Hello 12 Point Type readers! I’m a new writer to this blog and I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with an eloquent and compelling first post on par with my fellow bloggers here that would convince you to subscribe so fast you’d chalk it up to an outer-body experience. Unfortunately, my aspirations fail me. Instead, I offer this:
Now I know a good deal when I see one, but I think it’s safe to assume copy-writing just isn’t for everyone;
even if you do it for a living.
A little something to keep in mind when writing is content and…
Ahhh, this ad is joyful. It’s almost as good as the chocolate! Almost.
A Grand Slam breakfast goes for $5.99, so the maximum retail value of this giveaway would be $15,457,075. But, the cost of of the food to prepare a menu item is 25% to 30% for this food giveaway, and 30%, would be more like $4,637,122. Add in 2,500,000 coffee, juice or a soft drink orders with a 85% mark up, averaging $2 each, DENNY’S nets $1.70 per beverage, or $4,250,000 in drink revenue.At this point, the entire promotion now costs $400,000. The value of the massive amounts of free media coverage the promotion generated? Worth 1000 times that figure, if not much more!
Add in any extras and that more than offsets the costs for increased labor at their locations to handle the traffic and plus the repeat business levels that will increase as a result of this promotion. Denny’s is coming out way ahead…
TNT’s new dramedy TRUST ME: Episode 2 treads into some pretty common waters that can often get murky when we on the agency side try to tip the scales and skew circumstances and results to suit our evil purposes: Being Right! Dangerous territory at the best of times and highly addictive and self-destructive. http://www.tnt.tv/series/trustme/
The moral dilemma arose when Mason McGuire, newly anointed Creative Director (Eric McCormack) and his partner copy writer Conner (Tom Cavanagh) get a call from their client ARC Mobile that they don’t like the tag line: What you can do with one hand? The focus group in all their collective wisdom didn’t like the…
The Pepsi Saturday Night Live MacGuyver spoofs “MacGruber” really sucked and were a great example of how to make an unwatchable TV commercial.
Well, that is according to T-Mobile’s newest spot. I am a huge fan of anything dance related. Enjoy!
With the economy the way it is and companies having to make major layoffs and cut backs, who has $3 million dollars for a 30 second Super Bowl ad? Well, Miller High Life is going to save a few million by running a one-second ad during the Super Bowl with the company’s pitchman Windell Middlebrooks, the lovable wear-house worker.
Their Website, 1secondad.com, says,”…We’d rather have our message short and to the point, if it means delivering more honest beer at a tasty price.” At 1SecondAd you can watch a bunch of 1 second ads, a few videos featuring Windell Middlebrooks, and their…
Our intrepid friends Wallace & Gromit from across the pond are back again showing up in more advertising. After their highly successful Harvey Nichols fashion ad campaign, out of Bristol, England, NPOWER a British power company employed our two favorite chaps into service in December to raise awareness about their free insulation program available for seniors and the disabled in Britain. http://www.npowermediacentre.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=2318&NewsAreaID=2
The two ingenious Brits have also popped up in Social/Cause Marketing in England with their own efforts, The Wallace and Gromit Foundation which is helping to fund pull-down beds for tired parents at children’s hospitals. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7426713.stm Well done lads! Check out their efforts: http://www.wallaceandgromitteaparty.org.uk/
Finally, a…
You have to admit the appeal of a lottery-jackpot windfall is more potent than ever, especially afterr the economic crisis we are in the midst of. Now, part of its attraction is that a winning ticket can suddenly make you as wealthy as the corporate drones who (amid all the recent disasters for which they’re responsible) still ‘get the big bucks.’
We hear that phrase repeatedly in this spot for the New York Lottery (via DDB in New York) as the mailroom guy, pushes his cart through the office and points out a familiar cast of corporate characters — the executive (receiving an in-office…
Here’s a funny new commercial from Fallon Minneapolis for premium job-search site The Ladders. The Ladders is a job-search site that deals only with executives who make $100K per year or more - and in this case the large…well monster. The spot starts out showing a bunch of smaller monsters trying (and failing) to wreak havoc on a cityscape while trying to instill fear in its populace. “If you think about it,” says the voiceover, “this is what makes The Ladders different from other job-search sites. We only work with the big talent.” I like how its a funny twist on the usual Godzilla ad…
Hill, Holliday’s latest advertising for Dunkin’ Donuts introduces the rallying cry, “You kin’ do it!”. No, they are not trying to be Tony Little, its actually explained in their press release - the term actually comes from Dunkin’s name. DunKIN DOnuts.
The new campaign “cheers on the everyday people who keep America running by reminding them they can take on any task: you kin’ make it through the workday, you kin’ shovel out that driveway, you kin’ pass that exam, you kin’ finish that paperwork.” Well, you kin’ also join a gym to work off that badonkadonk after scarfing down all those chocolate frosteds, though I…
Here’s a new ad campaign, seeing it all over the web and on the television, and it’s freaking me out every time I see it.
It’s the Whopper Virgins ads. The premise is that Burger King has traveled all over the world looking for people from cultures that have not had hamburgers. They bring these “whopper virgins” in and let them have both a Whopper and a Big Mac, to see which one they pick.
The ads make me cringe and feel uncomfortable, and I’ve yet to find any of them funny. This just adds to my dislike of most ad campaigns. I remember…
Whatever Billy Mays sells, he enunciates wildly in exactly the same pitch, while wearing his signature shoe-leather black beard and trademark blue work shirt and khakis. That goes for the “amazing!” product attributes of this ESPN 360 web site, which allows you to “watch your favorite teams and sports online, anywhere, anytime!”
Three TV spots, which are parodies of infomercials — are pretty funny. They’re not ESPN Sports Center-level funny–but good enough for a chuckle here and there. In one spot, the always hyper one explains that it’s so easy to use, “even my family loves it,” as his blonde wife and daughter…
10 – Our Troops all coming home ahead of time, safely and being appreciated for doing an impossible job!
9 – More Talented, Smart Creative people being rehired in Advertising
8 – The Ad Industry coming to their senses that Creatives are the muscle that drives our industry
7 – The economy rebounds from the current melt down as fast as possible!
6 – The price of gas continues to plunge and we’re paying under a buck a gallon by February and it doesn’t stop going down there… (Oil companies going under would make my millenium!)
5 – Wall Street Interlopers, Scum Bag Politicians, Predatory…
10 – More Jerry Seinfeld-Bill Gates Microsoft commercials (Give up, you suck!)
9 - More GEICO Caveman and GECKO commercials (Unwatchable)
8 - Any Advertising of any kind with Paris Hilton in it (Just go away already)
7 - Any Political Campaign ad or commercial… (I think we had our fill in 2008 to last a lifetime?)
6 - Any Politician saying “I approved this commercial.” (If you can’t put together a good tv spot,
how can you think you can run anything?”)
5 – Stop talking about “Change We Can Believe In” (and actually start DOING some of that change!)
4 – More New Brand launches…
I found this commercial on Youtube the other day. Since it’s winter I thought I’d use it for a blog. It doesn’t snow that much here in North Carolina and if you are from Florida or somewhere like that you won’t be able to relate. There’s nothing like scraping ice off your window in the morning, and on that note here we go…
Chris Nifong is a designer/screen printer from NC who will be spending Christmas in Florida and for some reason Christmas on the beach really isn’t that exciting to him. Bring on the snow.
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/garmastan_nipple?size=_original
I got this ad sent to me by a friend who isn’t in advertising. I love when people send me stuff like this because it is always interesting to see what appeals to people and what triggers a response from them, especially if they aren’t on the inside looking out.
This is a double page spread for Garmastan, an ointment used in the prophylactic and therapeutic treatment of the nipple inflammation during the pre and postnatal period and in the care of nipples skin during lactation. The ad appeared in maternity magazines showing a woman breastfeeding. When you pull the and the…
I had to add a part three to this “series” because I came across this commercial from Skittles. Now Skittles has been known to make some very odd, but very memorable, commercials. Well I would have to say that this spot, is about the creepiest spot I have seen in a while. Even creepier than the talking moustrap. What were they thinking??
I saw a post on CNN about a lady printing her resume on her tshirt. This article speaks to me particularly since I am in the garment decorating business. You can take a look at it here
Late this summer I had the idea of getting my resume put on my car in vinyl lettering knowing it would get attention and quite possibly a news story. I guess I still could go that route!
Chris is a designer/screen printer from NC who believes that the media makes the economy sound a lot worse than it really is. The sad part is it…
There have been a million different ways for people to break up. Phone calls, Face to Face, IM, Email, Leaving a message on an answering machines, and this list goes on. Well, Adidas showed one of the more convenient ways to break up with someone. The “No Sad, Big Smile Break up Service.” A man will go around and do the breaking up for you; while being decked out in Adidas finest apparel. Here is the funny spot from TBWA, London for Adidas.
Since the new batch of Kool-Aid that is being doled out is called “Change We can Believe In”, why not get people who actually drive change, like Steve Jobs and Apple and put them in charge of economic innovation and give then a 3 year mandate to to deliver solutions to this current economic state and just watch Jobs and his team of brainiacs knock it out of the park and redefine the term “over-deliver!” That would be nice for a change… Creative minds = problem solving!
Here’s a silly but amusing PSA from New Zealand warning against drunk driving. It’s never a good idea, on Earth or anywhere else.
Shapeshifter Media has been at the forefront of this category with their patented process method for representing an image on a stepped surface and staircase. Very often, the more challenging the physical nature of the “odd ball” type of area to work with, the more interesting the result is. “Destination Brand Engagement!”
I began watching this spot for Canadian Tire scratching my head thinking “What the heck?” But this is no normal spot gone awry; this is actually a well-executed concept. This is the type of commercial Philip K. Dick would’ve created if he had been in advertising. Philip K. Dick was a mind-bending novelist whose works inspired Blade Runner, and Total Recall. Indeed, such mind games are probably best suited to films and books, as they require more attention to detail than the average consumer normally gives to a 30-second commercial, but it works in this spot.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have seen my fair share of strange commercials, but this is strange in a good way. This is a commercial for Fernet 1882, which is some sort of alcohol from Argentina . Its a different way to approach advertising, but in a non-creepy way. This spot comes from Madre, Buenos Aires. Enjoy!
Calling all shower singers, wanna-be rappers, pop princesses and bedroom yodellers: “LIPS” is finally here. The highly anticipated singing party game exclusively on Xbox 360, will be hitting stores on 21st November 2008.
Lips is the only music video game that comes with two wireless motion-sensitive microphones, allowing you to put your fantastic dance moves to the test! You can even get other people involved in your songs by having them playing percussion with your Xbox 360 controllers. Whether you’re throwing a party for your friends or simply staying at home with your family, Lips will have everyone singing and dancing…
Marble-mouthed British rocker Ozzy Osbourne gets some translation help in this hilarious new spot for Samsung Propel from Leo Burnett, Chicago. Following Osbourne throughout his day, the spot begins with the rocker trying to order a cup of black coffee but after several attempts he still gets a look of confusion from the barista. So he pulls his spiffy green Samsung phone out of his pocket to tap out his order in a text message instead. This goes on throughout his day, a closing voiceover tells viewers the phone can “make yourself heard.”
The spot is entertaining and gets its point across,…
Have you ever received a present that made you wonder: “What in the heck were they thinking?”. I have received several presents from caring relatives who “should’ve known better”; and like the rest of the world - I smile and thank them for the aforementioned atrocity. Its the thought that counts right? Once they are gone, I take the present hide it in the back of the closet and bring it out when they come for a visit. Sounds familiar right?
Well, Wiser’s Canadian Whisky chose the route that most people wish they had the nerve to take. Ruining the present. Here is…
