"Steve would've killed these." "Lee oughta know better." It's no secret that Apple's current spots, featuring a typical Apple store "Genius," are getting panned. I'm not here to pour more criticism on. My question is simple: How did they get these done? By that, I mean: Who approved this strategy? Who thought this kind of comedy was needed? Did the client really want this campaign (and insist upon it)? …
The Future Of Marketing Words Don’t Look So Purty
Could you imagine laboring over a piece of copy the way old-timers like Howard Gossage did? And if you did, what would your current clients do to it after you sent a draft to them? Thanks to these internet tubes, people everywhere are writing, all the time. Or at least, they're typing. Has all this collective writing ability lowered the grammatical and stylistic standards of the ad industry? That’s the …
Continue Reading about The Future Of Marketing Words Don’t Look So Purty →
Advertising Shapes The Popular Culture. And Bullying Is A Part Of That Culture.
Writing in Ad Age, Claudia Caplan, CMO of RP3, takes a look at the documentary "Bully" and asks whether our industry has some culpability in shaping a culture where bullying is promiment. "Bully" made me feel both responsible and ashamed. It got me thinking about the role advertising has in shaping what's cool and what's uncool, what's normal and what's weird. It reminded me of the many casting sessions I've sat …
Gerry Graf Talks Commercials, And The Team That Creates Great Ones
There's no doubt that Gerry Graf, now head of Barton F. Graf 9000, has done, or overseen, a lot of great TV commercials in his career. Here's just one: On FastCoCreates, a project of Fast Company magazine, Graf shares the ingredients of a great commercial. Here's the part that caught my eye, as Graf describes "The Ideal Team": Account people: no one who has a vested interest in making sure the client is …
Continue Reading about Gerry Graf Talks Commercials, And The Team That Creates Great Ones →
Hurry Up And Add ‘Slow Down’ To Your To-Do List
Last week at the Seattle Interactive Conference, Cal McAllister, co-founder of Wexley School For Girls, gave an inspiring presentation on his agency. One of his agency's tenets was a very simple one: "Slow Down." In other words, don't rush ideas out into the world until they're ready. Great advice, but hard to implement. Because everything these days is so ridiculously fast-paced, and whether it's from our …
Continue Reading about Hurry Up And Add ‘Slow Down’ To Your To-Do List →
Across The Pond, Advertising Isn’t Water. It’s Poison.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Writing in the Guardian, columnist George Monbiot laments the necessary evil that is advertising: Some adverts appear to promote intrinsic values, associating their products with family life and strong communities. But they also create the impression that these values can be purchased, which demeans and undermines them. Even love is commingled with material aspiration, and …
Continue Reading about Across The Pond, Advertising Isn’t Water. It’s Poison. →
Jarritos Makes Bid To Be Most Interesting Imported Soft Drink In The World
Jarritos is painting the town red. And then some... The Mexican soft drink's new tagline, “We’re not from here” is spot on. I love it when a brand uses a negative as a positive. According to The New York Times, Jarritos' agency, GSD&M, hired Federico Archuleta, a street artist from Austin to paint murals on buildings in Hollywood, Silver Lake and Venice Beach, Calif. I'm also a fan of the well done …
Continue Reading about Jarritos Makes Bid To Be Most Interesting Imported Soft Drink In The World →
Spotlight On NW Creative: Blaine’s Pretty Profound Non-Billboard
On the outskirts of Blaine, Wash., a small town north of Bellingham, near the Canadian border, is home to this critical-of-advertising art installation from Lead Pencil Studio. Lead Pencil's Daniel Mihalyo says, "this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond." "Non-Sign II" is made of thousands of stainless steel …
Continue Reading about Spotlight On NW Creative: Blaine’s Pretty Profound Non-Billboard →
