Sears is moving its account from one WPP Group company to another, After 43 years handling the account, Ogilvy & Mather will relinquish the account to sister agency Young & Rubicam, which has worked on portions of the account since 1993. In a twist that questions the point of the review in the first place given today's agency conglomerates, O % M employees who will be left behind after the October 1 hand off, may end up moving to Y & R to handle the account.
If you've ever wondered how many still images could be placed, rapid fire, dueling banjo-style in a video, this video which promoted an August 5 "Rooftop Ruckus" party for Portland agency Borders Perrin Norrander will answer your question. Collecting every hillbilly, backwater, appalacian, deliverance-style image known to man, BPN has stitched together a cliche of hick-like, jerkwater imagery sure to amuse.
If you thought advertising was an ugly business, New York magazine's The Most Beautiful New Yorkers may change your outlook a bit with its selection of 24-year-old Merkely + Partners Creative Department Coordinator Tatiana Moses as one of New York's most beautiful specimens...uh...people. Ad Freak reports she and her boyfriend were approached by a photographer who wanted her boyfriend's picture but she asked that her picture be taken as well just for fun. Oddly, she was chosen for the list and her boyfriend was not.
It's all good for agency publicity though. We're quite sure she'll grab more attention than these Merkely + Partner management guys.
 Joe Jaffe, upon seeing BMW's RFP letter to agencies, offers the manufacturer some advice. His advice comes in the form several bullet points along with a bit of self promotion for his new book which we really, really want to read but the post office, apparently, can't seem to find us. One of Jaffe's suggestions. While we haven't seen BMW's letter ourselves, Jaffe feels BMW is being "delusional, greedy, unrealistic or all three. You want an 'agency' to reach a 'broader, more diverse audience' on roughly half of last year's budget; you're looking for a shop that can create integrated marketing aimed at a niche audience; you feel the need to turn $1 into $5 and state that 'if you don't have a track record of creating stuff like this, this is probably the wrong opportunity for your agency' - come on, why stop there: if it were me running this pitch, I'd demand that the 'shop' come up with a 3-step program to cure both cancer and AIDS, and while we're at it, let's throw in ending poverty in Africa, which seems to be all the rage right now. Aim high my friends, aim high." Point taken but on the flip side, why aim low?
A little bird tells us the Ask Jeeves account, which is up for review, is now down to two agencies. There were originally six agencies involved in the pitch. Two of the four agencies which have been eliminated are Butler Shine and Mullen. The two remaining agencies are Hanft Raboy & Partners and incumbent TBWA Chiat Day. A final decision is expected within two weeks.
Hoping the proliferation of citizen's media, other wise know as weblogs, phone cams, video cameras and podcasts, coBRANDiT, formerly OBTTV, has launched as an agency where individuals can submit branded content where "commercial content should be about real people in real places." coBRANDiT defines itself as an open-source agency specializing in documentary advertising and branded content. coBRANDiT is paying $50 to what it deems "acceptable submissions" defined as "slice of life. Stylized, silly, serious...it's up to you. Keep it real, and keep it clean."
With the possibility of Bank of America agency Interpublic EVP and CMO Bruce Nelson leaving, the bank is said to have contacted Omnicom and WPP about its account. The possibility of a review for the $261 million (TNS) account is not being commented upon by either side with the standard, circular, agency-to-client, client-to agency referrals be tossed back and forth. More than a dozen Interpublic agencies could be affected if the account shifts.
Acknowledging old agency models are dead and to position itself as a leader in the "new way," Sydney agency, The One Centre, has launched a one million campaign, running in magazines, on TV and on the web, that places old models on the runway with the tagline, "Old models don't cut it anymore." While the analogy might be on target, the use of, very likely, wise and intelligent older women, basically says there's no need for wisdom and the only thing that matters is the new flash.
The One Center Founder and CEO John Ford justifies the campaign by citing his agency's in creating everything from glassware to furniture, T-shirts to shoulder bags, staff uniforms to print ads, websites to direct marketing programs, TV ads to packaging, retail stores to soundtracks, to designing multi-million dollar brand experience centers and concept bars.
Ford goes on, saying, "Advertising is bigger than just broadcast media. Advertising isn't dead. We just need to get more expansive about what we think of as media. We need to look for ways to express brand in everything." Oh, and along the way, if we offend and piss off an entire, and very huge demographic segment who has a boatload of disposable income, who gives a shit.
Vancouver agency smashLAB has out their creative juices, somewhat literally, to use in a new self-promotional campaign. The print campaign, with the tagline, "Our Creative Comes From Within," features images of colorful body fluids from puke to snot to well, view the campaign to see the other two. We're not quite sure what kind of clients a campaign like this will attract but, hey, more power to smashLAB for trying.
With the increasing automation of the media buy/sell relationship, there has been a shift towards forcing a square peg in a round whole when it comes to a buyer gleaning information from a media seller for consideration as part of a media program. It's only natural to try to streamline the process but when it eliminates viable media properties, simply because the media property can't fit its (very worthy) square peg sell into the buyer's myopic, square buy hole, that's a very bad thing. And, seemingly, it's all done, not without merit, just to get all potential media vehicles on the same proverbial playing field so the buyer can then compare them using the same set of metrics. Well, an apple isn't an orange and it never will be but apples and oranges are both, still, food worthy of consumption.
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