Is Audi Copying Chrysler?

It seems a tad hard to believe, but a new video (no advertisement, according to Audi spokespeople) airing in Europe has a pretty distinct inspirational vibe from the recent 'Imported From Detroit' Chrysler Super Bowl commercial.



I came across this European ad because Eminem is actually suing Audi for illegal use of his copyrighted music (if you notice, a minimally revised version of 8 Mile guitar tracks play in the background of the Audi commercial), not because it's being accused as a rip off (though it kind of is). Honestly, if they'd not used Eminem's guitar track it would feel less like a rip off and they wouldn't be in legal hot water right now.

On that note, I have to ask both Audi and their agency, 'What were you thinking?' Audi's response has been that this is not an advertisement and it's not running in the US (and that this doesn't involve Audi of America). Other than the target audience perhaps not realizing it's the rip off that it is, how is that helping your case? You used a well known music track illegally, and semi-copied rival car company's Super Bowl commercial. Shame on Audi and shame on their agency (I'm not actually sure who produced this).

On the flip side, major kudos to Chrysler for producing such a kick ass spot that a luxury German brand is imitating it.

Here's the Chrysler ad if you want to compare:

Turn Your House Into A Giant Billboard

A company called Adzookie, a web advertising company, is offering to pay your mortgage if they can paint your house into a giant billboard. The contract goes from 3 months up to a year at which point they'll paint your house back to it's original colors. Kind of a crazy idea, but not a bad gig for the homeowner if you don't mind a temporarily purple and yellow house. Free mortgage for up to a year and a free paint job at the end of it? Not to mention it could be a godsend for many of the homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments.


The company is looking for houses in California and as of last week had received over 1,000 applicants. It's definitely not for everyone, but it sure beats foreclosure.

Would you paint your house as a giant billboard for Adzookie?

Starbucks Chooses Siren Over Recognized Name

Okay, I realize I'm committing the cardinal sin of blogging by being oh, about 2 weeks or so late to the punch, but I was blissfully lying on a beach sipping piña coladas when the Starbucks news broke and am only now really getting back into the swing of things. Apologies dear readers on being so delayed on such big logo redesign news!

If you haven't yet heard, and I don't know how that's possible, Starbucks dramatically changed it's logo—cutting out the words 'Starbucks Coffee' and using just the image of the siren in Starbucks green. I posted a few years ago about Starbucks' logo evolution with a link to an AdFreak article showing and discussing the various changes in the logo. My original post was sparked by a news story about a conservative group getting upset over Starbucks using their original logo—which has a more scandalous version of the siren their latest logo focuses in on.

People tend to be rather divided on their opinion of Starbucks new logo. My initial reaction was 'Why did they do that? Most people don't even notice the siren.' Not to mention those that noticed it in the past, weren't so thrilled with it's legs (or fins) wide open message (hence the premise for the old post). There was some email bantering about among the creatives at my agency when the news broke and amid the overall dislike of the logo, there were two main points that I agree with.

First, to many consumers, the name Starbucks and its typography in the green circle was as much, if not more so, the logo than the siren was. So eliminating the typography from the logo, while theoretically great for brand evolution, just doesn't seem to fit. The logo was developed internally at Starbucks, which could be some of the roadblock. I'm guessing the siren plays a much bigger part of their internal corporate identity than it does outside Starbucks' corporate walls. That's not to say the siren isn't identified with Starbucks identity, but it's just not was people remember and visualize when they think of the Starbucks logo in their head. Then again, maybe this decision was intended to change that perception.

Second, the siren by herself just doesn't hold her own. Okay, so Starbucks wanted an evolution of their logo for their 40th anniversary. They didn't want to go just Starbucks or Starbucks Coffee (the thought is this is because they plan to grow beyond coffee and continue to globalize—see the video below) so they went with the siren by herself. Some supporters of the logo point out that this is the epitome of a brand—when their identity can go completely visual with no type identifier. Think Apple or Nike. Starbucks kind of falls into that category, but not as well. It's not like people are not going to recognize the new mark, but it just doesn't have the same simplicity. The new logo should have an updated siren as well, especially considering the evolution of that part of the logo. Perhaps an updated siren with a simplification of the type (cut the words coffee?) for an eventual simplification to a logo only? Just a thought.

I don't think the new logo is going to hurt Starbucks. Indeed, I think most people have already forgotten about the redesign uproar, but I don't think it was quite the right move. It is rather uninspired and needs more simplification to really stand on it's own.

What do you think of the new Starbucks logo? Love it? Hate it?

*Also, check out this video from Starbucks introducing the new logo:

The Gap's Brand Boomerang

Original Logo

New Logo

A little over a week ago the Gap suddenly announced a new logo. A very generic logo that boiled down their iconic brand to typeset Helvetica and a blue box. I wasn't a particular fan—my immediate reaction was why? Why do this to your simple, yet effective blue box? A simple Helvetica typeset only improves a logo if it was hideous or too busy to begin with—and that was simply not the case here. All it does is make it extremely generic.

I intended to post about it immediately, though a busy schedule both in and out of work prevented me from really having time to collect my thoughts about it. As luck would have it consumers on Twitter and Facebook ranted plenty for me and shockingly, the Gap did an about face last Tuesday, announcing that they were ditching their new logo in favor of the old one. Thank goodness.

Of course, that was after they ran a crowd sourcing campaign to design their new logo. Crowd sourcing is a cool idea, but maybe not the right approach for your core brand identity—you get a lot of crappy logos. Check out Brand New's post on it, they highlight some of the pieces. And if you scroll down, they'll give you a taste of exactly how generic that new Gap logo really was—by applying the same treatment to a number of other iconic brands. It made me laugh.

Kudos to Gap for swallowing their pride and relenting that what was probably months of hard work was misguided and hated by their target audience (assuming the whole thing was not a big publicity stunt as some have suggested). It really is an interesting study on the power of social media in today's consumer market. Everywhere from brands to politics, one false move can create an enormous wave of bad publicity and anger from the people you're trying to please.

Old Spice, W+K and the Invention of Real Time Advertising

If you haven't heard about the Old Spice campaign from the brilliant minds at Wieden + Kennedy, you must have unplugged yourself from the internet or boycotted all social media outlets. The hilarious, real time social media campaign has taken the internet by storm, confounding industry creatives with the speed and quantity of responses.

If you're unfamiliar with the campaign, here's the gist. Old Spice has a character called Isaiah Mustafa (from their TV spots) who has nice abs (and knows it), sits around in a towel all day charming ladies (and gents) in that cheesy, suave ladies man kind of way. What W+K did was make this character instantly accessible by having 30 to 60 second videos of him posted to YouTube that actually answered questions and comments from consumers that were posted on Twitter and Facebook (and even Yahoo! Questions)—in real time.

It's a campaign that's taken social media advertising to an entirely new level. Instead of using Twitter and Facebook to mostly respond to crises or user comments and complaints, or even to sometimes run a contest or game, it's actually letting users interact with a brand's character via video. Everyone in the industry marveled at the mere ability to turn around cleverly written videos so quickly. W+K isn't revealing all their secrets behind the productions, but W+K's global interactive creative director, Iain Tait, sheds a little light on their process in this Fast Company post. They were able to produce nearly 100 custom spots in a day based on their plan and strategy for a quick turn around. There's been much speculation as to how they wrote so quickly. I'm guessing some of the situations he acts out were already pre-written with props that went with them and just tweaked to be customized, but some of the responses and definitely written on the fly—like the response to taming wild whales. At any rate it feels like customized, real time responses like the Burger King Subservient Chicken campaign did years ago. It's just revamped and on a new level and actually responding in real time, to some extent anyway, where the Subservient Chicken was more or less very cleverly written code and video. Like the Subservient Chicken campaign did years ago, it's also blown the current standards of internet interaction with your customers out of the water and given agency creatives everywhere a brilliant social media campaign to aspire to. Bravo!

Sadly, the responses have ended after two days of custom replies—Mr. Mustafa has to sleep sometime you know—but is this the new social media advertising of the future? Would a stunt like this ever work quite as well again?

The spots range from responses to the likes of Demi Moore and Alyssa Milano and @biz (the founder of Twitter) to a marriage proposal (she said yes). If you haven't seen the videos check out the YouTube channel or some of the ones I've selected below. They'll give you a good laugh.

Bill Cosby Teams Up With Jell-O, Again

Who doesn't remember those 80's commercials Bill Cosby did for Jell-O pudding?



Apparently Cosby worked with Jell-O from 1974 through the 1999 but it's still been over ten years since then. The duo is teaming up again for a new Jell-O campaign next month. They will be kicking off a 22-city tour looking for the best giggle in the country. Just the reminder of the old Cosby-Jell-O commercials made me smile. The only drawback to this reunion is that Cosby is going to be behind the camera only, producing apparently, and I'd love to see him in front of the camera as well.

All of LOST in 140 Characters or Less

If you've ever watched Lost or even heard about Lost, you know it's a twisted, complicated show that's captured millions of viewers—and it's ending on Sunday. The Atlantic is running a fun little competition asking people to tweet a summary of the whole show within Twitter's infamous 140 character limit. That's a bit of a challenge. I think it'd be difficult to summarize a single episode in that little space. The prize is simply a year subscription to The Atlantic magazine, but the real draw is the challenge of it.

Want to participate? Tag your tweet with #Lost140 or you can comment on their website. Here are a few of my favorites:

 David Lynch is finally given full writing, editing and directing control of Gilligan's Island. #Lost140 (@jpallan)
 

Disproportionate number of good-looking people on same plane. Crash. More good-looking people show up. Things go badly. Wonder why. #Lost140  (@VickyPaige)

Good vs. Evil, for all the magnets. #lost140 (@evanhr)

Adobe vs. Apple

If you have an iPhone or iPad, or you're just up on your tech news, you know that they infamously don't support Flash. iPhone users have been hounding Apple since the iPhone debuted to support the program so they could browse Flash based sites on their mobile phones and the iPad's debut just magnified the issue. For the longest time, consumers just assumed it was software issue that Apple would no doubt eventually overcome. They waited and waited in vain. Steve Jobs came out last month with an open letter as to why the iPhone and iPad do not, and never will, support Flash. He's makes a couple of good points and mostly blames Adobe for not adapting. Jobs asserts that HTML 5 will have enough functionality like Flash to appease most of his iPhone and iPad users.

Well Adobe didn't take that very well. Earlier this week they launched a campaign that scolds Apple their exclusion. It's an interesting little rift between two companies who, at least in my little design world, go hand-in-hand in making my job easier. I'm not such a fan of Jobs dismissing the idea of ever supporting Flash. Even if HTML 5 reduces the need for Flash, it will be awhile before the functionality and usefulness of Flash goes away completely. What do you think?

United and Contintenal Airlines: Name vs. Logo

On Monday, United and Continental Airlines merged. You probably read about it in the news and maybe you even saw the 'new' logo. The way they've handled the naming and visual aspects of the new company is a little too simple. Essentially they kept the name United, but with the Continental logo. A fair trade off? A good way to merge two companies with brand equity and keep a bit of both? Maybe from a PR standpoint, but not from a brand perspective.

The new logo itself feels wrong. It's enough that the ditched the better of the two logos (and the one still using its original Saul Bass design), but just swapping out the name Continental for United without any other visual change makes the logo feel more like a gag design than a new, merged company logo. I get that both Continental and United are major airline brands and want to keep that equity through the merger, this wasn't quite the way to do it. As much as I'm not a fan of the new MillerCoors logo, at least it had the right idea. I'd rather have a United Contintental Airlines with a new logo that this weird little mash up. Brand New makes an interesting point about how this logo doesn't work mostly because it has brand equity.

What’s funny is that if this were a new airline, and we didn’t have the accumulated associations of both brands we would just say it’s boring and move on, but it’s impossible to see the new logo and not feel that there is something inherently wrong with this equation. In all likelihood we will see a new logo in the next year or two, unless they have started painting planes—in which case we are screwed.

Blatant Logo Rip Off

I read this article Yahoo! this morning and simply thought, "Wow, who could be so stupid?" Essentially, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Oregon, Marc Delphine, was using a logo donated by apparently some designer associated with whoever designed his website. Well, that's nice and all except that it's a blatant rip off of the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL team. Oops.

(The logo on the right is the Columbus Blue Jackets logo and the one on the left is the Marc Delphine logo.)

Essentially the designer just took the logo and flipped it. Really? Did the designer really think that was going to pass trademark infringement? Even a non-designer should know better! It's pretty common knowledge that you can't just take a trademarked logo and adopt it for your own purposes. The designer even went to the extent to tell the senate candidate that the logo's shape evoked the D from his last name. Right... Or you just stole what was a C for Columbus and flipped it.

Shame on you unnamed designer. And shame on you Marc Delphine. While I can't totally blame him since he simply used a logo someone donated and thought it was such a nice gesture, he really should have done a trademark search before using it.

Apparently, the Blue Jackets were alerted to the infringement via Twitter. Oh the small world social media creates.

SuperBowl Ad Controversy

There's a big controversy brewing over a SuperBowl ad to be aired this Sunday, and no, it's not the latest censored ad from GoDaddy. This ad is controversial not just because of it's controversial subject matter, but because it's breaking a long standing SuperBowl rule.

I never knew this before, but apparently CBS had long standing rule that advocacy ads were not accepted as advertising during the SuperBowl. The reason being that the SuperBowl is a fun, family friendly event and let's not spoil it by bringing up sensitive, heated issues. Honestly, I think that's a great stance. I don't want to be watching political or controversial stuff in the middle of SuperBowl party, do you? This year however, CBS approved an advocacy ad on one of America's most controversial issues: abortion.

A pro-life ad featuring football star Tim Tebow was approved by CBS to air during the SuperBowl. Not surprisingly, this made a media splash, with advocacy groups on the other side calling foul. The ad—paid for by Focus On The Family, a conservative Christian group—features Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother. The speculation is that the ad tells the story of his mother's decision to have him despite doctors' encouragement to have an abortion due to health reasons. (Though the truth to that story is now getting questioned as well.) I have not seen the ad and as far as I know there isn't a leaked version anywhere on the web.

Focus On The Family says that the ad itself is not controversial. The theme is 'Celebrate Family. Celebrate Life.' Of course it's a bit hard to judge before seeing the ad, but either way, the press surrounding this controversy and it's sponsorship by a pro-life organization has made it controversial regardless. It boils down to CBS looking biased about abortion if they air the ad without offering the other side an option to air their opinion as well.

My original hunch (and hope) was CBS saw the ad and didn't think it was advocating pro-life so they approved it. But apparently, after push back from women's rights groups, CBS declared they're now accepting controversial ads—well except from the gay dating site that tried to buy a spot this year. To me, that kind backpedaling seems like a sorry attempt to keep the spot, and thus the $3 million dollar price tag, in the programming without having to accept any opposing opinions. When they rejected other controversial ads—particularly ones that would appeal to their liberal audience, like the gay dating site—CBS comes across as a conservative biased station.

Were they desperate for advertisers to pay the hefty price tag in this recession? Otherwise I can't imagine why they wouldn't dump that ad and fill it with something else. Is it really worth all the bad PR they're getting?

So to CBS, I'd prefer you didn't air the commercial during the SuperBowl, but if you are, at least air everyone else's advocacy ads too.That's my stance anyway. What do you think?

Microsoft Opens Its First Store, Launches Windows 7, Aspires To Mac Design

Yesterday, Microsoft opened its first retail store in Scottsdale, Arizona to coincide with the launch of Windows 7. If you read this blog, you'll know I'm a Mac user. Macs are the industry standard in the design world, and like many other designers I wouldn't have it any other way, but I have to give Microsoft some snaps on their two new launches yesterday since I think they both demonstrate some great strides forward, if a little late.

Macs have ruled the world of aesthetically pleasing computer design for some time now and Microsoft is finally taking some cues. In the not-so-distant past, Microsoft has been ridiculed for its sad designs compared to Apple's. Remember that Microsoft redesigns the iPod packaging viral video from a few years ago? Well, Microsoft seems to have taken heed and cleaned up their packaging. The new Windows 7 packaging is nice, clean and colorful.

Similarly, the look of Windows 7 (above—via Microsoft's Windows 7 website) is pretty close to that of OSX Macs (below). They've changed the bar at the bottom of the desktop to look quite a bit more like Mac's Dock and added a Gadgets feature, which seems to be a copycat of Mac's Widgets. I don't think either of these are a bad thing—on the contrary, I think it's a great step forward for Windows since both features are ones I've learned to love on my Mac and I think PC users would like them as well. In terms of aesthetic design, I think better design is just better for everyone, no? Has Microsoft copied a lot of Mac features in this new release? It appears so, but they were good choices. Now it'll just be interesting to see if Microsoft can innovate some features that Macs don't already have—and hope Windows 7 proves to be a more accepted operating system than Vista was.
From what I can tell from videos on the web (like the one below) the new Microsoft Store is, well, pretty darn close to an Apple Store, it just offers different products. It looks very similar, differing only by a little things like extra color on the employees and a video wall that surrounds the upper part of the store. Just like an Apple Store it has a 'help' desk area (aka the Genius Bar in an Apple Store), the ability to schedule appointments online for a personal shopping time in the store and hand held check out devices that allow employees to run credit cards and sell merchandise anywhere in the store. Unlike he Apple store, there's a cool place to play video games and it houses products Apple does not have, like the multi touch coffee table computer that's been talked about for years, but is not really all that available yet. Unfortunately, it still isn't as a Microsoft employee quotes below, 'They're mainly targeted right now towards businesses and the high-end clientele just because the technology is still technically being developed.' So it's really kind of a gimmicky crowd draw, though a very cool one. Similarly, the store houses top technologies from PC manufacturers, including touch screen computers. The video below is a bit long, but gives a very good idea of the launch and what the store inside is like.

Even though a lot of what Microsoft came out with yesterday feels a bit like a copycat of Apple, I think it will be good for their business. Microsoft has a corner on a large chunk of the market because it is the standard for most businesses. I know many friends and some family that would love to get a Mac, but it's impractical since they use PCs at work and often need to run specific programs not available on a Mac. Unfortunately, fixes like Parallels often seem a bit daunting to some potential first time Mac owners, so they stick with PCs they're not so happy with. I can see some of these changes from Microsoft changing that unhappiness and may help Microsoft retain those customers.

I think the stores especially will help since they'll easily be the expert place you go when looking for PCs and Microsoft software. Right now, you may not always feel you're getting really knowledgeable advice from the kid selling computers at Best Buy. Plus a Microsoft version of the Genius Bar could really help their sagging reputation as easily malfunctioning computers. If you're PC has a problem, what do you do? Go to a third party like the Geek Squad to try to fix it? As a Mac user, I simply make an appointment at the Genius Bar in my local Apple Store for free. It's awesome and has worked at as a great selling point for some Apple users.

Overall, I think Microsoft is taking some very good and very needed steps forward. What they need to do next is something outside of Mac's shadow.

Ralph Lauren's Overly Thin Ad—Continued...

So I'll admit it, this post is a little off topic for the blog and a bit editorial, but it's an interesting update on last week's post about retouching—specifically referring to the Ralph Lauren ad I discussed.

Apparently, around the day that I originally posted, Ralph Lauren issued an apology about the ad in question, probably realizing that trying to silence bloggers was not really working. But the PR nightmare isn't over for Ralph Lauren now that the model in question, Filippa Hamilton, has come forward saying that she was fired from Ralph Lauren six months ago for being 'overweight.' Wow. She'd worked for Ralph Lauren since she was discovered at age 15. According to this Shine article, Hamilton is a size 4, 5' 10" and 120 pounds. That height and weight puts her BMI at 17.2 which is technically underweight. She'd even be too thin to participate in runway shows in Madrid which has banned models with a BMI under 18. Apparently, that is not a rule Ralph Lauren agrees with since their technically underweight model was so overweight by their standards that after firing her they felt the need to whittle away not just her waist and hips, but her legs and arms too. To the right is a photo of a healthy version of Hamiliton. Compare it to the one in my previous post.

Ralph Lauren's defense? This ad was never supposed to be seen in the U.S. It was for Japan only. Oops. Sorry to break it to you, but this is a flat world and other company's mistakes should teach you that country specific ads often leak their way into territories they were never intended for. But even so, why is it okay in Japan? The few Japanese women I know well, via an exchange program, are all significantly more fashion and weight obsessed than most American women I know. All the more reason to be portraying health, not anorexia.

iStockphoto To Offer Logos

The buzz in the design world for the last week was all about iStockphoto's announcement about starting to offer logo designs on their site. The design community is divided on the development. I've posted about iStockphoto.com before, discussing the positives and negatives of a site like theirs. Overall, I'm a fan of iStockphoto and frequently use them for certain design aspects. For example, the appearance of iStockphoto has made very visually heavy and layered designs less expensive to produce, opening the doors for experimentation and offering more options to those very low budget clients. The topic of my original post on iStock centers around Twitter’s use of an iStock image as a central design on their site—invariably associating it with their brand. This is a problem since anyone could purchase and rightfully use that illustration for a mere $10. Not good for a brand.
So it's a very interesting development that iStockphoto is venturing into the stock logo realm. . iStock’s logo set up will be different in that each logo is only allowed to be sold once, not many multiple times like their royalty free photo library. The idea of an online source for cheap logos isn't new. There are sites that offer inexpensive logos around on the web, Logoworks, for example, offers logo designs for flat fees with X number of revisions included and X number of different designs and designers assigned to the project. But sites like these are mostly frowned upon by the design community because they’re 'cheapening' logo design. There's a bit of an argument to both sides of this issue, however. There are many small business owners and startups that need a good looking logo, but have little money to spend on it. I'm asked about it all the time, “Where can I get a logo and what would it cost?” The answers aren't always so simple. I've done freelance for friends and family that I charge dirt cheap for, but I've also worked on logos within my agency that cost thousands of dollars. It all depends.

The iStock setup is for logo design is when submitting an accepted design you get $5. If they hit 10,000 logos by January 1, 2010, you get another $5. From what I gather, this is only while they're building their initial database of logo designs, I don't know that the $5 'deal' continues after January 1, 2010. After that, your logo is priced somewhere between 100 and 750 credits, which is set by iStock with a recommended price point from the designer. Depending on how you buy your iStock credits, that means a price range between $95 and $900. iStock says it "...will pay a base royalty rate of 50% per logo design for the first 6 months. We’ll give advanced notice for the rate going forward after that." Hmm. So what's 50%? How do they figure out the cost of the credits when they vary from $.95 to $1.50 per credit? It raises a couple questions. And then that's only for the first 6 months. If you don't sell you're logo by then, who knows what the designer’s payment is. 10% of the royalty rate? 5%? Who knows?

There's a lot of debate in the design world about 'cheapening' our craft through cheap alternatives like iStockphoto. Years ago, it was one of a kind with maybe one or two copycats. Since then, they've been purchased by Getty Images and many other traditional stock photo sites are starting to offer their own 'value' stock photos. It seems the thirst for cheap photography and illustration has caught on. The thing is, cheap online logo design places already exist online (e.g. Logoworks) and iStockphoto’s prices for logos isn’t vastly different from the prices offered at their competitors. Logoworks will give you six original logo concepts with three different designers and unlimited logo revisions for $399. iStock’s cheapest logos will be $100, assuming you bought thousands of dollars of credits from them in bulk. So their price is competitive, but you’re also getting a prepackaged logo rather than a custom one.

My biggest problem with this set up is the pre-conceiving of logos. Logoworks, while dirt cheap, is at least attempting to give the client a customized logo for their business. Granted, I’m not at all familiar with their work, so maybe they’re stuff is horrible and cheesy, but at least it has the guise of trying to give you a logo for your specific business. iStock’s set up is odd. They want designers to upload icons and logo marks that are preconceived and thereby completely ignoring the very important role of typography in a logo mark. For one thing they’re requiring the logo designer to have rights to the font they use in the logo mark – all well and good for legal reasons – except that font is not uploaded with the logo when submitted. They want it outlined. Well, you can’t edit outlined type, so are they going back to the designer to set the purchasing company’s name in the logo? Is the client putting their own name in? How? Are they then purchasing the font? But even that has issues. I worked on logos where suddenly the name I’m working with changes and it can make big problems for the design. Say there’s a logo mark of a tree with some sample text with a company name surrounding it. The difference in how that logo will look with the name ‘ABC Trees’ and the name ‘Amanda’s Lawn Care & Garden Design Center’ is huge. There’s also the limitation that absolutely none of these logos with play off of the typography and the word, which is often one of the best ways to create a unique logo. Paul Rand’s logo for Morningstar would be a completely different animal if it just had a rising sun just set next to the type.But maybe I’m comparing apples and oranges. Afterall, Paul Rand is a logo genius and and the clients shopping there are probably not willing to ante up the money for that quality of a logo either. So if we’re talking about the difference between a small business designing their own logo in Microsoft Word or purchasing a logo from iStockphoto the latter is probably better. I think there will be some very well crafted logo marks submitted to iStockphoto for this new direction of theirs, and I do think it will help some businesses get something decent to put on their business cards, but for the vast majority of businesses, this ‘resource’ would be a poor direction to go. I guess we will see how this new initiative goes. What do you think?

DDB's Offensive 9/11 Ad Ushers In Some Much Needed Award Show Rules

I was apparently living under a rock last Tuesday when AdFreak first broke the news about DDB Brasil's tasteless 9/11 ad (above) which has continued to blow up throughout the blogosphere and has DDB Brasil and the client, WWF, backpedaling like crazy to escape the international bad PR. You can check out the day-by-day updates on the original AdFreak post.

Essentially, the print ad shows hundreds of planes flying into lower Manhattan and the copy compares the death toll between 9/11 and the 2004 Tsunami. The copy reads, ‘The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.’

Wow.

I get that our planet is powerful and can be very destructive, and I do believe we need to take some drastic action to curb climate change, but seriously? How do you possibly compare a natural disaster to a terrorist attack? The oddest thing is that this concept actually won a One Show Merit Award for public service work. Yeah. I would think the One Show would know better. It's not just that it's an offensive ad, but it's just a bad concept too.

As AdWeek's Barbara Lippert said, “Aside from being offensive and cringe-worthy, it's also just an ugly and dumb piece of creative, scoring high on the 'gratuitous use of tragedy to make a nonsensical argument' meter.”

It's shock value only, so how did it win a One Show Merit Award? Beats me.

That brings us to the next uproar. Aside from the fact that the One Show bestowed its honor on such a bad, tasteless ad, there is the question of whether the ad is even legit for entry. Once the corporate backpedaling started, WWF immediately claimed that they never approved such an ad to run. Sound familiar? Well, once the finger pointing began, it turns out that someone in the local Brazil WWF office actually did approve the ad and it ran at least once.

Well, okay, it ran once in a newspaper somewhere, but sometimes there's still the question of whether that really makes it award eligible. It's part of the larger issue of award chasing: Agencies like awards. They look pretty on display and they give that little ego boost and assurance to creatives that they actually are pretty good at what they do. But award chasing gets a little out of hand sometimes with people submitting fake ads, ads that were never approved, ads that never ran or sometimes ads that the agency footed the bill to run once, just so they'd be eligible for awards. Wow, that makes us ad industry folk sound like a bunch of cheats, doesn't it? The sad thing is this happens rather often on all levels of ad competitions from the local level to the international level.

In Barbara Lippert's AdWeek article on the recent DDB Brasil fiasco she quotes David Baldwin, former chairman of the One Club as saying that somehow the award shows always get blamed for giving awards to fake ads. True, I can't imagine the daunting task of trying to fact check every ad submission to some of these competitions, but at the same time, as far as I know, the award shows have never really penalized anyone for these fake entries. You might lose your award, but that's it. I remember once stumbling across a little note in Communication Arts retracting one of the campaigns I loved from their ad annual because it had never run, but it was a tiny little footnote that I just accidentally happened to see. There was also the Cannes Bronze Lion awarded to the agency that produced the fake J.C. Penney spot last year. I believe they lost their Lion, but that's about it. And did that really matter compared to the huge recognition they got for that fake ad?

The truth is, at the moment there's little to no incentive not to cheat in most of these shows. Sure, most ad agencies will figure out a way to make it technically legit (i.e., it ran once in this tiny little publication) but are those really any more legit than a totally fake ad?

In response to the uproar around DDB Brasil's controversial ad, the One Show has enacted new rules to deter fake entries. Basically, if you enter a fake ad and get found out, the agency and everyone credited is banned from entering the One Show for five years. If you enter an ad that 'ran once,' or the agency paid to run, etc., but isn't really legit, under The One Show's discretion the agency is banned for three years.

Personally, I applaud the One Show for finally taking some much needed steps to deter this ever-growing practice. I think the banning will help enormously, assuming it's enforced.

* On another note, check out the even worse TV spot from DDB Brasil that surfaced this past week. They apparently tried to enter it in the Cannes Film Festival, but thankfully, it didn't get shortlisted.

Sir Mix-A-Lot Is Mixing Things Up At Burger King

"Oh my God, Becky look at her...phonebook?"

CP+B is in the news again with a new sexualized ad for Burger King that plays off Sir Mix-a-Lot's classic song Baby Got Back. The commercial has spawned a lot of controversy—is it funny or is it inappropriate? Everyone familiar with the song (in other words, my entire generation) knows the song centers around Sir Mix-a-Lot's admiration of large female butts. This isn't the first time Sir Mix-a-Lot's famous one hit wonder has hit the commercial waves, but this particular commercial is aimed at kids.

The BK spot features Sir Mix-a-Lot and Sponge Bob since BK is offering Sponge Bob toys in their kids meals. The controversy comes when the images of Sponge Bob are mixed in with music video like images of Sir Mix-a-Lot and women in tight mini dresses with phonebooks shoved up them. Sir Mix-a-Lot consequently sings about liking square butts.



I was very undecided on where I stood on this commercial. On the one hand, it's funny to an adult audience, but I can definitely understand concerned parents as well. Sponge Bob is one of those cartoons, beloved by children but also capable of being genuinely entertaining to adults as well. Believe it or not, Sponge Bob has some adult fans—I've even met a few that didn't have kids. The problem is that this commercial is clearly aimed at children. It's on at times when kids would be watching tv and advertises Sponge Bob toys.

I'm a bit delayed on this post, I know. There have been many news reports and blogs discussing the issue. I was very undecided on where I stood and felt ill equipped to say anything without being a parent myself, so I solicited opinions from friends and relatives who are young parents. Not completely surprisingly, I got responses on both sides. Mothers who were disgusted by the commercial and others who shrugged their shoulders and laughed at it. There were a few stuck in the middle though too, finding the commercial funny themselves, but not quite appropriate for their children. I suppose the main consensus, however, was that this spot is not really child appropriate.

But where did CP+B cross the line? The concept is funny and oddly appropriate. Who cares that it's about butts? I mean kids talk and laugh about butts all the time. But one of the responses I received nailed the problem I have with this commercial on the head:

... as the father of a young daughter, what I do find to be troubling are the sexual images of young women. (They should have been consistent and had a row of people dressed in SpongeBob mascot outfits, quite frankly.)

Exactly! Would the commercial have lost anything to have both men and women with phone book butts in slightly looser clothing? I really don't think it would. I realize the original song is very sexual, but it could be just as humorous to adults while staying appropriate for kids. After all they are marketing a kids meal. I think the real humor of the concept is playing off Sponge Bob's square butt. He has one. It's funny. They half mention the fact in the title of the show—Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Overall, I think the concept of the spot was brilliant, but the execution was off. A tamer version could have kept the integrity of the concept while quelling the concerns of parents, but then again maybe all the media attention was exactly what CP+B and Burger King were aiming for. What do you think? Would a tamer version be capable of walking the line between funny and child appropriate?

The Girl Scouts Update Their Brand

Let's face it, the Girl Scouts have a dorky image. I can say it. After all, I was one for a number of years, so I found the new revamping of the organization to keep up with the times a very interesting proposal. For most girls back in my day, being in Girl Scouts pretty much consisted of making popsicle stick ornaments and learning to sew. Maybe, if you were lucky, you did some camping and learned how to build a fire or something, but most of it for younger scouts was arts and crafts projects in the school cafeteria. And we wonder why girls drop out. Sure, older scouts would learn to tie knots, orienteer and camp, but how many girls these days really have an interest in those activities?

I think the Girl Scouts overall are a great organization, so I was excited to hear that they hired their first ever brand-manager to bring about some new changes. According the Washington Post, the organization is embracing social media and the internet and extending their teachings from sewing and knot tying to financial literacy and video conferences with troops abroad. Plus a new trend of college student troop leaders instead of troop members moms. They're even going so far as to scrap the badges (good call!) and handbooks in favor of a looser form of direction for individual troops and girls.

Hopefully these new changes will give the Girl Scouts the refresher they need for the 21st century. We will see.

Bringing Back The Orange

That's right. Tropicana announced today that after complaints from consumers they will be reverting to their old packaging starting next month. We blogged about the change a couple of weeks ago and according to the New York Times article about the switch back Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America in Chicago, stated “We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they had with the original packaging. The article also quotes Campbell as saying that it wasn't the volume of people, but the fact that the complaints came from some of their most loyal customers.

The reaction from Peter Arnell, of Arnell Group, who designed the packaging, however, is priceless:

“I’m incredibly surprised by the reaction,” he added, referring to the complaints about his agency’s design work, but “I’m glad Tropicana is getting this kind of attention.”

Umm, that's only a good thing if you run under the assumption that any attention is good attention. This isn't good attention, it's a PR mess. The NYT article actually compares PepsiCo's error on the Tropicana packaging to Coke's 'New Coke' fiasco from 1985.

At any rate, I'm just happy the good old orange and straw will be back on grocery store shelves soon.

Is That Really The Pepsi Logo Design Brief?

So remember when Pepsi came out with its new logos a few months ago? The varying 'smiles' of the Pepsi logo? Well, it appears that the Design Brief was leaked—a lovely 27 page document title Breathtaking. It does take your breath away too. I found myself gasping for air from laughing so hard while reading it. Honestly, at first glance the document seems so completely out there I was sure it was a hoax. An elaborate hoax, but still a hoax. Then I started digging a little deeper.

Oddly, no other blogs really seemed to think it was a hoax. Some of their commenters did, but overall the authors were all on board that this was a legit document leaked from Arnell Group, the agency behind the brand redesign and Tropicana's recent package design flop. I was still finding this a little hard to believe, but one blog directed me to AdGabber's post back in October when Pepsi unveiled its new logos.

In a brilliant move to debut their new line of logos, Pepsi sent 25 top bloggers a kit filled with a evolution of Pepsi logos and packaging, a DVD of Pepsi's history highlights and a set of new packaging with the new logos—everything these bloggers needed to announce Pepsi's new logos to the social media world. It really was a great move. In the DVD video contents from those original kits is a short video, posted on AdGabber and I've included it below as well. It shows an animation of the design process to make those weird 'smiley' logos. Check it out and pay attention about 45 seconds in (the music shifts there too). Then look at the selected Design Brief page to the right (click to enlarge). Uh oh, looks like this document might be legit after all.

You can see more excerpts at Gawker and Brand New or you can download the whole PDF at Fast Company. I'd recommend it, it's a good laugh.

Yes, I thought this was a hoax at first, but when you look closer there are a few legit parts in this overall relatively absurd document. They discuss Pepsi's logo and bottle evolution and there's a lot of talk of about the Golden Ratio, in fact they dedicated an page illustrating how the Pepsi logo smiles are same aesthetic geometry. I have to disagree since the end result smiles look more arbitrary than anything else, but the defense is there. It may be a bit pretentious and overstated, but we are talking about a huge brand here and no one pours millions into a brand without some justification as to what makes it great. Many large corporate logos, or even small business logos, have a lot more precision and thought behind them than the average person realizes—it's not intended to be elitest at all as much as it's just part of the design process of pushing to make just the right mark. The issue I have with the Pepsi brief is you can justify whatever you want with circle proportions, but that doesn't automatically make it good. Yes, the old Pepsi logo is balanced and aesthetically pleasing—the new ones, not as much, no matter how many circles within circles you draw for me.

The Golden Ratio stuff isn't what got me the most though. What really had me convinced it was a hoax at first was a little further on in the document where they start discussing the Pepsi Globe, where they compare the Pepsi logo's energy fields to the Earth's magnetic fields, and the Gravitational Pull of Pepsi diagrams, where they compare the gravitational pull of the sun to the gravitational pull of Pepsi. It's a little unclear what they're trying to represent there, but after looking at it for awhile I'm hoping it's referring to some kind of three dimensional in-store display and not that Pepsi is the center of the universe.

After looking through everything and writing this post, I'm pretty convinced it's a valid document, though probably incomplete. It is marked as a draft on the first page of the PDF. Unfortunately, valid or not, this is a PR nightmare for Pepsi and Arnell with all the negative criticism that's floating around about it.

What do you think? Real or hoax? Is the Design Brief too condescending?

Happy Birthday To 1984!

Today is the 25th anniversary from when Apple ran their famous ad for Macintosh computers. They ran it nationally only once, during the superbowl in 1984. If your in the ad world, you know this commercial, it's famous. If not, check it out, since it's a great spot. Find out more about its history here.