Writing on TalentZoo as a guest columnist, copywriter, brand consultant and author Hadji Williams brings to light the rampant dismissal among major agencies of multicultural advertising and explains how "ethnic" agencies are brought in by AOR's at the last minute to black/Latino/Asian-ize campaigns only to have them end up looking stupid and perpetuating stereotypes. It's an insightful examination of the practice and one I can admit to engaging in having done my fair share of minimizing the importance of the ethnic portion of a campaign.
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To recruit for this year's Wieden + Kennedy 12, a school to teach aspiring creatives the business of advertising, Wieden + Kennedy has "hidden" 240 copies of a book called What We Learned, a book documenting the first year of 12, with creative folk around the country and with owners of coffee houses, stores and galleries.
Application instructions for Year 3 are sealed inside the envelope attached to the back cover of these books. This is the only place that the instructions can be found. Those that aren't lucky enough to be friends with Sagmeister or John Stewart (apparently two of the folks the book hidden with) can visit the school's website and get clues as to the location of the hidden copies.
The book and the school are being talked about here and here and we had a few things to say when the school first launched.
We're all for forward thinking and innovative new advertising models but Heller Communication Design's old but new "system thinking" model was too much for us to take so we're just going to let you read the press release:
CREATIVE SERVICES FIRM CHALLENGES TENETS OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES BY BRINGING SCIENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY TO THE CREATIVE PLAYING FIELD
NEW YORK - Taking a quantum leap from traditional marketing thinking, Heller Communication Design (HCD), a leading strategic design, advertising, and branding consultancy headquartered in New York City, today unveiled the agency's unique new approach to developing successful marketing campaigns for its clients. By adapting the scientific principles of systems thinking to marketing communications, HCD now has the capability to design what will be the most appropriate, success-generating steps for a client's overall communications program going forward
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Jordan Buntain sent us a site he created that's aimed at unemployed copywriters and offers tips on the kind of jobs they might try as they wrestle through the difficulty of being unemployed during the holidays. Several suggestions include becoming a Christmas Movie Screen Writer, a Street Musician, a Sandwich board Advertiser or a Scammer Spammer. By the way, Jordan is unemployed as well. Give him a look and give him a job.
Marina Dell Ray-based Ignited Minds wins the prize this year for first Holiday "card." The agency created a website for fictitious heavy metal band Karkis which includes a video, discussion boards, wallpaper, discography and all the other usual band site paraphanalia. It sure seems like a while lot of work an expense just to say Happy Holidays. If you choose to watch the video, be prepared to wait a very, very...uh...very long time for it to download.
The agency also placed an ad with the headline, "Karkis challenges every band in this paper to a knife fight," in LA Weekly promoting the site which you can see here.
Only in the whacked out world of the advertising agency would a stunt like this occur. On the evening of Friday, November 18, advertising agency Boone/Oakley, Charlotte celebrated its fifth year in business with a wedding. Creative director John Boone married his companion creative director David Oakley. No, they're not gay. It was just another excuse to have a party and garner free publicity. Well, aside from the fact the agency's fifth anniversary was being celebrated.
A ceremony and dinner for approximately 150 clients, guests and family was held at local wedding hall, The Extravaganza Depot. Marriage vows were read by agency president Phil Smith, and other agency staff served as ushers and bridesmaids. Oakley looked a bit freakish in his formal gown, which his wife, Claire, helped him pick out and get fitted.
Quicktimes of the freak show can be viewed at the agency's website. Since it's a fancy Flash site, there's no direct link. Click on About and follow the links.
A recent survey of 2,574 US consumers commissioned by Jack Morton and conducted this year found Gen Y consumers - also known as "millennials" - respond strongly to live marketing events, which they prefer over TV and Internet advertising. While self serving, the study found 70 percent of 13 to 23 year olds say experiential marketing is extremely or very influential on their opinion of a product or brand. Sixty Five percent of 13 to 23 year olds say participating in an event would cause them to act more quickly to purchase a product. Seventy six percent of this demographic say participating in an event would make them more receptive to the brand or product's advertising. Seventy four percent of 13 to 23 year olds say participating in a live marketing experience is something they would tell others about.
Whether or not Jack Morton is drumming up business for it self with this study is irrelevant. What's very relevant is the fact Gen Y, and other demos for that matter, don't respond well anymore to traditional media. The emerging field of experiential marketing - a fancy name for event marketing - appears to be gaining traction and success at reaching elusive, traditional media-averse audiences.
If you've done time in advertising, you know advertising award shows are nothing more than ego boosters for our fragile personas and a chance for us to get a group hug from our fellow industry mates. The Phoeniz Addys aren't trying to hide this truth with their call for entries promotion called Ego Stroke 5,000, a device that sends ego boosting thoughts into the brain. Of course it's just a cheesecake pan with a bunch or wires attached but it does the job. The promotion was created by Riester~Robb.
In some weird ode to the seventies (or was it the eighties), emarketing company eROI has created a silly little site called WearShortShorts on which office co-workers do, well, strange things while wearing short shorts. we guess this is some form of viral attempt at driving traffic to the company's website. Or, it's just a bunch of advertising wackos, sick of their client's ridiculous requests, letting off some steam. Other than that, we don't know. Oh wait, there;s a store that sells the short shorts, a t-shirt and a headband so you can fully don the idiocy of seventies cool.
Minneapolis-based John Deere agency Mackenzie is looking for farmers for an upcoming John Deer ad campaign. The agency wants "real farmers, with farmer tans, well-formed paunches, and tattoos." A newspaper article states male farmers will photographed shirtless and should be between 25 and 55. There was no mention of 35 to 55 year-old, shirtless female farmers.
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