April 15, 2008

$5 dolla footlooooooooongs.

I want to tell you that I don't like it. That its lack of high concept makes me wince. That it utilizes a jingle. But I can't. I just can't. Dammit, I like the the $5 footlong spots. There I said it. And I am not ashamed. Much.

Oh,Lincoln likes them, too. Wonder what Jared thinks?

Posted by John on April 15, 2008 at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Food and Drink , Pop Culture , Television

February 03, 2008

Maybe the most relevant super ad we'll see today.

A click leads you here to play a surprisingly engaging and difficult advergame. And yeah, I added Alka-Seltzer to today's shopping list. Well played, Speedy. Well played.

Posted by John on February 03, 2008 at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Classics , Food and Drink , Marketing to Men , Super Bowl Stuff

October 01, 2007

Product placement 25 years later.

Last week, Netflix delivered E.T. to our door. The kids had never seen it, and it'd been years since I sat down to watch. I'd even forgotten it was in our queue. When Elliott starts dropping the Reese's Pieces, my oldest asked for some clarification. "Well, he's using the Reese's Pieces to show E.T. how to get to his house," I answered. Nothing much more was said at the time. The next day, however, my wife came home with a big box of the peanut butter treats. Seems the boys simply had to try some. Half an hour later, the colorful shells were being used to lead me all over the house to discover various caches of toys. Subsequently, the candy was officially declared as "our favorite."

25 years later and the M&M's brand is still paying for not listening to Steven Spielberg.

Posted by John on October 01, 2007 at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Brands , Entertainment , Film , Food and Drink , Marketing Trends , Movies , Pop Culture , Product placement

July 02, 2007

Amazing Integration

We've all heard about the bold move that 7-Eleven and Fox agreed on a while back to promote the new Simpsons movie and thought it was cool. But if you haven't seen the level of detail they've gone through to bring the Kwik E Mart to life, then you haven't lived (today). Here's a nice set of Flickr photos covering the entire store.

Mega big-time props go out to Fox, 7-Eleven and FreshWorks (and anyone else that had a hand in this) for pulling off what should be considered the best example of bringing a brand to life.

Can you imagine the brainstorming sessions that went into this? Lovely.

Posted by SethyG on July 02, 2007 at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Branding , Brave New Marketing , Current Affairs , Food and Drink , Movies , Pop Culture , Television

June 20, 2007

The Art of Competition

Question: When you're one of two, maybe three, new pizza shops opening across the street from each other, what do you do?

Answer: Easy, you put up a sign that tells everyone what the name of the place is and who your creators are -- Pizza Bella, Coming Soon, from the owners of 1924 Main and Souperman.

Question: When you're the OTHER pizza shop, you're nearing completion, and you've already been beaten to the punch about what's coming soon... what do you do?

Answer:

I won't even begin to nitpick.

Posted by SethyG on June 20, 2007 at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Brave New Marketing , Food and Drink

March 23, 2007

Now, that's living the High Life.

There's been some smack talk on CP+B of late. And now, this news. But let's not forget that our peeps in Miami and Boulder are pretty damn good. Exhibit Z is this spot, which broke late last year. We saw it last night during the tourney. It's a delight. It even made a room full of nervous fans chuckle during a messy, messy game.

Posted by John on March 23, 2007 at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Brands , Food and Drink , Marketing to Men , News of the Ad World

March 12, 2007

Well, that's specific.

Found this on the most excellent Chimp Media Monitoring and couldn't resist a re-post.

Posted by John on March 12, 2007 at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Food and Drink , News of the Ad World

November 14, 2006

Something smells.

Literally. Well, I'd sure rather get a nice whiff of strawberry cheesecake than be overpowered by the stench of Manchild 2 or whatever the newest stink water is out there. Engaging an extra sense is a very good idea, particularly in Kraft's case. Now, Kraft, turn the creatives loose on the rest of the ad, too, would ya'?

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal.

Posted by John on November 14, 2006 at 08:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Brave New Marketing , Food and Drink , Marketing Trends

October 26, 2006

Brazilian intrusiveness

This one really surprised me, and as the sole speaker of Portuguese in this blog, it is my duty to surprise you as well.

Brazil's Sol (you guessed it, "Sun") beer has introduced advertising somewhere none of us had ever seen or imagined before: the weather forecast.

They "close the loop," as we say, by making those icons clickable, and taking a viewer to the Sol beer website.

P.S.: Friday, in Portuguese, is "Sexta-Feira". Abbreviated, that turns into "Sex." Which gives whole new meaning to the term "hump day."

P.P.S.: Probable bad client quote: "But wouldn't that mean that people shouldn't drink our beer at night? Or when it's raining?"

Posted by Brazilian Art Director on October 26, 2006 at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Food and Drink , Web/Tech

September 12, 2006

AC #45 now available.

The Football & Philosphy Edition:

John and Tug meet on a Saturday afternoon in a noisy joint to watch football and talk ads. A new spot for DirecTV sparks a discussion regarding the relationship between Tolkien and Lewis (2:36) and, inevitably, Joseph Campbell and the Cosmogonic Cycle (9:13). After the break, the guys jump into a discussion of the NFL as a mega super brand (11:02). John finishes up the podcast at home by directing listeners to this intriguing post by Ernie Schenck, and encouraging listeners to send in audio comments about their own experiences (16:49). Not link-loved out, JJ rounds out the show by passing on this great bit of advice from Mack Simpson (20:30).

Sound mildly interesting? Listen to it now and find out.

Posted by John on September 12, 2006 at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: AC News , Books , Entertainment , Food and Drink , Podcasting , Sports

September 07, 2006

Pythons hate sheep too

Not quite The Little Prince, but probably one of the coolest pictures out there today.

Posted by Brazilian Art Director on September 07, 2006 at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Food and Drink

June 21, 2006

The Polar Opposite of "World's Favorite Brand"

I just spent 30 bucks on a product I didn't need, wasn't looking for, and never heard of. A piece of paper no bigger than a matchbook made me do it.

Here's the back story. I occasionally enjoy a martini. So I occasionally visit the liquor store to replenish my stock of gin. And last night, I made a discovery. There on the shelf was my favorite brand, in its tall, sleek bottle. Sitting next to it was another brand, in a short, squat, unassuming little crock. A small tag was hanging from its neck. The tag read: "Loved by a tiny handful of people all over the world. Hendrick's. It's not for everyone."

The little hang tag goes on to explain why everybody might not go for Hendrick's Gin. It's made in Scotland with "hints of coriander, juniper, citrus peel, rose petals - and a curious but marvelous infusion of cucumber." Yep. Cucumber. Standard on salad bars. In gin, not so much. And that's why, the tag says, "the sophisticated yet odd Hendrick's Martini is preferred by 1 out of 1,000 gin drinkers."

The brand is warning me that I probably won't like it. In fact, it's telling me the odds are 999 to 1 that I won't. Faster than you can say "reverse psychology", I'm heading to the register with a bottle of Hendrick's in one hand and my AmEx in the other. Half an hour later, I'm enjoying the "curious but marvelous infusion of cucumber." It's good. In fact, it's very good. So as I sip, I'm also savoring the possibility that, at that very moment, 999 other guys are someplace else in the world, spitting out their first taste of Hendrick's in absolute disgust. The schmucks. They obviously aren't "individuals who are truly excited about what is strange and different."

Yeah, yeah. I know it's all the fine work of some copywriter in Glasgow. But don't bring me down with any of your rational facts. I'm still enjoying the delicious fantasy that I'm one of the "tiny handful of people all over the world."

PLEASE NOTE: The above post was written by Joe Norris, an SHS managing partner and occasional contributor to AC.

Posted by John on June 21, 2006 at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Brave New Marketing , Design , Food and Drink

April 07, 2006

Fondue time at SHS-KC

Spring has finally arrived in KC. But the Chromium (Pizza Hut) team gave winter one last nod by treating our KC office to a fondue party last Friday. Yum. Select pictures of us getting fat and messy are now in our Photo Albums section. Thank you Chromiumnites, for the yummy food and the embarrassing pics.

Posted by Brazilian Art Director on April 07, 2006 at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Food and Drink , SHS News

March 10, 2006

What does "love" flavored water taste like?

Thanks to the Cool News of the Day newsletter for this news. As if there aren't enough categories of bottled water already: still, sparkling, flavored or with added vitamins, minerals, herbs, stimulants. Heck, in Japan you can get bottled water with your full daily dose of fiber. Now you can get "vibrationally charged" water from H2Om.

Yes sir, they claim that their branded water has been "infused with the power of intention through words, music and thought." They play music in the storage facility to charge the the water with the sound and music of intent. The words, symbols and colors on the label somehow vibrationally charge the water. And lastly, the consumer needs to "connect" to the water and literally drink the vibration that has been inspired by the words on the label.

Has anyone seen The Music Man? I wonder if Professor Henry Hill is running H2Om?
 

Posted by Jennifer Whetzel on March 10, 2006 at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Food and Drink

September 19, 2005

Scenes from an SHS party

So this is what has happened here: Tug has said something outrageous and is pleased with himself. Sarah, his wife, is unamused. Sara and Bryce are shocked on different levels. Just one scene of many from an SHS party this weekend. We all really needed to blow off some steam. So, one of the agency partners, Lynell, was kind enough to open up his home to us. In the middle of the evening Rand (another agency partner) said, "It's impossible not to love these people."

You got that one, right, Rand.

If you'd like to see more pictures of people you don't know, check the photo album "Stucky's Party."

Posted by John on September 19, 2005 at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Food and Drink

August 29, 2005

Milk It

Oh to be a batboy for the Florida Marlins.  Oh to have friends that are professional baseball players.  Oh to accept a bet that you can't drink one gallon of milk in an hour, or less, and not vomit.  Oh yeah, and THEN get suspended by the Marlins for six games for attempting the bet.

If you haven't heard about this story yet, it's a pretty silly one, but of course it made headlines and it was probably debated on every talk radio sports program from coast to coast.  Big deal, right?  Not really, just kind of funny.

What's funny to us, turned into negative publicity for the Marlins, but was spun into some very creative publicity for the Milk Processor Education Program (yeah, who?) and the Fort Myers Miracle, the Minnesota Twins' Single-A affiliate in the Florida State League.

The folks who run MilkPEP.org offered the batboy $500, the original prize of the dare, along with any lost wages from the suspension as long as he promises to drink the recommended three glasses of milk a day (just not all in one sitting).  The Miracle offered him an honorary batboy position during their Monday night game against the Tampa Yankees.

I think this was smart PR - to jump on the absurd story but also to push it along and give it a happy ending.  Now everyone doesn't feel so bad about the batboy, we all are still wondering who MilkPEP is and the Miracle got to remind fans that there's another team in town (or nearby).  Kudos to those who thought of these two ideas and ran with them.

Sometimes good press comes from inspiration and taking advantage of situations.  All great ideas/executions aren't limited to carefully planned PR stunts.

Posted by SethyG on August 29, 2005 at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Food and Drink , Sports

July 27, 2005

"Hey, what's that letter from CA?"

It's always nice to find a missve from Communication Arts in your mailbox. Yesterday, Joe (my boss),  called to let us know that some bottles Sullivan Higdon & Sink created for The Shatto Milk Company have been selected for CA's 2005 Design Annual. As Joe said, "This is on the list of things that don't suck."

And lest you think that highly prestigious awards are all we care about let me say this: Demand for this product wholly outstrips supply (despite large additions to the Shatto family herd of dairy cows) and people have taken to collecting the bottles. Each time someone decides to keep a bottle instead of return in, the deposit stays in the pocket of the Shatto family who literally bet the farm (a real, non-corporate family farm) on the success of this brand. This is also on the list of things that don't suck.

What you see here are two in a series of bottles we created for the company. Each bottle tells one more piece of the Shatto Milk Company story. They look kick ass lined up on the shelves of the dairy case.

In the movie, She's Having a Baby (1988) Dennis Dugan's character tells Kevin Bacon that he hopes to do one thing a year he is proud of. Well, all right, I'm having a better year than that, but I surely am proud of these.

The minute Paul Diamond presented the inital package design, I had a good feeling about these. I don't think we made a single change to his initial concept layout. Click on the images and read the tasty copy provided by Laura Crawford Piper. Great job Laura and Paul. And the next time you're in Kansas City area, buy Shatto Milk. It's American Copywriter (and CA) approved.

Posted by John on July 27, 2005 at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: AC News , Design , Food and Drink

June 22, 2005

When PR stunts go wrong

Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods NY Park

So I'm thinking "man, that was a screw-up" (actually, first I thought man, that's a lot of double entendres for just one AP article). Then I thought... you know... if they had gotten the thing, ahem, erect, then yes, maybe a few TV channels would have picked up the story, maybe a few pictures would have shown up on different newspapers around the world... and that would be good for Snapple. Free media about the frozen treats and all. But here's the thing: we, as humans, love a disaster even more than we love a victory. Just look around any office in the country and you'll notice that someone who was caught photocopying their privates gets way more water-cooler minutes than anyone who's ever gotten a promotion. At this time, 235 304 different media outlets have written about the snapple catastrophe. How many would have picked up the story if it had been successful? Did Snapple score extra free media by screwing up? Was it all a plan from the beginning? I mean, who pushes out a giant lollipop on a 80-degree summer day? Marketing conspiracy theorists, this one's for you.

Posted by Brazilian Art Director on June 22, 2005 at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Advertising , Current Affairs , Food and Drink

June 17, 2005

Party Pics

Old news: SHS moved into a really cool building in the Crossroads district of downtown Kansas City last November.

New news: We finally had a party to celebrate the move on June 9.  Well, we had to make sure that everything was just right before showing our space off to the rest of the world.  It was certainly worth the wait as about 100 of our closest friends and clients joined us for some food and drinks.  A lot of drinks.  We even had a visit from one of our favorite ad reporters in Kansas City, Jennifer Mann of the Kansas City Star.  She must have liked what she saw because she felt compelled to write about our open house in the Tuesday edition of the Star. (Hopefully, you won't have to register to read this.)

To view the SFW pictures of the open house, visit the "Open House" photo album to your right.  The NSFW images from the after-party event at the 'Shew  have been confiscated by our HR person.  Sorry.

Posted by Neil G on June 17, 2005 at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Categories: Food and Drink