Happy Holidays!

The entire Ad Contrarian global staff is off for the holidays. Have a wonderful week and we'll see you after the New Year.

Remarkable Rudeness

Recently my agency was asked to pitch an account.We were given little time and no money to do so. Our assignment was to develop full-blown plans -- including creative and media -- for three different markets.We spent tens of thousands of dollars on the pitch. We had people working nights and weekends -- including Thanksgiving weekend.When we gave the presentation the head marketing person from

How To Select An Ad Agency

The process by which companies select ad agencies continues to get more arcane and bewildering.It is fed by search committees who don't know what they're searching for and consultants who need to justify their fees by creating monumental RFPs filled with grotesque irrelevancies.As someone who has participated in a thousand agency searches, here's how I would do it.Dear XYZ Agency,We are looking

The Complicators Have Won

There are two kinds of people -- simplifiers and complicators.Simplifiers have the ability to distinguish between the essential and the irrelevant. Complicators cannot.In advertising, simplifiers are indispensible. Complicators are disastrous.The advertising business is now in the hands of complicators.From The New York Times, December 2, 2008:...a new breed of companies is...creating hundreds of

Bad Days For Brand Babblers

Times of economic hardship are especially tough on ad people who make their living bullshitting about "brand relevance," "brand integrity," " brand saliency," and other forms of brand baloney.In these times, clients expect their advertising to actually sell something. When it doesn't, they get cranky.Some years ago the ad industry decided that it no longer had to bother itself with the mundane

Social Media Fantasies

From TechDigest, July 2007"Facebook applications are the best thing since...sliced bread...they're mushrooming by the day, as companies and individual developers alike catch on to the potential of having their content splashed over (potentially) millions of Facebook profiles."Yeah, right.Along with so many other social media fantasies, marketers have found Facebook apps to be a pretty good way of

A Civilization Of The Mind

From A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. John Perry Barlow. Davos, Switzerland. February 8, 1996. "We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before." Yeah, right.Here were the top ten search items on Yahoo for 2008:1. Britney Spears2. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)3. Barack Obama4. Miley

Hobbies & Businesses

On the web, there are two kinds of entities -- hobbies and businesses. There are a zillion hobbies and a few businesses. And a lot of hobbies pretending to be businesses.This blog is a hobby. iTunes is a business.The difference? Businesses make money.Facebook is a hugely successful hobby, and a dismal failure as a business. That goes for virtually all social media schemes (more on this later in

Guns N' Roses N' Pepper

In its brief life, the web may have spawned more idiotic, wasteful, and non-productive marketing schemes than perhaps any other medium on earth.The latest was an attempt by Dr Pepper to hitchhike on the 17-year saga of Guns N' Roses releasing an album called Chinese Democracy.Apparently without authorization from the band, Dr Pepper claimed it would give away a free can of soda to everyone in

You Read It Here First

Over a year ago, we predicted that online display advertising was headed for trouble. From The Ad Contrarian, September 21, 2007:"The Backlash Will ComeIt's not going to take advertisers long to figure out that online display advertising has been a failure as an interactive medium (see Two In A Thousand.) It can't sustain its growth for long with a response rate under 2 in a thousand...Right now

Great New Use For Internet

Just when you think turgid claims about the internet can't get any more foolish, along comes a Noble prize winner to prove you wrong. STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The spread of information on the Internet has given the world a new tool to forestall conflicts, Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio said Sunday. In his Nobel lecture to the Swedish Academy, the 68-year-old Frenchman

The Results Are In

The final results of ad spending during the recent political cycle are rolling in.Politicians spent about 50% more on advertising in the 2008 elections than they did in 2004. In 2004 they spent $1.7 billion. In 2008 they spent between $2.5 and 2.7 billion.And the big winner in all this added spending had to be the web, right? Wrong.Television got a huge share, with about 85% of all ad dollars ($

Schizobranding

I know two guys named "Tommy."One is funny, cheerful, and charming. One is sullen, negative, and unpleasant.The name "Tommy" has no singular meaning for me. It denotes two different people who are completely unrelated.I know two companies named "Taco Bell."One is on television. It is clean, cheerful, and makes nice looking food.One is in my neighborhood. It is dirty, disgusting, and I would never

6 Things A Creative Director Needs To Know

TAC has been making presentations and missing airplanes all week. Here's an oldie.Six things you need to know if you're going to be a happy, healthy creative director.1. Hiring is everything.If you have terrific people, the advertising business isn’t that difficult. If you have mediocrities, advertising is impossible. For your own self-preservation you must get rid of bad people and hire good

Joy Of Eavesdropping In San Francisco

An overheard conversation between two 9-year olds:Gabe: Dude, I saw the coolest video... this 5-year old dribbling, and like real low and between the legs...Leo: Dude, I can do that.Gabe: Dude, you're nine.Leo: Dude, I could do it when I was 5.Gabe: Dude, this was girl.Leo: Dude, that's sexist.Gabe: No it's not.Leo: Yes it is. Girls can dribble just as good as boys.Gabe: Dude, that doesn't mean

Ad Agencies Still Don't Get It

The Ad Contrarian mantra goes like this:"We don't get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."However, most agencies and most marketing mavens still believe that "branding" is something separate from selling.A perfect example of the tortured logic of branding can be found in this video of a big agency

2009: Best Year Ever For Alibi Advertising

Yesterday we described alibi advertising, and predicted 2009 would be its shining moment.Here's why:1. When business goes bad, companies go crazy. Activity passes for progress; delusions pass for ideas.It's so much easier to be reactive than to develop a strategy. There is not a company in America today that isn't considering throwing away/canceling/radically reducing its ad program. However,

Alibi Advertising

Alibi Advertising: a bogus advertising program created on the cheap with the intent of fooling the gullible into believing something useful is being done.

There are two kinds of alibi advertising.

I discovered the first kind when I was working on wine accounts.

Each year, wine marketers would have us create storyboards. Then they would have us create extensive media plans. They would take

Thankful For Little Things

I am thankful for the following:My sock draw is full.My dog doesn't smell too bad.There are no soldiers stationed in my neighborhood.I have some friends.My daughter doesn't laugh at my playlists.There is a really good bakery in my vicinity.I haven't had a cavity in five years.There are still some book stores left.Only fourteen more weeks till spring training.I have something to do every day.Have

Be Sure To Look For This Story

Coming to your local newspaper soon will be the following all-purpose advertising story:Advertisers Punch Up The Punch Lines To Create Some Holiday CheerConsumer worries over a struggling economy, layoffs, and financial uncertainty have lead a number of major advertisers to launch humorous advertising campaigns for the holiday season.Brand X, Brand Y, and Brand Z have all begun lighthearted

It Just Never Stops

The thing that makes advertising so great is that the bullshit is never-ending. There's always something alarmingly stupid to write about.My favorite article of last week appeared in Ad Age and was entitled "Beverage Ads Not Fueling Enough Word Of Mouth.""In 47% of conversations about brands in general, marketing or advertising is mentioned as a source of information. But only 38% of

Why "MadMen" Lived In Barbie Dream Houses And You Live In A Shit Dump

This is the third part of "How Ad Agencies Make Money". The first two parts are here and here.Advertising used to be a lucrative profession.The traditional economic model for an ad agency was this: an agency's goal was to have revenue equal 15% of billings, and profit equal 20% of revenue.So, on a hypothetical account with billings of a million dollars, the old "MadMen" financial model looked

5 Good Things About The Coming Depression

You know me, always looking on the bright side.So while the world comes crashing down around us, I thought I'd make a list of 5 potentially good things about the coming years of deprivation and misery.No more fucking crème fraîche. With any luck all the bullshit restaurants will close down and we'll be able to get back to eating good stuff like grilled cheese and spaghetti and meatballs.No more

The 3 Numbers You Have To Know

How Ad Agencies Make Money, Part 2.Yesterday we started a series on the economics of the ad business. It's not meant to be in-depth or technical, but just a simple overview for non-financial types.I am constantly amazed that people who've worked in the agency business for 10 years or more have no idea of the economics of the business. They've heard all the terms but are not really sure what they

How Ad Agencies Make Money

Part 1.Okay, you're sitting in your cubicle and you're thinking, "why the hell do I care how ad agencies make money?" Here's why:So you won't sound like an idiot when you talk to grown-ups.Do you really want to work for these morons the rest of your life? If not, you need to know more than how to load the toner cartridge.The reason for this post is that I read an advertising blog the other day

Spreading The Manure

A few weeks ago I wrote a post called "The Smear Machine."It was a reaction to bloggers who had written that the web will diminish the effect of political smears and lies that are spread during campaigns by quickly exposing them.I believe the opposite. In the post I said, "the internet has proven to be a far better medium for spreading nonsense than for exposing it."One week later, a story

Nader Wins Dance Poll!

View the moves that swept Ralph Nader to victory.Final Results:AdBroad 13%George Parker (AdScam) 6%David Burn (AdPulp) 7% (despite massive get-out-the-vote campaign!)Steve Hall (AdRants) 9%Alan Wolk (The Toad Stool) 9%AdContrarian 27%Ralph Nader 30%

Take My Poll, Please

I was surfin' the old interweb the other evening and I came upon a poll. I have no idea what the poll was about, but it was designed so nicely that I immediately wanted a poll myself.So I went to PollDaddy, the source of said poll, and found that I could have an awesome poll just like the one I saw for FREE! Couldn't pass that up.The only trouble was, I didn't have anything I wanted to have a

I Don't Like It

Back when I was a creative director I always used to get into arguments with copywriters and art directors. They'd show me something and I'd say, "I don't like it."Then we'd debate whether it was okay for me to kill an idea just because I didn't like it, or whether I needed a reason for not liking it.I was reminded of this last week when I read a piece in Adweek called "Why Do Clients Deserve The

Dopey Digital Diva Dumbness

Today's sermon is about a story in Ad Age called "Wired Women an Untapped Goldmine for Package Goods." The thrust of the story is that package-goods marketers are missing out on a huge bonanza by not spending money to reach "digital divas" on line. Apparently MicroSoft, MindShare and Ogilvy teamed up to convince gullible package-goods clients to piss away money on social marketing and other

The Real Real Story

Anyone who's had the pleasure of dealing with the press knows the game they play.They call you and ask for a comment. In about 30 seconds you can tell what the angle of the story is going to be and what they want you to say. If your comment doesn't agree with the predetermined assumptions of their story they'll either...Ask another questionKeep pumping you until you say something that sounds

I Made Out With Julia Louis-Dreyfus

It's true. And, to be honest, it wasn't all that great.Here's what happened. The other night I dreamed that Julia and I were working together. It wasn't clear what we were working on, but it was definitely something very creative.After work we headed home. I walked with her to someplace like the NYC subway. It was like the NYC subway in the sense that it was a public transportation site. It was

Washington Post Admits Bias

In a post last week, TAC excoriated the press for its bias toward Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.Several commenters took me to task.Today, however The Washington Post admitted its bias. Their ombudsman, Deborah Howell, had this to say..."...readers have been consistently critical of ... what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day,

Will The Recession Help TV?

We conclude "Recession Week" today with two guest posts. The first is by Susan Bandura.Now that even The Wall Street Journal has admitted we are in a recession, everyone has run amok with dire predictions about marketing and advertising.The online world remains relatively upbeat, knowing that the Internet is still attracting plenty of viewers, and that online advertising is way cheaper than more

Hard-Time Lessons From Grandpa Red

It's "Recession Week" here at TAC. I've asked some of my colleagues to give us their thoughts about advertising during a recession.Today's guest post is by Jimmy Cabral.My grandfather prepared me for a recession. Grandpa Red grew up in an orphanage in Healdsburg, CA. Times were tough and his mother couldn’t afford to take care of him.He worked hard his whole life and appreciated the money he

Dangers Of A Biased Press

I voted for Barack Obama and I'm glad he won. I hope he becomes a great president. Lord knows we need one.Now the bad news. I've been thoroughly disgusted by press bias in his favor.As someone who is a "communications professional," I have a healthy regard for the difference between what I do in advertising -- advocacy -- and what the press is supposed to do -- report facts.Press favoritism has

Good Strategy For Bad Times

This guest post is by Sharon Krinsky. Yesterday, Sharon described the three types of businesses and how the wisdom of advertising during recessionary periods was different for each. Today she talks about creative and media strategy for a recession.During difficult times it's more important than ever to be practical and realistic about what you're trying to achieve by spending money on advertising

Advertising In A Recession: Yes or No?

It's "Recession Week" here at TAC. I've asked some of my colleagues to give us their thoughts about advertising during a recession. Today's guest post is by Sharon Krinsky.Whenever there’s a serious economic downturn there are always two knee-jerk reactions:1. Advertisers cut their ad budgets.2. Ad executives say they shouldn’t.Who’s right? Well, that depends on who you are.In order to have an

Son of Friday Filler

Last week I started something called "Friday Filler" in which I threw a few odds and ends together. People seemed to like it so I'm going to continue it. Actually, I really don't give a shit if people liked it, writing 5 posts a week is too damn hard.This Could Cost Him Votes In Berkeley.Reinventing Iconic Bullshit:Last week, McKinney in Raleigh N.C, won the Sherwin-Williams account. From

More Social Media Baloney

Remember TAC's first rule of research: Never trust a study done by an interested party.Here's a lovely example.The ClickZ Network reports that in a study released by Razorfish... "...many MySpace and Facebook users said ads on their favorite social sites have prompted them to buy something"Sounds promising, doesn't it? Just don't look too closely."Razorfish describes the survey respondents as "

Pols Not Spending On Web

Once again, the hype about online advertising has been proven wrong.At the beginning of this presidential cycle, pundits were gushing about how the web was where the action would be, and how online advertising would challenge traditional tv ads.Not even close.Back in January, a Lehman Brothers forecast predicted that this year candidates would spend as much as $110 million in online

The Smear Machine

Alan Wolk of The Toad Stool is one of my favorite bloggers. Today, however, I have to disagree with him on something.In a post last Thursday, Alan praised an hypothesis described by Arianna Huffington and attributed to Eric Schmidt, ceo of Google, that the internet is a kind of antidote for lies, smears, and general bullshit.The logic, in abridged form, goes like this: politicians and others have

Top 10 Bullshit Professions

I was thinking that maybe advertising was the world's number one bullshit profession.After semi-painstaking analysis and consideration, however, I am happy to report that advertising is way down at number eight.To develop this list I did two things. First I eliminated all occupations that are obviously scams -- like palm reader, astrologer, and economist.Second, I used only one criterion in

Friday Filler

Pepsi: Is spending 1.2 billion (yeah, with a b) behind a "rebranding" over 3 years. The first move is the introduction of new logos. If the rest of the "rebranding" is as shitty as this, it's gonna be a long 3 years. 1.2 billion on fucking Pac-Man?The Press:The idea of press neutrality is a joke. You don't have to be a McCain supporter to observe that the press has been drooling over Obama since

The Living Dead

If you read the advertising trades, the mainstream press, and the online pundits, you know that advertising is dead.Don't believe me? Check out the bibliography below. The People Who Always Get It Wrong are pretty certain about this.I wish I was as dead as advertising.It's not enough that just about every fucking square inch of the planet is covered in it, now we're finding new unimagined places

Dust Off That Old Television

From Ad Age, October 17, 2008
TiVo CEO Says End Is Nigh for TV Ads

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers did everything but hang an "end is near" sign around his neck as he tried to rouse a Saturday morning breakfast crowd at the Association of National Advertisers annual conference with warnings of fast-approaching doom for conventional TV ads.

At issue is whether DVR penetration is about to reach the tipping

Where Account Planning Came From

In a recent post I was critical of account planning. A reader wrote and asked why it developed as it did.I have a theory about how account planning developed in the U.S.It goes back to the late 1970s. In those days, every client had a market research department. The market research department was constantly at war with the ad agency, and it always won.Every time the agency would say "we think X

Words Without Meaning

One thing we can all agree on -- there's a lot of bullshit in the ad business.As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for presidential candidates, art critics, and branding consultants, we would lead the league in bullshit.What occurred to me earlier this week was that we create two different kinds of bullshit. The first kind is intentionally misleading bullshit. You know, the "no pain reliever is

Myth Of Web Metrics

We are often told that the big advantage of web marketing is that it is so easily measurable.Bullshit.I have a very simple little blog here. All I want to know is how many people visit it each day. I can't imagine a simpler piece of data to ask for -- no calculations, no processing, no complicated algorithm, just a simple count.And yet, I cannot get a verifiable number.If I install a counter I

Advertising Isn't Dead. It's Just Numb.

Get out the novocain. Apparently dentistry isn't painful enough.Now dentists will be inflicting an extra dose of agony.According to The San Francisco Chronicle, while your dentist is drilling on you he will also be showing you ads through the miracle of InChairTVThis is not a joke."...For the past year, InChairTV has been filling commercial breaks with short infomercials about teeth whitening and

Scientists Discover "The Brand Gene"

"Brand affinity is clearly hard wired. It is...fundamental to human existence. It must have a genetic component."Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.NEW YORK - In a paper published today, researchers from the University of Search Engine Optimization claim to have discovered the brand gene.For years geneticists have speculated that humans must have a "brand gene." How else, they say, can you explain the

Lying With Numbers

Here's why you should never trust research done by an interested party.Break Media released some research last week. The research was summarized in an article on the website TV Week by an idiot reporter under the headline, "Study Finds Men Responsive to Online Ads."The lead finding from the article was this:"The company found that 47% of online men in that demographic (18-34) have purchased a

Stop Listening To Consumers

From the website Broadcasting and Cable:'A new frontier in advertising research is “listening” to consumers via the digital-media ether...Audience listening is a brave new world. “It’s a big opportunity for the research industry and broader marketing, as well,” 'Can we get one thing straight? Listening to consumers......is the biggest cliche in marketing...is not a new idea...is most often a

How To Sell Great Creative: Ego and Failure

In Wednesday's post, I talked about a simple, sensible way to present creative work more successfully. Today, why this is a virtual impossibility in most agencies and with most clients.At every client organization there is one person who is the real decision maker. In some companies it's the cmo. In some companies it's the ceo. In some companies it's the brand manager. Their title is irrelevant.

The Web: TV With Its Hat On Backwards

From Ad Age, Tuesday:"Until now, online viewers have been able to watch TV with one substantial perk: fewer ads than if they watched the same show on TV...But that will soon change. The networks and distributors putting TV online are facing some tough economics...And that's forcing sites to consider breaking what has been a de facto rule in web video, that viewers only get one ad per break..."

How To Sell Great Creative: "Let's Do It On The Floor"

In the first part of this series, The Big Show, I talked about how big presentations are the death of good ideas. Today, an interesting lesson I learned from a couple of oddballs.At one point in my career I was creative director for the US operation of an Australia-based agency called Mojo.Mojo was recognized as one of the world’s really good creative shops. It was named “International

Odds, Ends and Beyond and More.

Top 5 Bullshit Marketing Terms Of 20085. Ideation4. Authenticity3. Megabrand2. Conversation1. NarrativeTop 7 Nothings Whose Names Made Them Something7. Joba Chamberlain6. Carrot Top4. Cheech3. Chong2. Regis Philbin2. Wavy Gravy1. Whoopi GoldbergSo Who Asked You To Look?Headline from Yahoo News: "Dim But Visible: Seeking Out Uranus"Most Difficult Word For Republicans To Pronounce:NuclearWhy I Love

The Crisis Of Advertising, Part 5: What To Do

The first four parts of this series were the fun parts -- whining about all the problems. This is the not fun part -- finding answers. I've written three drafts of this post and I still don't know what the hell I'm trying to say. The Crisis of Advertising? I have no idea what to do about it and anyone who says he does is full of shit.The first draft said we were going the way of the music

Funny Or Not Funny?

This "mock" recruitment video was very controversial around the agency when we produced it a while back.Some people thought it was hilarious. Some people were horrified.I'd love your opinion. Take a look at it and please respond to the poll on the right. The polling is over and here are the results:a) Funny-66%;b) Not funny -20%;c) Funny, But Easily Misunderstood - 14%If you think it's funny,

How To Sell Great Creative: The Big Show

You’ve been working on a new campaign for six weeks. Tomorrow’s the day you present to the client.The account director has booked the main conference room. Pastries have been ordered. The agenda has been Xeroxed.Coming from the client organization are the CMO and/or marketing director, the advertising manager, the brand manager and assistant brand manager, and maybe someone from upper

The Crisis of Advertising, Part 4 - Brain Drain

Last week, in The Crisis of Advertising, Part 3, I talked about why we are not attracting enough good creative people. Today's post is about the debasement of account management.The following is a true story.One of our junior account people was hired by our client. She had done a nice job working on the account. The client, not understanding the difference between cooks and waiters, hired her

Twitters Never Win. Winners Never Twit.

Okay, I tried it.Now my fair and balanced analysis: Twitter is the biggest, stupidest fucking waste of time since Cats.How intelligent people can possibly squander their precious hours on Earth reading about how other people are about to get their drapes dry cleaned or their colons scoped is beyond comprehension.It is a commentary on the nature of our age that we have to resort to such

Copywriters Are Smarter Than Economists

At its heart, advertising is the art of giving people a reason to prefer a product when there is no reason.Call me cynical.The principal underlying this definition is that human beings are not logic machines. Their decisions are always emotional. Even when they utilize logic, they use it as one component of what is ultimately an emotional decision.Copywriters understand this. Economists don't.

A Tribute To Second Rate Things

I like...hamburger better than steakspring training better than the regular seasontv better than movieslimericks better than poetryrock better than jazzbeer better than winekhakis better than slackssneakers better than shoes.Timex better than RolexNew Jersey better than New Yorksalesmen better than marketersmutts better than poodlesMel Brooks better than Woody Allencandy corn better than

Ad Agency Nuclear Waste

Our agency has about 100 people. It's pretty big by independent agency standards, but tiny by global agency standards.One thing I love about our agency is that my partners have developed their own morality about our business. One aspect of this is that they take particular interest in protecting the people who work for us.People have left good jobs to come to work for us. Some have moved across

I Am A Twit

I believe that social media is one big circle jerk.I am convinced that the same people read this blog every day. I am certain this is true of all blogs and social sites -- the only difference is the size of the circle and the vigor of the jerks.Along those lines, those who follow TAC know that I have had very harsh words for people who Twitter. (See "How The Narcissistic Keep In Touch With The

Is "Search" Advertising?

When I think of advertising on the web, I think of three different flavors:Search: Listings on Google or some other search engine.Display: Banners or other types of static or moving ad units.Social media: Advertising disguised as something else (blog, website, online community, etc.)The most effective seems to be "search." It accounts for over 40% of all on-line ad dollars. From what I've been

Crisis Of Advertising, Part 3: Talent

This is Part 3 of a 5-part series on "The Crisis of Advertising." You can find the first two parts here: Part 1, and here: Part 2.TalentAt one point in my career I left the agency business for three years and did creative work directly for clients. During those three years I learned a very important lesson about ad agencies. Clients do not like working with us.They mostly laugh (behind our backs

3 Lessons From A Chaotic Week

There are lessons from the economic turmoil of the past week.1. All social systems are flawedWhen things go bad, it's comforting to have someone to blame. In this current cycle of hysteria there's certainly enough blame to go around.However, even if there were people with perfect foresight; even if they could foresee what would happen; even if they had a perfect record of predicting economic

The Crisis Of Advertising, Part 2

Here at TAC Global Headquarters, we agree with the pundits who say the ad industry is all screwed up. However, we disagree with them about why it's screwed up. Over the next week or so, we're going to be looking at what's gone wrong, and why the business sucks so bad. Today's post is about consolidation.ConsolidationThere is one thing that the last 10 years has taught us about consolidation in

The Crisis Of Advertising, Part 1

Advertising pundits are right about one thing. The ad industry is a fucking disaster.They are wrong, however, about what is causing the problems.The crisis is not being caused by the internet. The internet should be a boon to advertising.The crisis is not being caused by "new media." New media should be stimulating a creative resurgence.The crisis is not the result of consumers becoming immune to

Obligations Of A Blogger

In the past couple of weeks, I have done some blogging about blogging (see this , this , this and this.) Here are some further thoughts. Bloggers have obligations to their readers. These obligations fall into a few categories:1. An obligation to be interesting. I don't care how much I agree or disagree with a blogger, if she is interesting she has done her job. I would much rather read an

The First 'Star Wars' Election

Without noticing it, we are witnessing a very disturbing phenomenon.Brand image has always (at least in my lifetime) been a factor in presidential politics. Now it has become the dominant factor.Yesterday, in a very astute article, former Mayor of SF, Willie Brown, pointed out that this is the first election that will be determined by a vice presidential pick.Although they are running for

The Thought Police Are Watching

Freedom of speech is becoming subordinated to the feelings of special interest groups.It is getting harder and harder to express unpopular opinions. This is particularly true of commercial speech.If your message happens to "offend" some vocal special interest group, you are sure to be the target of an effort to silence you (see Super Bowl Vigilantes and Super Bowl Vigilantes Strike Again.)The

How To Remain Positive

- Never go to any website that promises to calculate your cancer risk, retirement needs, or credit rating.- Do not read your kid's Facebook page.- Steer clear of out-of-work copywriters, political party volunteers, anyone whose job requires "funding," periodontists, and people named Bruce or Brian.- Cancel all newspapers.- Don't watch anything on tv that isn't brought to you, in part, by beer,

Stalinist Cult Blogs

While talking about the four types of advertising and marketing blogs yesterday, I mentioned that my least favorite type is what I call the Stalinist Cult blog.These blogs are ostensibly written for the benefit of the reader, but are really written for the enrichment and glorification of the blogger.They are easily identified by reading the 'comments' section. Most comments are from fawning

Blogging About Blogging

Back in the good old days when I was a creative director instead of whatever the hell I am now, I had one hard and fast rule -- no ads about advertising.This week, I'm going to break the spirit of that rule by blogging about blogging.I've been at this blogging thing a little over a year and I have some opinions about advertising and marketing blogs.First of all, there is a hierarchy. It looks

Amazingly, Alarmingly Clueless

When it comes to campaign strategy, the Democrats are amazingly, alarmingly clueless.In the midst of what could turn out to be the worst economy since the depression; in the midst of a hugely unpopular war; against the most unpopular head of state since Louis XVI; with a tremendously attractive and charismatic candidate, the Democrats still have a good chance of blowing the presidential

Not All Blogs Suck

Earlier this week, in Returning My Award, I was unable to come up with 5 bloggers I thought were funny. I still haven't.It got me thinking about the kinds of blogs I read. Frankly, I don't read many advertising or marketing blogs. Mainly they're pedantic, gossipy, or poorly written.The ones I do read generally fall into one of three categories:1. Blogs that I learn from. An example is Seth's

Lock Them In A Closet

Last week I dropped my daughter (The Only Person I Really Like) at college.I highly recommend postponing this activity as long as possible. When you show up on campus, every kid but yours looks like one of the following:a drug addicta date rapista serial killera tattooed maniaca home-schooled, God-bothering zomboida pierced and punctured Starbuckistaan incipient booze hounda laundry-wearing

Returning My Award

This country has a long history of pompous, self-important jerks returning awards.Today, I am proud to join that brotherhood (yeah, yeah, okay, sisterhood, too. I can see this Sarah Palin thing is going to be a real pain in the ass.)Last week I won an award. It was an award for having a funny blog. (Apparently laughs are so hard to come by these days that "annoying" passes for "funny.")It was

Marketing Genius Analyzes The Election

Now that all the presidential and vice presidential candidates are known, it's time to analyze the race.As a certified marketing genius (hey, I have a blog, don't I?) The Ad Contrarian knows that the candidate whose "brand" best "resonates" with "mainstream consumers" is the one who is most likely to attract great numbers of voters and help his/her ticket.So let's have a look at the four

See You In September

In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Happy Labor Day.

Online Chaos

In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting some oldies. Here's one.Here's why your viral campaign went nowhere; why your video on YouTube is getting way fewer hits than you expected; and why your blog was a bust.The internet is chaotic. Success is random and unpredictable. Most success is the result of

Death Of Mass Marketing Postponed

In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting oldies. Here's one.December 28, 2004 NEW YORK (New York Times) -- Jim Nail, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said, “You’re seeing the end of the era of mass marketing.” October 30, 2007 NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- ...ad time for the Super Bowl is

You've Got A Brand Problem!

In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting some oldies. Here's one.There was a time in America when every problem was a "communications" problem.If you couldn't get along with your husband, you probably weren't "speaking the same language." If your kid was incorrigible, you just couldn't "get through" to

The Yellow And Brown Process

In observance of "Worldwide No Blogging Week" The Ad Contrarian is -- you guessed it -- not blogging this week. Instead we'll be posting some oldies. Here's one.Prospective advertising clients want to believe that there is a method to the madness.More and more, success in winning new business is not about what you do (the effectiveness of the advertising you have created), but about how you do it

Mort Kohn

This week the advertising industry, and the world, lost someone special.Mort Kohn was a wonderful person. An artist, an art director, and a gentle, sweet man.Our world has an unfortunate habit of bestowing high status on the famous and wealthy, at the expense of people who really deserve high status -- the good and the compassionate.At a young age, I was made creative director of Allen and

Some Things I Don't Understand

1. I travel to the Mid-West frequently, and I often come across something called the Fifth Third Bank.One question always comes to mind. How the hell did they come up with that name?I have two theories. First, Fifth National Bank merged with Third National Bank. This seems the most likely explanation. The problem is, it just raises another question. Why would anyone name themselves Fifth National

"Worldwide No Blogging Week"

It is both agreeable and welcome that from time to time each citizen of this noisy and fretful planet just shuts the fuck up.There is, perhaps, no group to whom this principle more suitably applies than the Royal and Ancient Society of Blowhards -- otherwise known as "bloggers."Consequently, I am suggesting that bloggers throughout the world recognize and acknowledge this fact by shutting it down

Would TV Please Die Already

A smart guy named Alan Wolk who writes a blog called The Toad Stool had a post a few days ago called "Kids Still Love TV."To amplify that a little, not only do kids still love tv, the rest of us do, too.People with low reading comprehension -- and online maniacs who can't stand the idea of people using any medium other than their precious web -- read the hysterical reports in the press about

A Priest, A Rabbi, And Barack Obama Go Into A Bar...

Want to do an interesting experiment?Go to David Letterman's website. Go through his archive of monologues. Watch a random sample of his monologues going back to, say, January. See if you can find any gags about Barack Obama.You'll find tons of Hillary "pants suit" jokes; McCain "old guy" jokes; Bush "dumb guy" jokes; and Clinton "horny guy" jokes. Obama jokes? Hardly a one.Is Obama not

How Advertising Really Works

Someone at our agency, let's call him Joe, has a good friend who's a creative director at another agency, let's call him Tom.Tom's agency won a very prestigious planning award for the account Tom is creative director on.Joe congratulated Tom on the campaign and on winning the award. Tom laughed."Why are you laughing?" asked Joe.Tom replied, "I never had a single conversation with the planner."

Life In The Post-Advertising World

On several occasions I have commented on the blindness of the "advertising is dead" crowd.They declare that we are in a "post-advertising" age.Meanwhile, every square inch of the fucking planet is covered in advertising. Every dry cleaning bag, urinal, bus stop, gasoline pump, supermarket floor, stick that divides your groceries from the smelly guy in front of you, hat, t-shirt and license

ADWEEK Shatters World Baloney Record

With the Olympic Games in full swing, ADWEEK has won a TAC Gold Medal by breaking the indoor record for impenetrable, incomprehensible drivel (a demonstration sport) with a piece called Beyond Integration.In this article we learn..."If it's true that the medium is the message, then it follows that the media experience is the brand. "Uh, really? How does that follow? And, also -- just as an aside

The Jargon Factory

Here at TAC Global Headquarters, there are some things we just can't abide. Heading the list are hypocrisy, jargon, and pizza with chicken or leafy vegetables.Today we're going to jettison some jargon. A good place to start is "The Conversation."Are you sick of "The Conversation?" Do you want to take the next moron who says it and wring his fucking neck? Take a hammer to his long tail?Good. I can

Why Copy Testing Is Bogus

"My friend shot a 158," Joe said. “That’s the worst round of golf I’ve ever heard of,” said Mike. “No it’s not. It’s a great round of golf,” said Joe. “You’re crazy,” Mike said. “How can you say that?” “He only has one arm.”I made up that little story to make a point. The point is about copy testing, and we'll get back to it in a minute.Copy testing is despised in the ad industry for a number

When Bad Things Happen to Good Campaigns

If you want to screw up a good campaign, take a terrific character and turn him into a pitch man: Exhibit 1:The Better BloggerTAC wrote a piece last week called The Bitter Blogger in which he railed against bloggers who did not include The Ad Contrarian on their blog rolls.Attentive reader The Denver Egotist noticed that TAC himself does not have a blog roll. To atone for this, TAC would now

Why Fallon Is Untrustworthy

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony is pondering whether to give the global ad assignment for its Bravia brand of flat panel televisions to Fallon.Fallon has done a wonderful job of making Bravia a success with great advertising (see spot below.) So what's the problem?Well, Fallon may not be big enough to really fuck this thing up.You see, super-size knuckleheads really like to hang with

10 Ways to Write 5 Times Better Online Copy in 3 Easy Steps

People often say to me, "Bob, how can I be a successful online copywriter like you?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you, too, can be a famous online copywriter and make billions of dollars and have red-hot nymphos crawling all over you.What's the secret? First, you need to get some words. Without words, writing is a thankless chore. Take the Sumerians. They didn't have words. They had pictures.

Shocking Discovery From TiVo

Just when you think market researchers can't get any stupider, they exceed expectations.Last week PowerWatch -- Tivo's audience measurement service -- made this startling announcement: Consumers are more likely to watch commercials that are relevant to them.You gotta be kidding!TiVo actually studied 20,000 of their subscribers to figure this one out. I could have studied an egg salad sandwich

Why We Need To Kill Them All

On a number of occasions I've said we need to kill all account planners and start over. Here's why.Last week they had a big hoo-hah account planning conference in Miami (missed it -- had to wash my hair.)Ad Age ran a column about the high points. The conclusions from this conference are so mind-numbingly cliche-ridden that they are almost a parody of themselves.Here are a few choice excerpts

The Bitter Blogger

You know those lists of favorite blogs that bloggers have on their home pages? They're called "blog rolls." Kind of like egg rolls, except even greasier.

I've done a little survey of marketing and advertising blogs. You know how many blog rolls The Ad Contrarian appears on? None. Zippo. Bupkis. Nada.

Can you imagine that not one of these creepy low-life bloggers would include your and my

Proust And Advertising

Whenever an ad agency gets fired, I look forward to getting a nice laugh out of the bullshit PR release that always accompanies the firing.The client asserts how critical the agency has been to their success and how much they respect and admire the agency they're dumping.Marcel Proust said it best:"When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches."Why You Read

Immune To Advertising?

Fish can’t see the ocean because they're swimming in it. Apparently there is a whole new breed of marketing pundit who can’t see advertising for the same reason.Advertising has become so pervasive that otherwise intelligent people think it’s not there. Seth Godin talks about "the death of traditional advertising"; ADWEEK talks about "today's post-advertising world."I wonder what world these

The People Who Always Get It Wrong

According to The People Who Always Get It Wrong (the press) the American love affair with the automobile is over. No less authority than The New York Times announced this on Sunday.In a piece entitled Putting The Dream Car Out To Pasture we are subjected to every America/Automobile cliché ever concocted, plus a generous helping of new age socio-babble.“Beyond the bad economic news may lurk a

Best Ad Of The Week

TAC is traveling. See you Monday. Meanwhile, best ad of the week.

Arguing From The Extreme

One of the really annoying habits of advertising people is arguing from the extreme.By arguing from the extreme, I mean taking the most extraordinary example of something and using this extraordinary case as if it were the norm.This has been going on for years. Whenever I would get in a discussion with someone about account planning I would always get an earful about "got milk?" Whenever I would

Vacationing Isn't Easy

Aloha.TAC is vacationing this week on a South Pacific island. In typical fashion, I'm only seeing the dark side. So maybe you can help.1. How am I supposed to stop thinking about all the gross stuff that's floating around invisibly in the pool?2. How am I supposed to stop thinking about the sharks that are patrolling the waters looking for tasty morsels like me?3. How come I can hit a golf ball

Backpedaling To Victory

Now that some of the more preposterous claims made by Web 2.0 maniacs are being challenged by data, TAC predicts you will start to see some heavy backpedaling. The backpedaling will come in a few different forms:Redefinition: "Social media doesn't really mean..."; "The Long Tail doesn't really mean..."; "Conversation doesn't really mean..."Blaming the victim: "Companies just don't know how to use

The $10,000 Conversation

Social media marketing is a huge waste of money. That's the gist of an article in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.I've been writing -- some hardened souls might say ranting -- about the stupidity of social media marketing for quite some time. (If you're new here, you might want to read: The Mindless Herd, Sure To Fail, Clueless, The Cluefree Manifesto, How The Narcissistic Keep In Touch With

Why The Web Is A Lousy Ad Medium

What if you picked up the telephone and instead of getting a dial tone you got an ad?What if you picked up a dictionary and instead of finding a definition you found an ad?In both cases you'd be angry. Why? Because the telephone is a medium of communication and you don't want to be slowed down. The dictionary is a medium of information and you don't want to be sidetracked.On the other hand, you

Social Media and The Heavy User

If you promise not to tell my competitors I'll tell you a secret.One of the keys to being successful in the advertising business is to target the "heavy user." By heavy user, I mean the high value customer who spends a lot of money in your category.Without going into detail (if you want detail, read The Ad Contrarian book) the key points are these:In many categories one heavy user can be worth as

6 Things Creative Directors Need To Know

On Friday we talked about why creative director is a stinky job. Today we're going to talk about the only saving grace: making good ads. Below is what I think I've learned about that. Some of these thoughts have appeared in TAC before.Six things you need to know if you're going to be a happy, healthy creative director.1. Hiring is everything.If you have terrific people, the advertising business

I Can’t Stop You From Becoming A Creative Director...

...but maybe I can stop you from becoming a lousy one.I was an ad agency creative director for over 20 years. It’s a stinky job.I’ve been a copywriter, a creative director, president of an international ad agency, and ceo of my own agency. By far, creative director was the most difficult, frustrating and horrifying.One of the reasons the job is so difficult is because you have four different

It's The Heavy User, Stupid

One of the biggest problems that many marketers are facing is that they are too deeply invested in a questionable online philosophy.

The philosophy is centered on "social media" (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) For the sake of this post, I’m going to call this philosophy New Age Marketing .

Whatever you call it, this philosophy centers around three hypotheses:
That online

Gleeful And Proud

Some commentors yesterday accused me of being unbecomingly gleeful over a Yankelovich study which showed that social media ain't all that fabulous in creating "conversations" about brands.I plead 100% guilty.Frankly, I'm fully fed-up with the incessant stream of baloney I'm exposed to about Web 2.0 and social media. Here's this week's nominee for grand marshal of the double-talk parade. From

Is The Conversation Over?

One of the axioms of Web 2.0 zealots is that "markets are conversations" and that online social media (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) are uniquely capable of stimulating "conversations" among consumers.Just one tiny problem. They're wrong.On June 18, some facts arrived. And I think the social media maniacs are going to find the facts a little disturbing.According to The New

Two...Two...Two Blogs in One.

THE PHONELESS PHONEHey...old person...yeah, you...I have news.Apparently email is over. Done. Kaput.I discovered this slowly as my emails to my daughter went unanswered. When I asked about it I was told, "I never check my email."At first I chalked this up to standard teen pigheadedness. But then I realized she really doesn't check her email.I spoke to other old farts. I found out that some kids

The Long Trail of Baloney

Another pillar of Web 2.0 is crumbling. It looks like The Long Tail is just a tall tale.The Long Tail theory, developed by Wired editor Chris Anderson, proposed that the web made it possible to make more money selling niche products to niche markets than selling hit products to a mass market. In other words, Amazon could make more money selling erudite books to humanities majors than selling

Thank God It's Over

If you're a regular here at TAC, you know that since last December we've been railing against a series of web films created for the Ritz-Carlton (see Ritz Bits, Web Films vs Bagels, This Film Is Rated T For Torture, and Worst Of The Web.)Well the third and final film has been released and it's every bit as awful as the other two.First, it's in black and white, so you know it's "art."It features

One Year Later

Today is the first anniversary of The Ad Contrarian blog.Ten days into it I thought I had run out of things to say. Apparently I have a bigger mouth than I imagined.Five Things I've Learned About Blogging This Year:It ain't easy being entertaining every day. Or ever, for that matter.The biggest asset a blogger can have is insomnia.The professionals (the ones who blog for money) are way better

Lawyers and Research Ruin Everything

For those of us on the creative side of advertising, there is nothing more infuriating than having an idea nibbled to death by ducks. It doesn't take much to turn something good into shit.Just one wrong word, one extra word, or one bad thought and an idea that's unique and memorable becomes just one more bad ad.A million years ago, there was a very effective campaign for Band-Aid. It consisted of

Einstein On Advertising

Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy.What most people don't know about Einstein is that in addition to uncovering the laws of relativity, the equivalency of mass and energy, and predicting that the speed of light was constant, he also said -- without knowing it -- the smartest thing ever said about advertising.After his amazing successes as a young man, Einstein spent the rest of his life

Simplifiers and Complicators

About a thousand years ago I wrote a piece for ADWEEK called "Simplifiers and Complicators". It was so long ago, ADWEEK wasn't even called ADWEEK. It was called MAC.Every now and then I run into someone who reminds me of the piece. It happened again last week.I can't remember the specifics of the article, but the point was that there are two kinds of people: people who simplify things and people

Why Your Clients Hate You

Photos of the Cannes advertising whack-a-thon from Ad Age. Every room, martini, airline ticket, condom, shrimp cocktail, limo, line, and hooker subsidized by client ad budgets.

Maybe Not Cautious Enough

In an article on June 18th called "Brought To You By...Anyone?" The Washington Post chided "big brands" for being slow to adopt digital media in their advertising plans."While spending on Internet marketing has been growing dramatically over the past decade, the top 50 or 60 brand marketers are very much underrepresented," said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive

Just Toddlers With Money

One of my regular stops in the blogosphere is remarkable communication written by Sonia Simone, which is aimed at helping online marketers write and think better.She wrote a post last week called A Toddler's Guide To Salemanship which drew analogies between talking to customers and talking to three-year-olds.It reminded me of something my daughter used to do when she was a kid. We called it "

It's All About U

I never post on weekends, but I write on weekends.So it's actually Saturday morning now. And it's probably one of the most unusual Saturday mornings in at least a hundred years. Why? The two major league home run leaders this morning are guys whose last names begin with "U" -- Dan Uggla and Chase Utley.I want some of you tech and data geeks out there to scour the web and tell us if there has

Cliche Update

The Calibrated Cliche Counter -- TAC's proprietary marketing claptrap detector - reports that "engagement" is losing steam and "conversation" is gaining momentum.Check out this blog post in which a guy named David Deal (apparently a marketing director for Avenue A/Razorfish) uses the word "conversation" 4 times in one paragraph. We call that "leveraging the bullshit." Congratulations to David!TAC

How The Narcissistic Keep In Touch With The Feckless

The latest idiotic rage in "social media" is Twitter.For those of you who have been on another planet for the last year or so, Twitter is essentially a way for the narcissistic to keep in touch with the feckless.In short bursts, 140 characters or less, they post messages to their "friends" about what they're doing -- "Now I'm going to the dry cleaners." "Now I'm changing my shorts."As a blogger

Brilliant and Delusional

A very interesting ad guy named Tony Schwartz died this week. Tony was apparently a strange and remarkable person. You can read about him here.Tony was responsible for the most famous political spot ever created, called the "Daisy Ad", which you can see here.The spot was created for Lyndon Johnson during the presidential race of 1964. The spot was unquestionably one of the most brilliant -- and

Dumb and Desperate

The advertising community has convinced itself to go back 50 years and create its own tv shows to sponsor. Although now, of course, it has to have a bullshit name -- "branded entertainment" -- to make it more attractive to the nitwits who are doing it.“Branded entertainment brings the experience of the brand to the viewer...” said Mitch Sheiner, vice president and associate media director at...

Too Much Information

I had the pleasure of playing golf at Pebble Beach last week. On the first hole (par 4) I hit my second shot to within two feet of the hole. Although a mediocre golfer, I can make 2-footers 9 out of 10 times.Then the caddie said, "Play it just outside the left edge. Two-thirds of the ball outside the lip and one-third inside." As soon as he said that, I knew I would miss it. And, sure enough, I

How To Be Happy In Advertising

TAC is traveling today. Here's an oldie.Dr. AdContrarian is on duty today to help you be a happier ad person. Please have a seat.It's not easy being happy in advertising. It's a frustrating business. Modern life is filled with many horrors -- war, husbands, pizza with chicken on it... And we ad people are closely aligned with something uniquely horrible -- pop culture.Advertising used to be about

5 Good Things About Advertising

1. If you're in it long enough you'll use everything you know.2. It's the last stronghold of really smart C students.3. You get to look behind the curtain of lots of different kinds of businesses.4. If you pay attention, there is no other occupation that teaches you more thoroughly the difference between what people say and what they do.5. It's way more interesting than dry cleaning.

The Cluefree Manifesto

Nine years ago, something called the Cluetrain Manifesto appeared. It became a kind of web-geek Declaration of Independence in which online zealots threatened to hold their breath until someone paid attention to them. It is apparently the basis for the "coversationalist/social media" branch of online dogmatism.Always years behind the times, TAC came across it just last week, and published it on

5 Bad Things About Advertising

1. When we say it's an art, they say it's a business. When we say it's a business, they say it's an art.2. Ten million people see your mistakes every night.3. The good stuff often fails. The bad stuff often works.4. Success is never final.5. It's way harder than it looks.Coming tomorrow:The Cluefree Manifesto

Clueless

TAC seems to have become a pariah among the cult of web zealotry. You can read recent references to my stupidity at the following locations:HereHereHereandHereMy great sin has been to be skeptical about the effectiveness of online social media as a marketing tool.To get myself more familiar with this topic -- just in case it turns into a fist fight -- I tried going back to original sources.

Congratulations!

My wonderful daughter graduates high school this weekend. She makes me proud every day.

Friday Celebrity Roundup

Remember the time your mom got drunk?Embarrassing, wasn't it.-------------------------------------------------------------------What will we do without her?Susan Sarandon says that if John McCain wins the election, she will move to Canada or Italy.Finally, a reason to vote for McCain.Afterthought...Wish I had a dollar for every Hollywood phony who said (s)he would move to another country if

Grand Strategic Insights

One of the best pieces of advice I can give to anyone in marketing or advertising is this:Be eternally skeptical of grand strategic insightsPlanners, researchers and their ilk love to take a little information and turn it into a heroic vision. Beware of this. Most valuable insights are small and contingent.I was once at an advertising conference and a planning director was making a presentation.

Smart Guys Being Stupid

I read two really dumb things last week by two really smart guys.First was Seth Godin. He wrote a blog about Danny DeVito. Claimed that Danny DeVito had a better chance of becoming a star than George Clooney. Why?The math...tells us... ...everyone in Hollywood is trying to be George, there are a lot more opportunities for the few Dannys willing to show up. Invest in Danny. The edges usually pay

The Tyranny of Strategy

Advertising strategies are not handed down by God.They are written by planners, researchers, account execs, clients and other mildly retarded mortals.You only have to turn on the tv to notice that these people often get it wrong.Meanwhile, good creative people sometimes have a better feel for the problem than the committee that wrote the strategy. It is not unheard of for them to develop --

The Mindless Herd

Advertising has always been a trendy business. But the internet has driven the trendiness to new heights. It has turned ad agencies into a mindless herd, desperate to be on the cutting edge regardless of how much of their clients' money they are pissing away.For some time now TAC has been screaming that most advertising on "social media" is a monumental waste of money (see my guest blog on

Sure To Fail

According to The New York Times, diving into the pool of idiotic online ideas this week is Coors Light. They are launching a "Code Blue" social media application on Facebook.“We talk a lot internally about ‘360-ing’ our innovations,” said Andy England, chief marketing officer at Coors Brewing...Wow. 360-ing the innovations.And what exactly is this innovation? It's the label that turns blue when

The First Annual TAC Pledge Drive

Here at TAC, we work hours and hours every day (okay, minutes and minutes on weekdays) to provide you with the kind of crabby, peevish, crusty, grumpy, and grouchy opinions you need to get your advertising day off on the wrong foot. And, in advertising, if it wasn't for the wrong foot, we wouldn't have any foot at all.Here's what we need you to do. See that silly orange thing on the right near

Don't Miss This

The Ad Contrarian was a guest blogger on Copyblogger yesterday. Be sure to check it out.

Everything You Need To Know About Branding On One Little Page

I’ve been accused of being brand illiterate, brand insensitive, brand averse, and otherwise ignorant of the power and meaning of brands.I plead kinda not guilty.My beef with the brand babblers is not about the importance of brands, but about how you build them.To get some ammunition for my argument, I decided to do some research. I went to Amazon and I typed in the word branding. Up popped 29,777

Our Thought For Today

I used to work with a guy who said, "In advertising, nothing very good or very bad lasts very long."I guess he never met George Zimmer.

You Can't Stop The Graph

"Ad Contrarian," people often say to me, "how come you're always so nonchalant while the rest of us are so aggravated?"I say, "Sit down my friend and let's talk." Then I light my pipe, kick off my slippers, and sit back in my rocker."We humans have been around this sorry planet for about 200,000 years. The planet has been around for 4.5 billion years. So what portion of the Earth's life have we

Rock 'n Roll Officially Dead

Over the years, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame has made some inexplicable decisions -- Blondie (yuk), The Mamas and the Papas (triple gooey yuk), Leonard Cohen (rock 'n roll?), Miles Davis (huh?) But this year, they went too far. Apparently, for the first time, they let deaf people vote.Electing The Dave Clark Five to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is like electing Neifi Perez to the Baseball Hall

Jupiter

In case you think what you're doing is important

All The Lonely People

Is there anything more pathetic than "social media?"Way back in the old days, there were chat rooms. You went on line and talked with people you didn't know. It was like dialing random phone numbers and chatting with strangers.Now that people are bored with Facebook and MySpace, Twitter is all the rage. Following the pathetic lives of dorks, 140 characters at a time.TAC predicts that social

Million-Dollar Ideas -- Free Today Only!

As an ongoing service to our loyal readers, TAC has a few ideas that can make you lots of money. They won't make me a dime because I'm too damn lazy. Go ahead and use 'em. Just send me a check sometime.Supermarkets: Hey supermarket manager, you've got it all wrong. Why make things easy for your unprofitable customers and annoy the shit out of your profitable ones? Why have express lanes for

A Banner Day (Not)

On September 21, 2007, in a post called The Backlash Will Come we wrote the following:It's not going to take advertisers long to figure out that on-line display advertising has been a failure as an interactive medium (see Two In A Thousand.) It can't sustain its growth for long with a response rate under 2 in a thousand unless it's willing to take big cuts in cpm... It may not be this week or

You Can't Be Everybody's Girlfriend

Running an independent ad agency is hard. That's why there are so few successful ones. The reason it's tough is that the market for independent agencies has diminished radically. Not long ago Y&R had the largest share of the ad market in the US -- 1.5%. Today, five global holding companies control over 75% of the ad market.Big clients are constitutionally predisposed to big agencies. They believe

How To Annoy 40,000 People

I am a sports fan and a patriot. I go to lots of games. But if I have to sit through one more excruciating interpretation of The Star Spangled Banner I may never go back.If you are ever asked to sing the national anthem at a ballgame please follow these guidelines:Sing the melody. Songs have melodies for a reason. Your improvisations are not improvements. Trust me on this.Don't gargle. This

Talk To A Naked Copywriter, #2

Dear Naked C:I have been a Big Agency Art Director almost 5 years and I still can't figure out what account people do. Can you help? BAADDear BAAD,Good. Yes, I can help.The account person has a very important job. It is to keep the client occupied until the creatives can get around to doing the work.In this day and age, creatives have many more responsibilities than ever before. This includes

Worst Of The Web

My first nominee for worst use of the web, 2008, goes to Ritz-Carlton.Back in March we wrote a post called "This Film Is Rated T For Torture" about an abominable "web film" done by Ritz-Carlton.Well, they couldn't leave bad enough alone. They've released another one called "Last Night" and it's every bit as excruciating.These films, which had to cost hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- to

The Unknown Secret To Successful Advertising

I am about to reveal the marketing secret that has made me fabulously famous, ridiculously wealthy, and internationally handsome.Drum roll, please...Target the heavy user, stupid.It is a simple idea that so few clients and agencies understand. The heavy user* in your category usually......represents only about 30% of the customers, but...probably represents about 70% of money spent in the

Online Advertisers: Don't Read This.

In our never-ending battle to poke holes in the holy religion of Online, we try to bring you real, actual facts. You remember them? They're not as easy to come by as glib, fashionable opinions, but they have the novel benefit of being true.Unfortunately, religions don't place much value on facts. So if you're a committed Online-ist or a Traditional-Advertising-Is-Dead Head, we recommend you click

Obama's Secret Weapon Revealed

According to some marketing geniuses, granola may be the secret behind Barack Obama's success against Hillary Clinton.The New York Times reports that political analysts have determined that if you like butter, white wine and Fig Newtons, you were more likely to vote for Hillary. On the other hand, if you preferred olive oil, granola and a latte you probably went for Obama.How about the general

Keeping America Safe For Advertising

TAC is on emergency field duty in NYC. Until we return on Monday we will, once again, leave you to contemplate The Ad Contrarian mantra:We don't get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.

Conversation With A CEO

The following is an imaginary conversation between The Ad Contrarian and a company CEO.CEO: Okay, why did you drag me down here?TAC: I want to talk to you about advertising.CEO: I have a marketing department for that.TAC: Advertising is too important to be left to the marketing department.CEO: What's so important about it?TAC: It's your company's public personality. Nothing's more important.CEO:

I Love To Say "I Told You So"

On August 1, 2007, in response to all the "advertising is dead" idiocy appearing in every newspaper and trade publication, TAC wrote a blog entry called "The End of the World." In it, we said the following:It will soon become apparent that the advertising industry, far from dying, is in a substantial growth period. It will be re-energized, redefined, and creatively refreshed by the diversity of

Three Words

In a post yesterday, Seth Godin defined "great marketing" in four words: Make Big Promises, Overdeliver. In the blog he said, "If you can define great marketing in fewer words than that, you win."I don't know what I win, but I'd like to take a crack at it.There's a blues song that goes like this:Feelin’ goodFeelin’ goodAll the money in the world spent onFeelin’ good*The guy who wrote that lyric

Talk To A Naked Copywriter, #1

This is the first installment of a new feature here at TAC. Each Friday, a comment or question from our readers will be replied to by a naked copywriter.Dear Naked,When did so much science come into making a sale? When I was selling door-to-door newspaper subscriptions as a kid I was given a script to follow. When I followed it, I couldn’t sell a thing. When I went by my gut, I killed.The same

Schmoozefest '08

The advertising industry is having its annual schmoozefest this week at the the AAAA's 2008 Leadership Conference in Laguna Niguel, CA.Every self-important, overfed agency grandee will be there. There'll be lots of inane speeches about how advertising needs to embrace the future and how digital is changing everything (golly!)I once went to one of these things and felt like killing myself.There is

Arguing In Cyberspace

For those of you who like a good argument, I had a nice back and forth with some people on the Copyblogger blog. Copyblogger is a blog for people who are web marketers and want to learn how to do it better.The argument was motivated by a piece called "New Media Model For Creating Lifelong Customers" by Sonia Simone who writes one of the few literate web marketing blogs called Remarkable

Friday Is "Talk To A Naked Copywriter" Day

Here at TAC, we're always looking for better ways to inform and amuse. And, also, we're really tired of having to write a blog every day.So from now on, Friday is going to be Talk To A Naked Copywriter day. Here's how it works: Sometime during the week you, dear reader, send a question or comment about advertising to adcontrarian@gmail.com.TAC will pick one question or comment from those

Feel Free To Pull Your Hair Out

If you're full of shit, it's a great time to be in the advertising business.Advertising has always had a high bullshit factor. But recently we have risen to new levels of achievement.The ascendancy of "branding", "engagement" and "new media" means that nobody knows what the hell anyone else is talking about anymore. There are no actual facts, just mind-numbing jargon and fancy opinions.You can

Cliche Of The Week

If I have to read one more quote from one more brain-dead agency boob with the word “engagement” in it, someone’s going to die.The ”engagement” crowd is trying to convince us that the effectiveness of advertising is highly correlated to the level of “engagement” a consumer has in the surrounding content.Baloney. Ads have to stand on their own. Good ads are good anywhere. Bad ads stink everywhere.

Aren't We Lucky!

You're looking at social psychology professor Daniel Gilbert who directs a laboratory studying the nature of human happiness at Harvard. Dr. Gilbert’s “Stumbling on Happiness” was a best seller for 23 weeks and won the Royal Society Prize for Science Books last year.In an article in The New York Times on Tuesday, Dr. Gilbert said:"What we’ve been seeing in my lab, over and over again, is that

Three Secrets of Creativity

After 100 years in the ad business, I think I know the secrets to being a good creative person.Insomnia: Good ideas come at odd hours. You've got to be awake when they decide to show up.Fear of embarrassment: If you're not afraid of your friends making fun of your work, you'll never be any good.Will: A lot of people have talent. Only a few have the will to impose their talent. These people are

Z

$126,000,000 doesn't buy ya much these days.

The No-Cliche Guarantee

Here at The Ad Contrarian, we have been scanning marketing blogs and are fully fed-up with the jargon and cliches of web marketing. Consequently, we are now offering our loyal readers the only no-cliche guarantee available on the web! When you read TAC , you will never see the following terms:Search Engine Optimization (SEO)User Generated Content (UGC)WidgetGadgetWeb 2.0Anything x.xSurprise and

Newspapers And The Internet

Newspapers are dying and the internet is thriving. Most pundits think this is because the web delivers news faster and in a more interactive way. Baloney.People who are seriously interested in the news still read newspapers. Nobody with half a brain believes he's going to get better news coverage on a website than in a newspaper. The

Times Change. Principles Don't.

Every marketing genius in America is telling us that consumers have become resistant to marketing and advertising, right?Tell that to Apple and Toyota.Here’s what consumers have become resistant to: generic, undifferentiated products supported by smug, benefit-free advertising.We do not have a new breed of humans. What we have is a new breed of marketing people.This new breed has forgotten that

All Poop All The Time

Tuesday we had a post about doody.We had one of our highest readerships ever and the largest number of comments ever. It's pretty clear what you, dear reader, are interested in.From now on, the hell with advertising and marketing...welcome to The Chocolate Channel, where it's all poop all the time.Today's topic: Why does poop stink? (from Smelly-Poop.com)"Poop stinks as a result of the products

The Mysterious Mr. Morans

Our St. Louis office sent us this photo of one of their fellow Missourians.Memo To Self:New product idea --Spell-Check for Magic Markers!

The Real Poop On Marketing

A recent blog by ad broad got me thinking that we may be flushing millions of dollars right down the old crapper.It turns out that in marketing today, poop is some valuable shit.- A big-time Manhattan spa is offering a Japanese-style "Geisha Facial" which features all the goodness of real bird droppings.- Peter Jones, an upscale retailer in London, is offering the world's most expensive cup of

I Hate Art

There, I said it and I'm not sorry.I used to like art. But it's gotten too weird and too gimmicky. When it comes to art I'm a philistine (or as my friend Mikey says, a Finkelstein.)As you've probably surmised, I am talking mainly about contemporary art. Here at TAC Global Headquarters we have a saying: "If it's ugly, pointless and expensive, it must be art."Art does not, as its promoters claim,

Morons And Their Money

As we reported earlier this week, after conducting a 16 month study the geniuses at Comcast and Starcom MediaVest have concluded that people are more likely to watch commercials about products they're interested in. Astounding!In keeping with this insightful finding, I would like to propose the following research studies to Comcast and StarCom Mediavest:A 5-year study to confirm that sweaty feet

Internet Marketing Issues Cleared Up

Thanks to Jon Suson for turning me on to this clip.Finally, someone intelligent explains the key issue concerning online distribution of intellectual property.

Advertising Is Dead And It's Everywhere

Everywhere you look, there's advertising -- on buildings, buses, taxis, t-shirts, dry cleaning bags, sidewalks, hats, and urinals. Advertising, once just a minor annoyance, has now become unrelenting and impossible to escape.And yet new age marketing gurus like Seth Godin can't stop telling us that advertising is dead (see "Let's Buy Seth A Television.")TAC has some theories on why these people

So Bad, It's Good.

Okay, maybe it's not "good." But it will make you laugh.There is a certain type of advertising that is so terrible, it's actually good. Jay Tannenbaum had this spot on his blog last week and it gave me an idea.Please send TAC spots (or links to spots) that are so bad, they're good. I'll post 'em. But we've got to maintain high standards. Bad enough isn't bad enough.

Imagine What They Could Have Found If They Had 17 Months

Listen up people. Here is some astounding news from the frontiers of marketing science.On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that after a 16 month study Comcast and Starcom MediaVest have concluded that people are more likely to watch commercials about products they're interested in.Now you may be asking yourself -- 'what kind of frickin' idiots need a 16-month research study to figure that

The 8-Year-Old Existentialist

Guest blogger Leo Krinsky, age 8, provides our thought for today.LEO: Mom, what's the point of living if we're all going to end up dead?MOM: Uh...LEO: And what's the point of eating delicious food if we just poop it all out?MOM: Uh...LEO: Really, Mom, what's the point of any of this?MOM: Uh...

Dirty Books

My entry last week called "I Didn't Know I Was A Pornographer" reminded me of my first paid writing job. It was for a company in Greenwich Village that published dirty novels. This was before dirty books got promoted to "pornography." I was determined to be a writer and I didn't care what I had to write.There were four of us. The editor was a guy with colorful shirts and earrings. This was

Accidental Branding

Digital media genius Cory Treffiletti (not just a smart guy but, more importantly, a regular TAC reader) wrote a recent post about a new book he reviewed entitled "Accidental Branding".While I haven't read the book (it has not been published yet), it appears to be about something I have discussed here before -- that branding, to a large extent, is a by-product.Here's an excerpt from a piece on

Blogging Blind

I really don't know anything about blogging other than I write something and press the publish button.All that stuff about Trackbacks and Technorati and Feeds and Diggs and Stumblewhatever and who-the-hell-knows-what is a mystery. So I'm trying to learn.I was reading up this afternoon and I found that I've been insulting my readers by not responding to their comments. My feeling has been that by

Gutless Wonders and Bad-Ass Bedwetters

I have spent some time recently reading advertising blogs. For the most part they're a depressing lot. The bloggers tend to fall into two categories:1. Gutless wonders2. Bad-ass bedwettersThe "gutless wonders" are the most depressing. They are bullies who anonymously attack other people and their work, but don't have the balls to state their own names or show their own work.The "bad-ass

Stalinism By The Bay

Thanks to Jay Tannenbaum for the idea for today's blog.When people fell out of favor in Stalinist Russia, they would be shipped off to Siberia and their likenesses would mysteriously disappear from official photographs. One day they'd be standing with the inner circle, next day the photo would be doctored to remove them.The San Francisco Giants have done that with Barry Bonds. I attended my first

I Didn't Know I Was A Pornographer

Two months ago I wrote a blog entry called "Interporn". It was a speculation on the issue of internet pornography.A few days ago, I was checking to see where traffic to this blog comes from. I wanted to see which keywords are leading people here. The number one keyword is not "advertising"; it's not "contrarian"; it's not "marketing" or "business" or anything to do with the advertising or

The Justification Business

Advertising today consists of two very different disciplines: Making ads, and making the justification for ads.The way ad agencies work (especially the big ones) is that most of the effort is spent making the justification for the ads -- research, planning, brand analysis, meetings, presentations, strategy sessions, briefs, conference calls, downloads, uploads, deep dives, off sites and insights

Why I Love Apple

On your right is a picture of my iPhone.I dropped it in the street. A car ran over it.It still works.Steve, I'm available for endorsements.

Hal Riney, RIP

I was once somewhere with Hal when someone asked him why he chose to work in San Francisco. His reply:"It's as far away from New York as I can get without drowning."

Marketing U

DOTAC (Daughter of the Ad Contrarian) is going to college in September, which means we went shopping for colleges this year.The best visit we had, and the school DOTAC fell in love with, followed some universal principles of marketing.First, they treated the customer right. When we arrived, they had DOTAC's schedule for the visit clearly and personally printed for her. She knew exactly what she

Snatching Defeat From Jaws Of Victory

Thanks to guest blogger John Joss for this contributionExamples of ‘new, improved’ product design of staggering stupidity that replaces a functional and effective product abound. Few examples plumb the depths of Schering-Plough’s raging incompetence with its Tinactin, an athlete’s-foot cure used by millions. Fewer are now using it, because the ‘new, improved’ packaging is deeply dysfunctional.The

Recommended Reading

A few years ago I read a book by Tony Earley called Jim the Boy. It became one of my all time favorites. Now there is a sequel called The Blue Star. It is just as good, if not better.Read them in that order.

Saving the Earth, One Pair of Pants at a Time

Great news!Got an email yesterday telling me that "Encompass Outdoor Media provides an earth-friendly alternative within its successful dry cleaning advertising network." Yes, now your ad can appear on biodegradable dry cleaning bags!Drinks are on me.(For more on this, see yesterday's post)

Let's Buy Seth A Television

From Seth Godin's blog on Monday:"...there's plenty of bad economic news floating around. From the price of oil to Wall Street to bailouts to the death of traditional advertising."The death of traditional advertising? I'm trying to watch a basketball game here and all I'm seeing is 1.9% APR on Ford half-tons.Would someone please buy Seth a television? Or a radio? Or glasses, so he can see that

Pepsi Drinking The Kool-Aid

Pepsi is going all unconventional and artsy on us.They're introducing a new beverage called Tava with websites, music downloads, "brand experiences", blah, blah, blah. In other words, the the full pantheon of over-priced, under-performing, traditional "non-traditional" marketing gimmicks.They'll be giving free samples to employees of Apple, Google and MTV. Dude, how cool is that? But wait,

The Consumer Knows Nothing

There was a time when advertisers weren't afraid to make decisions. They would trust their judgment. They wouldn't be too timid to have an opinion.Unfortunately, those days are gone. Now, every creative decision is made by "the consumer"-- i.e., research.This would be fine if there was a reliable research methodology to determine advertising effectiveness. But there isn't. I've been involved in

Straightlining

A big mistake that advertisers and marketers -- and everyone else -- makes is "straightlining."If this happened last week, last month, last year, then this is what will happen next week, next month, next year. Almost nothing moves in a straight line.The future maybe better or worse, but it is rarely what we anticipate.

Top 5 People Who Need To Just Go Away

Here are 5 people I've seen way too much of for one lifetime.First is Ralph Nader. Is there a bigger egomaniac dick anywhere outside of Hollywood?Next is Hugh Hefner: Hef, you ain't hip no more, you're pathetic. Do us all a favor, lose the girls and get yourself a cat or something.Third is Whoopi Goldberg. Has she ever said anything funny? Ever?Number Four is Pat Buchanan. Would someone please

Who's Responsible for This?

Thanks to guest blogger Roger Lewis for this advertising report from spring training.Saturday in Southwest Florida was beautiful, and we were spending the day in Hammond Stadium watching the Twins play the Red Sox. After the third inning, most of the players you'd ever heard of were on the bench and the pitchers were having a hard time finding the strike zone.It was then that the announcer said

Very Funny Comment

This comment by Jimmy Cabral about yesterday's blog is so funny I had to post it. Be sure you look at this web film/implement of torture before you read it."I thought I was going to see a wild (blueberry pie filled) 3-way with the suicidal blonde, the Armenian cab driver and "Moron" the Bell Boy? Did it happen? I fell asleep."

This Film Is Rated T For Torture

Memo to the CIA: You can now confidently put an end to waterboarding. Just make your prisoners watch this excruciating Ritz-Carlton web film. They will quickly break.Back in December, when we wrote Ritz Bits, and Web Films vs. Bagels we had a feeling the Ritz-Carlton had lost its mind. But, honestly, we had no idea it was his bad.

Don't Ya Love Research?

On the same day last week I read the following two research findings:1. A poll by We Media/Zogby Interactive showed... "Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news..."2. "According to the survey, which Hearst-Argyle president

Still Fawning Over Obama

Since my political instincts are hopeless, and since today may turn out to be the last day of the Democratic party's race for the nomination, with any luck this will be my last political post for a while.Months ago, we commented on how the media was fawning over Obama (see Words and Pictures.) Now even Democratic insiders are noticing it and expressing outrage.For some good laughs, and an example

Best Performance By A French Moron

One of the unfortunate aspects of working in advertising is that every now and then you have to come into contact with actors.Watching the Academy Awards last week (for the first time in about 25 years) it struck me that these idiots really think they're doing something important. The way they talk about their "art" you'd think they're busy developing polio vaccine. Their skill, for god's sake

Hillary's Dilemma

Nothing Hillary is doing or saying is having any traction against Obama. The Clinton campaign must have tried out 5 different strategies in the past month alone, and nothing is working. There is a lesson here for advertisers about the heirarchy of message impact.Obama is clearly the emotional choice among Democrats. Hillary will never beat him at the emotion game and should stop trying.Her

Even More Creative Cliches

From guest blogger Roger Lewis:My favorites:1. It's award winning.2. Casting will make all the difference.3. Do you remember what the lady said in the focus groups in Houston?4. Let's review the creative strategy.5. Of course we aren't showing the product, the idea is to drive traffic to the web site!

More Creative Cliches

Guest blogger James Cabral weighs in on creative cliches. (See Five Worst Creative Cliches.)Irreverent - As in: "Our target LOVES irreverence. Do something irreverent." Irreverent, to me, means it either doesn't make sense to anyone or only a small group understands it. And the best part is, irreverent advertising doesn't sell anything but an inside joke to a few bozos. Beef jerky and .com

Five Worst Creative Cliches

Next time you make a creative presentation, if you would like to avoid eye rolls and sudden creative death syndrome (SCDS), here are 5 ways not to describe your idea:1. Aspirational: Sounds like it's having trouble breathing.2. Edgy: Edgy was edgy in 1998. Edgy no longer edgy.3. Hard-hitting: This means "We did exactly the kind of dumb-shit idea you wanted, Ms. Client. Aren't we good at kissing

Ad Contrarian Mantra

While on vacation, I will leave you with The Ad Contrarian mantra:We don't get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.I'll be back on the 25th.

Only The Fog Remains

I've developed a melancholy attraction to things that never were: the Old West of Hollywood movies; the 50's of early sitcoms; the San Francisco of Sam Spade.I sometimes find myself walking on the streets that Hammett wrote about. They seem brighter and cleaner -- less haunting. The world weary, corrupt officials have been replaced by incompetent hustlers. The dangerous yet oddly naive characters

Lame Excuses

I love to pick on the research industry. They're so full of shit. They make proclamations with such certainty. And then backtrack so timidly.The researchers who were all so wrong in New Hampshire, wrong in California, wrong everywhere else this primary season are looking for reasons why they were so wrong. (Remember just a few months ago when Hillary and Rudy were locks to be the candidates? When

2012 Came Early This year

On October 23, 2007, TAC wrote an entry called "Baloney Sandwich." It said: ...Second was this piece of baloney from CNET:"A report by U.K.-based Datamonitor, titled 'The Future of Social Networking: Understanding Market Strategic and Technological Developments' predicts that growth in the number of people signing up to be a part of the

Who Cares?

All the fuss and hand-wringing in the ad business over whether "content" will be delivered over traditional broadcast media channels or over the internet, and whether printed publications are doomed by digital media, leads me to ask one question: Who gives a shit?Did the world end when the written word went from sheepskin to paper? When we went from film to tape, or from tape to 0's and 1's? Why

When Your Life Is All Wrong

1. My pathetic life in a nutshell: I turned on my computer this morning and the subject of the first email was Yogurt Overview.Can you imagine Churchill getting an email entitled Yogurt Overview? I can't even imagine George Costanza getting one.2. If you haven't seen it yet:




3. The dreadful effect of "hostile workplace" hustlers on free speech: I thought twice about posting this video. (Also

Super Bowl Vigilantes Strike Again

As we predicted in Super Bow Vigilantes, guardians of the public order have taken down a Super Bowl spot for being offensive.The New York Times reports that SalesGenie.com has announced that it will no longer run a spot with a talking panda bear that had a Chinese accent.The spot is offensive on many levels. Not least of which is how dreadful it is. Exactly the kind of free speech that needs

Scots On The Rocks

Not long ago, when you arrived at an airport in Scotland, you were greeted by signs and posters announcing that you were visiting “The Best Small Country In The World.”According to the Times of London "...this was the slogan of Jack McConnell, the previous First Minister, and it was derided by Alex Salmond when he was elected First Minister in May. In the new era of nationalism, the time seemed

The 5 Eternal, Immutable Laws of Advertising

1. Whoever controls the research wins.2. When we say it’s an art, they say it’s a business. When we say it’s a business, they say it’s an art.3. The smaller the account, the larger the committee.4. The acquirer is always dumber than the acquiree.5. The worst account person in your agency will someday be your client.

Big, Dumb, Expensive Super Bowl Ads

As advertisers get conned by agency and media hype into believing that their Super Bowl buys are just a promotional platform, they are forgetting something -- if the spots are no good, the rest is irrelevant.Continuing a dreadful trend, Super Bowl commercials got bigger, more expensive and stupider than ever this year. Production once again trumped concept.The majority were witless and unoriginal

Super Bowl Vigilantes

Super Bowl Sunday is a great day for sports, a huge day for advertising, and a lousy day for the First Amendment.It's the one day of the year that every interest group and every advocacy group has its thought police on duty (see this from USA Today) looking for any ad that might be "offensive" to them. It's the day that advertisers and agencies fold like single-ply toilet paper when some

Philosophy or Donuts?

Several years ago, a very sincere guy who ran a chain of donut shops came to see me. He wanted to do an advertising campaign."We're different," he explained. "We're a commune. Everyone who works here owns an equal part. We work cooperatively. It's a model for how businesses should be run. It's a vision of the future. I think people will really respond to this if we do an advertising campaign

Branding's Final Absurdity

There's very little fun left in the ad business, but one of the big chuckles we still get (secretly) is watching our clients go through idiotic "branding" exercises.These con games last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes. Nonetheless, there are very clever companies out there making zillions of dollars convincing

David Lynch on New Media

Thanks to Jay Tannenbaum for pointing me toward this and this.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Guest Blogger: Obey Your CPM

A cranky post from guest blogger Roger Lewis.Here is an excerpt from AdAge's article on agencies of the year with an A grade or better."AKQA's work for Coca-Cola's Sprite grabbed attention with a campaign that invited consumers to participate in the marketing process through a national contest to create a theme song for TV spots featuring basketball star LeBron James. According to AKQA, the site

Hate To Say I Told You So, But...

New research from Media Life magazine confirms what TAC has been saying for quite some time about ad skipping. TAC has estimated that about 1.6 to 1.9% of spots are missed because of TiVo-ing and the like.Here's what Media Life (Jan 11, 2008) says:"Nearly all ads are viewed in DVR homes. "For the longest time the great fear among the broadcast networks and advertisers was that ad-skipping

Interporn

On October 15th, 2007 TAC predicted there would be a firestorm over the influence of internet pornography on children in the upcoming year.Now, Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy has announced that all ISPs that feed houses and schools will be required to provide a filtering system to protect children from explicit pornography and violence. Of course, Australian civil

Smelly Volvo Families, Part 2

On September 17, 2007, in Smelly Volvo Families, TAC predicted,"Volvo is making a classic marketing mistake. They are trying to be someone else.Instead of positioning themselves as a new, safer, more stylish Volvo they are aiming to be the second best BMW. I'm sure there's some marketing genius/account planner telling them that safety isn't enough and they have to make an "emotional bond" with

Calling All Geeks

Can any of my brilliant readers who use "Blogger" explain why there is a question mark next to 2007 in the column on the left, and why we can't see post names listed by month when we click on 2007? Your help will be appreciated and you will receive a TAC merit badge.

More Research Crap

According to Online Media Daily consumers are 47% more engaged in ads that run in television programs viewed on line than those watched on a TV set. The research was conducted by Simmons, a unit of Experian Research Services.Bullshit.If any other industry was as irresponsible with its claims as the research industry, they'd be thrown in jail.Here's the part I love: "The study defines "engagement"

Sky Still Not Falling

From The Hollywood Reporter, Dec. 27, 2007: "A study by Palisades Media Group (owned by Nielsen) suggests that despite the growth of digital video recording devices, DVRs are not drastically affecting the viewing of commercials, even time-sensitive or seasonal messages."Now there's some big news. We've only been reporting this for months. See "Nailed", "The Sky Is Not Falling" and "Sky Not

Research Knuckleheads

Pollsters were wrong -- some by more than 10% -- in their predictions of the outcome of the Democratic primary in New Hampshire.You'd think that with all the money these guys make, and the inflated sense of importance they have, at least they could count correctly. Answering the question "how many?" is so much easier than answering the question "why?"And yet gullible marketers still rely on these

Ads About Ads

One of the dumbest trends of the past year has been ads for ads. You run a "blind" ad (it gives no information about your product or brand) in the hope it will lead people to a website where you will deliver the message.In other words, you use your ad budget hoping someone will get the message somewhere else. Here's why it's such a stupid idea:1. First of all, while you have their attention why

Who's In Charge of the Bagel?

In a recent post (Web Films vs Bagels) I whined that an expensive internet program Ritz-Carlton was embarking on was less likely to be effective in building their brand than serving me a fresh bagel.Guest blogger Roger Lewis has some thoughts.The issue for Ritz is who is authorized to make a decision about product and service that affects brand image. Specifically, who could have made the

Murder Most Productive

In Death by Branding TAC asserted that Southwest Airlines was on the way to ruining their brand with "branding."What makes their campaign so awful is that they're trying to convince business travelers that flying Southwest will make us more productive. Right. That's the big airline issue for me. Not price. Not schedule. Not comfort. Not reliability."Bob, what airline you wanna take?""I don't know

A Good Laugh

One of the so-called advantages of the web is that you can be more precise in your message. You can move at "internet" speed.So it gave me a good laugh to find this on my Yahoo home page this morning.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

TAC Maintains Perfect Record

Nothing The Ad Contrarian has ever written or said about politics has been correct. He kept his perfect record intact with the prediction of an Obama win in New Hampshire.When it comes to politics or driving directions, listen to what TAC says and do the opposite.SUBSCRIBE TO THE AD CONTRARIAN

Death By Branding

Southwest Airlines better be careful. They have been a great example of how the best way to build a brand is with product advertising. They are now on the road to proving how the best way to kill a brand is with "branding."Here we have an airline that offers the worst flying experience in the nation. But they haven't wasted their money trying to make us love them. Instead, they have wisely spent

Words And Pictures

Here's how to tell that the media have fallen in love with Barack Obama. It's in the photos.In the past few days, worshipful pictures of Obama have appeared on the front page of The New York Times and Newsweek. Yesterday a huge, beautiful Norman Rockwell-like picture appeared on the front page of the Times. It was Obama reaching out for the hands of beatific supporters. An American flag is draped

Change vs Experience

The pundits are reading the polls from Iowa and telling us that Obama beat Clinton because people were more interested in change than experience. Now Hillary is altering her strategy to represent herself as an agent of change.TAC predicts this strategy will fail in New Hampshire. Like so many marketers -- and candidates -- TAC thinks they are confusing cause and effect.People didn't prefer Obama

Conundrum For Some

Last year, in The Ad Contrarian book we wrote... "with increased fragmentation, any medium that can deliver a large audience—even if it is not as large as it once was—should be more valuable than ever."The New York Post reported a few days ago that even though audiences for individual shows have declined, tv costs have increased significantly."...In the fourth quarter, advertisers on average paid

Customer Service? Don't Mention It

When have you ever seen a Nordstrom ad that mentioned customer service? How about Tiffany? The answer is never.You never hear great service companies flogging their service in advertising. It's only the terrible service companies -- the electronics stores, the banks, the software makers -- who talk about their wonderful customer service.Companies whose advertising strategy centers on "great

End of the World, Revisited

On August 1 of last year we wrote a post called "The End of the World." The subject was media hysteria, particularly as it relates to the advertising business, but also as it relates to the reporting of other trends, such as disease and climateFor a nice follow-up, I recommend reading "In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm" from The New York Times yesterday.Oh, and Happy New YearSUBSCRIBE TO THE