Mediapost's agency of year pick makes rival mad!

So, Mediapost has named Starcom and Mediavest its agencies of the year in a tie that also marks the fourth time in a row that Starcom has won the award. And the angry emails have already started to come in to Mediapost editor-in-chief Joe Mandese. Here's an excerpt of one that Mandese has gamely posted in his letter from the editor accompanying the agency of the year package: "The award has become a parody of itself. It's tragic and quite sad when recognition in our side of the business is so rare and yet so important as we try to create the next generation of leaders and leadership in an industry in the midst of terrifyingly rapid transition." For more ranting, click here. In Mediapost's defense, and in the defense of agency of the year selectors everywhere, it's actually much harder to pick last year's winner again than it is to pick a new one. Just ask the folks at Adweek, who picked Deutsch (I think) for four years in a row. The editors pick agencies for three-peats, or four-peats with full realization that each time they do so, the knives aimed at them only get sharper. I don't know the ins and outs of media agencies well enough to have an informed opinion about Starcom, but if my experience in helping pick agencies of the year is any guide, the bar Starcom had to leap to win the award yet again was probably much higher than it was the first time around.

When good algorithms go scatalogical

There is nothing in my Gmail that would inspire Google's algorithms to give me this as a sponsored link. Nothing. I swear.

Old Spice commercial slides into silliness

This Old Spice commercial is super-silly in a good way. Assume it's from Wieden.

Reflecting on Phil Dusenberry

Like many of you, I've been reflecting over the last few days on the legacy of Phil Dusenberry, one of the few true ad legends that actually inhabited the ad business at the same time most of us have been in it. There's something poignant about his passing away now, and a bit young, at 71. It's somehow symbolic, as though—if any of us needed reminding—here's yet another sign that the days when commercials and network TV ruled are long gone. I've read at least some of the obits, but the one that truly struck the wrong chord, was the one in The New York Times (sorry guys, but it needs to be said), with this almost New York Post-ian style lede: "Philip B. Dusenberry, the advertising executive who oversaw the 1980s Pepsi commercial in which Michael Jackson’s hair was accidentally set on fire, died on Saturday at his home in Manhattan." Even though he wrote a book whose title reflected on that rather headline-grabbing commercial shoot, it in no way represents his career; today's paid announcement in the NYT seems more on the mark. Instead, his career was distinguished from many of his creative peers not just by commercials that often loomed much larger culturally than their allotted 30 seconds, but also by his ability to do this within a massive agency—from the inside. The Carl Allys, the Allan Beavers, the Ed McCabes weren't able to do it that way.
As a reporter for Adweek who at one point covered BBDO, I had an encounter or three with him, and what shined through was his graciousness, even during circumstances that were less than ideal. I'm speaking specifically of the time I "outed" him as the creator of a pro-life campaign he did for the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation. The ads had been airing for a bit when someone else in the newsroom tipped me off that they were done by him. Forget, for a moment, which side of the issue you're on; the campaign was a high-impact tour de force. The commercial I remember most focused on a group of young children cavorting happily, shot in lingering, soft focus, slo-mo that tugged at the heart strings, and then came the voiceover: "All these children have one thing in common. All of them were unplanned pregnancies . . . that could have ended in abortion. But their parents toughed it out, listened to their hearts and discovered . . . that sometimes the best things in life aren't planned. Life. What a beautiful choice." We joked in the office about how the theme line was effectively a mash-up of the ones for GE—"We bring good things to life"—and Pepsi—"The choice of a new generation" but I think we were stunned at the forthrightness—and the secrecy. Perhaps the strangest thing about the incident to me was that it was so obviously his work that when I called him to talk about it, I never even asked him to confirm he was behind the campaign. Instead, I jumped to the second question—asking why he did it. I don't remember his response, although I do recall that, despite the fact that he was effectively a deer caught in the headlights, he kept his cool. I don't think he ever spoke publicly about the spots again, even though they became such a big story that Newsweek covered it, and also The Today Show, which put me on-air to talk about them, I think mostly because he'd turned them down.
Even though I was doing my job, I never felt quite right about how the story unfolded. After all, this was a part of his private life, not his public life, and he had his reasons for not putting his name on the campaign. Whether it was because of the secrecy of the DeMoss Foundation, or that he didn't want his point of view on the issue known within an industry and city that is heavily pro-choice, is something we'll never know. The irony, of course, is that Dusenberry's work was always undeniably his, so much so that a campaign in which he wanted to be behind the scenes still bore his unmistakable mark.
Here's another remembrance of Dusenberry from my former Adweek colleague, David Kiley, now at BusinessWeek.
George Parker also has a few thoughts including a lively discussion thread here. And a second post here.

Adverganza's first of '08 picks, 12.01.2008

Wherein I scan, the, um, Wednesday morning headlines so you don't have to (unless you're a total wonk and checked out what had happened in advertising over the holidays on Monday, in which case, I have little respect for you).

From Advertising Age (doesn't look like there's a print issue this week. Wait, hold that thought. There's something out called the Ad Age Annual, but, unless I'm mistaken, only some of what it contains is online):

—The obituaries of two people in the business who mattered: the one, the only, Phil Dusenberry at 71 after battling lung cancer, and Conde Nast's Steve Florio following complications from a November heart attack.
—Taco Bell and Starbucks start the new year with light menus. Given how losing weight is still a popular resolution—whatever—some see this as no more than a marketing ploy.
—Presidential candidates prove good for spot TV in Des Moines.

From Adweek:

—Adweek's take on the death of Phil Dusenberry.
—A media outlook package, covering most media, except, from what I can tell, advertising in toilet stalls and skywriting. Click here, be patient, scroll down, and you'll find links to all of it.
—The role of citizen brand ambassador becomes formalized.
—Marian Salzman and Ann Mack look into their crystal ball.
—Diageo posts an RFP online. Don't get excited; the gig only pays $5000.

I'm time-challenged this week with a long story due. I'll post when I can.

Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Happy New Year

I've been trying to come up with the perfect end of 2007 post and I don't know quite what the topic should be. Christmas is a strange thing for me this year. I don't particularly want anything—save for a replacement for my beloved, now apparently moth-eaten navy blue DKNY sweater—and I see that as a rather happy state of affairs. I had a lot of professional and family-related things I wanted to accomplish in 2007, and, frankly, I've been walking around in a dream-like state for much of the year because so many them have happened. I'm working with people I really like and who are smart and thoughtful and considerate, I got my real estate license (I'm from a family of real estate brokers and even in this market, it just made sense), the kids are doing great, and, oh, I have this little blog that people are actually reading. Of course, my goal for 2008 is that there's more of you, but I've enjoyed our conversation so far and look forward to keeping it going next year.

Before I close down for probably the rest of the year—still too many Christmas things to get done and one assignment due before the Big Day—here's what I'd hope for the advertising business next year. Seemed that 2007 was the most watershed-dy in a series of watershed years. You simply never hear of campaigns anymore that aren't some combination of digital and other media, and that's a good thing. I don't believe that the industry in any way has caught up to consumers' appetite for the Internet, but at least digital is not the sad stepchild anymore. So what I wish for the industry is that it accelerate its pace of change, and not necessarily by snapping up any shop that makes a claim to digital advertising expertise. (There was way too much of that this year. Way too many headlines about huge holding companies buying little digital something-or-others that no one has ever heard of.) In reality, the only way the pace of change will accelerate is for everyone in advertising to either change their mindsets or get out of the business. We all know that there are thousands of ad execs who find all of the changes to the advertising marketplace scary; all they really want to do is retire before the grim digital reaper comes and cuts them out of the business before their time. It's a peculiar attitude, because the changes that everyone was speculating about for much of the last 15 year or so have actually happened, and the old days are decidedly not coming back. Time to just jump in the pool. If an English and Latin major can do it (like me), than anyone is capable of it. Then again, I was on the swim team.

Oh, there's one other thing that I hope for the ad business in 2008: that TBWA/Chiat/Day find more uses for the Berries 'n' Creme lad.

Three viewpoints on advertising in 2007

The BusinessWeek Web site has been running a cool series summarizing the year in advertising from several geographic perspectives. For the fun of it, I'll run the most depressing sound bites from each of the series' three authors (so far, maybe there will be more). Waterfall, the digital guy, is the most hopeful. Wonder why?

From Johnny Vulkan, Anomaly, New York: "This year hasn't been a wonderful one for advertising professionals—unless your business is advertising conferences entitled 'The Future of Marketing'—but 2007 will prove to have been a remarkable year for the marketing profession in general."

From Simon Waterfall, Poke, London: "Another thing I hope we've learned from this year is that advertisers need to learn a lot more about their audience. And they need to start thinking a little more smartly about the new forms of media that have been dominating the headlines. Everyone wants a piece, but do they really need it?"

From Jonathan Kneebone, Glue Society, Sydney: "At the judging of various advertising events this year—from Clio to D&AD, from AWARD to Young Guns and AdFest—it became clear that 2007 was the year no one really knew what to do next—particularly the multinational agencies."

Each author also has a slide show of what they found interesting this year. I don't believe any of them mentioned Adverganza. And BTW, are these peoples names for real, or what?

Not believin' the Whopper Freakout

It's kind of obvious why Crispin, Porter + Bogusky shot the Whopper Freakout in some place with palm trees. Because if the agency shot it in a place that was a little bit harsher on the soul—like, say, New York—the people who were denied their Whoppers would have pulled out a weapon and maimed the "store manager" who tells the assembled multitudes that Burger King has discontinued its most popular offering. (If you're not familiar, you can watch a little bit of Whopper Freakout here. Basically, it's a "mockumentary" in which a local Burger King tells all of its patrons that the Whopper is kaput. Something, but to my mind not hilarity, ensues.) Over at Fallon Planning, they're calling it "genius" but to me, despite all of the claims that this was all shot using real people, who really thought the Whopper was gone, doesn't pass the scent of flame-grilled beef test. First, to quote David Ogilvy, "The consumer is not a moron. She's your wife." The inherent sexism of that quote aside, D.O. had a point: that people are not that gullible, particularly these days. Are there that many people who would really believe this? It's akin to, well, McDonald's KOing the Big Mac. Yeah, right. Second, if people really were that gullible, how come they take it relatively passively? They only really seem to get, um, inflamed, when, in the latter part of the video—which involves store workers actually stuffing burgers from Wendy's and McDonald's surreptitiously into customers' bags—store staff basically accuses the customers of putting the errant burgers in their bags. My last complaint is that, at almost 8 minutes, it's too long. Just because you can stream almost anything of any length these days, doesn't mean you should. OK, you can now accuse me of getting up on the wrong side of the burger this morning.

Can't creative and media all just get along?

Oy. Not another agency of the future. But that's exactly what they're cooking up over at SMG, which has just hired a creative from Avenue A/Razorfish to run an agency within the media-buying conglomerate to do creative. (Google the phrase "agency of the future" and you get almost 15,000 entries.) The unit, called Pixel, has been part of the shop for awhile, but now it's having what appears to be a coming-out party to be an official SMG offering. While the concentration will be on digital, SMG chief Laura Desmond doesn't rule out, according to Mediapost, that "it might migrate into more traditional forms of creative advertising." There are several levels of silliness here, first and foremost that SMG doesn't feel that long-time creative agencies are capable of the task. Here at the end of 2007—even though we all know she's right—that's pitiful. SMG also wants a creative offering that comes at it from a media perspective rather than the reverse. But what of SMG sister shops Digitas and Modem Media? Aren't they reasonable enough interactive offerings? I'm familiar with the work of both, and both are innovators when it comes to media-driven creative applications. Great advertising people these days should have neither a media perspective or a creative perspective, but an idea perspective that allows them to objectively assess the full range of marketing possibilities for them. Of course, there's an 800-lb. gorilla in the offices of SMG's "the agency of the future" and all others that are doing newfangled creative/media mash-ups: that creative and media are inevitably coming back together, and after the machinations to separate them over the last period, few want to admit that the changing media landscape means their inevitable remarriage. It's only a matter of time. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: Mediapost's Joe Mandese has written another story about this.

Boy comes out of snow globe, does interview

OK, so this purports to be the first interview ever with McKinney & Silver's SnowGlobeBoy. SGB, who spent more than three days in the snow globe, has also received almost 20,000 views of the video above on YouTube. If you're not familiar, think of this as a Christmas version of that made-for-TV flick "Boy in the Plastic Bubble" starring John Travolta, circa 1976.

Have yourself a Spice Girl Christmas

Merry Christmas from Tesco and the Spice Girls.

How to put Keith Kelly in the background

It's not all that easy to upstage Keith Kelly's column in The New York Post, but this Toyota ad certainly managed it.

Shatner, Mr. T discover World of Warcraft

This World of Warcraft ad isn't the best use of William Shatner I've ever seen, but I'd rather watch him than most celebrity endorsers. Here's another in the campaign featuring Mr. T, which has several million YouTube views all told. Weird thing is that probably a lot of the WoW demographic thinks Shatner's that guy on "Boston Legal" and as for Mr. T, I really don't know. Maybe 2008 is the year of his big comeback.

Precious Moments coffins 2007's worst line extension

One story I missed earlier yesterday was Brandweek's list of the worst line extensions of the year. You can read the full list here, but let's just stick, for the purposes of this post, to Precious Moments line of coffins, which won the contest. These were coffins that were based on the treacly, doe-eyed figurines, pictured at right. Unfortunately, if they are still available, they're not available on the Precious Moments Web site. I typed "coffin" into search; I clicked on "Miscellaneous," I clicked on "Occasion" but only saw holidays like Christmas and Birthdays. Alas, no coffins.

Adverganza's Monday morning pics, 12.17.07

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

From Advertising Age:

—This is the annual Book of Tens. Not quite sure where to begin, but this is as good a place as any: 10 Who Made Their Mark, ranging from Steve Biegel to Don Imus and Rupert Murdoch, it's quite diverse. Problem with the way this is presented on the Web is that there are usually several lists associated with each link, but sometimes you only know what the top one is before you click. Tsk. Tsk.
—"Writers' strike? What me worry?" says Fox.
—Why NBC might make money from returning $10 million to advertisers.
—Garfield's top ten ads, plus the Bobbys.
—The Media Guy 2007 Final Exam.

From Adweek (sorry no cover. The link on the Adweek site is broken):

—Tom Carroll takes over as TBWA CEO, but get Lee Clow's new title: global director of media arts. Uh ... media is creative, creative is media ... I'm getting a headache.
—Call it tough love. Looks like Kevin Roberts is going to make Young & Rubicam wait a year until Tony Granger can take over the lead creative role.
—Despite Facebook's recent face plant, social networking is changing advertising.
—Yes, Virginia, there is a Web upfront.
—Adweek's top ten trends of 2007.
—So you're a celeb and you've been in rehab, been accused of sexual harassment, or been filmed eating a hamburger off the floor after drinking too many Heinekens? No morals? No problem!
—The annual in/out list.

From Mediapost:

—2008 will be the year of indulgence. Bring it on.
—There will be at least one CGM campaign in 2008: Dove is asking consumers for ideas to promote its Dove Supreme Cream Oil Body Was. The winner will air on the Oscars.
—Make that two CGM campaigns. Heinz unveils the sequel to this year's "Top this TV" contest.
—Bill Cella, thanks for playing, and other shifts at Interpublic's media operations.

From The New York Times:

—Stuart Elliott's Book of Eights, or the eight best and worst moments in advertising in 2007. Why only eight? Go ask your mate. (That was a Dr. Suess reference.)
—Nick Denton becomes the managing editor of Gawker, after rigorous job interviews with himself.
—Food Network to change its menu (insert other lame food metaphors here).

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

—Domino's returns to 30-minute pledge in its first ads from Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. Free.
—As the writers' strike continues, will networks cancel production deals. Free.

What we're hearing from The Delaney Report:

—Is MasterCard media getting ancy at GSD&M Idea City?
—Other accounts to sniff around on: TXU Corp., and the Blue Cross Blue Shield organizations of Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Isn't this stop smoking ad beyond the pale?

Among other things that 2007 will come to be known for, it'll be the year of the gross-out anti-tobacco ad. Whether you're talking about the man that AdFreak refers to as Throat-Hole Guy, or the guy who lost his jaw from chewing tobacco, or the person who's lost a few toes due to smoking too much, it's not a pretty picture. Of this genre, the most over the top is our poor friend Skip Legault, pictured here, who, if you can't read the fine print, has suffered "two heart attacks, a stroke, fourteen surgeries, seven blood clots" and "leg amputation" because of smoking. So is this ad effective? I don't think so, and here's why. Poor Skip's smoking-related bad health is so completely over the top that I would think most smokers would look at it and say that could never happen to them, particularly the leg amputation. The ad is ultimately hard to relate to, because most of us have never run into an amputee who had to have a limb whacked off because of smoking. I don't think it doesn't happen, but Skip's experience seems fairly remote, and as we know, people who are addicted are full of denial about what could really happen to them. This ad doesn't help.

Even worse than coal in your stocking

Saw a description of this Alltel spot on Adweek's creative newsletter (worth subscribing to, BTW), but describing it, as always, doesn't do it full justice. Imagine the elves and reindeer as vigilantes, and you'll get the drift. Via Campbell-Ewald.

What 'Campaign' calls worst advert of the year

Saw a story about Campaign's worst adverts of the year and thought I should share the cringe-worthy wealth. The grand prize went to this ad for Rana Pasta which features an actual politician, Ann Widdecombe, among those protesting at 10 Downing Street for "fresh pasta justice." Via Leagas Delaney. Congrats all around!

Citgo Joe returns with new ad

Somehow I missed the Joe Kennedy/Citgo commercial last year, in which Joe says that, thanks to a deal he's struck with Citgo, people who can't afford oil can now get it at a discount. The commercial from last year is above, but there's a new one out, that basically holds up the citizens of Venezuela, and Citgo, as model citizens, who really care for their shivering American counterparts, whereas the American government ... Not surprisingly, Kennedy took a lot of, well, heat, for this campaign last year because of the Hugo Chavez connection, but I guess he remains undeterred.

You read it on Adverganza first ...

After the drubbing I gave Adweek a few weeks ago (it was tough love, really), I shouldn't expect the magazine to give me any credit for being the first to report that Dentsu was changing law firms in the Steve Biegel case to Morgan, Lewis and Bockius. Fair enough. But wanted to point out that it was reported here last Friday. Now that I've gotten that little ego-gratification exercise out of the way, time for some real posts.