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As usual, there's excellent stuff going on out there. Wanted to share some of my current favorites...
Levi's continues with their grass-roots videos, all of which stem from the product benefits told in an extremely entertaining way. Textbook. Love the new one below. Agency: Cutwater, San Francisco
An excellent print effort found on Ads of the World for Rohan Mihira. Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Bangalore
Crumpler's website is very cool... Excellent product features and usability. Built by: Reactive. Found on Adverblog.
A great display of interior design at the Eureka Tower Carpark in Melbourne. Graphics read perfectly at certain angles when they're providing direction, and then serve as art when they are not. Found on The Cool Hunter and Hemmy.net. Not sure of the artist/agency...
A way different look for this category. Love the art direction and the use of the stork. Agency: DDB New Zealand. Found on Ads of the World.
I'm enthralled with this Ford KA website. One can explore the product in very cool ways--the site just keeps you around! Agency: JWT Brazil. Found on Adverblog.
And, not new, but I just can't seem to get enough of "Dude." This one in particular. Agency: DDB, Chicago
Celebrities fascinate us. Consider some recent randomness: 1.) Forbes Magazine recently released their "Celebrity 100," a listing of the most powerful celebrities ranked by financial influence. 2.) The Jolie-Pitt twin pictures sold for a reported $14 million. (All the money went to charity.) 3.) Paris is back in the news for being called out by McCain. 4.) When Morgan Freeman was being rushed to the hospital after his car accident last week, bystanders were (amazingly) trying to snap pictures of him being carried off by paramedics...
Collections of events like these happen constantly and all the pomp and circumstance leads some people to ask: "Who cares?!"
It's a good question.
Why is it that celebrities capture so much of our interest? For collective debate and thought, I propose five reasons:
1. Common Ground. I recently ran into a friend I had not seen in years. After some general chit chat about life the conversation trailed off only to be re-invigorated when we began exchanging stories about common friends we went to school with. Celebrities are the same thing. In effect, they're common acquaintances. Because of their high-visibility they are one of the only subjects that a group of people can discuss and all be on the same page. Not everyone may have been to Alaska, or read The Tipping Point, or heard the latest Coldplay album, but everyone knows about major celebrity events. People look for common ground, and oftentimes celebrities are just that.
2. They're Interesting. I don't know about you, but I don't have any friends like Johnny Depp. (Or at least what I imagine Johnny Depp to be like.) He's an extremely interesting individual and hard not to like. I think the same is true for many celebrities. There's a reason we pay attention--they're more outwardly interesting than most of us. This goes for interesting-good and interesting-bad. But in any event, celebrities who aren't interesting, or don't continually do interesting work, don't seem to stick around very long.
3. Reinforcement Of Worldviews. We each have a way of looking at the world. Seth Godin talks about this and, in general, it's the idea that we look for things in marketing and pop culture that reinforce our individual views. For example, when it comes to style, if you believe in classic formality, you probably pay casual attention to George Clooney. If you like a little more bling, Kanye probably grabs your attention. The fact is, everyone from Rachael Ray to Regis to Jeff Gordon reinforce different worldviews. No matter how you look at the world, there's someone famous who approaches the world the same way you do, and when they make the news, you care.
4. The "New" Thing. We like things that are new: new game shows, new technology, new cars. New gets our attention. Or, as Mad Men's Don Draper said, "it creates an itch." Celebrities (and their publicists) are the beacons of new. Not necessarily because it's what we're going to do immediately, but for the sheer fact that it's new. And we like knowing. Perhaps we'll cut our hair like Katie Holmes, perhaps not. But at least it's new. And for that, we give our attention.
5. Articulation Of A Goal. In the movie Bend it Like Beckham, the lead in the film--a young, aspiring soccer player whose parents have a difficult time accepting her involvement in the sport--aspires to be a great soccer player, no matter the price. She focuses herself on this goal by trying to play like David Beckham. We see this all the time with the likes of Tiger Woods, Donald Trump, Carrie Underwood and Derek Jeter. These people succeed by their own unique approach. And I would argue they are more than just people: they're symbols we can grab hold of, articulate and aspire to.
Add them all up and the culmination of these reasons might just be why, as a culture, we obsess over celebrities.
"You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."
In the book A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway has all sorts of gems like that... It's an incredible piece of work, chalked full of the author's first-hand stories about an ex-patriot group of American artists who lived in Paris during the 1920s that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce. The book was published posthumously in 1964.
In the book Hemingway also discusses his writing process. And, while all of it is interesting, what I found wonderfully-fascinating is what he did when he had trouble getting a new story off the ground... Apparently, he would say to himself:
"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
He goes on to add: 'I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was good and severe discipline.'
That's just fantastic. And insightful. Actually, I think it's the reason his writing is so unique. It's also something I wish marketing, advertising, and all public communication, would try to embrace more.
Our industry uses bankrupt words all the time. I mean, how often do we come across words and phrases in copy like: luxurious, great-tasting, friendly sales staff, new, hand crafted, most powerful and longest-lasting? How many times in creative briefs do we see words like: friendly, approachable and unique? How many brand strategies are out there that say something like "brand X makes life better for parents" or "brand X gives you back time to enjoy the things that really matter." ?? (Insert either an online financial service or pizza chain into either of the above.)
When crafting strategies, take the time to write the truest strategy you can about the product. It doesn't matter if it may seem flat... After all, the 1993 iconic Chevy's Fresh Mex campaign (Clio Hall of Fame) came from the strategy: "Our food is fresher than their's."
When writing copy, choose the truest words possible, such as Ogilvy's legendary: "At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock."
Today the industry apparently accepts headlines such as "Reward Yourself" (as seen in a 2006 Rolls Royce ad). After all, headlines like "Reward Yourself" are quicker to write and safer to approve.
Overall, marketing has become vapid. And maybe that's why consumers are so skeptical of it; they don't receive much value when they actually do pay attention to it. Like Hemingway's novels, it seems to me that the greatest marketing and advertising results when someone takes the time to write "the truest sentences they can."