As a rabid dog lover (as in “enthusiastic about dogs,” not “I prefer dogs with rabies”), I was pleased to see some breaking canine news from Brandweek earlier this week. A jerkytreatalicious hoorah for Paco from Venice Beach for being voted Old Navy’s new spokespooch! Although, I do wish I caught wind of this beforehand so I could have actively participated in the voting process, because I can’t say I’m thrilled with the choice. Is it me or is the shaggy dog bit getting slightly tired? I’m thinking a Jack Russell or a beagle would have captured the young, colorful, hyper, slighly spastic Old Navy vibe far better. A white shaggy dog just screams Ann Taylor Spring Collection to me…

The always articulate and entertaining Danny G’s most recent column on Talent Zoo focuses on a recent job posting on Creative Hotlist from a famous Minneapolis agency for an interactive copywriter. From the posting- “We’re looking for an interactive writer, which at (famous MN agency) means something very different. We are not looking for someone who thinks ads are the end all be all. Or who are really just trying to get their foot in the door of (our) creative department. What we are looking for is a writer’s writer. That means someone who truly understands structure and grammar and style… they’ll also have to be crazy about the web and technology and all its potential.” Danny takes this as evidence that the agency wants to segregate their interactive and creative departments. Danny writes- “I think it’s very telling that even the most lauded ad agencies have no intention of truly integrating their departments, and make that fact plain to jobseekers…slowly, the dividing lines are being drawn. In other words, like their direct marketing cousins before them, interactive people are now occupying their own ghettos in traditional ad agencies.” I understand where Danny is coming from, but I guess I don’t percieve the posting as negatively as him. Notice the job posting primarily focuses on finding a writer who actually knows how to write. Unfortunately, solid and conceptual long copy is something of a lost art these days. And it’s understandable why this agency would want a great writer for copy-heavy interactive projects. Plus, this agency employs some of the best creatives in the country, and consistently creates innovative interactive. Maybe their star print and TV creatives are saying they don’t want to learn the Web, but that’s the creative’s problem, not the agencies. I guarantee you that talented, conceptual writers who are passionate about interactive are going to see their value and star status increase exponentially in the next few years, and the creatives who don’t want to change are going to look like washed-up celebrities. Also, there’s nothing in the posting and no evidence that says creative and interactive won’t collaborate. So while I do agree with Danny that there are gaps between creative and interactive that we as an industry absolutely must bridge, the job posting that inspired all this debate seems pretty harmless to me. I think they’re just looking for a great writer with a real passion for interactive.

And here I thought we were supposed to be breaking all the rules. BBC news has a list of The Modern Rules of Advertising. A couple of my favorites:

25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young people can experience. 1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch football or drink beer.

A few of the reader submitted rules are good too. Any that they missed? Thanks to Cameron for pointing this out.

Oh, Wal-Mart, remember when you ran ads in Vogue? Uh, remember when you did it again? At that juncture, I thought this: HAHAHAHAAHAAAA. I also thought: You’re trying way too hard to be luxe, and you’re ending up looking like that girl… you know, the one bedecked head to toe in imposter monograms, swaddled in a faux pashmina and shadowed behind huge Chanel(esque) lenses. Ooh-oh-oh, and wearing big gold hoops that would turn your neck green immediately if they made skin contact. I mean, let’s be honest, I can’t even come close to affording the real thing here, but piecing together an amalgam of knockoffs in series of overstaged photos doesn’t scream sophistication from any vantage point. And now, Wal-Mart’s latest ad venture is taking heat from more than just snobby ol’ me. AdAge reviews Wal-Mart’s sloppy shot at a branded social networking site for teens. As AdAge’s Bob Garfield argues, the copy and pics are so strained and contrived that your eyes may begin to bleed in a violent reaction to plasticized teen models and overwhelming copywriting awkwardness (okay, I believe he may have phrased it a bit more eloquently). What happened to the solid-as-a-rock “Always Low Prices” identity that served them so well? Are they trying to muddle brand identity at a breakneck pace? While I understand wanting to push their customer base up a few income brackets (and do it by being totally hip and, uh, “with-it”), this is just becoming confusing. **Flickr nod.

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 14: 1 - AdRants - 10,195 (LW - 1)(+55) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,656 (LW - 2)(-395) 3 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,732 (LW - 3)(+135) 4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,287 (LW - 4)(+94) 5 - Adverblog - 31,180 (LW - 5)(-517) 6 - Adland - 37,108 (LW - 6)(-1,556) 7 - AdFreak - 37,373 (LW - 7)(+2,372) 8 - AdJab - 43,630 (LW - 8)(-1,654) 9 - AdverBox - 64,417 (LW - 9)(+117) 10 - AdPulp - 100,817 (LW - 10)(+3,459) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 107,555 (LW - 11)(-2,905) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 125,884 (LW - 12)(-10,539) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 150,314 (LW - 13)(-2,944) 14 - TWENTY FOUR - 158,918 (LW - 14)(-4,382) 15 - Logic + Emotion - 163,540 (LW - 17)(+12,681) 16 - AdverGirl - 166,352 (LW- 15)(+8,081) 17 - Russell Davies - 175,858 (LW - 18)(+990) 18 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 179,012 (LW - 16)(-3,912) 19 - Ad Blather - 191,398 (LW - 19)(-6,935) 20 - Room 116 - 249,766 (LW - 20)(+17,475) 21 - Experience Curve - 268,931 (LW - 25)(+101,726) 22 - CMM News - 297,322 (LW - 22)(+6,589) 23 - Designers Who Blog - 303,455 (LW - 21)(-26,120) 24 - Ad Hunt - 305,264 (LW - 23)(+1,467) 25 - American Copywriter - 358,839 (LW - 24)(+9,477) The Top 25 just gets more competitive every week. The top half of the Top 25 was fairly flat with the Top 14 spots standing pat. After that, the fun begins. Last week Logic+Emotion had a nice move, but AdverGirl did a lil better, and jumped in front of L+E. This week, David turns the tables on Leigh, and enters the Top 15. Both blogs will make a run at the Top 10 before all is said and done. But the huge move of the week goes to Experience Curve, as Karl has a ginormous jump, shaving over 100K spots off his Alexa ranking. Karl’s huge splash also landed him in the Top 25 Marketing Blogs for the first time this week as well. No new blogs this week, as the bottom half of the Top 25 does really give up any room for a newbie blog to make their mark. BTW American Copywriter was #18 in the first Top 25 countdown back in April, with an Alexa score of just over 500K. Since that time, their Alexa score has gone down 140K, but they’ve slipped to #25. Times be tough if you want to make the cut. 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.

Determined to find the Big Key to an effective viral campaign (okay, yes, I played Zelda), I’ve been suffocating myself with YouTube for months now, trying to perform some sort of regressive, socioanalytic, Freudian, popculturified brainwash of my waking senses, so that I may rouse one morning to a vision of pure viral bliss, filled with Honda Crabs and William Hung and small dancing puppets that look eerily like Steve Jurvetson. Okay, so I don’t think it’s worked yet… Though I have been visited by a goodly share of puppets. Nonetheless, I’ve taken an amateur stab at being an amateur YouTuber. Indeed, the quality is shoddy, the lighting is horrific, and the “actors” (including yours truly) are, um, decidedly novice. But isn’t what this is all about? Authenticity and resonance… and acting like nonfabulous fools? And, while I’m all up in YouTube’s grill, I’ll take a moment to say a big “saywha?” to their revised Terms and Conditions page, as reported today on BoingBoing. Current count of questions raised: 8,655,994.

Chris blogs. Chris blogs at Movie Marketing Madness. MMM is the definitive source for all things movie marketing. Chris covers all aspects of movie marketing, but frequently publishes a ‘Movie Marketing Madness’ post for a specific movie, where he will meticulously break apart all of the movie’s promotional efforts and give his brutally honest review of the studio’s total marketing efforts for that film. Chris is planning on running a similar review of the marketing plan for Universal’s upcoming release of Miami Vice, but with a big twist. His MMM column on the promotional efforts for Miami Vice was much easier to write after a representative from Universal contacted him to discuss how the studio is marketing the movie. Welcome to the age of social media. What just happened is a studio, which is gearing up for the release of a film which they are hoping will be their ’summer blockbuster’, was smart enough to spend 30 minutes empowering the most influential movie marketing blogger on the internet to promote their film for them. That means that whatever exposure Miami Vice gets through Movie Marketing Madness, comes at no cost to Universal (such as this post). But here’s the biggest point to take away from this, as Chris left in a comment on the Garden:

This guy made himself available to me and you can bet that anytime I have a question about a Universal movie I’m going to ping him. Whether it’s for more details on something or to clarify something I don’t quite understand. That way Universal will get their information out correctly and I’ll get my facts straight before hitting “Publish.” It’s a win-win.

This goes back to the Lifetime Value of the Blogger post I made a few months ago. As a result of Erin Kinghorn taking 30 mins out of her day to talk to me about Nettwerk’s music marketing efforts, an estimated 50,000-60,000 people this year will be exposed here to Nettwerk and the artists they represent. Not a bad deal if you ask me. The same will happen for Universal’s projects from now on at MMM. Just by making himself available to Chris greatly increases the probablity that Universal’s movies and marketing plans will get much more exposure on his blog from now on. The 30 minutes that one guy spent with one blogger could ultimately lead to tens of thousands, even HUNDREDS of thousands of positive exposures for Universal, and their properties. Something for other studios and companies to think about before they sign that contract to pay 2 million for that 30-second spot. It’s the difference between paying hugh amounts of money to get your message before a group of people that don’t want to see it, versus getting your message in the hands of the people that WANT it, and who want to spread that message to others. At no cost to you. Welcome to the age of social media.

Adpulp has a quote today that every ad guy/gal/client needs to read: Jason Dolenga, an assistant brand manager for our favorite kids cereal Cap’n Crunch, said:

Too often, freshly minted MBAs (me included) come to a new marketing role thinking that the way they are going to make their mark is by questioning every little point, color selection, and design decision made by agency creatives. Unfortunately, things all go terribly wrong (for the person nit-picking) when a junior marketer starts picking work apart in meetings. I learned quickly that this was not the way to go, and learning to trust the creatives literally changed my relationships and credibility with our agency partners overnight.

The lesson here is that if you want great creative, trust the creatives to bring it. If you are frustrated with not being able to copywrite every line of that ad for your brand, or you want to change the color just because red is your favorite, quit your job and go become a copywriter or an art director.

Amen.

That madcap land of whimsy, tomfoolery, and shenanigans (otherwise known as Germany) offers this song about timesheets.

I laughed out loud when the dancing girls showed up.

(thanks to Adrants for the link)

The World Cup has been over for, what, 6 minutes, and identity branding for 2010 is already well underway. Park, the Russian agency with the flippy-trippy Peter and the Wolf meets Mondrian website, has already released thorough deets on their concept of logo and theme (though this is apart from the official logo released last week). I have to say, the leopard-football hybrid is darn sleeky-chic. Steve over at Adrants highlights, as only he can, the “football bra,” which I think was actually a photo designed to showcase the itsy-bitsy logo pin up near the model’s neckline. Is it a Park whoopsie that the webmaster publicly labeled the file “breast“? I mean, “logo pin” doesn’t quite have the same audience appeal and all, but…

A perusal of Wooster Collective today reveals a selection of reader-generated spoofs on the BBDO anti-graffiti campaign. Of note is a change to the taglines:

“Clean up your bad thoughts about graffiti before it really spreads.”	“Clean up ignorant commercials in your neighborhood before they really spread.”	“Clean up bad creative in your agency before it really spreads.”

Check out woostercollective.com for others.

Wide load coming through. In a few minutes, much like this anonymous fat person, BMA will be w i d e. Same design, just a little more room in the seat. So, please excuse any glitches while we stretch out. Thanks!

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 13: 1 - AdRants - 10,250 (LW - 1)(-111) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,261 (LW - 2)(+370) 3 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,867 (LW - 4)(+438) 4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,381 (LW - 3)(-250) 5 - Adverblog - 30,663 (LW - 5)(-200) 6 - Adland - 35,552 (LW - 6)(+128) 7 - AdFreak - 39,745 (LW - 7)(+219) 8 - AdJab - 41,976 (LW - 8)(-903) 9- AdverBox - 64,534 (LW - 9)(+1,612) 10 - AdPulp - 104,276 (LW - 11)(+1,804) 11 - Jaffe Juice - 104,650 (LW - 10)(+87) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 115,345 (LW - 12)(-307) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 147,370 (LW - 13)(-2,903) 14 - TWENTY FOUR - 154,536 (LW - 14)(-4,346) 15 - AdverGirl - 174,433 (LW- 19)(+26,322) 16 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 175,100 (LW - 16)(-2,166) 17 - Logic + Emotion - 176,221 (LW - 18)(+12,373) 18 - Russell Davies - 176,848 (LW - 15)(-5,544) 19 - Ad Blather - 184,463 (LW - 17)(-8,716) 20 - Room 116 - 267,241 (LW - 21)(+1,544) 21 - Designers Who Blog - 277,335 (LW - 20)(-11,403) 22 - CMM News - 303,911 (LW - 22)(+11,905) 23 - Ad Hunt - 306,731 (LW - 23)(+13,523) 24 - American Copywriter - 368,316 (LW - 24)(+33,423) 25 - Experience Curve - 370,657 (LW - UR) Advertising/Design Goodness has been quietly moving up week after week. Nothing shocking, a few hundred points at a time, but the end result is that Frederik is now in the Top 3. For weeks I’ve been raving about AdverGirl and Logic + Emotion. I think everyone else is starting to catch on, as both blogs jumped up in a Top 25 that was otherwise treading water. The bottom of the Top 25 saw nice moves by most of the blogs, but there’s such a rift between #19 and #20 that it didn’t really change the positioning much. Although American Copywriter did have a very nice move. Experience Curve just missed the Top 25 for 2 straight weeks, but finally blasted in this week at #25, making it the lone new entry. 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.

Here’s a short film that’s been bouncing in and out of view for the last few months. It was written, directed, shot by, etc. Patryk Rebisz and has won a bunch of awards at various film festivals. Perhaps the most interesting part though is the fact that it was shot entirely on a digital still camera (a Canon 20d for all you photo buffs). It’s well worth a watch.

Wooster Collective, a well-known blog on street art, reported yesterday on BBDO West’s new anti-graffiti campaign. While not outright critical of the work, they do mention:

“While the world fights AIDS, poverty, global warming, education, and more, it’s interesting that BBDO chose - of all things - an anti-graffiti campaign as the first benefactor of their free support.”

Wooster Collective points to Adrants as their source for the ads (Adrants also has the other two executions).

Based on readers’ comments on Adrants, however, the response to the campaign is more negative than BBDO expected:

“Am I the only one that thinks that the graff in the houses looks really cool?” -Juls
“the campaign is a fear-mongering outrage … a complete waste. Shame.” -Michele

Another blog, Animal New York, points out the irony behind this campaign as well, considering that BBDO has an office out of Romania called Graffiti BBDO.

The Design Observer Blog has a really interesting read about a group of National Design Awards winners. The award show is put on by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and are meant to honor the best in American design. This year, five of the winners in the Communication Design division declined an congratulatory invitation to the White House from First Lady Laura Bush. Their explanation to the First Lady was as follows:

Dear Mrs. Bush:

As American designers, we strongly believe our government should support the design profession and applaud the White House sponsorship of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. And as finalists and recipients of the National Design Award in Communication Design we are deeply honored to be selected for this recognition. However, we find ourselves compelled to respectfully decline your invitation to visit the White House on July 10th.

Graphic designers are intimately engaged in the construction of language, both visual and verbal. And while our work often dissects, rearranges, rethinks, questions and plays with language, it is our fundamental belief, and a central tenet of “good” design, that words and images must be used responsibly, especially when the matters articulated are of vital importance to the life of our nation.

We understand that politics often involves high rhetoric and the shading of language for political ends. However it is our belief that the current administration of George W. Bush has used the mass communication of words and images in ways that have seriously harmed the political discourse in America. We therefore feel it would be inconsistent with those values previously stated to accept an award celebrating language and communication, from a representative of an administration that has engaged in a prolonged assault on meaning.

While we have diverse political beliefs, we are united in our rejection of these policies. Through the wide-scale distortion of words (from “Healthy Forests” to “Mission Accomplished”) and both the manipulation of media (the photo op) and its suppression (the hidden war casualties), the Bush administration has demonstrated disdain for the responsible use of mass media, language and the intelligence of the American people.

While it may be an insignificant gesture, we stand against these distortions and for the restoration of a civil political dialogue.

The letter was signed by Michael Rock, Susan Sellers, Georgie Stout, Paula Scher and Stefan Sagmeister.

Another winner, Chip Kidd was also asked to sign the letter, but decided that the gesture may prove inappropriate.

I wouldn’t go to the trouble of dredging up more Cannes work were it not for the heated debate ensuing at the How Advertising Spoiled Me blog in regards to the recent Legends Condoms work. This, and two other executions, have tempers flairing over there: Personally, I think they’re hysterical and get the point across rather effectively. But then, I’m not in the position to want kids at the moment and find other people’s screaming youngsters generally annoying. There are a number of readers posting less than humorous responses:

“The horror on the faces of those children. It shows the true face of contraception. What a critique of the decline of the conscience of Modern Man.”

Granted, many of those opinions, including the one above, are from anonymous sources. What are your thoughts? Funny? Over the line? Cannes is over, so who gives a rat’s…?

Here’s BMA’s Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 12: 1 - AdRants - 10,139 (LW - 1)(-193) 2 - Werbeblogger - 24,631 (LW - 2)(-1,097) 3 - Media Buyer/Planner - 27,131 (LW - 3)(-1,045) 4 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 27,305 (LW - 4)(+1,583) 5 - Adverblog - 30,463 (LW - 5)(-579) 6 - Adland - 35,680 (LW - 6)(-2,290) 7 - AdFreak - 39,964 (LW - 7)(-41) 8 - AdJab - 41,073 (LW - 8)(-451) 9- AdverBox - 66,146 (LW - 9)(+367) 10 - Jaffe Juice - 104,737 (LW - 10)(+919) 11 - AdPulp - 106,080 (LW - 11)(+1,736) 12 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 115,038 (LW - 12)(-773) 13 - Advertising for Peanuts - 144,467 (LW - 13)(+3,106) 14 - TWENTY FOUR - 150,190 (LW - 15)(+10,033) 15 - Russell Davies - 171,304 (LW - 16)(-2,788) 16 - ….HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME…. - 172,934 (LW - 14)(-16,562) 17 - Ad Blather - 175,747 (LW - 17)(-4,675) 18 - Logic + Emotion - 188,594 (LW - 19)(+36,194) 19 - AdverGirl - 200,755 (LW- 18)(+11,013) 20 - Designers Who Blog - 265,932 (LW - 20)(+9,741) 21 - Room 116 - 268,785 (LW - 21)(+7,424) 22 - CMM News - 315,816 (LW - UR) 23 - Ad Hunt - 320,254 (LW - 22)(+13,502) 24 - American Copywriter - 401,739 (LW - 24)(+17,050) 25 - The Hidden Persuader - 428,425 (LW- 25)(+18,328) The top half of the Top 25 remained as is, the bottom half had plenty of shake-ups. The biggest move in the Top 25 came at the hands of Logic + Emotion, who pulled a Double Play and also had the biggest move in the Top 25 Marketing blogs. AdverGirl, American Copywriter, and The Hidden Persuader all had big moves. The tightening of the Top 25 continues. An Alexa score of 431,000 would have easily qualified you last week, this week it keeps Copyranter and Experience Curve on the outside looking in, literally by the skin of their teeth. CMM News missed the Top 25 last week by a whisker, this week the blog belly-flops down at #22, giving the blog a jump of over 100,000 spots. 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. UPDATE: I got the name wrong, it’s CMM News, and Fish N Chimps is the blogger there, so I changed that.

Recently Laura Raines interviewed me for an article that runs in today’s Atlanta-Journal Constitution on how people can use a blog to aid in their job-search. If you’re in the job-market, I think it has some good advice, I touched on the importance of community and blogging about a subject that you are passionate about. Also I talk about how a blog can greatly improve your Google search results. This is something that even I did realize until recently, and a very valuable by-product of blogging for job-seekers. As we all know, when you get on a potential employer’s radar, the first thing they will do is Google your name. When I first started blogging here last fall, there were around 450 Google results for the term “Mack Collier”, and it appeared that most of them weren’t about me. Today there are over 22,000, and almost all of the additional results appear to be either posts I have left here, or on the Garden, or other blogs linking to my posts. Blogging is a great way to boost your ‘Google juice’. Check out the article, as I think it has some good advice for job-seekers about how to utilize a blog in their job-search.

Sometimes I lay in bed and watch her sleep. As she breathes in and out in perfect metronomic rhythm, I long to run my fingers along her smooth white back. She recharges her brilliant mind with a reassuring glow and a near-silent whirr. Oh, sweet, darling iBook, how I savor thee. *** Okay, fine, it’s kinda a problem. But I freaking love macs. While I do adore my lil’ iBook of Joy, I do have a shade of laptop envy for those totin’ a MacBook Pro. Not only are they sleek, thin, delightful, and sexy, but they’re also a telling study in how to troubleshoot product glitches after mass release. Very soon after the MBP (Thanks to Dan Lurie for starting the abbrev. trend) hit the hiply aseptic shelves of Apple stores, people were complaining of fiery laps and burning desks. The MBP, so it seemed, was too hot to handle… literally. Rumo(u)r has it that the Apple folks fixed it quietly by updating the firmware. They also added a warning to the owner’s mani telling people to, uh, not leave their MPB on their laps, like, overnight. (hey…some of us are tempted to…) There. Done. Now, rumor has it (yet again) that Apple is playing the same quiet-but-not-surreptitious game with logic board problems. Paul Miller over at Engadget has the full scoop, but the gist of the issue is that Apple is very, very good about mumming problems without seeming underhanded. They come out looking aware and adept where they could have looked like premature product launchers, and, well, sloppy. I can just picture the hip 20-something from the mac v. pc commercials all like, “Hey, we found some stuff that needs to be fixed… so we’re gonna go ahead and fix it. Cool? Cool.” **Flickr hollah to “Sheila’s”– I thank ya.