Ad Caulk

I did a project about Walt Disney The Man® way back in 3rd grade. Two things he did really impressed me.

First, every night after Disney World closed he would walk around and clean the park. This includes scraping gum off of the paths. The man was a perfectionist.

Second, he created the MultiPlane camera. This added depth to animation AND CHANGED THINGS FOREVER. I had never seen any video of the camera in action until yesterday when someone* sent me this video. The way he explained things is pretty excellent.

*can't remember who, sorry.

Dave Trott's agency CST The Gate has released a new site dedicated to Predatory Thinking. It's a collection of stories/quips where people redefined the world on their terms. The kind of stuff that we hear about and say, "That's brilliant!"

I love when new sources of inspiration like this pop up. Go visit.

Predatory thinking. Street smarts. Whatever you want to call it, it's about writing the rules on your terms, rather than following someone else's; it's about changing behaviour through reframing a story or changing the context; it's about seeking unfair advantage to outmanoeuvre the competition.

Well this is really just one example of why I'm not a designer. Although my friends sometimes think I can do design it takes a ton of talent and effort to produce something like this.

It's possible to be better than 95% of people at something but made to look amateur by the other 5%. This took some mad skills. (via)

ALERT: Super Bowl reflection post below.

People complain that the majority of Super Bowl commercials are sub-par every year. In turn this gets blamed on the American Public or, as many others in the field like to call it, the lowest common denominator.

The problem is appealing to what we think is the lowest common denominator. Or thinking our ads have to be worse to appeal to all people*. They don't. But it does take a slightly different approach to make an ad that delights and sells when 100 million people are watching.

And it's not like there haven't been successful Super Bowl spots in the past. It wasn't long ago that Bud ruled the game with their frogs and wassup. It was just two years ago that Old Spice reigned supreme with The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (which actually ran before the game). Even VW's Little Vader was universally loved and slightly humorous (though the selling point was a little weak).

Contrast that with the "sophisticated" approach Bud Light Platinum took. Those spots were universally panned in polls and post-game commentary. They offered nothing to the audience and blended in with the blandervitisng we see every day. It was as though the creatives had never drank a beer in their lives (let alone a Platinum).

So while it's possible to make something that doesn't suck you have to understand where you're advertising. the point is to entertain groups of half-interested individuals. These people are cheering for a good ad. This is the one time a year they might actually care. It's not good to go in with the attitude that appealing to people sucks. That's something that should be celebrated.

It's easy to blame people when work doesn't go over well. They didn't get it, they just weren't smart enough, what does the public know? The issue is the public is our audience: including the lowest common denominator. An ad that doesn't work for them isn't really worth anything.

And if that doesn't make sense to marketers then the Lowest Common Denominator might be us.

*This is one point I disagree with George Tannenbaum on. For a balanced perspective check out his take on Super Bowl ads.

I spent last week in Park City, UT covering advertising at Sudance for a small website called Yahoo. I put together a Storify of my adventures so that I had something to show people when they asked how it went.

"The Sun, How It Danced."

I'm still working on getting pictures in it but there's some fun stuff there. I spent a lot of time alone and overheard a lot of crazy things from the Hollywood/New York types. I also went to the awards party if you're looking for movies to look forward to.

If you ever get the chance to go I recommend it. Sundance is a dream for anyone who loves film.

A commercial airplane costs what to make? Tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars. That's a lot of money to spend on something. If I were spending that much money on anything I would want mine to be perfect.

But as anyone who has ever flown on an airplane knows that airplanes aren't perfect. They usually get the basics down: staying in the air, not suddenly losing cabin pressure, wings not soldered on backwards. But the details inside the cabin aren't great.

Here's an example from earlier this week. I relegated myself to the back row on my flight back from Salt Lake City and glanced down at the tray table in from of me. This is what I saw:

Apparently Frontier (a fantastic airline) doesn't even get proper grammar for their millions. If this was a luxury automobile the owner would be outraged. It's amazing how tiny details like this get glossed over. It's not going to make or break how much someone enjoys a flight but it does seem tremendously lazy.

It's still fairly amazing we've conquered the sky. Now we have plenty of time to work on getting our language right.

I don't mean to post so many videos. Really. There are just so many good ones out there. This latest is David Lynch talking about ideas. We don't really create them, we catch them. It's not a particularly new thought but it is worth remembering.

"The idea is more than you realize."

(via)

PressPausePlay is simultaneously the most disheartening and inspiring documentary I have ever watched. Moby's comment about the Grey Goo of mediocrity taking over the world seems like a very possible reality. When an hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second it's hard to imagine how anything rises to the top.

But somehow, someway there is goodness that gets shared the world over. The section of this doc I loved was at the 48th minute: The Craft is Gone. If there was one nugget I wanted everyone to watch that would be it.

I loved it because underneath the hopelessness was a consistient message: craft still matters. People who don't start on the computer, who have an understanding of how things were and how things are, who understand that the process is part of the product can and will succeed.

Work that has flaws and shows some semblance of humanity sticks out like a sore thumb now. And if the goal is to get noticed that's a great thing. Perfect shiny things are a dime a dozen because polish is now the easy part.

Slickness is nothing to celebrate. Great craft and great thinking are.

Wow. Let me say thank you to everyone who has suffered through the evolution of this blog. It's hard to believe that I've been at this for two years now. Somehow it seems much longer and much shorter than that. I enjoy writing here and reading back through old posts to see what it has become.

Ad Caulk (or Copy Copy Blog as it was called then) was born out of desperation. I had these thoughts filling my head and the realization that I had to do something or else I would continue to be unhappy.

Boy am I happy now. More people are reading and sharing these posts than I ever thought would. I hope that other people who stumble upon it learn a little bit about something. Even though it's primarily for disgruntled ad students (I've come to find there are many) I try to write things that have humanity to them. I also try to share what I find interesting in hopes that other people find it interesting.

Right now I am in Park City, Utah covering the Sundance film festival. If you ask me how I got here, or if I ever saw this happening, I couldn't tell you. Sometimes life happens in completely unexpected ways. There's a beauty in that.

What I do know is that this blog has helped make a lot of great things happen for me. I am beyond greatful for that. And excited to see what the next year of reading, writing, and thinking brings.

Thanks again for all your support.

I am currently staying at a small bed and breakfast in Park City, UT. Lovely place, even better people. The thing I love about Bed and Breakfasts is the communal atmosphere that they have. Since you are, essentially, in someone's home everyone feels a little more at ease.

It's a bit like having a family wherever you're staying. At this particular Bed and Breakfast there is an older couple staying here (the husband told me he was 79 but I would have believed 69) from Louisiana. Northern Louisiana they will quickly inform you, lest you think they are from the foul basin known as New Orleans.

I was spending time with the husband tonight talking about what he does and his thoughts on life. It was completely fascinating. I figured he knew a lot more than me so I decided to stay quiet for most of the conversation. I'm glad I did.

Although he works in construction his brain was wired much the same way my own is. He talked about the need for creativity and creative problem solving. He talked about directionless people who sort of float through life. He talked about how he could not imagine a life where he was not doing some sort of work, using his mind and his hands.

Very inspiring. There were two things he said that stuck in my mind. One from him and one from his father (who also has a pretty incredible story).

You need to get your education. And get your union card too.

He was talking about how easy it is for people in academia to think that education is the goal. The end point. He disagrees with that and thinks that while education is important it's equally important to get your hands dirty. Do some honest-to-goodness work.

My father used to say, "not a wheel turns till somebody sells something."

He used this as a validation for what we both do (and for the importance of account people in construction and advertising). Some of the most creative minds in the world can't communicate with other people, they can't provide themselves the outlet to channel their creativity. Nothing can happen until somebody sells something. Then it's game on.

This was also a great reminded that good advice can come from anywhere. It doesn't have to be an advertising book or, god forbid, a self help book. Just talking to people can be a huge treat. You might learn something too.