When I was working for a high tech and B2B ad agency that was experiencing growing pains caused by the transformation from small to mid-sized to large, I developed a traffic and production management system using a Mac and FileMaker Pro. No, really. Seriously! Prior to that system, there were nothing more than memos and email to convey information from account management to creative to production to traffic and back. It was inefficient, and many times information was lost in transit.
The FileMaker Pro system introduced job tickets and a workflow that, to the best of FileMaker Pro's limited capabilities, aided in making sure the right people saw the right information and that the process was properly documented. This included a listing of those responsible for various aspects of the job, due dates, production specs and, if lucky, the creative brief.
It was far from a perfect system and rife with the limitations of early-stage FileMaker Pro. At other agencies I worked for, trafficking jobs and managing workflow ranged in sophistication from a simple phone call to a handwritten note to typed, four-part forms to email to clunky dumb terminal antiquation.
Read the rest on the Central Desktop blog.
Draftfcb Chicago has created a fairly hilarious series of commercial for Cox. In the series, the Hattery family, a very weird dad, Paul, torments his family with his antics. It all begins with dad awkwardly bonding with his son, Tyler, during buffering moments cause by DSL. Over five episodes, things just get weirder and weirder with Paul obsessing over unlimited phone service and going all "par-tay" pn his family once they get a Cox whole house DVR. Commercial insanity at its finest.
Be sure not to miss the always awkward "if we all had cox" dialog in one of the episodes.
Smartphones and the social, local, mobile (SoLoMo) ecosystem are said to be the future of retail. Where once there was the yellow pages, today's mobile consumer may be accessing the local web through any number of search engines, local directories, mobile search apps and social networks to find businesses.
This shift in the way people search to buy in-store is a reality that needs to be addressed immediately for retail brands to survive in an increasingly hyper-local marketplace.
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An infographic from ReTargeter took a look at election spend and found that Obama spent $52,006,072 compared to Romney's $26,230,293. The $52M Obama spent is about $12 million more than it cost to build the Lincoln Memorial and $26 million more than Romney spent.
I guess today we'll know whether or not the spend paid off. See the full infographic below.
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Following in the footsteps of Honda and a collection of other brands that have made music out of ordinary sounds, printer brand Brother has created an orchestra of old printers programmed to perform Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Shockingly, I'm old enough to remember most of the individual sounds used in the video to create this orchestral masterpiece. Brings back memories. But, thankfully, technology has given us much quieter printers and, hence, a much saner workplace.
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Miami Ad School Students, Christoffer Ahlen and Philip Hovensjo have created The Last Debate, a site on which tweets with #speakromney and #speakobama respectively are directed to the mouths of the candidates themselves. While the debates may be over, not until the election is final will the mud cease to be slung. So have at it while you can.
In Portugal, they have no problem whatsoever sexualizing not just advertising but the industry itself. Ah, if only working in advertising where really like this. After all, who wouldn't want to knock out a few creative ideas while bathing in a hottub with a threesome of awesome?
The ideas will be big and the success huge. Hmm. Today seems to be the day for a "size matters" approach to advertising. See the latest from PETA which is currently celebrating big, swinging...vegetables.
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Courtesy of JWT Brazil and Agencia Casa, one version of the U.S. Presidential election will be determined by Rock 'Em Sock "em robots...powered by tweets! Yes, the agency has cobbled together an app, Tweet Punch Out, that delivers a punch every time a person tweets Obama or Romney. Currently, Romney is leading in hits almost four to one. Read into that whatever you choose.
No, No, No, Not that Paul Ryan. The Paul Ryan who's President of Wooshi, a video production company. Check out Ryan as he reads a passage from Fifty Shades of Grey that's all about pumping and thrusting and swelling and humping and groaning and stretching and filling.
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Not all agencies are located in a city where mass transit is the main means of transportation to and from work. In some cities, believe it or not, people actually get into their cars and drive to work. And because they do, they need a someplace to park.
Making sure its employees have plenty of space to park and working to insure :squatters" don't occupy those spaces, Rochester-based Partners + Napier placed several witty no parking signs in its lot to ward off non-employees.
The signs take pot shots at shoppers, partiers, interviewees of competing agencies, coffee shop junkies, cheapskates with threats of "ginormous" fines and towing. Funny stuff. Give the signs a read.
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