Hasta La Creative!

I have been staring at hundreds of advertising and digital agency websites on my Pinterest directory trying to decode each agency’s objectives and strategies. Frankly, the lack of ad agency website differentiation, especially if you view these websites from a new business perspective, is confounding.

Every once an awhile I come across an agency that is doing something different. In this case, the something different is a social media tool from Copacino+Fujikado, a leading Seattle agency born in 1998. The agency is known for its iconic Seattle Mariners work and a range of other famous brands including SAFECO and REI.

C+F, which has a very clean site by the way, has a “+ curated” button on its navigation bar. The + curated tool lives on each page and allows a visitor to save pages from the site and add them to a curated list that the visitor can email to himself or someone else.

The + curated device works for at least four important reasons.

+ curated helps the visitor to save and share content (especially the agency’s work.) An action that is generally difficult in website viewing.

It works as a user-activated new business tool.

It provides the agency with data on who is visiting and sharing. Again, a new way to solve the problem of the anonymous visitor.

It is different and cool and provides the agency with a new shiny thing that they can show to clients to prove that they actually walk the social media talk. Most agencies try to deliver social chops by showing their Twitter feed.

C+F has managed to move past the now ubiquitous home page Twitter feed to demonstrate agency-owned digital prowess.

Peter Levitan is an advertising agency consultant dedicated to helping advertising agencies add new business in our age of disruption. He can be found everyday right here: www.peterlevitan.com

The post An Agency Website That Works From Copacino+Fujikado appeared first on AdPulp.

In some of our past coverage, we’ve touched upon the changing nature of professional experience needed to form effective creative and marketing teams, how those teams should be structured and how agencies are reinventing themselves as the market has shifted away from the traditional agency of record model.

Add to that the notion of pi-shaped talent which, like T-shaped talent, describes a person with broad knowledge in all areas but adds capability for both left-brained and right-brained skills, and you have a dramatic shift in workforce expertise.

This shift toward a workforce that possesses a multifaceted skill set begs the question: are specialists endangered? I think not.

Read the rest on the Central Desktop blog…

Out for about a month (OK, two years and one month!), this video from john. st. examines the scenario of a simple birthday party which, if planned properly, is no small task and requires artful skills to pull of successfully. Using this analogy, john st, magically convinces us that if they could pull off the perfect birthday party, just imagine what they could do for a brand.

OK this is hilarious. Alabama-based Red Square Agency is announcing that they are shocked and offended by a video report published on Feb. 6 by The Onion titled “PR Firm Advises U.S. To Cut Ties With Alabama.”

Red Square Agency stated, “This is the newspaper that gave us such unforgettable headlines as ‘CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Years,’ ‘Osprey Devours Lion in Massive Food-Chain Shake-Up’ and ‘Wealthy Teen Nearly Experiences Consequence.'”

While the fake video highlighted various made-up public opinion polls about Alabama, this and the contention that it should split from the United States is not what offended the Mobile, Ala.-based ad agency. “We were just surprised to see a decades-old joke on the front page of The Onion.”

The video has been liked 502 times on Facebook and shared 280 times on Twitter. Red Square Agency cited this as proof that the nation was in agreement that the world-renowned satirical newspaper was capable of better, like its Sept. 10, 2007, article, “Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8,” which has been liked 22,400 times on Facebook and shared 1,900 times on Twitter.

“Really? In The Onion? We’re just shocked,” Red Square Agency added breathlessly, noting that it had shuttered plans to retaliate against the Wisconsin-founded satirical newspaper with a cheese joke.

At press time, Red Square Agency could be found staring sentimentally at an issue of The Onion with the headline, “Study: Dolphins Not So Intelligent On Land.”

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Cairo Creative Director: Sherif Nashed Via [mediaME.com]

Advertising Agency: NoBox Advertising, Dubai, UAE Creative Director: Yosef Khouwes Art Director: Yosef Khouwes Production: Crystal Gallery Via [AdsOfTheWorld]

If you’ve worked in advertising for longer than, well, a day, you have sins to confess. And what better place to confess your sins than on The Creative Confessional. Not only will you be able to rid your mind of your sins but you will also be able to commiserate with a brotherhood of other creative sinners. You can also vote to absolve or condemn your fellow sinners. Some recent confessions include

“I can’t call myself a writer anymore. I am just a content mill for brands I don’t believe in, in an industry I find vacuous and unfulfilling.”

“I always use Comic Sans for periods in EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER DONE.”

“I took a job out of desperation at a company that does shitty work that I don’t believe in and that I am embarrassed to work at. It was supposed to be temporary but I’ve stayed for 7 years. I am as dead inside as the zombies I work with. My current portfolio and my reputation are a disgrace. At the end of the day I wonder if my life has any meaning, but then I remember that I can feed my family and pay the mortgage this month.”

“Sometimes I agree that the starburst needs to be bigger.”

“I haven’t checked the voicemail on my work phone once in the last five years.”

“Helvetica makes me horny.”

“My shitty ads are making Americans fatter.”

“I don’t believe in finding truths. I believe in finding very attractive lies.”

“I created the Bob’s Furniture ads.”

“I am a CD and partner making almost 100k a year at a boutique shop. I’m 23 and have no idea what I’m doing.”

There are hundreds to check out.

Advertising Agency: JWT, Egypt Via [mediaME.com]

It’s one thing to host a car wash with huge breasted hot chicks in tiny, cleavage-baring bikini tops or hot guys baring their tight abs and ripped chest. It’s absolutely another thing to clownishly dress two guys, play some AC/DC and dunk them with soapy water as they slide across the hood of employees’ cars.

But it sure looks like fun. At least for the guy who dreamt up the idea.

Working with Hungry Man, Mullen has created 12 Days of Relief, a 12 Days of Christmas-style video featuring victims of Hurricane Sandy. Shot last week in Rockaway, Queens and Seaside Heights, NJ, victims recount “what they really need” with the number one need expressed in the primary verse, “On the first day of Christmas, here’s what I really need, a house where mt house used to be.”

On the 12 Days of Relief Site, video interviews of some of the victims featured in the video can also be viewed. And donations to the Salvation Army’s Hurricane Disaster Relief Fund can be made.