In the 21st Century no one can hear you advertise

With the onslaught of "new media" solutions being developed by ad agencies blurring the line between agencies and places like Disney, Google and Apple, are ad agencies really just that-advertising agencies? Are they something more? Something less? Creative companies? Is it all just semantics? I ponder these thoughts a little bit over at Karsh\Hagan's blog, give it a read and chime in with your thoughts.

Tag a Dummer

This is great, the site www.tagadummer.com provides you with a template you can print out that just so happens to match the font on the nameplates of Hummers that allows them to be transformed into Dummers. Brilliant, funny, and a great way to get people into action fighting against stupidity and excess.
(via Josh Spear)

Honda's Singing Road

Whoever thought of this gets a gold star.

A road in Lancaster, CA was grooved such that when a Honda Civic drives over it at 55mph it plays the William Tell Overture (The Lone Ranger Theme part.) As you can tell from the video below, it's not perfect. Also, apparently residents in nearby houses are upset with the amount of noise being created. Still, a damn good idea if I ever heard one.



(via AdAge)

Kodak: Make Me Super

Kodak just did something cool.
I've been waiting a long time to say that.

The company that has provided me a means to live the last six years has also had it's head up it's ass most of that time about anything digital, advertising related or remotely 21st century. But now they've hitched their star to the same agency that did that "Elf Yourself" thing for OfficeMax last year and come up with "Make Me Super". You upload your photo, and WHAM! Before you know it you're a full-fledged super hero complete with theme song (see mine here). I started passing this around the office this afternoon and I fully expect 50 super videos in my inbox tomorrow (wouldn't it be great if Kodak had planted the seeds of this viral site by informing it's 25,000 US employees about it so they wouldn't have to read about it somewhere else? or does that violate the "rule of viral-ness"?) Of course, you can buy customized mugs, mouse pads, etc., as well as upload your super picture to your Kodak Gallery account. What? You don't have a Kodak Gallery account? Well now would be a good time to start one, wouldn't it?

Don't tell me copy is dead

Last week I declared copy dead. Now it's back.
It makes you wonder why you didn't think of it which is usually the mark of something good.
(via Coloribus)

A Blog You Should Be Reading

Lunar BBDO has been returned to blogging after a brief hiatus and man are they ever back. I've always considered their blog among the best for thought provoking reading, but in the last week or so they've took it to a whole other level. Here's some samples from my favorite posts as of late:


What if we treated all art forms like advertising?
Here at Lunar, we think advertising gives itself a bit of a hard time. As we ambled to the loo this morning, we starting humming All Along The Watchtower and it occurred to us that Jimi's version is much better than Dylan's, and no one said he ripped it off. Music doesn't mind when you take one person's creativity (generally with credit and money involved) and add something to it to make it better. Imagine if you saw a nice little ad while on holiday in Lisbon, bunged the creators a bit of cash and credited them in awards, then remade their idea better. Happier clients, better advertising, the originators get a wider audience for their work and some extra pay. Where's the downside?

A small admission gains a large acceptance.
In The Copy Book, David Abbott condenses this phenomenon into the sentence, 'a small admission gains a large acceptance', i.e.: putting your own experiences into your work can result in a powerful piece of advertising because many people can relate to it more deeply. David mentioned that when AMV was pitching for a travel company, he remembered that his wife told him that she knew she was on holiday because one application of nail polish could last a fortnight (as opposed to when she had to do housework and the polish chipped off quickly). He turned that into a headline that helped to win the pitch

The difference between a great ad and a great creative.
When we evaluate an ad we often confuse the quality of the finished work with the quality of its originators. This can lead to derision of an excellent commercial because its origins are more obvious than those of other ads.

However, if we could take a little step back, we'd acknowledge the fact that D&AD rewards the 'most outstanding commercial 60 seconds or over' etc., not most creative team.

This distinction is crucial and, goddamit, we're going to explain why

So if you don't currently read Lunar BBDO's blog, you're missing out because If this is a blog then what's Christmas?

Long Live Copy. Copy is Dead

A copywriter has needs too. And right now I need to see something better than "wild cherry steam thing." Maybe this was just filler copy until the real line was put in? Maybe this was intentional. The world may never know. Do you have a better line (or a worse one)? Let here it in the comments.
(via Consumerist)

Here I am; More From Nike

(via AdFreak)

Sukle Needs Interns

Sukle needs creative interns!
Now's your chance to get into one of Colorado's best agencies.
Send your resume and cover letter to meg@sukle.com.

Great Videos

Two great new videos that are totally unrelated. And you've probably already seen them somewhere else. But in case you haven't...

Rage Against the Machine live and acapella in Minneapolis


New Nike Commercial "Here I am"

Not getting enough political commercials?

Maybe you're not inundated with political commercials, or maybe you want to relive a bygone era when commercials were honest (or check to see if they ever were.) In either case, check out The Living Room Candidate, which is an archive of every presidential campaign TV commercial since 1952. Enjoy or avoid, your choice.

Amensty International: See no Evil

Step 1: Read these instructions
Step 2: Click on image to make it larger
Step 3: Focus on red cross on Bush's nose for 30 seconds
Step 4: Look at ceiling
Step 5: Wonder how long that image is going to be burned into your eyes (about 2 minutes for me)

(via Coloribus)

Sonic: Food Math

I think these are the best commercials running on TV right now. Sonic hits home run after home run with this series. From what I’ve read all of these commercials are improvised. If that’s true these guys are comedy genius. If they’re written, then some copywriter out there needs some recognition. What’s your favorite sonic commercial?

Advice to Aspiring Creatives

Jai and Wal over at Creative in London have posted a conversation they had with Matt Keon of Fallon London. He's got some great advice on portfolios and getting a job in general and it's worth a read. (above picture is a "help sheet" Matt gave them at their last meeting, click it to see it in a bigger, readable size)

Fight Cancer

Sukle has created the poster above to help fight cancer. The unfortunate truth is that pretty much everyone has been affected by cancer in one way or another these days so it's great to see people doing what they can to help in the defeat the disease. If you're interested in helping out contact andy@sukle.com to set up a transaction. They're asking $25 a poster and they've only printed 48 of them, so if you're ready to fight, now's the time. (via Lunchmeat Underpants)

A Look Back: 200 Posts

200 posts.

A minor milestone for this blog. But maybe you haven't been around for all of them. Maybe you aren't subscribed to my RSS Feed. Maybe you don't know that you can contact Justin at justinmccammonblog (at) gmail (dot) com. Just in case you're new around here I've compiled a list of my favorite posts so it'll be like you've been reading since the beginning. For those of you who've been around a while, what are your favorite posts? Dig back into the archives and post them in the comments.

My Favorites:

• An Advertising Story

• Pure, Powerful Copy

• How Much of Advertising is Really Just Chance?

• A Polaroid Every Day for 41 years

• See Your Favorite Scenes in Type

• Bush in Ads All Over the World
  

• New Belgium: Awesome Ads from an Awesome Company

• MTV's FurTV Sex Tape

• Nike Football by Guy Ritchie

• Meatloaf and AT&T: Paradise by the GoPhone Light

• VW Sounds Good

• Ugly Mug Coffee: A Fresh Jolt of Copy

• Volvo takes a shot at Cadillac's Pursuit

• Student work for Powerhouse Gym is no lightweight

• Nutrigrain: I feel great!

• VW: Building websites like cars

• Mr. W

• If you only do one thing today...

• I'd be offened but I can't stop laughing

• Las Vegas: Now with 50% more Douchebags

• This is what happens when you drink and drive

Joker's 20 on 20 With Me, Justin

Perhaps you've been following along with Joker from Why Advertising Sucks and his series 20 on 20. Or perhaps you've been living under a rock. In case you have, 20 on 20 is Joker asking 20 questions to 20 bloggers. I happened to be #11 on the list. See my answers and read more on Why Advertising Sucks here.

More Manifest Hope

Christopher over at ChangetheThought has a great collection of images from the Manifest Hope Gallery. If you weren't there, go take a look. If you were there, see it again.