Inspiration: Toyota leaves Helvetica in its tracks

Creating peripheral promotional offerings to help boost your new brand or product isn't easy, but it's cool. It's really cool. Toyota is unleashing their newest microcar, a tiny little number called the "iQ". This tiny torpedo seats four and eats up a mere 118 inches of roadspace, which is easy when everyone is sitting on everyone else's lap. What? Oh, it apparently actually does have four seats. Oh. In the video we only really see two designers and a racecar driver slash honoury designer perform the clown car trick, so you will have to forgive me.

Designers Damien Aresta, Pierre Smeets and Zach Lieberman traced giant letters on the floor of an unused airplane hanger and used the agile little auto to skid and squeal it's way through the alphabet while cameras and computers recorded and mapped its paths. The finished product was a tired honorary designer and "iQ Agility", a playful, hand-scrawled looking typeface highlighting the iQ's tight turning radius and maneouverability.

Creating a typeface as an offering may have a fairly limited audience, but it shows a whack of inspiration and creativity sorely lacking in modern marketing. Strike that. It shows a whack of inspiration and creativity rare and prized in modern marketing.

You can download the font here.

Edible Junk: real stories about fake food

The one nice thing about being a student is the attrocious diet of trans-saturated garbage and alcohol. I remember when the CBC's Street Cents did a scientific analysis of Cheese Whiz to determine if it were food, or just melted orange trash bags. As it turns out it's actual cheese.

Pringles in the UK recently came under the same scrutiny. What surprised me wasn't that people couldn't tell if Pringles counts as actual food, but that the Procter and Gamble (the parent company) was pissed to find out it was. Turns out, P&G were kind of hoping their crispy tube snacks would be scientifically labelled as some kind of fried-preservative novelty snack rather than actual food so they could avoid an avalanche of UK taxes. Also turns out, that pringles are made of 42% potato, and thus, counts as a potato-based chip.

Around the world, parents send their children "care packages" loaded with fresh undies and comfort foods. In Japan they love to include copious sugar-fried study fuels, so Nestle jumped on board with the Japanese postal syste to create mailable Kit Kat bars with inscription areas and a space for postage. The candygram won the Media Grand Prix at the recent Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Kit Kat in Japanese is Kitto Katso, and it means "surely win".

What I'm not clear about is what the other 58% of Pringles are made out of (recycled bike spokes or something) and how you get a Kit Kat through the mail in a country as hot as Japan without making those fresh undies look like the morning after.

Media Manipulation: broadcasters now able to airbrush audio

Blogging has been hard on account of work going extremely well, but you know I'd crawl out of a crypt to put a spotlight on something that bugs me.

Keeping with the smart phone theme I've been on recently, I got a tweet from Sam of O&A Radio fame and my first thought is of all those Nazi slaves working for Bayer back in the day. What the hell does that mean, you ask?

Well it seems that Sam was at the NYC Apple Store when a CNBC reporter asked him about the release of the new iPhone 3GS. Snark alert. In the most sarcastic way possible explained he was switching over to iPhone because of all the great features that one day might work, and because he was tired of all his calls going through with his existing phone, and was looking forward to dropping between five and $700 on it.

How someone can take this and make one snipped soundbyte support their slant that 3GS is the new tickle me Elmo is beyond me. Really, really makes you think about how the media works, and who pays the bills.

Here's the link to the recording.

Customer DisService: iPhones and BlackBerry's and Palm Pre's, oh my...

Until they start charging for keystrokes, people will use the internet to hand companies their asses back to them on a platter when they treat them like crap. I did a Twitter search for "AT&T" after hearing about consumer complaints, and after going through an endless list of complaints except for one dude talking about that he got a discount from AT&T, but it took forever for him to be able to use it, which is a kind of back-handed compliment I suppose.

I do not have a smart phone, but I need one and the question has been, iPhone vs. BlackBerry. I've come to no conclusion, but this certainly doesn't help Apple's case. "People were saying the Palm Pre would be the iPhone killer. ... nope, turns out that AT&T will be the iPhone killer", according to @brickworkz.

Long story short, with the iPhone 3.0 coming out, existing customers have to doll out $200-300 to upgrade. There are lots of technical complaints about tethering and MMS that I'll let others complain about at length. My complaint is the short-fall in customer care. Like most giants, they're good at attracting new clients, but not good at maintaining those relationships long term. How many times have one of your service providers offered some fantastic upgrade, offer or benefit to new customers that they won't extend to you, the loyal long-term loyalist? They apologize, explain their position, but all you really hear is sit down, shut up, and keep rowing, slave.

This is more to talk about customer depreciation than the merits of different phones or their service providers. My other least favourite depreciation tactic is the Reverse Sales Call. You call up to ask a question and they withhold the help you need until you sit through a sales pitch to upgrade or upsell my services. Perhaps when I have a problem to solve, and I've just run the gauntlet of "press one for this, press two for that", this is not the best time to be asking for more money. I'm just ranting at this point.

I've come to no conclusion on iPhone vs. BlackBerry, but first I'll have to see what flaming hoops my current provider will want me to hop through to terminate my current service. And if anyone wants me to test out a Palm Pre, I'm wide open.

Promotions That Make Sense: 99 cent NYC cab rides (tipping is optional, cursing is free)

For those of you new to promotions, it is recommended but not morally obligatory to make your promotions make sense, but it's great if you can. Cut out my heart if I'm lying, but I saw a banner outside a bar that offered free manicures with the purchase of a certain kind of beer. A dark stout beer at that.

My point is this: I used to work for a stand-up dude with a steady reputation in promotions, and somewhere near the top of his list of things that made him crazy were promotions that didn't support the brand. "Why the frak is my bank giving away iPods? What does that have to do with banking?" Unless they're quietly nodding to the mindless hours in line they'd like to help you kill, I'm not sure either. His point remains, if you're going to give something away as an incentive to purchase Energizer over Duracell, or a Whopper over a Big Mac, make it something that supports the brand, like dipping sauce, or a small appliance that eats batteries for example.

Today and today only, I see this awesome Verizon promotion. A fleet of branded yellow cabs in NYC will be offering 99 cent cab rides. Think of it as a 95% off coupon for your commute, courtesy of Verizon and McCann Erickson. Thanks guys, now take this cab to Vermont.

It's cool, but how does this support the brand? Verizon has prepaid 99 cent a day cellular plans which no one knows about, and this kind of guerilla tactic makes a deeper connection to the value the company is offering for just 99 cents. Sad you missed it? Good news then. On the 3rd (of June 2009) they're giving away 99 cent ice cream. As BrandFreak points out, it will likely be about 99 degrees by then, so they should consider a 99 cent dry cleaning promotion as a follow up.

I promise you, this is a real ice cream menu, and somewhere some poor population is forced to choose between Garlic Amaretto and Bacon Ice Cream on hot summer days.

Reinventing the Ball-and-Chain for the Workplace

In olden times, you could slap a cannonball to a dude's leg and feel pretty confident he wasn't going anywhere. Today, the urge to close your laptop, shut off your monitor and give into the Siren call of the TV or the pub can be nearly irresistable. Advertising creatives are not known for ability to focus and concentrate, so the Study Ball works with your natural inclination.

How does it work? It's a ball, attached to a chain. Oh, attached to a time lock. How cool is that?

The Study Ball is a prison-style, steel ball-and-chain that stays on as long as you need to keep you focused on your task. Weighing in at 21 lbs, it's possible to lug around, but why bother. Unless your office begins to fill with smoke, you're not likely to lug this thing around voluntarily.

In olden times, a con couldn't slog very fast or very far before a guard could waltz up and soften up their skull with a club. For safety reasons, you're not supposed to use the Study Ball on kids, or your wife; the timer can't exceed four hours; it comes with a safety release key, and you need to part with about $115 to get one. Also, by safety, I mean legal.

The Human Eye: actually filled with a kind of urine!

Ad school taught me some weird things, and one was that the human eye does a backwards Z across any page it reads, skimming along, hoping to be stimulated, becoming disappointing and trying again on the next page. According to the hard working folks at Eyetrack, it does something more like this:

In actuality, that's a graph of web usage, but it still illustrates the idea that your eye is a skeevy fool who can't be trusted to look at a piece of paper by itself. Who am I to compare the analysis of a closet alcoholic to the practically Skynet-like scrutiny of Eyetrack's creepy machines? Let's focus on it's troubling figures on headlines to start.

First, a giant, domineering headline immediately draws the eye. Wait, don't bail. The numbers show that the average person gives that headline less than one seconds worth of facetime. Not even an entire whole second will be spent on your headline. How are you going to drag them into the depth of your body copy if their brain shuts off after "Call me Ishmael"? Provoke. People are likely to continue reading after the first five words if those first five words provoke their interest. Look at your headline an ask yourself how can it work harder?

Now let's look at that body copy. This eye-eating abomination (not sure exactly how it functioned) suggests that smaller type size encourages focused viewing behaviour while giant large type encourages scanning. Also shorter paragraphs tracked better in research than longer ones. Ever been on a date with a chatty drunk? They're not that much fun. So why are you philabustering on your layout. Learn to trim the fat. Just the facts. Snag the eye. Drive them to the web for more information. Sites like Lowbrow and One Sentence have always been great for understanding the need for berevity in story telling. Twitter is another great disciplinary tool for staying on point and keeping it short.

A copywriter friend of mine once went on a drink with a chatty drunk who refered to copywriting as "all that stuff between the headline and the logo". Technically, she might have been right. Let me welcome you to the end of this entry. I appreciate it, regardless of what weird path your eye took to get here. Oh, and your eye is not filled with a kind of urine.

Advertising and Children: who needs times-tables when you have Happy Meals™

So my son woke me up telling me he needed Star Wars toilet paper. That Star Wars Toilet Paper was the only paper that could help his bum. He just turned four, and has never seen Star Wars, so I'm thinking there is actually a product called Star Wars Toilet Paper trademarking off Carrie Fisher squating in front of a droid begging for help?

Here's some stuff you need to know about children and advertising I want to pass on courtesy of the National Institute for Media and the Family. In 1997, $1.3 billion was spent on television advertisements directed at children. Counting all media, advertising and marketing budgets aimed at children approached $12 billion (McNeal, 1999).

By the age of two, my children are all able to call out McDonald's, Zoo and Home Depot logos. The average child watches as many as 40,000 commericals a year, and can't tell the difference between commercials and regular TV shows. What I can say is my guys know when the really good, really short little shows are lined up and perk up for commercials so they can bow to the alter and play "need it, want it".

Simply put, children influence parental spending, so all advertising now aims at children to increase "nag factor". I've pointed out in the past how marketers target the young to create brand loyalties and children don't just influence spending on kids toys and food - it's everything from carpets to cars. A lot of adult products are being paired with kid-friendliess (oh, and billions of dollars) to influence the young to pressure the old to part ways with their money.

We're all familiar with the use of cartoon characters and toys to draw attention to all kinds of products, but I was surprised to learn there was a Sports Illustrated magazine for Kids. And I was really surprised to know there were ads for Minivans in it. Come join me in my slack-jawed awe at these tidbits of information.

• databases of child customers are being built from information gathered on Internet sign-ups and chat rooms, from electronic toy registries at stores like Toys 'R' Us
  
  
• in-school news briefs force kids to watch commercials in school
  
  
• budget cuts draw advertisers like food brings racoons, offering cash for access to students
  
  
• in-school news briefs force kids to watch commercials in school
  
  
• Promotional licensing of products aimed at kids which include media pitches
  
  
• Do you have any idea how many Children's TV and radio networks there are?
  
  
• Children's toys are starting to carry product placements (Barbie™ dolls with Coca Cola™ accessories for example)
  
  
• almost every fast food chain now has give-away programs including promotional merchandise (McDonald's™ "Happy Meals, etc.)

Brainstorming 101: suspending your disbelief for the benefit of all mankind

Doga: yoga for dogs. Let me say that again: doggie yoga. Before you say anything, here's how CNN handled this topic with stern grace: "between layoffs, threats of terrorism, and tainted dog food, the world can be a stressful place for you and your four-legged friends." You think the writer had to do the rape shower after penning that masterful prose? You could be that writer. Here's your assignment: resist every natural impulse, and now convince me why I want to join doggie yoga.

One of the most important things for everyone working in advertising and marketing to remember that no one ever points out is if you are not the ideal target for a product, you have to pretend you are. I was recently in a brainstorm for pet food, and I was the only person in the room who didn't actively hate animals. Somehow the brainstorm turned out to be a complete success because this crowd was able to bury their feelings and emote like they were the end-consumer.

I can't tell you how many brainstorms I've been involved in where most of the participants can barely contain their distain for the product they're attempting to market. Brainstorms can begin with hundreds of different creative exercises to loosen the lobes and prep the mind, but I've never seen anyone ever prep a room to temporarily become the target audience themselves. How do you turn a dog lover into a cat lover? Or a vegetarian into a meat eater? Or a vampire into a warewolf?

Here's one I just made up. It's called Positive Visualization. Pretend to be a different person, a split personality; tell yourself you are that person and act like it. You're going to need a heavy suspension of disbelief, and a certain level of gut maturity that allows you to method act till the clock runs out. Your opinions and insights are going to match the target consumer because you are one, and you know how important your opinion is.

It won't be easy, but if you can't find a way to become an empath or an actor, you should maybe sit out any brainstorms for products or services that strike you as dumb or funny or absurd. Many off-strategy advertisements could be avoided if everyone could remember this simple principle. This will totally benefit all those industry noobs, and the following video is a walking tour of the kind of insanity you might face one day. Will you be able to keep a straight face?

Product Sampling: the rise of the machines

Yesterday I pointed out that statistically, more people have been crushed to death by vending machines than killed by swine flu this year. Wait, stop dialing. I'm not calling for an all-out panic on vending machines. I'm using it as an excuse to talk about free sampling.

To my knowledge, free sampling is a popular mechanic for generating product trial and has killed no one this year. But here's the secret truth about free sampling - the thing they don't tell you. When marketers offer free samples they're hoping to cannibalize you away from whatever brand you're already using, stealing away your loyalty by changing your preference, AND they're hoping you'll unconsciously purchase their product faster than your normally would, even if your need for it isn't totally immediate! Wait, that doesn't sound all that evil either.

Okay, so what do vending machines and free samples have in common? Last time you checked, your relationship with your vending machine was "you eat my money, I'll eat your snacks". Well meet the BooBox. Belgian designers Fosfor have created a machine that spits out different trial-sized samples of good. It can even handle chilled items.

Both marketers and actual people are always looking for more experiential ways to generate trial and move samples from cargo van (A) to shopping list (B). To date the delivery has been fairly one-sided, either through direct-to-home mailings or interception teams in stores or on the street. Delivery systems like the BooBox put the sampling decision in the consumer's hands, but unlike calling or emailing for a redemption, the pay-off is almost immediate. All you do is send out a text on your phone and they fire back an PIN number for free goods. Boo(m)! A more interesting vending and sampling experience signed, sealed and delivered.

So where's the evil? You fell right into their hands.

Ad Innovation: inducing vomit to induce sales

[CLICK THE IMAGE TO COMPLETELY BLOW YOUR MIND]

I came across this MacLaren McCann ad for the Grass Roots Hemp Store and felt it begged to be passed around. Most all of my entries revolve around an inspirational or educational message, and today's is a disclaimer that Brad Choma does not endorse or recommend the opening of the doors of perception in your mind through the use of recreational drugs.

Accidental Career Suicide: the hot new trend sweeping the internet

I worked with a girl who sent an email to an office of almost two-hundred people about sneaking out early to go shopping with a friend. Any time I hear of someone losing a job, I always ask if it was a Homicide or a Suicide. Career Limiting Manoeuvres (CLMs) cuts somewhere in between. Whether you're blowing your nose in your food on film or putting fairy photos of yourself on Facbook after telling the boss you're sick, Darwin has a list for you.

I love the number of self-destructive people who step to the plate and CLM themselves right out of their job on Twitter or Facebook. According to a research poll, over 60% of 12 - 24 year olds think their friends' postings could damage their reputations, while 48% are sure they're embarassing themselves with their own postings. In an earlier post I warned about the damage the all-seeing, all-knowing internet can do. Then I found this article on iconoculture about Facebook Remorse. You think people would think twice about posting self-destructive info online. Wrong. Whether it's a snarky comment or a half-nude photo, the internet will remember.

I recently read that four out of five recruiters run web search to screen job applicants. Same goes for college recruiters. Same goes for dating. Oops. Resume Bear did a dead simple search for different CLMs and here is an excerpt (the rest are found here, enjoy).

Here are a few things you needs to know:

- always think before you send

- just because you deleted a tweet doesn't mean it doesn't get picked up by search engine indexing

- simple messaging on internet forums and threads are also picked up by google

- your privacy settings may not keep friends of friends from seeing your facebook activity

- people don't know how to take screen captures off flickr

- sometimes things you say on blogs can only be deleted by the owner

- know that sarcasm doesn't translate into the printed word

And if worst comes to worst, be creative about it. When New England Patriots cheerleader Caitlin Davis was fired for a facebook photo of her drawing dongs and swastikas all over a drunk guy at a party, her legal defense became: "the kid in the picture was a 'drunk guy who passed out and was written on,' as his costume for the night."

Personal Failure: I lost my erection (idea)

A while ago I wrote an article about my friend Jan and his too-late-to-the-race Tauntaun Sleeping Bag idea that someone else produced before him. Broke his heart.

I pointed out that he'd have to take his dreams behind the shed with the rifle and followed with an screed about getting over personal failure, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and tips to get back in the game. Today I received an email with the above t-shirt image and I think you could hear my heart actually break through my shirt.

We live in a distracting world, and making that amazing gadget, story, or totally original dick shirt idea you had into a reality is only as likely as your attention span will allow. We are overloaded with information and demands on our time, and the little things are increasingly left behind. Being too busy or too lazy explains away the death of my deflated dick shirt ambitions, so we're getting off that and talking about rage.

There are lots of great reasons to blow a fuse, and so many great places you really shouldn't do it (at work, in front of the family, during court). You don't have to be a parent to watch someone lose their cool in a theatrical way and equate them to little children who don't have emotional maturity. Every doctor in the world will tell you regular exercise increases your ability to de-stress. Well it's too late now. Forget exercise, here's the one thing you can do in the moment to save yourself filling out all those lengthy unemployment insurance or divorce papers: STOP. Immediately.

Whatever it is you think you're going to say or do, you're wrong. Reacting while you're angry is like handing your car keys to a monkey. Anger shuts down the reasoning part of the brain, and misdirected anger is going to turn a pet peeve or misunderstanding into a full-on verbal skirmish. You've seen it before. Before you say anything, count to three, refocus your thought, walk away, whatever it takes. The second you realize you're getting dragged into an argument you have to stop and check your head. Keep your voice down and start over. Oh, and while you're at it, take a breath. Sounds dumb, but you don't breath enough. Your body runs on oxygen, but when was the last time you just took a really deep breath and exhaled slowly. You'll feel your whole body relax. I was told you should mouth the word "relax" as you exhale, which is great for buying yourself some time to think while those around you look at you like a psychopath.

Anger is the death of intelligence, and multi-tasking might be evil, but if you can learn to control one or the other, even to a small degree, you'll be better off.

P.S. Multi-tasking is the devil. Switching gears from one assignment to the next and back again is inefficient. Your brain is only so elastic, and can only refocus so fast, or so well. The complication of multi-tasking leads to stress, and stress leads to errors. You'll also find it leads to a whirling dirvish of half-completed tasks and pulsing temples. You've been warned.

Lost in Translation: Who does what in my what now?

I've written before about this kind of thing before. When I first saw this, I was told it was a South African Gaviscon ad written by someone who's first language wasn't english. Unless the entire agency was populated by people who's first language wasn't english, and unless the tagline is South African slang for "did their duty to the best of their ability" or something, or unless the whole sentence is a series of unfortunate typos, then I just don't know what to say. I think this was done on purpose, and is either the best or worst copywriting ever, depending on your point of view.

A million years ago, at my first job, we did a sales ad for a bedding company, and the headline caught some flack. Once people explained their objection, we were appauled. By wad, we of course meant money, plain and simple.

The Freelance Life: can time management fight off brain damage?

Be warned, the boundaries between work and pleasure can blur for freelancers. What begins as a laziness in the pre-frontal lobe quickly spreads to the extremities. Pretty soon you're calling soap operas "your stories" and your brain has become damaged.

Freelancing is great, but there are whole categories of basic, fundamental life functions that need to be explained to you like a baby needs spoon-feeding. Here comes the airplane.

First things first, the brain is an idiot. How many incredible and noteworthy thoughts have come and gone because I mistakenly thought I would remember them later? How many times have I wandered grocery stores or worse, just driven right past it like I'm suffering from dimensia? I probably know the answer and can't remember. Memory can't be trusted. If you need to remember something, write it down.

The brain is unorganized. As I said in a previous post, the simplest organizational trick in the world is to make a physical list of everything you need to get done. Seeing it makes it real. Every time you cross an item off that list, it psychologically energizes you and gives you the energy to tackle the next task. Try it, I think you'll agree.

Once you have your ability to remember things, give it something to remember. Try setting a routine or schedule. Mondays are client feedback. Wednesdays are all about acounting and invoices. Fridays are new business development days. Sounds boring, but you did it back in the real world, and it's a soundtrack for discipline. AND it's the one thing that helps you keep your work week from flowing into and devouring your weekend unnecessarily.

The brain is fickle. In the real world, everyone is shoehorned into a remorseless nine to five existence. But in the magical land of freelance and rainbows, I've found my best hours are around five or six in the morning, and I generally come unglued around three in the afternoon. Learn your rythym.

IM, MSN, Facebook and Twitter are all time vampires. Drop your guard for a second and the internet will destroy both lobes of your brain, so keep it in check. Give yourself line breaks, set a time, and stick to it. Don't get caught up no matter how interesting the outside world might seem. Resist temptation.

What do I do? I do my best to do everything I've mentioned. I also take showers, and I work in clothes instead of pyjamas. I only work in my office. I use boring dignity to keep my head up, even though the cool thing is I don't have to. There will be more posts along this thread. I hope you'll save room. Nom nom nom.

[author note: if you google image search brain damage, you'll find Amy Winehouse on every page]

Marketing as Dating: let's hook up and exchange money for services rendered

lot of people I talk to are in dark places right now. They see excess office furniture and the people who used it carted out on dollies and they panic. Belt tightening can be inevitable. Even the parades of former co-workers dead-man-walking out the front door seems understandable to a degree.

Hands down the most common concern I hear from people contemplating the jump to freelance work or even just sideline freelance work is how to make contacts. Networking is creepy and makes stalkers of us all. Yesterday I heard an analogy that changed the way I think about networking for business contacts. It was a dating analogy, which blew my mind. Dating is all about prettying yourself up and making as many impressions if you can till someone gives you the time of day. It's so obvious.

Be a good listener

The dating scene seems a little quiet out there, doesn't it? Before the economopocalypse, everyone was shouting from every direction and a dollar spent on advertising was worth a dollar. It's no breaking news that many companies have shrunk or collapsed their marketing budgets lately, or as I now look at it, every other guy at the party voluntarily contracted larengitus. It's an unusal opportunity to shove that better looking guy off his feet and steal market share while your competition sits mute and forgotten. I'd say a dollar is just plain worth more when it doesn't have to work as hard.

You can't be afraid to be a hustler

I'm not proud of this next part, but it's only because the looks bad when using the dating analogy. If your client base shrinks by the numbers due to their own internal budgeting, you don't kick them to the curb; you cheat on them. Same analogy about marketing dollars, now is a great time to mad hustle for more clients. And not just regular clients. Consider married clients too. Some clients might get turned on by the aggressive swagger of an upstart leveraging against their AOR's more conservative, respectful stance.

Grow the relationship organically

All that furniture and deadwood wasn't bringing in clients; self-promotion and sales efforts do. A plant won't grow if the leaves all shrink. It needs to grow new leaves. The leaves in this horticultral analogy are one-off projects to help keep client money flowing. Now is the time to propose brave new areas of branding and promoting businesses, now that social media has removed some of the financial hurdles of traditional media. Presenting creative strategies and aligning partners on a project basis, like bringing a squirrel out of a bush with a peanut is what will grow those leaves.

Try, try again

When you're trying to woo someone and they turn you down flat, you don't crawl back in your car and leave, you step up and try someone else. I always tell the story clubbing with an old friend; it was late and everyone wanted to go but before he'd leave he ran out and hit on about fourteen women, struck out fourteen times, and we were off. He believed in the numbers game, and so should you.

On the surface of it, everything I've said follows the rules of common sense, but I believe people need to hear it some times. Getting noticed is the first step to getting laid. I mean, paid.

Reinventing your Free Time: sleep when you're dead or die obsolete

Rhett Dashwood may not have the best grasp on what to do with his free time, but he inspired me, so there. Rhett Dashwood is an Australian creative director who used his free time between projects to study Google Maps, trolling for land-formations and buildings that resemble letter forms hoping to recreate the alphabet.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap clap clap.

I was using my free time to learn Adobe After Effects and Flash until my free time ground to a halt. It's bad enough that everything I learned in school is obsolete. Between software updates and the addition or reinvention of marketing channels and trends like the "social media revolution", you wouldn't be alone if you found yourself wandering the aisles at the liquour store.

By the time you finish a three or four year program in design, you're looking for a job and some kind of retraining course. Education is a life long process, especially for designers and advertisers. What I will say for now is find your moments, and rethink your "free time". More to come.

Product Placement: just what the doctor ordered

I'm not going to pretend that I don't park myself in front of 90210 every week to nourish my soul. It is after all, the funniest sitcom on TV these days. It also deserves an award for pioneering acheivement in Product Placement. In the olde days, an actor might place a product by saying, "sorry hon, no time for dinner. The captain's going to have my ass so I'll stop by McDonalds on the way to the precinct" and boom, some money changes hands and the audience associates the character with their feelings about McDonalds, and vice versa. Today it feels like producers assume you won't notice the Big Mac unless the actor is basically posing with it and talking about it like it's another character. Let's explore some bad examples of product placement.

Innapropriate usage of a product


Really? Dr. Pepper for breakfast? Product placement without context will always catch the eye because something doesn't fit. Take this shot; would it have been crossing a line to have the cast enjoying delicious bubbly Dr. Pepper with a Western Omelette? Cheers to the producers for putting their foot down and puting a more tastefully positioned gigantic logo beside that slightly larger crying cabbage deal weeping off the table to make this scene more realistic.

Intense usage of product

I've been less excited about bandages after accidents than these two (Dixon and Annie) were while road tripping through the Arizona desert. I couldn't decide if the cooler in the back was small, or if it only looked small because of the stylized log jam of delicious, refreshing Dr. Pepper. Either way, the director gave us whole seconds of screen time to think about it as Annie decided between regular delicious and diet.

Ridiculous non-satirical over-statement of product usage

This is the use that most taxes suspension of disbelief. In comedy I think they call it a cap or a tag when you add to the punchline of a joke with a follow-up line to milk or continue the punchline. In this example, Dixon craftfully chides his step-sister at a rest stop when he explains that maybe they wouldn't need to stop so often if she didn't drink so much Dr. Pepper. Oh snap, right? Wrong. Annie replies: "We're on a road trip! Drinking Dr. Pepper is practically a requirement". This smacks of an SNL skit, but it's not. Satire free. See my earlier note about money changing hands.

All up-in-your-grill usage

I may have over-stated my adoration for 90210. The first time I saw the new series, Naomi was trying to fit in with the rest of the Heathers at West Beverly High and won them over by teaching them how easy it is to program the new T-Mobile Sidekick. This had squat to do with the plot and the intense close-ups were really distracting. Maybe they could have CGI'ed in a few sparkles or played awesome dance music in the background to enhance the effect. That would have been less obvious than running a crawl of product features along the bottom of the screen. In this scene, Annie advances the plot by changing the station (read: cuing the next track from the official soundtrack) while holding (read: hand modelling) her Dr. Pepper. I'll point out they wasted a strategic partnership with Sirius/XM here.

Not-so-generic brand placement

No wonder these people love their Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper evidentally owns every inch of ad space in Beverley Hills. There is no where you can go without a giant logo being shoe-horned into view. I wanted to say seemlesslly, but the term doesn't apply. In traditional sitcoms, actors take pauses to allow for audience reaction so scripted dialogue is not missed by laughter. Attention 90210 producers: your brand placements are so focal and distracting that by the time we finish laughing and/or complaining, we're all like "that's nice, now why is Justin so mad at Silver?".

I'm going to start watching just to make a product placement drinking game out of it (see a logo, take a drink of delicious Dr. Pepper). When they innevitably pull out the old teen-alcoholism chestnut, they could seemessly work Dr. Pepper into the plot by partnering with Barcardi to invent a drink called a "Bacardi & Pepper". Annie: "I'm all worried about Shasta. All she drinks anymore is Bacardi & Pepper". Shasta: "I do it because of the delicious taste, and my daddy issues".

The producers need to get off the fence and either change their product placement strategy to be less obvious, or commit whole-hog and go for that gold medal.

That's a great ad, now feel our wrath!

When I first saw Bob Burnquist and Ty Evans's "Feel the Bubbles" video, I wanted to blog about it immediately. Aero's last TV campaign featured the two potted office plants (read: employees) talking about letting bubbles melt on your tongue in a way guys wouldn't understand. JWT in the UK decided enough was enough and created something beautiful and fun to reposition the brand. Here's the commerical.

and the very interesting "making of" video

It's always easier to apologize later than to ask for permission first, which probably led to the backlash. The creators admit they "borrowed" the idea for riding through balloons from a previous skate video, but skaters haven't been very forgiving. Snickers ripped off a skater video ealier and a boycott ensued. This backlash reminds me of this recent animated type spot by Motrin.

You may have heard a woman innocently talking about the pain of wearing a snuggli, but to a lot of mothers, they heard a condescending "you're a stupid and insecure fashion victim for wanting to carry your baby" and it was all downhill from there.

Whether you're stealing your inspiration, or just being neglectful of people's feelings, people will always find a way to complain about your work. The rule of thumb used to be for everyone one person who boycotts your product, there are a hundred who wouldn't complain out loud, but would sabotage your brand to friends, and a thousand behind them who wouldn't complain at all. They'd just quietly stop using your brand.

I did work for a bedding company that enjoyed provactive headlines and the backlash they inspired. "The Boss is on Prozac Sale" headline was written thinking the only people who could complain were on Prozac so they wouldn't be interested in complaining. The complaints came from the parents of children on Prozac. My personal feeling is you can't please everyone all the time, so you have to do what feels right and handle any flack with dignity later.

The protest signage was created by Stephanie Syjuco.

Strategic Partnerships: lightning in a bottle, or an insanely obvious misuse of trust and money

Webster's defines Strategy as "a careful plan or method; the art of devising or employing plans toward a goal". Partners are defined as "one associated with another especially in an action".

When I was a kid, friends told me there was an mirror version of the Earth on the opposite side of the sun that no one could see. Assuming this opposite Earth exists, do you think their version of the Hockey Hall of Fame saw a partnership with a Green Food detoxifyer and said "sign here, please"?

I asked a few people in the related field to comment on this photo but there was nothing they said I could reprint here. I'm reminded that the Hockey Hall of Fame is a building full of Hockey Memorabilia. It has a soul, but no colon. I have to wonder what awesome list of candidate partners did they fire through before they ened up here. Not just a green suppliment sponsorship, but an Official Green Suppliment Sponsorship.

This blog post could be literally eight pages long, but there isn't enough snark in the world I'm afraid, so let me leave it at this: if you doubt the description of Strategic or Partnership, you likely shouldn't be creating them. And as I've said in the past, when in doubt, consult a professional.

Advertising Slap and Tickle: Another groovy idea unintentionally backfires

With great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben knew it. Spider man learned it. And now the fine people at Honda are geting a taste. Honda came up with a great viral advert that put a smile on people's faces, and it was paved over before I started typing.

Every highway driver knows what happens when you hit a rumble strip. A Japanese engineer accidentally figured out how to create musical tones through the frame of a car by controlling the width, depth and distance between lines scraped in asphault. Before you knew it, drivers in three Japanese cities were enjoying pop tunes while they commute.

Honda engineers used this technique to make a stretch of road in Lancaster, California to play the William Tell Overture. Drivers loved it, but local residents? It didn't take long for local officials to point out some issues.



The ultra dynamic trumpet-heavy, fully-orchestrated finale to Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture loses some lusture when reproduced on aspault. You have to drive at exactly 55mph to really get the effect. Any slower and you get a dull, sickening rumble. Any faster and it becomes a whacked-out, high pitched drone. If you're not driving a Honda Civic, the spacing of your axles will alter the effect. And the Japanese originators knew enough to make their roads far from people's homes. Evidentally in the wide open California desert land, the sound carries further than anticipated.

"When you hear it late at night, it will wake you up from a sound sleep," said Brian Robin, who lives a half mile away from Avenue K. "It's awakened my wife three or four times a night".

Far be it for me to point out someone else's misfortune without pointing out my own. This piece was an invite for the very first agency I worked at. We needed an occassion, so we invented the two-and-a-half year anniversary party. The invite was simple enough; directions, two aspirin, and the suggestion that you would benefit from these the day after. The invites had to be crafted by hand and over 1,000 were mailed. Fast forward a couple of days, and the calls started. It turns out, mail does not gingerly flow on gentle breezes to their destinations like a scene from a Christmas cartoon. Real mail is beaten and rammed through sorting machines. Now picture the attached image with the dime bag, but instead of aspirin, you get white powder. The calls were endless. One was from Customs; summoning us, our lawyer and our checkbook to pay for testing, re-routing and charges related to sending controlled substances through the mail.

Somehow we had more than 1,300 people RSVP. We even had postal workers trying to crash the event. So the question is, are these campaigns really failures, or is the endless apologetic backpeddling just part of the cost of a great idea?