The Ranch

A feature on My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel by Peter Rosch

2012-05-26T00:01:00.001-05:00

I had the opportunity to listen to Peter Rosch when he first dispensed career and creative advice in 2006. Now, he has written his first novel, My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel, and I had the chance to ask him a few questions in a mini-interview.

What have you been up to since leaving the ad industry?

Well, I’m still in it. I don’t think I’ll ever leave it completely. After trying my hand at directing commercials for a couple of years and freelancing quite a bit, I did take a six-month hiatus. My wife and I moved down to Costa Rica to see what that might be like. We loved it, and I doubt I’d have found the time to write My Dead Friend Sarah if we hadn’t gone there. Ultimately though, we ended up coming back to New York to see some family, and after a freelance gig with BBH led to selling a large campaign due out this summer for AXE, I accepted a full-time spot again. BBH was good to me the first time around, and I couldn’t he happier to be back and making great stuff surrounded by incredibly intelligent people. Even if this or future books take off, I can’t say I’d even not want to be involved in the daily creation of stuff advertising afford the creative mind. At the end of the day, even with the headaches, it’s still one of the sweetest gigs I know.

Why write a novel?

I’m a pretty long-winded guy, and a novel seemed like the best place for me to explore my voice. I had a story that I knew needed telling, and while I considered doing a screenplay, I surmised the chances of that story being heard were a lot better if I just took a gamble on self-publishing the sucker. So far, so good as over 10,000 people have purchased the book. That is well past my expectations, and knowing that there are people out there reading it, is pretty damn exciting. After years of writing ads, part of what I liked about doing a book was the idea that it would be mine and mine alone. Nobody to tell me the logo needed to be bigger, no testing, etc. It made the whole experience of putting it out there a touch scarier, waiting for people to respond and review it, and I’m sure if it hadn’t been well received I’d probably not be talking to you about it now.

Did being a CW help your writing skills?

Totally helped. Writing commercials really demands a focus to crisp story telling. You only have thirty or sixty seconds to tell a tale, and I think I applied quite a bit of that to the novel. I wanted it to move quickly, and not meander to far from what a reader needed to know. I would think that fifteen years of writing commercials had to have had some effect on my ability to engage people, and hopefully that shows in this effort. On the flip side, I suspect writing a novel will only make me a stronger writer of ads too. All of it just feeds on itself, and only in the last few years have I come to realize that practice really does lead to growth. I probably couldn’t have written this book had I not started keeping a blog of short stories. Committing to writing something other than ads is a great exercise for any writer in the business.

Any future book plans?

Definitely. I’ve started the next one already, and am hoping to get something out before the end of the year. Not that I’m full-time again it won’t be as easy to make time for it, but I’m really passionate about the whole experience, and I tend to get up too damn early. If I don’t sit down and write something, I just end up out on my deck chain smoking, and that’s no good.

How hard was it to create a kindle version?

Creating an ebook version of My Dead Friend Sarah was a challenge. But to have someone else do it meant spending two or three hundred bucks, so I just committed to trying it first. After about a week of nearly non-stop formatting, adjusting, downloading it to my own iPhone, checking it, tweaking and repeating over and over again I had something I could live with. I’m sure there are easier ways, or will continue to be easier ways to put one together, but I used some free shareware that was a little buggy. I’m not sure, but I think Adobe has software to do it. The only thing I’d advise against is just running a Word Doc through an online formatter that claims to do all the work for you. It might do seventy percent, but the end result will still be a bit sloppy. At least that was my experience. Thanks for taking the time to ask me some questions, I really do appreciate it!

Check out his blog and the official website of My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel.

News Roundup

2012-05-24T00:24:00.000-05:00

dENiZEN - Light Painting Video by LICHTFAKTOR

Some of these news updates are a couple months old due to my busy schedule of late.

In 2011, children spent more time than ever in front of the TV. In France, children aged 4-14 spent an extra six minutes a day watching television, or 2h18min. Italian children meanwhile extended their lead as some of the biggest consumers of TV in Europe, with 2 hours 42 minutes a day spent in front of the small screen, three minutes more than in 2010.
- press release from Media Metrie
Peter Rosch has written a new book, My Dead Friend Sarah, that is in the top 100 of Amazon this week. More details to come in an upcoming post.
Neiman, a public relations company, has re-launched Go Sunoco, a website dedicated to highlighting Sunoco's retail offerings.
The face of education is changing, technology is king and we want to equip students with the knowledge to optimize their college experience from a technology standpoint.
- Find out more at Hack College.

Portfolio Night 10 returning to Austin

2012-05-15T17:17:00.001-05:00

I wrote about Portfolio Night before and I even asked Ignacio if he could expand to Austin. Well, it's back.

More info and $30 tickets are on sale now!

Sau Paulo says no thanks to billboards

2012-04-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

In 2006, the mayor of São Paulo mayor banned the use of outdoor advertising, including billboards and transit. Initially, the business community was alarmed, and worried that there would be millions in lost revenue and tens of thousands of lost jobs. But a 2011 study showed that 70 percent of the city’s residents find the ban to be beneficial. The ban…

Via Populous

More pictures on tirafoto's flickr.

AMC's The Pitch

2012-04-16T16:24:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon AMC's new TV show about advertising after going to the FKM website. What a fascinating inside look in to pitching a client and the breakneck speed at creating campaigns. The first episode features WDWC vs McKinney pitching for Subway's business.

Note: Even though the video says preview, it is a full-length episode.

About the Show
AMC's new original series The Pitch offers viewers an intense, gripping, never-before-seen glimpse inside America’s top ad agencies. Each week watch two agencies as they compete to win a new client the only way they can: by going head-to-head in a cut-throat, winner-takes-all showdown, a presentation known as The Pitch. With only seven days to prepare, the pressure to perform is intense. The whining, the brainstorming, the blue-sky thinking: it’s all here as the teams work around the clock and pray for the moment of inspiration that will win them the job and keep their companies alive. The drama is real, the stakes are high, and the clock is ticking. From the producers of Undercover Boss.

Witness the pressure…The passion…The Pitch. Premieres Monday, April 30 9/8c on AMC

Edit: The New York Times gave a breakdown of all agencies participating in the show:

...Fifteen agencies agreed to appear, all of them small or midsize independent shops. (One, the Ad Store, competes in two episodes, so the total is 15 rather than 16.) Many larger, better-known agencies declined, worried about revealing the ingredients in their secret sauces; among them were BBDO, Leo Burnett, DDB, DraftFCB, JWT, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather and TBWA/Chiat/Day.

The Grey Group, a unit of WPP, said no because “the story is not about us,” said James R. Heekin, chairman and chief executive, but rather “it’s about building our clients’ brands first.”

“We don’t have anything against anyone doing a reality show,” he added, “but it’s not our style.”

Another well-known giant courted by “The Pitch” was Deutsch. Although “we love the premise,” said Val DiFebo, chief executive of the New York office of Deutsch, owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, “our ‘reality’ precluded us from participating.”

“We’re eager to see the goods and explore if there is a competitive advantage for us to participate,” she added.

The agencies in “The Pitch” are: the Ad Store, Bandujo Advertising and Design, BooneOakley, Bozell, Conversation, DiMassimo Goldstein (a k a DiGo), FKM, the Hive, Jones Advertising, Kovel/Fuller, McKinney, Muse Communications, SK&G, WDCW LA (the Culver City, Calif., office of Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener) and Womenkind...

Modern Retro ads for latest Newsweek issue

2012-03-19T12:31:00.001-05:00

The latest issue of Newsweek has gone retro with Mad Men on the cover. To celebrate the 1960s theme, several advertisers such as Allstate, Lincoln, Tide, Mercedes-Benz, British Airways, Johnnie Walker, Benetton and Spam redesigned their ads in a 1960s style.

Via Adage. Vote for your favorite ad.

What a $4,500 in-house commercial looks like

2012-03-08T13:00:00.000-06:00

It turns out the guy in the video really is the founder and CEO of the new start-up, Michael Dubin. What’s more surprising, though, is the fact that he made the ad himself. “The world is filled with bad commercials and people who are marketing too hard," Dubin says. "I think what we wanted to do is not take ourselves too seriously, and deliver an irreverent smart tone." Dubin wrote the spot last October and shot it with his good friend and co-director, Lucia Aniello. It cost about $4,500 and the team managed to bang it out in a single day, shooting on location at the actual factory warehouse, at their fulfillment center in Gardena, California. Not every CEO is cut out for making Funny or Die quality sketch-like ads, obviously. When he was living in New York, Michael Dubin took classes at beloved comedy training grounds, the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre, and has long dabbled in funny business.

Via Quora. Read entire background story at Co.Create.

Invisible Mercedes Benz car

2012-03-03T16:04:00.001-06:00

What an awesome street marketing idea.

How to triple your sales using a 16 year old vlogger

2012-01-11T10:51:00.002-06:00

While I realize this is a little outdated, it's still a good case study for using youtube for marketing. -David

This 16 year old vlogger Juicystar07 is yet another example of the power and reach of a free youtube video compared to an expensive TV commercial.

Using Reel Skills to Treble Your Sales

Want 561,522 YouTube viewers to see a nine-minute video about your product? Then you need to go find a 16-year-old girl to talk about it.

That's just what bespoke shoe seller Shoes of Prey did. They approached Blair Fowler, also known as Juicystar07, to do a video about their shoes, and give away a pair.

The video certainly made an impact, according to a blog post by founder Michael Fox. It gave the ecommerce site a massive 500,000 visitors in a week, way more than any other coverage they've had, online or offline.

But the fun had just started. See, Michael posted intimate details about the promotion on the company blog, then publicized the blog on Twitter and through other means. The coverage gained through retweeting and the whole YouTube marketing venture means they are now enjoying a 300% increase in daily sales. You can read more about it on their blog.

So, by taking the initiative and seeking out a different form of promotion, and then writing about the process and results, they were able to drive more traffic to their site and triple their sales. Brilliant!

Via Sitepoint

No big egos please and pick up the phone

2011-11-25T15:00:00.000-06:00

These are two sage articles about professional communication. My boss sent me the link about calling people rather than e-mailing. Now that I think about it, these guidelines also apply to personal life.

Ninety–four (94) percent said working on teams in a collaborative manner was essential. They specifically related this to the creative sector where the give and take on ideas can make the difference. This means the ability to work with others in tandem is a necessary requirement to fully explore solutions and the success of projects. There is little room for egos or proprietary attitudes.

source: 4 Reasons to work well and play well with others

The next time you experience an issue over email, ask yourself if it is something that would be better served by a real conversation. Then have the courage to stop emailing and pick up the phone. Or even better: have a meeting.

source: Don't Send That Email. Pick up the Phone!

News Roundup

2011-06-27T21:31:00.004-05:00

Brand Reversions by Graham Smith

Check out the case study for Rally.org.

Ryan Steely from SOA32 has a new illustration to be donated to Grind for Life for fundraising. Grind for Life is an organization that provides financial assistance to cancer patients and their families when traveling long distances to doctors and hospitals.

Adfortel launches unique mobile advertising service with Yesss! in Austria and is a unique combination of Adfortel’s two services: VoiceAds and TuneAds.

The F-Factor influences your purchase decisions the most. From May 2011 Trendwatching.com

Congrats to Orel Bitan and Jessica Kalkberman for winning the Cannes Lions "YouTube GoodWork" 2011 contest!

The "Love146" viral video was created independently and with 0 budget (the actress is my little sister, the room belongs to my nephew) and still managed to make a buzz proving that good ideas are stronger than anything. It even succeeded to reach the media, and was broadcast (2 times before winning+1 after winning) on "Channel 10", the second most viewed news channel on Israeli TV: http://youtu.be/KLxb6eRl5zE

The creative:
The video seems to be a video which sells toys BUT when you roll over the girl in the video, you discover she also has a price + a link which leads to a ‘LOVE146’ video with the massage:
Two children are sold every minute - End child sex slavery & exploitation.

Advertised brand: Social& Charity
Advert title(s): LOVE146.
Advertising Agency: Independent, Tel Aviv, Israel
Art Director: Jessica kalbermann, Orel Bitan
Copywriter: Orel Bitan
Published: May, 2011

The Ad Contrarian: How To Sell Great Creative: Ego and Failure

2011-05-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

The Ad Contrarian: How To Sell Great Creative: Ego and Failure

2:42am The perfect excuse.

2011-02-23T02:47:00.001-06:00

No. This time I am still awake. You guessed right, a business pitch due tomorrow that is extremely important for the company and a nice account, as we perceive it, to do neat work.

What really blows my mind is the tendency a creative team has to get into high gear only until the deadline is completely on top of us. Is this a special rush we creatives get in order to feel comfortable with the ideas that come out of our mouth? Or, is it simply the perfect excuse to justify these ideas.

Ideas?

More to come in a couple of hours.

Palacio de Hierro. Puntero en Social Media.

2011-02-20T23:30:00.001-06:00

Con 93.022 "likes" Palacio de Hierro se posiciona una vez más como una de las marcas líderes en México incursionando al mundo de las redes sociales.

Según publica vuelodigital.com, Palacio de Hierro es innovador una vez más lanzando este pasado 4 de febrero un e-commerce a través de la plataforma Facebook con su pestaña "shop & share" que te permite explorar, clasificar y comprar productos de ciertas categorías.

No sabemos qué tan exitoso vaya a ser este programa, pero lo cierto es que si tienes a 93k personas de tus posibles clientes en una "habitación" será mejor que prendas la música y hagas algo con ellos y ésta, se me hace una idea particularmente interesante en tiempos donde entre más opciones le demos al consumidor de vivir nuestra marca y lo que ofrecemos, mejor.

Felicidades a Palacio de Hierro por incursionar y atreverse a hacer estos experimentos sociales que sin duda le dejarán gran aprendizaje y muchos beneficios a futuro. ¿Qué más?

King Yesterday. Gone Today.

2011-02-20T22:03:00.001-06:00

The speed the way business models and idea conception has evolved over the past 10 years has really paid tribute to consumer trends and habits.

A great example is this infographic on Netflix evolution and how it has shifted the movie renting model stretching the fact on what's important: content, home, fast and when you want it. If I recall correctly, Netflix tried to sell to Blockbuster a few years back with no success. There was a lack of vision by somebody there.

Now, there are studies, talks and even workshops on how would you be able to save Blockbuster from what it appears to be a freefall to failure. Maybe it's their time, but I do believe something must and could be done with all the infrastructure created to this day and most importantly, we got ourselves a brand here.

Adapt or dissapear is apparently the new way of envisioning your business at, if that were not enough, blazing speeds.

Ideas anyone?

5:48am

2011-02-05T05:59:00.001-06:00

Buenos días.
Contento de estar despierto con tantas ideas en la cabeza. Un sueño en donde conocía al bebé que viene en camino me ha despertado de buen humor en sábado, y mucho mas temprano de lo planeado.
La dirección creativa a veces me acelera la cabeza a todo, despertando mil preguntas y un millón de posibles respuestas. No hay ciencia y nada y todo podría ser el mejor trabajo. Es hora de que caigan las cuentas con ganas de hacer cosas diferentes y que el equipo se defina con una misma misión y pasión.
Me entristece a veces ver a jóvenes sentados en oportunidades que sin que se den cuenta desaparecen.
Creo que voy a empezar a escribir mis aprendizajes y observaciones de México y los mexicanos no con afán de criticar, pero con afán de abrir los ojos.
¡Excelente sábado!

360º Communication.

2011-01-24T20:07:00.002-06:00

Comunicación 360°. Escopetazo VS Snipers Masivos.

Thomas Strerath, director de Ogilvy & Mather Alemania, levantó la mano en el pasado congreso “Deutscher Medienkongress”, celebrado en Alemania, y alegó que la muerte de la comunicación 360° estaba aquí. En mi opinión, bravo.

Muchos son los “expertos” que hablan de su estrategia 360 y yo lo único que escucho al oírlos hablar es: “Al no tener claro el target, tres sesenta. Al no saber qué medio es el más relevante, tres sesenta. Al no estar seguro como justifico el ROI de mi budget, tres sesenta.” Y lo entiendo, es lo más seguro y lo que emana más paz mental al significar menos margen de error en las decisiones de marketing, pero la realidad de la mayoría de nuestros clientes, especialmente en México, es otra.

Hoy vivimos en un entorno diferente, los presupuestos no pueden justificar estrategias 360° o a lo que yo llamo, de escopetazo; de hecho, creo que lo que debemos de ofrecer son estrategias de francotirador masivo.

Ahora, no quiero decir con esto que los conceptos que propongamos a nuestros clientes no deban ser adaptables a una estrategia 360°; al contrario, creo que lo deben ser y entre más adaptables sean, creo que la idea será mucho mejor. Sin embargo, una vez teniendo esa idea o concepto rector (esperamos sea relevante para el consumidor en cuestión) haría un análisis detallado sobre cuáles son los medios adecuados para llegar al target pensando siempre en los objetivos acordados, el presupuesto y cómo lo vamos a medir.

En Lead2Action, creemos que esto es de gran importancia en un entorno donde se piden cuentas y resultados por lo que se hace. Lead2Quality, Lead2Results, Lead2Purchase, Lead2Think. Lead2Create. Lead2Interact. Eso somos en Lead2Action y así pensamos en un mundo digital generando ideas que bien podrían aplicarse a cualquier medio. Es positivo cuando alguien pone en duda alguna práctica por que nacen nuevas prácticas y se rompen paradigmas. En el mundo digital pasa esto a menudo y más rápido de lo que nos enteramos. Nuevos medios. Nuevas maneras de medir. Nuevos retos. Nueva economía. Confusión total.

Pero no nos compliquemos. Siempre habrá un consumidor. Siempre habrá qué consumir. Siempre habrá la necesidad de informar sobre productos de manera relevante o por decirlo de otra forma, que le haga clic al consumidor. ¡Ooops! ¿Escribí “clic”?

Hoy “clic” para muchos clientes quiere decir ventas, y para otros, es saber que su mensaje fue recibido y que podría convertirse en intención de compra. A otros, simplemente les indica qué estrategia de comunicación es más efectiva o les hace más “clic” con el público objetivo. Un clic hoy en día hace más ruido de lo que pensamos.

El “clic”, puede ser la herramienta que demuestre con datos si una estrategia 360° es justificada o no. En Lead2Action optamos por estudiar más el problema de nuestros clientes, ser más analíticos, más proactivos, menos reactivos y tener un plan que quizá nunca incluya el 360°, sino más bien un listado de donde podrá ser más relevante tu mensaje.

Facebook is your life

2011-01-15T10:52:00.002-06:00

Via Adfreak

Happy New Year

2010-12-30T19:24:00.000-06:00

All the best.

Digital Agencies.

2010-12-30T18:57:00.003-06:00

Interesting benchmark on how we're doing on digital. These agencies I love, but we need to get on the boat and remember we are in the business of speaking in behalf of our brands no matter what the media is. The message and the experience tied to consumer-product relevance.

Which makes me think. Souldn't our first brand be our own agencies?

Thoughts?

What Is A Digital Planner?

2010-12-30T18:55:00.001-06:00

I would love to hear any thoughs on differences between a digital planner vs what we know at "traditional" agencies. Anyone?

What Is A Digital Planner

View more documents from Heather LeFevre.

Free Book Giveaway of The Creative Process Illustrated

2010-09-30T08:30:00.003-05:00

It's been a month since the last post (job hunting is tough in this economy) so I thought I'd make it worthwhile. Former UT Advertising teachers Glenn Griffin and Deb Morrison have written a groundbreaking book about the creative process.

To win a signed copy of The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising's Big Ideas Are Born by W. Glenn Griffin and Deborah Morrison, 1) please leave a comment saying why you like this blog. 2) Be a facebook fan of The Ranch Blog. The winner will be randomly picked by me.

How did you choose whom to profile?
We collected nearly 80 of these drawings over a period of several years. When we found a publisher for the book, we worked with our editor to choose 30 that we thought were most representative of the varied and interesting submissions we’d received. It was a tough cut to make – so tough that the editor permitted us to include a few more as we started writing the manuscript. We really learned so much from every drawing.

What was the inspiration behind the title?
Our publisher actually proposed the title of the book! We’d always called the project “Pure Process” because it represented a study of personal creative thinking as opposed to the partner- or team-driven process that’s typical in advertising. The folks at HOW Books thought The Creative Process Illustrated would be more descriptive of the book’s content and make it more appealing to potential readers. We still love “Pure Process” (you can’t beat that alliteration!) but we like the new title, too. “Pure Process” lives on as the title of our website, so it’s still out there.

Both of you have extensive teaching experience about advertising and creativity and you have touched the lives of so many students. Why write a book now?
Wish we had some brilliant master plan to share with you (!), but the book just sort of happened in the right spot for both of us. Deborah had just finished a book called Idea Industry with Brett Robbs, a great colleague of ours at the University of Colorado – Boulder when we decided to write a new book proposal based on these process drawings we’d been collecting for the past several years and the insights we’d derived from them. We got a book contract in the Spring of 2009 and the rest is history!

Part of the Pure Process mantra is "...also about good stewardship of that process: doing good work, being responsible and revealing the industry as the force for positive change it is and can be." What are your thoughts about the post about a consumer who is appalled by advertising? '
That letter has made the rounds and a lot of people are talking about it, but why? Is there anything we didn’t already know in that letter? Of course there’s advertising out there that’s dumb. Of course some of it annoys people. And (of course) there are some cranky folks out there who won’t ever be happy with anything we do. We are big believers, however, that advertising CAN be smart, CAN engage people and actually do positive things for the world. Nope, we can’t tell you what went wrong with that sausage campaign, sir. But we do know that there are terrific people in our business who know about the “Brians” out there and don’t want to invite more criticism of the industry by doing bad work. Instead, they want to show people what advertising can do when it’s done well. We see lots of examples (thank goodness) of great work out there that gets lots of love from consumers for all the right reasons. That’s the kind of work we want to keep pushing our students to do.

How much sweat equity (hours spent writing, researching and interviewing) is in this book?
Hmmmm. Enough to make us ask two questions: (1) Why the hell did we sign up for this? (2) Okay, what’s the next book going to be about?
We figure that’s about right.

News Roundup

2010-08-23T00:15:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Naveed's Weekly Digest for all the links below.

Tan Le demonstrates a headset that reads its user's brainwaves.

Hello HTML5. Goodbye Flash.

Some ground breaking news about the new health care reform bill: Children strongly oppose one aspect of it.

Naveed gave a presentation about the effectiveness of the Old Spice campaign to a packed house.

There are three types of happiness. Which one are you?

An Open Letter To All Of Advertising And Marketing

2010-08-20T13:05:00.002-05:00

Click on image to enlarge.

I am not sure if this is written by a real consumer or someone posing as an every day joe. Either way, it really makes you think about where and what advertising and marketing people are coming up with these days.

Via PSFK

Recap of Portfolio Night 8 - Austin

2010-08-08T06:19:00.003-05:00

Note about the illustration:
Austin is famous for having N. America's largest colony of Mexican free-tailed bats underneath the S. Congress Bridge(750,000).

Portfolio Night is a thirty-five city event where aspiring junior creatives and advertising students show their portfolios to seasoned and highly regarded art directors (such as Ignacio the founder of Portfolio Night), copywriters and creative directors. This year on May 20, Austin was included in the creative host cities for the first time.

Some of the creative directors in Austin were Jim Ferguson (JimBob_Dallas – former Y&R President), Brent Ladd (GSD&M Idea City), Scott McAfee (Sanders\Wingo), Jay Russell (Crispin Porter + Bogusky), Joe Shands (Vendor – former CD at TBWA\Chiat\Day) and Sergio Alcocer (President and CCO of LatinWorks).

Desirée Mata of the host agency, Latinworks-recently named “Multicultural Agency of the Year” by both ADAGE and ADWEEK, was kind enough to recap it for The Ranch.

Please go to this link, which contains video and pictures from our event. In general everyone had a good time and we had White Ghost Shivers play at the end of the night. We also had the guys from Industry Print Shop come to the event and print t-shirts live for the attendees. In general, the portfolios weren't great. Too much social media and applications and virtually zero TV and radio. Please read this blog entry by one of the renown creative directors that participated: http://thedailyferg.com/