Steffan Postaer's new novel, The Happy Soul Industry, is available to the reading public today.

Postaer took a moment to answer a few questions about the book.

Q. What inspired the writing of this book (other than your career of choice)?

A. The concept. I think I was looking for an idea big enough to support 50,000 words. In some ways it was a lot like judging creative campaigns at work. Which idea is best? Then let's talk about the writing...

Q. Bands sometimes claim their sophomore effort was a burden to produce. Was it easier or harder to write this, your second, novel?

A. Easier to write than the first because I knew my ending (which rocks) from the get go. Having the destination set really helped me to tell the story. I kept imagining Happy Soul as a film, so that helped as well. On that note, I also wrote a screenplay for it!

Q.Has the script been optioned?

A. No, but we are advertising in Hollywood this fall (OAAA donated space to me for all my help at Obies) specifically with film producers in mind.

Q. How important is it to stretch your writing muscles in this way? Does it make your ad work better?

A. Very important. Unlike a lot of copywriter novelists, I'm not looking to switch jobs. I love writing copy. My personal writing helps me stay sharp. My blog, Godsofadvertising has been a godsend.

Goodby has fun with the Rock.

[via Beyond Madison Avenue]

And Extended Stay Hotels goes porn creepy.

Okay, that one wasn't funny. I hope you're not too scarred.

[via Adfreak]

Jah come to break downpression,
Rule equality,
Wipe away transgression,
Set the captives free. -Robert Nesta Marley

Senator McCranky started the week with an ad that compared his opponent to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. His intent was to say Obama is a lightweight, an argument which simply holds no water. Now, he's got a new ad that paints Obama as a later day Moses in hope that the religious right will reject the false messiah.

My conclusion? We're living in strange times.

The thing that's truly strange is both ads play to Obama's strengths. He is popular the world over and he does want to deliver his people from the tyranny of Cheney/Bush. McCranky's ads say nothing about what he plans to offer, only what Obama offers. If I were in a position to advise him, I'd say, "What, are you nuts?"

Back in ad school, one of my first assignments was The Ritz-Carlton. So my art director and I went over to the Ritz and talked to one of the concierges, who told us story after story of the things the staff does for their customers.

Providing great customer service is one of the best forms of advertising a brand can do, and that’s the lesson you’ll get in The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Service Courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company by Joseph A. Michelli.

Michelli outlines how Ritz-Carlton has defined its mission and kept it relevant; how it chooses (not hires) its employees and empowers them to take care of guests; how the staff focuses on verbal and even non-verbal cues to accommodate its guests to ultimately create a “wow” experience and create a lasting impression, and how the company tries to create goodwill in each of the communities it has a hotel.

Obviously, this is a very positive book; it’s not a journalistic look at the company. But Michelli captures the essence of a well-run company, and provides hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of anecdotes of what the Ritz and its employees does for guests, many of which will blow your mind as to how awesome, in every sense of the word, these gestures are.

We’re living in an age in which “customer experience” is more of a buzzword than an actual component of marketing. And in the ad industry, we need to focus on more than creating ads to help brands. So I’d recommend “The New Gold Standard” to anyone who wants to help a client achieve greatness.

Special thanks to FSB Associates who provided me with a copy for review.

Get through to Oprah (or her producers) and you just might reach millions with your story, product or service.

According to Ad Age, a Pennsylvania animal shelter managed exactly that in its ongoing crusade against puppy mills.

Last spring, Main Line Animal Rescue bought a billboard four blocks from Harpo, Ms. Winfrey's Chicago studio. The show's producers quickly contacted the shelter and enlisted its help in a hidden-camera investigation of various puppy mills and pet stores, led by Lisa Ling.

Now, motivational speaker Jiulio Consiglio is running a billboard one block from Ms. Winfrey's West Loop studio to hype his book, Challenge Your Thoughts.

"Diplomacy is not weakness," said Kate Walsh, the star of “Private Practice” on ABC and a member of a dissident faction with Screen Actors Guild.

The New York Times has more on struggles at SAG, but I'd like to linger on Walsh's thinking. The great struggle of my ad career has been diplomacy, because frankly, I feel like I'm holding myself back from slugging it out on a regular basis.

What I've learned is my ability (and yours) to slug it out with style and compassion is what makes the difference. Maybe the people on the other end, internally or at the client, truly don't get it. What are you going to do? Beat some sense into them? I don't think so. You're going to dance.

Zuji, a Travelocity company operating in Asian markets, introduced an affordable line of packaged goods so people would have money left over to take a vacation. This idea checks a lot of boxes: smart; memorable; utilitarian; etc.

[via Cherry Flava]

Biz at Twitter points to this excellent resource, detailing the use of Twitter by newspapers around the nation.

I have to say, I enjoy updates from funny and interesting people, but many things I see in my feed are worthless. Not so, when the update is from a newspaper.

Thanks to this list, I just added @oregonian, @latimesbiz, @statesman and @denverpost.

TechCrunchIT has a thought piece by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, wherein he makes clear his vision for Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 is about replacing existing software platforms with a new generation of platforms as a service.

To put Web 3.0 into perspective, we need to look at all of the major waves in the history of the Web.

Web 1.0: Anyone Can Transact

Web 2.0: Anyone Can Participate

Web 3.0: Anyone Can Innovate

One of our developers has a bumper sticker on his laptop that captures the spirit of Web 3.0 perfectly. It reads: “My other computer is a data center.” That’s a claim that any developer in the world can now make. And that’s the stuff of revolution.

In other words, open source is now taken seriously by those who might have once scoffed at such radically democratic forms. Why we need a 3.0 to say that, I don't know. I guess it makes for a better meme.

Vitamin Water has a concept store in the UK, where the lowly internet message board is put to use in an an elevated experiential setting. In other words, consumers can write down what they think on the wall after trying a certain flavor.

No word on how often the wall is wiped clean or how long it takes to fill with commentary.

[via The Denver Egotist]

That the web is a revolutionary medium, goes without saying today. But James Cherkoff's thinking may lead one to say it, regardless.

Many big brands are shocked to discover that their fame is almost irrelevant online.

Checkoff says brand's offline fame must be "exchanged into local currency that is instantly recognised, trusted and circulated" and that they way to do that is let people remake it in the web's image.

It's wonderful contrary thinking, but there are many layers of MBAs and lawyers on the brand side fighting against just this sort of thing. Which isn't to say it can't be done, just that it won't be done too often.

"Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams — Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword." -E.B. White, "Truth in Advertising," The New Yorker

So begins The Happy Soul Industry, by Steffan Postaer. I'll circle back around when I get time to read the advance copy. But what of E.B. White? The above sentiment takes no prisoners.

According to this biographical sketch, White graduated from Cornell University, after which he took several reporter's jobs--for United Press, American Legion News Service, and the Seattle Times. In 1924, he returned to New York and went to work as a production assistant and advertising copywriter. Two years later, he discovered that the allure of the slick new New Yorker proved to be greater than the security of advertising, and White went to work there.

I find it interesting that so many real writers work their way through advertising.

The economic downturn has to hurt the ad business at some point.

According to the Los Angeles Times, certain sectors like online display advertising are already feeling the pain.

In one ominous example, Lee Enterprises Inc., which owns 54 newspapers including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said in its most recent earnings report that its online ad revenue had dropped 9.1% while print ad revenue fell 10.1%.

Companies tend to cut back first on display advertising, which generated 21% of online ad revenue in 2007, because they see it as a way to improve their image rather than generate direct sales as search ads do.

Search-engine advertising, which constituted 41% of all online ad revenue last year, is expected to remain strong. Although, this Ad Age article about poaching trademarked search terms makes one question.

David Hallerman, an analyst with eMarketer Inc., figures online publishers have little to worry about. "Complaining about an online-ad slowdown is like griping about a slugger who is on pace for 40 home runs after hitting 50 last year," he said.

Online advertising is "not going to grow as much as expected, but it's still going to be growing more than other media," Hallerman said.

USA Today points to this study from private equity firm, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, which forecasts media expenditures in the coming years.

VSS projects that communications spending will increase 5.4% to $923.91 billion in 2008, as strong gains in the institutional and alternative media sectors (like gaming) offset the downward pressure of declining traditional advertising spending.

VSS also notes that communications will be the second-fastest growing of the 15 U.S. economic sectors during the forecast period and will exceed $1 trillion in 2010, with spending reaching $1.183 trillion in 2012.

All good news for the the readers of AdPulp...

"You could call (2008) a tipping point," with consumers poised for the first time to spend more on media than advertisers will, James Rutherfurd, VSS managing director, told USA Today.

Given that consumers are so willing to spend on the media they want, I can't help but think brands might do well to make media worth selling (on top of the product or service they already sell).

Why make ads no one wants, when you could make media people will pay for?

From the looks of things, Bob Hoffman found his inner contrarian a long time ago.

In the most recent post on his blog, Ad Contrarian, he spells out what it takes to write copy that will court an online audience.

The F Word: It’s Fucking Awesome!

On the internet, content is king. And dirty words is queen.

If you are writing a blog, you must be hard-boiled and never show weakness. You must not let on that you are from Scarsdale and went to Hofstra and worked at Grey. You must show the world that you’re an anarchistic, hard-living, hard-drinking bastard. And what better way to be a bad-ass mothafucka than to use naughty language.

Words like "fuck”, “bullshit”, “douchenozzle” and “dickhead” make your copy sing! Put a few of them together and you’ve got magic -- “Fucking dickhead!”, “Fucking douchenozzle!”, “Fucking fuck!”

The ability to express complex concepts in a censorship-free environment is what makes the web great. Well, that and those super hot pictures of Brit.

The following video is the work of Howard Pyle, creative director at Local Theory, the New York boutique that created and produced the Nokia Young Lions film competition sponsorship campaign. MTV plans to use some of this footage in an upcoming special on Cannes.

Nokia Nseries sponsored the Young Lions film competition, providing mobile cameras (the Nokia N93i) that the teams used to create 30 second commercials on behalf of MTV Switch, the network’s green initiative.

While the competition in Cannes is over, the competition to be on TV continues. The Young Lions teams that score the most views of their clips on YouTube will be the ones included in the MTV special.

p.s. Nick Law's comment about not wanting to compete with Hollywood doesn't sit well with me. Hollywood's crap rarely smells much better than our own. I say we take them on.

According to Ad Age, Miller High Life sales rose by nearly 1% during the second quarter, a strong performance for a brand in a challenged category (full-calorie domestic macrobrews) that had seen steep declines in sales for several years leading up to the advent of the current Common Sense campaign.

Here's the latest, politically themed twist in the campaign:

I sometimes call myself a content machine. Yet, Ground Zero's Court Crandall deserves a higher distinction. We can call him a content god.

According to Adweek, Crandall--whose second film, A Lobster Tale, is released on DVD this week--sees a bright future for content in the agency world.

"I have no intention of jumping ship [for Hollywood]," said Crandall. "My hope is that divisions in other agencies starting with branded content and making a big PR deal out of little content will realize that agencies can do more. There are opportunities to build brands not just around product placement. I'd like to play a large part in the movement."

"If anything, the connection between agencies and Hollywood is getting easier," Crandall said. "There are more outlets for content." Studios and networks "now see us as tapped into culture and more understanding that you have to deliver an audience."

I know brand teams will debate this to no end. A marketer of tomato soup, for instance, might ask what business they have making films, or even videos they hope to see go viral. But the answer to this question and others like it, is right in front of our noses. Either it makes sense here, in this interactive soup, or it doesn't. As an industry, we need to stop asking if it'll play in Peoria, and start asking if it'll play on the web.

Renny Gleeson of W+K wants to know how we manage to tend to our personal brand(s) and our online workflow.

This is what he does:

Here I am sitting in Finland, sipping from the hotel wifi, and I've got skype, twhirl, work webmail, gmail, yahoo mail, twitter, netvibes and Facebook live - and in this multiplicity, watching 'Friend Feed' choke, flail and self-reference itself. And I still have to figure out how to force my N95 to give up my GPS digits to ipoka. Which I will.

Personally, I don't like to have multiple windows open on my desktop. The apps can be open, but I don't want to see all that clutter. It makes me crazy.

Alan Grayson is fighting the war profiteers. I hope he wins.

[via Where's My Jetpack?]

The New York Times takes note of the above ad created by Santo, an Argentine agency.

“When we talked to consumers about Coke, we realized they didn’t know that it has no added preservatives or artificial flavors,” said Cathryn Sleight, marketing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain. “We felt it was important to reassure Coke drinkers of this fact.”

In other words, this is a spot made from research, not creativity.

The Wall Street Journal reports that GM, in dire straits, is looking to its ad agencies to pinch pennies:

In its latest attempt to save money, General Motors has asked its advertising agencies to slash their fees by as much as 20% this year and next, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The owner of Cadillac and Chevrolet works with dozens of agencies around the country, including Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett and Interpublic Group's McCann Erickson and Campbell-Ewald.

GM declined to give details on its request that agencies lower their rates, but a spokeswoman says the car maker has "asked our agency partners to work with us to eliminate low-value work and find creative solutions to go to market more efficiently."

That's not gonna be good. I worked for a brief time in Detroit, and what I saw was quite illuminating. I won't get into it now, but the whole system of marketing and selling cars, particularly for the Big-and-Shrinking 3, needs to be blown up and reworked. Unfortunately, these fee cuts aren't going to change that, they'll just put some hard-working ad people on the street. The real problems and problematic people will still be there.

Can we make a better ad banner? Or would that be like making better liver and onions?

Microsoft-owned agency, Avenue A/Razorfish is betting on the former.

According to Brian Morrissey at Adweek, the agency is testing new Web display units that weave the social-media features popular on many sites directly into banner ads.

Shiv Singh of Avenue A/Razorfish said efforts like this are part of an industry-wide effort to solve a critical challenge: How to attract consumers' attention at a time when display ads are ignored and customers rely more on what others say than advertisers.

"What's driving this is the recognition that social influence has a big influence on purchases and brand affinity," he said. "Customers listen to other customers more than anything else. It makes sense for the ad unit to carry customer voices."

I can't say I blame Avenue A/Razorfish for pursuing this. But I'm skeptical about the outcome. Sure, I might prefer to listen to "other customers," but context plays a role here. Customers listen to other customers in forums, blogs, message boards, at the bar, etc. Not in a banner ad.

[via Tim Nudd at Adfreak]

There are trophies and then there are trophies.

?uestlove, of Philly rap group The Roots, prefers his in sneaker form.

In ?uestlove's world, gold records are commonplace. But yor own kicks from Nike...now that's status.

never let it be said that dreams don’t come true. 4 years ago i watched BAPE/reebok shower Pharrell with all these kicks on the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour in the summer of 2004.

i said to my stylist “when am i gonna get enough clout to get such an honor?”

Nike's Air Questo Air Force 1 is on sale now in New York, Philly and LA. The shoe will reach select Nike retailers on August 16th.

When presenting agency capabilities, how often do you stretch beyond the org chart? Sure, you determine some points of difference and place catchy epigrams on Power Point slides, but these steps, although necessary, don't properly capture your company. How could they? You need human beings for that job.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story, where Atlanta shop SuperGroup was pitching The Weather Channel on its abilities to produce original music for a promotional site. Weather Channel executives were hesitant, because that wasn't an area where SuperGroup had a lot of experience.

To prove its abilities, SuperGroup presented the Weather Channel team with a CD of employees' original music -- and won the business. SuperGroup wrote all of the music for the project.

"I jumped at the chance to put my music out in front of anybody," says Elliott Rothman, a SuperGroup Web developer. Music he wrote and his guitar playing were used in the Weather Channel project.

All of which is outstanding. But why does the song in the video I just mashed up on the Weather Channel site sound so familiar?

[via Reveries]

According to The Wall Street Journal, officials in Dubai are negotiating with international and local companies over naming rights for two dozen mass transit stations.

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority is offering naming rights for 23 of the planned 47 metro stops, as well as for the two metro lines themselves. A rider on the new Dubai system might someday be getting off at, say, the Citibank stop on the Nike line.

Much of the planned 45-mile rail system will be above ground, running parallel to Dubai's main 12-lane highway, which will provide added exposure for commercial messaging.

The first metro line is scheduled to be operational in September 2009.

College is beer—a fact that annoys some congressmen, college presidents, college coaches and athletic directors.

While they can't stop students from drinking, they did ask the NCAA to further limit or ban alcohol ads from TV telecasts of NCAA events.

This week in Indianapolis, NCAA's Division 1 executive committee said, "no."

Brewers and ad groups have said that while youths play the games, NCAA events are viewed by a mostly adult audience.

[via Ad Age]

In Israel, the Nissan Tiida apparently gets really good gas mileage. Once you know that, you need not speak Arabic or Hebrew to figure out this spot:

Here's the really big shocker: The Saudis aren't happy and are threatening a boycott of Nissan.

Brands want to play in the social media sandbox. That much has been established. But what games are they playing? That topic needs a bit more exploration.

Spike Jones of Brains of Fire suggests the "go to" game is a social media contest. He says it's good in that contests promote interaction, participation and involvement. But they lack for equally important reasons.

In the vast majority of cases, it’s the brand saying, “We want YOU to do something for US. Talk about US. Make it about US. Tell US how much you love US.” Sure, there’s participation, but it’s a controlled participation. There are rules involved. Guidelines. Parameters.

That's great insight. Brands still have a long way to go before they recognize the web as the consumers' sandbox. It's natural, of course, to see the web as just another medium for their commercial messages, but commercial messages on the web are mostly uninvited dorks at a clothing optional pool party.

According to b-side, Coca-Cola’s biggest consumer generated success was the series of Diet Coke experiments with Mentos.

It must be noted that Diet Coke had nothing to do with the making of these videos. They we're truly consumer generated. No contest needed.

Yahooligans will soon be able to opt out of "customized advertising" on Yahoo.com.

Yahoo! announced the new opt-out capability as part of its response to a Congressional inquiry about customization sent to 33 companies from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times notes that Yahoo already allows users to opt out of customized ads that it serves on other companies’ pages. This tweak would stop the company from serving ads based on a user’s behavior on Yahoo’s own pages.

According to c|net, the news comes one day after Google announced the addition of DoubleClick ad tracking across its sites with an opt-out capability for users.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said, "No one is saying that there can't be targeted marketing, but individual users should have the right to decide what information can be collected and how it can be used for online targeting."

“Without promotion something terrible happens... Nothing!” -P.T, Barnum

Office Max, via Chicago agency, The Escape Pod, is having fun with pennies again. This time, they placed the world's largest penny tray, loaded with $2 million pennies, inside Mall of America. They then opened the tray to the good people of Minnesota, who quickly gobbled up the pennies.

"The tray was emptied in a little over three hours," says Vinny Warren, of The Escape Pod.

Listen to the CEO of Dell as he heaps praise on WPP, expresses pride at being at the forefront of integrated marketing, and can barely contain his excitement for his new agency.

Cheers to George Parker for this one...

Peter Feld at Ad Age thinks that the Obama campaign's appeal to Millennials is playbook perfect.

Wrote Newsweek's Andrew Romano, "Obama is the first presidential candidate to be marketed like a high-end consumer brand." His rising-sun logo echoes the one-world iconography of Pepsi, AT&T and Apple.

Design guru Michael Bierut told Romano that the stand-alone logo, consistent use of the Gotham typeface ("very American ... conversational and pleasant") and his online look and feel make Mr. Obama the first candidate with a "coherent, top-to-bottom, 360-degree system at work. ... There's an absolute level of control that I have trouble achieving with my corporate clients."

Yet, I thought Millennials too savvy for such a polished image. I thought they could spot an ad from a mile away and side step it.

What makes the Obama brand so appealing to Millennials? If we are to believe the pros quoted above, it's Obama's careful precision, his sense of effortless control.

Danny G. adds:

The Obama team is also doing some precision target marketing. While filming a video in a barbershop in Columbus, GA, I spotted the following sign:

Adweek has been reaching out to the ad community for thought pieces. They're running one now from Mark Wnek, chairman and chief creative officer at Lowe.

He says stop worrying so much about who gets credit for an idea.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins begins his chapter on Level 5 leadership with a beautiful quote from Harry S Truman: "You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not care who gets the credit."

This is a thought of such simplicity and yet such profound wisdom that you can stare at it for an hour without entirely plumbing all the positive consequences you would accrue by living by it.

Given that ad people work in a cesspool of ego, I can't think of a better audience for this message.

Ad critic, Lewis Lazare of the Chicago Sun Times likes United's new "Time to Fly" work from Barrie D'Rozario Murphy. He says the ads are the result of "a lot of hard, smart work."

D'Rozario looked at reels of work from more than 200 animators. The veteran ad man said he was searching for particular animation styles that would be effective in fluidly communicating a sense of serenity that travelers are supposed to experience with United's new international business class service as it is rolled out on the carrier's wide-body fleet.

"Sea Orchestra," which shows a vast orchestra of sea creatures performing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," has the most elaborate animation. Two animators in South Africa who collectively call themselves Shy the Sun created the spot.

United's new commercials promote its new international service that provides customers with flat-bed seats in first and business class, on-demand entertainment and gourmet cuisine.

According to Pepsi, August is "Month in the Mix," a time to pay tribute to the DJ and DJ culture.

"DJs are respected trendsetters who have an undeniable influence on hip-hop culture," said Frank Cooper, VP of portfolio brands, Pepsi-Cola North America.

Pepsi will be putting on a series of events this month featuring DJs like Clinton Sparks, DJ Drama, DJ Pharris, Quicksilva and more. See Pepsi DJ Division for dates and locations.

Gary Koepke and Lance Jensen of Modernista got their pictures in the paper.

USA Today also helps the nation get to know these creative characters a bit better.

About Lance Jensen
Age: 45.

Big-deal job prior to founding Modernista: Executive vice president, group creative director, Arnold Worldwide (Volkswagen's "Drivers Wanted" campaign).

Favorite downtime activity: "We don't have much downtime."

Favorite vacation spot: Rents a summer home in Orient, N.Y., on Long Island.

Favorite music: English progressive rock.

The brand that brought the ice cream eating world Phish Food and Cherry Garcia, is now inviting customers to "Imagine Whirled Peace." "Imagine Whirled Peas" has long been a popular bumper sticker on cars driven by Phish phreaks and Deadheads.

According to Online Media Daily, visitors to the new Imagine Whirled Peace microsite are asked to upload their "messages of peace" in preparation for Peace Day. They may also post their photos. A quick link for sharing the site with friends is provided.

Lots of agencies are toying with their self-promo web sites, as they should. One shop--Love Creative of Manchester, England--went so far as to design a site in Power Point.

Why, I can't say. I suppose to prove it could be done.

[via Ian Tait]