Madison Avenue veteran Harry Webber is preparing his ad-hoc agency team, DoubleThink to pitch the now-in-review Mitsubishi account. On his website, Webber explores the plight in which Mitsubishi has found itself including sagging sales, exiting marketing execs and dealer service problems.
Webber framed the challenge thusly, writing, "...what a wonderful challenge for the creative mind. An automaker spurned by its big three godfather. The eve of an eagerly awaited new model with a 7 year gestation period. An unpopular dealer organization up in arms. A quality issue that may have put the automaker in last place in US sales. The hasty exit of an iconoclastic marketing director after his public slap to the efficacy of network television. A president and CFO who has made a public statement about the importance of 'getting the most innovative thinking.' $200+million to spend on said 'innovative thinking.'" While the industry might scoff at such efforts from an outside group, this is exactly the injection the industry needs. Granted, Webber is, most assuredly, not an outsider but he brings together creative minds, most of whom, have never worked in advertising before. Let's see what he comes up with.
So everyone's making fun of McCann's talking head website today but no one's doing it better than Urban Advertising who feels a bit ripped off having created a talking head website of its own a while back. Accessed from the agency's homepage and called "The Oracle of Advertising," the site allows you to ask the "Oracle" questions. The answers are, however, gibberish - a nod to the industry's overused vernacular. Paying Homage to McCann's talking heads website, Urban Advertising has colored that section of its website blue to honor the "real" talking heads of McCann.
With all the publicity eBay gets for the odd bids that appear from time to time, an enterprising sole hopes to capitalize on that and help an advertiser out at the same time. eBayer Karl Voss has opened a bid for his slightly worn Nike Air Max Dolce shoes. The starting bid? One million dollars. Voss's strategy hinges on media coverage eBay bids occasionally receive due to of the strangeness of some bids. He believes $1 million is a small price to pay for potential media coverage of such an obscenely priced bid. Voss writes in the bid, "When selling grilled cheese on eBay can make the nightly news, imagine the exposure for your company when you buy my shoes for a Million Dollars on eBay." He states the price is non-negotiable and final.
Is there a stunt marketer out there willing to bite?
AdFreak pokes fun at McCann Worldwide's talking head website writing, "There are legions of ad agency web sites that have left us flummoxed over the years, particularly for their annoying tendency to favor art direction over features that might actually make their sites easy to navigate. But, we've never had an agency web site talk to us when we didn't ask it to, until last week."
What irks AdFreak is the sudden, unrequested pontifications that begin to spew forth from the mouths of McCann big wigs. What AdFreak didn't point out is this verbal diarrhea is so inanely bland one could simply slap the logo and design of another agency on McCann's site and no one would know the difference.
Well, we can't call them AdverCans because that term's already taken but we'll need something to describe the appearance of ad-sponsord trash cans in Bridgeport, CT. City Media Concepts has asked the City Councill to approve a proposal to allow the company to place 30 trash cans around the city emblazoned with ads. Oddly, the city would see only 10 percent of the ad revenue generated from this deal. By giving up that much revenue, you'd think City Media Concepts would empty the trash barrels for the city but, alas, that task will remain with Birdgeport trash collectors.
We impatiently await which trashy advertisers will associate their brand with gum, fast food packaging, used condoms and whatever else finds its way into Bridgeport's trash cans.
Talk show host and host of failed Who Wants to be a Millionaire Regis Philbin will host Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2005 as Dick Clark, who suffered a mild stroke last week, will heed the advice of his doctor's and skip this year's festivities. This will be the first time in 32 years, Clark hasn't hosted the event.
In a statement, Clark said, "I'm so glad that Regis hadn't yet made any New Year's plans. It'll feel strange watching it on TV but my doctors felt it was too soon. I'm sure Regis will do a great job and I'm thankful that he was able to step in on such short notice."
There aren't many, if any, companies, other than Apple, that instill so much product love customers will go out of their way to create and ad for it. That's what high school teacher George Masters has done for the iPod and the iMac. Steve Rubel points to a Wired article about the creation and the trend towards homemade ads.
Set to the Darling Buds tune, Tiny Machine, with a 70's-themed psychedelic look, the ad, which was posted just a few weeks ago, has already been viewed 40,000 times. Industry prognosticators are gushing with adoration. Jupiter Research advertising analysts Gary Stein says, "It shows great advertising principles. He's computer-literate, but he's also literate in the language of advertising.... You could take this thing and put it on MTV this afternoon. It's not only good, it's good advertising. People go to college to learn this. He just gets it."
Stein also calls this the first "straight-up," non-spoof ad he's seen.
We're sure Adrants readers discredit that by pointing out past "straight-up" ads but this one's good. Very good.
So far, Apple is playing it smart and hasn't slapped a cease and desist on Masters as many companies might if un-sanctioned ads such as this became as popular as Masters' has. For those agency creatives reading this, Masters wouldn't mind hearing from you. He'd like to work in advertising. And we don't think you'd go wrong using his skills.
eBusiness company Sundog has created its own little Christmas-themed Subservient Chicken site called Carol of the Chins.
There's no garter belt, it's very G-rated and they only sing Christmas carols but it's up there in the cute category. The company sent the site out to its customers and readers of its Sunblog weblog.
Seems AOL is taking to heart its own current ad campaign as well as NetZero's spoof and giving people what they want - more for free. AOL has decided the days of the dial-up, walled garden are fast closing and will begin to offer much of its content to non-subscribers in hopes of gaining increased ad revenue from new visitors.
AOL has always been the newbie crutch first-timers would use before they discovered the "real" internet and AOL has finally made that realization. It can't maintain the ruse that there's actually better content on AOL that can't be found elsewhere on the web. While AOL will try to keep current paid subscribers, it also hopes this move will bring more eyeballs to bear which it can then sell to advertisers. The change will occur early next year.
Read all about it! Get your Botox here! Yes, folks, there's now a magazine written for those hooked on plasticizing themselves or, at least, considering the addiction. On January 18, Boca Raton-based (no surprise there) Sandow Media will launch New Beauty with a circulation of 500,000 nationally and in 13 regional markets - presumably those which index high in facial alteration behaviour and breast size dissatisfaction. Published only twice in 2005 with a cover price of $9.95 (what, no plastic surgeons stepped up to advertise?), the issue will distributed to newstands nationwide including Barnes & Noble and Wal-Mart.
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