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Excellent Week for Men on the Web: Stella and Guinness launch

While I personally get what Agency Tart is saying about the new Guinness experience site, I've got to step back and think about the target ... which is decidedly not me.

It's a weird technology trick. Looks doable and cool. PLUS, there's a back story worthy of A&E and you can make your own movie without leaving your couch (or wherever you and your computer may be)

So, yeah, DIY showmanship - very manly beer drinking stuff.  And probably an ideal app for the audience.

Elsewhere on the Web, Stella continues to one up Guinness when it comes to relevant, long-lasting, experience marketing. Guinness hung a sign in every bar. Stella put a glass in every hand. Guinness created a cool microsite. Stella revamped their main site to be a sticky, fully engaging, multimedia video game of an experience. Oh, and they told their entire brand story in the context of some of the best gaming graphics on the Web.

So what if I don't get it...

Columbus, OH Ad agency news

A little local flavor today, but the first one will be great for all readers -

TenUnited's controversial CEO Rick Milenthal reached an agreement to sell the agency to a consortium led by direct marketer Stan Rapp. Rapp quickly announced the group's new moniker with the announcement:

Engauge

Clients around the loop and around the world are happily misreading it as enGOUGE and retelling the stories of their misspent youthful budgets...

In more strategic news, Ologie and Resource have relaunched and added to their sites respectively. Both are great examples of one of the toughest assignments in the industry: the agency Web site 

Best of Ologie:
Standard navigation for business clients first visiting the sites. You know, the clients we don suits for as if we're really bankers, too, but then send to our quirky, Flash-based, impossible-to-use Web sites to learn more?
Plus, fun bottom navigation that once turned on has all the experience schtuff that compels longer browsing and a little cool factor.

Best of Resource:
This site has survived many iterations and seems to be on a solid upswing.
Again, the logical and explorative nav choices. Plus, mini case studies for our ROI-driven world.
Deep content.
A solid, unified brand experience throughout.

Kudos for Farmers Insurance approach

Tornados, fires, flying leisure boats ... yeah, you know - it's a prime time insurance ad. If there's no lizard in sight, they're selling one thing: the category. Insurance = peace of mind and there's some pretty scary stuff out there, buddy. Get thee to our web site before it's too late.

So, a quick nod to Campbell-Ewald and Farmers for a nice innovation -

The spots are stopping and fun, but the tagline really steps up the creative from selling the category to placing their brand in opposition of the category:

Sanity makes a come back

Post-Katrina, we all get it: It's one thing to have insurance; it's another thing to not have to fight about whether water damage is actually an insurable weather claim...

As much as I love the campaign, I've got to wonder if the writer has been given a bit toooo much rope. As the campaign goes on, it's starting to morph from stopping and fun to ... well, almost scary.

'Older people are sticky'

Forget bacn, microtrends, twittering and the other trial phrases of the moment, this article-opener from the New York Times has to be the newest addition to our shared vernacular:

"New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age"

Older people are sticky.

That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users.

Read full article

Ideas for a greener agency

Digging Grey's challenge to agencies to green up.

One idea from a local ACD: Ditch all the blackboards, foam core, etc., and create a cool, sustainable magnetic or clip board that showcases ads without the waste.

Armstrong Ceilings: Look up America

So, say you're just starting out in advertising and making no money and living in decidedly questionable digs somewhere far outside of the city you actually work in ... well, here's a competition for you!

Armstrong Ceilings recently launched this 'Look up America' site that combines a ceiling makeover contest (no more brownspots, kids) with some interesting expert content ... seems that Armstrong sponsors the 'Michelangelo Design Council,' anchored by Eric Cohler. The Council offers current design insights, sponsors events, etc.

For a little site, it's a great combo of consumer 'explore' and PR 'intrigue' that puts a very accessible face on a very big brand...

September 11, 2001

That morning - in the shadow of the Sears Tower, just north of the downtown Loop - our agency was just opening for the day. A few of us wandered in and turned on the three televisions that filled our 'newsroom-style' PR agency with the constant chatter of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

I remember standing there in the mostly empty room watching video that they never showed again - the nose of the plane coming through the building, into the camera.

I remember the confusion - the reporters going back and forth about the Mall being on fire, foreign attacks, a plane headed for Chicago or Pittsburgh or L.A...

Even at 9:30, our city was already shutting down - commuters heading home to be with family, to get away from the bullseye of the target. My then-husband (JT) was at a conference in L.A. I called him and begged him to stay at the hotel - we were attacked, I said; I think we're at War.

And, even as the country became more real and earnest and compassionate (remember the news anchors barely able to hold back tears that night? the strangers helping each other search for lost loved ones at ground zero?), our agency world held that strange, rarefied quality of not being part of the real world - of being more cynical, privy to the real story, untouched.

We didn't close. We watched out the windows - looking at the Hancock to the East and the Sears Tower to the South. We gathered around the televisions. Our bosses reminded us there was work to be done. Our executives went to a new business pitch.

I don't remember how I got home that night. I think the trains had been shut down.

The neighborhood was strangely quiet - everyone inside, watching hours of television, trying to understand.

I went inside, turned on the TV again. Later, headed out to the beach, talked to my bleary-eyed neighbors. Was amazed at how the world had changed and that we had stayed at work as if it was just another news story…

Adland: A Global History of Advertising

Back in J-school, a design professor told us that a full 25% of readers read newspapers and magazines from back-to-front. (To which, our agency creative director would respond – did you know that 78% of statistics are made up on the spot!?)

Anyway, I’m happily in the 25%.

In fact, my magazines and even nonfiction books quickly become a choose-your-own-adventure, notes-all-over-the-index, dog-eared mess.

So, true to form, when I picked up Mark Tungate’s new ad history book, I flipped right to the chapter on Chicago, then to Consolidation Incorporated (did you know: ‘Almost everyone in advertising works for one of five different companies’) and onto Dotcom Boom and Bust before even flipping through the index.

I mention all of this because: I really recommend this book.

It’s advertising history with a nostalgic, cultural lens. And, it’s written in a way that rewards browsing and ‘digging in’ alike. A couple of not-to-miss sub-chapters:

• Blood, Sweaters and Tears – Remember the impact of Toscani’s Benetton photography? Ads and images that still define the brand
• Lowe and Beyond – Including Frank Lowe, the hero of passionate, strategic account guys
• An Onomatopoeic Agency – That’s the one dog-earred by the creative director who stole the book from me
• And, Cornflakes and Cowboys – The history of advertising as written by Marlboro and P&G

An ominously titled Sir Martin Sorrell (yes, of WPP), in a top-billing review on the book’s front cover, calls Adland ‘immensely readable.’

As always, it’s more difficult to write short than long, but, yeah – here-here, Sir.

See the AdAge review

Why blogs? Ask, Stella Artois

Full disclosure: I recently received a press kit from Stella Artois about the upcoming unveiling of their cinematic Web site ‘La Bouteille':

I’m super excited about this for two reasons:

As a blogger: A cinematic Web site? I love to play with shiny new Web things. Of course, I’m going to go check out the launch later this month and if it’s even mildly engaging, chatter about it like crazy in this space.

As a marketer / advertiser: I love to see traditional marketing organizations and agencies really “getting” what bloggers can bring to the table. Yeah, sure, Sony and BK have been doing it forever, but broader strategic adoption seemed to be stalled until this year.

Apropos of budgeting season, I’ll write a full business case for investing in blogging next month, but, until then, here are my top 5:

1. SEO: There is no cheaper, faster way to get solid organic search engine optimization than riding the coattails of the mega-servers at the top of the blogging service pyramid.
   
   
2. Low-hanging fruit: So, you want to talk to the advertising reporter at the New York Times. It will cost you and he’s got a lot of heavy hitters on his tail - but, yeah, you can do that.
   
   Or, you can invest half the money and talk to a couple of hundred bloggers – who by-and-large are pre-disposed to early adoption, curiosity about new products and general buzziness.


3. Share of voice: You’ve likely seen this Yahoo! Pyramid, representing "phases of value creation" at Yahoo! Groups as outlined a year ago by the company's head of technology development.
   
   Short-story: A very few people online are creating content. A larger number are aggregating it into ‘did you see’ posts. And the rest are, well, checking it out.
   
   Pair that with the recent report about the number of technology reporters who CITE BLOGGERS AS SOURCES. Not as man-on-the-street interviews, but as credible industry sources. It’s 67% of technology reporters. 67%.
   
   And, you start to see what we’re looking at: A small, vocal group of ProAms has been awarded a lot of authority – through Web behavior, RSS feeds, media attention and SEO - with little more than an interest in publishing.
   
   
4. On-demand delivery: Why wait for someone to find your Web site or read a review about your new product? Talk them into signing up for your feed once and deliver the content wherever they dine on feeds.


5. Changes in consumer behavior: Online ‘pre-shopping’ behavior and the emerging credibility and impact of user-generated consumer reviews has changed the offline game. Having people – real people, like bloggers, commenters, etc. – talk about your product / service / etc. has become hugely important as consumers go online in droves to ‘try on’ brands before going offline to buy.

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