download .mp4 / watch on YouTube

In case you’ve forgotten about Jennifer Aniston, here she is mocking internet culture, making fun of advertising agents, kicking unsuspecting guys in the balls, playing with puppies, and along with SmartWater, trying way too hard to cash in on the nature of viral videos and the success of brands like Old Spice.

And yes, I acknowledge the irony that I am sharing this video in spite of how I don’t really find it useful, witty, insightful, innovative, endearing, or remarkable. Blah.

The reason it’s a WTF for me is because I’m genuinely confused as to why this was even made. It is a different spin on water advertising, I’ll grant that, but if the point was to get Jennifer Aniston out there onto the Internet, she should have made fun of herself, not everyone else. She’s not known as a great societal commentator. Also, the production value is way too high to become and web sensation, Old Spice Guy excepted.

So will this video go viral or we the whole of the Internet roll their eyes as I have?

via GeekBeat »

I love being wrong. I love those rare occasions when advertising surprises and makes me sit up and take notice. Lately, we’re seeing an injection of cleverness in the form of vampire advertising.

These ads, for real products, are not intended for normal folks, who shuffle about during their morning commutes and Saturday golf outings, but for those sinister night-dwellers known as vampires. Welcome to the world of HBO’s True Blood, where vampires live right alongside humans, with sexy results.

What I love about these is not only the fact that custom ads were cooked up with a fictional audience in mind, but rather how they are so matter-of-factly folded into conventional advertising space. Chances are, a fair number of would-be onlookers will totally pass these billboards by without a second thought. But for those who look, a treat.

There’s also some accompanying viral videos, designed to look as if they are the conventional pass-around video ephemera that litter the Internet these days.

True Blood, the show, is now in its second season. Critics had mixed reviews, but in the absence of other normal networking programming, it seems many folks are watching. Meanwhile, True Blood, the brand, is doing extremely well. A simple but effective gesture in this scenario is HBO’s decision to sell merchandise from Merlotte’s, the restaurant featured in the series. Much like the Bayside Tigers t-shirt, or a Bartlet for America campaign poster, artifacts from television are sometimes allowed, if not encouraged, to enter the real world on the other side of that glass divide. It is a testament to a well-created brand and tribe that follows it.

a pint glass from Merlotte’s

So now the obvious question: If you were a vampire, what brands would you buy? What defines your consumer experience when food and drink are pretty much out of the question. I suppose True Blood is first on your shopping list.

via Creative Review »

I agree.

PS, Joanne, please marry me.

via Rocketboom »

Barack Obama has won a much deserved and long-fought campaign. Everyone will be talking for weeks about the reason why — political trends, economic slumps, Sarah Palin, etc., but I think we all need to realise that Obama has successfully run the first truly 21st century campaign, and thereby the first branded campaign. That is the principal reason for his victory.

Branding – We’ve talked about this before but it’s worth restating: Obama’s branding was brilliant. I’m not talking about just his logo, but the entire concept of creating an all-encompassing graphic identity around a candidate. The level of control and consistency of the Obama campaign is on par with any corporate brand around the world. The typography, colours, symbols, and copy all reflect his core values and the campaign ethos: change, progress, hope, and possibility. This is also the first time in history that a campaign used a symbol by itself rather than a typographic mark for the candidate’s name. A quick view back through time will show how many Presidential campaigns simply used Helvetica as their “logo”. Innovation in branding is certainly to be rewarded.

He’s the first candidate, actually, who’s had a coherent, top-to-bottom, 360-degree system at work … And he seems to be able to do it in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Houston and San Antonio. Every time you look, all those signs are perfect. Graphic designers like me don’t understand how it’s happening. It’s unprecedented and inconceivable to us. The people in the know are flabbergasted.
— Michael Bierut, Pentagram

You can be certain that this will be the model going forward. We will see every candidate branded and packaged, almost like a consumer product, complete with semi-abstract logo and cross-media design styles.

A non-standard, off-brand Obama/Biden sign. Looks like a cheap imitation, right? That’s proof they did a good job.

The Internet – For the past three of four Presidential campaigns, an Internet presence has been mandatory. Candidate websites, jam-packed with photos and bios and lots of smiling faces are no longer enough to wow the electorate, as we’ve proved. Since 2003, blogs have been standard for keeping people informed and showing that there are, in fact, people running a campaign, not simply a series of demonic puppeteers.

But the most significant leverage of the Internet has been in fundraising. Following Howard Dean’s trend in 2004, Obama raised more money online than any other candidate in history — most of it in small increments, average $80. The ability to reach many, anonymous, and younger voters has been the absolute difference, it was something John McCain failed to do, leaving him out of touch with the new generation of voters, and their money.

Web 2.0 – Keeping in touch via Internet has evolved, even since 2004. Obama’s campaign was the first to capitalise on the new tools of communication such as Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging to send up-to-the-minute news to followers and potential voters. They even announced Joe Biden as a VP choice via text message (although that affair was botched slightly). The decision to go Web 2.0 isn’t merely the choice to send text messages, it’s the metaphorical choice to be a part of something new, to embrace new technology and innovation and realise that the world in changing. Nothing embodied the disparity between Obama and McCain as their acceptance of the modern world. McCain admits he doesn’t even use a computer. Nuff said.

Restraint – As with any good brand, tough decisions have to be made about what not to do. It’s easy to throw an animated banner of every website and to use huge red letters on every sign, but that doesn’t fit the brand. Every deviation hurts the brand, and the message. Likewise, Obama knew how to hold back politically. Rather than going for the easy kill, Obama stayed on message through to the end, almost to the point of repetitive stress. And when he was forced to go negative, it was only to defend his perceived truth and attack John McCain’s proposed plans. He never said “John McCain is a bad man” or “Sarah Palin is dangerous”. Restraint, in this case, is the moral high road. Obviously, it worked.

Obama’s “His Choice” ad doesn’t even mention Sarah Palin by name. This is restraint executed brilliantly.

The Ground Game – Perhaps the most stunning, and the most impactful tactic of Obama’s campaign was his ability to turn hordes of everyday citizens into brand ambassadors. Perhaps because of his background as a community organiser, Obama has been able to mobilise regular folks in the hope to convert other folks to the cause. His messages and ideas on tax structure, health care, foreign policy, etc., were presented so clearly and concisely that every volunteer could deliver the gospel with little or no training. Because the brand was so strong, it spread among the people — every hand-made sign and jack-o-lantern was a tool in the ground game. The campaign also decided that it was important to spend money not on lawn signs and bumper stickers, but on opening campaign offices and employing paid staff to get those boots on the ground, so to speak. And it paid off. The ability of these staffers and volunteers to register and persuade voters in greater numbers than ever before proved to be the difference. With most first-time voters going for Obama, as well as Latinos and Blacks who ordinarily don’t vote, it was critical to get out and knock on doors to spread the word. Again, it goes back to the brand.

You can’t tell me this isn’t inspiring. Regular folks, not political pros.

Obama has set the bar extremely high for Presidential campaigns. Raising $700 million over 21 months, his campaign shattered the previous requirements for what wins the White House. But has it gone too far?

Television advertising is by far the biggest expenditure in campaigning. Without it, we’d be able to run national campaigns with a few million dollars. Canada, for example, restricts campaign spend to $20 million total! That’s what both campaigns spent on television ads during the Olympics alone! In Britain, campaigns are barred from advertising on TV, and the result is that campaigns are severely low-key — it takes some real on-the-street campaigning to get any message out.

TV isn’t just expensive, it’s old-fashioned. The one-directional shouting match that is advertising is going out of fashion with the new generation, in favour of video shorts, music videos, interviews, documentaries, and even comedy sketches. All delivered via Internet, of course. A popular video on YouTube will spread faster than a TV commercial which you have to sit in from the the TV and wait to see. But the numbers aren’t quite there for online video, and with a nation of 300+ million viewers to reach, it’s unfortunate that TV won’t be dying overnight.

Yes We Can music video, by Will.I.Am was one of the most striking and moving videos of the campaign never aired on TV, and wasn’t even produced by the Obama Campaign. A sure sign of things to come.

The trouble is that Obama has talked about traditional politics and the broken system and business as usual in Washington. Part of that included the very naked premise that one can’t run for President without gargantuan sums of money. In one sense, Obama has disproved that — his campaign was funded by the people, not by corporate interests — but it was in fact well-funded. Ideas and philosophies of government often take second seat to the ability to raise funds. A perverted hurdle in American Politics. The most apparent example of this is during the primaries when less popular candidates, often with great ideas, are forced to drop out due to lack of funds and the inability to get their face out in public via expensive TV ads. Maybe primary campaigns should be capped, or ad buy restricted to after a nominee is chosen.

I don’t have all the answers. And this isn’t a political blog. But the moral here is the same one I’ve been pushing for years: clear, cohesive, consistent brands are a powerful thing. Embrace the brand.

UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention — people like to say his name: O-baam-ah. It’s soothing.

And a few “holy crap” photos from election night:
• Losers »
• Peace »

•• Video Here »

My prayers have been answered! I have finally found a way to block ads in Safari! The program is called SafariBlock from FSB Software. Go download and install it right now! »

The website is awful, but use the left-hand navigation and then click the “downloads” tab.

For a while I’ve heard rumours about add-ons that completely block webpage advertising. Some claim to fill the banner areas with white or transparent pixels, but SafariBlock actually removes the whole ad, often reformatting the page in the process. But trust me, it’s better this way. Here’s a screenshot of how SafariBlock simply lives in your Safari preferences. It couldn’t be simpler. And it’s free. Not sure if it works in Windows.

Do you realise what just happened? I just gave a giant middle finger (or two fingers if your reading from the UK, Australia, etc.) to the multi-billion-dollar industry of online advertising. I just told the design community at large that your medium is irrelevant and told media buyers that they’ve wasted their money. Yes, I’m only one user, but it feels great to wield such power.

Safari is my browser of choice. Firefox users, spare me your snickers. I prefer Safari mainly because of its lightweight nature and awesome interface. The bookmarks sync with .mac making it highly functional right out of the box, but it doesn’t have half the plugins available for Firefox. To Firefox’s credit, the open format has proved to be massively beneficial for the users — there is a virtual supermarket of add-ons available to kick Firefox up many notches. Safari has a faithful following, however, and you can keep track of add-on applications on the appropriately-titled Pimp My Safari.

I officially cancelled my MySpace account after about a year of waining interest and use. The final straw was the fact that my account got hacked for the second time, and someone, I suspect a bot, posted spam comments on several friends’ pages. Need a design reason why MySpace is over:

As you can see, the above ad features spelling errors, bad grammar, stolen stock image comps (and reversed, no less) and that general malaise of sketchiness you only associate with late-night infomercials or the black market organ trade. Who’s running the show over there are MySpace?

I’m not the first to notice that MySpace’s site is covered with stupid bloody ads. I dare say the site is about 70% ads or other crap, leaving the actual content to fight for space in the margins. Remember when that guy redesigned MySpace a few months ago? Of course no one took notice.

So after all the spam, all the strippers, all the self-promoting idiots, all the ad clutter, all the cheesy nicknames, all the corporate buyouts, all the date-rape and all the server problems, I’m officially done with MySpace. Good night sweet prince.

Yes, this appears to be the week of brands dying.

Online advertising is a tricky game. Considering recommendation and association engines are still somewhat imprecise, we often wind up with very cheekily placed ads. I recall one instance where a news article about terror threats in New York was framed by banner ads seducing us with the chance to with a free holiday to New York. Um, not exactly the match we’re looking for. Here’s another example where a news article about a fire generates ads about oil heat.

But in this case, recently discovered via digg, Apple has clearly made a deliberate move in their competitive placement of online ads. On the Windows Vista homepages of sites like CNet and PCMag we see a web-only edition of the popular ‘Mac vs PC’ ads, making use of some sort of linking technology between the banners. Have a watch.

While mudslinging isn’t exactly high-brow, and placing ads on a competitor’s site is only going to make things even worse for internet advertising, I have to hand it to Apple and probably TBWA/Chiat/Day for making use of the technology and pushing the medium one step further.

It’s so easy to pick on Vista, isn’t it. And for the record, I still hate online advertising. Luckily, this one was muted by default.

I knew it was going to happen the minute I read that strapline: “You can never be too thin. Or too powerful.” Apple’s new iMac turned heads when they debuted a few weeks ago, but the attention was on more than the new innovative industrial design. There clever and cheeky new strapline, while it may have been reminiscent of various societal clichés, did not fall fondly onto the ears of those looking out for eating disorders.

The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awarenes has brought the ruckus claiming that the new campaign encourages youths to starve themselves in the name of physical appearance. A legitimate health concern.

“What kind of message is Apple sending our youth with an ad campaign of this nature?” The truth is one CAN be too thin. According to the American Psychological Association, in the United States alone 7 -10 million individuals are struggling with eating disorders. Of that 10 to 20 percent of them will not survive their struggle.

Heavy stuff. No pun intended. You can read the article from Yahoo News for more eating disorder-related factoids. The headline copy has been changed on the website.

Personally I think that Apple should have thought of this much earlier. Didn’t someone at the table say “wait a minute, this country is in the midst of a major weight and health epidemic — maybe we shouldn’t be selling ‘thin’”? People these days are friggin sensitive, especially people with weight and self-imaging issues (which is everyone, myself included).

I fear that this might go into that infamous vault of advertising copy gone awry — you know, where the Chevy No-Va and other things like that live. [can't think of any examples at the mo]

•• article here »

click for a larger view

This turned up in my inbox today, and I had to draw some attention to it. First off, not a bad looking graphic header, which is a new thing to me. Second, this appears to be Japanese, whom I didn’t realise were in the spam trade — I thought that dubious honour was reserved for the Russians and Chinese. And of course, read the blooming thing.

What a tragic disarray of English. Even by internet terms, this is pathetic. It reads more like “I can has cheezburger” then a persuasive letter. Let’s hope no one get’s taken by this. We shouldn’t pray on the illiterate when there are plenty of stupid and gullible folks who can read just fine.