Monday, August 22, 2005

review rumors: american airlines

so i've been hearing quite a bit of chatter that american airlines will soon initiate a review for it's advertising account. can anyone confirm?

Thursday, August 18, 2005

reaching bilingual english domiant hispanics

hispanic business published an article on how to reach the bilingual english dominant hispanic. i don't disagree that you can't reach them effectively using spanish media, but they aren't considering other factors besides english dominance.

the factor i'm talking about is content caliber. it's difficult to imagine educated hispanics heavily watching univision, telemundo, etc save for a few telenovelas or programs. what matters to this segment is quality of content. language is not the primary driver when choosing a tv media channel....it's content. in all seriousness, would you watch reality shows all day just because they're in english? didn't think so.

so what does this mean? it means that you first have to clearly identify your consumer's lifestyle, education, media habits, etc and then make a media decision. for certain brands, you will have much more success creating an impact on educated hispanics through english networks (fx, nbc, etc) using spanish communications or on discovery en español, cnn español, etc.

now regarding univision, telemundo, telefutura, they have their virtues in reaching mass audiences, and again depending on brand, they can be viable vehicles for the spanish dominant hispanics.

human behavior- thoughtless acts?

jane fulton suri of IDEO fame has put together a very smart book on human behavior. it takes you through hundreds of pictures of how people interact with their surroundings. you see these occurances every day of your life but the motivations behind them are what we curious planners try to understand.

the book is also very nifty looking.

thoughtless acts?




Wednesday, August 03, 2005

searching for mark earls co creativity session from account planning session

did anyone record the co creativity session from mark earls? or does anyone have a summary? i unfortunately missed it and i heard it was great. thanks.

current tv

al gore helped found current tv . here's a small excerpt from the about section.

"Its reach and influence are unparalleled. It makes or breaks products and politicians alike, paints our picture of the world, and glues our culture together. And yet, who controls it?

Now, you do.

This is our outpost in a locked-down television landscape. Here, the channel goes two ways. Here, you are viewer and producer. Welcome to Current."

here we go again with consumer created content. as technology continues to empower consumers, we will see an explosion of this content. i'd like to see the day when the mini coopers or jetblues of our world allow the consumer to create all of their communications.....i wonder what it will look like. with some guidance and a loose reign, i think it can transform them into the "people's company"


russell davies speaking at the 4 a's account planning conf.

what a revolutionary but deadly obvious idea by russell...doing strategy and execution at the same time.

although i love the idea of presenting many ideas in a brief to capture the complexity and nuances of a brand, how the hell do you capture it in a typical brief. i guess you don't create a typical page brief. a perfect example is the honda pitch brief....it was a book called "welcome to optimism" with quotes, pictures, poems.....anything that w+k felt the honda brand stood for. it had soul. it had guts. it had a heart. these are things your typical one page brief can never capture. thanks for this russell.

i love the idea of embracing complexity.

art that speaks

went walking last night in chicago and happened upon this really neat art showcase at the old Mort Cooper tie store, 151 N. State. some intersting messages were coming through....

google map link





Tuesday, August 02, 2005

who is blogging from the 4 A's account planning conference

i'm very surprised that only 2 other people, that i know of, are blogging from the conference....(this is also my opportunity to reciprocate on russell davies' mention of my blog)....

russell davies and gareth kay

hope to meet you guys tomorrow

creativity in the multicultural environment by lapiz & burrell

unfortunately there was really nothing to debate during this session. as interesting as the topic is, i think the speakers were playing it safe by talking about already accepted beliefs instead of new and original point of views. i was hoping to have a discourse on contrived cultural conveniences regarding the hispanic market but the subject wasn't even remotely touched. and it would have seemed very out of place to just jump into the topic without a segway.

what was covered was basically that some creative executions do warrant a cultural nuance. first you identify/acknowledge the brand essence, then formulate/adapt the communication strategy and then adapt/keep as is the execution. the brand essence is always the same regardless of audience. the comm. strategy will have to be modified if it doesn't work for the specific target segment.....then the execution falls right into place with the strategy......

this sounds kinda weird....i'll post a better explanantion when i have more time.....

Monday, August 01, 2005

ten insights for being a holistic navigator by publicis and saatchi

the brand idea leads. it's holistic. zzz

when ideas come from different silos, there needs to be a way to funnel them.

brought up a good point on how much of the idea should the brief incorporate

overalll brand equity >> overall communications idea >> initiative communications idea << initiative strategy (product/commercial). you know this leads to thinking about how you communiocate the thinking behind the idea to the client...epsecially since we deal with the hispanic community. how do you instill hundreds of years of culture and the thinking behind the idea in one hour.

it's not about media neutral...it's media amplification. the idea should dictate the form of delivery depending on the brand and how the cosumer ingests different media.

note: truly understand what the business problem is and what exactly you have to solve.

and again we are touching on consumer created content.....god damn this is what we need to be thinking of. a two way dialogue with our consmer. perfect example hypegallery.com

who is the target? i think you should focus on the sweet spot group. connect to the core (very small target) consumer to make a statemnt about your brand. it doesn't alineate anyone...it just differentiates the brand. "when you are everything to everyone you are nothing to everyone"

talked about the myths about holistic planning;

1- holisitc communications = no tv
2- he who has the most touchpoints wins
3- the touchpoint determines the message
4- holistic = the new creativity

fragmentation-
brands are fractal. once a brand idea is identified, you can see and feel it regadsless of the touchpoint.

idea: infuse the consumer experience into the communication. tell a story using different touchpoints so thet consumers see it evolve.

the idea can't be measured. it's intuition driven but it is fundementally based on knowing the problem, the target, the business cycle.....


session:
Ten Insights for Being A Holistic Navigator by
Marta LaRock, Publicis
Madeleine Miller, Saatchi & Saatchi

planning for design session by futurebrand at aaaa

oh my god....here we go again....futurebrand selling their services instead of relaying valuable info. but they did say they aren't here to sell. talking about how design has become mainstream.....but why? explain to us please.

self ornamentaion: a trend among men. basically the idea that guys wear jewelry.

more selling pitch.....going over the ups case study....i heard this once at the dinosaur agency called tm, formely temerlin mcclain.

i really wish he would go into the "how" instead of "what" they've done. i guess i need to ask.

this session was a mess....the presenters had no idea wtf they were talking about when the ipod came up let alone what was apple's brand essence....to them it was all about design. design is just on offshoot of it's overall positiongin of being different....more on this later.

aaaa account planning conference

so i'm here sitting in the "planning for design" session by futurebrand with a bunch of other ego maniacs who think they can solve the world. which by the way will not record the session....what the fuck! they aren't giving away any real secrets....more on that later.