Caffeinated posts from a copywriter/adgrunt. I write about advertising, design, astronomy, cooking, and pretty much anything else that strikes my fancy, including random bits of reference info for work purposes. You may also know me as 'that other gal' who helps run Adland. | make contact | RSS Feed | ATOM

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
[ More proof the ad world is insane ]

+ So, Career Builder put their account in review after their Super Bowl ads didn't make it into USA Today's top 10. Um. Cramer-Krasselt agency CEO Peter Krivkovich wrote this memo to the agency after they told CareerBuilder where to go, and rightfully so.
Read the internal memo-excerpt below:

Overall, CareerBuilder's revenue shot up from $100 + million to $700 + million. Number one in share. Number one in visits. Number one in listings. C-K contributed enormously to that – all in less than 36 months. A week and a half ago they told us our performance report card would be at 100%! We were so friggin' happy!

There was only one place we didn't score at the top: with the 238 people that comprised the USA Today Super Bowl poll (all located in Houston, TX and McLean, VA) who voted us 16th and 27th. (That means there were 41 ads below us.)

To our amazement, to our total astonishment, all that astounding business success was less important than one poll. They wanted us to make them famous; we did that in spades (brand awareness up by 64% - even Millward Brown, the venerable research firm said their brand building model couldn't explain such incredible growth.) But the TV ads did not make the top 10 in the USA Today poll – a poll that everyone knows doesn't mirror results (see the continuing Bud sales decline for one!) - they just told us they will do a creative review.

Wait a minute we said, what about the incredible growth that is going on, the shares, the revenue, the awareness, the two best internet sites ever, the massive buzz, etc, etc.

What about all of that? That's huge.

"Yes," they responded, "but you (C-K) didn't get the top ten in the USA Today poll." Hold on… we crushed every possible business metrics/barometer for success. Out of all the metrics and polls, it's all about this one?You have to be (explative) kidding, right!? "No, that's it. It's because of the poll." That was about the extent of the conversation.

C-Kers, we have to tell you – in our entire history, hell in the history of this crazy thing called advertising, I'm not sure there has ever been any thing as baseless or as unbelievable as that. It's so ludicrious and they are so serious about that poll it's almost funny.

Being floored would be an understatement. We can proudly take credit for their success. We certainly don't think one poll builds a brand. We don't think that our tremendous results should be defined or denigrated by a measurement that everyone knows is not related to business success. Most importantly of all we take great pride in being a very hot, highly successful agency. We consistently and dramatically help brands change the conversation in their category. We did it in spades for them. Despite all the great work and making them famous, their sole reason is, at best, unsophisticated, unbusiness like and from the standpoint of how to run a business, unprofessional. They may not be the kind of people we should do business with. Therefore we can't justify any reason to participate in a review and have just notified them accordingly. The good news is that we are on a roll that looks even better than the incredible 2006 growth of 23%. We're moving on!

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, creative

[ Hello Father Bernbach ]

+ The Church of Branding is interesting and brings up quite a few points we have heard before. Still very much worth a read.

Labels: adgruntie, branding, creative, work

[ Oscar ads beat out SB ads ]

+ The NYTimes on Oscar Adveritising - which I missed thanks to the flu.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, commercial, creative, Super Bowl 07

[ Hello ]

+ Apple's iPhone commercial has aired.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, commercial, creative, watch

[ Email fonts ]

+ Email study on fonts and usability. (via Design Observer)

Labels: adgruntie, design, web

[ Web 2.0 in under 5 minutes ]

+ Nicely done!


(via GraphicDesignBar)

Labels: adgruntie, watch, web, work

[ Stuff to listen to ]

+ While fighting the flu, I caught a music thing on PBS the other night featuring Sting and Edin Karamazov who recorded the music of John Dowland, a 16th century musician and composer.

You can listen to some of it here. (click on eplayer)

Labels: fun, life, sidetracks

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
[ Vintage ads ]

+ Like old ads? Check out the collection at Copperfield's Antiques.

Labels: adgruntie, creative, culture

Friday, February 23, 2007
[ Happy Ending Engineered for Robot ]

+ GM releases edit of "Robot" spot which aired during the Super Bowl this year.

The amended 30-second spot, which premieres this Sunday during the Academy Awards, removes the jump and substitutes as a bad dream a shot of a car being compacted in a scrap yard, and shows the robot in additional menial jobs, including work as a shelf-stocker and holding the security gate in a parking ramp.

See it here

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, commercial, creative, Super Bowl 07

[ Odd print ]

+ While looking for the ad for the post below I came across this ad for D&G



I find it amusing the fella on the right is pointing. *points*

Labels: adgruntie, creative, print

[ Is fashion advertising art? ]

+ Dolce and Gabbana have called Spain "behind the times" for banning the following ad.

Spain's Labor and Social Affairs Ministry branded the campaign as illegal and humiliating to women, saying the woman's body position had no relation to the products Dolce & Gabbana were trying to sell.

One could infer from the advertisement that it is acceptable to use force as a way of imposing oneself on a woman, reinforced by the passive and complicit manner of the men looking on," the ministry said in a statement.

Dolce & Gabbana defended the campaign as art in comments reported by La Vanguardia.

"What has an artistic photo got to do with a real act?" the paper quoted the firm as saying. "You would have to burn museums like the Louvre or the paintings of Caravaggio."

Dolce and Gabbana are no strangers to controversy - I actually think they enjoy it.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, culture, print

Thursday, February 22, 2007
[ Infectious ]


+ Virus game is addictive! (hat tip (damn you!) Dab)

It's also relevant to the fact that way too many folks I'm around (work and personal life) are sick with colds, flu, or something else. I've even got a sicky at home. Remember, when these "things" go around, if you feel like crap, stay home so you don't spread your germs and wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough. I've washed my hands so much in the last couple days I'm starting to feel like I've got OCD.

Labels: fun, life, sidetracks

Tuesday, February 20, 2007
[ Dumb headline ]


+ On the back of the March issue of Fitness is this ad for Pantene with the headline "hot as ice". What the hell does that mean? Oy.

Text below it (which is blurry in the shot I quickly snapped with my camera phone):
Get chills with the Ice Shine Collection from Pantene. The pro-vitamin formula heats up your look with 2X the shine in just one use.

And yes, that's an ice cube the model is holding to her neck. Puns a-plenty! ;)

Labels: ad review, adgruntie, print

[ Consumers recpetive to cinema ads ]

+ What a surprise! new research conducted for the Cinema Advertising Association in the UK suggests consumers are more receptive to advertising in the cinema than on any other medium. Gotta love when studies are conducted by groups that support the medium claiming it's most effective, etc. ;)

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, media

[ Do you play the homophone? ]

+ Homophoner is a widget that finds homophones for the text you enter. Could be good to use for search to find options of what folks might type in.

Labels: adgruntie, copy, fun, online advertising

[ Bookvertising is here ]

+ Bookvertising and other ways marketers are looking to embed products.

f the tale of "Black Sapphire Pearl" blurs the line between fiction and advertising, it also exemplifies a $2 billion enterprise that is increasingly encroaching on traditional advertising, according to PQ Media, a Stamford, Conn., media research firm. With TiVo skipping commercials and pop-up blockers neutralizing online ads, traditional advertising is under assault everywhere. "Seamless brand integration" means that books, cartoons, video games and even television shows are now the hottest vehicles for advertisers to get their products in front of a target audience.

So Smith, who also writes for television and film, shaped his novel "to be really cool and different and literary." He says, "It doesn't read like an ad." More like this:

The Lexus loaner turned out to be a GS Hybrid. To say it was an upgrade from the battered Crown Vic I'd driven with the LAPD would be an understatement. For one, you don't need a key. You keep the remote control thing in your pocket and to start the car you just push a button on the dash. Like on a computer. In fact the car's more like a super-powered laptop on wheels than anything else.

Call it a fictomercial, a literatisement, branded entertainment. Lexus doesn't really care. As long as it makes people lust after its new top-of-the-line car.

The story is being published in three installments in the Lexus quarterly magazine, which is sent to owners, the last part coming this spring. It's also available, with interactive features, on the company's Web site.

Subtlety is one of the keys to placing a product name in media aimed at sophisticated consumers, says Richard Nelson, head of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. "If it's so heavily overloaded that it's basically a commercial, people aren't going to want to read it, and they won't buy it."

This has led to the increasing popularity of softer marketing ploys, such as event sponsorships (think: author readings hosted by a local dealership, or an art installation commissioned by a major automaker), "webisodes" and "advergaming."

Labels: ad news, adcreep, adgruntie

[ Lifestyles of the Ad Averse ]

+ Mediaweek reports on a study conducted jointly by Microsoft and Starcom, with help from researcher Millward Brown, which reads like a script for a film titled Nightmare on Madison Avenue. The report, Lifestyles of the Ad Averse, found that between 10 percent and 15 percent of adults 17-35 fall into the category of "ad avoiders" i.e. folks that don't like advertising, and generally find it "annoying."

he active group is more likely to be young, tech-savvy men who deliberately consume media that has no ads, like DVDs and satellite radio. The passive group is comprised of women, often parents, who gravitate to leisure activities that are untouched by ads, such as books or board games.

Avoiders of all stripes represent a scary prospect for marketers. "This is the kind of stuff that keeps us up at night," said Beth Uyenco Shatto, research director at Microsoft.

Both groups' habits make them hard to reach by conventional means. Twelve percent of avoiders surveyed said they watch less than one hour of TV per week versus just 3 percent among non-avoiders. Both index low for listening to the radio and reading magazines. And technology like DVRs and the iPod is only making it easier for these avoiders to shun ads.

So what's a brand to do? According to Uyenco Shatto, advertising needs to become more optional, more creative and more relevant. "If you really want to make an impact you really have to customize your message," she said. "Plus, the more interactive you get, the more convincing you are."

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, media

[ Loud Ads ]

+ Consumerman answers the question Why are TV commercials so loud?

Labels: adgruntie

[ BoA to change tagline ]

+ Bank of America is to phase out "Higher Standards" tagline. There was always something that struck my gut as being slightly off about that tagline. Ask me to put my finger on the exact reason, I suppose I would probably have to agree with one of the following statements from the article.

But recently, Bank of America marketing executives decided that it was time to phase it out. [snip]
Another reason is that benefit is no longer at the top of consumers' minds. The "Higher Standards" slogan was introduced in the aftermath of Enron and a wave of Wall Street scandals. The phrase replaced "Embracing Ingenuity," the Bank of America's tagline at the time. But today, in the era of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, some branding experts suggest, regulatory compliance is as expected as online bill payment or a free checking account.

Others say that "Higher Standards" seems too much of a relative phrase. Whose standards are Bank of America's higher than anyway? Higher than the Securities and Exchange Commission or the New York attorney general? Higher than rivals, like Wachovia or Citi? Higher than, well, a higher authority?

I guess this last bit is what bothered me about it. I suppose as a large corporation that was eating up other banks it was to imply that they may be large but still maintained a set of standards, but in many ways it's hard for a statement like that to ring true for a large corporation with the preconcieved notions many consumers have about "big business". It will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Labels: ad news, branding

Monday, February 19, 2007
[ Beatbox cooking ]

+
(hat tip Industrial Brand Blog)

Labels: creative, culture, fun, watch

Friday, February 16, 2007
[ Concept for billboards ]

+ Neat billboard concepts for Mustang.

Labels: adgruntie, creative, media, outdoor

[ Science Badges! ]

+ Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique offers its members great badges like The "sexing up science" badge, The "my degree inadvertantly makes me competent in fixing household appliances" badge, and The "knows how to collect semen from more than one species" badge. Fun stuff!
(hat tip kottke.org)

Labels: fun, life, science

[ DVR owners watch ads! Shocking! ]

+ Nielsen releases data claiming people who own DVRs still watch an average of 2/3 of the ads shown during programming they play back.

One big reason is that many people with DVRs still tune in to watch about half of their shows at the scheduled start times, meaning they must sit through commercials.

And even when people watch recorded shows later, many are not fast-forwarding through the ads. On average, Nielsen found, DVR owners watch 40 percent of commercials that they could skip over.

"People are actually playing back more of the commercials than we thought," said Steve Sternberg, executive vice president and director of audience analysis at Magna Global Media Research, an ad buying agency. "People are buying DVRs, not because they want to time-shift all of their viewing and skip all commercials, but because they want to time-shift some of their viewing."

People who have DVRs often insist that they never watch commercials, as if skipping commercials is a badge of honor. And while it is true that some DVR owners probably watch no commercials, others never touch the fast-forward button. Most people are probably between those two extremes.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, media

[ Don't poo-poo radio ]


+ Radio Listeners Don't Change the Dial During Ads according to data shared during the Radio Advertising Bureau Conference.

Radio's biggest challenge of late has been its relationship with advertisers, who have been concerned with radio's reach in recent years. Arbitron's 15-years-in-the-making Portable People Meter was finally put to the test in Houston and Philadelphia last year, and Jon Coleman, of North Carolina-based research company Coleman Insights, was on hand to report surprising statistics from a study conducted last August.

The biggest misconception about radio these days is that commercial pods don't hold listeners' attention, Mr. Coleman said. A poll conducted in November and December of 2005 found that radio-industry employees believed commercial breaks had a 68% retention rate, while advertisers and agencies estimated the rate at 63%. And that was wishful thinking on both parties' part. "When I talked to my clients, several said, 'I lied, because I was so afraid of what the answer was going to be so I hyped mine up.'"

No hype was necessary -- the actual retention rate was 92%, a number bolstered by strong results from four-minute and six-minute pods. Mr. Coleman attributed this industry disconnect to the overestimation of radio as a primarily in-car medium, yet the study showed commercial breaks during the morning commute hold more than 94% of listeners. "Broadcasters should make advertisers more aware that radio is a commuter-friendly medium."

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, creative, media

Thursday, February 15, 2007
[ Touchy-feely print ad for Coquel ]


+ An ad for Coquel, a liquid detergent from Brazil harkens back to the type of thinking we were taught in school. Instead of printing the magazine ad on glossy paper, the ad was printed on brightly colored soft-to-the-touch fabric. The tagline: "We also like clothes so much that our ad could not be made on paper." Great stuff.

Labels: ad review, branding, creative, media, print

[ Guest Bloggin' 3 ]

+ Yet another post over at Notes on Design: Can Web Design Be Green?

Labels: creative, culture, design, life

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
[ Happy Valentine's Day ]

+ Check out these hilarious vintage comic Valentines of mid-Victorian England. Also 150 hand-drawn valentines by Marian Bantjes is also worth checking out. (hat tip Design Observer)

Last minute valentines post at ReadyMade by Megan of NotMartha points to some goodies, including these robot valentines by Whirr.

Labels: creative, culture, design, fun, life, web

[ This is familiar ]

+ Problem Solving Flow Chart - Hilarious!

Labels: adgruntie, fun, work

[ Art needs to be chewed ]

+ I guess you can make art out of anything - take Bubble Gum Blondes. The artist Jason Kronenwald creates these using only bubble gum placed on a plywood backing. Pretty neat. The colors come from the inherent coloring in the gum.

Labels: creative, culture, design, fun, sidetracks

[ Advertising Job Listings Back at AAAA ]

+ Hmm. The AAAA's have reopened their career center. Between 2002 and 2005 or so, it was stagnent and then they just closed it down. I'll take it as a good sign for the ad industry.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, creative

[ Guest Bloggin' 2 ]

+ Oooh look, another post at Notes on Design. Check it out. This one is on spec work and has lots of tasty linakge to useful articles and whatnot.

Labels: creative, Cup of Java, design

[ Techie Cakes ]

+ Neat TechCakes.

Labels: creative, design, fun, life, sidetracks

[ Guest Bloggin' ]

+ The nice folks at Notes on Design, the blog of Design Sessions, mentioned previously here, have asked me to be a guest blogger. Wee! Very exciting stuff. You can read the first post here.

Labels: creative, Cup of Java, design, fun

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
[ It's all down to interpretation ]

+ SafeNow is funny. They interpretation the instructo-art style imagery from the government. You should go check it out. (hat tip Leslie)

Labels: creative, culture, design, fun

Thursday, February 08, 2007
[ Tax day - it's a comin' ]

+ While doing some work for a client, I came across these bits of information on taxes that might be helpful for other freelancers.
10 tax tips for the self employed
Taxes and Freelancing
Telephone Tax
Top 10 Tax Tips for Small and Growing Businesses
Tax deductions and credits
2007 Standard Milage Rates

Labels: adgruntie, life, work

[ What are they saying? ]

+ The business world is full of jargon. Check out the Business Jargon Dictionary and make sense of terms your AE or client likes to throw around. (hat tip Leslie)

Labels: adgruntie, copy, fun, work

Tuesday, February 06, 2007
[ AAAAs create guidelines for pitches ]

+ The 4A's have issued a white paper to help agencies retain the rights to the ideas presented during reviews.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies has issued best practices guidelines designed to help shops retain ownership of the ideas they present during account reviews.

"The agency search/new business process should not be used by marketers as a mechanism to generate a bank of ideas and materials," the organization said in a position paper issued this week.
[snip]
"Advertising payment to agencies for participation should specify that payment is solely intended to offset agency cost of participation in the review and does not alter the agency's ownership of agency-developed presentation concepts and materials," the guidelines state. "In advance of conducting search meetings or presentations, the marketer and participating agencies should discuss how ownership, license or usage rights of agency-developed ideas, plans and work will be handled."

Read the AAAA paper here (will open a pdf)

I've sort of followed some developments around the world in terms of pitching fees over at Adland.
March 2004: Advertisers fear "cartel" in Oz
March 2005: Spec Sucks For Everyone
March 2006: Pitching Fees
Ok, that is really weird cowinkidink that they are all articles from March and about a year apart! hah!

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, creative

[ Valentine's Crafty ]

+ Recycle Your Heart" CRAFT Valentine's Day Card Contest at Craftzine. Neat. Deadline is Friday Feb 9th at 5pm PST. (hat tip to NotMartha)

Labels: crafty, design, fun

[ Cheese watchin' ]

+ Cheese voyerism taken to the next level.

English firm West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers has turned a web camera on a rack of its maturing cheddar cheeses to give aficionados a chance to watch in real time the slow process of mold growth for a whole year and without having to leave home.

"It puts watching paint dry in the shade. If you happen to tune in at the right time you will even get to see them being turned," a company spokeswoman told Reuters by telephone.

Watch the cheese for yourself at CheddarVision.
(Hat tip Clay)

Labels: creative, fun, online advertising

[ By the people for the people ]

+ User-generated ads come to politics.

Campaignads.org is the first non-partisan website that will provide a vehicle for creative artists, political activists, issue advocates, political and advertising professionals to come together, decide what is important and then affect the debate. It will be old media meets new as consumer-generated ads move from the internet to television and other mediums and back.

Brings a whole to meaning to for the people by the people.

Labels: ad news, adgruntie, consumer-generated

Monday, February 05, 2007
[ Super Bowl XLI ]

+ Check out the Top 10 ads from Super Bowl XLI. Also last night during the game I blogged the ads by quarter at Adland. See first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and forth quarter.

Labels: ad review, adgruntie, Super Bowl 07

Saturday, February 03, 2007
[ Fall colors ]

+ Pantone has released top 10 colors for Fall 07. More of a muted (overall) color scheme than the traditional jewelled inspired colors we typically see. (hat tip HOWblog)

Labels: creative, culture, life

Thursday, February 01, 2007
[ Buildings as media ]

+ Famous buildings become branding tools takes a look at some structures and how they've been used to market brands.

Labels: adgruntie, branding, media

[ Whitespace and page layouts ]

+ Whitespace from ALA. Nicely written and with some good advice.

Another ALA article Paper Prototyping provides an interesting way to approach new layouts.

Labels: design, web

[ New Guinness Ad ]

+ Neat use of stop motion animated by Michael Schlingmann.

Labels: adgruntie, commercial, watch

[ ANNA 2006 winners announced ]

+ The ANNA winners were announced yesterday. Top ad went to Nike's "St Wayne" of Wayne Rooney by Wieden + Kennedy that caused commotion mid-2006 as a poster. Chris Groom, Stuart Harkness and Guy Featherstone won the £25,000 'Winner of Winners' award for the best national newspaper advertisement of 2006 for the ad. June judge Dave Dye said:

"This reminds me of one of those great, jingoistic Sun front covers like 'Achtung!' or 'Turnip Head,' the kind of images that seep into our culture. The fact that it was spoofed with Rooney holding Ronaldo's decapitated head is testament to this."

Best Art Direction went to an Murphy's Fast Flow - drawn in 26 seconds ad by Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Best Copywriting went to Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R's ad for Virgin Trains.

Labels: ad award, ad news, adgruntie, print

[ Feb 1st. ]

+ Rabbit Rabbit.

Labels: fun, life