What if Mad Men ended like a '90s teen movie?

What if Matthew Weiner's brilliant series Mad Men ended like the not-quite-as-brilliant teen movies of the 1990s - She's All That, Can't Hardly Wait and American Pie?

Two words: mandatory montage. Here's a little video I put together just for fun.

Update from the front / MTYP Board Chair interview

In CreComm land, the four nations (Public Relations, Advertising, Journalism and Media Production) are hustling toward major project presentations at the Winnipeg Convention Centre this coming week. You're very welcome to attend and see some absolutely outstanding work from up-and-coming communicators — from tea parties that raised $30K for eating disorders to documentaries on beer league hockey to silly little radio shows.

The public relations and advertising majors just finished their alchemical experiments, combining their two disciplines to produce three dynamite integrated marketing campaigns for FriendMatch, a platonic friendship-making site. Thanks to my teammates — particularly Jaclyn Leskiw, for being the perfect team co-leader. Employers take note, she's an advertising triptych (knows what to say, who to say it to and why she's saying it).

Here's a wee taste of FriendMatch: The World is Friendlier than you Think.



While cobbling together these campaigns, the public relations majors have also been practicing hostile/aggressive media interviews (with Melanie Lee Lockhart bringin' the heat).

My friends in journalism grumble every now and then about "being handled" by PR people — getting explanations and redirections instead of juicy, controversial remarks. The flip side is, of course, aggressive, sensationalism-seeking journalists who've only had five minutes prep to grapple with complex, long-standing and often confidential issues.

As a freelance arts writer and a public relations major, I have a foot in both camps, so it's a fun discussion. Especially when worlds collide and a beloved member of my theatre community is "released" from the theatre she founded 30 years ago.

Here's the CBC Information Radio interview with Manitoba Theatre for Young People's Board Chair Gloria Koop after Artistic Director Leslee Silverman's contract was not renewed amid ongoing financial struggles.




Let's agree this isn't really a hostile interview. (Not like some of the take-no-prisoners flayings you can find online.) The questions are reasonable, the tone is polite. Marcy Markusa asks the questions Ms. Koop's audiences and key stakeholders must be asking.

Remembering there is a legal obligation to maintain confidentiality on some issues (and pretend you're neutral... which is hard...), you decide if the interview went well.

I'll see you in media training.

Canadian Paralympic Spot

So my blog has temporarily degenerated into posting cool things I find online. Which would be deplorable... if the following wasn't frakking cool.

A Store Full of All Things Strange

In first term my advertising class wrote ads for local indy toy / child dream factory Toad Hall Toys. I was looking for a creative break from typing recently (as much as I love writing proposals) so I produced it. Or  tried to, anyways...

Is it me, or do I come across as enormously creepy?

A BRIC through the Advertising Window

CBC Radio's advertising program Age of Persuasion is undergoing a reboot - partly due to a departure by co-creator/writer Mike Tennant and partly due to a desire to podcast the show (limiting the amount of copyrighted material they can use on-air).

But mostly due to a subject shift. While Age of Persuasion has provided 5 seasons of solid retrospective on how advertising'marketing has arrived at its current incarnation, the more exciting conversation is what the future holds for advertising (especially as marketing shifts from one-way persuasion to two-way dialogue).

Behold the new program Under the Influence. Gifted storyteller Terry O'Reilly talks about the current trends in advertising, who's sharpening the cutting edge and - given advertising's relationship to society - where our civilization is heading.

The first episode just went live - you can read it on the website or download it on iTunes as a free podcast.

The BRIC Nations: How Rising Economies are Taking Over the Conversation

• the story of a kidnapped Brazilian advertising superstar
• how a Russian entrepreneur opened a bank to sell his vodka
• why Nokia sent traveling musical companies through rural India
• why Chinese-style piracy will soon be the norm

Say Hello to my Little Friend

A friend introduced me to an online presentation platform I'm now crushing on - Prezi. It's a lean, mean, zooming machine that lets you embed text, YouTube clips, documents and images.

Here's a taste - a personal branding assignment I put together for advertising class.

matthew on Prezi

Prezi - it's like a power point presentation on acid!*

*Do not do acid while viewing a Prezi! To use the old Roman expression - you will upchuck.

Picks of the Litter

Went to see the 2011 Cannes Lions Winners this past week. Here's my favs (you can view all past winners at the Cannes Lions website).

Thank you advertising - you made my life a little bit better.

"Love to Meet You"

Brandhouse - FOXP2 Capetown

South Africa

"Team Hoyt"

TV3 - Bassat Ogilvy Barcelona

Spain

"Profile the Governor"

Border Action Network - Y&R New York

USA

Selling Booze in Manitoba

This past while, Kenton Larsen has been guiding our advertising class through the stormy waters of liquor advertising in Manitoba. While ads from the States (and even other provinces) are not subject to the MLCC's sometimes bizarre, often confusing rules, locally produced ads are. Some examples of the law:

• A bar shouldn't speak about the liquor it serves as an "escape" from life's troubles
• No one can be seen to consume any alcohol
• A car cannot be heard
• You cannot use children's music

And so on. I decided to test the limits of these rules (against Kenton's wise warnings) by openly mocking them. If I quote the law that says an ad can't speak to the quality of the booze (I wondered), will I get away with it?

No! Kenton faxed (who does that anymore?) some of our ads over to the MLCC to check if they were on the level. And mine was struck down for implying the very thing I was speaking against. Which... is what I was doing. So I am justly caught. Sigh...

I did get the satisfaction of a good quote though. As relayed to me by Kenton Larsen, the MLCC employee's response to my ad was:

"Your student has broken the law in a very clever way."

Worth the autofail friends, worth the autofail.

Edward Bernays; The First Spinner

Who's your daddy PR? Who is it? Edward Bernays! Yeah!

A brief look at one of the key figures who shaped what we know as modern Public Relations - Edward Louis Bernays. Not only will this post give you a bit of knowledge of Bernays, it will link you up with two fantastic CreComm students, Chantal Verrier and Corinne Rikkleman for parts two and three of the history lesson.

Credited as being the father of modern public relations, Austrian-American Edward Louis Bernays was born in 1891. The double nephew of psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud, he combined the emerging field of psychology with advertising to create persuasive, targeted “public relations” campaigns on behalf of his clients.

Bernays' father was the brother of Freud's wife. Bernays' mother was Freud's sister.
You can bet that came up in therapy.

Bernays had been engaged by the Woodrow Wilson administration’s Committee on Public Information, tasked with convincing the world that America’s primary goal in World War I was “bringing democracy to all of Europe.” Drawing on the teachings of his famous uncle, as well as the crowd psychology studies of Gustave LeBon and Wilfred Trotter, the “democracy” campaign succeeded beyond Bernays’ expectations. He pondered the application of his technique during peacetime, believing the public to be a “herd” in need of guidance; rather than use the term propaganda, now tainted by its association with the German war effort, Bernays coined the term “public relations.”

Bernays was the originator of the Press Release (staging scripted events for the benefit of free media coverage) and Third Party Advocacy (obtaining unpaid product endorsement from community leaders and professionals). His notable campaigns include convincing magazines to write articles promoting ballet as fun (on behalf of the 1915 Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes American tour), promoting the idea of African-Americans as important community contributors in the deeply racist southern states (for the NAACP’s 1920 Atlanta Convention), holding soap-carving and soap-floating contests (for Ivory Soap), promoting the idea that only disposable cups were sanitary (on behalf of Dixie Cup) and branding democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman a dangerous communist (on behalf of United Fruit Company’s efforts to overthrow that leader).

Part Two - The Torches of Freedom Campaign
Part Three - The Green Ball Campaign

Participatory Advertising

A lot of talk this week in class about what the future of advertising is - what the heck is advertising now anyways?

Is "liking" a brand's Facebook page advertising on behalf of the company? (click on this link to have your mind blown. Inception style.) Is an event orchestrated by a branded franchise but devoid of any obvious onsite advertising still considered advertising?

Kenton Larsen (CreComm teacher) drew the distinction thusly (as far as I understand - don't quote me on the test): advertising is paid for and controlled by the Advertiser. Unpaid advertising that is not controlled by the Advertiser falls under the field of "Public Relations" - still marketing a product, but doing it through media events/unpaid endorsements/etc that aren't paid for.

NOW, I think there's a particular type of advertising that straddles these two fields - participatory advertising. Paid for by the advertiser, true, but incomplete unless the viewer participates of their own free will. It's old school advertising meets the YouTube generation.

Perhaps I'm completely out to lunch (the comments section will let you say so) but the following ads are cool nonetheless. Rad, even.

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Hot Wheels (Mattel) Roadside Billboards - Mexico

Possibly by Young & Rubicam or Ogilvy & Mather... unsure after brief websearch

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International Labour Organization - Magazine Ad

By AlmapBBDO

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And the pick of the litter...

Radiotjanst (Swedish organization which collects radio/tv license fees)

By DraftFCB (Swedish Branch)

Sweden was having a problem getting its citizens to voluntarily pay their license fees and turned to DraftFCB to create this commercial, praising those who had paid. During the campaign it was possible to go to Radiotjanst's website and add whatever jpeg image you liked to the movie - you could choose who would be the hero.

The video above is an example of what you could have done - sadly the campaign is now closed.

Participatory advertising. What do you think?

Good Ad versus Bad Ad

My advertising class' first assignment was to find an example of a good advertisement and a bad advertisement. Guess what follows?

The M&M’S Pretzel ad, which appeared in the August 22, 2011 edition of People Magazine, is a play on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” – the artist’s depiction of the perfectly proportioned person at the centre of geometric principles.

By sneaking their unpretentious product into a classical depiction of perfection, M&M’S are simultaneously communicating the message that “M&M’S Pretzels are the perfect snack,” and giving their audience a laugh. The ad is an “inside joke” that rewards the viewer for having classical awareness, prompting the elitist response “I get it!” and an emotional tie to the product. Finally, there’s a further layer of cleverness in the ad’s use of Vitruvian Man; positioning the pretzel inside the candy character demonstrates the nature of a new product that M&M’S is still trying to make

familiar to the public. Cleverness within cleverness within cleverness.

Taking an iconic image and giving it a twist is a fantastic way to catch the eye of a viewer, making them pause to discern “what’s not right with this picture?” The graphic is simple and uncluttered; rendered with an artistic “sepia” filter that causes it to stand out among the sharply focused, real-life-photo ads that dominate the rest of the magazine.

This ad is the perfect example of a multilayered idea presented with a simple, yet artistic execution – a thinking person’s candy ad.

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This Clarins ad, which appeared in the August edition of Vogue, manages to obey several rules of good design, but still be terrible. Approximately $300,000 of terrible too, based on the going rate of being vogue-ish.

The colours are rich and vibrant; the layout is simple and uncluttered – all hallmarks of a good ad. But the graphic is uninteresting, with no emotionally charged promise of a prettier face or more confident, happy lifestyle by a proud Clarins user. It’s just a bottle of product that conveys no sense of function or brand.

The heavy lifting in the ad is left to the copy, which reads

Dark spots? Lines? Dull skin? NEW Vital Light Serum

Triple Action Anti-Aging Skin Care

Clarins pioneers a new frontier of skin science - a supercharged serum that defies dark spots, dullness and wrinkles in 2 weeks.*

This triple action complex of Hexylresorcinal, a tripeptide and pioneer plant extracts helps correct the appearance of dark spots - while visibly lifting, firming and restoring the deep luminosity of young-looking skin. No worries. No regrets. No doctor's appointment. Consult with your Clarins Skin Care Specialist today. Made in France. www.clarins.com

*based on a consumer test.

The copy starts the race already hamstrung by a miles-wide separation from the graphic across a page break and a sharply defined colour border. It leads, not with promises of a prettier viewer, but accusatory questions. “Dark spots? Lines? Dull skin?” This is a fear-based ad, which comes across as deeply negative when laid alongside the magazine’s other positive, “beauty” filled ads. Phrases like “new frontier of skin science,” “pioneer plant extracts,” “deep luminosity of young-looking skin” corrupt the credibility of the ad’s simple layout by venturing into the ridiculous. A Clarinss Skin Care Specialist??? Where did they get their degrees?

An expensive example of how an ad has to be great in order to not be terrible.