Adiocracy

We’re really enjoying this spirited bit of animation by TBWA, Paris on behalf of AIDS awareness brought to our attention by the folks at Creativity. First of all, we’re suckers for animation, and second, we love animation that keeps a serious subject light enough to want to follow. Enjoy!

It’s an ongoing nightmare in the ad biz. Agency and client work hard to find a position and an expression of that position that will set them apart. The campaign goes out and… low and behold, another campaign is out there looking just like yours. It happens more often than you might think.

Here’s an example of two companies — one a mobile phone manufacturer, one a web portal (advertising its mobile phone app) — who both came to ‘You’ at the same time. Of course, ‘You’ is not that unique (ie, Time mag cover, etc.) and neither is the position that something has been designed with you in mind (ie, every car company). But it’s a little deflating to a brand and agency when their campaign shows up on backlit kiosks next to each other claiming the exact same territory.

If you want to cringe, and we mean curl-your-toes cringe, watch this ad for ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ by Mindshare media’s Mindshare Entertainment, if you haven’t already seen it. This is jaw-droppingly awful. It actually makes Brett Ratner’s recent spot for Atlantis resort seem sophisticated.

Somehow the agency and client approved this horrific thing, then convinced Mullally’s agent that her career could handle singing the butter substitute’s strategy to ‘Turn The Beat Around’. These are some of the actual lyrics (seriously):

Fresh butter taste (…something garbled that rhymes with ‘no transfats here’),
No hydrogentated oils, so there’s not transfats here,
Turn the tub around, talkin’ ’bout nutrition,
Turn come see what we found, it’s what you’ve been wishin’!

Somewhere right now, Megan is probably burying her head under a pillow. We certainly hope that she used some of this ‘dance with the devil’ money to do something nice for the world.

Watch for yourself. But we warn you, this is not for the sqeamish…

‘(How to do) Killer Work’ class presentation to Museum of the City of New York:

Assignment: Promote the exhibit ‘Growing and Greening New York’

Main challenge: Budget = (almost) Zero

Solution: Two guerilla campaigns. One using stickers to turn New Yorkers’ garbage into sculpture-like billboards — here today, hauled off tomorrow. And one that worked out a cross promotion with the city’s pedicab company to promote the exhibit and cycle people from mid-town Manhattan up to the museum on 104th.

Here are a few bits of feedback on Mark Burk’s (How to do) Killer Work class:

zannettis.michael@gmail.com
For anyone serious about a career in advertising, ‘How To Do Killer Work’ with Mark Burk will provide great practice at being a ‘creative creative, creating creative creative’. Feedback from both the guru and the students will hone your ability to create sharp-hitting, deep-thinking concepts.

Present your work and hope you nailed the brief. If you do, there will be praise from Mark. If not, well… get back on your feet, wipe the egg off and keep going.

Of course, advertising isn’t done in a vacuum. Through Mark’s contacts, the class was invited to present ad campaigns to the City of the Museum of New York’s marketing department. This real-life experience, with all the demands of real deadlines and budgets, proved an invaluable experience for a young creative honing not only his ability to come up with an idea, but to present persuasively to a client.”

Michael

bradenglew@gmail.com
‘How To Do Killer Work’ was, well, killer.  When I felt my work was getting stale, Mark helped me clear my mental slate to approach each assignment with fresh thinking. It’s a lot of fun to get away from the computer and find your next great idea with nothing but a pencil, paper and your brain. And we put our new thinking to the test with an actual client (the Museum of the City of New York), which really allowed us stretch our thinking, presentation and collaboration muscles — the closest experience you’ll get to being in a real agency!

Brad

rciuchta@gmail.com
“It’s hard to just sit down, cold, and do any work, let alone killer work.  Being a relative novice to the world of copywriting, “How to Do Killer Work” gave me the structure and forum I needed to advance my writing skills from an ad man’s perspective. This course approaches advertising from the bottom, up. Work was assigned to challenge our creative process. Killer Work gave me a strong understanding of how to use constraints to my advantage, whether creating for flashlights, drain cleaner, or plastic storage bags. Mark’s class structure facilitated open discussions and peer feedback that allowed me to learn not just from Mark’s feedback, but from the different perspectives of my classmates. Mark pushed me to look past the obvious, challenge my own initial thinking, and to be open to the ideas of others from the class.

For our final project, we created work for, and presented to, the Museum of the City of New York. We were challenged to create non-traditional campaigns for two exhibits, as well as develop fresh branding ideas for tag lines. This assignment proved to be an invaluable exercise. As a writer, I went through the complete creative process. Then, functioning as our own mini agency, we went through the process of preparing for and pitching our ideas. This killer experience provided us with a chance to present and receive feedback from an actual client.”

Ryan Ciuchta

What a great way to use those unsightly old fashioned telephone wires. Done for Panasonic by Saatchi & Saatchi, Indonesia. AD: Audy Sutama CW: Pancaputera. Illustrator: Rudy Harianto of DeadWolf Studio. Thanks to our friends at scaryideas.com for finding this: