Hasta La Creative!

Once upon a time, we asked if it was time for Showtime to quit charging. Well, now it is—at least briefly. The pay cable network is offering the first episodes of the new seasons of Dexter and Californication free online, two weeks before they hit TV. You can watch either by entering the apt password “Lady Killer.” It’s another smart move for Showtime, whose Dexter campaign has been getting quite a lot of press. Last month, fake magazine covers starring Dexter himself covered newsstands. Before that, Portugeuse agency Torke Guerrilha (whose Web site is worthy of a click) created some awesome Dexter guerrilla work with blood-flushing urinals, Dexter brand plastic wrap, a dead guy on the street and bloody body parts in a butcher’s window. That campaign was limited to Lisbon, but caused a minor U.S. fan frenzy, thanks to the power of the Internets. In all the hubbub, let’s not forget Showtime’s Californication campaign, which became pure genius the moment Duchovny entered rehab for his sex addiction. Staged or not, how serendipitous! It’s also nice to know the network doesn’t only pimp out its female stars. Showtime knows what you really want: porn, weed, and violent psychos. Take that, Skinemax!

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

LONDON – Blyk, the mobile network that offers users free calls in return for receiving ads and promotions, has signed up double the number of UK users it had targeted when it launched 12 months ago.

LONDON – Absolute radio plans to hand listeners an insight into how its weekly playlist is decided, as well as having the chance to voice an opinion on the music that is played, ahead of its rebrand from Virgin Radio later this month.

From a branding perspective, click through rates are a poor metric, because one needn’t click a banner to be impacted by it.

According to The Wall Street Journal, ad-technology and Web-measurement companies (namely Microsoft) are trying to engineer a comeback for display ads, offering data that they say show display advertising is more effective than marketers think.

The debate revolves around what leads consumers to take actions on the Web: buying something, printing a coupon or visiting a Web site. Up to now, most advertisers judged the effectiveness of an ad campaign by what consumers did after they clicked on the ad. But some marketers say they are now using research not only from Microsoft, but also independent Web-measurement firms like comScore and Omniture, to figure out what happens before people click on ads — even in situations where they don’t end up actually clicking on the ads.

The major conclusion of this research: By the time consumers search for a product or service, they’ve often already made up their minds to buy it. And display ads are often an important factor in their reaching that conclusion.

My conclusion: buy all the search terms you want, but back them up with display ads.

The brag-gag-alific press release from Fletched Martin says:

QSR Publicity Stunt Gives Appearance that People on Billboards are “Thinking Arby’s”

ATLANTA (September 19, 2008) – Fletcher Martin, a fully integrated marketing communications agency, caught drivers’ attention during the evening rush hour in Atlanta Thursday with a unique publicity stunt.

The agency, which represents Arby’s, placed large helium balloons with the Arby’s logo near billboards that prominently featured people’s faces. The stunt gave the illusion the people on the billboard were “Thinking Arby’s” as seen in the popular television ads where the Arby’s hat appears above people’s heads.
[snip]

What a cheap way to get some attention, and Arby’s was behind that? Can’t buy your own media space guys? Wow, the US economy must be worse than I thought. Wonder what the people who paid to be on those billboards thought of the stunt, not to mention the billboard owners (in this case the owner looks to be CBS?). Don’t get me wrong, the idea is kind of cute, it would benefit from having a “thought bubble shaped” ballon but my guess is Arby’s could not afford even novelty shapes. Whenever I see big brands do cheap shit they strike me as stingy – I hope they aren’t cutting corners like that when they prepare food. “Arby’s, where the meat fell off the back of a truck yesterday.” or “Arby’s, where everyone is paid below minimum wage because we’re stingy bastards”, yeah that seems about right. Honestly, big brands can buy their own media and ad creep creeps people out.

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Advertising School: European School of Design, Frankfurt, Germany
Creative Director: Ralph Thamm
Art Director / Photographer / Concept: Pavel Bondarenko
Copywriter: Reinhard Obinger
Published: August 2008

Advertising Agency: 1861united, Milan, Italy
Creative Directors: Roberto Battaglia, Pino Rozzi
Art Director: Marrollo Alice
Copywriter: Serena Toppeta
Photographer: Joan Garrigosa
Published: January 2008

www.hackthiscode.com and you’re hired.

Advertising Agency: Publicis, Bucharest, Romania
Creative Director: Razvan Capanescu
Art Director / Photographer: Dragos Ometita
Copywriter: Cezar Panait
Published: September 2008

LONDON – Ford has kicked off a pan-European campaign to launch its – very pink – new Ford Fiesta model.

Business Week and Interbrand have released their annual list of the best global brands, except that it’s incredibly inaccurate. As the magazine notes, “Interbrand uses financial data for the 12 months ending June 30 for all the brands, we decided to keep the values the same.”

“In this challenging economy, it is important for BusinessWeek to offer
its audience insight into the best global practices for increasing brand value,” said Stephen J. Adler, editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek. Well, sorry pal, but this list is a bit wonky.
When you guys rank HP at number 12, you’re not including the 24,000 lay-offs worldwide into the equation? AIG at 54? Morgan Stanley at 42? Whatever. Just kick them from the list and re-sort.

Anyway, Coca-Cola is still No. 1 after eight years and IBM, is now
No. 2 pushing Microsoft down to No. 3. Google is No. 10, after ranking at No. 20 in 2007.

More: LL Cool J Does It Not So Well With Sears

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