Hasta La Creative!

Craigslist is not a place where you tend to find beautiful, creative, compelling advertising. It’s almost all amateur ads, after all, and created within a fairly limiting framework.

Still, we’ve seen what can happen when people do put a little effort into it. Whether you’re pitching yourself as the perfect roommate or selling your crappy old Camry, a little ingenuity goes a long way in helping you stand out in Craiglist’s mind-numbing sea of sameness.

The recently opened Classify Advertising is dedicated to doing just that. It will take your terrible Craigslist ad and make it a brilliant Craigslist ad—for free!

Classify, which bills itself as “the only agency that started with 80 million clients already,” was started by three agency interns. Here’s how they describe the business: “Classify moves products out the door. We turn your used junk into a pile of sweaty, hot lucre. It’s not our business what you do with all that bread. We transform Craigslist posts from boring, ineffective ads into dynamic cash cows. Cows that you can milk—for money.”

They’ve got a few before-and-after examples posted on the site. (We’ve posted some of them below.) We also caught up with the founders to ask how the service works—and what their plans are for ramping it up.

Where did you get the inspiration for this?
As ad school students, we were always told to make campaigns that sell real products. We just took it literally.

You must feel aesthetics is a big part of the selling process.
Not exactly. Strategy plays a big part in our startup. We take a client’s request and transform it into a real brief that points out the qualities and flaws of a certain product. Making things visually attractive is equally important to strategy and attractive copy.

Millions of things are bought and sold on Craiglist every day. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
We agree that there’s a big amount of transactions, and technically it’s already successful, but there are a lot of people who can’t get their product sold, and they come to us every day since we started Classify asking for help. We’re not trying to improve Craigslist. We’re improving the way people communicate to sell their own products.

Isn’t there a purity about how low-fi Craigslist ads are? Aren’t you just putting lipstick on a pig?
Craigslist ads are low-fi until people have to sell something there. A car, for example—they will wash and wax the car just to take tons of pictures of it to put it on the ad. They’ll write a long description telling how resistant the car is and the mileage. Then that link will be everywhere on their social media, email, etc.

Tell us how the process works. Can consumers approach you with their ad, and you make it sing?
On our website there’s a section where people can request an ad. We look at those requests and we transform it into a creative brief that will be given to a creative team. In some cases the post already exists, so we just create something based on that post.

What’s the turnaround time, and what’s your fee?
It takes one to three days to make a picture, a headline and body copy, and we do it for free.

So, how do you make money? Or is it not a moneymaking venture?
Craigslist doesn’t make any money with [most of] its transactions, either. It wouldn’t be fair to charge people.

Are you making any money in other ways through this business?
We’re not making any money for ourselves. Some brands and business people approached us to present a business model that can work for us, but we’re still just talking.

Can the seller critique your designs and request changes?
We don’t usually do revisions unless there’s an actual mistake in the ad.

Do you have paying clients yet?
The examples on the website are ads we proactively sent to people on Craigslist, but now we’re getting around 30-plus ad requests a day.

Are there are guidelines or limitations regarding items you can or can’t sell?
Each case is different, but we base it on ethics. We’ve got request from a guy selling a Civil War collectible gun. It would be pretty cool to sell it, but then we found out the gun still works and we decided not to make an ad for that person.

There’s a Careers section on your site, which suggests you expect to grow quickly. How will you do that?
The Careers section is a place where volunteers can sign up to make ads to help people. We already have around 25 volunteers who signed up, but we selected only six for now who are getting briefs and helping us to deliver those ads to the clients.

What’s your dream Craigslist product you’d like to sell?
A school bus. It’s something huge that costs a lot of money, and it’s a weird vehicle to own. We’d love to make a huge integrated campaign with videos, posts and even a microsite for something like that.

Via PSFK. Top photo via Flickr.

Here’s another clever entry in the “meta/self-aware” category via Venables Bell & Partners for client Audi.

The first spot is particularly appropriate considering the fact that it will run during tonight’s Emmy Awards:

The second spot offers a brief extension of that intro after the jump.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here’s the newest example of a clever invention that shouldn’t have to exist.

Undercover Colors is a line of chemically enhanced nail polish currently being developed by undergrads at North Carolina State University. The polish can reportedly detect the presence of date-rape drugs such as (one would assume) rohypnol in drinks and change color to indicate a warning. 

So far, few details have been announced about the product, which a spokesperson tells the Triangle Business Journal is “in the R&D stage.” It got an early boost by winning a university entrepreneurship challenge called the Lulu eGames and from an early investor who contributed $100,000, the business journal reports.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the most frequently cited drugs used to incapacitate sexual assault victims are rohypnol (illegal in the U.S.), GHB (legal as a narcolepsy treatment) and ketamine (legal as an anesthetic for humans and animals).

So, it’s reasonable to guess that the Undercover Colors team is trying to develop a product that will react to those three drugs, possibly along with ecstasy (MDMA).

The nail polish, while innovative, is likely to re-open two long-running debates about date-rape drugs and rape prevention:

First, our society shouldn’t need tools to prevent rape, such as the recently launched Guardian Angel necklace that quietly alerts friends that the wearer is in trouble. 

Second, date-rape drugs are far more rare than pop culture often leads us to believe. Reliable numbers are notoriously hard to come by, but a 2007 survey of female sexual assault victims attending colleges found that only 0.6 percent were sure they’d been slipped a drug, while another 1.7 percent suspected they had been given a drug. 

In that same survey, 82 percent of victims reported being drunk, a stat which USA Today featured in its 2013 article about how alcohol is the most common drug used in sexual assault. “Roofies are very rarely—if ever—seen in real life,” an investigator told the newspaper.

Anyone who’s been active in rape prevention efforts knows that discussing alcohol can be volatile and extremely divisive. Pointing out the role of alcohol is often seen as synonymous with victim blaming, while the image of someone covertly spiking a drink with a dissolvable powder clearly conveys who’s at fault, making it a popular plot line for party-boy villains in movies and TV. 

(Quick sidebar with a real-world example: A male friend of mine was actually drugged by two women while visiting Eastern Europe. He was with two friends, whom the girls had convinced to drink some very strong alcohol until they were incapacitated. When the girls realized mid-evening that my friend wasn’t drinking, they made him some hot tea. He passed out, woke up the next day to find their luggage stolen, and a doctor told him he almost certainly would have died if he’d had another cup of the drugged tea. So, it happens, but not always in the situations you might expect.)  

If Undercover Colors becomes a national product, it’s hard to imagine many potential customers rushing out to buy it. In the end, if you’re careful enough to be mindful of being drugged, you’re probably careful enough to open, make or pour your own drink and politely decline anything else.

Hat tip to my friend Clair McLafferty, who among other things writes about cocktail science for Mental Floss.

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Have you ever noticed that a disproportionate number of celebrities happen to smoke in their spare time? That fact provides the motivation behind this new spot for truth (itself an offshoot of the national public health organization Legacy), created by 72andSunny in order to cast these “unpaid” Big Tobacco spokespeople as the very opposite of what we might call “role models.”

Many of the famous faces in the ad didn’t see it because they were too busy attending the Video Music Awards on which it aired (and, presumably, smoking).

That’s not to say that the people at truth don’t love Chris Brown as much as the prototypical “next guy” who does not happen to be Suge Knight.

Another spot created to explain the first below.

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TiVo, a pioneer of digital-video recorders, is offering a DVR for people who don’t pay for cable or satellite TV services, adding to cord-cutters’ toolkit for watching TV without an expensive monthly pay-TV bill.

The TiVo Roamio OTA DVR can record content from broadcast networks including ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as stream internet video from Netflix and YouTube, according to a statement today. The device costs $49.99 with service fees of $14.99 per month and a one-year commitment, and will be available at Best Buy stores starting Sept. 14.

“Many top TV shows in America are available with a simple HD antenna,” TiVo Chief Marketing Officer Ira Bahr said in the statement. “We recognize some viewers opt not to receive the benefits a subscription with a cable provider offers.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com

I love the smell of Hemnes in the morning.

Some lucky Australians will soon wake up in an Ikea store in New South Wales after spending a night there as part of an oddball promotion with Airbnb.

Interested parties can sign up on the lodging rental site for a chance to win a sleepover in one of three groovy showrooms: “Rustic Charm,” “Inner City Living” and “Modern Elegance.” Three groups of up to four guests will get to stay in the store overnight on Aug. 31, enjoy a fancy dinner and even keep the sheets they slept on. Local marketing shops The Monkeys and Mango helped devise the stunt.

Ikea says the promotion is designed to inspire people to make more of their homes “from clearing and creating space to making homes guest ready in the sharing economy.” Because nothing’s better than taking in boarders to make ends meet. That rocks!

Lots of folks would probably savor the chance to enjoy pre-assembled Ikea merchandise. I hope the contest winners gain a measure of revenge for consumers worldwide by going through the store and taking all the furniture apart.

CREDITS
Clients: Ikea and Airbnb
Creative Agency: The Monkeys
Event: Mango
PR: Mango and Espresso Communications

Para ajudar a medir resultados e planejar futuras campanhas, o Instagram apresentou recentemente diversas ferramentas para quem investe em anúncios na plataforma.

As facilidades irão desde uma plataforma de métricas, que oferecerá dados sobre brand awareness e números de impressões, alcance e engajamento de ações orgânicas, passando por métricas focadas nos anúncios pagos (mostrando impressão, alcance e frequência para cada um dos anúncios), até uma central que permite testar formatos, salvar campanhas futuras e permitir que um time possa agendar ações de forma colaborativa.

As funcionalidades estarão divididas em três painéis – ‘Account insights’, ‘ad insights’ e ‘ad staging’ – e serão disponibilizadas aos poucos para marcas que façam anúncios pagos na plataforma, o que ainda está restrito às marcas dos EUA apenas. Entre as informações interessantes para os anunciantes estão as sugestões de melhores dias e horários para postar vídeos curtos ou fotos, bem como os gráficos que mostram quais postagens tiveram um melhor retorno da audiência.

A parte boa é que, quando os anúncios do Instagram forem disponibilizados para marcas no Brasil, provavelmente a plataforma de métricas também já será liberada junto.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Jean-Claude Van Damme is back for Coors Light, sculpting an ice bar in the Rocky Mountains with his bare hands in a new UK spot from VCCP.

Following in the footsteps of last year’s “Epic Split” for Volvo, Van Damme is now synonymous with advertising gold, and the VCCP spot capitalizes on his image in a way reminiscent of that ad. The 60-second “Ice Bar” has just about everything you’d expect given Van Damme’s involvement: Van Damme’s signature mullet/ponytail, cheesy 80s synths, ice block breaking (with bare hands, of course) and a tongue-in-cheek sense of intentionally over-the-top humor. It all makes for a pretty fun spot, which makes you wonder why this isn’t running stateside as well. (more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Is it controversial to be a CEO in your underwear?

Many brands have been changing the way they use models in their ads lately. Several have promised not to airbrush models, and one used only women with PhDs for a campaign.

Now, underwear brand Dear Kate—which has long used nontraditional models of all sizes for lookbooks and web images—is featuring prominent female tech-company founders and CEOs in their underwear for a new line called the Ada Collection (named for 19th century tech pioneer Ada Lovelace).

Critics say the campaign is a step back in the fight for women to be taken seriously, especially in a field known for being dominated by men. “Presenting yourself undressed has inherently sexual overtones, and undermines being seen as a serious technologist,” Elissa Shevinsky, CEO of Glimpse Labs, tells Time magazine.

But Dear Kate CEO Julie Sygiel says this isn’t your typical Victoria’s Secret spread. “I think a lot of traditional lingerie photo shoots depict women as simply standing there looking sexy. They’re not always in a position of power and control,” she says. “In our photo shoots it’s important to portray women who are active and ambitious. They’re not just standing around waiting for things to happen.”

Personally, I don’t think women CEOs posing in their underwear is something worth clutching our pearls over. The lookbook includes smart, successful women, and the variety (women of color! plus-sized women! thin women!) doesn’t feel like an afterthought. At the same time, the ads are certainly odd. Women coding together in their underwear? What? (The inspirational quotes on many of the images also make them way too busy.)

In the end, it misses the mark a bit, but points for doing something cool and different.