DDB's new autoTRADER ad is awesomesauce

Okay, here's a pretty good one.

autoTRADER Canada's new ad takes a really great insight — that anyone can suddenly find they no longer love their car — and turns it into some good storytelling about some self-defined badass guys, a nuclear family, and wannabe badasses in the suburbs.

The stereotypes are played straight, without too much comedic embellishment. Nobody (except the dudes at the end) is treated with disrespect. Even the car is seen as being right for somebody.



Awesome work, DDB Canada!

Via Illegal Advertising.

Inhale fail

Having seen a similar creepy effect in the movie 1984, I really wanted to like this ad more, and I did — until the end.



Created by DDB Toronto for the Canadian Cancer Society, it appears to have everything going for it. I at first assumed it was part of the tough, street-level campaign I blogged about last fall. And I also assumed that the ad was going to try to persuade young adult female smokers to quit before their habit robbed them of their looks.



A sexist approach? Certainly. But one that might actually have a shot with the young.

After all, smoking really does age you prematurely. It's as bad as too much tanning. And it's scientific fact.

According to a 10-year-old Japanese study quoted on BBC, it was found that the compounds in cigarette smoke increases the enzymes responsible for breaking down healthy skin tissue, while reducing collagen production by up to 40%. The result? Early onset of wrinkly, leathery skin.

This process affects men as well as women, but this is where a very ancient double standard kicks in. Humphrey Bogart's signature smoking killed him tragically young, but by male standards he still had "rugged good looks" into his 50s. Men are allowed to age gracefully, it seems, and a little weather on the bark might actually improve one's looks.

Women get a raw deal on this one. Female beauty, evolutionarily tied to a shorter period of fertility, is all about youthfulness. Look — I didn't make up these "rules", but they are a pretty standard observation across human cultures.

Of course, our modern culture has taken the quest for youthfulness to expensive and even dangerous extremes, with surgical interventions and a loosely regulated beauty industry pitching all varieties of snake oils.

Cancer is truly the worst-case scenario for smoking, and it's obvious why the Canadian Cancer Society would choose reduced lifespan as a consequence. But this concept, on its own, could have been a great wake-up call to all those women in their 20s who are still smoking (so to speak). Even if it might be perceived by some as politically incorrect, it speaks to instinct. And instinct is more powerful than making people do math.



Long-term, you're gambling with your life. But the smart money is on the fact that you won't even leave a beautiful corpse.

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!