Are you ready? Are you really ready? Are you? Are you ready for three days of intense networking, session viewing, exhibit hall exploration and all night partying? You had better be. Because if you're not, you're going to be left behind, sucking the exhaust of others who plan to hit ad:tech and make the most of it.
So we all know there will all kinds of amazing content at the conference. You've read about it here and on the ad:tech website. There are many fine keynote speakers, panelists and exhibitors for you to check out over the three days of the conference.
But let's not forget the most important aspect of ad:tech. OK, maybe it's not the most important part but it's the part I'm in charge of hyping and that's the parties. Hey, somebody's got to do it and, after all, you're going to need to party after 8-10 hours on your feet doing business.
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Writing on About.com, Paul Sugget has published an article entitled What to Avoid When Assembling a Portfolio. His primary piece of advice is to avoid going for the simple, the obvious, the easy. If you've ever done work for the likes of Nike, Viagra, Victoria's Secret, Red Bull or Wonderbra, leave that work out of your portfolio. Why? Because, in his opinion, it doesn't require much strategy or effort to come up with creative solutions for those categories.
He claims Wonderbra ads are a dime a dozen writing, "Big breasts, and the outcome of them, is a very simple idea to get behind, and it's easy to be visually funny and verbally concise." Instead, he argues, "do ads for bland products or services that have no easily-identifiable or unique traits."
He suggests an airlines, dish soap, a wireless carrier and we'd toss in anything from the business to business category.
Additionally, he urges creatives to avoid creative that looks expensive to produce as it could cause someone to think you can't work on a small budget. he says to make sue you don't stuff your portfolio exclusively with popular forms of media, make sure substantive ideas outweigh glossy polish, don't include anything your not 100 percent proud of and always finish strong.
- Hyundai is out with a very cool building projection video.
- MadMen (season 1-4) is coming to Netflix Instant. Subsequent seasons will follow after they air on AMC.
- In Belgium, thanks to a new Nutricia babyfood iPhone application, dads are about to get more involved with their wive's pregnancies. Whether they want to or not.
- The Art Directors Club has new inductees to its Hall of Fame. Joining the esteemed club are Ruth Ansel, Marshal Arisman, John C. Jay and Joe Pytka.
- Samsung, with help from Digitas, has announce the launch of The Smart Living Room, an interactive microsite that "makes movie watching a deeper social experience and engages the viewer in the world of Samsung televisions."
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Hugh MacLeod, a best-selling author and the artist behind Gaping Void, has created a custom, limited-edition print to benefit Lemonade: Detroit, a documentary about the revival of the city.
Boston-based filmmaker Erik Proulx has funded the making of the film entirely by donations from supporters of the Detroit story. Proceeds from the Gaping Void "Shut up and reinvent Detroit" prints will go directly toward production of Lemonade: Detroit.
Each print is signed and numbered by Hugh and artwork is available in two sizes: 15x18 and 24x30. Both small and large prints are available for purchase online in the Gaping Void Gallery.
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Playboy's The Smoking Jacket (yes, I write for them you transparency freaks) rounds up the best of the latest Nymphomercials out there. What's a Nympomercial? A Nymphomercial is an infomercial that is so sexy (either intentionally or otherwise), that you can practically have sex with yourself, or someone else, while watching it.
They've collected a few of the best here which includes Thigh Glider, Breat Stim, Easy Curves, Cool Blast, NuBra and Flirty Girl Fitness. Check them all out here.
This is a conundrum we've heard millions of times before. A client comes to an agency and asks for "breakthrough" creative. Creative goes off and conceptualizes brilliance. It gets presented internally and everyone loves it. But just before it's ready to be presented to the client, someone, usually in account management (let's be honest here), says, "I like it personally, but somebody might be offended. Just tone it down."
And therein lies one of the biggest problems of the ad agency business. Agencies are asked and are in business to create marketing programs that, to use an overused phrase, cut through the clutter more than their competition can cut through the clutter. Sadly, many agencies are more conservative when it comes to risk taking than and health insurance actuarial agent. Which is to say, there is no risk taking at all.
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To illustrate the lightweight qualities of the new ASICS Blur33 sneaker, San Diego agency VITRO put together a video documenting the creation of a 72 square foot floating shoe. The agency used colored lightweight balls on strings along with a lot of air power to create the floating shoe.
It's as simple as that, really. Of course, no shoe can actually defy gravity. And this fake one can't either. It's being set aloft by air power. Alas, this is advertising and it's all about making analogies which, of course, makes this ad perfectly fine.
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With its racy content and prolific use of curse words, this video, called Deal Maker, from private equity software maker Deal Market may not be on YouTube for long so watch it now. Because it's funny. Really funny. Using the bust-into-a rap-concept, Deal Market presents us with Mr. Deal Maker who decides to skip out on his date in favor of closing a deal at 3AM in the morning. Which is probably a good thing because the date looks like it'd be really boring. The rap is far more amusing.
It's cheesy. Really cheesy but we like it a lot. We're told, "The first of its kind, DealMarket is a one stop shop where buyers, sellers and advisors can get a completely unfiltered view of the global private equity market. Access to investment opportunities cost nothing and sellers/advisors can post deals for the price of a cappuccino a day."
Some racy shit from a private equity company. Aw, shit, we swore. Sorry about that.
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Red Vines Licorice is going up against a $25 million budget from competitor Hershey's Twizzlers. Using social and mobile marketing to glean a boatload of earned media, the brand hopes to put a dent in Twizzlers sales.
On YouTube the brand has launched product integration efforts with TeamStarKid's A Very Harry Musical which has garnered the brand upwards of 1. million views to date.
Using mobile, the company claims to be the first in its industry to make its products available on CheckPoints, allowing consumers to earn rewards by scanning its products while out shopping.
On Facebook the brand's initial 8,000 Facebook fans have grown to 83,000 in 12 months.
Red Vine's World of Sharing campaign has made it almost all the way around the world with close to 20,000 messages posted so far.
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The Pivot Conference which aims to help brand marketers and their agencies bridge the gap between themselves and the "social consumer" has announced its initial speaker line-up for its next conference October 17-18 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in New York. Hosted by Brian Solis, Pivot will examine brand's and marketer's increased reliance on the social consumer for marketing success.
The 2011 speaker line-up includes industry thinkers and top executives from Fortune 500 brands, innovative agencies who will share insights and trends in effective marketing and business and lowly bloggers like Steve Hall who publishes the industry rag Adrants.
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