Christmas lols from @droga5 & @mcgarrybowen NYC
Every year agencies (read: junior creatives) struggle to come up with a quirky new way to send out holiday cards. This year Droga5 NYC simply sent out this press release saying:
NEW YORK, NY – December 19, 2011 – Droga5 today announced its selection of McGarryBowen as the advertising agency of record for its holiday card business. The hard-fought win caps a stellar growth year for Dentsu-owned McGarryBowen. The agency will handle lead creative duties for the Droga5 holiday card account.
“We’ve decided to go with McGarryBowen,” said David Droga, Droga5’s Creative Chairman. “After a lengthy review, we simply couldn’t ignore the strategic insights into holiday cheer that McGarry brought to the table.”
This is funny because in the past year McGarryBowen has won a ton of new business, some of which Droga5 pitched for. For a long time we have been considered the best independant advertising network and now the Dentsu group is starting to challenge that.
McGarryBowen responded by posting this photo of their offices:
“New Biz: Droga5, welcome to the mb family!”
Looking forward to seeing the cards they come up with!
So I’m going to #SXSW
Which I am SO excited about! I have a gold pass (for the purpose of getting into the overly popular talks) so I will go to some film talks as well as the interactive ones. No music for me, but I hear there are lots of free concerts so I’ll line up for those.
The highlight for me of the lineup so far is Amber Case, who if you haven’t heard is a cyborg anthropologist. She says interesting things like Steve Jobs’ death was an example of us coming closer to a singular conciseness. At the exact same moment in time millions of people around the planet were feeling the same emotions. This is Ms Case at TED:
It’s probably no surprise that I’m interested in a lot of the Branding and Marketing panels, just a few of the ones I’ll go to are:
- Building Digital Products with Passionate Users
- Creepy? Captivating? Ads in the Personal Data Era
- Don’t Just Sell Things: Change the World
- Hacking YouTube: Science & Secrets of Viral Videos
- How Your Data Can Predict the Future
- Skynet vs Mad Max: Battle for the Future
- We Made This, And It’s Not an Ad
- Why Ad Agencies Should Act More Like Tech Startups
There are a few alumni speakers who I hope to see return for 2012; Louis Theroux, Christopher Poole (of course), Felicia Day, Merlin Mann. I see Frank Warren is returning so I might have some luck in the keynotes yet to be announced.
I should also note this is my first time going to real America (Honolulu doesn’t really count). Bring on the delicious burritos, cheap makeup and oversized everything. After the conference I’m planning to head to San Francisco to see our friend David, Boston to see our friend Sophie and then NEW YORK to see what life should be like.
So awesome. See you there!
Occupy Madison Avenue
I’ve been following Occupy Wall Street for awhile but trying to keep my head down because I work for an advertising agency. One that services a big financial institution no less. I’m at the bottom of the holy list, some might say.
However when I saw this flier floating around cyberspace promoting “Occupy Madison Avenue” I just could resist the urge to post.
After all the protests were started by Kalle Lasn who founded a magazine called Adbusters (not Bankbusters), so why didn’t he pick off the marketers first? When I first went to London during my university years I saw a copy in some flashy design shop. By the way it was perfectly art directed and the insight of the content I thought it must be written by someone in the industry, trying to push it forward rather than shut it down. Suffice to say that’s not Adbuster’s intention.
So Ad Age asked Lasn why they were picketing Wall St not Madison Ave. The article is a good read, but it basically comes down to people hating on the financial bailouts. He does make the distinction between people who sell products and people who sell ideas. At the end of the day you still need the later in a functioning society, especially at a time of political unrest.
Some NYCers didn’t get this memo as the protest on the advertising industry is apparently happening in two weeks.
I completely agree that the advertising industry, more than any other, needs regulation and unions to stop top level greed and distorted representation. In fact when my BF who works in finance and I meet new people, they see my profession as the worse of the two. However no banker has brought as much positive change to the world as some of the famed mad men.
Unique thinking can be the best and the worst thing, depending on the idea and who’s there to implement it.
The workaholism, disproportionate pay and severe absence of women needs fixing. But at the end of the day we have the best careers in the world, we get paid to be artists. I think instead of protesting I’m going to try to come up with some cool ideas, but if you’re heading down to Maddy Ave then I’ve made you this great poster you can take with:
You’re welcome.
Why I’m not going to London. Yet.
Some of you know my BF and I were going to move to London this year. Originally I was set to sail in May but his work delayed us and consequently we’ve both missed out on a bunch of opportunities. I still have a flight booked leaving in two weeks and a suitcase packed full of candy for Vic at Sell Sell (dw I’ll post it to you instead). But I’ve made the really difficult decision to stay in Auckland for awhile yet.
For a couple of weeks I really couldn’t make up my mind. I could stick with a job I genuinely enjoy (most days) in a city that I hate OR start all over again in LONDON. And then I bumped into my old boss and he asked if I was “living the deam”. Even though it’s been a shit couple of weeks in this miserable city I realised that I totally am. I’m incredibly lucky to be working in the second best job I could ever imagine in the second best agency. (So until W&K start hiring wedding cake designers it can’t get much better right?)
A couple of my friends are annoyed that I gave in so easily, but I see it differently. I’m giving this place another chance. I’m going to make an effort to get involved with the local technology “scene”. I’m going to convince my BF to move back here. I’m going to be bloody excited when our art gallery reopens in two months. I might even start a hyperlocal blog about Ponsonby… but probably not.
Show me a picture of a squirrel and I might regret my decision. But remember London that you will always be my favourite city (until I visit San Fran and NYC next year) and I will see you soon.
Am I the only person who cries during a good ad?
Google and BBH always manage to produce astounding work. I don’t know what it is about these latest TVCs that makes me get a little teary. Parenthood and homophobic bullying are not even topics I can relate to. I’ll put it down to a true stories told well, and the piano music.
Does anyone else choke up during these or other ads? I should note that I don’t well up during movies or TV shows, not even the Titanic. Which may go to prove that the best writers make ads not art.
The truth about online advertising
I must say that I do love the shopping websites which target you after you visit. So that dress you almost bought then follows you around the internet.
If you’re one of 0.08% of the population who love banners and haven’t seen them already; moat.com and bannerblog.com.au are good.
Practice makes perfect (art direction)
Joelapompe is a fantastic website which points out ads which look suspiciously like ones from award annuals past. The interesting this is the copy cats are often produced to a much higher quality. As with everything practice makes perfect. I guess that’s why you always come up with the perfect layout right after a scamp has been sent to the designer.
LEFT: Swear “2 feet are not enough” from Mellors Reay & Partners (2007).
RIGHT: VOG Socks “on the web” from TBWA Istanbul (2010).
Ok ok we exploited hipsters in this ad, and freegans.
Well I owe @alexjcampbell an apology after I said hipsters are redundant in advertising. I’ve succumb to the peer pressure and there is a hipster in this ad.
Although it’s not just an ad it’s a piece of art by Tane Williams and it’s up for grabs (click here to enter the draw to win it). The best thing about it is he’ll get rid of all that yellow banky stuff in the middle and draw your own profile picture in there. In the mean time if you recognise a few of your mates you can upload the picture and tag them in it on Facies. I think it’s a pretty sweet prize, but of course I’m biased. You can see what Tane has done with the rest of the ASB tertiary campaign on Corey Chalmer’s Beeplog.
Reward your curiosity
If you’ve ever been curious about the original recipe for Coca Cola I’m sure this week has been a delight for you. Whether or not the recipe uncovered by This American Life is the real deal people seemed pretty excited about it.
I can’t help but love the Coke brand and everything they’ve managed to achieve. I mean Nestle, one of the world’s largest companies barely has a hold on Easter and yet Coke INVENTED Christmas as we know it. A celebration which has nothing to do with sugary water and for a lot of people doesn’t have much to do with “happiness” either.
What a great proposition for your brand though; happiness. In blind taste tests people often prefer the taste of Pepsi, but Coke is said to “taste like childhood”. They say the best thing about nostalgia is we only remember the best things.
There is really no competition between the two companies (at least in this part of the world). Everywhere I’ve worked has had a fridge stocked with Coca Cola products, including an agency who had Pepsi as a major client. (To be fair this was inside the giant Publicis building).
So what are my favourite Coca Cola ads?
1. The happiness machine was brilliance (if you haven’t seen it do watch).
2. I also loved the use of Facebook at Israel’s Coca Cola Village allowing teenagers to “like” things in the real world.
3. Being a huge fan of Mel Ramos I always hoped a brand would borrow his artwork. Which Publicis Mojo NZ did in 2007
Probably my favourite outdoor campaign ever was also done in NZ. I can’t find images of it anywhere (please send them to me if you have some!). For a couple of weeks there were billboards all around the country with riddles on them. Cream writing on a red background. The brand seemed like Coke, but the lack of white made me unsure. I was incredibly curious about what these billboards could be advertising.
A few weeks later they were replaced with the line “Reward your curiosity” and a Vanilla Coke pack shot. I was in Wellington when I first saw this billboard and I stopped at the first diary I could find to buy a Vanilla Coke.
Being Peggy Olsen
Disclosure: In the agency I work for men dominate the kitchen. It’s not a gender thing, they’re just better cooks. I’m not and never have been employed by a sexist creative director, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t met them.
Sorry to bring this up and make a whole bunch of you go to all the effort of finding the unsubcribe button in your RSS readers, but the gender issue needs to be raised. And yes, in advertising “gender” is still an issue.
They say for every woman in a leadership role there are five men. (Fair enough many women, if given the option, choose to look after their children full time.) But in advertising only 3% of creative directors are female!
There are a few theories on why this is. Women aren’t funny enough. Their egos aren’t big enough. They don’t work hard enough. They don’t ask for promotions. They don’t fit in with the culture. They complain too much about the lack of women in the industry…
I recently heard the worst excuse ever.
“It’s hard for me to accept that gender still matters today. Our limitations is [sic] the problem.”
That tweet synopsized a “women in the industry” discussion on Twitter. I’m disappointed we haven’t grown out of victim blame. However she does raise the question, is it belittling to talk about woman in advertising as a minority? Do we need female only… stuff?
I wouldn’t want to work in any segregated environment, even one that empowers a cause I believe in (tampon ads should be written by woman FULL STOP). And I hope I never make any career decision because of my gender, but it is useful for me to know which Creative Directors won’t give me the time of day because they see a vagina as an infliction. Perhaps rather than having girl only agencies, events and awards we should just have a social network calling out chauvinists in the industry.
Carmonica/ Harmonicar/ Harminica
These kids I work with created a moving pun. Jono (in the stripes) and Jack (in the blue) thought up the “car covered in harmonicas” idea and did not struggle to find eager creative directors wanting to make it for their clients. In the end Mini Cooper got to make it.
While I agree with David Farrier’s sentiment that it’s a bit annoying after five minutes I do commend the boys on getting yet another one of their ads on 3news! You can see the review here >
Now do Mini Cooper want to make my idea?
Merry Christmas
I can’t believe Christmas isn’t over yet. I’ve been working on it since November, the perils of being a junior in an ad agency I guess.
My first Christmas project was the ASB Santa Parade float for which I wanted to create a Rube Goldberg machine. Kids on a seesaw flip a hairdryer switch on and off which blows wind into a trumpet which plays music.
(Drawn by Russell Chambers).
Unfortunately we lacked money, time and OSH regulated safety features so the float ended up looking a bit different. However the kids loved it and everyone was impressed with what Three Sixty managed to pull off in 4 days. I was at their warehouse at 9pm on the night before the parade putting on the finishing touches (a black and gold Christmas tree) and then ended up in the car which pulled the float down Queen St.
The music in that video is Holy Night played by Alaska. You can download that and a bunch more Christmas songs by kiwi artists here >
Speaking of kiwi artists, for the ASB Christmas cards we worked with three talented ladies to create unique kiwi images. (Click to go through to their websites).
At first I was mind boggled trying to think of things which were yellow and Christmasy (cellotape, panatone, franklin rd), but black on yellow actually works so well for NZ Christmas. In a sea of green and red these will certainly be standing out on people’s mantlepieces.
As for my personal Christmas colours, this year I wrapped presents in tiffany blue with gold ribbons and used Lotto scratchy cards as the gift tags.
Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année!
BMW literally fuck with people’s minds in new ad
Amaze. Cool that they found two people in the audience who weren’t bothered about being mind controlled to interview afterwards.
And this is the new @asbbank…
Just in case you were wondering why I haven’t been blogging or leaving the office lately, it’s been pretty busy. You can read more about the campaign on Admedia >. Or see it for yourself at creatingfutures.co.nz.
These are screenshots from some of the banners:
Cute new Telecom ad (no really it is)
Despite my many ties to Telecom and it’s advertising, I am not ashamed to say they run some uninspiring ads sometimes (perhaps I can’t let go of Spot the Dog). But every now and then they let something special slip through the client approval phase, this is one of those moments:
Still it’s not enough to get me to switch back from the 2 Degrees account I just set up.
BTW can you please email me if this page is all screwy in your browser and tell me what you are using? It looks like HTML maintenance time again.
Eye candy from The Craft Shop
I saw a few of these ads in IRL when they were running and loved the design. Today I discovered they are all out of The Craft Shop in Auckland. So beautiful! Enjoy.
A fresh start for a family in need
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working at Amnesia Razorfish in Sydney. The project I was most proud of has finally been launched!
Just by looking at houses listed on the REA site you can help a family in need get a house of their own. Check it out at freshstartproject.realestate.com.au.
For every page you visit on the REA site you are awarded bricks. A little icon follows you around the site showing how many bricks you have so far. Donate the bricks you collect to the project by posting a support message to Facebook.
When 1 Million social bricks had been donated work began on building a home for a family in need. People who had donated bricks on the site and real estate agents could all volunteer to help build the physical house.
The work in progress was filmed and blogged about. All credit is due to the people who turned this idea into a reality, a real home for a real family.
Pure shit copywriting
During a lecture at ad school we watched a TV documentary about a team at Saatchi & Saatchi London creating a new campaign for the Brazilian vodka (apparently it is more similar to rum) Sagatiba. The first idea they pitched was around the strapline “Pure so you don’t have to be”.
It was so bad that for the rest of the year it became a running joke. We’d often get briefs for organic or eco-friendly products, so we’d present “B_E_E organic dishwashing liquid is pure so you don’t have to be” or “Arano Orange Juice. Pure so you don’t have to be”.
Anyway it would seem one of the jokesters from my class has ended up working on 42 Below.
PS. Speaking of Brazil did you see the two decapitated corpses on Street View? At the time of writing Google had deleted one (view here) but the other was still viewable. Pretty gross.
My experience of Mad Men-esk parties
Last week half a cow was delivered to the office, so we had a barbecue to make space in the freezer for all the meat. It got me thinking about some of the crazy things I have seen over the past couple of years. I won’t name the companies involved, but too be fair some of the wilder parties were clients not agencies.
1. When I was not quite 18 I went to a pop star themed client Christmas party. The night involved driving between different drinking locations on a party bus, really classy. For a lot of the staff the party ended at Boogie Wonderland, but for a few us the night went on across the road. I have no idea how I got in without ID, but there was no door charge for ladies.
2. Just a couple of weeks later the world-wide CEO of the agency came to Auckland. On a sunny Friday morning it was announced that the whole agency (100+ people) were invited to lunch at Soul. I remember looking at the pricey menu and freaking out because the entrees were more than I made in an hour. At about 5pm I realised we were not going back to the office and I was not expected to pay for my lunch or the bottle of wine I had drunk over that time. So it’s true that long lunches still exist in advertising, but that’s the only one I’ve been to.
3. While I was in uni the for-mentioned client hired me part time. They threw a lot of really fun parties over the three years I was there, but one in particular stood out. It was jungle themed and therefore held at the Auckland zoo. The entertainment; midgets dressed as pigmies (photo above). Need I say anymore?
4. Another memorable client party was hosted by a high end fashion house. There was only one beverage “on tap”, but I wasn’t complaining about the constant refills of Moet. The party was held in a series of marquees put up on Bastion Point, which has an amazing view of Auckland. The Iwi were invited and I chatted to a school friend’s aunty about how bizarre we both found it to be standing outside a Marae surrounded by the world’s best sailors and fashion designers.
5. To finish off the list I should probably mention the time I made some ads for an airline and my boss took me and the client out for dinner and drinks. In Honolulu. The night started with some casual cockatails watching the sunset and one of Hawaii’s best hula dancers perform. Afterwards we got Japanese and ended the night at the infamous Yard House. Which is when the domain www.scrotumbags.com was purchased.
So yes this industry is every bit as seedy as Mad Men makes it out to be, but it is also as incredibly fun. Most of the time.
Worst ad ever. Yes, worse than the “wash your vagina” one.
If you didn’t like being told that washing your bits would help you get a pay rise > then you will find the following ad incredibly condescending.
There are two more featuring Trevor and Ryan. (Via Make the Logo Bigger >)
They imply that a perfect man knows more about pads than you do. The Libra ads are hilarious because they do the opposite, make fun of how little men know. The boy who gets his period campaign was loved by men because they think it shows that they can write tampon ads better than women. I don’t want to get into an essay on how terrible most menstruation ads are, but these are prime examples of why more *talented* women need to be given jobs in the creative advertising.
I’m not talking about giving people jobs purely based on gender, I am talking about the creative directors who haven’t given me (and plenty of other ladies) a chance because I’m not “one of the boys”.
Or maybe where I went wrong with those types was not washing my vagina with Summer’s Eve before the interview.
The NZ ad depicting Muhammad’s image
A bunch of punks in Auckland have started a skate magazine called Muckmouth. Their website warns “If it still offends you… do not bother to complain as we still do not give a fuck about you”. Although I’d never heard of them until today their latest stunt is about to hit the international press (you heard it here first) because of this obscene sacrilege:
I can’t imagine Brian Tamaki’s following will take this very well, but no one has yet been killed for using his image in vein. On the other hand when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons of Muhummad, their embassy in Pakistan was bombed. One 75 year old cartoonist will be in 24/7 police protection for the rest of his life because of the death threats and attempts against him.
What shocks me about these designs is not the derogatory way these figures are portrayed (haters gonna hate), but that someone actually pasted them up all around Auckland City:
Surely a poster which puts lives in danger breaches the advertising standards?
The redundant use of hipsters in advertising
I saw some Haier billboards when I was back in my hometown, Ponsonby, which is now over run with hipsters. At first I quite liked them because they do exactly what advertising should do; make a purchasing decision easier for the target market.
But then I thought you can’t really claim to be a hipster if you buy cheap Earth-hating appliances made in China.
Or if you drive a car:
This ad like the Haier ones has some fantastic insight into the target market. Probably because most ad creatives are hipsters themselves. But my guess is the target market simply isn’t looking into those categories.
Hipster ads can be great if your product is organic or eco-friendly.
And small bright blue cars were best advertised when everyone was into azn street battles:
Stupid bank ads
Commonwealth have released a ridiculous bank ad. Their agency hired the director of Amelie (a movie I really love) and some how they made this complete garbage:
I thought that was bad, but I just saw this ad on a real estate site. I am a bit confused about the messaging, to me it reads as “No cash deposit. Actually just kidding mwahahaha”.
My new goal is to get a lion
My RSS reader has been filled with hate lately, more specifically hate about Cannes. I agree with the general rage especially when people can win by creating a campaign for an obvious product running it once and entering it every year until it wins.
But I want one. I have made it my goal to have at least one lion on my shelf. Even if the good creative directors, decent clients and angry blog writers don’t care about awards. Why shouldn’t I be sipping Perrier-Jouet next to the French Riviera? That sounds awesome!
But I’m not going to cheat to win, I want to create a the kind of campaign which inspires this in it’s audience:
(Disclaimer: for me to win without cheating the judges will need to learn something about digital.)
AT&T wasn’t so bad at technology in 1993
Watching these inspiring ads it’s funny to think that AT&T (and Apple) are now so slow at adopt technologies which have been around for years like “face time”.
It’s also funny to think back when these ads were made I was playing Heaven and Earth on my Dad’s Mac and none of the other kids at my kindergarten even had computers at home.