Guy Ritchie Nike spot a YouTube hit

I'm ready to declare the Guy Ritchie-directed Nike soccer spot a hit. It's closing on at least 1.7 million YouTube views after two weeks up on the site. It's wasn't done by Wieden + Kennedy, or Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, but 72andSunny in L.A.

In an Absolut world, there'd be better ads

One of the channels of British advertising I subscribe to posted this Absolut commercial the other day. The shots of the fragmented bottle are pretty cool, but overall, this ad is pretty mundane. I believe this is TBWA\Chiat\Day.

What's the true heritage of the Nasonex bee?

Apparently, people are interested in this nationality question. The things you discover when you're on Twitter. The description that came with the YouTube clip above says the voiceover is Antonio Banderas. Not sure that's right.

It's not anarchy, it's Synarchy

I kind of knew that George Parker would have a much better take on the name of the new WPP Group Dell agency than I would. It's called Synarchy. Go read George's post; don't waste your time here.

Let's all cheer for John Hodgman

John Hodgman rocks.

Looking for niche social nets business model

Having talked about data portability and niche social nets last week, this week the Social Media Insider asks what the business model is for niche social nets. I ask, but I don't have any answers. Click here if you'd like to read the column and give me an answer.

Here's something to do with that crappy ad trophy

From what I can tell, most of my fellow ad bloggers have missed the "hot" story of youarefallon.com. The copy about this site that was emailed to me reads as follows: "In celebration of all those who put 'The work, above all' in the last 26 years, Fallon is asking you to donate an award that you won during your time at Fallon. In a symbolic ceremony, the awards collected will be melted to create the WE ARE FALLON copperplate, which will be mounted at the entrance of our new building. To learn more, go to YouAreFallon.com." According to the "Who Has Donated?" link on the site, people are really contributing stuff: 73 awards have been contributed so far including seven Cannes Lions (two Grand Prix!), and, from David Lubars, the 2001 O'Toole Award for Best Agency. I was thinking this was a hoax, but maybe not.

Andy Borowitz and the Doritos URL

As my Twitter circle knows, actually went into the city last night (if you have to ask which one ... ) to see Andy Borowitz, Susie Essman, Jonathan Alter and Calvin Trillin discuss the upcoming presidential election at the 92nd St. Y. Borowitz did take time, however, to comment on the absolute ridiculousness of URLs appearing on bags of chips, as in "For more information, go to doritos.com. " He also, rightly, predicted that if he went to the URL www.doritos.com/faqs, there'd be answers to questions, he didn't really want to know the answer to. Fortunately, the site doesn't exist.

ABC tells you where to advertise: ABC

Lotsa coverage of the upfronts this week. (Its plural when you're talking about the presentations, I guess, and singular when you're talking about the whole marketplace.) At any rate, ABC is trying to bring truer accountability to advertising, launching an Advertising Value Index. According to this Mediaweek story, it works like this: advertiser gives list of marketing objectives to ABC. ABC spits out data where the advertiser should advertise. Where they get the data for this, I've no idea. And guess what? It turns out, according to ABC sales president Mike Shaw, "ABC over-indexes all television in nearly every case, often by a wide margin. ABC delivers the most valuable audience in television." Help! I'm falling off my chair!

eMarketer cuts its social net forecast

Not many headlines have caught my eye so far this morning, but this one did: "eMarketer Trims Social Network Ad Forecast." The report, by senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, says that social network advertising should only grow by 55 percent this year, down from an earlier estimate of 70 percent. That shouldn't have anyone crying in their virtual beer, but lest you think the problem is the economy, think again. The report cites the difficulties that marketers have in implementing and tracking social media campaigns. In the limited world view from my home office, I think this is a stumbling block that is going to take at least a few years to get over.

Apropos of nothing: Sue Simmons and the F-Bomb

I guess I'll file this under reasons to love Twitter, to give it some loose connection to whatever it is I do on Adverganza. So, last night, I'm watching the local NBC4 News when long-time 11 p.m. anchor Sue Simmons launches into an apology for "a word some people find offensive" that she uttered earlier in the evening during a promo for the news when she thought she wasn't on-air. I scrambled to YouTube to try to discover what the naughy word was. Alas, nobody had posted the video yet. But on TwitterScan—which lets you search tweets—I was rewarded. Simmons had said, "What the fuck are you doing?" probably to some poor, off-camera flunkie. Now, you can see the dropping of the F-bomb, and her apology above. Let's just say that her delivery of that offensive word isn't exactly sotto voce. UPDATE: You've probably discovered by now that this clip is no longer available. Bummer.

JC Penney reflects on Mother's Day

Just noticed this Mother's Day spot from JC Penney, which is a lovely take on mothers, daughters and the passage of time. It'll never be as good as last year's Christmas spot—which I'm bringing up here again because you must go see that commercial if you never have. I don't care that it's May 13th! Assume this is Saatchi again. Great stuff.

Halo 3 campaign has halo effect on Gatorade

First, view this Gatorade spot from the "League of Clutch" campaign, featuring the Celtics' Kevin Garnett. I think it was created by Element 79. Then, ask yourself if this commercial was heavily influenced by the "Halo 3" campaign from McCann WorldGroup and T.A.G. that just won Best of Show at The One Show. Just sayin'.

OMD silently pursues Cannes Media Lion

Can't get the audio to play on the video above, but what the hell, since it appears to be an OMD submission for a Cannes Media Lion, worth putting up anyway. Involves "Project Runway" and Hershey's and making a product relevant for today's "hip consumers." Why hasn't the word "hip" been banned by now? The shop also posted this Cannes submission for a campaign it did for Absolut. It, too, doesn't seem to have workable audio.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 05.12.08

A little late with the Monday morning picks. Had to get an early-morning assignment in. OK, I'm still scanning the headlines so you don't have to:

From Advertising Age:

—Magazine leads with Dove retouching story. Still think it's much ado about nothing, but what do I know? I'm a blogger.
—Fun! Look at how much holding company CEOs make. The winner is Omnicom's John Wren, who made more than $10 million last year.
—The dicey job of marketing the new Batman movie after Heath Ledger's death.
—Amid the doom and gloom, advertisers focus on a new product: hope.
—More thumbs down on the upfront. Here's a chart predicting how the broadcast nets will do.
—Is sampling the new media buy?
—More on the executive shuffle at Aegis.
—Bob Garfield took a happy pill and gave 3.5 stars to this Nike apparel ad from 72andsunny and directed by Guy Ritchie.
—Video interview with Lee Jeans CMO Liz Cahill on how the company has dipped its toes into social media.

From Adweek (a lot of good stuff in this issue):

—Cool story by Mark Dolliver about how consumers might not reward companies for their green efforts.
—Branded entertainment around social responsibility is the next big thing.
—Hunter College not happy about Coach-sponsored college course.
—Another cool story, this one from Brian Morrissey, on brands that build themselves entirely through communities. Accompanying video interview with Rob Kalin of Etsy.
—Moms skip commercials on DVRs. Didn't finish the story, but here's why we skip: we're too damn busy.
—Mark Wnek does a direct upload of his brain in this great, rambling post about the 4As conference.
—Barbara Lippert isn't feeling that warm and cuddly about Carmichael Lynch's first Subaru effort, which focuses on love. Wish they'd link to the spot so we could all watch it.
—Tony Granger! Unleashed!

From Brandweek:

—Consumer electronics ask you to recycle your old consumer electronics. Hope this circle is virtuous.
—Shocker! Social networkers don't like untargeted ads.
—Smaller candy makers not dancing in the aisles over the Wrigley/Mars merger.
—Casual dining out, buying frozen dinners in.
—Q&A with David Churbuck, vp/global Web marketing, Lenovo. Best quote: "'There is nothing to do in Second Life except, pardon my bluntness, try to get laid.'"
—Why do I find this story about "A-list" business execs being receptive to advertising funny? Doesn't it make them also sound gullible?

From Mediapost:

—Coke starts its Olympic push. You can get a fridge pack in Ethiopian, Thai and Mandarin. Collect 'em all!
—Some "Sex and the City" Mercedes ad. Sounds cheesy.
—Hey everybody! Free iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on Thursday!
—Forgot to mention that Facebook is now offering data portability too.
—Saturday is Pangea Day. Sorry, can't make it. I've got a kid's baseball game to go to that day.
—The Media Ratings Council withholds accreditation of C3.
—NBC Universal says it will make money on Internet!

From Mediaweek (a new member of the Monday morning picks club!):

—Cablevision buys Newsday. Who the hell knows why.
—Manhattan Media buys 02138—the magazine silly, not the zip code.
—The U.S. Open will be cablecast where it belongs.
—This week's Programming Insider.
—Video of Alan Frutkin on the upfront.

From The New York Post:

—Cable wants to eat the broadcast networks' lunch.
—Who was supposed to be at the Time 100 party. And I don't mean any of us.
—Dissident Yahoo shareholder has only 96 shares but knows how to rile things up.

From The New York Times:

—Norman Pearlstine joins Bloomberg as chief content officer.
—If you know what primetime is, let us know.
—Duh. Playboy faces competition from the Internets.
—Advertisers like a (TV) year with 52 weeks in it.

From The Wall Street Journal:

—More downbeat predictions about the upfront. Free.
—CW sells a block of primetime. Free.
—"Speed Racer" business kinda slow. Subscription required.
—Cool Buzzwatch post about the "When Obama wins" phenomenon, as in "“When Obama wins…SkyNet will be destroyed at last.” Free.

Phew! That's it for today. Have a good one.