AdPulp

Hipsters At War

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:51 -0600

CANON - Freeze Tag from Saman Keshavarz on Vimeo.

"This is an independent promo for CANON France, not commissioned," says writer/director, Saman Keshavarz. However, it's in the works to be (officially) released over the Web, he says.

Special thanks to ProtoShare for sponsoring this month's RSS feed.

One third of the cost in interactive development is in rework. ProtoShare helps developers engage stakeholders, gather feedback and iterate early. When you routinely reduce rework and eliminate headaches you’re able to produce a better experience, satisfy clients and increase profits.

A Gap In Perspective

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:30:40 -0600

What's going on is 10 Vancouver-area Gap stores are offering consumers a credit on any merchandise that goes on sale within 45 days of their purchase. To promote this offer, Gap flipped the script and turned everything in its Robson Street store on its head. There's more information at MySprize.com. [via BrandFreak]

Self-Promo Ad #7

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:54:05 -0600

Yesterday, I had a great talk over Skype with Bob Knorpp of The BeanCast and Cool Beans Group. Like me, Bob is a freelance copywriter and brand consultant, who is fighting for a foothold in the scree field of this economy. One of the things we touched on was the need to be better self-promoters, and by that we mean we need to be more obvious about our service offerings. Bob runs a popular podcast--Danny G. and I will be on again Sunday night--and one might think that clients and agencies would connect the dots and see that Bob's the guy to call when podcasting is the solution that's needed. Naturally, the same holds for me. If an agency or a client wants to create a media property, I'm clearly the guy to call. Yet, it's not clear. People come to a site like this or to The BeanCast for information and entertainment, not because they're looking to hire a freelancer or a consultant. So we maintain other Web pages that sell our services, and that's fine, but this site and Bob's are "proof of concept." It would make sense to receive business inquiries via this channel, but I can tell you how rare an occurrence that is. Which brings me back to the need to speak it, and write it. To make it real and to make it real obvious. Here's a Craigslist appeal I put out last night in my continuing effort to find and connect with a very special type of small business owner: By the way, I'm all about the barter economy and I'm particularly interested in working out part cash/part barter deals with Northwest wineries, breweries, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, clothiers and alternative energy providers. -- Other entries from this series: Self-Promo Ad #6 | Self-Promo Ad #5 | Self-Promo Ad #4 | Self-Promo Ad #3 | Self-Promo Ad #2 | Self-Promo Ad #1

Spotlight on NW Creative: Designers Don't Read by Austin Howe

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:28:15 -0600

Designers Don't Read by Austin Howe began as a series of weekly essays sent every Monday morning to top graphic designers. It's now a 208-page book from one of Portland's more well known "mad men." Howe and Mike Doherty launched the hybrid advertising agency AKA Advertising and Sass (where I showed my book to Doug Lowell in 1995). After selling the agency, Howe spent the next 8 years freelancing as a writer and creative director for firms like Wieden+Kennedy, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Deutsch. Here's a passage from the new book:

Clients are tiring of agency self-interest. They know. Many of them have done time on the agency side and know what drives many of the better-known firms. If the advertising industry does not wake up to its potential role in the entire brand experience (that a customer has with their clients' companies), those clients will begin to revolt. They will leave their award-winning firms for customer-winning firms; ones that take a more holistic approach to the ongoing brand-customer dialogue, and that get involved in everything from product design to the retail environment to the brand's approach to corporate responsibility o the customer's satisfaction long after they've purchased their cieints' products.

I like Howe's emphasis above. The entire brand experience is something we pursued at BFG and it's a model I want to build on now that I'm back in Portland. I also smile when I think of the difference in award-winning firms and customer-winning firms. I'm firmly in the camp of the latter.

Jonah Bloom on The Rise of Media As A Marketing Service (A Favorite Topic Herein)

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:19:55 -0600

"We now have countless examples of the success of marketer as media owner," Bloom says. Then he kindly lists them.

J&J's BabyCenter.com had 3.6 million views last month
P&G's HomeMadeSimple.com and Pampers.com pulled in close to a million visitors
P&G is launching its beauty mag, Rouge, to six million Americans next year
Walmart with its money saving tips on YouTube
Grey Goose with its entertainment division
American Express with its small business blog network
Mountain Dew's record label

And the list goes on... If you would, please add to more examples of media as a marketing service to the comments. Thanks. [UPDATE] Aaron Shapiro, a partner at Huge, writing in Adweek, says he's aware of five major brands that are making their own media the centerpiece of their digital marketing efforts in 2010. For example, the National Association of Realtors is launching HouseLogic.com next month as a way to communicate to consumers the value of a realtor beyond just buying and selling a home.

Do Consumers Care Who Owns The Media Property? Not When The Content's Right.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:28:23 -0600

According to Ad Age, custom magazines from package-goods marketers have been around for a while, but a new wrinkle in the U.S. rollout of beauty magazine Rouge, is the use of the mommy blogger community to help build the database of the relationship-marketing program.

P&G first launched Rouge in Canada in 2005, then tested the magazine with 2 million U.S. households last September. The full rollout with the fall 2009 edition will reach 6 million to 7 million homes. In all, the spokesman said 11 million North American consumers will have received the magazine by next year. Those numbers will push Rouge near the level of P&G's biggest online relationship-marketing program to date, the Home Made Simple program, which later branched into a program on the TLC Network and shopper-marketing programs.

You can call branded content, relationship marketing, if that helps sell the program up the chain. Whatever the case, it sounds to me like someone in Cincinnati got the memo. Of course, I'm a big fan of this direction, but I will add that as marketers become media companies, they need to act the part and deliver extremely high quality content. Failure to do so will result in readers tossing the mag (or Web site) aside with the determination that it's just a poorly executed ad.

This Print Is Jumpin'

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:22:34 -0600

Sometimes a demo is just what the doctor ordered. This is one of those times. Andrew Bell of Barbarian Group explains how the project came together.

This is all the result of a three-way collaboration between the editorial staff of Esquire, the uber-talented designers at Psyop, and us. It was awesome getting to see first-hand all the exceptional talent that gets poured into an issue of the magazine, and collaborating with the brilliant design minds of Psyop was something we've wanted to do for a long time. The whole process started when Esquire approached us looking for an idea that would make their December issue, also known as their "Best and Brightest" issue, be something really unique. We suggested Augmented Reality as a piece of technology that would fit the bill perfectly. We started to collaborate on what that might look like, considering the possibilities for an AR-ified version of magazine staples like the "Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman" as well as articles specific to the issue.

Real Life McCann Welcomes Fictional Agency

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:32:40 -0600

The folks at McCann Erickson probably liked, and disliked, the season finale of "Mad Men." The episode featured Sterling Cooper set to be sold to 1960's era McCann, an agency described as not a good one for Don Draper & Co. to work for. 2009's McCann decided to play along:

McCann Erickson bought ads that appear in the Nov. 16 issues of the trade publications Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek, which carry the headline "Welcome, Sterling Cooper." The ads are signed, "Your friends at McCann Erickson" and include the address of a Web site, which is the site of the flagship New York office of McCann, part of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Visitors to the Web site are being greeted by a video clip produced by McCann New York, which compiles various moments from the Nov. 8 episode in which the characters say "McCann" or "McCann Erickson." The clip ends with the words "Welcome, Sterling Cooper" and an excerpt from the theme to "Mad Men."

Sterling Cooper isn't portrayed as a hip progressive agency in the way DDB was in the early 60's. So if Don Draper & Co. bash McCann for being big and bad, I shudder to think of how staid McCann really was then.

RPA Spreads A Fever

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:21:52 -0600

Honda Crosstour is a new vehicle being promoted by an old song.

Stream With Me

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:19:21 -0600

My jaw is on the ground. Social media scholar, Danah Boyd, spoke at Web2.0 Expo in New York yesterday and now her talk is available in "print" on her site. Here's one bite of that nourishing feast:

Consider what it means to be "in flow" in an information landscape defined by networked media and you will see where Web2.0 is taking us. The goal is not to be a passive consumer of information or to simply tune in when the time is right, but rather to live in a world where information is everywhere. To be peripherally aware of information as it flows by, grabbing it at the right moment when it is most relevant and valuable, entertaining or insightful. Living with, in, and around information. Most of that information is social information, but some of it is entertainment information or news information or productive information. Being in flow with information is different than Csikszentmihalyi's sense, as it's not about perfect attention, but it is about a sense of alignment, of being aligned with information. As of late, we've been talking a lot about content streams, streams of information. This metaphor is powerful. The idea is that you're living inside the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it. The stream metaphor is about reaching flow. It's also about restructuring the ways in which information flows in modern society.

Please reread the above so we can discuss it intelligently. Thank you. The takeaway for anyone in advertising, marketing or media is clear. Do not become an impediment in the data stream. Do not pretend to be a boulder, a back eddy or God forbid a dam. Commercial messages can live in the stream, but only as rafts, canoes or kayaks. In other words, a commercial message in a networked (not broadcast) environment must help deliver the passenger to the desired state of flow. "Advertising does work when it's part of the flow itself," says Boyd.

Boing Boing Bringin' It

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:08:19 -0600

Montreal-based Fluorescent Hill throws down the animation gauntlet in the following video from N.A.S.A., featuring Tom Waits and Kool Keith. [via Boing Boing]

Make This Van Sing

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:23:44 -0600

Victor & Spoils, "the world's first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles," is conducting a contest for its client DISH Network. 99 Designs is hosting the contest, whose aim it is to "develop a creative look and message for DISH Network installation vans in order to attract new customers." Five winners will be awarded $2,500 each. Thus far, 50 entries have been submitted, but none have gotten a mark (assigned by Victor & Spoils) over one star. The jury's out on crowdsourcing, but clearly it's a growing field. One thing I'm curious about is how teams might form to solve these design puzzles. In the case of DISH Network the brief calls for a "creative look and message." That one-two calls for a team effort. It needs a concept and possibly some pretty tight copy. Let's say I happened to think of a concept for this project...what would I do with it? I'm not a designer, so I'd need to work with one in order to submit, and then split the proceeds provided we won. But why would I bother? Why would any senior creative, or creative team, give this, or any other contest the time of day? Seriously, are these contents for juniors and students only? That's not how they're being framed.

Want My Attention? Send Me A FedEx With Something of Value In It

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:28:13 -0600

I don't know how many times I've said, "If you want people to sit up and take note (of whatever), send a FedEx." An email, no matter how well written, is never going to compete with an overnight package. Evolution Bureau obviously understands this, because I just came home to a FedEx box, which naturally got my attention and piqued my curiosity. "I wonder what's in the box," I said aloud. When have you ever said the same about an email? What's in the box is a framed drawing that was used in the making of the following video for Orbit, a Wrigley product. The shoot required the use of over 500 such drawings, and was shot with six cameras in stop motion style. The drawings were rendered by "Goons," an anonymous Chicago-based street artist. Music is by Camera Obscura. Bob Rupczynski, Director of Global Interactive Strategies at Wrigley says, "'Orbit Clean It Up' is a fresh way to engage with today's digital consumer and to offer real purpose around the Orbit brand, providing inspiration to consumers." In the five days since the video was posted, 10,000 consumers of viral content have watched on YouTube. My guess is that number is about to soar, as the cadre of advertising and marketing bloggers get their own FedEx packages and do what I did here--write about it, poste haste.

I Talk Like A Schmuck

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:13:09 -0600

"To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You." - Tom Peters in 1997

Fwix Aims To Spread The Wealth (Although "Wealth" Is Probably The Wrong Word)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:58:48 -0600

Hyperlocal news startup, Fwix, has been making some noise recently, with articles detailing the firm's offerings in The New York Times, ReadWriteWeb, and Mashable. Now The Wall Street Journal is taking a look the company's efforts to share revenue with hyperlocal publishers and individual journalists.

Fwix is launching a new advertising product, AdWire, and agreeing to split revenue with the people who write the local information, laying down the gauntlet against big news aggregators from Google on down. "One of the things I want to change in the industry is how we pay people that are producing the content," said Darian Shirazi, the 22-year-old founder and CEO of Fwix. He acknowledged no local news bloggers are going to get rich from AdWire revenue but said he hopes to set a model for the industry to help sustain new local forms of journalism. "'We're just going to send you traffic,' isn't sustainable for the industry overall," Mr. Shirazi said.

Take a look at the static image of the Fwix widget I placed in this post. See where it says, "Sponsor: People in Portland are getting hdtv channels at low prices." That's the text ad being served up by Fwix. When a visitor to my Web site clicks this text ad, Fwix will share revenue with me plus the writers of the editorial content surrounding the text ad, provided they've registered as journalists with Fwix.