Bowing to its slogan, "Change or die," North Carolina-based agency The Republik is inviting users to shoot the living crap out of its old website.
Choose from a 44 Magnum, a shotgun or a sniper rifle. The Magnum is by far the most satisfying, and after about 10 hits, a fancy new Republik site appears. It's got a lot going on. Existing projects float across a galaxy of polka-dots, and the top nav is vaguely reminiscent of Modernista, except without all the distractions.
When clicked, a floating dot labeled "don't click here" brings users to an alarmingly red self-promo page. Not a bad gimmick, but gimmicky all the same.
If I had the cash and a cause, would I tap The Republik by merit of its site? At the very least, I'd want to hear them out. I could be wrong, but I think they get it.
Adweek asked industry creatives to create presidential campaign ads just for fun. While many made excuses as to why it wouldn't be right for them to take part (lack of objectivity, client embarrassment), several were up to the task including Anomaly's Mik Byrne, Butler Shine Stern & Partners's John Butler, Deutsch's Peter Nicholson, Goodby's Jamie Barret, Kaplan Thaler Group's Tom Amico, R/GA's Nick Law, T.A.G's Scott Duchon and TBWA\Chiat\Day's Rob Schwartz.
Some of the concepts centered around Obama's perceived lack of experience, McCain's elderly age and, of course a Paris Hilton take.
Hmm...this prompts a thought. Victoria's Secret versus Frederick's of Hollywood. Any takers?
It's about time.This sort-of-but-not-really recession has had everyone talking for, well, years, it seems. Today, we have some meat on the subject. And it isn't tasty. The Association of National Advertisers has released a study citing 53 percent of surveyed marketing executives expect their ad budgets to be reduced withing the next six months and 87 percent are already identifying cutbacks.
Areas cited for cuts are media (69 percent), travel (63 percent), production (63 percent) and new work (61 percent). Of those already planning cutbacks, 50 percent expect a ten percent reduction, 27 percent expect an 11-20 percent reduction and ten percent expect cuts or more than 30 percent.
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While Dell's Digital Nomads site has been up for a few weeks, it's only just beginning to receive press. The site is a social media offering for the increasing number of people for whom location has become irrelevant when it comes to work and online life.
Digital Nomads is a blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, a Twitter identity and a YouTube page. While it's been unclear whether or not Enfatico was involved in the creation of the work, an email to Dell Digital Nomad Enterprise Evangelist Bruce Anderson confirmed the agency's involvement. Anderson tells us Enfatico was "involved in the overall layout, design and social-media integration for the site."
With Dell's Richard at Dell having previously made mention to Adrants of work already done by Enfatico, it would seem that knowledge combined with the launch of Digital Nomads, would call for the retirement of that Enfatico countdown clock.
OMFG! Can you believe it! Is it really possible? Could this really be happening? Could we really be getting this excited and worked up over an agency spoof site and the realization it was created by an ad blogger? Apparently so, given the endless press Adomatica's Robert Gilbreath, creator of Enfartico (now defunct), received following the launch and "leaking" of his Enfatico spoof site.
AgencySpy has full on, breathless coverage in lengthy detail for those who want to wallow in the juicydetails of a fake agency website that's managed to garner almost as much press as the agency itself. That said, it's sad Enfatico couldn't just go along with the joke. It's sad they just officiously shut the site down. It's sad they didn't launch their own CGM/UGC/Web 2.0 response. It could have been fun. Oh well. In this instance, the party line was followed to the letter. No company wants it's brand toyed with but Enfartico was hardly doing harm to Enfatico.
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It's clear, Enfatico is the industry's current whipping boy, whether or not anything for which we are whipping the boy is true or not. This industry can't live without a continual dose of ego-boosting schadenfreude and the security it offers allowing us to say, "At least we aren't as screwed up as those fuckers over at Enfatico!" As long as someone else is screwing up, it's all good.
AgencySpy is having a field day on this one lambasting Dell VP Casey Jones and claiming he's on probation for "lackluster performance" in his creation of the Enfatico machine. Unsurprisingly, there's bound to be some strife when a giant brand attempts to consolidate its work from 800 agencies to one. It's to be expected.
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Yawn... Oh, wait. Not yawn. This continuing Enfatico fuckery is just too precious to leave alone. Besides, like elementary school bullies, we in the ad industry simply can't bypass a chance to pick on anyone who, well, isn't - through an unfortunate confluence of events (or is it intentional idiocy?) - just begging for a lashing. And today's whipping boy is WPP's Enfatico. Crispin Porter Bogusky must be very thankful Enfatico has taken the stage.
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Poor Enfatico. Seems it just can't get out of its own way, no less create any actual work for Dell in the almost year it's been in business. The WPP agency has been crapped on for months. It can't seem to get anyone hired. It's got its own clock site counting down the days until it produces a single piece of work for the computer maker. It's even got its own spoof site, endearingly named Enfartico. Yes, Enfartico.
With a name like Enfatico, it was just too easy. So the agency that was to be EMPHATIC about its work for Dell is now just farting in the wind, stinking up the industry and making it really easy for everyone to poke fun at.
- Need to brush up on your dating skills? Head over to the Stop Hating Dating Game and engage in some choose your own adventure action. It's all to promote a book, of course.
- New York Festivals has formed a partnership with China's SiTV to showcase its International Advertising Trophy winners on XiYuan, China's show about advertising.
- What the James Bond Quantum of Solace theme song will be since Amy Winehouse ain't.
- "Harvey Marco, standing ECD at Saatchi LA, is confirmed to have resigned from his role, yesterday August 5th. This according to a Saatchi LA insider."
- Need a Doctor Who fix? 2 Entertain and gas Agency has it for you with an online quiz.
Here we go again. Apparently, it's OK to blow up stuff in TV commercials (see Verizon's Michael Bay commercial) but OMFG, show a fleeting glimpse of a natural human body part and the country freaks to high alert, places a blindfold over the collective eyeballs of every kid in the country (nudity is bad!!) and launches the cause group machine.
Yes. This is America. Nudity is bad. Nudity is something to be shunned. Natural beauty? Screw that. Put a potato sack on! Cover that God-given beauty. Sex is bad. Sex dirty. Sex is nasty. Sex should never be thought about. Sex should be shunned.
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