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Saturday, March 03, 2012
[ The Guardian's Three Little Pigs ]
+ Lovely epic-feeling ad from BBH for The Guardian which tells a modern day version of The Three Little Pigs. I see some awards in its future.
[ Dads In Briefs ]
+ Love this ad for BGH Air Conditioners from Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. Titled "Dads in Briefs" the product is the solution to stripped down dads in the heat of the summer. Nice product as hero. (via Brandflakesforbreakfast)
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
[ Pinterest is just a sign of a more visual web ]
+ Pinterest is the hottest social network right in terms of buzz right now. I had signed up ages ago and when I first played with it, I didn't really get it, to be honest. Then around the end of the year, I poked around a bit more. I'm one of those types that signs up for the beta of anything, only because I want to see what's coming and be aware--even if I don't want to use it myself. I'm always curious to see if there are cool ways for my clients to engage using the platform.
What's interesting about Pinterest is more the trend toward the type of network setup more than anything else. There's also The Fancy and minglewing. The Fancy seems to be more higher-end, big dream kind of stuff that describes itself as "a place to express yourself around things you see that you find interesting". Minglewing calls itself a "public discussion board" with loads of social reposting options.
All of these new platforms have some similarities that point to a more visual representation of things we want. In the past, it was just link farms and less imagery. Now the format of these sites, along with flickr's recent redesign, tumblr and other similar visual sites, are putting the photography on center stage. One might say that this is due to the proliferation of tablet and mobile device browsing. And it is much more conducive to that kind of web surfing than trying to read tiny type on a phone. It's an evolution of the way content is being displayed, that's all.
Here's some related links and further reading I've bookmarked over the last month or so:
+ Yup, there's PinClout and PinPuff to see how you rank on Pinterest. My rank was nearly twice as high on PinPuff than PinClout which is odd if they are using similar metrics (PinClout: 40/ PinPuff: 70).
+ Pinterest Infographic: US vs UK Users. Some interesting data, and it's pretty much the reverse demographics.
+ You think Pinterest is big? Here comes The Fancy, with a brand spanking new e-commerce platform.
+ How brands are using pinterest (download PDF)
+ Threadless and Pinterest Valentine's Day promotion
+ Pinterest from a "bros" point of view
+ Pinterest Drives More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined
+ Pinterest a traffic driver for online retailers + 21 Must Follow Pinterest Users
+ Pinterest Data Analysis: An Inside Look
Monday, February 27, 2012
[ Branding and Digital: Part 3 ]
+Part 3: The battle between digital and traditional
Digital and traditional each held their own ground for a few years. Traditional was the lead dog, and digital was just there to translate (read: resize) the creative and ideas from TV and print into acceptable formats for the web. Digital was seen as the extension of something like direct mail, not broadcast. In some ways, this is a correct view, and in others, it's just wrong.
But, then, something started happening. Brands started to put more money into digital.
This meant that the websites and online experiences were given more credit as a real channel and it began to see more leeway in creative freedom. At least a little bit.
But traditional wasn't too keen on this.
People started seeing that the campaigns were happening in silos. Was there a connection to the way in which the campaign lived as a 30-second spot vs. a mircosite? Was that OK? Did it degrade the brand? The campaign? The message?
As brands started to reach out to digital only shops to do their interactive work, traditional agencies saw money that they thought was theirs going away. So many added in digital to their offerings to provide a full-service experience for their clients. In some cases, this worked. In others, brands still went to find other agency partners. Today, many brands have different agencies handling their different channels, including broadcast, print, POP, PR, promotions, digital and much more.
What that has lead to is increased competition between the different agencies.
Because the traditional folks have owned the branding side of the business for so long, clients are accustomed to going to those partners first to get the big idea. But sadly, this shouldn't always be the case anymore. Great creative minds have transitioned from the traditional to digital side and have the same grasp and understanding of branding and campaigns as their analog counterparts. The computer programmers and analysts began to be more balanced by the creative types moving into the digital space. And with them, they brought their background of branding and way of thinking.
Today, everyone in the business wants a piece of the digital cake, as it were.
Earlier last year, the folks at Forrester published an article titled The Interactive Brand Ecosystem. It recommends putting digital at the center of things, vs. TV, like in the good old days. Here's a snippet from the blog post about the article:
I'm curious to see where all of this nets out in the next couple years. Brands are still trying to work it out with their agencies. Some clients want them all to play nice while behind the curtain the agencies are each vying for control.
Go back and read Branding and Digital: Part 1 and Part 2.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
[ This and That: 02.25.12 ]
+ With all the hub-bub around Pinterest in the last month, it's no surprise someone pulled out PinClout. Yup. PinClout.
+ Need to work on your presentation skills? Even if you don't, you'll find some good refreshers here. Key takeaway? Practice.
+ One of the folks I follow on Twitter pointed me to this list of 85+ Copywriting Resources post. I haven't had a chance to go through them all, but looks like there are at least a few goodies in the mix there worth checking out.
+ Now that the web seems to be going more to a visual format with the likes of Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr, etc, there's also a newish site called Cowbird that I am thinking of checking out. They are invite only right now and describe themselves as:
Sunday, January 29, 2012
[ This and That: 01.29.12 ]
+ Super Bowl XLVI is coming up next weekend. If you want a sneak peek at what you will see, check out the Super Bowl Commercial Spoiler Alert for 2012 that I've put together. Quite a few ads are already "released" to the world, with a good number of teasers as well. Still a few keeping mum, like FedEx (although I double they'll top my all-time fave of theirs, Apology.) Do check Adland leading up to the big ad game, as we'll be posting updates as we go.
+ This past week, JC Penney launched a new logo and campaign from Mother which are part of a major brand overhaul planned by Apple exec turned JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson. Perhaps it's just me (although from the twittersphere it doesn't seem like it), but I think it's horrid. Looks like it was designed in Powerpoint. And the other elements for it look like they are trying to be Old Navy. C'mon. Where's the creativity? I get that it's quite different from where JCP was before, but isn't not the most amazing work overall. Maybe they can call GAP and commiserate together. Sorry Mother. And just because Johnson was at Apple, that doesn't make him infallible either.
Monday, January 02, 2012
[ A look back at posts from 2011 ]
Everyone does it. I know. But this was less for you and more for me to take a trip back through my activity on the blog here over the past year. Below are some of my favorite posts or ones that I feel had some meaning or value.
+ John Cleese on Creativity
+ Why a Good Brief Leads to Good Creative
+ Why Social Should Drop the Media
+ Creativity in the Digital Space: Part 2 & Part 3
+ QR Codes: Hot or Not?
+ 6 Tips for Ad Peeps, Old and New
+ Why Copywriters Need to Care About Typography
+ Your Ideas Are Your Value
+ Using Websites to Tell Stories
+ 10 Things That Scare Creatives
+ Branding and Digital: Part 1 and Part 2
Sunday, December 04, 2011
[ Branding and Digital: Part 2 ]
+Part 2: The birth of digital
About 13 years ago when I was just getting into the business, I would have never thought really about doing what I do today. If someone had asked me in an interview for my first job if I ever thought I'd be creating campaigns where users used a app on a branded Facebook page to control a water gun as part of a game to melt ice and free a cup of a client's product to win a prize, I'd have thought it would be awesome and cool, but possible? No way. Nor would I have thought that I'd ever need to come up with an idea like that.
What was happening then was that people were building websites. In fact, one of my first projects at my first agency out of school was working on redoing the agency brochure and website. Soon there after, we were also getting into banner ads. Good old 15K gifs. Oh yeah. Super sexy. But I was at a traditional agency where those were asks of clients for whom we were also doing radio, TV, print and collateral. The approach to digital was as it was for any other project. There was a brief. There was a copywriter/art director team that brainstormed ideas together. Comps were boarded up for presentations.
After that job, I continued working on digital as it grew and became more of a staple. But, a lot of it was also being done by folks with more of a tech background. It wasn't about the idea. It was about repurposing the TV spot or print ad for the web that the "branding" agency created. Digital or interactive shops weren't seen as having the talent to create something new. And, at the start of digital only shops, that might have been the case.
Thank god things have changed.
I'll be honest. It bothered me a lot that I had clients and even employers who didn't think that it was OK for a good idea to come from the digital shop. I've heard things like "That's branding. Our broadcast agency handles that." Really? So you'd lose out on a great idea, just because it didn't come from the right people? Now, that takes us down a different path, but seriously, this is the kind of thing that has been going on. You also had copywriters and designers working separately, even though Bernbach's efforts showed how much better the work tends to be when you team them up together.
So, what's changed and why?
Well, for one, digital shops are actually seeking out conceptual thinkers. They're looking for the storytellers. They're looking for more well-rounded creatives, technologists, and even account people and then designing better ways for them to work together. That's a huge piece of it.
I think the other is a function of integration. With that there has already been a couple trend cycles of agencies trying to do everything/be full-service or being very specialized. There's a sway back and forth over time as clients think they want one or the other. But what they really want is integration. No matter which agency comes up with the main idea, they want all agencies playing nice around that big idea so it is seamless to the consumer. Well, sure, great. We all want that. Unfortunately, in order to get there, a lot of times it forces agencies to compete against each other. This has caused those digital only shops to look outward and try to learn from the bigger agencies who may at one time be winning more accounts than them depending on where in the cycle we are. Rather than trying to create a new structure, they've looked to the way in which traditional agencies have set themselves up. They also started bringing in more people who had started at those agencies, brought the ideas with them and implemented them because that's what they knew.
And then there's the agencies who were full service to begin with, and remained that way and added digital as just another offering, like GSP and W+K.
With only about 15 years under its belt, digital is still new. It's still figuring out what it is and what it needs to be...and what it wants to be.
Go back and read Branding and Digital: Part 1.
[ Branding and Digital: Part 1 ]
+ You so often hear about branding and broadcast, print or even out of home. But what about in relationship to digital? Social? Email?
I recently watched Art & Copy. Yes I'm late to viewing this film. But that's not really relevant. I spent an hour and a half listening to some of the greats talk about the business. Talk about branding and the work they've done. Folks like Lee Clow, Hal Riney, George Lois, Dan Weiden, and Mary Wells Lawrence. They talk about finding key ways to talk to people. Finding the nugget of truth about a product or life and wrapping them together. Making someone feel something. Telling a story of what the company could do for you. Campaigns like "Just Do It", "Think Different", and "I Want My MTV" struck a chord. They're as Weiden says like lightening striking. Concepts and ideas that resonate with the population and become part of pop culture.
It's all about branding. But what is branding? Branding is defined as "the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand." So, then what is a brand?
David Ogilvy's defined a brand as: "The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised."
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."
For a very long time, the role of branding has been held by TV spots, radio ads, print ads, billboards and the other rash of tactics in the realm of traditional advertising. That role has been all about storytelling, image and the emotion it conveys to the customer.
This is what i learned in school and what I practiced at the start of my career when my bread and butter was radio spots, print ads and the like.
These days I spend all my time working in the digital world. And I try to apply these concepts to the work I do on a daily basis. But how does any of this thinking really translate to the new media that's out there? Or does it?
For the five or six of you that actually read this blog when I post something new, this is what I want to explore. Because I think what is going to finally happen in the near future is that we will see much more of these concepts brought into the digital workplace. And for sure, this is already starting to happen. But I have a sense that it will blow up even larger in the next few years while taking some different turns.
Stay tuned.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
[ This and That: 11.6.11 ]
+ In the madness that ensues from returning from vacation and just the general craziness, here are a few things I've read, am in the middle of reading, or have scanned to go back to read or look at that I thought you might find interesting or useful.
Shape of the Industry
+ Forrester’s Nate Elliott has some interesting things to say in his Interactive Brand Ecosystem report.
+ An interesting read on "engagement" and looking at how it's losing (or lost) its meaning from overuse, wrong use, and more.
+ If you're looking for some cool visual eye candy or inspiration, check out 50watts.com, a great resource of book-related design and illustration.
+ Just Be Nice Studio out of Moscow created a typeface that includes all frequently used iconographics and symbols. Web Symbols is a set of vector html-compliant typefaces, so it might be used in any size, color and most browsers.
+ Copy Paste Character is another handy, dandy website and iPhone application for copying the
‘hidden’ characters that comes with the computer’s typefaces, to be pasted into emails, tweets, text documents, forums and whatever else you might need to spice up with an extra ♔, ฿ or, ❒.
Monday, October 31, 2011
[ 10 things that scare Creatives ]
+ Somethings are even scarier than ghosts and zombies. In honor of Halloween, here's a list of 10 things that can scare the bagezus out of Creatives (in no particular order).
1. Moving deadlines--especially those that move closer, rather than farther away.
2. Computer crashes, a.k.a. the color wheel of death--especially if the work hasn't been saved.
3. Clients who think they are creative. They say their line or visual idea is just an example, but you know they really want you to use it.
4. There's no beer left in the kitchen fridge. Or bottle of booze in your desk. Or your AD/CW's desk. Or our Account person's desk.
5. Being forced to use Comic Sans. Because it's the brand font.
6. Being told to modify an idea someone else did that was cool and retrofit it to the project.
7. When all the concepts get killed in the internal, which was pushed to 1 day before the big presentation and having to start from scratch.
8. Noticing that no one proofed the presentation deck and auto spell check changed the clients name to something else...everywhere.
9. You're left to pitch someone else's half-baked idea.
10. You're forced to use a PC instead of a Mac...
Got others? Leave them in the comments. And Happy Halloween!
Monday, October 10, 2011
[ Why Tim Gunn Can By My CD ]
+ Maybe it's because I watched too much Project Runway this weekend (I had a couple weeks of episodes to catch up on), but I started thinking about how sweet it would be to have Tim Gunn as a Creative Director. But then the question one would have to ask, obviously, is why?
- Gunn never cuts down the designers. He nurtures them and their ideas in the few minutes he spends with them. He looks at their idea, listens to their concept and asks them the questions to help get them in right direction. How can you improve that? Are you editing well? Are you listening to what the judges (clients) have said about your work in the past?
- While some designers clearly end up with of "the outfit that should be put to death" before they hit the runway, Tim tries to work with them by giving guidance. It's not instructive, it's directive. "Don't be too literal". He provides the right hints. It's up to the designer to figure out how to interpret them.
- When the designers succeed, Gunn is happy for them. He's their cheerleader. He wants them to succeed. - His catchphrase "Make it work" is one I could deal with hearing on a regular basis. (In fact, I've used it myself).
[ The Guardian's Three Little Pigs ]
+ Lovely epic-feeling ad from BBH for The Guardian which tells a modern day version of The Three Little Pigs. I see some awards in its future.
Labels: advertising, commercial, creative, watch
[ Dads In Briefs ]
+ Love this ad for BGH Air Conditioners from Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi. Titled "Dads in Briefs" the product is the solution to stripped down dads in the heat of the summer. Nice product as hero. (via Brandflakesforbreakfast)
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, commercial, creative
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
[ Pinterest is just a sign of a more visual web ]
What's interesting about Pinterest is more the trend toward the type of network setup more than anything else. There's also The Fancy and minglewing. The Fancy seems to be more higher-end, big dream kind of stuff that describes itself as "a place to express yourself around things you see that you find interesting". Minglewing calls itself a "public discussion board" with loads of social reposting options.
All of these new platforms have some similarities that point to a more visual representation of things we want. In the past, it was just link farms and less imagery. Now the format of these sites, along with flickr's recent redesign, tumblr and other similar visual sites, are putting the photography on center stage. One might say that this is due to the proliferation of tablet and mobile device browsing. And it is much more conducive to that kind of web surfing than trying to read tiny type on a phone. It's an evolution of the way content is being displayed, that's all.
Here's some related links and further reading I've bookmarked over the last month or so:
+ Yup, there's PinClout and PinPuff to see how you rank on Pinterest. My rank was nearly twice as high on PinPuff than PinClout which is odd if they are using similar metrics (PinClout: 40/ PinPuff: 70).
+ Pinterest Infographic: US vs UK Users. Some interesting data, and it's pretty much the reverse demographics.
+ You think Pinterest is big? Here comes The Fancy, with a brand spanking new e-commerce platform.
+ How brands are using pinterest (download PDF)
+ Threadless and Pinterest Valentine's Day promotion
+ Pinterest from a "bros" point of view
+ Pinterest Drives More Traffic Than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn Combined
+ Pinterest a traffic driver for online retailers + 21 Must Follow Pinterest Users
+ Pinterest Data Analysis: An Inside Look
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, branding, digital, links, social, social networking, web
Monday, February 27, 2012
[ Branding and Digital: Part 3 ]
Digital and traditional each held their own ground for a few years. Traditional was the lead dog, and digital was just there to translate (read: resize) the creative and ideas from TV and print into acceptable formats for the web. Digital was seen as the extension of something like direct mail, not broadcast. In some ways, this is a correct view, and in others, it's just wrong.
But, then, something started happening. Brands started to put more money into digital.
This meant that the websites and online experiences were given more credit as a real channel and it began to see more leeway in creative freedom. At least a little bit.
But traditional wasn't too keen on this.
People started seeing that the campaigns were happening in silos. Was there a connection to the way in which the campaign lived as a 30-second spot vs. a mircosite? Was that OK? Did it degrade the brand? The campaign? The message?
As brands started to reach out to digital only shops to do their interactive work, traditional agencies saw money that they thought was theirs going away. So many added in digital to their offerings to provide a full-service experience for their clients. In some cases, this worked. In others, brands still went to find other agency partners. Today, many brands have different agencies handling their different channels, including broadcast, print, POP, PR, promotions, digital and much more.
What that has lead to is increased competition between the different agencies.
Because the traditional folks have owned the branding side of the business for so long, clients are accustomed to going to those partners first to get the big idea. But sadly, this shouldn't always be the case anymore. Great creative minds have transitioned from the traditional to digital side and have the same grasp and understanding of branding and campaigns as their analog counterparts. The computer programmers and analysts began to be more balanced by the creative types moving into the digital space. And with them, they brought their background of branding and way of thinking.
Today, everyone in the business wants a piece of the digital cake, as it were.
Earlier last year, the folks at Forrester published an article titled The Interactive Brand Ecosystem. It recommends putting digital at the center of things, vs. TV, like in the good old days. Here's a snippet from the blog post about the article:
But the conditions that made TV the de facto heart of our brand messaging no longer exist. Today, interactive marketing is ready to lead your brand campaigns, for four key reasons:What you get with digital is the ability to meld different media types into one larger story. It's one of the things that I personally really like about it. But rarely is it used in that format (whether it's due to budget, agency fragmentation, or whatever). Digital now has the chops to take the lead and be the cornerstone of campaigns, instead of the ugly stepchild sitting in the corner with the dunce cap on.
The Internet has the scale to match any other channel. Eighty-three percent of American adults are now online (compared with 96% who watch TV), and online users spend marginally more time online each week than they spend watching TV. In total, I estimate that for every hour the average American spent watching TV in 2010, they spent about .9 hours online. I expect that when we get our 2011 survey data back, the channels will be neck-and-neck. The Internet has the depth to beat any other channel. Marketers no longer have to limit themselves to the quick brand impressions made by TV spots or billboards; their websites offer them all the depth they need to convey complex brand attributes and engage users. And consumers actually want brands to offer them this depth online—it’s why so many users go straight to Google to learn more about the brands they see advertised offline, and why the Internet is consumers’ most trusted source of brand and product information.
The Internet is more trusted than any other channel. What’s the marketing channel customers trust most? It’s not your TV ads, your print ads, your direct mail or even your Facebook page—it’s your own web site.
The Internet is a richer storytelling medium than any other channel. I love TV’s ability to tell a story—it’s the reason we still remember classic ads and taglines, and the reason I’ve dedicated much of my career to developing online video ad formats. But online goes a step further than TV, adding interactivity to the picture and offering marketers their single most compelling creative channel.
I'm curious to see where all of this nets out in the next couple years. Brands are still trying to work it out with their agencies. Some clients want them all to play nice while behind the curtain the agencies are each vying for control.
Go back and read Branding and Digital: Part 1 and Part 2.
Labels: advertising, branding, creative, digital, strategy, trends, web
Saturday, February 25, 2012
[ This and That: 02.25.12 ]
+ Need to work on your presentation skills? Even if you don't, you'll find some good refreshers here. Key takeaway? Practice.
+ One of the folks I follow on Twitter pointed me to this list of 85+ Copywriting Resources post. I haven't had a chance to go through them all, but looks like there are at least a few goodies in the mix there worth checking out.
+ Now that the web seems to be going more to a visual format with the likes of Pinterest, Flickr, Tumblr, etc, there's also a newish site called Cowbird that I am thinking of checking out. They are invite only right now and describe themselves as:
Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web. Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life, and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today. Sagas are themes and events that touch millions of lives and shape the human story. Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as part of the the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance.+ Unrelated to anything in particular but also cool is this
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, copy, creative, science, social, social networking, web
Sunday, January 29, 2012
[ This and That: 01.29.12 ]
+ Super Bowl XLVI is coming up next weekend. If you want a sneak peek at what you will see, check out the Super Bowl Commercial Spoiler Alert for 2012 that I've put together. Quite a few ads are already "released" to the world, with a good number of teasers as well. Still a few keeping mum, like FedEx (although I double they'll top my all-time fave of theirs, Apology.) Do check Adland leading up to the big ad game, as we'll be posting updates as we go.
+ This past week, JC Penney launched a new logo and campaign from Mother which are part of a major brand overhaul planned by Apple exec turned JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson. Perhaps it's just me (although from the twittersphere it doesn't seem like it), but I think it's horrid. Looks like it was designed in Powerpoint. And the other elements for it look like they are trying to be Old Navy. C'mon. Where's the creativity? I get that it's quite different from where JCP was before, but isn't not the most amazing work overall. Maybe they can call GAP and commiserate together. Sorry Mother. And just because Johnson was at Apple, that doesn't make him infallible either.
Labels: ad news, adland, advertising, branding, creative, design, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 12
Monday, January 02, 2012
[ A look back at posts from 2011 ]
Everyone does it. I know. But this was less for you and more for me to take a trip back through my activity on the blog here over the past year. Below are some of my favorite posts or ones that I feel had some meaning or value.
+ John Cleese on Creativity
+ Why a Good Brief Leads to Good Creative
+ Why Social Should Drop the Media
+ Creativity in the Digital Space: Part 2 & Part 3
+ QR Codes: Hot or Not?
+ 6 Tips for Ad Peeps, Old and New
+ Why Copywriters Need to Care About Typography
+ Your Ideas Are Your Value
+ Using Websites to Tell Stories
+ 10 Things That Scare Creatives
+ Branding and Digital: Part 1 and Part 2
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, copy, creative, digital, trends
Sunday, December 04, 2011
[ Branding and Digital: Part 2 ]
About 13 years ago when I was just getting into the business, I would have never thought really about doing what I do today. If someone had asked me in an interview for my first job if I ever thought I'd be creating campaigns where users used a app on a branded Facebook page to control a water gun as part of a game to melt ice and free a cup of a client's product to win a prize, I'd have thought it would be awesome and cool, but possible? No way. Nor would I have thought that I'd ever need to come up with an idea like that.
What was happening then was that people were building websites. In fact, one of my first projects at my first agency out of school was working on redoing the agency brochure and website. Soon there after, we were also getting into banner ads. Good old 15K gifs. Oh yeah. Super sexy. But I was at a traditional agency where those were asks of clients for whom we were also doing radio, TV, print and collateral. The approach to digital was as it was for any other project. There was a brief. There was a copywriter/art director team that brainstormed ideas together. Comps were boarded up for presentations.
After that job, I continued working on digital as it grew and became more of a staple. But, a lot of it was also being done by folks with more of a tech background. It wasn't about the idea. It was about repurposing the TV spot or print ad for the web that the "branding" agency created. Digital or interactive shops weren't seen as having the talent to create something new. And, at the start of digital only shops, that might have been the case.
Thank god things have changed.
I'll be honest. It bothered me a lot that I had clients and even employers who didn't think that it was OK for a good idea to come from the digital shop. I've heard things like "That's branding. Our broadcast agency handles that." Really? So you'd lose out on a great idea, just because it didn't come from the right people? Now, that takes us down a different path, but seriously, this is the kind of thing that has been going on. You also had copywriters and designers working separately, even though Bernbach's efforts showed how much better the work tends to be when you team them up together.
So, what's changed and why?
Well, for one, digital shops are actually seeking out conceptual thinkers. They're looking for the storytellers. They're looking for more well-rounded creatives, technologists, and even account people and then designing better ways for them to work together. That's a huge piece of it.
I think the other is a function of integration. With that there has already been a couple trend cycles of agencies trying to do everything/be full-service or being very specialized. There's a sway back and forth over time as clients think they want one or the other. But what they really want is integration. No matter which agency comes up with the main idea, they want all agencies playing nice around that big idea so it is seamless to the consumer. Well, sure, great. We all want that. Unfortunately, in order to get there, a lot of times it forces agencies to compete against each other. This has caused those digital only shops to look outward and try to learn from the bigger agencies who may at one time be winning more accounts than them depending on where in the cycle we are. Rather than trying to create a new structure, they've looked to the way in which traditional agencies have set themselves up. They also started bringing in more people who had started at those agencies, brought the ideas with them and implemented them because that's what they knew.
And then there's the agencies who were full service to begin with, and remained that way and added digital as just another offering, like GSP and W+K.
With only about 15 years under its belt, digital is still new. It's still figuring out what it is and what it needs to be...and what it wants to be.
Go back and read Branding and Digital: Part 1.
Labels: advertising, branding, digital, interactive
[ Branding and Digital: Part 1 ]
I recently watched Art & Copy. Yes I'm late to viewing this film. But that's not really relevant. I spent an hour and a half listening to some of the greats talk about the business. Talk about branding and the work they've done. Folks like Lee Clow, Hal Riney, George Lois, Dan Weiden, and Mary Wells Lawrence. They talk about finding key ways to talk to people. Finding the nugget of truth about a product or life and wrapping them together. Making someone feel something. Telling a story of what the company could do for you. Campaigns like "Just Do It", "Think Different", and "I Want My MTV" struck a chord. They're as Weiden says like lightening striking. Concepts and ideas that resonate with the population and become part of pop culture.
It's all about branding. But what is branding? Branding is defined as "the promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand." So, then what is a brand?
David Ogilvy's defined a brand as: "The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised."
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."
For a very long time, the role of branding has been held by TV spots, radio ads, print ads, billboards and the other rash of tactics in the realm of traditional advertising. That role has been all about storytelling, image and the emotion it conveys to the customer.
This is what i learned in school and what I practiced at the start of my career when my bread and butter was radio spots, print ads and the like.
These days I spend all my time working in the digital world. And I try to apply these concepts to the work I do on a daily basis. But how does any of this thinking really translate to the new media that's out there? Or does it?
For the five or six of you that actually read this blog when I post something new, this is what I want to explore. Because I think what is going to finally happen in the near future is that we will see much more of these concepts brought into the digital workplace. And for sure, this is already starting to happen. But I have a sense that it will blow up even larger in the next few years while taking some different turns.
Stay tuned.
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, branding, digital, interactive
posted @ 12:01 AM | Link to This | 
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4 comments
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4 comments
Comments:
Really nice post.
I think 'the media is the message' is bunk. The message is the message and it's been the same from cave paintings to the digital world. People rely on the newness of technology as being a crutch. They think new is the be all and end all. But I personally think the message is the same and always will be. If you can reach 'em on a cave you can reach 'em online.
By 
required field must not be blank, at
12:11 AM
Thanks.
I've hit pieces of this before but it's something that personally resonates for me. It KILLS me when a client says that something isn't branding because it's digital. It's ALL part of branding. But, digital is expected to be more hard sell with price points and what not.
Anyway, more to come ;)
This blog is an exact representation of skills. I appreciate the blogger for posting the most excellent thought.
By 
Business Logo Design, at
3:16 AM
Excellent post. I want to thank you for this informative read. Keep up your great work.
By Template Design, at
12:34 AM
Sunday, November 06, 2011
[ This and That: 11.6.11 ]
Shape of the Industry
+ Forrester’s Nate Elliott has some interesting things to say in his Interactive Brand Ecosystem report.
It’s time for marketers to start taking the brand-building power of interactive channels more seriously [...] Your online content and experiences should be the first piece of the brand campaign you develop, and not the last piece. After all, the Internet is the deepest, richest, and most trusted branding channel you possess — and within a year or two it’ll probably be the biggest too. Your customers have entered an era of interactivity, and it’s time for your brand campaigns to do the same.
For me, leading your brand with interactive marketing isn’t about choosing one channel over another; it’s about rethinking how all our marketing channels work together. The way we “coordinate” our marketing channels right now is broken: Even today, most marketers develop their TV ads first and then hand them to the interactive team and hope they can build a site or a banner campaign that matches. As we’ve all seen, this rarely works well.Management of Cubelife
+ An interesting read on "engagement" and looking at how it's losing (or lost) its meaning from overuse, wrong use, and more.
Talking about ‘engagement’ is as about as helpful as demanding that communications be ‘good’.+ A good read from Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin for Fast Company, Stumbling Up The Ladder: Ad Agencies Neglect Their Brightest Prospects. Here's a excerpt:
Meaningless and bankrupt, when we talk of ‘engagement’ we reveal ourselves as victims of industry fashion. Or in pursuit of our own self-serving agendas. Or in love with pontificating and generalizing at the expense of understanding the specific and actually being useful.
Agencies are losing status as go-to thought leaders because frankly, leadership is in short supply. Clients are parceling out their projects to consultants and 'specialists.' The best and brightest grads aren’t choosing advertising the way they used to, nor taking it as seriously as other talent-based businesses.Design
Advertising is an industry careless of the talent under its roof. Its greatest asset is the people who go up and down the elevators each day, yet a dearth of investment in their growth has left them feeling that they lack value. Even though employees continue to rank training as one of the primary motivations to stay in a company, it has mostly gone the way of the dodo. Cost has long triumphed over benefit. So people feed their sense of worth by changing jobs more often. The best recognize that without mentors and employer commitment to their personal development, their growth is limited and, well, see ya. Meanwhile, smarter, newer businesses are biting at the heels of agencies, offering campus environments for their newly-minted workforce, as well as training, sabbaticals, and jobs that feel more rewarding.
+ If you're looking for some cool visual eye candy or inspiration, check out 50watts.com, a great resource of book-related design and illustration.
+ Just Be Nice Studio out of Moscow created a typeface that includes all frequently used iconographics and symbols. Web Symbols is a set of vector html-compliant typefaces, so it might be used in any size, color and most browsers.
+ Copy Paste Character is another handy, dandy website and iPhone application for copying the
‘hidden’ characters that comes with the computer’s typefaces, to be pasted into emails, tweets, text documents, forums and whatever else you might need to spice up with an extra ♔, ฿ or, ❒.
Labels: adbiz, adgruntie, advertising, creative_management, cubelife, design, digital, inspiration, this and that, wisdom
posted @ 8:08 AM | Link to This | |
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1 comments
Comments:
nice blog, nice to meet you ☺
By Beben Koben, at
8:33 AM
Monday, October 31, 2011
[ 10 things that scare Creatives ]
1. Moving deadlines--especially those that move closer, rather than farther away.
2. Computer crashes, a.k.a. the color wheel of death--especially if the work hasn't been saved.
3. Clients who think they are creative. They say their line or visual idea is just an example, but you know they really want you to use it.
4. There's no beer left in the kitchen fridge. Or bottle of booze in your desk. Or your AD/CW's desk. Or our Account person's desk.
5. Being forced to use Comic Sans. Because it's the brand font.
6. Being told to modify an idea someone else did that was cool and retrofit it to the project.
7. When all the concepts get killed in the internal, which was pushed to 1 day before the big presentation and having to start from scratch.
8. Noticing that no one proofed the presentation deck and auto spell check changed the clients name to something else...everywhere.
9. You're left to pitch someone else's half-baked idea.
10. You're forced to use a PC instead of a Mac...
Got others? Leave them in the comments. And Happy Halloween!
Labels: adgruntie, advertising, creative, cubelife, fun
posted @ 6:00 AM | Link to This | |
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2 comments
Comments:
This was Good
http://designwashere.com/80-inspiring-quotes-about-design/
I am a website designing beginner. I am looking for the easy tips to learn about the website designing. Please suggest me some courses providing companies. logo designs
Monday, October 10, 2011
[ Why Tim Gunn Can By My CD ]
+ Maybe it's because I watched too much Project Runway this weekend (I had a couple weeks of episodes to catch up on), but I started thinking about how sweet it would be to have Tim Gunn as a Creative Director. But then the question one would have to ask, obviously, is why?
- Gunn never cuts down the designers. He nurtures them and their ideas in the few minutes he spends with them. He looks at their idea, listens to their concept and asks them the questions to help get them in right direction. How can you improve that? Are you editing well? Are you listening to what the judges (clients) have said about your work in the past?- While some designers clearly end up with of "the outfit that should be put to death" before they hit the runway, Tim tries to work with them by giving guidance. It's not instructive, it's directive. "Don't be too literal". He provides the right hints. It's up to the designer to figure out how to interpret them.
- When the designers succeed, Gunn is happy for them. He's their cheerleader. He wants them to succeed. - His catchphrase "Make it work" is one I could deal with hearing on a regular basis. (In fact, I've used it myself).
Labels: agency, creative, cubelife
Cup of Java © 2002-2011
keep on using that brain.