Hasta La Creative!

In a stunning piece of acquisition action, Photon Group Limited (ASX: PGA )has acquired independent planning shop, Naked Communications. There is currently no announcement of the acquisition lodged with the ASX, but according to sources, the deal includes an initial upfront cash payment of £16.5 million.

Photon entered a trading halt last night, and are expected to resume this morning according to an ASX filing.

“The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.”

There’s joy in Gotham City today, and more than a little pride, but none of it should be felt by Super Bowl XLII advertisers or their agencies. Last night’s performance was disappointing and instantly forgettable. From heart-warming Budweiser Clydesdales, a viewer created Doritos ad, and Justin Timberlake to Salesgenie.com’s dim-witted stereotypes, another GoDaddy tease, and more stupid cavemen (that’s redundant, right?), it was déjà vu all over again.

Many faithfully followed Cosby’s first law and were delightfully vague: Budweiser’s rejected Hank in a “Rocky”-like tale, a bunch of lizards doing the Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance, Coke’s dueling parade balloons, and Doritos’ undiscovered rising stars. Others broke his law and tried to weave in a promise, albeit in uninspiring ways: E*Trade’s talking and spitting up baby, CarrerBuilder.com’s gross beating heart, Toyota’s ferocious sleeping badgers spot, and Garmin’s Napoleonic trek (Is Garmin a French company?)

A few went directly for the promise, forgoing the creative all together; like DCU’s loans and Claritin’s non-drowsy allergy medicine. But the majority followed tired and true recipes; vague and distasteful (a unibrowed, cashew-scented snacker); simply distasteful (a fat guy strapping jumper cables to his nipples); or on point and implausible (It’s Marilyn Monroe, Shakira and Madonna’s hair that tells their story? Umm, no it’s not. Or . . . Hyundai’s ad for its new Genesis luxury car will strike fear in the hearts of marketers at Mercedes, BMW and Lexus? Puh-lease.)

I could go on and on, but I won’t. It was hard enough trying to watch the sophomoric and formulaic ads during the game. I most surely don’t want to relive them again today. And I guess that’s the point, isn’t it. A one-time, $3 million investment in 30 seconds worth of eye candy should elicit feelings that we want to replay in our minds and in our hearts. It should prime a network of mental associations for something desirable; something valuable. Something we want to investigate further or share with our friends.

A lot of people consumed a lot of food and alcohol last night (and some of us even ate some crow). We also consumed a lot of advertising. But, like the junk food available at most Super Bowl parties, just because we consumed the brands’ advertising doesn’t mean we’ll make them part of our lives. Yes, there were a few worthy creations. But overall, this year’s Super Bowl ad feast was an expensive smorgasbord void of brand-building value. Here’s hoping that Super Bowl XLIII fares better for marketers and for my humble pie-eating New England Patriots.

Image source: Pietel on Flickr

Adverblog points at an ongoing campaign in Belgium that is remarkably similar to the last year’s commercial by Coke about a thug turned do-gooder in a Grand Theft Auto – like city. If this is an ARG, than it’s the very beginning of it, since the site doesn’t offer any clues yet.

Ralph Ellison wrote "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." For different reasons — fear of financial and professional retribution — the subject of this post will remain invisible, or at least unidentified. Like it or not, such retribution is still a very real possibility for those individuals who seek to make visible the invisible struggles they face.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Nokia is looking to consolidate its global digital account, executives familiar with the matter said. The marketer, which works with as many as 500 digital partners, likely will narrow down its roster to a few networks with global scale, the executives said.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Geico's popular cavemen characters are back on TV in a space many think they never should have left: in commercials. Two of the cavemen characters appeared in local TV ads that ran just after the Super Bowl in select markets, including New York, Dallas and Los Angeles.

Miller Brewing took out a full page ad in USA TODAY today to congratulate A-B.

This is what it says:

Dude!

Did you really spend $18 million on the big game?

Congratulations on your USA TODAY Ad Meter success, Bud Light. This certainly calls for beer. An award winning beer. A beer with more taste and half the carbs of Bud Light.

A nice cold Miller Lite.

Ninety million plus people aren’t going to see this print ad, but for the hundreds of thousands who do, it’s a message that works pretty well.

The message I take away is Miller focuses on making beer while Bud prefers to make 30-second adverts meant to appeal to the frat boy within.

If you’ve ever seen a better German viral than this one for McDonald’s then please, send it to us at Trend Hunter!

The Huettengaudi is absolutely hilarious. The viral ad, which runs under the tagline “Move Your Lederhos’n,” lets you upload your own photo so you can become an animated, dancing, Led…

So what’s the relevance of wiener poopie?

Well, a bit of post-Super-Bowl-extravaganza humor never hurts. But more importantly, it speaks (albeit in a bizarre way) to the rapidly changing television environment. Every time I turn on the TV and flip through the cable news channels, I’m surprised. While I’d like to think CNN running a story about a Jesus statue being held hostage is just an anomaly, I’m quickly realizing that is no longer the case. Television is rapidly beginning to emulate much of the internet, and news channels are prime examples. Turning into more of an extravaganza-style, shows like Countdown with Keith Olberman and much of the general CNN and MSNBC’s newscasts showcase rapidfire bits and trinkets, with significantly less in-depth analysis. The local news in Portland has even begun pulling and featuring clips off of YouTube in their newscast and soliciting viewer photos and videos – taking user-generated beyond content and into the realm of factual news.

So the big question: what direction is television viewership moving? Programs are becoming more rapid-fire bits and pieces, emulating on-line news aggregators and video sites. Are the viewers themselves shifting as well? or are broadcast and cable tv just trying to figure out how to maintain their media share in the presence of the ever-growing internet community? Does that shift change the way viewers interact with the advertising alongside these newscasts? Either way, it’s interesting to watch as a viewer, and certainly could have some impact down the road in terms of advertising and branding on tv.

Technorati Tags: CNN, MSNBC, news, user-generated content, youtube, beyond madison avenue

GoDaddy makes a habit of making Super Bowl commercials that don’t air during the Super Bowl. The spot that did air last night promised viewers more if they’d just click over to GoDaddy.com. According to Ad Age, a record two million people took the GoDaddy challenge.

“For us, because we’re an internet company and we sell domain names, there’s no way we can really explain what we do in a commercial. We had to get people to our website,” Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons said.

The edgy, though ham-fisted ad — a parody of sorts on the whole celebrity “upskirt” phenomenon — didn’t curry favor with all viewers. A GoDaddy.com survey asked 160,000 people what they thought of the commercial. Some 17.1% of males disliked the ad; 16.5% of females disliked it. This was OK with Mr. Parsons, because “they still came to the website.

I went to GoDaddy to see the ad so you don’t have to. It’s beyond bad. But that’s hardly surprising coming from a CEO who can’t make a 30-second pitch for his core service and doesn’t care if he diminishes his brand with bad jokes and unfulfilled teases.