whizdumb

New Denver agency blog

The small Denver agency pure Brand Communications has started an agency blog called pure thinking.  Ken Barber over at pure let me know about it.  He looks to be off to a good start with this post about an ad he spotted on a pack of meat handed over to him by a butcher. 

One line says it all

Thirty seconds of nothing but product, like watching the beginning of Star Trek.  All redeemed with a cleverly honest copy twist in the middle. 

Makes for a great :30 ad but where can you take it form there?

Maybe the student loans were worth it after all

Wonderfully simple work making the case for all that fancy higher education, from Publicis Sao Paolo via Adnerd.

This is how it should feel

Here are some nice examples of where Westin is taking its new Personal Renewal positioning.  For all the strategies out there that attempt to deliver a transporting experience this actually does a decent job. 

The wrapping stuff can really get out of hand if it's misused but in this case I think it actually works pretty well behind the 'This is How it Should Feel' line. 

Next up: User Generated Strategy?

When it comes to consumer generated content, most of it tends to have a pretty short shelf life.  A video, a tagline, etc.  But one submission headed for the Heinz Top This TV challenge has a bit more staying power.  Sculptor Robin Antar has made a ketchup bottle out of marble and is going to film the process for a commercial she'll submit to Heinz. (The thing is on display along with other marble pieces at the Marble Sculpting Symposium until Aug. 5 in the town of Marble, Colorado.)

Heinz has been big on the consumer generated content thing for awhile now. Say Something Ketchuppy was among the more interesting UGC campaigns as it tinkered with the almighty logo.

This new contest is pretty conventional but instead of broadcasting the winner and spending all that money on media they're simply posting the top 15 videos on YouTube and having the public vote on the winner.  Most of the submissions I viewed are pretty forgettable though this one stood out to me:

But I have to say if I was a creative I would be pretty nervous about this user generated content thing.  How long can a brand be buoyed by consumer content contests?  It's really starting to get old.  And how many modifications of the same 'submit your...' approach can smart creative departments crank out before they feel like expendable middlemen?  Daniel Pink wrote a compelling argument about about how in the conceptual economy jobs that require creative thinking will thrive while those that can be automated, a la computer programming, will be outsourced.  Perhaps this should serve as a small warning to the agencies over-reliant on the UGC trend:  Is it diminishing the 'conceptual' nature of our contribution and even our role in the Conceptual Age?

To me, the sweet spot could be some sort of a hybrid between 'here is our idea, love it or leave it' being one extreme and 'hey we give up, you tell us what this brand should say' on the other. 

But all of this dangles the question, what about the planner's contribution?  Our brand conscience?  What kind of rubber stamp strategic thinking goes into 'lets' leverage consumer's ability to operate a video camera and let them make an ad'? 

It certainly makes use of a salient trend but I can't help but think the people behind the cameras are becoming the next generation of professional sweepstakes entrants.  In the short term it adds up:  The brand is happy because it saved money on big production and media budgets.  The consumers like participating and seeing genuine content created by their peers.  But what does this do long term to the agency role? 

Of course the reason for these big questions is that this stuff used to be totally promotional and always complemented by a more strategic brand advertising campaign.  But now these contests are soliciting brand ideas that get big exposure and act as a proxy for mainline brand advertising (like Doritos' super bowl spot).  I can almost hear a client asking why, in this example, does Heinz need an agency at all?

The good news is that despite this trend the marketplace for strategic thinking is getting ever more crowded and good planning is in greater demand.   

Hmmm.  Why pay all those expensive agency fees?  I smell a contest brewing!

Live Earth off and running

Live Earth just kicked off earlier today.  I'm really hopeful for this effort.

I've been poking around some of the content lately and found these fantastic videos that each offer bite sized arguments for becoming climate savvy.  My favorite has to be the 15-minute Reunion of Spinal Tap.  Derek Smalls and the band getting back together for climate change?  Now that is rich in comedic potential right there.

There is a lot of buzz about Live Earth and plenty of talented people involved raising awareness for it.  Among them are the guys at North who are behind the messaging strategy and are driving interest in the thing without spending a dollar on media.

The Alliance For Climate Protection, the home base for Al Gore and Live Earth, has loads of content and things to explore on their site.  Included there is their first official ad, called Black Balloons.  I really like this spot because of how it brings 'bad air' to life in a personal way.  While you're there join the pledge and help make a difference. 

Before we all fry.

(If that does happen let's at least go out in style). 

International showcase

I just stumbled on the showcase for the International Advertising Awards.  There are loads of categories and a lot of new creative content there.  Categories range from Best Typography to Promotion for Peace and Human Rights.  Some gems like a radio spot for the Guinness Book of World Records that set a record itself for the shortest radio commercial, and this Swiffer spot from Germany (part of the Low Budget category of great spots produced for under $35k) which takes a central product attribute and has some fun with it. 

Ditto with this Renault ad.

Packaged Good part 2

P&G came through big this year at Cannes.  The leadership at the CPG giant had been really pushing for creative awards and this year they got them.  Leading the pack was some nice print work from Tide via Saatchi. 

At the heart of this work is what makes every great ad brilliant: keeping is stupid simple.

Cannes jury President Bob Scarpelli of DDB summed it up perfectly:

"We wanted to send a message that you don't need technology. What you always need is a simple idea based on a simple insight communicated in simple ways on a simple piece of paper."

Full article here.

Update:  Just noticed paul's post... he was drawn to the same quote, as I hope we all are!  The least I could do is share a different execution from the campaign.  So there it is, the 'mayo' piece.  Here are soy_sauce and ketchup.

And I thought I was a dork...

The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece recently highlighting the role of psychologists in agencies.  Some of whom literally wear lab coats to work.

"Ms. Haverty, who works full-time for the Boston agency of Havas's Arnold, where she occasionally walks around in a lab coat..."

I knew an agency could be a field of dreams for a psychologist but that may be taking it a bit far!

The piece followed the development of a bland television spot for Ocean Spray (the cranberry people).

What's interesting to me is what isn't in this piece.  The whole article reflects a pretty dated understanding of how advertising is studied today.  Scratch that, it's even bigger - how communication works today!  The dusty experimental designs of quantitatively testing advertising are flawed.  They are based on a linear understanding of persuasion and are overly reliant on simple comprehension and recall.  This in turn encourages more aggressive messaging and repetition which are extremely blunt instruments in today's cluttered marketplace (the piece even mentions that Millward Brown's objective of testing was to simply know how well the ad is remembered). 

There are emerging methods of understanding people that are more nuanced and interesting than those profiled in the article.  For instance, there is no real mention of engagement or social connections or any of the real trends in the industry (soon I'm going to post something more on engagement; I saw the head research guy from ARF speak recently and would like to share some notes.) 

And the role of non lab-coat-wearing resident planners (yes, like me) on nearly every major advertised brand doesn't seem to be on the radar screen.

I guess we should give more consideration to Lab Coat Fridays?

Full article here: Agencies Don Lab Coats to Reach Consumers - WSJ.com.

Packaged. Good.

Too often I hear people slam packaged goods for being the source of dull advertising. This despite the fantastic work coming out of brands like Axe and Omo (often abroad). I really believe it is not about the products but about the approach.

So here is one example of tackling what is in many ways a very dull subject: dandruff. It doesn't really require much translation even though it's in Italian. There are a lot of other examples from laundry soap to toothpaste that I'm going to start posting soon.

Via Hidden Persuader