Monday, March 10, 2014

Is the new Cadillac ELR ad offensive?




I was browsing one of my favorite websites, Quora, and I saw this offensive or not ad discussion started by Kevin Baker.

I don't think it's offensive; I think it gives an otherwise mundane hybrid car an attitude.  After all, the Cadillac ELR is a Chevrolet Volt that's heavier and more luxurious.

Outspoken marketing is nothing new as Microsoft has done with "Bing it on" versus Google and T-Mobile has done that with "Un-carrier" versus AT&T.




Tom WillsTom Wills
Hate politics. Always vote.
1 Vote by Neel Kumar.


It's pretty ignorant, but life is too short to get offended. Brainlessness is the norm in advertising anyway - always has been. Best to ignore this kind of thing and move on ... our time is too valuable. By giving it our attention, we give undeserved value to worthless things like this.
  

Answered in twenty minutes.


Dan ZhangDan Zhang
Computer Engineering PhD student at UT Austin
1 Vote by Kelly Good.


I think the ad is sorta offensive. Americans have indeed done great things, but we went to the moon on the talent of engineers and researchers, not douchebag "Alpha males" driving Cadillacs.
  

Answered in eighteen minutes.


Neel KumarNeel Kumar
Geek/Foodie/Traveler/Genealogist/Money Coach/Dr... (more) 


I am DEEPLY offended.  But not for the reasons you think.

I am offended that the ad company thinks that this crappy ad would make me even want to test drive this crappy car.  The shitty schtick of shitting on the French (freedom fries, anyone?) got old 20 years back.  If this is the best you can do, please give me your contact info so that I can make sure I do not bother to watch anything you make, EVER!
  

Monday, March 18, 2013

New form of in-game advertising

When I was watching the 2013 Slaughter of disliked rival Oklahoma Cotton Bowl, I saw a type of ad layout I had never seen before.

I hope this is an anomaly and not a trend.  Other wise, American sporting events will not be the same.


Monday, October 15, 2012

News Roundup


This guy has the coolest job in coding. Ge Wang is the co-founder and chief creative officer of Smule, the app developer responsible for the Ocarina and iPad violin and other things that started out as “crazy-ass ideas.” To date, Smule has accumulated more than 65 million downloads.
Dear loyal readers, 
Sorry for the gap in posting. A lot has been going on in my life. I got married. And freelance (front end dev, web design and UI design) work and job hunting has been busy.
David

Saturday, May 26, 2012

A feature on My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel by Peter Rosch


I had the opportunity to listen to Peter Rosch when he first dispensed career and creative advice in 2006. Now, he has written his first novel, My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel, and I had the chance to ask him a few questions in a mini-interview.

What have you been up to since leaving the ad industry?

Well, I’m still in it. I don’t think I’ll ever leave it completely. After trying my hand at directing commercials for a couple of years and freelancing quite a bit, I did take a six-month hiatus. My wife and I moved down to Costa Rica to see what that might be like. We loved it, and I doubt I’d have found the time to write My Dead Friend Sarah if we hadn’t gone there. Ultimately though, we ended up coming back to New York to see some family, and after a freelance gig with BBH led to selling a large campaign due out this summer for AXE, I accepted a full-time spot again. BBH was good to me the first time around, and I couldn’t he happier to be back and making great stuff surrounded by incredibly intelligent people. Even if this or future books take off, I can’t say I’d even not want to be involved in the daily creation of stuff advertising afford the creative mind. At the end of the day, even with the headaches, it’s still one of the sweetest gigs I know.

Why write a novel?

I’m a pretty long-winded guy, and a novel seemed like the best place for me to explore my voice. I had a story that I knew needed telling, and while I considered doing a screenplay, I surmised the chances of that story being heard were a lot better if I just took a gamble on self-publishing the sucker. So far, so good as over 10,000 people have purchased the book. That is well past my expectations, and knowing that there are people out there reading it, is pretty damn exciting. After years of writing ads, part of what I liked about doing a book was the idea that it would be mine and mine alone. Nobody to tell me the logo needed to be bigger, no testing, etc. It made the whole experience of putting it out there a touch scarier, waiting for people to respond and review it, and I’m sure if it hadn’t been well received I’d probably not be talking to you about it now.

Did being a CW help your writing skills?

Totally helped. Writing commercials really demands a focus to crisp story telling. You only have thirty or sixty seconds to tell a tale, and I think I applied quite a bit of that to the novel. I wanted it to move quickly, and not meander to far from what a reader needed to know. I would think that fifteen years of writing commercials had to have had some effect on my ability to engage people, and hopefully that shows in this effort. On the flip side, I suspect writing a novel will only make me a stronger writer of ads too. All of it just feeds on itself, and only in the last few years have I come to realize that practice really does lead to growth. I probably couldn’t have written this book had I not started keeping a blog of short stories. Committing to writing something other than ads is a great exercise for any writer in the business.


Any future book plans?

Definitely. I’ve started the next one already, and am hoping to get something out before the end of the year. Not that I’m full-time again it won’t be as easy to make time for it, but I’m really passionate about the whole experience, and I tend to get up too damn early. If I don’t sit down and write something, I just end up out on my deck chain smoking, and that’s no good.

How hard was it to create a kindle version?

Creating an ebook version of My Dead Friend Sarah was a challenge. But to have someone else do it meant spending two or three hundred bucks, so I just committed to trying it first. After about a week of nearly non-stop formatting, adjusting, downloading it to my own iPhone, checking it, tweaking and repeating over and over again I had something I could live with. I’m sure there are easier ways, or will continue to be easier ways to put one together, but I used some free shareware that was a little buggy. I’m not sure, but I think Adobe has software to do it. The only thing I’d advise against is just running a Word Doc through an online formatter that claims to do all the work for you. It might do seventy percent, but the end result will still be a bit sloppy. At least that was my experience. Thanks for taking the time to ask me some questions, I really do appreciate it!


Check out his blog and the official website of My Dead Friend Sarah: A Novel.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

News Roundup


dENiZEN - Light Painting Video by LICHTFAKTOR

Some of these news updates are a couple months old due to my busy schedule of late.

  • In 2011, children spent more time than ever in front of the TV. In France, children aged 4-14 spent an extra six minutes a day watching television, or 2h18min. Italian children meanwhile extended their lead as some of the biggest consumers of TV in Europe, with 2 hours 42 minutes a day spent in front of the small screen, three minutes more than in 2010.
    - press release from Media Metrie
  • Peter Rosch has written a new book, My Dead Friend Sarah, that is in the top 100 of Amazon this week. More details to come in an upcoming post.
  • Neiman, a public relations company, has re-launched Go Sunoco, a website dedicated to highlighting Sunoco's retail offerings.
  • The face of education is changing, technology is king and we want to equip students with the knowledge to optimize their college experience from a technology standpoint.
    - Find out more at Hack College.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Portfolio Night 10 returning to Austin

I wrote about Portfolio Night before and I even asked Ignacio if he could expand to Austin. Well, it's back.




More info and $30 tickets are on sale now!


Friday, April 20, 2012

Sau Paulo says no thanks to billboards

SP placas vazias / empty billboards

In 2006, the mayor of São Paulo mayor banned the use of outdoor advertising, including billboards and transit. Initially, the business community was alarmed, and worried that there would be millions in lost revenue and tens of thousands of lost jobs. But a 2011 study showed that 70 percent of the city’s residents find the ban to be beneficial. The ban…

Via Populous

More pictures on tirafoto's flickr.

Monday, April 16, 2012

AMC's The Pitch

I stumbled upon AMC's new TV show about advertising after going to the FKM website. What a fascinating inside look in to pitching a client and the breakneck speed at creating campaigns. The first episode features WDWC vs McKinney pitching for Subway's business.

Note: Even though the video says preview, it is a full-length episode.



About the Show
AMC's new original series The Pitch offers viewers an intense, gripping, never-before-seen glimpse inside America’s top ad agencies. Each week watch two agencies as they compete to win a new client the only way they can: by going head-to-head in a cut-throat, winner-takes-all showdown, a presentation known as The Pitch. With only seven days to prepare, the pressure to perform is intense. The whining, the brainstorming, the blue-sky thinking: it’s all here as the teams work around the clock and pray for the moment of inspiration that will win them the job and keep their companies alive. The drama is real, the stakes are high, and the clock is ticking. From the producers of Undercover Boss.

Witness the pressure…The passion…The Pitch. Premieres Monday, April 30 9/8c on AMC

Edit: The New York Times gave a breakdown of all agencies participating in the show:

...Fifteen agencies agreed to appear, all of them small or midsize independent shops. (One, the Ad Store, competes in two episodes, so the total is 15 rather than 16.) Many larger, better-known agencies declined, worried about revealing the ingredients in their secret sauces; among them were BBDO, Leo Burnett, DDB, DraftFCB, JWT, McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather and TBWA/Chiat/Day.

The Grey Group, a unit of WPP, said no because “the story is not about us,” said James R. Heekin, chairman and chief executive, but rather “it’s about building our clients’ brands first.”

“We don’t have anything against anyone doing a reality show,” he added, “but it’s not our style.”

Another well-known giant courted by “The Pitch” was Deutsch. Although “we love the premise,” said Val DiFebo, chief executive of the New York office of Deutsch, owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, “our ‘reality’ precluded us from participating.”

“We’re eager to see the goods and explore if there is a competitive advantage for us to participate,” she added.

The agencies in “The Pitch” are: the Ad Store, Bandujo Advertising and Design, BooneOakley, Bozell, Conversation, DiMassimo Goldstein (a k a DiGo), FKM, the Hive, Jones Advertising, Kovel/Fuller, McKinney, Muse Communications, SK&G, WDCW LA (the Culver City, Calif., office of Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener) and Womenkind...

Monday, March 19, 2012

Modern Retro ads for latest Newsweek issue

The latest issue of Newsweek has gone retro with Mad Men on the cover. To celebrate the 1960s theme, several advertisers such as Allstate, Lincoln, Tide, Mercedes-Benz, British Airways, Johnnie Walker, Benetton and Spam redesigned their ads in a 1960s style.


Via Adage. Vote for your favorite ad.


Thursday, March 08, 2012

What a $4,500 in-house commercial looks like

It turns out the guy in the video really is the founder and CEO of the new start-up, Michael Dubin. What’s more surprising, though, is the fact that he made the ad himself. “The world is filled with bad commercials and people who are marketing too hard," Dubin says. "I think what we wanted to do is not take ourselves too seriously, and deliver an irreverent smart tone." Dubin wrote the spot last October and shot it with his good friend and co-director, Lucia Aniello. It cost about $4,500 and the team managed to bang it out in a single day, shooting on location at the actual factory warehouse, at their fulfillment center in Gardena, California. Not every CEO is cut out for making Funny or Die quality sketch-like ads, obviously. When he was living in New York, Michael Dubin took classes at beloved comedy training grounds, the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre, and has long dabbled in funny business.
Via Quora. Read entire background story at Co.Create.

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