Banksy, the British graffiti artist, film director and painter, has published some comments giving his take on advertising. You get the impression he is not a fan.
His line is that advertisers are laughing at us and intruding in our lives while at the same time forbidding the public from touching their copyrighted images. He has a point. Read more »
Prime Minister David Cameron has delivered a statement to the House of Commons on the phone hacking scandal and the upcoming public inquiry. He has also set out the terms of reference for the inquiry, see below. Read more »
The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday was, like the Iranian embassy siege long before, a great ad for the special forces soldiers who carried it out and the highly dangerous work that they do.
That time it was the SAS this time it was a unit of the US Navy SEALs (Seal Team 6).This recruitment ad is from 2006 and is deemed one of the best. It is as subtle as you like and it is called “Footprints”. Read more »
Facebook is racking up the milestones. It’s being reported that it is about to hit $1bn in revenues next year.
Business Insider reports that Facebook revenues have taken a huge leap having been on course to hit $550m in 2009.
But with the rapid and unceasing growth in Facebook’s user numbers it quotes a report by TBI Research analyst Rory Maher saying that Facebook will hit the $1bn figure in 2010 on the back of four key measures success of:
Advertising executives have been lumped together with city workers and tax advisers (that’s a low blow) and accused of destroying society’s wealth and causing damage by creating over consumption. Ouch.
The Daily Mail says the report by the New Economics Foundation (sadly it did not grade the Daily Mail on its contribution to society) says “advertising executives and tax accountants destroy even more of society’s wealth as they create their own”.
So forget trying to come up with a great new campaign for that killer FMCG project become a childcare worker. These people by contrast to ad execs”free up potential wealth by helping parents keep working – generating up to £9.50 for every pound they are paid”.
Hospital workers and teachers also score higher than advertising execs who the reports says are not only overpaid, but they are overpaid at the expense of others. It did not grade journalists. That must be good, right?
“Although the role of an advertising executive has high status, the impact of the industry has always been a point of controversy. It encourages high consumer spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fueling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress.
“In our economic model we estimate the share of social and environmental damage caused by over consumption that is attributable to advertising. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate,” the report says.
Is Twitter mainstream yet? Advertisers certainly think so,
too bad consumers don’t agree.
A new study by Harris Interactive finds a polarising
attitude between marketers and consumers towards the microblogging website.
The New York Times has opened up a self-serve ad platform
for a series of citizen journalism websites which fall under its hyper-local
‘The Local’ domain, covering east coast boroughs from New York to New Jersey.
Here’s a question. Would you take Twitter advice from an ad agency that didn’t Twitter? Like Lowe Worldwide, which tweeted once back in April, or Saatchi London, which has tweeted three times.
Ad Age has a good piece, which started me off on this, and it highlighted one great example with a suitable piece of agency speak in the form of @Euro_RSCG. The agency recently created a rich media campaign for Volvo (ad-placement deal with YouTube to promote the Twitter feed for its XC60 model), but while it has some followers it has not tweeted once.
The agency said this was because its still “developing our Twitter strategy and in the meantime want to hold onto the name”.
Needless to say, the agency is not alone. There is a long list of agencies doing very little or next to nothing.
Here are a few with their respective number of tweets (granted some of these might not belong to the agency in question):
DDBLondon registered but suspended.
twitter.com/TeamSaatchi 4 (probably not the agency, but a good example of what happens if you don’t take control of your Twitter name not to mention lax alcohol at work rules).
Then there are all the rest, which have not taken up the chance to register their name. Seriously you or I (although I wouldn’t encourage anyone to register someone else’s Twitter name) could rush out to day and be anyone of these fine institutions:
TequilaLondon, TBWAGroup, WundermanLondon, ManningGottlieb, MGOMD, FallonLondon, PublicisLondon, EuroRSCGLondon, DDBLondon, PHDLondon, Lowelondon, BBHNY, wiedenLondon, MilesCalcraft, Greylondon, BMBlondon, DelaneyLund, DLKW, ChickSmithTrott, ArnoldLondon, Ehsbrann, HooperGalton, 180Amsterdam, DyeHolloway, MandCsaatchi.
I’ve just seen Visit London’s Olympic ads created by RKCR/Y&R for the first time and have to say was impressed.
I must be coming over with Olympic spirit or something. Okay so the river Thames motif reminds me of the credits for ‘Eastenders’, but hey nice work all the same.
A lot of people have had a good laugh at the name of the agency that
WPP Group set up to handle its global Dell account, but some joker has
taken it a step further with a spoof website Enfartico, which is amusingly close to the original.
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