Creative team proposes "Take Your Non-Ad Person to Work Day"

That's right — we poor, misunderstood Creatives need some empathy from loved ones. Because how many times have you described a hard day of arriving late, then spending eight hours coming up with the perfect tagline for a client while drinking at work, only to be told "must be nice"?

There are six ads in this series (via Ads of The World) but this is the best one. Oddly, after all this work to promote themselves, creative team Mark Moll and Jason Busa lazed out and repeated the same body copy on all of them.

WWJD? He'd get branding advice from McCann!

When I was writing a post for Osocio this morning, about a campaign for Reporters Without Borders, I briefly visited the McCann, Germany, site to see if there was a version in original language. Instead, I was treated to a rather ballsy image show that portrayed the account team advising Jesus on his brand symbolism.

It's a very funny in-joke for admen, the client picking the entirely wrong approach, while the agency folk desperately try to steer him in the recommended direction. (To take it too literally, though, why would they even have shown him the square and the circles? And isn't he choosing the instrument of his death?)

Put this one down to European humour. Hopefully, offended Christians won't react as violently as some of their Muslim brethren have to recent religious ridicule.

The other image in the series features Fidel Castro and his iconic cigar:

Ironically, the Cuban leader stopped smoking them in the 1980s, due to health. And he actually enacted some pretty strong smoking bans in Cuba before his retirement. But I get what they're saying.

This is edgy stuff, and the over-the-top arrogance plays as a gag. But does it make good business sense for the global advertising brand? I guess we'll see.

Update: Adland's Åsk Wäppling informs me that this stunt is actually eight years old. I guess they still like it.

"We are not men... we are not an advertising agency"

Remember that horrible "manly" Turkish shampoo ad with Hitler in it?

Employees of a Turkish ad agency sure do. And they hate what it has done to the reputation of their country, and their industry.

So they decided to do what any red-blooded Turkish men would do to fight back: they got in drag.

Adland reports that Farkyeri issued this statement:

“We are not men… 

We, as a local advertising agency in Turkey, hereby condemn the unfortunate commercial produced in March 2012 by an advertising agency from our country for a shampoo brand in our country by using the images of a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler. 

From a humanistic perspective, it is shameful to use as a commercial material the tragedy of a genocide that caused the death of millions of innocent people and an international problem of gender apartheid which results in oppression and killing of millions of people. In terms of creativeness, it is simply cheapness and taking the easy way out. We are first human and then advertising agency. We never accept any concession on our humanity for the work we do. We refer those who carried out this cheapness to the conscience of the public. We believe that the advertisers and consumers in our country will give them the best answer. 

The belief of any publicity is good publicity can be argued, but there is no question about the good and bad people. This is clearly an attempt to make a commercial profit on the grief of millions of people. This is a shameful human weakness. And this is unfortunately done by an advertising agency in this country. 

As a matter of fact, if manhood is racism and gender apartheid… if it is to use grief of millions of oppressed and massacred innocent people as a commercial material, we are not men! If those who prepared this are advertiser and if this is called advertising, we are not an advertising agency! 

Farkyeri"

The above image is also the landing page of their web site.

And now there's a video, too:



Wonderful way to self-promote while making a real statement. (Coincidentally, the season opener of Mad Men had Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce do something remarkably similar, but against Y&R's racism.)

F'd Ad Fridays: SFW Porn is not a great theme for an Agency Christmas Card

Via TEDOA

Well, duh. Safe For Work Porn is so three years ago.

John St. to dominate the ad medium of cat videos in 2012

Love it. I guess someone there saw this chart:

Or this:

Or:

Tip via AdFreak

The return of the long-copy ad?

Oh, how I missed you. But is it any surprise that it is a agency self-promo? No, none at all. Copywriters can grow up to be Creative Directors too, don't you know.

Click to enlarge and read, if you have a spare half-hour...

I'm left cold by this one, though. It seems desperate. Plus, you're not supposed to talk about. Also, while it is a defence of branding as a creator of perceived value, it would also drive a smart consumer to generic products. Why not? They're all the same anyway. Why pay the agency?

From BBDO Brazil
Via Ads of The World

Copywriting: Getting lame dudes laid since the invention of language

While my wedding photos can't deny that a way with words can allow a man to date way out of his league, I'm not sure I'm convinced by this copywriter's self promo:



Erika, however, sounds well-qualified as a social marketer. Tell her to get dressed and send me a CV.

(Tip via Ads of The World)

F'd Ad Fridays: Childish agency self-promo

It's kind of cute, actually. Here at Acart, we are allowed and even encouraged to bring our kids into work on PD days, etc.

At Biedermann McCann, in Paraguay, they actually let the kids do the agency work:

I can really think of no other explanation for these.

Via Ads of The World

Here I am, Ms. Nixon...

Last year, I blogged about Copywriter Alec Brown's clever self-promotion of buying the names of top NYC Creative Directors on Google Adwords. The idea was that CDs are so vain that they Google themselves several times a day. It worked.


In that context, I will humbly point out that I did not find this on my own:

It's a post in the blog Flo in The City, where writer Dorothy Nixon inquires into the internet void about freelance opportunities. Jason Hamilton, our Director of Digital Media, stumbled upon it somehow. (Stop creeping me, Jason! :)


Well, here I am, Ms. Nixon. Let's see if you find this post. You're "it".

Freelance Copywriters: The New Craigslist Hookers

My niece, Emma, posted this find from Craigslist Atlanta on Facebook:

I DO ANYTHING (30307)

Date: 2011-02-07, 3:58PM EST
Reply to: see below

travisdoesanything@gmail.com

My name is Travis Broyles and I will do whatever* you want me to do for less money than whoever you are paying to do it now.

Below is a list of just some of the things I can do. I do want to stress that I DO ANYTHING so email me if your requested service is not listed here.

Things I Will Do For $5:
Stare at you for 5 minutes
Give a hug to the person of your choosing
Call you on the phone and seem genuinely interested for 10 minutes
Draw your face on a balloon
Sing Barenaked Ladies' "One Week" from memory to the best of my ability
6 minutes of copywriting

Things I Will Do For $10:
Write your new theme song
Sing your new theme song on your voicemail
Spin until I throw up or you lose interest
Rename your Pokémon
Host a conference call with you and a person that you've always thought was cool but never really got the chance to hang out with, you know?
12 minutes of copywriting

Things I Will Do For $50:
Break-up with your boyfriend or girlfriend
Help you quit smoking (I'll call you every day for a month and yell "HEY DON'T SMOKE")
Tell the person you like that you think they're cute and what if you had sex together?
Try my best to fly in a public place for an hour
Make you a really great profile picture
1 hour of copywriting

Things I Will Do For $100:
Tell your kids which one is actually your favorite, and what the others could do to improve their standings
Fight someone much smaller or girl than me
Email you a list of 250 things I like about you (need access to any and all social network accounts)
Clean most of your house and apologize for the things I didn't
Deliver 5 fully cooked DiGiorno pizzas right to your door (5 mile radius from my home)
2 hours of copywriting

Things I Will Do For $1,000:
Host an event (will not host anything racially insensitive, e.g. human being auction)
Give a PowerPoint presentation on team building to your business and/or extended family
Rename your children
Build you a cardboard car and make vroom-vroom sounds while you drive it
Star treatment for a month (I'll hide in bushes and take pictures of you)
20 hours of copywriting

Things I Will Do For $100,000:
Yell your name every time I wake up for the rest of my life
Change my political and spiritual leanings
Screen all your phone calls for five years
Recreate the best day of your life (or worst, whatevs)
84 straight days of copywriting *BEST VALUE*

If interested, email me at travisdoesanything@gmail.com.

*Prices and tasks are subject to negotiation. I will not murder or steal or perform a legendary murdersteal. No rapes, and the sex has to be unrelated to the payment, like "Oh, after you're done cutting those trees down, do you want some lemonade?" but the lemonade means sex, mostly.

Young creatives are known for pulling stunts like this to get noticed. This one is pretty good, because he kept it clever and (mostly) clean, despite being on a free-for-all medium. The flippant (and unnecessary) addition of "no rapes" rubbed me the wrong way, though.

Not sure I'd be willing to hire Travis for six figures — and nine months of paid vacation — for this, but still a nice effort.

Screencaps below:

Update: Looks like Agency Spy picked up this story from CL too.

Breaking through in an already cluttered birthday market

I planned my son's 6th birthday last year. Took 15 kids to the Canadian Museum of Nature, ordered some pizza, then took them all to see dinosaur bones.

It went over pretty well. But then Toronto's John St. had to remind me that — as an adman dad —I might have let my biggest little client down:



(reposted by AdFreak)

Those of you not in the industry may not get all the jokes, but it's presented as the typically glossy and self-congratulatory video case study that agencies put together for big pitches. Language like "In the end, we didn't just create a birthday; we created a birthday movement" had me laughing out loud.

The "integrated campaign" also made me chortle.

Just another reminder of what happens when you let your extra creative energy have its way with media.

Have the guts to go guerrilla?

When I first saw the thumbnails for this campaign on Ads of The World, I thought it was for PeTA. Or maybe organ donation.

But on closer inspection, it turned out to be a very gory self-promotion by Der Doctor Guerrilla, an Italian alternative marketing agency that wants to get noticed.

How would you react to receiving one of these nasty little things on your desk? Especially just before lunch?

"Would new ideas be of service to you? [Need new ideas?] Fresh human brain from a male adult (but not too adult)"

"Could a hand be of service? [Need a hand?] Fresh human hand from an adult male (but not too adult)."

"Would heart and passion be of service your agency? [Need more heart and passion at your agency?] Fresh human heart from an adult male (but not too adult)."

What we non-Italian audiences (and readers of AOTW's bad translations) are missing is the pun. In Italian, "servire" isn't just used like English "serve" but also to indicate a need. That's why I provided the awkward double translations above.

Another thing that doesn't really translate is the fourth concept. It's uniquely Italian, and to understand it you need to know that Italy's first civilization, the Etruscans, considered the liver to be the most important organ in the body, the seat of life and the soul. The Etruscans were later so assimilated by Rome that even their language has been lost. But today, Italians use the expression "if you have the liver for it" like we use "guts", "stomach" or "balls" — to indicate willpower, determination, and manliness.

So now you can amaze your friends and frighten your enemies at agency Christmas parties by deconstructing this ad:

"Would the liver to do guerrilla marketing be of service to your agency? [Does your agency need someone with the guts to do guerilla marketing?] Fresh human liver from an adult male (but not too adult)."

UPDATE: The Doc himself left a note on Acart's Facebook page:

Hi Tom, thanks for the post and nice to meet you ... The translation of the concepts you've done is apt, I knew I likely to encounter misunderstanding on the "liver". There is only one small mistake: I am not an agency but a freelancer looking for work as a creative:)

All the (local) Mad Men

Last weekend, Ottawa at Home magazine published a series of profiles of local "Mad Men" as part of their issue on mid- 20th Century style.




Who's that guy with the Scotch?



It's actually iced tea, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get my own vintage style on. I've always had a thing for skinny ties.

Here's the text of the interview:

How did you get started in advertising?

After failing to break into honest travel or entertainment writing, I answered an ad for Copywriters at an Ottawa advertising agency. Within five years, I was a Creative Director.

What is an advertising slogan that has stuck with you for a long, long time?

“You got it, Pontiac!” It actually became part of our jargon in the playground when I was a kid.

Where do you do your best work?

Anywhere I can get together with my best colleagues. I prefer to do it at a pub, but a quiet corner of the agency will do. Solo writing I do in my head while walking to and from; I usually arrive with my best ideas behind me.

What are the challenges the advertising world faces these days?

Changing media behavior. While it’s killing some traditional admen, I think this is a great time to be in the business. It’s like when radio and TV were still innovative media — back in the ‘50s. It ushered in a golden age for our industry.

What local tourist attraction would you most like the opportunity to promote and what would your slogan for it be?

We did a campaign for The Bytown Museum. It was part of a pro-bono creative strategy plan. It’s "Where Ottawa Begins.

I was featured along with Todd Marcotte of Electric Medialand, Don Masters of Mediaplus, and Gord McMillan (my first CD) from McMillan.










It was kind of cool to be up there with a bunch of agency Presidents — and me just a humble salary man. But I was a little disappointed that I was the only one who dressed up. And I can't help but sigh and acknowledge that none of our city's Mad Women was featured. Especially since the up-and-coming character of Peggy is such an important aspect of the show's examination of social change. Seeing a sausage party in this spread makes it look like nothing has changed.

Nonetheless, it's great to get some print exposure, to give Acart a boost and name-check my friends at The Bytown Museum.

But enough about me. There's social issues marketing to do!