Yet more proof

that advertisers, corporate America, and their lawyers think the general public is a collective mass of blathering idiots.

Yea, that's right. The fine print? DON'T EAT A F********* FIVE DOLLAR BILL.

Oh, and as a side note, peanuts are processed on machines that may have come in contact with peanuts.

I'm just sayin'.

Arm, Arm, Boob, Boob, Strap

Not sure just yet. But I think I like it.

Featured on Youtube's home page (with disabled embedded code, so click on the image to get hijacked):

Yeeeeessss.

For lack of a better post,

So, my schedule has been pretty crazy over the last three weeks. As tribute, here's something equally crazy. (But definitely more entertaining.)

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:

Don't readjust your TV sets

Always Open has gone purple. More eggplant, really.

Underwars

You can win $25k if you shake it right in your tighties. Fun concept. But flagged as objectionable content in my mind.

Makes me wonder who their target reeeeaallly is with this. Ain't me. Although I enjoyed this:

Sleeve Face

They're doing a pretty neat thing over at SleeveFace.com

Again, that dumb advertising brain of mine asks...

A typographical look at typography. Awesome.

Because you never know when you'll need a fishing rod,

there's the fish pen.

Behind the scenes of a Lowes spot

I saw this spot on TV last night and for reasons uknown (ahem), I looked it up online to see if anyone had posted it so I could share it with some colleagues.

Lo and behold, a whole "behind the scenes" of the spot came up.

Thought this might be interesting to a few of you. (The spot starts at 4:26)

What do you think about: 1. The spot, and 2. posting behind the scenes footage of commercials to youtube.

Today I watched this

And it was called work.

Advertising is great. (sometimes)

To each his own

Advertising Agencies? In Dallas? Get Out.

Yes, kiddies. There are several.

As I perused the North Park mall yesterday, I was greeted by a slew of them. AAAA made an 'agency-installation' of sorts in the mall. A bunch of boards displaying the various works of select agencies in Dallas were lined in row. You may be surprised that there are quite a few. Here's a sampling:






So as you start your job search, brandcentarians, be sure to check this city off your list. I need some familiar faces down here in the lone star.

AAAA.com

File this under crazy town.

There's a city in New Mexico called "Truth or Consequences."

It's a spa city in Sierra County, NM and is commonly known as "T or C". Although you might know it as "Hot Springs." Apparently, it was renamed after a popular 1950's radio show when Truth or Consequences host Ralph Edwards announced that he would do the program from the first town to rename itself after the show.

Or so I found out this morning when I noticed CNN was posting the weather for TorC on its homepage.

Crazy.

Sometimes my ideas feel like this.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This makes my second St. Patrick's Day/weekend in Dallas. But really my first time actually experiencing it. Dallas does St. Patrick's Day pretty well. In fact, Dallas does most things well when they involve copious amounts of drinking.

Greenville is a "main drag" of sorts. Laid out in view of the downtown skyline, Greenville Avenue is located in East Dallas. It's a trendy part of town, I guess. It's got a lot of open-air restaurants and a bunch of bars. And on the Saturday before St. Patrick's day, it has a lot of drunk people dressed in green.

The beginning of Greenville Avenue.

Instead of dealing with the traffic which would include a parade at some point, the Boy and I decided to hike it to an Irish pub bike-style. It was a pub way off the main road. But it was still packed. I mean, it would almost be cliched for an Irish pub NOT to be packed on St. Patrick's Day/weekend....right?


It was a beautiful day and on the way we saw many things. Including a Weimaraner rescue tent with a bunch of Weims up for adoption. As some of you might know, we own one of these monsters and love him a lot. Too bad he was at home.


We finally made it to Trinity Hall. One of the primary reasons we went is because the Boy is really into soccer...or, er, ...football. And this particular pub plays some games that Fox Soccer Channel does not. We only have FSC, so hence the delima. His favorite team was playing on the OTHER soccer channel, so we had to go to the pub. Fine with me.





What better way to welcome the Irish holiday than with a basket of Fish and Chips and a cold Guinness to wash it down? Well, I think of none. So that's what I did. It was good bike-pedaling-fuel, but it was definitely pub food. So were the Bangers and Mash that the Boy ate only half of.



So here's to being eco-friendly by riding a bike, here's to the Irish blood in me somewhere (even if it's only 1/100th), and here's to the only excuse on the planet to drink green beer.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

An idea, or song, can usually be made better.

Even if it's just in the way it's presented. What's the difference between just doing something and putting your heart into it?
I would say it'd be the difference between just singing a song and this:





This is Halllelujah. A song first done by Leonard Cohen, then made more popular by Jeff Buckley (here's his recorded version). Here's Leonard's version. Watch and see if you get an idea why Jeff's made it more popular.




My thought? If you're really into something. If you convince yourself it's amazing. If you make it give you goose bumps. It'll be a lot easier to convince someone else it's awesome too.

Nice use of insight: Kia

Burger Review: What-a-burger

#1 Whataburger with cheese
Regular size
Fries
Dr. Pepper

So this makes the 2nd in my series of burger tests around Dallas. I'm heading to burger joints that I've never been to. Many of them only found in the southwest.

Today I found myself at What-a-burger. And if there was one thing prevalent at this place, it was branding. Big, bright, orange and blue branding. Can you think of any other company that uses orange and blue? Me either.


It's hard to miss these guys with the standard collection of fast-food signage that collages the sky. So up I drove and a burger I ate.


Maybe I should've belted it?

This one cost me a couple of bucks more than the Jack In The Box meal. I can only attribute that to the burger's larger size. But there was also a drawback to its size - the bun was equally large, if not larger than the burger itself. Most of my bites were more bread than burger. Bad news.

This burger was decent. It reminded me a lot of a Sonic burger. A large, round, thin pattie.

One thing I did like about this sandwich was that they only use mustard. No mayo. Made it kind of signature and cut down on the fat/calories. They also used chopped onions instead of rings. And there were three whole slices of tomatoes on there. Three! That may have also contributed to the higher cost.


The unfortunate thing was that one of the tomatoes escaped and made love to my dog-hair-covered floor. So, sadly, it was relegated to the trash along with a few onions. The remainder of my meal, I ate directly over the table.

The fries were good. They were the typical American-style thin strings. They reminded me of crispier version of Mccy D's fries.

What-a-burger also seems to be rolling with a "made to order" theme. Their bag asks "What don't you want on that?" It took a while as I waited at the window for my meal to arrive. Perhaps they were busy making it fresh. Or maybe they were just making me wait to think that.

Overall rating: B+

Up next: Carl's Jr., Hardee's southwestern sister

The Rubik's Magic that taunted my childhood

Just in case the pictures didn't do it for ya.

Burger Review: Jack In The Box

#8 Jumbo Jack with cheese
Small
Regular Fries
Dr. Pepper



This burger was good. But nothing spectacular. It was like a smaller version of the Whopper. (As I remember the Whopper from the last time I had it - about 8 years ago.) And a decent overall drive-thru experience for my first trip to the establishment.


The condiments were kept to a minimum. There was just one turd of mayo that squirted out the whole time. The buns were toasted which was nice. And I guess it tasted like it wasn't made until I ordered it. A theme JITB seems to be rolling with.


The fries were cool. They looked like real steak fries. With a little potato skin on them and everything. But some were flimsy and felt like fast food style fries. Which I guess is what they are.


I guess I'll go back here. But probably not in the near future. Unless I find myself starving at 4am some random Friday evening. (They're opened 24 hours then.)

Overall Rating: B+

Up next: What-a-burger

And PS

It's spring break so I expect all you brandcenter fools to update your blogs.

All of you!

(And although Buker has gross misspellings and misuse of words, she at least maintains her blog with some interesting stuff. We should all be so diligent (or so ADD). Nice work.)

Did you have one of these as a kid?

For the longest time I've had this recurring flash-back to a toy from my childhood. Sometimes certain colors would trigger it. Or a shape that I saw would bring it back to memory. But I could only remember that there was some thing from my childhood that these images were reminding me of. But I could never be sure exactly what it was.

It was like a vivid dream that you try to remember the next morning and you just can't. You know the feel of the dream, but you just can't remember what exactly happened in it.

I felt like it had to be a toy of some sort. Because for some reason, any time I had this flash-back, it would feel like Christmas. So I can remember that this mystery toy was a Christmas gift, but I can't remember what the thing itself is.

It was maddening. Like a thought that pops into your head. A good thought. And then not a second later, you've forgotten it.

Well, I finally figured it out. After probably 4 or so years of these flash-backs, I've remembered what it was that I was trying to remember: A Rubik's Magic Rings toy.

After getting into this Rubik's cube phase a few months ago, I stumbled onto a website that sold various and sundry products of the Rubik's brand. And lo-and-behold. As soon as I saw it, I knew that's what I had been trying to recall. But I had to be certain. So I ordered one.


Sure enough, it's the one. It twists and folds into all sorts of shapes. It's kind of like a plastic brochure or map. You're supposed to mess up the ring formation and then try to solve it as if it were a puzzle, but I just like to move it around into different shapes. It's what I did as a kid and there's something nostalgic about those shapes I would make.

This particular part of the rings is what I remembered most - the red part.


Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I paid about $20 to ship this thing over here from China because it was nowhere to be found State-side. $20 bucks! For shipping! That's ridiculous. But it was lure of nostalgia that got me. (And that nagging flash-back thing.)

Wow. That was a pointless post.

And another of the niece

As requested

A puppy post. And his full range of tricks.

Dear Global Warming,

Thanks for the snow yesterday.

It was fun.

Especially when it canceled my flights to Miami.

Love,

Dallas

Should've known better.

I just got dinged for making a war reference in a radio spot for a rather large retailer of home improvement goods.

Should've known better.

Sing it, Irving

No truer words have been spoken.

(Ok, maybe they have.)

Back, Jack

Sooo, work got busy. Oops.
Then I got sick. Ooops.

So my apologies to the loyal legions of readers who have been disappointed by my lack of posting.

Wait. What am I saying?

Here's something mildly amusing to stimulate you on this Thursday afternoon:

The recession has hit my brain

more posts to come.

Banksy Revealed. Sort of.

Cuber Culture

The more I delve into this crazy world of "cubing" the more I'm simultaneously scared and allured.

Like the flush of the toilet, I'm being sucked in.

But I still find solace that I have a ways to go before this:

Let me borrow that top

Another in a series from Liam Sullivan's comedic surge. "Let me Borrow That Top" follows "Shoes" - one of his first posts that made it to YouTube's top 10 most viewed of 2007 with over 18 million views.

The notable difference in this video is the appearance of celebrities. Seems like his wave of success is gaining momentum.

So, any 'viral' tips/tricks/formulas to be learned by Liam? Probably. But I wouldn't want to ruin the after-glow.

You can find all his songs on iTunes. And thanks to David Southerland for showing me "Shoes" last year and helping co-write "Let's make some ads". It changed my life.

(* many of Liam's music videos are prefaced by a little sketch comedy that sets it up. This one, I think, is worth watching.)

Jay-Z is dilluting his brand

by getting into branding.

Someone should start a campaign, slogan: "Jay-Z for Everything"

I haven't really weighed all the options, but I'm pretty sure this idea stinks.

Brands and things

So AdAge posted these brands as the top 50, indicating that in the world of branding, they did something right.

Take a look. If nothing else, it's a good place to find brands to do spec work for. Clearly, they've already got a great product.

(I would add farecast.com to that list.)

The 6th dimension: an ad ranting about ads

Craigslist, Antique Pianos, and Treadmills

Too bad I don't own a treadmill or that piano would be sitting in my bedroom.

A post for Jason

Visit

$1 Book Project

This site was set up to bring to life the dependence currency has on time and location.

Visitors are encouraged to submit pictures of items that they purchased for $1 US dollar. No more, no less.

It's a simple project that captures how the worth of items vary across the globe. Hopefully it'll capture some perspective along the way.

Here are some cool examples:





If you have an interesting one, submit.