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Best of 2010
We’ve reached the end of the Slide’s first full year, and we’re chuffed with the level of collaboration, readership and response we’ve had. This blog has become an exciting addition to Grip’s culture, and we look forward to evolving it even further in 2011 with your help.
Since we’re absconding from the office for a week or so, we offer up the following: A few of our (and your) favourite posts from 2010, humbly submitted for your holiday perusal.
Top 3 Q+As:
The following Q+As generated a mass of provocative (and often funny) responses.
• What brand do you think is most in need of a makeover and why? (Feb 25, 2010)
• What’s morality’s role in advertising? (August 27, 2010)
• Does Sexism sell? And is this that? (August 9, 2010)
Top 10 Posts:
Here are a few highlight posts from the year, selected according to their content, traffic and comments – and listed chronologically.
• The digital “why?” – Jacoub Bondre (January 14, 2010)
• Brand like Batman – Ian Mackenzie (February 3, 2010)
• Elements of Surprise – Leilah Ambrose (May 6, 2010)
• The “What” vs. the “How” – Harvey Carroll (June 8, 2010)
• How StarCraft made me a better producer – Jacob Karsemeyer (June 16, 2010)
• The Facebook Effect – Dave Hamilton (June 15, 2010)
• Photoshop til you drop – Warren Haas (July 16th, 2010)
• The Internet can wait – Jon Finklestein (August 24th, 2010)
• In defense of the :30 spot – Ameet Acharya (Sepetember 22, 2010)
• Ad Ageism – Sara Vinten (December 8, 2010)
Series at a glance:
Those with a resolution to dominate the advertising world in 2011 would do well to study these two series:
• How to get a job in advertising
• How to get ahead in advertising
Again, a big round of thanks to all those who have had their say on the Slide this year. We look forward to continuing the conversation in 2011!
Bouncing back from the hacktivists
With all the hacking that has been hitting big-ticket brands over the past couple of weeks, it’s pretty easy to imagine that it is terror, and not holiday cheer, that has invaded the hearts and minds of blue chip PR professionals across the world.
On one hand, hackers compromised databases at Walgreens, McDonald’s and Gawker, stealing emails, log info and birthdates on an undisclosed level. On the other, hacktivists supporting the much-maligned or admired Julian Assange have flooded the sites of companies like Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, who have refused to process payments for those supporting Wikileaks. With all the news going around lately about Wikileaks letting the skeletons out of so many high-profile closets, the David and Goliath game is clearly on.
With so many people’s accounts compromised, and so much personal information leaked, spin is in full effect. McDonald’s quickly issued a mass email alert to their compromised database, and even set up a hotline for any questions or concerns. Gawker, on the other hand, has only posted an advisory for their 1.5 million strong readership to change their usernames and passwords.
Bad reviews about customer service are a cake walk compared to an onslaught by cyber criminals bent on throwing a wrench into corporate works. The interesting question will be whether these companies answer with enhanced security measures, or a stepped-up level of transparency.
Student Submission: Why Advertising?
Editor’s note: Amanda Langdon is a student of the Humber College Advertising program, and an avid reader of this blog. We are happy to offer her contribution as the first in a periodic series of student submissions.
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We all have to be something.
Recently out of school and on the hunt for an internship, I stare down at my portfolio pieces with a mix of pride and fear. The new year promises new challenges and possibilities. And, after an unprecedented amount of coffee, “being something” is a statement that looms large for me.
To help clarify my thoughts on the matter, I’ve compiled a list of the top three reasons why advertising is my “something.”
1. The “you talkin’ to me?” factor.
In what other industry would your overall task be to create a conversation? Not only that, but one that shifts behaviour through meaningful and memorable messages? Advertising is increasingly about allowing your audience to have an opinion, and I’m eager to see where the conversation is going to go in the future. This is an exciting time to be part of the advertising world.
2. The ability to draw a line. And then cross it.
I respect the fact that although you may not always have the liberty to produce the most creative and cutting edge ideas, at least you have the freedom to think of them. Careers in which you have the ability to push creativity are few and far between.
3. A small world filled with big creative possibilities.
To say you are in the advertising business sounds cool. But that coolness is radiated from the culture it engenders with every passing award show, Big Orange Slide or inside joke. Being “a creative” really means that everything that made you weird in high school has amounted to a intriguing shot at making it in the advertising world. I, for one, embrace the fact that I read the dictionary. It makes me better at what I do – and what I do is write.
Standing at the brink of a new year and a tabula rasa, I pose a question to you out there:
What makes advertising your “something”?
The future of Television
Contrary to what some might think, TV viewing and ownership is at an all-time high in Canada. Even during the economic downturn, TVs were flying off the shelves. Yes, programming may act as audible wallpaper to Facebook updating, texting or app play, but at the very least the sets are on.
We live in a got-to-evolve society. It’s not enough to watch something, let alone have it on as background noise. To that end, the question becomes: How does TV evolve to become a less passive medium?
Today’s television content has never been better and there is certainly an abundance of choice. With the need to engage and involve viewers, we’re starting into see TV evolve to more of an interactive format. Shows like American Idol increasingly solicit feedback or votes from viewers. In some other cases, social media integration is key. To use a Canadian example, The Score uses Twitter to poll users and add depth to its real time content.
The convergence of TV and Internet has already taken root with products like Apple TV and Google TV, though is still in its infancy. In my opinion, true convergence can only occur if two conditions are met.
First, better ultra-high speed broadband infrastructures are required to meet growing demand for video content.
Second, big networks have to learn from the mistakes of the music industry, meaning that they have to recognize the opportunity for new revenue streams. Any ad placement in the airing of primetime content is enticing to advertisers, but new media will necessarily dictate new formats for those ads, with heavier reliance on consumer choice. Hulu (discussed in a previous post), already allows its viewership the chance to opt into their desired ad format. All this basically means that brands will need to create content that consumers want to actively consume. Storytelling will become imperative in everything from a :5 second short or a full-length feature like Red Bull Media House’s ‘Bouncing Cats.’
Although TV and the online world still circle each other uneasily, we need to ensure the content we offer up is content worth sharing and leverage earned media as best we can.
In praise of Client Services
Some people think that advertising is a thankless industry. I will concede that it’s an industry in which thanks can be brief, that measures your value according to your most recent work, and that has a theatrical way of praising its stars and neglecting its support players. But those that know the game understand that without the efforts of the supporting cast, the stars can’t shine.
Nowhere is this more true than with the client services team. After several years in the business, I’ve concocted a theory that recognition of a client services team is inversely proportionate to the amount of work required on a project. Granted, having been on both the creative and production side, I can only make these claims as a colleague, not a peer. I will also admit to having questioned what client services even do. Looking back, I recognize that these thoughts and comments came at a more naive and inexperienced stage in my career, and am out to make ammends.
Herewith, my impression of what client services offers.
Somewhere between forging client relationships, forecasting, planning, research, revenue tracking, and project management, a brief is crafted. This is no mean task. I think those on the creative side can agree that a brief can make or break a campaign. Good briefs set the creative team’s mind ablaze with ideas. They ignite the solution to a business problem. On the other side of the coin, a bad brief makes the creative process painful and slow, restate problems and muddy the solution. To assess mounds of research on the client, competition and customer, and distill it down to a single powerful insight and thought – and to do it well – is a commendable ability.
Client services are also expected to have all necessary information front of mind. On any given day, clients and creatives alike will grill an account person on demographic behaviors, current market perception and competitor activity. And once the pieces have been assembled, it’s their job to forcibly connect all creative concepts to the original business objective established by the client.
I tip my hat to the client services personnel we may take for granted everyday. Creativity is eye-catching, but in advertising it must act with purpose. Client services represents, supports, shepherds and focuses that creativity. For that I thank them.
Grip Ltd presents: 101 Thoughts on Advertising: Part 4
We have reached the fourth installment of our ongoing series of mess o’ thoughts on advertising. And the cosmic dance…goes on. This week, Grip suspects that
Advertising is:
32) pop art with a purpose.
33) the sum total of ads + vertising.
34) best when included in the manufacturing process.
35) worst when it accepts any lowest common denominator.
36) the evolution of word-of-mouth.
37) evidence of the false dichotomy between art and science.
38) typically the product of someone starting a sentence with “what if…”.
39) about turning emotion into business.
40) love/hate. And then hate/love..
41) at its best, a threat to the art world – and its worst, a threat to public intelligence.
You’re gonna love my nuts
If you’re anything like me, you probably find yourself searching for something to watch on late night TV and end up settling for a random infomercial. But while that may have seemed pretty sad a few years ago, the ironic entertainment value of some recent infomercials has reached a level that rivals some of today’s crappier TV shows.
The Magic Bullet, one of the more infamous examples, is a case in point. It goes beyond a product demonstration and washed-up celebrity host to having something that resembles a storyline. I have watched the Magic Bullet infomercial at least four times (by choice), and have integrated them into my default viewing strategy in much the same way I do with reruns of Seinfeld. I don’t own a Magic Bullet, and I’m not planning on buying one. Even so, it’s something of a statement that I would prefer to watch a poorly acted, badly written infomercial in loop than a single episode of Two And A Half Men.
I think that with the Magic Bullet, the people behind it just decided they might as well have some fun with the ad. So they decided to set it the morning after a raging suburban house party. This sets the scene to allow the characters to loosely demonstrate the various attributes of the blender though a variety of instant breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack options.
We’ve moved away from half-cocked hosts screaming about the applications of epoxy, or the robust amount of liquid you can pick up with a single rag. We’ve entered a creative renaissance of narrative-driven infomercials. The Magic Bullet example plays out more like a TV show centered on a product than an infomercial going for the hard sell. I’d rather watch an infomercial like this, intentionally bad or not, than have Ron Popeil tell me to “Set it and forget it.”
It may be that long form product plugs represent an untapped creative opportunity. Or it may be that there is sufficient sales power in irony, and that infomercials represent a wine-soaked, epoxy-bound Pandora’s Box we should leave alone.
Until then, at least I know there’s probably something good on TV between 1 and 5 a.m.
