The Thrity Rooms To Hide In Addition. John and Tug talk with Master Jedi Luke Sullivan about his new book Thirty Rooms To Hide In, creativity and getting out of advertising. It’s a great Sunday afternoon chat with almost no…
Hey gang: Sorry we’ve been away so long but rest assured, plans are being made to reboot, retool, rejigger and re-energize American Copywriter in 2012. We are working to make it easier for us to post and podcast and even…
The They Forgot To Make It Super Edition Tug and I (along with a pretty mouthy community at #acbowl12) dish about this year’s ads. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t, and nearly all of it fell well below…
Hey gang: Sorry we’ve been away so long but rest assured, plans are being made to reboot, retool, rejigger and re-energize American Copywriter in 2012. We are working to make it easier for us to post and podcast and even easier still for you to be a part of the conversation and community.
Have a safe and restful holiday season and look for us next year. You don’t know how much JJ and I appreciate your support and we want to thank you so, so, so much for it now!
We’ll be back, when deadlines allow.
Tug and JJ
The Thrity Rooms To Hide In Addition.
John and Tug talk with Master Jedi Luke Sullivan about his new book Thirty Rooms To Hide In, creativity and getting out of advertising. It’s a great Sunday afternoon chat with almost no cursing and only minorly bothersome mouth sounds.
And stay tuned. ‘Coming in August 2011: The American Copywriter Reboot.
The They Forgot To Make It Super Edition
Tug and I (along with a pretty mouthy community at #acbowl12) dish about this year’s ads. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t, and nearly all of it fell well below the high water mark of year’s past.
Give it a listen and let us know your thoughts!
The They Forgot To Make It Super Edition
Tug and I (along with a pretty mouthy community at #acbowl12) dish about this year's ads. Some of it worked, some of it didn't, and nearly all of it fell well below the high water mark of year's past.
Give it a listen and let us know your thoughts!
Hey gang: Sorry we've been away so long but rest assured, plans are being made to reboot, retool, rejigger and re-energize American Copywriter in 2012. We are working to make it easier for us to post and podcast and even easier still for you to be a part of the conversation and community.
Have a safe and restful holiday season and look for us next year. You don't know how much JJ and I appreciate your support and we want to thank you so, so, so much for it now!
We'll be back, when deadlines allow.
Tug and JJ
The Thrity Rooms To Hide In Addition.
John and Tug talk with Master Jedi Luke Sullivan about his new book Thirty Rooms To Hide In, creativity and getting out of advertising. It's a great Sunday afternoon chat with almost no cursing and only minorly bothersome mouth sounds.
And stay tuned. 'Coming in August 2011: The American Copywriter Reboot.
The Advertising Fight Club Edition
Wherein Tug and John ramble about the following:
Chapter One: Cannes happened?
Chapter Two: Advertising Fight Club (4:46)
Chapter Three: Back to that Cannes thing (10:49)
Chapter Four: The Half Yearly Blues (16:32)
Chapter Five: Home run story (21:21)
Chapter Six: A tribute to Mr. Carlin (25:45)
We submit it all for your listening pleasure now.
Peeps:
We, uh, uploaded the wrong file to iTunes. So, Episode 58 sounds a lot like Episode 48. Sethy G. has since corrected, however, it takes Steve Jobs a day or so to get that fixed up on iTunes. In the meantime, the file in the upper right hand corner of this blog is correct. Have at it.
According to this site, AC has only 12% more cussing than other blogs that took the same test. While I think that’s a respectable mark, I fucking know we can do better people.
Tip o’ the hat to Jaffe Juice
The Luke Sullivan Edition (Part One)
In celebration of the the third edition of "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This," John & Tug sit down to enjoy the wit and advertising wisdom of Luke Sullivan. Listen up won’t you?
Notes are as follows:
Chapter 1: Stone Cold Open
Chapter 2: Calling Luke
Chapter 3: Hey Whipple
Chapter 4: Ernie reference
Chapter 5: When Minnie became Minnie
Chapter 6: Creative batons
Chapter 7: Bernbach & heroes
Chapter 8: The story of the book
Chapter 9: Sally reference
Chapter 10: The hard work of good work
Chapter 11: End of part one
The Super Bowl ’08 Wrap
John and Tug get up too early and draw far too many hasty conclusions about what worked and what didn’t. Listen and tell us where we got it right and wrong.
Happy Super Monday.
As is our tradition, Tug and I will get together Monday morning to go over a few of our favorite Super Bowl spots. Of course, we’d love to have your thoughts, too. So, after the game tomorrow, take a second to record some comments on our handy, dandy audio comment widget. Comments in by 6 a.m. Monday got a shot at making the show.
Why anyone should care what Tug and I think about political advertising remains a mystery. Nonetheless, we spent a few moments today running our mouths about it. You can listen to the results (which are likely wrong) by visiting the link of the Pat Morrison show and and, depending on when yo read this, searching a bit for an archived segment recorded on Feburary 1, 2008 entitled “Will you buy this candidate.” Thanks to our pal Russell for the hook up.
The ads we discuss are this one, this one, this one, this one and No Comments
Tug and I had a great time talking with the one-and-only Luke Sullivan last night. He’s more proof that the most talented people in this business are also the most down-to-earth. We talked for about an hour. That’s enough for two podcasts. I’ll get to work on cutting those right away. Of course, we all know what happens this Sunday. AC was founded on breaking down the Super Bowl spots and we plan to do that again. So, expect to hear the Luke podcasts later on next week. In the meantime, Luke said we could leak a few snippets of the new content from the third edition of "Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This." Enjoy:
Try something naughty. I do not mean do a pee-pee joke. (Oh lordy, please, please . . . no pee-pee jokes. No fart jokes. No scatology. Please, just stop it.)
What I am suggesting here is that you do something naughty. Maybe naughty isn’t the right word. How about controversial? My thesaurus also suggests: devilish, sneaky, disobedient, mischievous, willful, wayward, bad, or recalcitrant. Do something you’re not supposed to do. Break a rule of some kind. Come up with an idea that makes you say, “We can’t do that, can we?†That’s a sign it’s a strong idea. The other question to ask is: “Will somebody talk about this idea if we do it?†Sticking messages into dog poop at the park qualifies, I think, on both counts. It’s a controversial sort of idea somebody might talk about.
Beaming an anti government message onto the side of city hall is naughty.
Airing a free video on a hotel’s adult channel is naughty. Running a small-space ad with a headline “Fur Coat Storage Services†is naughty. Well, it is when you know the rich ladies who called the number got a recorded message from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals about the cruelty of the fur business and how they should “donate†their fur for proper burial. In Warren Berger’s book Hoopla, CP+B’s Alex Bogusky observes, “If you’re about to spend advertising dollars on a campaign and you can’t imagine that anybody is going to write about it or talk about it, you might want to rethink it. It means you probably missed injecting a truth or social tension into it.†A truth. A social tension. Now we’re getting to the nut of it. Think of truth, or social tension, or naughtiness as the bad guy in a movie. Ever notice how the bad guy is usually a movie’s most interesting character? Kids wanna be Darth Vader, not Luke. On Halloween, I’ve never seen anybody wearing a Jamie Lee Curtis mask; it’s always Michael Myers. Bad is good. The bad guy disrupts. He changes things, makes them interesting. Bad means gettin’ some “Bom Chicka Wah Wah†from the Axe Effect or doing things in Vegas that have to stay there. Bad is why the Subservient Chicken is wearing a garter belt. Do something devilish, disobedient, sneaky, mischievous, willful, wayward, bad, or recalcitrant. At every turn of the way, question authority.
The third edition of "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This" will be hitting the shelves soon. We at American Copywriter are giddy to announce that Master Sullivan himself will be joining Tug and I on an upcoming podcast to talk about what’s new in the book, and the strange and wonderful life of an American copywriter. If you read this blog and have not read this book, pre-order it right fucking now.
I can’t count how many times I’ve utilized Luke’s wisdom to help sell some work. Anytime I’ve lost my advertising way or questioned my convictions I’ve come back to this book. Tug and I are really looking forward to our conversation wth Luke and hope you will, too. Questions? Pose them in the comments here or email us at our new gmail address. You can probably guess what the prefix of that address is. Don’t use a dot.
In the meantime, Luke’s given us permission to publish a few new snippets from the new edition in this space. Stay tuned.
The "Hey, it’s not the New Year anymore" Edition
Recorded Dec. 30th but posted just now for a savory, yet slightly rotten, taste:
Chapter One: Stone cold open
Chapter Two: NEW FEATURE "Like it" or "Tired of it"
Chapter Three: Off Star Technology
Chapter Four: What retailers could learn from ad club
Chapter Five: The Gumbel Brothers
Chapter Six: Webkinz mania
Chapter Seven: Traditions
P.S. We’re giddy to tease you with the fact that our next podcast is going to feature a super cool ad legend type. More details soon. In the meantime, listen to this.
The Holiday ’07 Edition.
Finally. Tug and John find a moment to sit down over a few pints for a podcast. In the warmth and kindness of the season, John and Tug drop more f-bombs than usual. Just warning you now.
Chapter One: Intro wherein Tug complains about the current state of women’s handbags.
Chapter Two: A heartfelt salute to Mr. Whipple.
Chapter Three: Holiday spot talk including Rudolph rehashes and carol rewrites.
Chapter Four: Tug and John’s do’s & don’ts at the agency holiday party. Remember, do as we say not as we have done.
Hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday. 2008 is, well, going to be another year in advertising.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
