Professor/Program Coordinator/Chief Enthusiasm Officer of Creative Advertising at Seneca College in Toronto.
The Creative Advertising program focuses on the strategic planning and creative concept development of advertising.
As a former award winning Creative Director working on national brands in both Canada and the United States helped to develop my personal passion for nurturing and motivating new young talent.
My idea of this comes from Karma and the following quote: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
I wasn't sure I would ever get into this blogging thing... ever. But the time has come and here is the home of my thoughts, advice, references, tales, passion and feelings on advertising and the life involved within.
When I decided this was to be a "new" method or additional "voice" to my teaching, motivating and inspiring for my students and friends, my first thoughts turned immediately to time.
TIME! Something we all value and never seem to have enough of. That will be my guide. TIME. I will use mine wisely and respect yours, making the post relevant and timely.
So welcome. Spend some of your valuable time here hopefully to learn, share, be inspired, and maybe even entertained.
The Fine Print
The views, opinions, conclusions and other informations expressed in this BlogSpot are not given or endorsed by Seneca College unless otherwise indicated by an authorized representative independent of any of the posted messages.
The contents within are given by Anthony Kalamut for use as inspiration and learning independent of specific subjects, courses or college requirements.
The Ad That Got Me Into This Crazy Bizness - Thanks to you Bill Bernbach
There is no shortage of stories and claims of how Old Spice has rewritten the world of advertising, more specifically "Social Media".
This is an amazing "video" case study story of how the "Old Spice Guy" who is deadpan, vain and prone to unrealistic claims of physical strength and sexual prowess, pored on the charm and he's charmed millions.
I am certain the presses were stopped on any printing press in the last 2 months that was about to bring the world a textbook or "case studies" on How Sell More Stuff To People Who Don't Need More Stuff.
ADDITIONAL CASE STUDIES:
Take the time to check out the Wieden+Kennedy blog/website first for their own take on the press coverage.
Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ viral ad has attracted over 16+ million views in 2 weeks, establishing a new record for YouTube. Accompanying the viral video are these five absolutely brilliant and equally gorgeous print ads.
Each of the ads highlight key scenes from the the video. The print campaign has immortalized soccer stars like England's Wayne Rooney, Portugal's Christian Ronaldo and France's Franck Ribery in statue form. The slogans are tailored to each player and plays up to their unique abilities on the field. For instance, Rooney’s slogan reads, “Arise Sir Wayne,” as Rooney’s statue is positioned in mid-air ready to head butt the ball in the desired direction.
Most interestingly, there is a significant dose of revisionist history in the print campaign. I don’t quite remember Robinho being in the spot, but that's because Brazilian national team coach Dunga made plenty of headlines when he left world class star Ronaldinho off the roster for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Ronaldinho is a big ticket item in terms of the Nike brand world wide and there was little doubt that he would be key to the Brazilians but the coach had a different idea.
The Nike ‘Write the Future’ campaign will definitely has football and World Cup fans hyped. The campaign was created by Wieden+Kennedy of Amsterdam. The overall campaign was 6 months in the making and is perhaps the best commercial for any sports event. Interestingly, Nike released the ad first only on their Facebook page with viewers being able to view the ad after they clicked the ‘Like’ button. A bit strange, forcing one to ‘like’ something.
Located on the Cromwell Road in West London, Nike has craved the faces of four of England's famous football faces playing upon the famous Mount Rushmore which features American presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
The installation is 75 metres long, is 16 metres high and two metres deep making it the biggest "ambient" ad in the UK and is predicted to be seen around six million times in the lead up to the opening game against the USA squad.
The rock sculpture billboard idea began five months ago when the faces ofWayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and James Milner, as well as absentee Theo Walcott were electronically scanned to produce a lifelike reproduction of their features with each face then being perfected in intricate detail by a team of dedicated craftsmen and sculptors in a secret location Essex.
And the four giant faces, each weighing 700 pounds, and were transported and installed on the site in West London. The painstaking effort came before Walcott's surprise omission from the England World Cup squad.
The build at the Cromwell Road site took over five days to complete and will be in position until Sunday 20th June.
NIKE - "Write the Future" Cromwell Road Sculptures
Odd, but true Nike isn't an official World Cup sponsor. Surprised?
Anyone would think that after Nike produced the star studded three-minute "Write the Future" video Nike was a "platinum" sponsor. No, Adidas is the official ball and footwear sponsor.
But Nike is still the big winner at the World Cup. The "Write the Future" campaign broke the record for the biggest audience in the first week of a campaign with 7.8 million views and currently sits at over 18 million views overall. The original record for a first week "views", incidentally, also belong to Nike with the creepy, somber and strange "Earl and Tiger" ad, which debuted earlier this year with 6.3 million views in its first week.
The spot has a cast of international football stars including Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribery and Christiano Ronald. (Mr. Rooney is shown a future living in a trailer if he fails to catch Mr. Ribery steaming toward England's goal.) As the chart from Visible Measures shows, the video truly has international appeal.
Interestingly, Pepsi also is not an official World Cup sponsor, but its "Oh Africa" has spent seven weeks on the Viral Chart.
The "Write the Future" spot has now been broken down into various :30 and :60 second spots featuring various stars from the original.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directed an elite cast of characters from football and entertainment for "Write the Future" and was created by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam.
Call it World Cup XVIX if you need to but no question it is the worlds greatest sports spectacle. Yup, I just said that.
Consider that the opening game between South Africa and Mexico was watched by an audience of 650 million viewers and a cumulative audience of all matches for the 2006 World Cup was estimated to be 26.29 billion for all matches played. The 2006 final between Italy and France was watched by an estimated 715.1 million individuals (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). Add to this the 2006 World Cup "grouping" draw, which decides the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers world wide. The NFL and the Super Bowl hardly compares.
But what about the Olympics? The Winter Games aren't even on the radar and the past Summer Games from Beijing had a world-wide total audience of 4.7 billion viewers for the games, with more than two billion people (almost one-third of the world’s population) that watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. These are Nielsen estimates that are based on television audience data collected from 38 key markets throughout the world, including host nation China, the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Italy, and Australia. Impressive.
Is it safe to say that the Super Bowl is the single biggest single day event? NO! The Olympics and the World Cup seem to still hold higher numbers.
We in North America begin to take notice of the Super Bowl weeks in advance of the game wondering what the ads will be like. The host network begins to sell the spots the day after the previous game. Last week FOX announced they are more then 80% sold for next years game at an average cost of USD$3million. The agency and clients are already planning their strategies and public will be waiting for "who will have the best ad".
Over the coming weeks I will be posting World Cup themed or based ads. I can count on my Twitter feed for much of the "greatness" that will appear here. Thanks in advance to Rob Schwartz Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\ChaitDay and Dan HigginsSocial Media Guru at Modernista. Both have awesome website/blogs that showcase great creative work. Rob post his views and thoughts on "Metal Potential" while Dan holds fort on "AdScientist".
Since the World Cup opened I have posted on my Twitter and Facebook feeds many creative ads from major global brands like Nike, Budweiser and Adidas. Here are a few that have caught my attention. Also see my earlier posting of the amazing Nike "Write the Future" spot. The spot takes a Run Lola Run approach to the world cup of soccer. The advertisement features soccer legends Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Landon Donovan, Ronaldinho, Los Angeles Lakers’ star Kobe Bryant, a pingpong-playing Tennis star Roger Federer, actor Gael Garcia Bernal and even Homer Simpson. Truly an amazing spot, all 3 minutes worth. Also worthy, Check out the Nike Footbal Channel at YouTube.
So sit back enjoy, check back and see as I add more:
NIKE Football: WRITE THE FUTURE - Full Length
NIKE Football: WRITE THE FUTURE - Rooney Groundsman
Two weeks ago it seemed the world stopped for about 3 days when Nike launched a rather interesting "comeback" ad for Tiger Woods duringthe Masters Golf Tournament and now nowhere a word.
I took a week to post my thoughts and post my appearance on SUNTV just to see what the "big" picture would be.
What if Tiger won the Masters?
How would the days following the Masters treat the spot?
Well the answer can be summed up in five words, "He didn't and who cares".
Do you remember who actually won? No, it was Phil Mickelson and when it ended we saw what the PGA and the Masters organizers who needed to do for their own PR efforts, did so. As the ball found the cup, Phil's three small kids dashed out to the 18th green to greet dad and with his wife Amy and they hugged. It was a scene out of a Disney movie, really; Amy, a woman fighting breast cancer and all its medical meanness, weary, dabbing her cheeks with a napkin, waving to the crowd; Phil walking alongside her, teary-eyed himself. Only someone without a heart would find it hard to control their emotions. Tiger at that moment was being interviewed by CBS saying, "I never entered a tournament to lose". Cold.
I was wondering how Nike would handle Tiger's comeback, but I never thought it would be with this "message".
Here's what it comes down to. The emotional side says, "totally creepy" and "poor taste". Rational side says, a total "grand slam home run".
What is brilliant is the media buying efforts. The spot aired only on ESPN and the Golf Channel during the opening round of the Masters. Both the first days of the tourney are lower costs for media placement, but the news worthy elements of the spot made it the massive "Home Run" that it became. Rumors have it that the spot achieve over $200 Million in "non-measured" media exposure with the first 48 hours of airing.
THE RATIONAL SIDE
The "first" spot after a crisis, the scandal, whatever you want to call it, how do you or would you kick start what is truly "the brand" for golf at Nike? Tiger is worth over $100 million every year and Nike has a lot invested in Tiger. Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, stated that his company would stand behind Tiger, and made that statement within days of the first news reports of his marital problems. Nike's presence in the golfing world, its relentless march to dominate, is due, in large part, to Tiger's winning ways. He's the most dominant golfer of our generation and he's "just doing it" in Nike golf gear, and Nike Golf is generating $725 million in sales, after less than 10 years in the golf business. That's a why they stood by... very basic, very simple and worth saving.
In response to queries regarding the ad, Nike issued a brief statement saying, "We support Tiger and his family. As he returns to competitive golf, the ad addresses his time away from the game using the powerful words of his father."
Simply put, do the math. It's worthy millions of dollars. The "event" took place at Thanksgiving", at that point production of the 2010 golf line for Nike was well under way of in foreign lands. Hat, shoes, clubs and balls. With the Golf Show season about to start in mid-December there was NO WAY out for Nike. Tiger is Nike golf. For Buick, American Express and others their brands didn't have such a deep connection.
It's the same reason that videogame maker Electronic Arts (EA Sports) who also launched a campaign and game the same week featuring Woods has remained. It is impossible to redesign, animate and repackage your entire golf game product. The campaign is a online effort to promote its latest game, "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online." One banner ad showed Tiger Woods, in his familiar red shirt, doing a celebratory fist pump.
THE CREEPY SIDE
So Nike took the "we can make it right, but we can make it okay", really that's my take on it. Nike can't scold Tiger, nor should they. The Nike ad created by Wieden + Kennedy and in so many ways takes on a a "documentary" feel, rather than the typical a commercial one. It feels like remorse is in the air, damn, Tiger even manages to blinks a few times in this commercial. But it really comes down to the relationship he had with his late father Earl.Yup, that's where the spot takes a walk down "creepy street". Earl Woods who died in 2006, is summoned from beyond the grave to quiz his son. Earl says he wants to understand "what your thinking was" and "what your feelings are" and, as the camera comes in, even closer, Tiger blinks when his father asks, "if you learned anything." Sorry, beyond the grave appearance is one thing, asking him "if you learned anything"... please Earl, not buying it after you had your own skirt chasing moments. Yes, Earl Woods apparently had a checkered history in the fidelity department. The actual audio selected is truly creepy, the whole "Earl/Daddy" voice-over has been taken out of context, the audio used was originally Earl talking about the differences between he and his wife.
RELATED OPPORTUNITIES
You gotta love this "capture the moment" effort. Le Tigre, a polo shirt maker with no financial ties to Tiger Woods used a guerrilla marketing effort playing off the situation, Le Tigre unveiled this billboard in New York to coincide with Woods return during The Masters. The billboard features a red Le Tigre golf polo and the tagline "Golf's Original Tiger. For Those Who Play A Round."
The billboard, located on the West Side of Manhattan. This is the second Le Tigre Tiger-related billboard. In December, a billboard featured the slogan "Golf Needs a Tiger. Let's Get Back on Course."
MY APPEARANCE ON SUNTV - CANOE LIVE
I had the pleasure to be a guest "expert" on the nightly "live" news show Canoe Live that airs in Toronto on SUNTV. Host Jacqui Delaney offered up a summary before sending off to Martin Waxman of Pallette Public Relations (left) and myself on the right. A little early miss identification, yup that's me in the blue rugby shirt - sorry mom they called on a non-teaching day and that's what I wore.
Those watching the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in Canada saw the Wonder Bread Plus ads each evening that may have proved W.C Fields wrong and his view of working with children, he is noted as saying "I never met a kid I liked" and "Never work with animals or children", (Note: he secretly admired children).
On the last day of the Olympics, shortly after the mens hockey team won gold, Canadian audiences were treated to a rendition of O Canada that simply makes the tear in the corner of the eye excusable.
American viewers were treated to a pair of Walmart and P&G ads that honored mothers and the commitment they make to the development of young athetlets.
I was moved by the Walmart and P&G spots as they spoke from the heart the same way the Tim Horton's spot form the 2006 Olympics did, it captures the time parents put into the lives of their children.
The P&G spots brought 18 brands together for P&G's first corporate TV ad. The "Thanks, Mom" concept wasn't entirely fresh, Johnson & Johnson used a slighty different take on the theme for its baby-care brand during the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008. The idea was lead by Global Brand-Building Officer Marc Pritchard, who assigned independent agency Wieden & Kennedy of Portland, P&G corporate assignment, but virtually every P&G ad agency is involved in some way in the effort.
I can only say thank you to those parents who for the last 17 days gave us their children and their dreams to enjoy... and thanks to the creative talents that found these insights for their clients.
And it should be noted that after seeing these spots W.C. Fileds was absolutely wrong.
WALMART - The Official Sponsors of Moms
(Credits to be added)
P&G - Never Walk Alone
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Portland
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman
Creative Directors: Eric Baldwin, Jason Bagley Copywriter: Karl Lieberman
Art Director: Ryan O’Rourke
Tim Horton's - Proud Father (A Canadian Cultural Story)
Soccer fans around the world rejoice because the EA Sports FIFA2010 allows fans to play, manage and enjoy soccer stars Wayne Rooney, Karim Benzema, Xavi, Theo Walcott, Tim Cahill and Bastian Schweinsteiger, it’s a commercial created to pump up anyone’s adrenaline—soccer fan or not.
Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam created this spot that has been around "viral" block for a couple months now to kick off its latest integrated campaign for EA's blockbuster FIFA2010 game. This spot has become the "anthem" spot world wide. The ad debuted during the Manchester City vs Manchester United match in November.
The "How Big Can Football Get" campaign was inspired by the massive FIFA game play figures (EA claims that over two million FIFA games are played daily). The campaign includes web films, an online football community, a documentary and other elements. As the community rallies behind both the sport and the game, the force of comradery is more than apparent, currently the Facebook group for FIFA2010 has over 452,000 fans.
File under Brilliant.
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam
Client: EA Sports
Year: 2009
"THIS IS NOT ONLY THE BEST FILM ABOUT ADVERTISING, IT MAY JUST BECOME THE BEST RECRUITMENT FILM EVER MADE FOR THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY" - A View From An AdGuy
"AFTER SEEING ART©, WHO WOULDN'T FEEL INSPIRED" - A View From An AdGuy
Toronto Screening - HotDocs Sunday May 3rd, 2009 - 4pm Isabel Bader Theatre
This film turned out to be much more then expected.
I am not 100% sure what I expected after I viewed a 12 minute trailer at Shift Disturbers this past week, but it really was much more then a “History of Advertising”. Art & Copy is a perfect combination of ad clips and interviews.
From the opening sequence focusing on the primitive cave art, this certainly was a way to pay homage to Marshall McLuhan who described advertising this way; "Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century", and then immediately introducing us to a third generation “poster rotator”, who seems to be a “golden thread” throughout the film. We meet this young man who has a simple job, changing endless billboard ads. His great grandfather did it, and so on. He claims to have never met any of the creators of the ads his families long history has posted, but thanks them all when he proclaims; “for generations nobody in my family has ever been unemployed”.
Director Doug Pray takes us on a passage of those who created and lived the business during the golden “Creative Revolution” of DDB and Bill Bernbach, Mary Wells Lawrence, Phyllis Robinson and the legendary George Lois. Ah those who planted the seeds of today’s creative evolution.
And why shouldn't the craft of advertising be admired? "Art & Copy" begins in the late '50s and early '60s as big thinkers on Madison Avenue came up with the idea of pairing copywriters and art directors, melding a business necessity with creative talent.
Mr. Pray offers up a perfect Q&A with some of the greatest names in the field and recounts their successes. The interviews with titans of today like Dan Wieden, Hal Riney, David Kennedy, Lee Clow, Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby make it a complete celebration of creativity. Great advertising is great because it's great creative thinking and Art & Copy is essentially, an ad for advertising -- all of the attractive features of the business are shown in a glorious and shining light, with very little left unasked unless of course, you are a critic of the advertising industry. There have been a few critics of the film, which may come from the fact that the majority of support for Mr. Pray’s film came largely form The One Club, a non-profit dedicated to the craft of advertising based in New York.
Art & Copy offers that great advertising can be great art; great advertising can be artistic, to be sure, but the best ad in the world still has to sell. It’s a pretty simple mantra; “it ain’t creative unless it sells something”.
Many of the great moments of Art & Copy (and believe me I could listen to the rough, give-'em-hell George Lois for hours) came when hearing how many of the icon campaigns were created. Mr Lois is really offers the greatest moments in the film... too many quotable's to list here. He is truly "bow" that finishes the gift this film is. To learn now that Nike’s iconic “Just Do It” came from a headline when Utah convicted murder Gary Gilmore’s final words to his executioners, “Let’s Do It”, gave proof an idea can be found anywhere. I am sure Nike doesn’t have this story in its history books. The film is full of these little antidotes. As each is spoken, it really make the film worthy of our time.
It's unclear if advertising today is better than ever before, but we're certainly in the Golden Age of celebrating the Ad Man and it’s easy to see why AMC's "Mad Men," perhaps TV's finest “advertising based” show or TNT's recently cancelled "Trust Me" are so well received by the general public.
Art & Copy gives a very realistic portrait of the advertising world. It is likely the best recruitment film made.
The film will begin national screenings on August 21st when it goes into major distribution. In Canada the film is distributed by Mongrel Media of Toronto.
Art & Copy will have two more “exclusive” screenings in Toronto later this month when presented by 27Marbles. These screenings will be held at the Royal Theater (608 College at Clinton St.) on May 25th and 26th. The first evening is an “industry screening” at 7pm with all profits supporting Art Building Children’s Dreams (ABCD), a grassroots, not-for-profit, charity that uses art to fund the education of third world children. (www.abcdreams.ca). Tickets are $15 and must be purchased in advance online (click on logo below for ticket purchase). The second evening is a "student only" screening and tickets are available by contacting Stacey Farber at sfarber@icacanada.ca.
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