0 & M

2011-07-08T14:57:00.002-04:00

NSFW fonts

2010-02-25T15:34:00.002-05:00

Some fonts best left for late night viewing.

TV reinterpreted in print

2010-02-17T10:29:00.003-05:00

Exergian has some brilliantly executed print to promote some brilliantly executed television. See for yourself. It's gorgeous, it's tasty, and it's perfect.

It's never to early to start.

2010-02-17T10:07:00.003-05:00

Start shilling that is.

Snack food manufacturers in England are in the throes of what is termed "stealth marketing" to children. The premise is that the kids become brand ambassadors and perform specific tasks, from postering to commenting on social media to direct endorsements during recess. In return the kids get 25 quid, free food, prizes, social prestige, and the fun-filled sensation of childhood obesity. It's a win / win all around.

The idea of empowering the actual consumer of the products is nothing new, but when the consumer is easily influenced, and doesn't have the requisite skills to make an informed decision, is it more like exploitation? Sure, teens will shovel fast food and sugar into themselves, but when you're going after 8 and 9 year olds in a medium where there is no advertising standards watchdog, don't you think its gone too far?

Funnily enough, the British government doesn't think so. They've embraced the idea and are using it to promote healthy eating. Yes, that sound was two truckloads of irony colliding head-on.

It was awful, it was offensive, it worked.

2010-02-09T12:07:00.004-05:00

EA has been promoting their new videogame, Dante's Inferno. But instead of giving out demo copies, or contra merch or even paying bloggers to shill for them, they've decided to take the left-hand path.

At a recent industry trade show anti-EA protesters were out in full force, carrying placards that included such wonderful missives as "EA = electronic Antichrist". Makes you think that Christian groups are against the game right? Not so fast there. Turns out that EA hired the protesters to generate some publicity. They got caught, and made a lot of Christians angry. Whoops.

Then, because too much controversy is never enough, EA promoted the new game at Comic-Con. They invited people to "commit acts of lust" by taking photos of themselves with the EA booth-babes. Winner gets a date with two models, a limo for the night and hopefully a poke in the eye with a very sharp stick. In a biblical demonstration of irony, the supposed randomly chosen winner turned out to be a writer from GayGamer.

And on it goes. Really. They're doing more. Because if there's one thing boneheaded publicity does well, it's generate press. Ever wonder what it's like to screw up so badly that you actually go in a complete circle around to success?

Amazonian consumers have sense of humour

2010-02-09T11:38:00.002-05:00

Amazon is big. Really, really big. So big in fact that it's huge. And part of the problem when you're that massive is keeping all your web pages under control. Especially when just about anyone can log in and write reviews on them.

Case in point.

Why yes, I do work in an augmented building

2010-02-03T10:28:00.003-05:00

Don't you?

Tokyo is saturated with billboards and electronic outdoor advertising, but the N Building has taken the concept, married it to augmented reality and upped the bar for out-of-home display.

In essence, the entire facade of the building is a QR code. Users with a custom iPhone app will be able to scan the building's front and interact with the merchants, extract relevant data and generally know everything they need to know. Augmented reality and architecture, it's cool.

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

When Steve Jobs gives you lemons

2010-02-01T15:24:00.003-05:00

You make fun of the total lack of Flash support on his company's portable devices. No Farmville, no Hulu.com, no CNN and no...Bang Brothers?

No, the other colour, no, the other one...

2010-01-29T11:27:00.002-05:00

Ever see a colour you like? Ever had to describe it after? Yeah, almost impossible. Sure you could take a picture of it with the camera on your phone but odds are you'll wind up with something in a different shade. Until now...

The brain trust at Benjamin Moore has an app for that. The ben color capture app allows you to match the colour you see to a shade on the Benji Moore database. It's not quite a substitute for myPANTONE but it's a neat direction. Now if they'd come up with a font recognizer...

Putting paid to corruption

2010-01-28T11:28:00.003-05:00

Corruption is everywhere to a greater or lesser degree. Unfortunately in India, corruption is pervasive and affects the poorest people the hardest. 5th Pillar, an Indian NGO, has come up with a unique way to protest corruption and give people a voice. It's called the zero rupee note, and is, in essence, a transferable protest sign. Much like Iranian dissidents defacing their country's currency to protest the dictator, this note allows for a widespread and distributed protest without having to openly demonstrate.

It's a very interesting way to promote something, and a great way to give a voice to people who deserve one.

There's a saying about that...

2010-01-26T10:42:00.003-05:00

Health care advertising can be rather dry and staid sometimes. Promotional items are usually pens, pads, boring stuff. Then there's this calendar for health provider AOK.

It's refillable, and brilliant.

I wonder if I can do the same kind of thing for Frito-Lay?

Play like a big league groundskeeper

2010-01-26T10:27:00.004-05:00

Major League Baseball has a very devoted core fan base. They buy the merch, watch the games in person or on TV, they visit stadiums just to say they've been there. And now they can feel the same grass underfoot when they hang out in their own backyard.

Scotts Miracle Gro is partnering with MLB to provide the same grass seed used at Fenway, Wrigley Field and more. It will be the same blend of seeds and fertilizers and will feature branding from the respective club and will be certified by the head groundkeeper from the that club's field.

Kinda brilliant. Shame the Jays use artificial turf. Mind you, I'm sure you could brand that stuff and sell it as mousepads or car mats or some such thing.

* Please note that this post was written without the express written consent of Major League Baseball and may be subject to blackouts in certain markets. Contact your local authorities for details. Oakes & Mowat are not responsible for facepalms or groans from the overuse of the phrase "Field of Dreams" and the like.

Got tank?

2010-01-26T10:19:00.002-05:00

Carlton Draught from Australia has come up with a novel spot. A spot that a lot of people would love to have pitched and sold to their beer client. It involves a tank. Those crazy Aussies.

A spot of the old ultra violence then?

2010-01-21T10:54:00.002-05:00

This would make for an interesting concept to pitch to your clients: new research shows that adverts in violent video games are subject to better recall than ads in more non-violent video games.

Here's the article from the MIT Technology Review.

Now I'm off to find a way to work some Laura Ashley ads into Grand Theft Auto.

KFC sues self over advertising, creates black hole in space time continuum

2010-01-15T14:36:00.004-05:00

Crispy or grilled? That is the question.

One part of KFC, the KFC National Council and Advertising Cooperative is suing another part of KFC, the YUM! Brands Kentucky Fried Chicken unit over the promotion of grilled over crispy chicken. Franchisees see the advertising as biased towards grilled chicken and are fearful over slumping sales due to consumer perception of crispy chicken being unhealthy.

The National Council and Advertising Cooperative who designs the marketing programs for the most popular chicken restaurant on the planet contends that Roger Eaton the president and chief concept officer for KFC is promoting grilled chicken over the more well known crispy offering.

So, the whole things comes down to who gets to call the marketing shots, but in the end, it's all about the chicken. Delicious crispy grilled deep fried breaded broiled flame kissed sauteed seared roasted barbequed chicken. Of course that's assuming that KFC is still in the chicken biz and isn't going to evolve into a never-ending loop of litigation.

Mind you KFC has had some pretty weird things associated with it in the past so them playing chicken about the chicken isn't that far fetched.

Someone in Redmond got a sense of humour

2010-01-10T12:52:00.001-05:00

And a budget.

It's made in China, but it's not made in China

2010-01-10T10:17:00.003-05:00

In an effort to boost their image and encourage more rampant consumption China has embarked on a new campaign to promote China to the world.

"Made in China, made with the world" is what they're trying to tell everyone. Sure the iPod is assembled in China, but the code and the concept are pure American. Yes we flat pack those groovy Ikea shelves, but the design is direct from the forests of Sweden.

In essence, China is only the enabler. We're the ones who keep asking them to give us more. And there's definitely no lead in the toys, or sulfuric acid in the drywall, or poison in the pet food, or exotic animals in the herbal medicines. Uh uh, no way. That's all in the past. The message now? If China screws up, it's your fault too. Because we're all in this together.

Given that almost everything mass produced comes from China, it seems kind of redundant to specify that it's from China...

So that's what my friends taste like

2010-01-10T10:08:00.003-05:00

Facebook flavoured vitamin water.

Yes. It's true.

In cahoots with Coca Cola, the brain trust at Facebook has come up with the pinnacle of branding. They've created a flavour to associate with their brand. Apparently Facebook tastes like Black Cherry and Lime. Good. We needed that. It's another indication of how social media is advancing.

Sign number 451 of the impending apocalypse.

It ain't Reefer Madness

2010-01-08T10:05:00.004-05:00

But it's a film about drugs all right.

Glaxo has a new drug, possibly developed in answer to Huey Lewis' demand for one. However, this is probably not the drug that was hoped for. It's called Alli, it's an over the counter weight-loss pill that counts amongst its myriad side effects "an urgent need to defecate". Remember those snack foods with Olestra in them and the fun trips to the bathroom those necessitated? Now you can do that all day, every day.

To help promote this wonder drug, Glaxo is funding a film. A film about obesity. Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon are amongst the people backing this potential magnum opus. In the words of those involved “This won’t be a marketing tool at all,” said Robin Bronk, the Creative Coalition’s executive director, adding that working with Glaxo on the project is “a natural progression of our mission to develop educational projects.”

So, there you have it. The drug is good for you and you don't need to exercise; Glaxo has your best interests at heart; and anyone funding a film that obliquely promotes their product is not engaging in marketing, but in education. Just wait till the armed forces starts sponsoring war movies and Virgin Mobile starts a sitcom that revolves around texting.

Now, who am I going to get to star in my debut, funded by the makers of Slap Chop and Shamwow?

When you design like Paul Rand,

2010-01-06T15:21:00.002-05:00

your name speaks for itself.

Who is Paul Rand you ask? Well, in short, he's the designer who came up with some of the more iconic logos of the past few decades.

Oh Ogilvy...

2010-01-06T15:14:00.003-05:00

I thought you knew how to party.

The article below is from the blog of Peter Rojas. He's the guy who founded Engadget and Gizmodo and co-founded Gdgt. So he knows a bit about social media and marketing. A wee bit.

Here's the article in all its glory.

Ogilvy engages in tone deaf social media marketing for the AmEx Zync card

Yesterday I got an email from a social media marketer at Ogilvy about a new card that American Express is introducing and how they’d like to strike up an “exclusive relationship” with me. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant by that, but I’d done some work for AmEx in the past — I spoke to some of their executives about the future of mobile a few years ago — and so I figured I’d at least see what was up. I wrote back (and this is all I wrote back), “Could you give me an overview of what you’re describing?”

The email below is what I received in return. If you can get past all the buzzwords (“for 20somethings by 20somethings”, seriously?), basically the deal is that in exchange for the “privilege” of signing up for the Zync card I get to give AmEx free consulting (because paying me would make me lie to them, apparently) and then host a party where I can market the Zync card to my “network”.

So let me get this straight: I get to sign up for a product where they make money (in terms of card fees), where I give them advice and insight that AmEx used to think was worth paying for (but now is not because that would make me dishonest), and then to wrap it all up I get to pimp out all my closest friends? I can’t believe AmEx would be stupid enough to give Ogilvy money for this program, I hope they convinced them to accept payment in Zync card accounts and tweet-ups.

UPDATE: I should make it clear that it’s not about getting paid or not getting paid — I’m happy to contribute to all sorts of things for free, even things for big companies like AmEx — this is about it being a very one-sided arrangement where one side seems be asking for a lot and not delivering any discernible value in return. Value can come in lots of different forms. I’ve beta tested products before and given my honest, unpaid feedback to those companies, but I did so because I felt like I got some value out of being able to use the product and learn more about it. There isn’t much offered here — I already have an AmEx card, so it’s not like I need to gain some experience using. The value only moves one way, from me to them. They’re asking to leverage my usage, my knowledge, and my network.

Hey Peter,

Not a problem! So, here is the deal: If you don’t know Zync…

Zync is the new American Express Charge card for 20somethings. This card is created for 20somethings by 20somethings that is all about customization: consumers can choose packs of benefits. So if you like buying say tech products, you can specifically choose the tech pack tailored to your needs to give you extra membership rewards. It’s all about you and what you want.

Another important thing to know is that the card is currently in beta testing – that is where you come in. As a person who is in the tech world and is out and about in the New York City scene we felt that you would be an awesome person to test out the card and be part of the ongoing discussion with product development team. Since this card is in beta, this truly is a card that is for you by you: you get to choose during beta what works and what doesn’t.

Lastly, since we want this to be genuine, we won’t be paying you for your time to participate because we want the feedback you give to be honest. The benefit is that you have an access to an exclusive relationship with the Zync team, cool events, special committee standing in our Zync Tank and the opportunity to host your own tweet-up, completely paid for by the Zync team. All that is detailed below-

o Zync Immersion Event:

§ To start the relationship, we want to get you to know Zync

§ While we enjoy our PPT presentations, that is not how we want you to get to know Zync

§ For this day, we will be doing fun activities all around New York City so you can really interact with the Zync team

§ This will be a one-and-a-half day experience full of exciting and exclusive events that tie into the Lego Packs (eco, tech, social and green)

§ This will take place sometime in early February

o Zync Tweet Up:

§ While we are looking for feedback we are also celebrating the development of the new card

§ For this, we want to co-host Zync tweet ups for you and your network

§ Will be held in top metro areas (e.g. New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco) themed around one or more Lego Packs

§ Events will be for 25 – 50 people at fun locations related to packs such as Brooklyn Boulders

§ This will take place sometime in February/March

o Zync Tank:

§ Since you will be a Cardmember, we want you to get the full experience of the beta testing of the card

§ For this, we have something called Zync Tank. Zync tank is our online community/listening tool that we use to get sentiment of Zync from Cardmembers participating in the beta program

§ With this relationship, you would be able to be part of the “Special Committee” in which you really get to provide feedback to the product development team on ideas for iPhone applications, the next packs and much more

There is a lot that we want to accomplish. With you, we are not asking you to write anything on our behalf or provide us a post. Merely, as a person we value, we want to experience the card with you while we develop it so it’s not just American Express but from a person who really can put a lot of value into the card and perhaps vice versa.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I’ll touch base with you tomorrow to see if you are still interested or have any questions!

Best,
Priya

The advertising time machine.

2010-01-05T10:40:00.004-05:00

Print ads from the last 100 years. Seriously. Well categorized, indexed and organized. And priceless. Very, very priceless. Do yourself a favour and check them out. See how things were done and perhaps 'source' some ideas for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

An elegant solution, a great promotion.

2010-01-03T14:14:00.002-05:00

How do you combine patriotism, public service, convenience with a monopoly while generating positive press and giving yourself a very visible location?

If you're Subway, you build a restaurant into a shipping container and bring the restaurant to the workers building the Freedom Tower in New York City. As the building rises, so does the restaurant.

It's a brilliant promotion that will certainly generate a positive emotional response for the brand. I just hope the food tastes as good as the goodwill.

The rules

2010-01-03T14:10:00.002-05:00

made simple.

Do you ever find yourself having to explain to a client or account person why they can't use 7 different fonts? Why Comic Sans is horrible and should never, ever be used? Why word art is not art but a crime? Well you're in luck. Here's a lovely little primer that you can send to them when they ask you why they can't condense a gothic typeface and then drop in a little sans serif action to jazz it up.

And you can spend your time on more important matters, like reading this blog.

What makes a billboard perfect.

2009-12-29T11:33:00.002-05:00

Just let a TV station in New Zealand tell you...

Advertising on the menu

2009-12-23T11:06:00.003-05:00

What is a menu? It's a sales tool. It's selling you food using subtle cues to guide you towards what the restaurant wants you to order. It's not all about price either. It's about using buzzwords and other non-specific cues to influence your behaviour. Just like advertising some might say...

Here's a very interesting article about menu psychology from the New York Times. Just in time for the holiday rondelay of restaurant visits.

Get your freak on.

2009-12-18T09:49:00.002-05:00

Here at Oakes & Mowat, we're getting ready for the new year and everything that comes with it. So, for your viewing pleasure, we bring you someone else's content. But it's okay, it's really fun content...

It's the 30 Freakiest Commercials of 2009, from adweek.com. Some you've already seen here, some you'll never be able to forget and some will just confuse you. Enjoy.

Going to the streets to go viral.

2009-12-15T15:55:00.003-05:00

So. Gum advertising. Some have goats and dancing Germans. Others have talking pieces of gum with funny foreign accents. And then there's Stride. Instead of hiring livestock or Sean Connery or the Von Trapp family, they went to Chicago and hired Goons to help them get the word out.

The result is a whimsical, soft, and handmade 90 second piece that's already had over a million views on YouTube. Looks like it's working better than a goat...

keep it simple

2009-12-15T15:52:00.002-05:00

you not so smart person.

Minimalism. It's not just for minimalists. It's also for marketing.

The pen. The sword. Who wins?

2009-12-14T14:05:00.005-05:00

If you can't speak your mind, you aren't free. It's a universal right that extends to people, groups, countries, corporations and everything in between. As the old saying goes, I may disagree with what you're saying, but I'll defend your right to say it. Let's all take a moment to enjoy that freedom. It's freedom to advertise and freedom to disagree with that advertising. It's freedom to start up a site that slams WalMart or a bank, and it's freedom to tell the government that their ads aren't too convincing.

Now, for your viewing pleasure and as a reminder that not everyone enjoys freedoms that we exercise every day, here is a gallery of posters protesting the suppression of speech and the denial of that universal right.

Look up in the air

2009-12-08T14:43:00.003-05:00

it's a bird, it's plane.

Oh, it is a plane. But what the hell is that painted on the side of it?

Why it's Hello Kitty.

Hello Kitty and Sanrio continue their endless quest to put their logo on everything under the sun.

Gaming the system

2009-12-08T14:38:00.003-05:00

Problem: you want frequent flier miles but don't want to purchase any of the various items that offer them.

Solution: wait until the U.S. Mint has a promotion that essentially gives you free miles.

From the Wall Street Journal:

"At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make the deposit."

Just goes to show that ingenuity knows no bounds. And that it pays to monitor your promotions and offers from the outset to identify and prevent people from gaming the system. It works for Vegas, and it works for everything else too...

Users, users everywhere

2009-12-08T14:31:00.002-05:00

but not a click to be had.

Facebook now boasts a user base of 350,000,000 people. More than many countries. That's a pretty large market.

Now the problem is how to monetize them. Sure there's advertising on Facebook but how many people actually click through those tiny little things?

Not too many.

Silicon Snake Oil

2009-12-07T14:59:00.003-05:00

(with apologies to Clifford Stoll)

Here's an interesting article from Businessweek that advocates exercising a bit of caution before you jump on the tweeting/blogging/facebooking/tag clouding/microsite/ bandwagon.

Everything comes at a cost, and so-called experts might not be as learned as they claim to be.

Caveat Emptor as they say.

Maybe if Newegg had been a bit more aware of consequences and paid attention to what they were doing, they wouldn't currently be known for this great tag cloud generated from their own in house customer support forum...

With a great beard comes great wisdom.

2009-12-07T10:33:00.003-05:00

Isn't that right Tom?

LG makes cellphones. Cellphones are sometimes used for cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a big problem for a lot of high school age students, in some cases it's even led to suicide. And then there's the problem of teens misusing cellphones and the inbuilt camera to take pictures that, well, pictures that would best not be taken.

So how do you get the people holding your product in their hands to use it wisely?

Give it a Ponder, and let James Lipton help you.

I don't care if you're hungry

2009-12-03T13:21:00.003-05:00

You can't sell the commercial rights to my favourite song! If you do, you're nothing more than a sellout, a corporate shill, lower than pond scum.

Isn't that what runs through your mind when you hear a song you love being used to sell cars, or shoes, or snacks? Damn those artists and labels for selling your youth, for corrupting that great song, for trivializing it by using it to sell something to you. Their cynicism in thinking a song you recognize and relate to will make you buy their product...the nerve.

But, you know, artists are people too. And they like to do people things, like eat and have shelter. So when the agency comes calling and offers to buy the rights so they can sell something, and they're willing to pay top dollar, who's to say that artistic principle trumps a growling stomach?

Even The Clash has done it. In 2002, the band incurred criticism when they sold the rights to Jaguar for a car advertisement. In an interview posted on his website, Strummer explained the reasons for the deal. "Yeah. I agreed to that. We get hundreds of requests for that and turn 'em all down. But I just thought Jaguar... yeah. If you're in a group and you make it together, then everybody deserves something. Especially twenty-odd years after the fact."

Here's a great article about the math and the emotion behind selling the rights to a song.

And here's one of the greatest bands in history performing one of their greatest songs.

The movie sucked but the banners are killer

2009-12-03T13:15:00.002-05:00

Here are some animated banners promoting a movie. See if you can guess which movie they're for...

Your facebook profile is the real you.

2009-12-02T11:10:00.004-05:00

New research from The University of Texas at Austin about people's Facebook profiles...

Facebook profiles capture true personality, according to new psychology research

Online social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate real personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin.

"I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves," says Gosling of the more than 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles. "In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren't trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off.

"These findings suggest that online social networks are not so much about providing positive spin for the profile owners," he adds, "but are instead just another medium for engaging in genuine social interactions, much like the telephone."

Gosling and a team of researchers collected 236 profiles of college-aged people from the United States (Facebook) and Germany (StudiVZ, SchuelerVZ). The researchers used questionnaires to assess the profile owners' actual personality characteristics as well as their ideal-personality traits (how they wished to be). The personality traits included: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness.

In the study, observers rated the profiles of people they did not know. These ratings were then compared to the profile owners' actual personality and their ideal-personality. Personality impressions based on online social network profiles were accurate and were not affected by profile owners' self-idealization.

Accuracy was strongest for extraversion — paralleling results of face-to-face encounters — and lowest for neuroticism. Those findings were consistent with previous research showing that neuroticism is difficult to detect without being in person.

"I think that being able to express personality accurately contributes to the popularity of online social networks in two ways," says Gosling. "First, it allows profile owners to let others know who they are and, in doing so, satisfies a basic need to be known by others. Second, it means that profile viewers feel they can trust the information they glean from online social network profiles, building their confidence in the system as a whole."

Gosling recently co-authored a study on how first impressions do matter when it comes to communicating personality through appearance. For his latest personality research, he focuses his attention to personality in relation to online social networks.

Findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers include: Gosling and Sam Gaddis (The University of Texas at Austin), Mitja Back, Juliane Stopfer and Boris Egloff (Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany), Simine Vazire (Washington University in St. Louis), and Stefan Schmukle (Westfälische Wilhelms-University Münster, Germany).

Tax this to pretty up that.

2009-12-02T10:59:00.004-05:00

Toronto city council is debating a new tax on billboards this week. Links are here and here. The idea is to implement a tax on billboards in the city and use the revenue to facilitate a cleanup and beautification of the city. And anyone who's been outside lately knows we need a cleanup here.

One side of the fence sees billboards as urban blight and visual pollution. The other sees them as a sign of business-friendly city government.

Billboards should be taxed, but so should all the other pseudo-advertising that clutters up the great outdoors. From those plastic signs for roofers to the posters that seem to overlap one another in a space of minutes. If a budget can afford a billboard, a poster or the printing of thousands of plastic signs, it can afford to pay a tax to use public space. If it doesn't pay a tax to use public space, then why should it be allowed to remain? This isn't a freedom of speech issue, it's not an example of government being unfriendly to business. It's about public space and who gets to use it.

The point is...?

2009-12-01T15:43:00.003-05:00

From the Pharmatimes.com

US consumer ads “led to higher drug prices”

A new study suggesting that US direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for a top-selling drug had no effect on prescribing rates but led to a major rise in the drug’s price needs to be followed up, say the authors.

Use of Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi-Aventis’ blood-thinner Plavix (clopidogrel), which first appeared on the market in 1998, did not increase as a result of the consumer advertising campaign for it which began in 2001. However, a “sudden and sustained increase” in the drug’s price after the ads commenced cost 27 state Medicaid programmes an additional $207 million in pharmacy expenditures during 2001-2005, say researchers led by Dr Michael Law of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, reporting their findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week.

The price of Plavix increased 12% immediately after the DTCA began in 2001, say the authors, who note that in order to recoup the “substantial” costs of DTCA – which totaled more than $350 million for Plavix during 2001-5 - drugmakers need to generate higher revenues through increased sales, higher prices or both.

“If drug price increases after DTCA initiation are common, there are important implications for payers and for policy makers in the United States and elsewhere. Future longitudinal studies should examine other drugs and settings because many other countries are currently considering whether to permit DTCA," the authors conclude. Currently, DTCA is permitted only in the USA and New Zealand.

In comments to Reuters, Dr Law added: “the public should rightly wonder why they’re paying millions in extra drug costs to pay for advertising campaigns that don’t work.”

US drugmakers’ spending for DTCA has increased more than 330% in the last 10 years, and in 2006 the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that every $1 spent on DTCA generates an average $2 in sales. However, in September 2008, the first-ever controlled study into DTCA – whose authors included Dr Law - reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that money spent on such advertising has no effect whatsoever.

Nevertheless, the control or abolition of DTCA has long been a popular target for Congress, and current proposals include House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman’s call for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to have powers to ban such advertising for new drugs for up to three years after approval, and New York Representative Jerrold Nalder’s reintroduced Say No to Drug Ads Act, which would abolish tax exemptions for DTCA.

It is in the first few years of a new drug's life that manufacturers "often aggressively market their products and engage in DTCA," and this "increases the number of consumers exposed to safety risks of new products long before they are truly understood," Rep Waxman has said.

Around 30 million people, or about 16% of the US population, are enrolled in the 27 state Medicaid programmes – the federal health insurance programme for those on low incomes – used in the study.

By Lynne Taylor

I've kinda gotta just do the old facepalm/headshake combo after reading this...and then be really thankful I live in Canada.

The ultimate handheld content platform

2009-12-01T15:22:00.004-05:00

Version 4.0, with fully licensed content, 26" four colour media display that can be rotated, built-in games, and you can share it without signing a 5,734 page long end-user license.

What a magical age we live in.

Television spot for the printed word

2009-11-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

It's brilliant. It's art. It's worth a watch.

You're not as popular as you think

2009-11-30T11:18:00.002-05:00

So you've gone and set up a Facebook page for your client. Good for you. Everyone else is, so you should get on that right away. But at the end of the day. How many people have you brought over to the brand? How many of them are going to be influenced by it?

Well, if you're part of the 77%, less than a thousand.

Sure you've got fans but how many and how often do they see you?

Go naked, save the planet.

2009-11-30T11:14:00.003-05:00

Here's an interesting math problem. How much of an impact does your product's packing have on the environment, from the raw materials through to recycling or disposal? Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo.com did the numbers for one product line for Coca Cola and came up with this:

It doesn't only look beautiful, and it would make Jon Ive and Steve Jobs wet, but this naked Coca-Cola can would help save energy while reducing air and water pollution. Would it really make a difference? Let's do some math:

Assume the consumption only increases through time, but let's take the daily 2007 numbers from Global INForM Cases Sales database: The total number of Coca-Cola cans sold per worldwide is 67,873,309. Diet Coke and Coke Zero sold 35,387,241, while My Coke sold 103,260,550. Yes, that's all per day.

So using only classic Coca-Cola's daily sales figures, that means 24,773,757,785 are sold every year. Twenty-four billion cans. That is indeed a lot of paint and paint removal products. Because this doesn't only affect the production. It also affects the recycling process, eliminating one step:

The naked can help to reduce air and water pollution occurred in its coloring process. It also reduces energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in recycling process. Huge amount of energy and paint required to manufacture colored cans will be saved. Instead of toxic paint, manufacturers process aluminum with a pressing machine that indicates brand identity on surface.

Sounds good to me, and it even looks better if you take into account all kinds of Coke. That brings up the number to 75,380,201,500 cans. I don't know how much paint that represents, but I'm guessing quite a few thousand tons. [7760 via Likecool, Sales info from Let's Get Together]

Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.

Playboy purchasers pull publishing

2009-11-24T13:38:00.004-05:00

Playboy. They only want you for one thing. It ain't the nudie pictures. It ain't the comprehensive database of centerfold likes and dislikes. and it's definitely not all those fine, fine pieces of journalism by Hunter Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, the authors whose writing was the only reason I ever bought the magazine...

It's the Bunny. The icon. The insouciant symbol of sin, sex and swingin' good times. It sells.

So, now the brand has waned, gone limp, if you will and has been superseded by the brand emblem. But we'll still be able to buy all number of really well made, quality products with a Playboy bunny logo and that is what's important.

Celebrity endorsements for new-fangled technology

2009-11-24T10:50:00.002-05:00

Here's what you need to know:

King Kong Bundy, Alan Alda and John Cleese.

They're all trying to sell you a computer.

See for yourself.

Take peoples money...

2009-11-24T10:42:00.003-05:00

then scam them.

Great way to foster that consumer relationship.

From The Huffington Post.

Here's what's happening. Well known e-commerce companies have been sending post transaction marketing offers to consumers immediately after something is purchased. Consumers are offered cash back if they simply click a confirmation button. When they do, their credit card information is automatically passed on to a marketing company that signs them up for a credit card subscription for a package of useless services. The rebate is rarely paid. The U.S. Senate is not impressed.

Sounds dodgy doesn't it? Really unethical. The kind of thing only a really sleazy company would do, not a well known one like say...1800Flowers.com, Fandango, FTD, Orbitz, Priceline, Shutterfly, Buy.com, Barnes & Noble, Expedia, as well as many more.

It's kind of like the death of a thousand cuts. If so many well regarded and well known companies are out there finding underhanded ways to score a few more pennies from their customers, customers are going to migrate back to personal shopping where you see the person you're handing money to and have more control over your own data.

Google: not evil, has deep pockets

2009-11-24T10:31:00.005-05:00

Google continued its march towards global domination this week. First they upped the PR stakes by allowing their potentially sentient AI software to seek and destroy ads on Google servers for tooth whitening and weight loss products. Given that both these products are, shall we say, less than legit, yellow-toothed overweight people everywhere will rejoice.

Then, just the other morning, the board at Google found some money under the couch in reception. So they went out and bought an advertising technology startup.

So, essentially, Google is slowly but inexorably moving into being more than a search site/email/collaboration/chat/image/voice/data/cloud/keyword/hosting company. Nope, they're moving into pretty much everything.

I for one welcome our new Menlo Park overlords.

New breakthrough in outdoor promotion

2009-11-20T12:55:00.002-05:00

This just in from the Institute For The Blindingly Obvious:

Hotels on the east coast of Canada are learning something about promotion.

It's called lit signage.

Apparently it's a big deal there. Or it was an astonishingly, appalling slow news day.

Terry meet Russell, Russell meet Terry

2009-11-20T10:43:00.003-05:00

Terry O'Reilly knows advertising. And now someone has snagged an interview with him where he is asked the question we all want answered. What is up with that Russell Oliver guy?

Here's the interview, pilfered from BlogTo.com

What makes these bad ads?

I feel all ads should give something back. At the very least, an ad should reward the viewer/listener for sitting through an ad with a smile, or a laugh. These hard-sell ads don't do that. They don't respect the audience's intelligence. I truly believe that when people say all advertising is bad, these are the ads they have in mind. Plus, these ads are also aired with high frequency, so hammer the audience.

If you were brought in to run Oliver's advertising strategy what would you change?

I would sit down with him and try and figure out what kind of a brand he really wants to be. If it is, in fact, a loud, hard-sell guy, i would try and bring some wit to it. Right now, it is silly and almost juvenile in its execution. I also think you can be hardcore retail but still have intelligence at work.

Toronto Tourism and the City of Toronto in general are also much derided for what many residents feel is their inability to effectively market the city. If you were tasked with marketing Toronto, what would you do differently?

I can't really say, because I'm not privy to their strategy. Oliver Jewellery aside, i don't like commenting on how I'd change ad campaigns without having a lot of knowledge about the product. I will say this - tourism campaigns are very tough to do well. It's tough because you are caught between projecting the image tourists already have about you, or projecting a completely new one that may not appeal to them.

Canada, for instance, is widely thought to be mountains, snow, rivers and moose. Europeans love this imagery of Canada, but that is hardly all that Canada is. Plus, Montana could also claim that imagery. It's not unique to Canada, but Italians, for example, dream of coming to Canada to see the mountains and the moose. I also think there are too many masters to please in a tourism campaign, too much vested interest. One of my first demands would be to streamline the approval process, so that it isn't left in the hands of a committee.

How do you feel about the increasing incidents of illegal, guerrilla marketing tactics in the city. Since these incidents often generate publicity (albeit not necessarily favourable) do you think it's paying off for marketers? Or is it ultimately bad for their business?

I think guerrilla advertising is a creative way for smaller advertisers to get attention. I don't think it is tolerated from bigger advertisers. The great thing about guerrilla advertising is that it is usually not paid media - therefore it levels the playing field for smaller advertisers. Some of it is highly creative, and I admire it. That said, illegal advertising is not smart. It can come back and bite an advertiser, as it did Ikea.

Toronto has a very active community aiming to keep ad creep in check. In particular, illegalsigns.ca works tirelessly to get the city to remove illegal billboards and now the city has introduced a sign and billboard tax by-law. Heroic work perhaps. But do you think more can be done to get marketers or industries to act more ethically or police themselves?

I think regulations and rules are very good things. Any industry needs to be regulated. There will always be companies that push the boundaries, or test the limits. Regulations make the industry behave responsibly.

You've just released a new book. What can you tell us about it? Can loyal listeners of your radio show on CBC expect to read some of the same or similar anecdotes?

Mike and I want people to judge advertising by the best, most creative advertising, not by the worst, bad ads. Most of your questions above focus on the worst of advertising, I want to celebrate the best of advertising. What if the music industry were only judged by the worst songs? Or the book industry by the most terrible books? There is some incredible advertising out there. Just look at the Advertising & Design Club of Canada Awards that were given out earlier this month - amazing work.

Canada ranks in the top five countries in the world when it comes to creative advertising. We have an incredibly high level of creativity here. That's what the radio show and the book celebrate: the stories behind the best campaigns ever done. We have over 600,000 listeners a week, so clearly, there is enormous curiosity when it comes to the 'behind the scenes' stories of Madison Avenue. Our biggest wish is that people start spending their money with the great advertisers, and stop buying from the worst advertisers.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, there is too much advertising in the world. But remember that advertising does play an important role in a free-market economy. Almost everyone is connected to marketing. Most people work for companies that have to market their products. The marketing of those products keeps companies profitable and healthy, and consequently keeps lots of people employed. When Mike and i celebrate excellent advertising, it is advertising that is honest, smart and hopefully entertaining. That's the goal. And it is the kind of advertising most of the people I know in this business aspire to. We don't always hit the bullseye, but we try every time out.

User-unfriendly design

2009-11-17T13:07:00.004-05:00

The curtain was recently drawn back at the U.S. Patent Office and one of the gems it was hiding was an application from Apple. Nothing new there right? Those guys must patent more stuff by breakfast than most people do all day...

But wait, there's more. And more.

The geniuses at Apple have applied to patent a some 'warez that force the user to comply with a preset set of demands. Like viewing an ad. None of this waiting for the ad to finish before you watch nonsense, oh no, this is much more interactive. You have to pay attention and then click a button or answer a question to continue.

Kind of like that whole answer three questions right or you can't cross the bridge scenario in a certain movie.

I guess 1984 won't be like 1984, it'll be a hell of a lot worse. If I don't want to watch an ad, I don't. Being forced to watch an ad will only serve to promote a rather visceral reaction. Companies don't endear themselves to consumers by effecting "enforcement routines" and making users jump through hoops to get to content.

Unfortunately this application is for more than just online usage. Mobile, TV, consumer electronics in general will soon be as petulant and demanding as a roomful of two year olds.

Great.

To infinity and beyond.

2009-11-17T09:38:00.002-05:00

In comfort.

You've got new products to sell. You've got to stand out.

And you have technology on your side.

Toshiba is promoting it's new areas of innovation and is doing it in a very interesting way. They're sending a chair to the very edge of space and then bringing it back to earth.

The Space Chair ad campaign is promoting the new 2010 REGZA SV LCD TV series. The campaign will later expand to include a second spot for the Satellite T Series laptops. The ad follows the voyage of "an ordinary living room chair" to the edge of space before falling back to earth.

A helium balloon lifted the chair and a Toshiba IK-HR1S ultra-compact 1080i camera to a height of 98,268 feet above ground
Federal regulations required the weight of the rig be less than four pounds
The chair is made of balsa wood and cost about $5,000
The rig was launched in Nevada's Black Rock desert
The chair took 83 minutes to reach 98,268 feet and 24 minutes to return to earth

I'm not sure what message they're sending but it would have been an interesting pitch meeting to be in on...

The Best So Far

2009-11-16T15:33:00.002-05:00

See if you agree with Adweek.

That is all.

The movie. The business.

2009-11-16T12:10:00.002-05:00

Art & Copy is coming to the silver screen.

Doug Pray has made a movie about another one of the world's oldest professions. And according to Wired, it ain't too bad either.

"Many of the ad industry’s greats appear as talking heads in the film. We meet Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby, the guys behind “Got Milk?” and the Budweiser lizards. There’s Dan Wieden and David Kennedy, creators of Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign. Phyllis Robinson and Mary Wells, the most influential women from the Mad Men era of the 1960s, talk about their respective achievements for Clairol and Braniff Airlines."

So. There you go.

Before Microsoft. After Microsoft.

2009-11-16T11:14:00.004-05:00

“After Microsoft” tells the story of a January day in the late 90’s when the hill came to coincide with a global branding strategy.

After Microsoft has been exhibited as an installation piece, including a projection of the re-photographed view together with a voice-over. Following is the transcript of the voice-over:

The most distributed image ever is being phased out. What remains is a hill in Sonoma Valley, California.

Charles O’Rear used to pass that hill almost daily between his home in Napa and his wife, Daphne, who lived in Marin County. He always carried his medium format camera.

It was hard even to slow down on highway 12/121. But one day, it must have been in January, he pulled over. After about a month of rain the sun comes up, and there is beautiful green grass. The weather during the winter can change dramatically. A break in the storm. Intense blue sky with cumulus clouds. Maybe later that day it rained.

Blue was an important brand color already in ‘95. Clouds and sky being a common theme in many aspects of the product’s identity and collateral. Illustrating potential and opportunity.

Continuing the cloud theme, but with added grounding. The horizon gives a sense of scale to the image. Makes it possible to imagine being there.

Because of the danger of that road and where he was standing, he didn’t take a tripod. His camera, when handheld, needed to be shot at least at a five-hundredth of a second. Whatever that translates into on a sunny day. Probably 500 at 5.6.

With property prices in Sonoma reaching $75,000 per acre for bare land, most hills were being developed into vineyards or homes. On this hill grapevines had been planted. But in the early 90’s a Phylloxera bug infested the grapes and made them unusable. The entire vineyard had to be pulled out. For a few years the hill was covered with grass. Green at the time of the photograph.

Green was the second main color in the branding scheme and in the User Interface. Running late in the product development cycle. Looking for a nature shot. “The reality of real life”. The image matched the brand colors. It fell completely into place, in terms of sky, clouds, blue plus the green field.

By the time the image was purchased, grapes had been planted again on the hill in Sonoma Valley.

Pick the wrong colour and watch profits vanish.

2009-11-16T11:10:00.002-05:00

What colour is your brand?

It's a crucial question, and one that has vexed designers and branding agencies forever. Just to give you an idea have a look at the chart. Now try and figure out how you're going to differentiate yourself from all the other competing companies who are using similar colours.

Your font offends me.

2009-11-16T10:24:00.003-05:00

Purloined from the New York Times:

November 16, 2009

Design

Mistakes in Typography Grate the Purists

By ALICE RAWSTHORN

Dirt. Noise. Crowds. Delays. Scary smells. Even scarier fluids swirling on the floor. There are lots of reasons to loathe the New York City subway, but one very good reason to love it — Helvetica, the typeface that’s used on its signage.

Seeing the clean, crisp shapes of those letters and numbers at station entrances, on the platforms and inside the trains is always a treat, at least it is until I spot the “Do not lean ...” sign on the train doors. Ugh! There’s something not quite right about the “e” and the “a” in the word “lean.” Somehow they seem too small and too cramped. Once I’ve noticed them, the memory of the clean, crisp letters fades, and all I remember are the “off” ones.

That’s the problem with loving typography. It’s always a pleasure to discover a formally gorgeous, subtly expressive typeface while walking along a street or leafing through a magazine. (Among my current favorites are the very elegant letters in the new identity of the Paris fashion house, Céline, and the jolly jumble of multi-colored fonts on the back of the Rossi Ice Cream vans purring around London.) But that joy is swiftly obliterated by the sight of a typographic howler. It’s like having a heightened sense of smell. You spend much more of your time wincing at noxious stinks, than reveling in delightful aromas.

If it’s bad for me (an amateur enthusiast who is interested in typography, but isn’t hugely knowledgeable about it), what must it be like for the purists? Dreadful, it seems. I feel guilty enough about grumbling to my friends whenever I see this or that typographic gaffe, but am too ignorant to spot all of them, unlike the designers who work with typefaces on a daily basis, and study them lovingly.

“I think sometimes that being overly type-sensitive is like an allergy,” said Michael Bierut, a partner in the Pentagram design group in New York. “My font nerdiness makes me have bad reactions to things that spoil otherwise pleasant moments.” One of his (least) favorite examples is the Cooper Black typeface on the Mass sign outside a beautifully restored 1885 Carpenter Gothic church near his weekend home in Cape May Point, New Jersey. “Cooper Black is a perfectly good font, but in my mind it is a fat, happy font associated with the logo for the ‘National Lampoon,’ the sleeve of the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds’ album and discount retailers up and down the U.S.,” Mr. Bierut explained. “I wouldn’t choose it as a font for St. Agnes Church even as a joke. Every time I go by, my vacation is, for a moment, ruined.”

Choosing an inappropriate typeface is one problem. Applying one inaccurately is another. Sadly for type nuts, movies often offend on both counts. Take “Titanic,” in which the numbers on the dials of the ship’s pressure gauges use Helvetica, a font designed in 1957, some 45 years after the real “Titanic” sank. Helvetica was also miscast in “Good Night and Good Luck,” which takes place in the early 1950s. “I still find it bizarre to see type or lettering that is wrong by years in a period movie in which the architecture, furniture and costumes are impeccable, and where somebody would have been fired if they were not,” said Matthew Carter, the typography designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The same applies to TV shows, including the otherwise excellent “Mad Men.” It is rare to find a review of the show that does not rave about the accuracy of its early 1960s styling, yet the “Mad Men” team is woefully sloppy when it comes to typography. Mark Simonson, a graphic designer in St. Paul, Minnesota, blogs about typographic misdemeanors on his Web site, www.marksimonson.com, and he once catalogued the flaws in “Mad Men.” The 1992 typeface, Lucida Handwriting, appears in an ad in the opening titles. Gill Sans, a British typeface designed in 1930 but rarely used in the United States until the 1970s, is used for office signage. A lipstick ad features one wholly appropriate 1958 font, Amazone, but two incongruous ones, 1978’s Balmoral and 1980’s Fenice. He noted lots of other clunkers too, but admits that he has spotted fewer new errors in the most recent episodes of “Mad Men.”

“I guess they must be doing a better job,” Mr. Simonson said, adding that the same applies to other TV shows and movies, with the unfortunate exception of the animated feature film “Up,” in which he espied Verdana, a font designed by Mr. Carter in 1996 specifically for use on computers, in scenes set in the 1930s and 1940s. “But I’m not sure how picky you should be with a cartoon.”

Yet another common blunder is the misuse of the individual characters in a typeface that includes obscure versions of letters and numbers as well as more familiar ones. These gaffes often occur when lazy designers confuse one character with another, thereby making the typographic equivalent of a spelling mistake.

The British typography designer, Paul Barnes, remembers seeing one on a poster in a Gap store. “It was set in Adobe Caslon and was supposed to say ‘Your first clothes,”’ he recalled. “Rather than use an ‘f’ and ‘I,’ they decided to use a long ‘s’ and dotless ‘i,’ thus spelling ‘sirst’ rather than ‘first.’ ” He is equally irritated by similar errors in the use of historic fonts, like the archaic black letter typefaces that date back to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.

That said, even the type-savvy Mr. Barnes claims to have become more tolerant — or less intolerant — of such howlers over the years. “I’m not sure if it’s a case of growing older, or maybe I have lower expectations,” he explained. “In France recently, I drank some nice Côtes du Rhône wine with a fairly dreadful typographic dress. I was less bothered than I used to be; after all, it’s the wine that’s important!”

Coca Cola's new touchy campaign

2009-11-13T14:09:00.003-05:00

Coca Cola wanted to promote their new bottle design, meant to improve the consumer's grip. Apparently this is a big problem in Europe, after several highly publicized incidents of grip-failure related injuries swamped hospitals and emergency services...

Anyway, to get the attention of the grip-challenged public, they decided to promote them using some transit ads. Transit ads that reached out and touched the public.

It's an interesting idea but really only practical when there's little chance of bare skin coming into contact with it...

Gorgeous outdoor projection

2009-11-13T11:03:00.002-05:00

It's got artistic merit and heavy outdoor promotion potential.

It's 3D projection and it's gorgeous.

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

Rule number 1: Do not anger the Miracle Whip marketing team

2009-11-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

Or they will find you and they will deal with you in a most unpleasant manner. Just ask Stephen Colbert.

They will not tone it down indeed. They're too busy being edgy.

It's a brilliant response. It really is. Unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that Miracle Whip is a spreadable topping, and is not a key part of social identity.

The market demands media

2009-11-12T16:00:00.004-05:00

And Demand Media has met the demand for media in a most industrial fashion.

Content is king, or key or something. Either way, it's important. With so many sites, and so many people looking, you have to stand out. Templates and colour schemes are nice but if your content ain't relevant you might as well go back to being a shepherd or selling decorative shoe horns.

Enter Demand Media. They've streamlined content generation and acquisition, industrialized it and designed a Just-In-Time delivery system, with up to 4,000 unique pieces of content coming out daily.

Using proprietary algorithms and other top secret methods they're poised to revolutionize content for other sites.

As to whether or not speed to market creates a bias in the content or generates content that doesn't stand up to scrutiny...well time will tell. It does make for an interesting study in collectivization of labour in the digital economy though.

John Mayer "Heartbreak Warfare" - Official Augmented Reality Music Video

2009-11-10T14:03:00.002-05:00

Studio B teamed with Adobe and John Mayer to create the worlds first Augmented Reality music video.

Website? That's so last year.

2009-11-09T11:15:00.002-05:00

We've moved everything over to YouTube.

Get with the times there ya dinosaur. Boone Oakley did and look how cool they are now.

Barcode = art

2009-11-09T10:50:00.003-05:00

Barcodes are what makes the world go round. If it weren't for them society as a whole would probably collapse into anarchy.

And they can be pretty fun to play with too...

Whose tweets are being twittered?

2009-11-09T10:43:00.002-05:00

In the all out stampede to embrace new channels of communication things can get missed. When websites first began sprouting many companies were slow to understand what they were and even slower to register domain names. The resulting litigation was an interesting application of international and intellectual property laws.

Now it's happened again.

Nike, GM, even WalMart have been beaten to the tweet. The companies, amongst others, neglected to set up corporate twitter feeds. And now someone has done it for them. Some accounts are being handled by fans of the brands but other accounts aren't as fawning.

Those who neglect history are doomed to repeat it or so I've heard.

In other news, Big Ben tweets.

Green screen? Nope. Celeb voiceover? Nah.

2009-11-05T11:23:00.003-05:00

We're all familiar with local advertising. From the annoying guy who buys your jewellery to people who provide more esoteric goods and services. To better help them advertise, two guys are going around the U.S. and producing and directing tv spots for a wide range of small and local businesses.

And they're not too bad.

This is how the future looks

2009-11-02T10:51:00.002-05:00

At least for outdoor, interactive digital advertising.

Waterloo Station in London is the site of a very cutting edge piece of outdoor media. When the landscape is saturated with media, only the best media will stand out. This is one of them.

Let's hope they don't do viral marketing

2009-10-30T11:54:00.003-04:00

They might wind up wiping out entire countries. Black Death, brought to you by Absolut Vodka...

A company at a German trade show has attached incredibly tiny banner ads to house flies and set them loose on unsuspecting tradeshow visitors in a truly bizarre and possibly effective marketing stunt.

The banners, measuring just a few centimetres across, seem to cause the hapless and unwilling flies a spot of trouble. The weight keeps the flies at a lower altitude and forces them to rest more often, which means the flies end up at eye level, and whenever a fly is forced to land and refuel, the banner is clearly visible. And of course, the zigzag pattern of flight naturally attracts attention when the fly is...well, flying.

So, which company do you think will be the first to use Cockroaches to promote themselves? I'm going to put my money on payday loan companies...

Countries are brands too.

2009-10-28T11:33:00.002-04:00

And flags are as recognizable as many brands around the world. The Stars & Stripes, the Maple Leaf, the Union Jack, the Hammer & Sickle to name but a few.

But context is key. So what happens when you reduce a flag to its constituent colours and show them as ratios to the size and proportion.

Well wonder no longer.

Shahee Ilyas is a designer who has tweaked context and colour and made a very interesting site.

It's your birthday.

2009-10-28T11:29:00.002-04:00

If your name happens to be online advertising. Commonly know as 'Banner' to your friends and revenue-stealing piece of flash animation to those who work in the newspaper industry.

Either way, happy birthday digital advertising.

Insightful or unfortunate product placement?

2009-10-28T11:28:00.001-04:00

You be the judge.

Tasty type Tuesday

2009-10-27T16:11:00.002-04:00

Enjoy

Information isn't just beautiful.

2009-10-27T16:05:00.002-04:00

It's gorgeous.

Information is Beautiful is a site that presents data and information with some rather interesting and in some cases tasty design. From gender splits on social networking sites to disease rates around the world and from representations of the political spectrum to competing millennial prophesies, they've got some lovely graphics.

Definitely worth a look.

Any publicity is good publicity - right?

2009-10-27T16:01:00.002-04:00

Especially when you have UN General Assembly president, Dr. Ali A. Treki of Libya available for a photo op.

Here's the formula: 1 imitator of long deceased corporate founder and icon + 1 security guard from a country that hasn't achieved massive exposure to western brands = photo op inside the UN.

True story.

The style guide to end all style guides

2009-10-26T15:59:00.002-04:00

Thank you internets for giving us this incredible and mighty tool. We can now write without fear.

Online ad spending. There's money to be made.

2009-10-26T11:31:00.002-04:00

And if AT&T is reading this, we are very open to negotiations, and our prices are so low you'll think we're crazy.

Different sites get different traffic, and different traffic attracts different advertisers. Here's a delightful little infographic that outlines who is spending what and where they're spending it. Online-adwise that is.

Seems to me like Facebook could become bigger than the GDP of many countries by sometime in November.

If you find them, count'em

2009-10-20T14:40:00.002-04:00

Taking a census is never a simple matter. In fact it's a swamp of logistics, data and analysis. Of course getting people to participate is crucial, but what if they don't want to? For fear of 'government surveillance' in the big brother era amongst other reasons.

To combat low numbers and generate more responses, the U.S. Census Bureau has embarked on a media campaign that goes beyond what they've normally done. Way beyond. All the way to Super Bowl XLIV. But that's not all. They're also reaching out to immigrant communities and engaging them in ways that haven't been attempted in the past. Like telenovelas for the Latino spectrum of the population.

Electronic paper in the world of the Kindle

2009-10-20T14:35:00.003-04:00

Great article from New Scientist on the present and future of e-paper or e-ink or whatever the hell it's called this month.

Politcal Advertising - British Style

2009-10-20T14:12:00.004-04:00

Britain. They gave us the Magna Carta, fish n' chips, humour and now they've given us some rather amusing and satirical political advertising over the recent expenses scandal.

Perhaps you heard about it. MP's were caught claiming expenses for such things as moat cleaning and floating duck houses. Moat cleaning. Hmmm.

Instead of marching, yelling, throwing things and generally getting all shouty and anarchistic, the good people across the sea did something better. They made fun of it to show how serious they are.

A series of videos have been produced and released this week taking the mickey out of the rather exotic expense claims British Members of Parliament have made. These expenses came to light after numerous media outlets campaigned to have details released earlier this year.

The videos are directed by John Lloyd (the man behind British comedy classics like Blackadder and Spitting Image) and they've been made to support the Open Up! campaign for Parliamentary Reform. Watch the videos, and if you're based in the UK, you can sign the petition calling for change. Funny how media can turn against you in the blink of an eye innit? Funnier still how youtube can completely and utterly captivate and educate while skewering you.

Where the world buys giveaway merch.

2009-10-19T11:28:00.003-04:00

62,000 stalls
320,000 different commodities on sale
More than 1,500 categories
Within 34 industries

Artificial flowers, cuddly toys, fashion jewellery, hair accessories, jewellery fittings, arts and crafts items, photograph frames, crystal, and buckets and spades in lurid reds and yellows, bags, wallets, hardware, kitchenware, bikes, watches clocks, locks, scooters and home appliances, zips, buttons, packaging materials, crazy-eyed leprechauns, Tom and Jerry, the Pink Panther and Yosemite Sam, funny big hands, comical Viking hats, whistles, rattles, giant bananas, World Cup South Africa 2010 mascots, plastic fruit, hair ornaments.

The list is endless. And so is the mall that sells it. Great article about the mall that sells everything.

87 very, very, very cool things.

2009-10-19T11:24:00.002-04:00

87 things that you'll want, use and wish you'd thought of.

Do yourself a favour, check it out.

As seen on TV - now it's cool.

2009-10-15T14:13:00.003-04:00

Snuggies, Flo-bees, Boxcar Willie albums - you can find it all without ever having to get up off the recliner.

But a combination of recession and low-priced semi-quality consumer goods has led to a rise in sales as more people stay home and look to cut certain corners when it comes to spending.

So much so that infomercials have moved from late-night time slots to prime time. Curl up in your Snuggie while you watch CSI or The Hills.

Links to Adage.com and New York Times for your reading enjoyment.

But wait there's more!

Interesting infomercials in India

2009-10-15T14:01:00.003-04:00

Inhabitants in India, initially interested in identical items inhabit interstitial innerspace.

Or, to put it simply, many people living in India don't have televisions. And if they don't have televisions, they can't watch infomercials. So, someone came up with the novel idea of doing it live in front of an audience.

The Wall Street Journal profiles one such person, who works for a division of a division of Lowe Worldwide.

Small world innit?

It's the future all right. The future of cereal.

2009-10-14T12:59:00.002-04:00

Brand identity is huge. So is brand confidence and integrity. In today's world of counterfeit everything (I have several Rolex watches for sale by the way), how to protect your product and your brand from imitators?

Lasers.

Not on sharks or anything, nope, instead just use lasers to etch your brand name onto your products. Like...oh I don't know...cornflakes...

If you don't have anything nice to say...

2009-10-14T10:59:00.002-04:00

put it on a billboard.

The recession is hitting everyone hard, and in the U.S. certain states have decided that it's a free for all. Nevada and California for instance have taken to erecting billboards that tell everyone how awful the other is.

Business is business and tax dollars are wonderful things, and when times are tough, the rules go out the window.

Let's do it.

2009-10-13T14:55:00.003-04:00

The Birth of ‘Just Do It’ and Other Magic Words By JEREMY W. PETERS

TO the list of great copy writers in advertising, add an unlikely name: Gary Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore, the notorious spree-killer, uttered the words “Let’s do it” just before a firing squad executed him in Utah in 1977. Years later, the phrase became the inspiration for “Just Do It” campaign.

The episode might make you wonder about the genesis of some other offbeat ads over the years. Where does someone get the idea to write a jingle about Oscar Mayer wiener envy? And how exactly does one dream up a talking gecko selling car insurance? The revelation about the “Just Do It” slogan is one of many fly-on-the-wall anecdotes that the famous names of the advertising world share in a new documentary by the filmmaker Doug Pray called “Art & Copy,” to be released in New York on Friday. The film takes some of advertising campaigns that are most indelibly seared into the American consciousness — “Got Milk?,” “I (Heart) NY,” “I Want My MTV” to name a few — and examines their path from ad slogans to pop culture glory.

Liz Dolan, a former marketing chief at Nike, says in the film that the origins of “Just Do It” were not widely known or acknowledged. “That was not the version I heard when I arrived at Nike,” she said. “I’m sure they didn’t want anyone to really know.” Dan Wieden, who first realized that a slight tweaking of Mr. Gilmore’s last words might make a good slogan for athletic gear, said the resonance of “Just Do It” was completely inadvertent and unforeseen. “I like the ‘do it’ part of it,” Mr. Wieden, a co-founder of Wieden & Kennedy, says in the film, recalling the moment it dawned on him to use the phrase. “None of us really paid that much attention. We thought, ‘Yeah. That’d work,’ ” he says, adding, “People started reading things into it much more than sport.” “Art & Copy” not only examines how seminal campaigns were born, but also, in the case of “Got Milk” and others, how they almost died premature deaths.

Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the brains behind the milk ads and the Budweiser frogs, explain how both of those concepts almost never saw the light of day. In the case of the “Got Milk?” concept, people at Goodby, Silverstein thought it was lazy, not to mention grammatically incorrect. “It’s clunky. It’s not even English,” recalls Mr. Silverstein in the film, expressing his initial distaste for the idea. He later gleefully adds, “It worked!” Mr. Goodby tells how marketers at Anheuser Busch were ready to kill the frog campaign until August Busch III spoke up and said, “Those lizards are really funny.”

The transcendent Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” ads were also initially written off and nearly killed a week before they were set to go on the air, says Cliff Freeman, the slogan’s creator. Mr. Pray, the film’s director, said part of his reason for doing the film was to shed light on the people behind ads that — for good or ill — have left a mark on American culture. “Whether we like it or not, they have shaped our culture to a huge degree. And nobody knows where they’re coming from,”

Mr. Pray, a documentarian who has also directed commercials, said in a recent interview. “We know the captains of industry. We know the heads of G.M. But somehow that’s not true with advertising.” Shows like “Mad Men” on AMC and movies like “The Hucksters” are probably the closest most Americans have in the way of exposure to advertising executives. Some of the subjects interviewed or examined in Mr. Pray’s film — William Bernbach, George Lois, Mary Wells Lawrence — are the original mad men and women who shaped the era the television show depicts. The characters in Mr. Pray’s film, however, are a far cry from the martini-swilling hedonists portrayed on AMC. “I don’t think anyone could confuse me with those guys on the ‘Mad Men’ show,” Mr. Lois said in a recent interview, using a more colorful word to describe the characters. The advertising world in New York in the 1960s, he said, “was intelligent. It was sharp. It was irascible. It was thrilling. It was cultural provocatism.” “Art & Copy,” Mr. Lois added, is a nostalgic look back to a time when advertising had more cultural significance. “Back then, there was this driving need, this passion. It was like a crusade. Everybody knew something important was happening. We were changing the culture of America.” Mr. Pray said that the true believer, change-the-world outlook that Mr. Lois and others espoused about advertising initially escaped him. “I never really looked at it like that. I always saw it as just commerce,” he said. But by examining how resonant ads were made and seeing firsthand their cultural impact, Mr. Pray said he could appreciate them as more than just a way to move merchandise. “There’s a beauty to things like ‘Got Milk?’ or ‘Just Do It’ or ‘Where’s the Beef?’ — this incredibly simple writing that seems to kind of say more,” he said. “They seem to work on some kind of a different level that has nothing to do with the product.”

I have an idea

2009-10-13T14:50:00.003-04:00

I was thinking. And I had an idea. But I needed someplace to jot it down. Thankfully the School of Visual Arts had my back.

Adding fuel to the fire.

2009-10-07T14:23:00.006-04:00

It's a given that many images used in marketing materials are photoshopped. Usually they're done to enhance or otherwise improve the objects in the image. Sometimes they don't.

The most recent disaster to hit the internets is Ralph Lauren, a photoshopped image that is on the grotesque side, and as an added bonus, threats of legal action combined with takedown notices against two sites that have reproduced and commented on the image.

So, instead of admitting that it was a mistake, performing a small mea culpa and putting the whole thing to rest, they've decided to light a big fire and invite everyone over.

Brilliant.

I won't bother commenting on the use of photoshop to promote unhealthy body-image stereotypes or the like, nope, not me.

Buy our car. Or else.

2009-10-05T13:08:00.003-04:00

Toyota has opened up an entirely new avenue of effective communication with their target demographic.

Sheer terror.

In a misguided and ill-advised effort to promote the Matrix model, Saatchi & Saatchi decided to embark on a campaign that was meant to mimic Punk'd in style and tone.

It didn't.

Instead it mimicked a lawsuit, filed by a consumer and recipient of some target marketing by Toyota that failed to generate the sought-after emotional response. In her attorney's words "She slept with a machete next to her bed and she slept with mace. She could barely sleep or eat normally."

Well done. Any publicity is good publicity right?

And you live where exactly?

2009-10-01T16:42:00.001-04:00

Does your neighbour jerk your chicken? In Toronto they just might.

The internet - now in print!

2009-10-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

Social media is online right? Not so fast there champ. It turns out that social media is offline too. Way offline.

It would appear that obituary for print was a tad premature.

The best brands in the world.

2009-09-28T10:53:00.002-04:00

Here's the 2009 list from Interbrand, ranking the best global brands. And they should know.

Come to Denmark for the culture, the sights, the one night stands.

2009-09-28T10:43:00.004-04:00

Viral promotion is all the rage, and the fine folks over at the tourism office in Denmark decided to jump on the wagon with their own contribution. It's a fun little video that is all about one woman's quest to find the father of her baby, the offspring of a one night stand in Copenhagen. Ah Copenhagen...where all those lovely Danish women approach lonely tourist men, get them drunk and have their babies.

Of course, the entire thing has ignited all kinds of controversy and has generated multiple apologies and mea culpa's. Sounds like it worked.

See it here before it's too late.

That's a little...weird

2009-09-28T10:40:00.003-04:00

New, but unapproved Play-Doh print pieces out of Singapore do communicate a message, but in a rather unsettling fashion...

It's just f**king brilliant

2009-09-10T12:00:00.002-04:00

Historical? Yup. Incredibly well executed? Oh yes. Subtitled? Unfortunately. A masterpiece? Quite possibly.

Either way, it's an incredible spot for a very lovely substance.

Keep Walking indeed.

It's how long?

2009-09-03T09:43:00.002-04:00

Ever go to the store and spend less than $2 on something but wind up with a receipt almost a yard long? Sure it's got all sorts of info, maybe a coupon or seven, but really, hot dogs and subs are footlongs, not receipts.

It's a trend that is growing every day, resulting in more paper waste generated, over and over. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about it.

I'm just holding it for a friend.

2009-09-01T11:45:00.004-04:00

And I didn't inhale. Ever. At any time.

To promote the upcoming season of Weeds the drama/comedy that features all kinds of drug dealing hijinks and lowjinks, the promotional company went and built a blunt of Cheech & Chong proportions.

Using hemp, the ugly sibling of marijuana, the promoters sent out packages that probably raised a few eyes in the mailroom. Once unwrapped, voila, the payoff, some promo print for Weeds and some hemp to put in your office.

Odds are a few packages didn't make it to their intended recipient and a few people spent an evening taking self-portraits and coughing their lungs out...

Amaze your clients and be the envy of art directors everywhere

2009-08-28T14:41:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been in a situation where you absolutely, positively must capture the colour the client likes, or else?

But how do you do that if the colour is on a wall, or someone's dog, or a subtle shade that has magically appeared on the craft table during a shoot?

Fear not friends, technology is here to make your lives even more awesome than they already are.

It's the Color Picker Pen - like having Photoshop tools, in your very own hands.

Is English no?

2009-08-28T11:10:00.002-04:00

Bloody'ell! So, what do you do when you wan' some bees an 'oney but don't know what da machine is saying? Nuff said, yeah there Squire? I don't ken wot the geeza sorted.

A company in the UK has set up five ATM's that offer the option of English or Cockney to users who wish to compound a late night cash transaction with complete and total incomprehension.

Just gotta make sure no tea leaves get yer dosh and leave you looking a right muppet.

Remember when?

2009-08-27T16:42:00.003-04:00

t

Remember when you could buy pretty much anything through the mail? From meat to flamethrowers, miniature luggage to drugs. Ah the halcyon days of the past...

I can't for the life of me understand why I can no longer order these items for home delivery.

These guys remember those days and they've got some great ads to remind the rest of us.