Post Advertising

Every now and then, you get a real-life reminder of why you do your job. It makes you think, "Hey, I really am making a difference in this world and, by golly, what I do is somewhat important in the grand scheme of things." This morning I got a real-life reminder.

It came to me in the form of a Botox commercial. Botox's new tagline, and you can't make this stuff up, is "Express Yourself." Yep, Botox—the drug that freezes your muscles and makes facial expressions a thing of the past—decided to feature a lady laughing hysterically about nothing to, you guessed it, express herself. (And not in an ironic way, which would actually have been pretty funny, come to think of it.) It left me wondering if they even bothered to do a quick scour of the Internet to see what people say about their product? Obviously not. So, I decided to do it for them.

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Let’s talk about LG’s commercial for its new Scarlet TV series. Yeah, I know this campaign has been annoying TV viewers for over a month or two already, but I don’t think it’s too late for me to share why I think it fails royally. And I’m not even going to broach the lackluster creative or hyperbolic writing. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate this campaign across the board, but I pick my battles wisely.  

That said, this campaign is indicative of a much, much greater problem plaguing the advertising industry: Agency-types carelessly throwing around the buzzword “storytelling” and pretend that what they’re doing for their clients’ brands. But, rather than storytelling, they’re simply “telling stories.” There’s a big difference…

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Last week, over drinks at the Ear Inn and a conversation about a certain annoying critic over at the self-styled industry bible, we ran into a mustachioed ad buff by the name of Heathcliff.

What were the chances? We were just talking about an ad guy with a cat-themed surname, and then, lo and behold, here was another. Besides, we've been looking for an ad critic at PostAdvertising.com. We sensed something magical was happening. And it turns out, we were right.

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Sit and listen: Here I give you a post advertising case study about a company called Cordarounds. Simply, they make horizontal corduroy pants. Take heed, my friends, as they are truly doing this shit right. Here are three easy steps to how to actually do what everyone is proselytizing about:

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The age-old story goes a little something like this: black rapper; old white guys in suits. He makes really good music; they make really bad decisions.
 
Now that the music industry has just about self-destructed (because a predictable story deserves a predictable ending), musicians are channeling their creativity into their own marketing efforts. And considering art should be left to artists, some of these efforts are pretty damn good.
 
Meet Homeboy Sandman, MTA advertising squatter extraordinaire. With a fleet of paper-and-tape ads and an ambitious website, Mr. Sandman is no doubt laughing at those of his contemporaries who are still playing court jester and juggling for the decrepit powers that be. (And, not to mention, laughing at Madison Ave, which would have charged those powers about $15 mil for what he accomplished with $15). You’ve got to hand it to him for staying true to the game’s holiest commandment: “Thou shalt make a dollar out of 15 cents.”

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