As if there weren't a Republican in the house, ad:tech keynote speaker Shelly Lazarus gushed with excitement about the uplifting optimism brought on by Obama's presidential win the night before. No doubt, she had planned to speak about Obama's campaign, universally agreed to have been stellar and one of the best ever, but the fact he won couldn't contain the glee clearly resident in the room.
In her keynote, Lazarus commented the Obama campaign dubbing it a masterstroke of CRM and the digital realization of Obama's "yes we can" mantra. While the Obama love in the room was, without doubt, palpable, Lazarus did not spent the entire keynote talking about Obama.
Despite all the doom and gloom about the economy, according to eMarketer's Geoff Ramsey, there are bright spots. And those bright spots, thankfully, are in the online marketing space. Ramsey sees a 14.5% growth rate for online ad spending for 2009. Wipe that sweat off your brow now because you may actually be able to pay your mortgage in 2009.
Italian newspaper 'L'Unità', originally founded in 1924 by Marxist Antonio Gramsci as the official paper of the Italian Communist Party, has relaunched and rebranded with a new campaign created by "controversial" Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani who worked on the United Colors of Bentton campaign.
Some have labeled the ad sexist. Concita de Gregorio, first female head of the paper doesn't agree, saying, "I don't think it's right to use a woman image to sell, for example, cars. But in this case, I think it's perfect. Since two months, this newspaper is controlled by the body and the head of a woman, me, so in this case I think is pertinent to use a woman's image."
Hmm. Interesting logic indeed tying the mini skirted body of the woman in the ad to her position as "head" of the paper.
Why does it seem every ad created in non-English speaking countries consists of nothing more than a big ass photo and tiny logo or product shot? Oh wait, we get it. They want us English speakers to understand their ads as well. Or at least be able to convey the message within countries that may have several different dialects making copy unable to be understood by all. Or maybe it's just laziness. Or a shortage of copywriters.
Mo matter. Many of these copyless ads are quite good and do a fine job at delivering their message without the unneeded baggage of overly pompous verbiage and self important overtones which do nothing but further confuse the message with needless puffery.
We didn't make it to Boston's Hatch Awards this year and therefore we missed this hilarious introductory video created by Fort Franklin. In the video, we see the desktop of a creative seemingly hard at work developing the voiceover for the Hatch video itself.
All seems to go well until the desktop explodes with activity not far from the reality we all experience everyday as we try to work on one thing while endless distractions such as email, IM, stupid YouTube videos, Skype, iTunes updates and stupid pictures begin to bounce incessantly along the bottom of the desktop making actual work impossible. Revision after revision fails.
If you've been reading Adrants for a while or if you've worked in the ad business for more than a day, you are well aware sex plays a big role in advertising. You are probably also aware, or should be, the phrase "sex sells" really isn't all that true all the time.
While everyone likes to create a hot ad featuring hot people who spew endless double entendres every once in a while, it's not always the right direction to take for every brand and target audience. Many times a sex-laced ad can turn people off and do more harm than good to the brand.
- A handful of rich-ass celebrities use reverse psychology to cajole MySpace users into voting. What, does Jennifer Aniston not do it for you? Maybe Leonardo DiCaprio's poverty-ridden excuse for a blog will.
- The wife of David Warthen, founder of Ask.com, is facing tax evasion charges on money she made while working as a hooker to pay for law school.
A guy called James Neate just created a crew, Brandstalkers, whose mission it is to "virally" promote brands it loves -- as opposed to advertising them in conventional ways. (Frankly, "viral" is getting pretty conventional, in use of name if not in outcome. Repeat after me: VIRAL IS AN OUTCOME.) In return, the group takes a small "grant" from the companies it represents.
Its debut effort was for Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican taqueria based in Sydney. It involves half-naked guys and a lot of Sharpies.
Gotta love brand gospel writ on flesh. You can probably gauge the success of the campaign by the number of Japanese tourists it attracted.
