Remember the scene in the movie Pulp Fiction, where that line came up? Yes, there was a man in a more than compromising position with a black rubber ball in his mouth. That's how most people feel when you say you're going to talk advertising. Because as Hugh says in the cartoon here, when you talk advertising, people think you're going to talk like advertising, and they truly don't like that. With good reason. Advertising in the past has talked down to people, but now, slowly, with the advent of social networking and consumer conversations happening in a larger space than much advertising occupies, advertising companies are coming to realize that they need to be talking with people instead of talking at them. Thank god.That said, and before people start to think that I don't like advertising, I'd like to say stop. I love advertising. In fact tomorrow morning I'm having a meeting with the head of possibly the largest agency in Munich. "I'm Lovin' It!" Advertising, that is. And every once in awhile I find something truly enlightening in that universe that just makes me sit up and smile. This week, I found three of those things.
I AM THE CLIENT! - The first thing I found is a blog called "I AM THE CLIENT". This was forwarded to me by a pal at DDB and is positively the funniest agency blog I have yet to read. Yup, there go my readers. But I don't want to be just an advertising blog anyway so who cares. On to the story. I AM THE CLIENT is written, ostensibly, by a guy named Dave Knockles, who claims to be quite possibly the word's greatest marketing director - and it is a positive hoot. Here's an entry from a recent post:
"I got out of bed feeling so perky, I could have hung a week's laundry off my stalk-on. GOOD DAY TO YOU, WORLD! - Why such expansive morning wood? - Because today was my first day with my new agency. And I was so excited about telling them what the first campaign is going to be, I almost dry-humped the postman! - So, I breezed into the agency at 11am, virtually bang on time for my 10am meeting."
Don't think that's funny? You must be a girl. Whatever the case I do recommend you check it out. It's racy for sure, but refreshing in a business that could use a whole lot more good humour these days.
MEDIABLIPS - My next find was MediaBlips, a site dedicated to highlighting advertising and marketing blogs. I found this curiously from my Statcounter stats, as someone had found me through this site. Upon further investigation I looked into MediaBlips and found out that they had already found me and had given WWED a score of 108 - without me having done a single thing. So that's not so bad. You can check the box below and see if I've gone up or down from this post. They track Seth Godin as well and he gets a score of 158, so I'm just 50 points away from a guy who's written 10 best-selling marketing books. Hmm, there's an idea. I should write a book!
CarlsonCreative - My final discovery of the week was one of an old friend who was the first and best designer at CarlsonCreative, Inc. in Seoul, the first 100% Foreign Invested agency in Korea. Nam Mee-Hyun came to work for us with just about a year's worth of not very impressive experience and went on to not only get our agency into the New York Art Directors Show, but to help us win significant business from British American Tobacco, Samsung, LG, The Korean Ministry of Finance and many other clients. She had written me last week looking for a letter of recommendation upon her graduation from the Pratt Institute in New York with a Masters degree in Communications Design. Imagine that, an employee who wins an award from one of the most prestigeous creative shows in the world before she gets her degree from one of the most prestigeous design schools in the world. I was more than happy to write the letter - in fact, I was delighted. The poster on the left, with the New York and Seoul subways combined, was designed by MeeHyun to promote our agency's sponsorship of the New York Art Directors Show in Seoul upon the inclusion of our work. We were the only agency in Korea to have enjoyed that particular distinction that year, 1999. Exactly ten years ago. Happy anniversary, MeeHyun!And cheers Adfolks! That wasn't so bad, was it? I've had a very nice week so far.
