VW Snow plow and Nike Jordan

Some of my all time favourite tv ads. I'm a sucker for paradox and antithesis.

Thank you Wieden + Kennedy for this gem. Makes me want to find more out about JFK's speech writer seeing these beauties.

"Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country."
Future blog post.

David Droga on advertising's landscape

David Droga's recent outline for his upcoming talk at Ad Asia 2011 focused on uncertainty and the future of advertising.

Droga mentioned that changes over last 30-40 years mean old assumptions are no longer relevant. Statements like these are nothing new. In fact, advertising has changed so drastically in the last 10 years, just imagine the next 5! Droga stated the onus is on agencies to give more focus to creative thinking and forward-looking strategies.The main take away point is that the consumer's attention is now up for grabs, regardless of budgets. It's all about creativity. Reminds me of Howard Gossage, "people read what interests them. Sometimes it's an ad." 

Gotta love Droga.


"uncertainty is the new certainty."

Watch the segment here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTaYU8URTQI

Seth Godin

Marketing guru Seth Godin's latest book, "The Dip" about not quitting. Very apt for these economic times and possibly this blog....

Anyway, here's the link

 http://www.squidoo.com/theDipBook

Suzanne Pope copywriting advice

Recently came across an eye-opening article by Suzanne Pope. She has done work for Ogilvy & Mather and TAXI. She also taught copywriting at Humber College in Toronto. She’s won at the One Show. Yup, she is someone to pay attention to.
The article gives GREAT examples of how to use rhetoric effectively in copy and might open some eyes as to the flexibility afforded copywriters over their execution.

Read it here: 


http://ihaveanidea.org/articles/2007/09/23/an-inconvenient-truth-for-copywriters-how-to-write-headlines-and-why-your-career-depends-on-it/

Advertising Masterclass: Bill Bernbach

Although "Think Small" for VW is regarded as Bernbach's crowning achievement, I would like to draw some attention to this often overlooked Avis contribution. With Avis, Bernbach provided a simple truth with a beautiful twist. Changing perspective and turning a seemingly negative attribute into a positive was so refreshing, so new, so self-effacing that Avis saw its market cap rise from 11%-35% in just a few short years. This strategy of taking a negative attribute of a product and turning it into a positive is certainly a Bernbach innovation and we can see the same methods being employed today by everyone from CP+B to Mother. Remember those Orange ads portraying Orange execs as crass idiots or Pimms as a drink for upper-class twits?
Bernbach's legacy lives on!