Advertising people are abnormal

They say the worst mistake a marketer can make is to think he or she is just like the target audience. That's mostly because we can't look at ads without deconstructing them, we think that social media buzz is way more important than it really is, and we value breakthrough ideas over easy results.

Here are some other weird things about my people, via Lowe Roche in Toronto:



In this case, ad people are the target audience, landing this agency video on Adfreak where we'll all see it. Some of the stats hit pretty close to home.

It's just too bad they screwed up their poutine:

Shredded cheese? Abomination.

Self-promo video gives new meaning to "food porn"

Lots of agencies and production houses use online video as a way to get noticed. But very few are as sharable as the one NYC boutique studio Kornhaber Brown has just unleashed. It's about sex, which always sells, but it's also deliciously, purposefully awkward in the way it represents various sex acts using food (and a few small appliances).

While technically "safe for work" in that no actual human sexual organs are shown, you may want to get the headphones out if you work in a prudish open-concept office.



Did the chocolate banana make you squirm?

Source: Gawker

Update: Cindy Gallop tells me that the video was inspired by her "Make Love Not Porn" site.

Pothole season is here. Distracted driving remains a year-round problem.

While checking his iPhone for a pothole-free route, he killed 4 pedestrians.

Montreal's Taxi came up with a clever campaign called "Pothole Season" that includes a site where drivers can report the winter's ravages on their roads online, which can be avoided by using an iPhone app.

The only problem is, you aren't supposed to be using your iPhone while driving.

You are also not supposed to be drinking coffee...

Or eating donuts...

 Or putting on make-up.

If you're trying to drive safely in Montreal with these folks on the road, potholes might be the least of your worries.

Via Ads of The World.

UPDATE: Taxi tells me the app has a hands-free function:



The ads are still a problem, though.

F'd [Eastern European Agency Self Promo] Ad Fridays

Wow. Just wow.

Copyranter quotes their press release: "Press ad that ran in the most read (and most conservative) business journal in Slovakia. We needed to disrupt and break free of the clutter..."

How not to handle agency self-promo #sapientnitro

Copyranter unearthed this example of what he called "the absolute worst ad agency self-promo ever" from Sapient Nitro. And thus the feeding frenzy began. And deservedly so, because if there's one thing ad people hate, it's other ad people without a healthy dose of ironic industry self-loathing.



Have you stopped fidgeting uncomfortably yet? It gets better.

AdFreak just reported that the agency started deleting mocking Facebook posts from their wall, and even banned a few users. This prompted one Twitterer to say,

Oh, dear lord.

I kind of felt sorry for them for the video, which showed a painful lack of cynical self-awareness. But the Facebook failure I have no sympathy for.

If you screw up in social media, you screw up in public. You own it. You laugh about it. (Or apologize gracefully) And you move on.

Otherwise...

Creative team threatens to "get gay married" if they can't land a job

What a clever, but terrible, idea.

Creative self-promo pieces are usually pretty kooky. In this one, according to Adland, Charli Hoffmann and Alex Otis threaten NYC agencies that they will have to get married to keep Charli in the country unless the Hoffmann can renew her work visa before October 7 by landing a job.

It's funny, if two straight girls making light of the struggle to get same sex marriage recognized in NY doesn't irk you. Your call.

The joke works in the ad world because creative teams do become like married people after a time, no matter what their sex or orientation. But putting intent to defraud U.S. Immigration on a Facebook Page?

Not a smart move for a foreign worker these days. Even in jest.

Good luck with that.