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
I was asked years ago what I did for a living. "I work in advertising".
Without fail, the number one response was, "Really, that's nice", then the conversation would turn to the weather.
My father and mother felt they could never explain what I did until I became an educator. My dad found it far easier to tell people I "was piano player in whorehouse"... okay sorry that line is over used but true. He knew what a piano player did, knew what a whorehouse was, and could even joke about the side benefits of the job. But damn, he had no clue how to explain what I did. Art Director? "He directs art... where does it go and how does it get there" no clue, and Creative Director, forget it. My dad just couldn't explain it.
So when I came across this piece at a great blog, "The Ad Contrarian" I found myself laughing out load.
Enjoy. Specifically you suits.
Originally appeared October 2008
I was thinking that maybe advertising was the world's number one bullshit profession.
After semi-painstaking analysis and consideration, however, I am happy to report that advertising is way down at number eight.
To develop this list I did two things. First I eliminated all occupations that are obviously scams -- like palm reader, astrologer, and economist.
Second, I used only one criterion in creating the list:
Do they really know anything or are they just making shit up?
Okay, drum roll --
The Ad Contrarian Top 10 Bullshit Professions:
1. Career Counselors: If they knew anything they'd find themselves better jobs.
2. Clergymen: God-bothering bullies masquerading as holy men.
3. Psychotherapists: Practitioners of the world's most advanced form of pseudoscience.
4. Politicians: Insufferable egotists pretending to be "public servants."
5. Branding Consultants: Why didn't I think of this scam?
6. Art Critics: Thankfully, no one pays attention except rich twits.
7. Actors: We tell them where to stand. We tell them what to say. They win awards.
8. Ad Executives: You can build a career by memorizing 10 cliches.
9. Financial Advisers: Monkeys throwing darts.
10. Third Base Umpires: One call a game if you're lucky.
He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college.
He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist and a farmer.
He knows nothing about marketing and had never written any copy.
He professes to be interested in advertising as a career (at the age of 38!) and is ready to go to work for $5,000 a year.
I doubt if any American agency will hire him.However, a London agency did hire him.
Three years later he became the most famous copywriter in the world, and in due course built the tenth biggest agency in the world.
The moral: it sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.
~ From a memo to one of his partners
There is much to said about the pioneers of our business, but no more then the words and wisdom of the master David Ogilvy.
Was David Ogilvy a genius? In 1965 Fortune magazine concluded that he might be.
David Ogilvy was born in 1911, next year would mark his 100th birthday, yet today his vice and his wisdom ring true.
How he ended up in advertising is still a story that remains legend.
As a young man and finishing his education, Ogilvy went to Paris, where he worked in the kitchen of the Hotel Majestic. He learned discipline, management - and when to move on: "If I stayed at the Majestic I would have faced years of slave wages, fiendish pressure, and perpetual exhaustion." He found his way back to England to sell cooking stoves, door-to-door for Aga Cookers where he crafed his sales skills. He sold stoves to nuns, drunkards, and everyone in between before his calling as a creative writer came to the surface when he wrote a sales guide for Aga salesmen (Fortune magazine called it "probably the best sales manual ever written"). He suggested, "The more prospects you talk to, the more sales you expose yourself to, the more orders you will get. But never mistake quantity of calls for quality of salesmanship."
His American journey began In 1938, when he went to work for George Gallup's Audience Research Institute in New Jersey. Ogilvy gives much of his learning at Gallup as the one major influence on his thinking, placing emphasis meticulous research methods which would later be the soul of his advertising career and the cornerstone of the success of Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather (which eventually became Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide) which he founded the New York in 1948 at that point he had never written an ad in his life.
In the first twenty years, Ogilvy won assignments from Lever Brothers, General Foods and American Express. Shell gave him their entire account in North America.
"I doubt whether any copywriter has ever had so many winners in such a short period of time," he wrote in his autobiography "Confessions of An Advertising Man". "They made Ogilvy & Mather so hot that getting clients was like shooting fish in a barrel."
In 1965, Ogilvy merged the agency with Mather & Crowther, his London backers, to form a new international company, and a year later he took the company public - one of the first advertising firms to do so. Soon Ogilvy & Mather had expanded around the world and was firmly in place as one of the top agencies in all regions.
Ogilvy retired as Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in 1973 and moved to Touffou, in France. Legend has it that he was no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the agency, he remained in touch with the agency sending letters and correspondence to the offices worldwide, that he volume of mail handled in the nearby town of Bonnes, the post office was reclassified at a higher status and the postmaster's salary raised.
The retirement was short live when Ogilvy came out of retirement in the 1980 to serve as chairman of Ogilvy & Mather in India. He also spent a year acting as interim chairman of the O&M German office, commuting daily between Touffou and Frankfurt.
He would visited branch offices of the company around the world, and continued to represent Ogilvy & Mather at gatherings of clients and business audiences. In 1989, the Ogilvy Group was bought by WPP which made them the largest marketing communications holding company in the world, and David Ogilvy was named the company's non-executive chairman, a position he held until 1992 until his final retirement.
Ogilvy remains one of the most famous names in advertising and one of the handful of thinkers, Raymond Rubicam (Y&R), Leo Burnett, William Bernbach and Ted Bates. These are the men that shaped and built the advertising business.
David Ogilvy died on July 21, 1999 at his home in Touffou, France.
Quotable Ogilvy:
"A lawyer may be able to defend a murderer whom he knows is guilty, and a surgeon may be able to operate on a man he dislikes, but professional detachment doesn’t work in advertising."
"It’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
"Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera."
"Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine".
"Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga."
The recently released biography "The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising" by Ken Roman hit shelves in early 2009. This biography is based on a wealth of material from decades of working alongside the advertising giant, including a large collection of photos, memos, recordings, notes, and extensive archives of Ogilvy’s personal papers. The book describes the creation of some of history's most famous advertising campaigns.
The following video Roman takes us inside Ogilvy's mind and his world and offered some unique insights into the man gained by years working alongside the advertising giant.
The following interview which runs approximately 55 minutes was conducted by John Crichton in 1977. This full interview is full of advertising gems.
The idea of this spot is so simple. So fu@king brilliant it makes you doubt you have any original ideas left.
Created for Aardgas KVGB of The Netherlands, a provider of natural gas this piece nails ever insight in a unique and cleaver way.
Concept: How to visualize the warmth of natural gas? How to make the invisible visible?
Those are the question you need asked yourself. It's Natural Gas. It offers warmth and comfort. You can't see it, but it's there and it works.
Insights and absolute "knowns" is what I like to preach to my young "AdLanders". Ask yourself what defines the thinking and "knowns" of the audience. What defines warmth? Comfort?
So the idea of “the warmth” and "what's comfortable" should quickly became obvious. Sweaters, wool, home and warmth. Now find a way to make this visible and touchable. The spot shows a very simple story, from early morning, a cold house starts to warm up, then the warmth spreads around the house... we see wool being spread around pipes, radiators, floors, stairs, walls and other objects. Even the hot water is transformed into soft and silky wool. The final result is quite brilliant, maybe even poetic in the way the story is told. Truly, the feeling of softness and warmth of Natural Gas is very well present.
The concept is so simple you don't need to define it... just enjoy the magic of a brilliant spot.
By the using stop motion film technic, all elements within the house were completely covered in wool and then deconstructed (de-knitted) and then filmed image by image.
Without question this piece will gain a great deal of interest in award shows around the world.
You need to check out the making of how they did it... not so simple, but what brilliantly simple spot ever is.
Back in 1988, Toronto advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather produced a series of print ads for Campbell's soup that used the same audience "Knowns" by showing a ball of yarn and a heating radiator.The campaign was archived as one of the best pieces in the "Fiftieth" Anniversary of the Advertising Design Club of Canada.
Credits:
Aardgas KVGB Netherlands
Agency: TBWA/Brussels
Creative Director: Jan Macken
Creative Team: Michael Mikiels, Eric Maerschalck
Campbell's Soup Print Campaign Agency: Ogilvy and Mather Toronto
Creative Director: Kevin Ravenscroft
Copywriter: Brad Myers
Art Director: Jim Brown
Life is all about making compromises right? This piece was brought to my attention by one of young AdLanders Jessica Giordano because she knows my love of the two "beautiful games"... advertising and football.
Careful when it comes to down one of the most sacred things left for guys... an evening of watching football (soccer) with their friends (as wel asl, a profitable beer occasion).
Heineken Italy found a unique way to speak to these men and seal their place as the number one beer choice.
Well that's what roughly 1,000 A.C. Milan football (soccer) fans thought they were making last Fall, when they gave up a nigth of camaraderie of watching a big football match last fall on October 21st against Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League. Give the evening up for a night of poetic musical and art.
Thanks to Heineken and about 200+ accomplices who were in on the prank which included girlfriends, journalists and professors. Each knowing that in the end the boys will get there desired, watching the match and Heineken sealed its brand loyalty.
JWT Italy developed a rather incredible and truly a brilliant "stunt" (activation) strategy, where Heineken Italy proposed that the “most sacred time that men have left” is at risk, when they devised a "stunt" to call out the increasing influence external factors have in pulling a fan away from his television and likely his friends... time spent with his lady. The event invitation was to go to a classical concert whose title "Calcio" was akin to going to the dentist for a root canal.
Heineken went viral with this piece, celebrated the sanctity of male bonding and created authentic engagement with its brand. In the end all is forgiven,and the boys got to watch the game and may have won the favor of their lady friends.
Watch this piece gain momentum in the Award shows this year.
Came across this "awesome"... no make that "FU@KING BRILLIANT" video project that is truly a game changer.
I really don't want to overuse "FU@KING BRILLIANT" or the word "awesome," it will lose its force. It should be reserved for only things that are just that, for only those things that inspire wonder and great genius should merit this description. So, you truly understand how serious a remark it is, when I say this work is more then "awesome", but truly "FU@KING BRILLIANT".
This music video was created for the "IN A CABIN WITH" by Steye & the Ottowanians' from Ottawa (Canada) using an amazing 360 degree view throughout called "VectorVision" using Adobe Flash with Actionscript by Amsterdam based Barcinski + Jeanjean.
Barcinski + Jeanjean an Amsterdam-based interactive studio was formed in 2007 by Mark Barcinski and Adrien Jeanjean both multimedia designers who first met while working at Euro RSCG Amsterdam in 1999.
While freelancing in 2004 the duo collaborated on commercial projects employing their passion for creating innovative experiences, ranging from award-winning websites to ambient installations in the physical spaces. As active members of the Adobe Flash community (FITC), Barcinski & Jeanjean contribute to open-source software such as Papervision3D. Thus began their love pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
Their newly launched portfolio website, www.barcinski-jeanjean.com, uses anaglyphic 3-D navigation to display the samples of their impressive work. If you have a pair of 3D glasses handy from your trip to seeing Avatar, your site visit will be even more interesting. Upon entering, you have the option of playing a little 3-D ping-pong game while the site loads. Even this very simple game is cool as a stand-alone game which they used rather than a "pre-loader". Trust me I would still be writing about it... it's simple and fun, excellent use of 3-D physics.
Barcinski and Jeanjean themselves are standing in a panoramic view of Amsterdam (which you can rotate 360 degrees by moving your cursor over the arrows to the left and right). The 360º panorama was created using "stop motion video" rather than multiple photo stills stitched together, which allowed them to capture the movement of all objects and subjects in the scene.
Barcinski and Jeanjean noted:
The vision for the panorama view came to us in while we were brainstorming on another project (the one for which we prototyped a spherical video panorama). We would stand in one of Amsterdam’s many beautiful scenes with everybody around us walking by going about their business. Around us our portfolio work would be hanging in the air in the form of paper flyers. Envisioning viewing that with 3D glasses being able to move around us, filled us with excitement. We are already familiar with viewing photo’s and movies with 3D glasses, but we can’t really say we had had an interactive experience using 3D glasses before.
Their portfolio samples are represented as paper sheets hovering in a ring around them, as though they were emanating from the artists' minds.
Enjoy the brilliance of these forward thinking designers and think of the endless possibilities.
Is it really a surprise that a over branded and fully product placed film won the Oscar Award for Best Animated Short Film? Well "LOGORAMA" did just that, and if you haven't heard of this or seen it you're in for a treat. Creative fu@king brilliance.
Logorama is a fascinating homage to the American crime movies (Pulp Fiction) with a subtle commentary on corporate consumerism and capitalist society. The brilliantly conceived short is set in a Los Angeles-like city and centers on two Michelin Man cops fighting an evil Ronald McDonald clown against a landscape of familiar corporate logos and mascots.
Featuring an action plot starring some of your favorite "logos" and "mascots" such as Ronald McDonald, the Pringles man, and even the rollie pollie Big Boy all set in a version of Los Angeles made up entirely of brand names, the film is a comment on how saturated with advertising our society has become.
Created by the French study H5, and directed by Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain,with responsible for its creation, took 4 years to have it ready (it takes 17 minutes).
I was floored, truly floored by the power of the each passing frame and intelligent the idea flowed. Simply, Logorama takes place in a world full of corporate and brand logos (in which roughly 2,500 appear throughout the film), and it follows a few different stories that all intertwine with one another. No better way then saying then to use the CP+B Burger King campaign titled ***KING Brilliant. It's, fu@king brillant, and I guarantee it'll be the best thing you watch all week.
At the Sundance Film Festival were it made its North American debut, people wondered how these guys could get away with making something like this without facing hundreds of lawsuits, and then we wondered whether legal matters would ever stop it from existing in some form online.
Personally, my favorite part is the "Dark Knight" Joker-esque Ronald McDonald scenes, but it's also the tiniest details that truly make this film a work of art.
I am posting this hoping that the YouTube Videos remain posted as they have been removed several times for copyright infringement issues:
LOGORAM Part One:
LOGORAM Part Two:
If it should disappear from YouTube here's another link to try:
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