A Word on Student Advertising Agencies

“Journalism kids have a newspaper, broadcast kids have a TV station. Why don’t advertising kids have an agency?”

This was the vision that resulted in the formation of The NewHouse, Syracuse’s student-run ad agency, in 2007.

I now find myself the president of TNH, as it has been affectionately known by members. I feel it necessary to share some of the wisdom I’ve developed after my first semester in the position.

Two years ago, we spearheaded a project to research what other student ad agencies existed, what their branding and business models were, and how we could be better. We believe that we’re in the predominant advertising program in the country, it was only fair to aim to create the strongest college agency.

This, it turned out, would not be as easy as claiming we were the best. Sure, our egos were inflated after our 2009 national championship in the AAF’s National Student Advertising Competition.

Much like the real ad industry, you can’t get complacent in the student ad world. Other schools have risen up and they really shined at NSAC nationals last year with a bevy of interesting creative ideas and stellar presentations. Yeah, I mean you, Chapman.

I think I felt the need to write this for anyone that might be looking to start an agency at their school, that wants to make their college agency better, or any high school kids crazy enough to plan on majoring in advertising.

Following is my advice for developing a successful student agency, many of which is based on experience (good or bad) with our own agency.

1) Don’t be the XYZ University Advertising Club
You aren’t trying to be the “advertising club.” As a member of our agency put it in our recent promotions, you aren’t in high school anymore. Over are the days of padding the resume with meaningless “clubs.” In interviews you’ll be asked what your agency is/does and how you’re contributing to the agency and your education.

2) Come up with a solvent business model
This doesn’t mean you need to profit – your art directors aren’t relying on their work to feed themselves (yet). This means you should try to secure funding from your student fee or department if possible, come up with a fee structure that clients might be willing to pay, and fill in the gaps with member dues. You aren’t going into this business (presumedly) to do charity for non-for-profits and local pizza shacks, so why do that as practice? Charge your clients for services that cost you money. Outsource jobs that your members can’t do the best possible work at – your copywriters won’t be producing promotional videos professionally, they shouldn’t be forced to now.

3) Have named positions
Working in advertising is awkward in that people not in the industry don’t understand our job titles. “What does your daddy do?” “He…uh…is an advertising…guy” That’s why we have terms like account executive, media planner, art director, etc. Use these titles – it gives meaning and substance to what members put on their resumes and defines their role in the organization. This makes it easier to distribute tasks.

4) Enter competitions (besides NSAC)
Competition deadlines are easy to work with for students – they’re much more like academic projects and are easier to follow through on than projects for real clients. Honestly, you need a healthy mix of both. Competition wins will bring the glory and name recognition you’ll need to grow as a student org (and can bring in some cash if you’re good at them). I may be including this because I’m currently on a plane to LA to present for the finals of a competition from Honda – it has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a student to this point.

5) For God’s sake, have a web presence
We are Generation Y, we need to prove our prowess in reaching Gen Y. We live online as consumers, you should prove you can reach them by having a web presence. This has been an ongoing struggle for my agency (I assure you the website project is under construction…as it has been for 3 years), but we know we’ll be taken much more seriously once it exists.

I’ll leave you with a list of (what I’ve found to be) some really good student agencies (Besides TNH at Syracuse) and where they are housed:

AdLab - BYU
Mojo Ad - Missouri
AdLab - Boston U
HSBT - Georgia
Diamond Edge Communications - Temple


Is your agency not listed? Email me and we’ll talk – I always want to know what other schools are doing.

The time has come

I've decided I'm going to leverage this blog to talk about case studies from my experience running The NewHouse Student Ad Agency this year. Leverage is my new favorite word, by the way.

Anytime we accomplish something, I want to tell the world about it and get the word out there a little more. I'm still going to comment on ad world happenings when I can, too. Sorry to my (10 or so) dedicated followers who I've left in the dark since June or so. I promise it won't happen again!

Is Smirnoff behind Bros Icing Bros?

You just got ICED!

That's what "bros" across the land are hearing upon being forced to drink a Smirnoff Ice in one of the most bizarre real-life Internet meme strikes since Rick Astley Rick-Rolled the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The premise is simple. Basically, a bro can present a Smirnoff Ice to one of his bros at any time in any setting, and the recipient must get on one knee and chug the beverage. According to the official web authority on the matter, brosicingbros.com, "you cannot refuse an Ice. If you refuse to drink the Ice, you are instantly excommunicated and shunned..."

The social game, according to Fortune (yes, they actually did a story on this) started on college campuses in South Carolina and has since spread throughout the country to tech corporations, hedge funds, and investment banks. It certainly seems that you ain't cool unless you ice your bros.

The key to "winning" the game, although nobody actually can win because the game never ends, you can only Ice or be Iced, is hiding Ices in places a bro would never think to come prepared. If you have an Ice on you, you may block an attack and force the Icer to drink themselves. If the Ice is left in an obscure place, the recipient bro almost certainly will be caught off guard and be forced to drink it.

The obvious assumption to make is that this started as some guerilla marketing campaign by Smirnoff and or Diageo, the UK company that owns the brand. After all, it is every product's dream to have some grassroots movement started by a target that has traditionally ignored or avoided your product.

Alas, according to the company, this in not the case. A company spokeswoman claims:
"The icing phenomenon is consumer generated ... Some people think it's fun. Diageo never wants underage icing."

The casual use of the term "icing" is very humorous to me, it says that either she's lying (almost certainly not the case) or that they've received countless inquiries as to their role in the fad (most likely).

Bros Stoning Bros?

Here, I have to digress for a moment. I've always had trouble believing that alcohol companies do not support underage drinking (or "icing" in this case). It's comparable, in my mind, to saying that tobacco companies have never (subliminally or otherwise) targeted children. We know that these companies aren't ALLOWED to target underage consumers (or else Lesley Fair and the FTC will behead them), that doesn't mean that they don't do so, even unintentionally.

My favorite example (and I've ranted about this before) is Keystone Light. Anyone that's ever set foot on an American college campus has probably had an encounter with Stones. Known more so for it's dirt-cheap price than its purported "Always Smooth" taste, Keystone is a staple amongst collegiate (read: underage) binge drinkers.

I have a hard time believing that MillerCoors, the parent company of the Keystone brand, is unaware that a majority of their business is directly related to underage consumers. If consumers were truly concerned with the "smooth" taste of their brew, chances are they wouldn't head to the back of the convenience store cooler for a 30 rack of Stones. Despite this, Saatchi and Saatchi is renewing the "smooth" USP with a series of commercials featuring the Always Smooth Keith Stone:



Cleverness of the spot notwithstanding, I think the brand would be much better served promoting its' low price than it's (dare I say) smooth taste. Advertising, especially creative advertising, can cure a lot of ills, but you need to get the USP right. Is it wrong to advertise to a target which can not legally purchase your product? Probably. But is it bad for business? Usually not.

Back to my original thought: do I believe that Smirnoff is not behind the Bros Icing Bros phenomenon? Yes, I suppose I do. While it will certainly help boost sales in the short term (despite some evidence to the contrary), it's just too silly (read: genius) of an idea to have been conceived by marketing execs. At least Smirnoff isn't advertising the wrong message or to the wrong people, like Keystone (or my other alcoholic bugaboo, Mike's Hard) does.

RIP: "Get a Mac" ads

According to Mashable, everyone's favorite Mac campaign (and the campaign of the decade, according to Adweek) is no more.



Justin Long (Mac) himself broke the news last month in an interview with A.V. Club, saying "I think they might be done. In fact, I heard from John (Hodgman, AKA PC) I think they're going to move on."

It's always a shame when great campaigns die. What made these spots so great (and this coming from a PC user) is that they created the PC brand. What I mean is that there is no company called "PC," it's a category made up of every personal computer manufacturer: HP, Toshiba, Dell, etc. By making "PC" the bad-guy brand, it changed the question from "What kind of computer do you have?" to "Do you have a Mac or a PC?" Props to TBWA Worldwide (the agency behind the campaign) for an excellent strategy and execution. It helps that Long and Hodgman were impeccable in their respective roles.

Little did I know that my Halloween costume would be inspired by the very last spots in this campaign:


Very few campaigns get the chance to transcend the realm of advertising and join the world of pop culture. Get a Mac was one of those campaigns. Cheers to Apple, TBWA, Justin Long, and John Hodgman for that.

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Best ad on TV 5/10: Weber Grills

Saw this spot, "Have Fun With It," a handful of times watching the History channel tonight.



I really think they captured the core fascination with grilling. It actually has very little to do with the quality of the meat, provided no one gets salmonella or mad cow. It's about the grilling culture.

It's relatively easy to grill food, and it's also a social activity. No longer restricted to tailgaters and to dads on Memorial day; this ad seems to remind us that grilling is for everyone to have fun with.

I wish they would have included a little more grill-related activity. Maybe throw in a burger flip or two, or perhaps the artful squirting/spraying/dowsing of BBQ sauce. Regardless of this little lack of content, the spot is still very well done.

From what I can find, the folks behind it are Denver, CO based rabble+rouser, and the song is actually an original song made for the spot, called You Light Me Up by Open Sky.

Using the man as the spokesman: CEOs in advertising

Hey folks, long time no blog.

I've been driven to write after seeing the following spot for GM several times in the last couple days:



In it Ed Whitacre, CEO of General Motors, assures us that GM is back on its' feet, having repaid the government its bailout loan money with interest well in advance. I have to think that it's a great idea to use a "don't worry" campaign, regardless of how fresh Whitacre's news actually is, because it's still prime time to pounce on Toyota and try to win one for the domestic automakers.

Ironically in what I assume is unrelated news, GM dropped Chevrolet's ad agency this week. It's significant because Campbell-Ewald is the premier agency in Detroit (or at least the only one I could name there based on my rudimentary knowledge with no further research). Literally every Chevy ad you've seen ("Like a Rock," "An American Revolution," et all) has been the work of C-E.

But all that is neither here nor there.

The Whitacre spot reminded me of another CEO speaking on behalf of his company in TV spots, and maybe it did for you too. Remember Sprint's Dan Hesse?



These ads, ranging back to 2008, never did it for me. For one, they're pretty awful. Advertisers use spokesmen because people pay attention to celebrities (or so research somewhere suggests). When your spokesman is your smug new CEO, people have no reason to put down the Cheetos and listen (or even keep it on the same channel).

Secondly, all I ever took away from these ads was who the CEO was. Maybe it's because the GM spot is still fresh, but it seems a lot more respectable because it seems like a special message. Hesse was barking at me about the wireless revolution for more than a year.

I decided to look into this, and see if there was any way GM could have been influenced by Sprint in tossing their Chief Executive into the advertising. I didn't have to look far.

Turns out, Hesse and Whitacre are both former CEOs of AT&T, Hesse from 1997-2000, and Whitacre from 2005-2007. They were contemporaries in the wireless business for 20 years.


The executive sphere has certainly always been viewed as an Old Boys' Club of sorts, guys bounce from corporation to corporation and bring each other along regardless of industry knowledge. The last thing GM should want to do is remind people of that: it doesn't make people want to buy your products when they consider that you're making $60 million a year in a job that your old connections got you.

So here's my advice for General Motors and Mr. Whitacre: quit while you're ahead. You have a good thing going, with the worst of the economic crisis behind you. This advertising message is cute and I believe justified, but you toe a fine line when you personify the company with the CEO. Don't let Ed follow in Dan's footsteps and become just another commercial talking head, or worse, just another reviled, smug chief executive.

Lindsay Lohan: Got Milk?

She's always been a milkaholic...

The New York Post is reporting that Lindsay Lohan, most famous of course for her role in the critically acclaimed Disney Channel original movie Life-Size, is suing financial trading company E-Trade over a recent spot that you may recognize from the Super Bowl and other placements:



Her gripe with the ad is the part where the protagonist baby's supposed mistress, Lindsay, is accused of being a "milkaholic." This little quip, which Lohan interprets as mocking her, apparently offends the Lohan camp enough for them to sue for $100 million dollars, that is:

The complaint, as so eloquently put by Lohan's lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia:

"Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit...They're using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn't they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody's talking about it and saying it's Lindsay Lohan."

In other words, because Grey Group chose the name "Lindsay," they should have to pay up, because apparently there are no other Lindsays on Earth, and a spot featuring infants talking about investing somehow offended the star of The Parent Trap?

If anything, Linds should be offended by the way it was portrayed that her "character" was dating a male baby! Not even she is sure of her sexuality, how dare E-Trade insinuate at it!

I could go on to discuss the enumerable ways that this is ludicrous, but instead I'll take the high road:

I hereby offer a reward of one million dollars to anyone that finds anyone or anything using the name "Adam" that leads to a successful lawsuit against the parent company for using my name and characterization for business without my approval. Possible targets include:

Blink-182, for writing "Adam's Song" without my permission.
Snickers and NFL kicker Adam Vinatieri, for the monnicker "Adam Nougatieri"
Charles Addams, for his morbid portrayal and mispelling of my family's name
and of course,
The Bible, for associating me with the first man and his ejection from the Garden of Eden.

Suggestions are welcome.

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Mashups and sports commercials: mash made in heaven

Another incidence of recent pop culture overflowing into the industry:



This Gatorade spot, which remixes Muhammad Ali's famous promise, reflects a new-ish music trend. Mash up artists, previously confined to mixtapes and YouTube, are carving out a niche in the mainstream. They range from Joe Somebodies who have the software to throw together some tunes (that may or may not be copyrighted) in their respective dorm rooms to famous acts like Greg Gillis, aka Girl Talk.

Girl Talk live at Syracuse University's Juice Jam in Fall 2009

What prompted this post was the appearance of some new spots for the NBA which caught my eye (and more so my ear) last month.



I assume the spots come from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners because they are the agency behind the whole "Where...Happens" campaign (which has been brilliant through and through). They remix quotes from the NBA's best players and coaches on various subjects and set them to a beat, with a bit of T-Pain-style autotune for good measure.

Is it an original idea? No. DJ Steve Porter's "Press Hop," which appeared on YouTube last summer, is a very well done and hilarious mash of famous press conferences given by various players and coaches, and is done in the exact same style. I wouldn't be surprised if Goodby had contact with DJ Porter in crafting the NBA spots, although I also don't imagine with today's media technology that it is even that difficult to do.

The best of the spots however (seen here) has to be the "Where Defense Happens" mash, because of:

1) The inclusion of aloof Magic coach (and Ron Jeremy body double) Stan Van Gundy (right)

and

2) The inclusion of the only highlights of defense being played in the NBA ever known to exist

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable

Ridiculously silly concept.

Can anyone decipher the following ad for me?



This full page execution for FAGE yogurt appeared on the inside back cover of February's Bon Appétit.

My only question: what on earth does it mean?

You'll have to excuse my dairy product naivete here, but is ridiculous thickness an ideal quality in yogurt? I have to assume so, if that's the USP they're going with. I assume readers of food publications like Bon Appétit would understand better than I do, but the ad makes zero sense to me at all.

What does the thickness have to do with bees? Are you saying bees could use it to make honeycombs? I really think I'm missing something here, so I set out to investigate.

The website all follows the same motif, and quite frankly is really well done as far as intertwining graphics and web design while still having a navigable site.

The navigation bar sinks into the ridiculous thickness depending on which side you clock on. Props for that.

Things I learned from the website:

• FAGE is a Greek company founded in 1926
  
• FAGE is pronounced Fa-yeh (but it's all Greek to me...rimshot)
  
• They "never make a product that we would not give to our children"
  
• The thickness comes from the use of 4 pounds of whole milk in every 1 pound of yogurt
  
• The containers it comes in are called "pots," which kind of gives off that homey feel that grandma is churning this stuff out in her kitchen. That may or may not be a good thing.
  

Things I did not learn from the website:

• If beekeepers are beginning to use the yogurt to build artificial hives for their bees.
  
• Why FAGE is still paying their ad agency to come up with honeycombs pressed into really thick yogurt.
  

The lesson here, kids, is that although we can do some cool things with graphics, it doesn't mean we should. While yogurt is about as boring a category as you can get (wait, what am I saying? What about GOGURT!?), you don't have to throw all logical strategy out the window in order for people to look at your ad. In fact, I'm not sure I would have noticed this if a friend wouldn't have asked me, "do you understand what this means at all?"

If it doesn't stand out, it doesn't make sense and it quacks like a duck, chances are it's not a good ad. Unless it's selling yogurt pots by the busload, in which case, go nuts Fa-yeh.

Greased Lightbox

→←+-↻

Loading image

Click anywhere to cancel

Image unavailable