An Ad

The Best Advertising Ever

Peter · October 22, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Volkswagen: The Best Advertising Ever. Period.

Best advertising ever?

OK, one of the best advertising campaigns – ever. No question. This legendary campaign from the Mad Men days and Doyle Dane Bernbach was, well, fucking brilliant. Great strategy, lean approach, super fine copy (read it oh ye content writers), art direction and photography. These ads were impossible to NOT read.

Please watch this video below: “Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?” (especially if you are under 40.) Hear the people who made the ads talk about making some of the smartest advertising ever.

Remember, this campaign pitted Volkswagen’s tiny post-war German car against Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge. Not an easy play. This is a good, free, marketing lesson for us all. Buzzfeed has all of the ads right here.

The BIG Idea

Advertising has gotten a bit too complicated these days. Words like programatic, bots, content, analytics, SEM, funnels, infographics, authentic and on. We can easily forget that is all about the BIG, impossible to ignore, strategic, yet oh so simple… BIG idea. The idea that captures our attention and excites.

Ode to my audience of business development directors: You’ll win more new business if you… Deliver ideas and insights that capture your prospective client’s attention and excite them. AHA! moments just like Volkswagen did.

BIG ideas follow…

This Portland Ad Sucks

Peter · March 18, 2015 · 2 Comments

This Portland Ad Sucks (Or, Um, Screws Up)

I don’t usually write about poor advertising. There is simply too much of it. However, this ad for Hawthorne Cutlery, a Portland knife shop, caught my attention. In fact, I assume that catching my attention was what the shop intended.

However, boy did they fuck up. Pulling me in with a cunniligous oriented headline (not sure I’ve ever used this ‘C’ word in my blog) does in fact pull me in. But, not the way the advertiser wanted. The headline and WTF photograph pulls me into thinking that these guys are very lame.

Last point, I feel sorry for the adjacent ad. Not sure that a whole lot of brunchers want to be associated with munchers. SORRY!!!! I couldn’t control myself.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Ad Clutter & Urinals

Peter · March 9, 2015 · Leave a Comment

Planes, Trains, Automobiles & Urinals = Ad Clutter

I was in New York recently and noticed, actually re-noticed and re-noticed, that advertising messages are everywhere. This hit home when I went to a restaurant urinal after a fine lunch and had to face an ad, you know, one of those framed ads. Not very high tech but very much in my face — like about 6 inches away.

I thought two things: 1) why do I have to look at this ad and, I have other things that I should be paying attention to right now. 2) it doesn’t stop. A few minutes later I was speeding up to a thirtieth floor meeting in an elevator equipped with one of those relentless video screens and more ads.

No peace! No chance to reflect on my upcoming meeting. No moment to be alone in my thoughts in places that used to be ad free. I’ve been attacked by, yes, dreaded ad clutter.

The Cost of Paying Attention

The New York Times’s “Sunday Review” ran the excellent excellent op-ed piece, “The Cost Of Paying Attention” by Matthew B. Crawford, author the upcoming book “The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction”. Mr. Crawford points out that we are bombarded by ads. No news here. But, he makes the strong case that “attention is a resource.” A very scarce resource and the advertising world (that means you and me) are destroying our individual chance to be introspective, alone in our own thoughts and focussed on our own being rather that yet another freakin ad or wannabe social media relationship. Bathroom and elevator advertising isn’t a new phenomenon. However, in Mr. Crawford’s view, they are a form of pollution. I have to agree. Here is how the article begins. [Read more…] about Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Ad Clutter & Urinals

Nike Does Jeter Right

Peter · July 14, 2014 · Leave a Comment

Another grand slam for Nike and Portland’s Wieden+Kennedy. This time its for my real home town Yankee’s Derek Jeter. This might be the only thing that will make most New Yorkers cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X03_bNuihLU