colle + mcvoy brings you the styles of yesteryear

It’s that time of year again I hear…back to school time. Of course, since I left school long ago and don’t have any kids the only way that I know this is by watching the advertising.

Minneapolis shop Colle + McVoy, who boast swanky new digs in the city’s warehouse district, are out with a new campaign for Taubman Malls based around, you guessed it, back to school. Continuing the trend they set with their recent work, they have built a pretty fun website, Yearbook Yourself, that lets you upload a picture and see how your yearbook photo would have evolved over the decades had you been hip to the latest trends.

Instead of my own photo, I chose Bob Garfield’s. Why not?

He’s not a bad looking cat.

I have been a big fan of Colle + McVoy’s recent interactive work and in many ways this follows suit. The design is solid, the animation quick to load and to run and the piece is interactive and surprisingly fun.

The meat of the campaign was in-mall signage and displays that showed the trends of today and which stores to find them in, so my comments on the site may be a bit nitpicky, but for the online piece I just didn’t get it right away. It demanded that I upload and adjust my picture before I got to a mall drop down and even then I didn’t really see the connection until, on a lark, I chose to click one of the store links next to the picture image and found myself in a mall locator.

Cool linking and a good idea, but it took a while to understand just what was going on.

Far be it from me to ask any agency to make the logo bigger, and this is a tough assignment since you are being asked to bring geographically different malls together under one roof and yet still make them relevant to the user, but I wouldn’t have minded a bit more explanation of just what was going on.

Even though I did have a lot of fun in the end.

agency.com calls the biz

I got a call today from a human resources person at agency.com who must have gotten my name either from someone was playing a prank on me or wants me gone from my current agency. The number of people in each of those categories, especially the second, is significant.

At any rate, it was easy to end the conversation quickly.

HR Lady: I would like to talk to you about a potential position at agency.com. You are familiar with our agency?

Me: Of course! Who could forget the Subway pitch video you guys did?

HR Lady: We are trying to forget it.

Me: It’s practically scorched into my retina.

HR Lady: So you aren’t interested in the position?

Me: I’m happy where I am, thanks.

so…how would i find that cool web thing you are pitching?

We are in planning for next year (already) for one of our CPG clients and we are doing this new “integrated” approach that means nothing more than that we have to listen to other agencies (interactive, media, etc) say silly things and then fight for our ideas to get presented to the senior leadership. It’s a lot of fun.

The interactive agency tops the unintentional comedy scale almost continually. I am going to miss them.

The real issue, which bothers me less than the fact that the creative team they brought to these brainstorms included a copywriter who could barely read the concepts he wrote and then said nothing the rest of the first day of meetings, is that they do not understand that people have to have a reason to go to a website. They do not understand that it takes awareness-driving tactics to build buzz around an interactive idea. They seem to think that because something is cool and online, people will magically find out about it and start logging on immediately.

Tangerine Toad, as you would expect, says it best:

I mean the most basic of all interweb ad concepts– that people need a reason to come to your site– is seemingly lost on many of my colleagues, who seem to think that like TV, putting something online guarantees viewership and that any video posted to YouTube automatically becomes “viral.”

This maxim is as true for a website or a viral video as it is for, say, branded entertainment of the sort that AdPulp featured today:

On its website ae.com, American Eagle introduced a dedicated media channel called 77e, which plays music and videos. The idea was to make visitors intrigued enough by what they saw to entice them to click further and buy clothes. Much of the content on the channel has been commissioned specifically as entertainment and used the American Eagle brand almost incidentally.

Though it seems a stretch to believe that music and videos, which can be found online and on television at any time (though not, of course, on MTV), would drive purchase the idea works as a general concept because it is hosted at a site that already attracts a significant number of consumers and targets only those current visitors.

The objective is conversion of site visits to purchase. The objective is not to bring in new consumers.

Which is good.

Because if you want to bring in new consumers online video and branded content without a big awareness driver or a targeted means of reaching new consumers is a complete waste of money.

As I have been saying all week to the clowns at this interactive agency we are forced to work with.

“the office” hits one out of the park

I finally got around to watching last Thursday’s episode of The Office today and, as it does every episode, it reinforced why it is my favorite show. It’s like Dave Barry peeked into my first agency and is only now getting around to writing about it. Only with a really attractive receptionist and a beet farmer (why not?).

What caught my attention was a short tag at the end of the show for dundermifflininfinity.com, the website for the Infinity intranet that was “launched” in the show. Go to the website and you will see THE BEST promotion I have seen in some time, especially considering the highly involved following of the show (gotta know your consumer and, apparently, The Office enthusiasts need more to do…or a girlfriend)

It is a fantastic promotion with a great website (the site has lots of cool content for both light and heavy “users” for lack of a better term) and overall experience. And it was activated all off of a cheap-looking tag to a TV show.

Traditional advertising is not the place to be these days. Not only is it losing relevance, it is also not the best tool to accomplish a myriad of business goals. Generate engagement with core consumers, build loyalty, drive interaction rates, these are just a few of the things that traditional advertising, especially TV, just doesn’t do well in comparison to other marketing disciplines. It’s not dead by any means, but it’s not the universal answer either.

AdPulp posted this article about Nike that gives further support to my argument, in case you don’t a take a no-name blogger at his word.

Advertising has ceased to be the go-to answer when it comes to marketing questions. With that in mind, how much longer until other agencies begin to drive the brand, be they online, promotions or PR?

And you know that PR is just itching to do it and get us back for years of condescention.

i hate web 2.0

I hate Web 2.0, not because I don’t get it, but because, despite my best efforts and cajoling the powers that be, my agency’s soon-to-be-launched website is going to be a Fallon-level disaster (putting it on par with the Hindenburg, the 07-08 Mets and last Friday night).

Our ECD is too busy to care, despite being a founding partner, and our lead CD is Bozo the Clown in disguise. Bring up an idea like putting the agency on Google Maps and you get a blank stare. Talk Web 2.0 and the searchability of Flash websites and he gets more interseted, but only because he has figured out Safari and is looking at porn on his computer while I am talking.

If we are in the top 10 Google results in a search for our own name, I will be surprised. Good thing we don’t need new business. Right? Eh? Oh.