Strategy Work

Here's an example of some work done by Rose Quasarano a recent graduate from the Creative Circus. To me it's an example of a student taking a good risk in strategy, and making a real nice campaign out of it. No logo needed. Nice headlines, maybe the art-direction could use a little diversification, but this is the kind of smart stuff I digg. Thoughts?

Critique: Baby Einstein

The above three comps, are for Baby Einstein baby toys. Very simple, visual solutions showing babies doing some un-baby things. Thoughts? Comments? If the picture doesn't load, I apologize. The tag is: Smart, baby toys. And the hands shouldn't be blue if they look it.

Critique Week: Bonfire Gloves

At Brainco, we've just finished up critique for the trimester. Some fellow classmates agreed to showing some from a campaign they worked on for Bonfire Snowboarding Gloves. I'm sure they would appreciate any feedback their fellow peers across the country could give them.

On a larger note, I would personally like to encourage anyone and everyone to feel free to post their work on Portfolio Party--whether its marker comps, headlines, or full-blown computer stuff. If you're interested in becoming an author to the site--please let me know and I can send you an invite. It can be as confidential as you would like it to be. Thanks.

Most people are fat.

So, Reebok has come up with a new angle for their advertising. Running is fun and easy, as opposed to the commonly seen "I'm a warrior and will swallow my own barf while running" approach.

I must admit, I like the direction of the campaign even though I don't like using that mindset in my own life. Not everyone is hardcore about exercising or running. In fact, I think the majority of people are more of the casual runner. This approach definitely seperates themselves from a category filled with "Just Do Its", "Impossible is Nothings," and an overall swagger of the hip hop culture.

I'm surprised it took someone this long to market directly to the fat, lazy Americans rather than the few go-getters. When was the last time you saw an athletic apparel company promote the message of "It's ok buddy, don't overexert yourself, you're great just as you are"? As much as that mentality makes me nauseous, I think it'll work.

BUT, I think the executions that I've seen to this point could be better. The ad above doesn't make sense to me. As a copywriter I value clarity. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I don't understand the headline. "What are you just doing?" I don't know what the hell that means. How about "What are you doing?" To me, that makes more sense with the image. Maybe it was a typo. Ha!

The TV campaign is going to use the message "Run at the speed of chat." I like the idea a lot. But I don't like that line. Maybe it's because I can see myself getting reamed for bringing a line like that into class. I can already hear the "write that 50 more times," "I don't think that lines quite there yet," and "eh, it's ok."

The billboards and posters will read "Why are you hitting the wall? It hurts." and "Run + Puke + Run = Crazy."

So what do you all think? Does a campaign like this work for you? Is doing a 180 on the current state of athletic gear the way to go?

How do you get a Good Job?

Below is an excerpt from an article I Have an Idea did with a couple CD's @ Wieden + Kennedy:


ihaveanidea: What about the skill sets of copywriters and art directors who are responsible for making this kind of 'non-traditional' work. Is anything changing?

Todd: I would say you need to have a very intimate knowledge of almost every one of the clients that we have. We want someone who has authority in some specific area in their industry. We feel it's important to have a level of specialization, a level of knowledge as it relates to what they are doing.

So in answering the question, when we are looking for a team or a person that would be working on ESPN, they absolutely need to know and love sports. You know, it's one thing to be an interesting typographer, but it's another to be a really great designer and love basketball.

So I think what's changed is the need for expertise and enthusiasm in a lot of different areas, it isn't just, "I have a really good book from an ad school", it's more "Here's what I'm interested in as a person, here's what I'm passionate about and I'm looking for a place to provide a kind of stage so that my passion can play itself out". And that means that we don't always hire people from ad schools, we hire people who are smart and curious and want to say something. That area could be playwriting, that area could be architecture. We have a playwriter who never went to ad school and who is probably one of the most successful writers here, we have a guy who got his degree in architecture who is also working in our creative department.

We don't want ad people to make ads, we want interesting people to bring what they love and their expertise to our conversation.


ihaveanidea: Kevin, you're a VCU Adcenter graduate. What role did VCU Adcenter play in shaping your career and leading you to finally become co-CD at WK?

Kevin: At VCU, I developed my craft and my understanding of the business in an environment that, because there were planners and account people on every project, was very focused on creative solutions to business issues and not just advertising gags. Two years ago VCU added a media planning track - so now every creative who graduates from the program will have spent four semesters working alongside both a strategic and a media planner. It's a far cry from the days when a student book was a condom campaign, a guitar store campaign and a bunch of funny headlines. How has this helped me? I think it's a lot easier to take that approach from the beginning instead of trying to reorient mid-career.

Questions:
(-) Do you want a book showing more great/unique strategy? Or one more focused on killer executions?

(-) Do you want brands that you're supreamly passionate about? Do you want brands that are somewhat "studenty" but are executed in great/unique ways? Or do you want really, really hard brands? All the above?

(-) To what extent do you want to show your ability to think outside traditional media?

What Makes a Campaign?

Recently, the: "It's the same thing three times"(or formulaic) critiscm has been brought up in class, and leads me to the question: When are you doing a different execution in the same campaign, and when are you doing a different ad (not the same campaign) for the same strategy?

By now, we all (including those who couldn't care less about the advertising industry) know and recognize the iPod ads instantly. But to me, these are as formulaic as they get. See below.






Essentially, we're saying the same visual executions with slight differences in sillouete and color scheme every single time. The class instructor, an art director at Olson in Minneapolis, agreed that the iPod ads were infact formulaic. Now look at the ads for the Minnesota Film and TV Board below:

Very similar executions, with different pictures, and different copy. The idea stays the same. But what makes this ok on the non-formulaic meter, and the iPod not? Or is it? Regardless of how you answer, we get back to the original question of what makes a campaign a campaign? As everything is in the ad industry, it's a subjective thing.

But can you have one ad that solves things visually, and one that does it with copy (communicating the same big and smaller idea) and have it be the same campaign? As usual, all thoughts are very much appreciated.

Get Fantastical

The following are marker comps that a group @ Brainco worked on for a 3M Air Filter system. The idea, is that the air filter works like some of Earth's natural creatures (Whales = filter feeders, bees taking care of pollen) to clean/purify the air.

Does it work? Need a better tag? Need some body copy? Or does it miss the mark entirley, being wild and wacky simply for the sake of being so?