Chasing the iPhone

I'm not a cell phone expert. I do not have an iPhone (though I want one) and while I'm usually aware of what hot new phone has come out, I don't necessarily know all the details about it or what little features make it distinct. Being in advertising, however, I do pay attention to all the cell phone service and phone commercials.

Over the weekend, I was pointed to two different phone commercials for smart phones meant to rival the iPhone. This first spot (above) is brilliantly done. It's emotional and pleasing to watch and moves to the instrumental rhythm of Sinnerman. The only complaint I have is that it seems to be an ad for a specific phone, but instead it's actually an ad for the company that makes the phone, HTC. Who is HTC? Good question. A little googling revealed that they're a manufacturing company that has previously done contract work for Palm and Compaq, but chose to branch out and launch it's own phone last year—the Android. Remember that Google phone from T-Mobile that everyone was talking about last year as being a major competitor to the iPhone and then promptly forgot about it a couple months after its release? That was made by HTC. This new campaign is their attempt to make themselves a phone manufaturing household name, like Motorola or Nokia. The trouble is, as cool as this commercial is, I don't understand that's what it's advertising. Maybe it's just to be memorable and get HTC in the consumer's head, in which case, it might be doing a great job. What do you think? Did you remember the HTC call out at the end? Did you wonder who or what it was?

Similarly, the other commercial called to my attention this weekend was for Verizon's new Droid phone. Droid? That sounds a lot like Android. Hmm. Well apparently it's another Google phone (the Google phones, unlike my initial and incorrect assumtion, are not actually made by Google, they're just using Google software) this time made by Motorola. The spot for the Droid phone, is also very good, but takes a hard hitting, and cleverly done, line against the iPhone pointing out all the things the iPhone iDon't. Make no mistake, this phone is intended to be a serious iPhone competitor from Verizon and Motorola. Will this Google phone actually compete this time? I've read arguments both ways. One says, yes, this phone finally has the right processor to compete with the iPhone's speed while another says Droid won't be intuitive or smooth enough to ever really compete with the iPhone. Well, Droid comes out in November, so we will see. You can find out what Droid Does on the website.

UPDATE: Just a day after this post, I stumbled across a great blog post comparing all the features of the new Droid phone to the iPhone. Definitely worth checking out.

Violent Fairytales For A Violent Subject

In contrast to our last post, let's look at a Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaign from South America that's a little shocking, but also good advertising. The two posters here are from Amnesty International (Amnistía Internacional) in Chile.

The art direction on these two posters is fantastic and the concept is solid as well. Most fairytales are pretty violent when you think about it, and tend to get more so the further back in their history you go, so linking fairytales to a campaign against domestic violence and violence against women is an interesting connection. The visuals are very dark, but with enough key fairy tale pop culture visual cues that we easily identify the tales being referenced. The Little Red Riding Hood concept works the best due to the tale's very violent beginnings. Little Red Riding Hood goes back long before the versions most of us know to an oral tale that was told to warn young girls about predator men. I won't go into the gruesome details here—you can get the historical versions synopses on Wikipedia or in a good book of classic fairytales—but essentially, even the modern version has ties to violence against women.Unfortunately, the Snow White poster doesn't have quite the same fairytale connection. Another story, like Bluebeard, might have been a better tie though much less visually recognizable. Either way, it's a great example of some good PSR work that can be shocking but still a good piece of advertising.

(via The Inspiration Room)

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.

Steer Clear of the First Children in Advertising

There's a big ad controversy going on in DC at the moment revolving around some posters in the DC Metro that mention Obama's daughters. The posters are indeed politically motivated—they lobby for healthier school lunches and were placed in the Metro to target commuters going to the Hill just a month before a congressional vote on the Child Nutrition Act. The White House has requested the removal of the posters, but the group responsible for them, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), has declined to do so, stating they think it's only President Obama's handlers and not the President himself who have a problem with this.

There are more than a few problems here. First off, the ad itself is bad. It's just plain bad advertising. The concept is boring, the photography and design are bland and typography is just plain awful. What is that speech bubble font? Some even worse spin off of Papyrus? The concept of the ad seems to be calling out that the children of the rich and privileged (aka the Obama girls) eat better than those in public school lunch programs. Well no kidding! They go to a private school that costs $30K per year—they eat better than I do! And guess what, children in a $30K per year school are always going to eat better than those eating on the public dime.

If the PCRM's agenda was really just healthier school lunches, I think their campaign would have done better to compare public school lunches—especially since there are some out there worth noting. Appleton, Wisconsin's public school system seems to have it figured out and they have a great, healthy school lunch program in place. It is not only more realistic comparison, but it shows it can be done economically. Unfortunately, in researching for this post, I learned quite clearly that just healthier school lunches isn't all the PCRM is all about.

True, the Obama daughter's school lunch menu includes a vegetarian option for each meal which, if you read this Washington Post article is what this whole debate is about for PCRM. Not surprising either since a little reading on the PCRM's website for their school lunch initiative, healthyschoollunches.org, says that they are for healthier lunches, but via vegetarianism and veganism. They actually suggest schools stop buying meats, cheeses and butter if you read their recommended changes to the National School Lunch Program. Yikes! A little googling about the organization shows their really not so subtle about their activism and are clearly advocates for vegan diets. Umm... Somehow I don't think the Obama's will want their daughters mixed up in any such political activist group.

Perhaps that little hidden agenda is why they ignored seemingly logical and interesting directions, like referencing Appleton, in favor of a trite concept that would get them some press. Well, that and actually being transparent about ridding schools of meat probably won't win them too many votes. I'm all for healthier school lunches and I love what's going on in Appleton, Wisconsin, but you'll never find me in favor of veganism. Thank you, but I am a proud omnivore and manage eat a pretty healthy and low fat diet, meat and all.

In any case, if you're going to ruffle the feathers of the White House and seek attention from the press, at least do it with a decent piece of advertising!

New Font Driven By Toyota

Two font designers took the Toyota iQ (Toyota's version of the Smart Car) and made the above font out of the car's tracks. It's not the most legible or versatile font, but the concept behind its creation is quite cool. Essentially the font designers gave each wheel it's own identity and tracked the movements of the lines they made as a race car driver drove the iQ around making different letterforms. They digitally tracked the movements from above and turned the recordings in the font. Check out the video below to view the whole process and go here to download the font for yourself.

[via Gizmodo]

A 14+ Hour Ad?

Yep, that's right, a 14 hour and 40 minute ad (online of course) to promote Emirate Airlines non-stop 14 hour and 40 minute service from Dubai to Sao Paulo. Okay, so this is a bit out dated since it ran in 2007, but hey, the Creative Cooler didn't exist then! The concept is still great. Fernando talks about everything Brazilian, from music to food and sports with no edits, no cuts and no breaks. Fernando starts talking at 5:30 a.m. and video above will start at whatever time code syncs with your computer's internal clock although you can skip ahead or go back to whatever section you like. Check it out!

(via Jaffe Juice)

Oh Boy!

Obama's campaign has been marked as one of the first to use the internet to its fullest capacity, from raising small sums of money from a large base to great uses of blogs, Twitter and Facebook. One of the most intriguing parts of his campaign, however, has to be ohboyobama.com, his idea generation site.

Idea generation sites cropped up awhile ago, mystarbucksidea.com probably taking the prize of most well known and popular, but Dell's ideastorm.com and make your own idea generation site kindlingapp.com are out there too. They're kind of the new hot web 2.0 gimmick, but they're not always appropriate and need quite a commitment from the host brand to really work without disillusioning their 'idea generators'.

Ohboyobama.com has been around since the primaries, but now that the election is finally in full swing we can see voters voice their opinions on all sorts of ideas from how he should handle McCain's VP pick Sarah Palin to what issues voters think he still needs to clarify. I find it a fascinating way for web 2.0 to play a part in politics and a great way for voters to get their voices heard to their candidates. The key will be, as it is in any idea generation site, how much and how well Obama actually listens to and implements these ideas.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Wonderbra Takes On Real Women

Wonderbra is taking some cues from Dove, but taking it to a whole different level. Apparently Wonderbra ran a campaign in June (with an amusing little spot by itself) recruiting women to model in their bras for their now running D to G Cup campaign in the UK.

All I can say is I love it. From using real women as models to the mosaic technique, it's a well executed campaign. Using real women may have lost a little bit of it's edge since Dove has been doing it for awhile, but I'm very happy to see another major women's brand adopt the concept. Unfortunately, even though they're different markets they look kind of similar, thanks to Dove's models being shown in their underwear. At least the mosaic treatment helps separate the two. On the website you can zoom in on the billboard and see all the individual women's photos that make up the final picture. I'm actually surprised it took so long for another company to adopt it. Despite what some research may say, I personally respond very well to campaigns that use real looking women.

What do you think?

Another Fake JCPenney Spot

AdFreak alerted me to Epoch films having more than one fake JCPenney spot. While this one didn't win anything at Cannes. It's still an interesting, if a little dark, spot. Check it out!



This spot is also disappearing from YouTube, so if you can't see it in the post view it here.

This Will Be A Different Kind of Election

And not just because of our candidates. I just learned that Obama and McCain (well, designated people who work for them) will be participating in an online Twitter debate moderated by Time Magazine's blogger and sponsored by Personal Democracy Forum 2008 (PdF 2008). I think we're just seeing the beginning. This should be an interesting couple of months.

Dirty World

Thoughts?

Web 2.0 Without the Web

That's right. Well, sort of. The Bubble Project has a website, but the real consumer interaction is happening on the street. The video below is a great explanation and example of the project and how it's developing. Check it out:



It's mainly on the streets of NY for now, but supposedly they're expanding worldwide. Love the idea.

Weezer's Nod to the YouTube Celebrity

Weezer's latest video, Pork and Beans, features all our favorite YouTube web celebrities. Nicely done. How many can you spot?

Abandoned Campaign Needs a Home

We worked on a pro-bono project last year for an organization that gets people to foster and adopt Golden Retrievers. We created two print campaigns to promote fostering animals, neither of which was ultimately used by the client. Both campaigns have the potential to expand to collateral pieces, outdoor, etc.

The creative is already complete. Do you know of an animal shelter or other organization that could benefit from this work? Or do you have a suggestion to make them better? Let us know!

Here are the campaigns:

What inspires you?

Since working in the ad industry, I've started to pay much closer attention to commercials and ads than I ever did as a consumer. I analyze them, think about their effectiveness and scrutinize the art direction and copywriting. Sometimes I mentally file away a cool technique or concept and sometime I just shake my head at the poor typography or a bad retouching job. However, some commercial spur a long train of thought, deconstructing the ad and wondering how on earth the creatives ever came up with that idea. Knowing the absurd ways creative brilliance sometime presents itself, I invent stories as to how the creatives involved in this project stumbled across the seedling idea for this concept. How did it change? One commercial that recently sparked this train of thought for me was this Skittles commercial. How do you think the concept came about?