The Media Guy Struggles: May 2015

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Don Draper...I Owe You.

I may owe my career to Mad Men.

"But, why?" you ask...

The answer is simple: Advertising was dying in 2007. I mean it was a bloodbath. Budgets were getting sliced like deli meat and the wise guys in accounting were cutting costs and the media departments took the big hits first. Add to that the advent of TiVo which touted the ability to never have to watch commercials again and you have the perfect storm needed to switch careers and fast!

Enter Jon Hamm as the perfect Don Draper and, BAM!, you have an anti-hero that made advertising cool again in the very first episode:

"Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is OK."

The success of the show -- four straight Outstanding Drama Series Emmy Award win -- spread to the vices of the show. Lucky Strike, the preferred cigarette, saw its global sales soar 44 percent in the same period. Draper's favorite booze, Canadian Club, which had suffered seventeen years declining sales prior to Mad Men's debut, suddenly were looking to pay dividends with a 4.3 percent annual growth. Talk to any bartender and he'll tell you that cosmos are out and classic cocktails are in. Manhattans, Old Fashioneds and gimlets are suddenly popular again.

...and just like that, advertising was cool again.

Applicants at the big agencies in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago jumped, even tripled. Everyone wanted their share of creating the Great American Campaign. Agencies are now teaming with highly-specialized staff ready to solve any problem. It's a tense, dog-eat-dog environment inside those agencies and yes, it leaves many on edge. Ever wonder sets them off? Adweek's David Griner has the quintessential guide to treading lightly and the comments sure to provide spontaneous combustion:

To a Copywriter: "I hope you didn't make plans this weekend."
To an Art Director: "Hmm, it just needs, I don't know, more pop, you know? Like, more (makes waving hand motions) crackle to it. Cleaner, maybe. Oh and these partner logos need to be added, and brand standards require they run green on black."
To a Creative Director: "Oh, you mean like the thing Old Spice did?"
To an Account Executive: "Then tell the client they'll just have to live with it."
To the CEO: "Did you see that big article today about [rival agency down the road]?"
To the CFO: "So I was cleaning out my desk, and I found some invoices."To a Media Planner: "Can't we just take it from the discretionary budget? You guys always have a discretionary budget."
To a Media Director: "We're thinking full-court press: Mobile, social, TV, outdoor, viral. We really need to get everything we can from this $125,000."
To a New Business Manager: "How important is this pitch?"
To a Producer: "What do you mean we can't license the song? The client already approved the rough cut. Just make it happen."
To a Project Manager: (On the way out the door) "Oh that? I didn't get around to it."
To a Video Editor: "The client's son is in film school and has some ideas. He says you can just send him the raw files if you're not up to it."
To a Developer: "The client's expecting this to work across all the platforms: mobile, Android, Facebook, .NET, watches ... you know, all of it. Just keep it flexible and be mindful of the budget."
To a Production Director: "I'm pretty sure I would have noticed this kind of error on the proof. Surely they'll redo the print run if you tell them it was their fault."
To a Strategist: "But I'm a millennial/boomer/shopper/parent, and that's not how I feel about brand loyalty."
To the PR Director: "Then why didn't sales go up?"
To a Social Content Planner: "Man, I wish I got paid to play on Facebook and Twitter all day."
To the Receptionist: "You should smile more."

NOTES ON THE SCORECARD:

SECRETARIES
Before you give your well-meaning, head-in-the-clouds secretary who doesn’t always seem to understand the subtleties of the workplace, some more grief consider this: Meredith Explains Why She’s Don Draper’s Best Secretary Ever!

WHY IT PAYS TO BE A JERK
Sneer at the customer. Keep your colleagues on edge. Claim credit. Speak first. Put your feet on the table. Withhold approval. Instill fear. Interrupt. Ask for more. And by all means, take that last doughnut. You deserve it.

NEED A WINGMAN?: Meet her now!
As designed, Invisible Girlfriend is meant to be a relationship cover. A crowdsourced significant other that lives amongst your text messages to fool others into thinking you're spoken for. But use the service long enough, and it's easy to take advantage of the fact that, at base level, you're texting anonymous strangers who are mandated to text nice things back.

Artist Steals Instagram Photos & Sells Them For $100K At NYC Gallery...yes, right now you can purchase someone's Instagram photo for around $100,000. The money won't go to the photographer, however, it will go to "artist" Richard Prince, who has blown up and made prints of other people's Instagram photos for his series titled "New Portraits."

Click to Enlarge

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER

Imagine, in a season of racial division, imperialist deception, and capitalist malaise, the whole world gathered upon a hill sharing a fizzy brown drink. Well, they did (metaphorically) and "Hilltop" became one of the top commercials of all time. In honor of the real genius behind the ad, namely Bill Backer, the creative director at the real McCann-Erickson, here is this week's #TBT pick:

Read more about how this commercial changed the world of advertising...and the world:

What Coke Taught the World: The “It’s the Real Thing” ads were among the first to recognize the market potential of a multicultural America.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Gizelle: Model, Spy and World's Greatest Muse

First, the big news...

The Media Guy strikes again. A double winner in the 2015 Telly Awards competition. What are the Tellys? Only one of the most prestigious honors in the the advertising industry. Sure, the Clios get all the glam, but the Telly Awards carry a lot of juice.

Yet I digress...

Okay, so where am I?

I still may or may not be negotiating with some nefarious figures in Azerbaijan on human rights issues for Amnesty International. Or maybe I'm wrapping up a book for a retired South Korean bad-ass turned ambassador. What I can tell you is that I just spent a lovely morning catching up with with my dear friend Gizelle Pierre.

Google her. You won't find her. She's a mercenary and a makeshift spy. Her undercover work is known by all the wrong people and only a few of the right ones. If she shows up at your home in the shadows of the night, don't count on sipping your morning coffee at dawn. As a matter of fact, you'll probably won't wake up at all. She's Mrs. Smith without all of the Mr. Smith-Brad Pitt nonsense. She's also one of the greatest advertising muses in the world. She is the inspiration for the Creme d'Or Ice Cream spot (featured below in the Ad of the Week/Month/Whatever below), GQ's How to date series (below as well), and my Clio-winning spots from the nineties.

Gizelle is everything you want and she'll even tell you how to date her!

She calls herself simple, yet one look at her petite, curvy frame let's you know she is so much more. A lifetime of adventures trapped in confidential silence. Her deep eyes tell you even more. With a deep, throaty laugh she proclaimed, "Holy silencer! It’s 2015, I’m recently single and I’m in my forties. The next year is is going to be a little crazy. I may need to get a few more passports!"

With that, we dived into her 2015 Dating Rules for guys who want a shot with her and her equally wacky girlfriends:

1. We're all crazy.

It’s cool because guys are more than a little crazy too. But some of us women, holy sh*t. I have stories for days and I’ve only been dating for a short time again. But ask any guy you know in any situation and they’ll all agree: either jump on for the ride or get out of the way.

2. It's about the aura not about anything else.

We all know this one too. What do we say we want? No seriously, ask one, ask a 100, ask me! We say things like “he’s gotta be smart...and nice...and funny!" Oh, definitely funny. I love funny guys, and he must be be respectful. But he has to be direct because I don’t play games. Guess what? I just lied to you like seven times right there and I am not even the craziest one. At the end of it all, but nice, funny, rich, etc., but really if you doing have that aura and energy that connects with me you are cooked. We should just do a coffee and see if we match. You'll know if we should be together before your latte is dips to 120 degrees.

3. If I don't act interested, I really am.

I'll give you my number, but I won't answer until the third time you call. I say I'm available but my schedule is always booked when you try to make a plan. Timing is everything you know?! After all, I am undercover 90% of the time.

4. Have a pickup line that actually works.

Every girl needs a little protection and some contacts that change colors.

The pickup line that works is, like, when guys are just nice and giving you compliments with confidence. You know, "Hi, your hair looks good today." "Hi, I like those shoes." But then they also might be gay, but—it doesn't matter. Ha! Really though, I don't like lines, so just be you. Because when you try to hard, you end up looking like a fool, and we both feel awkward, and now I have to tell you to walk away and I'm keeping the $14 cocktail that you just bought me.

5. I mean I love poetry...

...but be manly. Manliness is the best thing. Who wouldn't want to date a manly guy? A lumberjack...or an astronaut...a crocodile wrangler...smell like gasoline—gasoline in the woods. Seriously though, take control of the date and the activity and what we are doing. Make me feel safe. Don't worry, I am happy to pay for half. But whatever you do, don't be that rude guy. You know that guy who's rude to people for no particular reason. If you're rude to anybody that's beneath you or you treat people like they're beneath you, that's a deal-breaker. It shows a lot about somebody's integrity, personality, how they are as a person by the way they treat other people. Don’t let any failures affect your self-worth because that will show through and you’ll get into a snowball of self-loathing.

How to Date...

It's a little known fact the Gizelle was the muse behind the How to Date Series from GQ. From True Detective star Alexandra Daddario recommending Tinder to Game of Thrones queen Natalie Dormer talking about where to pick people up, one-liners, and more, these vignettes give you everything you need to charm your lady.