We were going to sit back and take the high road on this competition, letting things flow organically but, what the hell, AdFreak isn't and the competition is a battle after all so we're bringing out the guns. Let's show the industry a small upstart like Adrants can crush the big VNU-backed AdFreak. But let's remember it's all in good fun. To bring you up to speed, Adrants was named a contender in AdLand's Battle of the Ad Blogs in the Best Commercial Ad Blog category. We are joined in that category by some other very fine ad blogs including Adhurl, AdJab, the aforementioned AdFreak, MarketingVOX, The Spunker and Fast Company. We're honored to be among such a fine collection of fellow advertising opinionites but we're confident Adrants readers will rally to the cause of standing up for the little guy...even though we're not really all that little anymore, mind you.
So drag your mouse over to the Battle of the Ad Blogs, scroll down to the Best Commercial Ad Blog category, vote for Adrants and smoke AdFreak's ass.
Through a partnership with Portfolios.com, Adrants has launched Adrants Portfolios, a service for creatives to exhibit their portfolios and get it seen by hiring companies and for companies in search of creative talent to easily search a large database of creative portfolios and find the right creative for the job. If you are a creative, of course you already have your own website with all your brilliant work on it but no one's going to see it unless there's qualified eyeballs pointed towards it. That's exactly what the Portfolios service will do for you. Your work will be hosted on Portfolios.com and you will be able to point searchers to your own website as well.
For companies seeking a designer, illustrator, photographer, art director or other creative talent for an upcoming project, the databased can be freely search by various criteria yielding the right talent for the job. Yes, it does cost money ($9.95 - $49.95 per month) for creatives to join but it's a far more efficient method of getting your work seen that aimlessly emailing and calling marketers and clients who never return your phone calls. Give it a try. You can check it out here or access it from the Portfolios link which will always be at the top of all Adrants pages.
It sure would be nice to live is a world without advertising but until aliens land and introduce an entirely new economic system, advertising will continue to make the world go 'round. We appreciate that there should always be a wall between advertising and editorial but we don't subscribe to the notion that advertising devalues content as do the folks over at Ad-Free Blog. The group places blogs on a pedestal and claims that advertising on blogs devalues the medium. Again, we could go into our tirade about how blogging is just a really easy way to publish a website and not this new uber-religion it's made out to be but will spare you that tired rant.
Contrary to the groups mantra, all blogs should not be ad-free. If all blogs should be ad-free, why not all websites? Why not all media? Why should blogs be held to this artificially higher standard? If the group is so adamant about advertising devaluing blogs, shouldn't they be out trying to stop advertising from devaluing all media? Climb out of the clouds and smell the real world.
We in the editorial department of Adrants are saddened to note our advertising department has, against our better judgment, decided to accept an ad promoting the much-maligned Pherotones campaign from McKinney-Silver. While we understand advertising supports this site and, generally, makes the world go 'round, our pompous rantings at the doorway of our sales director were brushed off with a quick "go pointlessly bitch about another lame viral campaign. They pay for your ass, you idiot!" Our ego bruised, it is with our utmost apologies, dear readers, that we subject you to the hypocrisy Adrants has thrust upon you.
Self-promotion is for losers unless, of course, it's yourself you're promoting so we, unabashedly, will share with you that Adrants has received a complimentary nod from MediaPost's MEDIA magazine along with Adjab, Adverblog, AdPulp and Freshglue. We like to noteriety and the company and love what author Liz Tascio had to write about Adrants.
"Written by marketing expert Steve Hall, this blog ranks as one of the superpowers, lauded by Forbes, Advertising Age, and the Wall Street Journal. Hall sets the tone with a kitschy martini glass in the banner and cheeky posts, and offers brief, savvy hits on innovative campaigns, industry news and research, and a little dish. You always feel like you've learned something, and that it was fun. Hall also collects weird marketing arcana - like the fact that Clark, Texas, changed its name to 'Dish' in exchange for free cable."
We're just going to bask in all that adoration with a mid-morning martini. Why don't you all grab one too because without you, there'd be no Adrants martini glass in the first place. Many thanks to all.
Well we've sat around long enough debating whether or not to launch a podcast and, as is usually the case around here, we need a swift kick in the ass to get moving on just about everything. That swift kick came from Joe Jaffe, founder and co-host of Across the Sound, a podcast about new marketing, media and PR. Since his co-host, Steve Rubel has moved on, Joe has invited a few ad industry folks - UnderScore Marketing President Tom Hespos, The M-Show host John Wall, Carat Fusion Business Development Director John Durham and us...us being Adrants Founder Steve Hall - to guest host the show. Our appearance should air in the second week of January.
It's not a permanent gig but it will be our first foray into another form of self expression. Since we seem to have so much to say here, another channel through which to shovel our babble might be a good thing. Or, it could be a disaster and we'll go down publicly as a blubbering idiot with a serious case of verbal diarrhea. But, either way, it should be great entertainment for you so subscribe to Across the Sound now so you don't miss one minute of our rise to podcast fame or decline into podcast flame.
Oh, it had to happen sooner or later. It's not as though we haven't made errors before but today we made a big one when we poked fun at MWW Group for launching a blogging practice called Blog 360 and chastised the agency for announcing the service but not listing it on their website. We were wrong on both counts. First, MWW Group didn't launch a blogging practice today; they launched it 11 months ago in January. Apparently, our press release and RSS feed funnel dates were a bit out of whack today. Secondly, the practice, which was later re-branded DialogueMedia is, in fact listed on the MWW Group site as plain as day.
Had we done our research properly, this never would have happened. We apologize profusely to the fine folks at MWW Group for unnecessarily bothering them with our stupidity. Had our head been on straight today, we would have told you MWW Group gets the whole blogging thing and practices what they preach. We would have pointed out MWW Group President and CEO Michael Kempner publishes a company blog called Straight Talk. Also, had we been concentrating on more serious news rather than condoms covering buildings, pole dancers in elevators and Lynx Deodorant's attempt to launch an airline, we would have told you MWW Group New Media Strategies Director and head of DialogueMedia Tom Biro also blogs for the company insightfully and informatively at Open The Dialogue.
Once again, we apologize to MWW Group for unnecessarily dragging them through our drawers. We understand if you, and the rest of our readers, place our credibility in the toilet for a few days.
In a November 16, 2005 Wall Street Journal article, "What the In-Crowd Knows: From Hollywood to Wall Street, Our Guide to the Blogs Insiders Read to Stay Current." Adrants was named, "One of the best ways to keep up on Madison Avenue's ups and downs. Published by Steve Hall, a former ad-agency employee, Adrants covers topics ranging from urinal advertising to the news of the day, all with a bemused tone. The site also provides links to breaking-news stories featured by other Web publications. John Osborn, president and chief executive of the New York office of Omnicom Group's BBDO Worldwide, is a fan." We humbly thank Brian Steinberg from the world's foremost business publication and Mr. Osborn for their kind acknowledgments.
Following a recent post about those Weapons of Mass Distraction, Bitch Lab, with insightful, literary perfection, called Adrants "The ad-we're almost sorta hip-rants blog." Never before have we been described so perfectly if we do say so ourselves. Thanks, Bitch. We're gonna use this in our media kit now.
 A Happy ad:tech Couple OK. We're back. It was fun. We learned a lot. We met a lot of new people and had great fun with friends. We cruised the exhibit hall floor. We attended and reported on tons of informative sessions. And we didn't sleep just so you could vicariously party hop with us.
You heard all about it here but there was a three day gap in our usual rantings so today, albeit a bit late, we're back at it. Stay tuned as we poor through all those tips you've sent us over the past few days and serve them up with our usual flair.
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