• Here’s a Radical Idea. How About Being Honest?

    November 14th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    “That the best you got Felix? Not very radical is it?”

    Well, it’s not a new idea. Bill Bernbach started the whole “honesty in advertising” thing way back in the sixties, and then, it really was radical. The very idea that you would devote a full-page ad to a car that was inferior, or a “lemon,” well that was shocking.

    Back then, traditional car ads went on and on about how awesome the cars were. Any flaws were overlooked. Any problems were locked away in deep, dark dungeons, never to be talked about again. The ads painted picturesque Norman Rockwell images of nuclear families, in pastel tones, all ready to take a drive after a good ol’ steak ‘n’ taters dinner. Sure, the husband was beating his wife and kids behind closed doors, drinking bourbon and fingerbanging the secretary at work, but that’s all laundry that wasn’t aired. Happy, blissful, unfettered motoring was all that needed to be talked about.

    So, the sheer nerve of saying “hey, some of these cars have problems, so we recall them” was mind blowing. It was…honest. You know, not lying, not “exaggerating the benefit,” but really saying something pure. And the public lapped it up. They loved being treated with that kind of respect. Volkswagens could not be built fast enough. Who’d a thunk it?

    Then, Avis came out (courtesy of Bill B.) saying “we’re number 2, so we try harder.”

    “Number two? Are you fucking insane? Don’t ever admit that, it will never wor…oh, it worked. Shit. Wow. What the hell is going on?”

    Honesty, for a time, was in. It was bold, fresh, different and absolutely wonderful. Even now, I bathe in the glory of those ads. If I was slightly more perverted I’d rub one out to them, but even I have my sick and sordid limits.

    Here’s the tragedy, though. Honesty is still a radical idea, right now. In fact, it may be even more radical that it was back in Bill’s day.

    Can you imagine, for one tender fucking moment, that those DDB ads would make it past the uptight, creatively-baron boardrooms of today’s neurotic, moneygrubbing corporations? There are shareholders to please. There are corporate standards (oxymoron) to uphold. There are lawyers to contend with. Think about it.

    “Christ, what if we put out an ad saying we have to recall some cars, and then the cars that make it to the showroom end up having a mechanical failure? We’re wide open for a goddamned lawsuit, we’ll be ruined. Which twat came up with this stupid fucking idea anyway?! Fire this old-school fucktard, hire an art director to show a pretty picture of the car, throw in a pithy headline if you must – it’s ok to stare – and slap our logo in the corner. That’s it! Anything else is leaving us wide open. Now, I have an enormous bonus check to deposit so leave me the fuck alone.”

    Take a quick look at adsoftheworld.com and scour the hundreds of pages of ads. When you find one that’s even trying to be honest, jot it down. Actually, count them on your fingers, you’ll only need one hand anyway. And chances are, that ad is for a smaller business that’s trying to make a splash and doesn’t have corporate lawyers leeching the life out of it yet.

    There was an ok-ish movie made in 1990 called “Crazy People.” The premise was great, the execution not so good. It starred Dudley Moore (listen to Derek & Clive if you want to know the real Dudley) as a frustrated creative who was sick of the glossy ads that said nothing. So, he started producing honest ads. He wanted to level with America. There were gems like:

    “Buy Volvos. They’re Boxy, But They’re Good.”

    “Forget France. The French Can Be Annoying. Come to Greece. We’re Nicer.”

    “Quaker Oats. Does This Cereal Taste Great? Who Knows, But The Box Is Cute.”

    “Jaguar. For Men Who’s Like Hand Jobs From Beautiful Women They Hardly Know.”

    What happens next? They have him committed to a lunatic asylum, but somehow his ads get printed anyway, and the public goes nuts for them. Like selling out of everything, empty shelves nuts. And so, he works on more “true” ads with all the drooling vegetables in the lunatic asylum, because it takes morons to write true ads. Here’s one:

    “Porsche. It’s a Little Too Small To Get Laid In. But You Get Laid The Minute You Get Out.”

    And eventually, they do an ad for Sony that has the following script:

    “The Japanese. They’re short, so their eyes are closer to the components than many other nationalities. Caucasians are too tall and gangly. Look how far away the Caucasian workers eyes are from the integrated circuitry. That’s why Sony products are better. SONY. Because Caucasians Are Just Too Damn Tall.”

    Can you imagine, for a second, what would happen if an ad like that ran? Well, maybe not as blatantly racist, but with the honesty of the Volvo or Porsche ad? Aside from the insane amount of free PR it would get, it would be taking a stand in a place that no corporation ever goes. And as Dave Trott has said often, getting noticed is way more important than an ad being liked.

    How about some honest ads for products you and I all know well? Here are a few that probably go too far, but…

    Want some more? How about…

    Toyota. How Big A Discount Will It Take To Make You Forget About Our Runaway Cars?

    Levis. Give Your Fat Ass A Chance To Look Less Fat.

    Obsession. Smell Like The Attractive Woman You’ll Never Be. It’s Dark In The Nightclubs Anyway.

    Well, ok, too far. But what’s better? Blatantly misleading and grossly exaggerating the few benefits of the product, or pushing something truthful? And these days, the truth would stick out like an uncut dick at a Jewish nudist colony.

    If getting noticed is key, be honest.
    If being memorable is the issue, be honest.
    If customer loyalty is needed, be honest.

    I think a sharp, but cleverly worded, dose of the truth could really change things for the better. Honest.

    Felix Unger is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He has been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.

  • ARE WE ALL BREAKING THE FIRST RULE OF ADVERTISING?

    November 3rd, 2011 / Comments (0)

    As I sat drinking chamomile tea on the highest peak of Mount Kanchenjunga, with only a few goats and some hardened dung for company, I got to thinking.

    Man, I am really…fucking…bored.

    So I am back from my crusty hiatus, which was designed to calm me the fuck down. And I have to say, I still have a lot of problems with the current state of advertising. Too many, in fact, to list in this one post; so consider this the return, for now, of your unfriendly neighborhood adman.

    (Oh, and if that was an incorrect use of the semi-colon, try and remember that I really don’t give a shit. Jesus, chamomile tea isn’t all it’s cracked up to be).

    Anyway, here’s what I’m starting to see, and it’s spreading like an STD in a Bangkok whorehouse. We’re treating our audience(s) like complete morons.

    One of the biggest rules of advertising, some say the first rule, is that you should never underestimate the customer. Don’t speak down to them. Don’t think they won’t get it. Don’t assume that you’re smart and they’re dumb (even though, sometimes, it’s true).

    And yet, like a strange echo of Mike Judge’s seminal movie, “Idiocracy,” we’re creating (and re-creating) the advertising equivalent of “Ow, My Balls.”

    Take a look at some of the ads that have graced our airwaves, billboards and magazines recently. It’s moving beyond the territory of bizarre, challenging and surreal, and it’s now just fucking inane. I know Dave Trott has said that it’s more important to be 'noticed and irrelevant' than 'relevant and unnoticed,' but holy fuck this is going too far.

    Let’s start with JC Penney. The basic message behind this one is “hey old guys, you hate ads, but take a look at these crappy clothes and you can see some tits and ass at the same time! Boner time, it’s Phoebe Cates from the 1980s! Takes you back, right?!”

    It’s not only insulting to the intelligence of the most sexually-repressed, alcohol-drenched, brain-dead jock, it’s also confusing as fuck. Take one semi-naked chick from an 80s movie (Phoebe Cates is almost 50 for Christ’s sake), mix it with some bland clothes that even Ned Flanders would think twice about, and then target men who shop at JC Penney.

    They may as well have come out and said “Hey old fella, like naked chicks? Buy these clothes!”

    JC stands for Jesus Christ by the way. As in “Jesus Christ, how’d you manage to piss off women and men at the same time and not sell any more product?”

    What’s worse is the script. It starts out with the mother of all straw man arguments:

    “JC Penney understands that you don’t like advertising for clothes. Who does?”

    Really? I’d say ads for clothes are usually more entertaining than ads for most other products or services. Levis, Victoria’s Secret, Nike, they usually grab your attention in a way that’s not a teeth-itching Progressive Insurance commercial. Are people really complaining about this? Well, let’s assume they are. The pointless frontman continues:

    “Tell you what, though. If you look at these smart fashion choices from Van Heusen, we’re gonna show you this…”

    Cut to the infamous Phoebe Cates pool shot.

    “…that way, everyone wins.”

    Oh how wrong you are. By the way, “smart fashion choices” sounds about as hip and cool as, well, JC Penney. And we close with “JC Penney, it is seriously hot in here.”

    The stench from that line would gag a maggot.

    Want another example?

    How about this one for Old Spice?

    Let me wait a second while I let the murmurs and grumblings die down. “Did he just say Old Spice?” I did indeed. Because as much as I enjoyed, and loved, the initial spots and the bizarreness of the Terry Crews follow-ups, they at least had a thread that tied them to the product. The man your man could smell like? Yes. Odor-blocking as powerful as me? Yes. But Ray Lewis saying he needs Old Spice Swagger to be an athlete, and it’s “like a fantasy but real,” well, now the creatives are just taking the piss.

    Here’s another campaign that bugs the living shit out of me. Diesel has always been known for some pretty obscure ad campaigns. It’s more permissible with fashion as you’re trying to build a brand that people want to wear, and be associated with, so there’s a lot of wiggle room here. But the “Be Stupid” campaign?

    We are now celebrating low IQs? “Hey fucktard, show your tits to a security camera, and do it in a pair of $200 jeans made by starving kids earning 18 cents a day.”

    Maybe that’s what they mean. "Oy, dipshit. Yeah, you! Be stupid, spend all of your cash on our jeans. Awesome bro! Or dudette!"

    Other ads show a “cool dude” with his head stuck in a mailbox, or some vapid tart in a bikini snapping a photo of her snatch while a lion gets ready to make a meal of another clueless fashion model. It looks like being cool means you’re a fucking idiot. Oh a risk taker, sure. But a moronic one.

    I could go on, but why give further attention to any more of this horseshit? We’re all consumers as well as advertisers. Is this how we view ourselves? Are we avid viewers of The Jersey Fucking Shore? Would we buy a pair of Diesel jeans because it’s cool to have the common sense of a house plant? Would we buy Old Spice because “umm, de funny ad wiv de big man on de big bird made me laugh in my belly momma,” or are we just a little smarter than that?

    If this is the level we’re playing down to, we’ve only got ourselves to blame. We wonder why people don’t read copy any more, or want to know more about the product, and then we proudly throw this vomit out there. Sometimes, it wins awards. Wrangler jeans for We Are Animals. Need I say more?

    Let’s all raise the IQ of our advertising. We don’t have to use 14-syllable words, but we also don’t need to aim everything at the lowest common denominator. Let's steer this ship in the right direction.

    OK, it’s time for my shot of Thorazine. But I’ll be back when it wears off.

    Felix Unger is a site contributor, ranter and curmudgeon for The Denver Egotist. He’s been in the ad game a long time, but he’s still young enough to know he doesn’t know everything. If he uses the f-bomb from time-to-time, forgive him. Sometimes, when you're ranting, no other word will do. In his spare time, he does not torture small animals. He has been known, on occasion, to drink alcohol by the gallon. Do as he says, not as he does.

  • You and Your Meaningless Career in Advertising

    September 21st, 2011 / Comments (0)

    If you ask a random sample of advertising people what would make their lives more fulfilling, a good chunk of them will say the following: “I wish I had a more meaningful outlet for applying my creativity.” It’s a predictable answer, but a telling one, and an even more predictable side effect of a career devoted to consumerism.

    But despite ad folk’s general commiseration over the shortage of meaning in our day to day lives, only a handful of us are actively devoting a portion of our creative guts to the general betterment of mankind. Lately I’ve been wondering about this, because with so much apparent interest in making the world a better place, the number of people really doing it doesn’t seem to add up. What’s holding us back?

    It’s not a lack of problems, that’s for sure. No one spending 80 percent of their day on a computer can hide from the subpar-ness of some choices we made in the last 100 years, and fresh side effects of these decisions surface daily. But as our definition of ‘social bad’ continues to broaden, it’s curious to note that the definition of ‘social good’ is stubbornly refusing to keep up, with its everyday interpretation more or less hitting a hard wall at helping malnourished kiddos in remote Kenya find water, food or medicine.

    There’s a weird battle that pops up when attempting to modernize this definition, one that‘s potentially at the root of why so many of us swiftly abandon our inclination to get involved. It’s a competition of causes; a man made measure of what, exactly, counts as making a difference. I’m not sure what the point of the debate is, but I'm convinced that its core holds nothing better than a crappy sense of self-righteousness, born from finding the most CNN-ready crime against humanity and claiming that problem as your own. No more hunger by by 2020? Sure, that counts. Rounding up all your credit card purchases to give to charity? Eh, that’s not social good. That’s white guilt.

    Besides the obvious silliness of turning the social good space into yet another ego battle, the bummer is that this “problem elitism” is polarizing enough to turn 'normal' people off from getting involved. Not to mention the real bummer, which translates to a major loss in the amount of good stuff getting done, period. After all, if there’s a barrier to entry for saving the world, how can we possibly maximize the earth-redeeming potential for all skill sets, including (and perhaps especially) creative ones?

    I’m sure there’s more reasons why ad people are only wading in the world of meaningful things. But in effort to debunk at least one of those reasons, I've gotta clear the air about this one in particular: Social good is not a world owned by saints and martyrs, nor is it defined by the scale of the problem you’re hoping to solve. Social good is everybody's, and it happens each time we do something a little better, a little greener, and a little more considerately than the people before us.

    It has to be. Because the truth is, we’re long past the point where problems are confined to third world countries. Most of our most pressing, more localized issues aren’t things that can be solved by a team of lawyers specializing in social justice, they’re just things our forefathers did wrong the first time. It’s almost fair to call them White People Problems, because we’re certainly responsible for their existence.

    So what is fair cause for white guilt? Definitely not a hesitancy to relocate to Africa. But if you’re staying mum while your print production team repeatedly selects toxic processes and materials over greener ones, well, maybe you should speak up. If your client’s seeking new packaging but you’re not strongly recommending biodegradable options, maybe you should start researching those alternatives. If something of local significance has been bringing up some questions for you, maybe you should write an open letter, blow it up, and wheat paste it on your garage door. If you're not doing those things and you're whining about your meaningless existence in advertising, well, maybe you should shut the fuck up.

    Yes we’re running out of water. Yes we’re running out of clean air. But you know what else a lot of people suspect we’re running out of? Creativity. And that’s exactly what we need to rethink what’s broken. So get off your butt. Drop the guilt, grab a White Person Problem and start using a fraction of what you’ve got - anything you’ve got - to make it go away. That’s all it takes. And if the 'social good' people give you hell for helping from the comfort of your air conditioned office - just tell them it's social good enough. And maybe ask what the hell they're doing back in the US. Slackers.

    Carmel Hagen is a communication and experience designer at COMMON, a creative community for rapidly prototyping social change.

  • Write Better Voiceovers

    September 13th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    Videos come in all shapes and sizes. Some happen to be exactly 30 seconds long and formatted for a television screen. Occasionally these 30-second videos have voiceovers. Here are some things to keep in mind when you write them.

    Write both sides of the script: TV scripts are written with visual instructions on the lefthand side of the page and the dialogue, voiceover or music direction on the right. Write that way from the start. Both sides. Simultaneously. It'll prevent you from writing your voiceover as a paragraph of body copy. And it'll get you thinking about how sight and sound can complement each other, allowing you to communicate more in less time. Screenplay format is ok, too. But it drives me crazy when I see a voiceover laid out like it's a chunk of copy.

    Cast before you write: Pick a favorite actor. Someone with a distinct vocal pattern. (Morgan Freeman, Matthew McConaughey, Cameron Diaz, Edward Norton and Kris Kristofferson have all been inspirational for me. Al Pacino might be too unique.) Then write your voiceover. Let the actor's voice echo in your head as you write. This exercise will make sure your script is written to be heard instead of read. And it'll make your tone cohesive and interesting.

    Transcribe other people's scripts: I was told that as a boy, David Mamet recorded his parents' dinner conversations and then transcribed them so he could see the way everyday conversation looked on a page. It's a mess. People interrupt each other, repeat themselves, and never speak in complete sentences. Try it. If you don't feel like eavesdropping on a conversation, go find your favorite spot on YouTube and transcribe it. You'll be amazed how sparse and odd it looks.

    Read your voiceover out loud: Act it out. Don't just mutter it to yourself under your breath while staring at your monitor. Read it boldly. This will ensure your flow is perfect. And it will also ensure that on recording day, you have a clear idea of how the talent should read your script.

    Read books: Two of the most famous spots of all time, Surfer and America , have voiceovers derived from literature. More than radio, more than copy, more than headlines or websites, a voiceover is a copywriter's chance to dream big. To write something that will make people's lives better. Go do it.

    This piece is cross-posted from Matt Ingwalson's blog.

  • Dear Graphic and Web Designers, Please Understand that There Are Greater Opportunities Available to You

    July 12th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    You have an inherent need to solve problems, visually and conceptually. There is enormous value in this, but you may be misplacing your talents.

    The internet, at this time in history, is the greatest client assignment of all time. The Western world is porting itself over to the web in mind and deed and is looking to make itself comfortable and productive. It’s every person in the world, connected to every other person in the world, and no one fully understands how to make best use of this new reality because no one has seen anything like it before. The internet wants to hire you to build stuff for it because its trying to figure out what it can do. It’s offering you a blank check and asking you to come up with something fascinating and useful that it can embrace en masse, to the benefit of everyone.

    Your press checks are bullshit
    Your personal logo is bullshit
    Your employer is bullshit
    Your studio is bullshit

    The market is handing you steak and you’re choosing the gristle. The market is handing you gold bullion and you’re taking the nickel.

    As a designer, you enjoy building things for other people’s use. Your value is determined by the degree to which you can empathize with groups of people around a given topic. Historically, this relationship has required a large(r) company to act as mediator for the emotional mass-transaction. Companies provide you with an audience inasmuch as they have customers, and that’s enough for you because you just want to design stuff that solves stuff.

    The internet kills all middlemen.

    You now have direct access to the raw vein of popular attention. The pixels you’re pushing have a higher exchange rate than you’re giving yourself credit for*. No hounding client payroll, no selling other people’s stuff, no building other people’s wealth, no nephew’s cousins stepping in with the authority to change everything you’ve been working on.

    If You Build It, They Will Come and Try It; and if you are keen enough to identify the opportunities that are being laid out before you by technology, then there is challenge and fulfillment and success to be had.

    I run Svpply.com. I am its Designer. I used to design logos and now I design for the internet. Svpply is building a service which will redefine major components of the retail industry. Our team is figuring out how to do this together because no one has ever done anything like it before. No class of people has ever been offered an opportunity like the one you and I are being offered right now.

    If this kind of opportunity sounds even slightly interesting to you, then you should join a startup. You don’t have to know more than that. The jobs are all out there waiting for you. They’re secure and fun and they pay competitively. If the thought of building something amazing for lots of people is interesting to you, You Should Join a Startup**.

    You can find jobs at startups here, here, here and here. You should also just start sending your work to startups that you like. All of them are hiring or thinking about hiring.

    If you have questions about this, feel free to hit me up. Additionally, I know someone specifically looking to fund good designers with good ideas, so let me know if you’d like an introduction.

    - - -

    *The ability to design effectively for so many people at the stroke of a key is a skill and talent which will have its own title and pay grade. There are only going to be more and more small companies launching for the web. Many of them will need consultation on how to create and communicate with massive audiences and communities. As a designer this is all in your domain.

    **I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t start your own company. I just think that for a lot of designers, from what I’ve seen, this is jumping the gun. Unless you have a friend who is an engineer, it is going to be difficult for you to find someone of quality to build something for you, the professional landscape for those people is just too competitive right now for much of that. But I guarantee you’ll develop relationships with engineers if you go work at a startup, and from working relationships good conversations brew and companies are born.

    - - -

    This piece is cross-posted from Ben Pieratt's blog.

  • Adventures in Failure

    July 6th, 2011 / Comments (1)

    Wieden+Kennedy has been embracing failure since 1988. It's working. And, as the mural demonstrates, sometimes doing things the hard way is more meaningful.

    Fail harder. Fail faster. Fail better. Fail forward. For the love of awesome, would you just get it over with and fail already?

    Small failures are encouraged right now. In theory anyway. It's part of our rapid-prototyping-world-in-beta lifestyle. Get it out there. Test it and fix it as needed. Everything is fluid. Feedback is immediate. Nothing is forever. (Well, except for diamonds. And maybe that poorly-planned tattoo acquired on a drunken whim.)

    But what about the big failures? The ones that draw a line before you in the sand. Daring you to courageously step forward or cowardly bury yourself right where you stand.

    "You can be comfortable or outstanding, but not both. Extraordinary begins with discomfort." – Sally Hogshead

    Many a creative recalls a time their ego was destroyed – that is by someone other than themselves. Their book metaphorically or, in some cases, actually ripped to shreds and thrown back in their general direction. One brutally honest moment. And, thank God for that moment. Here's your adversity. Now, what are you going to do with it?

    Failure is a powerful motivator. Learn from its lessons. Let it make you and your projects stronger.

    There's a reason why scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the human body. And that it stands out. A timeless reminder of a misstep or an averted prognosis. A defining characteristic they may use to identify us someday. One look at the mark and we recall how we got it. Maybe even what we experienced right before it was embedded. Forever. The sound of rusty trampoline springs. The smell of overheated car side pipes. The pre-surgical anxiety while helplessly slipping under the veil of anesthesia.

    "Wisdom enters through the wounds." – shamanic quote capturing the inherent pain of creativity

    Box of Crayons adds some great thoughts around that quote, "I love the liberating sense that it is only through our bruises and scrapes and errors and mistakes and stumbles and confusions and hurts and tears and anxiety and wounds, it is only through the time we spend in the shadow that our wisdom grows. Seek out experience and stumble."

    Invest in yourself. Find a way to be mentored by smarter people who know how to do things that you don't. People who fear mediocrity over failure. And yes, you're probably going to fail. Eventually. But if you're bold enough to avoid the plateau, it's just part of the adventure.

    This piece is cross-posted from Jennifer Hohn's blog.

  • If You Work in Advertising, But All You Make is ‘Advertising’, You’re Doing it Wrong.

    June 27th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    The ad industry is quickly evolving into a new industry. It will be one that won’t offer only the limited menu of services that’s attributed to it today. I’m not sure if this new industry should even be called advertising anymore, as the term itself can be an albatross to innovation. But whatever the name is, it’ll be even more exciting and productive than in its current incarnation.

    When the 4th Amendment Wear brand was invented, I didn’t realize at the time that it would teach me such an important lesson about where we’re headed. It helped me crystallize my thoughts on how our industry needs to fundamentally shift the way it operates in order for it to survive. Originally, it was created as a political art statement to challenge what many saw as an invasion of US citizen’s constitutionally-protected rights to privacy. Then, working together with art director and designer Matt Ryan, we developed products that launched a brand within weeks, reaching millions of people and quickly selling thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. Recently, it was honored with a Tomorrow Award, as well as ADC Global’s Inaugural Designism award.

    As CEO of my own strategic brand consultancy, Timmovations, I know first-hand just how laborious the process of developing a brand can be. But the new media landscape requires that we become capable of doing so quickly, if we expect to be able to meet time-sensitive opportunities.

    It’s one thing to create an ad. It’s a whole other beast to invent new technology, create products using that technology, tap into social media, and orchestrate a marketing campaign to reach millions. Then, to sell tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, in a less than a month, with a small initial investment, with a small team of just two people to make everything happen – opens your eyes to what’s wrong with the current setup at many agencies. Because the big lesson of 4th Amendment Wear wasn’t how to launch a clothing brand. It was how it can inspire our industry to reshape its own internal organizations to react to events just as fast and be just as nimble.

    ‘Advertising’ has become pigeonholed. Even among those of us working in advertising, what we do is often defined by 30-second TV spots and double-page spreads with some sort of digital thingamajig thrown in for good measure. But anything we’re already making is then automatically ‘traditional.’ So creating ideas that live beyond those traditional routes is quickly becoming a mandatory skill that we all need to develop. Fast. ‘Fast’ is the future of how this industry needs to work.

    The typical ad agency/client relationship model is an antique. We need to reinvent it.

    While much of 4th Amendment Wear’s success can be attributed to the brand being in the right place at the right time, the truth is, all brands need to be. It also shows how we, the creative talent, can evolve – from making the ads that sell the products, to making the products that become the ads. So, I hope it inspires more creatives (and agencies) to take advantage of the quickly democratizing production systems around us and the unprecedented access to media channels.

    You don’t always need millions of dollars worth of production and media spend for a brand’s message to spread. While I’m not discounting the importance of strategic branding, which I am very familiar with, it’s the system of executing the campaigns that communicates those messages that needs to be rebuilt from the ground-up.

    Today, all you need are great ideas. Yes, it’s a cliche. But can you think of a time when it’s ever been more true? The future belongs to those with the best ideas. Not to the agencies, not to the media platforms or technologies, nor (which is the most popular saying now) even to the audience. Because those with the best ideas will always out-think and outmaneuver them.

    That’s what we do. It’s just our business.

    If a brand spends an enormous budget on campaigns that seem to fade into the background, I’d suggest giving it to more nimble teams and adaptable agencies. With the right system in place, for the cost of one ‘globally integrated, high-production value, slightly-positive-focus group-approved’ campaign, those teams will create ten times the number of quality initiatives for your brand that could possibly light and catch fire. Then, go ahead and raise your budget back up, and you’ll make even more. That’s how you can destroy competition that still works within an antique model.

    If you take your brand to one of the world’s best agencies, think about what you’d rather have them create…

    • One, carefully-honed, thoroughly-researched piece of wallpaper, approved by every layer of your organization, over the course of a year, that the world then may or may not ignore?

    • Or ten ‘at-bats’ that start little fires that can be closely monitored and fanned into flames? The world might ignore one or two, but you still have a tenfold chance they’ll actually pay attention to what you want to say. To me, it’s pretty clear.

    There’s value, efficiency – and an entire future – in being nimble.

    With access to technology, you can now leverage nimble talent against massive organizations in a way challenger brands never could. A great idea could earn its own media. And great ideas that do exactly that should be what you’re paying for.

    Don’t outspend – out-think. The only way you’ll do that is by allowing the talent in your agencies to respond much quicker than they are able to, or allowed to, right now. Those agencies also need to learn how to be nimble by creating and perfecting the systems that allow their clients to react as fast. Because in today’s media, responding to a socially relevant conversation 2-4 weeks after the fact is almost always too late. Sometimes, a day is just too late.

    If you’re a client briefing your agency on a campaign a year (or, typically, years) in advance, you’re just working in another world. How many opportunities to react to the social conversation will happen in that one year? Your brand is missing chances of free, earned media. And your competition can change drastically in that year. The entire landscape can change in a month. The category could be challenged by the end of the week.

    Remember the RAZR phone?

    If not, look it up on your smart-phone’s web browser and you’ll understand what I mean.

    A lot of what was taught in MBA programs ten years ago is being untaught by disruptive outsiders today. In the current system of typical agency/client development and approval processes, agencies and clients will most likely miss out on more and more opportunities to respond quickly and to profit. And that’s some of us, will have our own eyes open – watching when to strategically embed our own client’s brands – or even our own brands – into the conversations that your system has made you miss.

    As a client or agency, you need to realize the resources that you have at hand, right now, and make the process more efficient. Advertising isn’t dying. As the business evolves, the talent will simply evolve with it. Your brand can either leverage those talents, or you can wait until production becomes so democratized and so easily accessed, that they go on to create their own challenger brands that may, one day, take yours down.

    Of course, that’s not necessarily what we do right now.

    But soon enough, it may just be our business.

    Tim Geoghegan is a freelance Creative Director and strategic brand consultant with over 10 years of integrated global experience. Previously, he was Associate Creative Director at CP+B in Boulder and Creative Director of the ZAG brand IP-invention subsidiary at BBH, NY. You can follow him on twitter at @timogeo or contact him at timmovations@gmail.com. This piece is cross-posted from Tim Geoghegan's blog.

  • So You Want to Work in an Ad Agency?

    June 6th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    Following is a great editorial piece from our friends in Denver. You too are always welcome to submit smart, insightful editorial pieces as well. Just click here.

    I sometimes get notes and phone calls from random college students and recently graduated job seekers that heard from someone that I work at an agency they admire. I was on a roll and just wrote this latest kid a novella, since I can't sleep tonight anyway. Thought it might make for a blog post if you're having trouble sleeping too.
    WARNING: If this doesn't make you go to sleep then you may need to go into advertising.
    On 06/01/11 3:31 PM, XXXXX XXXXXX wrote:
    --------------------
    Eric,
    Thank you for getting back to me so soon. A lot of my questions revolve around two main points. I am new to the whole idea of working at an agency. Until recently it hadn't even hit me as an option. But now that I have been more involved in my advertising and design classes I realized that is where my strengths lie. So I guess my main questions for you are what are the different opportunities/positions available at an agency, and what can I do to prepare for an internship at an agency?

    I would also love to hear your story and experience. Xxxx Xxxxxxx told a bit of your background with working for Volkswagen, but it would be great to know more. I'd also love to hear from you what agency life is like. Pros? Cons? Favorite aspects? I am just an ad agency sponge that wants to soak it all in.
    Thanks so much for taking your time to help me out with this. I appreciate it.
    --------------------
    MY REPLY, POOR KID:
    Oh dear. So much to learn. It's good you want to learn. But you'll have to become your own student and not rely just on school and formal programs. Be a geek if you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, what do you enjoy? Do that. Here's a giant checklist to start so you're never bored.
    1. Subscribe to the daily AdAge and AdWeek Emails. Read the articles. Other options are BrandWeek, and a quick updating, kinda gossipy ad trade blog agencyspy.com. Be in the know. Know way more about agencies all over the country (and world) than your young gun peers. If you are the most ad industry savvy of your peers at BYU-I, that doesn't mean much, but it's where you should be anyway. It's a good start.
    2. Pick up books by ad veterans, like Paul Arden (i.e. "Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite," and "It's Not how Good you Are, It's How Good You Want To Be." They are super cheap and worth owning and reading about once a year.) Watch movies like "Art & Copy." Read books about culture that interest you. Know what's going on, even if you don't have time to know everything deeply, just know it's there.

    3. Get digital. Follow websites like thefwa.com, be a geek on gizmodo.com and understand what flash is, HTML 5 is, different types of web banners, email marketing, CRM schemes, social media trends of the hour, social media marketing campaigns of the hour. How does an agency go about building an entire website to serve a client's goals? Why do the sites do what they do and how do people end up there? Where do they go from there? What's a KPI when it comes to online marketing? This will evolve about as quickly as you learn it, so it's a fun hobby to stay on top of.
    4. Become a fan and student of advertising that's not advertising at all. Powerful messaging comes from a powerful product truth. How can the company bring that product truth to life in the consumer's life in a way that changes culture, not just takes advantage of current, already existing trends?
    5. Get an internship at a big agency for the exposure. Doesn't have to be giant with offices all over the country/world, but should have national accounts and do really smart, strategic, creative work. If you start there (EVEN FOR FREE), you'll have many more options in your future. You can always settle down for a boring job that isn't as chaotic and demanding later. But you may not always be able to jump into the creative bandwagon. Be willing to move and live in Miami, Minneapolis, LA, NYC, Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Boulder, Richmond and other cities I'm surely leaving out. If you're hesitant to drop your life in one location and go for the gold at a crazy low paying job at a worldly agency in a place you've never been, then you'll be limited to what your options are in the future. If you're flexible and adventurous in college and the first 5-8 years after (and work like a mad man and never stop learning), it'll open up more doors and put you near the top of recruiters lists later. Be willing to work your butt off - nights, weekends, be the guy that will go pick up food at midnight and build binders or proofread copy when what you'd rather be doing is hanging out with your family and friends. It'll get better, promise. Kinda.
    6. Be humble and smart. Although you may be intimidated by all the progressive hipsters that seem to fit in so well in this industry, you can be yourself. Be natural and real. But make sure that "yourself" is super smart and nice to have around. Of course, if you're a creative urban type, that's an advantage and will help you fit in on top of your smart humility. But first and foremost surround yourself with people smarter than you and soak in everything you can.
    7. The resume and interviews: What makes you stand out? (Not just 'what makes you qualified,' although that's obviously important.) Find it early and make it something worth having, hiring and paying for. Make sure it's clear on your resume and the cliche' stuff isn't getting in the way of seeing why you would be the kind of person that a CEO would want representing him and his company / agency. If you think that person wears pleats and looks like he just got his hair cut with the #3 clippers on the sides and back, then you may be right. But you're probably not interviewing at my agency.
    (Exhale)

    Good thing I'm a bit of a loner insomniac this week, working out of town. I'm pretty sure I just wrote the skeleton of a presentation I could give at the next BYU-I Communications Day. Know who puts the guest speakers together? Ha.
    As far what job you want in the agency, that's something only you'll know. If you don't know what departments are in a typical larger agency and how they tick and roll along, learn that. Here's a really basic agency structure 1.0 resources i just found with one Google search:
    http://drypen.in/advertising/agency-structure-of-advertising-agency.html
    Scour agency websites about the jobs they have open to see what on earth they are even called at various agencies. i.e. Some places call Account Management "Content Management." Account Planners (or just "planners") can be "Cognitive Anthropologists." Not kidding. But most agencies share the same or similar names for positions.
    AGENCY JOBS:
    Planners find the cultural and business insights that shape a creative brief and the strategy we sell to clients and build work from. In a good agency, they are the unsung heroes of the best work.
    Creatives take that strategy and come up with how to apply it to the media. They are copywriters and art directors, creative directors. There are also studio workers and designers, creative technologists and other specialties, but mostly writers and artists that are supremely creative and hard working.

    Traffic Managers (or Project Managers) help guide creative and account Managers toward a deadline. They keep all projects on track, organized and on schedule internally.
    Account Management (or Account Services or Content Management) are the liaison between the clients and the agency. They are the central hub of organized, client friendly ad experts that work with every department inside the agency as well as vendors and partners outside the agency, not to mention clients, of course, to guide a campaign or project from before its inception (when the client comes to the agency with a task, i.e. a new product launch, or rebranding) all the way through the brief and concepting and back and forth with clients, and media planning and into production to create the TV or Radio or print or OOH (out-of-home) or online work or all of the above, to the details of pushing that work out into the world through whatever means or partner companies you work with to get it into the real (or digital) world, to the post-launch analytics and post-mordems and continual beta tweaking and optimizing (for digital work, it's rarely "finished," even after launch)....then it all starts over and projects overlap so you're always juggling and managing something. This is what I do. Account people need to be experts of their clients' industry within weeks, whether that's cars or phones or pizzas or credit cards or online services, and they need to be friends and champions of everyone within the agency as well. A good account person remembers that he works for his agency, not his client. That is sometimes easy to forget.
    Production: producers are the cool cats that actually create the TV spot or digital marvel the creatives thought up but have no idea how to actually create. They have the resources and knowledge to guide the approved ideas into actual work that consumers end up seeing and interacting with. There are broadcast producers, interactive producers, print producers, etc. Each is pretty specialized.
    There are more, i.e. media planners, media buyers, business affairs, art buyers, analytics, interaction designers, and all the overhead positions that keep the employees paychecks coming and building functioning, of course. At least in a big agency. The smaller the agency, the more that stuff may be done by anyone from the owner to the "new kid."
    --------------------
    That's all I've got in my system tonight. I'd recomend you get out there and get inside some agencies so you can see what they look like on the inside. Talk to more people and see if I'm just full or crap, so you can get a wider perspective.

    But above all, do #5 above. The rest will come naturally if you're actually excited and interested in it.
    Best,
    eric
    This piece is cross-posted from Eric Forsyth's blog.

  • Social Media Hasn't Failed Advertising, We've Failed Ourselves

    May 6th, 2011 / Comments (0)

    Via our friends at The San Francisco Egotist

    So the other day I read with interest the AdAge article called “Do Campaign Failures, High-Profile Firings Signal the End of Social Media?” It chronicled the downfall of Pepsi’s Refresh Project and Burger King’s many failed social media attempts, and it was the talk of digital and social media agencies everywhere.
    Now let me be clear – I do not subscribe to the conclusion of the article that social media is a failed experiment when it comes to affecting sales. However I do believe that these examples are case studies in where we’ve gone wrong as an industry.
    But let’s back up a bit and talk about how we got here.
    Back in the days of paid media, you forked out big bucks to get the audience you wanted – be it print, TV, whatever. You were guaranteed roughly 30 million households watching your commercial every time you bought the Cosby Show. That meant the number of eyeballs were not a metric, they were a given. The metrics ad agencies were actually held to were real business results. Did the client see a sales bump from the campaign? Did product move off the shelves?
    However with the rise of social media, the audience was not a given. We had to build an audience from scratch – it wasn’t as simple as writing a check. And so suddenly, metrics for ad agencies went from hard, real sales goals to things that had no direct connection to selling.

    Video views, “Likes,” number of fans or total reTweets became the ends instead of the ends to a means. We, as an industry, forgot what we’re really here to do – sell shit. And clients, in their attempt to quantify their efforts to their bosses, latched onto the easiest metric everyone understood. Both sides voluntarily lowered the bar and now we’re all paying the price.
    Burger King has continued to fall behind McDonalds despite industry-lauded social media efforts. Diet Coke trounced Pepsi and knocked them into third place despite tens of millions thrown at Refresh.
    Social media fansboys will shout “But Refresh was to build brand affinity, not sell more Pepsi!” If you can show me a company that is loved but doesn’t sell anything – I’ll show you a failed company.
    I’ll also show you a failed industry.
    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as we’ve seen the rise of social media, we’ve also seen the rise of client dissatisfaction and the drop in marketing campaigns that have actually affected the bottom line. When we celebrate videos for hitting a million views instead of selling a million shoes, we’ve lost our way. When the number of “Fans” we get on Facebook is more important than the number of people who actually buy our clients’ products, it’s no wonder we’re seeing results like we’re seeing.
    Now it might not be as fun to create some crazy video that millions of people will “Like” just to see… and then have them never think twice about buying your product. But there’s nothing to say that social media can’t be used in the same way all other advertising should be used: to communicate a consumer benefit, convince them why they should choose you over the competition and get them to actually buy your product.
    --------
    Matt Morin is a freelance creative director in San Francisco and the author of The Dog & Pony Show blog.

  • Hug Your Copywriter

    April 1st, 2011 / Comments (3)


    Originally posted on The Denver Egotist.
    As an ACD I spend a lot of time on conference calls, so it wasn't a big surprise that I found myself on one the other day. What was surprising was the energy on this one. Everyone was leaning in. People seemed more excited then usual. There was an unsaid understanding in the room and on the other end of the phone. It was like everyone suddenly remembered why they got into this business in the first place.

    On the monitor was the topic conversation: One word—and a picture that added up to one huge idea. When I realized that the guy responsible for the concept was nowhere to be seen I started tallying up the titles in the room: Creative Director, Account Director, Associate Creative Director, Regional Account Director, Sr. Art Director, Creative Technologist, Planner—not to mention the clients and partner agencies on speaker-phone. Everyone was buzzing to bring an idea to life. I couldn't help but think to myself: "all these people finally have something worthwhile to do thanks to a imaginative, articulate copywriter." Thank god.

    People don't work for people as much as they work for ideas. Nothing motivates or inspires us like a well-articulated thought. Technology doesn't drive business—ideas do, which is something that is easy to forget. As an industry we tend to value the flashy and new—over the tried and true, which is a big mistake. From my experience, no one is a more efficient generator of the ideas that drive our industry than a good-old copywriter. A good writer can articulate a vision for an ad, an agency, or a brand. A good writer shows us what it could be—what it should be, and can even outline a plan to get there.

    For me it all boils down to this: If you're doing boring work it's probably because you have a boring writer. If you have a good one—love them, nurture them, and please excuse them for being a little weird.

    Read more of Wade Campbell on his blog and on Twitter.

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