i love a good scandal

A spot for J.C. Penney recently won a Bronze Cannes Lion, great right? Except for the fact that the brand had no knowledge of the spot whatsoever. They were not happy about it either. The creators of the spot, former employees at J.C. Penney's agency Saatchi & Saatchi, said that they had never pitched the spot while at S&S because it would be considered off-brand.

This really makes me wonder...what does the JCP brand represent? In my mind it's cheap, generic, department store crap. The spot in the spotlight does a beautiful job showcasing the clothes in a very casual manner. It's totally different from the stupid models you typically see picnicking and skipping in clothing spots. It maintains a sexy yet bored suburbanite nature in regards to both the clothes that JCP sells and the consumers who wear them.

Check out the article in AdAge.com: http://adage.com/cannes08/article?article_id=127961

This entry into Cannes is a pure example of advertising being produced as art, not for sales.

playing the building

David Bryd, former Talking Heads member, made the old Battery Maritime Building into a musical instrument. Standing in the open warehouse with strange clicking noises and pipes singing like flutes, you can't help but pause in aw. It's fun to watch the crowd, each turning in circles, trying to find the source of each noise. It's an interesting experience, I highly recommend if you find yourself by the Staten Island Ferry.

fearless

Check out Saatchi & Saatchi's New Directors' Showcase performance at Cannes. I've only watched the first six minutes, it's about an hour long. The first piece is really neat.
http://www.canneslions.com/saatchinewdirectors/

judge people

no really, go for it. it's fun.

Every day pictures of the Cannes film festival will be posted on CannesTags.com where you can submit a word or phrase that image makes you think of.
It's a Cannes specific branch of BrandTags.com and it's good fun.

found on ebay

only in SoHo

Walking from work to the subway today, I passed Elijah Woods...All I could think was: "whoa, he's tiny."

search engine 3.0

Searchme.com
Ok so it's still in beat testing (knd of like Twine). But, I'm thinking it's going to be a hit. At the recent AAAA Digital Conference, Mark Kvamme of Sequoia Capital introduced it to the crowd.
The brilliance of this search engine is that you can save sets of things that you search for. Let's say I searched for 'Indiana Jones.' Sites would appear in a PicLens fashion. Sites from IMDB.com to the trailer of the recent film, to blogs about it. I would then be able to create a folder into which I could drag these sites.
This is going to make doing research so much easier!

mus-ethnicity

Could someone who has a vast music library and programming skills please create a website that explores different ethnicities through their music? Imagine it - like Pandora, but rather than plugging in a band/song, you would plug in an ethnicity or country name that you would like to experience. I would call it MusEthnicity.
For example, if I plugged in Slovac, DeVotchka might play. Or Mexican, Grupo Fantasma might pop-up.
If this exists and I just haven't stumbled upon it, please send it along!

breakfast chicken sandwiches and punk teens

McDonald's new commercial for their breakfast chicken sandwich is pretty damn funny. My favorite part is the last line "here's to non-conformity." It appears to be attempting two things:

1. To get young anti-mainstream folks to try their sandwich
2. To say that McDs as a brand is in someway akin to the anti-mainstream ethos.

Wow, that's aspirational. It is also risky. The truth is, what about McDs does not scream classic American?

Someone should also inform McDonalds that the age of the un-ruly anti-society teenager is out. Teens these days are tuned into more than just MTV. In fact, they are more involved in community service than any recent previous generation. Not only that but teens have taken the green movement as a call to action. Rebelling for the sake of pissing your parents off isn't nearly as important to these youngins as rebelling against big corporations. Just take a look at how successful the Truth campaign has been by plugging into that sentiment.

I think I'll stick to oatmeal.

brandsession

Brand Tags is an experiment to test peoples' perceptions of brands. Sounds like a great way to see if your brand positioning campaign actually paid off. That and... it's fun. Try it out: http://www.brandtags.net/

healthy role models

Objective: So let’s say that you are Kraft or any other food co. that wants to get kids to start eating your healthy foods early on.

Things to know about your audience :
- Kids in school learn about healthy eating and can tell you what it means to eat healthily.
Kids want to be healthy and understand the value of it, the missing link is guidance.

We’ve all heard about the obesity rate amongst kids in the U.S. and fingers have been pointed at parents or marketers, but I believe we are looking in the wrong place to find the solution. Let’s think about kids this way:

Kids are the influencers
Yes, we all know that when marketing to kids there is the secondary audience of parents. We also know that when kids are told to do things, like eat healthily, they don’t want to follow directions.

Now let’s talk about Parents and following directions
The reason that parents are the secondary target is because of the influence that a child has on their purchasing decisions. Parents don’t just choose to buy their kids bags of chips over apples, they do so because they know that their child will be more likely to eat the chips. Kids have amazing influence over their parents. Just take a look at former-smoker blogs and you will see that children are a huge motivator in quitting. A message from your child to please quit smoking is a lot more motivating than a warning label from a governing body. It’s funny how a small-soft voice can inspire change so dramatically in comparison to red-bold and all-caps. It reminds me of the Teddy Roosevelt quote “speak softly, but carry a big stick.”

So now, rather than parents forcing broccoli down childrens’ throats, how about giving the spoon to the child?

My Challenge
My challenge to Kraft, schools, whomever feels compelled to quell rising child obesity rates is to let the children become the teachers. Let’s empower children to teach others about healthy living. This could be done in school by creating a mentor program where kids would mentor younger kids on healthy eating.

For example, middle school students could head over to elementary schools to teach kids how to eat healthily. It could lead to after school programs where kids learn how to cook, go to farms and learn how to plant/pick foods. Schools could create gardens where kids could learn about where food comes from and learn to appreciate fresh foods. This could be done through science classes or even gym classes where health is covered. The food from the garden could go to the cafeteria, or even be sold as a fundraiser for next year’s garden.

One way to bring healthy eating home would be to have a “Healthy Eating Night” where kids and parents could learn together how to cook healthy meals. Maybe it’s a Saturday and kids and parents garden together in the school garden.

Companies (like Kraft) could get involved by sponsoring these programs. Companies that sell seeds could play a big role in the creation of these gardens. Rather than sell christmas wrapping paper, students could go door to door selling seeds.

The key in the kid-to-kid solution to obesity, is giving kids healthy role models that are just a few years older than them and giving kids the chance to showcase their smarts to younger kids and their parents.

http://tune it here

Two music players I have been tipped off to lately are Pandora.com and Muxtape.com. I am in love with both.
Pandora allows you to create your own radio station based off of a song or band that you like. It then plays songs that are similar and helps you discover a ton of new music!
Remember sitting next to the tape player hitting record to compile the perfect mixed tape? Me neither, all I know is that some chick that was interning for my dad when I was like 9 made me one. It's got like Garbage, Nirvana and a plethora of other grunge-punk bands. I wish I could find her and to say "thank-you." Muxtape.com allows you to create a mixed tape off of your MP3s. Part of the fun of Muxtape choosing which mix to pick. My advice: if you make one, name it well. Give those hidden copywriter skills a stretch and you may find that your Mux becoming very popular.


I promise that I am not bring paid to write this blog, this is coming out of true, genuine appreciation folks.

stories that code well

A few weeks ago in my Portfolio Development class, we worked on digital storytelling for a brand. I know that I wasn't the only one that felt confused by that assignment. A few weeks after it was due though, I found a document that explains it all. What was cloudy, now is clear.
Check out the Naked site, under 'Nice Day,' you'll find a paper called "Once Upon a Time" (nakedcomms.com). The pathetic thing is that I pry read this about a year ago. If only my memory were more like an external hard-drive and all I had to do was click the find icon.
Here are some of the examples that article talks about:
BBC has created a space for Wales where the Welsh can share their stories digitally.

On the BBC site they explain how to hold digital storytelling workshops. The site goes into what kind of a venue is needed as well as how to brief storytellers.

Need something more? Check out http://storyteller.org/ or head to the digital drive-in at http://www.nextexit.com/drivein/driveinframeset.html.

I'm still not entirely certain what the guest teacher was looking for in regards to giving the brand a space to tell it's story. My brand was an online shopping retailer, so it lived entirely on the net. However, I guess a part of it's story could be told by the folks that shop there. Now that's something...
Now if only I had read this like a month ago...

noises are memories too

I wish I could get a ring-tone that was the old dial-up noise. Ah, the good old days when you would call-up the net and wait in anticipation for it to answer the phone.

on going process with goals in mind

I am happy to announce that I recently received an internship at Naked Communications for the summer!!! This is really a dream come true for me. Just ask my former roommate; one year ago when she and I drew up our "Dream Life Maps" I swear mine read something like this:
"get into Adcenter," check.
And I am fairly certain the next was "intern at either Naked or W+K."

So what is this "on going process?" Learning. Thomas, who will be my boss (I think?) at Naked this summer, asked me to write up a list of things I would like to learn while there. My list has turned into a rant. I plan on cleaning this up a bit before giving it to Thomas, but here is what I am looking to learn both this summer and in my career...

There is no bigger thrill than the “ah duh!” moment. It kills me when watching a presentation and thinking “why didn’t I think of that!” I even have a folder where I collect creative work called “must kill the creator.” My jealousy never really leads to rage though, I promise, it leads to inspiration. The “ah duh!” moment can not be learned. The process to that moment however, can.
While trucking through research for a project, it can be difficult to wade through the facts and find the BIG, sensational, driving insight. I find the process of fitting this insight neatly into a positioning statement, a strategy, and a unifying idea difficult. Can these sometimes be the same thing with very slight variations? This process usually comes down to semantics. However mind numbing debating what the difference between a “conduit” and a “connector” can be, I understand the necessity for clarity. I truly hope to master this process as it is imperative for becoming a strong strategist.
People in our industry love to throw out advice about the big idea, the unifying idea. While some say it should steer all of your work, others say it does not exist, that big ideas are just lame. Some believe that an obsession to find that one big idea/strategy/what have you, causes us to miss out on brilliant smaller ideas that can be more helpful. This contradictory advise has left me tip-toeing into strategies and feeling uncertain. If my strategy doesn’t ween a beautiful big idea, does that make it useless, or worse...wrong? I am in need of some guidance here.
Speaking of strategies. One thing I need to learn how to do is present my strategic idea in a “sticky” way. When working with big groups (like eight people), I find my suggestions and ideas getting lost in the static of conversation. I sometimes feel like people would pay more attention if I were to perform my idea as a modern dance. Now if only my client were a paper company, I can do one hell of a tree.