Saturday

Snickers Animal Instinct


I don't know how I feel about this new Snickers print but it grabbed my attention - that's for sure. Especially the weird face on the wolf execution. We've blogged some of the previous snickers creative with the viking, village people, etc that I really enjoyed but this seems to be a new strategy - when you get really hungry, you repress back to the basic need and forget everything else about your life - social relationships, work, everything.

The only thing you can focus on is your hunger - sort of like a shark or a whale.

"For those who can't think about anything except hunger and reproduction, have a snickers"

From AdFreak

Friday

I Want Proof

On a number of ad-related things:

1. How many impressions in a campaign are actually seen, not just recorded?

2. Do flash display ads actually resonate more than static versions?

3. Is increased time spent within a site a good thing? Or simply a sign that your users can't find the information their looking for without searching for it?

4. That people notice online ads and choose to click on them (vs. accidentally)

5. Of how a video, any video, becomes "viral" when the original objective is to create content that becomes viral.

I've been working on a deck about metrics lately and found that even when reading a number of different articles, I have more questions than answers. Determining answers to some of the above questions over the next few years is critical - especially when it comes to the value of an impression.

More to come...

Thursday

Quote of the Day

"Never overestimate the intelligence of your audience"
- anonymous

Do smart ads work better than dumb ones? Sure, we see a lot of brutal ads out there, but are they easier to understand and remember than the emotional ones?

Naked Intern is very happy


An intern at Naked Communications the agency for Contiki Tours has gained the jealousy of every ad agency intern currently organizing catering requests, photocopying presentations and updating finance binders . On his first day, intern Gavin Chimes was ambushed with the agency sending him on a surprise trip to Europe; first stop, Amsterdam.

The agency will be documenting his entire Contiki Tour, a company that offers travel tours for 18-35 year olds, so as to share the experience from the vantage point of an unsuspecting traveler. Any other agencies want to offer up a better intern program?

Found on adrants

Tuesday

The Evolution of an Agency


It's slightly surreal to hear the rock star of the ad world, Crispin Porter + Bogusky CCO Alex Bogusky, talk lovingly and at length about the lowly sponge. Sponges are, after all, boring, utilitarian, drab. But if anyone can change the way we think about them, why not someone in advertising? It's just one example of how Bogusky and others within the agency world are increasingly busying themselves by leveraging their consumer insights and creative imaginations to create and develop products as well as market them.

The Twist sponge brand debuted on the market in 2007, with a line of all-natural, biodegradable sponges that don't have chemicals or dyes. CP+B contributed ideas for new sponges, including marketing, packaging and a clean, fun design aesthetic across the brand. Already in Target, they're a hit, and the brand is talking to the agency about next year's product. It's also leading to much bigger things. "It looks like this is going to lead to a sort of accelerator where we would work with some venture capital folks and do the same thing that we did with Twist," explains Bogusky. "From their side, [they'll] put in the business dynamics and from our side, [we'll] finish off the branding, and refine the product and packaging."

Bogusky maintains that the agency's work with Twist is the natural evolution of the philosophy that everything is advertising. "Most of us within advertising have grown up with parity products, taking two products that are essentially the same and using marketing to make it appear as if one is a little different than the other," says Bogusky. "I began to theorize that all this learning we've got within marketing, the research and all the understanding of the consumer, shouldn't go after the product, they should be in front of products."

The agency has quietly been building a nascent product innovation department (currently just five people strong) to turn that around. Burger King's coffee line, Joe (featuring different levels of caffeine to fit the chain's "Have It Your Way" tagline) and its Chicken Fries were both CP+B innovations. The agency's purchase of research company Radar has added a company that mines consumer behavior and brand innovation to its offering. "It's got to the point where we'll specifically get briefed on product and packaging," says Bogusky.

While distinctions between product and advertising might seem blurred in the physical world, things get really nebulous in the digital field. "What people considered to be advertising was clear until 10 years ago, but with the rise of personal technology that has drastically changed," says AKQA, San Francisco ECD Rei Inamoto. "When it comes to digital technology, because there is a blur and overlap between the product and the experience, where the messaging ends and the product begins is very grey."

Thus, AKQA now calls itself a strategic entertainment and technology company. "We're not in the business of creating advertising for clients," argues Inamoto, echoing Bogusky and others. "We're in the business of creating ideas that solve clients' problems." Four years ago AKQA was asked by Microsoft to create the then-new Xbox console's interface, working closely with the console's designers Astral Studios, to provide a holistic, integrated product. Increasingly they are consulting with big clients including Microsoft, DirecTV and Sky on blue-sky thinking for the next generation of TV, and the agency has a growing department of experience and interaction designers. "If you want to argue that it's marketing, sure, but defining the product experience as broadly as possible, that can also mean helping the client create the next generation of product."

The most radical proponent of this line of thinking is New York shop Anomaly. It's systematically deconstructed every facet of the half century-old agency model, from problem-solving, to agency hierarchy and remuneration, to the areas where agencies should work. Clients include Virgin America, Coca-Cola and Converse. For Virgin America, its work included creating co-branded bags with Burton and in-flight safety films, revamping ticketing, branding of aircraft and much more.

"If you look back historically large agencies used to produce highly entrepreneurial deals for their clients and invent properties and products," says head of innovation Johnny Vulkan. "All these things are coming around again. These aren't new ideas, they're just things that perhaps fell out of vogue as agencies and clients grew bigger. A conservatism sets in that only gets shaken up when economic shifts happen or technology changes radically. For the last 30 years we might have been able to say it's [about] TV, radio, or posters. Now the answer can be anything."

As well as developing holistic business solutions for brands, Anomaly works with venture capitalists and brand incubators to create products. Take its latest: EOS, a shaving product specifically for women, researched, designed and marketed based on market and consumer insight. That's led to common-sense values: it's a moisturizing cream rather than a drying gel. It's made of all-natural ingredients rather than chemicals. It comes in a soft, ergonomic, tactile and biodegradable bottle rather than a hard, pressurized metal can.

It's an area that Bogusky sees as the next phase in the evolution of agencies, from designing the marketing of a product to designing the product itself. "We're designing sponges," he says. "For me, to lay out all the products at the end of the conceptual stage and say, 'Wow, design can do this to a sponge'... It's pretty limitless. If you can do this to a sponge, you can do pretty much anything."

From Boards

Monday

Want a Big Salary? Become a CMO.


AdAge reports that the average, American CMO makes approximately $1.5 million per year.

Better to be at the 10 largest firms surveyed however, as the average CMO gets $4.8 million.

Let's Do Something VIRAL [Part 304,024,924]

Marketers and advertisers of the world: Combining a Handycam with horrible actors and CGI doesn't make something viral. Please stop. Create cool content and I promise I will pass it on.

Or at least create content that LOOKS real.

Corporate Sponsorship Rule #1

Fantastic quote from a recent Godin post:

"Here's my number one fiduciary rule for big brand marketers: The executives involved in approving a sports or entertainment promotion should not be permitted to attend the event."

We all love free swag. But when it costs your company millions to get a sponsorship just for some free tickets, something is wrong.

Groundswell - Worth A Read

Link
In order to prepare for an off site this week with Forrester, I picked up the new book Groundswell and gave it a quick read. My expectations going in were pretty low - I've been on a social technologies/networks/media kick as of late and found that the majority of experts are really just saying the same thing over and over again. Everyone has the same examples of success and failure (my favorite is still willitblend.com) and nobody really offers concrete information on how to work in the space.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, the co-authors of Groundswell, provide a text book analysis of social technologies and give key examples of strategies that can be designed to suit any brands needs.

What I really enjoy about the novel (still getting through it), is that they have their head around one key fact: think about your consumers first, not the latest technology trend.

By using social technologies, you can find out insights about your consumers that you can't get anywhere else. Shocking (I know), but when you actually think about how your target uses social media (do they create content, engage with it, or just read it?) it can help you determine the best way to approach them.

All in all, it's an easy read but a worthwhile one.