Adverganza

The demise of Cliff Freeman and Partners -- and a certain kind of TV ad

2009-11-09T18:09:00.000-05:00

The demise of Cliff Freeman and Partners last week marks the end of an era in many ways. First, it in all likelihood is the end of a certain comedic style — unless Freeman manages to move elsewhere — and it is also another death knell for agencies which rely too much on TV commercials as the default medium for advertising. By some accounts, among the problems the shop faced was that its emphasis on traditional forms of media over digital ones wasn’t in favor with most clients. (The faltering economy certainly didn’t help either.)

Whatever the case, it’s hard to imagine that even commercials the caliber of Freeman’s could capture the pop culture zeitgeist the way that “Where’s the Beef?” did in 1984, or the gerbil being shot out of a cannon did for Cyberian Outpost during the dot-com boom. (Clara Peller, the then-octogenarian who appeared in that famous “Wendy’s” spot, is pictured above.) TV commercials don’t capture the popular imagination the way they once did; it’s another casualty of the era of micro-targeted media..

For the fun of it, below is an overlooked commercial Freeman did for Wendy’s while at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. Take a look and have a laugh at “Russian Fashion Show”:

My BNET Media posts for the week of November 2, 2009

2009-11-06T16:07:00.001-05:00

This week at BNET Media, I wax on about Conan O'Brien climbing in the trunk of a Ford Taurus, Jay Leno getting real, and "Southland" scaring NBC -- even though Halloween is over. Here in reverse chronological order, is some of the finest content on this side of the Adverganza:

Feel free to follow our feed on Twitter, @bnetmedia.

The Weezer Snuggie: It rocks ... and it's real

2009-11-05T12:53:00.000-05:00

OK, just discovered this over at AdFreak. You can get the Wheezer Snuggie and their new CD for a lo, lo $29.95. I dare you not to watch.

Teaching social media workshop at Art Directors Club, Nov. 9

2009-11-05T12:09:00.000-05:00

Just a quick heads up that I'm going to be teaching a social media workshop at the Art Directors Club of New York on Monday starting at 5, with the help of Greg Christman of Sam & Lori, otherwise known as @reelspit (I don't know why.) Our goal is to help people in advertising build their personal brands via blogging, Twitter and other tools. It's very hands-on -- attendees should really try to bring their own laptop so they can get their fingers dirty -- and will teach all anyone needs to know to be able to walk out of the room a few hours later with their own blog set up and a burgeoning Twitter presence. After that, your nefarious plan to rule the ad blogosphere is out of my hands.

The Social Media Insider looks at the social net-energized portals

2009-11-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

In today's Social Media Insider, I ponder what it means when everyone of the Big Three portals — the latest being MSN — allows users to put their social nets on their home pages. In case you doubted it, the era of the portal is now officially done.

The Social Media Insider gets lost in the social media universe

2009-10-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Spent a long time today looking for a Social Media Insider column idea and discovered that the real problem was the information overload engine, which had overwhelmed by brain. Read more over at Mediapost. As a bonus, this column also makes reference to dead people on Facebook.

Publicis to stop creating print ads

2009-10-27T13:17:00.001-05:00

At least that's my takeaway from Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy's statement during the third-quarter earnings call that the agency holding company plans to become an "all-digital agency." And by the way, they'll be no analog radio or static billboards made at Publicis anymore, so there!

Seriously though, even as a believer in digital, I find proclamations of becoming all digital to be positively cringe-worthy because they have a "hook, line and sinker" quality to them that indicates those doing the proclaiming have had more than their fair share of of Kool-Aid. While it's true that all kinds of media are becoming more digital than less -- including such former stalwarts as TV, there's still a little something to be said for magazines, newspapers and other forms of analog media, isn't there? Isn't there?

Marital infidelity, now appearing on Sprint's Now Network

2009-10-26T10:40:00.002-05:00

For reasons that escape me -- something to do with fatigue, I'm sure -- I ended up watching just a little "Desperate Housewives" last night, and thus, came across this brand integration scheme: the Another Desperate Housewife" series sponsored by Sprint's Now Network. Its connections to the actual show, no pun intended, are many: the mischievous music, perfect houses and great-looking people among them.

But, of course, there's also the philandering, and that's where this little homage gets, to me, very off base. Sprint phones figure prominently — as the means with which to prove that your spouse is cheating. So, next time you feel the urge to check up on them, I highly suggest that you use Sprint's Now Network to see if that text message that just arrived is really from your husband's office. I understand the urge to seamlessly integrate programs with products these days, but do you really want to position your phone as a great way to spy on your spouse? I don't think so.

My BNET Media posts for the week of October 19, 2009

2009-10-23T15:10:00.000-05:00

Let's hear it for blatant self-promotion! This week on BNET Media, I wrestled with Big Ads, NPR's Twitter followers, Balloon Boy and Fox News. Here, in reverse chronological order, are some damn fine posts:

You can follow our posts @bnetmedia if you want. Have a good weekend.

If you look really hard, maybe you'll see Derek Jeter

2009-10-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

Something tells me there's a new series debuting on USA tonight.

So, what is the truth about Tony?

2009-10-22T15:29:00.001-05:00

I've spent way too much time today trying to figure out what the point is of this video, "The Truth About Tony" which is currently on the Burger King site and presumably the work of one Crispin Porter + Bogusky. I get that the Tony in question, Tony Stewart, is a NASCAR guy who has an ongoing relationship with The King -- from an endorsement point of view. What I don't get is why, in this video, Tony undergoes a polygraph test, judging how truthfully he answers questions from viewers, closing with the inevitable BK questions -- about whether he loves the Whopper sandwich. (He does, and he didn't lie about it.)

OK, but at the beginning of this post, I said I couldn't figure out what the point of this was. Here are my questions:

Why would people sit through 15 minutes of this? It's at least that long.
Why can't you pause the version on BK.com, or or embed it?
Why does the page with the video on it not even indicate how long it is?
Why hasn't BK posted this to YouTube? (LiveStream, which provided the streaming for this, posted a blissfully abridged version.)
Did Old Spice and Office Depot, whose logos are prominently featured on Stewart's shirt, sign off on this BK stunt?

Anyone who can answer these questions, lemme know.

The Social Media Insider wonders if real-time search is all it's cracked up to be

2009-10-21T16:45:00.001-05:00

If you did anything, anywhere on a social network today, you probably saw that Microsoft's Bing is starting to offer real-time search of tweets and Facebook status updates. The Social Media Insider asks if we should be quite so excited about this..

Ads that annoy: Volume 1, Windex

2009-10-21T12:39:00.000-05:00

Just saw this Windex ad as a pre-roll to a preview of "The Biggest Loser" at NBC.com. Not that the guy in this ad would qualify for the show, but do you really think, in the real world, he would snare this woman? (OK, maybe if he worked at Goldman Sachs.) This commercial had to have been concocted by men.

Verizon decides it's time to make fun of the iPhone on two fronts

2009-10-20T12:00:00.002-05:00

With Apple still selling iPhones like there's no tomorrow -- it sold 7.4 million of them in the last quarter -- it's not exactly tme to kick the company in the teeth while it's down on its luck. So what's up with the two campaigns out right now from Verizon that make fun of the iPhone specifically, and iCulture in general?

The first is the campaign below for Verizon's new Motorola 'Droid phone; in the nanosecond that the campaign's been out, it's at least managed to gain some notoriety, even though all of those references to "iDon't" makes it sound, well, like a dumbphone unless you're paying attention. The references to iDon't are actually about the iPhone. More than 700,000 YouTube views later, here's the spot, which has led some to speculate that the endless poking of fun at the iPhone may kill any possibility of Verizon becoming an iPhone carrier too. (Damn!)

The second attacks the iPhone in a more obtuse way. In this one, a voiceover intones over and over that, "There's a map for that" instead of the iPhone-esque, "There's an app for that." The maps in question are really ones showing that Verizon's 3G coverage across the U.S. is much stronger than AT&T's — AT&T, of course, being the sole carrier for the aforementioned iPhone, which kind of lives for 3G.

My BNET Media posts for the week of October 12, 2009

2009-10-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

Let's hear it for blatant self-promotion! This week on BNET Media, I wrestled with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Balloon Boy, and clouds. In reverse chronological order, here's what I posted:

Have a good weekend!

Is social media turning us into Whiner Nation?

2009-10-15T09:53:00.000-05:00

In yesterday's edition of the Social Media Insider, which I write for Mediapost, I ponder whether social media is turning us into Whiner Nation. Pissed off at a big company? Make sure to whine about it! Preferably in public!

Some people have called this column "Spot on"; others "insulting" and "patronizing." You be the judge.

American Express learns it's not good to get Joseph Jaffe mad

2009-10-08T19:30:00.001-05:00

Those of us in the marketing business already knew that it's not a good idea to make Joseph Jaffe mad. He's one of those people who has all of the tools at his disposal to spread bad news about a brand (and good news), virally. If you want to see what I mean, check out the video above, which he, of course, posted to YouTube, posted to his Jaffe Juice blog, and has tweeted to his more than 13,000 followers. I'd be surprised if American Express hadn't noticed this by now.

Estee Lauder will beautify your lowly social networking profile pic

2009-10-08T19:19:00.000-05:00

Someone told me recently that the wonderful world of retouching has come to high school graduation pictures, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Being retouched to a fare-thee-well is now in reach of everyone! Even your 16-year-old who doesn't need it!

So, in this era of Photoshopping for the masses, it shouldn't be surprising — but is nonetheless a great idea — that Estee Lauder is about to bring a similar thing to the lowly social networking profile picture, while promoting itself to boot. According to Ad Age, the cosmetics company is now offering free makeovers and photo shoots for Web site profile pictures in a select group of department stores, such as Bloomingdale's New York, that carry its brand. The only "cost" for those who do it is having an Estee Lauder logo in the background on the picture, which to me seems like a minimal bother given how expensive it is to hire a makeup artist and photographer all by yourself. The brand is promoting it on its Facebook page, though the pictures themselves can appear wherever women in Estee Lauder's 35 to 55 year old target roam online.

So, will there be retouching? A little. Estee Lauder spokesperson Tara Weisenberg described it as "minor." Damn.

Pssst ... Want to learn how to blog? I'll tell you how

2009-10-07T08:43:00.000-05:00

As I slowly resurrect this little thing called Adverganza, thought I'd post about a course I'm teaching out in Westchester (New York, gang, not Pennsylvania), tomorrow night covering the basics of how to use social media tools such as blogs and Twitter. Is this stuff hard? Nah. But occasionally people think it is, so this course aims to walk people through enough of the ropes to feel comfortable dipping their toe into social media for themselves. Maybe, by the end, everyone will have even sent their first tweet. Here are the details:

When: Oct. 8, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: The Bakery at Four Corners, 4668 Boston Post Road, Pelham Manor, NY
Price: $20 (wine will be served, but drunk blogging is strictly prohibited)

To register, go to this link and scroll down to the course titled, "Blogging Boot Camp and Twitter Too ... " or contact Lynda LaMonte Garmong at lynda@thebetterclass.com.

Thanks all. Now back to coverage of advertising.

ANDYs Randy for Crowdsourcing Jury

2009-10-05T21:51:00.001-05:00

So, I'm reading tonight about the decision by ANDY Award co-chairs Ty Montague and Michael Lebowitz (JWT and Big Spaceship, respectively) to crowdsource the jury, actually a kind of obvious step when you think of where things are headed -- to one big crowdsourcing of everything, from advertising ideas to what to have for lunch. So what the hell, go to electthejury.com and cast your votes.

Among other things, what the duo is hoping for is: "a more accurate, fair snapshot of what has been done in the past year," according to Montague. I'm not sure about that. I stuffed my ballot box with AKQA's Rei Inamoto, because he has such a cool name; John Jay to fill the Wieden + Kennedy requirement; Simon Waterfall, because he just left his agency and doesn't have much to do; Ogilvy's Lars Bastholm because he's Lars Bastholm; and Jimmy Wales because if he ever sat for an advertising awards show I'd plotz.

The story about all this in Adweek of course led some advertising types to speculate about creative directors at big agencies getting their minions to vote early and often, thus skewing the jury, and ultimately, of course, the awards. Ah the cynicism.C'mon, I checked the site out and you can only vote once ... per day.

It occurred to me that what Montague and Lebowitz really ought to do is eliminate the jury entirely and just crowdsource the entire show. You know, cut out the middleman.

Lee Garfinkel strikes back, defends mustache

2009-02-12T09:01:00.003-05:00

Woke up this morning thinking I should post some more thoughts in the Lee Garfinkel-gets-canned-for-Eric-Silver saga, because what struck me was how, when the swap out was eventually confirmed, the commenters had turned a bit more positive by my subjective estimation. The detractors were still there, of course, but you could see the hatefest slowly playing itself out. The whole incident makes me think we all should have a commenter SWAT team, at the ready, for whenever our reputation is being impugned online. Rally those Facebook friends and Twitter followers!

Anyway, this morning @bmorrissey pointed out that now Lee, back from Antarctica (yes, he was in Antarctica during this whole thing), has stricken back with a 825-word story at Adweek.com in which he mostly defends the trashing of his ... mustache.

He also claims to have started a blog, blogaboutlee.com in which people can continue to comment about him, but he hasn't, really; it's just a parked GoDaddy page, owned by Adweek.

The Times' Weekender ads finally get the spoof they deserve

2009-02-10T22:00:00.004-05:00

Thank God someone finally made fun of those ads for "The Weekender" package from The New York Times. Whenever I see one, it actually makes me reverse policy and think that maybe it going away wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

BBDO's Eric Silver going to DDB is only part of the story

2009-02-06T09:12:00.003-05:00

You may have seen the story at Adweek.com yesterday saying that BBDO executive cd Eric Silver had departed, supposedly heading to sister shop DDB in "the top creative post" at the New York office. The office's chairman/chief creative officer is the (depending on who you ask) legendary Lee Garfinkel. But what looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill story about creative director musical chairs is actually a demonstration of the advertising industry coming unhinged. Since going up some time yesterday, the story has garnered some 145 comments, including name-calling not only on the individuals involved in the story, but on the ad industry itself. Some choice excerpts (I'm not vouching for accuracy of any of these, but only reprinting as an example of what you'll find if you go there):

From agencywonk:
About time they called Garfinkel what he is: a woefully underachieving CCO who hasn't produced anything noteworthy since his BBDO days

From an anonymous poster:
This is not a good fit. Eric is a nice guy and extremely talented, but he is a man-child. He will not be able to run an agency creatively. He doesn't have the patience for it. He has not made a career out of getting good work out of tough clients. He has made a name for himself by doing exceptional work for good clients. There is a world of difference between the two.

From Baffled Three:

Just when you thought Big Dumb Agencies couldn't get any bigger or any dumber... There just isn't much call anymore for agencies whose sole focus is the :30 second TV spot. Oh well, makes it that much easier for the rest of us.

From Disappointed:
...that people in our industry can stoop so low as to the comments made here. I am disappointed and embarrassed. How can we get paid for our talent or command respect when clients see garbage like what's been written here today. I hope one of you doesn't fall victim to the same scrutiny one day."

Thanks to Alan Wolk for tweeting this and bringing it to my attention, and for noticing that many of the commenters are referring to the comment thread as a blog. Weird.

Charlie Rose talks to MySpace founders

2009-02-05T08:41:00.004-05:00

Since my Social Media Insider column doesn't permit the embedding of video, thought I'd embed video here of the half-hour Charlie Rose interview on Tuesday night featuring Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson of MySpace (or as Charlie Rose pronounces it Mah-Space). If you want to read my column, click here; if you want to stream the video, see below.

For advertisers, it's not the Super Bowl, it's the Desperation Bowl

2009-02-02T08:31:00.004-05:00

As you may have noticed, Adverganza has assiduously avoided doing anything about Super Bowl advertising (and posting, for that matter). In both cases, it has to do with having too much work right now and not enough time, a situation I'll take, especially with the economy continuing to tank. But it yielded a surprise benefit: a completely fresh eye last night on Super Bowl commercials in the context in which they were meant to be seen, with pretty much no early look at what the ad-fest had in store. As it was as much of an outsider's perspective as I've had in 25 years, this is what I came away with: the strain employed to make Americans laugh is painful to watch. It's never been so clear to me how desperate the subtext of nearly every ad is, which is a pleading, "Please, pppllleeeeaaasssse, puh-leeze laugh." As an armchair ad-watcher this year, it also made me wonder what the hell the ad industry is up to during the rest of the year, when it's not busy trying to win the USA Today Ad Meter. Is everyone just phoning it in during the other 11 months?

Given that the commercials seem to carry a similar, over-the-top tone, the net effect for those of us who've been able to avoid the pre-game hype is that it's one big blur of (attempts at) over-the-top comedy, which sucks everyone and everything into its vortex. I cringed at Conan O'Brien for Bud Light, and winced at the "I'm good" commercial for Pepsi Max. A former Adweek colleague, who was hosting the party I attended, couldn't believe that Pepsi Max has actually gone and forthrightly declared it is a diet drink for men. Are men going to order that now because Pepsi told them to? The cars.com commerical started off well, but the payoff didn't work at all. It's not that such commercials are supposed to be plausible, exactly, but a guy who performs open heart surgery with a ballpoint pen can't buy a car on his own? C'mon.

It's somewhat amusing to read that the winner of the USA Today Ad Meter (which itself, like individual commercials, has gotten lost in the hype), was a consumer-created ad for Doritos, but don't jump to the conclusion that this means consumers make better ads. It just means that they've gotten really good at copying BBDO.