Written Off

YOUR DAY COULD BE WORSE

I’ve been a little radio silent lately. Let’s just say work has been a bit crazy, and a bit frustrating. One day, after a 7th meeting about whether or not our CTA buttons should say “Learn More” or “Buy Now” I thought to myself, it could be worse...a lot worse.

So if you’re having a shitty day, here’s a list of people probably having a worse day than you:

1) Amanda Bynes 2) Arnold Schwarzenegger’s illegitimate son 3) Chatroom predators unknowingly flirting with FBI agents 4) Cleveland sports fans 5) I’ll take that a step further...anyone in Ohio 6) Anyone building a dresser from IKEA with a micromanaging spouse 7) North Koreans...all of them 8) Unsuspecting kids on poorly assembled jungle gyms 9) Unprotected safari tourists who tried to feed the hippos 10) Anyone with an English degree

Risk, Reward and a Speedo.

This man's bulge couldn't save Southern Comfort's sales slump.

Today the news broke that liquor brand Southern Comfort is cutting ties with their agency Wieden + Kennedy; ending the quirky and popular "Whatever's Comfortable" campaign after continued sales decline and an ownership change. Why did this happen? Let's take a look.

Taking an aging brand and completely reinventing it isn't easy. Taking an aging brand, completely reinventing it AND increasing sales - that's challenge reserved for only the best in the business.

The strategy for the campaign was simple: be confident in who you are, and enjoy yourself in your own way. The execution featured an odd set of characters including a beer gutted beachcomber, a man who dances like no one's watching and bartender with soda gun swagger just being themselves. It was definitely a left turn from most of the glamorous liquor advertising we see today, but intentionally so. SoCo's brand has never been about luxury.

It was funny. People liked it. It won all sorts of awards. But sales still went down. IS ADVERTISING USELESS? IS MY ENTIRE CAREER A FRAUD?

No. (well maybe)

The reality that we in the ad business sometimes forget is, we're only a piece of the puzzle. You can have the best campaign in the world, everyone can love it, everyone can be talking about it, but if there are other problems with the business it's all in vain.

Whatever's Comfortable was a turnaround effort for a struggling product in one of the most competitive product categories on Earth - and that was before Fireball created the boom in flavored bourbon brands.

Once upon a time, SoCo was a sweet alternative to bourbon and whiskey, now it's just another name in a new category alongside: Fireball, Firefly, Jim Beam Red Stag, Wild Turkey American Honey, Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey, Jack Daniels Tennessee Fire...I could go on. SoCo tried to combat this by introducing their own Cherry and Lime flavored versions, but it was too little too late, more popular brands already had the market staked out.

SoCo unfortunately decided to rebrand and introduce new products in the midst of a category explosion, instead of being out ahead of it.

Stealing the Super Bowl.

How do you become the most talked about car brand during the super bowl without actually running a super bowl ad? The answer used to be “you can’t, that’s insane, put down the hallucinogens and get back to work,” but Grey New York changed all of that with the Volvo Interception.

(yes, it was from last year’s super bowl, forgive me)

The idea was incredibly simple, but incredibly smart: every time you see another car company’s ad on TV, tweet #VolvoInterception and you could win a brand new car. So every time a car brand debuted their shiny multi-million dollar commercial, you were getting a face full of Twitter instead.

Not only is it a smart way to use social media, it’s also an enormous power play against other car companies spending 25% of their yearly budget on one commercial...part of me loves that (I’m a sucker for an underdog). Being effective doesn’t always have to mean being big and flashy.

A Car Commercial You Should Actually Watch.

Car commercials are hit and miss. Fortunately, this one is definitely not a miss.

Tesla, the electric car company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has yet to actually hire an agency, or run a full ad campaign, but that didn't stop the Freise Brothers from producing this dystopian :90 video that appears to be a spec job. It's not every day you can promote a revolutionary product, that also supports a good cause and happens to be beautiful to look at.

While the spot is short on dialogue, it doesn't need it. It is beautifully shot and features a powerful voiceover of a short speech by Nikola Tesla, the world famous inventor for which the car company is named (a similar tactic was used by Dodge in their famous "God Made A Farmer" Super Bowl commercial, and it was pretty good too). The work perfectly frames Tesla as a brand with a higher purpose, and shows off the fierce Model S in action.

Simple is better. (especially when you’re targeting New Yorkers)

When it comes to out of home advertising (billboards, posters, anything outdoors really), simple is almost always better. A creative director once told me:

“Think about it; your audience are on their way home from a job that pays them too little and works them too long. Their lunch was cold, their boss is a jerk and the guy next to them on the subway smells like cheese - make it quick, make it funny and get the hell out of their face.”

This Campaign Doesn’t Suck.

Now that the holiday season is long over I thought I'd take a second to give credit to a fantastic REI campaign created by San Francisco based agency Venables Bell & Partners.

If you don't care about my opinion and just want to see the campaign, click here.

No doubt about it, standing out as a brand on Black Friday is damn near impossible. To me, this year only REI did. Many successful campaigns rely on a time-tested strategy used here: see what everyone else is doing, do the opposite and do it well.

It's no secret that more and more companies force their employees to drag their tired, turkey filled bodies into work for Black Friday. It's also no secret that this tactic doesn't sit well with a lot of people (unless they need to buy last minute gifts). So REI, an outdoor supply company, decided to close up shop, pay their employees anyway and encourage everyone to abandon the shopping mall for the great outdoors. While the Walmarts and Macys of the world were pushing expanded hours and clearance prices, REI was encouraging people to go hiking and get some fresh air. Even as someone living in a city that hasn't experienced fresh air since the 1950s, I found that appealing and refreshing - I even remembered it.

Of course the image of REI's CEO on a picturesque mountaintop didn't hurt either.

Video Ads - More Harm Than Good?

Chris Lake summed up the state of video pre-roll ads (those videos that play before the video you really want to watch) perfectly when he said:

"94% of people skip pre-roll ads. Presumably the other 6% are masochists."

More and more people are downloading ad-blockers to their web browsers, and it's raising a red flag with all the major players in advertising. Why is it happening? Is it going to keep happening? And most importantly, how the hell can Youtube, Hulu (not plus) and other online content be free if all of its advertising gets blocked? Good question.

Ad Age recently published this article about why people are downloading ad blockers like crazy the last few years. The answer is complicated but I see it as two-fold; advertising has become so important to anyone offering free content that it's being overused, and the companies producing the ads aren't doing a good enough job of making them entertaining. So it's no surprise people are fed up and taking action.

No one wants to watch your full :30 or :60 TV commercial when we're just trying to watch The Bieb's new music video. Bieber aint got time to wait for ads, and neither do we.  If you're going to interrupt someone, make them laugh, show them something relevant to the video they're about to watch, or, like Geico did, make it so brief that people don't feel inconvenienced. Some brands are making this change, but others continue to say "just run our TV ad, it's video." That's a poorly thought out approach. Every media type is different, and should be tailored as such. While TV hits a wide audience, it typically skews slightly older. Digital video viewers are young, demanding and have a short attention span because they know they have plenty of options. It's time to create content designed specifically for them.

How Old Spice Went From Worst to First.

How did Old Spice go from a stagnant grandpa brand to one of the top selling brands in its category? A little help from a shirtless male model, and an agency named Wieden + Kennedy.

Why Package Design Matters.

When introducing a new product, package design goes a long way in the minds of consumers, and it goes way beyond liquor brands. Click below to read up on some tips and great examples of how small companies have churned out big sales without much marketing money.