March 2008
93 posts
Interested in advertising? →
After a long, hard week of working on several massive projects, I would like to “cheat” for my column today and just directly quote a piece of advice from my book, “How to Succeed in Advertising When…
Driving to LA. Mountains are amazing!
is free actually free?
I’ve been thinking about Chris Anderson’s vision for the future for which he proclaims that “free has emerged as a full-fledged economy”. This makes sense as we’ve been accustomed to getting things for free, but (as he eventually points out), the real cost is our ATTENTION. This is not a new argument. Also, it’s worth pointing out that even if we shift our...
February 2008
86 posts
“Advertising is a price companies pay for being unoriginal.”
– yves béhar
“A central theme of my talk had to do with my belief that part of being a public...”
– Henry Jenkins
staying at work past five o’clock is certainly not very rational behavior
“In my estimation one of the charms of Obama is that we know so little about him...”
– Dan Ariely
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WatchFor those that don’t know, TED is going on this week. It’s the conference that seems to be mostly about ideas, but TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. This talk from Howard Rheingold is from 2005, but they just added it to the site. It’s a bit heady, but does a nice job of quickly summarizing why collaboration is in line with our own self-interest.
Ace of all trades →
The term “jack-of-all-trades” has gotten a bum rap in advertising. If you refer to someone as a jack-of-all-trades you mean they did an OK job at few tasks outside of their specialty. An example of this would be: you’re strapped for time and you have a writer layout his own line. One might say: “Boy, Andy is a jack-of-all-trades.” On the surface not a bad thing, but...
“According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption...”
– Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions Can’t wait to read this book by Dan Ariely.
New York Times: TimesMachine →
Source: camh: The amount of work it took to make this a reality is astounding to me. I couldn’t find it, but I wonder if there is a search engine? If not, although this is impressive and a novetly, it might not be too useful.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-2-24) →
The Decemberists
M. Ward
Iron & Wine
Wilco
Andrew Bird
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
The academy awards are stupid.
Exploding people's minds →
Today’s post is about Olafur Eliasson, one of the coolest modern artists (if not the coolest) ever (well modern anyway I guess). His art is amazing because it’s not just a work of art that you look at, think about, and then see how it makes you feel, it makes you feel as you’re looking at it. Seeing his exhibit is like being a kid in a fun house all over again. It’s all...
I can’t divert my eyes from the Oscarnage. →
Why do I do this to myself? Every year I loathe the entire spectacle, starting with the announcement of the nominees. The concept, like all “creative competitions” is ill conceived. This we already know. To compare one movie against another, and declare one the winner, and the other, by implication, the loser, is pointless, meaningless, wrongheaded, empty. Yet, in every “creative “ business, some...
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Ad Agency That Wants to Change the World? -... →
An interesting article from Fast Company about how Saatchi is differentiating themselves.
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About to go to SFMOMA.
Human Behavior →
My job is to study human behavior as it relates to product development and marketing. You’d think I would know a whole lot about why people do what they do, but I don’t. Most of what I’m certain about are contradictions: • We typically don’t mean what we say • We typically always ask for more information, even though we will never read it • We spend money we don’t have Bottom line: we are not...
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Bjork, Human Behavior. I love this song for so...
Where are all the old masters in advertising? →
Why do so many advertising professionals seem to make their biggest contributions early in their careers? They may stay in the industry, but they stop innovating on their own. I just finished reading Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity by University of Chicago-based economist David Galenson and he might have the answer. While I have some issues with the...
Cheesy garlic bread topped with crab. Amazing.
kluster | home →
Very interesting website that allows for idea building and collaboration.
Crash and burn.
Cool magazine insert →
I saw this booklet in this months issue of VICE. The booklet is pretty cool, it’s for the video game Rockband (which I rock at). I flipped through it and laughed out loud a few times. The moves are pretty cool but the names they gave them really make the booklet genuinely funny. Have a look at a few of my favorites and then impress your friends with your new moves.
advertising as building a better mousetrap →
This is going to be a quick, thought-post rather than a longer post with more analysis. That said, I’m really looking to solicit feedback on a thought I have. The thought: Has advertising transformed itself from being about building brands to building better mousetraps? What I mean is that it appears as if most of the investment by the major ad agencies is in analytics, operations, etc....
Feedback →
You know you have a good Creative Director when no matter what kind of feedback he or she gives you on your work, you always walk away feeling excited. If the feedback is: “Home Run.” Obviously, it’s rush of awesome. If the feedback is: “Kind of cool, but it’s not there yet.” You’re pumped, because you walk away with some killer insights on how to make...
Why do babies cry when they are tired? Why not just sleep?
I just accidentally walked into the women’s restroom. The woman in the bathroom just looked at me and it took a few secs to register.
I love not having to fly out of OHare.
“When you stop calling people ‘targets’ or ‘prospects’...”
– Seth’s Blog
GoogleTV – the 30-second spot ain’t dead yet at... →
“What becomes of the traditional agency model? It fragments into specialty niches...”
– Churbuck.com
The Insidious Myth of Loyalty →
Loyalty is a presumed virtue that has bugged me for decades. In dogs, I will concede it really is a virtue. In certain dull-witted presidents, it’s one among many serious flaws. Generally, among humans, I regard it as a vice or perhaps some form of neurosis. Within the context of advertising, it is something advertisers try to generate toward their brands, and the existence of this type of loyalty...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-2-17) →
Osvaldo Golijov
Grace Chicago Consort
The Format
The Arcade Fire
The Shins
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr
Ads Don't Sell (they let sales happen) →
This is somewhat a response to the previous post, and somewhat a rant. Apologies on both accounts. I’ve always had a belief on this that advertising is not intended to make you purchase something. It is intended to make it acceptable for you to purchase something. Either by changing your own perception, or by changing the perceptions of your peer group. This is why there’s problems...
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Smoked a nice ashton cigar yesterday. Tasty.
identity spam vs. useful advertising →
Identity Spam. That’s what will happen in the future. It will happen when advertising uses your personal information in a way that you find inappropriate, harmful, or just annoying. Picture yourself walking in a department store, passing a clothing isle and getting a text message stating there is a sale, or picture yourself browsing the Internet and all the ads have your name in them. Those...
Perhaps brand advertising has got it wrong →
I have always been unable to reconcile a common argument for the power of branding with my understanding of cognitive dissonance, particularly since the main goals of most advertising is to convince people to change their behavior and try the advertised product. With branding, action follows belief. In other words, if a person identifies with the brand imagery associated with a product or service,...
Clipmarks - Clip the highlights →
“It turns out that we are hardwired for hope. “People literally need hope,” says...”
– Business Week
Indecent Exposure →
You have probably seen the Geico ad of Peter Frampton using his voice box to lend celebrity back up to a woman as she tells a story about insurance. I was a little taken aback when I first saw this ad because I had met Peter Frampton just a few months prior in the lounge at work. I was working at a large agency in Chicago and Peter Frampton stopped by on tour. It was less rocking than the 1967 San...