The Best of Advertising This Year According to Lifson

1. Meet Milo- The Future of Interactivity- http://lifson.com/?p=258
Milo, which uses Project Natal for amazing interaction with an on-screen character is simply incredible. Microsoft makes this a must see!

2. How to Tell Your GF You Aren’t Having Beer With Friends- http://lifson.com/?p=800
The Andes Teletransporter was an incredibly humorous and unique activation that was truly integrated campaign that blended advertising with engaging Impact pieces

3. Esquire Comes Alive- http://lifson.com/?m=20091116
For their December issue, Esquire developed an Augmented Reality cover featuring none other then Robert Downey Jr. Downey introduces the issue and does a brief plug for the Sherlock Holmes movie. Bonus content was accessed and controlled on the Esquire website by installing an app and interacting with the Augmented Reality marker. This was pretty innovative for the print world

4. McDonald’s Burger Debate on Facebook and Up in the Air- http://lifson.com/?p=793
Once again a shameless plug for my team at Cossette, but this was pretty innovative and garnered a lot of press and interaction

5. If Marriage is Hell, Why Spare Homosexuals? http://lifson.com/?p=730
This clever and humorous video featuring Justin Long was created by opponents of California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state in 2008

6. Andre 3000 Brings Everyone Together For Nike- http://lifson.com/?p=738
This one is just cool featuring Kobe Bryant in the company of greats

7. Come For A Quickie- http://lifson.com/?p=720
Tourisme Montreal and Tourism Toronto launched a collaborative marketing effort designed to encourage people from both cities to see what the other has to offer. The campaign plays with the ongoing rivalry between Canada’s biggest cities, taking the Ashley Madison approach to travel and cheekily suggesting it’s OK to “cheat” on your city

8. Apple To Place Ads In OS- http://lifson.com/?m=20091106
This is a no-brainer, yet very smart move for Apple. A possible mechanic to the system would be that users could receive a free operating system upgrade in return for accepting the ads. Logic would also dictate that users would be happier to fill out certain information for the service, and it would ensure extremely targeted ads

9. Cossette and General Mills Add Latin Flare to Online Shows- http://lifson.com/?p=517
Mi Marido, Mi Angel (My Husband, My Angel), was created by Cossette for the Old El Paso brand. Fjord, the agency’s digital division, worked with CTV to have it listed at CTV.ca as a regular show

10. Amazing Anti Aids AD- http://lifson.com/?p=452
“AIDES graffiti” has great animation work against AIDS, promoting the use of condoms from TBWA Paris

The CAI was developed in 2007 to shift advertising directed primarily to children under 12 to the promotion of better-for-you products. Companies participating in the CAI include fast food giants like McDonald’s and Burger King as well as packaged goods companies such as Kellogg Canada, Kraft Canada and Unilever Canada.

The ASC noted that the landscape of children’s advertising was “significantly different” at the end of 2009 than it was before the initiative’s launch. Among the most significant changes:

• Food and beverage advertising now represents less than 20% of all child-directed TV advertising on Canadian channels catering to audiences under 12

• Many products have been reformulated to enhance their nutritional value

• Child-directed ads depicting a child consuming food now show portion sizes consistent with the serving size stated on the product’s Nutrition Facts Panel

In the past year, the ASC partnered with Corus Television–owner of the youth-oriented TV channels YTV, Teletoon (50%), Treehouse and Nickelodeon–to conduct a comparative study of children’s TV advertising pre-CAI and now.

Examining CAI participants’ scheduling information for a two-month period in 2004 and the same period in 2008, the ASC found that in 2008, 95% of the food and beverage products advertised to children under 12 were for better-for-you products, compared with 63% in the 2004 period. The report also notes that the mix of products advertised directly to children has changed. By 2008, for example, one participant had stopped advertising a product that accounted for 40% of its ads in the monitored period in 2004, while two other companies stopped advertising to children altogether.

“What it shows is [participating companies] are taking it seriously and we

see it’s making a difference in what’s being advertised,” said Janet Feasby, the ASC’s vice-president, standards. “We’re certainly pleased that this has been achieved. It’s not easy when you’re a huge company and you’ve got lots of products. It takes a lot of hard work and effort and commitment in order to do this. “Their agencies and media buying companies have to be equally committed.”

How about this nugget right here:

Facebook made its long-anticipated jump into the location-based fray yesterday with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of Facebook Places.

The mobile product will focus on three major features, he said: It will allow users to share where they are with their friends; allow them to see who is near them; and allow them to discover new places around them. And company executives were quick to push Places’ privacy controls in an effort to stave off criticism that has plagued Facebook during the past year.

Places is a mobile product for “advanced mobile browsers” and can be accessed through Facebook’s most recent iPhone app or via touch.facebook.com.

Several of the major players in the local-mobile digital space, including Gowalla, Yelp, Booyah and Foursquare, were also at the press conference and some showed off ways they’ll be integrated into Places. While many pundits suggested Facebook’s impending launch of location would be the death of Foursquare and its location-based ilk, the companies–at least publicly–appeared eager to work with Facebook and tap its 500 million worldwide users. (Yelp, for example, boasts 2.5 million users of its mobile app, a fraction of Facebook’s user base.)

Zuckerberg said this first version of Places will only roll out in the U.S. While Facebook didn’t introduce monetization plans for Places, it suggested that was coming. “You can imagine a whole world can develop around this,” Zuckerberg said. “But we’ll check in on the monetization at a later time.”

Still, there are opportunities for any marketer with a physical location to benefit from Places by taking some basic steps. “[Business owners] can claim their business’s Places page, and every time anyone checks in from that location, that’s a huge deal,” said Chris Cox, vice-president-product. “We wanted to make sure that feature was available before we launched.”

About 1.5 million business pages exist on Facebook, and each one can merge that page with their Places page by “claiming” it, or letting Facebook know that business belongs to them. Facebook will verify it, but Cox said he’s not sure if it’ll be giving away stickers for owners to put on the door like Yelp does.

Places is, in some ways, a reach extension for marketers–when people check in from a venue, they essentially broadcast their presence at that spot to their Facebook network–as well as way to attract new visitors through the discovery feature.

“It’s an additional venue where you can communicate with the customer as they’re walking by and provide them with something of value,” said Lisa Bradner, president of Chicago agency Geomentum. And, eventually, it could be a place they can offer discounts and marketing messages to people within a particular proximity–whenever Facebook introduces such a feature.

Tom Bedecarre, CEO of AKQA, suggested that while Foursquare popularized the gaming aspect of checking in from physical venues, with Places the prize could be not just a “mayorship” of a venue, but a coupon or other type of award. “It creates another level of engagement with the consumer. If you check into the Gap, let’s make a special offer for you,” Bedecarre said. “If you check in at 3 p.m. near a Starbucks, it’s ‘Hey, do you want a special on this latte?’ We see your favorite movies on Facebook, and the movie theater nearby can say, ‘Hey, this movie is playing here, come in now and we’ll give you a free popcorn.’

“I can see advertisers connect the dots as quickly as Facebook allows them to,” he added. “It gives them a chance to put an offer in front of someone when they’re in a position that allows for an immediate transaction.”

This brand experience  building is precisely present in the next brilliant ad from Argentina. This beer ad for Andes is a clever piece of creative. It is a full embodiment of the brand and the brand promise (fun with your friends, without any annoyances). Andes put booths called Teletransporters across various bars that create ambient sounds for when your girlfriend calls and you don’t want her to know that you are at the bar with your friends. This, people, is where advertising is heading. Thanks to Kruti (The Krut) for pointing this one out.

Must get blue Smarties! Must get blue Smarties! JWT in Toronto presents a blue talking cat for Smarties. The cat has a weird accent, that sounds like a leprechaun or something. And there’s a trippy mind-control vibe. Now, humans generally don’t need mind-controlling critters to make us eat candy. We’ll do it anyways. This is an intesting strategy for Smarties as they were focuse before on “when you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?”. This focus on colour is smart because it is an assumptive close. Its not if you are eating Smarties, but when you’re eating Smarties. This time it’s all about the blue ones.

There are people who like burgers. There are people who like balloons. McDonald’s Canada has launched a campaign to bring these people together for a hearty exercise in Facebook-based democracy.

McDonald’s new online effort asks consumers to login to the Social Network and vote for their favourite McD’s burger–Big Mac or Quarter Pounder with Cheese–between now and July 28.

The vote results are reflected in real-time with two gigantic helium balloons in the shape of each meat treat, floating high above the longitudinal centre of Canada: Landmark, Man. The burger with the most votes flies higher and users can monitor the campaign’s progress via live webcam.

“We wanted to re-ignite the passion in Big Mac and QPC enthusiasts, reminding them what they love about their favourite burger while creating interest with new consumers,” said Hope Bagozzi, director, national marketing, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada. “The intent is to celebrate both products as they each have their claim to fame. We want to find out which group of passionate fans will be able to rally their troops and get the vote out in favour of Team Big Mac or Team QPC. What better way to illustrate a debate of this magnitude than with giant, oversized burger balloons?”

By late Tuesday morning, there had been more than 28,400 votes cast, with the Big Mac ahead by about 2,600 votes. The McDonald’s Canada Facebook page has 72,203 fans.

While this campaign, from McDonald’s Canadian agency Cossette and its digital arm Fjord, will live only online, it is part of a larger campaign to highlight some of McD’s more traditional products that includes TV, radio and outdoor. On Monday, the company unveiled a new outdoor effort in Toronto showing how messy a Big Mac could be by draping over-sized pickles and shreds of lettuce over a car beneath the billboard which includes a closeup of a Big Mac with the headline: “Worth the mess.”

As media companies and publishers continue to recover from the recession and adapt business models for an ongoing digital shift, overall ad spending is on the rise, particularly in online and mobile, according to ZenithOptimedia.

ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its forecast for global ad spending growth from April’s forecast of 2.2% to 3.5%.

This is the company’s third upgrade in a row after six consecutive downgrades. North America is the region with the biggest upgrade of 2.8%. In the last forecast, the market was expected to shrink 1.5% this year, but is now pegged for 1.3% growth. Based on a strong Super Bowl and Vancouver Olympics in the first half of 2010, ZenithOptimedia’s report expects television to maintain its strong showing, while the continued decline of newspaper and spot radio ad revenue has slowed. 

The report said Canada has bounced back from the recession much more quickly than its southern neighbour and is expected to grow ad spending by 5.4% this year, compared to 1.1% in U.S.

“Advertisers are spending again, now that consumers are opening their wallets,” states the Canadian summary. “Automotive is back; retail, finance, telecom, food, are all ratchetting up the demand.”

In 2008, total advertising expenditures in Canada reached a high-water mark of nearly $10.2 billion. By the next year, when the recession had its strongest hold on the economy, total spending was down 8.4% to $9.3 billion. ZenithOptimedia now projects total spending to hit $9.84 billion this year, rising to $10.2 billion in 2011 and $10.6 billion in 2012.

Ad spending on the Internet continues its climb, increasing its global market share from 10.5% in 2008 to 12.7% in 2009. In Canada, ZenithOptimedia predicts spending on Internet advertising to rise 13% this year and 12.7% next year when it will pass newspapers advertising ($2.2 billion online to $2 billion for newspapers) as the second most popular medium in the country behind only TV.

By 2012, ZenithOptimedia expects Internet spending to make up 17% of total ad expenditure worldwide, still two percentage points below newspapers. Since 1987 when they accounted for 40.6% of expenditure, newspapers have been losing share every year to reach 23% by 2009, and the report expects that number to fall further to 19.2% in 2012.

Paid search made up 50.2% of all Internet spending in 2009 and expectations are that it will get to 52.6% by 2012. Display’s contribution to total internet spend fell from 32.9% in 2008 to 31.9% in 2009. New formats such as web video, mobile and social media are expected to help display stabilize this year and increase its share of internet spend to 32% in 2012. In 2009, about $18 million was spent on mobile advertising, rising to $30 million this year, $55 million in 2011 and $92 million the year after that.

Zig officially merged with CP+B this morning with Chuck Porter, its founder and MDC’s top strategist visiting Toronto to tell staff they now work at Crispin Porter + Bogusky Canada.

Of MDC’s Canadian shops, Zig has the strongest reputation for award-winning major national client work (Molson Canadian, IKEA and Best Buy, among others), and it likes to push the envelope a bit (its “We Need to Talk” campaign for Toronto radio station 1010 CFRB certainly provoked a few angry letters).

“I think our values and beliefs are very similar,” said Andy Macaulay, Zig’s co-founder and chairman, noting that the agencies even package themselves similarly: Zig’s brand positioning is “Ideas in their most powerful form,” while Crispin calls itself an “idea factory.”

“It’s about the kind of work we create for our clients and the environment we want to create for our people… The premium is on ideas and how imaginatively you can take ideas to market. I’d like to think that’s been the hallmark of our work. It’s certainly been the hallmark for theirs.”

The merger was discussed seriously only a few months ago when Macaulay visited CP+B and pitched senior management on the idea. While MDC speaks often of making resources available across its agency network, Zig president Shelley Brown said “nothing is quite the same as feeling like we’re part of one agency where you’re just calling someone down the hall.” The merger also gives Zig the chance to scale its business up to the international level–something it has struggled with to date. Zig opened in Chicago in 2006 after purchasing local agency Hadrian’s Wall. It never seemed to find its stride or a foundation client to build the business around. It broke the surface in 2009 with work for Playboy TV, but projects from the recession-beleaguered bunny brand have since trickled off. The merger means the closure of the Chicago operation.

CP+B doesn’t need a presence in the region, so the small office will be shuttered by summer’s end. Stephen Leps, who took creative lead at the shop in February 2009, left this past April and is en route to Leo Burnett Chicago. CP+B is now trying to find homes for the remaining Chicago staff at other CP+B offices. MDC is famously hands-off with its agencies’ business decisions, but that’s not to say the top brass weren’t already pondering the benefits of merger.

“Miles [Nadal], Rob Dickson [managing director] and I have been talking about this for a long time,” said Porter, three or four years in fact. “I’ve been in love with Zig for years. Back when Elspeth [Lynn] and Lorraine [Tao, Macaulay's co-founders] were there, I spent some time at the agency and they were doing such great work. If people ask me why I love Zig, the first things I say is ‘They won a gold Lion at Cannes for Unilever [Vim's "Prison Visitor"],” which is a very hard thing to do.”

Crispin Porter + Bogusky bought Swedish agency Daddy last year. “We have CP+B Europe now, and the amount of cross-pollination that’s going on is really amazing,” said Porter of the Daddy deal. “I’m hoping the same thing will happen with CP+B Canada. In fact we don’t see it as CP+B Canada. We see it as one big company.” Organizationally, Macaulay is handing full day-to-day operation to Shelley Brown, president and now CEO of CP+B Canada. Macaulay, who is not leaving the company in the near future (despite rumours to the contrary), will remain chairman.

Brown will now report to CP+B partner Jeff Steinhour. Aaron Starkman takes the title of executive creative director. While Brown said Starkman won’t be “reporting to” CP+B’s chief creative officers Rob Reilly and Andrew Keller, “they will be working with Aaron and offering input from time to time. It’s not as though every time we want to present a campaign to a client we’ll need their approval. “Our hope is to move a couple people from the network here to Toronto and a run a few staff exchanges for short periods as a way of knitting the offices together,” said Brown.

http://anthonykalamut.blogspot.com/2010/07/employee-16-resigns-day-alex-bogusky.html

An MDC statement said, “Alex Bogusky has resigned from MDC Partners in order to focus his time and energy on pursuing a number of initiatives and issues apart from advertising and marketing that he feels strongly about. We have enjoyed a long and tremendously productive partnership over the past 10 years and have the utmost respect and admiration for Alex. We’re confident that many important causes will benefit from his passion and brilliance, and wish him the very best in all of his future.”

“Alex Bogusky has resigned from MDC Partners in order to focus his time and energy on pursuing a number of initiatives and issues apart from advertising and marketing that he feels strongly about,” MDC said in a statement.

“We have enjoyed a long and tremendously productive partnership over the past 10 years and have the utmost respect and admiration for Alex. We’re confident that many important causes will benefit from his passion and brilliance, and wish him the very best in all of his future.”

Alex Bogusky was the chief creative executive at the Toronto-based MDC and was responsible for helping make MDC’s Crispin Porter + Bogusky one of the most successful creative shops in the business.
Bogusky joined MDC after more than two decades at CP+B, which he helped transform from a small, unknown shop in Miami into one of the best-known creative powerhouses in the industry.

Some notable creative driven CP+B projects include Burger King’s subservient chicken, their creepy King character, and most recently Microsoft’s campaign overhaul to help slow Apple’s breach of their market share.

So where will CP+B go from here? This may cause irreparable damage, I fear. Alex is such a well known figure in the ad industry. His equity is what drives many clients there. This may be the start of the end for them. What are your thoughts.

Here is a (not very flattering- but still awesome) picture of me and Bogusky from back in September from Adweek in NYC: