sorry eBay, I really do like your service.  I hate to blow up your spot like this.  We have had a pretty good relationship over the years.

But I do not understand how it could take several days for me to stop receiving your spam emails.  I mean daily deals in sterling jewelery, really??  C’mon eBay, you are better than this.  This should be automated – and take effect immediately.

If there is something about a service – especially an online service – that can’t be fixed immediately, users are going to start shopping around.  They will find a better designed site, and they will leave you behind.  You have an incredibly sized network – but don’t make users “stuck” with your service.  Continue improving it – make them happy to be there and happy to use it.  At this time I’d like to thank you for your past service eBay…but you are better than this.  Get it fixed.  I don’t want spam and neither does anyone else.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

sincerely, jv

now THAT is an image (click for larger pic)

created by Publicis Mojo for the CALM: New Zealand Campaign Against Landmines, this is exactly the type of creative – and creative product experience – that makes you sit up and take notice.  This is definitely a risky placement – how many people really want to think about blood while eating ketchup? – but it’s exactly that type of risk that makes it memorable.

Listen everyone knows that these landmines can be absolutely devastating.  Those of us who don’t live in these areas are so lucky to not have to worry about this during our daily business.  But what more powerful and timely message about this subject could we have, then when we are safely chowing on some fries at a local fast food joint?  Here I am worrying about if they remembered to remove the onions from my burger, and this comes and smacks me on the forehead.  It’s disruptive – but in a good way.

first seen over at Eric Barker’s blog, but coverage also at wrongingrights

“Pinball” by Interstate Batteries. from scary ideas. Good use of suspense, story build-up, and ultimately turning expectations on their head. Doesn’t create much connection with the Interstate brand, but does give you that good ending line “should have had an Interstate”. That’s memorable.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, posted the latest ad from Toyoya’s Hybrid Synergy Drive. While loyal reader’s will know I’m not a fan of automotive ads, this one is different for a few reasons:

First, there’s no car. Really, no one has designed a car that is different enough to require us seeing it again and again in a commercial (except maybe Tesla).

and Second, this ad took an incredible amount of work and practice. You can see this was all shot in one take, which means hours and hours of coordination, planning, and rehearsal. I doubt that is what’s happening in the “professional driver, closed course” ads.

Finally, this ad is a really good way to show off the hybrid concept. I mean everyone gets what a hybrid means, but it is still fun to see it in a real world application. Really well done, although I hope for their sake they don’t have to shoot a sequel!

As you may or may not have noticed, I have not been posting much in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, this is a combination of many factors. The falling of snow has increased my time spent skiing or dreaming of skiing. The holiday season brought a craziness to our office that I’m still recovering from.

The toll of writing this blog by myself, while working on several other projects, has left me a little burnt out. So I’m taking a bit of a break. I’m working on rebranding this space, making a bit more ‘me’ and a little less stuffy. So hopefully you will have that to look forward to in the near future.

Until then,

jv

This friday is the agency-wide Christmas party. I’ve already heard plenty of stories already about last years – I guess several of the people I work with were involved in all kinds of debauchery throughout the night.

People just love letting loose, being friendly, and basically causing trouble at these functions. I’m not much into looking like a fool in front of my coworkers, but I’m sure things will be well out of hand by the time I get there. It’s a great time to hang out, meet new people, and enjoy the Christmas spirit. But I think I’ll leave the insane antics to when I’m running ninth street with my friends.

For those of you who just want to get crazy at the agency holiday party, heed the advice of Brad Karsh, who writes an article called ‘Ask Brad’ (clever title) over at Advertising Age. Check his thoughts on holiday partying with, “How Hard Should I Party at the Office Holiday Shindig?”.

Some of us are lucky enough to work with great people, and it’s great to share this time of year with your coworkers. But don’t forget what Brad says: “Keep the ‘office’ in ‘office holiday party’.”

“if you pause this again I am gonna kill you!”

There is an article on Tech Consumer today that describes a new HD DVD feature for the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix home release. It’s called “community screening,” and according to the article it will utilize the Ethernet connection built into each HD DVD player.

Here is how “community screening” technology works. The host invites others to watch the movie, and then can simultaneously watch while, “chatting live with your friends while you watch.” Only the host can control the viewing of the movie (play, pause, etc).

I am beyond perplexed about the attractiveness of this feature. It just doesn’t seem completely thought out.

From the official release site:

“Invite other owners of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix HD DVD to simultaneously watch from their own internet-accessed players and text with your remote, PC or cellphone.”

Just a quick note to the movie studio….communication has been available through your PC and cellphone before this feature became available. So you have added texting through remote, which I see absolutely no one taking advantage of.

Maybe I’m out of touch with the youth market, but I just can’t see this catching on. I can’t think of a time I have ever wanted to watch a DVD simultaneously with someone else who wasn’t in the room with me. Except, of course, when Space Jam comes on TBS and I call all my friends so we can watch it together.

If I’m marketing this, here is where I’m selling this feature: constantly traveling or divorced parents. You would call your son or daughter up, and you could watch a movie ‘together’, even if you are apart. Or maybe job training or education DVDs, where you could coordinate a class and then the instructor ‘hosts’ a simultaneous viewing. But that would necessitate lots of people owning HD DVD players, and that just isn’t happening – yet.

So this feature may just be ahead of it’s time. But I hope executives aren’t pushing this as a feature that will put HD over the top of Blu-Ray. If so, they could be in for a looong holiday season.

Today I took the brand new Karmaloop TV service from Karmaloop for a spin today, and it definitely has a lot of promise. I always dig an ‘insider’ look at an underground-type of industry. My favorite segment so far is an interview with Shepard Fairey, artist and founder of Obey. It was a Fairey experiment that produced the famous image above, which you probably recognize if you were skating in the mid-90’s.

Before I get to the content of the interview though, let me just say that Karmaloop CEO Greg Selkoe clearly should not be interviewing people. He is eating the microphone, his questions are pretty dumb, and he introduces himself with aliases? Who does that besides Sal Masekela and Sway? It detracts from the person you are trying to interview and just doesn’t look very professional. I admire him because he has been pretty successful, but leave the interviewing to someone else!

Once Shepard Fairey took over the interview, it became very insightful. He spoke on his humble roots and how the whole ‘Andre the Giant has a posse’ meme came about. Fairey really goes global when commenting on his reaction to the growth of the ‘Andre’ image:

“…it really opened my mind to the ideas of an image in public sparking a reaction that is something that is outside of advertising and the usual signage that you see that raises people’s awareness about what’s going on around them.”

I had just read something about influential street artist Banksy and his exhibit here in New York. Fairey’s comments got my mind rolling on the whole awareness idea. In advertising, we really inundate the public with ‘awareness’ campaigns that are trashed and forgotten almost immediately. Today one of my clients sent out almost two million direct mailings to consumers. They are hoping 95-98% of recipients don’t trash the piece immediately.

Comparatively, Fairey’s Andre image was first published on a sticker in 1989, and almost twenty years later his art has grown into not only a full business, but has influenced many people to look at the world in a different way.

All we have to do is take some time and create real creative work for our clients. More than just words on a page describing policies and legal. Make them feel something as well. This can be accomplished just as thoroughly with art as a traditional print or TV campaign. But make it something rare – make it something your target will seek out and obtain, rather than have it stuffed into their mailbox. Only then can we create influential works to last over time.

There is a guy who sells food for a diner down the street from our offices. I say it in these vague terms because I have absolutely no idea what this guy is selling. I know he is out there, day and night, yelling about the special deals the shop has that day. But what he is yelling…it’s not words.

It’s not another language either. It’s total and complete gibberish, a la Don Vito of Viva la Bam fame, or recently that guy on (edit: Mr. Wise) I Love New York 2 who cannot speak english.

But yet somehow…it just works. People actually take samples off the platter he shoves in your face, samples which look a little bit like 2 week old bagel bites covered with cheese sauce. He hands flyers out by the dozen, while others struggle to get a few tourists to take their pieces of paper.

And he has become an icon around here. In doing a bit of research for this post, I asked around the office, and EVERYONE knew who I was talking about with little or no explanation. Try describing a popular ad placed in the middle of prime time television. Some people know it, but even fewer will know what product it is for. That placement cost millions. This guy, for minimum wage (probably) stands outside a small diner and yells words that are literally not understandable. And people love him.

Does it sell more food? I’m really not sure. But they have created a buzz-worthy character with little to no spending. They could have wasted all their money on a stupid billboard or an ad in the paper. Heck, they could have really beat their marketing campaign to death and posted ads inside the Subway.

But they didn’t, and it’s been a real success. To top it off, their ‘advertisement’ is totally interactive. Not sure he will answer my questions in a real language, but I’m willing to give it a try. That’s marketing genius, brought to you by your local hole in the wall.

image via Flickr member Goran Anicic

This ad is fantastic. Like the kind that makes you want to go buy the product. The kind that makes you laugh until the guy two desks over asks you to stop. The kind that makes you wish the A-team would get back together for one more reunion special. The kind that makes you…I guess that’s enough.

For anyone who has ever gotten totally obsessed with any game like World of Warcraft, Mr. T portrays the feelings perfectly. And he has probably never played the game in his life. Or any video game, for that matter. I’m pretty sure if T really tried to play a video game, he would smash the controller, console, TV, coffee table, and walls if he got frustrated.

So either he has never played, he has played and is the best player ever, or he has Home Depot on speedial (to repair the holes in the walls, of course). I’m like a quarter of his size, and I’ve put some controller-sized holes in walls after a frustrating game of Madden.

Anyway, the spot is great, better even than the Toyota Tundra WoW spot. Please enjoy.

kudos to Kotaku for the heads up