Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Nothing and Everything.

From Fall 2007 one. magazine article "All the Shoulders I've Stood Upon," comes some of the best advice I've read on writing headlines:

"...the best headlines are words that individually have nothing to do with the brand–but collectively–have everything to do with it."

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

The Mapping Begins.

I've put together about 230 links on del.icio.us and now it's time to plot them on Google Maps. I'm hoping it will serve as a tool when scheduling interviews and maybe help us glean some information from seeing the agencies arranged on a map. Here is the map.

Cool Word: Jukebox.

Juke comes from a West African word meaning disorderly or wicked. Wickedbox. Am I the only one who thinks that's cool? Yeah? Ok.

Make it Up as You Go Along.

Every now and then, the "This I Believe" series nails it. Here is an Essay by Alice Brock, former owner of the famous Alice's Restaurant. Her thoughts on improvisation play just as well in an agency as they did in her restaurant. No need to explain it any further, just enjoy.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

The Big List

I'm in the process of compiling a list of advertising agency links to aid the job search. There are about 210 links and counting. It might be useful to other portfolio students as well. So here it is:

http://del.icio.us/circuskidsbookmarks

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Escape Secret Santa Unscathed (too much?)

My favorite holiday tradition from last year was the Secret Santa party at my part-time job. Unwanted gifts fly around like emails and the everybody's inner-Brando gets coaxed to the surface. I guess it's like any Secret Santa party. Only at my job, half of the attendees aren't actually present. They're on the other end of a video conference. All expressions of faux-gratitude are amplified for the camera, exaggerated like it's car give away time on Oprah.

This year, I'm going to follow the advice of this article on wired.com.

And I'm going to add one suggestion. If you happen to be so lucky as to have a Secret Santa who recently acquired the new Radiohead album, there's a 68% chance he or she paid nothing. So go ahead and send a $25 check to Thom Yorke. Thom gets the cash, your coworker gets a clear conscience. Everybody wins.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh." That Was a Heavenly Chant, if You Didn't Notice.

Airplane safety video for Virgin America done by Anomaly. I love how they have made something mundane fun and enjoyable.




I love "For the .000001% of you who have never operated a seat belt..."

Guzzling the Kool-Aid.

Now it's official: Google is the coolest company ever.

"We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers," said Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal."

Read all about it here.

What I Remember About Alex Bogusky's Talk.

I thought it would be fun to hold off on writing about it until it had a while to soak in. You know, wait and see what sticks. Unfortunately, I was tainted a bit by Danny G's post on AdPulp yesterday. So I won't mention presenting ideas as press releases or how Bogusky and Chuck Porter shaped the agency.

What stuck out to me was the way he deals with creative block. At the Circus, we've been taught dozens of techniques for breaking through. But they're all focused on treating it as it happens. Crispins' approach is more of a preventative method.

Teams will spend some portion of their day just sort of look at each other and say things like, "I'm so fucking creative right now. You look like you're feeling creative too." They also keep loose by playing little improve games. For example, someone will walk up to someone on another team and say "Hey, I had a great idea for that project you're working on..." without having an idea. Just start the sentence and see what comes out. As for Alex, he pictures ideas and creativity just dripping off him. Coming up with ideas is no problem because they're just falling off constantly. That's a pretty cool way to think about it.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Reason to Like JWT.

Had the pleasure of hearing Toby Barlow speak at the Circus . Toby is an ECD at JWT Detroit. His talk was on living creatively. He told the fascinating story of the sometimes serendipitous journey to theses beautifully animated Billy Collins poems. It's amazing what can happen with resourcefulness, luck, a little hard work and a will to create.

While I can't speak for JWT-NY (where Toby worked before moving to Detroit), he certainly is representing the agency much better than Michael Gates Gill is in "How Starbucks Saved My Life." And, to be fair, MGG got canned a solid ten or fifteen years ago.

Anyway, shoot over to JWT-NY's YouTube page and check out the other animated poems. I've watched them over an over again. And I get lost inside them every time. Enjoy.


Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Stop Motion Test

This is only a test. I had an hour to kill yesterday so I made a quick stop motion video using the chattering teeth I won in the Creative Circus 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament.

I had a really hard time with the various services that host videos. Google Video was particularly bad when it came time to upload the video. Vimeo was bar far the cleanest, fastest and easiest. So here it is.




Teeth Experiment 2
from Mike

Monday, June 04, 2007

"Winding Road" = Interesting

There's an article over at Ad Age today about the new VW campaign and the "winding road" the work has taken over the last fifteen months or so. The article cites a couple experts that the "hair pin turns" taken by VW are a mistake. I couldn't disagree more.

Of all the brands out there, none has held my attention like VW. Why? Because they mix it up and they keep it interesting. The work fits together over time, but it's not repetitive. The inconsistencies in the individual messages just make it more interesting. I remember being delighted when VW gave away guitars and had spots featuring Slash and John Mayer. Guitars that can plug into cars? Why? Because it's interesting.

I'm also reminded of bits and pieces of thinking about brands that I read on Russell Davies blog. In particular, I remember a post (or was it a video) where he discussed polyphonic brands. Russell compares brands to a symphony. In which there are many different nuanced sounds (that are interesting in and of themselves) that create a collective whole.

The VW work's incongruity and freshness makes the brand more interesting and engages the audience even more. As it becomes harder and harder for brands to reach a mass audience, it becomes more important that brands be nuanced, varied and well, interesting. No one is interested in a person that says the same things, tells the same jokes or wears the same clothes. Why would we like brands that do the same things over and over?

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Inspiration: Folkstreams

I heard a piece on NPR about Folkstreams.net. The site is described as "A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures streamed with essays about the traditions and filmmaking."

I just watched about a half-hour of Style Wars. The filmmakers explore the emergence of hip-hop culture in New York during the early eighties.

Folkstreams.net is a perfect place to go if your in need of some inspiration or just need to get your mind off advertising for a while.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

And We've Reached a New Low

According to MediaDaily News, Spot Runner and Lexis Nexis are teaming up to offer "turnkey media planning and addressable ads to local law firms around the nation." This represents the worst of what advertising has to offer. Thank God someone has found a way to make bombarding the airwaves with slimy personal injury lawyers even easier.

I can't wait to see what sort of prepackaged creative is available. "Let's see. Hmmm. Should we go man slipping in hallway, us standing in front of books, to whiplash diagram or the other way around?" It's shit like this that makes me hesitant sometimes to tell people I want to work in advertising.

Now if they only had a way to make chasing ambulances digital. I think I just created a new Google app.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Just Like George

Now that I take a second look at my eleven year old brother Will's dead squirrel email (see previous post), I've noticed that his style is strikingly similar to George Parker's style. George is the blogger that runs AdScam/The Horror. I put it all together after I found myself reading Will's email in the same voice I read AdScam.

He's very funny and seems to be cynical in a good way that doesn't make me want to run away screaming from a career in advertising. To me, he takes an industry that seems to be full of it's own bull shit down a peg or ten. I like how he cuts to the core of everything and pisses people off. I think I'm going to buy his book.




"I write like an eleven year old, but I'm really fucking funny."

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

I Blame Bad Headlines on my Dad.

Last week, my brother John showed my brother Will and me a picture of a dead squirrel he took with his camera phone. We laughed. There was something about the expression on the squirrel's face. He looked like he was faking. Like he set himself up in a taxidermist shop to get a laugh from his friends. The moment passed and we moved on. And then I got this email from Will yesterday:
this is wat i think a real squrl should look like after it dies!!!!!! as u recall on yur b-day party we were waiten in the car for sarha and john showed us that pic! well.... this is my pic that i took 2 days ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This photo was attached.


This shouldn't be funny to me. It's sick. It's gross. But I think it's funny. I blame my father. He's just socially acceptable enough to be accepted as pleasant company but weird enough to generate a "check please" kind of moment that makes everybody seem sort of uncomfortable. I've been subjected to those moments all my life and have no option but to find the humor in them. And as I'm finding in my own life, he's gifted me with the ability to make the same sorts of comments.

Here's where my writing comes in. I'm about four quarters into the copywriting program at the Creative Circus and by now I can tell the difference between a good headline and a bad one. But somewhere in bad headline land, there's a little island inhabited by bad headlines that I, for whatever reason, think are good. Almost always, there's something off-beat about them. They're offensive, make a weird reference or are just plain stupid. Yet I'm attracted to them. My internal bouncer lets these headlines into the party even though they don't have the proper credentials. The part of my brain that thinks dead squirrel emails are funny also allows this island to exist. Most of these headlines, like the dead squirrel, generate a pungent odor that only rotting rodents and bad advertising can produce.

But there's something cool about this island of headlines. Every now and then, among the most horrible of puns and the ramblings that only make sense to me, something will come off the island that is pure gold. It's like a gift from the advertising gods. Headlines that are like a down and out Daniel LaRusso who conquers the naysayers around him. They're unexpected gifts – Christmas presents in July.

From this island will come work that says something about me and that solves a problem in a way only I know how to solve it. I can only benefit as a creative by tapping into things that are funny/interesting/angering/weird/heartbreaking/uplifting/inspiring to me because of who I am and how I was raised.

If only I could find my way out to that island more often, I'd make better ads. If I just had more dead squirrels, I could build a raft.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Foot Entourage (or Entoerage)

I've found it interesting to apply the characters from the HBO show Entourage to various groups of five in my life. Each character brings something to the table.


Here's how my toes line up.

After asking a few friends to do the same,I think it says something about the person going through the exercise. For instance, what stands out about each of the five characters to them? And how do they go about making the connection between characters and toes? Is everything rational? Do they sort by size, personality or rank?

Either way, entourage is an awesome show.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Paid



Behold, the first check I've received for writing something. May there be many, many more.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

In Praise of Absurdity

I've been thinking quite a bit about where I want to work assuming I end up with a decent book. I've been paying attention to the ad world consistently for about two years and the work that I tend to like the most has an appreciation of the absurd.

I pretty much love anything that comes out of Goodby or TBWA/Chiat Day NYC. I'm a huge fan of the relatively new Starburst commercial featuring the Little Lad. I love the Slowkys for Comcast and loved the original Emerald Nuts campaign.

I thought about why I gravitate towards that sort of work. And then I thought of Ernest. When I was a kid, it didn't get much better than Ernest Goes to Camp. I remember reciting the lines from the beginning of the movie when Ernest confesses to the twentieth century's most infamous crimes as the camp nurse gives him a shot ("I am Josef Mengele! I kidnapped the Lindbergh baby!"). Maybe it's genetic or the result of weird parents, but I've always responded to the absurd.

So here it is, The Little Lad followed by Ernest.




Tuesday, April 03, 2007

My YouTube Debut




Here I am in my friend Katie's Tide commercial. She wrote, shot and edited the spot for her TV class at school. Besides capturing my multi-faceted talent, it's also a telling look into her personality.

Sketchbook Drawing

Sunday, April 01, 2007

55 Word Story

The first 55 word story contest was held by the New Times in 1987. At the Circus, we had to write a 55 word story for Ron's Creative Thinking class. Here is my first effort:

Being stuck in an elevator wasn’t an exciting way to spend one’s birthday. But then again, neither was being stuck at the home. Running away made him feel like a teenager again. Evading nurses and orderlies reminded him of racing his car and smoking cigarettes. His clinching chest reminded him of his eighty-year-old heart.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

End of the Haitus

I've fallen way off my goal of posting once a week. I'm starting to realize that all of the things on the periphery of actually making advertising are just as important if not more so than doing the actual work. I count blogging as something well worth making time for. Being busy with school work isn't an excuse.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

No Wonder.

According to psychologist Cliff Arnall, yesterday was the most depressing day of the year. He sites weather, collective falling off of New Years' resolution and coming down off of the holiday high as reasons why most people are, well, in a bad mood this time of year.

Guess I'm not the only one who's been in a bad mood the last couple of days.

Here is the story at npr.org.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Believe in



I pass the time at my sometimes mind-numbing day job by listening to NPR podcasts. One of my favorite segments is This I Believe. The show takes essays submitted from listeners, picks the best and allows the writer to read his or her essay on the air.

A couple of months ago, I heard an essay by Jon Carroll, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Jon believes that Failure is a good thing.

Jon's thoughts are similar to W+K's encouragement of failure. It's good advice for portfolio students, because the idea of allowing yourself to fail seems simple, yet is hard to grasp. Hope you enjoy.


Demetri Martin and Windows Vista Take Over Comedy Central (For an Hour)

The result was one of the single most interesting and well executed interactions between the web and traditional media. The interplay between the two mediums was as interesting as the interaction between Demetri in his special and Demetri playing himself in a fictional series of shorts. The concept was very strong, the execution was brilliant and for once the commercial message enhanced the viewing experience.

Earlier this week, I checked out www.clearification.com. I found a series of videos starring Demetri Martin as himself. The videos chronicle Demetri, a "winner in life," as he faces a breakdown and subsequent rebirth at the Institute for Advanced Personhood or the I.A.P (Episode 1 of 6 is below). The site, hosted by Windows Vista, promoted his comedy special and tour. The videos were hilarious, I laughed, and waited for the special. By itself, the website was awesome, and had me feeling like Vista was a cool product.



At the first commercial break of the special, I was shocked to see one of the characters from the videos (Dr. Lovett from the I.A.P) show up and announce that the broadcast would be clutter free. In other words, no ads. Throughout the show, Dr. Lovett guided the audience through outtakes from the show's taping, instructional videos and more information about the I.A.P., who's mission is to remove the clutter of modern life from people's lives. Although some local ads were broadcast, most of the ads were removed from the program and replaced by Dr. Lovett's entertaining commentary.

The strategy, Windows Vista removes clutter from the computing/new media experience, was executed brilliantly through the two mediums. the creative was original (although obviously drew inspiration from the likes of Wes Anderson and Jared Hess) and the message was extremely relevant to a younger audience who's undoubtedly captivated by all of the exciting things happening with Apple.

Better yet, the ads enhanced the viewing experience. In and of themselves, the special and the interactive components were great. But they were made all the more interesting and entertaining by their interplay. I can't ever remember a commercial message hijacking a show and actually making it better. Aside from the crappy local commercials, I didn't once reach for the Tivo remote.

It should be said that I'm a huge Apple fan. The PC disenchanted me long ago and I switched last December. But had I seen all of this, I definitely would have thought twice about it. The whole experience made stuffy and boring Microsoft seem cool. It added a depth to the brand that I haven't ever seen. It was like the nerd from school showing up after summer break and being incredibly cool. The incongruence made me take notice and from the message I received visiting www.clearification.com a couple of hours after the special, I wasn't the only one.



In the meantime, I'm going to try to find out what agency did the work. I'll also be anxiously awaiting the next installment at www.clearification.com.

UPDATE:
- Apparently, I'm way late on finding clearification.com. Looks like it launched in October. I can't remember seeing any promotion of the site at Demetri's comedy show in last September.
- According to the New York Post, the agency is McCann-Erickson. Nice work.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

I Don't Even Know What to Say Except I Want One



I just finished watching today's Keynote address at Macworld. Unbelievable.

Aesthetics, design and ease of use like I have never seen and it's extremely impressive. But the iPhone strikes a chord with a more fanciful and childlike part of me. It makes me feel like I'm looking into the future. It's like something I would imagine finding in the backyard like it was discarded by aliens as their ship passed overhead.

It's probably going to be a couple years before I get my hands on this thing and I can't wait.

He also took a shot at Microsoft's Zune. Today's keynote further underlines the difference between Apple and Microsoft - true innovation vs. new features for old thinking.


Nike + iPod


I received the Nike + iPod kit, Nike+ shoes and a Nike+ armband as a late Christmas gift. It's a fantastic experience and I'm disappointed I didn't get the whole set up sooner.

To chart my progress, I've created another blog over at terapad.com. You can link to it here or find it in my links section.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Nike+, Nike-

Nike +
It's been a little over a week since I was given a Nike + iPod kit, Nike+ shoes and a compatible armband. The entire running experience has become easier, I've learned a great deal from the data I've collected and I'm more motivated than I've ever been outside of the days when I ran competitively.

I've also enjoyed sharing the experience with a blog and I love the ability to compete with people from all over the world. To me, the partnership with Apple and the product experience is a strong brand experience for Nike. From the incorporation of the power song to the congratulations professional athletes give you after a personal best, Nike has tapped into a running experience that's unparallelled. Nike is about challenge, competition and winning. The Nike+iPod is a strong expression of those ideas and allows users to experience them.

Nike -
Now if only Nike could create a strong brand experience inside its Atlanta retail store. While the physical aspects of the store are in line with the brand, the staff seems to go out of its way to destroy the atmosphere. To echo Ernie Schenck's post about buying a BMW, Nike seems to have forgotten that branding also takes place at the ground level and not just in advertising and product development.

The sales staff inside the store, in my experience, have little knowledge or experience with the products. Some didn't even know the basics about what types of shoes fit what types of feet. How can a Nike representative not know the most basic thing about sport while representing a brand that's all about sport? Rarely have I come across a salesman at the Nike store who even half-way represents challenge, competition, encouragement and victory. Decking somebody out in Nike gear doesn't make them an ambassador for the brand.

I love Nike and the Nike+iPod is enough to switch from running-centric brands like Saucony, Brooks or Asics. But what a missed opportunity inside the Nike store.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Christmas at Mema's House

Images from the Holiday Season



The Holiday Season treated me very well. Again, I feel lucky to have a roof over my head, food in my stomach and a wonderful family.

Santa brought me a video camera and my brother and I shot a little video on Christmas day. I'm going to post it to Google Video and will have the link soon.