Entries from August 2005 ↓

There’s a new study being run in Omaha, Nebraska, by MediaCheck that finds TV commercials reach saturation levels for their audience in a matter of weeks. After that, the spots should air less often. Therefore, advertisers will need more commercials to run less frequently.

The problem is that TV production costs are high — about $400,000 for a 30-second spot. So agencies are looking at less costly production techniques.

One large agency is studying MTV’s methods because it produces so many videos so affordably.

Then, too, production costs are lower in other countries, so Canada, South Africa and India are being considered as low-cost production venues. It is said that computer links can afford control over the shoot without sending everyone to Calcutta.

No matter where the spots are shot, it is becoming more and difficult to get the consumer to actually see them, so in the seesaw battle between creative and media, media is on the upswing.

The Omaha study is named the Wanamaker Project after the Nineteenth Century department store magnate John Wanamaker, who said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

New York magazine, after going eight years without an ad campaign for itself, will try to make up for lost time. The magazine will run new posters in subway stations every weekday.

The campaign with tagline “This is New York,” will run the daily series in five subway stations in Manhattan: Columbus Circle, Times Square, Pennsylvania Station, 68th Street, and Spring Street.

The poster will appear starting this Friday and running through September 30th with timely topics: Primary Day September 13th will feature the four Democratic candidates for Mayor. When the Feast of San Gennaro starts on September 15th, the posters will list the calories in traditional Festival foods.

There will be unchanging posters as well on phone booths using a reflective material, again stressing “This is New York.”

The new ad agency is Weiden & Kennedy, the creators of advertising for ESPN with the theme “This is SportsCenter.”

Viewers of W&K’s ads must have short memories, I guess. But the daily poster replacement is innovative and will be a logistical challenge.

In what may be the world’s wettest ad posters, a German company Bitfall has designed waterfalls that show advertising in the waterfall itself. On the drops.

They nickname the drops “spherical robots.” Their main website has that phrase in the title, but their internet provider is not happy with all the traffic these amazing still images and movies are creating, so the main site is down. Too much success.

The Drudge Report has a transcript of the wild Tom Cruise interview where he attacked Brooke Shield’s use of psychiatry and psychoactive drugs to help with her depression. Instead, he recommended vitamins and exercise.

This line of thinking is based on Scientology, though it is not mentioned in the interview.

The September issue of Radar magazine, which I mentioned yesterday, shows on its cover a Risky Business photo of Tom Cruise in his underwear being pierced by arrows. I was reminded of a medieval painting of a saint and was trying to find a painting of St. Sebastian.

I was wrong. The closest example to the Cruise cover is a cover of Esquire done by ad legend George Lois. It shows Cassius Clay Mohammed Ali pierced by arrows exactly like the new Cruise cover. (It was so long ago, 1968, I thought it was before Ali changed his name.)

I have a coffeetable book of George Lois’s work too, but I try not to steal so directly. In fact, the Ali image is on the spine of the dustjacket for Lois’s The Art of Advertising. You don’t have to even open the book to plagiarize from Mr. Lois.

To the Radar editor: did you think that blatant copying would pass under the radar?

Radar Magazine, which I think I’ve quoted before, has just come out an issue featuring Tom Cruise.

He’s the cover boy of the magazine. But the article is not too kind, as the topic is Mr. Cruise’s recent ravings about Scientology in the media while supposedly promoting the movie of H. G. Well’s classic novel, War of the Worlds.*

The article has a picture of Tom’s jump-up-on-the-couch-and-scream TV appearance. Rather than attacking psychoactive drugs, he needs them. Valium ™ can be a great comfort.

The article details his rapid rise up the Scientology “Bridge,” I mean, ladder. (Founder L. Ron Hubbard was fond of ships. A 500-acre Scientology resort features huge ship replicas. The highest levels of Scientlogy staff are called the Sea Organization.) After a rough time at some of the lower levels of the church, Cruise was given a respite, because the church didn’t want to lose its most famous believer.

Why would anyone need a break from Scientology? At one level of its teaching, you are told about history of the evil thetans — aliens survivors from an intergalactic disaster — who have poisoned the human spirit for many centuries.

The article is excepted on the Radar website.

* Note: I have real problems with that film separate from Cruise’s starring role: it exploits 9/11 images to give authenticity to its horrors. Of course, they are not actual 9/11 images — which would kept audiences away — but Spielberg’s recreations of them: for example, the posted photos of missing people.

Going the US one better than the non-alcoholic RedBull ™ mixed with real vodka, a Japanese company has introduced Kidsbeer ™, a guarana soda that looks just like your favorite brew.

It is a reformulated version of Guarana — an ordinary cola based on the South American plant — now made less sweet and a heck of a lot foamier.

(I hope it tastes better than the B to the E ™ sweet malt beverage I mentioned earlier in this journal. Remember, that was real alcohol pretending to be soda. It looks like beer, but it tastes like those energy drinks.)

Kidsbeer ™ is selling well. It is a twin of real beer in traditional brown glass long-neck bottles with classic beer labels. It is gaining popularity, even being sold as a gift item in department stores.

The theme line is translated as “Even kids can’t stand life unless they have a drink.”

I hope that line wouldn’t fly over here. It’s an obvious way to encourage underage drinking of Realbeer.

An enterprising photographer has taken a photo of the Plugg ™ jeans billboard in Times Square. You know the one: there were rumors that it was too raunchy even for the new Times Square, and that it would never be displayed.

Apparently not, because there it is, just over the shoulder of what one blogger called an 1800’s gentleman.

The gentlman is George M. Cohan (1878-1942), the old time Broadway actor, and prolific playwright. He’s the man portrayed in the James Cagney movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy.

The billboard behind it does conjure up old Times Square, though. (Frankly, I think the pigeon on Mr. Cohan’s head is more annoying than the billboard.)

Publicis West in Seattle has come up with some innovative, hard-hitting spots for Dish Network ™.

One entitled Binky, shows the TV sucking everything in the room to it. “TV doesn’t have to suck. Dish Network. Better TV for all.”

Another titled Dinner shows a quiet dinner party disturbed by a mysterious breeze. Yes, it the sucking TV again. And this time it sucks up the cat.

I think a lot of people these days feel that cable TV is terrible and this campaign reinforces that and gives athe cable user a beeter choice.

Have you bought any gas lately? I hear that some gas stations are raising their prices several times a day.

So this billboard by Dallas Area Rapid Transit captures the feelings of a lot of drivers.

The headline on a typical gas pump showing $39.97 for 16.705 gallons is “@%$*$?!.”

You took the word right out of my mouth.