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Lipstick Jungle and Maybelline: When ad partnerships undermine editorial

This year’s choice for hot mid-season television formula is Sex in the City gets married and goes to the office. Combine several high-powered, hottie women execs with contentious, creative work environments and stressed out home lives and voila(!), advertisers line up like in the ultra-competitive days of the 1994 renaissance of sexy, smart doctor dramas. 

Tomorrow night will mark the third episode of one of the front runners of the mini powerful-woman genre: Lipstick Jungle.  And, at this point, I’m wondering if the ad partnership won’t be the downfall of the series.

I should preface with this: All television shows based on professions boldly simplify, cast unusually sexy characters (think of the “CSI”s with fully made up faces and low cut shirts scouring trash truck crime scenes or George Clooney still delightfully coiffed after a gory 48 shift) and are generally unrecognizable to people in the actual field.

BUT, still…

Lipstick Jungle’s marriage to Makeup Artist Chuck Hezekiah of Maybelline is a little reductive even for Prime Time. At each commercial break, he pops up with advice on how to get ‘the look’ of the exec featured in the last segment.

I’m not suggesting that the Ad Council should break in with a series on how to raise our young women, but,  when we take a relatively accepted convention (TV sexing up real-life humans) and make it driver of the story, well, it gets a little ugly. Afterall, they weren't exactly paying for ER with hair gel sponsors or CSI with tube top designers.

With such a prominent and potentially-controversial sponsorship, it will be interesting to see what part Maybelline plays in the success or failure of Lipstick Jungle.

Target Corporate Responsibility Ads: A miss?

It is possible that the next World War will not be fought by proud countries, but rather be a heroic battle for global dominance between the two true gladiators of our time: Target and Google.

Like much of the rest of corporate America, Target is on a 'good citizen' kick lately. Racking up comp points with talk of philanthropic programs and charitable causes.

Jump to: These online ads (above) driving traffic to their 'do good' page.

Cute design, right? But quite misleading and a good cautionary tale for other Web advertisers.

Three AVOIDABLE sins of banner advertising:

1. Misleading call to click: We're a nation of multimedia. We toggle sound and video on and off. We've been trained by advertisers to believe 'click to watch' means just that - a video will begin playing in the window. And, we appreciate that functionality - because it gives us the choice rather than overwhelming us with noise and causing us to smack the mute button on our laptops.
   
   But, this target ad is actually a flat banner. Click to watch takes us to target.com. The resulting community page features a few rollovers and a lot of reading. None of the promise of the call-to-action is fulfilled.


2. Missed opportunity for interaction: The graphic is a door. The words are open the door. The strategy is to evolve consumers overall categorization of the Target brand. Come on, show us something. Let's slide open the door to change. Let's rollover to interact. Let's re-purpose that experience on the Web site in a much more in-content way.
   
   Here it is: Meet Pointroll. Meet Eyewonder. Do better.
• Or, a possible alternate to #2: Not optimizing message to the medium. Once an ad is approved, it's all too common to simply route it universally. If 80% of your media buy accepts the multimedia ad designed, the other 20% just gets a flat JPG of the same creative.


3. Fully branded page, not fully integrated page: Target definitely owns share of voice on this page. They have covered it with banners. But, are they saying anything with that megaphone? And are the impressions building on one another to say something about the brand? We've all seen the darn-near-perfect Apple ads. And, surely there are learnings there that can be applied cost effectively.

 

Marketing Ourselves

The City of Los Angeles has a 100-person department dedicated solely to dealing with the remains of people who die alone. Investigators who dig through over-stuffed dressers, side tables full of prescription bottles, stacks of junk mail ... all to try to find someone who might care that you are no longer ... well, home alone.

Which brings me to: Marketing Yourself for Marriage.

First the self help books. You too can find a man.

Then interview shows got in the game. Most recently, it was Stacy London making-over a guest's online dating profile. Why did you show yourself riding a horse? Do you really want to just share laughs or do you want to find a husband?

But, dammit, this month's issue of Chief Marketer may take it a step too far ... Chain Letters for Lovers.

Clients of  “Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School" author Rachel Greenwald send pitch letters to friends and family asking them to refer a 'blind date.'

In the example shared, a 50 year-old woman sent out 100 cards around Arbor Day, a holiday not traditionally associated with greeting cards. Each letter offered to plant a tree in Israel in the name of anyone who sent her a potential blind date.

Why is Chief Marketer covering this? The woman in question garnered a 12% response rate - there's never been a direct mail metric that enviable!

If fellow feminists are already choking on this, um, advice, I leave you with this last blow: Greenwald advocates that women set aside 10% of their annual salaries to market themselves to potential husbands.

Not to get out of character here, but: holy crap.

Read the full article

A Challenge to Lowe's

As an ad girl at a retail shop I get my fill of holiday cheer by oh-right-about October 1. By then, the hoopla has been in full swing since balmy July when reindeer were being sprayed down on a set that tested the limits of modern air conditioning.

Spring forward to the week before Halloween. Retailers finally get to debut their holiday TV spots to a consumer populace that's not ready for them and an ad community that's already over them.

The early spots look great this year with one glaring exception ...

Lowe's is recycling their "I'm looking for..." spots. The cute idea where a harried shopper hits the store unable to remember the name of the holiday home adornment she's hunting and launches into a charades-style pantomime which the savvy sales girl immediately guesses as a giant inflatable with life-size santa and reindeer.

Yeah, you've seen it.

Clever idea.  Slightly annoying talent. Highly over-exposed spot here in year 2.

First up, let me say, I like the strategy. They're setting themselves in direct opposition to every other big box - from the Depot to Target. It's story about service and knowledgeable sales staff. It is targeted at a busy, high income, high expectation female customer. I love that.

But, America has seen it. And with talent that grating, there's a good chance they'll miss the highlighted product as they lunge for the fast forward button.

Lowe's is a fantastic brand. With great agency partners. But, for some reason, this year, they're leaning on expired creative. So, here's my challenge:

I'll talk my agency bosses into slashing our fee in half if you give us a shot at reinventing the spots. There's still time for a holiday miracle ... call me!

One other note, I don't think that all spots necessarily expire after one season. A great example is the super iconic Nissan Heisman spot ... which I believe has been running for as many as three years:

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.

Guinness 'Alive Inside'

Ew.

Some products just really don't need to be broken down to their component parts by representative humans hurling about to a booming score.

Sometimes in the search for massive production value, we forget how great simple really is...

Fetish casting?

"I want to be one less. One less."

A little melody so annoyingly memorable that you'd think it was in a Target spot.

But, I digress. I actually have something much more snarky to say:

This Merck spot has been running since February or so and every time it comes on, I am completely distracted by the casting. How does being HPV-free correlate to having really, really horrible eyebrows? The full range of eyebrow errors is displayed: from huge, untamed caterpillars to over-plucked bald foreheads. I cannot look away. It's like a mangled, burning car on the side of the road.

My guess: Either the casting director has a thing for eyebrows or the agency creative team had this conversation very late on the night before (ok, the morning of) the casting presentation:

Hyper-caffeinated creative director: We're selling a $360 product to girls 9 - 26. Get it? This can't look like an over-produced spot. These all look like models. Where's the authenticity?

Pissed off copywriter: We've talked about this a hundred times. It's still TV - they have to look aspirational. The script will deliver the authenticity.

Guy who knows he has to give the presentation: Maybe we just give them all one thing - one signature that makes them look more accessible. Like ... I don't know... cut off jeans.

Hyper-caffeinated creative director: Yeah, but something more physical. Something that separates them from models. What about eyebrows... big bushy eyebrows.

Guy who knows everyone: Perfect, boss. I know the makeup artist who made Ugly Betty ugly.

MTV recycles tired joke

Judging from the lace-bottomed leggings, big hoopy earrings and giant sweaters spotted on the tiny, emaciated bodies of marauding teenagers at the nation's malls, I'm guessing there is a vibe of "everything old is new again" in pop culture. After all, if you don't have old school photos of clam bangs, florescent t-shirts and jelly-braceleted arms, how could you suspect just how evil the 80s really were?

So, perhaps it's no surprise that MTV is recycling this boring old "walk into the wrong bar" business to sell their Rhapsody-knockoff: Urge. Really, the S&M clubs and dominatrixes of the world should seek PR council ... not only are they always forcing good kids into bondage in mass media, they also all look like crap.

Camera work is great though. Nice perspectives.

Agency: MTV On Air Promotions

This guy worked at an ad agency?!?

Uh, nice poster, adman. Boo.

Found at: AdFreak

Beko: A vaccum as quiet as this ad

With the help of my friendly household art director, I was able to decipher this ad. See, it's a treble clef and staff. And, there's no music notes on it. And, the teeny tiny tagline is "very quiet."

Geez.

Found at: Advertising/Design Goodness
Agency: TBWA