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The Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever

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The Best Super Bowl Commercial – According To Mom

Back in the late 1980s, I ran the $60 million Northwest Airlines account at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide. Northwest was a national and regional airline advertiser in the days when airlines advertised – alot. The airline competed with big-budget United, American, and a range of international carriers. All these airlines produced and ran expensive TV commercials. But, this Northwest TV spot was the best Super Bowl commercial – ever.

The commercial below was a part of the EFFIE and multiple creative award-winning “Asia Series”. The campaign included TV, radio, print, and out-of-home executions. The objective of the campaign was to grow Northwest’s transpacific business. At that time, Northwest was the leading airline flying to Asia and needed to maintain its leadership business.

The Asia Series was notable for two reasons.

The campaign utilized an early form of pre-internet content marketing. In addition to traditional advertising, we created long-form radio content, print, and even the use of telephones (800 and 900 numbers) all designed to provide detailed information on how to conduct business in emerging Asian markets. We viewed our business and cultural guidance as ‘information as a service’. Common today but not back in the 1980s.

We ran our TV advertising nationally and regionally. The Asia Series was supported by a multiple-execution TV campaign created by our ECD Pat Peduto and CW Paige. St. John, which was shot over six weeks in Thailand, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. We ran a couple of these on the Super Bowl in select markets including New York, L.A., and Chicago. The spot below is without question the best Super Bowl commercial ever. Why, well, it’s a cool spot. But, if you go to the 13-second mark, right after the glowing elephants, you can see me crossing a Thai road. Yes, this was my rather brief turn as a businessman star in the best Super Bowl commercial – ever.

Well, at least it was according to my mom.

 

 

 

A List Of The Best Advertising Podcasts

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Best advertising podcastsThe average podcast listener listens to about 5 to 6 hours of podcasts per week. Since there are zillions of podcasts and episodes, one wonders how to get enough ear and brain time to find the most useful. To help y’all a bit, here’s a manageable, I stress manageable, list of the best advertising podcasts. I have to admit that this is a shifting list and, not every show from every advertising podcast is wonderful.

Help: If you think I should add to the list, please send me your besties = peter@peterlevitan.com 

Also, stay tuned for my thinking on why an advertising agency should NOT podcast.

My list of the best advertising podcasts includes a good starter episode, a single episode that I think will be worth your time.

Advertising Magazine Podcasts

Campaign Podcast 

Host: Omar Oakes (As usual, the British sound smart)

Welcome to the Campaign podcast, our weekly look at the biggest stories and trends in the world of advertising, marketing, media and technology, as well as our latest videos.

Good Start: Campaign’s most listened to podcasts of 2020

Adweek’s Yeah, That’s Probably An Ad

Multiple Hosts. My favorite is Doug Zanger.

Good Start: What’s next? Adweek’s 2021 Outlook for Media, Marketing and Tech  

AdAge Ad Lib Podcast

Multiple Hosts

Good Start: The State Of The CMO

Australia / Asia / India

Not seeing much podcast activity at the advertising pub level in Australia / Asia and India. Am I missing something. Or, do have these guys figured out that ad podcasting is not worth the effort?

Digital Marketing Podcasts

Marketing School   

Hosts: Neil Patel and Eric Sui

Good Start: Just start.

These smart guys do an episode a day. The shows last approximately 4 minutes. They bam into and out of single subjects including SEO, new stuff like Clubhouse, and email marketing. I wake up to them. I’d say that 1/2 of their podcasts teach me something digital.

Social Media Marketing  

Host: Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner

Good Start: LinkedIn Ad Retargeting

Michael has been a primary guide in the digital marketing universe for eons. He interviews the best.

The Social Media Marketing podcast—a top marketing podcast—is a weekly 45-minute show hosted by our founder, Michael Seltzer. With millions of downloads each year, this show has been helping marketers for more than eight years.

Smart Marketing Guys

six pixels of separation

Host: Mitch Joel

Good Start: Ann Janzer on how to write your own non-fiction book. 

2nd Good Start: The Relevance of Marketing Agencies With Peter Levitan    [Read more…] about A List Of The Best Advertising Podcasts

Just Write An Advertising Book, Please

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That’s Right… Write An Advertising Book.

an advertising bookI want you to write an advertising book. For your personal brand and your agency’s branding. And to help y’all become unignorable. How so?

I have spoken at big conferences (as in how to write a book at Hubspot – plus remember to take off the lanyard thing), been interviewed on lots of podcasts, occasionally make it into an ADWEEK article. Why? Because I wrote this book. Books beget authority. Proof that you actually give a shit, know something, and can actually write.

That said, the biggest benefit…? The book has generated business leads that have resulted in thousands in business $ for my ad agency consultancy.

Between direct business, I also make moolah from Amazon – well, a tiny bit but it paid for the book itself. Here is an email I just got from Amazon.

This royalty payment notification is for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sales recorded in the Kindle Store. Payment will be made to your bank account and should appear in your available balance within 2 to 5 business days after the Payment Date. Details of the payment will be available on the Payment Report.

More Books?

Yup. I also wrote “Boomercide: From Woodstock To Suicide” and two photo books, Potlandia and Jointlandia on the early days of the cannabis industry. That’s one of the photos of a 2013 product above. From the days before big business and package designers got involved.

And, I am updating my thinking about how to build the world’s best sales presentation & pitch by writing about the ‘good, bad, and ugly’ in the world of virtual meetings. Oh, and a book about how to be a great agency account manager.

Frankly, not enough advertising agencies write an advertising book. Even a digital agency deep into data can write a book. This does not have to be hard, or big, or long. Just look at what Austin Kleon did with the writing and design o “Steal Like An Artist.”

Need ideas for a book and how to use it for business development? Give me a shout.

A Funny Advertising Agency Lawyer Story

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Yes, The Often Dreaded Three Words “Advertising Agency Lawyer” Can Be Funny

I was speaking with an advertising agency client this morning and she told me that they just got off a call with their advertising agency lawyer and it appears that the agency, for competitive reasons, has to rename one of their in-house developed tech applications. It is an important app for their clients and it also represents real smart intellectual property for the agency. OK, this stuff happens. Plus, it reminded me of a funny conversation I had about trademark infringement.

Citrus Vs. Citrus + The Advertising Agency Lawyer

About fifteen years ago my Ralston360 Portland advertising agency bought the graphic design firm Citrus. We liked their name so much we took it as our own. Citrus the advertising agency was born.

I sold Citrus the agency in 2014. A couple of weeks after the deal closed, a close where the name Citrus was dissolved, I am sitting in my room at L.A.’s The Standard Hotel and I check my voice mail. An unknown lawyer says that I have to call him immediately about a serious company issue. So, I give him a call. [Read more…] about A Funny Advertising Agency Lawyer Story

My 2020 In India + Mahatma Gandhi

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2020 In India

Namaste. I’ll get personal to start 2021.

Varanasi IndiaExactly 366 days ago I got on a 15-hour flight from Toronto to New Delhi. I was embarking on a 31-day trip that I had planned for at least 6 months after dreaming of India for years. I had initially thought that I was going to be traveling with my daughter and her husband. However, when our family was together at their home in Buenos Aires in October 2020 Mackenzie announced that she was pregnant. There went the family trip. I was now on my own.

I’d have to say that other than the birth of my granddaughter in June, that India was the highlight of 2020. I traveled from Delhi to a wedding in Jaipur to Udaipur’s lakes; Pushkar (where I did not think that sharing the often proffered marijuana milkshake was a good idea); mind-blowing holy Varanasi to the great crazy city of Mumbai and then back to Delhi. Because I had a plan to bring my ‘The People’ ethnographic photography series to India, I never felt like a pure tourist.

The highlights of my trip were the Jaipur wedding with my friends Nikhil Pandit and his wife (Nikhil has a highly recommended touring company); magnificent Udaipur (where on a lake boat I listened to the 4-year old girl behind me gently sing, Row Row Your Boat; Varanasi (I stayed wide-eyed in a hotel on the Ganges + the photo above is from one of the ghats) and cosmopolitan, and way complex Mumbai where my intro dinner with Satish Krishnamurthy of Sideways Consulting was like hanging out with an old friend.

Plus the highlight of highlights was my being invited to speak to college students at Mumbai’s ISDI School Of Communication and Delhi’s Sharda University.

Oh, oh, and eating everything on the streets. Everything. [Read more…] about My 2020 In India + Mahatma Gandhi