're sure that's still at least 50 or 60 people that will see your stories.

So go ahead...make your day.

*Please nothing violent or crazy or anything...don't go all Jeff Dahmer on us.

from The Onion: Hungry shoppers at the Gurnee Mills outlet mall can now get a name-brand lunch at a bargain-basement price, thanks to the Monday opening of McDonald's first "Not Quite Perfect" outlet store, offering imperfect and irregular items from the fast-food giant's menu.

"It's true that consistency is part of what makes McDonald's the leader in the fast-food industry, but so is good value," said Brian Landers, manager of the McDonald's outlet. "When customers see the low, low prices, they're more than willing to give our Six-Piece Quarter Pounders and Fish McGriddles a try. The food's a little different at this McDonald's, but it's really very close."

Continued Landers: "Now, who's ready for factory seconds?!"

"McDonald's prides itself on having exacting standards for its products," Landers said. "But throwing away all-carrot Salad Shakers, parallelogram-shaped hash browns, and McRibNuggets seemed so wasteful. With more of our customers struggling to make ends meet, we knew people would appreciate the opportunity to buy these slightly irregular products at irresistibly low prices."

In spite of the few complaints, most outlet patrons say the bargain prices are well worth enduring the irregular food.

"It's not like the meat's tainted," said Mack Vesper, a longtime McDonald's customer. "A Quarter Pounder on a half-size seedless bun tastes just as good. And, while the gray Shamrock Shake took some getting used to, once you realize that you're getting all the flavor at an eighth of the price, you adapt. Besides, who looks at the color of the shake once you start drinking it?"

Wal-Mart has a long history of using Political Action Committees and funding pseudo-grassroots groups to influence public opinion when the company wants to change zoning laws or put a new store in a neighborhood that may oppose it.

But this ad in the Arizona Daily Sun obviously went too far:

Wal-Mart opposes Proposition 100 in Flagstaff, which would put restrictions on big-box stores. So Wal-Mart paid a group $280,000 to create ads like this one, which uses a Nazi-era book burning image to suggest that if you oppose government book-burning, you should also oppose government zoning laws. The photo that's used is available for purchase as a stock photo and if you look closely enough, you can see swastikas.

Wal-Mart, of course, is now apologizing. Here's the story from The Arizona Daily Sun and The Los Angeles Times. The Wal-Mart funded group in Flagstaff is called Protect Flagstaff's Future. For the opposition side, see YesOnProp100.com (largely funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union) and Wal-Mart Watch, a national group.

I actually think companies should be completely free to use ads like these for issue advocacy and to promote their values. Because it exposes their explicit and implicit agendas and allows the consumer to decide. Wal-Mart recently has been trying to counter negative press with a PR effort pushing a shiny happy image. But as long as ads like these are in full view to the public, both sides of the issue can be seen.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

from The Independent: A new book claims that a shopping trip to Ikea improves marital harmony.

Great Ikea! A Brand for All the People, published later this month, attributes much of the store's success to the fact that its self-assembly furniture allows men to reclaim their hunter-gatherer roots, and so keep their relationships healthy - by demonstrating to their wives and children that they are capable of masculine tasks.

Relate, the relationship guidance charity, said shopping was a major source of conflict for couples, although improving their home environment was a way of increasing domestic harmony.

"My experience of couples visiting Ikea is that it has caused a great deal more arguments and frustrations," said Denise Knowles, a marriage counsellor for Relate, who is not a fan of Ikea.

"In a sanitised world, about the only way people can show the practical side of themselves is through DIY. But I think that it is more about improving their environment. That is why places like Ikea work for families."

Richard Huntington, a planner at HHCL Red Cell in London, wants us ad folk to get over ourselves. And while were at it, he thinks it wise to drop our branding shtik for more relevant and meaningful language. Here's some of what he has to say.

Fundamentally we neglected the fact that brands do not belong to us and do not reside in the HQ’s of organizations but rather exist only in the minds of consumers. This has lead to a number of assumptions that are counter-productive and have effectively neutered the power of the brand.

We got confused about products and brands believing that they were one and the same thing. We forgot that brands are the perceptual halos around products, services and organisations not the products themselves.

We invented a strand of communications called brand advertising, which in claiming it alone had a bearing on brand perceptions marginalised the brand, alienating it from the real business concerns of most clients. Just mention the word ‘brand’ to many retailers, for instance, and they develop a nervous tick.

This is not to say that the concept of the brand is redundant, just that the terminology with which it is associated no longer serves its purpose.

The preservation and growth of the brand concept into the future and the demands placed on those who seek to use it in the service of business demands an new vocabulary devoid of the baggage that currently weighs it down.

Fortunately there is already a such a concept that exists that is perfect for the task - the meme.

To see why meme is better than brand, read the man's treatise. He wants us to become meme doctors, which is certainly an improvement on professional bullshitter.

Thanks to Chroma for the pointer.

Flickr user, Talker, posted this Delta Airlines outdoor board to his photostream recently. He doesn't like it much.