Ingwalson

Josh Spear this Thursday (updated with NDAC news)

2007-12-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

Josh Spear is a blogger and media strategist. This Thursday, the New Denver Ad Club joins the ADCD to bring him to Denver.

UPDATE: I asked the 32 members of The Denver 50 Facebook group if they thought there was a point to keeping the group now that the show is over. I got nine responses, all in favor of keeping it as the official group of the NDAC's creative pod.

Me and Lisa Simpson and the NDAC

2007-12-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, someone asked me how much recognition I wanted during the Denver 50 show. And I remembered a scene from "The Summer of 4 ft. 2." Lisa Simpson is attempting to hand out yearbooks when Nelson explains how the world works:

Nelson: Who died and made you boss?

Lisa: Mr. Estes, the publications advisor. I edited the whole thing.

Nelson: If you hadn't done it, some other loser would have. So quit milking it!

Quit milking it. Good advice. I will, in a minute.

There are three things I wish everyone knew about The Denver 50:

1. It wasn't a big moneymaker. At least, not compared to what the ADDYs would've been. We got 170 entries, which included more than 600 executions. Under an ADDY format, each of those executions could have been entered again individually. We left money on the table so we explore a media-neutral format that more accurately reflected the realities agencies face today.

2. It was a huge risk (as ad club risks go). It took courage for the board to let us buck the national awards format. It took optimism for our jaw-dropping judges to spend their time on a local show. And it took faith for agencies to buy into the show concept. People can argue about whether the Denver 50 was a huge success or a giant flop. But I hope people appreciate the fact that we were swinging for the fences.

3. The names of our sponsors. There is an exhaustive list in the book. A little extra love from me to my friends at:

• texturemedia, who built the judging site.
• Amatucci, who shot the book cover.
• Pure Brand, who produced the book.
• Integer, who planned the event.
• Fueld Films, who shot our video and game.
• Thought Equity, who assembled the reel.

Today we're all back at work, trying to do the best job we can. That's the nature of this business. What you did yesterday doesn't matter half as much as what you'll do tomorow. Onward.

AdRants on Fueld Films and the New Denver Ad Club

2007-12-04T12:17:00.000-08:00

AdRants and AdGabber on Fueld's film for the New Denver Ad Club:

Look, a bunch of douchey office cogs made of cardboard. Nice wicker basket, guys... We loves it for its hipster inanity. Dig it? Cool. Play the paper dolls game.

Just two days until the show. Get your tickets on regonline.com.

UPDATE: Andy, Pure and Cactus are all going to be there. So is Karsh/Hagan, where I work. And the Egotist, who I assume will be in disguise.

UPDATE: Photos from this afternoon's construction project posted on the Denver 50 Facebook page.

UPDATE: AdFreak also riffs on Fueld's viral.

Monday night isn't ugly, it's beautiful

2007-12-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

• MySpace pages make my eyes hurt. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're beautiful.

• Jennifer Love Hewitt gets grief for being curvy. But she thinks she's beautiful. She's right.

• The concept seems tired. But the video for "Apartment Story" is beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the song.

The Denver 50 short film

2007-12-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

Fueld Films let me put their film on my YouTube page so people can get all bloggy with it.

UPDATE: If you need a good laugh, play the TD50 game. Maybe it'll inspire you to get your tickets.

I have the book in my hands

2007-11-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

I'd like to be cool and vaguely cynical about it. But I'm just too psyched to pretend. The 50 is awesome. Pure kicked ass on the design. Rastar rocked the printing. The work is amazing and interesting. I just want to hug someone. You get a copy of The 50 with your tickets to the show.

It's a good day

2007-11-29T12:52:00.000-08:00

TD50 is just seven days away. The video is out. And our children will live forever.

Some thoughts for new bloggers

2007-11-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

Ian Schafer has some thoughts on the blogosphere:

Anytime the editorial content of blogs is tainted with cash, it de-legitimizes the medium. Even the promise of links is promising traffic which translates into potential ad revenue for the blog. Getting bloggers to create their own ads seems to take them away from what they are (probably) doing best: writing content for their readers. Collectively, readers are smart. They can smell a rat a mile away. Once they realize the content of the blog they are reading is influenced by money, they will move on.

Just to pile on, here are a few other things bloggers shouldn't do:

• Reproduce editorial content without linking to the author.
• Reproduce more than three paragraphs of content.
• Reproduce any photos or art without permission.
• Steal bandwidth by using an existing URL to post hijacked art.
• Fail to hat-tip to a blog that pointed out a story.
• Delete or substantially alter a post, unless you're deleting the whole blog.
• Cross post without linking to the crosspost.
• Astroturf. Seriously, nothing pisses me off like astroturfing.

When I started blogging, I probably violated all these rules. (Except the last one, which I consider almost unforgivable.) You have to give neophytes some leeway. And as more people and more brands enter into a Web 2.0 world, the code of ethics which has bound good bloggers is bound to be stretched a bit. Hopefully the medium won't get so corrupted it becomes worthless.

I just bought my TD50 tickets

2007-11-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

That's right. I had to buy my own tickets. Now it is your turn.

Internet celebrity, Flannery O'Connor and MakeFive.com

2007-11-20T09:08:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite quotes is this from Flannery O'Connor:

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

If O'Connor could see the flood of crap that we consume today, she would have enrolled us in private classes at Andalusia. And stifled us all. To death with a pillow, if necessary.

The traditional media gatekeepers are gone or leaving, victims of technology, lethargy and their own poor taste. But they withered away ostensibly attempting a great service: filtering out the bad, the amateurish and the tasteless.

One of the great myths of the adolescent is that there is a huge raft of talented filmmakers, actors and artists out there, ignored by the mainstream and forced to create genius in and for the underground. But there's not. And today all the world has access to YouTubes and MySpaces and Seesmics, content creation encouragers that have enabled a wave of celebrities whose only claim to fame is their own shamelessness.

I keep waiting for a killer critic to do for Internet celebrity what Pitchfork does for music and Josh Spear does for product design. But the deluge of wannabe celebrities is probably too great for anyone to comprehend, let alone manage.

Maybe if we all put our heads together, we can figure this thing out.

I've been playing around in MakeFive, a new online community based on lists. The site was launched by smashLAB on November 5, 2007. Its irresistible tagline is "You are what you think." And at the risk of stating the obvious, making lists at MakeFive is less time-intensive than at 43 Things.

My first list is of the five Internet celebs who actually deserve it. Join the community, vote on my choices and add your own, if you're so inclined.

TD50 2008 judges I'd like to see: Gareth Kay

2007-11-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

The Denver 50 2007 judging panel was maybe the greatest ever assembled for a local show. Mike Lescarbeau, Mike Byrne, Rob Rasmussen and Kevin Roddy. I defy you to name four more influential creatives in America. I'd love to keep the bar high for 2008. One person I'd like to see is Modernista! planner Gareth Kay. This presentation from his Slideshare page explains why:

| View | Upload your own

TD50 tickets are going fast

2007-11-15T07:54:00.001-08:00

OK, they're not going so fast that you can't get one. But three weeks out from the show, we've already sold about 60. I'm expecting a crowd between 300 and 400. Please be among them.

You must participate

2007-11-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Even though I'm a writer, I have a thing for Web 2.0. Social networks, blogs, SMS, widgets, that sort of thing. I like them because they're marketing tools that "don't just show life to people, but make them live."

To invoke Guy Debord in an essay on marketing tactics is to dare the wrath of a hundred thousand college sophomores. Situationist International wasn't known for purchasing Nikes. But maybe it should have been. After all, "Nike killed the three martini lunch." (And who am I quoting there? Fenske?) Without a raft of ads encouraging us to "just do it," those who can take lunches would probably spend them hitting the bar instead of the barbell.

Nike got rich using traditional media to promote an active lifestyle. But everything top-down advertising does, Web 2.0 does better. It lets people connect based on affinity instead of proximity. It lets local actions take place on an international scale. It gives the people access to the powerful. Perhaps best of all, it tests the concept of juristic personhood by daring brands to live up to their legal status.

And for all the good it does, Web 2.0 only has two real downfalls. It immortalizes everyday language, holding it to an impossibly lofty standard. And it encourages content creation so much that it has confused shamelessness and celebrity. (I wrote a despondent essay on the latter issue; someday I may even post it.)

I think most marketing people buy in to the idea that Web 2.0 is an opportunity for brands to engage with consumers. But how many understand the flipside? Web 2.0 is an obligation. Because consumers now expect brands to make life better. And so Burger King creates a game and Target builds a Facebook group and Adidas shoots a practice film and ESPN makes a widget.

See what I'm getting at? Traditional advertising asks consumers to pay a premium for a product based on brand equity. Web 2.0 asks consumers to pay a premium for a product based on brand utility.

Web 2.0 marketing is perhaps something Debord would have welcomed, if he could have forgiven the spectacle of it all. Because while a brand can't make you live, it can now give you tools and opportunities. That's something that a print ad simply can't provide.

Crossposted on Karsh Connect.

Tuesday morning concurrence

2007-11-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

• TD50 is one month away. Get your tickets. And join our Facebook group.
• Scott Goodson thinks that copywriters are more important than ever. I concur.
• Andy Bosselman is psyched for the Denver International Film Festival. I concur.
• The Denver Egotist is high on Texture. And I concur.

What's a concept?

2007-10-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

On September 3, I left this comment on The Denver Egotist about the definition of the word "concept."

I think the problem is the floating definition of the word "concept." In ad school, they teach you one definition, which revolves around the idea that the consumer must bring a bit of himself to the work in order to understand it. But I've heard people use the word concept as a synonym for "theme." And as a synonym for "cool to look at..." [T]he word concept is like the word edgy - so overused it borders on meaningless.

I can't remember who first explained the word concept to me. It was probably one of my teachers at The Creative Circus. But I've always found the following explanation interesting.

Consider the three arcs to the right. In each, the "A" represents the product and the "B" represents the ad.

In the top arc, the product and the ad are right up next to each other. There's no room for the consumer to have fun with the ad, to feel a connection to it. The headline is probably something like, "Today, you can buy this chair for $99." And the visual is probably a chair. This is not a concept.

In the middle arc, the product and the ad are nowhere near each other. Nobody could make sense of this ad. The headline probably says, "Attila the Hun loves you." And the visual is probably a boat, upon which sits a hippo. This is not a concept.

But the final arc is. The product and the ad aren't smothering each other, but they're close enough to make the consumer feel the shock of recognition and a bond with the brand that transcends any short-term product offering.

Of course even that labored and lengthy definition can't possibly explain something as good as this:

TT&D launches parkcitymountain.com

2007-10-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

Just noticed Thomas Taber & Drazen has the new parkcitymountain.com online. The coolest functionality is the vacation planner, which makes planning your trip drag-and-drop easy. I worked on this account when I was at TT&D, and it's nice to see the site up.

Agency segmentation: A slideshow

2007-10-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, I realized my favorite agencies don't market themselves as brand agencies or online agencies or promotional agencies. BBH, Anomaly, Strawberryfrog and others are just out there doing, you know, stuff.

But I'd never advise a client to position itself as an all-purpose stuff doer. So I started mulling over new ways to position agencies. And an online discussion primarily driven by Adam Crowe, Zeus Jones and AgencySpy resonated with me.

As a way of sharing the discussion with coworkers, I created this PowerPoint presentation. (I know, I know. Scary stuff, writers messing with presentation software. It's literally my first time using PowerPoint.)

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NDAC creative pod meets Tues., Oct. 23

2007-10-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

The creative pod of the New Denver Ad Club meets tomorrow evening after work at Thought Equity.

Am me getting myself dumber now?

2007-10-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

I consider it part of my job to stay on top of the ways in which people communicate. Blogging, microblogging, social networks. Updating my Twitter page via my cell while overseeing a spot edit and rewriting the script on the fly.

Some of these tools have proven valuable. Others have increased my mania. But now it appears I may just be making myself stupid. From The Atlantic Monthly:

Neuroscience is confirming what we all suspect: Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy.

The rest of the article is protected behind a password. But here's an excerpt from the magazine:

At the most basic level, the the mental balancing acts that [multitasking] requires - the constant switching and pivoting - energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning.

In other words, you can do a lot of stuff, but after you finish, you can't really tell anyone what you did.

It may be true, because while I was typing the excerpt from The Atlantic, I must have forgotten my place at least a dozen times. This from a guy who can recite the alphabet backwards and perform chunks of Shakespeare from memory.

I think maybe this is why many in the ad world - like Sally Hogshead - are worried that new media will hurt our ability to concept. Navigating the maze of strategies, media and applications can be awfully distracting. Especially to a creative mind that verges on the manic without any help from hyperlinks.

It's easy to say,"Unplug, grab a Sharpie and go concept in a coffeeshop." But what happens when your creative director asks you if you've seen the latest viral video and you haven't because you've been off, you know, working?

And now, in an act of WTF blogging, I'm ending this post. Because I've checked my email and my RSS feeds at least a dozen times in the last 20 minutes and I've forgotten what my point was. If indeed I had one.

TD50 tickets are on sale as of right now

2007-10-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Denver 50 show will be on December 6 at Exdo. Tickets are just $35 for NDAC members and $50 for everyone else. Get yours at regonline.com/denver50.

This print ad was created for the New Denver Ad Club by Dave Schneider and me.

Goodson on ideas in advertising

2007-10-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

StrawberryFrog's Scott Goodson in mediabistro:

Pure ideas are where the industry is going to have to go. If the execution side of the business is a commodity and people are being squeezed for money, the only way that value can be created in this business and attract the type of quality thinkers that it needs is to come up with great ideas.

Throw out the silos, bring on the ideas.

ADCD Student Show on Oct. 19

2007-10-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

From an ADCD press release:

[The Annual ADCD Student Show] is your chance to see all the exciting new thinking that Colorado's hip, young, highly-caffeinated creative community is producing. The whole event takes place on Friday, October 19 at the very cool studio of Brian Mark Photography, 1550 South Acoma St. in Denver. Admission is free, so even a starving junior art director who spends the day laying out FSIs can attend. More information can be surfed at www.adcd.com, where you can even RSVP for the event.

Michael Bay to "remake" Friday the 13th

2007-10-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have a thing for movies where ax swinging maniacs work out their aggressions. I like them as cultural myth. And as entertainment. So I was excited to read in Underwire that they're remaking the original Friday the 13th:

In the original Friday the 13th, the serial killer made only a brief appearance in the final frames and never killed anyone. Jason didn't even don the famous mask until the third movie. The remake, however, will focus on Jason - who will wear the mask and kill - and keep the famous setting of Crystal Lake.

WTF? The fact that Jason was not the killer in Friday the 13th is a cultural touchstone. Ghostface killed Casey for not knowing it. It's almost as important as Michael's missing motivation in the original Halloween.

The new film's IMDB page lists it as an "untitled Friday the 13th project." Which is good. Because if Jason's the killer, it's not a remake. It's a sequel.

UPDATE: Someday five years from now, someone will point out that Ghostface killed Casey's boyfriend because she didn't correctly identify the killer in Friday the 13th. He killed her because, well, that's what the bad guys in horror movies do. Sigh, I need to proofread more carefully.

NDAC joins the ADCD to bring Josh Spear to Denver

2007-09-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

The ADCD is bringing Josh Spear to Denver to do a talk entitled "The Future of Advertising is not Advertising." The creative pod of the NDAC is co-sponsoring. Mark your calendar for Thursday, November 15.

Liveblog: NDAC planning session

2007-09-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

8:53 a.m. I am at the NDAC's planning meeting. It's an all-day funfest of pod updates and work sessions. There are about 25 people from Karsh, Cactus, TTD and so forth. Got a question or concern? Let me hear it in the comments. I'll try to update throughout the day.

10:29 a.m. Break time. Lots of yapping on the costs associated with running a nonprofit. SWOT analysis. That sort of thing. Apparently the national club wishes we did the ADDYs instead of TD50.

12:20 p.m. Please let lunch come soon. I gave a little speech on the state of the Creative Pod, which was mostly babbling about TD50. Gave thanks to Texture, Pure and Amatucci, among others.

2:02 p.m. Group breakouts. How do we increase relevance to members? Does the pod structure add value or just confuse everyone? How can we help students, causes and job seekers?