I ALSO majored in history...

The historian inside me gravitated towards this new integrated campaign by Dewars Whiskey. A couple of good insights here, namely the fact that Americans love drinking on holidays. Why shouldn't people celebrate the repealment of the 21st amendment and the end of prohibition? As for the actual execution, the website is simple, well laid out and a little bit funny. A nice change from ordinary alcohol interactive showing young attractives smiling and enjoying themselves responsibly. Check it out at the link below.

www.repealday.com

These are the kinds of ads I'd like to make someday

Dude probably knows very little about ROI...

Here's a story to make you doubt your own future/the choices you've made/whether creativity needs a teacher. An 18-year-old Mac devotee/college student in England created his own amateur ad for the iPhone after being inspired by a song lyric. Ever clever, TBWA (Apple's agency) saw an opportunity for free thinking and free publicity, and has contacted the kid about turning his video into a real commercial. Like, the kind that people get paid hundos to make. While the video's cool, and represents an nice piece of cultural thinking in its lyric connection, the real genius here is TBWA's willingness to embrace the phenomenon of user-created commercials. What better way to push Apple's brand position as enablers of creativity than to trumpet work made by one of their advocates?

A quick review: a guy who loves the Apple brand used his Apple to make an ad about an Apple product, for no other reason than because he loved it so much and was feeling creative. And now that story is being reported on by a.) real newspapers and b.) guys like me. For free.

Levels, man. Levels.

They Never Make Out

Bare witness to the future of eCommerce and marketing over at www.honeyshed.com. Honeyshed is a collaboration between Droga5 and some Publicis money, and it's essentially an internet-only QVC for the 16-2? market. I think my initial description of it as "The Hills meets QVC meets MadTV meets YouTube meets American Apparel" is pretty accurate, but I urge you to check it, if not for the innovation then for the gams. A better summary is waiting for you over at Creativity.

Easy Money

Some things just eat trendy and shit coolness, and it's with confidence that I say that the French turntablism group Birdy Nam Nam is one of those things. If I was a real creative working at a real agency for a real salary, I would put these guys in the next TV spot I was remotely associated with. Any product. Paper towels, antifreeze, birth control, whatever. Easy money.

Less Fucking In This One Than Most...

Per the recommendation of a professor, I've been reading LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL, a collection of poems written by Charles Bukowski. What follows is the poem I've liked the most so far.

quiet clean girls in gingham dresses...

all I've ever known are whores, ex-prostitutes,
madwomen. I see men with quiet,
gentle women- I see them in the supermarkets,
I see them walking down the streets together,
I see them in their apartments: people at
peace, living together. I know that their
peace is only partial, but there is
peace, often hours and days of peace.

all I've ever known are pill freaks, alcoholics,
whores, ex-prostitutes, madwomen.

when one leaves
another arrives
worse than her predecessor.

I see so many men with quiet clean girls in
gingham dresses
girls with faces that are not wolverine or
predatory.

"don't ever bring a whore around," I tell my
few friends, "I'll fall in love with her."

"you couldn't stand a good woman, Bukowski."

I need a good woman. I need a good woman
more than I need this typewriter, more than
I need my automobile, more than I need
Mozart; I need a good woman so badly that I
can taste her in the air, I can feel her
at my fingertips, I can see sidewalks built
for her feet to walk upon.
I can see pillows for her head,
I can feel my waiting laughter,
I can see her petting a cat,
I can see her sleeping,
I can see her slippers on the floor.

I know that she exists
but where is she upon this earth
as the whores keep finding me?

This Is Not a Normal Industry

Really interesting article in the New York Observer about the rise and fall of the big personalities in advertising. It serves to remind me that the industry I want to join is different than most.... I absolutely encourage everyone to read this.

Leggo my Ego

Answer the following question:

Given the enviable choice, which of the following options would you pick?

a.) Sleep with the most beautiful woman that has ever lived, but be able to tell no one.

b.) Sleep with the second-most beautiful woman that has ever lived, but be able to tell anyone you want.

Think about your answer. Think about why you chose it. Does it relate to good creative? To working in advertising?

In Preparation for Tuesday...

For all those who know.

Flowers for Hours

New York City yellow cabs will soon be covered bumper-to-bumper in these weather proof flower decals, most of which were hand painted by area elementary schoolers. The work is part of Portraits of Hope, a foundation that works to provide creative therapy for terminally sick children.

I wanted to draw attention to this for four reasons:

1. This is a good idea. Any product or company could have done full cab wraps and (assuming it was done in an attractive way and on a large scale) gotten some good buzz.

2. Everything cool happens in New York.

3. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd become a conceptual artist and dream up things like this all day.

4. Some of the comments posted below the story are pretty funny: "Pointless, worthless, mindless, garbage." Way to let those terminally ill kids have it!

Via the New York Times.

Snickers and Garfunkle

This week in our Creative Thinking class, the assignment was to write and perform a song about Snickers, Ford or the Virginia Paint Company. Here's my effort. Please save your applause for the end.

Tristan Smith - Feelin' Hungry

Mark 12:9

My first tastes of failure have prompted me to link this inspiring post in Fenske's, Mark blog. Don't read into how I felt it relates to me. Just enjoy.

Babum Babum Babumbumbum

Great effort out of Fallon London on behalf of Cadbury Milk Chocolate. The strategy is "There's no clever science behind it - it's just an effort to make you smile, in exactly the same way Cadbury Dairy Milk does." The execution is, well, just watch it. It's great. Via Adfreak.

He Whistles and Plays Violin...

I stumbled across this well-written spot for Australian job site Seek.au and noticed that it uses a song by one of my favorite musicians, Andrew Bird. Besides eliciting a smile, the ad reminded me of my love of good music direction in any piece of non-static media, television commercials in particular. Music (and art in general) is the substantiation of an artist's experiences and feelings; when you consider that statement in the context of advertising, there doesn't seem to be any easier way to establish an emotional connection with the consumer than with a perfectly chosen song. I don't know how music direction works in an agency, whether there are people whose entire occupation is to flip through MySpace and record label websites searching for the perfect 30 second clip, but I'm certain that if I'm ever given the opportunity to, I'm going to try and save myself a thousand words by exploiting the passions of sound.

Off the top of my head, other spots that have excellent music direction: the use of ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" in VW's "Bubble Boy" ad; Modest Mouse's "Gravity Rides Everything" in Nissan's "Mom's Have Changed"; Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and DJ Squeak E. Clean's title song for Adidas's "Hello Tomorrow".

Finally: The song in the ad is titled "Scythian Empires". Andrew Bird is coming to Richmond on September 30th. Definitely worth the price of admission.

8/17 is Finally Here

I can't stop myself from writing something about Superbad, the much-anticipated Judd Apatow movie that debuts today, so rather than post a video of me quoting lines from a movie I haven't seen yet, let's take a look at the marketing efforts associated with this potentially iconic film.

Their most notable effort is the AreYouSuperbad YouTube channel, where dozens of clips, interviews and trailers have been compiled. It's a perfect fit for this type of movie, where (apparently) every individual scene is funny enough to forward to all your friends, and every interview the lead actors do is strange or clever enough to be watched several thousand times. If the movie is as wildly successful as people are predicting, investing in young creative talents that embrace the DIY of web 2.0 is going to start looking really good.

I'm a little concerned that having seen most of the 30 posted clips that the movie will be a little diminished for me, a function of overexposure. Remember back when we used to go to movies without having had the opportunity to dissect an HD version of the theatrical trailer frame by frame? Yeahhhhh.

Ketchup 2.0!

Back in May, The New York Times gave a lukewarm review to Heinz's strategy of user created advertising content, worrying it was risky and a little exploitive. While this submission does use the old ketchup-as-blood gag (something Heinz is probably trying to avoid), it proves that television-quality advertising can come from the masses. And while I doubt the guys who made this actually have a passion for Heinz (more likely they're into improv comedy and film making), it's still the funniest ad I've seen recently. Let's hope it makes it to TV.