Pete Blackshaw writes at Clickz that people probably should Temper their enthusiasm when it comes to Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm nervous about word-of-mouth marketing's future. It's hard to put my finger on, but it's the same feeling I had when marketers went hog-wild over targeted e-mail's potential.
[snip]

Last Monday, adage.com reported that Gillette was launching their advertising for Tag body spray, which will be competing against Unilever's Axe and Old Spice's Read Zone (owned by P&G). The campaign, created by Arnold Worldwide, Boston, takes the seems to use the exact same strategy as Unilever's Axe (and Lynx in the UK/Europe). Tag's new spot wasn't bad creatively. The copy at the end which includes a warning list is rather amusing.

BBH Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London have created a twist on Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for their lasted work for Levi's. Directed by Noam Murro, the ad is the work of Copywriter Nick Gill and Art Director Mark Shillum and began airing on February 14th.

Lee Daley, chairman and chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi UK, thinks TV advertising is dead. Yet, he also says:

"Our business model is not dependent on TV," he says. "There will still be a need to deliver brand messages. Young people love brands more than ever. It's just that technology gives them the power to ignore them more easily than ever."

Drew Davies at BeADesignGroup.com has a great rant on why you should say no to spec work.

If the entire business community understood the value of good design, and saw the effect we can actually have on their bottom line, there wouldn't be nearly enough design firms to handle all of the business. But when any creative firm reiterates to a business client that it's okay to give away what we do on a gamble of a big payoff, it's a huge setback. So I'm raising the horn again and sounding the rallying cry- if we all band together and tell the business community that, like any other professional service, we provide something of great value that is worth paying for, only then can we win the war. Fellow designers, please join me in saying no to spec work.

There are quite a few good links about the arguement against spec at the beginning of the post as well as in the comments.

The lastest from Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Burger King is this strange commercial for their Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich. It is like an Old Navy ad on acid with some Playboy/Penthouse thrown in for good measure, somewhat typical of David LaChapelle's work.

(Adgrunts, click to see the ad)

Honestly, if it weren't for Tom Biro I probably would never have noticed it, being the die-hard FireFox user that I am. IntelliTXT is now in the New York Post. What is that you say? Oh remember when Forbes wanted to be "trailblazers" and suddenly served links in their articles that did not lead to more information about that word, but were bought words and popped up an ad when you hovered over it.

Zonaeuropa.com found these ads that ran in Next Magazine Hong Kong that are very strange. It looks like Bauhaus has been inspired by every Diesel ad ever made without quite getting it, a little bit of the Diesel Korea campaign - where huge posters selling western anorexic ideals would hover over a crowd of "Chinese" workers - a dash of the plastic faces campaign and a big wallop of no clue.

These ads for Bauhaus clothing depict a man hung for the crime of not ratting out his HIV+ friend, and a monogamous couple being burned at the steak for being monogamous. Someone please enlighten me to what the hell is going on here?

After all that hard work on provoctive imagary and attention to gory realistic details, they fail to translate things correctly making one headline read "Charged for befriending a ragged burn on the street" and the man holding a rifle looks like he's never seen on before in his life.

Next Magazine site

There is a big problem in the world of viral ads, viral hoaxes. How are we supposed to tell the difference when more often than not, a real viral campaign is released 'discreetly', giving bogus information in the whois and being completely non-transparent as to who really created the campaign. Just like a viral hoax. Countless virals don't spread on the web as in port 80 - but via IM and email as people attach films to their messages and pass them on. The only thing that can tell us who dunnit is the sender at the end of the clip - what if the end of the clip is lying? How is the viewer supposed to know? Remember what may have been the very first viral ever - the Rubberburner/ Currylink craze for Lee jeans? The WHOIS Information gave them away but many people did not know to look at the whois, and fell for the idea of rubberburner hook line and sinker anyway. The only thing that has really changed since then is that more often than not, the whois info is full of bogus info.

Take the recent "viral" campaign for Bryan Adams album called roomservice. Adblogs such as the well visited Adrants wrote about it, twice even - yet didn't know it was a hoax, despite the ads unappetizing drama. In the post Brian Adams Valentine Viral Vomit Follow Up Adrants Steve Hall said:

OK, so Valentine's day was two days ago and on that day, aside from Hallmark's website crashing, Bryan Adams revealed he was behind the disgusting Who Ordered Room Service viral video in which a waiter enters a hotel room and pukes all over a knecking couple enjoying some love on the bed. Yup, Adams' new album is called Who Ordered Room Service and somehow he thought the relationship between puking and promoting an album was a good thing.

It's a complete hoax, the ads were created by Frank Lesser and Jason Woliner directors in New York, just for the heck of it. No word yet if Bryan Adams plans to sue them. Why sully someone elses brand to propell yours (especially when you're not intitially taking credit for it)?

"Not by any stretch of the imagination has the ad been endorsed by Bryan Adams or his management company," said Tyson Parker, from Universal Music Canada.

The Independent reports on consumers' feelings towards celebrities trying to influence their buying. Apparently research is starting to show that the red-carpet walkers aren't making much of a dent in consumer consumption. Mintel, a British market research company, did a survey and found "three out of five adults are 'bored with celebrities' and a further one in five is 'celebrity resistant'." It's rather amusing too if you think about the number of ads in the Super Bowl this year that banked on celebrities in their spots. A majority of them could have saved a bunch of money and just hired any random actor to achieve the same effect.

I've been involved in marketing and direct marketing since… my God! Am I that old already? Anyhow, over the years I've been asked to give tips on marketing along with my specific advice. Here's a short list of some of my best tips. Read on.

If you judged our society based on the ads alone, one would wonder if we cared about anything but sex. True it is a part of our animal instinct, but at the same time, is it possible might not relate every item that we purchase to some way bringing us closer to the carnal act? From clothing to scent to items as boring as writing impliments, it seems gratuitous sexual images or innuendos find their way into ads.

(read more...)

Remember back in 2000 when Philip Morris ran those nauseatingly transparent spots taking credit for the good it was doing for flood victims and battered women? And what did they get for their $100 million? Well, I don't think I'm sticking my neck out here when I say that all the allied bombers in World War 2 took less flak than PM. Now comes the tsunami. Have companies learned a lesson? For the most part, they have. The question is, have they gone too far this time?

Probably the most famous melting sequence in history would be when Dorothy Gale threw a bucket filled with water on the Wicked Witch of the West. Well, the famous melting technique has found its way into commercials as well…but it hasn't managed to become as much of a trend.

Slate on Amazon.com's "Amazon Theatre" project that brought us short films with large amounts of product placement and clickable credits. Which might not be a bad idea if only the films didn't bite the big one.

I mean, they're really, really bad.

"Watching these films is time wasted. I did it so you don't have to. I urge any future producers of advertainment to heed this advice: If the content is not as compelling as a Dharma & Greg rerun, it should not see the light of day."

The films can still be seen here. But don't say I didn't warn you.

What is going on here? Shot like a cheesy liquor ad, copy that is all over the place, and a very strange looking dress (especially at the shoulders).

Got an idea what's going on? Post a caption/comment for the ad that might explain it.

When I was a photographers' rep, I encountered lowballing all the time. Clients would say, "This guy came in at under half what you want." Sometimes we'd lose projects to these lowballers (when money was the deciding factor), sometimes not (when creative was). Now that I'm a consultant, I still hear from agencies that say that they often get bids from photographers (and other creative professionals) that are incredibly low and/or that include all rights. While we all want to think that a freelance creative professional is chosen more often than not for his/her abilities, often the reality is that a client can find good creative for an incredibly low price...thanks to lowballers who are ruining the industry.

So, just what is lowballing and why is it really bad for all of us?

Many people define lowballing as the act of charging less than your competition. That's not an accurate definition. Lowballing is charging less than the fair market price. The difference between those two definitions is enormous.

Since it's not so achieve a life of fame and fortune, at least now you can smell like the celebrities you love.

Traditionally we've seen celebs just hawking scent like the recent Chanel No. 5 spot with Nicole Kidman. And there's always more of a push for fragrance around this time of year.

(read on)

You know that your advertising campaign has arrived if it's spoofed, copied and enters pop culture. Or, if you can make an ad in the campaign that does the exact opposite of what is expected and the audience gets it, because they know the joke by now. The long running Smirnoff campaign has reached this coveted make-fun-of-itself status.

Smirnoff has always played on being the wicked spirit, as you can see in this ad from 1968 (above), it's been the vodka a little more daring for centuries.

Not sure whether any of you saw Rob Walker's article on Word of Mouth Marketing in the New York Times the other day:
'The Hidden (in Plain Sight) Persuaders'