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AwardsMonday Sep 22, 2008
Geico Caveman and Serta Sheep Are In The Hall Of Fame
The Cavemen and the Serta Sheep were inducted into the hall of fame this Advertising Week. Rah. Also in the hall are the slogans: "We Deliver For You" from the United States Postal Service and "What Can Brown Do For You" from UPS. Double rah. The Geico Gecko was on hand to see the Cavemen be inducted, which just is too stupid for words. Hopefully, this won't be the only news coming out of Advertising Week. I'm not holding my breath though. Thursday Sep 18, 2008
Advertisers of Whom You Weren't Aware
When it comes to U.S. advertising, most of us refer to the four major hubs; New York, LA, Chicago and Minneapolis. But what we forget about is...the rest of the country. Frankly, it's easy to do since they don't always make as much noise. But today we honor the United Adworkers Local 208, aka the Milwaukee ad club, whose community is rife with creative goodness, practices the martini lunch (OK, we made that up), and definitely knows good work when they make it. Last week, Milwaukee's addies celebrated the past year of "hard work" done in their respective shops during the annual 'Milwaukee 99' award show (think One Show, without the attitude), an event distinct in its tacit debauchery, inside jokes and great work. The piece you see above won "Best in Show". Created by downtown pro-bono shop Serve (staffed heavily by volunteer addies from BVK), "One Shot" was produced for the District Attorney of Milwaukee. Serve, as its name suggests, is a shop that works solely with clients whose goal is to help others. See addies, it's not all about the money. We know Milwaukee well, since we spent some time there pre-NYC. In fact, we even did some work on a previous award show way-back-when on a very small scale. We're happy to see it (and Milwaukee's ad biz) flourish, and hope you are too. Kudos to you Serve, and all the Milwaukee 99 winners. Check out the "Best in Show" creds, after the jump. And if you'd like to share another great ad-community with us, e-mail Matt at agencyspy at gmail dot com. IM/Twitter: AgencySpy. Friday Sep 12, 2008
The Rise Of The Chicago Creative Club
The Chicago Creative Club awards show has been "resurrected" according to those ad slaves in the Windy City. Apparently, the show has been a vicious and drunken affair. One of the stand outs in 2006, was the Master of Ceremonies Tony Little, who was accompanied by "two scantily-clad, large-breasted bimbos." According to EuroRSCG CCO Steffan Postaer the show: "-had degraded into a one-sided and ugly contest right before many of our eyes. Participants left drunk and/or dismayed and certainly disenchanted. We woke up to beastly reviews from the local press. Most felt the show had been ruined beyond repair." And this has been going on for years! Last year, they didn't have a show at all. It was that bad. However, 2008 proved to be a comeback of sorts with a full roster of Chicago ad execs pitching in to revamp the judging process to the event itself. The big winner at this year's show was not Leo Burnett (who took home nine awards), but Chicago itself. The show was organized and dignified. Even stodgy journo Lewis Lazare said the show was better, despite a few shops, such as Cramer-Krasselt and Ogilvy, declining to participate. Seems those shops didn't have the faith and without that in the ad business, what have you got? Cynicism. Not good. Best of show went to BBDO for its Canadian Club campaign that comes with the tagline: "Damn Right Your Dad Drank It!" Congrats! For more gory details of how the Chicago Creative Club got its act together, go to Postaer's blog. Wednesday Sep 10, 2008
And The Emmy Goes To...
As the terribly cheap and shoddy Emmy website will tell you, the main company listed is Big Spaceship with the additional co-entrant of BBDO New York. Ooooh! Good luck to both agencies! Big Science (No Not Spaceship) Says There's Value In Awards
In the ongoing and every growing discussion about the value of Cannes, Big Science, a Pittsburgh based production studio, has decided to add their two cents. The agency had performed some work for Microsoft through McCann's T.A.G unit (the only good McCann unit, just sayin'). McCann filled out their entry forms and like a good traditional agency made sure that Big Science was listed. Just a note to David Lubars - this my friend is how you work with production companies. T.A.G and Big Science won two Grand Prix Lions. President of Science, Jay Green, said that those wins led to a slew of calls from potential clients. The win led to agencies calling for the shop's reel including JWT and big shots like director Peter Jackson. While the value of an award is often debated here and on other blogs, as a morale booster for the team? It can't be beat. As a possible angle for new business? It appears that makes the list, too. That is, if your company even makes it onto the entry form. More: Bullshit On Cannes - The Value Of The Brand And The Win [source] Directors? Creativity Is Looking For You
Directors? It's time to get your gear together and submit to Creativity's Directors to Watch report. The magazine is looking for: directors who've had no more than three years of experience,,but we're very also open to breakout talents (those who've been directing for a while but have recently shot into the spotlight thanks to feats of filmic genius) and to directors outside the U.S. we might not be so familiar with. I like Creativity. It's young, looking globally with a bit of humor thrown in. When I say, humor, I mean in that Economist magazine kind of way, where the laughter comes from the side of the mouth, more of grunt of appreciation really. That said, they're like the Tokion or The Fader of ad mags (a little down town, a little edgy) and who doesn't love that? Get the submission details here. Friday Sep 05, 2008
Going Down In A Blaze Of Glory
As you know, this is the very fine Art Director's Club way of selecting the vanguard of young talent. No, you can't see their work right now. Yes, we'd like to see it to, but alas. The site does not link to homepages or entries. That said, there will be an exhibit in New York on September 5 to the 19th. If you don't live here to bad. You'll have to wait for the winning entries to go live in the permanent online collection on the 22nd. By then, you will have forgotten about it. Silly, silly ADC. In the mean time, the list of winners is after the jump. We wholeheartedly say congratulations! We're all for some new blood, fresh ideas, total renegades, all that jazz. Tuesday Sep 02, 2008
Bullshit On Cannes: Ghost Ads, Cannes Farms And Cannes Itself Isn't Going To Listen To The Industry
Cannes has come and gone. The festival officially ended in late June, but the ad world is still aflutter with cries of foul. One question has been filtering to the top of blogs and ad magazines: What to do about Cannes? This year's festival like the many that have gone before had the annual outing of fake ads beginning, but not ending with JC Penney's "Speed Dressing." The dark side of client dabbling also hit the spotlight when Amnesty International ran an ad just once in order to qualify for the awards. These dust-ups have lived beyond the life of the festival and regenerated across the blogosphere with new details and bold speculation attached. In the internet age, where everyone is a journalist, twitter confirms rumors and nosy blogs (just like this one) look to entertain, skeletons in the Cannes closet will continue to filter to the top of Google rankings. What once was privy to those in the industry is now fodder for everyone to enjoy - like it or not. So, what are we going to do about it? As R/GA CCO Nick Law put it in Adweek, it "is first and foremost a business. It will do what it has to do to survive." Really? Then they best get on it. After the jump, see what Cannes is prepared or rather, not prepared to do to tighten up the Cannes Lions Festival..." Thursday Aug 28, 2008
Advertising Week: It's That Time Again
Advertising Week is almost upon us (September 22-26). Mark your calendars. Get pumped. It's a long, long week. As usual, it's time to vote for your favorite slogan and icons, one of each will be added to the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. Vote here. Nominees are listed after the jump. Warning: As usual, there's about two thousand entrants in each category. Tuesday Aug 26, 2008
Lubars And The Creative Director's Dilemma
Creativity's 2008 Awards Winners list just went up. The list tallies the results from the major advertising awards shows and spit outs the top winners over all. BBDO is taking top honors in the agency network with 2015 points. Almost half of that is from BBDO New York, which earned a whopping 845 points. Nice work, guys. Lubars, the great CD in the sky, is naturally in the number one spot on the creative directors list. The stories about Lubars are legendary, as they would need be at this point in his career. How much of a hand does the Great One have in the work that is produced by the shop? Parker pointed out the rumors today that David has little involvement in the creative process. "Dave Lubars is listed as CD on 720 winning campaigns... which means he must have spent at least two minutes on each one..." Just like you, we've heard that same line. For example, what about Lubars' barely there involvement with the HBO Voyeur campaign? Cheers to the staff at BBDO for a great concept and execution. However, we hear the big man didn't come into the picture until it was at end game. Then, like a good CD (?), he firmly defended the shop's creative process in the Big Spaceship dust up, as if he had been there the whole time and knew the intimate details of how it all went down. If you recall, in an e-mailed statement to AdAge, Mr. Lubars said his agency was "the source of the idea." He went on to say that, "On 'Voyeur,' BBDO thought of the idea, shot the idea, then brought in Big Spaceship to do what they do." Come on Davey. You have no idea what they do! And for the record, we hear that your version of things is a bit off base. We hear that Big Spaceship had a huge hand in taking the concept from one level, a video player, to a dynamic website experience. We also hear that BBDO didn't even give Big Spaceship a brief, because you know, for a video player, you don't really need a brief, now do you? There's more details, but lets skip all the nitty-gritty-shitty stuff, yeah? The campaign, as we all know, went on to win several Lions including a Cyber and an Integrated. Somewhere in there, Big Spaceship, deserves a whole ton of credit on the creativity side. So, the man can't get with the program and make nice with digital agencies. Lots of traditional CDs can't, but you know... they have other good qualities. Consider that Lubars certainly deserves applause for nurturing along great talent and keeping his team together to churn out big campaigns like Voyeur. The function of the CCO or ECD is a difficult one all around. You are responsible for all of the work that comes out of your shop. You answer to the big guys. You lead. You defend. You inspire and you also take the fall if it goes pear shaped. Not easy to do day in and day out. Some creative directors do it better than others. For example, we hear nary a bad word about Geoff Edwards from TAG. So, where does Lubars fall on the great CD scale? You could argue for the top or the bottom. For now, we'll say we're undecided. Got something to say about this? Try the comments section or email us - agencyspy at gmail dot com PreviouslyCannes Is Kind Of Like A Game Of Bolita Return Of The Wrath Of Cannes... Mindless Mumbo Jumbo About The Clios Tonight's The Night, The Niiiiight Checking In With Neil French And The World Press Awards Double Digit Gainers: The B-to-B Awards The One Show Shortlist: Full Disclosure Leaves me thinking of a Wizard of Oz quote... Meet The Prom King And Queen Of The Andy's The Cool Kids Are Headed To India |
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