I'm generally not much of a fan of anti-drug campaigns, but the Sound Advice Project is a pretty cool idea. From Creativity: Parents can record a short message to their child on the teen anti-drug non-profit's site. The sound file is then visualized as a sound wave, which is then translated into a 3D bracelet for the child. The agency drew from research that found kids whose parents talk to them about drugs are up …
Pyper Paul + Kenney Wins 11% More Tampa Addys This Year
Ever since they hauled in 127 Tampa Addys back in 2006, I've been keeping track of Tampa agency Pyper Paul + Kenney's metallurgic sweepage. This year, I'm happy to report an uptick in ADDY wins as compared to last year. From the Tampa Bay Business Journal: Pyper Paul + Kenney won 62 Addys, including four "Best of Bay" awards, in the recently completed district competition through the Tampa Bay Advertising …
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Twitter Power: 245 Pages About 140 Characters
I must admit, I'm not the hugest Twitter user or Twitter fan. I only follow people I'm interested in and can't handle an overload of it. But I can definitely see how people--and brands--can use Twitter to further themselves or their cause. And for the definitive look at it all, there's Joel Comm's Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time. Comm covers it all, and then some: How to get started, …
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Mark Penn Thinks We Can’t Build A Road
Yeah, I'm admittedly no fan of Mark Penn, a former advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign, but in this Wall Street Journal editorial, he is kinda sorta somewhat concerned about the plight of the "Creative Class" and other white-collar jobs in this economy: We are totally unprepared for this new phenomenon. We have safety nets for the chronically unemployed, for the fast-food workers let go (oddly they may be the …
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Ebony And Ivory, Living Together In Commercial Harmony
The increasing trend of multiple ethnicities appearing together in commercials gets a closer look in this AP story: It wasn't always like this. For much of the past century, "minorities were either invisible in mainstream media, or handed negative roles that generally had them in a subservient position," says Jerome Williams, a professor of advertising and African-American studies at the University of Texas at …
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ROI: Advertising’s Dirty Four-Letter Word
If you work in an ad agency today, you're pressed by clients demanding accountability. But just because someone's got numbers, does that mean they rule the roost? We have access to more data, more statistics, more slicing and dicing of numbers and tactics than ever. And has advertising gotten any better through the years? Hardly. Has the creative work improved? Nope. Less wasteful? Occasionally. Is it still mostly …
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Tropicana Squeezes New Life Out Of Its Old Packaging
Tropicana redesigned its packaging, but it turns out people prefer the old Tropicana packaging (pictured below) over the new, which some say is generic-looking. Could a harsher criticism be leveled? According to The New York Times, the company is paying attention to its customers complaints and reversing its decision to change. The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and …
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Motivate Like A CEO: Good Advice No Matter Who You Are
I have to admit, I was a little skeptical when I got a book by Suzanne Bates entitled, Motivate Like A CEO: Communicate Your Strategic Vision and Inspire People to Act! Because I've seen and heard way to many ad agency CEOs who simply have no motivational or leadership skills. They rule by fear, politics and the deep-seated reality that they can't handle hiring people smarter than them. So what's to learn in Bates' …
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