There's a new rant in town. This time, it's from the creative side of the business. It's always been known that agency creatives are sometimes pegged as egotistical and snobby. Usually, this is not true. They are perceived that way because many people do not understand the creative process that goes into the development of an effective ad campaign.
Rather than attempt to explain the process, I'll let the creatives speak for themselves. This website, IAmJack, has been registered since January 16, 2003 but this is the first I've heard of it. While it has every bit of attitude you might expect from the typical creative, it also gets it's point across quite strongly,
"Humans are exposed to thousands of impressions every day. So your little ad with the 20% bigger logo and the headline that could have--but didn't--risk offending three people out of a thousand sits there like the useless waste of ink or airspace it truly is. Right next to hundreds of other wasted ad dollars."
The site lets creatives write a message to anyone who ever killed one of their creative ideas. IAmJack will pass the message along anonymously and direct the recipient to IAmJack. There's a video clip that gets the point across quite well. The simple tagline says it all, "You Make The Widgets. We'll Make The Ads."
Take that you suits.
thanks to Alec Long for sending this along.
Airport Media has unveiled the world's largest billboard spanning across four lanes at the entrance to the Johannesburg International Airport. The charter advertiser is Johnny Walker. This board boots Coca Cola's London Piccadilly Circus billboard out of the top spot. The Guinness Book of World Records is on the scene. Via Cherryflava.
I sat in a session at BloggerCon led by Advance.net President Jeff Jarvis. During the session. we discussed ways in which weblogs, or more broadly, media created by individual citizens, could advance their cause. Many needs were discussed but they all boiled down for the need for an association to tie it all together. Called "The Citizen's Media Association," Jarvis puts forth the tenets of such an associtation which you can read about here. Briefly, they include the need for concrete statistics on the size of the industry segment, standards, legal protection and promotion.
 Coors Twins Kill Teens? Jodie Pisco of Reno Nevada filed a lawsuit last Wednesday accusing Coors of "glorifying a culture of youth, sex and glamour while hiding the dangers of alcohol abuse and addiction" which led to the death of her son. Heavy stuff for Coors founder Peter Coors to deal with as he makes a bid for congress.
Pisco's son, Ryan, was killed in 2002 after drinking Coors beer at a party and driving his girlfriend's car into a light post at 90 MPH. It's not all about Coors though. The suit also names Ryan Pisco's girlfriend and her mother. Apparently, Pisco's girlfriend let him drive her car that her mother gave to her even though he did not have a driver's license.
The lawsuit looks at Coors highly successful ad campaign featuring the "Coors Twins" which began airing during the 2002-2003 NFL season and has been credited with increased product sales. As the nation experiences a backlash ignited by Janet Jackson's boob baring incident at this tear's Super Bowl, beer advertising will continue to come under the gun for its envelope pushing stunts. That said, there has been a noticeable "toning down" of beer commercial content lately that started with the demise of Miller Brewing Cat Fight campaign.
The Drudge Report has a scoop on a page one story the New Times plans to run on Tuesday. Written by reporter John Tierney, the story will, reportedly, explore the future of political ad campaign development as illustrated by a UCLA study that shoved subjects inside an MRI machine to measure blood flow to the brain as they watch commercials. According to the study, Republican ads create a different blood flow than Democratic ads.
The study found Democrats showed more blood flow to the fear sensing portion of the brain than Republicans when shown images of 9/11. One researcher stretched claiming this to indicate Democrats see 9/11 as a plus for Bush and that scares them. One could also assume that Democrats are just wimps and are easily scared by anything.
As Drudge says, developing...
As if to prove his business acumen, Sam Solovey's offer to Donald Trump of $250,000 in a Samsonite suitcase during the final episode was, not unsurprisingly, a planned (by Samsonite, not NBC) product placement. Sam explains, "I gave them about a half-a-million-dollar ad spot on national TV. They won't let me say a darn thing, but I will say that the briefcase was promptly shipped in from the lovely Samsonite corporation." NBC is a bit upset they didn't get their cut from the deal.
Britney strips during her concerts and Christina Aguilera strips for advertising photo shoots. And so it goes, the pushing of the advertising envelope. Aguilera will reportedly appear nude in an upcoming ad for Virgin Mobile. Aside from the oddity of having a nude model in an ad for a company with the word virgin in it, the hottie has requested that the ad shoot be a closed set so she can reveal herself to as few people as possible. Perhaps Aguilera hasn't realized that ads appear in magazines and millions of people see them.
Friend and partner, Rick Bruner has recently launched Business Blog Consulting, a weblog focusing on the compilation, review and commentary about weblogs with a business focus. Bruner, an author and Internet marketing consultant, is also launching consulting services for those companies interested in exploring and deploying weblogs as a tool for their business.
Organized into 20 categories, the Business Blog Consulting weblog reviews about five business weblogs each day providing those interested in blogging for business a compelling daily read.
A new study, entitled TNS Online Kids Report, reveals 66 percent of kids 6-14 think its important to have boat loads of money when you are an adult. Other findings from the study include seven year old boys believing having money is important, 75 percent of kids earn their own money doing chores and kids spend most their money on games.
Marketers are chasing these monied kids by spending 508 million of their own marketing dollars to reach kids using pre-teen magazines and kids television.
Adidas is running a print ad that has angered some because of the copy contained in the ad. The ad features an image of an athlete with runner's thoughts placed over the image. Among the thoughts are, "Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be absolutely shagged" and "I need a dump." The offending line is, "What twat invented cobbles?"
Adidas has apologized but claims the phrases elude to the mindset of runners as they prepare for and compete in the London Marathon.
Thanks to Bill at ApeChild for the tip.
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