Headin' to Arkansas

If an ad agency makes a great ad; but, it's hitting the wrong target is it really that bad?

I think thats a question that hangs in the air whenever an advertisement seems to be off key from a brand perspective. Of course, being way out of left field, hitting the wrong gender, race and age all at once would be too far off and would most likely dilute the brand by sending out too many and contradictory messages. However, how close to brand is too "close to brand."

When a client is obsessing where the toys came from, be it Target or Wal-Mart (which is the same exact toy), in a kid's fast food ad because their target consume is considered a wal-mart-like shopper. Is that going too far and isn't that obsessing too much over details that could detract from the big picture?

The subject came up when discussing the new memorable Caribou Coffee ads on youtube made by Colle + McVoy. The ads have a sometimes violent or disgusting sense of humor that feels more apt for a teenager and yet their audience tends to be middle aged, stay at home mom's.

You be the judge:

Caribou's "The Autumn Adventure of Jack & Gourdo #5"

Agency: Colle + McVoy

Reason: A well-made, dry sense of humor that plays with boundaries of acceptability; but, may be off the key consumer.

On a side note: I am happy to report that after being unemployed for a total of 12 day (8 work days), I received a job offer from an excellent, quickly growing agency Rockfish Interactive. They not only create great websites, innovative back-end tools, iPhone apps and social media tools; but, they also launch brands and were named "Best Small Agency of the Year" by Ad Age.

So I will be heading out on a road trip to Arkansas to check out the state and the agency in person. Look for posts on Thursday of traveling pics. . . y'all (thought I'd get started on my accent conversion).

A Great First Campaign

I pulled the campaign I started in the morning and have been astounded by the results of my unique mixed on-line approach.

After the campaign ran for eight hours on a weekday it generated 278 unique hits on my portfolio site (from 40 states, Canada & the UK), generated a threat to sue from a major agency and a phone call from the same major agency (a few hours later) showing interest in my work & wanting to chat further. All in all I think my first experiment has FAR exceeded my expectations and I hope my next one will as well.

And after all, if you're a creative in the ad world that gets a threat to sue, you must be doing something right.

Step 4

As I mentioned in an earlier post one of the things I want to focus on during my "Great Unemployed Experiment" is "Advertise It."

By that I mean I want to impress the agencies I'm interested in working for by approaching them in an original way. Not through the materials of your "mailer" but by thinking of yourself objectively as a product/service, the consumer as the creatives at "x" agency and figuring out the best way to get their attention and deliver a message.

I came up with a different way to attack agencies of interest by coupling two well known website's ad analytics to deliver specific messages to specific people in agencies.

Today I have a few dozen unique hits on my site (according to google analytics) and when my ads start tomorrow we'll see what will happen.

My Portfolio

As an Art Director, one of the most important things for you to have is a great portfolio and even more so a great website. After an hour of figuring out how to build a website, I designed it, built it in Dreamweaver and published it, in under three days. Let me know what you think!

www.taylorsnyder.com