I’ve found a ton of great new advertising and marketing blogs that I wanted to share with everyone. If you read The Viral Garden, then all these guys are daily reads for you, but since the audience here and there is starting to diverge a bit, I wanted to give them all another shout-out here. These are the guys that will be the big-name bloggers in a few months. Someone finally did it. Tricia at Studio UES has created the first (that I’ve found) music marketing blog. (UPDATE: Crap….I completely forgot about Clyde Smith’s Hip-Hop Marketing, which you should definitely check out as well!) Tricia has great updates and insights on all things music marketing, and in many ways she does for music what Chris has been doing for movies. Definitely a good thing. Check out her post that includes a link from Trees Lounge, who has compliled a MASSIVE list of state-themed songs for July 4th! Paul has started Hee-Haw Marketing, which he describes as ‘The intersection of marketing speak, and pure bullshit’! Paul’s got a great sense of humor and smarts, and his blog is a good mix of both advertising and marketing news, opinion, and well….bullshit. Experience Curve is home to one of my Daily-Fix running mates, Karl Long. EC also has a good mix of marketing/advertising content, with a slant toward ’social media’ such as YouTube and Flickr. Which is great, because that means the topics covered are a bit different than most other blogs. And his readers are responding, since he’s on the verge of cracking the Top 25 Advertising Blogs. A couple of excellent blogs that focus on branding, the first is the incredible Own Your Brand!, written by Michael Wagner. Definitely a name to remember. What’s great about Michael’s blog is that he covers branding as it applies to so many different industries: Music, fast-food, golf, hospitality, even today talking about your personal blogging brand. Just a great read. Monica Powers has started the informative Brand is Language. Monica has a great knack for uncovering the ‘language’ that companies and their brands are really speaking to customers, the good and bad. Marketing Nirvana has literally come out of nowhere. Mario’s excellent blog is making waves not just for the content, but for his totally embracing the blogging community. So many new bloggers make the mistake of not doing this when they start out, and Marketing Nirvana should be the blueprint for how to hit the ground running with a blog. Podcasting, WOM, movie and music marketing, Mario covers it all with ease. Mike Sansone at Converstations focuses on how businesses can ‘join the conversation’ with their community. Advice most of them definitely need! Paul at Blending the Mix is a UK blogger that frequently covers how ‘Marketing 2.0′ is changing the promotional landscape. All of the above are excellent reads, and I’m proud to say they are members of the Viral Community….which is proving its namesake by now spreading over to BMA UPDATE: Chris at MMM has posted his own Viral Community. Pic via Flickr user Rocco Kasby

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an organization that holds a seminar once a year in California where some of the cutting-edge folks shaping our world say stuff. BMW is sponsoring TED talks, a peek into TED to reveal smartitude us mere mortals don’t often get a glimpse of. Al Gore, Tony Robbins, others hold forth on some really cool philosophies and ideas. Definately worth your time.

If anyone has any further info on who did this, please do share. I found the link on Lounge72.com. The ending looks like the new Wieden close, but if anyone can offer specifics… Without further ado, check it out here.

There’s a pretty substantial debate running on the advertising/design goodness blog about the worthiness of this year’s print grand prix at Cannes for lego. What do you think? Grand Prix worthy?

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 10: 1 - AdRants - 9,929 (LW - 1)(-92) 2 - Werbeblogger - 23,063 (LW - 2)(+364) 3 - Media Buyer/Planner - 26,155 (LW - 3)(+522) 4 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 28,521 (LW - 4)(-571) 5 - Adverblog - 29,195 (LW - 5)(-28) 6 - ad-rag - 32,762 (LW - 6)(-99) 7 - AdFreak - 40,349 (LW - 7)(+167) 8 - AdJab - 40,749 (LW - 8)(+690) 9- AdverBox - 65,831 (LW - 9)(+296) 10 - Jaffe Juice - 109,377 (LW - 11)(+1,487) 11 - AdPulp - 111,876 (LW - 10)(-1,781) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 115,869 (LW - 12)(+393) 13 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 144,510 (LW - 13)(-14,489) 14 - Advertising for Peanuts - 145,788 (LW - 14)(+2,299) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 162,487 (LW - 15)(-1,342) 16 - Ad Blather - 175,928 (LW - 16)(+8,785) 17 - AdverGirl - 239,555 (LW- 18)(+12,828) 18 - Logic + Emotion - 253,955 (LW - 19)(+69,337) 19 - Designers Who Blog - 261,821 (LW - 17)(-23,931) 20 - Room 116 - 281,986 (LW - 20)(+55,114) 21 - Ad Hunt - 349,443 (LW - 21)(+22,884) 22 - American Copywriter - 419,774 (LW - 24)(+115,932) 23 - Copyranter - 428,195 (LW - 23)(+87,476) 24 - The Hidden Persuader - 483,497 (LW- 22)(+3,865) 25 - Ads That Suck - 550,035 (LW - 25)(+26,777) As with the Top 25 Marketing Blogs, this was a strong week for their advertising counterparts, as 17 of the Top 25 are up this week. Jaffe Juice’s push into the Top 10 was perhaps the most significant, with BMA inching up right behind AdPulp. The final 10 spots were especially strong, with AC having a monster week, no doubt surging in part due to their nomination in the Marketing Sherpa Blog Awards. “David” smoked it again this week, and Copyranter had another strong showing. Notice too that the consolidation of the ad blogs continues, as now it takes an Alexa ranking of 550K to make the cut, and that’s by the skin of your mouse. Next update will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

This morning on Critical Fluff, I explored the likely hoaxiness of GenPets, the completely disturbing flesh-gremlins of puppyhood.

I wondered if Adam Brandejs, the Oz of these nudie-Matrix-pooches was not only a brilliant multimedia sculptor, but also a super ace self-marketer.

Turns out, he is. He’s also quite the crafty smartypants when it comes to initiating a buzzable web presence.

Thanks to Museum of Hoaxes for helping me sleep better tonight. Although I’m still not allowed to look at those pictures in the GenPets media kit after 9pm.

This might just have to become another “thing” around here. Seems that all sorts of fun stuff pops up on Sundays.

This short video/film/animation/oddity comes from the Black Heart Gang and is called The Tale of How. Think of it as an adult version of Where the Wild Things Are.

Like many other advertising blogs, we frequently get emails wanting us to blog about a campaign/story/product offering, whatever. Normally the email involves little more than ‘Hey man this is cool, check it out!’, with a link, and no further explanation for what this is, why I should care, and most importantly, why YOU should care. But just now, we got an email from Roman Mandrick, the CEO of KsanLab, explaining the Kissing Garden. Here’s what he wrote:

It’s called Kissing Garden. The East European version of the project had 100 000 unique visitors in 2 weeks without any promotion. We just put a link in LiveJournal and it stated to spread over the Internet. It’s 1,000,000 of online kisses now. The International version has been opened today: http://kiss.ksanlab.com It’s good example of viral distribition and social networking in the blogs. Thousands of people are sending virtual kisses to eash other and sharing their emotions. It happens in one particular place - in the Kissing Garden.

He included a pair of screenshots, and perhaps the touch I liked best was, he included a link to where Joe at Jaffe Juice is already blogging about it. It shows Roman is paying attention to the blogs he is emailing, and I see where he’s already left a comment on Joe’s post. Good job KsanLab! Check out the Kissing Garden here.

For anyone in my age bracket, Saved by the Bell was an after-school staple in the television realm. And its brand is being sung again by once teen-star (can we call him that?) Dustin Diamond, aka Screech. Diamond, who has been supporting himself as a stand up comedian, is attempting to raise a quarter of a million dollars in an attempt to stave off foreclosure on his Milwaukee home. Maybe he should have followed the example of the million dollar homepage. If you’d like to buy a shirt, check out his site here.

It seems that Second Life has everyone talking these days. Last month we blogged about the first concert to be simulcast live in the UK, and in Second Life. Now American Apparel has opened a virtual store inside Second Life, where members of the virtual community can outfit their avatars with items from the ’store’. Karl Long wisely points out that Second Life isn’t a game, but a co-creative business. I think he’s right, and although I have never used Second Life ( I have dial-up. Nuff said), I must admit that the potential possibilities for businesses to use Second Life as a marketing tool are very intriguing. What if Snakes on a Plane became the first movie to be released simultaneously offline, and online within Second Life? What if retailers such as The Gap started giving away Second Life ‘credits’, based on how much you spend in the stores? We saw many smaller retailers close their offline stores and move to eBay, could Second Life eventually grow to the point where online retailers would shift to the virtual community? I have no idea. And part of the reason why I don’t know, is because I’m not on/in Second Life. So those of you that are, give me some feedback. What opportunities do you see for businesses and marketers in this new environment? How can businesses use the online world of Second Life to increase offline sales, and add value to the transaction? Could we one day watch a movie in Second Life the same day it comes out in theaters? Would there eventually be an online dating service just for Second Lifers? Those of you that are already in this incredibly popular world, where do you see it heading?

Call me crazy, but I’ve always felt the responsibility of an advertising agency is to provide the best solutions possible for their client’s challenges. Otherwise, why would they hire an ad agency? But after several personal experiences and plenty of secondhand observation, I’m afraid I may be in the minority. Alot of people in this business seem to think it’s most important to do what the client expects us to do. And the difference in those two attitudes is huge. Providing the best solutions possible requires, in a nutshell- -in-depth study of a client’s business -continual learning about new technologies and trends -a desire to educate the client about the evolving worlds of advertising, branding,the marketplace, and their demographic -willingness to challenge a client when they’re not making optimal decisions -anticipating future needs Believing that it’s most important to do what a client expects often invites- -Passively waiting for clients to make requests instead of offering recommendations -Taking the role as a creative vendor or “creative wrist” rather than a partner -Unwillingness to explore new and better ways of thinking because the client is comfortable with where they are -Shooting down unique, strategic solutions because “the client will never buy that” or “that’s not what they asked for” Ultimately, clients will get the advertising they deserve. After all, they are paying for it. And I know even the best clients will have their “gone wild” moments. But in my opinion, in the long run there is no future in merely doing what the client expects. Our industry is facing way too many challenges, and we’re going to kill ourselves if we continue to let ourselves be puppets. And as most of us are keenly aware, the newfangled age of computers and outsourcing means that a client can churn out a bad or mediocre ad themselves if they want. And eventually, a client is going to evaluate the concepts and the results their marketing partner is giving them. If they don’t see enough “added value” they’re going to either twist the agency’s arm to lower prices and fees, or they’ll fire the agency. Then, the agency and the teams that produced all that milquetoast are going to have to find another lackluster client or job. In the end, the only thing unique that an advertising agency has to offer is ideas and solutions that the client didn’t think of themselves. And it’s up to all of us to push ourselves and help create a culture in our agencies to foster that.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 9: 1 - AdRants - 9,837 (LW - 1)(-51) 2 - Werbeblogger - 23,427 (LW - 2)(-165) 3 - Media Buyer/Planner - 26,677 (LW - 3)(-352) 4 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 27,950 (LW - 4)(-353) 5 - Adverblog - 29,167 (LW - 5)(-631) 6 - ad-rag - 32,663 (LW - 6)(+399) 7 - AdFreak - 40,516 (LW - 7)(-614) 8 - AdJab - 41,439 (LW - 8)(+404) 9- AdverBox - 66,127 (LW - 9)(-320) 10 - AdPulp - 110,095 (LW - 10)(-540) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 110,864 (LW - 11)(+3,037) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 116,262 (LW - 12)(+2,133) 13 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 130,021 (LW - 13)(+1,000) 14 - Advertising for Peanuts - 148,087 (LW - 14)(+2,395) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 161,145 (LW - 15)(+1,446) 16 - Ad Blather - 184,713 (LW - 16)(-4,249) 17 - Designers Who Blog - 237,890 (LW - 17)(-4,610) 18 - AdverGirl - 252,383 (LW- 18)(+9,584) 19 - Logic + Emotion - 323,292 (LW - 21)(+56,483) 20 - Room 116 - 337,100 (LW - 19)(+1,643) 21 - Ad Hunt - 372,327 (LW - 20)(-24,779) 22 - The Hidden Persuader - 487,362 (LW- 22)(+449) 23 - Copyranter - 515,671 (LW - 24)(+11,836) 24 - American Copywriter - 535,706 (LW - 23)(-16,670) 25 - Ads That Suck - 576,812 (LW - 25)(+453) Pretty flat week for the Top 25. Jaffe Juice came within an inch of moving into the Top 10. AdverGirl parlayed a cute kitten into a nice move, and CopyRanter bitched up 11K spots. Logic+Emotion again knocked the cover off the ball. This is the official 2-month anniversary of the first Top 25 list back in April. Interesting to note that the #25 blog in that first list had an Alexa ranking of over 1 million, and by the 9th week, the #25 blog now has an Alexa ranking of half that. Next update will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

Volvo, in a cross-promotion with Disney’s upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest, has buried an SUV, and they are daring you to find it. To join the hunt, you have to first go to a Volvo dealership and get a ‘treasure map’, then play a series of online puzzles, which leads to July 11th, where seven finalists who have solved all 13 puzzles, and who live in the US, or UK, or Austria(?!?), or Japan, or Spain, will be chosen and taken to a ’secret location’, given shovels, and told to start digging.

Whew.

My question is, who cares? I can see why Volvo loves this promotion, because in order to play, you have to visit a Volvo dealership and get a treasure map. In other words, Volvo sees participants as a ‘captive’ audience. An audience that will HAVE to visit the Volvo dealership in order to play, and Volvo thinks that SOME of them will forget that they are coming to the dealership to potentially WIN a FREE Volvo SUV, and will instead BUY one.

Right. Tim at Adfreak doesn’t get it either, but I will disagree with him and say the SUV does look kinda cool. Something else I don’t get is, they have added a blog to give contestants constant updates (good idea), but then they put it on MSN Spaces?!? Hell if you aren’t going to create a stand-alone blog, at least host it on Volvo’s website! Why stick it on MSN Spaces and lose all that spillover traffic?

What I’m waiting to see is how long it takes contestants networking over the web to figure out where the SUV is buried. Would be hilarious if someone figured out where it was before August when the finalists will be given the chance to ‘dig it up’. I can see a group of guys going to a ’secret’ island in the Caribbean (there’s a stretch), next week and being arrested for trespassing before they can dig up the SUV.

Companies should never underestimate the intelligence of consumers, especially when they are communicating in a hyper-connected environment such as the world wide web.

And it’s not just because I’m a cross-country nerd that I am thankful that Nike has finally escaped the drippy sentimentality that plagues running ads. If The Hidden Persuader had permalinks, I would give him a Hershey’s Nugget. But, he does not, so I will ask you to scroll down to the “Forget the Obstacles” post from the 16th. [Thanks, Persuader!] Finally, no talky-talky about foxes and hounds and the drama of the mile and Roger Bannister and your mom and my mom and 60-second quarters and reaching the stars and courting heroes and propelling to victory and the raging, throbbing verisimilitude to life-as-a-whole and the universal resonance of the starting gun and the threat of becoming another dusty/hollow/burnt cinder on the track or leaving something of your essential Self behind on the mondo. And no stagy zoomshot of a stopwatch at 3:59.9. I thank you.

I posted a ‘full’ review of Life After the 30-Second Spot over on The Viral Garden, but I didn’t want to repeat it here simply because True has already given an excellent review of the book. The bottom line is, if you read this blog, you need to own this book. It really is that simple. True was correct that it should be mandatory reading for anyone who is working in advertising or marketing. The one thing I love about Life After…, is that Jaffe not only tells us what his thoughts are, he then gives us the NUMBERS to back up his claims. So many other business books are long on theory, and short on numbers that prove the author’s assertions. Jaffe backs up everything he says, which of course leads to instant credibility with the reader. Another interesting facet is that in Section Three, where he discusses 10 non-traditional advertising and marketing venues, he also lets 10 different industry experts give their takes. He jams on Communal Marketing in Chapter 16, then turns it over to Charles Porter of CP + B and lets him give his ideas on what makes a successful viral marketing campaign. I was a big fan of Jaffe’s long before reading this book, but I’m a serious believer now. He is all over the move to ‘Marketing 2.0′, and Life After… is the only handbook you’ll need to find your way to the marketing promised land. The immediate and long-term futures of marketing and advertising will in no small way be shaped by the thoughts and ideas that Jaffe has raised in this book. You can order Life After the 30-Second Spot here from Barnes and Noble, and here from Amazon.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 8: 1 - AdRants - 9,786 (LW - 1)(-114) 2 - Werbeblogger - 23,262 (LW - 2)(-394) 3 - Media Buyer/Planner - 26,325 (LW - 3)(+247) 4 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 27,597 (LW - 4)(+724) 5 - Adverblog - 28,536 (LW - 5)(+121) 6 - ad-rag - 33,062 (LW - 6)(-616) 7 - AdFreak - 39,902 (LW - 7)(-1,676) 8 - AdJab - 41,843 (LW - 8)(-267) 9- AdverBox - 65,807 (LW - 9)(+1,701) 10 - AdPulp - 109,555 (LW - 10)(-2,561) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 113,901 (LW - 12)(+8,928) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 118,395 (LW - 11)(+3,894) 13 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 131,021 (LW - 13)(+465) 14 - Advertising for Peanuts - 150,482 (LW - 14)(+2,610) 15 - TWENTY FOUR - 162,591 (LW - UR) 16 - Ad Blather - 180,464 (LW - 15)(+2,681) 17 - Designers Who Blog - 233,280 (LW - 16)(-14,195) 18 - AdverGirl - 261,967 (LW- 18)(+84,283) 19 - Room 116 - 338,743 (LW - 17)(+5,055) 20 - Ad Hunt - 347,548 (LW - 19)(+20,844) 21 - Logic + Emotion - 379,775 (LW - UR) 22 - The Hidden Persuader - 487,811 (LW- 23)(+70,201) 23 - American Copywriter - 519,036 (LW - 21)(-3,951) 24 - Copyranter - 527,507 (LW - 22)(+22,129) 25 - Ads That Suck - 577,265 (LW - 20)(-71,758) For the second straight week, the Top 10 was flat, and the rest of the Top 25 was mostly up. It’s been a while since we’ve had any new blogs in the Top 10, but we could see 1 or 2 next week, as AdPulp continues to slide, while both Jaffe Juice and BMA continue to move up. AdverGirl again kicked ass, shooting up over 80,000 spots, and The Hidden Persuader sliced over 70K spots off their Alexa ranking. There were 2 new blogs this week, and both made big debuts. The first was TWENTY FOUR, which plopped down at #15. I apologize because I meant to add them last week, and missed it. Logic+Emotion was the second blog, and I did NOT miss it. L+E had what I believe is the largest jump that ANY blog has had in EITHER the Marketing or Advertising Top 25 list, since I’ve started doing these lists, a move of almost 400,000 spots this week. David’s outstanding advertising/marketing blog dives in at #21 and my prediction is that next week it will join Jaffe Juice and BMA as the 3rd blog to be ranked in both the Marketing and Advertising Top 25 lists. Next update will be next Monday. And if you want me to check out your advertising/marketing blog, feel free to email me a link and I’ll give it a look.

Okay, let’s face it advertising isn’t always fun. There are clients and AEs out there who are either control freaks or meat puppets, or worse a combination of the two. (By the way let me thank Luke Sullivan for Hey Whipple Squeeze this and giving us a great vocabulary with which to complain.) Keeping the creative juices flowing can be a chore in its own right and having your head slammed by someone who once took a marketing 101 class and read just enough Ogilvy to think they have the right to judge your work would probably qualify as cruel and unusual punishment in different circumstances. However, I do have a suggestion. To borrow a page from 9 out of 10 new age gurus who chew gum, be your own best client. Create a self-promotion radio spot, website, brochure, print ad or billboard. Let your creative juices lose on selling yourself. Think of it this way. You win three different ways: 1 - It’s a great creative exercise to get the juices flowing. 2 - You have a chance to impress yourself again and remind yourself why you got into this business 3 - If your current position really doesn’t offer any creative outlet for your revived juices, at least you have something to send out to look for a new job. In an earlier generation, I probably would be suggesting that you find a great cause and do pro-bono, but let’s face it pro-bono clients often try to act as if they are paying for it… and, instead of saying “thank you,” hit you with 93 demands on how they want you to change what is already a brilliant concept. There are, of course, some great pro-bono clients still out there, but most of them have been tranquilized, tagged by major agencies and then released back into the wild, where they can be found if the big agencies need some good PR or a few pieces of acrylic. That leave self promotion and why not? Self promotion puts you in complete control of your creative product. Don’t like something? Change it. Don’t think the layout is exactly right? It’s your baby - go to town! Don’t have the budget to do it right? What are credit cards for if not this? This is an investment in self, both literally and figuratively. Sure, there are those of you out there saying, “but creative directors don’t respect self promotion?” True, some don’t, but are you sure you want to work for a creative director who will judge something based on its category rather than its creative merits? And don’t just do this if you’re getting ready to turn in your notice. Do it the moment you start to feel stale. I, for one, actually love my job, but doing creative exercises like this one lets me be better at my job. This profession can chew you up and spit you out if you let it.. heck, even if you don’t let it. Every little trick and exercise to stay fresh can only help. This is just one of mine I thought I’d share.

No, I’m not referring to the racy-ish website where teens strip off their clothes in an attempt to gain the admiration of a global peer-group. AdWeek has opened up the Hot or Not arena to the advertising industry. The survey asks about 60 questions in reference to the better-known agencies around the country. Take the survey here.

Tonight, driving home from work, I noticed a bumblebee on my thigh. Just walking along, chillin’ right there on my cotton/poly blend. I stayed calm; I pulled over; I said evenly “get off get off get off.” It did not. I opened my door and flicked it with my thumb and index finger. As it half-flew, half-dropped out the door, I said, gleefully, “bye beehead.” And then I thought… “Hmm, Beehead? Someone should name their baby Beehead.” Why? Because it’s organic and real, historic (beehive…60’s; Jughead…50’s) and quite fun. Okay, none of that is true, well, except the bee on my leg part. Shut up…I needed an intro. I coulda just said “Hey, yo…celeb baby names. What’s up? Eh?” But that would go against the circuitous nature of Man. So anyway, the birth of the amazing and magical Shiloh Nouvel has capped off a kick-ass few years of celeb baby branding. What? Babies aren’t products? Tell that to Apple; Tell Moses Amadeus; Tell Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, Calico Dashiell, and Sailor Lee. And I’d tell you to tell little Suri Cruise, but I’m sure Daddy has brainwashed her in some kookyass way already. [For the record, a quick key to the madness above: Gwenyth Paltrow/Chris Martin; Mia Farrow/Woody Allen; Michael Hutchence/Paula Yates; Alice Cooper/somewoman; Christie Brinkley/thefirstguy] I was listening to a radio interview with Mariah Carey the other day, and she mentioned that her mom gave her a stage name because “she saw this whole fame thing coming.” Well, that’s just bullshit, Miss Mimi. But this new trend? I’m willing to bet that the celeb baby branding has a bigger product development budget than most mid-sized agencies. Want to really lose your lunch? Click here; I dare you not to throw your pen and yell “y’all suck” with a thick Southern drawl. Go ‘head. Try it.

Ad-Rag gets a hat-tip for a stunning outdoor campaign for Amnesty International that uses ‘transparent’ billboards to effectively relate their message that ‘It’s Not Happening Here, But it’s Happening Now’. Click here to go to Amnesty International’s site and view all the moving images.