The Conversation Thing

Microsoft, Crispin: Put a fork in it funnyman!

According to the news today (but who can believe The New York Times!) Microsoft (the evil empire) has decided to delete its Gates/Seinfeld head-scratcher-fest. Or, like so many other MS-DOS productions, did it simply crash? The bigger question -- will it bring uber shop Crispin down with it? Would joining with the dark side tarnish the brilliance of the agency that put a Mini on the back of an Escalade. Well, think about it. Two really lumpy and ugly uber rich guys (Gates was just named the richest American for the 15th year running!) cavorting with the common folk -- hmmm? Was that the right conversation for a serious company with supposedly serious products that help change the world to be starting? I guess not. So, one final question -- can Crispin (or anybody) undo the damage once its be done? The days of any press is good press as long as they spell your name right are over. Troubling...

The Voracious One-Eyed Monster and Mrs. Palin

Whatever you think about the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee (and heaven knows the internet is full of blogging and posting and opining on her), a recent incident (Sept. 8 to be exact) shows the viral fury of the internet off to full force. Around 2 pm, I somehow got wind of a blog-posting related to books Mrs. Palin allegedly wanted to ban from her local library. It was a good list. It was a long list. It started out with a catchy headline (Palin wanted to ban Harry Potter) and it grabbed me. But, having been around these internet fields for a while, the list seemed almost too good. So I probed a little and it seemed that the list had been smoked out as bogus. But not before I'd received an e-mail from a friend linking to the posting. And seeing today that the rumor spread like wildfire over the past 24 hours. How many people did it touch? I'll leave that to the metrics guys. What interests us from a communications point of view is that, in this case, whether or not it was true, it was the conversation that people WANTED TO BE TRUE. A self-fulfilling truth, if you will. Under the headline of a "you can't make this up" candidate, it seems that you can, in fact make it up. Or, as Jimmy Stewart says at the end of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence," when the legend disagrees with the truth, print the legend. The internet touches us all, glancing off us like shot from a shotgun, then disperses. How we use that velocity, the power of the 'one-eyed monster,' to start selling conversation, and to control them, well, that's the magic -- or danger. Thoughts?

Crest Turns To YouTube for Creative Assistance

It was reported recently that Procter & Gamble's Crest Whitening Expressions brand and its advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi have turned to YouTube to ask consumers for help in coming up with a new slogan for describing the new flavor sensation for the Wintergreen Ice line extention. From Sept. 15 through Oct. 17, consumers can submit videos featuring their take on the brand in 10 words or less. The winning phrase will be incorporated in upcoming TV spots advertising the new flavor, which replaces Lemon Ice.

Some think that this move is yet another sign of a suspected void in agency creativity today.  In a recent BrandWeek article, Blake Cahill, the SVP of Sales and Marketing at Visable Technologies was quoted as saying, "These ideas are often "many times more creative than what their own agencies deliver."

We reject Mr. Cahill's hypothesis and think that something much more strategic and calculating is at play here.

For us, the real reason P&G and Saatchi turned to YouTube was to tap into its power as a social network to generate interest and create a new conversation about this extraordinarily low interest product category. Think of it?  Who is waiting for the new Wintergreen Ice flavor of Crest Whitening Sensation Toothpaste --- the fourth flavor variation of a flanker to a mother-brand that was first introduced in 1955!

It's no news to anyone that, unlike 1955, today it is much harder to reach large numbers of targeted consumers in any one medium...no matter how large the budget.  Media fragmentation is one of the great industry challenges of the day and new paths to generate consumer interest in products and services have to be explored --- even when, from the outside, they may be interpreted as a sign of weakness or failing productivity.

The greatest bang for the buck in marketing

What's old is new again. And despite all the hoo-ha, frenzy, sizzle, hype, and ballyhoo about the app of the moment, the oldest tool in the marketing profession is the strongest -- we'll call it the slogan. S - L - O - G - A - N. (How do you spell relief?) You can call it other things: a tagline, a positioning line, a theme line, a strapline. Sometimes great campaigns don't even have one, consider how "Just Do It," morphed into nothing but the "swoosh." Consider how the immortalbe VW campaigns of the early 1960's did not have ANY slogan at all (in the popular memory, 'Think Small', is a slogan, but in fact, it was a headline for a partcular ad.) But the thought is the same. If a brand is, to quote someone, "the most effective information compression device ever invented," a slogan is its expression. As Wittgenstein (pretentiousness alert, I know, I know) said, "The world we live in is the words we use." So...

Why is this so powerful and so 'media-agnostic?' and what made us want to rant about it today? Besides having been working the pastures of sloganeering for the past few months for several of our clients, the lead article in this weeks DM (Direct Marketing) news struck us. Not only is Levi's relaunching its buttonfly 501's totally online, but the director of marketing is hinging it all, touting it all, on a SLOGAN! "Life Unbuttoned." Not bad. Not bad at all.

Another spur to this post: On the much-hyped premier of Mad Men, the best part of the show was the actual BMW commercial in the middle of the interview with actual Mad Man (ycchhh) Marty Puris, who came up with the actual "slogan" that drove the actual BMW business, "The Ultimate Driving Machine." This set of four words has been powering billions of dollars in sales -- across every media form from mobile phones to brochures to events -- for thirty five years. Talk about media agnostic!

More later on why that's not bad. Suffice it to say, that's a promise that fits the brand that you can hang an entire campaign around.

"We make money the old fashioned way -- we write great slogans."  (With apologies to John Houseman and the genius writer at Ogilvy whose name escapes me at the moment who wrote it!!!)

Getting a vital new conversation going -- aging and the boomers

This is a post related to a new client of ours at partners + jeary, but is relevant to marketing questions facing us all. The baby boomers, the immortal generation, is now, not only seeing their parents age, they are starting to age -- seriously age -- themselves. Jane Gross, of the New York Times, has jumped on this with her blog, "The New Old Age," http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/, and as it regards our new clients, Jewish Home Lifecare, it is showing us the entire world of marketing through a new lens. The Pepsi Generation is facing some harsh realities. While much of the commentary on Gross's blog is bleak, it is our task to find the positive aspects, to see that there are ways to take control, to the best of our abilities, the lack of control that aging poses. This has to be more than an ad campaign. Not only because ads, as we know them, are not reaching enough audience at the right price, but because we have a unique opportunity to understand and define a leadership position in a growing social trend. Not easy. Certainly not like doing an ad for Shake 'n Bake (and, truth be told, that's not easy either.) But dealing with a loaded, charged, emotional, and rapidly evolving topic like this -- well, owning that conversation, starting it, being responsible stewards of it, that will be a challenge we relish. Stay tuned.

Penney Poops Out

From Ad Age Today --

It's not nice to fool mother nature...oh, and notice, nobody made the ad???

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Epoch Loses Lion Over Racy Penney Ad Controversy

Production Company Requested to Withdraw 'Speed Dressing' From Cannes Film Category

By Rupal Parekh

Published: June 26, 2008

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The commotion over a lascivious fake ad created for JC Penney has cost the makers of the work the esteemed Bronze Lion it won in the film category in Cannes last week.

Philip Thomas

Organizers of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival had been in talks with all parties involved, and in the end, the production company that submitted the work, Epoch Films, requested to withdraw the entry for a spot, titled "Speed Dressing," that could be interpreted as promoting teen sex.

Cannes Festival CEO Philip Thomas told AdAge.com he was "pleased" with the outcome, and that it didn't come down to a situation wherein the festival would have been forced to revoke the award. The organizers are currently in the midst of pulling the work from the Cannes Lions 2008 website and striking it from the record as having won an award this year.

No need to return Lion
Epoch won't actually have to physically return the award; rather, it simply can save the room in its trophy case. Because of the high number of Silver and Bronze Lions winners, those trophies aren't awarded in Cannes, they are mailed to recipients afterward.

Epoch declined to comment. JC Penney's agency of record, Saatchi & Saatchi, could not be immediately reached, but had earlier this week apologized for the debacle, saying it "did not enter the spot and deeply regrets the message this ad presents."

During last week's festivities, Mr. Thomas told Ad Age that "there's a lot of jealous people around" but emphasized that the festival takes the accusation of a ghost ad very seriously. "Especially now, with clients coming to Cannes, it's highly embarrassing for them."

"We have very strict standards, and insist on contact names and numbers for clients and media buyers." While such events are not at all unprecedented, the festival will continue "to need to be vigilant," he said.

Penney Porno

Well, the ad industry is all in a kerfuffle about fake ads again. Seems to happen every so often, but this one, at this time, seems particularly poignent. For those of you have been living in Azerbaijan, or are perhaps not into the creative comings and goings, here's the story. Seems a TV ad for J. C. Penney won an award at the Cannes Advertising Festival last week. A bronze, but still...

Anyhow, the spot in question (one that I find kind of amusing, but that's not the issue) is about two teens timing themselves getting dressed and undressed. You know what for. Especially when boy visits girl and mom looks on suspiciously. The point is, a: it's a little, you know, provocative for Penney. And b: it wasn't bought by Penney (or, apparently, made by Saatchi.)

Yesterday I weighed in on Kathy Taylor's Blog, adverganza.blogspot.com:

i have to say i thought it was a funny, well-produced spot. the fact that it was a 60 should have been a dead give-away. i don't think fallon even did that back in their glory days of hair salons (not that those weren't real ads!) unfortunately, there's this little wrinkle in the business, as in life -- i hate to quote al hampel but, "it ain't creative unless it sells." we need to sell brilliant creative, not just make it for reels and award shows. that, my friends, is cheating. apple 1984 -- creative and ran. fresh mex -- creative and ran. whopper freak out -- creative (ish) and ran. that's just the rules of the advertising awards shows. filmmaking award shows, different rules. still, a good spec spot, no question. i wish s & s had been able to present it to Penney and that Penney had bought it -- but alas, they didn't. oh well, maybe next time.

Today, according to Agency Spy, there's tell that Saatchi (Hello Tony Granger!) knew about it, and in fact, it was a pattern of like-minded deception. Read the comments on the Agency Spy post, could be sour grapes, but I think not.

Again, fake ads, killed ads, have their place. But not in the shows that are this industry's last best chance to make ourselves mean something again. It's too frickin' easy. And as my first boss used to say, when I was a 'gofer' sweeping the floors at a photography studio during high school vacation, "if it were easy, everyone would be doing it."

Hello!!!!

Blowing our horn...

Here's a nice shout out from AdFreak on our current campaign for The Skin Cancer Foundation. http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/06/coco.html.

The Licensing Show -- The Power of the Brand is Sizzling

We tramped around the billions of square acres devoted to the Licensing Show at the Javits Center yesterday. Full disclosure -- we were supervising the presence we've created for our client, The Edison Innovation Foundation (www.thomasedison.org), the estate, image, and license of Thomas Edison. But beyond that, here is a museum/bazaar of brands, sizzling brands. Images that come fully -- or not so fully -- formed, ready to, for a price, align, bless, ignite your product brand or show. For most mere mortals, it takes gazillions of dollars and dozens of years to build a brand. But here, for the right number, you can put that into overdrive. Buy (or rent) Elvis, Batman, Marilyn, Pink Floyd, Woodstock, Paris Hilton -- they're all here. All talking. Ali? No problem. The other stunning thing, certain brands are so cool, or powerful, they even use their brand to boost other brands. The "King," that creepy plastic mascot of Burger King was there peddling attitude. The mind boggles as to the possible alignments. Running Shoes? Hospitals? Spas? Well, it's all there. And the bottom line, these brands have value, have been built, have been honed. It takes time, money, and talent (ask Elvis's people, or Ali's.) But in our too much information world, this clarity of mind and image, this promise, appears to worth more than ever.

You say "tomato", I say "salmonella". Yikes!

Yesterday afternoon I typed the keywords 'tomato, scare, health' into my search engine and Google replied with a lead saying that "McDonald's says it has pulled tomatoes in its restaurants across the nation..."  Now, if there were ever a better time for McDonald's to lead a conversation, I don't know when that would be. Whole Foods too since they were mentioned second. What's even more startling to me is that there was nothing in any of the listings "above the fold" that explained to me the situation, its scope, or how it might affect me and my family.   Like me, consumers across America are confused by the seemingly unbelievable news that one of our food staples, fresh sliced tomatoes, is suddenly clustered in our national conversation with mad cow disease and mercury in the tuna fish. Evening newscasters simply headline the topic to sensationalize the issue and draw in viewers for their ratings...but do little to provide the information necessary to quell the concerns of an over-anxious populace. We think the responsibility to control and, in fact, lead this conversation belongs to those trusted brands who are linked to the issue because of their product offering and to whom we turn for information.  At times like this, marketers like McDonald's and Whole Foods and Wegman's, to name a few, can do a real service by first listening to their customers' questions by keeping an "ear" to the internet blogging world and then responding in ways that address their concerns, directly and in full disclosure.  We think "tomato-nella" was a missed opportunity all the way around.  What do you think?  Join the conversation......