Obama's Team Voted Better Than Steve Jobs' or Phil Knight's

At the Association of National Advertisers annual meeting marketing and advertising heavyweights named Barak Obama Ad Age's marketer of the year for 2008.

Yes, that Obama! That one!

And While We're Talking Politics and Advertising Today...

Here's the latest from ad agency, Granite Pass...
(As seen on AdRANTs Daily)

YouTube Won't Give McCain Camp Express Lane

The McCain Campaign wanted the video giant to review footage before taking it down.

Obama Campaign Seeks Young Male Voters Via Video Games

Or, as Jon Steele once (fairly famously) wrote, "Go fishing where the fish are."

Vote On a Spot That ABC Declined

Was this spot banned by ABC (Disney owned) because of politics?
How would you vote?
You may need to upgrade to Flash 10 (I did) to view.

When Good Ideas Go Bad

Contests that truly engage customers can build product interest and, if the contesting concepts are really strong, can also enhance the brand.

In the early introduction of Saturn the then-new GM division was trying to distance itself from all the cliches of the car business, including pushy salesmen, cold and barn-like showrooms and, especially, having to negotiate (AKA haggle) a final price.

The Saturn brand, on the other hand, was approachable, friendly, human. The showrooms they built looked - and functioned - more like living rooms than car dealerships, and the price on the sticker was the price you paid. No haggling allowed.

Ad agency Hal Riney & Partners called Saturn "A New Kind of Car Company. A New Kind of Car. " And meant it.

In order to get potential customers into showrooms - and prove that they meant it - they devised a contest that supported the promise while delivering another "brand touch point."

Drivers were invited to visit a nearby Saturn dealership (which they insisted on calling a "retailer") to register to win one of the new cars - and you would fly to the Saturn factory in Tennessee and help build your car. Yes, you would stand with workers and watch - and help - them build the car you won.

It was a huge success ten of thousands visited Saturn "retailers," got to look at the cars "up close and personal" and also register for the contest. A wonderful way of using a contest to both increase store traffic as well as underscore a key selling proposition.

I was reminded this morning how bad a contest can go.

Leading Hotels of the World wanted to draw attention to the fact that the innkeeper was 80 years old, founded in 1928, and it was time for a celebration. So they decided to field an online sweepstakes offering potential customers a chance to win two nights in one of the luxury hotels all over the world paying just $19.28 a night - and each hotel would have a winner.

Sounds like a contest that would generate some interest and it did. But for all the wrong reasons.

Suddenly Everybody Wants To Dance the HULU

The video serving website, hulu.com, came out of nowhere last spring to become a major player. What hulu offers is de facto video on demand for TV content from NBCU and Fox.

A few days ago I wrote "It looks like hulu.com (one of the parters in which is NBC), et al, are leaving their mark on main stream Television."

Maybe it's the future of main stream TV - from this morning's AdAge Mediaworks.

Dissembling: it's truthiness lite.

AdAge columnist, blogger and critic, Bob Garfield, has long pointed out that the only kind of advertising that isn't legally required to prove the truth of its claims is political advertising. And that's the water we're all swimming in today.

Here's Garfield's latest complaint.

Why Your New-Favorite TV Show May Not Be On TV At All

NBC is out thumping the drums among advertisers and the noise is all about full length digital programming produced to be shown exclusively on the internet.

Madison+Vine is an AdAge.com feature that that covers the intersection of advertising and traditionally Hollywood-type businesses. And, while this idea has been batted about now and again, this is the first time I've heard it proposed as a real opportunity for advertisers.

It looks like hulu.com (one of the parters in which is NBC), et al, are leaving their mark on main stream Television.

Makes MacTV look like not such a dumb idea after all.

Noun, Verb, Maverick

This today from Creativity magazine online:

"Spoofing for Obama

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners teams up with director Craig Gillespie for some political ad satire.

By: Jeff Beer Published: Oct 6, 2008

As the U.S. presidential campaign enters its final four weeks, the fight for political turf and key voters will reach a fever pitch and one key ingredient in that frenzied rush will be the role campaign ads play.

Ad folks have often applied their brand of persuasion to the political process, such as Hal Riney's award-winning "Morning In America" effort for Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners creative director Jamie Barrett recently teamed up with MJZ director Craig Gillespie (Lars and The Real Girl) for a series of "behind the scenes" spoofs aimed to question Republican campaign strategy with a smirk. For now the spots are primarily available on a YouTube channel, but Barrett hopes that's just the beginning.

Obama: Maverick | Full View »

Creativity spoke to Barrett about the effort, how it started, if we'll be seeing their efforts on TV before November 4th and more.

How did this come about?
The way it started is that Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein, a few more people from here and I have been pretty proactive for the last while in looking for opportunities to do something for the Obama campaign. Jeff and Rich have done some things for the Democratic Party in the past, but we're not an official party agency or anything. We just have energy for it and wanted to contribute to the conversation some how.

When did Craig Gillespie get involved?
This specific idea came from Craig. I've know him over the years and I think he got wind I was working on some Obama things and the agency was somewhat galvanized behind that so he reached out to me about three or four weeks ago. He was in the middle of shooting a TV pilot but said he'd love to do a behind the scenes Republican version of The War Room, that doc with George Stephanopoulos and James Carville from the Clinton campaign. He said he had all the ingredients – the set and actors, etc. – if we could come up with some scripts. So we came up with a dozen or so scripts and he ended up shooting five of them, amazingly, in about an hour and a half. They just shot them before a day of real shooting for the project Craig was working on at the time.

Will these be running on TV?
We're hoping so. They've been sent to various people within the Democratic National Committee who have some role in the campaign and, so far, we've got some good response. The political situation changes so quickly, it's almost asking, what's the theme of the day? We're hoping that one or more of these will feel particularly right to them. In the meantime we're pushing it online and just trying to engage as many people as possible.

Which spot best fits the climate right now?
I think the "Maverick" spot is clearly the one most of the moment, post-SNL, post-debate, so we're hoping something will happen. McCain has been throwing that word around for a while but I think with the debates and everything, it's sort of reached critical mass. So I think if this one was on the air right now it would tie in great. It just seems in the moment right now.

Is this the first time you've applied your skills to a political purpose?
I've dabbled a bit in the past but I think, like a lot of people who've been excited by Obama, I've been swept up in his campaign and thought there might just be a way to have a small voice through this advertising thing we do."

Rube Goldberg Lives!

I was reviewing some TV spots for showing in class next week and came upon a couple that reminded me of San Francisco-born cartoonist, Rube Goldberg.

Goldberg was a graduate of SF's Lowell High School, earned a BS in engineering at UC Berkeley and, for a time, worked as an engineer for the City and County of San Francisco. But his interest in drawing comics led him to a job at the Chronicle as a Sports Cartoonist.

He moved to New York in 1907 and, while he won a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1948, he best known for his "invention" cartoons, like this one: Rube Goldberg's Cure for Oversleeping

I'm certain that these two very watchable TV spots were inspired by Rube Goldberg.


Guinness Domino Effect


The Most Expensive Advertisement U Have Ever Seen

TV spots from MetaCafe.com

Swedish Bikini Team Takes A Back Seat - Waaaaaay Back

A Guinness ad, just released in Jamaica, makes beer advertising respectable again.

Remember the Budweiser Clydesdale horses? How about "Tastes Great" vs. "Less Filling?" No? You're probably not old enough to have seen those.

How about "Wazzup?" Also Bud. Also remarkable.

Well Guinness, who taught us how to spell EVOLUTION backwards, is back with a thinking person's beer ad. Let me know what you think!!!


Find more videos like this on AdGabber


Guiness takes time, we all know that. And Guinness takes time to think about that.

Road To White House Goes Through Dave, McCain Misses Bus.

CBS usually demands that YouTube take down "pirated" video, but the clips of David Letterman griping about John McCain canceling his show in order to go back to Washington - and then going to an interview upstairs with Katie Couric instead - are being left alone by the network,

The edited video, uploaded by YouTube user 1970oaktree, have garnered more than 6.5 million hits in five days, and the silence from CBS is deafening.

Click below and help make it 7 million!

R-U-N-N O-F-T

In the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? a character exclaims "Boys, my wife done..." and then he spells "r-u-n-n o-f-t," thereby "protecting" a nearby child from the embarrassing truth that his marriage has failed and his wife has left.

But of course, the kid knew all along. Turns out he was better at spelling, too.

In advertising, such divorces also happen and usually the reasons for parting are just as poached in obfuscation. Case in point, when agency Wieden & Kennedy (renowned for their work on Nike) split with client Starbucks last week, agency founder Dan Wieden was quoted "There are times when it just makes sense to part ways with a client. In this case, this seems to be the best decision for both parties."

Then, via this morning's Ad Age Online, The Real Reason Why Wieden Quit Starbucks.

Some clients, like some spouses, are harder than others to work with. Gallo Winery used to be the client that always topped (bottomed?) the list of Worst Clients for their habit of changing agencies like most of us change socks. Which made it very difficult to please Ernest Gallo and make a profit at the same time. Scroll down to the bottom of Real Reason Why... story and see some other examples.

Sometimes it comes down to "Boys, my agency done r-u-n-n o-f-t!" And we kids already knew why.

No Turn Unstoned: Does Dove fall from the penthouse to the, well, you know

Dove has had much deserved success with their Campaign For Real Beauty. The latest instalation is called Onslaught, and as a slap at the beauty business, it's pretty interesting:



But Greenpeace says there's a dark side to all this sweetness and light:



Sure, it looks like Dove is cleaning up its act, but authentic marketing guru, Joseph Jaffe of Jaffe Juice has his concerns about Dove brand damage:

"It's a far cry from Slob Evolution, which was a playful and irreverent spoof of the ground-breaking Evolution video, which seemingly ushered in a new era of thoughtful and purpose-based brands that put authenticity, transparency and social responsibility before corporate greed, profits and acquisition.

Until now...

On one hand, this sends out the clearest of messages to faker brands looking to "get in on the conversation" by sending out a stern warning: you gotta walk your talk if you want to join the conversation. Think like an advertiser and attempt to cut corners and you will be found out and duly punished.

Put differently, if you want to commit to community, dialogue and partnership, you need to have your entire house in order first.

Now that said....I would be remiss by dumping on Unilever if I didn't point out this timely update from Greenpeace itself:

'UPDATE: Thanks to the staggering public support for our international Dove campaign in April 2008, Unilever has now agreed to play their part in saving the Paradise Forests of South East Asia. As the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world, Unilever has a special responsibility to help clean up the industry that's behind so much forest destruction.

They have agreed to support the call by Greenpeace for an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil plantations. They have also agreed to urgently contact other major companies calling on them to support the moratorium.

This is the first success in a broader campaign to secure real change on the ground in South East Asia -- to stop the palm oil industry from destroying the Paradise Forests. Greenpeace campaigners will work with Unilever for th next six months (starting May 2008) to bring together a major coalition of companies to make the moratorium a reality. We will see at the end of this period how things are progressing and if we need to change our campaign approach.'

The update is both in the information box on the YouTube video post, as well as in the comment thread. It certainly alludes to the fact that Unilever is listening and although being taken to task, is prepared to change or at least take steps in the right direction.

That said, I wonder how many people will notice this "fyi" and in the process, how much brand reputation damage will occur?"

Face it, brand damage doesn't just kill product sales, it can make stock prices plummet and seriuosly endanger the brand's credibility among consumers. Not something Unilever likes to think about, it sounds like to me.

If you were a PR person at Unilever, what would you do?

Wanted: Writers Who Write Well

I'm in New York this week, the Mecca of the ad biz, and, coincidentally over the past few weeks I've come across a number of Creative Directors (San Francisco and Bend, OR - AAF Western Region Meeting - as well as NY) who've all expressed the same opinion: many young copywriters have no clue as to what their job comprises and how to do it professionally.

Part of the problem is that so many of you don't read much (we found that out on last Tuesday evening) and, I'm convinced, reading helps you to be a better writer.

Let me suggest that reading advertising is easy. It's everywhere. Can you concept better headlines than the ones you see every day? I hope so. Most are lame and many ads go without a damn headline - confusing or under-delivering your message to your target audience.

If you're interested in a job in advertising writing ads, here's a link to a website that tests writers about headlines. Including how to create ad effectiveness via a great freaking headline.

Scroll down the page if you dare. Survivors may have talent AND the skills to do the job.

Ad writers, read it and learn.
Non-writers, ditto.

Not a bad headline, if I say so myself. Find an ad with a sloppy headline, write a better one and send them to me along with the name of the product, via Comment below!

I'll post the best one or two here so you might bask in the adulation of your peers.

Would You Respect a Medium Who Let You Walk All Over It?

What advice would you give these people? Hit "comments" below and express your opinion...
GP

Look There, On the Floor -- College Bookstore Campaign A 'Downer'
By Amy Corr , Monday, September 22, 2008

LevelVision's College Bookstore Network is bringing its latest ad medium to more than 300 college campus bookstores this year. If you don't see it, look down -- for chances are, you'll be standing on it.

Video screens that are less than 1" thick will be placed on bookstore floors, running a combination of infotainment and ads.

Among the colleges participating in this program are: Ball State, Michigan State University, Northeastern Illinois University, Purdue University, University of Michigan, and University of Minnesota.

The floor displays are made with heavy-duty glass and are coated with an anti-slip finish.

Programming segments, which can be altered in real-time, will range from "Top Five Ways to Go Green" to "Cooking Segments" to current weather forecasts.

While I'm all for the idea of coming up with new ways to grab the attention of college students and their visiting family and friends, I can't imagine someone willingly watching infotainment that's on the ground. And with all those feet stepping on the displays, I imagine they'll need to be cleaned numerous times a day. I'm eager to hear about student feedback. There's something good in this concept, but it needs to be tweaked... at the very least, placed at a more eye-level locale.

First a Flash of Light, Then the Rumble of Thunder

Every once in a while I come across something to cause little lightning storms inside my head. On the subject of history is was a 1970s book and TV series called Connections by James Burke. In the 80s, while I was president of an ad agency, it was Tom Peters' treatise on management, In Search of Excellence. And when I was in grad school in history in the late 90s, I was thunderstruck by the new ideas in William Cronon's Changes in the Land : Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England - the book that launched the practice of environmental history - and It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own by Richard White that helped form my view of American Western history. Let me not leave out Lawrence Olivier's King Lear, Kenneth Branaugh's Henry V and RM Koster's obscure, but no less electric, The Dissertation.

The common experience was that each provided me with a way to sharpen my curiosity about (or appreciation of) a difficult topic and gave me the impetus to better structure my notions regarding each. When I met Tom Peters at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in 2001, I told him that reading his book led me into lots of trouble in the business world. He replied with what he and I already knew, "That was the point!"

Well, I saw something Friday in Bend, Oregon, that caused another cranial storm.

Yesterday, those of us attending the American Advertising Federation Western Region Meeting saw a presentation - crackling with ideas, insight and humor - by author Scott Bedbury founder of Brandstream, Inc., that represented a semester-long course in branding - miraculously shrunk to about 120 brain-buzzing minutes.

Bedbury is Northwest-born (University of Oregon School of Journalism) guy who cut his teeth at ad agency Cole & Weber and who subsequently drove the marketing machines at both Nike and Starbucks.

I bought his business book A New Brand World, some time ago, but haven't yet opened it. Shame on me for the delay. I've moved it to "next" in my to-read stack.

Here's Bedbury, on a more formal occasion, introducing his theory of motivating staff using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.



It was a great afternoon, a high voltage current of ideas about the mystery we call "branding." I'm glad I was there to savor it.

I'm in Central Oregon for an AAF Meeting

If anything dramatic happens, I'll let you know.
GP
Seventh Mountain Resort, Bend, OR

Meanwhile, this for your consideration:
Most valued brands and brand values*. Please, why is it always the same hands that go up?

*We're doing our part to support one US icon; we just bought a Ford.
GP&KP

Having Fun With Stuff

Eepybird is the name of the duo who brought us the fountains of Diet Coke powered by Mentos.

Well, they're back, and this time it's Post-it Notes that are sent center stage.



Sidenote: Coca Cola wanted nothing to do with the Coke/Mentos "experiment," ("outside the brand" said a stentorian voice in an Atlanta accent) but now they seem to embrace the bird. I guess the brand has loosened up.