Me and Lisa Simpson and the NDAC

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

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

• 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

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

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

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

I just bought my TD50 tickets

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

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

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

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.

Tuesday morning concurrence

• 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.

TD50 tickets are on sale as of right now

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, both of Karsh\Hagan.

Goodson on ideas in advertising

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.

Liveblog: NDAC planning session

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?

The idea still rules

From Sally Hogshead via The Denver Egostist:

We're entering a new renaissance, one with more creative opportunities than ever before, a time when "idea" is no longer synonymous with a 30-second TV spot. Yet in our rush to conquer new media, true insights are often becoming an afterthought. Especially among clients. We're at risk of going to an opposite extreme, throwing out the baby with the 30-second bathwater. As we're exploring various mobile-platform-this and Facebook-application-that, there's only a fraction of time and energy left over to spend on a little thing I'll nostalgically call "the concept."

Sounds about right to me.

Gamekillers premieres tonight on MTV

Why am I blogging this? Maybe because Bartle Bogle Hegarty executive creative director Kevin Roddy judged The Denver 50. Which makes us BFF.

But there's another reason Gamekillers is worth talking about. It's an example of a big idea - the sort of idea that TD50 was designed to reward. It's more than just a three-spot campaign. It's an intricate web of sites and print and now a TV show that has inspired wikipedia entries and blog postings and buzz all over. Gamekillers is a good example of where advertising is in the year 2007. Oh, and it looks funny as hell, too.

2007 ADCD award show

The Art Directors Club of Denver gives good award show. Always has. Last night was no exception.

The big winners in the ad categories were Cactus and Integer. Some other shops also took home multiple awards, like John Amatucci, Vermillion, Lee Reedy and Pure Brand.

In his opening remarks, club president James Pelz said some nice things about the New Denver Ad Club, of which I'm an overactive member. I want to return the favor. When we were planning TD50, we started by agreeing that ADCD was already doing a killer multi-discipline show. We didn't see any point in duplicating their efforts. So TD50 partially owes its structure to the ADCD. There's no excuse for agencies not to enter both shows.

Be that as it may, my agency sat out this year. But Thomas Taber & Drazen, where I worked up until last month, entered a couple things. And our - or is it "their," now? - 2006 print campaign for Colorado Farm Bureau Insurance took home silver and judge's choice awards. Stephen Curry, creative director of Lewis Communications wrote:

What makes this campaign refreshing is the simple credit it gives the reader for his/her own intelligence.

The best part of working on the campaign came after we sent final art out out to dozens of community newspapers across the state. We got media reps calling us to tell us our files were screwed up. The photo was too small. The headline was missing. That sort of thing. We had to reassure them that the files were fine. And our client deserves heaps of praise for saying yes to a very quiet campaign.

So it was a good night. And a tough act for the TD50 award show to follow.

Get another take on the evening from The Denver Egotist.

TD50 Dec. 6 (and other award show notes)

• TD50 judging is supposed to end on September 14. But it won't. Because just like nearly all of our entrants needed an extension, the judges need a few extra days to finish voting. It's a lot of work to get through, and our judges are some of the best - and busiest - creative directors in America.

• The show book will debut on December 6 at the first-ever Denver 50 award show. Trust me when I say the event will not resemble your basic rubber-chicken, sit-down, emceed affair.

• If I could do the submission process over again, I'd have done two things differently. I'd have specified RGB instead of CMYK files. And I'd have given agencies the option to upload film to YouTube and send us the link, instead submitting Flash or Quicktime files.

• This news had to break eventually. I might as well do it here. Crispin did not enter TD50. They'd indicated they would. And we were so excited to have them. But for reasons that weren't communicated to me, they opted to sit out this year.

• Two sneak preview photos from The Denver 50 cover shoot are on our Facebook page. If you're a Colorado marketing-type, please consider joining the group.

• Last week, I dropped by Coffee Friday to see if any of Denver's account planners wanted to weigh in on TD50. Most everybody thought the show concept sounded great. (Or at least, that's what they said to my face.) Some were suprised to hear they could have submitted a strategy or insight as an idea in itself. Personally I think the best ideas are insightful plans backed up by creative media buys and killer executions. But there was nothing in the rules that defined what an "idea" was. Assuming the show is a success and the community prefers it to doing the ADDYs, I think that in 2008 we'll see even more entries and an even broader definition of the word "idea."

More blog buzz for TD50

From Agency Spy:

If Cannes, is well Cannes, then The New Denver Ad Club 50 competition might be like Sundance - for people in Colorado that is... It's a free for all with judges picking what they like, just because they like it. Kinda neat actually. The fifty winners get placed in the Denver50 show book and that's about it.

And The Denver Egotist:

Hopefully, the work is stunning that wins. Hopefully, the judges decide to re-title the show The Denver 167 because they can't disregard a single entry in the mix. Hopefully, we'll have heaps of reporting to do when we're holding the winners' book in our hands in the coming weeks. Hopefully.

Somebody get me Starbucks

I've been uploading TD50 entries for about seven hours now. I'm one-third of the way through 153 entries from 31 agencies. And my eyes are going bleary on me. The work is looking good. In places, great.

UPDATE: Saturday, 4:45p. I'm at 138 of the 167 entries from 32 agencies. (My count from last night was a little off.)

UPDATE: Saturday, 10:17p. Everything is online. I've listened to You Forgot it in People and Howl at least three times apiece. Good luck, Denver.

TD50 entry deadline extended

In an effort to prevent panic attacks, heart problems and nervous meltdowns, we have extended the deadline for Denver 50 entries until Friday, August 31st at 5:00 p.m. You can drop off entries with me at Karsh\Hagan or with Ted at Thomas Taber & Drazen.

Join the TD50 Facebook group

A few quick notes about The Denver 50:

• The Denver 50 has a group on Facebook. You have to be a Facebook member and send a request to join the group.

• I'm working at Karsh\Hagan now. You can drop off entries on August 28th there or at Thomas Taber & Drazen.

• We still need models for our show book cover shoot this Thursday and Friday.

Denver 50 call for entries

The call for entries is out. If you missed it, here it is again. And here are the details.

The DBJ on The D50

The Denver Business Journal:

The brains behind a new advertising-award program for Denver say the city's ad creators need to crow louder if they want the national recognition they deserve.

That's one goal of "Denver 50," unveiled this month. The project, leading to an award show and book displaying the city's best ad ideas, is being organized under the wing of the New Denver Ad Club, founded in April as a regional advertising professional group after the demise of the Denver Advertising Federation in 2004.

The rest of the article is mostly an interview with Norm Shearer and me. (Blush.) But it's great for the DBJ to give us this coverage. Since the article's print publication last Friday, I've received a couple calls asking me for more information.

The Denver 50: How to enter your idea

These instructions also live on newdenveradclub.com. But let's get it out there.


About the Denver 50

The Denver 50 isn't about backslapping and gladhanding and plastic pieces of hardware that you can display on your agency shelf. Because advertising in the year 2007 isn't about those things.

Advertising is about ideas. And ideas are bigger than individual executions. Bigger than individuals.

The Denver 50 is America's first idea-centric award show. You submit your idea, and as many executions as you need to illustrate it. Our judges will pick the best 50 ideas. Then we'll put out a book that shows the world just how good this market can be.

Our judges include the very best creative directors from the world's very best agencies.

1. Mike Byrne, CD and partner at Anomaly/NY
2. Kevin Roddy, ECD at BBH/NY
3. Robert Rasmussen, ECD at R/GA
4. Jason Zada, ECD and founder at EVB
5. Mike Lescarbeau, President and CCO at CarmichaelLynch


How do I enter The Denver 50?

1. Write a 50 to 150-word description of your idea in a Word document.

2. Decide which execution or executions best represent your idea. You could choose a single piece. Or up to 10 executions in an integrated campaign.

3. Optimize the executions you want to submit with your idea according to the specs below.

4. Put all the executions in a single folder with your Word document.

5. Title the folder with the name of your agency and a number. (For instance, the second entry from Thomas Taber + Drazen would be tiltled "TTD2.")

6. Repeat this process for as many ideas as you want to submit to the Denver 50.

7. Burn all your folders to CD-ROM or DVD.

8. Each submission is $100. Make checks payable to the New Denver Ad Club for the appropriate amount.

9. Deliver your disc (or discs) and check to Matt Ingwalson at Karsh\Hagan, 2399 Blake, Denver, CO 80205 or to Ted Morse at Thomas Taber & Drazen, 1610 15th Street, Denver, CO 80202. Submissions must arrive by August 28.


The Rules

Let's keep this simple, shall we?

1. Entries must be submitted by 6:00 pm on August 28, 2007.

2. $100 per entry. Each entry can include one to 10 pieces that represent the idea.

3. The idea must have been created in Colorado.

4. The idea must have debuted publicly between 1/1/06 and 8/28/07. That's 20 whole months worth of work you can submit.

5. Both NDAC members and non-members are eligible.

6. You cannot submit any piece more than once. For instance, do not submit a print ad campaign and then also submit each ad in that campaign separately.


How do I size my files?

Option 1 - Compose a two-minute (or less) slideshow or video about your idea. You can include photos, videos, a voiceover, or whatever you want along with the elements of your idea. This is how they do the Titanium Lions at Cannes. For examples, see canneslionslive.com/titanium.

Option 2 - Follow the instructions below.

1. Print ad, editorial layout, outdoor, logo, poster or other printed piece: Convert your file into a .jpg or .gif. Make it fit within 900x600 pixel space. The total file size must not exceed 1Mb.

2. Video, animation or commercial: Create a 320x240 .flv file. Compress the video at 400Kbps and the audio at 96Kbps. If you'd like to submit a .mov, make sure it is 320x240 and no larger than 4Mb.

3. Website or microsite: Your site must be hosted somewhere for it to be judged. Submit a link to the site. If you choose, you can also submit a screencapture of your idea to demonstrate a key detail, following the requirements for a print ad or poster.

4. Web banners or rich media: Send us your .swf, .gif, .flv or whatever your deliverable was, no larger than 4Mb. If you feel it must be seen in context, you can submit a screencapture.

5. Event, signage, packaging, 3-D piece, environmental or guerrilla activity: Take a photo and then follow the requirements for a print/poster idea. Or take a movie and follow the requirements for a video/spot.

6. Radio spot or audio track: Submit an .mp3. File size must not exceed 2Mb.

7. Something else: Write an explanation in a Word doc and add it to your folder. Be as clear as possible. Include a photo if you like. If this isn't working for you, post a question on this thread.

Shh, there was a Creative Pod meeting last night

The Creative Pod meeting last night was a little quiet. Maybe the Rockies game across the street jammed up parking. Or maybe people were just saving their energy for tonight's kickball tournament. The upshot was that about eight of us gathered at Thought Equity to watch the latest reel from Lurzer's Archive and discuss the Denver 50.

Tim of Thought Equity volunteered to help us find a venue for our November show. Two folks from Crispin dropped by to let us know they plan to enter. Fueld had some ideas for a viral video. I seem to remember drinking a Blue Moon.

Denver 50 and Creative Pod news

• The creative pod meets tonight. Here's the details.
• Mike Lescarbeau has signed on to judge the Denver 50.
• Another judge, Rob Rasmussen, is now ECD at R/GA.

Creative pod meeting on Thursday

The details:

The Date: Thursday, July 26
The Time: 6:00 pm
The Place: Thought Equity, 1899 Wynkoop

The Gunn Report

Ask a creative about good ads, and without a doubt, we'll whip out an award annual. Our intuition tells us that the stuff we think is cool will work. I mean, for real, if you can get a calloused adman to say, "I wish I thought of that," you should be moving product. Right? But how do you get a number cruncher to trust the intuition of a jean-clad creative? Say it with a Gunn.

Every year, Donald Gunn publishes The Gunn Report. It's a compilation of the award winningest ads from around the world. It's kind of like the holy grail of award shows. While Donald does have the coolest name in the ad game, he's also dedicated his life to uncovering the connection between award-winning work and work that sells.

Brian Wilkens will give a brief talk about Donald's findings.

The Denver 50

The wheels are turning. The judges are stoked. The Denver 50 is well on its way to materializing as an actual award show. Find out the state of The Denver 50's corporealness from El Capitan, Matt Ingwalson.

A Reel

After talking about awesome work, we'll see what it really looks like. Gregg Bergan will stop on by with the latest volume of Lurzer's TV Archive in tow. Cross your fingers for some sexy Brazilian ads.

I've talked with Thought Equity and they intend to have the fridge filled with Blue Moon. That always draws a crowd.

More buzz for the Denver 50

This time from the anonymous but dead-on Denver Egotist:

Ideas are cool and this seems like a big one.

Adrants on the Denver 50

Adrants:

Well what do you know. Alex Bogusky Moves to Boulder and Denver launches a new ad club. And that's not all. Properly following America's march toward self esteem-fueled mediocraty where there are no winners and loser only proud participants, the New Denver Ad Club has kicked off an awards competition in which there are no golds, no silvers, no bronzes, no categories and no Cannes-like category shifting to please judges' whimsy.

New Denver Ad Club show gets blog buzz

Fort Collins is an R&D Cluster. And Boulder is a Global Village. But that's OK. Denver has the nation's 14th best abs.

Sigh.

As nice as it is to be more washboardy than Jacksonville, we need something that showcases our creative climate on a national scale. Something like, say, this.

Marketing 2007, meet Denver 2001

Ad Age tells us how a viral spot ruled Cannes:

The film winner at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival was Dove's "Evolution" from Ogilvy, Toronto, a 60-plus-second spot that barely qualified for the category. Famous for going viral on the web and garnering more impressions than a Super Bowl ad, it made the cut because someone at one point had the foresight to run it once on TV.

Meanwhile Fast Company reports on Martin's modernization:

The story of how the Martin Agency got its mojo back is not one of some transformational epiphany or monumental business decision. It is a tale of adaptive success, the power of chipping away at a problem until a razor-sharp idea emerges. It's about letting go of industry habit and doing what works now.

And the New Denver Ad Club's 2007 show has been completely restructured to allow judges to rate ideas virtually, without regard to media. (That's right, Ad Age, we're actually doing it.)

Is this some sort of epic change? I don't know. It's how agencies in Denver have been thinking for years. We've always done guerrilla because our clients have never had the budgets to shoot six-figure spots. We've always been media neutral because in Denver a team doesn't get to concept spots and microsites unless it's willing to work on tradeshow booths and direct mail, too.

Denver has the chance to put itself on the map. Partially because of Crispin. And partially because we're good at what the world wants now.

The New Denver Ad Club gets a New Denver Ad Show

I had breakfast this morning with the team that's putting together the New Denver Ad Club's 2007 award show. I can't give away the details. But we've completely rethought the way advertising gets recognized. And when the Denver book is published, people'll be blown away.