Posts categorized under ‘Pop Culture’

Innovation

January 27th, 2012 by Lindsey Patterson, Senior Media Planner/Buyer

Innovation

After attending ad:tech and seeing a series on innovation, I was inspired to think outside the proverbial box.  Many of the examples that were shown were interesting, but the ones I found most impactful were the ones that paired medias that you wouldn’t traditionally think would work together.  The following are just a few examples of how advertisers who have produced innovative campaigns and tactics that were attention grabbing and buzz worthy.

Showtime’s “The Franchise” & Foursquare

To promote the July 15 premiere of reality series “The Franchise: A Season With the San Francisco Giants,” Showtime partnered with the Major League Baseball to create a billboard display that dispensed baseballs, some signed by Giants, when people checked in on Foursquare at the MLB Fan Cave storefront in Manhattan. For those who automatically shared their Foursquare posts to either Twitter or Facebook or both — roughly a quarter of people on Foursquare — a “Franchise” ad and tune-in message was automatically sent to those social-media accounts.  I liked this execution for its simplicity – traditional OOH paired with Foursquare’s check-in.

Coca-Cola’s “Chok”

In Hong Kong, Coke was trying to target teens, which they learned were spending more time on their phones than watching TV.  They created an app that allowed teens to play a game called “Chok” when a specific Coke commercial aired.  Just 15 hours after the campaign launched, the “Chok” app had become the number 1 free app at the Apple store. It remained number 1 for another week and by the end of the third week, there were more than 300,000 unique downloads.

:15 Promo Spot:

:30 Interactive TV Spot:

Converse Domaination

Converse used a fairly common paid media, SEM, but in a very unique way allowing them to engage with their teenage audience in a manner that was personal to them.

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Steve Jobs, Big Brother and those pesky 1’s and 0’s

March 2nd, 2011 by jeremy.thompson

A while back, 1984 seemed like it was so far in the future. Of course, that was 1949. America and its allies had won World War II, only to see a new and ominous threat arise and the commies threatened to fluoridate our water! And ice cream, children’s ice cream! Folks were tired of war and fearful of totalitarian regimes.

 Technology had helped win the war, including radio communication, RADAR, and rocket & jet powered technologies. Anything was possible, and by golly, with a bit more tech who knew what Big Brother would be able to do. The Marlboro Man did not approve.

Then 1953 rolled around and brought a film version of H. G. Wells’ book to the masses. Many remembered the terrifying radio broadcast from pre-war ’38. As much as technology was finding its way into our post-war suburban living rooms, the collective American conscience loved how tech could help us live our lives as much as we feared what might come of it.

Above all, we feared our loss of privacy and individuality. The panopticon was no longer a prison to send people TO – it was a prison we ourselves lived in EVERYWHERE. Wiretaps, video surveillance equipment at work and on our streets, credit card transactions… Big Brother could find you, track you, watch you, control you.
“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Orson Wells used that premise for 1984. Luckily, a few decades later, a fearless tech impresario by the name of Steve Jobs, with his crack team of marketers including Chiat/Day and Ridley Scott, were ready to save us all. Big Brother got his pixilated teeth knocked out courtesy of a track & field-inspired savior wielding Thor’s hammer:

 

Upstart Apple brought us the graphical user interface and a mouse. People loved it. And perhaps more than any other piece of technology, it inspired people to love and have a personal relationship (para-social relationship) with technology. Making the products in China hasn’t changed the love affair too much.

Bring on the World Wide Web, and today, many American’s are comfortable making purchases online, sharing intimate personal details and photos, and their most deeply held personal convictions.

Caveat emptor. You might have bought that Apple iPad, but you don’t own it. Same for PS3. And in the near future, maybe not even personal correspondence you have sent in assumed privacy.

In the past you might have bought a book and received the material object made of atoms, bought some software and got the disk with documentation… Pay in cash and the publisher was none the wiser. Now your every more can be tracked – and not just maliciously – as you pay for and receive goods & services electronically in 1’s and 0’s. We’ willingly check-in to Foursquare, post our upcoming vacation to Facebook, and freely share our Social Security number when we’re not being scammed by Nigerian phishermen. And all we get is a stinking electron – we don’t even get the whole atom anymore!

So I rant about privacy and control, but what does it mean for us as marketers? As much as we promoted products with perfect lighting and tightly edited television spots to put our clients’ best foot forward. In the digital age, we must acknowledge that Big Brother is here to stay and strive mold him into a generous and protecting image. Participate in the conversation, empower our consumers, and offer clearly understandable language that explicitly states what and how we use information and allow consumers to decide what we learn about them. Violate that trust and the rapidly swirling 1’s and 0’s will punish you. Ask dictators the world over how that’s working out.

The pen is mightier than the sword – and the online world is one giant pen. With teeth.

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Oscar: Meet Cloud

March 1st, 2011 by David Ellis, SVP Strategic Consulting

A lot has been written about the Snoozefest called the 83rd Annual Academy Awards telecast.  Setting aside the wonderful annual gown competition (or so I’m told), snooze, it most certainly was.  No pacing.  No real humor, and other than Melissa Leo’s F-Bomb, no real surprises.  When three snarky throwaway lines from Billy Crystal look like genius and a dead guy steals the show from its hosts, you know the show’s hit some kind of bottom. 

The critics lay the blame squarely on James Franco.  Here’s a sample from no less than industry booster, Hollywood Reporter, which titles its review, “127 Hours of Boredom.”  And it got worse.  A lot worse:

“Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout.

“What was the point, Academy? What did Franco bring to the table? His appearance played more like one of his performance art pieces than an actual attempt to be host. At least Hathaway can sing and dance and be funny.”

Other than us pseudo-Hollywood types, why do we care?  The answer might be in what Franco did off-camera:

“…Franco seemed a lot livelier backstage, tweeting videos and photos seemingly every time he was off camera and as engaged in his iPhone as he was totally uninterested in the audience a few feet away.”

James Franco did several live tweets and videos during the Oscars.

Not to make too much of it, but we just might have seen an inflection point, where digital/virtual is more engaging and compelling for some folks than human and live.  It’s not the first time I’ve noticed it, only the first time it’s been so clearly revealed in a spectacularly public setting. 

Franco is a “digital native,” part of a generation that has never known a time prior to the Web, fast computers and texting.  And if you’ve had the sometimes strange experience interviewing some digital natives for a job, for example, you can find them aloof, seemingly inattentive, even lazy.  That’s because when your point of contact is a keyboard and not another’s eyes, you tend miss that body language thing.  Given that 70% of human communications is non-verbal, it’s easy for both sides to misread exactly what’s going on.

I’d argue that’s what happened with Franco.  Unless, of course, he was totally baked.  Billy Crystal dodged flying beer cans on his way up, so did Bob Hope, Eddie Murphy and the “old guys.”  But they learned to connect, live.  Franco is a wunderkind, but increasingly, his life is literally in the Cloud.  Just like the emerging wave of Millennial consumers.  They’re changing how we think about strategy and communications, big time.  Nuance, metaphor, and art give way to the blunt force trauma of 140 characters, smack ya upside the head YouTube snippets and a subterranean Facebook culture that moves so fast, no one can keep up with it.

From a traditional advertising perspective, the world is backwards.  It used to be that we’d develop the campaign, then see how it played out in the “other” channels.  Now it probably makes sense to start with the virtual and see if out of the morass of feedback, a campaign is necessary or even feasible. 

Which is what makes our Build the Brand, Protect the Brand approach so compelling.  Dialogue is going to shape the experience no matter how cool our creative is or how much money our clients throw at the problem.  Just ask Pepsi and the Gap.  We know how to manage consumer dialogue, using our insights and creativity to set things in motion and our judgment to keep things on track.  It’s a key skill–especially for consumers who’d rather Tweet about an experience than actually live it.

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If You Name It They Will Come … Farmers Field

February 11th, 2011 by Lee Gallagher, Media Director

Los Angeles, the second largest media market in the country, has been without a football team since the Rams left Anaheim Stadium for a new home in St. Louis in 1995.  The previous year the Oakland Raiders moved back to Oakland after thirteen seasons of unsuccessfully trying to sell out the 90,000-seat Los Angeles Coliseum.  Over the years there has been talk of bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles, along with proposed sites for a team including ones adjacent to Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium, Home Depot Center in Carson and another stadium proposed by real estate mogul Edward P. Roski in the City of Industry.

The latest development is AEG’s (Anschutz Entertainment Group) proposed 64,000-seat, retractable-roof football stadium to join Staples Center, Nokia Theatre and the L.A. Convention Center at L.A. LIVE in Downtown Los Angeles.  On February 1st it was announced that, although there is no team or approved stadium plan, naming rights have already been sold to Farmers Insurance for $700 million.  The proposed $1 billion stadium (to be funded by AEG) would be called Farmers Field.  The $700 million (starting at $20 million in year one and increasing annually over 30 years) naming rights agreement would be the largest long-term naming rights agreement in history.  Farmers’ partnership would provide an enormous branding opportunity for the company along with exclusive naming exposure and signage inside and outside Farmers Field including electronic and video messaging during events, hospitality access inside and outside the stadium, promotional and experiential activation areas throughout the concourses and other public areas and a variety of branded clubs and other interactive areas to be used by Farmers Insurance agents and customers.  Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa states, “Farmers Field will be a catalyst for new development, creating nearly 20,000 jobs and $3 billion worth of new development in the downtown area alone.”

Local sports hero Magic Johnson has said he hopes to become a part owner in Los Angeles’ NFL team saying, “We’re getting closer and closer to bringing football back to Los Angeles.  This is exciting for me and the whole city. I don’t know what happened in the past but I [think] the community now is really excited about football returning to Los Angeles.”

AEG is talking with NFL and team officials and believes the stadium will have at least one NFL team and possibly two by the time Farmer’s Field opens (projected for 2015 if approved) providing the opportunity to host Super Bowl L in 2016. The first Super Bowl was held in Los Angeles in 1967.  Speculation about which NFL franchise, or two franchises, could move to Los Angeles recently has focused on the San Diego Chargers and Minnesota Vikings.

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The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Gaga of CES 2011

January 20th, 2011 by Arnie DiGeorge, Executive Creative Director

The Bad – Pads

 The iPad has caused the rest of the world to make pads. Big pads, small pads, cheap copycat pads, pads with keyboards, pads that are also laptops, pads that work with other stuff and pads that defy description. From what I can tell, none of them are any better than the iPad, but a lot of them are just plain bad pads. This Dell spins the pad part around to become a laptop. That would be fine if it didn’t make it so fat. There were two Italian gentlemen looking at this Dell and I’m pretty sure they kept saying whatever “fat” is in Italian. 

And the Galaxy tablet from Samsung is only slightly bigger than the iPhone. It’s amazing how many people say to me, “Isn’t the iPad just a bigger version of the iPhone?” And I guess I would answer back, “At least it’s bigger.” My advice to anyone looking to buy a tablet is to buy an iPad. And to anyone looking to get a keyboard for their iPad, buy a 15-inch Mac Air. Getting a keyboard for your iPad just makes you look like you can’t afford a real computer.  (more…)

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10 Things I Think Will Be Even More Important in 2011

January 4th, 2011 by Arnie DiGeorge, Executive Creative Director

1. Personal Brands – People now understand the importance of the Personal Brand. Blogs, Twitter and Facebook have alerted everyone to the importance of their Personal Brand. What kind of relationship does the rest of the world have with them – even if the rest of the world includes their close personal friends and no one else. Everyone on the planet sees what they do and is on the Web. Not all of them care about doing anything with it, but they have the awareness. And in 2011, there will be more and more ways for it to manifest itself. The future of you may not be who you believe you are, but who you want people to believe you are. Especially when it comes to getting a job.

There is no barier to the iPad. It's a game-changer.

2. The iPad – I have an iPad. My friend Mike has a Galaxy Pad. I feel bad for him, but I’m sure he’ll survive. When the iPad first came out, everyone viewed it as a big iPhone. Big mistake. I realized the iPad was much more when the owner of my company was carrying one around. He is not a tech person. But he is living on his iPad. That alone makes it a game changer. It’s something a computer couldn’t do. It couldn’t even level the playing field for someone like him. The iPad does. There’s no barrier to iPad. The iPad is for everyone. It’s just simple great. And simple great will take over the world.

3. Real-Time Interactive – It’s one thing to offer a website that allows you interaction. But how does that interaction change the real world? This will become more and more important as individuals start to look for a world outside the computer. They won’t let go of the computer, but they will want more real-world connections because of it. They will want to control or affect things that live in real time. They will want to be a part of more things that live in real time. Putting the Web world and real-time world together will be an even bigger deal than it was in 2010.

4. The Consolidation Battle – Facebook wants you to spend the majority of your time on Facebook, including your e-mail time. Foursquare wants you to check in on Foursquare and talk about things on Foursquare. Google wants you to turn into some sort of Google creature that can’t function without Google. Meanwhile, there are multitudes of other check-in sites including Foodspotting, Get Glue, Philo, etc. Many of these sites/apps are linked and many are not. The battle for the majority of your time is ongoing and well, pretty insane. Who will win? Will anyone? I don’t know but I know it will be a fight to the death.

5. Crowdsourcing – Using the Cloud to do all the work is in vogue. Although it’s not necessarily new, the execution of it has gotten far more sophisticated. Agencies like Victors and Spoils have taken it to a new level.  They have legitimized it to big advertisers like Harley-Davidson, WD-40 and others. Doritos and Converse have been doing it with their TV and Web films for years now. The trend will continue until it isn’t fascinating to advertisers anymore. That could happen soon or keep on indefinitely as more and more advertisers try it. It’s such a cost-effective way to go, that the trend is very appetizing and could remain so.

Foursquare checks in at No. 6 on our list -- as rewards and discounts for people who use it become more a prevalent business practice.

6. Coupon Gaming – Foursquare, Facebook, Yelp and a host of others are or will be rewarding people for checking in at their establishments with discounts and freebies. When I was at my coffee place (Sambalatte in Vegas), the Foursquare mayor was asking the owner why he wasn’t giving him a discount for being the mayor of Sambalatte. When the early adopters start demanding it, the regular folks will follow. It will be fun to watch the developments once everyone is in the game. And you thought seniors got all the discounts.

7. The Power of the Disenfranchised – Yes, they have power. And they are the multitudes. I’m not including myself because I have a job and can pay my bills. But I probably should add myself to the list. Why? Because I think there are a great many Americans who are figuring out that they are one bad Friday away from being disenfranchised. And that’s a frightening prospect that’s motivating people like never before. It’s also one of the reasons a Palin could become the Republican nominee for president. I didn’t say the disenfranchised made wise decisions. But they do have power. And that power will manifest itself outside the world of politics as they realize just how much they can effect. When roving mobs with pitchforks and torches come back, I will tweet about it.

8. New-Fangled Television Advertising – This is going to sound crazy, but I’ll say it. Television advertising is still important. The drive to spend more money online is hurting television advertising budgets and leveling out the mix but not making television obsolete. With Hulu, Netflix, Hi-Def DVRs, 3-D television, Google TV and about a zillion Web videos, you will need a good mix to have a chance at reaching anyone. Right now most digital shops don’t get the magic of television. They don’t understand what Web videos can be. They treat them more like content and not the branding vehicles they should be. When it’s done right, what you see on the computer is a perfect complement to what you see on television. I sit and watch television with my computer on my lap. I have learned to watch whichever one has the best stuff on it that particular minute. Try it.

9. Things That Have Nothing to Do with Technology – The wired world has already hit a kind of critical mass. Hipsters are looking for ways to let go of technology. That same need will get past the cool hunters and become a need for the rest of us this year. Like I mentioned above – computers are too entrenched for us to lose them completely. But we will start to look for things that can give us a well-needed break. But not exercise. That’s where I draw the line.

10. More and More Ways to Make You Part of the Entertainment You Watch Every Night – If you watch The Colbert Report, you know that he had an art episode with Steve Martin where he had Shepard Fairey and others work on a picture of him to make it collectable. Then he continued that online where you could participate and change the picture as well. Then those pictures that you created end up on the show. Conan has taken to involving the audience in making films for his show that live on the Web and on air. This is what the smarter shows will do – make you feel like a part of them.

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Randy’s Top 10 from ‘10

December 29th, 2010 by Randy Snow, EVP/Creative Director & Principal

Randy’s Top 10 from ’10.

Most critics do it, so why shouldn’t I?  For the past six or seven years, I have taken it upon myself to create my list of the 10 best films of the year.  It’s not a critic’s list.  I’m not a critic.  I’m a film fan.  This is a fan’s list.  Yes, many of the films you’ll see on the critics’ lists will show up on mine as well.  Good films are good films (and bad ones are bad), no matter who’s watching them. The reasons I will give for their inclusion will be from a fan’s, not a critic’s, perspective.

Before we begin, a few things to keep in mind.  In 2010, I saw approximately 80 films. That’s quite a few, but still a fraction of the hundreds that were released.  The point being, I’m sure there were many outstanding films that I didn’t see.  They won’t be on the list.  If one of them is a favorite of yours, you have my apologies.  Can’t judge a film I didn’t see. 

One last thing before we move on.  The list is not in any specific order.  I’m not ranking them 1 through ten.  In truth, I find it difficult to compare a film like Toy Story 3 to one like Winter’s Bone.  They are both great for completely different reasons.  Let’s just leave it at that. These are the ten best.  Put them in any order you like. 

(more…)

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“Situational” branding

December 21st, 2010 by Lena Delgado, Account Supervisor

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino. If you haven’t heard that name at least once in the last year, you must be living under a rock. “The Situation” has gained reality-star fame through MTV’s love-it-or-hate-it show, Jersey Shore, which created an upheaval in pop culture when it first began airing last year. Along with securing a second season of Jersey Shore, “The Situation” is now doing celebrity appearances and just completed a stint on Dancing with the Stars to prolong his 15 minutes of fame. When I first saw Jersey Shore, I was horrified. But now, like many others, I’m admittedly a fan. Even more than just a fan, I’m an admirer. I’m amazed at how someone like “The Situation” has taken this opportunity and snowballed it into an estimated $5 million in earnings this year. Most recently, he’s partnered with Apple to create an iPhone app that features a “GTL” finder (which locates gyms, tanning salons and laundry facilities), a workout routine, and a “grenade dodger” game. The app has become one of Apple’s top-10-grossing entertainment apps. Protein-enhanced vodka (I guess there is such a thing) and fitness DVDs are next on the list. The point of all this? Branding. “The Situation” has created a brand for himself … a brand that has become very recognizable and defines who Mike Sorrentino is. As stated in a recent Fast Company article, “To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. Along the way, if you’re really smart, you figure out what it takes to create a distinctive role for yourself – you create a message and a strategy to promote the brand called You.” “The Situation” may be a self-proclaimed Jersey Shore “guido,” but he’s figured out how to do something that so many companies just can’t seem to get right. Now that deserves a fist pump.

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A Big Rat’s Dream

July 9th, 2010 by Arnie DiGeorge, Executive Creative Director

Recently, a rat chewed through a couple of wires behind my television set. I lost my sound to the receiver. I was able to catch that rat and get my revenge, but it reminded me of how much I hate the wires. We get closer every day to the end of wires, dishes, cables, television tethers that keep us pulling out the set and figuring out the inputs and outputs. It is not fun.

Today, I felt like the end was really in site with the new Hulu Plus. Hulu Plus is the subscription service of formerly free Hulu. With the new wireless television sets, Hulu Plus, Roku, Netflix and a host of others will allow us to watch TV without much more than a plug. We can rent movies, watch television shows, buy movies, listen to books and cruise the net all at the same time. Not only that, I can also watch Hulu on my computer, iPhone or iPad.

Right now, I’m paying for cable, which is more than $150 a month. Hulu Plus and Roku together would run $20 a month unless you want to rent Amazon movies, which are $4 to $5 each. Eventually, everyone will figure out that it’s better to turn on a TV and have everything you need as long as you have a wireless connection. It’s cheaper, cooler, easier and just plain smarter. And someday, the channels you now get with DIRECTV or Cable will come without a DIRECTV guy or cable guy. It will all be in the TV and available through your wireless connection. Add wireless stereo receivers and speakers all in one big bundle and you never have to worry about wires again.

Maybe some of us will still keep paying for cable and satellite. We’ll just add Hulu Plus, Roku, Sony’s system and anything else that will give us enough options to make our couch time roll by in pixilated bliss. And we’ll watch a giant split-screen with a Netflix movie on one side, football on the other and a Hulu’d Office episode in the middle. If we’re lucky, we’ll see about five minutes of each since we’ll be trying to watch YouTube videos from the computers on our laps and make FaceTime calls from our iPhones at the same time.

If a hundred channels weren’t enough, why would 2,000 channels do it? It’s like the Gillette 5 Blade Razor. Three blades were good. Four blades were great. But if I only had one more blade, then I could be sure I was getting the best shave. Well, until they have six blades, that is. And seven, if I had seven blades.

If that’s the way it’s going to be, it’s just more for the rats to chew on. I long for the day when they have nothing but the plug and that small piece of cheese I leave on the sticky trap to gnaw at.

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