Tomorrow I'll be moderating a panel for Shoot! the Day, a stock photography conference put together by PhotoShelter. (See a recent study related to the topic.)
My panel is at 12:15pm. It will include:
- Belinda Lopez, Senior Art Buyer, Strawberry Frog
- Wanda Lau, Senior Art Director, Greater Than One
- Jen Santiago, Managing Art Buyer, G2 Direct & Digital
- Molly Aaker, Art Buyer, Unit7
My two biggest fears:
1) making a Twitter joke
2) boring my audience, which will consist of professional photographers. I'm clearly not one of them and I won't do justice to their angstiest stock photo/ad agency concerns, so I'll be leaving plenty of room for Audience Questions!.
Read about other Shoot! the Day panels at the PhotoShelter blog. And if you'd like to come watch me make awkward jokes and commit forehead-slapping faux-pas, here's how to volunteer for a free pass.
In what can only be described as supremely idiotic, the cigarette in the hand of the man who appears in the famed Mad Men promotional image was digitally removed when it was placed on iTunes to promote the sale of Mad Men Season 1. WTF? Does Apple think everyone who downloads this show will then run out to the store and buy a pack of smokes so they can smoke while watching the show? Are people actually this stupid? WTF?
Yesterday at San Francisco's Westin St. Francis, Room Full of People held the SWAT Summit, a one day conference which covered the topic of social networking. Topics such as metrics, best practices, user engagement and social advertising were covered.
After Room Full of People CEO Christian Perry gave an engaging overview of Obama's brilliant use of social media as compared to McCain's abysmal use, IDC Research Analysts Caroline Dangson gave an overview of people's outlook on social media and their willingness to allow advertisers mine personal information and online social behavior in order to provide more targeted advertising. Perhaps it was the way IDC asked the question but unsurprisingly, a very low percentage of people said they'd be OK with that.
MediaSmith CEO David Smith presented for the first time his Eight Levels of User Engagement, a detailed look at the buzzword du jour "engagement." It was one of those presentation that was so elaborate and so complete that no summary would do it justice. Besides, I can't remember the half of it but don't fret. He's taking it on the road for six months and there will be a book (or a paper).
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Quiksilver's inviting Real Women! from All Walks of Life! on a Creative Journey! to promote its new line of women's clothing. The subsite includes a hyper-bohemian product preview and postcard gallery, where you can download warm fuzzy (and pink!) messages like "Sometimes finding your destination means trying on all the options." Gotta love a clothing pun.
The campaign is targeted to fresh-outta-college women in a state of quarter-life crisis. "Our purpose was to inspire not only the apparel Quiksilver was going to design for this journey, but create a brand idea that celebrates the experience of defining yourself in the world as an intelligent, creative, independent woman," rambled John Boiler of agency 72andSunny.
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What, do genital jokes just make better advergames?
The above inanity is a promotion for Pineapple Express, a movie by the same winners that brought you Superbad. Put together by agency Soap Creative.
Tant pis. Anyway, haven't we seen this gimmick (twice) before?
The video is part of a wannabe-viral seeding campaign called "Le Grand Souffle." Belgian residents, if you have insight on who's behind the campaign, we probably won't care. But we'll cover it anyway.
For the Looking Glass Foundation, which assists adolescents with eating disorders, DDB, Canada launched a PG-rated but poignant awareness campaign in British Columbia.
The "Pencil Marks" PSA features a girl charting her waist-slimming progress with pencil marks on a wall. The agency also distributed broken toothbrushes in baggies that read, "Attempting to purge, Jane B. broke a toothbrush off in her throat and choked."
See, if you're gonna be all pro-Mia, you need to get over your squeamies and use a finger.*
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I've seen "Moving" for Dunkin' Donuts about 486 times -- and I find it more loathsome after each sitting.
But Dunkin' knows how to maximize a spot's branding power. If you watch any amount of weekly TV, you'll see it enough times to be mouthing the words in a month. And the music is so distinctive, so gratingly terrible, and so instantly recognizable that it will probably do its label more good than harm in the long run. Life can be cruel that way.
"Moving" is part of the Hill Holliday-developed "America runs on Dunkin'" campaign, which has been running -- successfully, even -- for the last two years. Message consistency contributes to its sheen, but rival Starbucks, which lost its grip on its own brand, also threw plenty of kindling in Dunkin's direction.
- Jezebel compiled a list of the top 10 female product advertising icons -- and the actresses that could replace them. That Mrs. Butterworth's/Queen Latifah one is hella funny. Now you: go forth and laugh.
- Driverside.com, which sends reminders for auto maintenance and calculates repair estimates in your area, is paying parking tickets off for 100 San Francisco inhabitants. Register at the above link and check back July 25th to see if you're among the scott-free parking violators.
- Gary Busey's objectively bananas, and here's proof. If you're planning to argue, I've got three words for you: stupid, misfortunate placenta.
- Neat water campaigns: submerged-society ones for Australian brand Insight, quiet dreamscape ones for Diesel.
- BooneOakley is behind State Farm's "Experience Peace of Drive" car wash campaign. (Apparently you also get a free massage.) More from the effort: bathing car, car and yoga, car and cucumber, car and candles, car and acupuncture. (Kinda cool. I had a fat friend whose mom made him visit an acupuncturist to induce weight loss. It didn't work, but he kept telling her it did because he found the needles soothing.)
Promotional video of the Fiesta Love Factory features people in various states of G-rated ecstasy. Those warm fuzzies are then conveyed out of their bodies and into a Ford Fiesta.
News flash: Coke's Happiness Factory managed to sneak by us, mostly on Coke's frothy reputation and the romance of Willy Wonka, but there is nothing romantic about an auto factory. (Or any factory, actually. I went to the Jelly Belly and saw sadness calcifying behind the taffy machines.)
And lest we forget, Ford was the first home of the assembly line -- which is cool considering it kicked off our industrial revolution and all, but those first assembly line vehicles weren't made with vicarious bliss. They were made on the backs of tired, underpaid mummies and daddies. Think about that next time Papa comes home and demands his nightly gin.
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