Glidden nuns will paint your house for free.

I kid. I saw the new Glidden ads over the weekend using Earth Wind & Fire’s Shining Star, and while I’ve not really broken down spots in-depth in some time, I think I need the practice because there’s a bunch of stuff going on here. (You can see the spot here.)

Basically, Glidden wants to you to feel better about your room makeover… in times like these. The main thought being that you don’t have to be a painter to love Glidden, supported by the insight that anyone can have color in their lives during depressing times.

This theme exploits the conventional wisdom that people need escapism, again, in times like these. Except that, changing your surroundings provides a mental lift anytime, not just when things are tough.

Supporting another notion that you don’t have to be a pro to enjoy painting, they then take people from all walks of life: Nuns, rappers and citizen journalists, then have them carrying paint cans to show anyone can do this. (Even a dog, pointing out the disbelief you held in check to this point because using an actual can woulda killed its mouth.)

(Below is the nationwide launch from last month that kicked off in New York City.)



All of this supposedly eliminates the mental barrier they think is keeping you from releasing your inner Trading Spaces AND Shining Star. When combined, this is supposed to be the spark that gets you going, and then you request your free quart of paint which they ran out of.

Got all that?

Good, Circle of Brand Life™ now complete because beaucoup boxes sure got checked off in this one. (I’m including a brief nod to the current flood of commercials using classic hits—Earth, Wind & Fire in this case—only to point out how much stuff is being forced into this one spot.)

Still, having painted for years and trying all the brands out there, this spot doesn’t feel right for me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate epic, like Valspar’s cool work. That’s also not to say others dislike this good times message either. Clearly, some get off seeing dancing nuns in heels.

Here’s where I come at it from though:

1) Painting. Sucks.
Always has. Love the results, hate the work involved. (The thing that makes it easy? A radio, being left alone, something cold to drink and that damn blue tape from 3M. That stuff is amazing.) In general though, no brand should lay claim to making the painting process enjoyable, just easier.

2) All paints are basically the same.
You shop on price. If there’s a holiday coming up and you need to paint a room? You’re buying whatever brand gives you $5 off a gallon. No nun’s going to change that fact because we ALL shop that way.

3) Gimmee a good color selection process.
When I finally decide to paint, the color selection process needs to be E-Z. I’m not saying it’s the main consideration, but it’s close. I see a ton of home improvement websites, and it’s here that Glidden’s spots lack integration with their online efforts.

It’s also here where I take the Onlineville exit for a more in-depth comparison of what two of their competitors are doing better.

*waits while readers grab drinks*

When driving people to your website, it needs to enable people to do what they need, not what your ad tells them to. My painting experience is not the same as the one the brand tries to force on me. Don’t deliver me a “big” TV spot and then drop the ball online.

After finally deciding to paint, what’s the one thing people have trouble with the most: Matching and picking colors, right? (Or the spouse who can’t make up their mind which color they want.)

Behr and Sherwin-Williams’ sites offer a better user experience in this regard, allowing people to visualize their rooms ahead of time. Glidden’s color selector doesn’t do that, not even close. Contrary to what the brand person in this clip says, being able to sit down and click through 10 different color schemes is a better way to see things ahead of time.

Both competitors have nicely-designed navigation and advanced features, (and overall, Sherwin’s is the fastest paint site I’ve ever used). They also have an iPhone app for matching colors while Behr lets you upload a photo of your own room to Paint Your Place. These are things that should be industry standards.

Instead, spend millions on TV spots only to skimp on the website? It’s one of the few places a person connects with a brand in terms of function. TV may set the mood, but web and retail do the heavy lifting when it comes to consumer experiences.

*cue DDB going, but hey, we didn’t do the site*

Understood. AND I AIN’T MAD AT YA. Maybe it was done internally or by an outside digital shop. It still all needs to work together. I don’t expect Glidden to be as complex as the others because even those go overboard, but I can’t help think how outdated this feels. The only positive is their handy room/paint calculator the others don’t have.

Otherwise, they have a color library withY2K functionality. Online catalogs that make an annoying page turn sound with no way to turn off. Colors aren’t clickable. Best of all: How do you justify a low-res image for your website’s backgrounds? (Guess craft services on the TV shoot ate up the hi-res iStockphoto budget?)

I did like the dog with the can and the bling on DJ Mix-a-swatch though.

OH, a dance number, good for YOU.

“The 9-year old Christian Bale then went off on the food stylist after shooting on this Pac-Man commercial was finished.”

Because when gay shirts are outlawed, only outlaws will wear gay shirts.

Wait a sec... OH, you mean legalize gay, not gay shirts. Whew. I was worried for a sec that we were going to need a shirt for every group.

What they shoulda done was — Post-it Notes™ edition.

Whenever I see a brand missing an opportunity to do something cool with little or no effort on their part, I never know if I should file it under a single category because, like a mechanic, once I get in there and start looking around, I find other stuff.

Forgetting the usual phrases like connecting the dots or brand integration, I can tell right away what the woulda, shoulda, coulda is that’s missing when I look at something. Call me, for lack of a better word... The Brand Whisperer.™

I KID.

Stickies®. Post-Its®. Post-It Notes®. Whatever you want to call them, 3M has parlayed little colored paper with non-permanent adhesive stuff on the back into a nice run. They created a brand category that crosses over both the office and home markets, something few products manage to do this successfully.

So I saw a short film called Post-It Love, about love in the workplace told with, duh, stickies, then saw other stuff being done with them. Things like a stop-motion version of Donkey Kong with full-size characters made of stickies. (Look, I’m not writing the full name out with that “®” each time kids. Deal.) There were other clips using them in different ways too, from student work to office pranks.

I then went to their website figuring I’d see a collection of all of these things, but instead, what I saw was the most corporate-looking approach to product videos going. They’re obviously well-produced and all, but the fake, over the top tone is the complete opposite of the vibe created by a community doing really cool stuff with the same product.

Instead, watch Sophie say cool 15 times.

Especially when compared with their very safe kids section. Creativity’s about coloring outside the stickies, no? (For starters, why not teach kids how to use them to create a simple mask animation? All the schools across America enter for a chance to win stuff for their school. Endless possibilities.)

You’d also expect to see a YouTube page with their own clips and anything tagged Post-It from YouTube Land, but nope. Dead. Even the link from their site to their contest page for One Million Uses is dead.

I don’t ever get in cases like this why brands choose to ignore the level of engagement I see created online for free. *wall, meet head* It’s either a brand sleeping, or lawyers controlling the PR firewall.

Hey 3M, the cool’s out there, grab hold of it. Woulda, shoulda, still can.


Tags: 3M, Post-It

Happy 4th.

Tags: 4th of July animation

“Because we we’re right along.”

That subtle wordplay notwithstanding, just wanted to get y’all ready for 2012. (You didn’t think they were really going to give hope a chance, did you? Whoever “they” are, they have a different hope in mind.) Since election cycles are almost non-stop now, figured I’d fan some flames on the 4th! Lest anyone speculate on what Sarah Palin is up to, I’m guessing whatever it is will include a return to good old American family values. And a Bush named Jeb.

What. Could happen, couldn’t it? Just in case, Imma reserving becausewewererightallalong.com

(Unless Harlan beat me to it.)

Tags: Sarah Palin resigns

I would give this music video every award ever.

Well, for this year at least. How do you not dig this? No cgi in this amazing collaborative fan-based effort for Japanese band Sour. Sure it’s basically a bunch of shots based around the idea of “What cool things can we do now?” This takes the fan integration of the Beastie Boys I Shot That and Ok Go’s choreography two steps further though. The band picked several of their fans to participate in what had to be a nightmare to choreograph and edit. It’s a great example of doing more with less on an otherwise average pop song. In this case, each person only had a webcam and a digital camera for some of the scenes.

Watch. Lather. Be amazed. Repeat.

(Directed by: Masashi Kawamura + Hal Kirkland + Magico Nakamura + Masayoshi Nakamura)

(Originally via.)

Tags: Sour 17,694—7/3/09, 48,946—7/4/09

What they shoulda done was — Microsoft edition.

You might have already caught the Microsoft spot directed by Bobcat Goldthwait involving the trifecta of breakfast, porn and vomit? (Freudian slips are showing as the husband doesn’t really seemed bothered by the wife’s projectilization. Much. Just what is he surfing for online anyway.)

But here’s one thing they coulda, woulda, shoulda done. How about a nice pre-rant to lead things off first though, hmmm? K!

I’m really fed up with the bullshit from major agencies giving shit to any blog that criticizes obviously bad work, as if ad bloggers don’t have a clue and that “consumers love the new work.” They do it all the time, especially at Cannes. (Spies. Everywhere.)

Their problem though is that they mistake the passion we have for doing good work with being angry in general. (The Unabomber was angry—I just love advertising. Know the difference.) Sometimes though, agency people let you know how cool they are and you aren’t with harsh comments on blogs–anonymous comments too!

Courageous in the pursuit of the Big Idea, just not in blog comments. Whatever.

By all means though, keep flooding our email with your agency’s endless PR stream and exactly that type of work. We appreciate the irony. We’re also fed up with bad work because we’re tired of watching agencies take millions for work that others, like us, could do better.

Sure, we all have to deal with client restraints and guidelines, who doesn’t, but that excuse only carries you so far. Sure looks like client wasn’t worried about guidelines in this case because you wonder how the hell this gets sold, then approved. (We cannes do better–write us a check and see.)*

There also seems to be no understanding that many ad blogs are written by creatives who have worked for some pretty major shops, won some awards, and that maybe we’re actually right some of the time. I said almost three years ago that Ricky Gervais’ David Brent MS reprise was the funniest thing they’d done to that point. After seeing what Bobcat did? It’s still hard to disagree with that.

I say that even after giving props to Dean Cain in the other spot playing a campy spokesperson type. Here though, he’s not the problem. Because if this is what the brand throws a ton of money at and calls creative, something’s truly wrong.

(Ironic, people give shit to Crispin for this and the recent BK 7” ad for being their work, yet they’re not. More irony: In both cases they now get to reap the negative impact of agencies trying to be Crispin-like in their executions. The difference is, Crispin knows when to mess with the line without going over.)

This also goes to something I believe even more than ever: Major brands are hurting their cause by splitting up so much of their work across multiple agencies. Apple does not have the fragmented messaging that Microsoft seems to. (Why would you not give the browser work to Crispin from the start so we can get some consistency?)

Short of that, give the promoting of the new Internet Explorer 8 to Gervais and crew and let them riff on it. Then tell me honestly it’d be worse than that puke spot, and I’ll write a positive review of Wendy’s waaaay better ads every day for a year. They would’ve given it a sharp, witty approach to a product that needed to be promoted in a less juvenile way. (The only thing I questioned originally is the need to promote the newest release of an existing browser when people are more concerned with Microsoft’s operating system issues.)

But what do I know, I’m just an ad blogger.

*This being the universal “We” so that when Pepsi does write me a check one day Imma share it with y’all.

Look Who’s Skating.

Kuh-reepy. Baby > youth. Get it? Young. Baby. Youth, GET IT? Evian does!

*sighs to self*

(Tip to Sarah.)

Classic video games Lego style.

Hard to argue with Buy 1 Get 2 FREE!

Who says it costs a lot to blow shit up in America? But wait, buy 1 get 5 free! WHO DOES THAT? Why, it’s 4th of July fireworks mAdNeSs I tell you!

This summer I hear the tweeting...

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground.

Keep taping, right “citizen journalists?” Not sure if this a rant against Twitter or the way people use social networks to further an agenda. Hmmm. Okay, latter! The catalyst for it was the recent presidential election in Iran and an attempt I saw to equate slain protestor Neda with “The Movement™ (as I’m now calling it).

A few might question the authenticity of the clip, but it’s more than that. The bigger irony here is equating The Movement™ with the iconic look of a president who instead wants to stay out of the election process in Iran.

What are we doing here, really.

Apparently Twitter now does everything from breaking news to washing your dog to exploiting tragic events for the good of... (say it with me) The Movement.™ This is achieved by goading you into swapping out an avatar “for real change you can believe in.”

Look, I’m not against lending voice or speaking for those whose government won’t allow it, but at the risk of pinning the metaphor meter, the constant attempts to recreate the next Tiananmen Square as this generation’s Vietnam are getting old. If Gen Whine were to have a t-shirt as non-descript as their causes, it would simply be I Was There.*

Wherever “there” is that week of course.

(That claim noticeably belonging to anyone who’d served in Vietnam, the idea being that unless you participated in said event, how could you possibly understand what they went through. That vibe having since been co-opted for any number of causes.)

Maybe that’s what things like green avatars do in this age: Let you wave freedom flags from behind the safety of a 15” screen. You’re there–in spirit.

Most people forget or seem to ignore two things however.

First, regimes who do unspeakable things to their citizens learned long ago to ignore outside influences. Think Kim Jong Il gives a shit about the UN, let alone Twitter? Let the person who can make more of a difference be aware.

Direct those tweets at president Obama kids. His lips may say no but his polling numbers say maybe. Besides, you’d have a better shot with him than trying to convince Iranian hardliners with anything but overwhelming force. Good luck with a few rocks.

Secondly, people are watching this Faces of Death clip out of a morbid sense of curiosity as much as having genuine political motivations. With every click viewers inadvertently help create Martyr 2.0. No, no, really, you should feel proud, not disgusted!

Thing is, the truly iconic moments we remember seeing surrounding a violent event almost always tend to depict the moment after, not during. What has more power? I’m voting less is more. Contrast a moment you don’t usually see with the one that makes headlines, like images of the real Tiananmen Square.

A student stopping a tank is a far more romantic notion than a pile of bodies, innit. What if the tank hit him though. Does the moment lose its effect? Does it become less important? Does seeing one student stand there diminish the impact of knowing how many others died? Are we that hard up for iconic moments now that we take whatever we can get our hands and cell phones on?

(To be clear, I’m talking about showing someone’s last moments and subsequent death.** That’s something you don’t need to see to impart some deeper meaning on the events of the day, as if that one incident will be the PR flashpoint the protests needed.)

Unfortunately, this is the downside of social networks as unfiltered B-roll. Something traditional journalism and newspapers can still claim the higher ground over: Knowing when and what to edit.

The iconic image up top is Mary Ann Vecchio after seeing the body of a dead student. It wasn’t until later after the event that CSN&Y allowed Kent State to live on forever in song. The Iranian elections? They have Twitter and YouTube.

At least until next week when Darfur starts acting up again and everything else takes a back seat.

*Comes in all sizes; never goes out of style either because there’s always another cause around the corner to wear or regift for that special protester in your life.

**Yes, 9/11 imagery shown ad nauseum already considered. Next.

Tags: Iran elections, Neda

Wife saves husband with blogger’s worst nightmare.

Guess that’s the power of advertising because who knew the Bee Gees were the perfect beat when it came to current CPR standards. Apparently she did. I can’t keep this stuff straight though. 5:2. 15:1. 30:2. 3:16. WTF? Now it’s HANDS ONLY. (No tongues.) If someone drops, just keep them stayin’ alive by pressing non-stop. [Insert other 100 beats per minute songs like Another One Bites the Dust, etc.] Which means that We Built This City might actually save a life to make up for all the ones its taken.

?

?

Buy this razor and you will look, walk and hit like Jeter.

*shakes head in frustration.*

*and at this one too.*

It’s not that they’re naked...

(heynd = “hand” Just in case you need translation.)

It’s that Air New Zealand shot a bunch of robots really close up.

Best of all?

I promise, more long-winded rants on branding experts and social media soon, but for now, while duty calls, enjoy this lovely banner for my Gov Jon Corzine. The little thing most interesting about it though? The Produced in-house sign-off. Saving the taxpayer even more money by shunning agency fees. I might vote for him on that alone.

Contextual madness.

It’s not ad madness per se but related storyness. Guess it’s cheaper to die and fly than download?

(Via Corey via Tom Irwin, Jr.)

It’s coming and you can’t stop it, you can only write about it.

If, of course, you want to. We would never beg. Much. Why would you want to though? FREE SCHWAG, that’s why. Yeah, this is me bringing the blatant plug. Cover the Ford/Sprint-sponsored Plaid Nation Tour 2009 on your blog and we’ll send you out a nice blogger care package. (T-shirt, car air fresher, buttonage). Who doesn’t want that? Just say nice things about Plaid. Okay, say anything abut Plaid. How the tour will have live cams on it. Twitter stuff. Facebook stuff. Stuff stuff. You can check out the about page for the nuts and bolts of what the tour is, but it's more than words people, a lot more.

It’s about an agency, a van and a dream.

Take part in the dream and email RJ at Plaid for details. Please. It’s his only hope.