Here's the new BusinessWeek cover

After 18 months of intense study, BusinessWeek's new redesign, from Modernista, is out today, and it involves—drumroll, please—block letters. Changing the logo, in the case of a magazine, is usually done as a piece of short-hand signaling to the reader that much else has changed, as is the case here. You can read the explanation of the redesign by editor-in-chief Steve Adler at the redesigned Web site here, but I'll give you a quick synopsis as to why BusinessWeek embarked on this redesign: you're very, very busy.

Coulter vs. Deutsch: Donny wins

Adweek got Donny Deutsch on the phone about what I guess was Monday's interview with Ann Coulter on Deutsch's show. The one in which she says that everyone should be Christian, explaining, ""We [Christians] just want Jews to be perfected." Donny, who I don't usually defend, keeps his cool admirably, especially given that he's Jewish, in my mind winning the argument simply by not showing any sign that what he really might have wanted to do is strangle her. He actually gives her an extra minute or two to attempt to explain herself after a commercial break, but, as you'll see if you view the clip here, that's a task even she isn't up to. As for Donny, he told Adweek, "I was offended. And then, and this was interesting, she started to back off and seemed a little upset ... I think she got frightened that maybe she had crossed a line, that this was maybe a faux pas of great proportions." As for Coulter I'm sure she just views it as another marketing stunt.

Unilever can't have its vixen and decry it too

OK, this was bound to happen. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has gotten on Unilever's case about the current campaign for Axe (above), saying that it "degrades young women." But it doesn't stop just with asking the company to pull the campaign. The group has made sure to put the disconnect between the Axe advertising from Bartle Bogle Hegarty and the new "Onslaught" effort for Dove—which decries media images of women—front and center. Unilever's response to this, predictably, is that the Axe ads are spoofs, but, seriously, folks, what a cop-out. How long are educated people supposed to buy that explanation, as though the pre-teen girl portrayed in "Onslaught" would see one of the Axe ads and even understand what a spoof is? This issue is going to put Unilever in a conundrum it can't easily squeeze out of, and my guess is that the company is eventually going to have to decide one way or the other where its best interests lie. It's great that on a corporate level Unilever decided several months ago that it would stop using women under size 2 in its ads, but if that woman is depicted in an Axe commercial writhing around while meeting the future in-laws, it doesn't matter what size she is.

BBH presents New York, the theme park

You may have noticed that New York City launched a new $30 million tourism campaign yesterday themed, "This Is New York," a fanciful look at the city that's about as far from the French Connection-style city many of us secretly love as Tottenville is from Riverdale. You can view the spot here. Ad Age argues, that as such, it doesn't represent New York at all, I think because New York is many things, but it isn't made up of live action sprinkled with animation. I kinda know what they mean, but the spot is much fun to watch even if it is ironic enough that its presentation of New York-as-theme-park comes at just the point when the city's famous amusement park, Coney Island, may soon succumb to the wrecking ball. Created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York.

Saatchi online gallery a success ... maybe

Forgot to link yesterday to this free story in The Wall Street Journal about what appears to be success at Saatchi Online, the online art gallery run by Charles Saatchi. The story says that in two polls the gallery has conducted with some of the artists who have uploaded work for sale to the site, collectively the art they've sold has rung up $30,000 a week and $88,280 respectively. That's not bad, although one wonders how those numbers would pan out if everyone who received the poll had replied. Who wants to admit their work isn't selling? Another problem with the story: Saatchi is quoted as saying that the site "regularly" receives 50 million hits a day (that includes page views and other new images). Meanwhile, Media Metrix says the site g0t 894,000 unique users in August. Doing some crude math, if you divide 894,000 by about 30 to get a rough number of daily visitors (29,800), and then take 50 million and divide it by 29,800, that would mean that, on average, each unique visitor is looking at more than 1675 pieces of art when they go to the site. Fifty million hits a day? I doubt it.

Rothenberg (sort of) stomps on standards

You may not want to read every word of the latest, lengthy entry on Randall Rothenberg's IAB "clog," but at least the guy has the cojones to question the need for industry standards on the same day that his Interactive Advertising Bureau released guidelines on how to measure rich Internet applications and a status report on interactive ad platforms for video games. But Rothenberg thought it was the right time to open up a discussion about when standards help--and when they hurt. "Our members want us to establish standards for the best of reasons: to make markets" he says. "But standards established in the wrong way or the wrong time can hinder dynamism. ... In my 10 months leading the IAB, I have been struck by how frequently we are asked to develop industry standards in areas ripe with innovation, and bubbling in utter ferment. Digital-video insertion standards, mobile advertising creative standards and, most recently, widget size standards are among the requests that have been made to our various committees. In most cases, I believe such standards are premature and inadvisable."

Modernista brings you BusinessWeek

If you like the redesigned print edition of BusinessWeek which launches on Friday (the picture at right is not it, repeat--it launches on Friday), you can thank Modernista. According to Keith Kelly's Media Ink column in The New York Post, the agency helped BW art director Andrew Horton with a reworking with the magazine that has been in the works for 18 months. And you thought the agency just did Hummer ads.

Eat Godiva, be skinny supermodel

On the one hand, you have Dove trying to protect little girls from the media messages that pressure them to be perfect in "Onslaught." On the other hand, you have this campaign from Godiva, which tells women they can be amazingly beautiful, not to mention skinny, by eating chocolate that is apparently as big as their heads. Well, at least in this one, the model has the good sense to wear a tent dress (a la J. Lo), as opposed to the other two, which you can see here and here. Via Mediapost, which credited the ads to Sugartown Creative.

Intel, outside of the (TV) box

We all are accustomed to hearing that clients are shifting money to online, but what separated Stuart Elliott's ad column today in The New York Times from most other things I've read is that it cited actual client budget numbers. The ones that really counted came from Intel, which said it would be spending more than half of its $300 million annual budget online in two years from only 15 percent two years ago. In addition, the company is requiring the companies that participate in its co-op advertising ventures to spend 35 percent of the money that Intel kicks in in online next year. Of lesser import—but still fairly telling, given the product—is that the American Egg Board said it will spend at least $1 million, and maybe $2 million, of its $10 million budget online. Products with Intel Inside may be high consideration products; eggs, decidedly not.

Foster's finds out if Pure Blonde is more fun

Even if the women in this spot for Foster's Pure Blonde are there purely for their sexy, if virginal, appeal, it's still pretty funny, even to a chick like me. Launched almost week ago with the hopes of being viral, it supposedly has about 60,000 views so far, which the client back in Sydney says it's fairly pleased with. Still, as the story says, it's no Carlton Draught's Big Ad.

Who are Colleen DeCourcy's Facebook friends?

Been awhile since I gave you guys a peek into someone's Facebook friends, so, since she's been much in the news lately, thought I'd focus on TBWA's Colleen DeCourcy. Without further ado, here are friends I thought were interesting: Mike Murphy and Tom Arrix of Facebook (hey, is that the same Tom Arrix I grew up with?), AKQA's Lars Bastholm, R/GA's Mariana Bukvic, JWT's Justin Crawford, Peter Grossman, Marc Grunberg, Matt MacDonald, Claire Morrissey and Hussein Dahjani, Ad Age's Matthew Creamer, the ubiquitous Avi Dan, ad-journalist-about-town Tobi Elkin, Sapient's David Coffey and Benjamin Feist, Universal McCann's Quentin George (a former Organic guy), Goodby's Christian Haas (also former Organic), Organic's Ranae Heuer, Clare Meridew, Eve Neveau, Amanda Van Nuys, Matt Rosenberg, Dan Sicko (is that a real name?), Chad Stoller, Dave Sullivan, Dave Silvestre, Adam Turinas, Adam Wilson, Camas Winsor and Scott Lange, the also-ubiquitous Joseph Jaffe, Avenue A/Razorfish's Kristin Landgraf and Gordon Montgomery, Adweek's Brian Morrissey, Digitas' Michael O'Brien, high-profile ex-Wal-Mart employee Julie Roehm (but you knew that), WPP's Trish Shortell, and VideoEgg's Troy Young (also former Organic). You'll notice the dearth of TBWA/Chiat/Day employees on this list. Then again, if I had recently jumped ship to their I wouldn't necessarily being advertising who my "friends" were there either.

How much did you pay for Radiohead's album?

Since Radiohead's new album, "In Rainbows," is being released today, it's the official start of the Great Content Experiment of 2007. I decided to pay $12, ear unheard. (The graphic at right shows what your shopping cart looks like before you input the price you want to pay.) I've heard that some people think that $10 is about the right price, because of the iTunes model (.99 x approximately 10 songs), but this isn't just any old band. And, though I don't lie awake at night worrying about whether Thom Yorke has a roof over his head, I do worry that this whole experiment will turn into just another example of people really thinking their content should be free. Anyone who wants to comment about what they paid, feel free in "comments."

A close-up on Lego brick films

The other day I referenced a Wall Street Journal story on "brick films,"—films made entirely using Lego. It's not a new phenomenon by any stretch—I seem to remember getting sent a link to one re-enacting Michael Jackson's video "Thriller" some time ago. Still, thought it worth posting one for the uninitiated. The above, "Grace," like many brick films focuses on the struggle between good and evil, or, maybe, good plastic vs. bad plastic? Not every marketer has such a cadre devoted to its product, but, wow, when it comes to people spending lots of time focused on your product experience, you can't beat this for engagement. This site is said to be the biggest hub for all things brick film.

World of Warcraft fans will watch anything

Looks like the folks at Toyota and its agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, are all hot and bothered about the traffic they're getting on YouTube to a video that inserts the Toyota Tacoma into the game World of Warcraft (above), but really, if you look at the traffic for all sorts of inane World of Warcraft videos, it's not that exciting. I was looking for the commercial in question on YouTube, and it's amazing to contemplate what WoW fans will watch. More than 6 million people have watched this boring ten-minute video called "World of Warcraft GM Power," (no relation to the car company), 4.2 million for this one showing WoW characters dancing to "Saturday Night Fever" and "Can't Touch This," 3.5 million for this one called "Guild Wars vs. World of Warcraft." Since these people obviously have no life that exists in the real world, even if they are watching the Tacoma video, it's doubtful they ever actually get in a car.

Judann Pollack to boomer marketers: stuff it

Refreshing column in Ad Age this week by Judann Pollock that I somehow missed when I scanned the headlines yesterday. Basically the gist of it is how incredibly patronizing it is for marketers to now say they've discovered the baby boomer is alive and well, and actually worth being marketed to. The data supporting the fact that baby boomers aren't exactly over the hill has been around for just about as long as the term itself, Pollack notes, saying " ... it's kind of galling that just now marketers have woken up to boomers' value." I'll say.

Catch O'Reilly/Hardee's clip while you can

Don't know how much longer this clip of Bill O'Reilly interviewing the CEO of Hardee's and Carl's Jr. about that "Flat Buns" ad (above) will be at this link, so better take a look at it now because I couldn't find it elsewhere. It's rather, um, revealing from both sides of the hotseat. In O'Reilly's case it's for taking a commercial about a teacher showing off her accoutrements and immediately skipping to scandals involving teachers molesting children. While the commercial certainly doesn't help on that score, what about starting with the fact that it's in bad taste and that we don't need to encourage 16-year-olds to think of their teachers as sex objects? Those were the first things I thought of, anyway. On the side of Andy Puzder, the CEO of parent company CKE Restaurants, the clip is telling for his insistence that the whole thing was meant as a parody, and that, while the teacher may be gyrating on her desk, "There's no physical contact" between the teacher and students. Puh-leese. Of course, Hardee's/Carl's Jr. has re-edited the spot so as to omit the teacher. However, in the have-it-your-way ethos that typifies media-to-order these days, the company doesn't seem to have petitioned YouTube to take the old spot off its servers.

New iPhone ads go to black

"Hey, our Mac vs. PC ads are shot against a white background, so let's shoot the new iPhone ads against a black background!" Was that part of the creative process that led TBWA/Chiat/Day to these new testimonial-style iPhone ads? I dunno, it's just the first thing that occurred to me when I saw them. (In addition to the one above, the other two are here on the Apple site.) Seriously, though, you have to give this campaign credit for being simply straightforward. No need to hype what is already beyond hype.

CVS? Caring? Not from what I can see

I see that CVS launched a new campaign yesterday with the theme line, "For All the Ways You Care," using a fanciful, animated technique to make the local CVS seem as warm—and fuzzy—as the fuzzy logic behind the campaign. Just as it is with so many campaigns for health insurance companies, attempts by a company like CVS to portray itself as caring simply don't pass the truth test. CVS holds a near-monopoly where I live, and the effects of not having any real competition are obvious. The stores are perpetually understaffed, the staff at times downright rude, and the customers usually left to fend for themselves. Often, as I've been standing in another long line—the one at the pharmacist's counter is often five or six deep—I muse about why companies like this invest money in ad campaigns when putting money into staffing issues seems like a more worthwhile investment. The agency for this campaign is Hill, Holliday—not that I blame the agency for the client's faults.

Meth campaign really starting to spread

As chilling and disgusting as the Montana Meth Project's campaign is, it's working, and it was the worthy focus of a special report last night on ABC's "Nightline" (there was also a short feature about it on the "ABC Evening News"). I had read over the last six months or so about the campaign moving into some other states; now the Office of National Drug Control Policy is picking it up to run in more states where meth use is particularly high. As the "Nightline" report pointed out, the graphic campaign is a long, long way from the "This is your brain on drugs" metaphor-ism of the "Just say no" error. That effort now looks incredibly wimpy by comparison.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.08.07

Wherein I scan the Monday morning headlines, so you don't have to. (I'll be off with the kids most the day, so this may be all you get.)

From Advertising Age:

—So Steve Ballmer says Microsoft will be an ad giant. Hey everybody, the company has been saying this at least since its Financial Analysts Meeting last July.
—Bottled water is great, except for the bottle.
—Ha! "Mad Men" with no ads.
—At Unilever, young folks help out old fogies.
—This year's Power Players. (Yeah, they're mostly white males.)
—Bob Garfield gives Dove's "Onslaught" four stars, while simultaneously pointing out that Unliever also makes Axe and that Dove agency Ogilvy also does the advertising for the Barbie doll. No one ever said life was simple.

From Adweek:

—Advertising on social networks: Marketers aren't always accepted with open arms.
—Peter Drakoulias finds it strange that Domino's doesn't perceive Burger King also being at Crispin as a conflict.
—How hiring Michel Gondry as the director for a Motorola spot put Cutwater in Moto-limbo.
—Like Garfield, Barbara Lippert gives Dove's "Onslaught"a thumbs-up. No word on whether that thumb is manicured.

From Mediapost:

—Burger King is getting set to market downloadable cell phone games.
—And now, Crayons, the drink.
—Sanford C. Bernstein analyst says Yahoo would be worth more broken up or sold.
—Magna's Steve Sternberg on what the early network TV ratings really look like.
—U.S. News & World Report launches comprehensive rankings site called RankingsAndReviews.com.

From The New York Times:

—The lowdown on Google's top-secret mobile phone initiative: the GPhone.
—Headline I never thought I'd see: "'Kid Nation' Slips in Viewers but Gains in Advertisers."
—Toyota giving away a new game, featuring the Yaris, free to XBox users.

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

—Welcome to the world of "brickfilms," videos featuring characters and scenes made out of Lego. Free.
—A look at ads at tie-in ads to combat TiVo.
—DKNY perfume sprays the sidewalk outside Bloomingdale's.

Deutsch, Kirshenbaum, in the 'Observer'

Haven't checked out The New York Observer much lately, but two stories this week caught my eye: one bemoaning the loss of glamour (and alcohol and cocaine) in the ad business titled "Why Have Admen Lost Their Mojo?" and another about Donny—"Can Former Adman Donny Deutsch Help CNBC Hold off Fox?" Of the two, the "Mojo" story is more apropos since Donny because, of course, Donny has departed for TV, where there's plenty of mojo to be had. Still, it neatly sums up "The Big Idea" having discovered a focus--on entrepreneurs--instead of being the amorphous talk-blob it once was. The "Mojo" story, which quotes Richard Kirshenbaum heavily and points out a factoid about him that even I didn't know--that he was recently named one of the 25 Most Stylish New Yorkers by US Weekly--does a better job than most stories written by outsiders at accurately reflecting the business. For instance--bravo!--it points out how the decline of the 15 percent commission has had a lot to do with the industry's decline. Too often, the industry's malaise is wracked up to other things, like those nasty clients actually demanding results. On the other hand, the story says that David Ogilvy--who, like, totally had mojo--retired to a castle in the South of France, but his chateau, Touffou, is actually about halfway up the country, and to the west (see map). I can elaborate in a story I'll tell at a later date, but let me just say for now that if he had been living in the south of France I wouldn't have missed my opportunity to drink wine with the man back in 1994.

Lazarus no. 34 out of Fortune's Top 50 women

Not to put too much credence in the Fortune and Forbes lists of the most powerful women, but the power of advertising is dropping. Ogilvy CEO Shelly Lazarus made Fortune's just-released list—as always—but she's dropped from no. 30 to no. 34. In an attempt to sum up Lazarus in 50 words or less, the magazine claims that the Dove "Evolution" video, produced by Ogilvy Toronto, has had 400 million views, which has an air of, um, bogosity, to it. Hard to tally where all those views happened, but on YouTube, it's had about 13 million views ... meaning there would have to be another 387 million views out there somewhere. Not on the Fortune list at all: Starcom Mediavest Group CEO Renatta McCann, who came in way ahead of Lazarus on Forbes' recently-released list of the most powerful women in the world.

Click here for the Sony Bravia bunny ad

For those of you who lie waiting for the next ad in the Sony Bravia campaign, here it is. For my money, this is much better than the paint commercial shot in Glasgow, and certainly up there with the original, with the balls bouncing in San Francisco. The use of the Rolling Stones, "She's a Rainbow," in this spot doesn't hurt either. Only quibbles are that it may be just as good an ad for Play-Doh as it is for the Sony Bravia, and the end is somewhat reminiscent of some British Airways work, but really, those are just quibbles. Via Gothamist and created by Fallon London, assuming you didn't know that already.

Did you know Seinfeld is appearing on 30 Rock?

Anyone who doubts that the Internet is a reach medium hasn't seen these banners advertising Jerry Seinfeld's guest shot tonight on "30 Rock." I practically can't think of a major site I haven't seen them on. But, like the Pavlovian Internet dog I am, I did click on a version of the ad I saw early in the week directing me to a preview, even though I've never seen the show. The outtakes were actually the funniest, including the one here —scroll forward to scene #4—where Alec Baldwin begs Jerry to approve his "SeinfeldVision" promotional stunt. "I've got nothing ... I've got nothing ...," he says. "I've already sold the ad time!"

Goodson wins Golden Boa—whatever that is

Little did I know that my birthday coincided with MediaBistro's, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary today (shameless birthday plug!). Anyway, as one of a bunch of birthday-styled things going on on the site, MediaBistro has honored ten people in the communications industry with its first annual Golden Boa Award, with StrawberryFrog's Scott Goodson being the honoree in advertising. Whatever this means—a discount on an AvantGuild membership, maybe?—at least it's a list you'd want to be seen on; other winners include Stephen Colbert, Adam Moss and Craig Newmark. Oh, according to Scott's blog, one prize is that he gets to eat lunch today at The Plumm.

Trend: people dressed as inanimate objects

Yeah, people dressed up as fruit/animals/food has been a staple of advertising practically since the dawn of time, but I feel as though we're seeing an alarming resurgence of this type of ad. Of course, there are Crispin, Porter + Bogusky's spots for Burger King, with people dressed up as BK sandwiches. Then there's this commercial for Verizon, in which Mom has to dress as a taco and hand out fliers to pay the kids' cell phone bill, and now this commercial from TBWA/Chiat/Day for Jimmy Dean D-lights, which I found yesterday on Mediapost, where people are dressed as the sun, a cloud and a rainbow. What does this all mean? Probably just that I watch too much TV. I'm sorry this post isn't all that pretty, but I guess my artistic aspirations are just way beyond Blogger's capabilities.

Here's what a Facebook ad looks like

If you've ever read descriptions of Facebook's fledgling ad model, then you've probably walked away scratching your head—it's all a little hard to picture unless you spend enough time using the social network that is allegedly worth a bazillion dollars. Found the ad above on my Facebook page this morning, an extension of Hewlett-Packard's current campaign with Gwen Stefani that was sprinkled within my "News Feed" of what my Facebook friends are up to today. It links to this page on the HP site, and as the icon in the upper right hand corner says, it can be shared, just like other Facebook content. All in all, the ad is in keeping with Facebook's—subtle-compared-to-MySpace—vibe, but whether ads like this and a few other potential revenue streams support contentions that the service's market value might be $15 billion is another matter entirely.

Arnold focus groups "1984"; finds it dreary

Almost everyone in the ad business has spent countless days, hours, weeks bemoaning how focus groups denude commercials of their original creativity. So what would've happened if Apple's classic "1984" was focus grouped? Arnold found out, by asking people who'd apparently never seen the spot how they'd change it—and it involved putting Apple logos on the t-shirts of the huddled masses, and the recommendation that the spot: "Use real people, preferably without gas masks. Make fewer references to Nazism" and so forth. Only one focus group member thinks the spot should be produced at all. Arnold produced this as the intro film to the Boston Ad Club's Hatch Awards, which were held last night, but that's incidental.

Subaru ad so green it's sickening

So, I think an edited version of this short Subaru film has been out for a few months, but I just saw it for the first time, and think it's too earnest, by at least half. For the most part, it's the guy who appears in the spot at the beginning that's so bothersome—his delivery is so cloying that I kept thinking the commercial might just turn into an SNL spoof—but, instead, he just kept jawing on about "deer, and rabbits, and blue herons" hopping around all the auto parts. I'm all for cleaning up the environment, but ... yecch. I think this is from DDB New York, but if I'm wrong, I'll correct it.

P&G makes TBWA PUR

Account switches don't usually catch my (jaded) eye, but it's worth remarking upon today's news that TBWA/Chiat/Day has joined the Procter & Gamble roster to advertise the company's PUR water filtration systems. Such a move would have been unthinkable a few years back; now it's practically a necessity for even companies with the huge budgets that P&G commands to think outside the box about what shops deserve to be on their agency roster. As the Adweek story I linked to above points out, TBWA isn't the first agency with a strong creative reputation to land on P&G's roster of late—Wieden + Kennedy has been working with P&G since 2005.

Kaiser Permanente depicts one way to thrive

Barbara Lippert did a (typical) nice job critiquing this Joe Pytka-directed commercial, "Thrive," from Kaiser Permanente yesterday, which is timed to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Thought it was worth a stream here.

Other ads that shouldn't become TV shows

This isn't meant to be the "Cavemen" series sucks special issue of Adverganza, but—what can I tell ya—I'm only posting about what I see out there. Anyway, New York magazine ran a list on its site yesterday of "Ten Commercials That Would Make Even Worse TV Shows Than the Geico Cavemen." Predicting that the show will die within the next two weeks as a preamble, here is the list, in reverse order:

10. Lifecall (aka the "Mrs. Fletcher" show).
9. Imodium Advanced (starring Kelsey Grammer as, um, the sufferer).
8. The LL Cool J Hotline.
7. Mars Blackmon (well, if it starred Steve Urkel instead of Spike Lee).
6. Iron Eyes Cody (aka "The Crying Indian"—although, in the series, turns out he's an "environmental vigilante").
5. Freedom Rock (swearing to God I never saw this commercial).
4. Bad Idea Jeans (this one was off an SNL parody I vaguely remember).
3. Lamisil Nail Fungus Treatment (enough said).
2. Stanley Steemer (based off a commercial where a dog drags his ass on the rug).
1. The Geico Lizard (Their words, not mine. I guess that whoever wrote this doesn't realize the whole reason Geico uses a freakin' gecko is because it sounds like Geico? Whatever.)

Just thought I'd mention that having seen the series last night—I, myself, didn't watch—New York thinks the premiere was "actually pretty good." Now let's green light that "Mrs. Fletcher" pilot.

Predictably, "Cavemen" series disappoints

As you may have noticed, the Geico-commercial inspired ABC show "Cavemen," which debuted last night, got some withering reviews. "Zero Stars!" shouted the New York Daily News. "It's a flop. A major flop. The kind of flop that makes Steven Bochco feel okay about 'Cop Rock' again," said TV Squad. With that, you should play the 15-second commercial above, a spoof—and a bad one—from a Chicago furniture company called Walter E. Smithe. It stars what I've gathered are the three Smithe brothers, who are dressed, predictably as cavemen. (The brothers have a number of films online, including ones that take off from "The Apprentice.") The ad was posted on YouTube just yesterday, which suggests that they were looking to get in on the "Cavemen" hype. Alas, there isn't any.

This month's most liked commercials ... with links

So Ad Age has once again published its list of what the IAG Research says are the most liked spots over the last month (Aug. 27 to Sept. 23, to be exact), and once again, I'm publishing the list with links to as many ads as I could find in case you'd actually like to see them. No one said my blogging job was easy (or profitable, for that matter).



1. Subway: Fresh Fit Meals." (Embedded above.)
2. Listerine: Whitening Quick Dissolving Strips." (Couldn't find.)
3. Listerine: Mouthwash." (Couldn't find.)
4. AT&T: "Hollyyorkizonasouthameriland."
5. Campbell's Soup: Chunky Soup. (Go to this link and click on "A Call to Eat.")
6. Benadryl: Perfect Measure. (Couldn't find.)
7. Burger King: Spicy Chick 'N' Crisp.
8. Yoplait: Yoplait Light.
9. Campbell Chunky Fully Loaded: (Go to this link and click on "Mud Bowl.")
10. Red Lobster: Endless Shrimp.

Is there a way to turn this wallpaper off?

I'll be kind here and say that this Newspaper Association of America wallpaper, which I just found as background on the Mediaweek home page, is one way to get people's attention. On the other hand, it's making me dizzy. No surprise, somehow, that it comes from an old-school organization.

'NYT' to ad execs: off with your heads!

I know I read this on some blog or other yesterday, but it's worth repeating here. Neil Genzlinger, a staff editor at The New York Times who was given the task of reviewing "How Starbucks Saved My Life" by former JWT creative Michael Gates Gill, calls it "one of the most scathing indictments of the advertising business to appear in a long time." To elaborate: "Gill, with the grating babe-in-the-woods persona he adopts in this book, would have us believe that top advertising executives like him have no idea that there are black people in the world and that some of them run small businesses; that every weekday thousands of people gather at places like Grand Central Terminal for a ritual known as rush hour; that an overwhelming majority of lives are lived in the service of train schedules and bill collectors. If the rest of Madison Avenue royalty is as clueless about the real world as Gill makes himself seem in this book, off with their heads." Actually, though I'll admit to generally liking the premise of someone finding they like a simpler life better, the fault for this portrait of ad execs lies squarely with Gill. First, as someone who grew up in Bronxville, a commuter town if ever there was one, Gill should be amply aware of the commuter's life, even within the upper strata, since the median household income in Bronxville in 2000 was around $200K a year. And, anyone who rides Metro-North into Grand Central can attest to seeing top ad execs riding among them. The only way Gill could not have known that is to hide behind the fact that he was working for JWT in L.A., but, since he was an east coast native, that just doesn't wash.

Let's hear it for Pacific Northwestern stereotypes!

This campaign for Pemco Insurance is targeted toward people in the Pacific Northwest, but even people on the east coast will easily get the joke. It ingeniously focuses on a number of different Pacific Northwestern stereotypes, like "Ponytailed Software Geek" pictured here. Though the TV and radio ads can be viewed at werealotlikeyou.com, which is also the campaign's tag, it's more fun to scroll over the different personae, and read the details about each one. In case you can't read the profile of the geek here, one of his accolades is that he "De-fragged White-Bearded Bainbridge Architect's hard drive." (Not that defragging is such a big accomplishment.) White-Bearded Bainbridge Architect, meanwhile, who listens to NPR, doesn't merely doodle on napkins, he's actually sketching out "a self-sustaining geodesic dome." Wish I knew who the agency was.

Nokia asks open questions about iPhone

Having spent most of last week in Manhattan, I doubt I'll be doing anything of the sort this week. Apparently I just missed seeing this guerilla campaign that Nokia is doing to combat the closed system that is Apple's iPhone. (Well, maybe it's not that guerilla—to me that should mean that it's so below the radar that it's hard to make out who the advertiser is.) Anyway, that this effort will simply be one among many trying to take potshots at Apple. Not that it'll work. Via Wired.com which got it from Engadget which got it on Reddit, and so on.

Dove takes flight with new real beauty video

Dove has just come out with the latest video, above, in its "Campaign for Real Beauty," and as a fortysomething female, I'm relieved to see it, even if the entire 60 seconds is meant to be seen through the eyes of a pre-teen girl. Called "Onslaught," it features just that—an onslaught of images destined to make even the most perfect female among us feel imperfect. Not only are some of the images of women writhing in bikinis; it also includes every body improvement "technique" currently in use, up to and including plastic surgery and vomiting away that nasty food. (Only the toilet is shown.) I'm not entirely sure I would've picked up on the fact that this is to be seen through the eyes of the girl that we see at the beginning of the video had I not read some of the press about it, but at its end, when Dove urges women to talk to their daughters before such media imagery gets the best of them. the ultimate point is quite clear. I feel a little bit better-looking already. Created by Ogilvy Toronto.

Obligatory Advertising Week post post

No, there's no typo in that headline, it's just time to do the post-game wrap-up where I'll do what everyone else is doing: say what I'd change about Advertising Week if it were up to me. Having decided to blog the thing, and having attended more panels then is good for anyone's health, here are my suggestions:

—As I said before, don't advertise events that are sold out as sold out. In the final analysis, they won't be—unless you don't advertise them as sold out. Are you following? Better to turn people away at the door then to scare people away by saying something is sold out before they even leave their desks.
—Pick one (or maybe two) venues with multiple theaters for panels. Now, Advertising Week organizers will point out that with an alleged 60,000 ad people in town, such a thing is impossible, but since the biggest event I attended was the Monday night opening gala—which probably had 350 people, max—please permit me a bit of skepticism about that 60,000 people figure. There are two reasons limiting the venues would make sense. First, even when the streets of New York aren't filled with foreign potentates and Uzi-toting cops, New York is a schlep. And no one likes to schlep. Second, it would give the event a whole new level of buzz, with people moving in and out of panels, chatter in the hallways, impromptu drinks at a nearby bar and the like. That's why in terms of buzz, there was no comparison between the Interactive Advertising Bureau's MIXX conference last week—which had a lot of good, old-fashioned interpersonal interaction—and walking into the Paley Center, which always seemed forlorn, except for what was going on down in the basement where the panels were. And even some of those, from an attendance standpoint, were disappointing, because (chorus) no one likes to schlep.
—Get more bigwigs involved. Ad Age has already harped on this one, but, really, truly, it struck me last week. Besides the people who appeared on Stuart Elliott's panels, how many big names in the business were up at the dais?
—Have a theme. Actually you could do worse than having the industry push its efforts during the week to a pet cause or causes. That's starting to happen, but except to people who observe the industry closely, it's not apparent.
—Make the Web site more interactive. Maybe this point isn't as important as some of the others I've listed here, but having an active Web site would convey that there was stuff happening that you shouldn't miss. The WADV radio station is a good start, but can you believe that the Advertising Week 2007 home page still has a picture up from Advertising Week—2006? Puh-leese! Where are the video outtakes from the conference? The live conference-cam of doings around town? Advertising Week, the blog?

OK, enough said. Except for this one last thought: in the brief history of Adverganza, I've been fortunate enough to do a couple of posts that merited some real discussion. But for all the posts I did last week about Advertising Week, I've gotten a grand total of two comments (not including my response to someone's query). Two. It's quite possible my posts weren't very interesting, but it's also possible the event itself wasn't very engaging. Well, at least I got to pass out a lot of business cards.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.01.07

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

From Advertising Age:

—Grey's Anatomy is the most expensive show on TV. Ad Age's full pricing survey is here.
—Sir Martin Sorrell ... he's oh, so digital.
—Plummer leaves ARF, unable to engage engagement metric.
—Advertising Week was better than those that have gone before, or so say some people. Oh, and here's a link to video content from Advertising Week. And here, a dissenting view.
—New Cadillac spot starring Grey's Anatomy's Kate Walsh makes Bob Garfield want her to have his children.

From Adweek:

—Adweek says it's American Idol, not Grey's Anatomy that is the highest-priced series on TV.
—Those damn DVRs, screwing up TV ratings again.
—If you were to do an industry conference, what would it be like?
—Exchanges to sell online advertising gain (a little) ground.
—Barbara Lippert on Nissan's multi-platform campaign for the Rogue SUV which multiply references to that great game, "Labyrinth" that I was so damn good at as a kid. No links to the YouTube videos she references at adweek.com—which are a little bit catching sunglasses with your face— but you can see them here and here. You can also see the 60-second spot here.

From Mediapost:

—Citi doesn't want to socialize.
—The Times launches a campaign called, "All the News that's Fit to Click." Amazed that line hasn't already been used.
—Diane Mermigas on what former AOL chief Jonathan Miller and former News Corp. digital chief Ross Levinsohn are doing together.

From The New York Post:

—The luxury retail market may be slowing down.
—iWon goes through a redesign.

From The New York Times:

—Can Nitro reignite the grilled cheese sandwich? One way it'll try is through a contest, starting in a few weeks here on MySpace. So far the only friend of the "happy sandwich" is Tom.
—Who still reads magazines? Rich people.

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

—Radiohead will let its fans choose the price they want to pay to download the band's new album. Really.
—U.S. advertising expected to slow for the rest of the year.
—How to keep commercials from wearing out (free).
—Dockers is doing trunk shows to lure women, believe it or not (free).

What we hear about this week's Delaney Report:

—Is Outback Steakhouse, currently at Kaplan Thaler, about to go into review?
—Also potentially in review: Callaway Golf (currently at Y&R), and Burt's Bees (currently at Martin).

Advertising Week's last panel hit its target

I've had an obsession with Advertising Week attendance all last week and figured that maybe, as the last panel of the week, and, as one of inherently targeted appeal, Hispanic 2.0 might not get a big audience. Instead, it had about as many attendees as Martha Stewart, and far more than TV producer Michael Davies, both of whom aim their wares at Americans of all races, colors and creeds. So what is Hispanic 2.0, you ask? It's second generation Hispanics—bilingual, and usually with one foot in Latino culture and one foot not. But if the use of "2.0" seemed like an attempt to simply borrow some Internet lingo, the name actually fit both from an online perspective and an offline one. It was readily apparent that the panelists— Maria Lopez-Knowles, Senior Vice President, MRM Worldwide; Joe Santa, Senior Art Director, Corbis; Gonzalo Perez, Director of Multicultural Research and Consumer Insights, MTV Networks; and Chris Velasco, Director, Branded Entertainment, MSN—see Web 2.0 as central to targeting not only second-generation Hispanics—a splinter group from first generation—but the many splinter groups within Hispanic 2.0, from New York natives whose parents are from Puerto Rico, to Latinos in L.A. whose parents come from Mexico. In fact, given the difficulties of targeting using older media, it would have been hard to have a serious discussion about targeting second-generation anyone specifically ten years ago. Thankfully, times have changed.

How can the globe warm up to us?

I went to Keith Reinhard's Brand America Part 2 presentation yesterday and came away sorry that I couldn't stay until it ended. (It was my turn to drive the 5 p.m. shuttle to soccer practice.) Reinhard, who in his post-DDB life is president of a group called Business for Diplomatic Action, is all hot and bothered about America's declining status as a world brand, ranking, according to a BBC study conducted earlier this year, between Iran and North Korea. "On this survey, at least, we have joined the axis of evil," he said. So, the point of yesterday's seminar was to have four advertising, um, entities crack the following hypothetical scenario: if the government gave you $500 million a year for four years, how would you use that money to improve Brand America? The reason I say entities is because the four presenters were two teams from Rick Boyko's VCU Adcenter (BTW, when did Boyko start to look like Dan Wieden?), a guy from Draft FCB who described himself as Indian-Canadian but I didn't catch his name, and a team from Tribal DDB. (I hear that Tribal DDB won with an idea called "united states of mind" but I missed the presentation, and, no, the panel of judges did not include anyone from DDB.) But the winner wasn't the point, I don't think, as much as looking at interesting ways to work on a vexing problem. The two presentations by the VCU kids weren't flawless but they weren't half-bad either. Better than what I saw of DraftFCB's, which centered on the U.S. improving its image by taking the lead on fighting global warming—I found it a bit patronizing. But the VCU teams both aimed at finding the common ground that citizens of the world have with one another, using technology ranging from widgets to face-mapping as the underpinnings of their ideas. We spend a lot of time in this business trying to figure out twentysomethings—this exercise underscored how different their perspective is. The word "TV" was never mentioned.
Will any of this work get produced? Probably not. Then again, with Reinhard making this his current passion, hey, you never know.