Yes Virginia there's more to life than advertising. PEACE, RESPECT, UNDERSTANDING... but mostly LOVE!!!

 

I mostly hate this poster but it still makes me think.

Yes Virginia there's more to life than advertising. After all we in advertising created that fat man in the red suit to flog just about anything under the sun and most rocks. Yup, there's more.

It's that time of year again to take a moment to simply say "Thank You"... to share peace, respect, understanding and most important to share our LOVE.

My LOVE is my family. My wonderful wife who supports a billion hair-brained ideas I seem to create in my little corner of my brain. My two wonderful sons. Each becoming awesome people. My first born just finished his first semester away from home at university... somehow he is becoming everything I ever imagined he might and more. My little one amazes me everyday... he embraces life faster then it seems to come at him. I love my family, and I thank them for being my anchor and keeping me humble.

Christmas brings a few great great and not so great ads. Some advertising agencies send out their self promos to clients or simple create that piece that will hopefully have them taking that long walk to the award podium.

Christmas brings a few legendary, great and not so great ads... maybe next year I'll start in August assembling a "Best of Christmas" since a YouTube search brought about a zillion ads.

FOLGERS - Peter's Home



COCA-COLA -  Snow Globes



LUCKY STRIKE -  200 Merry Christmas Wishes

This spot is truly in it's own class of copywriting... after all Don Draper of course proclaimed that "Lucky Strikes, their toasted'.



... and Santa flogging Camels

Guinness - We Dream of White Christmas

Some advertising agencies send out their self promos to clients or simple create that piece that will hopefully have them taking that long walk to the award podium.
Here's a few that caught my eye this Christmas season.

RETHINK CANADA - Holiday Piñata Bash 2011

Rethink’s Holiday Piñata Bash 2011 offers up the cool concept of breaking a pinata, but the real experience breaks some cool interactive rules... you can “interact” with each YouTube film.



BLAMMO WORLDWIDE - "hohoholdonasec"



Fold7 - Santa 'The Creative Director" (NSFW or Kids - some liberal use of the F-word)



The very best came from Droga5 in the form of a "Press Release"... gather attention at minimum cost... isn't that the ultimate? Droga5 announced it had lost their own internal “Holiday Card”  assignment to rival ad agency McGarryBowen who have won their share of new business in 2011. Well written. See the pressrelease here.

Thank you for following along. My blog has taken a back seat to my Twitter feed this past year. I hope to return to this space more often.

Remember, take a moment (everyday) to simple say either these two or three little words: THANK YOU... or better yet I LOVE YOU.

Highjacking of A Creative Idea... and Message.

One of things I offer my students in the deveopment of their skills as creatives is the challenge of doing a "competitive" advertisng campaign. The basic idea is to create a message from the number two or non-leading brand in any given category. The main idea or concept is that you can't mention the competitor by name or brand identity (ie.logo, product etc...)

It is often noted by the students as one of the most difficult challenges, but when done right it can create a strong brand message and often make the target audience stop and think before they purchase... at least have them consider your brand in the process.

I came across this ad when searching for some sample ads to demonstrate "quality" of this type of message, and I thought it was excellent.

Verizon launched a "teaser" ad for the November release fo the "Droid" handset and seeks to slam Apple's iconic smartphone on all the things it's perceived to fall short on, such as a lack of a physical keyboard and the capability to run multiple third-party apps simultaneously. In a play on the iPhone's "I," the campaign takes jabs at the handset with a series of "iDon'ts," starting with "iDon't have a real keyboard," "iDon't run simultaneous apps." The commercial ends with "Everything iDon't ... Droid does. November."

What followed was a unexpected spoof ad that hijacks the concept and content (video above)
I contacted the creators of the "spoof" ad to ask if they were students or basically what inspired them. Only known as "droiddont" who sent me the following message:

Nope not a student. And actually not just one person! It was a collaboration of three people - Ryan, Jon and Shawn.

All living in the USA. We all work in video production and we had some down time and decided to throw a mock commercial up on youtube.

Ryan and Jon are avid Iphone users, while Shawn wants to buy one whenever he decides to abandon his current carrier. While the droid ad was interesting, we thought it would be funny to kind of make a rebuttal to the whole thing.... and see what it would be like to create a counter viral video.

Since we all are into Video Editing.... Macs are pretty much the lifeblood of what we do.

Not bad... as of tonight (10/26/2009) the spot has had 91.203 hits for the spoof while the "real" spot has just a million. They are pretty good. Maybe they can email back and I can post there contact info if anyone is interested.

Currently the iPhone is dominating the category even with 100's of great alternatives currently available it's still leading. Question is for how long? Well the iPhone will not likely give up that throne, there are competitors who want to reach those who aren't 100% convinced or brand loyal (cultish loyal) to Apple. 

Facing nearly insurmountable competition from AT&T Wireless and its iPhone juggernaut, Verizon Wireless is capitalizing on the well-publicized download problems by airing a television ad that tweaks Apple's iPhone tagline, "There's a app for that."

Here is the "App"... turned "Map" message from Verzion, followed by the original "iDon't" Droid ad also from Verzion.


"There's Map for That"



Agency: McCann Erickson Worldwide

"iDon't"



Agency: McGarryBowen