JWT Dubai recently created two spots for the Helen Bamber Foundation. In one, Vows, a couple stand before a priest as if you exchange vows. Vows are certainly exchange but they are not of the normal variety.
In another, Auction, a room full of seedy-looking rich people continue to outdo each other's bids for the auctioned item onstage...which turns out to be a child.
Both spots do a decent job of twisting your perceptions and creating a sense of suspense.
Now we all know television ratings are complete bullshit but that has never stopped media outlets from hyping them one day and complaining about them the next. So it is without surprise the bitchiness continues to escalate as evidenced by this FOX News trade ad which touts its seven year lead with adults 25-54 while, at the same time, calling CNN and MSNBC pathetic, lame and half-baked.
The full copy in the ad reads, "* This would be where CNN & MSNBC use an asterisk in their ads to point out some half-baked on-time statistic to prove that somebody stumbled across their channels giving them a temporary spike in the ratings, which they would tout as unprecedented, earth-shattering and monumental. It's actually pathetic since we all know if they massage their statistics long enough, they can come up with something to make their lame point. But deep in their little hearts, even they know that FOX News is number one in cable and has beem for years."
Seriously. This from an actual television station. Did the entire television industry just turn into a bunch of five year olds fighting in a sandbox?
This just gets better and better. No, wait, stupider and stupider. Apparently freaked out over Facebook's change in TOS, the lame explanation of it and the return to the old TOS, droves of people are canceling their Facebook accounts. And it must be droves because why else would Facebook show a message that pleads people going through the deletion process to stay.
The message reads, "Are you deleting because you are concerned about Facebook's Terms of Service? This was a mistake that we have now corrected. You own the information you put on Facebook and you control what happens to it. We are sorry for the confusion."
Please. Make it stop!
And if you really want to understand the issues surrounding this; ownership versus licensing, data usage and other stuff, be sure to watch Alisa Leonard-Hansen explain it all on her I'm Just Saying Show.
Murray Newlands and I meet a few years ago at an ad:tech event and somehow got to talking, which, considering where we met (at a party) would be better termed shouting. To say that over the years we just kept bumping into each other would be a massive understatement. I literally can't go to any ad conference without seeing the dude. He's everywhere. Of course the fact he's got spike-styled flaming blond hair probably guarantees I will see him if he's anywhere in the same city I am.
I've watched, with a fair degree of jealously I might add, Murray rise to the top of the "blogosphere" writing about affiliate marketing and marketing in general on his blog. Murray is a remarkable, honest, and intelligent guy who contributes a great deal to the industry and helps marketers understand the value of blogging and social media.
If you want a go-to guy for tips about blogging, he is your man. And he's done it all in just one year He's got a magical touch and an incredible sense of what works and what doesn't. And he's everywhere. He attends and speaks at all the major industry conferences.
ad:tech's Jeff Valentine agreed once saying, "I see him everywhere I go and with his hair he's hard to miss."
If you too have seen Murray at some conferences, you probably already know he always ends up at the best parties. And we have the pictures to prove it.
The reason for Murray showing up everywhere soon became apparent to me - he seems to know everyone. With a long career in online marketing, Murray, along with his other accomplishments, recently founded the affiliate network Affiliate Heat and is serving as CMO and head of US Operations for carbon offsetting company Carbon Advice Group PLC.
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"Skaters," an ad for the Seat Ibiza, features a beautiful cover of Forever Young that made us tuck a chin in our collective hand and sigh, because we were thinking about Freaks and Geeks and childhood in general. Vintage footage of kids on skateboards only fueled the cozy flames of nostalgia.
Then there was this awkward cut to a car. Everything changed: the feel of the ad, the imagery, the sounds. And then our souls, which were floating up somewhere above our heads, collapsed onto concrete.
We get what agency Atletico International, and production company Agosto, wanted to do: tie the Ibiza into youth and freedom, personify that spirit in a vehicle that in some ways is decidedly less whimsical. (Not much wind in your hair, no risk of elbow-scrapes.)
But it could have been done better.
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Superfad partnered with The Martin Agency to jazz NASCAR up for the Sprint Cup.
The result of this collabo was "Dogfight," an adrenaline-infused cat/mouse game between two NASCAR drivers. It was cool, it felt intense while still being tame, which is the line NASCAR's always walked.
On the print side is a triage of pieces that look like they were drawn on the binder covers of rice rocket fans. One's at left; see another and another.
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- AdGabber members remember Lee King. Reading about other peoples' experiences with King brings his body of work to life for us. Also, here's a nice memorial from AdWeek.
- How Mac's Genius Bar experience makes loyalists.
- Hey, AmEx, that's not very nice.
- Twitter started out on legal sheets. Look at them, all innocuous and ordinary, like so many ideas-cum-dustbunny-conventions lying dormant under your bed.
- Old Kraft logo, new Kraft logo.
- In case you ever wondered how influential you are on Twitter. What's that saying? Being powerful is like being a lady...
- Food for thought: The top 10 chains -- Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Macy's, Dillard's, J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Sears, Bon-Ton and Belk -- had sales of about $110 billion last year, about one-fourth of Wal-Mart's total.
- Cow pee bevvies. Um ... yay?
- Congratulations on still having a job!"
The best investors are people that can see the big picture based on the little rivulets of action that trickle into it: hoarding licenses to all sans-serif typefaces, for example, right before Web 2.0 made Helvetica a star.
(*shifts feet in awkward pursuit of a better illustration. Decides to move on instead*)
To demonstrate is ability to see the grand tapestry by virtue of its many intersecting threads, T. Rowe Price tapped JWT/New York to oversee a pair of ads in which small events bleed into bigger ones. Meanwhile, a soothing voiceover compels audiences with its amazing ability to synopsize The Economist.
Production work by Psyop. Ads below.
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jetBlue's released a big wordy poster, calling out all the guys that used to be too good to fly with others: C-suite execs, "Underwriters of Mortgage-Backed Securities, Former Treasury Secretaries," et cetera, et cetera.
The bottom of the ad pithily reads "WELCOME ABOARD." There's also a separate section of the jetBlue.com site labeled "Welcome Bigwigs," which details the PERKS! everybody on jetBlue gets.
"The Best Seat in Coach" is high up there, followed closely by "All the Free Snacks You Can Eat." (Actually, that's pretty appealing. United's stingy about peanuts, AND they charge for boxed lunch.)
The WELCOME ABOARD, FORMER CASH-MONEY BALLERS!* effort is part and parcel of its ongoing Happy Jetting campaign, which loves itself some stencil clouds and ALL-CAPS.
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Feed Company sent us some online video magics for Frito-Lay, the good folks that bring you both Sun Chips and beef jerky. (They also own Cracker Jack. Now that's just impressive.)
Inspired, wethinks, by their own chip-and-dip combinations, the campaign premise is Made for Each Other. Each painfully adorable video features a piece of technology on that lonely and familiar quest for The One.
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