This is a sample of our client christmas card. This year's theme was multi-purpose wrapping paper that can either be used either to wrap a loved one's gift or to be hung on the wall thanks to the inspirational message on the inside. Either way, a great gift for all.
From all of us at Leo Burnett, have a very Happy Holidays. We're out now until January 4th.
Hugs,
Brent & Angus
Some people never run into those kinds of people. Some are too shallow to understand the intellectual goldmine that they just bumped in to. I like to classify myself under a third umbrella. I have to work so hard just to keep up with everyone else that when I meet someone who seems to do it so effortlessly, I stand up and pay attention. Who knows, maybe I'll learn a thing or two...
Always keep an eye out for the smartest guy (or gal) in the room. There is a very good reason why they say, you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
If one merely observes how air travelers attempt to forcibly maneuver bovine sized luggage into tiny overhead compartments, then the answer might seem quite obvious. Criticisms of spatial thinking aside! However, I’m eager to hear everyone’s collective thoughts to this question as it applies to the copy testing environment. Time and time again I am startled at how flat footed, linear and obvious many of the ideas need to be in order to score well on comprehension, enjoyment, believability and purchase intent. This becomes especially clear when people have to put pieces of information together - sentences or paragraphs if you will - to form a narrative story about the brand. Surprising? Not if you think that in a world of entertainment - a world increasingly obsessed with the entertaining - each of us are quite obviously directed - what and when, to think and feel. Laugh tracks in TV tell us when to snicker, cinematic music tell us when to become apprehensive or tearful and celebrities separate the mere product from the majestic. In a world of entertainment, advertising must increasingly learn the techniques and rules of entertainment as it forms the dominant form of conversation, creation and consumption.
Advertising begins and ends with people and behaviour. It's a methodology that is instilled in Burnetters early. Successful clients brief agencies to create advertising that connects with people and changes behaviour.
But it's hard to craft effective advertising when you're talking to people the same way everyone else is.
Media companies maximize the client's budget by securing the largest amount of eyeballs possible. The beauty of media is that you can show exactly how you maximized the spend using client-digestible numbers.
The problem with that strategy is that it is devoid of, a strategy. You won't come across very unique if you run a tv commercial in the same commercial break as all your competitors, or have the same radio buy, or purchase the same newspapers.
What you need to do is gain the attention of your customers when they're willing to listen.
Selling office supplies? Why not hold a office supply/tupperware party at an office building.
Hocking Nikes? Why not have really attractive, fit athletes start at the back of a marathon and pass everyone on their way to the front.
Into cellphones? Why not throw a concert and give only your customers preferential treatment? Make it cool to be a telecom customer again.
Creating buzz for Google Maps? Why not bridge the real world by placing markers at famous people's favourite places to eat? Oh, that's been done.
Source: Flickr
Creative powerhouse, Boondoggle, just outted the Cannes Film Festival.
You see, these fellows were lucky enough to pull down not 1 but 5 Gold Lions and it seems they were less than impressed with the hardware they spent a few thousand Euros on. So they took them to a few gold specialists who would not even give them 5 Euros for the lot.
Ouch.
Source: Adrants
Thanks for the shout out Freddy.
Business cards were typeset on cloth and tied in a knot. Clients would loosen the knot to reveal the name and information of the massage therapist.
Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Toronto
Creative Directors: Judy John, Israel Diaz
Art Director: Paul Giannetta
Copywriter: Sean Barlow
Photographer: Mark Zibert
Source: AdGoodness
Whether you love it or hate it, Microsoft Outlook is the ubiquitous email client for millions of cubicled office dwellers. In a great example of the power of social networking, fans of the email client have banded together in the hope of getting the software giant to rethink it's recently announced upgrade.
A quick Whois search revealed that a David Geiner, of Email Standards Project fame, is leading the charge with the recently launched FixOutlook.org. The slick site pulls tweets from the Twittersphere (I think I just coined a new term!) and displays them alongside the person's profile picture. Any tweet with the fixoutlook.org url will be pulled in and displayed on the page in an attempt to get Microsoft's attention. Based on the amount of press the press has received in just 24 hours, I'd say they have it by now.
As of now, the site has over 17,000 tweets which is almost double what it had when I took the screen cap above this morning.
This ingenious little tie in with the well known social network makes giving your input to Microsoft as easy as sending out a tweet. And starting a conversation with their most loyal fans to help improve one of their best selling products should be should be exactly what Microsoft wants to do. For that matter, any company from Audi to Kelloggs could start promote this kind of engagement with their customers.
By launching this site, with its smart integration into a well known social platform, Mr. Geiner and the team at the Email Standards Project could very well change the course of Outlook in 2010.
Source: Fix Outlook.org
The Toronto A La Cart program, run by the City, is meant to bring the diverse ethnic foods of Toronto out of the restaurants and on to our streets, to offer a healthier alternative to the hot dog, for those who want it, and to show that we are a city sophisticated and multicultural enough to present its residents with a kaleidoscope of street food offerings.
With this opportunity in mind, we set out to come up with an identity for the project. The resulting graphic design we developed is grounded by the number four. Four has great significance in terms of food and diversity. The four corners of the world (north, south, east, west), the four taste sensations (sweet, sour, salty, bitter), the four main utensils used when eating (fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks). It uses four circles, symbolizing plates, and grounds the utensils within them to create a graphic representation of the word ‘Cart’. The vibrant colour palette was inspired by actual vegetables and spices to reflect different cultures and ethnicity.
The identity can be found on the actual street carts throughout Toronto. I decided to go sample some down at Nathan Phillips Square today…my picture doesn’t accurately reflect the crowds. There’s nothing like some good chicken Biryani and a fresh piece of fruit to enjoy out in the sun. I could get used to this. Hopefully some carts will pop up near our offices mid-town!
Q: Alternative to whom?
Q: Unconventional by whose standards and whose behaviour?
The pressing reality for most brands today is that product differentiation can be erased overnight and brand messaging easily duplicated. But the creation of purpose driven acts that deliver layers of the brand experience may be a last source of differentiation. What many call ‘alternative’ media today - and what I might call a brand act - has in been in play since 2nd century B.C. The circus maximus was buzz marketing, conversation creation and stunt writ large for brand Rome. The first known example of guerrilla marketing is to found in Ephesus (modern day turkey) in the form of graffiti advertising a brothel. Place based media in the form of architecture has at its best, implied much more than mere form as in the case of Beijing: Contemporary Superpower. Alternate media…how about a conversation about context as a media in and of itself.
The tension inside the pitch room is palpable. It's a mixture of stress, adrenaline and butterflies. While my role was only a small part of the larger presentation, watching all our hard work come together in a flawless 27 minutes of power point prowess was quite a sight.
While we didn't end up winning the business (therefore making my record 0-1), it was not all a loss. It took Leo Burnett many years of hard work to even get an RFP let alone get in the room. So that on its own was a small success.
In my opinion, the secret to success is to show your potential clients that you not only have the muscle and the foresight to get the job done, but that you work well as a team and could potentially do great things together. Chemistry, in advertising, between clients and agency peeps is of the utmost importance for longterm success - even more so that than the work itself. If McDonald's isn't happy with the work Cossette is creating, they'll ask Cossette to change it or hire a new creative team who can. But they won't fire them.
The full page newspaper ad is the holy grail of newspaper advertising for media buyers. When the client says newspaper, the rest of the room immediately visualizes how to get a full page ad out of it. But, from my side of the keyboard, there couldn't be a worse media buy.
Don't get me wrong, love a good newspaper ad. But people read newspapers for the content, not the advertisements. Watch someone read a newspaper on the subway/train/bus/plane tomorrow morning (preferably a good looking person so you don't get weirded out by it). They read the articles and (at best) skim the ads and not the other way around. If the ad isn't in or near the content, it will be completely ignored.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Are full page newspaper ads generally well read by the consumer?
While Mac nerds across the interwebs are busy crying foul, the rest of us are nodding our heads approvingly. Finally, the plights of trying to buy a computer on a budget are being showcased.
If you're in that boat, we all know Apple is not the place to start.
Luckily, I'm unbiased.
Malls. A fertile pit of loud advertising and over saturated consumers. The last refuge for ads that don’t bother connecting with their audience but prefer to shout at them. But even with all the mayhem, the retailers that take the time to understand how people shop will come out top.
Apple has become the poster boy for the retail space. With their big, open and inviting spaces, they always seem to draw big crowds. But there are several other retailers that do well in the world of malls and they all seem to do the same things well.
1. Sense of Urgency
My largest complaint with retail advertisers is that they feel the urge to add “a sense of urgency” to their ads. In reality, people walking through the mall do things on their schedule; not yours. If the sale ends in 15 minutes but they are straight broke, they probably won’t partake.
2. Confusing offers
If you are in charge of pricing, listen up. Professional advertisers go to great lengths to ensure that their messages are simple for the consumer to comprehend. They understand that in the retail environment, you have the time it takes for a consumer to glance at your poster to get your message across. That automatically means anything longer than “SALE 50% off” will be a complete flop. No one is going to stop and read “50% off only on select items after a Mail-in rebate and oh by the way if you buy this specific shirt in medium you will get $.50 off our hottest sneaker with a free sticker”.
3. The in-store environment
Your in-store environment, in my book, can do two things. It can have signage that educates the consumer on what they are looking at. For instance, at Bell stores, when you pick up a phone off the wall, the screen next to it automatically flips to information about the phone in your hand.
If your signage is not doing that, then it should be aspirational; Apple does this well. Apple makes you believe that if you get a Macbook you’ll be as cool as the Mac nerds in the store, make professional home movies, create bombastic presentations and flip through the coolest playlist known to man. Call me nerdy but some days I’ll walk into an Apple store just to admire it and the crowd that has come to massage all their products. It’s an orgy of optimism, technology and cool.
4. Empowerment
If you’re in a store, and the sales person is unwilling or unable to help, it is the greatest turn off of all. Most people (ie everyone who knows less about what you sell than you do) would rather talk to a real person than read a sign explaining a product. If that person can’t provide an appropriate level of service, you’re dead in the water and no sign can help you.
You’re number one job, apart from making pretty posters, is to ensure that your sales people are brand evangelists that can help your customers understand why you are worth their investment. Your shirts are organic, your phones are the latest and greatest, your computers make you look cool at Starbucks… Whatever it is, your sales people have to preach it and be able to deliver on it.
Beyond that, there isn’t much I can add other than simplicity is king and if you follow that rule you’ll be ahead of 75% of the pack. Oh and if you really want to succeed, I’d take an hour and sit outside your store to see how real consumers react with it.
Yes you, not your intern.
i think if there's a book just waiting to be penned it's one about 'marketing smack talk' - those myriad of statements in meetings meant to sound sage and wise....yet ring hollow and add little or no value to the conversation at hand.
my personal favourite rising to the top of the charts amidst the recession and looming uncertainty facing many products, brands, campaigns etc....is WHAT DO THE NUMBERS SAY? either (a) i need more medication, or (b) have taken way to much of the wrong medication, but last time i looked at a set of numbers they didn't utter a single syllable or revelation...they just sat there like a fat kid on a couch. for numbers to say anything useful at all really, one has actively place them in service of hypothesis, draw out implication and conclusion through comparison, juxtaposition, pattern recognition and some good hard thinking! the human psyche is far too complex and dynamic, as are peoples reactions to communications, as are brands... to be completely and quantitatively unraveled and explained away by point in time numbers alone. "just when you want it, you don't want it" as gershwin said. And yet increasingly decisions are being made around tables on raw numbers alone without much considered analysis, sense of context or implication to those numbers. To mitigate risk or conversely unearth reward, numbers need interpretation. if there's one book that's worth picking up on this very subject - and i urge you to do so - it's The Sum of Our Discontent - Why Numbers Make Us Irrational by David Boyle. Next time you see copy test results, or indices, or ROI numbers (which are ever so vogue) don't ask what the numbers say...figure it out for yourself and take note of the context they're to be evaluated against and the social and psychological context that they were reported in...i guarantee it will cause you pause.