Essay 4892

Goodwill and cheer in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Will Smith sparked controversy by referring to Hitler during an interview. Smith was explaining his belief that everyone is basically good and said, “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ … I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’ … Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.” The Jewish Defense League believes the actor labeled Hitler as “good,” and the group called for a boycott of Smith’s latest flick. Celebrity gossip Web sites also posted criticism for Smith. However, the actor was quick to angrily respond. “It is an awful and disgusting lie,” said Smith in a statement. “It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. … Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet.” Hitler is also known as a “comedy killer,” as Smith unfortunately discovered.

• Rev. Al Sharpton received a holiday gift from federal authorities—a three-week extension to provide financial paperwork for a mysterious investigation (see Essay 4837). Note to Sharpton: Avoid referring to federal authorities as Nazi-like.

• Jay-Z announced he’ll step down from his role as president of Def Jam Records. “It’s time for me to take on new challenges,” said Jay-Z in a written statement. “I am pleased to have had the opportunity to build upon the Def Jam legacy, helping to move the company into a new era of artistic success.” Jay-Z is rumored to be plotting an advertising-related venture with Steve Stoute. Wish these guys could create ads as good as Jay-Z’s music.

• A new study shows parents may be in denial over their kids’ obesity issues. One expert speculated the study indicates parents falsely think kids will outgrow obesity. Or maybe the parents aren’t noticing the problem because they’re too busy stuffing their own faces. Pass the Christmas turkey and gravy!

Essay 4891

HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO

Essay 4890

Essay 4889

If you weren’t clinically depressed already, you will be after reading all the disclaimers here.

[MultiCultClassics often critiques questionable work created by multicultural advertising agencies. But the truth is, in terms of volume, percentages and any other measuring standard, the majority of lousy ideas are produced by White agencies. In the spirit of inclusion, this week MultiCultClassics spotlights some White ad trash.]

Essay 4888

From The Associated Press…

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Drunk Santas go on rampage in New Zealand

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A gang of about 50 apparently drunken Santas invaded a New Zealand cinema complex at the weekend — frightening customers, damaging property and swearing, the cinema’s manager said Monday.

Police believe the Santas were a group of university students dressed in Santa suits who ran amok for 20 seconds through Hoyts Cinema complex in the South Island city of Christchurch on Saturday, manager Derek Rive said.

“As they ran through the complex they wrecked everything they could, the Christmas tree — they bowled everything over ... (they were) just absolute fools,” he told the Associated Press.

He said the “hooligans” abused patrons, chanted obscenities, ripped down posters and knocked over cardboard figures advertising films.

“How often do a bunch of Santas just go and wreak havoc?” Rive said. “It was a random act of stupidity” that upset moviegoers.

Security cameras caught the action, but Rive said with their hats, white beards and suits, the rampaging Santas cannot be identified.

Cinema patron Kate Gorman, 35, was waiting to see the movie “Enchanted” with her two children when the group arrived.

“At least 50 drunk idiots dressed up like Santa came in through the main door,” she told local paper the Christchurch Press.

“They were kicking things over, ripping down posters and smashing everything in sight,” Gorman said. “They were all dressed as Santa and shouting ‘Ho (expletive) ho.’”

Her children, Gabriella, 6, and Jackson, 7, had been confused by the incident.

“They asked me, ‘Are they Santa’s helpers gone crazy?’ and I said ‘No, they are just idiots,’” she was reported saying.

As they left, the Santas triggered a fire alarm, forcing several hundred patrons to evacuate the complex for half an hour.

Essay 4887

Um, does anyone else sense a hint of bestiality in this message?

[MultiCultClassics often critiques questionable work created by multicultural advertising agencies. But the truth is, in terms of volume, percentages and any other measuring standard, the majority of lousy ideas are produced by White agencies. In the spirit of inclusion, this week MultiCultClassics spotlights some White ad trash.]

Essay 4886

AdPulp’s Danny G remarked on Essay 4873, making observations worth discussing further.

G wrote: “Agencies who spout off about brands using the web to have an ersatz ‘two-way dialogue’ with consumers need to wake up and realize that yes, they are brands too, and the dialogue about the agency itself is fair game.”

For the most part, today’s advertising agencies are lousy brands.

Agencies are quick to convince (accent on con) clients that the standard marketing and advertising tactics are required for successful brands. Yet the typical agency seldom self-prescribes its own advice. The better shops take a “let-the-work-speak-for-itself” approach, essentially relying on word-of-mouth. Of course, no agency would ever suggest this course of action for clients. At least not without charging them for the plan.

On rare occasions, an agency will attempt to produce its own advertising and branding campaign. The efforts usually demonstrate that in addition to being lousy brands, agencies are lousy clients. Just ask any creative team that has ever been assigned to such a task. (Note to agencies: You don’t recommend that clients keep stuff in-house, so you shouldn’t either. Doctors won’t perform surgery on themselves, the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, etc. If you want a breakthrough campaign for your shop, hire Wieden + Kennedy or Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to execute it.)

Self-promotion aside, today’s advertising agencies are lousy brands for more reasons. Moronic management, mergers and buyouts are the major culprits, and they’re often intertwined. When viewed through a branding lens, it’s easy to understand the problems.

Having morons at the helm is the equivalent of having a shitty product or service. If your product or service is inherently shitty, then your brand will ultimately stink too. No rocket science there. It’s just the way things are. To compound issues, moronic management tends to be out of touch with the current marketplace. If a brand fails to evolve with society and becomes outdated and irrelevant, well, you get the picture.

Mergers and buyouts are killing advertising agency brands. The size of the holding company is directly proportionate to the awfulness of the merging murder. Back in the day, great advertising agencies had distinct personalities and images. You’d be hard-pressed to attach positive brand characteristics to IPG, WPP, Havas, Omnicom and Publicis—or any characteristics, for that matter.

Mergers and buyouts accelerate management shifts, as leaders jockey for power positions. The result is a rollercoaster ride of altering objectives and corporate vision revisions. The latest regime promises to invent “The Agency of the Future,” despite the fact that the architects are likely old school hacks incapable of coping in the present.

Plus, mergers and buyouts lead to constant name changes, exacerbating brand fuzziness. Imagine if McDonald’s or Coca-Cola altered their labels as frequently as agencies. The new monikers sound and look bad. The reprinting for business cards and letterheads can’t be cheap.

In BDAs (George Parker’s favorite abbreviation for Big Dumb Agencies), employees aren’t even clear on their employer’s official name. Need proof? If you’re a BDA drone, sign up for LinkedIn. Every week, you’ll receive a bunch of contacts that weren’t on your original connections list. Why? Because they identified your common agency by a different name than you did. Acme. Acme Worldwide. Acme Communications. The Acme Group. Acme RSCG. A.C.M.E. Publicis Acme. AcmeFCB. Whatever.

If agency folks don’t know their company’s brand, what must the clients be thinking?

If advertising agencies fuck up their own brands, why should they be entrusted with a client’s brand?

Essay 4885

For pharmaceutical advertising, breakthrough concepts involve having fun with legal disclaimers.

[MultiCultClassics often critiques questionable work created by multicultural advertising agencies. But the truth is, in terms of volume, percentages and any other measuring standard, the majority of lousy ideas are produced by White agencies. In the spirit of inclusion, this week MultiCultClassics spotlights some White ad trash.]

Essay 4884

Essay 4883

This ad is real. Dumb.

[MultiCultClassics often critiques questionable work created by multicultural advertising agencies. But the truth is, in terms of volume, percentages and any other measuring standard, the majority of lousy ideas are produced by White agencies. In the spirit of inclusion, this week MultiCultClassics spotlights some White ad trash.]

Essay 4882

Special treatment in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department’s office of independent review reported Mel Gibson may have received special treatment when arrested for drunk driving last year. A supervisor apparently tried to censor the arrest report—which detailed the star’s anti-Semitic rants—but a captain overruled the attempt. Meanwhile, it was decided that Paris Hilton received no special treatment when she was jailed for a probation violation. Of course, Gibson and Hilton technically received special treatment in warranting these special reports, as regular people arrested in Los Angeles probably don’t see such concern from officials.

• The Miami Herald interviewed GM CEO Rick Wagoner, who expressed guarded optimism about the year ahead. “We look forward to the sunny days, but realistically we can’t plan on it for next year,” said Wagoner. “We’ve got the best car in the segment [with the 2008 Chevy Malibu]. It will be a very good test case to see how far we can, how quickly we can, begin to change not only image but then consideration of the purchase.” The automaker will need to do better than the forgettable “It’s the car you can’t ignore” campaign.

Essay 4881

Most dog foods contain animal by-products and things you’d never feed your family. Um, you’re not supposed to feed your family dog food.

[MultiCultClassics often critiques questionable work created by multicultural advertising agencies. But the truth is, in terms of volume, percentages and any other measuring standard, the majority of lousy ideas are produced by White agencies. In the spirit of inclusion, this week MultiCultClassics spotlights some White ad trash.]

Essay 4880

In concert with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• R. Kelly isn’t going to jail for missing a Wednesday court date. However, the trial date has been set for May 9. Additionally, the singer must cancel a Virginia concert date on January 13 to ensure he makes a January 14 court date. The judge didn’t completely forbid Kelly from touring, claiming it would adversely affect show workers and folks who bought tickets. Sounds like the judge has tickets.

• The friend allegedly shot by Remy Ma filed an $80 million lawsuit against the artist. The suit charges the shooting was part of a “pattern of harassment, threats, intimidation, physical violence and illegal acts” by Remy Ma that record labels encouraged to “promote the ‘Remy Ma’ persona.” Wow, if this suit works, there will be trouble for lots of record labels.

• Circuit City saw 3Q losses balloon to $207.3 million. “Clearly we are very dissatisfied,” said the retailer’s chief executive. Maybe Circuit City should change its tagline from “Simplicity Guaranteed” to “Bankruptcy Guaranteed.”

Essay 4879

From The New York Times, a follow-up to an item in Essay 4844…

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Ransom-Note Ads About Children’s Health Are Canceled

By JOANNE KAUFMAN

The Child Study Center at New York University said on Wednesday that it would halt an advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness of children’s mental and neurological disorders after the effort drew a strongly negative reaction.

The two-week-old campaign, created pro bono by the advertising agency BBDO, used the device of ransom notes to deliver ominous messages concerning disorders like autism, depression, bulimia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The note about autism, for example, read: “We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives.”

Advocates for children with autism and for other special-needs children said the ads reinforced negative stereotypes.

“While many individuals spoke to us about the need to continue the campaign, inadvertently we offended others,” said Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the Child Study Center’s founder and director, who estimated that he had received 3,000 e-mail messages and phone calls. Thirty percent of those praised the initiative, he said, and 70 percent expressed anger and hurt.

“One woman was crying to me on the phone that she felt alone and ashamed about her child and thanking me because the campaign captured how she felt,” he said. “But we also heard from some parents who are working day and night to help their children, and the way they read the ransom messages was that they weren’t doing enough.”

Ultimately, Dr. Koplewicz said, “I was concerned about the focus of the debate being on the ads rather than on the children.”

Kristina Chew, founder of the blog Autism Vox and the mother of a 10-year-old son with autism, praised the decision. “I’m very glad the campaign is over,” she said.

Dr. Koplewicz said he had “started conversations” with critics of the ransom-note ads. “They said they felt our intentions were good and they wanted to help, so we want to hear their voices as we start to plan the next ads with BBDO.” The goal is to introduce a new campaign in the next three months.

He said that the decision was made by the Child Study Center with no pressure from N.Y.U., and he maintained that, despite the negative publicity, no ground had been lost.

“It’s the first time that the issue of children’s mental health has gotten national attention without being precipitated by a shooting at a high school or college,” he said.

Essay 4878

(A new parody ad in response to the latest GM recall.)

Essay 4877

This ad lacks power.

Essay 4876

Didn’t want to finish the week without one more jab at General Motors.

While scanning past posts for the upcoming MultiCultClassics Year In Review, we stumbled upon Essay 2017.

Last April, shortly after the Don Imus fiasco, Adweek published a story stating certain corporations would definitely consider advertising with the shock jock if he returned to the airwaves.

The story’s spotlighted corporation? Why, GM, of course.

According to Adweek, “After GM initially pulled its ads last Wednesday, the automaker noted that because Imus had apologized and promised to make changes in his program, it was ‘monitoring’ the situation. Asked for clarification, company spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said, ‘I think that would indicate that we were open to revisiting at some point down the road’ returning to the broadcast. Carney said that if Imus does land somewhere else in radio land, and ‘if an opportunity is presented to us [to advertise], we would assess it just like we do all the other opportunities that come our way.’”

Carney, incidentally, is the GM spokeswoman extensively quoted in the recent alleged misreporting by sources including Black Enterprise.

In April, MultiCultClassics wrote a line that’s proven to be downright prophetic: “It’s clear that General Motors loves minorities—but only when doing so meets profit objectives.”

Which leads to the latest parody ad…

Essay 4875

There’s an interesting perspective on diversity at Marketing Conversation, a blog on New Marketing and Social Media by Abraham Harrison LLC—a firm specializing in interactive marketing based in Washington, D.C. Writer Jonathan Trenn presents honest and provocative observations worth checking out. You may view the post here.

Essay 4874

Friday rap-up in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• R. Kelly missed his court date on Wednesday because his tour bus was stopped by police in Utah. Now a judge may stop the singer’s tour by putting him in jail as punishment for the Wednesday no-show. “These are extraordinary matters to have these breaks given to you and then nobody shows up,” said the judge. “I don’t know what I am going to do. I have to consider it.” Better consider the potential courthouse protests if the scheduled Friday concert in Chicago is canceled.

• Remy Ma was denied the opportunity to perform at concerts in Europe. A judge refused to return the rapper’s passport. Remy Ma is facing charges of shooting a friend at a New York nightclub. The judge declared, “Given the circumstances and the seriousness of the charges, and the fact that she has pending intimidation charges, I’m not prepared to let the defendant travel out of the country.” Maybe she can replace R. Kelly on Friday in Chicago.

Essay 4873

A recent post at Agency Spy speculated on the state of affairs at Nicholson Kovac, intimately detailing management shifts and high-level departures. While scanning the insider scoops, one can’t help but wonder, “Who the fuck is Nicholson Kovac?”

In case you’re interested—and you really shouldn’t be—the 25-year-old Kansas City agency boasts integrated services for a handful of nondescript clients. (That’s co-founder Pete Kovac pictured above.) With all due respect, it’s doubtful anyone outside of the Kansas City metro area has ever heard of the joint. Hell, it’s safe to bet the majority of lifelong KC residents couldn’t identify the shop.

But there it is, taking an online beating for the entire ad universe to witness. A Nicholson Kovac executive even went so far as to tell Agency Spy, “The false rumors and allegations you reference appear to be the work of someone attempting to use your blog as a means of settling some personal score. Whomever is circulating these falsehoods may well be subject to legal action, and we would advise Agency Spy not to become party to this obvious attempt to malign NK.”

Yikes. And yawn.

Yet behind the overblown drama is a semi-disturbing trend: The Revenge of the Disgruntled Ad Employee. Or in most cases, Ex-Employee.

The terminated are becoming the terminators. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take this anymore. So they’re going postal with posts, broadcasting the dysfunctional, irresponsible and allegedly criminal transgressions of former bosses. Why, there’s more dirty laundry than a Tide with Bleach convention.

The bombed agencies probably have themselves to blame for the mean-spirited mudslinging. Incompetent leaders ultimately rally armies of enemies. Plus, as industry-wide downsizing continues, layoffs are bungled with increased insensitivity. Axed employees grudgingly sign separation agreements and collect minimal severances, seething to see senior honchos still enjoying the traditional perks.

Blogs like Agency Spy and Adrants routinely feature threads packed with personal attacks and angry exposés. AdScam has essentially become a menagerie of canned IPG staffers ready to rip the inept company’s management 24/7.

There’s a lesson to be learned, although it’s unlikely the offending agencies will catch on. Hence, here’s the idiot-proof lowdown. If you shit on your workers, expect to get excrement tossed back in your direction. And if you don’t want your ignorant, immoral and illegal acts published on the World Wide Web, well, stop committing ignorant, immoral and illegal acts.

Just a thought.