Nice Sprint visual says nothing about the brand

Because I overthink these things, I've been pondering this Sprint campaign, which you've probably seen by now. Here's the deal: it uses this really cool visual device of neon drawings on top of live action, which definitely makes it more fun to watch than your average commercial, but the device says absolutely nothing about Sprint, and that's the problem. Had I not been someone who follows advertising would I have even remembered what the brand was? Whatever happened to the pin drop? Well, I guess that device is way too analog, for groovin' 2007.

Wendy's red wig stays! I think ...

So, now that Ian Rowden has left the CMO job at Wendy's I'm getting a little nervous for the red wig. The good news is that president-CEO Kerrii Anderson is promising more of the "That's Right" campaign (though he doesn't specifically mention red wigs). The bad news is, of course, that the company is still for sale. With that, above is the most recent Wendy's spot featuring the Air Supply burger. For some reason, I think an Abba burger would've been even funnier, but that's just me.

Totally, awesomely cool ad tournament

Hi folks, my old friends at the Freak (aka AdFreak), are holding a March Madness-like tournament to decide what was the freakiest ad moment of 2007. GREAT idea. Voting is going on currently, so get over there so you can help decide big important questions such as whether Orville Deadenbacher or the Stanley Steemer dog-butt scuttle, or Bob Dylan in an Escalade was the freakiest.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 12.10.07

Yep. In which I scan the Monday morning headlines—hopefully in a timely fashion—so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

—The writers' strike threatens the $9 billion upfront. What? You don't want to watch reality TV?
—William Morris burnishes the green, as in eco-friendly, reputation of its clients.
—Ads for 'Paranormal State' enough to make you think you're paranoid.
—Is Katie Couric's CBS Evening News being marketed as the Voice of Goddess?
—Musta been a slow week. Bob Garfield finally weighs in on soccer Moms who wanna kill the King.
—Q&A with Yum's David Novak on his new book about being "an accidental CEO."

From Adweek:

—NBC has started to give back refunds to advertisers because of the writers' strike. This is gonna hurt.
—Is "doing a Radiohead" becoming more popular?
—Media buyers aren't all that mad at Facebook.
—Survey says many CMOs aspire to be CEOs. But what does it matter? They'll be out on their asses in two years anyway.
—Eleftheria Parpis rounds up the best Christmas commercials this year. Of course, JC Penney makes the grade.
—Barbara Lippert calls Dell's new commercial from Mother "a visually dazzling execution of an elementary point" and she's so right. You can watch it here.

From Mediapost:

—Paramount, Jaguar are charter subscribers to MSN Mobile.
—A closer look at the "Elf Yourself" agency: Omnicom's EVB.
—Newspapers are a great generator of word-of-mouth (so don't kill 'em).

From The New York Post:

—Will the writers' strike cause more out-of-work celebrities to busy themselves with ad endorsement deals?

From The New York Times:

—Nokia looks to regain its U.S. mojo.
—Dr. Pepper turns a YouTube star into a commercial star.
—Advertisers can't get enough of the 1960s.

From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

—Nestle will start selling Jamba Juice in some states.

Dentsu hands Biegel lawsuit to Morgan Lewis

This just in to the Adverganza newsroom: it looks like Dentsu has replaced Davis & Gilbert with a new law firm—Morgan Lewis and Bockius—to handle the sexual harrassment lawsuit brought against the agency by former Dentsu creative Steve Biegel. A Dentsu spokesperson that I talked to this morning had no knowledge at that time of the switch. Later on, Dentsu couldn't be reached. I've placed calls to Davis & Gilbert and Morgan Lewis and Bockius to see what they say. I've no context as to why this has apparently happened, but will add it in as I get it. On that note, have a good weekend.

Bravia bunnies hop over here

In no-brainer news, Sony has decided to run its Bravia "Bunnies" ad here. (Apparently, the 60-second ad has already been running in theaters, but I don't get out much.) It's always seemed a bit odd that none of the three ads has officially run stateside; two of them were even shot here, and you have to imagine that many of the gazillion views on YouTube, particularly for the original, "Balls," are from the U.S.. It's a campaign with universal appeal. I even saw several Bravia "Bunnies" outdoor ads in Moscow a few weeks ago, which considerably brightened up the drab environs of Sheremetyevo Airport. As for how "Bunnies" is doing in terms of YouTube views, it's at about 700,000 all told, according to my usual kneejerk analysis complete with sketchy mathematical skills. That's good, but it's no match for its forerunners. Via Fallon, London.

First Nike work from Crispin musta been pricey

Ad Age has posted Crispin, Porter + Bogusky's first ad for Nike, which you can watch by going here. My initial impression is that the ad cost a lot of money, and has a fairly strong concept, but it ain't the sometimes jaw-dropping stuff that we've become accustomed to seeing from Wieden + Kennedy, which, unless you've spent the last few decades living in the primordial ooze, you know is Nike's long-time agency. (BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: I added in a stream of the spot above, now that I found it. Sorry it's so pixel-ly.)

And on Dec. 1, Greg Stern ate a ballerina

Here at Adverganza Estates, we are big fans of advent calendars, to such a great extent that Grandma Adverganza made a special trip down from Connecticut just to drop off one for each of the kiddies last week. So, we are predisposed to be fans of Butler Shine Stern's Advent-o-Rama, which presents a little surprise for visitors at least through Dec. 24 (when most advent calendars end), but maybe even longer! Today's treat is Holiday Tetris, which you can access by going to the site and clicking on the 7, because it's the 7th! (This isn't rocket science people). Oh, and if you click on Dec. 1, you will see Greg Stern eat a ballerina.

Bob Berenson's the new Dell dude

You could've knocked me over with a feather when I read an email this morning from an FOA (Friend of Adverganza) informing me that Bob Berenson would be the new chairman of the Dell agency, DaVinci, that WPP is setting up. You can read one of the many stories about it here. Berenson, in case you don't remember the name, was the right-hand man to Ed Meyer at Grey for several decades, keeping the agency on the straight and narrow from his roll-top desk in a corner office next to Ed's suite of conference rooms, assistants and offices. I actually saw Berenson do a speaking engagement earlier this year; his compadre on stage was Jeff Dachis. Yes, that Jeff Dachis. And I came away thinking he felt his days in the ad biz were over. (Here's video of it.) Well, I guess not if someone asks you to set up an entirely new ad agency set to run a really, really, really, really big account (remember, I said I wouldn't post billings figures on this blog; only revenue figures).

Martin Sorrell's Google obsession

So, apparently WPP Group chief Martin Sorrell was obsessing about Google again yesterday, during remarks he made at the UBS media conference. This time, his concerns about the company—which he has called in the past a "frenemy"—are about its mobile plans and the DoubleClick acquisition, which he believes could turn Google from frenemy into enemy. He also engaged in, what by now, is his obligatory discussion of Google's market cap vs. those in the ad industry. Yesterday's sound bite: that Google's market cap is four times the size of the top 4 agency holding companies. Thing is, Sorrell has been obsessing about Google for awhile. The first time I recorded it was in a March 2006 story I wrote about Google, in which Sorrell mused that the company's then market cap of $100 billion, was $85 billion more than what he called "poor little WPP." Somehow, I doubt I was witness to the first time he made such a comparison. In fact, Sorrell is constantly raising the specter of Google. In searching for that story, I found remarks by Sorrell about Google here, here and here. Well, one thing you can say about constantly talking about Google—it sure gets you quoted.

McDonald's pushes envelope with report card promo

I don't always agree with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, but this time, they have a point. Seems that in Seminole County, Florida, students received their report cards in an envelope emblazoned with a picture of Ronald McDonald and promising them a Happy Meal for good grades. Now that's what I call pushing the envelope! Anyway, at a time when childhood obesity is making headlines—I saw another alarming report about that last night on NBC Nightly News, while slicing the kids' vegetables (get it? I'm a health Mom!)—companies like McDonald's have to pick their advertising choices carefully. Now, McDonald's counter to this is that the school board and parents in Seminole are behind the promotion, and that Happy Meals can contain healthy alternatives: "McDonald's provides parents with Happy Meal choices including Chicken McNuggets made with white meat, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, apple dippers, apple juice and low-fat milk, so they can choose the Happy Meal that is appropriate for their child." OK, point taken. But McDonald's still has a long way to go to rehabilitate its image before it should consider advertising on report card envelopes.

AT&T rips off MTV's 'Cribs'

Not sure what the point of this AT&T promo is in which Deion Sanders tours the homes of football players like the Miami Dolphin's Trent Green, but its inspiration is obvious: MTV's 'Cribs'. The series seems to be an excuse to show off AT&T devices, and you can take a deep dive on that front here. For those of us who don't give a rat's ass what this guy's house looks like—or are far too jealous to want a tour—there are brief outtakes posted on YouTube, like the one I've posted here.

Once again, you can elf yourself!

I've no earthly idea what the "Elf Yourself" promo from OfficeMax has to do with office supplies, but, what the hell, I decided to elf myself, which is personally disturbing, though others may find it amusing. Just goes to show I'll do anything to increase traffic. Last year David Lubars and Alex Bogusky were turned into elves. If there are any ad guys you'd particularly like to see elved let me know. We can work on it together. Launching this year: ScroogeYourself. Via Toy and EVB. I'll still by my gear at Staples.

Forrester's weird interactive marketing agencies report

A tipster has slipped me a PDF of Forrester's annual report about interactive marketing agencies, which picks OgilvyInteractive as best among the best and brightest. There's a full accounting of the agencies they rated here. This report, which has been known to make interactive shops shake in their Doc Martens, is both the most and least comprehensive of the, um, genre, if that makes any sense. It rates agencies on a voluminous 52 criteria ranging from campaign integration to financial resources to account management, using Advertising Age's Top 50 Interactive Agencies list as a starting point. But then it gets really, well, uncomprehensive. The study only examines seven agencies closely, and it's a peculiar bunch of cats and dogs—in addition to Ogilvy, Forrester looked at Avenue A/Razorfish, Critical Mass, Digitas, imc (squared), Sapient and VML. VML? A fiarly minor WPP shop? Forrester's rational is that it wanted to look at both independent and holding company-owned shops, that the shops had to have crossed a number of thresholds in terms of revenue, revenue growth, client growth, employees and ability in social media. (The report also points out that it does a separate review of Web design shops, where no doubt some of the missing are located there.) But still, one of the problems here, I think, is looking at only one source. Virtually everyone who tries to compile a comprehensive list of interactive agencies, defines the segment differently. As some of you know, I worked on Adweek's Top 50 interactive agencies list for some time, and although we all became frustrated at the increasing difficulty of getting accurate information, at least, back when we were doing it, it offered an alternative viewpoint. The Ad Age list, for instance, doesn't include McCann WorldGroup's MRM Worldwide, and, indeed, MRM was not evaluated. It's also strange that RGA didn't make the grade, but if that's because Forrester considers it a Web design shop, that seems misplaced given how the shop has expanded into other areas over the last few years. As for Sapient, the company has only recently started building creative into its tool set ... and without creative, it's hard to see how a company could be a superlative interactive marketing agency. Just ask Avenue A, which had to go out and buy a few shops a few years back to become full service. Well congrats anyway Ogilvy.

Imus needs to hire a Web designer

You'd think that after all of the hullabaloo about Imus' return to radio, WABC could have come up with a slightly more sophisticated graphic on the Web page that links you to his show's live stream. This is like Web graphics circa 1995.

The Facebook advertiser fans scorecard! Round Three!*

OK, folks I'm filled with blogging regret for not posting all that much last week. But sometimes the people who pay me for my words get in the way of what might otherwise be some perfectly pleasant posts. As a way of getting back in the game, here's round three of my Facebook advertiser fans scorecard, in which the massive Adverganza staff sees how many Facebook fans some of those initial Facebook advertisers have gained. Here goes:


Sprite Sips: 218 fans (that's a gain of only 65 since Nov. 15; well, at least Brian Morrissey is a fan of Mr. Sips).
Blockbuster: 180 fans (that's a gain of only 41 since Nov. 15)
CBS' Amazing Race: 4575 fans (an impressive gain of 3076 since Nov. 15)
Epicurious: 462 fans (a gain of 269 since Nov. 15)
Verizon: 9457 fans (a gain of 7958!)
The New York Times: 5045 fans ((a gain of 2708 fans).

OK, so this week's big gainer is Verizon, but God knows why. In fact, while certain things make sense about who is gaining fans and who isn't, other things don't. The gains of Amazing Race and The New York Times make sense—they're both media brands. But then try to explain Blockbuster's lackluster performance? As for Mr. Sips, his ho-hum fan base makes some sense. It's just a soda, people.

*Study completely unscientific, subject to radical change and chock full o' specious logic.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 12.03.07

Wherein I scan the Monday morning headines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age (BTW, as of this writing the This Week's Issue link still shows last week's issue. Tsk. Tsk.):

—Dell's teensy-weensy $4.5 billion account goes to WPP instead of IPG. Somewhere Michael Roth is crying in his beer.
—Matt Creamer has himself (search engine) optimized. And just look at the results.
—Oh no. Bob Garfield likes the Starbucks spots. Well, at least, he admits to a desire "to go after the CVS birdie with a 20-gauge."
—A (fairly obvious) primer on what not to do at the office holiday party. As in "No one wants to wipe your vomit off the CMO's new sport coat."
—ZenithOptimedia predicts 2008 ad spending. Hint: Unless you're in online you won't be all that happy.

From Adweek:

—Is it that people don't like ads? Or do they just don't like bad ads?
—Anomaly breaks up with Virgin, despite making interesting in-flight safety videos.
—A look at ad spending numbers for the first three quarters from Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Most of the biggest advertisers spent less on TV.
—A stream of the Media All-Stars lunch. If your boss was one of them, make sure to watch.
—What lobsters have to do with keeping people tuned in.
—Paul Kurnit chews on whether advertising causes obesity.
—Barbara Lippert gives a thumbs-up to Converse's first campaign from Anomaly. You can see the ads here.

What we hear from the world of Tom Delaney:

—Mars is talking to shops about "yet defined assignments" whatever that means.

From The New York Post:

—The straightforwardly-named Advertising Rating Co. says it can rate the creative effectiveness of any ad.

From The New York Times:

—Doc Martens tries out a new campaign, without stomping all over Kurt Cobain's memory.

From Mediapost:

—AT&T's CEO lets slip that a 3G iPhone is coming.
—Mercedes to promote clean diesel—and it's not supposed to be an oxymoron!
—You knew this already: Google will bid for part of the wireless spectrum.
—The FCC turns its eye to product placement.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—LG Electronics consolidates at Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Not free.
—Phil Knight secretly taking creative writing classes at Stanford. Well, not so secretly anymore. Free.

Red Wendy's spot, but no red wig

Came across this while looking for a more contemporary Wendy's spot. It's a Cliff Freeman classic dating back to when he, and a young innocent named Cathy Taylor, worked at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample. Note the Cold War theme. Hey, did I mention that we went to Lenin's Mausoleum last week? Creepy.

'Online Media Daily' makes it into writers' strike

Insertion-of-ad-trades-into-popular-culture award for this month goes to Online Media Daily, which is referenced in this video written by a Daily Show writer who makes pointed, hilarious commentary about the issues involved in the writers' strike. OK, so you can't even see in my lousy screen grab that it says Online Media Daily at the bottom of this quote from Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, so go watch the vid. At least during this writers' strike, we can still watch funny stuff on YouTube, which none of the authors get paid for.

Being sweet will get Starbucks nowhere

I'm finally taking a look at these Starbucks spots from Wieden + Kennedy. ("Bear Hug" is above, "Ski Lift" is here, and "Window Wash" is here.) They're way too cutesy-Christmas-ey for me (not to mention that they go with that old trick of anthropomorphizing animals), but I'll admit to being caught up in my opinion, stated earlier, that it's not worth it for Starbucks to do a TV campaign. All we need to be reminded of the company's existence is to walk out the front door, and this campaign doesn't do much more than remind us of its existence—by giving us a nice, sweet serving of whipped cream on the top of the grande latte. (Obligatory weak coffee metaphor!) Yeah, I know Starbucks has got increasing competition from McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, and so forth, but the real difference between Starbucks and its competitors is its venues, which play no role in this campaign. Bah humbug, etc.

Samsung phone spot, nothing if not heartfelt

Engaging spot for Samsung, I think for the U.K. market. Almost makes you forget that many mobile phones can take pictures. Would be better if it ran during Valentine's Day though.

Adverganza's Tuesday/Wednesday morning picks

OK, so I'm getting around to this a on Tuesday. Better late than never:

From Advertising Age:

—Dentsu files motion to dismiss Steve Biegel's suit, based on legal technicalities rather than bathhouse attendance.
—A YouTube video star shows how you, too,can go viral.
—AdBuster guy wears New Balance.
—More ruminating about Starbucks' national TV campaign.
—Who knew that Bob Garfield had such a strong opinion about the Island of Misfit Toys?

From Adweek:

—Yet more Dentsu/Biegel.
—Wendy Melillo on Starbucks and the limitations of word-of-mouth.
—Does playing at war make you want to sign up for war?
—Only 19 percent of clients compensate agencies based on performance. Not exactly putting money where one's mouth is.
—Barbara Lippert gets all warm and fuzzy about Starbucks' new spot.

What we hear from The Delaney Report:

—I've never heard of iBiquity in Columbia, Maryland but allegedly it has a $250 million budget to promote HD something or other. Get on the horn to them kids!
—Is there some sorta conflict between Dentsu's Suzuki account and Attik's Scion account?

From The New York Times:

—Not a moment too soon, the Ad Council discovers the Internet.
—Yeah, so someone already thought of free WiFi paid for by commercials.

From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required unless otherwise noted):

—CondeNet starts putting its videos on YouTube.
—Marketers are fans of Facebook. Free.

My apologies for doing these so late, folks. It's been one of those weeks, and probably will continue to be at this rate!

How about making 'Adweek' a monthly?

Hi all. Got back from our week-long trip to Moscow last night at 5 (that's 1 a.m. Moscow time for you jet lag fans), so I'm a bit behind on the Monday morning picks. Thought I should get to first things first, however: the announcement on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week that Adweek will no longer, as the name implies, be a weekly that covers advertising, instead only publishing 36 issues a year as it builds out a better Web site. If you haven't heard this already, then at least one thing about the announcement worked—if the publication had something it wanted to shout from the rooftops, it wouldn't have buried the story by releasing it on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. In news terms, days like that exist for brushing distasteful matters under the rug. (UPDATE: Nat Ives at Ad Age broke this on Tuesday which forced the story. What can I say ... I was in Moscow.)

Truth is, I'd heard that this was happening some time ago, but hadn't had a chance to report it and feel a little bad about not sharing it with you awhile ago. (Yes, it's true, I'm an oxymoron of a blogger; I actually report things from time to time.) Knowing what I knew, I would've expected something, well, a lot less half-baked than the wimpy, weak-on-detail, so-called announcement that came out on Tuesday. From a publication that prides itself on carving through spin, it was embarrassing—a misleading headline that said, "Adweek to Expand on Digital Offering," on top of a "story" which left until the end of the third paragraph that little side-note about the powers-that-be cutting the weekly down to 36 issues a year. It got worse when, in a fit of jet-lag induced insomnia, I went to the Mediaweek site to see its write-up of the shift late one night last week, because the one thing I hadn't already heard was whether the cut-down in frequency applied to Brandweek and Mediaweek as well. The answer is no, it doesn't. But get this: a comment about how forward-looking Adweek is blah, blah, blah is attributed on the Adweek site to BBDO North America's Mark Goldstein. At Mediaweek.com, the exact same quote is attributed to Adweek editor Alison Fahey. Pitiful. (UPDATE: You kinda knew this was going to happen: as of late today, the Mediaweek quote is from Goldstein as well.)

But, of course, these are mostly semantic issues. The real question is whether Adweek can survive as a principally online publication, and the announcement was painfully weak on details about how this might happen, promising only "the most robust content in the industry 24/7 replete with exclusive Nielsen data," according to Nielsen Business Media's Sabrina Crow. Puh-leese! I can hardly wait! Why the publication didn't wait to make this announcement until they had an actual site to show people—beta would've been fine—to add some meat to the blather defies logic. (And there's no indication as to when this new site will launch.) The announcement was one of the most painfully inept attempts at spin I've ever seen. George Parker put it as only he can, "Oh please Sabrina, why can't you just say Ad Age is kicking your arse and you can't make any money?" Right on, George.

And what could a revamped Adweek site really offer that Ad Age doesn't already? (Oh, right, "exclusive Nielsen data", but that's hardly enough to save a business.) With the exception of AdFreak (yes, I founded it), there isn't one innovation in online in recent years that Ad Age hasn't done first, and Adweek, because it mostly operates separately from Brandweek and Mediaweek, probably will have neither the money, nor the staff to pull it off. To that extent, taking resources out of print should help, but the Adweek staff has been absolutely decimated in recent years in a slow drip, drip, drip that has made it barely noticeable to outsiders. Even several years ago, Adweek had a raft of reporters in New York covering agencies, and at least one staffer apiece in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta and Washington, DC. The Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta staffers are long gone, and, as of the departure of Aaron Baar out of Chicago, Adweek has pulled out of that market as well. Let me repeat ... pulled out of Chicago! DC reporter Wendy Melillo, who occasionally still seems to file, left recently for American University's School of Communication. Long-time agency reporter Kathy Sampey wasn't replaced when she departed earlier this year for MRM Worldwide. The problem is that in the time the Adweek staff has shrunk to its current size, the news hasn't gone away; it's just that Adweek's ability to cover it has. Unless there are plans to beef up staff to meet that 24/7 demand for news, it's hard to picture how Adweek will pull off a great resurrection now. Addressing the staffing issue, if there's anything positive that can be said about it, is just the sort of thing that should have been in the announcement.

To that extent, if anyone cares, I think pulling back on print is absolutely the right move, but, if it were me, I'd pull back even further. Hell, I'd make the print issue a monthly. Media consumption is a habit, and that alone makes the 36-issues-a-year gambit awkward. What is habit-forming about a magazine, that might—or might not—publish on a given week? The random nature of when these issues are coming out diminishes their value. A monthly might have the opposite effect, making the the print issue more of an event for subscribers and advertisers. It also would free up more resources for online, and would give the print issues a concerted focus on in-depth reporting, a real contrast to what the Adweek Web site—or Ad Age—currently provides. Publishing kinda, sorta, whenever makes the print issue of Adweek neither a weekly nor a monthly nor a biweekly, and with print as troubled as it already is, that's a huge liability.

I could go on here, but I've gone on quite long enough. Maybe people who read this will think that I detest the place, after having worked there for years, but I don't. It's just frustrating to see a brand that I've loved mishandle the biggest challenge of its existence.

Doesn't New Yorker Hotel logo look familiar?

OK, one other post before I go on vacation. Take a look at the logo for the newly-redesigned New Yorker Hotel. (Saw it as part of a banner ad on AdFreak). If I were The New Yorker, I'd consider suing.

It's a beautiful Toyota of Tampa Bay

One more post before I go on vacation. Above: Toyota of Tampa Bay commercial that rips off U2. It's not quite as bad as BofA employees revising the lyrics of "One," but you gotta give these people credit for both revising the lyrics and ripping off the video for "Beautiful Day." Bravo! Via Copyranter.

Buick banner ad intrudes unobtrusively

Found this ad banner on the home page of wsj.com today. There's nothing exceptional about what it says, but it had a subtle, pulsating feature that did a great job of being unobtrusive and noticeable at the same time. (Hmmm ... oxymoron watch!) In pulsating mode, it just ever so slightly gravitated into the next column, but not so much that it obscured any text. Nice, simple technique. With this post, I'm signing off for awhile—the family is going on vacation next week and there is much to do. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Starbucks TV campaign seems like a waste

I'm finding the whole idea of a national TV campaign for Starbucks a little odd. It's so rare, really, that a brand has such a strong identity before they launch a big brand campaign that advertising seems besides the point. Except if the company is advertising a "buy one latte, get the second one free" promo effort (which it isn't), what news is there about the Starbucks brand that we don't already know? The company told The Wall Street Journal it is doing the campaign because of a slump in sales, but in this case, even that explanation doesn't really wash. We hardly need to be reminded that Starbucks exists; its ads—as in, its stores—are already everywhere.

JC Penney ads rock, while sales suck

So here's the latest example of a long-time advertising conundrum: what if the advertising is great, but the product's sales are slumping? That's the case with JC Penney, which has had some great advertising from Saatchi & Saatchi this year, and just released its best ad to date: this exquisite commercial (I admit, it's so good I don't even want to call it that) about a girl who builds a rocket ship to go see Santa. There are many small details that make this ad extraordinary—that the girl would never be cast for a Pottery Barn Kids catalog, that she wears her prettiest party dress when she's getting in her rocket ship to prepare for her meeting with Santa. And then there's the music. Lots of people know I'm a complete curmudgeon when it comes to the use of Beatles tunes in commercials, but this time, I'm, well, changing my tune. The commercial uses the John Lennon tune "Real Love" and it's used so perfectly that it's obvious great pains were taken to choreograph the action to the song, rather than it just being thrown haphazardly into the mix. He might not even have minded its use. But, as for JC Penney's sales, they decreased "dramatically" in September and October according to this story in Mediapost. Whatever the retailer does to fix its woes, I hope it doesn't include firing the ad agency. No company is going to get better advertising than this.

Honda holds back on the power of water

I don't really get the point of not being able to embed this new Honda spot elsewhere—I mean it has almost 200,000 views so think what it would have if you could? Anyway, the commercial touts the still-in-concept-phase Honda that will run on water. (Which is great, unless you live in Atlanta.) Anywho, go check it out. The gunfight with water pistols replacing actual firearms is a nice touch. I'm spacing on who Honda's domestic agency is. Forgive me.

The Facebook advertiser fans scoreboard! Round two!*

Ok, since people seemed to link to my first Facebook advertiser fans scoreboard, here's round two, which I'm posting more or less a week later. In other words, this is more or less how many fans these advertisers gained in a week. (I may add more but this list is made up of the ones who were Facebook advertisers right out of the gate.) Here goes:

Sprite Sips: 153 fans (last week's tally: 39; still perplexed as to why Mr. Sips holds a spatula).
Blockbuster: 139 fans (last week's tally: 41)
CBS' Amazing Race: 1499 fans (last week's tally: 73)
Epicurious: 193 fans (last week's tally: 74)
Verizon: 477 fans (last week's tally: 74)
The New York Times: 2337 fans ((last week's tally: 582 fans).

Biggest Gainer: Yes! It's Amazing Race!
Biggest Loser by not Gaining that Much: Blockbuster.

Knee-jerk analysis: People really like TV, but good newspapers aren't bad either. Rental movies suck, and drinking soda isn't all that important.

*Study completely unscientific, subject to radical change and chock full o' specious logic.

Watching the wall at wsj.com fall

By the time wsj.com is free to the masses, the story will be just another news blip to flip (or more likely scroll) past. Rupert, who doesn't yet own the Journal, told a bunch of his homies in Adelaide yesterday that once he actually owned the joint, he would stop wsj.com's subscription model and let the ad revenue flow in, which doesn't exactly rate as news since that move is all but assumed, but was covered as though it was. I haven't done the math on this, but I can easily see it making more money as a free site. The content is still coveted, but strangely, every time I've re-upped my sub the last few years I've felt like somewhat of a chump, even knowing I could write it off. I mean, who pays for content anymore? Probably not so many that it offsets the potential ad revenue stream the site could get. And brick-by-brick the wall is coming down even without Rupert's ownership. The Journal has actively sent links to free content to bloggers for several years. Now, I just saw on Mediapost that anyone who Diggs a WSJ story will automatically make the content they're linking to free to anyone who accesses it through Digg. I had once hoped that a subscription model could flourish on the Internet, but it's time to move on.

Do you feel like seeing Frampton for Geico?

God, it must be fun to work on the Geico account.

Accenture to ad agencies: you're doomed

Spent most of yesterday working on stuff that did not involve ad agencies, only to come home and discover that they're all doomed. (Phew! Thank God for other industries!) So anyway, this news--and maybe it's old news--comes by way of Accenture, which, according to Adweek, "interviewed 70 advertising "decision-makers'" about which of several different strains of the media and marketing industry were least likely to cope well with the shift to digital advertising. Forty-three percent picked ad agencies as the sorriest of the lot, followed by broadcasters at 33 percent and cable operators at 10 percent. Stupidly, the survey asked how digital agencies and search advertisers might fare in a digital advertising world, and no one thought they were doomed! Sheesh. I looked on the Accenture Web site in for the study in all its depressing entirety, but alas, I couldn't find it.

Bring back resurrected Orville Redenbacher!

Come to think about it, maybe ConAgra should have stuck with the creepy, resurrected Orville Redenbacher that Crispin brought back from the dead. The company has actually resorted to airing old Orville ads as bad as this one, but at least, since it's from the 1970s, in this commercial Orville doesn't yammer on about MP3 players. The brand's agency is Venables, Bell and Partners right now. Can't figure out the strategy.

Marks and Spencer brings out some stars

So, Marks and Spencer is airing this somewhat star-studded (is that an oxymoron?) ad to usher in the Christmas season in the U.K. Of course, for those of us stateside, that song, "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" will, strangely, always be associated with that Staples ad from Cliff Freeman and Partners celebrating the start of the school year. Or maybe I just watch too many commercials.

Mac beats up poor little PC

Apple certainly takes the gloves off in this new round of "Get a Mac" ads, even if one of them features the PC as a boxer. (Hey, how consistent was that use of a metaphor?) Actually, I'm starting to feel sorrier for PC every day, and if it catches on, maybe the meteoric rise of Mac sales will slow down. Kidding.

Commemorative ad agency plates ... or something

Whoever it was that suggested to Copyranter that the new "Lies Well Disguised" logo should perhaps be the stylish Alex Bogusky plate at right wasn't too far off the mark. Here at Adverganza Estates, our checkered past includes a lot of strange agency memorabilia, such as this "Truth Well Told" commemorative plate at left, now celebrating its 20th anniversay as a commemorative plate. (In case you didn't get it, "Lies Well Disguised" is a takeoff on the McCann-Erickson slogan, "Truth Well Told." Sheesh! Do I have to explain everything?) BUT, WAIT, THERE'S MORE: I knew that damn Bogusky plate looked familiar.

Bailey's gets all shook up

Here's a spot for Bailey's Adweek wrote about yesterday featuring the facial contortions of a woman shaking a drink in a martini shaker. Particularly because it's in slo-mo, and you can't figure out why her head is going back and forth until the end of the spot, it definitely draws you in—you find yourself needing to stick around to find out what in hell this is all about. The soundtrack doesn't hurt the engagement factor either. Via Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

New structure brings Burnett back 'round again

There's something weirdly back to the future about the restructuring of Leo Burnett under an "open architecture" structure that also encompasses Starcom Mediavest and Digitas with, according to Mediapost, "no default lead." You could ask (OK! I will!), did the whole company get itself over-siloed, and will we see more combines like this going forward? Starcom, of course, started as Burnett's media department. As for Digitas, it's new to the Publicis/Burnett fold, but does anyone remember Giant Step? Back in the 1990s, it was Burnett's digital arm, and one of the most well-regarded in the business; it eventually got merged out of existence. No, I don't think Giant Step, even in its heyday, would ever have held a candle to the pointy-headed data geeks at Digitas, but still, it's odd to contemplate how many big agencies got out of the digital game back in the day, as though the Internet itself had gone away instead of just a whole bunch of get-rich-quick stock options. What goes around comes around, I guess.

Can you find the AT&T souvenir site?

Took a spin this morning on the AT&T site that lets you make customized t-shirts and coffee mugs based on the places you spend your time. (It's a spinoff of the Wes Anderson-directed AT&T campaign themed, "Your Seamless World.") Doubt I'd shell out $17.95 for this "Pelcancy" t-shirt (that's short for Pelham, New Canaan, Quincy), but I guess it's fun enough to play around with the site. AT&T told Adweek that they've sold thousands of t-shirts—the site went live a month ago—but I'm wondering if the whole thing is under-promoted. I actually have tried to find it several times to post about it and I came up empty until I saw the Adweek story. True, AT&T is a huge company, but there's no mention of it on the company home page, or on the home page for its wireless services. It was also referred to as a "souvenir store" in the release that originally announced the launch of the campaign back in September, and yet, if you type that phrase into the search function on the AT&T site, you come up empty. Googling it gives marginally better results. There's no sponsored links about the site; it comes up third in the non-paid links, but hardly describes what it is. Sorry, I'm such a stickler.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks 11.12.07

Wherein I scan the Monday morning headlines so you don't have to (though I'll be a little late with most of them on Monday):

From Advertising Age:

—A Q&A with Barry Diller, owner of the most boringly-named Internet company ever.
—What talents do organizations crave in terms of digital? Read this or be made redundant.
—Doritos? A force for good? Well, maybe.
—Do consumers save $2,500 a year by shopping at Wal-Mart? Not necessarily.
—Ford and New Orleans equals zero stars, according to Bob Garfield.

From Adweek:

—Not getting enough viewers from reality, TV networks create virtual worlds.
—Hill, Holliday gets bigger presence with Bank of America.
—A Q&A with Richard Kirshenbaum, in which he reveals the importance of a good haircut.
—A close-up on Wendy's online marketing programs.
—Barbara Lippert likes everything about Target's fashion show featuring holograms, instead of models. Except for the fashion. I've embedded video of it below.



What we hear from The Delaney Report:

—Despite evidence to the contrary, Wendy's execs aren't all necessarily happy with the red wig.
—The relationship between Revlon and Endeavor might not be so strong.
—Some advertisers are skeptical about Facebook.

From Mediapost:

—Mountain Dew launches a dewmocracy, wherein consumers get to create their own new version of the super healthy, non-teeth-decaying soda.
—Publicis' Maurice Levy calls Microsoft's Facebook investment "insane," and states the obvious: that there's not enough online ad dollars to support all of the sites that expect ad revenue to be their road to riches.
—Laurie Petersen bolts Mediapost for Minyanville.com.
—Two groups plan to complain to the FTC about the new ad programs just launched by Facebook and MySpace.

From The New York Times:

—Google's masseuse retires because she's so damn rich.
—Now video game magazines are feeling pressure from the Internet.
—Circulation at Philadelphia's two newspapers holds steady, and some say—amazingly enough— it's because of an ad campaign to gain new subscribers.
—Will consumers care about Finra? A new campaign aimed at them hopes that they do. (Naw, I'm not really sure what Finra is either.)
—New Arbitron ratings system shows radio use dropping among blacks and Hispanics.
—New Web site lets people create their own cookbook.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—More on Minyanville.