Facebook…smacebook.

OK Facebook and Twitter are not the ‘be all and end all’ of advertising.

There. It has been said. It’s a part, and generally not the first part, nor the most important part. Next time you’re thinking of creating a brand memory for your business (and doing it on the cheap by using ONLY social media) ask yourself a couple of questions…

1) Do I have perspective on my market or am I just presuming that because I am addicted to status updates that my customers are too? Sure I’m a 20 something marketing manager, but is that who buys my product or service? (I know you think you’re in with the cool kids, but there’s like this group, like over there that are like, way cooler than you and they packed their sneaker exhibition opening by only using BEBO – the free cheap ass wine had nothing to do with it! And gosh, wont those 30 people really spread the word to the world!)

2) Have I ever clicked on a banner ad, Facebook ad, Twitter link or do I find them annoying?

3) Do you appreciate pop-up ads when you are reading your favourite, but obscure, blogs?

4) Of the 400 friends that you have, the 574 pages that you ‘Like’ and the 1036 people that you follow or follow you, do you actually check every one of their pages every day/week/year…or like most of us, check once and then forget about them forever? Go brand memory through frequency of views! Go.

5) Does a ‘Like’, ‘Follow’ or ‘Subscribe’ actually measure success and a qualified customer, or just measure tyre kickers and people on the look out for a free ticket or meal? How many people that you invite to join ‘your virtual family’ actually bring a proverbial bottle of plonk to the event you so generously put on for them? How many people that ‘Like’ your page buy something from you or even step foot in the place where you, you know, MAKE MONEY!

There is a time and a place for social media; it’s a piece and in some cases, a very important piece. But BY NO MEANS is it a replacement for strategy, creative excellence or paying money to build your brand.

So by all means, jump on the exclusive digital train, spend peanuts and get a whole lot of monkeys wasting your time.

Son of a pitch!

Recently (and by that I mean a few months ago), the agency had one of those ‘too good to be true’ scenarios walk through our door. Yes, it was a potential client, a good one too. So in they walk to our wide open arms. Coffee was ordered, the brief presented (which happened to be a personal demonstration of the product by the owner) and handshakes were made. The potential client left, but before they did we were told it was a competitive pitch. Fine, and so it was up to us to come up with a concept and present to them when ready.

For weeks we mashed our minds together and hashed out what we thought to be two very campaignable ideas – scripts, storyboards and all. One was our ‘out there’ idea, the second was our ‘safe option’. The call was made and the meeting put in place. I drove down to their offices feeling pretty confident that what I was about to present was going to open their minds to the wonderful potential their brand has. Concepts were presented, questions were raised and answered for over an hour and a half, and once again handshakes were made with the words “we’ll let you know” whispered to me on the way out. A week goes by. Two weeks go by. Three weeks go by and nothing, not a phone call back, not a “sorry I haven’t called” email, nothing! Now, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that strange? Rude even, to not have the common decency to pick up the phone and say yes, no, or otherwise? After countless hours of thought and hard work our pitch effort was reduced to the potential client going all ‘missing in action’ on us! I’m not mad that we didn’t win the business, not in the slightest. I’m more appalled at the lack of professional courtesy ’cause after all, they came to us in the first place, it’s not like we hunted them down. So now, they’re armed not only with our ideas, but two other agency’s ideas without so much as a single invoice issued!

Now, I know this situation is not just happening to us, it’s happening all over town, ideas and expertise are casually dismissed as worthless. The ol’ “I could’ve thought of that!” is often heard from a potential client, my common response to that is “Yeah, but you didn’t!” It’s this ‘creative comes with the pitch’ attitude that really gets on my goat. At least, allow us to cover our resources and materials, particularly if the pitch includes a television recommendation.

You know what? As an industry, we’ve only got ourselves to blame, we undercut each other, we shaft each other, we offer this and that with a cherry on top and now guess what? No one makes any money! Creative ideas have now become so devalued that the industry as a whole is committing suicide. When’s it going to end? When are we going to start charging for pitches? I know there was some talk of this happening years ago but that certainly didn’t last long, and with the amount of competition we’re all up against, I don’t see it happening any time soon.

All I can say is be careful if you wear your ideas on your sleeve, because you might end up shirtless and there’s a cold harsh reality out there.

Ryan McGrath – Senior Creative at SeeSaw Advertising.

See you next Tuesday.

So how far can you push inferring without actually saying naughty words in the advertising landscape? We got pinged by the editor of The Advertiser here in Adelaide for trying to use the word ‘prick’ in an ad (referring to the kind of prick you get on your finger…sort of).
Here’s a couple of examples of things that obviously get through the cracks that I have noticed in the last day.
1) Harden the FUIC up
2) Rock out with your C*$k out (this one is on an A-Frame)
3) VILF (Go! advertising their vampire night!)
How far is too far? Or, are we too much of a nanna nation when it comes to an idea winning out over a censor?

No Offence But…

We ran an ad promoting our agency in the July 3rd edition of SA Weekend. It’s attached below for your viewing pleasure and potential outrage. We received some negative feedback for this ad. Some of the comments were kinda nasty. So you get the picture, complaints we received included;

“… it trivialises schizophrenia… It is about as funny as cancer.”

“Schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personalities.”

“It is neither clever or funny and unfortunately reveals your lack of knowledge, your insensitivity and your lack of compassion and understanding.”

“It is precisely this sort of attitude that perpetuates the unfortunate stigma that mental health clients have to endure from a misinformed public.”

Now, deliberately offending the readership of SA Weekend wouldn’t be very good for OUR brand would it? But, just so we’re clear, we weren’t trying to insult individuals who suffer from Schizophrenia or belittling their condition. Most of you will realise that we were using the word ‘Schizophrenic’ as an adjective to describe a thought process that lacks rationality or cohesion. A quick search on an online dictionary will provide you with the following definition of the word:

A state characterised by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements.

For the purposes of our ad, I feel we used the word in the correct context. As you can see however, there are several members of the general public who would defiantly disagree. These semantics are really irrelevant though. Our ad merely illustrated the problem of inconsistent branding in a creative way. It was not meant to be controversial or insensitive. Sadly, the feedback we received illustrates how poorly a percentage of the general public perceive our industry and the people that work in it.

Over the years, schizophrenics have been portrayed inaccurately in many situations and through many media. For example, Heath Ledger’s Joker was a ‘schizophrenic sociopath’. This portrayal of schizophrenia also received a great deal of back lash. OK, so perhaps Heath Ledger’s depiction of a schizophrenic wasn’t entirely accurate. I’m going to go ahead and assume that not every person suffering from schizophrenia dresses up like a clown and shoots around their hometown trying to kill Batman. This is a film about a man who dresses up like a bat, flies around a fictional city and battles evil-doers who have names like the Penguin and the Riddler. No one in their right mind (had to slip that one in) believes that anything happening within the plot line is even slightly realistic. It isn’t reference material. It’s simple entertainment. It shouldn’t be taken so seriously.

But, I’ve gotten a little off track. In regards to us ad people, I guess what it comes down to is the fact that people enjoy thinking we’re all shallow, money hungry, soulless fiends who are determined to amplify insecurities, brainwash our audience and generally stir the pot. I can say with a fair deal of certainty that most people in our industry made the decision to give advertising a go simply because they saw a funny or touching advertisement one day. And in life, you need a job. That’s all advertising is. A job. It’s not some kind of evil secret society that’s hell bent on world domination.

People need to realise that individuals who produce work in a creative forum rarely wish to do anything other than entertain their audience. We may wish to encourage thought and conversation. We may occasionally attempt to do this in a risqué or ‘edgy’ manner. But we rarely, if ever, set out to offend. It seems to me that getting your knickers in a twist over such content is a waste of time and energy. Time and energy that could be better spent contributing positively to the issues that these people are clearly so passionate about.

Chicken Or The Egg

At SeeSaw we’ve been struck down with a pretty severe case of de ja vu recently. After a bit of investigation, we found the culprit. *Achoo* Bless you.

There are two high profile retail precincts in town that are currently running seasonal campaign lines, which are borderline identical. Examples from each campaign are here for your reference. The similarities speak for themselves.

Now, we’re not accusing anybody of plagiarism here. We have no way of knowing who came up with the line first or which campaign was quicker to get printed. Either way, there’s a pretty solid chance that a line like this has been used somewhere else before at some stage. The world of advertising is a big place so, attempting to identify the individual who first penned such a line would be an exercise in redundancy.

At the very least however, this is an illustration of an agency having not researched what their client’s competitors are up to. And what’s the first rule of advertising – know thy client’s business. A quick and simple online journey through Adelaide’s major retail precincts could have prevented what are probably some very red faces. Adelaide’s not that big, people will and do notice.

So, I guess the title of this entry should really be ‘Know Thy Enemy’. But, ‘Chicken Or The Egg’ is a lot more blogworthy.

Step Away From The Share Button.

Something occurred to me over Mothers Day lunch. Actually, that’s not true. It’s something I’ve always known but allowed myself to forget.

The problem unravelled something like this. We were sitting, sipping and answering the standard questions about our lives shot at us from relatives we see only a dozen times a decade when my Aunty mentioned something that truly terrified me. She started talking (in what seemed to be an unnecessarily loud voice) about a status update I’d made a week or so earlier. All of a sudden there wasn’t enough booze in the whole restaurant to drown my shame. There were two reasons for my misery. Firstly, like most things I do online, I’d confirmed my Aunty’s friendship request on a whim and immediately forgotten I’d done so. Secondly, I like to say inappropriate things on Facebook. My status updates have been known to make public toilet graffiti look like an episode of Sesame Street. These status updates are not the kind of thing you want your family reading and it was one such vulgar update that my Aunty was referring to.

The problem seems to be this. When we do something online, some of us believe that it simply disappears, never to be seen  or heard again. There’s a psychological disconnect where  internet users occasionally feel that there will never be any consequences for their online activities. This is not the case. Contrary to what we’d like to believe, the fact is that we aren’t safe hiding in the cosy glow of our computer monitors and our mischievous, grotesque and naughty flourishes of online fancy do come back to haunt us. The internet is not an ephemeral medium. Never was, never will be. Even Twitter updates are being stored by the U.S. Library of Congress as a historical record. The perfect illustration of this potentially crippling phenomenon came at this years Logie Awards, when Sunday Age Journalist Catherine Deveny made some spectacularly ill advised quips about Bindy Irwin and Rove McMannus on her Twitter. She lost her job as a result – and a lot of respect.

But I’m not here to lecture. All I’ll say is this. Next time you’re considering an update on your Twitter or Facebook that may be a little risque or when your about to send an email or SMS that might be borderline inappropriate, ask yourself this. “Would I want my Aunty to see this?”

Your times up.

I came across this last night in a carpark in a ‘not so nice’ suburb of good old Adelaide. I like how direct it is. Park here for longer than 15 minutes and this is what we’ll do to you. Except they would probably say ‘youse’ and do it regardless of if you had parked there or not.

Can you get banned from Wikipedia? Almost!

You want your name in as many places as you can get it right.

That’s what all the experts say. The more places you appear, the more cross references are made, the higher your online visibility, the better result in Google. We thought that we would try and get a Wikipedia entry for SeeSaw Advertising. What we didn’t realise is that we would be opening up the Pandora’s Box of disgruntled editors who in between battling the hostile cybernetic Strogg civilization in Quake and romancing their virtuagirlfriend, would find the time to have the following little discussion with me. Ahhhh banter with strangers…

Stick with it, it’s quite the gem.

Welcome to Wikipedia. Because we have a policy against usernames that give the impression that the account represents a group, organization or website, I have blocked this account; please create a new account with a username that represents only you. If your username doesn’t represent a group, organization or website, you may ask for a review of this username block by adding the text {{unblock|Your reason here}} below this message. Thank you. - Dank 22 January 2010

This blocked user  has asked to be unblocked, but an administrator has reviewed and declined this request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy). Do not remove this unblock request while you are blocked.

Request reason: “I was unaware of the rule against using a company name as a username. I understand and respect the necessity of this rule. However, I had done a reasonable amount of work on a contribution prior to being blocked. I am quite happy to change my username if given the opportunity. If this is not possible, may I please have a copy of the article I was working on? I would prefer not to have to start it all over again. Thank you.”

Decline reason: “Can you tell us what topic(s), other than that article, you would be interested in working on here? I ask because the SeeSaw Advertising article would not be allowed under several of our policies. Please see this message for more information and advice. Thanks. —DoRD 27 January 2010

This blocked user has asked to be unblocked…yada, yada, yada

Request reason: “We would be using Wikipedia to discuss the Advertising Industry; Advertising Campaigns, Relevant Brands, Relevant Identities, New Media etc. We would also talk about other Advertising Agencies. I am in no way attempting to misuse Wikipedia as a medium through which to market SeeSaw Advertising. I would be happy to make any necessary changes to the article.”

And here is where it begins to get silly…and just a little bit personal.

Decline reason: “”we” means that you’re not the only person using account, which means that we will not unblock you because we do not allow people to share accounts Jac16888 28 January 2010

Now I have left Jac16888 as a link because it is so vitally important that you go check out his editing page to make the rest of this story make sense…All we want is our content and I think that to date we’ve asked that pretty nicely!

This blocked user has asked to be unblocked. blah, blah, blah

Request reason: “That is fine. May I please have a copy of the article I was working on then?”

Decline reason: “No. I am declining your request for unblock because it does not address the reason for your block, or because it is inadequate for other reasons. To be unblocked, you must convince the reviewing administrator(s) that

• the block is not necessary to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, or
• the block is no longer necessary because you understand what you have been blocked for,
• will not continue to cause damage or disruption, and will make useful contributions instead.

Please read our guide to appealing blocks for more information. Sandstein 31 January 2010

This blocked user has asked to be unblocked, blardy, blardy blar (I’m starting to run out of these variations on etc!)

Request reason: “Happy for the block to be there, but before we delete our account entirely we would like the text that was placed in your system extracted and sent via email to us. We expect that as we are following your conditions with the best of intentions, you will also do the same. The semantic excuse from Jac16888 about the reason for the block was not a valid reason both for it’s simply purile tone as well as your complete inability due to the technology used to enforce it. I would think that an editor in operation since 2007 would learn how to talk to people – what with a wealth of experience that 3 years has given them along with a virtual bronze star (wow we were all really, really virtually impressed with that one). Looking forward to you wasting our time again. Maybe if you waste it really well we’ll give you a silver star – one not from the Order of Hermes you big old bad inquisitor of light you.”

Here’s where they start really working together as a community!

Decline reason: “Rather than actually read the username policy, the policy on shared accounts and conflict of interest policy, you’re badgering the people who protect Wikipedia from problems – not the right strategy to be using. If you can show the community that you understand these policies, then you may possibly use the unblock template – you’ll have a lot of convincing to do, however. BWilkins 2 February 2010

Accounts cannot be deleted, both for technical and attribution reasons. Jeremy 2 February 2010

What I was trying to say, which I thought was pretty clear, was that your use of the term we makes it clear that this is either a shared account, which we don’t allow, or an account representing a company, which we also don’t allow. I am so sick of you people who think that this being a free encyclopedia means you can use to advertise your companies. You’re the one wasting our time, not the other way around, go pay for advertisements like you’re supposed to Jac16888Talk 2 February 2010

I think we upset him…

This blocked user has asked to be unblocked, etc etc etc (there I used it)

Request reason: “Thanks Jeremy. Simple enough reason. If it is possible to get the text that we inputted it would be appreciated…Jac16888 seems to have ignored this request. In response to you Jac and to BWilkins, we made a very simple request which you have been unable to respond to professionally and in a timely fashion. We have no issue with the account not being allowed so there really is not much point in us reading the documentation that you have suggested (Jac, maybe check the state of your links on your page – none of them work and I am sure that links that don’t go anywhere contravene one of your policies…somewhere) , nor are we attempting to use any strategy. I mean how could we combat an editor that deletes more pages than he approves (I still think the star should read sheriff…lose the latin and give the place a more mexican feel) with no apparent academic or professional background. Sick of ‘us people’? Obviously you do not place Cisco in that basket as their largely marketing entry is a veiled very thinly with historical details – obviously Wikipedia is not as egalitarian as you would like it to be.”

I thought I’d throw that in (I understand that Cisco is a company of note, however there’s more than just historical stuff there!)

Decline reason: “No valid unblock reason given; Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising a non-notable company. OhNoitsJamie 3 February 2010

And then this finally (and yes I did receive an email, an actual email from him!! I’m putting him on my Christmas card list.)

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we have to honour your request and email you the article, we were more likely to do it for you if you’d asked politely. (I’m pretty sure we even said please!) Since that doesn’t seem very likely, and in the hope that it will shut you up I’ve sent you the content. As for the links on my page, did you check past the first one? Which is the only one not working, due to the tool on the other end being broken. Grow up. And when your company becomes a multi-billion dollar compamy like Cisco, email me and I’ll write you an article myself–Jac16888 3 February 2010

Now just to give you a little idea of Jac1688 and his general demeanor (I found him grumpy…didn’t you?), here is the little welcome message on his personal “talk” page.

Caveat

Should I receive information by private means I shall consider that the sender has waived any claim of copyright or privacy on their part of the message and has obtained such permission on the part of any third parties whose post(s) form part of the message. By communicating with me outside of Wikipedia spaces you are giving me permission to disseminate the content of any message in the manner of my choosing, and you hold yourself liable for any violation of law, Wikipedia policies, service providers Terms of Service, and other consequence of my making public of such information. I would note that this is a reciprocal undertaking, in that I release all claim of confidentiality in relation to Wikipedia related communications sent by me, and only request that the recipient act with all due care and good faith. You may request privacy, and I may honour such a request, but I am not bound by it.

Lesson learnt? Beware the empowered Wiki editor but make sure you use their little rant to improve your Google search results! And when we do become a big company like Cisco, I may very well ask him to write our entry…and then block it.

Honestly! I thought you said ‘One white goat’.

Sitting on the lounge watching the new tvc for the trading post – the one with the talking goat and frog. The goat says ‘baaargain’ and the frog says ‘reckon’.
Two things.
One. Sheep baa. Goats do not. (props to meli from txt land)
Two. Is the goat asking the frog a question eg. Is it a bargain? Yes, I reckon it is. I question the obscurity of this phrase over the obvious ‘grabit’ scripting choice that could have been made for the frog.
Someone in either casting or copywriting got it so terribly, terribly wrong.

Spot the difference…a fun game we can all play

We’ve all been caught doing it at some stage. Hell, there have even been experiments done about how much we absorb when we don’t even realise it. And I guess there are only so many ideas out there and it really is inevitable that there will be some similarities in the advertising work that we all make.

I was pondering this as at sat at the Feathers Hotel yesterday afternoon after a hard stint of Christmas shopping. Yes, I was pondering the parallax…sorry, paradox as my gaze was shifting between a bottle of wine on the shelf “The Cover Drive” and the little set of pictures on the wall behind me entitles “The Batsman”, “The Bowler” and so forth. Which had come first and was I sitting in the same seat that a design god (sic) had sat in before? Therefore if one could pull creativity out of one’s ass, could one also absorb it?! Damn those “Shoes and pants must be worn at the bar” conditions of entry.

It’s an interesting question. Which came first? It’s kind of like asking who was original, who actually put some thought in to their work. Now it’s all and good to put a new coat of paint on something to make it that little bit xtra shiny and pass it off anew – happens all the time with websites and kettles. Admittedly, not that often with kettles, but to make Pantene retrospective, “It does happen”. And I guess that’s OK. As I said, it’s bound to happen once or so in your career, it’s just not that good to make it the basis for all your work. A tip for young players here is that YouTube can be accessed by everyone. Old players should pay attention to that too.

You would think that this would be really, really important for a new State Government brand….’this’ being making it original, at the very least in your own state. Like below…pretty sure IS was the egg here.

Now…who was the chicken who came up with Advantage SA?