Art of Advertising

Our friend Tangerine Toad has kept his perch on The Toad Stool but has branched out to post on Marketing Profs Daily Fix, a site aimed at bringing together marketing professionals with college marketing and advertising professors. Toad's first post is a perfect summary of his argument that Your Brand Is Not My FriendTM: Now there are some brands—I call them Prom King Brands—that people don’t mind “conversing” with, …

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I had an interesting conversation with the Design Director at my agency today. She said she thinks the whole Apple iPhone price cut and rebate/apology to-do was completely and totally planned in advance. Personally, I highly doubt it. I think Steve Jobs would've come off as a hero by announcing a rebate at the same time he announced the price cut. To do it on a stage in front of the whole world would've been the …

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...you get commercials like this stuck in your head: So has anyone ever worked for/with The Ad Council? Is this the best we can do, pro-bono wise? Oh, and while we're on the subject... When is "Cop Rock" going to come out on DVD? …

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We've all seen bad trade pub ads, but I think I've found the worst one ever. This one, for Matthews Cremation, which ran in the July issue of American Funeral Director magazine. (Yes, we had a copy in the agency today.) Click on the ad to see a larger version: But it's not enough to say "this ad sucks." I'd like to point out all the egregious aspects of this ad that I can spot, and I'll just start at the top and …

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Over at Talent Zoo, Whitney Friedrich, a young AE at DraftFCB, stirred things up by suggesting that new talent in the business, many times, lacks dedication: Wear your passion on your sleeve because it’s one of the only things that differentiates you. It’s not expected that you will have all the answers—or even that you’ll know what questions to ask. It is, however, expected that you will be so grateful for the …

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...the freedom to make ads like this... ...without fear of being rounded up by the government for horrendous, horrendous taste. (Thanks to The Consumerist) …

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