iTunes Coldplay ad leaves me, well, cold

I really didn't wake up this morning thinking, "Today I'll be not-so-complimentary of TBWA/Chiat/Day," though between this post and the one just below, you might think that. At least a dozen people have posted this iTunes ad featuring Coldplay to YouTube, and I'm just not diggin' it. The beginning of it looks too much like a video from an overly emotive 1980s synth-pop band. The first time I saw it, I found it so overwrought I was waiting for the punchline. It gets a little better when it moves to slightly more color, but it just doesn't pop the way the original iTunes ads do. It's all about the contrasts and stark silhouettes, and this commercial doesn't really have them.

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.

My interpretation of this Absolut ad

OK, Mediapost says this Absolut ad is supposed to equate vodka taste to natural childbirth. I'm not on quite the same wave length. To me—and not to be gross, but honesty is the best blogging policy—it looks like one of those animations of a tampon ad trying to prove that the product doesn't allow for leaks. Only the product is upside down, and it's green. There. I've said it. Via TBWA/Chiat/Day.

At TBWA/Chiat/Day, they're going away

You'd expect some reshuffling to go on at TBWA/Chiat/Day upon the departure of Gerry Graf (at right, with minimal hair) from the agency, but an exodus? And so soon? That's what appears to be going on, with Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal leaving for Young & Rubicam and Isaac Silverglate and Jeff Anderson going to Droga5. (I'm sure some of you would dispute that four people equals an exodus, but let's put it this way: it's still a bunch of bodies.) But all these shifts leave important questions unanswered. What I really want to know is how Hamish McLennan sells candidates on joining Y&R when his newly-appointed creative director, Tony Granger, is still forced to cool his heels at Saatchi & Saatchi working on creative projects until his contract is up where, of course, Graf is the new creative chief. Does Granger get to meet with his future employees? And what happens when Granger and Graf meet in the hallway? Someone please clear this up. I'm getting a headache.

Lee Clow dreams of a golden iguana

I'm not up on all that is Lee Clow so I didn't know the TBWA/Chiat/Day creative guru had plans to start what he's defining as a "Media Arts Festival" in Mexico because, he says, ""I resent going to France to celebrate advertising." But now that I've read Adweek, I'm all caught up--and he pictures a golden iguana as the top prize. First, I wanted to mention that I've been to the Cannes confab only once but--being not as well traveled as Clow--I wasn't resentful in the slightest. Anyway, the term "media arts" is Clow's way of describing what it is he believes people in advertising are really up to these days, and was the basis of his keynote speech at Adweek's annual Creative Conference. "Everything we do now is media," he said. Part of me really thinks that's true, but the evil part of me just says, "There go those ad guys again trying to pretend they're not in advertising." Some of the agency's work for, say, Apple, is entertaining enough to qualify as media, but, I ask ya, aren't the agency's commercials for Nissan pretty much just commercials?

Billings discrepancy watch: WaMu

Here's my second billings discrepancy post, wherein I contrast and compare the different billings figures accorded to accounts by different publications. This time around it's WaMu, which shifted its, um, very big account out of Leo Burnett and to TBWA/Chiat/Day. Here we go:

1) Advertising Age: $173 million; no source cited.
2) Adweek: $100 million-plus, with the proviso that, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, WaMu spent $120 million last year and $75 million in the first two-thirds of this year.
3) Mediapost: $100 million; no source cited.