Chicago – Dallas – Los Angeles – San Francisco – New York City – Seattle: These placement gurus have got some good work and clients brewing. Go get you some work and you are free to send all commission checks to me via Paypal 
Seriously, lots of great work and opportunity for freelance. Let me know how it goes!
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
With the economy continuing in its downward spiral, last week’s start of baseball season saw the owner of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers announce that prime signage locations that the automotive companies occupy at Comerica Park would be allowed to keep their billboards spots at NO CHARGE! Why? Mike Ilitch wanted to do something to help the Big Three and subsequently the city of Detroit.
Ok. Gonna tell you a little secret….
I know we can get caught in our rut of, “how much bigger do I have to make this logo,” “must EVERYTHING have to be sketched, comped, and spelled out to buy off on just the concept?,” or “do I have to work with the brand marketing all-star team from the 60’s?”
But on my way to meetings yesterday, I got a quick reminder of how lucky we are. I was riding on the interstate and saw a car on the freeway hit the guard rail only to be thrown into oncoming traffic. This reminded…
Ok, ok…how many of you guys out there feel my pain.
“Jazz it up, add great graphics and make it snappy!”
This was literally copy and pasted verbatim from an email I once received from a client. Teaching clients the value of what we do is getting old and I refused to forward this to my creative teams because I value them waaaaay more than jazzy, great-n-graphicy, and snappy (sounds like the 8th, 9th, and 10th dwarf). So, glad I didn’t here my all time favorite, “make it pop.”
So I open the floor to two questions:
1) Why, oh why, do strategic communication…
I have to ask the question, has no one ever said to anyone at any time, if you know this is wrong, then why are you doing it given the risks far outweigh the benefits?
Successful branding is all about “BEHAVIOURAL MOMENTS” that are a set of actions that happen in the real world that actually drive sales an repeat business. “Once you decide, We Are Not In The Image Business, We Are In The Behavior Business, It Empowers A Different Conversation About Everything.”
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…
With the NCAA College Bowl Game season upon us, 34 to be exact, the pervasiveness of corporate sponsorship seems as deep as ever. But in fact as Department Stores drop their backing of holiday parades and when clients like GM don’t renew their sponsorship deal with the New York Yankees, have we hit the bottom of the sponsorship well? It definitely appears that way…
The NASCAR world has been dominated by the news of teams losing sponsorships as opposed to celebrating the three-peat championship of driver Jimmie Johnson. No sport is immune.
Who do you think will be hit next with a sponsorship meltdown?
