Entries from October 2005 ↓

According to an MSNBC news program, one blog predicted Judge Alito would be the next nominee for the nation’s highest court.

The blog is scotusblog.com

While that was impressive, the blog, composed mainly by people from the law firm of Goldstein & Howe, also foretold that John Roberts would be nominated. One of them wrote “More likely, I think, is Judge John Roberts of the D.C. Circuit, who was only confirmed to that court last year.” This was written on November 7th, 2004. Justice Roberts was actually nominated on July 19th, 2005.

Another of the bloggers, Marty Lederman, said last Friday — before his latest prediction came true — “permit me to sheepishly add that I, too, predicted a Roberts nomination back in November (in a comment to Tom’s post, which apparently no longer exists online), and again in May.”

This particular blogger then goes on to say that his predictions seldom are correct.

Last Friday, one of the bloggers, Tom Goldstein, picked Alito as the next nominee and one “likely to energize the President’s conservative supporters.” He was right on both counts.

If you want to learn about the U.S. Supreme Court on the internet, this blog would be a good place to start.

Neil French, the worldwide creative director of WPP Group has had to resign after causing a storm with his remarks about women ad creatives, according to an article in The New York Times.

In a meeting in Toronto on October 6th, he said women “don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to.”

Nancy Vonk, Co-Chief Creative Director of Ogilvy in Toronto, writes about this over-the-top evening here. Her agency is part of the WPP Group. She attended the event and has known Mr. French for several years. She is familiar with his attitudes toward women. She writes, “Before us was a big part of the explanation of why more women aren’t succeeding in advertising,” as she believes his ideas are representative of the way top executives in the advertising business think.

Moreover, according to Vonk, Mr. French said most women leave the business to “go suckle something.” Was Mr. French trying to get fired? Was this a $100-a-seat frat party?

From my experience in advertising, listening as a guy to other ad guys talk, I have to say she is right. Often these conversations are straight out of the men’s locker room. I haven’t of course heard the discussions about who gets promoted to the top creative spot, but I can’t imagine their whole good ole boy tone disappears.

The latest Fortune magazine, dated October 31, 2005, has an article on how to create a beakaway brand. They give examples of major brands that have broken away from the pack: the Apple iPod ™, Google ™, DeWalt power tools, Eggo ™ waffles, to name a few.

The brands singled out command a premium price, and have customer loyalty. (Just ask an iPod user about their MP3 player. Then ask them to name another brand.)

The article singles out ten successful brands, and draws a different lesson from each one’s story. It’s a fascinating article, even if it is more than a little slanted to account side of advertising, definitely worth a trip to the newstand.*

* Creatives should read the description of the BBDO campaign for Sierra Mist ™. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like a hoot: five comedians dubbed the “Mist-Takes” doing mini sitcoms about Sierra Mist ™. After only five years since its introduction, the brand is second in its highly competitive soft drink category.

AdRants is annoyed by their “Pompous Flashturbation” on their website as they lecture the Flash-deprived on the need for the plugin.

According to AdRants, W+K website’s source states:

“You will need to install a couple of plug-ins to fully experience our site. That is not because this is another one of those mindlessly flashy Web sites that give you a headache and make you wonder how you could ever sit through a meeting with those people.”

I frankly couldn’t find this writing anywhere in the early source pages I checked, but it does seem an unneeded lecture.

However, the Flash-powered version of the W+K site is nifty. And they have the courage to put up famous older work — like the dot-com-boom era stuff — that is well-done and fascinating. (Does anyone still use AltaVista? Don’t get too mad: they used to my starting page each time I surfed the web.)

Try the site, and go ahead and download the Flash ™ plugin

The new Apple TV spot featuring Eminem sure looks like borrowed interest — borrowed from a spot for Lugz running shoes.

See a discussion of the remarkable similarities here at Adfreak.com The shoe commercial is from 2001. It is at this site, under Archives, Lugz, 01.

This makes me wonder is the commercial merely derivative or is there a sharing of talent somewhere — designer, or production company?

Why is it you never hear any of those classic songs by The Doors in TV commercials? The drummer of the group, John Densmore, simply won’t allow it.

Cadillac offered $15 million for “Break on Through” for a spot about one of its SUVs. Nope. Apple offered $4 million. No way.

Possibly all the remaining band members must agree. Whatever the voting rules, Densmore always votes thumbs down. The rest of the surviving Doors are not very happy about Densmore’s decisions.

According to AdTunes, once, in the 1970’s, Densmore allowed “Riders on the Storm” to be used in a Pirelli tire spot in the UK. He gave all the proceeds to charity. He says he felt terrible and that “Jim’s [i.e., Jim Morrison’s] ghost was in my ear.”

There’s a scarey image.

According to The New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum in NYC is opening a splendid Van Gogh exhibit. Unlike previous shows in the US which showcased his paintings, the new show displays 113 of Van Gogh’s 1,800 drawings.

While many artists did drawings as prelimary sketches for painting, Van Gogh often made drawings in his letters of paintings he had already completed, to show what he was doing. However, in one instance, detailed in the exhibit, he traced his drawing to set up the composition of a painting. (This is a rarity, as he usually painted freehand.)

In all, eight paintings are on display, each chosen for its connection to the drawings.

Many of these drawings and watercolors have never been exhibited to the public before. Moreover, because of the fragility of works on paper, it may be some time before they are shown again.

Staples has had a TV campaign for some time, saying “That was easy” as you use Staples and their “Easy Button” gizmo to help get your office work done.

Now, the idea of the Staples “Easy Button” has proven so popular they are actually selling them.

The button’s directions are “press often to relieve stress.” Somehow, it’s battery operated. The button in the TV spots does nothing, so batteries would seem unnecessary. Maybe the button on TV was a non-working prototype?

Luane Calvert, who brought a billboard to life in Times Square for CK One, has put on the world’s largest picnic in San Francisco, With free food for the first 500 attending, the picnic featured an almost 10,000 square foot red and white blanket. The festivities celebrate the opening of an Oakville Grocery in the city by the bay. Ms. Calvert’s company is Mixed Marketing.

There’s a peaceful town in England, Swaffham hometown of archeologist Howard Carter who discovered King Tut’s tomb, that’s had to put up with a lot from its most famous living citizen. He’s Michael Carroll, better known as the Lotto Lout, a petty criminal and long-term vandal, who has achieved the dream of a lifetime: he won 9.7 million pounds in the national lottery. At the time, that was $15 million, more than enough to finance his hooliganism. (He collected his prize wearing a house-arrest electronic ankle band!)

He has appeared in court more than thirty times in the last three years: for drug charges, vandalism of property including shooting ball bearings through shop windows, and generally being a huge nuisance. He is what the Brits call a chav: a person wearing gaudy jewelry and clothes and behaving in a corse, obnoxious manmner. Mr. Carroll must relish the term for he has painted “King of Chavs” on his Mercedes.

There are rumors that a chav reality show is in the works with Mr. Carroll as the star. Stay tuned.

Read more of the story in The New York Times.