Does anyone care about Wikipedia's appeal?

For the past few days or so, Wikipedia has been running its version of a telethon: an appeal for people to donate money to the site—especially to build up its foreign language editions. I wish 'em all the luck in the world, but I'm wondering if the success of this appeal only lies in proving that no one wants to pay for content. So far, slightly under 4000 people have donated, out of a pool of visitors that's in the tens of millions. (According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the site had roughly 31 million visits last month domestically in both its work and home panels.) Meanwhile, as of this writing no one has actually viewed the YouTube upload of the appeal, which is also running on the Wikipedia site itself.

Diddy to guide Ciroc vodka brand

Speaking of CMOs, Diddy is becoming, more or less, the CMO of Diageo's Ciroc vodka. Apparently he held a press conference yesterday in which he said of his plans to make the vodka the official vodka of New Year's Eve: " "When the ball drops, if you're not drinking Ciroc vodka, you're not drinking New Year's Eve the right way." Anyway, there's a full Q&A with him on the Ad Age site.

How much Coke CMO Tripodi is making

There's a story at CNNMoney.com this morning outlining the compensation of new Coke CMO Joe Tripodi (I don't mean he's the CMO of "new Coke." Ha. You'll get that joke if you were around in the 1980s.) But I'm digressing again. Here's why it might be worth taking the job, even if you only last, say, the two years that CMOs keep their jobs these days.

Base salary: $525,000.
Bonus: $500,000 within first 30 days of employment.
Deferred compensation plan: one-time $2 million contribution.
Restricted stock grant: One-time donation of $2 million.
Stock options: One-time award of an estimated $1.5 million.
Other benefits: paid relocation costs, country club membership, pension, yada, yada yada.

Even just adding up the numbers that are disclosed, that's more than $6.5 million. Hey, I'd take that job.

C'mon Wendy's, the people want their wigs!

Another quick word about red wigs: they're hot, and the people want to wear them. Saw a surge in traffic here on Adverganza yesterday, and from what I could tell, it was due to two factors (well, three if you count my astoundingly astute writing abilities. Um. Yeah.). Here they are: a link to my most recent Wendy's red wig post by Brand Flakes for Breakfast (thanks) and a lot of people doing searches for "Wendy's red wig," "Wendy's official wig,"—and most tellingly, given that Halloween is only six days away—"Wendy's red wig for sale."

Is this Gap t-shirt a vessel for, um, content?

Got an email pitching me on buying this t-shirt today from the Gap, and I'm wondering—if logos are becoming vessels for content—is it completely obvious that this t-shirt is part of Product(RED)? Or isn't it? The reason the shirt says (2 weeks) on it is that the contribution from each t-shirt bought pays for two weeks of AIDS drugs. It's a limited edition, though I don't know if the shirt is on sale for only two weeks.

Why didn't someone else cut a deal with Nielsen?

Here's the thing I don't understand about the alliance announced today by Google and Nielsen to, as The New York Times put it, "give advertisers a more vivid and accurate snapshot than ever before of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis, and who those people are." The thing I don't get is: why did everybody wait around and then let Google—which , on the surface, doesn't have that much of a vested interest in TV measurement—do it? Initially, Google and Nielsen will only be gathering data from some set-top boxes in Echostar's DISH network, but I'm sure that won't calm fears that Google is out to "get" the ad and media industries. Not surprisingly, the Times' version of events (it broke the story), is the most emailed of today's business stories so far—probably being shared by people, who, rather than viewing this as an honest attempt at developing deeper TV measurement, see it as the latest evidence that Google's world domination is at hand. The people in the media industry have no one to blame but themselves for not being first to do this. As it was when ABC first announced it would make its shows available for download on iTunes, expect a rash of similar deals to follow.

Another politically-incorrect alcohol campaign

I'm looking at this Canadian Club print campaign and wondering if we're seeing a trend: of overtly politically-incorrect alcohol ads. Ad Age points out the obvious: that this campaign is very, very "Mad Men." If the pictures don't get the point across, there's the headline: "Your Mom wasn't your Dad's first." Of course, sex in alcohol advertising seems almost as old as sex itself, but there's a huge leap (into the sack) between this campaign and, say, Miller Lite's "Cat Fight" of a few years back. Same with the Partida "Tequila Confessions" campaign I posted about last week, in which a guy admits having a child in Chicago because of a night he drank too much tequila. Well, you know what your mother—the same one that wasn't your Dad's first—always said: Honesty is the best policy. Created by Energy BBDO Chicago.

"3-minute 'Ad Age'" worth checking out

This 3-minute Ad Age video experiment is kind of interesting. As the name should demonstrate, it sums up the day's ad news stories in three minutes. The first installment was yesterday, and, day two is here covering the Bob Dylan/Cadillac ad, Interpublic's alliance with BzzAgent, Downy sponsoring telenovellas, and the writers' strike in Hollywood. The downside is that even if you routinely spend three minutes a day on the major ad news sites, it seems like a much longer time when you don't have as much ability to manipulate the content. On the other hand, it's a nice break from scrolling through pages of online text. Another plus: it allows Adage.com to exploit the market for online advertising video, which isn't all that easy for advertising sites. Who wants to watch a pre-roll commercial as a pre-amble to checking out a commercial? Both installments I've seen had 15-second ads, from VideoEgg and Better.TV respectively. Not a bad start.

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?

Should obesity effort pack fatter punch?

Insightful piece from Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press asking whether the current "Small Steps" campaign to combat obesity is, as the headline says, "Too Soft on Fat." Instead of, using the in-your-face tactics of throat-hole guy or the Montana Meth Project, campaigns which have a concept that can be summed up as "gross out," this one shows cute little blobs of flesh—a butt in the Second Life adaptation shown above—which have gotten "lost" because their former owners have slimmed down. Each vignette is followed by one small step that can be taken toward controlling one's weight, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator. The campaign, done by McCann-Erickson and the Ad Council on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, is certainly memorable—after all, it's not often that you see a disembodied butt on the sidewalk. However, in terms of fighting the problem of obesity, you can certainly argue that it's not a very impactful campaign. "It's so namby-pamby I think people will shrug it off," says Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in the story. The Ad Council counters that people are so overwhelmed by the prospect of losing weight that the small steps featured in the campaign help combat the problem.

Don't you forget:: Burnett smoked only Marlboros

Have no idea why CNNMoney.com is devoting space today to this story about Leo Burnett—the man, not the agency—but it has good insights into his approach to client loyalty. Just one question: did the guy who offered Burnett another brand of cigarette during the meeting with Marlboro get fired?

Skeleton new Craftsman spokes-creature

Don't know that I'll be walking through Times Square this Halloween season, but if I did, supposedly I'd see a 22-story version of this ad—an ad for Sears Craftsman made entirely out of the brand's tools. There are other components to this campaign—including the alleged selling of skeleton t-shirts at the Web site (I couldn't find it)—but surely, a 22-story ad is the most noteworthy. Would be really cool if it was carrying a chainsaw. Created by Young & Rubicam.

Wendy's red wig not officially for the public

As you may have noticed, I've been digging the Wendy's "Red Wig" campaign for awhile. As predicted, Wendy's red wigs are for sale for $29.99, presumably for Halloween, but unlike when Burger King started selling King Masks a few years back, these aren't for sale from Wendy's Instead, Wendy's wants the wig to stand for empowered consumers while at the same time controlling its distribution. I found a link to the "Wendy's approved Red Wing Local Activation package," which provides franchisees with all the whimsy and red hair from the commercials for a lo, lo $20. It contains: "One official Red Wig, reference worksheet for Red Wig and Wendy usage and 'Dos and Don'ts'[sic] , one DVD of Red Wig performances as a reference for appropriate style and behavior, talk points/script to guide your local Red Wig talent." The site selling the package makes clear, "WIGS ARE NOT INTENDED FOR THE PUBLIC." If that weren't enough, the site links to this Usage Guide written by Wendy's vp/brand management Bob Holtcamp. He says that the wig "is something that is most effective when it appears (my emphasis) to come from consumers." God forbid that it actually did come from consumers.

Be afraid! It's Bob Dylan for Cadillac!

This Cadillac Escalade ad/short film starring Bob Dylan is scaring me. Just in time for Halloween, I guess. Created by Modernista.

'Portfolio' finally covers ad business!

The story about the marketing and branding behind the New Museum of Contemporary Art in the current issue of Portfolio, isn't much, but at least it's a start. I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for Portfolio to acknowledge the industry's existence and was about to chastise all of you for being too boring to write about, but you're temporarily off the hook. The story is made less interesting by the fact The New York Times already covered it last week, still there's a fun sidebar of what ideas from branding agency Wolff Olins, and creative agency Droga5 got shot down. Wolff Olins rejectees: small speaker announcing lead donors, staffers wearing bright sashes of museum's logo, just calling the museum "New." Droga5 rejectees: cut a silhouette of the new building out of a billboard, something about artists sculpting "refrigerators in the shape of the building as an homage to the neighborhood's history as a restaurant-supply district."OK with me that the world is without that one.

Yes, people do actually leave Google

Don't know who in the ad industry attended the Web 2.0 Summit last week, but probably would've made many in advertising happy to know that occasionally people actually leave Google rather than flocking to it like moths to a flame. In fact, the conference, which was held in San Francisco, actually devoted a whole panel to why Googlers might become ex-Googlers. The panelists included former Google ad strategist Patrick Keane, who is now evp/cmo at CBS Interactive. Said Keane, ""The financial incentives are important ... but I think there are bigger things—not that Google isn't a big thing."BTW, I scanned the list of speakers at the event (go to this link and scroll down), and while it was really impressive—anyone ever hear of Rupert Murdoch, or Steve Ballmer, or John Doerr?—it was utterly lacking in people from the advertising industry. Only ones I found were Brian McAndrews and Curt Viebranz, who run online advertising businesses from the publisher side. To me, something's wrong with this picture.

IAB: Nothing new in 'New York Times' story

Randy Rothenberg did a quick turnaround post this morning on his Interactive Advertising Bureau "clog" saying that there is nothing all that new under the sun when it comes to audience measurement discrepancies—and that the story in today's New York Times doesn't point out that the IAB has been working with the major services to resolve measurement issues. Of course, as a former New York Times' ad columnist, Rothenberg makes sure to point out how difficult summing up big, thorny issues such as Web metrics can be, saying, "if you think it’s so easy to summarize a history of the world in 750 words, try it someday."

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.22.07

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

From Advertising Age (They seem not to have updated the "This Week's Issue" page, so don't go there unless you're feeling nostalgic—for last week. I can't find some new content, like Garfield, but will update later):

—Who the hot independent digital shops are. Well, after this story, they may not be independent for long.
—"Bum, bum, bum, another one bites the dust." And this time it's Yahoo CMO Carrie Dunaway.
—Ouch, that hurts! Coke making t-shirts out of recycled bottles.
—A new video show: Ad Age in 3 minutes.
—Jonah Bloom on why he hated Al Gore's ANA speech, and why Randy Rothenberg should do some ANA programming.

From Adweek:

—Ten emerging agency talents. Let's see how long they stay at their current jobs.
—What media agency execs really think about C3.
—Scion's alternative media channels, which don't include what many think of as alternative media channels.
—Barbara Lippert guffaws over the new Jeep Liberty campaign.

From Mediapost:

—Wal-Mart threatens legal action on sites that post sales deals before the Monday before Black Friday. The sites are fighting back.
—Valerie Bertinelli joins Rachael Ray's show as a "celebrity content buddy." Huh?

From The New York Times:

—If only sites could get their audience counts straight.
—The French may not love EuroDisney, but they love "Ratatouille."
—Why film directors are showing a renewed interest in directing commercials.
—AT&T offers the Napster catalog for wireless download.

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

—Advertisers want Web metrics that tell them more.
—Making over professional tennis' ATP tour.
—Commercial-free radio is thriving. Free.
—Walt Mossberg is fed up with cell phone carriers having so much control. Free.

Cutwater's Jeep Liberty spot really sings

This Jeep Liberty spot has been out for about a week or so, but it's so immensely enjoyable I thought it worth posting here. Great use of what should be a really tired concept—singing anthropomorphized animals. The Web site is worth checking out too. Created by Cutwater.

Deutsch Wikipedia nothing to write home about

I've been neglecting my obligation lately to check out agency Wikipedia entries to see if they're anything of interest in them, and in the case of Deutsch—the agency, not the man—there's not much to say. It lists a smattering of clients and mentions only a handful of spots the agency has done: the Mitsubish Galant spot that featured Sweet's ' "Ballroom Blitz" and the Coors Light spot "Wingman" among them. No mention of popping or whatever it's called. While noting that Deutsch is "one of the most-revered agencies over the past 10 years," the entry doesn't do anything to prove it. So, why do I harp on agency Wikipedia entries? Because, for example, in this instance, Deutsch's Wikipedia entry is the second link when you search the word "Deutsch"—you'd think that maybe the Wikipedia entry merited a little attention.

Corona brings Halloween ghost to the beach

When I read that Corona was doing a Halloween-themed ad, I couldn't picture how the beer, which has long used beach imagery in its advertising, would go ghoulish. Well, here's how. Created by Cramer-Krasselt.

Is Partida campaign too honest about tequila?

Just checked out the campaign for Partida Tequila that I originally saw at Adweek.com, and the only way to really experience its excessive honesty is to go to the tequilaconfessions.com Web site, where people admit what happened during/after they've had some tequila. Says the man-on-the-street pictured at left: "I was in Chicago. It started out as an innocent drink with a friend, a few shots of tequila later, dot, dot, dot, I have a child in Chicago." He also explains that he likes Partida's finish better than that of some tequilas he drank in college that "kinda wanted to make you vomit, immediately thereafter." (To see it, to to the site and the video will automatically start to play.) Under the special "bartender confessions" link, a female bartender at Dos Caminos in Soho comments that there is "a strong connection between tequila and maybe just falling asleep in public places" recounting the time—fittingly, on Cinco de Mayo—a woman fell asleep at the bar and her friends departed without her. It got to be closing time and the staff, "kinda of like pushed her outside, and she kinda like met up with some people—we were hoping she knew them—and she kinda woke up and followed some people off in the distance. We think she's good ... she's fine." Anyway, interesting to see if the hammer comes down on this campaign, since, at the very least, it is politically incorrect in the extreme. And the Web site doesn't even ask you for your birthday before you start, um, imbibing the videos. Created by Colangelo and Partners Public Relations.

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.

Get Listen Up and you can hear everything!

One of my favorite commercials these days—for all the wrong reasons—is the one you can see here for a device called Listen Up, a personal headset that lets you amplify sound from across the room. Interspersed between the more mundane demos—like how you can use it to listen to the TV when the others around you don't really care to listen—is the fact that its best use is as .... an eavesdropping device! Cue woman at mailbox wearing Listen Up, overhearing the conversation of two women walking down the street:

Walking woman #1: "Have you met the new neighbors?"
Walking woman #2: "I haven't."
Walking woman #1: "He seems nice ... she seems like a bitch."

Oh wait, that last part didn't really happen, but you get the idea.

It's not just a logo; it's a vessel for content

The New York Times gets deep into logo theory this morning with this story that spins off of the new logo for The New Museum of Contemporary Art. I don't get how the picture at left, from the Times story, is meant to depict the logo, or why the headline of it seems to be missing a word: "One the most important buildings to be built in New York City in the last fifty years," but the logo theory is this: that in an era of endlessly manipulative content, logos must, instead of being static, be capable of being "'containers' for content." This theory is being spouted by Karl Heiselman, the head of Omincom Group's Wolff Olins, the company that designed the New Museum's logo and the much derided one for the 2012 Olympics. Hmmm. My head is starting to hurt.

Roger Adams latest to leave CMO post

Now, repeat after me: "Bum, bum, bum, another one bites the dust ..." You can read the full accounting here.

Duh ... Domino's media planning to Crispin

Maybe only a geek like me would care about this, but it's a no-brainer that Domino's has shifted its media planning out of Mindshare and given it to Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, in the wake of its decision last month to give the creative portion of the account to the agency. Mindshare had handled buying and planning when the account was at former agency JWT, but, especially given that the agency in question is Crispin, it's a little hard to picture how media planning would be managed effectively somewhat divorced from the creative process. See creative agencies? If you are truly creative about your ad messaging you actually get more business! As long as the agency business continues to be dominated by old-line agencies I don't think this will be something we'll see a ton of—but it is something that makes more sense than the segregation between media and creative that's the standard today, at least in the right hands.

Let's start the morning with sperm!

The Sapientiae Institute Association would like you—at least those of you who can—to donate sperm.

WaMu ads probably didn't help Burnett

After reading the withering description of the WaMu campaign by the Chicago Sun-Times' Lewis Lazare, I had to check it out to see if you can read between its copy lines and see why Leo Burnett just lost the business to TBWA/Chiat/Day. Now, before the split, according to Lazare, Burnett had moved to a different campaign from the one above, which features uniformly "stodgy, old" (white) bankers, and, while attempting to poke fun at "stodgy, old" (white) bankers, ends up somehow being offensive to all concerned. Whether this was the campaign that broke the client's back as far as Burnett was concerned I may never know, but it probably doesn't help that the majority of the discussion on YouTube about the campaign isn't about the merits of WaMu, but about whether or not the campaign is racist.

Agency.com's Ben Relles gets last laugh

By now you may know that Ben Relles, one of the minds behind the love-it-or-probably-hate-it Agency.com video about pitching the Subway account, was also behind two videos that fall much more into the loved category: the SNL send-up "Box in a Box" and "Obama Girl." Now, the site he and his partners created to continue his political spoofing—barelypolitical.com—has been bought for an undisclosed sum by one of those broadband entertainment thing-a-ma-jigs, called Next New Networks. Via Adweek's IQ Interactive Newsletter. Found an interview with Relles here. (By the way, just discovered that the Agency.com/Subway video is no longer up. Maybe that's been the case forever, but sad to see that one of the great moments in agency pitches gone wrong is now consigned to the dustbin of viral history .... whew! stop me before I metaphor again!)

Who was green first? Arnold or Brooklyn Bros.?

It took a mere two days to find a second campaign claiming to be potentially the first using offsets to balance out the carbon emissions used during the shoot, so let the fighting begin. Who was really first? On Monday, it was Arnold for Timberland. Today, according to the Ad Age Web site, Brooklyn Brothers has done a completely carbon-neutral commercial production—this one for the Versus cable TV network, using a software program it developed with a company called ERM that measures the carbon emissions of everything from the lighting to the gas used by the production trucks. The cost of offsetting the 8.9 tons of carbon emitted is a lo, lo $180. Of course, Arnold is also offsetting the cost of the media placements for its campaign, so I suppose they can brag about that. On the other hand, Brooklyn Brothers is going to try to make all of its commercial production carbon-neutral, so they can brag about that. Who wins? I'll be nice and say the planet.

Ad Age, Adweek: should you have bought Adrants?

So, a value has finally been placed on Adrants: $750,000. That was the most interesting part of the release yesterday that came out of Watershed Publishing, which was announcing that it had bought an undisclosed minority interest in the site. (Can't find the release online, ironically enough.) Other Adrants factoids in the release: the site gets 370,000 monthly uniques and 680,000 page views per month. I don't pretend to have an idea about what Adrants should be worth, but given the following, I might have thought it would be more than $750,000. First, no other blog in the general advertising space can match Adrants' traffic, and many have tried—it's been clear for awhile now that Steve Hall got first-mover advantage on all of us and will continue to reap its benefits. Second, whether you think Adrants is an insightful look at the ad biz or a site that gets its traffic mainly via boobvertising, it's in a growth industry. Old approaches to covering the ad biz are not. In fact, Watershed claims in its release that the marketing/advertising properties it owns now—which also include MarketingVOX and MediaBuyerPlanner, "reach an audience of marketers roughly twice the size of Advertising Age's online properties and 15 percent larger than the sum of those from Nielsen Business Media, the two closest networks of relevant sites." I can hear the complaints already from both companies that the Adrants demo isn't nearly as valuable, but if the going price for Adrants is a mere three-quarters of a million dollars, seems like it would have been a no-brainer for Ad Age, Adweek (and Mediapost, for that matter) to kick its tires. Maybe they did, but somehow, I doubt it.

Billings discrepancy watch: Subaru

Billings figures long ago started to drive me nuts. Where to begin? Is it the fact that creative agencies don't even plan or buy media anymore? Is it that with the 15 percent commission long dead, they haven't been a very good proxy for revenue for more than a decade? Why not just start to size accounts like t-shirts—you know—XS, S, M, L XL? That's why I'm really trying to avoid posting billings figures, unless, we're talking about the money being spent in media on a specific campaign or unless it's to ridicule the whole concept. OK, with that, let's launch the billings discrepancy watch, in which I print the billings figures that other people have attributed to accounts in the news, and you get to pick which one to believe, if any. OK, for Subaru (an account shift that does include creative and media):

1) Advertising Age: $150 million.
2) Adweek: $200 million (Adweek cites a source, Nielsen Monitor-Plus).
3) The New York Times: $150 million.

DDB's Scarpelli, Palmer post to their blogs

Thought I should point out that DDB chairman/chief creative officer Bob Scarpelli and Canadian chief Frank Palmer have both posted to their blogs in recent weeks. (Go here and click on DDBlogs on the left.) I've been on both their cases for rather low productivity on the blogging front. Now, I'm not saying two posts in a month and a half is anything to blog home about, but, hey, it's better than nothing. Jeff Swystun, the head of global business communications. put up his third post just yesterday, about this DDB "Yellow Paper" on brand consistency.

Oh, no ... it's another Chinese recall

This is just ridiculous, so I'm posting it.

Let's do lunch; then I'll fire your ass

Finally some actual news (and, no, most account shifts aren't that interesting). According to Ad Age's Jean Halliday, who is quoting a Subaru insider, the car company fired incumbent DDB over lunch today in Manhattan without a review. Now that's classy. Anyway, even if none of the official mouthpieces are commenting, this unexpected shift has the ring of truth to it. The story says that Subaru CMO Tim Mahoney, who came back last May after seven years at Porsche, wants to work again with Carmichael Lynch, which, conveniently, is just winding down its relationship with Porsche. To that extent, this story appears almost quaint. It involves no social networking, viral videos or DVRs, just good ol' cronyism. Just like advertising used to be.

Pam Ann bumbles her way through BA vid

I suppose these British Airways videos featuring the British comedienne Pam Ann are worth a look. (Looks like prior to her hook-up with BA, the play on Pan Am in her stage name was purely intentional.) Can't tell how long these videos have been flying around the 'net—a week, a month? The central focus of the one above is that Pam Ann would never make it as a stewardess, but somehow it just doesn't do it for me. The character seems at odds with what I've always thought the British Airways brand was about. But what do I know? I'm just a dumb American. Then again, Maurice Saatchi probably agrees with me. You can see a whole raft of these videos by going here. BBH is the agency.

Arnold's environmentally-friendly ad campaign

The real news about the new Timberland campaign from Arnold isn't that it's for Earthkeepers boots, which are "made from organic, recycled and reclaimed materials" per the Timberland Web site. No, to offset the carbon dioxide emissions used to run the campaign (and to produce and distribute it), the company is buying power credits for Jiminy Peak. In addition, the billboard portion of the campaign is completely recyclable. Some of it will turn into tote bags. I guess the real question I have about this is whether we're dealing with a true sustainable trend or whether a few years from now we'll all be snickering at the jump-on-the-bandwagon quality of all this politically-correct eco-consciousness—at least until the floodwaters begin to lap at the front door. To see the spot (frame from it pictured here), click on "See Them in Action" on the home page, and then "See Them in Action" again on the page the home pages jumps to.

Don Draper needs an IMDB bio

Hey, gang, just noticed that Don Draper's character bio on IMDB is empty. Now's your chance to write the definitive bio of the "Mad Men" creative director—an ad creative who actually wears suits. And, if you're Bart Cleveland, you can feel free to emphasize that the guy doesn't spend enough time actually writing ads.

Al Gore sure loves advertising

OK, so now I see why the ad industry can't get rid of Al Gore: the guy's about to launch an ad campaign to tell us what to do to stop global warming, and he's going to spend $100 million to $200 million a year to do it, according to this story. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, or, more likely, I'm suffering from Al Gore burnout now that the guy has appeared at Cannes, and just last week at Google's Zeitgeist, the ANA conference and also, in his spare time, won the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, here's a guy who could hang out with anyone he wanted—with the probable exception of Dubya—but apparently actually likes to hang out with people in advertising. Anyway, the campaign is from The Martin Agency, and, if his ANA speech is any indication, expect lots of TV. Gore said that, "Television still works more powerfully than anything else by far." I'm not sure he's right, but hey, it's not my $100 mill. BUT, WAIT, THERE'S MORE: I kinda forgot about the Current TV thing when I wrote this last night. The guy has more reasons to love the ad biz than Don Draper.

Andy Richter shops victoriously

The above has been running on YouTube all day and now has more than 420,000 views in exchange for its premium positioning. (It went up some time over the weekend.) Starring Andy Richter and Paul F. Tompkins, it's the fairly funny "Winner's Guide to Winning Everything," part of the new "Shop Victoriously" campaign that eBay launched last month. Looks like Richter and Tompkins have been charged with driving around in an RV looking for people who have been victorious at all sorts of inane pursuits, though apparently spending quality time winning the bidding for Beanie Babies isn't among them. The site where most of this Richter/Tompkins stuff is housed—shopvictoriously.com—did make me dizzy, but, since I'm a sucker for anything Andy Richter, I hope the effort was worth the amount of money he was paid to do it. Created by BBDO, I think.

Adverganza's Monday morning picks, 10.15.07

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

From Advertising Age:

—Nintendo is Ad Age's marketer of the year. Uh, it's easy to see Wii.
—Abbey Klaassen goes out to Google's Zeitgeist conference; has lunch (with other reporters) with Messrs. Brin and Page.
—Matt Creamer thinks the ANA conference rocked. For video and other highlights of the conference—including the obligatory Al Gore sighting—go here.
—Wal-Mart can strong-arm the world into going green.
—Setting back average CMO tenure even further, Aflac CMO Jeffrey Herbert leaves after a year. Looks like the duck is safe.
—Did "Halo 3" kill "The Heartbreak Kid?"
—Bob Garfield feels uncomfortable giving out so many stars, this time for the current La-Z-Boy campaign. (Sorry, couldn't find it easily online.)

From Adweek (sorry no cover, the link on the site was broken):

—Ogilvy & Mather reinstated as lead agency for Motorola, booting Omnicom. (Yeah, Ad Age has this story too, but Adweek broke it.)
—Brian Morrissey on whether Omnicom is being smart or stupid about its digital strategy.
—Phil Dusenberry regrets hiring Madonna to do a Pepsi ad.
—Hallmark looks to expand its demo by joining Product (RED).
—Google's doing better than eBay with its electronic ad buying marketplace.
—Andrew Keen describes Web 2.0 as "the very worst piece of news for the advertising industry since the birth of mass media." Hmmm. I thought the birth of mass media was good news.
—Barbara Lippert finds the new iPhone spots to be "a bit awkward."

From Mediapost (free registration required for some content):

—Mediapost's take on the ANA conference.
—Roughly a third of companies who market online—and who doesn't—expect to spend more money in social media.
—And now, the local newspaper site roadblock ad.

What we hear from The Delaney Report:

—Toyota might be looking to expand its agency roster.
—Some pharma companies are looking for new agencies. Not sure which ones.
—New CMO at MillerCoors will lead to agency review.

From The New York Post:

—Marketers will stick with Joe Torre, even if George Steinbrenner doesn't.
—Cinema advertising up 15 percent up last year; yet another reason to not show up at the movie's start time.

From The New York Times:

—Stuart Elliott's take on the ANA: consumer behavior is the Holy Grail.
—P&G brings the soap opera online with "Crescent Heights."

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

—Discovery is buying howstuffworks.com (free).
—Sources say that 1.2 million people downloaded the Radiohead album in two days. No word on what they paid (free).
—Avon spent more on advertising, saw sales rise (and made a few other changes).

Adrants hopping mad at 'Mad Men' review

Despite his blog's name, it's not all that often that Adrants' Steve Hall goes off on a true rant, like the one he posted today about Bart Cleveland's critique of AMC's "Mad Men." The critique, posted on the Ad Age site, admits from the get-go that Cleveland actually only watched ten minutes of the show, which is much of Hall's problem. How can a guy who watched ten minutes of a show truly critique it? Good point there, Steve. So, I went and read the Bart Cleveland thing, and I guess what it's meant to be is a diatribe on why a show about advertising can't really be about advertising, but instead is a show where "a lot of frustrated housewives gossip about one another." The guy actually thinks that people would watch a show about advertising; he wants to see scenes wherein, there's " ... a passion for creative that causes men to live like monks, not adulterous lechers making passes at their secretaries." Only problem with that, Bart, is that you'd be the only one watching.

Now Kodak is out of the Olympic game

By my count, Kodak is now the second major company to decide not to keep sponsoring the Olympics, following General Motors, which made up its mind in August. Like GM, Kodak is a troubled brand, and it's quite possible the company won't successfully make the shift to being a digital company, but there are other factors at work here too other than saving money—otherwise it might be worth it for Kodak to use the Olympics (the deal ceases after Beijing) as a launching pad for its great rebranding. The Olympic Games just aren't the draw that they used to be, which, whenever it becomes time for NBC or some other network to negotiate the broadcast rights, could be a watershed in terms of determining what mass media properties are worth in a fragmented media world.

Finally, John Cleese gives advice on spam

God knows why John Cleese has an endorsement deal with Iron Mountain Digital, but, glad to see the guy is still good for a laugh. In the videos presented at friendlyadvicemachine.com, Cleese dresses as a barrister, in a white lab coat and performs "an interpretive dance," the dance video being, according to Adweek, the best of the bunch. My favorite is Cleese's lengthy diatribe about spam (click on the "Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!" link), which is, of course, a nod to Cleese's days in Monty Python, and includes shots of Spam-a-sized products such as this can of soup. Sorry, don't know the agency.

ANA study: Media, creative should re-marry

Cool report just out from the ANA conference in Phoenix: 60 percent of those who were polled think media and creative belong back together. Sixty percent. But lest you think this means that, say, Mediacom should just get it over with and tie the knot again with Grey, that's not exactly the kind of marriage the respondents are looking for: they think "partnerships between media companies and media agencies would become more important than traditional full-service agency partnerships going forward," according to this story in Adweek. (I haven't been able to find the full report online yet.) Personally, I'm lying in wait for the creation of OMD/ABC/Chiat.

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.