New Haggar commercial here.

Via Adfreak



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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising

Check out alecformayor.com.

Where did he get that shirt?



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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, Alec For Mayor, Kissimmee

Ad Age and Creativity magazines held the inaugural Idea Conference in New York a couple of days ago, and Ad Critic brings us some of the major points that were made:

1. Limitations and small budgets are inspiring
2. Trust your gut—not research
3. Think like a band
4. Approach your consumer from a 'molecular level'
5. Digitize everything
6. Nostalgia is death
7. Let consumers inside
8. Prototype early
9. Drugs won't supply your 'Aha!' moment
10. Flatten management structure
11. Market to the interested
12. Go for a brand back rub
13. Give consumers some control
14. Turn Advertising Week into a charity push
15. Discourage sleep
16. Don't be (obviously) big, be brilliant
17. Sit under the table
18. Every day should be independence day
19. All creatives are created equal

Take a look at the Ad Critic review of the event for a more in depth explanation. There are some very interesting ideas there. I guess the IDEA Conference was good.

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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, IDEA Conference, Creativity

Ever sit down and just watch people be interesting? That's sort of what it's like to read Russell Davies' blog.

And, now, he's passing it along to the rest of us.

His ten suggestions:
1. Take at least one picture everyday. Post it to flickr.
2. Start a blog. Write at least one sentence every week.
3. Keep a scrapbook
4. Every week, read a magazine you've never read before
5. Once a month interview someone for 20 minutes, work out how to make them interesting. Podcast it.
6. Collect something
7. Once a week sit in a coffee-shop or cafe for an hour and listen to other people's conversations. Take notes. Blog about it. (Carefully)
8. Every month write 50 words about one piece of visual art, one piece of writing, one piece of music and one piece of film or TV. Do other art forms if you can. Blog about it.
9. Make something
10. Read:

Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte

I love the simplicity of it, especially his constant recommendations to do something that's not so easy to do, learn about things you might not regularly come across. The world's a big place, full of interesting things and interesting people, but the only way to grow is to get a little outside of what makes you feel comfortable. Good tips to live by, and not just for advertising folk...

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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, Russell Davies

Advertising now has its own version of Overheard in New York. A blog called Adverbatims is aiming to document all those utterly stupid quotes that we hear around the agency.

Here's a few of the gems they've documented:

"Can you make the design 17% better?"
(Client, giving feedback to Account Executive)

"We should not aim to be conceptual or creative."
(Agency, Account Executive on the brief)

"Thank you very much for the brilliant presentation. I am very happy with the work I saw and I am sure it will become a great campaign. But I want other creatives to work on it, because anyone who can do such good presentations cannot be a good creative."
(Client, Marketing Manager in a mail to agency’s director)

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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising

A huge and excited thank you to Ernie Schenck for sending me an early copy of his new book, The Houdini Solution, Put Creativity and Innovation to Work by Thinking INSIDE the Box.

I had a chance to flip through this weekend, and I'm already smitten with the clean layout and clearly subsectioned chapters. I can't wait to hunker down with it this week and give you guys a full review. I may be a bit biased because I'm a big blog-fan of Ernie's, but I'll try my best to keep my allegiance in check.

So go... support a fellow ad blogger and figure out why he's telling us to STOP thinking outside the box.
And get ready for the comment wars when I post my review.

Want to whet your appetite? Check out the "trailer."



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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, Ernie Schenck, Houdini Solution

[photo cred to Amazon. That much is obvious.]

Anybody else waking up sweaty-palmed and restless this week? Tuesday is a big, big day, with serious repercussions about the future of our nation and the stability of our democracy. And, with the stakes so high, the venom comes out even more venomous, and the lengths otherwise good people are willing to go to follow their true leader, power, get more and more ridiculous.

Which brings me to this disgusting, appalling ad from the Free Enterprise Fund (the pieces of shift behind the swift-boating of John Kerry) against Jon Tester in Montana (and for ethically-challenged Senator Conrad Burns). It proves only one thing, what they're fighting for is not what's best for the American people, but what is best for themselves. Winning is the thing, it's the only thing.

Of course, there's your normal bullshit skewing of the facts, but this one also happens to be dripping with gay undertones. But, that's not even the worst part of it. Ok, well, maybe it is, but the number at the end, that is Jon Tester's home telephone number. This is how far they've come. And we should all hang our heads in shame for it.

Sorry for getting all political, but with less than 3 days until the election, it's hard to think of much else. Especially with the constant stream of poisonous lying and negativity floating across our airwaves, reminding us how low we've sunk.
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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, Attack Ads

Here's BMA's Top 25 Advertising Blogs for Week 28:

1 - AdRants - 9,605 (LW - 1)(-164)
2 - Advertising/Design Goodness - 26,718 (LW - 2)(+361)
3 - Werbeblogger - 29,875 (LW - 4)(+320)
4 - Media Buyer/Planner - 30,487 (LW - 3)(-962)
5 - AdFreak - 33,022 (LW - 5)(+285)
6 - Adverblog - 37,592 (LW - 6)(+243)
7 - Adland - 45,969 (LW - 7)(+1,167)
8 - AdverBox - 48,629 (LW - 8)(+2,389)
9 - AdJab - 57,387 (LW - 9)(+1,602)
10 - Logic + Emotion - 91,386 (LW - 10)(+3,619)
11 - TWENTY FOUR - 103,302 (LW - 11)(+3,599)
12 - ....HOW ADVERTISING SPOILED ME.... - 113,973 (LW - 12)(-3,653)
13 - AdPulp - 119,251 (LW - 13)(-5,166)
14 - Experience Curve - 119,348 (LW - 14)(-2,403)
15 - Advertising for Peanuts - 127,590 (LW - 15)(-915)
16 - Jaffe Juice - 130,326 (LW - 16)(+3,085)
17 - Russell Davies - 179,721 (LW - 17)(-1,233)
18 - American Copywriter - 192,709 (LW - 18)(+4,974)
19 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 226,265 (LW - 19)(+6,133)
20 - Everything's Better With Brentter - 322,514 (LW - UR)
21 - CMM News - 329,784 (LW - 21)(+2,412)
22 - AdScam! - 385,844 (LW - UR)
23 - AdverGirl - 393,518 (LW- 22)(-61,288)
24 - BrandFlakes for Breakfast - 398,232 (LW - 23)(-1,083)
25 - Room 116 - 398,803 (LW - 20)(-67,357)


The Top 11 had a pretty nice week, with 9 of the blogs being up. AdverBox and Logic + Emotion just continue to surge. A sizable gap continues to exist between #9 and #10, but if L+E and TWENTY-FOUR continue to climb, that gap could disappear by year's end. The second big gap in the Top 25 is between #16 and #17. Jaffe Juice continues it's comeback, but American Copywriter again has a strong week, and may pass Russell Davies by the end of the month. Whether AC can make a run at the rest of the Top 16 remains to be seen. Also BMA has another good week.

The final 6 sees 2 new entries as Everything's Better With Brentter makes a big debut at #20, and George Parker wins the hard-luck award this week. AdScam! makes a big return after a long absence, but in doing so, bumps AdHurl out of the Top 25. Just for reference, Room 116's Alexa score of 398,803 is good enough for #25 this week, but would have made the blog #18 back in April when the first Top 25 list was done(Additionally, Room 116's Alexa score was 569,026 then). The Top 25 just keeps getting more and more competitive.

Next update is next week.


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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising

It's a beautful thing to see a simple idea grow. And Russell Davies gets to sit back and watch it spread like wildfire. First, London, then on to San Francisco, New York, Toronto, Sydney and now Dallas, with Portland to come this Saturday.

It's coffee mornings, a chance for likeminded people, bloggers, new marketers, technology geeks and the like to get together, have a cup or two, and share some ideas. It's the little things like this that can change the world. Maybe that's a bit grandiose, but it's friggin' true damnit.

As my friend, Cam, pointed out to me, some of the greatest American ideals were born of a similar relationship, from Ben Franklin and 12 of his friends, when they formed the Juntos Society.

"The results of the original Junto are still evident today as an integral part of American society. The Junto gave us our first library, volunteer fire departments, the first public hospital, police departments, paved streets and the University of Pennsylvania . They recommended books, shopkeepers, and friends to each other. They fostered self-improvement through discussions on topics related to philosophy, morals, economics, and politics."

So, where to next? Are you interested in being a part of a movement?

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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, coffee morning

Joyce King Thomas, the ECD of McCann Erickson New York, gave a quick presentation focused on the consumers’ desire for a more interactive relationship with brands. Mrs. Thomas talked about how technology enables instant access to a vast amount of information and opportunities for dialogue, and how smart brands can take advantage of this “word of mouth on steroids.”

She talked about how the influx of consumer-generated advertising and campaigns to request it(such as converse), shows the “democratization of creativity” in our world. Brands can inspire consumers to interact if the brand creates inviting opportunities for dialogue. Basically, people want to play with brands, so long as they’re fun.

What I took from her presentation was that marketers cannot maintain the belief that they are the only arbiters of a brand’s image. Technology and easy access to information simply makes it too easy for people to create stuff from your brand, or find out stuff about your brand you didn’t want people to know about. So, why not go for openness and transparency, and inspire a productive dialogue with your customers? C’mon…are you scared?

Mrs. Thomas referenced a few websites that I thought were cool to pass on:
At www.halfbakery.com, people submit crazy ideas to be commented on by the community.

Fingerskillz.tv is a Hewlett-Packard campaign that invited submissions of people doing soccer tricks with small balls of paper and their hands. (this website is down right now. Too bad, was very cool)

Secondlife.com. ‘nuff said.


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Beyond Madison Avenue, Advertising, adweek creative seminar, McCann Erickson NY , Joyce King Thomas