Oh, I see.

Turns out these legends of the ad game are not looking to be my friend. Fine, I had nothing in common with them anyway. Apparently, you need to win some awards to get on their radar. That's why the Andy's did such a great job of selling their premise: Win an Andy, win them all. The campaign basically says that this particular award show is so prestigious, you'll get the other awards easy, and perhaps, friendship with the best of the best. So I'm off to register for the Andy's, since they used compelling content to get me into the season of awards shows.

Good day for me, friend wise

Looks like I did the impossible. I became officially, publicly friends with some of the greatest creative directors in advertising today. Now, I'm a nice guy, but this still surprised me. I'm so glad that all that ass kissing the last three years has payed off.

Click the pic to see the proof.

Latest Work

Here's what I've been working on for the last month or so. It won't air in Cleveland, or any other place where Verizon FiOS is available, this is for Verizon TV/Internet/phone. But Kelley, Aunt Pattie and Uncle Frank, it will air in Palm Springs, so look out for it. Sorry about the quality.

Cell phones pop corn. False, but I still don't think it fits the failure formula.

So this video is hot right now. 8 million hits over the last 10(?) days. And it was on CNN this morning. They interviewed Scott Goodson of Strawberry Frog about it. He noted what we all understand in advertising: since its false, it will fail. It's true perhaps for that company, but I think they still helped out the whole bluetooth industry. I think its compelling content. We believed it because we're thinking it: maybe cells could pop popcorn. Maybe I should get that shit away from my head. So the video itself will fizzle, the company won't be remembered for posing the idea and they'll be the guys who faked the video. But the other makers are now primed to play up the fear and conversation going on. Let's see who steps up.

CareerBuilder, Monster get to work

If you're agency's got some hard working creatives, get them to work on making this into something. The clock is ticking. Go.
Maybe this guy, once he's out of jail, could be placed at a new job, and you could be the ones to show the before and after.
I saw it first from another angle at Agency Spy.

Award Shows are Relevant, Dammit! Vol 8

So, I went to the One Show Interactive last night, Nikon and MRM Worldwide won a gold pencil for its project Nikon Picturetown. It's a ripe example of compelling content. They said, who better to taut the product of experts and afficianados than the users themselves? So they gave away free cameras and said "let us and the world know how it well it works." It spread like wildfire, and the users became lifetime fans. It's another step forward for these clients, who first dabbled with their D80 project, praised by new marketing bloggers like Joseph Jaffe . So the relevant part is this: If more creatives win awards for community based thinking like this, then more creatives will present it. And if those presentations are for forward thinking clients like Nikon, than our whole industry will benefit.

PS All this award show talk will end soon, I promise, the season's almost over.

Award Shows are Relevant, Dammit! Vol 7

Just an update. All the greatness and forward thinking of McCann's Halo3 Believe, that was honored with the Grandy at the Andy Awards , also won Best in Show at the One Show. All previous arguments that award shows are relevant apply here as well.

Award Shows are relevant, Dammit! Vol 6.

McCann was the big winner last night at the International Andy Awards for their work with Halo 3 . We've seen the ads, with the diarama on an enormous, detailed scale. It flipped the video-game-tv-spot norm of pure action and explosions and made it eerily quiet. But what took it further was the interviews of "veterans." It put a human face, a whole story to these video game characters.

But back to the title of the article: awarding work like this is good for advertising. It was a multimedia, highly interactive, thoughtful campaign. It wasn’t a goofy commercial. Nor did users didn’t have to buy anything to get involved, but it was oh so engaging. So, if we award work like this, then creatives will strive to do more of it, more of it will get presented, and more of it will get made. It's the natural selection of compelling content.

Oh, and results. The release of Halo 3 rocked Spiderman and Harry Potter.

Missed Opportunity for NBC

So, I was watching Today show today. They have this thing "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" It's a recurring segment where Matt flys to a new place every day (for a week, I think). And I watch, and I'd get involved, if they let me. BUT THEY DON'T. They gave a clue today to where Matt would be tomorrow. "This place is an anagram of a synonym of a homophone of a even prime number." Two, too, also, Laos (in reverse order of the sentence). Thats the answer. So how do I taut my knowledge? Maybe i could go to the site and put in my email (free data) or put enter some other sort of contest. But no. All they have is a Vote on places you think Matt will go. And you know what, as of today, Laos (on a list of over 200 Countries) has 19% vote. the other countries are between .5 and 1%. So that means of the 7182 respondents, 1364 answered the clue TODAY.
Missed chance to converse, since you asked me.

Award Shows are relevant, dammit! vol.5

More to come. I'm just getting the excitement started. I forsee another smart move by the Andy Awards to be more modern, making modern advertising the star. Can't say more.

Raconteurs website

The closest thing to analog on the web. Makes me wanna play Oregon Trail, or use the turtle to draw a city. Awesome.

NY 1, the first to Digg into news filtering

NY 1 invented Digg. They have a daily feature, been done for years, about what's In The Papers. So, I think that sounds like a Digg, in that they read through the papers, filter out what they think is newsworthy and then pass that on to the viewers. It (was) really ingenius. the papers get proper credit, and a story gets passed along, word-of-mouth (Pat Kiernan) and gets double the press, double the im-press-ions.

Just a note

Japanese movers have to keep taking off their shoes, right?

Feeling better about Advertising

I found this to be compelling content. Not sure, but I think its Deutsch. Anyway, they're giving people something useful instead of giving them a pitch. This campaign says, here's ways to avoid needing our product ((but if you still do, here's our logo)). Tylenol offers tips to avoid pain, and asks for nothing in return. That is a big step forward in thinking, and a big step for print.

Worth a giggle

It works for the target. It's not useful beyond a chuckle. It's not Compelling Content. And it doesn't tell me what's awesome about the product, except that the company is good at being sarcastic. I just wanted this here for my future reference (if ever).

Clickable TV, the inevitable is here

I knew this would happen. We just gotta make a remote that, like the Wii remote, replaces the mouse. No one wants to have a mouse pad on their coffee table.

It should all be CRM from here on out...

I Just read this on Beyond Madison Avenue. Wanted to keep it here. I think this is a good insight. Advertisers need to take all that leftover TV money and reinvest it into the customers. Then they'll say, it's awesome to own a Volvo, they took all that bullshit money they spent on TV ads and turned it into an extended warranty, free oil changes, or free roadside assistance for me, a current customer. I'll be glad to share this experience with friends and websites.

That is, have you ever asked a car owner what they think of the commercials for the car they currently own? Or did you ask them, perhaps, what they think of the car they own?

Kudos to Hershey's

In this era of product placement, especially in reality TV "challenges" it can get disgusting. But last night on Project Runway (look she made me watch it) I was disgusted, but respectful. They unleashed the designers in the Hershey's store in Times Square. Inside, there was nary an inch without a logo of Twizzlers, Hershey's, Reese's, etc. So the designers made dresses from logos or, in one case, actual Twizzlers I just think that it's smart. Its not compelling content. Fo' sure. But, if you're gonna do a gimmicky product focused challenge on a reality show, you might as well get as many impressions as you can. So good call Hershey's.