Topic: Advertising

Mac vs. PC

May 6th, 2013 by | Topic: Advertising | no responses

Here for the first time and not available in stores at any price is the complete works of Mac vs. PC. Truly inspired work by John Hodgman. A lovely effort and worth another look or two. Adweek posted all 66 ads directed by Phil Morrison of Epoch Films for TBWA Media Arts Lab.

From Adweek April 13, 2011

Steve Jobs could sell. He did it in person, he did it on stage, and he did it on television—in the form of advertising campaigns that were often the envy of the business. Among the most beloved was the long-running “Get a Mac” series with John Hodgman and Justin Long as the bumbling PC and the hip, unflappable Mac—an odd couple who would entertain viewers for years with their quips, barbs, sight gags, and one-liners. In 2010, Adweek declared “Get a Mac” to be the best advertising campaign of the first decade of the new century. Below are all 66 TV spots (plus the long version of 2008′s “Sad Song”) that aired during the campaign’s run, from May 2006 to October 2009

What Was I Scared Of? Yugodrom pants!

March 10th, 2013 by | Topic: Advertising, Literature | no responses
Yugodrom - Novo pants ad

Another beauty from Yugodrom.

Dr. Seuss - What Was I Scared Of

What Was I Scared Of?
by Dr. Seuss

Well…

I was walking in the night
And I saw nothing scary.
For I have never been afraid
Of anything. Not very.

Then I was deep within the woods
When, suddenly, I spied them.
I saw a pair of pale green pants
With nobody inside them!

I wasn’t scared. But, yet, I stopped
What could those pants be there for?
What could a pair of pants at night
Be standing in the air for?

And then they moved? Those empty pants!
They kind of started jumping.
And then my heart, I must admit,
It kind of started thumping.

So I got out. I got out fast
As fast as I could go, sir.
I wasn’t scared. But pants like that
I did not care for. No, sir.

After that a week went by.
Then one dark night in Grin-itch
(I had to do an errand there
And fetch some Grin-itch spinach)…

Well, I had fetched the spinach.
I was starting back through town
When those pants raced around a corner
And they almost knocked me down!

I lost my Grin-itch spinach
But I didn’t even care.
I ran for home! Believe me,
I had really had a scare!

Now, bicycles were never made
For pale green pants to ride ‘em,
Especially spooky pale green pants
With nobody inside ‘em!

And the NEXT night, I was fishing
For Doubt-trout on Roover River
When those pants came rowing toward me!
Well, I started in to shiver.

And by now I was SO frightened
That, I’ll tell you, but I hate to….

I screamed and rowed away and lost
my hook and line and bait, too!
I ran and found a Brickle bush
I hid myself away.

I got brickles in my britches
But I stayed there anyway.
I stayed all night. The next night, too
I’d be there still, no doubt,
But I had to do an errand

So, the next night, I went out.
I had to do an errand,
Had to pick a peck of Snide
In a dark and gloomy Snide-field
That was almost nine miles wide.

I said, “I do not fear those pants
With nobody inside them.”
I said, and said, and said those words.
I said them. But I lied them.

Then I reached inside a Snide bush
And the next thing that I knew,
I felt my hand touch someone!
And I’ll bet that you know who.

And there I was! Caught in the Snide!
And in that dreadful place
Those spooky, empty pants and I
were standing face to face!

I yelled for help. I screamed. I shrieked.
I howled. I yowled. I cried,
“OH, SAVE ME FROM THESE PALE
GREEN PANTS WITH NOBODY INSIDE!”

But then a strange thing happened.
Why, those pants began to cry!
Those pants began to tremble.
They were just as scared as I!

I never heard such whimpering
And I began to see
That I was just as strange to them
As they were strange to me!

So…

I put my arm around their waist
And sat right down beside them.
I calmed them down.
Poor empty pants
With nobody inside them.

And now, we meet quite often,
Those empty pants and I,
And we never shake or tremble,
We both smile and we say…”Hi!”

“You’re too good for us.”

October 15th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising, Quotes | no responses
One day while I was composing,           the telephone
 rang.                A  lady's  voice  said,
   "Is  this  John  Cage,            the  percussion
 composer?"      I  said,  "Yes."      She  said,
         "This  is  the  J.  Walter  Thompson
Company."      I  didn't  know  what  that  was,
        but  she  explained  that  their  business
 was  advertising.                She  said,
   "Hold  on.                One  of  our  directors
 wants  to  speak  to  you."      During  a  pause
my  mind  went  back  to  my  composition.
       Then  suddenly  a  man's  voice  said,
     "Mr.  Cage,            are  you  willing  to
prostitute  your  art?"      I  said,  "Yes."      He
 said,  "Well,            bring  us  some  samples
Friday  at  two."      I  did.                After
hearing  a  few  recordings,            one  of  the
 directors  said  to  me,            "Wait  a  minute."
     Then  seven  directors  formed  what  looked
like  a  football  huddle.                 From  this
     one  of  them  finally  emerged,             came
 over  to  me,              and  said,
"You're  too  good  for  us.                    We're
 going  to   save   you   for   Robinson   Crusoe."

~John Cage, Indeterminacy No. 53

The 30,000 Treasures of Tony Schwartz

July 26th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising, Art, Music | no responses

Tony_Schwartz

From On The Media comes The Listening Life the incredible story of ad executive and a pioneering folklorist Tony Schwartz. This is one of the Kitchen Sisters’ best efforts and certainly worth a listen, or two. Here is OTM’s synopsis:

THE LISTENING LIFE In his 84 years Tony Schwartz produced over 30,000 recordings, thousands of groundbreaking political ads, media theory books and Broadway sound design, invented the portable recorder, elivered hundreds of lectures and had full careers as an ad executive and a pioneering folklorist. And he did it all without leaving his zip code. In a piece that originally aired in 2008, the Kitchen Sisters, look back at his life spent listening.

Additional Resources

On The Media:
The Listening Life: Transcript
Friday, June 27, 2008

Radio Open Source:
Tony Schwartz — for the Next Generation (2008)

WNYC:
Adventures in Sound (2007) 

Tony Schwartz:
www.tonyschwartz.org

In praise of vintage advertising from mad ad poets

April 20th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising | no responses

Alcoa / Ford Falcon ad - 1960

This Alcoa ad, which appeared in April 2, 1960 edition of The New Yorker, proves the point that they don’t write ‘em like they used to. Not a value judgement, just an observation. Our age is too cynical for such flights of poetic fancy. We obsess over the Mad Men depiction of that era, but this is the real deal, the kind of ads those mad, closet-poet ad men were actually churning out way back then. Take a closer look at this inspired ad copy:

Drive doughtily to salty Fort Lauderdale…(Falcon’s grille is aluminum)

Let it rain, let it snow, let salted streets splash and briny breezes blow! Corrosion’s passé with the aluminum grille and brightwork of your new Ford Falcon. Anodizing is the reason–an Alcoa process that makes aluminum sapphire-hard and sapphire bright. To preserve this royal sparkle year after shining year, merely wash down occasionally with plebeian soap and water.

Elsewhere in the Falcon–in engine and transmission, to be precise–strong Alcoa Aluminum alloys trim off the pounds while adding speed and mileage. Look for aluminum in your next car. Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh 19, Pa.

Alcoa Aluminum…for lasting Gleam and Go!

Obviously, whoever wrote this was a poet, trying to make ends meet as an adman by day. It’s also likely that this anonymous scribe (or, likely, team of scribes) never set foot in a South LA sweatshop that actually anodized aluminum (I have), or his metaphors might have tended more toward Dante than Tiffany. And in case you were wondering, doughtily is the adverb form of doughty, pronounced “dou-tee,” meaning brave, bold, intrepid, fearless, dauntless. Not a common word today, and perhaps no more common in 1960, but what a great rhetorical flourish to combine it with “drive,” “salty,” and “Fort Lauderdale”–to create this poetic gem of a headline: Drive doughtily to salty Fort Lauderdale… Now that’s copywriting with lasting Gleam and Go!

Saving face, or Downton Abbey-normal

April 19th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising | no responses

For U.K. charity Changing Faces, that advertising agency DDB and director Jim Wheedon produced this public service commercial about “Leo,” a facially disfigured man sitting alone in his car, in the rain, listening to opera no less, who voyeuristically watches a beautiful woman (Michelle Dockery of Downton Abbey fame) come home laden with groceries. In typical horror-movie style, the sinister-looking man walks up to the house and knocks on the door with a Gothic door-knocker.

What happens next? Let’s just say the typical viewer’s prejudicial expectations are nicely thwarted. It’s a great PSA, but I’m a sucker for anything that turns stereotypes and expectations upside-down. Or upside-Downton, in this case.

(Sources: Creativity-Online.com and Advertising Age)

Verisimilitude: Furniture Guy vs. Mattress Man

April 12th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising, Film | no responses

Just who is Vinnie “T” Testeroni, the would-be daredevil spokesperson for “The Furniture Guy”? And why doesn’t “The Furniture Guy” appear in his own commercial? Whoever Vinnie “T” is, director Paul Thomas Anderson went to great lengths to recreate his character in the 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love. In fact, the main antagonist in the film, Dean “The Mattress Man” Trumbell, played here by Philip Seymour Hoffman, was based on the above commercial blooper for “The Furniture Guy.” Interestingly, this re-enacted scene, which inspired Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in the first place, was deleted from the final film. Fortunately, this lovely re-enactment was found on the cutting room floor. Either way it served its purpose as muse to director Anderson.

The original “The Furniture Guy” commercial poses more questions, however. Does Vinnie’s middle initial “T” stand for Testosterone? Is he a real life honest-to-goodness guitarist or a stunt man? Or perhaps a stunt guitarist? Who knows? I searched high and low, but I couldn’t find any information about Vinnie “T” online. What we do know is that Mr. Anderson has an acute eye for the sincere detail, or “truthlikeness,” in every scene. To illustrate this, here is a list of details for this scene, showing their appearance in the original “The Furniture Guy” (FG) commercial and in “The Mattress Man” (MM) re-enactment:

Scene DescriptionFGMM
Ambient white freeway noiseXX
Unamplified perfunctory guitar strummingXX
Black leather jacket with flames on the sleevesX
Mop of hair/wig resembling a condemned rodent’s nestX
Mop of hair/wig secured in place by a Karate Kid black head bandX
Phone number is 351-3900X
Awkward hesitation before opening line of dialogXX
Sad parrot infested “Southland” palm trees in backgroundX
Red racing trailer parked oddly across 6 parking spacesXX
5 mattresses piled on roof of early 1980s Stretched Lincoln Town CarXX
Awkward walking and talking tracking shotXX
“…got queen mattresses sets for 99 dollars”XX
“…and king sets for 129″XX
Sack of potatoes ‘Foley’ thump when body hits mattressX
Account Executive with gray pants and compulsory “power” suspendersX
Stretched gold Lincoln Town Car adorned with red flames along the front fender to driver’s doorX
Short cast shadows suggest mid-morning or mid-afternoon video shootXX
Full name is obscured on the side of racing trailerXX
Production Assistant in mandatory black polo shirt holding note padX
Videographer with obligatory “correspondent’s” vest and requisite mullet hairstyleX
Account Executive’s first response is to pick up the guitar cordX
Videographer’s first response is to steady the guitarX
Production Assistant’s first response is to adjust/reposition the mattressX
Videographer: “Try your arm and stuff”XX
Production Assistant: “He’s wearing leather”XX
Fallen Protagonist: “Did you get it on film?”XX
Videographer: “Yea”XX
Fallen Protagonist: “Alright”XX
Total running time in seconds4050

Better Living Through Chemistry: Vintage Pharmaceutical Ads

March 29th, 2012 by | Topic: Advertising | no responses

Thorazine vintage drug ads - senility and stress

With so many people lately consumed by the TV show Mad Men, it’s worth taking a look back to what the real mad genius ad men of the 1950s and ’60s were cooking up in their ginsoaked three-martini lunch and evening highball pickled cerebral cortexes: insane pharmaceutical ads that took DuPont’s famous Better Living Through Chemistry slogan to heart, and went from there off the deep end with the belief that we can control the uncontrollable with the proper chemical flavor.

More vintage pharmaceutical ads: Psychiatric Drugs: A History in Ads; Japanese Pharmaceutical Ad Gallery; Truly Marvelous Mental Medicine: Thorazine shuffle.)

Demonstrate, don’t explain

September 20th, 2011 by | Topic: Advertising, Branding, Naming, Zinzin | no responses

From the Naming & Branding Manifesto, number 10: Great names demonstrate your brand positioning. Weak names force you to explain your brand positioning, and that’s called advertising.