An Ad Giants sponsored adventure.

Once we land at the 49th annual International Franchise Association show, we’ll launch a new product, and not just so we can keep the aerospace metaphor rolling. It’s to help our customers and future customers succeed.

[Read more →]

I won’t add to the post-Super Bowl commercial reviews beyond a few casual observations about the Denny’s spot. First, I thought the head mobster was Martin Scorcese for a while there. Secondly, I was laughing so hard at the schtick that I totally missed the fact that the restaurant is promising free breakfast to everyone in the country tomorrow. Now that’s a big deal for an outfit wiki says operates over 2,500 restaurants, yet I nearly missed the message. In fact, the only reason I didn’t miss it is because I replayed the spot three times with my DVR. My reaction makes me wonder if it’s possible for a spot to be too funny, which is too horrible to contemplate.

[Read more →]

Russell Scott through imedia has a sound a thoughtful essay on the history, fate and purpose of jingles. (We’ve written about music in advertising and culture earlier here.) As I was reading Mr. Scott’s piece, I thought of the jingle composers I’ve known and how their assignments for jingles have declined over the years. It’s so much easier for ad people to borrow or rent interest from existing songs or styles or to license an unknown or neglected artist for hipness cred than to produce an earwig.  Creatives, I think, might be reluctant to make jingles for fear of their work becoming ironically humorous and an embarrassment to their creative peers. In reality, I think that would be victory. Don’t make me hum “five-dollar foot-long.”

[Read more →]

In fact, the active minds at Cracked have given the marketplace quite a bit of thought. They’ve also had a peek into in-venue techniques. Don’t miss the comments.

Twice in the past few days I’ve received genital spam, but I happened to notice this time that they purport to be from small ad agencies. One from a shop in Wichita, Kansas, and another from a shop in Florence, Alabama. The unblocked footers claimed the spam was copyrighted by those agencies. Right. IP checking showed they came from overseas, of course.

[Read more →]

Our friend Eric passed on what I think is a nice little slogan, especially in these times. The darker the national mood, the more we seem to appreciate positive thoughts. The Lotaburger chain has 75 outlets in New Mexico, according to their site, and their “lotaman” description is pretty funny — sort of Hank Hill with a hint of Monty Python.

Micropersuasion‘s Steve Rubel believes all media will be digital by 2014 and he lists three trends to watch: reach devaluation (less loyalty to media brands,) just-in-time creative (more customized creative tailored to the moment or the context,) and monetizing of back catalogs.

[Read more →]

[Read more →]

True, some advertising should be declared a crime scene, but mercifully for all of us, most ad veterans know how to have fun with the business while still taking it seriously. That was the tone at the annual convention last month for J.D. Byrider, an Ad Giant client who recently upgraded to the latest release of the ONE System. The C.S.I theme (creativity, strategy, implementation) was a natural for the North Miami meeting venue. Some of the Ad Giants team who helped pull off the exhibit and related creative services had so much fun while being paid that they felt guilty for upwards of six seconds. Behind the table are Amanada Long, Ad Giants Director of Client Services and Jim England, President of J.D. Byrider Advertising. The dark haired investigator is Audrey Ryder, also of J.D. Byrider Advertising. The lab tech is Kim Ramirez of Keltner, Inc.

[Read more →]