Jaffe Juice

The return of Across the Sound (ta-da!)

Across the Sound is back. This is episode 14 with Tom Hespos guest/co-hosting. It's an extra long version (just over an hour), as there is much to cover and ATS has been "off the air" for a few weeks, but don't fret....it will get leaner, meaner, tighter and succinter as the weeks unfold. Enjoy and don't forget to take the survey afterwards...

You can download the show as a one-off here or subscribe via your local podcatcher (PodcastAlley, iTunes etc.)

An oxymoron or not?

(caveat: If I trackback to a post that trackbacked to me, would that be a circular reference?)

Here's a snippet from Fresh Glue's post which referenced my Juicies:

If you happen to like these year-end lists, you probably caught TBS's Funniest Commercials of the Year. You can view their top 10 here. Americans says they hate advertising but then they're willing to watch an entire show of ads that was created with the sole purpose of selling even more ads.

Here's why this is, in fact, not a contradiction: Americans/consumers don't feel like they're being sold to when they watch a show about advertising...and that's because they perceive and therefore consume the advertising as content. They also don't perceive the content as being disruptive or intrusive.

...now as far as the advertising that interrupts the program is concerned, that's another story, or is it?

The Year End Juicies

I was interviewed for a year-end piece on NPR about the advertising highs and lows from 2005. It will be on All Things Considered on Friday and I'll provide a link to the audio after the fact (unless I end up sounded like a dork)

Here is a selection of my best and worst "so called TV" spots (hint: they needn't have run on TV to be considered TV in my eyes) from the year:

Best

• Proof of Life Award: Wieden + Kennedy’s Honda Anthem Spot
• Production Budget Safety Blanket Award: Sony Bravia
• Best Exercise in Consumer Collaboration: Converse Gallery
• Reality Advertising Award: Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty
• Reality Advertising Part II: Nike’s Tiger Woods spot (mine)
• Shtick to the fundamentals Award: Young Tiger Woods spot (Nike)
• Burger King’s “The King” series esp. with NFL Football
• One step ahead award: Burger King’s iPod Video (Heavy) creative
• Best use of 30-seconds: Napster’s 30-second peep-show
• Best worst kept secret: “Banned” X-Box 360 ad
• Best extension of a conventional campaign: Reebok’s I-am-what-I-am

• Best covert-PR-cover-up-conspiracy-theory-premeditated act of genius (TIE): The Heavy (already denied) or Crispin created "viral" Crying Game spot for Burger King on Heavy.com and secret society blood brothers partnership between Lugz and Apple for the latter's so-called rip-off of the former's former campaign (see below)

Wurst

• Neil French Award: Continental’s One Pass Miles (the one with the office whore who will sleep with anyone who has enough One Pass Miles - ugggh)
• Sex does not necessarily Sell Award: Carls Jr
• Borrowed Interest Swill Award: GAP’s downward spiral using celebrity endorsement
• Failure to reinvent the wheel: Pretty much most Automotive Advertising
• Most in need of an Extreme Makeover: Target
• Most esoteric and abusive placement AKA I advertise because I can, as opposed to I need to: Apple’s iPod
• Most blatant rip off of a previous campaign courtest of the Blogosphere: Adfreak's spot-the-difference post of the iPod Eminem rip-off of the Lugz campaign

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

I have exercised particular restraint at avoiding best/worst lists, as well as making predictions for 2006. Apparently, Jeff Jarvis agrees with me.

But 2 days before the end of 2005, I have caved and given in to temptation.

This is Brandweek's best and worst list (thanks, Erno) and here are some of their picks: (their verbatim words, in the form of either a BEST/thumbs up or WORST/thumbs down, are followed by my commentary in italics)

1. BEST: Use of shameless sex in advertising - Paris Hilton/Carl's Jr. - great impact and buzz, except for the fact it didn't sell chicken burgers; Carl's Jr's parent company was downgraded; Brandweek puts "Paris Hilton" in the credit list (need I say more) Look, if we're talking about brand benefit to PH, then yes, you deserve your number 1 (thumbs up) status; for all reasons, this deserves 2 thumbs WAAAAAY down.

6. BEST: Pitch to "real" women - TIE - Dove campaign for real beauty and curvation initimate apparel. At the end of the day, real people buy real products for real reasons and maybe...just maybe...will identify with other real people in the process. That's not an insight; it's common sense.

21. BEST: Trend for creative advertising - Broadband Video Technology.

• The 30-second TV spot may be dead, as industry watchers never tire of saying, but what about the 88-second spot or the 127-second spot?

Actually, I say the 300- or 3000-second spot in my book, but thanks for the plug. Video is alive and kicking and living large on the Web. All we need now is for creatives to realize that there is no difference between video that appears on TV and video that appears on the Web (or iPod, PSP etc for that matter) Good luck with that effort.

22. WORST: Trend for Creative Advertising - TiVo Search - Brandweek chides this move as (I paraphrase) too little too late AKA it's not Google AKA why would car buyers want to see a series of 30-second spot oversimplified drivel. OK, so they're right about the crap creative and maybe even right about the implications of this service (should it be successful) i.e. a massive shift to more infomercial type messages, but at the same time I see this as the first step in the realization of "Advertising on Demand." Fundamentally if you believe advertising isn't going away...and/or if it does, what the implications would be, then surely the ability to meet "Right message to right person in right place at right time" as indicated by THEIR express permission can only be a good thing???

23. WORST: Blogs - overhyping of a marketing trend. In short, I'm sure no one at Brandweek is reading this post as it is on a blog (Adfreak, your thoughts please!) To quote them:

• Blogs provide almost no new information
• They're frequently inaccurate
• And they're often written by people who can't, you know, write.

Rules are made to be broken...and lists are created to be critiqued. I like to do both.

Come in, Alexander Hutton

Hey Alexander - I wanted to respond to your post about my post on "Lazy Sunday" AKA The Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia, but your comments are closed :( Send me your e-mail address or a way to get my response to you.

Hats off to Adrants!

Hats off to Steve Hall and his Adrants blog. He's living the blogging dream and is a real shining and guiding light to the power, promise and potential of communal marketing.

I'm not sure what kind of traffic the mainstream media sites get, but I have to believe Adrants is up there with them (if not ahead):

Ten thousand people subscribe to this site's daily email newsletter and that number increases by 50-100 each day. The site is visited by 12-15,000 unique individuals each day and pumps out 25-30,000 page views per day. Seven thousand people subscribe to the site's RSS feed. And the numbers keep curving up.

Adrants is the deserved leader in the space and I'm proud to be mentioned by Steve in his article and to be able to feed off and on, link to and from and be a part of this connection.

I'll be sure to talk to him about this experience when he guest hosts on Across the Sound (Episode #15 - second week of January)

Now this I can dig(g)....

As posted on PVRWire, TiVo is now selling a wireless adapter, which will be able to link to an existing wireless network. Even more amazing is that it doubles as a comm device which allows functionality including (but not limited to) talking with the crew on the Enterprise and full beam-me-up-Scotty capabilities.

The Jaffe's are about to embrace the full power of TiVoToGo and multiroom viewing. Mmmm - on demand consumption.

Freedom of (60 seconds of) Speech

One Free Minute is an interesting exploration of public speech, especially as it has been shaped, influenced, affected by technology (and specifically cellular technology)

On one level, it's an artsy/tangible depiction of the power of podcasting (thinking laterally) On another level, it's a creative expression of the power of us/many-to-many.

A third takeaway (as creatives, bloggers-come-podcasters, and/or podcasters in general will testify to) is how long 60-seconds actually is...trying to fill up a minute with meaningful insight/thoughts is much harder than one might think. There are very specific nuances/differences between the spoken and written words and it is a particular art form a) to be able to do both and b) to make every second count...

I guess that's the whole point of this exercise - to make every second count.

WSJ's 5 Agencies to Watch

In the Journal today is a piece on 5 agencies to watch as Madison Avenue evolves. They are:

1. Naked Communications

2. Interpublic Group

3. Ogilvy & Mather

4. BBDO

5. Crispin, Porter + Bogusky

Ironically, 2 of the 5 are not even situated anywhere near Madison Avenue. Naked just opened up an office in NYC, but they hail from the UK (and it's debatable as to whether Naked shoudl even be called an agency) and Crispin are more inclined to partake in surf + turf than a breakfast at Michaels.

1 of the 5 is a holding company (IPG) and it's being cited for all the wrong reasons, whereas the remaining 2 are Madison Avenue stalwarts and their challenges are simply to ascertain how well they can evolve/adapt to the "new school" and "new ad disciplines"

The picture is starting to look a lot like "New Marketing", does it not...

btw....no mention of any of the boutiques in this set of 5.

The Chronic-what?-cles of Communal Marketing

New York Times' Dave Itzkoff comments on the "free" SNL skit, featuring Chris Parnell and Adam "the new Sandler" Samberg which is sweeping the Web by storm.

Since it was originally broadcast on NBC, "Lazy Sunday" has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from the video-sharing Web site YouTube.com; it has cracked the upper echelons of the video charts at NBC.com and the iTunes Music Store; and it has even inspired a line of T-shirts, available at Teetastic.com

There are many important implications here, which range from TV networks using the Web to help drive loyalty, engagement and ultimately tune in, to the democratization of content distribution and consumption. It certainly didn't hurt to put this on iTunes (et al) for FREE (note to networks and Gordon Gekko: Greed is bad)

It immediately brings to mind the legendary Jon Stewart Crossfire clip, which thanks to iFilm, was seen by vast multiples of people, compared to the original airing on CNN.

But the real story is the continued and combined power of both consumer generated content and communal marketing. The fact this came from SNL is a red herring (don't get me wrong, it's important, but not as important as...); the genuine and authentic magic of 24-7-365 on-demand and ubiquotous content.

btw...here are the transcribed lyrics of "Lazy Sunday"

Yo, where's the movie playin'?
Upper West Side, dude!
Let's hit up Yahoo Maps to find the dopest route.
I prefer Mapquest!
That's a good one too.
Google Maps is the best!
True that! Double true!