Yesterday, ad agency The Gate Worldwide ran an ad in The New York Times which killed a bunch of advertising sacred cows such as "Never say something offensive in a headline," Clients should be charged based on hours worked" and " It's OK to act like a jerk if you're talented." The ad, which carries the headline, "Death to all sacred cows" along with the image of a cow with a gun pointed at its head, goes on to explain the agencies compensation system which involves three levels; idea compensation, commodity-based execution and a bonus structure that rewards both agency and client. It also impresses upon potential clients the importance of properly selling a proposed idea up the client side ladder which, if accomplished efficiently, can result in the agency offering a discount for time and money saved. It's not that these ideas are new but they are just packaged so well that it's worth calling out.
The agency's website includes seven "gateisms" offered as guiding principles for great advertising.
George Mason University student Rana Sobhany, 19, following the launch of three other companies beginning at the age of 17, has launched Inchoate, a marketing, PR and advertising firm in Springfield, Virginia. Her prior companies dealt mainly with music and she intends to focus the new company in that space as well offering services to clients such as recording studios, record labels and individual artists as well as nightclubs, music retailers and universities. She's currently working with George mason University to educate both the administration and students on the subject of peer-to-peer file sharing.
After wooing Neil French with a job offer, Hart+Larson, milking the buzz train, is now after Kate Moss promising her a chance to "take off her Choos and lie back, relax and think." She's also promised Hart+Larson will "play Twister together and then head outside to drink Coke on the stoop." There's also a video, called 14 and Wow, which, we're quite sure, has some inner meaning but, currently, it escapes us. Lastly, Hart+Larson asks Kate, and everyone else, to contact the agency at womendocokesodoweexiletheonceidealized@hartlarsson. Fun
For the launch of Minneapolis-based Pocket Hercules, the agency created a film which portrays the big holding companies and a bunch of overlording control freaks who are about the get the crap beat out of them by a new breed of smaller, more nimble agencies, namely Pocket Hercules. in the new world of advertising. Funny stuff. And, no doubt, more coming from that direction as holding companies loose touch with reality and become irrelevant. And that's just one of the ads in this week's Ad Age TV Spots of the Week column.
We have to admit, the Portland Oregon offices of Wieden + Kennedy are certainly much nice than their website. Check out the digs here. Not a bad place to hang out all day.
In a Slate article Seth Stevenson ponders the notion Burger King agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky orchestrated the Burger King Halloween mask hype which involved emails inquiring where the mask could be bought, a thread on Fark in which the mask was parodied and a BK Masks site was launched by CP + B around the same time. Coincidence? We don't think so.
Adrants reader doesn't think so either and wrote us, "Lets say CP+B were the farksters of the King. Funny, but is it legal? Can an agency Fark a marketing tool, and then profit by selling masks for Halloween? Although a bit shiesty, this seems to bob and weave around any kind of direct profiteering via manipulated personal likenesses, intellectual property, etc. But sending faux-inquiries about the masks to Slate? I realize that the inquiries where only that- inquiries, not hard sells. But the level of shrewdness here gets under my skin. I know this isn't anything new; advertisers have been playing the fool in chat rooms for years. But Slate is a major news source. It makes me angry."
Anyone want to add their comment?
When it is suggested an agency borrowed a previous idea for creative work, as TBWA\Chiat\Day just did with the Apple Eminem commercial, it's usually dismissed as coincidence. When it happens twice, with the same client, no less, notions of coincidence get chucked out the window. Artist Dane Picard exhibited this video artwork in June at an exhibition in Santa Monica located 15 minutes from the LA offices of TBWA\Chiat\Day. Picard's work, images of hands manipulating various objects in front of a black background is eerily similar to the recent Apple iPod Nano spot, launched a few weeks ago, made up of images of hands manipulating the device against a black background. View the work. Compare it to the Nano spot. Decide. Comment.
After the Neil French debacle, one brave agency, Hart+Larsson has posted a recruitment ad to which only Neil French need apply. Neil is instructed to contact the agency at [email protected].
As they were before, out hot friends in Miami, Crispin Porter + Bogusky have been given a little spoof treatment again, this time riffing on the agency's work for Captain Morgan and that campaign's Wake Up With The King" ad. Funny enough.
Latching on the the ad industry latest scandal dujour, ad comic strip site, Words & Pictures, adds their two cents to the crap-storm Neil French stirred up in a recent speech because of comments he made about women, working and giving 100 percent to the job. French was right when he told Ad Age he's suffering "death by blog."
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