If you watched any of last night's election coverage, you've probably figured out that voters are completely unpredictable. And beyond that, this year the conventional wisdom regarding race, gender, age, and religion just can't be applied to this election cycle. Since voters are consumers, and ad agencies are in the business of trying to figure out what our target audiences want, I decided to take a closer look at …
A Super Lesson, Revisited
Once again, we are headed toward Super Bowl Sunday. And once again, the two head coaches of the Giants and Patriots, who are leading their teams to the NFL's premier contest, have themselves never played a day of professional football. Is there a lesson in the advertising industry can learn from this? I think so. I first wrote about this in a Talent Zoo column from 2004. I got some nice compliments on it, so I …
Quick, Find The Proofreader
Ad Age readers were quick to spot the typo in the next-to-last line of Fallon's new ad for TheLadders.com: Look, typos happen. Very often, the fast nature of advertising, particularly online, leads to slips like this. No one's perfect, least of all me. But when you're sending out copies of a new ad for PR purposes, it doesn't look so good. …
Who Needs Creative Arts When There’s So Much Data Available?
The Kaiser is lamenting the state of creative affairs today. If you work in the creative department of an advertising agency in 2008 you will be hard pushed to find either a member of your team who can remember the old process or somebody who can handle a pencil and can draw - but I bet everyone is pretty savvy with a Mac, Photoshop, Quark and InDesign. Suddenly everyone with a computer, a mouse and a piece of …
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The Art of News
This installation is clearly art with a capital A, but it' also a splendid "ad" for its makers, Movable Type. [via Influx Insights] …
It’s A Crazy Christmas
This brings back memories of WOR, which was on my Atlanta cable system in the 80's. …
No News Is The News
Thanks to George Parker for finding this AOL News spot: Yes, it's funny. But it's also scary. This shit is considered 'news' now? …
Testing The Merits of Pretesting
Every month, Steve McKee of McKee Wallwork Cleveland writes a column in Businessweek that puts in simple terms what real CEOs and marketing folks ought to know about advertising. This month, he takes on testing: Think about how a focus group works—people are invited in, fed a meal, and paid an incentive to offer insights and opinions that the sponsoring marketer can use. The pressure is on to contribute something of …