Findings

A couple of cool ideas in Dallas, one from LA, and one from LAX.




(Not a huge fan of the above. Kind of feels condescending)

This is what I like about advertising

You get to go to LA, work with cool colleagues, awesome directors, and meet famous people.

Enjoying some down time with an AD partner and producer on Thursday evening in our hotel lobby, along hobbles this guy on crutches:




He wasn't on crutches for anything animal-related. But still, it was Jack Hannah and no big deal. It's just LA.

Visual Search Engines

Scary.

Portfolio Night 6

So, I never heard about this when I was there. But apparently they're taking an active interest in Portfolio Night this year at Brandcenter.

Portfolio Night is the largest, global review of portfolios for the field of advertising in one night. Crazy fun.

I couldn't get a video to post, so you'll have to click the image and it'll hijack you to their site. Watch it there. It's worth it.

(To avoid ruining the joke, I'll continue my post in the comments section. But watch the video first.)

Use your tax rebate wisely

New definition of Air Guitar.

Thanks.

Some people try to cure cancer

Others try to wear as many shirts as they can at one time.

Priorities.

Hey - I know her!

Nina DiSesa (the one who took over our creative thinking class at VCU brandcenter last year) gives her shpeal on the current state of the industry.

I got it from AgencySpy who had this to say:

McCann is trying to make their brand be hear. This time, they’ve used New York office head Nina DiSesa, who is also bumping up her profile these days, with a video talking about their recent Mastercard campaign. She goes on to speak about effective advertising and how important the brand is in the consumer’s life. She also dabbles in the metrics, as well as why creatives are needed in this business and why user generated video won’t take over from agency created content. Actually, she has a ton to say about creativity. Hmm… to bad McCann ain’t so creative.

Subjectivity

That's what advertising is all about. An ad that pleases one person can disgust the next.

But when your research is downgraded to a "lie" one day and then awarded for its greatness the next, I'm not so sure.

Recently NAD said that The Martin Agency's new ad-campaign for the retail giant Wal-Mart was wrong in claiming that the average consumer saves $2,500 a year by shopping at their stores.

Well, that's all right and good until you take a page from Hyundai's book and think about it: They could just as easily save $2,500 by NOT shopping at their stores.


And since the low-price wielding Goliath tends to force other retailers within 50 miles of its stores to also lower their prices, one could argue that $2,500 could be saved by simply shopping at their competitors.

"Save money. Live better." is a nice line. And I appreciate the anti-floating-smiling-happy-face-creature approach in favor of a more real, more personable approach. But it's pretty lofty to hang your hat on a slogan of saving people $2,500 a year. That's big Christmas bonus.

You save money by putting it in the bank.

And I don't think that's subjective.

Quasi Super Bowl spot

In October last year, there was an agency-wide call for creatives. All were asked to work on a client who they may not ordinarily work for day-to-day. But it was an opportunity and the agency wanted to pool together the best of the best. To let everyone contribute. To let every creative have a shot at creating a Super Bowl spot.

3 spots were chosen. Only 2 :30 slots were bought.

Guess which one had a movie-theater premier instead of The Big Game?



The other two that aired: