Hasta La Creative!

If you know a runner or are one yourself, you know that plodding on a path day after day requires a reason. Some take the pain to lose weight, while others are addicted to the runner’s high. Running can be the foundation of a community or the motivation for recovery. In Dick’s Sporting Goods’ latest campaign created by Greenpoint Pictures and Anomaly NY, 13 runners share their personal stories. Starting on March 7th, one video has been released every week. Beneath each story, viewers can click to buy gear or share their own story via the #RunFor Facebook campaign.

For an organization that seems like your bludgeoning American sports store next door, Dick’s appeals to a wider audience with this series of sensitive portraits. We’re all athletes to some degree, and running is an activity we have in common, whether we hobbled along in middle school gym or undertook a couple marathons. In Week 12’s video, cancer survivor Meggan Janota says what should be the sub-tagline of this campaign: “You run by yourself, but you’re not alone.” By capturing this community, Dick’s Sporting Goods inspires and drives.

Credits after the jump

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

About a year ago, GoDaddy hired Deutsch New York as their creative agency, and the world wondered whether we’d see the end of the “GoDaddy Girls” gimmick, or even the beginning of a more nuanced campaign. Instead, during this year’s Super Bowl, GoDaddy offered us Bar Rafaeli (“sexy”) making out with a red-faced man named Walter (“smart”). Danica Patrick narrated and did her best not to look embarrassed. Our op-ed contributor at the time, WWD&S co-head Harry Woods, may have captured the most accurate reaction: “The whole ugly thing once again sent us reaching for a wing bone, nacho or beer bottle cap to dig our eyes out.”

Thankfully no eyeball gouging is necessary with GoDaddy’s latest spot. In it, a Ron Weasley-esque man is introduced to the GoDaddy team. His name and its closest iterations are already taken by his colleagues, so the team tosses around other possibilities. Anyone who’s thought about buying a domain name is familiar with this brainstorming process, and Deutsch did well personifying it. The whole thing is off-kilter and amusing, and finally we see Danica Patrick in racing gear, not heels. She’s still hot.

Here’s hoping GoDaddy continues the curve away from their signature blunt, sensationalist spots.

Credits after the jump. [Ed: Welcome back, Ella]

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Celebrating athletic accomplishments is one thing, but serenading the soccer team that just lost a heartbreaking UEFA Champions League Final to Bayern Munich may not be the greatest idea, especially when that team is waiting in Stansted Airport and the players look like deflated tires in designer suits. Surely, there was hard work put in by all involved – dancers, singers, creatives – and that should be acknowledged. But, the three-minute clip almost looks like a spoof video; the players seem dazed and confused as the dancers spin around to “Movin’ On Up” by veteran Scottish act, Primal Scream.

Maybe it’s a European thing, or maybe I’m not a fan of flash mobs (which apparently will never die), but I’m not sure I comprehend the randomness of this particular gesture in relation to Borussia Dortmund. In the age of organic viral content, this latest work from Puma just feels clunky and off-beat.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Grey New York wants to tell you that “It’s Never Not a Good Time for a Refreshing Mike’s.” Excuse the double negative (what about “It’s Always a Good Time…?), but to draw your attention away from the grammatical errors, they included some very, very random celebrity cameos from actor Martin Landau and rapper Coolio. The 30-second spots include some random rhyming that leads to a series of non-sequitors, hence the random celebrities. Random is the only way to describe this campaign.

Before watching these spots, I hadn’t thought of Landau and Coolio in years. Both are stored away firmly in the Club for G-List Celebrities Who Will Never Be Famous Again. In Landau’s defense, he’s 84 and had a memorable run of “Entourage” a few years back (not to mention his Oscar-winning turn as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood). Coolio is Coolio. They both picked up paychecks in return for a loss of dignity. That’s advertising for you. Check out the Coolio spot and credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

When DraftFCB and Kmart released their spot “Ship My Pants” last month, it was lauded far and wide as shot of adrenaline for both the retail brand and the Chicago office of the agency. Sure, it was silly, considering the spot’s entire charm rested on the fact that “ship” can sound like “shit,” but it was still a funny and delightfully unexpected execution for brand not known for taking risks.

After “Ship My Pants” racked up a whopping 17 million+  YouTube views, it would be foolish to switch up a formula that’s proven itself on such a grand scale. So, we now have “Big Gas Savings,” a new spot which tries to recreate the lightning-in-a-bottle success of its predecessor. Now first off,  it lacks the unexpectedness of “Ship My Pants,” not to mention that “gas” and “ass” is a bit further of a reach than “ship” and “shit.” And, of course, “shit” is a far funnier word than “ass.” Also, advertising discounts on gas might not be the best way to get people into your store. In other words, no, this doesn’t live up to “Ship My Pants,” but really could it?

Kmart was left with two options here when it became clear that they had to stick to an execution they knew would bring in viewers. The first, which they went with, was to use a different swear word. The second, which may have worked better, was to continue going with “shit” and come up with new jokes. This isn’t to say that “Big Gas Savings,” isn’t better than 90 percent of ads out there. In fact, it’s still a very enjoyable watch. It’s impossible to hit it out of the park with every swing, and a single sure isn’t anything to be ashamed of. Credits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

So, we’ll let the conversation roll in a regular series we dub, “Is it Racist,” which is essentially the brainchild of Gitamba Saila-Ngita, a multidisciplinary designer and innovation strategist, living, working, and playing between CT / NYC / SF. He is the founder and chief innovation strategist of DEFT COLLECTIVE, a creative innovation agency based in Hartford, Connecticut.

My name is Gitamba Saila-Ngita and I once helped an agency sell sugar water to children. I’ve also helped them sell new technologies, ideas, and other people’s culture. But what I’ve always found funniest is when I’ve been hired to make things more, “urban” and by “urban” they meant “black”. Race is a topic that in the United States at times feels like we’re trying to seriously look at it with a fine lens and other times completely turning a blind eye to avoid it because it might make for a lack of a better word a few folks, butt hurt.

Recently in the last few months I’ve found that for advertising folks and almost always on this blog we’re hashing over if something is, “racist or not”. Mainly under the pretense that a group of people were offended by the subject matter in the ad and have used the internet to voice their opinion. I reached out to Kiran because I wanted to hopefully start a casual dialogue about the matter from the perspective of ad folks who clearly make these communications for their respective clients.

First let’s define some things so we can look at this objectively.

Racism is defined by most dictionaries as “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities     and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular  race” and a racist as “a person who believes in racism, the doctrine that a certain human race is     superior to any or all others. For fun, let’s throw in offensive as “causing resentful displeasure; highly irritating, angering, or annoying”

With those thoughts in mind, I wanted  to find an ad each time I or anyone else writes for this series and put it through those quantifying factors with understanding that the third one is purely subjective to an individual or group.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While you’re battling Wednesday workdays at the office, Geico has a new addition to their “Happier Than” campaign that gives a literal visual representation to Hump Day. Yes, a camel, with humps. The camel’s coworkers don’t look thrilled with their humped friend running through channels of cubicles and interrupting their productivity. Wednesdays should be a time of cautious optimism – by the end of the day, a majority of the week will be finished – but these guys look like they just got demoted.

The Hump Day spot – created by the insurance brand’s longtime ally The Martin Agency – won’t be going up on the Mount Rushmore of  ”Happier Than” ads. That space is reserved for Dikembe Mutombo‘s supermarket exploits and Eddie Money’s entrepreneurial skills, commercials that dealt with clever concepts that riffed on pop culture. “Hump Day” is more of a cheesy pun dragging itself over 30 seconds of airtime. Re-strum the banjo, there’s always next time. A ridiculously long credit list awaits after the jump.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Well, the decision came a tad quicker than we expected but according to reports from you know who, Chicago-based Cramer-Krasselt’s relationship with Porsche continues as the automaker has retained said agency’s services after a pitch that dragged on for six months. You’ve probably read Porsche’s perspective, now here’s a quick note from C-K president/CEO Peter Krivkovich:

“During the past five and a half years, C-K has enjoyed a great relationship with Porsche and we look forward to continued success together.

After the client’s best sales year ever in 2012, the best Q1 in their history to kick off 2013, and all of the industry recognition for smart strategic and creative thinking, we know we’re onto something good as PCNA’s agency partner.

When reviews like this happen – and this was a long and thorough one – it’s a good reminder for everyone that we are prepared for the challenge to work just as hard for our clients now as we were the day we were invited to their first pitch.

In the end, the proof is in the results. And Porsche has them.”

Peter Krivkovich”

As we mentioned last week, sources in the know were telling us that Porsche narrowed down its creative review to incumbent C-K, which has handled the account since 2007,  and Minneapolis-based Olson.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last Friday, the brilliantly insightful Corey Eridon of HubSpot castigated P&G for calling their “Facebook experiment” a failure and for the brand’s complete misunderstanding of digital strategy.

In response to the assumption it’s somehow Facebook’s fault P&G fell on its face and had to lay off 6,250 employees, Eridon wrote, “Yes, it’s Facebook’s fault. It’s not P&G’s fault for failing to stay on top of digital trends like learning what EdgeRank is and how it works. It’s not P&G’s fault for relying on third-party assets to build their brand, instead of investing in assets they can control, like their own website and blog. It’s not P&G’s fault for failing to create remarkable content that — and if you know how EdgeRank works you’d know this — gets you more visibility on Facebook due to reader engagement. It’s not P&G’s fault for failing to realize no audience is guaranteed, paid or otherwise, and that audiences are actually earned on a daily basis. And it’s certainly not P&G’s fault for expecting a “new” platform like Facebook to work by slapping on the same old-school ad tactics they’ve been using (and, based on their rampant layoffs, not using well) for decades.”

Whoo! It’s like you can visualize Eridon in a cage match schooling an army of P&G mascots on how shit gets done in today’s world of digital marketing.

But Eridon, much like everyone at HubSpot, isn’t out to crotch punch just for fun. No. She has wisdom and advice to share with P&G. Information the brand could actually act upon to better their marketing and put an end to the $10 billion they waste…uh…spend annually on marketing.

She sites some of the great work P&G brand Charmin has done and how some of that work, coupled with a concerted owned-media approach to marketing could right the brand and put them on a course to better success.

This notion that throwing more money at a problem is rooted in a Neanderthal-like belief that more GRPs, more reach, more frequency or more weight are the answers to all marketing predicaments. When there were just three television networks, one daily newspaper, a handful of radio stations and a few special interest magazine, that approach made perfect sense. In today’s hyper-fragmented, internet-enabled world that approach no longer works. What does work is the creation of interesting, educational, informative and helpful content that is easily found when a person comes looking. Content that enables a brand to become a trusted resource, not an annoying interruption.

And yes, it’s more complicated and involved that just creating a few informative blog posts but helpful content is where it begins. Helpful content garners leads and properly nurtured leads convert to customers.

Check out this infographic for a super simple explanation of inbound marketing…which is what we’re talking about here and what P&G should be doing.

Get a load of this insanity. Mondelez, that packaged goods company all the social media whiz kids love so much because it’s behind Oreo, has now decided it will take 120 days to pay agencies and other suppliers. And get a load of this buzzword-laden bullshit a Modelez stament gives as reason for the move:

“We’re continually looking to drive efficiency and improve our processes on a global basis. Extending our payment terms allows us to better align with industry and make sure we compete on fair grounds, while simultaneously improving transparency and predictability of payment processes.”

Um, what?

You meant to say you’re doing this to make your books look better, are able to spend more than you have and don’t give two shits about how this will affect your agency partners.

If you don’t have the money and can’t pay for something then don’t buy it in the first place. That’ll make your books look better. Not fucking vendors up the ass by making them wait 120 days for payment.

And we wonder why this country is in so much debt.

On an up-note, this is great news for FastPay