The Power of a Word

Written by Melissa Budensiek on March 20, 2012 — 1 Comment

With Rush Limbaugh criticizing Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, about her sexuality on his show and Santorum with his war on contraception and non-procreative sex, the condom industry is now fighting back with a rather roundabout way of facing the issue.

Sir Richard’s Condoms, from Boulder Colorado, implemented an explicit campaign to allow people to flaunt how sexually active they are and be proud of it. TBA Boulder, the agency behind the movement, constructed a campaign to “create a sex-positive movement that brings people together who believe in tolerance, acceptance and personal freedom. It is our goal to make what is intended to be a hateful, derogatory word (slut) and change it into something positive”. Customers can visit the site and take the oath to “show your slut pride”. You can even pick your own avatar, with 36 to choose from, ranging from “you can call me a slut” to “slut happens’ and “proud father of slut”.

The oath of the campaign provides a great opportunity for Sir Richard’s to showcase they are a responsible company when it comes to promoting safe sex; however, the execution of the creative completely deters the campaign from its purpose. Making the word “slut” positive through the power of collective is not something that society can easily change. The word is so negatively charged, that making it into something positive would have to change all denotations associated with it.

The definition of slut according to Dictionary.com refers to a dirty, slovenly woman or an immoral or dissolute woman, also known as a prostitute. The Slut Pride Campaign encourages the use of this word commonplace among males and females. In order for the word slut to become part of our everyday language, everyone will have to adopt the concept. From a woman’s standpoint, I must ask: Isn’t this the exact thing women fight against every day? To not change derogatory words into positive ones but to eliminate them all together? The fact that this campaign makes it okay for a man or woman to call each other sluts, whether they believe in the campaign or not, is taking a step backwards. I, for one, would be appalled if my father changed his Facebook avatar to “Proud Father of a Slut”. While the position behind the campaign is a positive way to reinforce that sex is acceptable and using protection is a mature and responsible act of an individual, bringing the word slut into our everyday vocabulary is not going to represent a civilized society when it comes to birth control. TBA missed the mark on this one.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , ,

We’re hiring!

Written by Bryan Del Monte on March 13, 2012 — Leave a Comment

If you have a demonstrated record of taming unreasonable clients, making them feel their problems will be taken care of, or even better, making them feel like they have no problems – then perhaps we should talk. You are polished, professional, unflappable, and personable. You represent your agency well; how you carry your brand is how customers will expect you will carry theirs forward.

You are successful in what you do. You have clients that truly do love you. If they love you enough to follow you anywhere, then you most definitely have my attention. You have an unfaltering belief in the creative talents of the agency (your present agency) – you can convincingly say to a client that no matter what their top agency was doing, your agency could do better work for any given job. That attitude helped you snag more than one contract away from another agency.

You live your client’s brand and know all there is to know about it. You see the potential that could be unlocked through your efforts and that of the agency’s team. You have a demonstrated record in working to get the work “done” – you are an effective conduit between what clients want, what clients need, what might actually work, and can communicate it to production to make clients happy.

If you think you are leader in our industry, then we expect your skills, experience, expertise, and performance will demonstrate everything we have described, and more, making the case to hire you an obvious one. We are looking for people to help us grow and share in how we prosper together.

Check our full posting on LinkedIn.

Posted in Del Monte Agency, Diary of an Agency

How Facebook EdgeRank is Affecting Your Fan Page

Written by Melissa Budensiek on March 13, 2012 — Leave a Comment

You spend months setting up a fangate page, strategizing campaigns, creating content, developing Facebook ads and engaging fans, only to find out less than 16% of those fans are being allowed to see it. This is because of a Facebook algorithm called EdgeRank, also known as throttling. This algorithm is the ultimate feature of Facebook, because it completely controls what fans see about your page. This article will explain how EdgeRank works, how to find out your EdgeRank score, why Facebook uses this algorithm and how can you fight the system so fans can see your content.

How Does EdgeRank Work?

EdgeRank uses an algorithm that is made up of three parts: affinity score, edge weight and time decay. The affinity score is based on how many actions you make towards a specific account, such as sending messages, profile visits, leaving comments and so on. The edge weight refers to the importance of the content being posted, and its position in the newsfeed. The time decay ranks a story by time; as a story gets older it loses its impact and gets a lower ranking. The image below shows Facebook’s method behind the madness:

How Do I Find Out My EdgeRank Score?

Facebook is constantly changing how things are weighed in the algorithm, making it nearly impossible to find your score. Each person and fanpage has a different affinity score; there is no general EdgeRank score that can be determined. Beware of tools telling you they can discover your EdgeRank score, it’s just not going to happen.

Why Does Facebook Have This Algorithm? 

Facebook announced that they were using the algorithm at the F8 Conference in 2010 and there are two reasons behind it. A great example of why Facebook uses this system is to compare Facebook with Twitter. A Twitter newsfeed updates you on everything, at any given moment, about who you are following and what they are talking about. Facebook has a different approach. A user doesn’t care what everyone is posting about, only specific people, and this equation takes out the extra noise. Since the algorithm helps control the overload of content, you see who you want to see (or rather what Facebook thinks you want to see) and all the other noise is hidden. Another reason Facebook created this algorithm (and what we all saw coming) is to increase revenue. “I don’t want to reach only 16% of my fans; I want to reach 100%!” Don’t worry because Facebook now offers a program that can increase your EdgeRank from 16% to 75%, for a price. The Reach Generator is the new premium advertising solution for clients who won’t let their content be hidden. You brought in the fans, engaged them, and now Facebook is making you buy them back.

 So How Do I Fight the System So My Fans Can See My Posts?

There is no way to change the algorithm but there are ways you can get your content ranked higher without buying into the Reach Generator. One thing you can do is develop content that your fans want to interact with, because the EdgeRank score is based on comments and likes, the more interaction from your fans will increase the score organically. Another thing is to produce and post a variety of content, such as videos, surveys, and pictures to add weight to your posts.

Facebook is constantly changing and EdgeRank is just another hoop companies need to jump through to get their content to their customers. So next time you are creating a post, think about how relevant is this information to your audience and is anyone really going to see it?

Posted in Elements of the Craft, Social Media, Uncategorized | Tagged ,

Pinterest & Polyvore: A Match Made in Fashion Heaven?

Written by Melissa Budensiek on March 6, 2012 — Leave a Comment

My co-worker, Lauren, stumbled across a unique fashion designer’s delight the other day. Polyvore, allows the user to compose magazine inspired fashion layouts. The target audience of Polyvore is aimed at armchair fashionistas, power bloggers and the casual Pinterest user. The site was developed five years ago, currently has over 13 million unique visitors each month and fashion retail companies are taking notice. Major retailer Nine West is currently holding a contest on the site called Powered by Flower with Nine West. The object of the game? Create your own style board using Nine West’s new 2012 spring collection and be entered for a chance to win a trip to Miami. Fashion bloggers will judge the contest entries and the final winner will be chosen by the Nine West team.

Not only are companies using the site to promote contests but each item used in a Polyvore layout has a link to the price and where the item can be purchased online. Users can design the perfect outfit for a night on the town or big job interview and be able to purchase every exact piece. To begin creating a perfect outfit, users can start with a blank slate or a template that best showcases their style. Once a template is chosen, users can then search through categories of items: tops, outerwear, dresses, jeans, and accessories, etc. and drag and drop them on the page. Once a Polyvore masterpiece is finished, the page is saved under a personalized Polyvore account. Various creations can be posted to social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

So the ultimate question is: How will sites like Pinterest and Polyvore affect the fashion industry? These sites are not only using social media driven power to share their content but people are no longer looking towards fashion magazines like Vogue, InStyle, Glamour and others for style inspiration. They are focusing on what their peers and online members are putting together. Polyvore’s template designs, that appear to be taken right out of fashion magazines, show how simple it is to find styles and create a personalized magazine page. Brands no longer have control over how they see their products being displayed, and they are going to have to integrate these new sites into their company’s brand to keep brand consistency …. Here is a design I created using Polyvore (shown below). Try it for yourself here: http://www.polyvore.com/

 

Posted in Branding, Social Media | Tagged

Forget the Pool Boy or the Pizza Man… Now it’s the Plumber

Written by Melissa Budensiek on March 1, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Clorox has a new campaign for its latest plumbing product that is causing quite a stir. If the name of the product, “Double Impact,” doesn’t lead your mind to the gutter, than the video will. DDB San Francisco’s creative for the “New Liquid Plumber Double Impact” features a lonely, unsatisfied woman, pursued by two manly, square jawed, muscularly chiseled “plumbers” that have come to “get the job done”. So now sex sells plumbing liquid – the question is how well?

The woman, played by Jessica Makinson, sets the perfect tone for the entire commercial as the desperate housewife role. With over one million views and page after page of comments, the execution of the campaign has created some buzz. The comments are almost as good as the advertisement itself, ranging from “I sure hope she gets her pipes clean wink wink” to “it could be a prelude to a porn flick”. But don’t just read the comments, take a look for yourself.

Posted in Commercials, Funny & Silly, Uncategorized | Tagged ,

I need a hero…

Written by Bryan Del Monte on February 29, 2012 — Leave a Comment

I’m struck today by the continued “stickiness” of the comic book hero themes. My maternal grandfather was one of the creators of the series “Blackhawk“. I personally never really related much to comics, but I have always been struck by the “larger than life” struggle of good v. evil contained within their pages. The Iliad and the Odyssey have all these great tales of good v. evil. It’s a common theme of Western Civilization. Is life now so dull, boring, and pedestrian that now these superlative stories of villans and heroes excite us?

Or maybe it’s just that we like the idea of buildings exploding, gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence.

I must admit I’m looking forward to the rekindle of the penultimate ”man cave” debate of the ages – who would win, Spiderman v. The Hulk.

Posted in Funny & Silly | Tagged , , , ,

This is Dev… This is Live… and why you shouldn’t confuse the two…

Written by Bryan Del Monte on February 4, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Interesting story… apparently the Giant’s web team got a bit ahead of themselves… :)

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/02/04/wait-what-nygiants-com-the-giants-are-super-bowl-champions/

The challenges of web development… :)

Posted in Elements of the Craft

Is Super Bowl Advertising really worth it?

Written by Bryan Del Monte on February 2, 2012 — Leave a Comment

It’s that time of the year again – grid iron madness of the Super Bowl. Will it be the Pats or the Giants?

Honestly, few seem to really care outside of the die hard Patriots and Giant fans… all the media seems to want to talk about are the ads. I did an interview for The Street that ran yesterday about clichés in Superbowl advertising.

Advertising in the Super Bowl has become a contest in and of itself – with entire websites dedicated to the Super Bowl’s commercials. And why shouldn’t it be a great contest? Clients give their Agencies nearly a free hand and seemingly unlimited budget to produce memorable commercials. Chrysler is rumored to be paying $12m for its 2 minutes of time. The average price is $3M for a thirty-second spot. Add to that the millions of dollars spent in production of the commercial, and you’re talking some really serious effort for both advertiser and agency. What historically has wound up happening is a series of about 20-30 ads produced by the biggest names in our business with unbridled creative, pizzaz, and effort. It doesn’t always work, but, every year our craft tries to outdo what it did last year.

One question – is it all worth it?

Probably. Here’s why…

The Super Bowl is one of the few avenues that remain that everyone watches LIVE (well, now it’s a five-second delay thanks to the wardrobe malfunction, but it’s basically live). As a result, you’ve got hundreds of millions of eyes on screens and a largely captive audience that is really hoping to be entertained and manipulated by the advertising craft. I hypothesize that this is in large part because the football contests tend to be boring – people are gathering together to eat like mad, cheer like mad, and be with their friends. Super Bowl is an “event” that people gather around to do collectively. In that environment, brilliant television advertising has a shot at having an impact on the customer’s views towards brand, product, and USP. However, as I said in my interview, I believe that brand emotion has clearly been the focus of the creative for advertising campaigns, the first of which probably was McCann’s “Thank’s Mean Joe!” campaign.

But I think one has to appreciate the limits of the Super Bowl. With the exception of the Budweiser “Frogs” campaign (David Swaine, Michael Smith and Mark Choate of DMB&B/St. Louis), rarely do campaigns go from Super Bowl to Super Bowl or from Super Bowl to “regular commercials” and have the same impact. Even in the case of the Budweiser “Frogs” – the guys at GSP with “Louie, Frankie, and the ferret” were only really able to get one more hurrah out of the spots; unfortunately for the frogs, they “croaked” (the ferret executed them). Now, Goodby/Silverstein did get a series of ads that culminated in the Super Bowl’s ads, but precious few have been able to pull it off. Thus, one has to wonder how well one can leverage the Super Bowl’s positioning. My estimation is, since it’s a “one and done” situation – that’s why only the largest B2C advertisers (mostly car companies I might add) find it worthwhile.

One trend that emerged, which seems to continue to gain steam, is the translation of commercial advertising in the Super Bowl to online activity. GoDaddy.com has tried this and has been rather successful. E-trade had an entire effort online dedicated to the ads that didn’t make the Super Bowl. My own favorite, “Cut the Cheese” (DDB Worldwide, Chicago) from Budweiser was probably a commercial that Bud would have liked to air that was rejected by Standards and Practices. I suspect GoDaddy will continue to have tease-ads in their Super Bowl spots and put “racier” tease ads online.

For our craft, precious few events offer our industry the ability to take off the blinders and do whatever strikes us. Clients are willing to experiment and Agencies get a chance to do more in 30-60 seconds than they usually get to do. For us, it’s the Super Bowl as well…

 

Posted in Broadcast (Radio & TV), Elements of the Craft, Funny & Silly, Technical & Techniques (Traditional) | Tagged ,

Google+ … the long march to social media dominance

Written by Bryan Del Monte on January 12, 2012 — Leave a Comment

Sooooo…. what was obvious to us about six months ago (thanks to our Paid Search guru – Bryant Crock)… has now become reality…

http://mashable.com/2012/01/10/google-launches-social-search/

It’s fun being right. : )

A good video by Google that demonstrates where they are going (and what we predicted):

So what does this all mean then for SEO, PPC, and people doing online marketing? What it means from our perspective is that more than ever, “non-advertising” is going to matter. Whether or not brands do well in search, and thus seen by prospective customers, is going to be determined increasingly by how well that brand engages with its existing  customers. So whether or not you get new customers through paid or online search is in some way a function of how you treated existing and past customers. Ask Google, “what’s a fun thing to do in San Fransisco?” and the results seen could be largely determined in part by how many people that individual is connected to who can speak positively about venues in San Fransisco.  So while SEO tricks will continue to matter, Google hasn’t entirely abandoned the math behind the optimal answer to a question, mathematic heuristics aren’t the only determinant.

You may say to that – well so what, people’s activities have mattered in the past algorithms, I don’t see what’s so earth-shattering. While it’s true that Google has incorporated behavior into the algorithms that determine search import, those activities were largely determined by revealed preferences. Did a person stay on a page and read it? If so – must be relevant. If they didn’t – must not be relevant. Do they link to it? Must be relevant if they did. If they don’t link to it – must not be relevant. But with Google+ the guys at Google are getting the possibility of directly aggregating essentially “sum total” experiences similar to an information market. That’s likely to be amazingly powerful in the long run to determine what is the best information to put forward when asked a question. Information markets have been historically very good at prediction of near-term outcomes and solutions. For example, the Iowa Electronic Market has been “scary accurate” in determining which Presidential candidate will be elected. When people’s discrete information is aggregated in a meaningful way – it winds up being a rather powerful force for prediction of likely (or relevant) outcomes.

Google is going someplace that we see as relatively obvious… namely, externalizing the core aspects of how search results are determined. What’s a better concept – a mathematical heuristic that guesses at what might be relevant, or millions of people who are making billions of transactions, acting as an “information market” telling Google what is relevant with respect to what to eat in San Fransisco? Or what plumber to call? Or fun things to do with your kids? Or how to get a package delivered on Saturday? Jung postulated about the “universal collective unconsciousness” that tied all of humanity’s thought together across an archetypical system of understanding. Could Google have a shot at doing that for the internet?

Posted in Elements of the Craft | Tagged , , , ,

Selling with Sex… Orange “bits”

Written by Bryan Del Monte on January 10, 2012 — 4 Comments

This advertisement came out awhile ago – back in June of last year actually. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Advertising Blender running then (we were busy with client matters). But this advertising like this is pretty commonplace… so before I continue with my post – have a look…

Ok, so here’s my thought. I’m sitting in the creative meeting – and they put this commercial up for me to view before it goes to the client, and I have to ask myself (possibly out loud) “Ok guys, just what do boobs have to do with orange soda?”

The answer of course is pretty obvious – nothing. I’m sure the idea was “Who cares! Sex sells!” Well… apparently that must have been the logic behind this advertisement. If that were true, however, then everything would be sold between a woman’s cleavage – since we don’t see that, one has to wonder if sex can sell orange soda.

The ad is the work of Chemistry, an independent full service agency in Ireland.

Now here’s the thing – it’s cute and clever… and I suspect lots of Irishmen became very interested in orange soda for about 60 seconds… but after that then what?  Here’s the problem – the point of linking one concept (in this case sex) to another concept (in this case orange juice) is to strengthen the second connection – namely orange juice. But linking sex to orange juice makes absolutely little sense in my view. It’s not relevant. Since it’s not relevant, it’s not memorable. My guess is that if we polled people who saw this commercial, men would remember women with big breasts, and women would remember the largely pornographic ad they saw allegedly about orange soda.  In order for linkages to work (and this is any linkage, not just sex linkages) I think the linkage has to at least pass the giggle test – the link has to be relevant.

Ok, think I’m kidding? Here is in my view an EXCEPTIONALLY well done advertisement that uses sex to sell something obvious – lingerie.

 

This ad, entitled “Sexiness for Everyone,” was done by the German ad agency, Glow Berlin.  Now why does this ad work, in my view, and not naughty-bits? Well for one thing, generally sex is connected to lingerie. Secondly, the sex isn’t just sex for the sake of T&A – it’s sex as an integral part of the narrative. Moreover, the unintended ending – the entire “sexiness” being covered up by the burqa/niqab , conveys the emotional connection that the client is attempting to make with the consumer – namely, female empowerment of sexuality through lingerie offered by German lingerie retailerLiaison Dangereuse. I mean, in this ad, who would know? Only her. It’s a powerful statement about feminine sexuality – wear the lingerie and feel powerful and sexy, even if only you know. That’s the primary difference between Glow’s ad and Chemistry – the sex is actually a meaningful part of the narrative.

At any rate – guys at Chemistry – it’s a clever ad. Definitely humorous. But sex can’t sell everything…
Posted in Broadcast (Radio & TV), Elements of the Craft, Funny & Silly, Technical & Techniques (Traditional) | Tagged , , , ,