it’s from burnett, it’s for samsung

Making cellphones is a tough business. Partly fashion, and thus heavily dependent on taste, partly a factor of which networks offer your phone, and wholly (don’t do the math on this sentence, it doesn’t check out) devoid of real value because plan pricing has made them secondary.

Yes, the iPhone is an exception.

Now, everyone wants to have the next iPhone because, unlike the Razr, the popularity of the iPhone went beyond pure fashion and into functionality, badge value and goodies like that. Samsung is the latest to try to become the next iPhone by, predictably, hewing close to the visual road that iPhone has gone down:

[ Samsung TV spot ]

Leo Burnett, Chicago is responsible for the creative…including the baffling voiceover talent decision. The voice is jarring for a reason I can’t really pinpoint except to say that it is too Tom Bodat/Motel 6-y to be the voice of what is supposed to be a cool new technological device. It just doesn’t fit.

The more I watch the spot, the more it bothers me.

It doesn’t bother me as much as the thankless task that Burnett has been tasked with, which is to differentiate and tell a story about what is nothing more than a me-too product. It shows in the design, it shows in the spot art direction that focuses in on the phone as it navigates life, it shows in the fact that the spot has nothing really to say about this phone that is different from the iPhone or other knockoffs.

Still, despite the challenges inherent in the product, one would have hoped that Burnett would have tried some sort of disruption to stand out more. Instead, they use the line “it’s from Samsung, it’s for you” which both insults my intelligence and positions the phone as another crappy product that some faceless company would like me to buy.

I am not really high on this creative, if you couldn’t tell.

good news for chicago & leo burnett

After quite the battering, some good news out of the Windy City: Leo Burnett, they of the recently acquired Daily Biz upside-down EFFIE, has picked up Miller Genuine Draft’s global advertising from Mother.

[ WordPress is being a bitch and not allowing me to upload images, so in this space please imagine an ice cold bottle of Miller Genuine Draft with a weird vaporous swirl around it like this one ]

This is a bit of a coup for Burnett, as they had lost the last of their Miller business to Fallon in 1996 and are now clawing their way back in the door (their foot was in the door, apparently, through their relationship with Arc Worldwide, who do MGD’s direct marketing).

It’s also nice to report some good news for a Chicago agency for a change.

totally punk’d by a bda

Ad Age, positively reveling in the opportunity to laugh at the bloggers it so disdains, is running with a story that can be summed up as “pajama-wearing yahoo bloggers got, like, totally Punk’d or PWND or whatever kids these days say by a spoof that never in a zillion years would have every fooled us, like, NO. WAY. Lmao.”

The Daily (Ad) Biz: 60% of the time, it’s right all the time.

In all seriousness, I had negative concern about Leo Burnett and the mooted dress code. Even if it was true, who cares? Burnett was last relevant before my parents were born.

The real concern was the visual turd that Burnett produced. A funny spoof, perhaps, but it had the agency’s name all over it and it looks like it was done in PowerPoint by a failed-creative Brand Manager. Not the best way to showcase your agency’s creative chops.

Again, I know it was a spoof, but the copy still did insinuate that Burnett’s attitude prior to the dress code was unprofessional. Does that mean that now, without a dress code, they are still unprofessional?

I kind of hope so; it would be one point in their favor as far as me ever considering working there is concerned.

The worst part about this whole thing is how plausible it is. As George Parker put it, “I wasn’t sure if it was a spoof or not. I finally decided it wasn’t because we’ve all worked in BDA’s (Big Dumb Agencies) where that knid of shit could actually happen. Which is probably why it worked… It was certainly within the realm of the possible”

To recap, Burnett actually made something that went viral and managed to fool idiot bloggers like me.

At the same time, they did it with awful creative, puzzling copy and a sad reminder that advertising professionals thought that they were so out of touch that they actually would institute a dress code.

I am not sure that this is the unalloyed success that Burnett and Ad Age think that it was.

Of course, it is a great opportunity to make fun of bloggers and what respectable print media outlet can pass up something like that? Me, I’m just happy for the links.

This whole silly situation, with Burnett, Ad Age and yours truly all cited proudly, gets an upside-down Effie for pitifully small storm in a teacup:

leo burnett’s new dress code

Leo Burnett is asking its employees to dress like they are working at an actual business…and is doing it with a Clip Arty poster that looks like it was done by a run-of-the-mill business. Like Dunder Mifflin.

Really, how did an ad agency allow something like this to be produced with their name on it:

And the copy, which says that the new dress code will reflect their new professional attitude, begs the question: just what was their attitude before?

[Ed note: Yes, yes, I know that it isn't real. However, "fake" or not, Leo Burnett did still produce this visual turd and the copy still insinuates that their previous attitude was not professional. More to come on this very unimportant issue.]

sometimes ads are true to life

An ad is good if it gets to the human truth of the product, explaining why a consumer would need this product in a way that is visceral, real and genuinely compelling because it is so true to life.

I don’t know what CTS is or what they’re selling, and by the time ads get posted to i believe in advertising they are translated to within in inch of their life, but since my dog did something similar this morning I can definitely relate:

I am going to sound like a client here, but in terms of the ad itself I would have liked the headline to be more readable. Or readable at all. Maybe they have better eyes in Italy.

Work by Leo Burnett, Rome.