Mike Tennant

To Hollywood in a hand-cart: 2012 Super Bowl Ad preview

2012-02-02T10:09:00.002-05:00

Like feature films, Super Bowl Ads have become events: with pre-hype, release announcements, making-of videos, extended versions, and sneak previews.

And now, sequels. This is VW's followup to its hugely successful "Darth Vader" spot from the 2011 Super Bowl:

The secret? It resist the temptation to be too big. I remember a high school friend showing me how to run a mile; she taught me to simply ease up my pace. The mile went by effortlessly. Same thing here: the funny moments aren't played for belly laughs. The Rocky-type training montage is neither fast nor steep. Even the payoff sequence at the end is slightly underplayed.

Likewise last year's utterly charming Darth Vader spot. Its ease and humanity was a big part of its charm: it stuck to an easy pace, and didn't get caught in the pressure of begin a Super Bowl spot.

Advertisers measure the number of exposures their ads get: what they can't measure is even more important- the quality of the impression. The emotional connection. Did the ad win a place of honour in the viewer's memory- and imagination?

A shrewd, fun spot, if not a courageous one. It'll please its audience, but it didn't take the risk to rank it among Super Bowl Ad Giants.

Speaking of coattails...

So iconic are great Super Bowl ads that they can now beget their own parodies: here's a Procter & Gamble homage to the legendary Coke Super Bowl 'Mean Joe Green' spot. Mr. Greene reprises his role as... well... Mean Joe. Comedian Amy Sedaris plays the kid.

Again, fun, but it feels too safe to dwell among the giants (no double-entendre intended) of Super Bowl ads, which took enormous creative risks.

The P&G press release for the ad includes this unintentionally-hilarious quote from Mr. Greene:

“When Downy approached me about recreating Coca Cola’s Super Bowl commercial from 1980, it didn’t take much to convince me,” Greene, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987, said in a statement. “I loved the idea of allowing fans to re-live such a classic television moment in a completely new and entertaining way.”

Yikes. Junior P/R weenie passes off clumsily written Press Release copy as a quote from Hall of Fame Defensive Tackle. Film at 11.

Ferris Beuller meets Seinfeld at Sunday's Super Bowl

2012-02-01T09:55:00.001-05:00

You'll notice what 30 years of hype- often well founded- has brought to Super Bowl ads. Taking a cue from the film industry, they're now pre-promoted, with press releases, social-media buzz-prompting, and even teaser videos:

The good news is: Ferris Beuller is back. It's instant emotional gravitas for Honda, buying into the John Hughes counterculture-comedy masterpiece, whose audience- then young world-shakers, and now of CRV age- have committed each moment & nuance to memory, as though it were a Beatles classic. (And like Beatles classics, would Hughes have been so relaxed shooting Ferris Beuller's Day Off if he knew how its smallest moments would be lionized? George Martin once remarked that if he'd known just how closely people were going to scrutinize Beatles' songs, he would've been scared to death.)

So what happened? This-

Sacks of fun, yes. And some fun parody moments. But when the nostalgia spot is tickled, something's missing. Being Matthew Broderick this time, there could be no Sloane. No Cameron. No Principal Rooney (actor Jeffrey Jones' tragic personal story makes that impossible.) But that's not it.

There aren't any substantial surprises: the cornerstone of any great storytelling, especially in advertising.

Make no mistake: creating a worthy story is hard. Usually much harder than writing 'moments' and dialogue. Story provides the formula which ultimately allows a spot to succeed. Or not.

Contrast that now with the other big Super Bowl ad pre-release, this time for Acura:

Again, a car company taps the borrowed equity of a hugely popular character of a generation ago. And again, the audience that knows Seinfeld best is of the Acura age. But this time, rather than re-live the character, the Acura spot builds on it: updates it.

What's fresh are funny moments in the beloved Seinfeld style (making small talk with the omelet-guy). Updated is Jerry's standup as a story device: where he was once impeccably dressed playing to an appreciative crowd in Seinfeld, he's now a self-parody, in a cheesy tux and a bad-gig-in-the-Catskills exchange with dinner guests. The Soup Nazi (actor Larry Thomas) is now simply a character Seinfeld owns.

All that, and a surprise at the end. A big surprise? A great surprise? Your call. But a surprise. Finishing with the trademark swirl, as it were.

Story is the difference between a fun Super Bowl spot, and a Super Bowl spot that resonates well beyond game day. Some for years: Mean Joe Greene for Coke. Monster.com "When I Grow Up". That resonance is easily quantified, and can double- triple an advertiser's investment.

* * * * *

TOMORROW: PREVIEWING MORE OF THIS SUNDAY'S ADS

SUPER BOWL AD STATS: (source: Forbes)

Percentage of Men who watch for the Ads: 31%
Percentage of Women who watch for the Ads: 44%
Number of Car brands advertising in this year's Super Bowl: 10

BEST SUPER BOWL AD EVER. SAYS ME.

2012-01-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl XLVI FUN FACTS
Number of Ads: 70
Average cost-per-ad: $3.5 million

How do you gauge the 'best' Super Bowl ad?

You don't.

Great ads almost always target a very specific consumer- which means it's *not* talking to everybody else. ('Everybody else'- not realizing this- often assumes an ad is bad- when its only crime may be that it isn't talking to them. Remember what your parents said about your choice of music? Same thing.)

In 1989, USA Today declared itself arbiter of the good/bad/ugly with its Super Bowl Ad Meter, which provided a popular next-day ranking of ads.

What makes lists like this- (and the Oscars and most awards shows, for that matter) irresistible is that we measure our own preferences against those of the hive (the great collective, who generate all the buzz).

For instance? This Bud Lite spot was ranked #1 on last year's USA Today Ad Meter:

Fun spot. But does it resonate nearly as much as VW's "Darth Vader"?

-or the Gold Standard for Super Bowl ads of the recent past- the 'Betty White' spot for Snickers?

So now it's not enough for advertisers to afford a Super Bowl ad. Now, the true status symbol is to appear in USA Today's top 10. And moreover, not to end up in the USA Today basement. Finishing dead last among 2011 Super Bowl ads is this spot for Hyundai Elantra: an appallingly-ordinary car ad (sadly, an epidemic in the big-spending automotive ad category), which even he dulcet tones of Jeff Bridges couldn't save:

Me? Thanks for asking. While I do have a soft spot for the Citizen Kane of Super Bowl ads- Ridley Scott's "1984"-

-it wouldn't be on my Desert Island reel- one of those ads I'd grab if I could only have a few to watch. For overall 'umph'- for a big idea done right- for little moments you notice with each viewing- my hands-down all-time favourite Super Bowl ad is "Cat Herders" for EDS- created by Fallon of Minneapolis:

EDS TRIVIA: Ross Perot (remember him?) founded EDS (Electronic Data Systems) in the 60's. A couple of years back, Hewlett-Packard bought the company out for $13.9 billion. With a 'B'.

That's more than I make in a month.

A Treasury of Ad Quotations

2012-01-13T08:57:00.000-05:00

"It is a good thing for an educated man" wrote Churchill "to read books of quotations."

This from a man whose quotes fill entire chapters in todays books of quotes. Not that he didn't earn his place: Churchill is said to have slaved for countless hours and days over the precise wording of his speeches. "No one knows how hard Winston works" said a friend, "slaving over his spontaneous remarks."

Great quotes are empowering. Energizing. No less so with quotes about advertising.

The University of Texas gathered a treasure of amazing quotes about the ad business, which for me served as a staple while writing The Age of Persuasion.

Here are a few of these treasures.

"To explain responsibility to advertising men is like trying to convince an eight-year-old that sexual intercourse is more fun than a chocolate ice cream cone."

- Howard Luck Gossage

* * *

"I warn you against believing that advertising is a science."

- William Bernbach

* * *

"Don't tell my mother I'm in advertising. She thinks I play piano in a whorehouse."

-Jacques Seguela

* * *

"I don't think the advertisers have any real idea of their power not only to reflect but to mold society."

- Marya Mannes

* * *

"Yes, I sell people things they don't need. I can't, however, sell them something they don't want. Even with advertising. Even if I were of a mind to."

- John O'Toole

* * *

"I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second."

- Steven Wright

* * *

"If advertising had a little more respect for the public, the public would have a lot more respect for advertising."

- James Randolph Adams

* * *

"Our job is to sell our clients' merchandise . . . not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message."

- William Bernbach

* * *

"Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product."

- David Ogilvy

* * *

"We see advertising actually creating and naming taboos. The most famous, B.O. and Halitosis, are archaeological specimens from an age which we might fix as either Late Iron Tonic or Early Soap . . . . Bad breath and body odor have always existed, of course, but as individual matters. To transfer them from personal idiosyncrasies into tribal taboos is a magicianly trick indeed."

- Howard Luck Gossage

* * *

"Rarely have I seen any really great advertising created without a certain amount of confusion, throw-aways, bent noses, irritation and downright cursedness."

- Leo Burnett

* * *

"Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous."
- David Ogilvy

* * *

"The law requires a paper towel ad to be scrupulously honest, but allows political candidates to lie without reproach. What's wrong with this picture?"

- Jef I. Richards

* * *

"All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level."
- William Bernbach

A Child's Christmas in Ad-Land

2011-12-20T16:47:00.000-05:00

The job of ads is to embed itself in your psyche (a Media Buyer told me a broadcast ad isn't really absorbed 'til you've been exposed to it 22 times.) And once there, so often they remain, undisturbed until one day, by chance, they're awakened and revived. Perhaps by some Ad writer in a blog.

Here are a few Christmas ads, retrieved as much from my cranial storage locker as from YouTube. Like so many others- maybe even you- I can sing along, and recite the script word-for-word, some four decades later.

Pop-O-Matic Trouble *Sigh* To return to a simpler day when the suffix "O-Matic" carried enough heft to win consumer buy-in. Washed out colour and a yucky audio track won't encumber the rush of memories lashed to this spot. If you know it, I'll give six-two-and-even you know it verbatim.

LITE BRITE I wouldn't have bought the '45, but again, I remember every note, and every word. As, I'm sure, do all my former Grade 4 classmates of Pleasantville Public School. Bonus points for working "outa sight!" into the lyrics, man.

HOT WHEELS I cannot tell a lie; I don't remember any Hot Wheels ads. (Hmmm. And they don't seem to have had a jingle, like other spots cited here. Interesting.) But I know this: in my world, your status was tied directly to your Hot Wheels car collection. (As a member of the Hot Wheels club, I was issued a collector's edition Boss Hoss Silver Special, thank you for asking.)

ACTION JACKSON Wasn't my brand. But again, the jingle is Krazy-Glued to the floor of my cranial attic. My guy was busy making life safe for democracy... on the Moon:

Major Matt Mason With a jet pack operated with strings that became instantly tangled. And rubber arms and legs kept in shape by a subcutaneous wire which, like a subcutaneous clothes hanger, would eventually snap when bent back and forth too many times, causing the limb to stick out permanently in some strange direction. (One day, when I reach my own personal expiry date, and a team is sorting through the goods in my rambling estate, tossing to the furnace items too small, even for Kijiji, one will pause to reflect upon a Major Matt Mason action figure with a wonky arm- my own personal Rosebud- before dispatching it into the flames.)

These vintage ads, revived on YouTube, are to the TV generation what the coveted pages of the old Eaton's catalogue were to generations past.

The Age of Persuasion... is over.

2011-12-11T08:38:00.001-05:00

Today marks a fond farewell to the five-year run of The Age of Persuasion on CBC Radio. In more than 100 half-hour documentaries, AOP explored the countless ways marketing and advertising have infused themselves in every aspect of 21st Century life.

I should stress that it was not CBC's decision to conclude the series.

It was time.

The Age of Persuasion struck a resonant chord: more than a half million listeners tuned in each week to CBC, and to WBEZ Chicago, who picked up the series in 2011. That's a larger audience than that which tunes into Peter Mansbridge on The National. (Pardon the momentary outburst of hubris.)

It prompted a bestselling book of the same name, published in Canada, the U.S., and soon, worldwide in a Chinese-language version.

The series was designed to celebrate great marketing (which, at best, is artful relationship-building), and to condemn bad marketing (which constitutes an embarrassing majority of today's marketing messages). It challenged listeners to abandon the old "us" and "them" mentality about consumers and advertisers, for we are all, in the end, practitioners of persuasion.

From ashes to ashes, beautiful things always grow in their place. I am currently contracted with CBC to develop a new program, taking the AOP style and curiosity to an even bigger canvas... watch this space for details. And in January, Terry O'Reilly will launch a brand new show of his own design, and certain to be worthy listening.

For the moment, won't you join me in a fond tip of the glass to The Age of Persuasion.

The idea that became a brand unto itself.

The Persuasive Power of Reacting

2011-12-05T14:40:00.000-05:00

Have a boo at this wonderful TV spot for Kohler. Then meet me below, and we'll talk.

First, let's scratch the 'who is that guy?' itch. The fellow playing the architect is veteran character actor Wolf Kahler, perhaps best remembered for having his face melt in the climax of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That out of the way: what a spectacular way to sell faucets. Casting Mr. Kahler to play a credible, world-renowned architect, and the beauty shots of the architect's breathtaking workspace, give the premise a credibility. It's easy to believe this is a place of upscale art.

Then, the switcheroo. The woman reveals that she wants a house built around her swank Kohler tap. Not ha-ha funny, but rather, lightly audacious.

But that's the buildup. Everything- and I mean everything- about this spot hinges on one moment: the architect's reaction to the woman's request.

Has it shown the architect buying in- instantly worshipping the faucet- it would've been over-the-top. Had the architect's jaw dropped and eyes bugged out, signalling that the idea is absurd, it would take on a vaudevillian feel. Either fate would cause the floor to open, and the idea to drop into the shark-infested pond where almost-good ads meet their maker. Or at least their maker's maker.

Instead, the architect's reaction is non committal. In other words, the very reaction an architect would given when presented with a viable challenge. In the silence you can hear the tumblers clicking between his ears. "Design a house around a faucet? Hmmmm."

At some unspoken level, it suggests that Kohler faucets belong in a conversation about upscale design.

A fine bit of brushed-nickel branding, this.

The Age of Persuasion on... "Loud" Commercials

2011-09-16T14:17:00.000-04:00

This month, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission slammed broadcasters for "loud" commercials- ads that blare louder than the programs they punctuate.

No question, commercials seem louder. People get angry if anyone says otherwise.

But are they actually louder?

While working last year on The Age of Persuasion, I put the question to one person certain to know: the Sonic Swede, the Nabob of Noise, engineer Keith Ohman.

"Well" says Keith, "it's not that simple."

Keith explained, I scribbled notes, and Terry O'Reilly explained in this segment of our 2010 episode Ask Terry Some More.

Seems the answer might be more complicated than telling broadcasters to turn down the volume.

"Yeah" I hear you saying, "but they're still louder!"

Keep it down, I hear 'ya. At least, for the moment, we've still got the 'mute' button.

Shhhh! You didn't hear that from me.

Here's a New One: America as the Underdog.

2011-09-09T15:59:00.001-04:00

This summer, the Cannes Ad jury honoured this storied spot for Chrysler, wrapping its brand around the 'new' Detroit, to the music (and strategically omitted lyrics) of Detroit's own Eminem.

It's smart positioning, aligning Chrysler with the tough, edgy, street-surviving fighter, facing down automotive rivals with a chip on its shoulder.

What's remarkable is what a 180-degree turn this is from a four-generation tradition of ballyhooing Detroit as the squeaky-clean hub (pun intended) of the vehicular world. Where 1950's executives with pencil mustaches smile benevolently down on a shop floor run by earnest working folk in denim overalls and a Calvinistic gratitude to the nation that puts an impact wrench in their hand, a few bucks in their pocket.

That 'old' Detroit is captured here, in a film created to promote a (failed) bid to win the Summer Olympics. After a rather tedious opening (Memo to Mayor Cavanagh: STOP HELPING!) the film really gets cooking at about the 2:15 mark:

Eminem wasn't born when this second film was made. Yet 8 Mile already Road divided two classes, two cultures. And the Detroit riot- the Black Day in July- was just two years away.

The Chrysler ad represents not just the position of Chrysler as the feisty underdog, taking on global competition, it repositions Detroit itself, formally ending its projected self-image as a white-bread industrial dynamo.

Naval-gazing and self-deprecation aren't so startling in Canada, whose culture embraces critical introspection. But in the U.S., to admit that there are ashes from which the Phoenix must emerge, is one bold work of counter-culture.

Was there a choice? Ultimately, no. There's a whole "Emperor's new clothes" vibe to pretending Detroit still enjoys automotive supremacy. (See under "W" for "Where have you gone, Lee Iacocca?")

The smart move, for now, is to celebrate that it's picking itself up off the mat.

IF YOU CAN READ THIS....

2011-08-06T08:00:00.004-04:00

In print ads, it's called micetype; all the legal mandatories stuffed at the bottom of the ad in a font size that makes the bottom line of an eye chart read the like HOLLYWOOD sign.

It's bad in print. It's worse on TV. Using screen shots from YouTube, I give you exhibit A:

Specifically, this-

Okay, okay, you and I know nobody reads it. The copywriter, the client, the account exec., the director, the broadcaster and the lawyers involved know nobody reads it.

The worst of all destinations for this meaningless high-octane legalese, by the way, is Radio, whose chronological real estate is both small and precious. When nuisance legal was necessary, the key was to consume as few precious seconds as possible, calling for (in copywriter's parlance) an ice-down-the-shorts delivery.

So why is it there? Because advertisers haven't a clue as to a better way to cover themselves legally when making a claim or offer in a broadcast ad. (A quick mea culpa: I've written many a "[legal]" on broadcast scripts and print ads. That denotes a space the account exec has to fill with the necessary mumbo jumbo from the legal department.)

Granted, this visual noise doesn't merit the ire of Shakespeare's Dick the Butcher: "...kill the lawyers" (Henry VI); it's more in the tone of Dickens' Mr. Bumble: "...the law is an ass. An idiot." (Oliver Twist). A fair assessment when, in a world cluttered plenty enough with ads, thank you, the finest legal minds in the ad game clutter the bottom of a beauty shot like this-

-with legal nonsense writ small, like this-

-and this:

If Abe Lincoln can stand in a pasture in Gettysburg and give meaning to 31 months of soul-crushing bloodshed in just 272-ish words (manuscripts vary slightly), you have to imagine the finest marketing noggins can find a way to cover the advertiser's tuccus- legally speaking- without the comic farce of print so small, and with such limited screen time, a viewer couldn't read it on a bet.

Kill the lawyers? Not me.

A meaningful wedgie, perhaps.

Cannes Strips Controversial Brazillian Ad of Two Lions

2011-07-21T15:00:00.001-04:00

Funny thing happened on the way down from the Cannes Lions podium last month.

Our story surrounds a contentious print ad for KIA's duel-zone climate control feature, from an ad outfit called Moma Propaganda of Brazil.

Upon winning a Silver Lion for print, and a Bronze Lion for Outdoor, the ad was quickly condemned by critics as 'The Pedophile Ad.'

KIA USA issued a nervous, if qualified, response, insisting that this ad would never run in the United States. In an operation that big, it's hard to know if any branch of the company might have employed the Brazilian agency.

This is the moment I imagine William Frawley in a 1940's screwball comedy, pinstripe vest open and cigar-in-mouth barking "Saaaaaay. Something fishy's goin' on here."

And fishy it was. Turns out that KIA has no relationship with the agency, and never commissioned, approved, or knew about the work.

It's not uncommon for agencies to fabricate ads based on in-house ideas to demonstrate wheat they can do.

And it's not uncommon (-shhhhh!-) for ad award entrants to sneak in entries- usually for their actual clients- for ads which, for some reason or other, never ran. No, it's not cricket, but agencies are rarely caught.

In this case, KIA wanted nothing to do with the dark, graphic novel vibe of the Moma Propaganda ad. Having some some digging, it announced shortly after the Cannes festival that it had never commissioned such an ad. The agency was challenged by the Cannes brass to prove that it had ever run. Evidently, they couldn't. So the agency was stripped of its trophies. For good measure, all involved were forbidden to enter the Cannes competition until 2013.

"No Lions for you! One year!"

A question lingers: will Moma Propaganda- the disgraced Brazilian agency- be a net beneficiary of this exposure and publicity?

Cannes Advertising Lions 2011

2011-07-12T17:05:00.001-04:00

Here's the Grand Prix winner from this year's Cannes Advertising Lions.

It's the Avatar of the past year in advertising. Nothing comes close for size, scope, ambition, or (here's an educated guess) budget.

I cite James Camerons' Avatar because it was, like his previous epic Titanic, so anticipated, so ballyhooed, and so saturated popular media, Cameron effectively challenged Hollywood's chew-'em-up-and-spit-'em-out film industry not to award him the Best Picture Oscar.

They obliged. The Oscar went to Cameron's ex-flame Kathryn Bigalow for Hurt Locker.

No such showdown occurred this year at Cannes, where biggest, this year, was best. Nike's Write the Future. by Weiden & Kennedy's Netherlands office, combines the who's who of world football with an unrestrained string of fantasies, to the 80's guitar anthem Hocus Pocus.

Clever, yes, though it seems to heave beneath the weight of its own ambition. Or, to switch metaphors, just because you're cooking with the world's most expensive, most exotic ingredients, from Kobe beef, truffles, and foie gras to beluga caviar and saffron, doesn't mean they'll combine to make the world's best stew.

As with Avatar, the hype surrounding Nike's Write the Future feels pushed and self-generated in contrast to the organic, crowd-pleasing buzz around VW's Super Bowl gem, Force, written by David Povill of Deutsch Inc. of Los Angeles, and directed by Lance Acord, whose cinematography credits include Where the Wild Things Are, Lost in Translation, and Being John Malcovich.

Force was among the handful celebrated with a Gold Lion.

It's a grand thing to celebrate great work. Especially in advertising, where such a small proportion of the work is good. And a small proportion of that is outstanding.

But her, as with all arts awards, where there are so few tangible criteria for comparison, the peril lies in declaring this better than that.

The One-Line Joke Just Got Longer

2011-06-09T12:40:00.002-04:00

Hats off and Hoovers bowed to Red Devil's new viral ad:

There comes a time when you tell a joke- a really really long joke- that you've passed your P.N.R. (Point of No Return), and you realize that you've put some serious pressure on the punchline to pay it all off.

For most people, this Dirt Devil spot probably falls in the no-man's land- clever enough to merit some viral play, but short of holding a place on anyone's desert island reel. (Hats off to copywriter/art director Andre Price and director Andreas Roth, whose work is striking, even when crammed onto a 19" monitor.)

This is a sample of the ways broadcast advertising is mutating and evolving online, where they can enjoy a fuller, richer, life-cycle online, where filling 90-seconds doesn't require a mortgage-the-villa media buy, where the lines of irreverence are drawn in chalk, and moreover, the viewer can take ownership, sharing and distributing favourites.

Compare the 'Exorcist' ad above to this DNA ancestor:

With some stick-with-it-ness, the comic device could spin out into a campaign with many legs, and significant longevity, in an age where ad campaigns rarely live more than 18 months.

The Lion of Venice Beach

2011-05-15T20:59:00.088-04:00

Joe Pytka.

Few outside the ad business know the name. Billions- yeah- billions know his work.

TV commercial director Joe Pytka has worked with the legends of pop culture and sport- most notably Michael Jordan. Just as effectively with Maddox, Glavine & McGuire, from those halcyon pre-steroid-scandal days of Major League Baseball.

And just when you'd think Pytka is about hitching his star to major celebrity, he'll toss you this:

Agents know their star athletes' stock goes up- waaaaaay up- when Pytka directs them. He makes them look clever. Funny. Hip. So do the brands who pay the freight; Pepsi. IBM. Hallmark. Hancock Insurance. And so often... Nike.

Joe Pytka has directed features ("Space Jam" was based on Nike spots he created with Michael Jordan and Warner Bros. cartoon characters; a Richard Dreyfus comedy called "Let is Ride" falls under "W" for "What were they thinking?")

But his masterworks are packaged as broadcast ads. A possible exception being his oh-so-stylish work on the Beatles' semi-reunion video "Free As a Bird," with more quiet allusions, subtle inserts and Easter eggs than the Sg. Pepper album cover:

To be continued...

(Free!) Lessons From the Best: Great Print Storytelling

2011-04-26T22:34:00.002-04:00

Most print ads might leave you wondering what good the medium is. Each year, a special few remind you how great it is.

Or can be.

A simple one-colour, text-only ad can still catch the eye, and convey the brand:

The addition of colour, and the change-of-font effectively make the turn from the posh imagery into the econo-reality of Dixon's online shop. Quickly, the idea builds equity in the mind of the viewer, who is thus attracted to the next ad in the series:

This ad for the World Wildlife Fund, who enjoy a storied history of great ads, uses the one-two appraoch, which introduces a common perception (picture #1) then challenges it (picture #2):

And again, once established, readers come to connect the idea to the brand: therein lies the power of the campaign:

A variation of the one-two is the (wait for it...) one-two-three. In this case, it's a delicious bit of storytelling in three simple parts:

The common link among these ads- beyond some well-deserved recognition at the 2010 Cannes Advertising Festival, is that they aren't create for the client- they're created for the reader.

Such a simple, so often-overlooked advertising axiom: the key to serving your client, is to serve your client's client.

The Dark, Seamy Sideyards of Election Advertising

2011-04-20T09:18:00.003-04:00

Funny thing about ad messages. You can plant them, water them, sun them, and (yes) fertilize them. But what grows doesn't always look like the picture on the seed package.

In 1993 Canada's Conservatives launched a TV ad that none-too-subtly used imagery that emphasized the partial paralysis in the face of Liberal leader Jean Chretien. Roll the first part of this CBC report- including Chretien's play-it-like-a-harp response, and you get a taste of how violently this snapped back into the Tories' faces.

Even today, at some level, campaign ad-makers (whose tribe dwells in lands largely unknown to your humble servant) try to incorporate in their ads some schoolyard ridicule tied to appearance, demeanor, race, or physical non-conformity.

It must be apparent enough for it to resonate with its target viewer, yet buried enough so as not to provoke accusations of schoolyard bullying.

Enter this guy:

Senator John Kerry posed a marketing threat to handlers of the Bush re-election campaign of 2004. In marketing parlance, Bush needed to 'own' patriotic militarism. But Kerry had him outflanked with a record that pushed all the right buttons with the American public: a distinguished service record in Vietnam combat, including three (count 'em) Purple Hearts- then a compelling anti-war stance upon his return.

(Sure, we're flitting from Canada to the US and back: but this thread of thinking remains intact.

Even the greatest pro-Bush ads could not elevate the President above his rival in this hugely important, emotional category.

The only tactic available were negative ads. The deadly power of negative ads is that they do not have to prove anything, or convince anyone outright. They need simply to plant and water and (yes) fertilize seeds of doubt in the viewer's mind.

Here's the problem: had the Bush campaign launched the 'Swiftboat' campaign against John Kerry (the nickname for the campaign to discredit Kerry's military credentials), the low-road cache of this approach could have leaped up and bit Mr. Bush on his presidential tuccus.

So a faceless "3rd Party" group was assembled: SwiftVets and POW's for Truth, who set about 'unhero'ing the Democratic nominee:

3rd part election ads allowed George Bush to stroll the high road, disavowing the shenanigans of the SwiftVets, and insulating his campaign from the backlash that stung Canada's Tories in 1993.

Once George Bush won reelection, the SwiftVets disbanded.

Mission Accomplished.

The solution? Regulation won't work. Political ads are virtually un-regulated- the biggest ticket-to-lie in all of advertising. The reason? No ad regulator wants to play referee during a campaign, or break up scraps among partisans.

So the rules that apply to advertisers in Canada and the US don't apply to campaign ads.

With free speech protections in Canada's Charter of Rights, and the asinine ruling on campaign spending by the US Supreme Court, 3rd party election ads will thrive as the new supermarkets of slander come campaign time.

The solution is an educated viewer who can see these attack campaigns for what they are.

TV Campaign Ad History in Four Acts

2011-03-31T09:28:00.018-04:00

With the election on in Canada, the time seems ripe to look at seminal moments in the brief (just a half century!) history of TV campaign ads.

1. IN THE BEGINNING

TV campaign ads were born in the early 50's, when Republican nominee Dwight Eisenhower conscripted some high-end talent- including Disney animators, who incited people to (wait for it...) "get in step with the guy that's hep."

2. THE DAWN OF NASTY

In 1960, Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy launched this ad, painted by some as the earliest ancestor of today's attack ads:

2. VOTE LBJ, OR THE REDS WILL VAPORIZE THIS GIRL

Perhaps the most famous- or infamous campaign ad was "Daisy"- created in 1964 by the legendary agency Doyle Dane Bernbach. Like another landmark TV ad (Apple's "1984) it only aired once.

4. OL' DUTCH

When Ronald Reagan sought reelection in 1984, he dragooned such ad heavyweights as Phil Dusenberry and Hal Riney, whose unmistakable voice graces this spot: "Morning Again in America." With a strategy filed under "A" for "Ain't Broke- So Why Fix It."

5. (BONUS ACT!) THE NEW FACE OF NASTY

In 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush took the 'nasty' of the Kennedy attack ad of 1960, and set the tone for many of the attack ads that are only now seeping into Canadian politics. The only ingredient missing is the inevitable low synthesizer drone:

THE NEXT STORY BEAT IN CAMPAIGN ADS

Bob Edwards

Humour. I suspect that some time- in the near or distant future- someone will take an enormous risk and create genuinely funny campaign ads.

And in the spirit of Bob Edwards' observation "people will pay more to laugh than for any other privilege"- the campaign that commands laughs will run the table.

Putting the 'Ow' in 'Audi'

2011-03-22T09:52:00.000-04:00

It is entirely appropriate that the ad business is rife with metaphors of war, and chess.

The Audi billboard on the left appeared along Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles not so long ago. Soon after, the BMW folks retaliated, in a move recorded by its agency, Juggernaut Advertising, for whom this video is an ad in itself- boasting of Juggernaut's authorship of this 'nana-nana-boo-boo' moment:

BMW billboard from Juggernaut Advertising on Vimeo.

The Audio folks forgot that chess is about thinking a few moves head. And they payed for it- literally. For the duration of their poster's run, they had to pay to play the foil to their arch rival.

When the 'billboard war' ballyhoo'd and reported in some corners of the press never erupted, this incident was demoted to the status of 'one-off.'

Advertising wars can in themselves draw all kinds of attention, and help grow the product category. But they're also expensive, and bruising, and oh-so-hard to stop.

Hence the metaphor.

The Tale of Two Ads

2011-03-15T09:06:00.006-04:00

This Ad was Banned:

This ad wasn't:

What's the difference between these ads? In the interests of getting to the point, allow me to be utterly subjective: one is really well made, and one isn't.

Which is why I think there's an injustice here.

"Trunk Monkey," above, was banned several years back by Ad Standards Canada because of its moment of violence.

"Step", also above, was Australia's most-complained-about ad last year, but was not banned, because authorities deemed it broke no advertising code.

I don't like either decision: but not (I hope) for reasons you might suspect.

Here's the deal:

"Trunk Monkey" was pulled because it was violent. True enough. But is it likely to corrupt viewers- particularly, one imagines, younger viewers- when the programs this ad sponsors might include graphic violence many (many many) times more disturbing. Applying such hypersensitive standards to ads, but not to programming, is the sign of a regulatory system seriously out-of-sync.

"Step" was not pulled because it was not seen to contravene any provisions of the Ad Standards code.

So the earnest, honest, clever, well-crafted ad is pulled. The low-budget sophomoric sight gag remains on the air.

Choices that are entirely proper, by the letter of the law. But that don't make 'em right.

Using Ad Clutter to Your Advantage

2011-03-01T18:07:00.000-05:00

You may have come across this ad- it too was honoured at Cannes in 2010. If you'd be so good, I want you to look at it with one word in mind:

Pace.

When you see an ad like this- from YouTube, you can enjoy it as a self-contained entertainment. But you probably don't imagine what the spot 'feels' like in the context of broadcast- running as part of a noisy pack of messages and promos within a commercial set.

I'll bet you a nickel that most of the ads that usually surrounded this one were comparatively fast-paced and frenetic, stuffed with quick cuts, graphics and audio-visual information, in the spirit of the "MTV Effect" Terry and I discuss in our book.

That's this ad's secret weapon. It has such a simple brief: promote the Young Director Award. That gives the spot room to breathe- space to spin out a story. In this case, without dialogue through most of it- which in itself catches an audience's attention; ads are typically so busy, so noisy, and so verbose, that non-dialogue grabs the viewer by the ear.

And what a great moment it all leads to.

In context this is a relatively quiet, deliberate, intelligent few moments of great storytelling, framed on either end- and I've got a nickel riding on this- by manic, loud, caffeinated sales pitches.

The Art of Choosing the Right Conversation

2011-02-05T13:27:00.002-05:00

A great ad is a conversation. And the test of a great Copywriter, and a great Creative Director, is to know which conversation to have. Which line-of-thinking will best engage the viewer.

Suppose you're charged with promoting the idea of road safety. The default position in such ads has become shock. Graphic footage. Alarming statistics. A foreboding "it could happen to you."

This spot- "Embrace Life"- honoured last summer at the Cannes Advertising Festival, didn't allow its tires to catch in the trolly tracks* of conventional ad creative.

Statistics and graphic footage are, to most people, abstract- literally disassociated from their life and experience. They must translate the information into something more personal, and meaningful. ("Hmmm... this statistic about seatbelt usage suggests that someone in my family could be in danger.")

This traditional, empirical creative approach is flawed, but understandable. Because marketing is an industry prone to operate on tangibles. Facts. Figures. Logic. An ad becomes an argument.

Yet it's emotion that so often drives the most effective advertising.

This spot by-passes the translation from tangible to personal, and goes right to the emotional benefit of road safety; a benefit conveyed with breathtaking clarity in the expressions on these actors' faces.

It's the viewer's visceral emotional connection to this family facing a threat that makes this spot intangible, powerful, and effective.

Chalk one up for the right brain.

* pun intended

Hold the Eulogy: Great Super Bowl Ads ain't Dead

2011-01-19T22:19:00.001-05:00

Why... this is my favourite spot from last year's Super Bowl, thanks for asking.

Call it 'storytelling by other means'; the art of telling a story by unconventional means. Such as... say... a TV spot that tells a story, not with actors, dialogue or on-screen text, but by queries on a search engine.

Or Hemingway's famous "shortest story ever": "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn."

It was part of the genius of Alfred Hitchcock, who opened Dial M for Murder with a Ray Milland / Grace Kelly sequence that told us everything we need to know about the main characters- without a word of dialogue.

Hitchcock did the same again in Rear Window- where in one opening shot we learn that Jimmy Stewart's character is an accomplished magazine photographer, that he was working too close to a crash at a motor race, that he broke his leg (and still got a great photo), and that he was cooped up in a wheelchair in his apartment.

Not a word of dialogue in either of 'em.

This Google spot not only tells a story, but- as anyone with a marketing eye notices immediately- demonstrates the product in doing so.

'Nuff to leave you speechless.

Cities: the new Blank Canvas of Advertising

2011-01-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

Owners of heritage buildings are forbidden to make even the slightest changes to their own properties without a litany of applications, reviews and approvals. The reason, one presumes, is to protect the integrity of the urban landscape.

An advertiser, meanwhile, is much freer to unleash immense, evocative, provocative works of outdoor sales-art with far less opposition.

The best of them inspire by infusing a brand message onto the everyday landscape, effectively creating a new medium; which- yes- becomes the message.

Every day, fresh patches of the urban landscape are claimed as a canvas for advertisers increasingly desperate to rise above the growing daily firestorm of ad clutter. But while prevalent, the trend is by no means new.

In 1925, André Citroën advertised his automobiles on the side of the Eiffel Tower, in what Guinness long regarded as the world's largest advertisement.

Advertising is an accepted, even welcome component of most urban landscapes. No one fond of downtown Tokyo, or Times Square in New York, or- heck- anywhere in Las Vegas would advocate a downtown ad ban in those places.

Urban advertising-art is undeniably brilliant. And a vibrant conversation-prompting addition to the landscape.

What sits wrong is that, outside of advertising, our society incorporates no economic motive, wields little collective will, to creative similarly inspiring architecture, neighbourhoods, public art installations, and gathering places on the blank urban canvas.

Thoughts on a Christmas (viral) Classic

2010-12-13T10:09:00.005-05:00

Can a viral video join the lofty, growing list of must-view Christmas films?

If it can be done, the likely candidate is "Doghouse," this brilliant viral video generated in 1988 by Saatchi and Saatchi New York, for JC Penny.

Consider for a moment that this is an ad form that didn't exist 20 years ago. The closes available medium then was television. And the very thought of truncating this letter-perfect 4:45 into 30 seconds is akin to reducing Wagner's Ring Cycle to a ringtone.

It wouldn't do.

Doghouse is an incredibly useful lesson in the ingredients necessary to turn an advertiser's message viral:

BUDGET
Doghouse ain't cheap. Actors. Sets. Effects. Locations. Very few advertisers who tell their agencies "make us the next 'Doghouse' " are going to be willing to bankroll a film with such high production values.

CREATIVE DETAIL
The story, the script, the actors, the direction, the 'moments'- this film works unbelievably hard to deliver worthwhile touches from start to finish. (Did you notice Donnie is bald. But in his flashback film, he has hair- which tells you how long he's been in the Doghouse.)

Important, funny little touches like that beget repeat viewing. This film has dozens of 'em.

WHO THE FILM SERVES
Doghouse serves the viewer first. It entertains. It spins a great story. It introduces rock-solid characters. It leaves the viewer believing "this is an entertainment."

That flies in the face of 150 years of modern advertising tradition. Clients tend to treat ads as elevator pitches, frantically cramming boatloads of information about themselves in a confined physical (or chronological) space. Bad ads- and most, alas, are bad- are written for the advertiser- not the viewer.

Doghouse doesn't mention the advertiser until the very end. And by then, it's hard not to feel grateful to them for the preceding four minutes and thirty seconds.

Few advertisers are willing to put so much faith in a short film that they're willing to bury the sales message in the last few seconds. (If you were a major retailer, and your sales performance during the make-or-break Christmas season hung in the balance... would you?)

I suspect this sort of courageous experimentation is easier to come by when a medium- in this case, web video- is so new. (A notion worth exploring on another day.)

For now, top up that mugga' cocoa, prop your feet (with those wooly socks) by the fire, and enjoy one of the greats. A viral video that makes you sigh: "I wish all web videos were this good."

A Word on Chronological Snobbery

2010-11-24T09:25:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis coined the phrase "chronological snobbery" to describe our natural inclination to assume that we- as a species- are smarter and wiser today than we were in the past.

It's an easy trap to fall into, given the tragic hilarity of this 1960's TV ad for carcinogen-based flooring.

Or an ad wherein radioactive particles are smeared across the face of a model:

Old ads are an irresistible time capsule. They show us the 80's hair we used to have. The groovy way we used to rap to one another. Our long-forgotten aspirations. And the painfully outdated norms once perfectly fashionable.

Let's laugh while we can- because there'll come a reckoning.

In a few years, our turn will come; we, and future generations, will look back at our culture, as it is today, and split a gut laughing. They'll laugh at our clothes. Our hair. Our media. Our tastes in music, fashion, and entertainment.

And they'll laugh at things we accept that will be banned, shunned, debated and feared in coming years.

Which makes you wonder: what are the "asbestos floors" or our time?

Adendum: The "Any Publicity is Good Publicity" Myth

2010-11-08T10:18:00.004-05:00

In The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture, Terry and I take on several of the myths that continue to haunt the marketing business. Flip with me to page 138, and you'll find one of the most persistent:

If it's not to late, may I offer this brief-but-meaningful post-publication addendum:

'Nuff said.

An Ode to Breathing Room

2010-10-30T00:33:00.002-04:00

To follow The Age of Persuasion is to get an earful about the legendary Volkswagen campaign by New York's Doyle, Dane, Bernbach. And rightly so.

Funny how illogical this classic ad is. No one who's ever driven in virgin post-blizzard snow would swoon over the virtues of a VW Beetle in such conditions. Flying in the face of logic, this ad says simply, "don't worry." But without explanation. A spit in the eye of "Reason Why" advertising.

But have a look at this ad for a moment, or several moments, through a different filter. Consider how casually it tells its story. Over 60 seconds- something you so rarely see today. Notice the long stretches of 'nothing'- no graphics. No "0.9% financing!" or engineering attributes or asinine mice-type legal disclaimers. No wet-road 'beauty shots' of the car panning quickly by.

It takes its time, and the audience doesn't seem to mind a bit. Long, silent shots fill out the story in a way no client would accept in today's over-caffeinated mediascape.

Grab a cuppa joe, and treat yourself to 60 seconds of good old-fashioned ad storytelling.

Television as the "Show Me" medium

2010-10-18T22:04:00.001-04:00

Here's a nifty spot from Thinkbox, the outfit that markets Television in the U.K. It's a wonderful illustration of a point my pal Terry O'Reilly is fond of making- about Television's strength as a demonstration medium.

In what is literally an underdog story, our hero- Harvey- uses Television to demonstrate his many, many virtues to prospective owners at the pound.

Like so many funny broadcast ads, its rife with wonderful moments. Seems Harvey can use the privy, cut the lawn, cook, clean and iron. The capper: the wonderful shot of Harvey at the end of the montage: his bag all packed.

It's true: television is a great demonstration medium. But it's not without its woes.

Television today is what Radio was in 1955. Still big and glossy. Still capable of outstanding content. But its days as a flagship medium are behind it. The shift of ad budgets from TV to Internet is palpable, and well-documented.

The Internet will not kill TV, any more than TV killed Radio (as many predicted it would). Neither did Radio kill cinema. Neither did cinema kill live theatre. Yet in each case, a king was dethroned, never again to regain supremacy.

As recently as the 90's, water cooler talk gravitated to last night's TV offerings. Today it's as likely to be about the latest viral video.

Look no farther than this commercial. Hands up- who first came across this wonderful "TV" ad on TV?

Boag's Draught: the secret power of simplicity

2010-09-20T09:55:00.001-04:00

In many respects, this is a complicated ad. Lots of concepts and ideas. Funny moments. It makes you listen at one level and watch on another. All are techniques used by some of the greatest ads. But one facet- above all- makes this spot work.

It's focus on a single, simple concept, articulated in the first line:

"These pure waters are special. Something goes in there... comes out different."

There. In cement. A single, strong, simple creative proposition. The rest of the spot riffs on that.

Anyone who's pitched a campaign in a boardroom knows what a gentle flower a great, simple idea is. And how easily it's crushed beneath a well-meaning manure pile of unnecessary detail.

Such simplicity runs counter to the traditional agency/client process. I'll bet you a nickel that someone saw the virtue of this idea, wrapped her arms around it, and protected it from Category Four bombardment of suggestions and additions.

What emerges and grows is a spot worth 60-seconds of the viewer's attention.

An all-time classic? Probably not. A fun, watchable monument to creative discipline? Absolutely.

As though, this once, the creative process was dipped in some special water...

Monday at Noon: hear "Help Wanted: Searching for Labour Day"

2010-09-03T14:05:00.000-04:00

AIRS:
12 NOON
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 6th (Labour Day)
CBC Radio One

What do you get when you cross singer/songwriter Mike Ford (Canada Needs You, ex-Moxy Früvous) with the producer of The Age of Persuasion?

You get Help Wanted: Searching for Labour Day- a one-hour radio special on CBC Radio One. Join the Mike's and travel back- and forward- in time, and all over the world to explore the origins, politics, and personalities behind Labour Day, the "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" of stat holidays. Ignored. Overlooked- and perhaps just in need of a little love.

Keith "the Sonic Swede" Ohman, MT & host Mike Ford

Recorded at CBC Radio's Studio 213, it's a new kind of radio/documentary/musical storytelling style.

If you want to listen online, you can catch it in your choice of time zones: click here.

Here's a brief home movie I took of Mike warming up, as The Swede sets up the mics:

I hope you'll tune in.

The Evil of Faux Virals

2010-08-18T12:05:00.001-04:00

First things first: I don't believe the trick in this video is real.

For lots of reasons: perhaps the best being this: if Federer missed, and clocked this fellow in the head (or in a misc. extremity), he and team of lawyers would certainly go to work relieving Mr. Federer of many of the $35 million dollars he's said to be worth.

Too risky.

As I post this, the YouTube posting has more than 700 thousand hits. And the press, including the Toronto Star- and yes, your humble servant- are helping spread the virus. CBC aired audio this morning.

Gillette isn't so brazen as to insist the 'trick shot' is real. The backlash would be too mighty if and when the deception was exposed. Instead the bask in the glow of owning the viral-clip-de-jour.

This is cynical. The short-term gain Gillette enjoys comes at our expense- especially to those of us in marketing. It adds more erosion to the trust audiences have for what they see, and the stories they're told.

It another cry of 'wolf'. It shouts 'fire' in the crowded movie theatre, then titters at the reaction. A selfish act that adds another smidge of erosion people's trust.in what they see, hear and experience.

Time to start visualizing a world where people believe nothing. To the fading, echoed voice of Bill Bernbach, who said:

"All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level."

Cannes Lions: Stories Matter.... Ici!

2010-07-22T10:10:00.010-04:00

Here's one of my favourite Gold Lion winners from the Cannes 2010 Advertising Festival held last month.

Months ago I'd received this video by viral email: a sign of popular consecration that eludes many award winning spots.

We know America's AMC for its tagline "Story Matters Here." When France's Canal+ Pay TV channel launched an original series of films, docs & series, it's agency explored the same creative headspace.

Age of Persuasion followers will know we have long lauded the power of storytelling as a means of planting an idea or brand in people's heads. It was as true for Sheherazade as it is for today's Ad Agencies.

The joy of this wonderful short film is its transition from 'big' to 'small'- from epic adventure to bedroom farce- quicker than you can say "Gérard Depardieu."

And how much humour it leverages from that gloriously abrupt 90-degree turn.

* * * * * *

ADENDUM:

Here's the spot recommended by Stupid in Regina, below:

The 2010 Cannes Lions for Advertising

2010-07-19T12:39:00.001-04:00

For a few short weeks each summer, the Cannes Advertising Lions winners are posted for all to see.

Then- poof! They're gone. Unless you're willing to shell out some serious Euros to see them.

Click here for a boo at the ads that won this year's film category- that includes online ads, and ads for TV and cinema.

Click here for the Radio Lion winners- the world's best radio ads of the past year.

Then let's meet back here in coming days. I'll feature some of these ads, and we'll talk about why the caught the well-honed imaginations of the Cannes juries.

Why I'm Leaving The Age of Persuasion

2010-06-26T11:28:00.001-04:00

Today marks the last Age of Persuasion episode of the season, and the end of my involvement in the show.

It's been a privilege and a hoot working with Terry and Keith, creating more than 100 shows, and collaborating with Terry on The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture.

It's been the best kind of work- and the hardest. Being the lone full-time staffer on the show, I've logged more than 450 days researching & writing, and more than 1600 hours in production, and a half-year of working full-time, flat-out, on the book manuscript.

Now it's time to see what the rest of the world looks like.

And whatever comes next for AOP, I'm delighted to leave it as it should be- in its prime.

And now? It's kind of you to ask; I've been commissioned to create and produce a one-hour special for CBC Radio One, to air on Labour Day. Please pop back here in coming days and I'll spill the details.

That's in addition to a return to the *other* work I love- creating ads, and giving talks and workshops on creative communication.

So now I wave so-long to The Age of Persuasion with no small measure of gratitude to Terry, Keith, our CBC friends, the great folks at Pirate- and especially our listeners- for such a great ride.

-Mike

When Is a Great Ad a Lousy Ad?

2010-06-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

It's great when-

it stands out from the pack
it captures the imagination.
it makes you laugh.
it makes you want to see it again.
it makes you want to share it with friends.
it lives on through the Internet- (here, for instance) long after its birth.

It's lousy when it doesn't sell the brand.

Here's an easy test- plug any- and I mean any- cellphone brand in at the end of this spot. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Still funny, isn't it?

This is great entertainment, not a great ad. I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad you're seeing it. But as at least one great ad sage has noted, when you can remove the brand from an ad without the ad falling apart, there's something seriously wrong with it.

If the brand- it's Kyocera, by the way- ran this as part of a long series of ads in the same headspace- to a point where that mnemonic at the end was associated with first-rate ads (like a swoosh, and the words "Just Do It"), then this ad could be one piece in a powerful branding machine. But as a one-off, it's a confection: sweet, delicious, irresistible, quickly forgotten.

Tricky thing, this ad business.

My New Favourite Website

2010-06-01T09:06:00.005-04:00

The Cheese & Burger Society is a marketing vehicle for Wisconsin Cheese. The beauty of it is that it never 'feels' like it's selling you something. Yet it does.

Oooooooooooo, but it does.

Like all great works of marketing, this site's single-minded objective is ever in focus: dress your burger with Wisconsin cheese.

Pop quiz: it's your job to create a website that incites people to do that. What do you do?

The immediate answer is to create a recipe-destination site, with 'beauty' shots of burgers and easy-to-follow recipes. It's a great idea, which is why a gazillion other marketers have already done it. Your brand might as well join the Witness Protection Program. What the Wisconsin Cheese added was a not-so-secret ingredient:

Entertainment.

With crisp visuals and deliciously simple design, the site tells the story of dozens of burgers, borrowing the irresistible voice of Patrick Warburton, in that rare class of 'born-funny' people who can generate a laugh with the casual twitch of an eyebrow. His credits include the voice of Joe Swanson in Family Guy, the pie-eating Agent 'T' in Men in Black II, and David Puddy, Elaine Benes' boyfriend in Seinfeld:

To those who are suckers for the Warburton style (your humble servant included), it's impossible to hear just one burger description. It's so easy to flip from "The Couch Potato" to "The Lumberjack" to "The Big Ben" for lovingly written 15-ish second descriptions.

The "sell" to the site is tucked neatly in a back pocket, and left there. No "sign up here." No being herded to a site listing cheeses, cheese manufacturers. No painfully mandatory "Meet the CEO" page. Subtle branding like this requires enormous courage: you must hope people are so enamoured of your web content, that they consciously stop to wonder "who did this?"

The URL- www.cheeseandburger.com- betrays nary a wiff of 'sell'. Never does this site succumb to the temptation to insert any sort of in-your-face product pitch.

Don't underestimate the importance of entertainment-driven online content. The emphasis must be on courting, winning, and keeping each visitor. The moment a website serves itself instead of its visitor- click- they're gone. Faster than you can say bored-dot-com.

The site's strategy is so simple: Come for the laughs. Stay for the cheeseburgers. Leave feeling good about Wisconsin Cheese.

It's a brilliant recipe.

Nike: Write the Future

2010-05-26T12:12:00.005-04:00

Have a good look.

You won't see an ad this 'big' very often. Because, shy of confirming extraterrestrial life, the return of Christ, or the discovery of why two socks go in the dryer but only one comes out- the FIFA World Cup is the only world event worthy of an ad of this scale.

Or vice versa.

So big is this ad, that it had 'teaser' ads made, promoting- not the World Cup- but the segment featuring Britain's Wayne Rooney.

Nike created a similar teaser spot for Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo.

The spot is airing in 32 countries. The director is Alejandro G. Iñarritu, known for his Hollywood titles Babel and 21 Grams.

The joy of the spot is the aggregate of countless- and lovely- 'blink-and-you-miss-them' moments: all the babies named "Wayne," the "Ron's Samba Robics" infomercial, the club dancers paying homage to Fabio Cannavaro's bicycle kick. To the mere mortals of advertising, these are budget-breakers.

Beyond Rooney, Cannavaro, and Ronaldo- look closely and you'll spot football greats Didier Drogba, Franck Ribery, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Patrice Evra, Gerard Pique, Ronaldinho, Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and Thiago Silva.

The world's biggest sporting event meets the world's biggest sporting brand. Result: an ad that reduces Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, and Homer Simpson to cameo appearances.

For this epic ad, Nike left everything on the field: a metaphor not lost on astute brand-watchers.

* * * * * *

Under 'N' for 'Nikeus Interruptus'- when the much-hyped, much-anticipated full-length spot debuted, England's ITV accidentally cut away from the ad just before the end- depriving millions of viewers in in southern England and Wales of the last few seconds.

More of the The 'Making Of' Trend: Honda Choir

2010-05-21T09:45:00.001-04:00

A highly potent sister to Honda's "Cog" commercial (see post below)- "Choir" is another fascinating idea for a web-based spot, with a no-less compelling "making of" video:

Terry and I have spent four years preaching- and practicing- storytelling as a powerful means of drawing and engaging an audience.

That's the power of this pair of YouTube clips. To follow the 'making of' video- if done right- the viewer becomes less of a detached critic, and more invested in the ad- and the brand.

Like 'Cog' it's fascinating in that all sounds are generated from human voices- and not studio gadgetry.

The "Making Of" Trend: Honda Cog

2010-05-19T08:15:00.002-04:00

The storied 'Honda Cog' ad required 600 takes over four painstaking days and nights to get right. And there is one, completely invisible edit at about the one-minute mark.

Two stories here.

The first is the amazing ad, from the London office of agency Wieden & Kennedy, which snatched every award on the planet, and moreover, enjoyed enormous viral success Shot in France over several days, it uses only parts are taken from a real Honda Accord. The voice at the end belongs to Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor, who has voiced Honda ads for some time.

Why not Computer Generated Imagery? Why the time, expense, and agony of enduring 600 takes to get it right? You probably know the answer instinctively. Somehow the ad, and the brand, become more authentic by not "cheating" with the effects. The accomplishment becomes genuinely astounding. And working feverishly to get it right becomes a metaphor for the Honda brand itself.

The second story is the 'making of' video attached. As Terry and I describe in our book, we live in an age where people love to know what's 'behind the curtain.' "Making of" features scratch a mighty itch among consumers to know how things work, and how they're made. Hence the obligatory 'making of' features that come with DVD's, creating the ironic need for two camera crews on every movie shoot: one to shoot the movie, and one to shoot the shooting.

If you find your interest tweaked by the video embedded above, and the previous four paragraphs, I rest my case.

The Most Interesting Ad Campaign in the World?

2010-05-12T13:26:00.006-04:00

The actor is Jonathan Goldsmith.
The voice-over announcer is Will Lyman, best known for PBS's Frontline.
The client is Mexico's Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery.
The agency is Euro RSCG New York.
The beer, of course, is Dos Equis ("Double X").

I loved this campaign at first sight. Its decidedly tongue-in-cheek tone. Its consistency. Its attitude: so-funny-it's-cool. Or vice versa.

And its litany of one-liners worthy of Stephen Wright.

Again, do you notice that the pictures and v/o are telling different stories at once? See under 'O' for 'Old Jedi mind trick.' It's a technique that better engages the viewer.

Will this campaign burn out? Probably. Certainly if they pound out too many spots too quickly.

For now, it's keeping a vast audience, including your humble servant, thirsty for more.

"Mom! Dad! Guess what?"

2010-05-06T08:23:00.007-04:00

">

SFX:                       PHONE RINGS / PICKUP
MOM:                    (answers) Hello?
DAUGHTER:      Mom! I can't believe it! I got a job!
MOM:        A job?
DAUGHTER:    In a commercial!
MOM:                    What's it for?
DAUGHTER:         I didn't ask. Wow! I can't believe those two weeks of
                             acting lessons paid off!
MOM:                   That's wonderful dear! What's it for?
DAUGHTER:         Oh, who cares! The point is, I'll be on TV! And
                              everyone I've known in my life will see it! And if
it's on YouTube, they'll send it to everyone they've
                              ever met!
MOM:    But shouldn't you find out wha-
DAUGHTER: Gotta go! Love you!
MOM:    Love-
SFX:    CLICK
                             -you.

* * * * *

This Isn't Your Father's Old Spice

2010-04-30T10:01:00.003-04:00

A few years back, "Old Spice" was Dad's aftershave. Case closed.

The viral spread of this new campaign is an object lesson for all in the persuasion game: done right, an old brand can play Lazarus: rising quickly, almost inexplicably, from the dead. Just as Captain Morgan aimed its guns at a younger generation in recent years.

The Old Spice scent is the same, but the brand is vibrant and new. And the past needn't be obliterated- merely updated; note the familiar whistling of the classic Old Spice signature tune at the end.

Interesting that it seems to target women, urging them to buy Old Spice for their men. Axe and Tag, meanwhile, target young men by way of the ever-dependable male libido: "buy our product = get horizontal with pretty young ladies."

Would love a peek at the research: how many women buy fragrance products for their husbands/boyfriends?

The New York Times Reviews AOP

2010-04-19T10:41:00.010-04:00

April 16, 2010

When Marketing Becomes Almighty

By HARRY HURT III

SUPPOSE aliens landed on Earth today. What would be their main impression of our culture? Terry O’Reilly and Mike Tennant argue that they’d be struck by the omnipresent influence of advertising and marketing.

“Had you stumbled upon this planet in any other era, you might have concluded that we lived in an age of stone or bronze, an ice age, an age of reason, or an age of enlightenment,” they write in “The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture” (Counterpoint, $26).

“But today? You couldn’t help but conclude that we live in an age of persuasion, where people’s wants, wishes, whims, pleas, brands, offers, enticements, truths, petitions and propaganda swirl in a ceaseless, growing multimedia firestorm of sales messages.”

Mr. O’Reilly hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation series “O’Reilly on Advertising” and co-founded Pirate Radio and Television, a production company. The book is named after another CBC series, “The Age of Persuasion,” created by Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Tennant, a freelance writer and lecturer.

Their book is at its best tracing the evolution of modern advertising — from the mid-19th century through the present.

The authors credit Samuel F. B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph in 1844 with allowing manufacturers to exchange transcontinental communications with newspapers. The next year, they say, Volney Palmer, a Philadelphia businessman, created the first modern ad agency. The business was essentially a middleman that bought up blocks of ad space in newspapers across the country, then resold them in parcels to expansion-minded manufacturers. Although it was still up to the manufacturers to create their own sales messages, the agency freed them from the task of identifying and negotiating dozens or even hundreds of ad placement opportunities.

In the 1920s, Burma-Shave pioneered billboard advertising. The company eventually posted sequential signs in 45 states with messages like “Special seats/Reserved in Hades/For whiskered guys/Who scratch their ladies/Burma-Shave.”

The Burma-Shave signs helped set a standard for advertisers to provide consumers with something of value — in this case, entertaining quips — in exchange for their attention to sales messages.
With the dawn of radio, the authors say, this advertiser-consumer exchange evolved into a “great unwritten contract.” On radio, the provided value was daily offerings of entertainment and information, whether in music, drama, comedy or news briefs.

“It was a great deal, and it solved a huge problem for early broadcasters, who, unlike theaters, couldn’t charge admission, and who, unlike magazines and newspapers, couldn’t solicit subscriptions,” the authors note, adding, “This same unwritten, unspoken contract would form the economic template for television and, more recently, the Internet.”

YouTube, founded in 2005, follows in the tradition of exchanging something of value for audience attention. The authors say it is revolutionizing marketing by enabling “democratized ad messaging.” Rather than being the passive recipients of sales pitches from advertisers accompanied by entertainment or information, consumers can now create and disseminate their own entertainment and information in the form of videos.

“Since the rise of the Internet in the ’90s, and with the growth of texting, instant messaging and online social networking, ad-driven mass media, especially television and print, are fast losing their power as the gatekeepers of information, music and entertainment,” the authors say. “People are connecting directly in groups and communities, leaving many advertisers locked outside, pawing longingly at the window.”

A large chunk of YouTube’s audience, he notes, is under the age of 20 — the so-called Yoots, who account for $570 billion in annual buying power. The authors contend that to reach the Yoot demographic, marketers must learn to create “a whole new language” for selling products and services that taps into the Yoots’ fondness for customizing and personalizing messages.

As a prime example of an existing marketing model, the authors cite Starbucks. They say it broke the premium price barrier for a cup of coffee by changing the name of what was once described in common use as a “small” serving to what the chain describes as a “tall.”

“In fact, the coffee culture championed by Starbucks has millions of customers speaking in tongues,” he says. “With its baristas serving iced quad Venti with whip skinny caramel macchiatos, they draw customers into the Starbucks culture, complete with its unique language, creating an exclusive club and community.”

“THE AGE OF PERSUASION” suffers from the fact that the authors are not veteran nonfiction print journalists. In the hands of a writer like Tracy Kidder, this book could have been more compelling. Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Tennant have a habit of scattering historical tidbits throughout their narrative without providing proper context.

They also fail to note that for many consumers, a brand-based language can be off-putting. I, for one, still insist on ordering a “small” coffee, not a “tall,” and on shutting out most of the 24/7 sales messages that attempt to invade my personal space.

-REVIEW ENDS-

The New Tiger Woods Ad

2010-04-09T09:38:00.013-04:00

There are too many opinions rattling around about Tiger Woods. Allow me to become part of the problem.

I like that Nike stuck with Tiger. Dropping him would have been understandable- and gutless. Note that the decision itself is consistent with Nike's mission statement:

Just Do It.

Deciding on a direction for this would have been agonizing. The trick was finding a message that would surprise and intrigue the viewer. One that avoids mitigation and contrition. One that doesn't try to repair the hero, or rebrand with a "bad boy" skew.

Instead, they went with a fascinating "what if," built on the question "what would Earl think of all this?" And they resisted the temptation to resolve anything.

I don't think the ad is 'great' in the way we define great on our show.

But I do think it's perfect.

Desert Island Reel: One of my Favourite Spots Ever

2010-04-06T14:03:00.005-04:00

True, it's like choosing favourite Children. But if asked to grab a few all-time favourite ads to take to the proverbial desert island, this Pepsi spot, 'Spartacus' is an easy choice.

I love how the innocuous 'Pepsi' story is a fire & ice contrast to the original scene of intense selfless courage.

That Romans would care which condemned slave left is bag lunch at the rest stop.

Little touches: that the 'Spartacus' on the lunch bag is written in an ancient lettering style. That it offers a whole new explanation for the tear in Kirk Douglas's eye. And that the chief Roman should sound like a DNA relative of Don Adams.

So much care went into this spot. From the brilliant-if-mercurial director Joe Pytka, for BBDO New York.

Age of Persuasion State Secrets Revealed: My Favourite Links to Great Ads

2010-03-29T10:17:00.004-04:00

Keith & me working on AOP

Yay, friends! You too can access the fantastic spots we source for The Age of Persuasion. Beyond the banker's boxes full of reels and cassettes and CD's in my office- and the heaps of spots in Terry O'Reilly's collection, many of the feature spots on our show can be found online, on some wonderful websites:

THE RADIO MERCURY AWARDS
A search-able database of so many wonderful American radio ads from one of the better ad awards competitions.

THE LONDON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
Not as search friendly, but there are great spots posted in the archives here.

CANADA'S RADIO MARKETING BUREAU
A wealth of material- Canadian and some international- going back decades. But it's like a big pile of goo dumped in an attic. Many treasures, but finding them is a crapshoot. Cataloging is poor, and details are nonexistent. This site has been most useful when I've known what I was after before I started searching. Now and then I discover spots on here that I wrote 25 years ago.

THE CASSIES
This site has been a plum for Age of Persuasion research. Not just for its treasury of great Canadian TV spots- but especially for the detailed, well-researched backstories behind them.

LE BUREAU DE COMMRECIALISATION DE LA RADIO DU QUEBEC
The Quebec Radio Bureau site has some wonderful links to ads- English and French. Been a great place to browse when I wasn't sure what I was looking for.

Enjoy.

NEXT POST: MY FAVOURITE LINKS TO OLD-TIME RADIO ADS

Why I'm leaving The Age of Persuasion

2010-03-10T19:03:00.015-05:00

This week I am announcing that I'm leaving The Age of Persuasion radio series after this season ends (in June).

It's been a privilege and a hoot working with Terry and Keith, creating more than 100 shows, and collaborating with Terry on The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture.

It's been the best kind of work- and the hardest. Being the lone full-time staffer on the show, I've logged more than 450 days researching & writing, and more than 1600 hours in production, and a a half-year of working full-time, flat-out, on the book manuscript.

Now it's time to see what the rest of the world looks like.

For now, we're still very busy on the shows that remain between now and June. Whatever comes next for AOP, I'm delighted to leave it as it should be- in its prime.

And with nothing but gratitude to Terry, Keith, our CBC friends, the great folks at Pirate- and especially our listeners- for such a great ride.

-Mike