Usually I'd embed a YouTube video, but in this case I couldn't, and for good reason. But click here, and you'll see the most inventive and unexpected YouTube ad I've ever encountered. It plays perfectly with the unique gameplay the ad promises, and I love that the little links all still work at the end.
Axe has a new spot. I like it. I don't love it, but I certainly believe it's an improvement over the broken record their advertising has been for sooo long. The "every woman will want you" idea is still present, but as a metaphor, versus girls suddenly singing porn music in the grocery store. Much better.
I love that this ad uses language from another ad, and that everyone just gets it. Random references like this only fly in advertising. And rap. And I guess sitcoms. Still, fun.
Okay, so Wendy's "kicking trees and making speeches in red wigs" campaign wasn't perfect. But now, as if the "Wendy's gonna get ya" animated logo wasn't creepy enough, Wendy's serves up this "viral" video:
Best of all, the website's only function is allowing you to give Wendy's your email address. Whoopie!
On a related note, the line "If it's not all white meat, it's a gray area, and I don't like gray areas in my chicken." is terrible. Just terrible.
Every election year, a bunch of brands decide to make fake campaign ads, because apparently they think Americans just can't get enough of them. Most of them are terrible. This one is not. Not because the idea is any better, I suppose, but because this guy is awesome.
Sometime, in some agency, a copywriter was asked to write a bit of copy for the front of the box of Kellogg's Corn Pops. The brief probably said something about describing the delicious taste of Corn Pops without referencing sugar or sweetness, because those are things that make kids fat.
This is a sort of follow up post to that Ira Glass thing from a few weeks ago - I stumbled upon this Harvard commencement speech Conan O'Brien delivered to the class of 2000 there. It's an entertaining speech throughout, but the great part is an analogy he makes for the need to succeed when all you've known is success. It's 20 minutes worth watching, but you can pick up the important bit by clicking the square in the bottom row, one from the right, or just by reading on:
"I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve.
Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.
I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.
So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over."
I think most creatives (excepting the not-over-the-top-arrogant ones) think this way. Ogilvy wrote that every time he got a fresh assignment, he thought to himself "This time, I'll fail." I think that's an important and even productive mindset. You think better in a panic. The best ideas always occur to you in the last seven minutes.
Converse may be wasting their money on big-budget singles, but here they are again, and this time, their efforts aren't a complete waste of ad dollars. It's a series of shorts (I refuse to use the fucking buzzword "webisode") featuring "out of your league girl". She doesn't say anything of consequence, but she manages to be generally amusing, and she's pretty hot. It kept me entertained, and I'm not even a teenage boy. This is how to get your target shopping on your website. And in terms of viral potential, every episode has its own url. Nice touch.
This ad is so far off what JC Penny should be doing I wonder if it's a spoof. Kids don't shop at JC Penny. Kids' moms shop at JC Penny. It's a department store, and as long as they're selling cookware, they're not going to be a cool place to shop. I think it's a great concept, just... JC Penny?
This is a recent spot for AT&T Advanced TV. I like it. I don't think it tells you why they're better than cable. But that's not the point. What I think is interesting about this spot is that Billy Dee seems to be reprising his well-known spokes-character from another spot:
While this is likely intentional on the part of AT&T's agency, I like to think it's just Billy Dee being himself.
Converse is giving away a free song, "My Drive Thru" on their website. It was done by Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D., and some chick named Santogold I probably should have heard of already. It's a great song, and an ideal summer anthem. When I finally get around to making a summer playlist, it'll be on it.
But it didn't make me want new shoes.
I'm all for offering the consumer something extra to bring them to you. That ingratiates you to them. But then you have to capitalize on it. Converse has made no effort here to connect the song to their brand or their product, except to suggest I come back for another (brief) visit to the (not terribly engaging) site and see the video.
I bet the agency talks about how many hits the homepage gets this week. But I bet they don't say how many more shoes were sold online.
They did somethin', yeah. But I think they did it for nothin'.
Because it's brilliant. And because it's Radiohead. I'll let the artist handle the explanation:
"I'm a student graduating from the Glasgow School of Art's visual communication course in a few days. This is my final project.
Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows" This was quite a difficult task for everybody that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that's played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It's pretty difficult to seamlessly mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.
This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from "Nude" thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.
Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition to find out how people would approach such a challenging task.
I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) "Big Ideas: Don't get any" I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to.
I missed the contest deadline, so I'm offering it here for you to enjoy.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead) Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX"
It's been almost exactly a year. Apparently I'm either working smarter or just less, and so I've decided to try to fit blogging into my life again. More posts to follow.
This blog is about a young copywriter's ongoing exploration of advertising and creativity, both through actual experience, and (mostly, probably) through the collected knowledge of every adnerd on the internet.
