When will they learn?

 I've spoken many times about brands delegating social media to junior team members.

Now obviously I don't know it was a junior that posted the tweet above but I'd say it's very strong possibility.

Honestly. When are brands going to learn?

Brand essence and tone of voice are far too important to trust with people who don't have a great deal of experience with them.

And as for the lame arse apology below. Well the less said the better I reckon.

Nice bit of retail

Wieden & Kennedy London are justifiably renowned for their creative work.

You're sure to be familiar with some of their ideas for Nike, Honda and the Cravendale Thumbcat.

What agencies with reputations like W&K aren't generally known for though is doing el-cheapo fast turnaround retail spots.

Actually maybe they are and I've got no idea what I'm talking about.

Well regardless of that their first ad for new client Tesco is a cheap 'n cheerful retail offering and I absolutely love it.

Why can't all retail spots be this cute?

Christmas has come early

My local supermarket has had Christmas stuff on there shelves for a little while now.

Way too early but you get used to it after a while.

Last night I saw my first Christmas TV spot.

It was a Woolworths ad.

Now I don't know about you but I reckon a Christmas ad in October is way to early.

Nothing wrong with planning ahead I suppose.

But not in October!

Grazed on greatness

Can't believe I haven't seen this before. Or heard more about it for that matter.

Great demonstration of creativity derived from an insight to create great content.

Actually I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence.

But I think you get what I mean! 

Pin a banner to Pinterest

Two Pinterest stories in a week says to me that it's a hot platform.

But is it the right platform?

No less a name than Gucci has launched the first ever Pinterest pinnable banner ad.

My question is will people actually pin it?

Probably.

But I doubt in the numbers that Gucci expect.

Let's face it. Only one in a thousand people who see a banner ad click on it.

I doubt that percentage will change much with the introduction of Pinterest pinning.

It is an ad after all. And people hate ads. Don't they?

Squeeze inside

Very very clever.

Anyone know who did it?

Accidents on Pinterest

For as long as I can remember the Transport Accident Commision (TAC) in Victoria has been producing brutally effective advertising.

And when I say brutal I do mean brutal.

Their aim is to reduce death and serious injury on our roads. So the approach is generally justified.

Now they've taken a very innovative approach - Pinterest.

They've set up a Pinterest account where the boards focus on all the elements involved in planning a funeral.

This includes things like catering, choosing a coffin, ideas for eulogies and more.

Very clever and very unlike your typical Pinterest account.

Be interesting to see how it works for them given their target market for the campaign is young males and Pinterest is generally used by women.

Fingers crossed it does work though as I think it's a great idea. 

Women and their first time

"Where are all the female creative directors" is a common topic in adland.

Has been since forever.

My first CD was a women. Taught me stuff in my first week on the job that I still share with juniors twenty years later.

My wife is a marketer and if you asked her she'd say the best work she was involved in had a female CD at the helm.

And yet even though we've both worked with and learnt from supremely talented female creative directors it seems we are in the minority.

No idea why.

Suffice to say if you too want to benefit from the wisdom of a successful female creative I suggest you get hold of a copy of My First Time W by Phil Grownick.

In the book several top notch female creatives including my personal hero Sarah Barclay share stories about the first ad they ever made.

You can get a copy from Amazon. I suggest you get clicking and order one right now!

Who owns our ideas?

In a talk at The Caxtons this weekend Lee Clow spoke passionately about how the biggest problem for agencies was that they give away their sole reason for being - ideas.

Talking about the always contentious topic of procurement Clow said;

"We should own the intellectual property we create and get paid for it and be able to manage when it gets used. We just give away the idea, so we blame these bean counters."

I've argued this for years. But I'm not in charge of Saatchis or TBWA so I'm little more than a man with an opinion.

Proof of Clow's argument arrived in my inbox on Monday with the announcement that Sonic Editions would be releasing limited edition art prints of ten of the best ads from the much loved (and highly awarded) Economist campaign.

I've always admired the campaign so I checked out the Sonic Editions website.

Guess what - there were no creative credits listed with the prints. None at all.

Why?

Probably because neither the people who create the work at agencies or the agencies themselves own the ideas they create.

The ad above was created by David Abbott and Ron Brown at the agency Abbott Meade Vickers. It is in the permanent collection of the V&A Museum.

Yet on the Sonic Editions website they are not credited.

According to Creative Review the prints are a collaboration between The Economist and Sonic Editions.

Given the clients own the ideas we create for them this is not surprising.

But seriously how hard would it have been for the art directors and copywriters to have been given credit for their work?

Or better still a percentage of sales as a royalty for their idea?

Yes. I know I'm dreaming. But when Lee Clow argues for it you know it's the right thing to do.

A comment on Starbucks?

I can't work out if this is a bit of naughtiness from the van signwriter or just an unhappy accident.

Either way it made me smile.

And it proves as I always say that no matter how hard brands try to control the way we perceive them sometimes they can't.

Snoop Dogg goes down down

The Coles Supermarkets version of Down Down by Status Quo is one of the most discussed brand collaborations I've ever seen..

Well maybe it's just me but I reckon Snoop Dogg revamping one of his tunes for a microwave convenience food in America has probably got plenty of people talking over there.

Not sure I'm all that keen on it to be honest.

Unlike the Quo tune the Snoop song's still reasonably new.

However given Hot Pockets is popular with Americans with 'the munchies' perhaps this ad is cleverer than I think.

How agencies kill creativity

 

 

"The client would never buy that."

"Let's brainstorm a few ideas."

"How do we know it will work?"

Agencies always blame clients for killing ideas.

In my experience they kill just as many themselves.

Which is why creative people resort to scam ads.

I'm not apologising or making excuses for scams. Simply highlighting the primary reason they happen.

This cracking little presentation by Dave Birss showcases how creativity is often killed before it leaves the building.

It's well worth a look. 

Now that's a guarantee

Was Polaroid the original Apple?

I always knew Edwin Land of Polaroid was something of a visionary.

What I didn't know was how closely Steve Jobs modelled himself and Apple on Land and Polaroid.

This trailer for a new book on Polaroid is so much more than just a trailer.

It's a lovely little film in its own right.

As for the book. I'm off to place my order right now. 

A real he-man toothpaste

I can just imagine Don Draper brushing his pearly whites with this stuff.

Some great copywriting in this ad with my favourite snippet being:

"Rinse with soda instead of water if you prefer."

Brilliant!

Sweet way to go gay?

Used to love Spangles when I was a kid.

They never made me go gay though.

Which may explain why they stopped selling them.

Although of course it wouldn't be the first time advertising failed to deliver on its promise.

Lawyers made us

Following on from today's post about lawyers not being copywriters come this very cheeky Twitter bio for the Major Baseball League in the US. I thought it might be a fake. It's not.

Does anyone proofread?

The pic above is a snippet from an apology ad that I came across in The Age newspaper on Friday.

It's for the chaos causing closure of the major tunnels of Melbourne one day last week.

In the opening sentence it says:

"I would like to sincerely apologise for the impacts caused by the closure..."

Impacts?

As far as I'm aware there were no impacts caused by the closure.

There were some massive traffic jams. A lot of lost tempers. And probably a lot of missed meetings.

But impacts?

Seriously do you reckon a copywriter even looked at this ad?

I don't.

In fact it looks like it was written by a lawyer. And it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

But surely even a lawyer can write an opening sentence that actually makes sense.

Can't they?

Me too!

Cool idea

I've always been a big fan of Uniqlo but my recent trip to Japan has convinced me they really are streets ahead when it comes to retail.

Their range of products, outstanding colour coded merchandising and innovative brand collaborations are second to none.

Although it was stinking hot while I was there most Japanese fashion outlets had just launched their winter collections.

Uniqlo's was centred around a number of brilliant super light brightly coloured puffy down jackets.

Yet as good as Uniqlo are I bet they wish they'd come up with this gorgeous experiential idea from Canada Goose.

It's essentially a frozen goods delivery truck rebranded as a mobile puffy jacket test zone.

Clever huh?

Hat tip to Lauren who posted the pic to her Facebook.

Unboxing the iPhone 5

Came home from Japan this morning to find a card from the Post Office to tell me that they had my new iPhone 5.

Thing is the card had been sitting in the letterbox for almost two weeks and had been 'eaten' by garden snails.

Luckily all I needed at the Post Office was my driver's licence.

Could of been worse I suppose. I could have come home to find that the dog had 'unboxed' my shiny new iPhone for me.