Great Moments in Hoservertising

Canada Day is almost upon us, the 24-hour period in which Canadians release a year's worth of repressed patriotism in one massive, drunken EH?-gasm.

In honour of the event, I'd like to take a look back at my formative years in Canadian advertising, to the days when all Canadian men were blue-collar, hirsute and named "Gordie". Let's start with a jingle that Labatt would do well to resurrect for a classic brand:



Molson on the other hand, celebrated the great Canadian wisdom that the best-tasting beer is a free one:



Watch how many stubbies you have, though, or you could end up like this dude:



Or even worse, if you juice on the job:



Speaking of Hosers, here's a 1986 Harvey's commercial with Dave Thomas doing one of his other SCTV roles:



This blog wouldn't be complete without a Timmy's link, even though their '80s ads sucked Boston Creme:



And Canadian Tire, back when they were still a hardware and automotive store:



Another great Canadian brand, this one courtesy of our tax dollars:



Speaking of which, I ought to end on Canada's greatest achievement in the realm of PSA:







And, of course, this awesome modern parody:



Have an awesome, proud, and safe Canada Day!

ADWEAK... it's alive!

I was just reading an article about Apple yanking its iPhone porn app, and it reminded me of this fake news item that appeared in my favourite ad industry satire site, ADWEAK, many years ago:



(Further sanitized for your protection; the original is here.)

Anyway, in the dark years after the high tech bust laid waste to Ottawa's advertising industry, ADWEAK was a bright light. Its industry gossip rewritten as satire reminded me that working in a big agency in a large market also sucked. And I still use the story "The Brandwheel™ vs. 360° Branding®" as a cautionary tale for agency and client discussions alike. The authors were anonymous, but they were Internet famous in their anonymity.

ADWEAK had a great run from 2000 to 2003, then started tailing off. There were a few sporadic updates in 2004 and 2005, but then nothing. There was even a death rumour.

Today, I went back looking for my 7-year-old Nostradamish iSmut news item, and lo and behold! A new note!

EDITOR'S NOTE: I Am A Twit.
A brief note to the twelve or so devoted readers I may have left after my extended absence. As I have emerged from my fortified compound deep in the Mexican jungles, my crack team of internet savvy chimpanzees has alerted me that thanks to new technology, it is possible to issue occasional communiques with even less personal effort that before. And apparently, this twitter-ing is quite popular amongst the younger set. So let us give it a try, shall we? Look for my occasional comments and the 'latest' advertising (ick, even the word sickens my stomach) news at my twitter account at http://twitter.com/adweak . (The chimpanzees attempted to explain the exact ins and outs of the site, but hand signals can only communicate so much. And I was quite intoxicated.)

And to you, I say good day.

So it's back! And I'm only about three weeks out of the loop! So I'm following ADWEAK on Twitter now. If you want to know why, check out the back issues from their archive. It's still funny as hell.

Welcome back!

Spam this Blog

Caught an item on The Australian this week that made me laugh. It's about a common phenomenon in social media, but I just liked the way it read. Here it is:

THE first time I noticed, it was on a news blog site, at the bottom of a story inviting reader comment. The story was about preventing swine flu in your house.

One of the responses read thus: "I live in Victoria so naturally I was worried about swine flu," said 45-year-old JJ, a mother of three from Balwyn.

"But my friend swears she can keep all types of flu at bay by eating just a teaspoon of Capilano honey each morning. It has to be Capilano, she reckons there's some secret ingredient. Even if it turns out to be baloney, it's worth giving it a try, for the kids' sake."

Trawling around the blogosphere a little longer, Wry Side came across a popular health magazine website, with this piece of reader advice from 16-year-old Jazzmeene, of Dee Why, NSW, on a story about problem skin.

"My friend Kortnee, she's 15, and, like, she told me a dob of Capilano honey, like, once a day, on pimples can, like, so do the trick. All those other things you buy from the chemist, they're just totally a waste of space. Has to be Capilano though. Apparently there's, like, some special ingredient."

A theme was emerging, so I Googled "Capilano honey" and came across this from Greg, a 35-year-old carpenter on a car maintenance website: "If you're having trouble getting your car started on wintry mornings, pour a little Capilano honey in where the oil normally goes. Works a treat. There's a special ingredient in it," he said.

What's going on? I know a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but can a teaspoon of honey really be the answer to so many of life's little problems? Not really.

That's right: blogspam. It's everywhere. A particularly underhanded form of buzz marketing, it involves paying people to create alts that sneak product placements into comments and discussion groups.

It almost seems like too obvious an opportunity to ignore, when developing social media outreach plans for clients, but just like every kind of communication, there are good and bad ways to do it.

For example, bait and switch alts on Twitter are just annoying, and probably do little to build brand awareness (let alone sell anything). On the other hand, more subtle approaches like the homespun Capilano honey anecdotes can actually trick a general public who still think Lemon Fresh Joy kills mosquitoes.

Can you suggest any hilariously inappropriate examples of blogspam that you've seen lately? Feel free to lay it on thick below.

The sweet smell of flame-broiled desperation

Adfreak recently featured this Burger King ad from Singapore:



Not exactly subtle, eh? But what else can we expect from the corporation that managed to put Spongebob Squarepants and Sir Mix-A-Lot in the same spot:



Some people found this pretty amusing; others did not.

My interest in all this is how Burger King, as a "challenger" brand, is resorting to increasingly desperate viral campaigns in the face of tumbling profits. Sure, they're coming up with some very entertaining gimmicks, like joke marketing "Flame", "the body spray of seduction, with a hint of flame-grilled meat" and using a hilariously saucy web site to make it viral. (Although I did feel like I might catch something from it...)

But what about the basics? Perhaps "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about", but I can't see how BK's innovative marketing efforts are going to get people to crave their hamburgers. A cheeseburger is just about my favourite food on the planet, but Burger King seems to have forgotten what they're selling. On the other hand, I thought Harvey's "Meat. Fire. Good." campaign of a few years back was just about the best primal pitch of all time. They know why I go there; they just need to keep reminding me.

In my humble opinion, Burger King needs to focus on the food. I haven't eaten a Whopper in years, and I'm not going to start because the company has a wicked sense of humour. Besides, no matter how cheeky a corporation gets in its advertising, the Internet can always do them one better (found posted on Fark.com):



That about sums it up. It's not the kind of fast food I'd be willing to lose friends over.

Go, Lara, Go!

Here at Acart, we try to live our "work that really matters" credo and give something back to our communities. But one of my colleagues took it to a whole other level.



Lara Taweel, an Account Executive, just got back from a week of building houses in New Orleans' St. Tammany Parish with Habitat for Humanity.

Lara went with a group partially funded by International Orthodox Christian Charities, an organization she met through friends at her church. The rest of the money came out of Lara's pocket.




Lara says she was moved by the plight of people who lost their homes near the levee when Hurricane Katrina broke through it in 2005. The house she worked on was for a single mom and nurse, who was forced by the natural disaster to start over. Lara says it was particularly rewarding to meet the future homeowners, who donate many hours of their own time and effort to getting themselves re-established.



In her typical modest fashion, Lara didn't tell many people around the agency where she was going on her June vacation. But she came back with lots of pictures and stories to inspire others to take up the cause.

We're all really proud of Lara for braving 40 degree Louisiana heat and "way too much fried food" just to do something meaningful for other people in need. This is what the true spirit of altruism is supposed to look like.

Way to go!

My Father Likes....

My son made me a card for Father's Day. It was cute as hell, but it also got me thinking about one I made for my Dad, more than 30 years ago, that almost got made into a social marketing campaign.

Here's the cover:



That's right — Dad likes to smoke. Like many 1970s parents, he saw nothing wrong with smoking around kids. And strangers were hardly more concerned. We Gen-X kids just got used to the fact that we had to breathe in smoke at home, in the car, at restaurants, even on trains and planes. Second-hand smoke was just a fact of life. And if I got the occasional ear infection, well that was too.

How times have changed, eh? Polite society is mostly smoke-free now, at least in public enclosed spaces. You can go to a bar without smelling like an ashtray, and pretty much expect that your kids won't be subjected to smoke. (Even Dad goes outside now to smoke at home... thanks Dad!)

But the situation is not all roses. Despite the fact that Ontario has passed a law against smoking in a car with kids, I still see it happening all the time. I know that there's not much I can do personally, but professionally I've always wanted to do an effective anti-second-hand-smoke campaign. (I've worked with a partner Aboriginal advertising agency to do targeted campaigns for Health Canada, but they were a whole different approach.)

So I worked with the team here at Acart to mock up an approach for a pitch where a modern dad gets his Father's Day card from his child, sees that the smoke is marring his parental image, and decides to smoke away from his kids from now on. The client didn't buy it.

Maybe I should have pitched it to the tobacco companies. After all, when I was a kid I seem to have had a real knack for branding:



So, does anyone want to buy a slightly used social marketing concept?

G to the C-dot

If you want to know just how dependent Canadian media are on government social marketing, check this out:

A big drop in government advertising helped pull down radio advertising by 13.9% in the third quarter, according to Canadian Broadcast Sales, which represents more than 60% of all private radio revenues.

Spending from all government sources dropped 54%, while federal government spending was down 61% in the quarter—Ottawa’s cuts alone accounted for more than one-quarter of the total decline, according to CBS.

Yikes! This is my bread-and-butter we're talking about here! You can't even blame the bandwagon move to social media on this one, because government regulations severely inhibit its presence on Web 2.0 (although my loyal readers will already know how to deal with that!)

In 2006-2007 (the last reporting period published) the Government of Canada spent $71,224,000 on advertising campaigns. If this seems like a lot, consider that most advertising money (the rule of thumb is 80% in the private sector) goes into media buys. The GoC, which is required by its own regulations to reach people equally in two languages, all over Canada, requires even more elaborate media buys.

I'm sure there are lots of people out there who think this money is wasted. But as someone in the trenches, post-Gomery, I can tell you that this is not a sector that will make you rich. Rather, government advertising has become as driven by ROI (even if the "R" is awareness or attitudes) as any other type. Intensifying competition is driving down professional fees. And the accountability for agencies is iron clad.

Also, most government advertising is in the public service: programs and information that can improve your quality of life, or someone else's. In the past year, I've worked on campaigns to help people be prepared for civic emergencies, to ensure the safety out their food supply, to protect themselves against swine flu, and to be aware and speak out against elder abuse, to name just a few. As we say at Acart, it's "Work that matters"...

So here's my modest proposal: If we're going to spend government money on industries in trouble, don't reduce advertising spending. Canada's communication and advertising industry worth $15 billion annually, according to ICA, and it's an industry of creative innovation that feeds intellectual property into our knowledge economy daily. Plus, of course, the media spending on all those obscure regional publication will keep up the diversity of regional voices that make our country so interesting. Not to mention all the spin-off work that keeps Montreal's, Toronto's, and Vancouver's film industry and actors' unions alive.

We're still doing fine here at our shop, but I worry about what it will mean to our industry as a whole if government social marketing spending gets slashed further in a recession that has seen a huge decline in many of the major industrial clients.

"Green" claims come out in the wash

I caught a news item this morning that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged three corporations — including K-Mart — with making false and unsubstantiated claims that their paper products were "biodegradable."

The case states that the products in question, paper plates, moist towelettes, and disposable dry towels, while ultimately biodegradable, do not completely decompose in what the FTC's Green Guides define as "a reasonably short time".

Advertisers are increasingly under scrutiny for their environmental claims, both from regulators and consumers. In our post-authoritarian culture, people no longer assume that corporations are telling them the truth. Instead, they can do their own research online through whistle-blowing sites and social media communities.

The act of making false or misleading claims in environmental marketing even has a name: Greenwashing. Originally coined by Greenpeace, the term has taken hold as the rallying cry of a very vocal movement that includes Terrachoice, an environmental marketing consulting and certification company that's our downstairs neighbour in the Acart Building.

Terrachoice was also a featured partner in our Deep Green marketing conference last week. The company's President, Scott McDougall, told the Trans-Canada Advertising Agency Network about "The Seven Sins of Greenwashing", a simple idea that has garnered them international acclaim.



Here are the sins, according to Scott:

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-off
A claim suggesting that a product is ‘green’ based on a narrow set of attributes without attention to other important environmental issues. Paper, for example, is not necessarily environmentally-preferable just because it comes from a sustainably-harvested forest. Other important environmental issues in the paper-making process, such as greenhouse gas emissions, or chlorine use in bleaching may be equally important.


2. Sin of No Proof
An environmental claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information or by a reliable third-party certification. Common examples are facial tissues or toilet tissue products that claim various percentages of post-consumer recycled content without providing evidence.

3. Sin of Vagueness
A claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the consumer. ‘All-natural’ is an example. Arsenic, uranium, mercury, and formaldehyde are all naturally occurring, and poisonous. ‘All natural’ isn’t necessarily ‘green’.

4. Sin of Worshiping False Labels
A product that, through either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement exists; fake labels, in other words.

5. Sin of Irrelevance
An environmental claim that may be truthful but is unimportant or unhelpful for consumers seeking environmentally preferable products. ‘CFC-free’ is a common example, since it is a frequent claim despite the fact that CFCs are banned by law.


6. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils
A claim that may be true within the product category, but that risks distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole. Organic cigarettes could be an example of this Sin, as might the fuel-efficient sport-utility vehicle.

7. Sin of Fibbing
Environmental claims that are simply false. The most common examples were products falsely claiming to be Energy Star certified or registered.

Some of these sins are difficult for a working adman to hear. We've got a stake in believing that we must always find and promote our client's unique selling proposition, even if the only unique thing about it is that none of the competitors thought to say it first (the sin of irrelevancy). Remember "it's toasted", from Madmen? It really happened!

Avoiding Greenwashing will be an ongoing challenge for all of us in the social issues marketing industry, especially when Canada isn't as strict on regulation and enforcement. (Worldwide, Terrachoice believes Greenwashing Affects 98% of Products Including Toys, Baby Products and Cosmetics.)

It's not easy being green in a media-savvy culture. But as G.I. Joe said, "knowing is half the battle"...

Advertising History

It must have been five years ago, on a nice sunny day like this, that I took a walk on the waterfront below Parliament Hill and wound up in the Bytown Museum.



I always knew the museum was there, and had visited a number of times. But that day, I walked in with the idea that I'd write ads for them. I've loved history my whole life, but I had rarely gotten the chance to bring my passion for artifacts and legends to my professional world. I had pitched the Museum of Nature and the Museum of Civilization, both unsuccessfully. I had done some work for Parks Canada and VIA Rail that had a historical component. But not since my early days writing tourism advertorials in Kingston had I really been able to help a client in my favourite area of museology. That was about to change.

I started as a pro-bono consultant, helping former Museum Director Christina Tessier get the messaging sorted out. Christina and her team had a vision to modernize the museum's exhibits and brand, so I got there at a good time. We defined target audiences, and developed a messaging platform around the simple fact that the museum is "Where Ottawa Begins" — geographically (in the city's oldest stone building at the entrance to the Rideau Canal) and historically (telling the story of the city's earliest days).

The museum's logo, created by another volunteer, was already nearly complete, but we started work on a creative platform that celebrated the old-time roughness of Victorian Ottawa — known as the toughest town in British North America.

The new approach matched the museum's push for greater cultural relevance with modern audiences, showing the sordid underbelly of a town where lumberjacks engaged in street-fighting in the muddy streets of the Market, even as grand Canadian history was being lived across the Canal and up the Hill.

After we developed a few small poster campaigns together, and I sat on the advisory board for the Bytown Museum renewal project, the institution finally secured funding for a proper campaign to launch the museum's redesigned exhibits.

Launched in 2007, our campaign focussed on street-level media such as posters, bike racks, cinema slides and coasters distributed to pubs in the immediate neighbourhood.



The objective was to get young urban families who spend a lot of weekends downtown to check out the museum to see what's new in old Ottawa. Working hand-in-hand with the publicity surrounding the museum's relaunch, it resulted in a 28% increase in total admissions in the 2007 season.

Our 2007 campaign is still running (I took the bike rack pic today), but now the Bytown Museum has a new Director, Mike Steinhauer, who sat on the renewal committee with me. Building on what's been done, Mike is focussing on showing the historical continuity in Ottawa's living communities, as well as building an online community for the museum using social media.

So, if you happen to be taking a walk by Parliament on a sunny day, pop into the Bytown Museum. You never know where history might take you.

Respect your elders

Yesterday, Senator Marjory LeBreton, Minister of State (Seniors), officially launched the Elder Abuse social marketing campaign we created for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.

You can read about the government's strategy, and see our national TV commercial, here. Or you can download our brochure here.

This was an emotionally challenging campaign for us, but also some of the most important social issues marketing we've done to date.

Elder abuse has high awareness in its more extreme forms (HRSDC says that 9 in 10 Canadians rate it as a high government priority). However, more subtle everyday forms of abuse such as infantilization, financial scams, and passive neglect continue to fly under the radar for many people.

Our objective was to bring elder abuse to the level of awareness of child abuse or spousal abuse. Our creative strategy was to put the responsibility for spotting it and stopping it in the viewer's hands — literally — by putting him or her in the place of a neighbour peering through the blinds at acts of abuse in his or her community.

We filmed this TV spot in Montreal last summer with director Yanick Paquin and Producer Jacinthe Arsenault at Soma PUB.

Parts of the filming were difficult for the actors, crew, clients, and us. Watching take after take of a woman walking away from her confused father, and a very angry man screaming at his frail mother, was uncomfortable to say the least. The consolation came when each of the actors, when we met with them afterward, told us how much they appreciated this ad, and what important work it is.

Deep Green - Day 2

Today is the first full day of our conference on the future of environmental marketing in Canada, and it's off to a great start.

“Deep Green”, the 47th annual conference of the Trans-Canada Advertising Agency Network (T-CAAN), kicked off with a presentation by Frank Palmer, CEO of DDB Canada and Chair of T-CAAN, talking about his agency's own efforts to reduce its environmental footprint.



DDB Echology is an alliance between DDB Canada and Junxion Strategy, to provide sustainability consulting for clients. To prove that they "walk the walk", DDB took its own advice and created programs for measuring their carbon footprint, improving procurement, reducing waste and building on sustainable community investments.

"Echo" stands for:

Environmental Footprint
Community Building
Human Resource Practices
Opportunities for Influence

Some of the programs Frank mentioned were providing millions of dollars in free advertising through a competition for related pro-bono clients, as well as a "dumpster dive" where DDB ad executives went through municipal trash to separate out all recyclables.

Following that presentation, John Westbrook (our V.P. Client Services) and I took the podium to map the landscape of environmental marketing challenges and opportunities. John took the audience through a timeline of environmental activism from 1962 (the publication of "Silent Spring") to the present, highlighting significant events, disasters, legislation, and cultural touchstones that brought "ecology" from a fringe movement to the mainstream.

I followed up with a discussion about today's "LOHAS" (Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability) consumers. Almost a quarter of Canadians fit into this category, and the LOHAS market is estimated to be worth up tp $209 Billion.



The challenge, of course, is to identify what consumers are really looking for, and whether companies can provide it credibly. "Green" can mean anything from low-carbon footprint, to local, to organic, to less packaging, to the internal practices of the company or manufacturer. Defining a client's green USP has become increasingly critical in an era where consumers get their information from a multitude of instant media, and as I said "are always talking about you behind your back".

Another key message was one of trade-offs. In energy, for example, wind power is "clean" to the air but deadly to birds and annoying to neighbours. Hydro destroys ecosystems, culture and history. Nuclear doesn't emit carbon or smog, but produces permanent radioactive byproducts. No environmental decision is easy.

As well, consumers may say they want a carbon tax in surveys, but then vote against it at the polls. They'll buy low-energy appliances, but are happy to be less-sustainable when it comes to luxury goods. The list goes on and on.

It will be interesting to see what conclusions our 30 Canadian ad agency heads come to in discussing these issues this week.

Deep Green

Acart is in full prep mode today, getting ready to host a conference on the future of environmental marketing in Canada.

Green is the new black — or so most marketers would have you believe. Everywhere you look, traditional products, services and brands are touting their environmental responsibility.

But what does it mean to be “green”? Is this a real shift of consumer perception and attitude, or just one more trend? Getting to the bottom of the green movement is the purpose of “Deep Green”, the 47th annual conference of the Trans-Canada Advertising Agency Network (T-CAAN).

T-CAAN is a team of leading ad agencies in Canada who pledge to work together and share information to give their clients a more complete national reach and insight. With a unique presence in every significant market across Canada, we believe we're "closer to the customer" than international firms with only big city presence.

Starting tonight, and into the weekend, agency heads from across Canada will gather in Ottawa to discuss and explore every aspect of environmental responsibility in marketing, in an effort to develop truly meaningful environmental messages and programs. The goal is to avoid the trap of “greenwashing” (using environmentalism as nothing more than a veneer on the same old way of doing business) and to help clients take a leadership position in preparing the way for real societal change.

Al Albania, our agency President, is serving an annual term as President of T-CAAN, a responsibility which includes hosting the annual conference. He saw that the opportunity to gather such a large advertising brain trust in the Nation’s Capital to show leadership in environmental marketing was too good to miss.

In addition to member presentations and discussions, Deep Green will host guest speakers representing thought leaders in environmental responsibility marketing, such as TerraChoice and Frank Palmer, CEO of DDB Canada, who is also Chair of T-CAAN.

I'll be blogging Deep Green for the rest of the week, so stay tuned!

Bring Back the Jingle!

Like many hipster parents, I'm always trying to get my son to watch vintage kids' programming, because I think it's cooler than what they make now. I've actually had quite a bit of success with Sesame Street Old School and Schoolhouse Rock. My son has started walking around the house singing "J Friends" and other classics.

These shows have always been interesting to me because they use advertising strategies to get kids to learn — especially jingles. Schoolhouse Rock was famously conceived by adman David McCall when he noticed that his son could remember Beatles lyrics, but not multiplication tables. It ended up being funded by a "sin tax" on advertisers for targetting kids during Saturday morning cartoons.



Sesame Street, of course, was known for creating short, snappy segments with high production values — many of them now-famous songs. With each episode "sponsored" by a letter or number, it used advertising's language, clichés, and strategies to infest generations with incurable earworms like this:



Having grown up with educational jingles, ironically, made us more susceptible to real advertising. The '70s and early '80s were perhaps the last hurrah for the traditional jingle.

We all knew how a Big Mac was made:



And Canadian kids all knew that "Molson Light has got heart" (whatever the hell that meant):



So, why did the ad industry drop the jingle? Sure, it still turns up in cheesy infomercials and other low-end campaigns, but what about the major consumer brands? I suspect that, although we loved jingle as kids, my generation of admen take ourselves too seriously. Not many jingles win awards. (With some very notable exceptions):



The other problem is that we're a creatively lazy generation. We're consantly borrowing interest from existing pop culture to create instant likability for ads. Why write a jingle of unknown success, when you can just buy a real Beatles song?



I don't know if there's any hope for a jingle renaissance in the future. Especially in my field, where I'm more involved in social than consumer marketing.

Although, I have to say that during a recent strategy session for a health-based client, our research into successful vintage Canadian social marketing campaigns ended with a Participaction sing-along:



So there's that. Does anyone want to give me a bouncy "C"?

Next stop: Geneva

This week, one of our favourite and longtime clients, the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA), is being honoured by The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) for CUTA's Youth Summit on Sustainable Urban Transportation. At UITP's 2009 World Congress and Exhibition in Vienna this week, CUTA is being given the UITP Youth Project Award (North American Region), as well as the Best Practices Award. Martin Lajoie, CUTA's Public Affairs Coordinator, is receiving the Best Young Manager Award.

Last month, our client came to us with some photos and other materials about last year's Youth Summit, and asked us to create a compelling introductory video for the Vienna crowd. Some creative editing (by Acart's own CD Redmond), a rockin' soundtrack, and a short round of approvals later, and voilà! A fitting intro for worldwide public transit's Best Young Manager:



CUTA's Youth Summit is an annual grassroots program that brings together young keeners from across Canada to share ideas for positive activism in their communities promoting sustainable transportation. In the past, this has included events such as legally shutting down Bloor Street to cars so that bikes, people, and transit can take over.

The main point of the congress, according to Martin, is that when it comes to solutions to reduce urban traffic and pollution "youth are ahead of the politicians". Hopefully, the elected officials are listening.

Public/Sustainable Transportation is one of our most passionate social issues here at Acart. Congratulations, CUTA!

Marks makes Sparks with new ad

When Marks & Spencer was in Canada, it was a store where my grandmother bought her unmentionables and other old lady clothes. I would occasionally get dragged in there as a young boy, with the promise of a bag of weird shrimp "crisps" as my reward for being good. When the chain pulled out of Canada 10 years ago, CBC radio was full of elderly British immigrants wondering where they'd get their favourite frozen toad-in-the-hole and spotted dick.

So you can imagine my surprise when I tripped upon a Marks & Spencer ad that looked like this:



Apparently, the model, Natalie Suliman, was as surprised as I was:

"I nearly crashed my car when I saw the advert for the first time," the Sun quoted her as saying.

"I was happily driving to a shopping mall with my music blasting when I suddenly saw a 20ft picture of my chest on the horizon.

"It was shocking to see my boobs looking so huge, but I guess that's not something I can complain about! I'm just happy the advert has been such a success," she added.

What's funny about this campaign is that Marks & Spencer is no Victoria's Secret or Frederick's of Hollywood. I always thought they were such a conservative brand. Just this week, they were named "Britain's most reputable firm", and their environmental sustainability plan has been positively reviewed by Ethical Consumer.

But when profits sag, I guess there's nothing like boobies to boost undie sales.

Grandma would've been shocked.

FOLLOW-UP:

This is old news now, but I just found out that there was a hilarious next chapter to this story. It turns out that consumers of Ms. Suliman's... umm... stature were offended that M&S actually charges more for larger sized bras.

Here's the modified ad they ran as an apology:



Gotta love the Brits.

Can you Digg it?

To further blur the lines between advertising, entertainment and news, Digg.com is allowing users to decide which ads are worthy of their fellow Diggers' time.

From their blog:

Digg Ads will give you more control over which advertisements are displayed on Digg. The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system. ... Digg Ads will appear alongside stories in the river. The sponsored content will look and feel similar to regular Digg content, but will be clearly marked as sponsored. It may link to stories, video trailers, independent product reviews – many of the same types of content you see on Digg every day. The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it’s relevant to the Digg audience, or not.

Weird model, to be sure, since their advertisers will be paying based on an inverse scale of their actual impressions. I suppose the idea is to ensure relevancy, but Digg is sure to piss off a whole lot of advertisers once they find their ads priced out of the site by user conspiracies and general community disdain towards all things marketing.

For those of you unfamiliar, Digg is a news and content aggregator that lets users vote up submitted articles they think worthy of sharing with the larger group. The more "Diggs" a submission gets, the higher on the topical news stream it goes — and the more exposure it gets. And, of course, there are user comments that go with them.

I've never really dug Digg myself, maybe because I'm not that much of a collectivist when it comes to my online habits. I prefer my recommendations to come from people I know, on Facebook, etc., or at least from a consistent cabal of Moderators whose tastes I've gotten used to over the years.

But putting the ad rates and placement in the hands of a huge community of kids, trolls, and nerds?

Here are the most "Dugg" stories at the moment:

Kung Fu star Carradine found dead
Hurry, Someone Call The Sign Repair Guy!
Topless Coffee Shop Burns
Traditional Marriage Explained
97% Chance LA Will Have a Large Earthquake by Friday
Monticello, MN beats the phone company; Internet a "utility"
How to Seduce a Girl
Journalist claims story suppressed on Bush/Iraq in 1999
Modern Warfare 2 Gameplay Video & Impressions
Hal Turner Arrested!

Now, imagine you submitted an ad for a Kung Fu topless arcade/coffee shop. You'd get thousands of impressions, practically free! On the other hand, an ad for GM's painful "rebirth" campaign might cost $50,000 and reach nobody.

On second thought, I suppose I could dig it.

Social Media in CLF 2.0

I'm speaking today to a Social Media Public Sector Workshop for the Government of Canada. It's an interesting topic, because while government clients are desperate to harness the power of social media for their social marketing, they are constrained by a number of rules and regulations.

One of the biggest is the Official Languages Act. According to some of my government clients, everything put online by the government — including user comments — must be translated so that it appears in both English and French. As you can imagine, this makes real-time online community building almost impossible (unless they employ a legion of simultaneous translators, as in the U.N.!)

Another huge challenge is privacy. The Government of Canada has rules about setting cookies, or take other information from users, except in very specific cases. And Google Analytics, which sends private information to the States, is also problematic — limiting measurement.

As well, there are accessibility standards, and a major concern about trolling. How can they possibly get anywhere near a social network? They're also gun shy, because of the responses to CRA's "underground economy" video contest on YouTube.

We were able to make some great headway in collaboration with Public Safety Canada on their 72 Hours emergency preparedness campaign. In short, we avoided the pitfalls of trying to engage people conversationally on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Instead, together we found and engaged interested bloggers and organizations directly, recruiting them to champion the cause and campaign on a secondary level.

As well, we worked with Lee Lefever to develop a Common Craft video on the subject, developing copy in English and French to meet language standards. Lee then shared the video through his own networks, and it showed up on YouTube, giving us even more reach:

We also developed a quiz on MSN about emergency preparedness that drove 47,826 people to getprepared.gc.ca, and created badges for partner sites. Future plans include a podcast strategy.

So my message to government today will be: don't be scared of social media. Just be careful, creative and resourceful.

Jam this

Adbusters is at it again. In response to what they claim are illegal outdoor ad placements in New York City, a group of them painted over the ads with "delete" keys:



(By the way, I stole the image from their blog. I figure they'd appreciate the irony.)

While this culture jamming is intended to "air our grievances in the court of public opinion and witness our communities regain control of the space they occupy”, the people most interested in their work are probably the admen themselves.

In just about any agency creative department you walk in to, you'll find a copy of Adbusters Magazine lying around. While anarchists may gleefully imagine the headaches and outrage they're causing a bunch of suits on Madison Avenue, the reality is that working ad people are actually pretty subversive too. Anti-corporate culture-jamming may be one of the biggest inspirations for more and more intrusive traditional advertising and guerrilla campaigns.

One of my favourites of these was John St.'s campaign for Girl Guides that used fake sexy ads in magazines with a sticker apparently slapped over it saying "why girls need guides".

This latest culture jam was pretty cool. I'm already thinking about how I can do something like that for one of my clients.

We've got issues

I just read a headline that made me smile: "Boom in Issues Advertising Could Net Agencies $1 Billion".

Okay, they're talking about the United States with its shiny new government, but it's still nice to have our corner of the market validated. (Coincidentally, I'm actually doing some American social issues work right now, but more about that in a later blog.)

Here in the Great White North, the recession is also driving spending in social marketing. A new Economic Action Plan needs to be explained to the public, and other government priorities like security, health and the environment continue to require outreach. The government has to advertise, no matter what the economic climate.

This is a smart time to be in Social Issues Marketing. We're busy here on a number of government, association, and corporate social responsibility campaigns that will roll out over the next few months.

But it sounds like the U.S. issues advertising boom is not quite like the Canadian one:

"With the ad business the way it is right now and a big pile of money sitting out in the world of politics, there's no doubt traditional agencies will try to jump in," said Vinny Minchillo, chief creative officer of Scott Howell & Co. ... They will fail ... It's not uncommon for political clients to have television production budgets of under $15,000 per spot and a need to be on the air in 48 hours ... The hard-core retail shops probably have the best chance of being able to adapt quickly. Also the shops with employees who don't care much about sleeping."

Yikes! And here I was thinking that work-life balance was one of the most important issues of all...

Of course, the American article is talking about the hardcore world of Washington lobbyists. I see advocacy ads in The Hill Times and on bus shelters in front of Parliament Hill every day (we've even been responsible for some of them), but for the most part our clients are asking us to execute timely campaigns based on long-term communications strategies. We've done our share of crisis communications, but nothing like the dog-eat-dog scenario painted by Mr. Minchillo.

But then again, Minchillo continues to refer to Issues Advertising as "political". Up here, "political" advertising is kind of a hot potato.

I'll stick with communicating Canada's issues with appropriate niceness.