Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 09.29.08

Wherein I scan the Monday morning headlines so you don't have to.

From Advertising Age:

—Why Wieden and Starbucks parted ways, if it matters.
—Who knew car dealers were into viral video?
—Media companies grew a paltry 4.6 percent in 2007, with best performance by digital, according to Ad Age's 100 Leading Media Companies. One guess as to which medium did the worst. Hint: You're not reading from it right now.
—The holidays are gonna suck.
—How the Wall Street crisis is affecting you: credit crunch means that McDonald's can't roll out its coffee bars as fast as possible, making you really tired due to lack of caffeine. OK, I tried.
—Guess who the biggest bank advertiser now is? Sorry Ogilvy, it ain't Wachovia.
—Second-quarter ad spending plunges. You knew that already, didn't you?
—Q&A with Jerry Yang about Yahoo's life-transforming new ad platform.
—How the credit crisis is affecting marketers.
—Bob Garfield eats the egg on his face over his initial critique of the Travelocity Gnome.

From Adweek:

—Can you Canoe? David Verklin explains his new addressable advertising gizmo. Here's video of Verklin getting all excited about it.
—Agencies still investing in training. Up with people!
—TBWA will probably buy Beattie McGuinness Bungay Jump. I meant Beattie McGuinness Bungay.
—Third time's a charm? WPP gives third deadline to disinterested TNS.
—Visa looking for new digital, interactive resources.
—Barbara Lippert says that bald men look like walking fetuses.
—Ad spending predictions move further downward.
—Mini's delicate introduction of the Clubman.
—Mediabrands chief Nick Brien makes bold predictions about 2009.
—Rich Siegel applies for job as CEO of Morgan Stanley.
—Brian Morrissey on the perplexing popularity of faxing.
—Tide to Go's new "Stain Rap" commercial.

From Brandweek:

—Big retailers promoting their store brands.
—Zach Braff is the voice of water.
—Down with new cars, up with the certified, pre-owned vehicle.

From Mediapost:

—xBox: it's not a game system, it's an entertainment brain.
—The new Ford Mustang, as envisioned by members of filmaka.com.
—Jim Trebilcock (where do they get these last names from anyway?), becomes CMO of the new Dr Pepper Snapple combine. BTW, Dr Pepper is the official soft drink of Ben Bernanke.
—People value service over price in their pharmacy decisions, survey says. Wonder how low my least favorite pharmacy, CVS, did.
—Marketers want risk.
—People flocking to health sites. But will marketers continue to?
—Glam Media goes through layoffs, launches male network called CodeBlue.
—Someone sues over limits on ability to reproduce Spore.
—Proof gamers occasionally leave the house: they influence each other when it comes to car purchase decisions.
—NBC local stations have a hard year, despite the Olympics.
—Voters use online channels to follow the election, but don't necessarily trust them, per Mediavest.

From Mediaweek:

—My former boss, Sid Holt, named head of American Society of Magazine Editors.
—One thing that isn't sucking: the beginning of the fall TV season.
—"Raising the Bar" sees the bar lowered on viewers.
—No one gives a sh*t about Fridays.
—ESPN is all about live.
—Telemundo to air Mexican soccer.
—Some say Yahoo's new ad platform isn't so Apt.

From The New York Times:

—Loved this piece from the Sunday Magazine about how the Web sites of financial titans haven't exactly reflected the market's turmoil.
—Stuart Elliott summarizes Advertising Week in less than 1,000 words.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Food marketers pitch value message. Powdered Kool-Aid anyone? Subscription required.
—French activist group puts graffiti on billboards to protest their existence. Those French, tres creative, non?

OK, that's it. Still in mourning over the Mets. Life is tough.

What Budweiser and brides have in common

Apropos of nothing, you have to check out this commercial for Budweiser, I think for the Chinese market. Bride walks out of beer bottle ... need I say more?

Those were the good ol' days of flying

Draper not in character at Yahoo! conference

Since I've opted out of Advertising Week this year missed a thing or two I would liked to have seen, including yesterday's appearance by Jon Hamm (aka Don Draper), as emcee of Yahoo's press conference announcing Amp. So far have only been able to find this picture of it, and find it a bit odd that they didn't have Draper come in character. Oh, so Yahoo was holding a press conference to announce the platform that used to be called Apex, and then was called Amp, and now is called Apt, aimed at networking ad inventory across Yahoo and other sites and making sure that the whole process is smoother and doesn't involve faxing (faxing? how 1992!). Apparently, Hamm/Draper said stuff like this: “If Don Draper were standing before you today, he would still be smoking and drinking. But he’d recognize that what my friend Jerry Yang is about to share with you will rock the media world in the way that radio and TV did." Yecch. As for the platform, online advertising does need to streamline its processes, and pooling inventory and letting advertisers focus more on who they want to target instead of dealing with individual properties isn't a bad one. But Yahoo's real hope in making this work is to get all of the non mega-sites on board. My guess is that, unless there were financial dealings between the two, no other major property would want to get on Apt. Instead, they'd want to use their own version. To that point, CEO Jerry Yang wouldn't comment directly yesterday about a rumor which appeared in the Financial Times (subscription required to read all of article) that Yahoo might buy AOL. To get Apt off the ground, wouldn't be the worst idea.

More Cablevision, Verizon and me

When we last left our protagonist (i.e. me), I was arguing against switching from Verizon to Cablevision. As you might recall, among other problems, my wireless connection stopped working the second we signed up with Cablevision, and Cablevision, after pretty much stalking me to get my business, now doesn't give a rat's ass about the fact that I had to pay $70 for a new router to get everything working again (and it still isn't as good as it used to be). So, twice in the past week, I've called them up and made the point that I should get a $70 credit on my bill and the people on the other end dutifully say they'll pass it up the food chain. I'm happy to provide the receipt. Needless to say, I haven't heard back. Here I am, giving them my business, and they are turning their back on me like this? For now, I'm refusing to pay my cable bill and emailing them the links to all of the posts I've done on this. I feel betrayed. UPDATE: So, just got a call from them. They are only willing to reimburse me for one month's online service, which still leaves me $40 in the hole (not counting, of course, all of the time I've spent on resolving my issues). Their point-of-view: they don't handle routers. My point-of-view: I acted in good faith by giving them my business, and deserve that they act in good faith and give me a $70 discount on my bill. When I asked the person I just talked to whether I could talk to a supervisor, she responded, "I am a supervisor." "Do you report to someone?" I said. "I want to talk to that person." Awaiting their reply.

Not only eco-friendly, it's politically correct

This is either a great marketing idea or too politically-correct by half, but did you know Lexus has an entire Hybrid Living initiative which promotes allegedly eco-friendly products? Found this out via a 450-word press release about some eco-conscious candle and bracelet being sold as part of this whole marketing push at Barneys New York. The bracelet is made out of leather from soon-to-be euthanized Lexuses! OK, maybe this whole thing is just weird.

Will this spot make me want Macy's? Nah.

Find this new Macy's ad, which is a montage of moments where Macy's has been mentioned or seen in movies, kind of curious. It seems more appropriate as a rallying cry for Macy's employees than a reason for the rest of us to shop there. I mean it's great and all, that Macy's has been a part of the fabric of America for decades, but is shopping there going to do anything special for me, like get me some good deals? Especially now, that's about all I care about. Last I knew, JWT handled Macy's, so probably its handiwork, but not absolutely positive.

Hey, Starbucks! Here's where to look for ideas

So how obvious was it that Wieden + Kennedy and Starbucks were going to part ways? The only surprise for me is that apparently they've had a relationship with one another for four years, and with the brand asking Wieden and other agencies for ideas to move the brand forward, I can see it being time for Wieden to start walking in the other direction. The beginning of the end for me came last year, when Wieden started to actually do TV advertising for Starbucks, which, not at all coincidentally, is when TV advertising for Starbucks jumped the shark. It's not that the ads were bad (check out one above); it's just that they were completely superfluous. Starbucks is so well-established in the national psyche as a brand, and more importantly, as an experience, that it's impossible to impose an image-driven campaign upon the brand. A much better idea is MyStarbucksIdea.com where the Starbucks universe can share, discuss and vote on ideas to improve the company--and Starbucks actually implements some of them. Let's hope Starbucks continues to plough its resources into that instead of advertising. If Starbucks is really looking for ideas to move the brand forward, that's where they are.

What everyone is saying about "I'm a PC"

Now that I've gotten the whole Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates thing out of my system, time to move onto Microsoft's "I'm a PC" commercial, which has picked up on the buzz-o-meter where Bill Gates doing the robot left off. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which cares intensely about these things, has a roundup piece culling commentary from TechCrunch, AdRants and others. Most, not surprisingly, think the "I'm a PC" effort is a failure. Says Jason Kottke: "If MS had created the 'I'm a PC' message on their own, the ads would be great, but these copy-and-paste ads lack soul and are merely 'eh'." OK, you didn't ask, but what do I think? I think it's great that Microsoft finally, several years into the Apple campaign, got direct about the ad campaign that's done so much to undermine its image. It's surprising, actually, that it took Microsoft so long to hit the Mac campaign right between the eyes; the only part I would lose is at the opening. There's really no need for the John Hodgman doppelganger at the beginning to say "I've been made into a stereotype." The rest of the commercial gets that message across quite clearly, without the sour-grapes declaration of it. I suspect that the people who say the campaign is a failure are the same people who deride those of us who use PCs. As much as I love the "I'm a Mac" ads, portraying me as a dumb PC user has always grated on me. And before I start to get comments from all of you Mac lovers out there, there's certain software I need to use from time to time that doesn't run well on Macs, so, hey, call me a loser, but I'm staying where I am. It's interesting to ponder how Microsoft and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky could simultaneously have been producing one campaign that was anything but on point (i.e. the Seinfeld/Gates ads), and another that hits its problem right where it lives. I suspect they both knew how out there the Seinfeld campaign might appear, and had the "I'm a PC" ad in the can, ready to go, if the other one flopped, which, of course, it did.

No need to email Dan at Sprint

Sprint Nextel came out last week with the second black-and-white commercial featuring (relatively) new CEO Dan Hesse. The only thing I know about the first spot was that a bunch of bloggers, rightfully, got down on Sprint for printing Hesse's email--dan@sprint.com--at the end, as though the guy was actually going to enter into an email relationship with his customers. Instead, as I recall, people who emailed their pal Dan got a form email. Bad form. In this commercial (it contains a pre-roll for Cisco), Sprint and Hesse make no such promises and direct you to a URL: sprint.com/readynow.

Bring Gates and Seinfeld back ... as a sitcom

Wondering if this whole imbroglio over the Microsoft campaign briefly starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates will be looked back on as the moment we all learned that buzz, in and of itself, isn't enough. (Yes, we should know that by now, but something tells me ... ) Was just checking out Y'Tube to get the html for the long version of the spot in which they live with an "average" family, and it seems to occupy a pretty high spot in the consumer zeitgeist right now. Lots of uploads, video responses and views. Here's what I think it means: even though the point of these pointless ads was to humanize Windows, there's something voyeuristically enjoyable about what they actually do, which is humanize Bill Gates. Ahhh the suspense of seeing how Gates fares after being run through the Jerry Seinfeld/Alex Bogusky test labs. Will he really do the robot? Will he really get pissed off at that teenage girl? Will he really tell the delivery boy he has no money? Yes, yes and YESSSS! Now, that's entertainment! I dunno. Maybe Seinfeld and Gates can succeed where the sitcom that spun off of Geico's cavemen didn't. Every week Seinfeld could try to further humanize Bill Gates, with all proceeds going to the Gates Foundation. Hey, there have been dumber ideas. I think.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 09.22.08

OK all. Hoping the worst is over with my childcare woes and my connectivity issues. With that, I re-commence the Monday morning picks:

From Advertising Age:

Massive Wall Street meltdown package. Some highlights:

—Consumers had lost all of their confidence before last week.
—What your favorite holding company CEO thinks of the market turmoil.
—Here's what to do if you're a financial services brand.
—Jonah Bloom, pissed off at the media.
—Bring on the Ramen Noodles!
—AIG's tag line was "The Strength to Be There." Ha! Take a look.

—What digital production costs.
—New pubic hair fun at shaveeverywhere.com.
—Bob Garfield doesn't get all that excited about flatulence.

From Adweek:

—Networks do away with integration fees and make agencies, advertisers, somewhat more happy. Or less grumpy. Take your pick.
—Can Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley every get along?
—Inside what Scion is looking for from prospective agencies.
—The allegedly amicable parting of ways between Goodby and Hyundai so that Hyundai can go to some agency that no one has ever heard of.
—Brand Finance says the major global brands are taking a hit.
—Pols try out idea generation software.
—Is Activia really that good for you?
—How live streaming of sports events is changing the game.
—Barbara Lippert on a good, strategically on-target Microsoft commercial.
—Mark Wnek admits he's bad about choosing.
—Bradley Kay buys an old house and says that digital and video production aren't the same thing.

From Brandweek:

—Boring as hell, but more of us are bringing lunch to work.
—More companies are listening to customer complaints on Twitter and elsewhere. If only one of them were Cablevision.
—Gallo ads featuring Allman Brothers soundtrack, but not for Boone's Farm.
—No lotion on your tissues? Man, are you out of it.

From Mediapost:

—How not fun it is to market the Ford F-150.
—Gift cards going on an unwanted diet.
—Huggies targeting Hispanic market by giving out free diapers, collecting mothering techniques.
—Online retailers relatively optimistic about holiday season. Offline retailers, not so much.
—Companies, are you listening? How microblogging can work for you.
—The Interactive Advertising Bureau wants a self-regulatory online ad organization, with no IAB affiliation.
—This Friday's presidential debate will be the most-watched ever.
—Media stocks ride last week's roller coaster well.
—Newspaper ad revenue down 17.2 percent for the month of August. No silver lining that I can see.
—Film at 11! Younger dads actually buy things for their kids!

From Mediaweek:

—The second annual Mediaweek 50. David Levy, president, advertising sales, Turner Sports is no. 1.
—"Mad Men" and "30 Rock" pick up lotsa Emmys. Hmmm. Two shows about the media business win awards. Who'da thunk?
—Is it content? Is it advertising? Who cares?
—NewMediaMetrics unveils an uber database.
—A closer look at the circulation figures for Conde Nast's Portfolio.

From The New York Times:

—Reporters and editors show restraint in using words like "crash", "free fall", "Armageddon" etc.
—More jawing on from marketing types about the financial crisis.

As for The Wall Street Journal, did it get rid of the "Media & Marketing" link? Can't find it in the redesign, and don't have time to comb through the headlines myself. For shame, Rupert!

Connectiviy issues + babysitter woes = no blogging

Hi guys, just wanted to say that sorry to be so remiss on the blogging front this week. Had double trouble with my ongoing connectivity problems and then facing a sudden childcare gap. Hopefully in the next week or two it will all be better.

Even speechless, still love Mac ads

I couldn't even get the sound to work and yet I'm still a sucker for Mac vs. PC ads. Interesting that The New York Times would let anything resembling editorial that's actually an ad to appear on its home page. Then again, that PC is so cute, and inept! Irresistible!

Yahoo hiring Bradford: a good thing

I have to admit to deriving some pleasure from Yahoo's hiring of ex-Microsoft ad sales chief Joanne Bradford to replace that search guy. It hardly means that Yahoo is now in the clear, but no matter how much emphasis Yahoo has tried to put on search in its quixotic quest to be a true rival to Google, having someone from the search ad business replace Wenda Harris Millard seemed like a non-starter from the get-go. Bradford, like Millard, understands the mainstream advertiser mindset, and since their embrace of online advertising, and search in particular, is still a work in progress, much better to have someone in the top job who gets where the people they are selling to are coming from. Good luck, Joanne, and as for the people at Yahoo, I hope this is the first sign that you're moving in a new, right direction.

Whoa! Cool! Electronic paper

Been wondering for awhile what the hell electronic paper is, and thanks to 3-minute Ad Age, I finally know. It's gracing the front cover of the 75th anniversary edition of Esquire, and required what looks to be a whole bunch of Elmer's Glue, some refrigerated trucks and an advertiser--in this case Ford--which has a literally flashy inside cover ad for the Ford Flex. The guy Ad Age interviewed from Structural Graphics, Michael Maguire, envisions a day when this will be commonplace. We'll see. When you see the footage of workers physically pasting pieces together, one-by-one, makes you wonder how this would ever scale. BTW, Good to see that Abbey Klaasen, an actual Ad Age reportetr, is doing anchor duties on 3-minute Ad Age. Nothing really bad about the guys who usually do it, but they're mere headline-readers, who wouldn't know Lee Garfinkel from Art Garfunkel. Ha!

Slow on the search for Palin

Woke up this morning and saw what I didn't see yesterday: search ads bought off the keyword "Sarah Palin." Doesn't that seem incredibly slow on the uptake to you? By my precise calculations, it's been about 10 days since she was nominated for VP. Can't say how quickly or slowly sponsored links showed up next to Joe Biden's name after his nomination, because I never checked. But as the candidates themselves would probably say, it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. I think a few people had heard of Joe Biden before his nomination.

Where are the Monday morning picks?

Hi all. I'm on a deadline today for people who actually pay me, so sorry there's no picks to be had. I'll get to 'em when I get to 'em.

Digital has better ROI! Film at 11!

It positively kills me to see headlines like this one in Ad Age: "Kellogg: Digital ROI Surpasses That of TV," followed by quotes like this one from Kellogg's CMO: "It's still relatively early in our learning. But analysis of the Special K initiative of the last 18 months showed digital media exceeding that of broadcast ROI." In 2008, the ROI of TV--particularly when you consider the size of those investments--vs. digital is still worthy of discussion? Sheesh.

Need help understanding Seinfeld Microsoft spot

Man, I totally don't get this Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates Microsoft commercial. Please, someone, somewhere, explain to me why the action takes place in a fictitious shoe store! Explain to me what this is meant to do to improve my relationship with Microsoft! Best for me to move on. UPDATE: Here's Brian Morrissey's story at Adweek.com about the commercial, which provides this explanation: "This is the tech giant's first work from MDC's Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, and it marks the kickoff to a wide-ranging $300 million campaign designed to alert consumers to innovations made possible through Microsoft's Windows operating system." Forgive me for thinking the commercial was about shoes.

Can we please ban the word "right-sizing"?

Maybe I'm not known for my empathy on this blog, but I feel so sorry for chief people officer Rose Zory at Carat, who apparently hit the uber-send key yesterday and sent documents outlining the communications plan for layoffs there to the whole company instead of just the management people who were supposed to get it. The memos and PowerPoint, in all of their awkward attempts to communicate the painful truth, were posted at Advertising Age, and reading them made me cringe, on a number of levels.
For one, it was like a bad acid flashback. My last act while at Organic in late 2000 was to manage the internal communications, and some of the external, for a layoff of 25 percent of the staff. Twenty-five percent! (Lucky me, I wasn't part of the "reduction in force", but had been hired by Ad Age anyway, and was leaving the company in a couple of weeks.) Just writing the talking points for those who would deliver the news to both the saved and the unsaved was enough to make one want to run for the nearest psychiatrist, and I had the good fortune not to send the entire communications plan to the whole company beforehand. Can you imagine what it must have felt like for Zory at the excruciating moment when she discovered she had sent the email to the whole company? And the further horror of having it posted on adage.com? This is the stuff of which nightmares are made, people.
Another thing that made reading these documents so cringe-worthy has nothing to do with the fact they leaked; it was their use of corporate jargon to explain an extremely unfortunate human event. Like most reporters, I have a disdain for jargon, and have always found the word "right-sizing" particularly offensive. True, companies sometimes have to readjust staffing to get it in line with reduced revenue, but to describe this as "right-sizing"? That's a term designed to distance whomever is saying it from the cruel realities involved. It's not "right" for employees who lose their jobs in a touch economy, nor is it "right" for the lucky people who keep their jobs, but are probably saddened by the departures of some good people and working harder than ever. Carat isn't the first company to deploy this term instead of the more accurate "down-sizing," but if I had my way, Carat would be the last to use it. Ever.

American Express touts its Members Project

American Express just posted this commercial to its "Members Project" channel on YouTube. It's basically a retrospective of clips from spots, using a lot of editing creativity, by AmEx commercial endorsers, including some footage from a spokesperson gig that Jim Henson did back in the day. It ties back into the "Members Project"—in which AmEx cardmembers suggest, and vote on, worthy initiatives to get $2.5 million in funding from American Express. Via Ogilvy.

Wish Matt Damon would speak with one voice

I'm a member of the ONE campaign—and you outta join too—but that doesn't mean I have to like this commercial, which is airing heavily during the Republican National Convention. Its intent is to show that many different voices have come together to fight global poverty, but the effect of having all of those voices coming from Matt Damon is just distracting. The first time or two I saw this ad I spent the whole time wondering why different voices were coming out of his mouth instead of fixing on what the voices were saying. Maybe they did this because the other stars involved in the campaign weren't available for a shoot.

Geico spot cemented Don LaFontaine's fame

Would any of us even have known Don LaFontaine's name had it not been for GEICO? Rest in peace, Don.

Forget "Mad Men", now Bernbach is on Twitter

At the risk of declaring that Twitter has jumped the shark, now I've gotten an invitation to follow Bill Bernbach on Twitter, in a move probably inspired by the "Mad Men" twitterers. Bernbach seems confused by Google's new browser, Chrome, and is trying out the Avis "We try harder" slogan on anyone who will listen. Seeing Bernbach on board gave me the idea that maybe I should start impersonating David Ogilvy, but somebody already thought of that, and the Twitter D.O. even claims to be having dinner with Betty and Don Draper on Thursday night. Maybe I'll be Mary Wells. Anyway, this whole Twitter impersonating thing probably has jumped the shark. While I was putting together this post, I got an invitation to follow Dr. Benjamin Spock, who is following more than 700 people but hasn't posted a damn thing.

Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 09.02.08

Wherein I scan the Monday and Tuesday morning headlines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age (from what I can tell at this writing, no Labor Day print edition):

—Hungry for deals? Here's a close-up on the Wendy's dollar menu.
—Honeyshed names Stephen Greifer CEO; buzzes beyond hive. (Bee metaphor!)
—Attempt to rationalize John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as VP nominee.
—ABC's "Pushing Daisies" lets people eat pie.

From Adweek:

—John McCain wins gold medal in the Olympics. Barack Obama does better in the overall.
—Go experience the Army, in a Philadephia mall.
—Gerri Graf hires people from Goodby, comic books.
—What Sarah Jessica Parker, Stan and Cartman, have in common.
—The CW lives, on mobile devices.
—TNS, you have until Sept. 12.
—The AARP advertises that U.S. medical care sucks.
—Lisa Colantuono and Leslie Winthrop tell you how to thrive in touch times.
—Alan Wolk opines: "The real digital revolution has nothing to do with advertising or marketing. In fact, it's the mortal enemy of both." Yikes.
—Barbara Lippert on Microsoft's new endorser: " ... the company has hired Jerry Seinfeld as its pitchman. Really? Was Michael Bolton busy?"

From Brandweek:

—Fast food companies advertise that times are tough.
—Papa John's pushes the specialty pizza.
—Consumer-generated media is not dead, thanks to Samsung.
—Bulgari wants to shine at the Breeders' Cup.
—We're loving coupons more than we used to.
—Coke turns the conventions green.

From Mediapost:

—MassMutual is so damn responsible.
—AT&T lets fans pick best college football player of the week, via texting, of course.
—Edmunds.com says August car sales won't add up to being quite as bad as it thought. Trust me, it's nothing to get too excited about.
—Nastia Liukin for Vanilla Star Jeans.
—LaDainian Tomlinson loves his Campbell's Soup.
—Target makes its site more blind-friendly.
—"90201" promo gets around.
—Those new IAB formats are said to rock.
—MediaVest starts an Impact Circle of less-than-higher-ups who get to shake the place up. Sounds like fun.
—ESPN admits it was tuned into NBC's Olympics.
—Look who wants to buy a Reed Elsevier trade pub.

From Mediaweek:

—Nielsen reveals first out-of-home TV ratings. It's about time, wouldn't you say?
—Women's Health editrix Tina Johnson is leaving the Rodale pub.
—Style.com flips on an online shopping channel.

From The New York Post:

—The TV networks don't have much to promote, but promote they are.
—Look for Nastia Liukin to score a book deal.
—The Google Chrome Web browser. Don't get that name at all.

From The New York Times:

—More on Google Chrome.
—Target to debut Manhattan "pop-up" stores.
—Google cozies up to ad agencies. Great Rob Norman quote basically saying that the death of media planners is greatly exaggerated: “I think there still may be at least one human media planner left, other than the one that pulls the handle on the Google machine.”

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Lipitor ads after the drop-kick of Robert Jarvik. Subscription required.
—Wilmington, North Carolina first city to go totally digital. Subscription required.

OK, have a good one. Sorry the summer's over, but it's beyond even my formidable blogging powers to change that sad fact.

Adverganza's gone fishin' again

Hi all. I'll be on the beach for a few days, so don't think I'll be posting. See ya after Labor Day!

TBS' funny ads, not made here

I'll probably be flipping between the Mets/Phillies game tonight and the Democratic National Convention, but you can go watch TBS' "World's Funniest Commercials" tonight at 9. I screened a few this morning—as though I have nothing better to do today—and none were from the U.S. What does it all mean, I ask ya? Kevin Nealon, who is not our nation's best humor export, hosts.

Measuring Bogusky's "9 inch 'Diet'"

Still pondering Alex Bogusky's decision to write a diet book with the support of his partner-in-crime, Chuck Porter. And despite musings about its raison d'etre, from reading yesterday's Ad Age, it seems unlikely that the book is part of some viral marketing stunt for Domino's so intricate it is beyond the understanding of mere advertising mortals. As the magazine points out, the book was listed among its publisher's titles before Bogusky's agency, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky won the Domino's account. Here's part of its description on Amazon: "With years of experience manipulating the masses, two of the best tricksters in the industry explain how you as a consumer are being duped, and how you are actually a part of the conspiracy to make you fat. But more importantly, they teach you how to break the cycle." One would think that might include not stopping so often at Burger King and Domino's, though the book's title, "The 9 Inch 'Diet'" focuses mostly on using a smaller plate to make you feel as though you are consuming more food than you actually are. Maybe Bogusky has won a 9-inch plate client?
Still, take a look at that book description: "How you as a consumer are being duped"? If that doesn't scream to Domino's and Burger King that (at least) a stern talking to is in order with Mr. Bogusky, I don't know what does. However, the perverse genius of the situation is that all fast food organizations these days have to give, pun intended, lip service to healthier eating. They can't openly protest the book's premise that perhaps we are eating too much and that corporate America has much to do with it.
The situation reminds me of a client conflict situation that ended badly for Saatchi & Saatchi back in the day, weeks after I had left the agency in the late 1980s. Saatchi had prepared a commercial for Northwest Airlines showing passengers cheering the fact that Northwest had decided to ban smoking on all domestic flights. RJR Nabisco, another Saatchi client for which the agency actually didn't handle any tobacco brands, got so pissed off it pulled $100 million in business from Saatchi, a move that, at the time, made the front page of The New York Times. No one came out in support of RJR, but I imagine what mattered most to Saatchi was keeping the account. Even if Bogusky has an excellent point to make with this book, if Domino's or Burger King mysteriously leave Crispin, you probably wouldn't go wrong to blame it on the book.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 08.25.08

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

From Advertising Age:

—Jonah Bloom is back from Africa and boy, he's depressed.
—Close-up on that Alex Bogusky and Chuck Porter diet book. Yes, if you've been on the beach, they really are writing a diet book, called "The 9-Inch Diet Book."
—A company that sells potatoes on "Why McCain Should Be in the White House."
—Now's the time to be in the CRM business.
—Ad Age gives the gold in buzz to Speedo.
—Would Microsoft sell Avenue A/Razorfish to WPP in exchange for 24/7 Media? Hell if I know.
—Value add from Beijing: NBC starts to figure out how to measure overall video consumption.
—Bob Garfield awards only 1.5 stars to the new United Airlines commercial, based on the fact that no one will feel better about flying just because the client's ad agency can commission a mean animated frog.

From Adweek:

—Lots of depressing research reports. Maybe hold off on reading 'til after Labor Day.
—The first multi-platform broadcast of the International Paralympic Games.
—Brian Morrissey on Google's attempts to change the TV ad market. Come out from under the covers people. You don't have to be that scared.
—The blogosphere gives a Bronx cheer to Jerry Seinfeld's ad deal with Microsoft.
—In advertising, is "50 the new 65?"
—Wieden looks for top creatives. Not apparently as easy as it sounds.
—Glen Engler becomes head of Digitas Boston.
—Benjamin Palmer teaches User Experience 101.
—Joseph Jaffe no longer flies Delta Air Lines, if he can help it.
—Barbara Lippert gives high marks for execution, low marks for completion, for The Climate Protection Alliance.

From Brandweek:

—Interview with Scion's Jeri Yoshizu.
—Apparently, it's not too early to start marketing pushes around Halloween.
—Procter & Gamble emphasizes value in Cascade push.

From Mediapost:

—How Stop 'n' Shop and Giant are fighting back against the evil supercenters.
—Audi lands an app on the iPhone.
—More evidence that in a down economy, people drink more. Present company excluded, of course.
—What? Banks still suck at customer service?
—Interpublic, Socialvibe, to friend each other.
—Q&A with Barry Herstein, new CMO of PayPal.

From Mediaweek:

—The NBC Olympics: the most-watched television event ever.
—Magazines looking for CPM increases in 2009, because their expenses are high. Is that the way this is supposed to work?
—Facebook's new Engagement Ads.
—Erwin Ephron on working in advertising, circa 1966.
—Paula, Randy, Simon and ... Kara?

From The New York Times:

—Stuart Elliott gives out his Olympic ad medals; disagrees with Bob Garfield about those United ads.
—Can LinkedIn help unemployed screenwriters?
—Refrigerator, TV havin' a little chit-chat.
—Dick Ebersol on why NBC's Olympics were such a success.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—And now the dark side of NBC's Olympics: only $5.75 million in online ad vid revenue. Free.
—Rafael Nadal gets a pre-U.S. Open makeover. Free.

That's it for today. See ya tomorrow.

Do 'Mad Men' characters have time to Twitter?

It's time to spend a little quality time on the subject of whether all of these "Mad Men" characters showing up on Twitter are part of an AMC marketing stunt. I first became aware there was an @don_draper on Twitter from Alan Wolk, so I decided to follow him. He's elusive, as you might expect, and keeps popping out of the office for extended periods of time. Then, last night, I got an email that Peggy Olson was following me. Peggy is much more prolific on Twitter—work has been keeping her up at night. Pete Campbell, Bertram Cooper and a couple of other characters seem to be tweeting away too. When it was just Don Draper, I thought this was a late-summer time-waster. Now I'm not so sure, although, on the other hand, it isn't exactly in keeping with the series' slavish devotion to retro to embrace a newfangled online service like Twitter.

Think twice before you complete the "Triple Play"

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, or read my earlier post on Cablevision, Verizon and me, have no doubt gathered that I've been in the midst of an infrastructural makeover.
And what a disaster it has been.
For awhile, my husband and I courted the overtures from Cablevision to switch to the "triple play" of Internet, cable and phone service for a low, low $89.85 per month, and finally switched from Verizon. And, though I have never professed any particular love for Verizon, which seems to always find a way to get the bill you worked to reduce back to its previous level and beyond, I'm now wishing I'd never made the switch.
Here's the deal: the moment we installed our cable modem, the wireless connection went haywire. Either it didn't work at all, went offline for no reason, or, in the weirdest of its permutations, would be working, as would the cable modem, but mysteriously keep the computer from being able to go online.
I consider my wireless connection important. It helps me work at night, particularly when it's time to put the kids to bed and I don't want to keep them awake with the continuing clatter of the keyboard from my upstairs office, located way too close to their bedrooms. Yes, that's one reason I haven't been blogging as much— I can't take the laptop downstairs.
In the weeks since early July when we made the switch, I've been told various reasons for why this situation exists from the two sides involved: that something was wrong with the Ethernet cable (I went to a Cablevision walk-in center and picked up a new one), that cable modems have problems with electrical surges and go out more than DSL lines (you can guess whether it was NetGear or Cablevision which told me that). You get the drift. Cablevision promised me I'd save money by switching, and yet, here I am, almost two months later, with a non-working router, which seems only fixable by buying a new router for at the very least $50.00 (but probably more) and countless hours trying to fix the problem. Cablevision keeps saying that the problem with my router is not its problem, but all I know is that my router worked just fine until the very moment the cable modem entered the picture. The company seems to forget it is in the customer service business. It promised me it would save me money. In fact, it is costing me money, and time, and aggravation after weeks and weeks of trying to court me. So far, my pleas to them to give me a discount in the amount it will cost me to buy a new router have gone unheeded. And yet, I've checked the Web site. There is no disclaimer that I could find that said, oh, by the way, if you switch, and your wireless router goes awry, it's not our problem. There is nothing in the reference guide that discloses this either. But here I am, left holding the bag on a problem that started because I took Cablevision up on its offer. I talked to a very nice supervisor tonight named Jordan, but he's off duty until Sunday. In the meantime, I can't take it anymore, and am set to buy a new router tomorrow. After all the crap I've gone through, I may not see this as objectively as many of you, but what do you guys think? Should Cablevision reimburse me for the trouble I've gone through to give them my business?

Dove's campaign for "The Women"

I like skincare products. Lots of 'em. So, when Dove emailed me to say it would send me a basket of goodies and a pair of free movie tickets to a flick called "The Women", I said yes. And now I'm blogging about it. So there. (I'll never get to actually go to the movie, BTW. Seeing a movie outside of the house is beyond my current abilities.) Dove has invested heavily in promoting what looks like the ultimate chick flick, in that it features, among others, Meg Ryan, Bette Midler, Annette Bening and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Dove is hosting a whole bunch of videos about the movie on its site here, and promoting it via emails to bloggers-with-no-standards who will post for the sake of free skincare products. Ha! Apparently, the movie deals with many issues that have been the focus of "The Campaign for Real Beauty." If it seems unsynergistic that Ryan--who became a poster-child for bad plastic surgery--is behind this movie, look the other way, though she looks a bit more natural in these vids than she has in years.

Sanjaya is here, if you care

Sorry not to have been blogging much lately. It's because of a weird combination of lots of work and lots of play colliding in such a way that squeezing in time for Adverganza has been difficult. OK, so here, finally, like about a year and a half after he was the talk of the Idol-o-sphere, is Sanjaya in that Nationwide commercial. Yes, there is an appearance by his faux-hawk. Sometimes, when I link to commercials like this, I wonder if I'm, like, codependent or something.

Adverganza's Tuesday morning picks, 08.19.08

Wherein I scan the Tuesday morning headlines because I goofed off yesterday.

From Advertising Age (no print issue this week):

—Remember account reviews? No one ever writes about them anymore. Well, Stella Artois is in review.
—You're shit out of luck if you want to see a preview of the new 90210.
—Maybe people don't run away screaming from pre-rolls.
—Users more and more and more satisfied with Google.
—Influential mad women talk at the Women to Watch luncheon.

From Adweek:

—SAG and AFTRA talk about a contract. Blah.
—Huge power company simplifies agency pitching process!
—J&R Music World discovers this thing called an ad agency and picks Toy.
—Time Warner Cable looks to take its media account out of the house.
—Fox unveils a Hispanic wiki.
—Barbara Lippert on why political ads airing on the Olympics don't fit the Olympics zeitgeist.
—What Commercial Alert doesn't like about Olympic sponsorships.
—All about Steffan Postaer's second novel.
—Tom Bedecarre's rose-tinted glasses.
—What Harvey Marco plans to do at JWT N.Y.
—Axe's foray into branded entertainment.
—JWT's Tom Doctoroff from inside the Bird's Nest.

From Brandweek:

—Dow XLA is the new Spandex, in case you were looking for a new Spandex.
—No more red carpets for GM.
—Allegedly, credit card companies aren't sending out as much as direct mail. Yeah, right.

From Mediapost:

—Microsoft invades Sheraton lobbies.
—No new bookbags or shoes for school kiddies.
—Everyone loves Benadryl. In fact, I'll be buying some later today.
—The cute little Ford Ka rides with James Bond.
—Nielsen looks for better ways to measure DVR viewing.
—Will the Tribune Co. default in 2009?
—Gannett tells 1,000 staffers to hit the road.
—The Banana Splits are back!
—This economic downturn is so powerful it's changing our belief systems. Whew.
—Economic downturns don't mean it's time to let the pet get sick.
—Westin's Heavenly Bed coming to United Airlines.
—Levi's unbuttons for art.
—ABC takes over TV Guide. Temporarily, anyway.
—Magna Global's Steve Sternberg is steamed about Olympic ratings not including numbers for individual events.
—Soon to come: a British version of "The Apprentice." Fortunately, the Donald will stay on this side of the pond.

From Mediaweek:

—MSN debuts "The Republicrats." Yeah, it's about Republicans, presidential elections, stuff like that. Can't imagine where they got the idea.
—Washington Post, Newsweek with the major political convention video streams.

From The New York Post:

—Some guy I should probably know called Ed Castillo blogs about "Mad Men."
—Nautica gets a lot of sweat equity out of Misty May-Treanor's head band. Personally, I think most people spend more time looking at her Nike bikini.
—This Olympics is all about the gals.
—Who cares about his leg. What will happen to Liu Xiang's endorsement deals?

From The Wall Street Journal:

—Coke plies the Chinese with Coke. Free.
—Barnes & Noble pissed at Amazon, Obama. Free.
—Now the race is on for Michael Phelps endorsement deals. What a predictable metaphor. Free.
—Olympic ads compete in tug of heartstrings. Free.

Where are the Monday morning picks?

Due to this situation called me and the kids are having too much fun in Rhode Island, I'll be posting the picks tomorrow, as in Tuesday. Wish us no traffic on I-95. As my cousin's daughter says, "Peace out!"