The Perfect Presentation

I'll admit it, I've been late to jump on the Mad Men train. I watched a few episodes when it first came out on AMC but, to be honest, got a bit bored and went back to my HBO roots (The Wire, mostly). After hearing about the show from a number of colleagues for the past three years, I thought I'd give it a shot and recently just finished Season 1.

It's growing on me. But a scene from one of the last episode's resonated me more than anything today. It makes me think about what it truly is creative people do. Come up with great ideas and present them like they mean everything.

You can't do this with every product. But if you push enough for good work and make presentations like this (with all the AMC lighting, cool clothes and drama), it can make a huge impact.

I haven't been in the business that long but I hope that I can be in a presentation like this one day. Passionate. Well written. Over-the-top and dead on brief. Good strategy. Good stuff.

Can't embed due to AMC copyright but click here to watch it. You won't regret it.

Alexander Keith's Birthday

For our International readers information Alexander Keith's is one of the most beloved and revered beers in Canada. Every year Keith's launches an integrated campaign to honour the man who brought us the delicious Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale 214 years ago.

To be full transparent I am on the team that worked on this campaign but an overview of campaign includes:

1. Mobile - SMS contest executed on-premise (in bars that serve Keith's) for a chance to win a trip to Halifax (Alexander's hometown) for the biggest birthday party in Canada.
2. Social Media - A Facebook based contest where you can create and/or sign a card for your chance to win a $5000 Keith's Birthday party or a trip to Halifax for his Birthday. With almost 50,000 fans on the Facebook page, over 1500 cards created and thousands of signatures, Alexander may be old but he loves Facebook.
   
3. TV - Driving awareness of the Birthday and driving to contest.
4. External online - Some pretty sweet creative including rich media video banners
5. On-premise - Pubs across Canada are taken over by Keith's creative.
6. Retail - pin-in-pack contest where one pin is provided with each purchased case on Keith's. Consumers are driven to keiths.ca to enter into another contest to win a trip to Halifax for the party.
7. The Birthday site
8. And we will be sharing even more in the coming weeks.

Buy a case, hit a pub and celebrate Alexander Keith's birthday on Oct.4th.

User generated billboards delivering happiness

Original? No. Unique? Not really? Good? Yes.

In the words of Marcel Proust, "The real voyage of discovery exists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes".

J -hova is back with the blueprint for music ads

Insights and brands. Why do they matter?

I think that this TV spot created by Droga 5 answers the question. Most agencies would have approached this opportunity with a very different lens and most clients would have expected a very different result.



What is different? Insights, true insights that allows the creative to resonate with the consumer and an ad that delivers on a brand. Compare this to the average CD release spot that is 20 seconds of the first singles video followed by a shot of the CD, the name of the single, some logos that mean nothing to the consumer and a voice over that repeats everything we already know.

This spot is almost like an inside joke where only enthusiasts and loyalists would understand that the spot is a homage to the legend of Jay-Z. It also subtlety nods to his retirement and showcases that they man that made this album is the same legend that created multiple iconic and successful ads.

But more importantly to this strategy, music today can be downloaded for free by everyone, so one of the biggest challenges of a ad for a new album is getting people to buy it. How can you do that? Well, look to showcase the legend, share the album covers of all the CD's that the enthusiasts own. In short, make the new album a required piece of the collection.

Nice work Droga 5. Even more congratulations to the clients that understood.

This is about to go viral...

You know you've got a great product when a team of drug cops gets distracted from their raid for 9 hours to use it...from Mashable:

PayPal Opens Up

On November 3rd, PayPal is going to open up to developers world wide. I sense that this could mean big things for PayPal (a client of ours) and I'm very excited to see how developers around the globe incorporate one of the most reliable payment systems on the web.

To help announce this change to the world, PayPal has created a launch spot and microsite:



Sadly, the site wouldn't load for me. Hopefully they'll fix that soon. Because I'm a fan of the spot. Good mix of emotion and humour.

Imagine Leadership

I've been searching around for some great presentations lately that contain great stats. These searches have been focused on the Global Ad industry in relation to digital and consumption habits but I stumbled on one tonight that focuses on Leadership.

Being a leader means vastly different things to different people. To some, it's about business success and getting to the top of the corporate ladder. To others, it's about helping people and pushing to make the world a better place. However you define it, it's worth watching this video:



Pretty inspiring stuff. Now what are you going to do?

Goat Tears cure all

Here is a brand that needs some serious help with packaging but not with advertising.



I love when she is showing the goat its Nana's grave. Hilarious.

Allan Gray shares the story of James Dean

I have always loved James Dean which is possibly why I enjoy this so much. The other reason is that it got me to pay attention to an investing ad AND I got the message.

I hope they continue with this strategy and tell other classic and compelling stories.

Impatience is a virtue: Samsung

Samsung is finally getting an attitude. They are a brand that hasn't really stood for anything and their advertising, especially out-of-home, has been horrible over the past few years.

Finally something from Samsung that makes me wish I owned something from Samsung.

What is a moment?

Beautiful stuff. Not a spot, no brands attached - just cool work.

Check out Adverblog's open letter to brands after watching this. Good stuff:

We're Back.

Now that TEDxTO has ended, the AdJoke writing is on. Here's a spot to keep you busy while we write a few posts. It's all over Canadian cinema right now and I've watched it in a few theatre's. The reactions have been mixed but whatever the case, this spot cannot be ignored:



What do you think?

Johnnie Walker: The Walk

I have always loved the story of Johnnie Walker and I was so impressed to see this spot from BBH. Tyler found it and shared it with me, but I stole the post.



This is a wonderful brand piece and I believe that it will really help to establish the brand story with a new generation. I feel quite often brands feel that their stories have already been told and that consumers understand what they are and what they are about, but I feel that every generation needs to be re-introduced to every brand in a unique compelling and emotional way. This is really well done here.

It looks like BBH is on the copyright attack as several spots have been pulled off YouTube so don't be surprised if this link doesn't work soon. Why would an agency want to make it difficult for their spot to go viral?

Work I Wish I'd Done

I love advertising. Every once and a while, a brand comes along and does work that leaves you inspiried, passionate and hopeful that more brands will do the same. But few do.

Let's be honest. It is hard to do great work. It's hard to sell a concept through that doesn't scream about the product. It's hard to sell an idea that doesn't get ripped to shreds by the dozens of people (internal and client) that is has to get by.

But those teams that are focused and driven on creating work usually do. Sure, they might argue with their clients, ruffel some feathers and maybe even get fired. But eventually, a brand is going to find them and they are going to do something great.

That brings me to this spot from Virgin Media:



Great concept, direction, editing and music. Great work, all around.

Thanks to Mac for the link.

PS - sorry about the lack of posts in the past 10 days...just a bit wild but more are on the way.

Going Google: OOH Campaign

The Future, Microsoft Style

Considering that I just posted about some mind-blowing social media stats, I thought it would be relevant to show you this (fake) Microsoft corporate brand spot.

"The future. Only 498 years away."

Amazing stuff.

Social Media Stats

Although this video takes it's cue's from a Sony corporate video put together about a year ago, some of the new stats in it are staggering. Even though it's very popular right now to to talk about the number of ways that social media has changed communications, I still think it's worth checking out the latest stats now and then and reminding yourself how unbelievable they are.

CP+B Creates a Good Microsoft Video

I'm not a big fan of the "I'm a PC" stuff. The little kids are cute and all and the celebrities help ensure that people watch the spots instead of fast-forward them, but they still feel a bit strange to me. I think it's probably due to the fact that they are referring to Apple without actually doing so.

As the market leader in software this always felt a bit weird (sort of like Coke calling out Pepsi in a $300 million dollar campaign). You're already doing well, why make consumers think about another campaign?

Anyways...here's a video for Microsoft that I like. I have no idea what the link is for (assuming MS Office) but check it out:



Thanks to Scott for the link!

No More Formats

I hate being stuck to a media plan before a client has even given us a creative brief. It's so limiting to know that you've got to fit your idea into a box before you even have one. For some creatives though, it can be a good thing. You know what you're working towards and you simply have to check off the format.

I think good advertisers go beyond the format though. Great ideas definitely do.

That's why I love this short film (spot) from Adidas. It's a few years old but still reeks of cool, style and substance. You don't get more brand than this, however I can't think of many brands that do brand spots with so much product in them.

Here's to the 2:40 second format, the 4:40 second spot, the applications and the experiences that enable the idea, not conform to the traditional placement.



Thanks to Matt for the link.

The TIFF Twitter Face-off

So the TIFF Twitter face-off has began with a pathetic exit from the blocks.

• @TIFF09 has found itself a whopping 84 followers in almost 3 weeks.
• @TIFFinsider has 64 while following over 130
• @InforTIFFBell has an amazing 40 followers

You would think they would secure a larger following only 6 weeks out from one of the worlds largest Film Festivals.

We will all have to wait and see who really understands the Twitter medium and gains followers by adding value. Let the battle of the twestival twits begin.

Thanks to @scroll for the heads-up.

Pepsi: Warhol

As with any Lee Clow campaign there has been a lot of hype, discussion, and yes, some criticism.

Out-of-home has always been in my opinion a medium best used when treated like a canvas versus a poster, post-card, newspaper ad or even a online banner. An artist approaches a canvas with a very specific outcome in their mind, be it create a feeling of fear, energy, sadness convey a politcal message, inspire introspective searching or deliver shock.

Out-of-home in it's greatness should only ever have a job to deliver one message just the same. If you want to convery a benefit and price, move-on. If the outcome of the campaign is to successfully convey benefit and price, then you can use many different mediums and creative to accomplish this as a campaign. The OOH can be used to solely communicate the benefit, print can convey both and retail can be used to focus just on price. With a properly created media plan and accompanying creative you will; as a holistic campaign achieve your objectives. Every ad will not communicate the entire marketing communication objective.

I just realized this post turned into a rant on the proper usage of the medium...which it was meant to be at one point, but anyway back on track.

Lee Clow and his minions at Chiat were tasked with the launch of a new Pepsi logo. I love the campaign and I think they purposely delivered a very Andy Warhol feeling. The king of iconic artwork is very entrenched in the mind of Gen Y and older and the freshness of the campaign truly stands out and in a very simple manner showcases the logo while still "saying something".

As I mentioned earlier out-of-home should be the most basic, the tightest to true art out of the campaign outputs. Their purpose needs to be a single and compelling message. In this case the message Lee went with was not saying "new" or "introducing" it was getting the world to associate the logo with pop, soda or soda pop and recongize it as the new face of Pepsi without saying "new".

His selection of iconic visuals (excuse the pun) POP. I notice them on every street, even within a crowded environment like Toronto's Dundas square or Gardiner Expressway the first ad I see is Pepsi. It accomplishes one simple job and uses "pop" culture references and influence to deliver wonderful creative.

And they have been in this area before.


My Warhol:Clow collage:

Coca-Cola introduces interactive vending machines

Coca-Cola introduces an interactive vending machine. They call it a fantastic partnership between marketing, technology and their agency.

I say it is about time. What took them so long to add a brand experience to the vending machine. It was a lifeless, emotionally devoid consumer touchpoint. Now they can begin to integrate marketing communications, promotions, data capture and the true brand essence into the 1000's of vending machines that exist in some very high-traffic locations across North America.

At the same time I find the quote by the Global Brand Manager about how the the interactive vending machine is a fantastic partnership between marketing, tech and sapient very telling of where the minds of marketers are. I for one feel that this should be the case with everything that an interactive agency does for their client. Marketing problems are not solved by banner ads, landing pages, email blasts but by pairing the right creative solution to the marketing challenges. The creative solution for an interactive team is just as much a creative solution rooted in technology as it is rooted in the standard understanding of "creative" (copywriting and art direction) that connects through the internal truths known as insights.

I have a feeling that the interactive vending machine was probably something that Sapient showed to Coca-Cola creative presentation after creative presentation, educating them how they could effectively integrate their campaigns into the technical solution. A company like Sapient didn't just bring this idea to Coca-Cola in 2008/09. I have a feeling that it was Coca-Cola that waited until 2008/09 to buy the idea.



...and I think we should start calling them IVM's. Our industry is dying for another acronym.

Best Buy adds "Social Service" to their resume.

You can find Best Buys Twelpforce (@twelpforce) on Twitter waiting patiently to provide additional customer service.

I see adding Twitter to customer service as a no-brainer. Give your call centres access to Twitter and while they are waiting for the next phone to ring they can be responding to tweets. Simple? yes. Cheap to implement? Yes. Used by most companies? No. Why not?

Feed the fish: Google Gadgets

Click on the animation to feed the fish. You can find plenty more of these modules at abowman.com

The Olympus Pen - Stop Motion Video

Pen Story Stopmotion
by yom_

When I first saw this video I wondered if the marketing department briefed their agency and this was the idea that they came back with, or if someone brought this idea to Olympus, or if it was created by someone who just loves the Olympus Pen Camera and now they are benefiting from the actions of a brand advocate.

After a quick Google search I found out that Olympus created the spot for the 50th Anniversary of the Pen Camera so it appears the first option is most likely correct. Also found within the search was this video which was apparently the inspiration behind the Pen Camera video.

Well done Olympus and their agency.