by mark March 31st, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
Thanks to an ever-so-handy “personal e-mail alert” from AdAge.com, I just learned that Motorola is trolling for some hot agency to take on a “branding assignment”, which is sort of adspeak for “AOR Ogilvy is about to get it in the neck, but we want to make sure our ass is covered before we give it to them.”
Can’t say I’m too surprised. I complimented Motorola a while back for an extraordinary event they held in conjunction with this year’s Super Bowl. But at the same time I said their “Moto This and Moto That” advertising was ordinary in the extreme.
I guess they’ve figured out it’s time to flush that campaign, but here’s what I can’t figure.
Continue reading ‘Moto Rooter’
by mark March 30th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
One of the perils of being a self-appointed expert is sometimes you have to admit you were wrong. Obviously, I hope I’m right more often than the proverbial broken clock (twice a day), but when I’m wrong I feel obligated to acknowledge it. In fact, I really don’t mind being wrong as long as I learn something from it, which in this case I think I did.
A while back I really laid into Vonage for some print advertising it was doing that essentially used a “you’re stupid if you don’t use our service” approach. However, over the weekend I saw a television commercial for Vonage that employed this same approach, yet my response to it was totally different.
Continue reading ‘Vonage Volte-Face’
by mark March 28th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
What would you call it if a marketer could learn not only what you watch on TV, but who you are and a host of other things about your interests, your family and your finances, all in the interest of serving up a specific TV commercial tailored to you? An advertiser’s dream, perhaps?
I’m not sure, but based on an article in The New York Times I read yesterday, it sounds like we’ll soon find out. Apparently, in the interest of increasing their share of the television advertising pie, the cable companies are working with some clever soft and hardware designers to cobble together technology that will do just that. So without so much as a “by your leave”, your cable box will spill the beans on you. But how will that work?
Continue reading ‘Big Brother Or Oh, Brother?’
by mark March 27th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
I was re-reading some articles I’d saved and a certain number jumped out at me. This article in The Economist was about the increasing number of global businesses that are choosing to award their advertising accounts to a single worldwide agency or holding company (don’t get me started). But what really struck me was the fact that in its recent pitch to win the HSBC financial services account, WPP said with great pride that it had assembled a 600-person team drawn from its constellation of advertising and marketing services companies to service this $600MM account.
That math is easy enough even I can do it in my head. So a ratio of one person per million dollars in billings now gets you bragging rights? Does that ever underscore how things have changed. And not for the better, either.
Continue reading ‘Missing Persons Report’
by mark March 25th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
Gretchen Morgenson had a terrific article in the Sunday Business section of The New York Times this week about the growing spread between corporate earnings reported according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the “operating earnings” many companies prefer to highlight in their press releases. The latter being what Wall Street likes to refer to as “earnings before all the bad stuff.”
According to Ms. Morgenson’s article, the difference between these two ways Standard & Poor’s 500 companies report their earnings climbed to 13.7% in the fourth quarter of 2004. Better than the 40% chasm that existed in 2002, but still nearly double the historical gap of 6.7%. Not surprisingly, she quotes Richard Bernstein, chief US strategist at Merrill, Lynch, as saying: “…the absolute quality of earnings is quite poor.”
So what do earnings–GAAP-tested or rose-tinted–have to do with advertising? Bear with me and you’ll see.
Continue reading ‘Mind The GAAP’
by mark March 23rd, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
Maybe I should work from home more often or stop watching sports and The History Channel so much. This morning I had “The Today Show” on in the background as I was getting ready and mirabile dictu, I caught two cute TV spots (remember “cute” is good) back to back.
One was for a brand of snack goodies called Little Debbie that I’ve never heard of although my wife tells me it’s been around Chicago forever. All the spot amounted to was a series of different people singing the soul tune “My Girl” with varying degrees of tonal fidelity while each of them perused the Little Debbie display at a C-store. And all of this is being watched by the cashier and his buddies via the store’s surveillance cameras.
Now we’re probably not talking about a Cannes gold lion here, but the spot did do two things extraordinary advertising always does: It caught my attention and it made me aware in a likeable way of a brand I had no previous acquaintance with.
The other spot I have to describe before I remark on it.
Continue reading ‘The Today Show’
by mark March 22nd, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
Once upon a time, there was a cobbler who was so busy making fine shoes for all the townspeople that his very own children had to get by with the most miserable, worn out shoes imaginable, or so the story goes.
There’s a similar tale in the media world insofar as the advertising done for newspapers, magazines, TV networks and so forth is almost uniformly of the lowest level of ordinary. Which seems so odd. These companies carry advertising for a living, so you’d think of all businesses they’d want their own to be extraordinary (or “best of class” as they’d probably put it). And even more so, you’d think any trade group devoted to a particular medium would make damn sure its advertising for that medium would be extraordinary.
But have you seen what the Magazine Publishers of America is doing?
Continue reading ‘The Cobbler’s Children’
by mark March 21st, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
There are lots of standards I apply in determining if some advertising I spot is ordinary or extraordinary–how visually engaging the ads are, how smart and seductive the appeal is, how well do the ads connect with me (or the presumed audience). Still, there are times when I’m not sure myself.
Lately, I’ve been seeing these bus-side posters for New Balance. Visually, the only thing striking about them is their simplicity, although that counts for something. But the content is what caught my eye. Each one asks some sort of question relating to the “essence of sport” for lack of a better term. For example, the one I saw today asked: “Can A Losing Coach Still Be A Good Coach?”
Obviously, New Balance is trying to initiate some sort of dialogue with its audience. And today I finally noticed there’s actually a feedback mechanism built into this effort.
Continue reading ‘A Fine Balance’
by mark March 20th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
No, not that “missionary position”. The position I’m talking about is me, by myself, with my butt glued to a chair, at the library for several hours a day starting tomorrow on a mission to find some examples of extraordinary advertising.
It just seems like it’s been too long. Once again, careful scrutiny of The New York Times Sunday magazine section turned up nothing–that’s three weeks in a row. So I’m going to begin with Aardvark Illustrated and work my way to Zymurgy Today, if need be, until I find some.
I’m not expecting much, but since I want this site to reflect accurately the amount of extraordinary advertising visible at any given moment, I should have at least one for every ten postings.
Continue reading ‘The Missionary Position’
by mark March 19th, 2005
in Daily Thoughts.
…It crawls on its belly like a reptile…
Is it just me or has Hewlitt Packard’s advertising become even more ordinary since Carly got the game show heave-ho? “Oh, we’re so sorry, but our losing contestant won’t be going home empty handed. First, we have for her…the gross domestic product of Rhode Island…”
This was (without the reptile part) the headline of a spread ad I saw yesterday. Coupled with a not exactly galvanizing photo of one of its pieces of equipment. Pretty sad. And perhaps yet another example of my “ordinary advertising indicates ordinary (or worse) management” theory.
But that reminds me, I have to look back and see if I shared the other H-P discovery I stumbled across a couple of years ago.
Continue reading ‘“It Prints. It Copies…”’
