Rock the MoPod, Turn Japanese!

Here's an article from Iconoculture (and thanks to Gene for sending it my way) about a new mobile phone gadget that's all the craze in Japan. It's called a MoPod and they're quirky charms that can attach to your belt, keychain, bag—anything within three feet of your phone. When your phone rings or vibrates these things light up and start dancing. According to Iconoculture this falls under the Funster macrotrend, but I think if they created charm devices like this that weren't so kid-oriented I could see this attracting targets that aren't so laid-back.

Personally I think this is pretty sweet. If I were a Japanese school girl I'd totally want one! Of course I'd also spend a lot of time wearing my school uniform and staring at myself in the mirror, but that's beside the point...

Giggle Like A School Girl

The Spin Cycle

Here's a perfect example of an agency in full spin mode. Now, reading this article printed in today's Rocky Mountain News (3-27-07) you might get the impression that Morey Evans is an up-and-coming downtown Denver agency. While the article details their new Vehix.com TV campaign (and how they film most of their spots in Denver) they also mention what should be an impressive roster of clients for a boutique shop: the aforementioned Vehix.com, Good Times, and Metro Brokers. Maybe if you're a young college grad looking to get a foot in the industry you might read this article and decide this is a good place to start.

That's the perception.

Here's the reality. Their client roster used to be more impressive boasting Qdoba Mexican Grill in addition to three notable clients listed above. They used to be a growing office with a stable of talented young people on both the Creative and Account Service sides. Past tense. Most of the talent that I knew, or knew of, at Morey Evans is long since gone, tired of bureaucratic games, double talk, and back stabbing. Qdoba is gone. And, I heard last week, that Morey Evans is slashing all benefits to their employees and asking them to "go part time."

Doesn't exactly sound like a place I'd want to work for. And that's why this article is a perfect example of the PR machine in full-blown spin cycle. I mean you never saw an article about their TV with their old campaign for Vehix, or Good Times, or when they ran a very successful on-line promotion for Qdoba. Never heard about them when they were healthy, but now that they're critical they're calling in all the best spin doctors. Apparently someone's still working full-time over there.

The Morey Evans Spin Cycle

Wii a Surprise Success

Face it, you thought Nintendo was done. They should stop making consoles and focus solely on video games. You thought that, you said it to other video game fans. Said their time was over, they needed to step aside for the likes of Microsoft and Sony. You said it, and so did I. And then the Wii came out and at first I thought Nintendo had finally nailed their market: children. Then I saw the Wiimote, the wireless motion sensor controller, and my interest piqued. But to be tapping into a market that no video game company has ever come close to reaching? Absolutely unbelievable.

Go ahead and read for yourself, Nintendo is attracting retirees...

People who bombed Hiroshima apologize 60 years later by playing tennis

Geico TV

Here's an interesting bit of news pulled from the I Watch Stuff Web site (www.iwatchstuff.com):

"ABC has announced that they are developing the popular "Caveman" series of Geico Auto Insurance commercials into a half-hour comedy project, or, if you prefer, a thinly-disguised infomercial series. The ads have gathered a following for their jokes about prehistoric men fighting prejudice from the modern world, much in the way hobos fight the prejudice of me and my "hobo stick."

Strange as is it seems, this won't be the first time a commercial has made the jump to a series, as Baby Bob, based on dot-com ads, did the same thing in 2002. It also won't be the first time a caveman stars in a regular sitcom, with Ted Danson having played a caveman bartender on Cheers and a caveman doctor on Becker to mixed results."

Pretty interesting. I certainly love the commercials but as a show will it really have enough material to produce 22 episodes a year? We'll see. Also they do make a good point about Baby Bob, that was utterly terrible...and they even brought him back for Quizno's which was even worse! Let's not forget that CP+B has announced their intentions to take the King out of BK and beyond video games—into TV and movies. A move that I think will be disastrous and forever ruin what is currently a great marketing tool. But it's not like Crispin Porter has a track record of taking a gimmick too far or beating a dead horse. Oh wait.

Anyway, keep an eye open (and an ear as well) for more information on this Geico series. I think it'll be disastrous but I love the cavemen so I hope I'm wrong.

Omnicom Legal Snoozer, er, Seminar

In the interest of actually preserving my job here at The Integra...Interger...Integger...oh INTEGER Group (seriously, how is it a difficult word?) I will reserve my feelings on this bit of mandated industry education. Though if you've walked by my cube in the last few days you've likely read the rant I wrote on my wall. What I will say is this: There are many methods a company can use to inspire their creatives, to get more out of the idea bucket (some call it a toilet), and Integer has used a number of those methods in the past.

However, having a corporate lawyer come tell you to keep in mind while ideating all the unpredictable and frivolous lawsuits brought upon advertisers over the years is NOT one of those ways. Yes, I understand the importance of having a lawyer come speak to the employees, but the kinds of lawsuits he talked about that we have to watch out for fall into two buckets: 1) Sheer stupidity and 2) Unpredictable frivolity. The first being lawsuits brought against companies for things like trademark infringement and, honestly, you have to be a certified moron to commit some of the infringements he talked about. Avoiding these types of lawsuits isn't hard if you act intelligently and ethically (i.e., come up with a somewhat original idea and don't steal). The second bucket is, as I say, unpredictable. So many humorless individuals and overly-sensitive and, in my opinion unnecessary, special interest groups sue or threaten to sue nowadays for the most ridiculous of reasons. Two recent examples: Snickers being told their men-accidentally-kissing ad was homophobic. No, you morons the ad was making fun of homophobes! And the other was the GM ad where a robot dreamed of losing his job and committing suicide which incensed a suicide prevention group saying the ad was insensitive. Of course where was that prevention group that purports to fight for the people when GM cut thousands of jobs? Certainly that's more insensitive to the depressed and suicidal than a commercial about a robot who has a nightmare.

The point is if you insist upon your creatives to curb their thinking, to dull their wits, in order to avoid these latter types of scenarios then what you're asking for, quite honestly, is shit creative. And the majority of American advertising is already shit. We, and our clients, should pride ourselves on being fearless—not shocking—and remaining true to the brand identities and consumer followings that we create, perpetuate, and facilitate. Instead it seems as if we are being told to appeal to the lowest common denominator which, in the end, really appeals to a minority if anyone at all.

What I will take from the seminar is this: there's a lot of really weird, overly sensitive people out there with no senses of humor. I already knew that we lived in a society that is so cravenly PC that it long ago lost the ability to laugh at itself, but it's still disheartening to be reminded of it every now and again, just when you start to gain hope for the future. The point is I know we live in a sue-happy society, people think it's their easy route to a big payday (and thanks to greedy lawyers and their astronomical fees dissuading companies from fighting these lawsuits these people are usually right), and I know that we have to be careful. But I also know that in a lot of situations there's nothing you can do because these people are unpredictable. But I will keep in mind that we are part of larger, publicly-held company. The problem is that might actually inspire me to be edgier, and I'm not sure that's what they want. But trust me it'll drive up the stock price.

Green Integer

I know that here at Integer we're working on conducting a green audit of the company, one of many ideas for advancing this company that was born out of the Iconoculture trip in October. One of the things that helps us in our efforts to be green and promote sustainability is where we work: Belmar. They already promote wind-powered street lights and solar-powered parking meters. And now, according to today's Rocky Mountain News we may soon have solar-powered parking garages.



Contiuum Development is planning on placing solar panels on top of the parking garages here in Belmar. These panels will provide enough power to run 350 homes each year, but will only be used to power the parking garages with the rest of the energy being sold back to the grid. This part of Xcel's aggressive plan (demanded by voters) to make more of the states energy come from natural, renewable resources. In general, it's a good idea and a good sign that as a city and state we are becoming more and more conscious of the problems of pollution and global warming (don't think that it's only auto emissions that create our brown cloud). In specific, it might be a good idea to figure out how Integer can get some of this energy, after all our building is linked to one of the garages.

Speaking of links click below to read the story from the RMN:

We still need more bars

I Love the Commander

Ok, so the title of this post is an inside joke that maybe only one person reading will get, but I don't care. I think it's funny. Moving along...

Below is a link to an article from this morning's AdAge. The article basically says that Jeep (owned by the Chrysler Group) is inviting agencies to come pitch, and among the agencies invited is their current AOR (and Omnicom bretheren) BBDO Worldwide. The's the gist, you want the details then click on the link. Oh and I don't know about you, but I had no idea that the former Dodgers skipper was the CEO of Jeep now. Crazy.

Detroit Still Sucks!

The Future of Advertising Has Arrived

We've seen it in science-fiction films for years, haven't we? Video billboards advertising to people? But never could this be done in reality, it would be far too expensive to treat video installations like outdoor boards! But if the technology allowed us to imbed a video chip in plastic and treat it like a poster? We'd jump all over it, right? Well, prepare to jump...

From Posterwire.com:
3D Movie Posters
Full Color Hologram One-sheets
XYZ RBG offers high resolution scanning services for film, television, video game, and other media companies. The company has worked on films in The Matrix series, Lord of the Rings, and King Kong. Through the company’s XYZ Imaging, it also offers holographic printing services. A hologram is defined as: “A three dimensional image; unlike regular images which are usually two dimensional, a three dimensional image, or hologram, appears to “pop out” of the media on which it is printed or illuminated from.”

The Ottawa Canada firm has created technology that allows eight seconds of video to be manufactured as a paper thin three dimensional hologram movie poster:

The film industry is the first target for what XYZ RGB bills as the next-generation movie poster. The company can place a short clip right in the poster, giving people a chance to view a scene without going into the theatre.

The technology is turning heads around the world. When he heard about it, Titanic director James Cameron couldn’t believe the 3-D posters were possible.

“He said to me, ‘if you have discovered imbedded video in plastic, you have discovered the holy grail of advertising,’” said Jan-Erik Nyhuus, vice-president of business development for XYZ RGB Inc.

The company demonstrated this printing technology by producing a custom made three dimensional Terminator 2 movie poster and presenting it to director Cameron. The claim is that this hologram movie poster is more advanced than past lenticular movie posters (such as the recent Spider-Man 3 lenticular poster).

Go to the

article

Wanna see some awesome examples?

Animate Me!

Check out the soccer poster for the best example of the technology!

Marketing Personalization

With today's consumer personalization is huge. It not only helps them wear their badge of individuality with integrity but it's key to attracting them and making sure that your product is in their cart. Personalization and individuality are issues that fall into many macrotrends present in the marketplace today and in, at least, the near future.

Here are a couple of examples I've recently come across.

My M&M's. Now people can order personalized M&Ms online, you can put a name or message on the tasty little candies. I like this idea a lot, but I'm curious to see how successful it is seeing as how price is still a barrier for most people even in this improving economy. And with a required minimum order of 4 7-ounce bags at $11.50 each this personalization don't come cheap.

Get Your M&Ms

Here

Classic Titles That Are Definitively Yours. Penguin Publishing is releasing certain classic novels with blank covers and letting the buyers design their own cover art. This is currently only available through the British arm of Penguin Publishing, and seeing as how the Brits (and Europeans in general) are usually well ahead of us Yanks when it comes to adapting marketing techniques we should probably keep an eye out for it here in the near future. The idea behind this is that the reader gets the classic book they love but with a cover that's uniquely theirs, making it a personalizable classic that will have more intrinsic value to the buyer. I like this idea and I think this could be a good way of attracting younger audiences to reading. Hopefully this is successful.

Penguin Classics

Keith Olberman: The Beginning of the End

What could be more current, and potentially impactful to our popular culture than this?

YPAAC Kicks Off!

I said I would never use this blog for personal purposes but this is important to me and it's for a good cause. So...

Finally! It's been a long time coming, but we finally formed a board for the young professionals division of the Alzheimer's Association, determined a name and logo and are now ready to have our kickoff event next Thursday, 8/31. So mark your calendar's and please come on down. Learn more about the disease if you don't know much about it, learn how to get involved, or just buy some drinks to help us raise money!



Here's the details:

Memories Under the Stars

An evening brought to you by the Young Professionals Alzheimer's Association of Colorado.

An estimated 64,000 Coloradans have Alzheimer's disease, and in just 15 years that number is expected to grow by 124 percent to 140,000. In response to the impact Alzheimer's disease is having on all generations, Denver's next generation of business, civil and community leaders have come together to create the Young Professionals Alzheimer's Association of Colorado (YPAAC).

Please join us in our kickoff event, Memories Under the Stars, on Thursday, August 31. Proceeds of the event will go to YPAAC's fundraising effort and operations.

WHERE: Five Degrees
1475 Lawrence St .
Denver , CO 80202
(303) 260-7505
WHEN Thursday, August 31
7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
WHAT Light appetizers and drinks. $1 from all
drink purchases to benefit YPAAC

What is YPAAC?
YPAAC is group of professionals who have come together to help the Alzheimer's Association of Colorado raise Alzheimer's disease awareness. Bringing together their unique blend of professional talents, the YPAAC looks to increase Alzheimer's disease awareness within its member's peer group while supporting the Alzheimer's Association of Colorado's greater mission of eliminating Alzheimer's disease through the advancement of research; providing and enhancing care and support for all affected; and reducing the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health.
For more information about the YPAAC, please call the Alzheimer's Association at 303-813-1669

Kooky Krauts

Two university students in Germany have created the "smart" beer mat, which can sense when a glass is nearly empty. It sends an alert to a central computer behind the bar so waiters know there are thirsty customers.*

New Scientist Article

*cnn.com, September 30, 2005.

Mobo

Mobo is short for "mobile order," and is a way for Manhattanites to order and pay for food ahead of time. All a person has to do is use their mobile phone, or a computer, to text an order to a restaurant from a selected list and pay with a linked credit card. The restaurant sends a text when the order is ready and they even have a special Mobo counter for pickup. As Iconoculture says, "Hyper lives demand maximizing all of the gadgetry at our fingertips. 'Fast Food' doesn't mean the same thing it did even five years ago, and consumers expect businesses to keep up."

Yet another example of how we're using technology to make our lives not easier, but even more hectic. The quicker we can get things done, the more we can fit into a day. Our lives are being lived faster and faster, and people are taking less time to pause and actually enjoy life.

All in all, this is a pretty cool service and I would definitely take advantage of it. But every thing has its dark side, in this case it's another luxury that will aid certain people in obtaining even higher stress levels which, of course, will lead them to go to their doctors and demand better medication. So you could say that Mobo, if successful, will be a boon for the pharmaceutical industry. Or maybe I'm just being cynical.

Denver Advertising

An article in today's Rocky Mountain News featuring an ad campaign by local shop Sukle. It's for the city of Denver and it's all about water conservation. I think they came up with some pretty cool ways to get the message across in an engaging way without making it sound as if they're proselytizing or speaking down to the viewer/reader.

Click it here

Mars Fires Snickers Chief

Mars has watched Snickers sales plummet recently which led to them quite unceremoniously firing the Snickers chief, a 20-year company veteran. I wonder what this could mean for us, if anything? What is up with Snickers anyway? Anyone know? Anyone? Bueller? Personally I think this is good for us and TBWA, the company's efforts to turn around its snack division began sometime ago and included shifting the account from BBDO Worldwide to TBWA. I think this move will only strengthen the partnership between Mars and TBWA. The question is how can we take advantage of that? Hmm, how indeed.

Here's the full article:

Snickers Unsatisfied

Denver Making Noise

Denver's finally starting to make some noise on the national scene, and I bet this has Jay Roth so happy that he's probably peed himself twice today. With local PR/marketing/advertising agencies grabbing more and more big, national and international clients other firms and companies are starting to look more seriously at Denver. And it makes sense, after all we are a marketing oasis in the high desert, and the largest media-services market between LA and Chicago. Geographically we're pretty much in the center of the country. Thanks to technology, a strong International airport, and a healthy local economy we're starting to be looked at as a truly viable playground even though we are not home to that many Fortune 500 companies. And with Crispin Porter + Bogusky opening an office in Gunbarrel (Boulder) things seem to only be getting better for the Denver/Boulder area.

Here's an article from today's Rocky Mountain News that sparked this blog post, it pretty much says in two pages what I said in one paragraph but hey it's still good reading.

Creative Agencies Mark New Era

High-Fashion for the Masses!

This is a trend that's been a long-time coming: big time fashion designers creating reasonably-priced lines for the everyday consumer. The trend really kicked into high gear with Target with their designer lines of clothing and home accessories which all bore price tags that ten years earlier would have made designers choke on their fizzy water.

This is a trend that fits right into the Lush Life(SM) macrotrend. People want luxury and they want to feel like they have some of the finer things in life, even if they're on a near-beer income. This is a macrotrend that crosses a few generations, most notably Gen Xers and Millenials.

Now the trend is taking a turn to the artistic. It's beecoming a subtle kind of high-style with a high degree of supposed individual epxression. Of course, for real individual expression you'd have to design something yourself. But artistically-expressed styles can still allow someone to show off a lot about who they are without ever saying a word.

The latest in this trend comes to us courtesy of Puma, which has a new line of shoes designed by Alexander McQueen. McQueen was asked why he would designer a line of trainers and he replied that it's because he's addicted to them. He said he "easily (has) 450 pairs" at home. He is also a big fan of anatomy and it shows, he referenced 19th century anatomical drawings of the foot when designing his line and you can see it in the shape of the shows and, most notably, in the tendons that connect the toes to the back of the shoes on the soles.

To see more of his line (and find out where you can buy your own) click it

here

More examples of expressionistic- and designer-fashion styles can be found in the shoe industry, from Adidas Originals to Reebok, who has gone after the hip-hop culture with lines endorsed by such stars and moguls as Sean Carter (aka Jay-Z) and 50 Cent with his own G-Unit line. Reebok has also gone after the artist though with their Basquiat shoe. And, of course, other examples of this are abundant in our culture nowadays, but with shoes being one of the most diverse ways someone can express themselves without drawing too much attention to the fact we can expect the shoe industry to continue to be on the cutting edge with this trend.

Preppies Hold Candlelight Vigil, Shed Tears

Fashion purveyor to the preppy elite and preppy wannabe alike, Ralph Lauren, has announced that it is discontinuing its Polo Jeans line citing that the line had become "run-down, a bit over-promoted and over-distributed." However, the company also announced that within the next year it will launch a premium denim line for both men and women. They will be known, respectively, as the Lauren brand for women and the Polo Ralph Lauren brand for men.

What does this mean for the designer denim market? My guess is not much, the Laurena nd Polo Ralph Lauren brands will replace Polo Jeans. Actually, I think they'll actually lose a little bit of ground, at least at first. Polo has a limited audience, more so than other designer labels, at least in my opinion. It is still a bit of a shock to the system though for the...jean market...which will continue to be dominated by DKNY, Diesel, etc.

Click it here for the full Ad Age article!

Get Your Own Bobble!!

A recent retail trend observation that capitalizes on the young-adult markets yearning for identity and desire for personalization reveals this new company, Whoopass Enterprizes, to be primed for a big leap in consumer's conscience.

The down-low from Iconoculture:
“'Whoopass Enterprises was formed in 2003 to market products that were conceived while drinking Schlitz,' reads the company website. So, what’s the boozed brilliance? How about custom bobblehead dolls. For between $60 and $190, customers can have their own head – or that of a pet or loved one – made into a bouncing resin tchotchke. As with make-your-own action figures and toys, Whoopass customers simply send in their headshots and then pick out the doll’s clothes, colors, accessories, and body styles. Whoopass even recommends fooling around with that last part. Putting a human head on an animal body never gets old for office pranksters, apparently.

Sure, a minibobblehead you may be a tad creepy, but it’s also customized. And lately, there’s no sweeter marketing word than “customizable.” For 20somethings tired of the same old same old, a nodding-noggin mini-me is personalized novel fun.

A custom bobblehead runs anywhere between $60 and $190."

Transformational Marketing in the Auto Industry/Fuel Editorial

From Advertising Age:

Jan Thompson, VP-marketing of Nissan North America, recently spoke at the Automotive News Marketing Seminar in Los Angeles, where she scolded the automotive industry for their new-media timidity. Nissan, she said, has extensive relationships with three big Internet sites, Yahoo, MSN, and Google, —which they now recognize as "networks in their own rights, able to deliver audiences comparable to prime time." Appparently this isn't obvious to the rest of the auto industry, as automakers account for 25%, or $17 billion, of the nation's annual advertising spending.

In the past 20 years auto advertising has increased by 1,378% while new-vehicle sales increased by only 17%. As a result Nissan has seen the need for change in its advertising, adopting an approach that Ms. Thompson calls "transformational marketing." This new form of marketing includes measuring the impact and mix of communications; adapting faster tthingsgs that measurement shows are not working; and "getting rid of silos at ad agencies, media outlets and in client organizations."

For the full article click on the following link:

Advertising Age May 31 Article

Image Source: Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times

This article from Advertising Age drew correlations for me with something that's been on my mind recently: the oil crisis. Or rather how this crisis was completely avoidable were it not for a combination of factors including the oil industry's corporate lobbying of our government, —lining corruptible elected officials pockets, —and us, the American consumer. How are American consumers at fault? Quite simply, we are extremely slow to adapt to new technologies. For a country founded on the fundamental of change we are surprisingly afraid of it. For the past few years now mobile phone users in South Korea have enjoyed live, streaming telecasts beamed directly to the screens on their phones. So why is that technology only starting to creep over here? Because we are not early adopters, it takes us a long time to warm up to the idea of a new technology, and, after we warm up to it, it still takes the more courageous among us to test the technology and sing its praises before the masses are willing to give it a shot.

I believe this, in conjunction with our government's refusal to move away from oil, has directly led to the current crisis. The American public seems to forget that we in fact control everything. If we put pressure on businesses and on the government they have no choice but to listen to us, after all it's our dollars and our votes that keep them around. But we have not been vocal enough.

Witness Brazil, the fifth-largest nation in the world, according to CBS News Brazil will completely free of dependenceance by the end of the year. Not free in 10 years, or 20, but this year. Brazil is completely switching over to sugarcane ethanol, the cleanest and most-efficient of all ethanol types. But this did not come out of the blue, Brazil's program began 30 years ago during the oil crisis of the 1970's. They were forward thinking, we were not.

And don't believe the auto industry's hype when they try and tell us that it would cost billions of dollars to switch the cars over and that infrastructure would have to be built to accomodate it. Ask yourself this: if that is indeed the case then how can Brazil afford to switch over to sugarcane ethanol? Because the automotive technology already exists. Three years ago the "flex fuel" engine was introduced in Brazil. An engine designed to run on ethanol, gasoline, or any mixture of the two.

Experts in Brazil also say that sugarcane ethanol will remain competitive as long as oil stays above $45 a barrel. HowevBrazilianlian officials and business executives say the ethanol industry would develop even faster if the United States didn't levy a tax of 54 cents per gallon on all imports of Brazilian cane-based ethanol. Which begs the question, why are we taxing something that could lessen dependenceance on oil, help clean our skies of vehicle-produced pollution and (perhaps most importantly) save us a whole lot of money? Kind of makes you wonder what Senator pushed for the passage of that tax.

President Bush has finally embraced, as the New York Times put it, the view expounded by Henry Ford nearly a century ago, when he predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." One hundred years ago that was known, yet we don't embrace it until petroleum reaches $65 a barrel. Here in the states we're looking mainly to corn-based ethanol, for the same reason that Brazil went to sugarcane, it's what we have the most of. However, sugarcane offers advantages over other forms of ethanol, particularly corn. "For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology here and other Brazilian research institutes."*

It seems to me that we—the American public—need to turn the heat up on our elected officials and force them to take action. Sure, President Bush in his State of the Union address backed financing for "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but wood chips and stalks or switch grass" with the goal of making ethanol competitive in six years.* But is that really enough? Have we not dragged our feet on this issue long enough? We can devote even more federal dollars to a program such as this, but that would of course mean making congress stop voting themselves raises and lining every bill with personal projects (for example, a bill recently signed in to donate billions more in aid to rebuilding New Orleans. The problem? Over half the money is actually going to pet projects like teapot museums and bridges in states like Alaska, Arkansas, and South Carolina.).


















*Source: "With Big Boost from Sugar Cane, Brazil is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs," Larry Rohter, The New York Times, April 10, 2006.

Read more on the Ethanol Revolution in Brazil with this following links, including the two articles I pulled most heavily from for my little editorial, the New York Times and CBS News.

The New York Times April 10 Article

CBS News Report

Core 77 Boards

New Scientist: Types of Energy and Fuels