advertisingwithoutpity

2005 Report Cards

The folks at AdAge recently released their year-end performance review of 40 top agencies in the U.S.

Earning top honors was BBDO. Nice work Lubars.

But let's not forget the big losers in this year's survey: Lowe and Y&R. Both of these agencies garnered the prestigious honor of earning one star (out of five) for their efforts. According to AdAge, you can't suck any worse than that.

No doubt the work speaks for itself. Lowe is reponsible for Saab's regurgitated "Born from Jets" campaign. And Y&R didn't do anything worth a shit last year. Nothing I can even make fun of.

Speakerphired

These are scary, but exciting times in the ad biz. So many new formats. So many new media opportunies. So many new ways to piss off consumers.

For agencies, it's a brave new digital world and marketers are only beginning to realize the potential of this new, fractured media environment. As a result, agencies are experimenting like never before. And no doubt they are learning a lot in the process.

Lost in this endless on-demand, "consumer is in control" hoopla, however, has been the HR professional, who has been soul-searching ever since Fast Company ripped him a new one in its August 2005 cover story.

Well, apparently HR has also been experimenting within this new technological landscape, exploring new ways to demonstrate their usefulness and ingenuity.

The latest example of this new era in HR comes courtesy of Publicis Groupe's Optimedia, who (several days before the Xmas holiday) reportedly gathered a half-dozen or so employees from its Seattle outpost over the speakerphone to inform them that they were being canned.

Yeah, you heard that right. They were fired over the speakerphone. They were speakerphired.

According to inside sources, the experiment is being hailed as a monumental triumph, although further market testing is required. An initial cost analysis of the tactic was dubbed "a rousing success" by one official who wished to remain imaginary, "since we didn't have to put anybody on a plane to fire people in person. Plus, canning someone over the phone a few days before Christmas is just a lot less awkward."

Without question, the future of HR appears bright. Already, some within the industry are discussing the possibility of firing employees via podcast. Others are even rumored to be exploring the text message as a viable, even more spineless means of termination.

Very exciting stuff, indeed.

Fallon has fallen. Can it get up?

It wasn't that long ago that the advertising world was salivating over Fallon and the success of BMW Films. The work was earth shattering. Mind-boggling. Awe-inspiring. Game changing.

Adweek pooped its pants. One Show judges creamed themselves. AdAge shat the bed. The entire population of Cannes, France swooned in collective adoration.

But of late things aren't looking so rosy for the folks in Minneapolis. Lubars left. Bologna and Bildsten bolted. Merkin migrated. Goldstein = gone. And just the other day, Dabill departed.

And since Paul Silburn picked up the helm in MN, the agency has lost a shload of business (including Sony and BMW). The agency also closed its NY shop, which in 2000 was the hottest thing going.

Sure, some of this is just the nature of the biz. And yes, I liked the Citi Identity theft stuff. The amazing Sony Bravia spot doesn't count, though, cuz it was done out of the London office. 

Overall, I'm just calling it like i see it. And it ain't lookin' pretty.

CPB is Agency of the Year (Again)

This might be a bit of old news to many of you, but Creativity recently named CPG "Agency of the Year" for the second year in a row.

Here's a quick blurb from the editors at the mag about the agency's success in 2005:

Most of you won't be surprised by the appointment of CPB to its now familiar post as Agency of the Year. You might be surprised though by how utterly boring were our reasons for the choice (those imaginative readers who email us every year alleging that our picks are the result of everything from payola to sex favor swapping, step away from the keyboards, monkeys, and prepare to be disappointed): the agency just did better, more resonant work for more clients than anyone else.

Though we naturally gravitate toward forward-thinking work and the companies behind it, we're not blinded by channel chicanery for its own sake. Great ideas that come from great audience insight, executed with greatness, win. All the things we spend the whole year talking about—breaking through, engaging audiences, creating content that can compete with any kind of entertainment—the agency just does, and for an inarguably wide range of brands—the client roster includes fast food, cars, household and beauty products, an airline, dried meat, big retail, beer, a search engine, bike gear, a lad's magazine, and an anti-tobacco body among others. All of the work CPB submitted—from TV spots to fake print ads in Auto Trader, to DVDs to masks and rubber grips—just worked. It got into faces and into lives and into the cultural stew, which isn't a wank on the agency's part nor a lapse in marketing judgment on ours for recognizing it. It's what we think makes a difference, ultimately, for brands. We could be wrong. CPB could be wrong. But right now, at a time when the smartest people in the industry are making shit up as they go, the agency's brain trust is making up stuff that often seems, in its own sometimes silly way, important. And it's translated into business success for the agency. After parting ways with Ikea, Molson and Mini, the agency's well known M.O. translated into nothing but upgrades—including new business from Miller, and the Volkswagen and Sprite accounts.

Overall, I'd say this award is well deserved. I can't say I'm a fan of all the work the shop turned out. The Slim Jim stuff is terrible and the article failed to mention that they are responsible for what has the be the worst spot of the year by far: "Chilltop" for Coke Zero. Still, no agency is 100% perfect. All-in-all, they are still doing the best stuff around.

Nice work, CPB.

Lee Jeans Predictions

So Lee Jeans has narrowed down the list of finalists to 4 shops:

Arnold
McKinney + Silver
Lowe
DDB

This is a close one, but in the end I think it will come down to the agency that demonstrates the most insight into the "high-waisted camel-toed market." (Thanks, ballin' on a budget.)

And I'm afraid for the New York shops that this might be a bit of a foreign phenomenon to them, since they live in the center of the fashion universe.

As such, I'm picking McKinney + Silver to win in an upset. Living in Durham, NC, they should have more than ample knowledge of the segment of women who like to jack up their pants to uncomfortable and embarrassing heights.

If the New York agencies are to have any hope of catching up, they better get to studying The Camel Toe Report as soon as possible.

Lee Jeans Fucks With Agencies

The Lee Jeans account is up for review, and Adweek reports that the client will be visiting 9 semifinalist agencies.

"Contenders include Omnicom Group's DDB in New York; Interpublic Group's Lowe in New York and Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis; MDC Partners-backed Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners in New York and Colle + McVoy in Minneapolis; Havas' McKinney + Silver in Durham, N.C.; and independent Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago, sources said. Two undisclosed agencies are also participating in the competition, sources said."

9 agencies?! Why stop there, Lee? Why not just visit every agency in the country? At least go for a baker's dozen.

Shame on Lee for torturing interns and creative coordinators across the country. And shame on AAR, the consultancy running this madness, for allowing Lee to act like complete fucktards.

Agency searches should be narrow, targeted affairs, not NCAA tournaments.

W+K Goes for Global Domination

So Wieden just won the global Coke business. Fuckers.

I'm completely making this up, but wouldn't that be about a billion dollar account? This makes last week's $200MM North American Coke seem like chump change.

W+K is just shitting cash right now. Word on the street is that employees over there are burning money as we speak--just for fun. And with both Nike and Coke--arguably two of the strongest brands in the history of the world--it seems as though Dan Wieden might be preparing to take over the universe. Christ, they've got some Starbucks work too; they might as well go for McDonald's and Wal-Mart while they're at it.

Interactively challenged

I took a look at Goodby's website today, just out of curiosity. It blows pretty hard. It's so bad, actually, that you wish they didn't have a website at all. It almost looks like it was put together at the advent of the Internet. Or shortly thereafter. I'm thinking late '93 or early '94.

Why is it that agencies--even some of the best--totally suck at self-promotion? You would think the web would be the perfect place for GSP to showcase their thinking in a cool way. But the site doesn't showcase their thinking, nor is it presented in a remotely compelling way. And it certainly doesn't look cool. It looks god-awful.

This is all the more perplexing because Goodby, according to the site, has "strengthened our online capabilities [and] expanded their interactive staffing." Really?

Perhaps the site is really one of those teaser trickeration campaigns, sorta like W+K did for Sega with Beta-7. That shit was money. Something tells me this isn't money, though. This is the real deal. This is crap.

Goodby should just give up on the website. Let it go. Nobody reads that shit anyway, except ornery cynics like myself. What they need to do is build a blog, as Adrants pointed out a while back. And this site, Adverblog, even put together a nice compilation of agency blogs for us to peruse. Good stuff.

If I were Goodby, I'd get my expanded interactive staff on that shit ASAP.

FCB Chicago Makes It Official: "We're the worst agency in the biz!"

Brace yourselves, this is going to hurt a bit.

I pity FCB Chicago. I really do. After all, they are the ones responsible for the Coors Light abomination. On its own, this campaign is mind-blowingly embarrassing enough to get the agency shortlisted for the "we-couldn't-possibly-suck-any-harder-than-this" award. If I worked at FCB Chicago, I think I'd probably tell people that I worked at Grey. Or Lowe. (Oh wait, they aren't around anymore. Shit, doesn't matter. I'd still say I worked at Lowe.)

But apparently these folks are capable of even bigger and bolder catastrophies. Their latest work for KFC actually sets the bar lower than previously thought possible. If you haven't seen it, then you are really missing out. Missing out, that is, on feeling a lot better about your own pathetic career. Because chances are good you'll never do anything this bad. Ever.

The new work promotes what appears to be chicken giblets soaked in turd sauce, affectionately dubbed KFC Flavor Station. So already these poor guys are fighting a losing battle. But still, let's collectively laugh at what they ended up putting together.

Apparently the planners at FCB had their heads up their asses and were able to convince the creatives that "empowerment" is part of the fast-food zeitgeist. Thus the spot (called "I'm in Charge") revolves around people talking about how they are feeling "in charge" ever since they switched from non-turd-soaked chicken giblets to turd-soaked chicken giblets. Huh? Say wha?

Now I knew I couldn't have been the only person to note how retargilous this idea was. The Chicago Sun-Times agrees: FCB Chicago is "in charge" of sucking.

Keep in mind, points out the Sun-Times, that this is the same agency that previously tried to tell everyone that fried chicken is good for you. Amazing. Amazingly STUPID.

But unfortunately I can't stop there because I happened to notice that KFC also has a special Flavor Station website. That's right, at www.chooseyoursauce.com you can experience one of the sorriest attempts at viral communications on record. The damn thing looks like it was put together by ad students from Northwestern. In their free time.

All I have to say really is that the concept for the site is Office Space meets The Office meets Burger King's "Have it Your Way" office campaign. So in essence it's a rip-off of a rip-off of a rip-off. Nuff said.

Motherfuckers

So would somebody please explain to me how CP+B won over $450 million in billings in the span of about 36 hours—all without a review? Redonkulous! As you've probably heard, they won VW yesterday and added Sprite today. Moments later, CP+B revealed new taglines for each of their new clients. VW will now be steered by the "Obey your Driver" brand idea while Sprite has decided to go with "Thirst Wanted." Genius.

Seriously, those bastards in Miami should really should consider all the other poor saps in the advertising world who struggle to win new biz, working countless all-nighters to prepare for pitches they never had a chance of winnning in the first place. Alex, you're just not playing by the rules. You suck.

One does have to wonder how long those hacks at CP+B can keep this up. Mini was great, but the account size was manageable. VW is a beast. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Good luck, assholes.