Greg Brooks’ post about how stupid it is for an ad agency to pitch for an account using an ‘unauthorized’ commercial, makes an important point: that it is bad business practice, no matter whether it falls under marketing (selling the agency) or business development.

If you want to find out what a guerilla marketing tactic looks like when it loses focus on the goal, read this. It’s a sobering thought to anyone who thinks that setting up a special web site, will ‘send a message’ to the client. The site, called Project Hijack (how smart is that, when the agency declares that it wants to ‘hikack’ the process?) states they want to:

“hijack the pitch process so that our little agency can get our big idea on the table.”

The agency, Vaughn Whelan & Partners, was pitching for the Molson beer account. They actually ran a TV commercial they created, and paid for the airtime, according to the New York Post story (linked from the agency Web site.) Maybe they are really, really short of a strategic planner, and a copywriter. How else could someone have the guts to write that:

“Rather than pitch to the boardroom, VWPA elects to make positive noise.”

Clients –and I can speak as one, even though I tend to speak for the other side more often– don’t want ‘noise,’ for sure. Even when accompanied by very ‘edgy’ tactics.

Continue reading →

I’m not a big fan of the cameras in camera-phones, but since it was a beautiful –and very important–morning, I took this while standing in line to vote. As any photographer knows, sometimes the subject compensates for the bad camera or cameraman.

Today was my opportunity to vote for the first time in the U.S. As a new immigrant, this is indeed an exciting day for me. Too many people tend to take voting for granted. It annoys me that people complain about the long lines outside voting booths, but have no problems spending as much time in a queue at Starbucks. The line this morning at Starbucks was much, much shorter, so one hopes that some of that lost traffic was queuing up elsewhere…

Continue reading →

Take a closer look at this picture.

London Bloggers Annie Mole (at London Blogger Underground) links to a story about creative vandalism.

London Bloggers seem to form a community, as you can see fromthis site.

Continue reading →

Ad Rants featured this story on Jeep.

Like Ikea, Adidas, and several other advertisers who have got it –that engaging your brand is more powerful than a bland ad– Jeep took product demonstration to new heights, as you can see from this photograph.

Continue reading →

It’s nice to hear a new blogger reflect on the business of PR and blogging. Michael O’Connor Clarke of Mansfield Communications makes an important point about marketing Communations. Referring to Cluetrain’s Doc Searls’ line that ‘markets are conversations’ he has this to say about why blogging hapens.

So marketers should be conversationalists. Explains why so many PR pros have ventured into blogspace. We’ve come here looking for the conversations – and hoping to start some.

Continue reading →

Interesting how British advertising seems to be going off in a direction that is a no-no in the U.S.
Take this ad for Amstrad’s videophone. Shows how to make a serious product in an age of cameraphones look interesting, by focusing on the unexpected benefit of a videophone. Viewer discretion advised!

Continue reading →

Unlike the official campaign sites, which are still stuck in the nineties, the sites urging people to get out the vote seem to have got it.

November2.Org does a good job of making the act of voting sound urgent, and interesting.

“Set the alarm early and loud. Wake the nation. Fill the car with neighbors. Drive to the polls. This is it. Now is here. We decide” says one ad

Other sites such as RockTheVote.Org and CitizenChange.Com featuring P. Diddy and Maya, are more provocative. (T-shirts have ‘Vote or Die’ slogans.) However, they take on even boring topics like ‘know your voting rights’ etc with captions such as “KNOW YOUR SHI*T”

Continue reading →