The Pitch – An Advertising Reality Show

I am sure you’ve all seen it by now, the new advertising reality show “The Pitch” on AMC. Yes, I’ve watched and will continue to do so because I love anything to do with the ad business. But they really do dumb-down the business and make it seem like everyone can do it.

I’ll elaborate, the only thing they are the two competing agencies sitting around discussing ideas. While simply glancing over all the other elements, preparation, and creation that actually goes into making an advertising new business pitch. Finally, they don’t really focus any department but they don’t discuss account management. Yes, I am a little bitter I guess.

Overall, they dumb-down the advertising business so that it fits the reality TV genre. But I’ll watch. If you all enjoy the show, please let me know in the comments below.

Best,

-A.B.

Inside That Ad Presents its Top 10 Ads of 2011

It is finally here! Inside That Ad’s top 10 ads for 2011. I realize that it is almost the end of January 2012 but it took me a while to create the list. I also needed to plan out how to display the ads a bit more then usual because there are 10 of them and the list begins in descending order.


10. Weetabix Cereal - Street Dancing


The spot above features dancing phenomenon, Arizona Snow street dancing her way through a sophisticated routine in her bedroom. The routine along with the dancing bears will blow your mind. Arizona is reportedly only 9-years old. But from what I can see she could hold her own against any seasoned, pro dancer.

Read the rest of the list after the jump.

125 Years of Coke Can Designs

Today’s post is an article that intrigued me from Adfreak, one of my favorite “other” advertising blogs. I actually wrote about a much older post about who creates these interesting Coke designs here. Although, I couldn’t discover who actually created the design for the can featured on that particular post. But as you can see, there are a number of ad agencies working on designs for Coka-Cola’s flagship product.

The designs are being created in preparation for Coca-Cola's 125^th anniversary celebration.

Agency: Peter Gregsen, Serbia

 Agency: Bulletproof, U.K.:

Agency: Clot Inc., Hong Kong (with U.K. artist James Jarvis):

By the way, I have posted the images via the URLs from the original article. I hope you enjoyed this post. I also gave credit to Adfreak in the very first paragraph of the article.

Best,

-A.B.

5 Leaked Superbowl Commercials

Black Beetle

Client: Volkswagen
Ad Agency: Deutsch, L.A.

The Force

Client: Volkswagen
Ad Agency: Deutsch, L.A.

Arrive in Style

Client: Chrysler
Ad Agency: Wieden+Kennedy

Kenny G: Riot Suppressor

Client: Audi
Agency: Venables Bell & Partners

Empower the People

Client: Motorola
Ad Agency: Anomaly

The Real Wendy Thomas

There isn’t anything particularly special about the creative execution of the ad above. The product isn’t all that special either but it does provide a little education on advertising history. For years I thought the little girl that is the face of Wendy’s was simply a logo designed to attract people to the restaurant chain but nope it’s Dave Thomas’s daughter. In the spot above she’s back “in real life” promoting Wendys’ new product lovingly called Dave's Hot 'N Juicy Cheeseburger. In the spot Wendy (the real person not the logo) states that since her father named the restaurant chain after her, she named the new menu item after her father, Dave.

The spot above is the first time the real Wendy appeared in an ad for the restaurant chain. She is scheduled to appear in three more spots for the restaurant. The spots are by The Kaplan Thaler Group

Anyway, I thought this was interesting because it discusses advertising history. Found this spot thanks to Adfreak.

Best,

-A.B.

Back to the Original, Logo

Gap reverted back to its original logo after an uproar from the online community only a week after making the initial change. The new logo was created by New York agency Laird & Partners. Now, trademark registration of the original Gap logo went through in 1972. But I can find out for certain who exactly designed the original iconic logo. So I’m going to assume the founders Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher designed it.

People expressed their displeasure with the company by posting messages on Facebook and Twitter. People hated the ne logo, so much that a site called Design Your Own Crap Logo was created.

Best,

-A.B.

Chalupas and Yankees

For the life of me, I can’t find out for sure who the ad agency behind the Taco Bell/ Yankees spot shown above is. I think it’s either TBWA Chiat/Day or DraftFCB but again I am not sure. If anyone knows for sure please leave a comment below. If you’ve watched any preseason baseball on TV then I’m sure you have all seen it at least once.

The whole idea behind the spot is that they use a baseball metaphor to present the joke behind the spot. In the spot the rookie can’t finish the job of eating the whole Chalupa so the manager (Joe Girardi) pulls the rookie out and brings in veteran pitcher Mariano Rivera to finish the job.

Does the spot make you guys wonder why these two wealthy Yankees need to be making Taco Bell commercial appearances? But I guess, make your money while you can, right?

Best,
-A.B.

Shake Weight For Men

The Shake Weight, a dumbbell like piece of exercise equipment has enjoyed tremendous notoriety thanks to the suggestive-way the weight is held. The weight is an arm toning workout product. The way the product is held and used is very sexually suggestive. All you have to do to have a full understanding of what I am saying is watch one or both of the videos.

"We never intended for the women's device ad to have innuendo," says Johann Verheem, the inventor of the Shake Weight according to Adfreak. Verheem goes on to say that if you use the product based on the three exercises provided, it’s not suggestive at all. Later in the same article the inventor goes on to admit that sex sells.

Me personally, I’ve never seen an infomercial that I liked simply because they always sell you things you don’t really need. Not only do you not need the product being sold but they usually are being sold to you by companies you never heard of. But I guess the objective of an informational spot is to inform consumers, although these spots usually come on when people aren’t fully conscious.

The primary ad agency for the Shake Weight is Euro RSCG but I am not 100% confident in my Google search results.



What do you guys think?

Best,
-A.B.

It's Complex Cover

I saw the above cover page of next month’s Complex Magazine issue and I thought to myself I have to write a post on it. Why, you ask? Because when I saw Nicki Minaj’s picture in another blog that I follow I figured she has to be on my blog too. Well and the other reason is there is a large disparity between the number of posts I write discussing print ads compared to television spots.

One of the biggest issues I wonder about when looking at a beautiful celebrity in a magazine is how much the image was photoshopped. This beautiful rappette doesn’t need any retouching in my opinion. So, how much retouching was done to this image in your opinion people? Please leave comments below.

By the way, the image was taken by Lauren Dukoff, and from what I can tell, she’s an extremely talented photographer that works primarily with celebrities and major magazines. Let me ask you guys something else. Should I include a link to her site or is that just giving free advertising? For now, I will link to her Web-site until you, the readers voice your opinions.

None of the other blogs I read never mention who was responsible for the creation of the cover. Since it is this blog’s job to inform its reader of who done that ad. I’m mentioning the photographer.

Below is a short behind the scenes interview with Nicki Minaj, the subject and not the photographer of the cover.

Best,
A.B.

Bags Fly Free on SWA

Southwest is back to using benefit advertising to bag on its competitors with its “Bags Fly Free” campaign. They use a good cop; bad cop routine to point out their competitor’s shortcomings. The bad cop is screaming, “We know your charging for bags, drop the bags and turn around.” Then the good cop screams, “Protect the load.” The majority of the spots revolve around the baggage handlers and how much they care about your bags.

Even at the end of the 30-second spot SWA doesn’t miss an opportunity to point out that competitors charge up to $120 as oppose to them where bags fly free. The tone of the spot above was pretty serious in my opinion, but I think their intensions were to have it be more comedic. Due to the good cop; bad cop routine I think this can safely be referred to as Southwest Airlines NYPD Blue moment.

The spot above was created by Austin based agency GSD&M. The agency could be a good internship spot for those University of Texas at Austin advertising kids.

The spot below has more of a funny tone to it when compared to the one above.



Anyway, what do you guys think? Let me know in the comment section below.

Best,
-A.B.

Dirty, Dirty Dishes

It must be celebrate Australia day here at Inside That Ad. The ad above is a creative attempt to promote dishwashing soap. The reason I felt I did to write a post on this ad by DDB Group Melbourne is because I had to watch the commercial a couple of times before I figured out what they were selling. The spot is selling dishwashing soap but first thought they were selling male adult services for the ladies, then I thought maybe they are promoting an adoption agency, and finally the soap.

Oh, and I also thought they making fun of the man’s sexual orientation but no they were just trying to sell soap. But it took a couple of times watching the spot to understand what they were selling.

What do you guys think? Also, the product also has a funny site propping it up, click here.


Best,
A.B.

PC, Fighting The Good Fight

On March 28th I wrote about the new ads being produced by Crispin Porter + Bogusky for the Windows platform to fight off the Apple marketing assault. The ads are still attacking the fact that Macs are still very expensive and aren’t available to everyone. In the ad above CP+B uses two kids, while in their first attempt they used the naive PC shopper “Lauren” who we found out later, is just an actress and probably not looking for a new PC.

She probably went back home and got right on her top of the line iMac. I honestly don’t think these ads will make much of a difference in the mind of the consumer. If they are price sensitive they’ll go for PC, if they are not and like what Macs can do they will probably buy it.

Best
A.B.

Sprint's Present to Twitter

The spot above created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners must have been Sprint’s gift to Twitter. What other reason could they have for giving them free product placement in their television spot that I believe is airing nationally. The spot gives a shout out to several Web 2.0 product and services such as YouTube and Google. The question is why are they doing this in a nationally aired spot? Are these other Internet companies helping pay for the spot?

I read a few blogs that claim the mobile phone network provider wanted to show that their network and can be used for more then just making phone calls on the go. Almost everybody now has a device that that makes calls, browses the net, sends email, and connects to social networks. But the question still remains, why give those other companies free advertising? The title of this post is “Sprint's Present to Twitter” and that’s because they get a name mention and their stupid birds flying all over the screen. No offense to Twitter, of course.

Usually when products and services other then the one being promoted are mentioned, they are a direct competitor and they aren’t usually mentioned in a positive light. Also, the other social networks mentioned in the spot are mentioned quickly unlike Twitter and its blue birds.

Anyway, if anyone can find solid reasoning for all these product placements in this ad please comment and I’ll thank you and link to your site on my blog if you have a site.

Best,
A.B.

Feelin' Sorry for Myself

Last night I was watching the TV show Trust Me, a show that I've previously discussed on this blog. One of their two storylines for last night's episode was about about a guy who was fired because his work was just not very good. Several years later the main characters in the show give him another chance only to discover that he still isn't very good. So now they need to fire him again and the show takes off from there.

So here is my question, when do you realize that you aren't going to make it in the ad business and look for a new line of work? Maybe I should stop thinking that I'll be working for an ad agency anytime soon.

Best,
A.B.