Guest blogger: CHRIS WALL

• Chris Wall is co-chief creative officer at Ogilvy & Mather in New York.

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Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007 — 1:30 p.m.
   Super Bowl.
   Time for everybody to talk about ‘1984.’ Time to complain about how all the ads suck. Time to make fun of all the marketers who pay $2.6 million or whatever it is for thirty seconds. Time for half of us to question the whole notion of being in the Super Bowl while the other half can’t stop talking about it.
   Which is, you know, not a bad thing for advertising. Being talked about, I mean.
   Same story every year. Here we go again.
   We know what we’ll see.
   There will be some nice ads for Budweiser—some funny and maybe, some serious. Fedex will be clever. Pepsi, Doritos, American cars…I’m starting to feel right at home.
   There might be some smart counter-programming that will bomb in the morning-after poll but actually be quite successful. Dove did it last year. Visa way back when.
   This year’s fad de jour is user-generated content (although this has been done in the past to forgettable results.) The NFL was smart to have Joe Pytka produce their contest-winner’s entry. Joe has elevated many an ordinary idea (mine included) into award-winning territory. It will be interesting to see what Legendary Joe does for Ordinary Joe.
   No doubt, there will be an indecipherable Hail Mary or two, brands you’ve never heard of lobbing their small marketing budget toward the end zone in hopes of replicating ‘1984,’ the Apple spot that ran but once and has been talked about ever since.
   (My favorite was the dopey racist shoe ad six or eight years ago that some yo-yo agency talked a yo-yo client into producing. It ran. Everyone was embarrassed. And the client sued the agency for professional malfeasance and their defense was classic—you approved it.)
   Of course, the “only ran once” thing is more than a bit misleading. 1984 was a teaser for the launch of the Macintosh computer, and succeeded wildly in hyping an already hugely anticipated event.
   But as out there as ‘1984’ was as an individual piece of creative work, the actual launch of Macintosh was a text book example product-as-hero and product demonstration as you will ever find anywhere. It was an integrated campaign that featured 32 page launch inserts in major magazines, a barrage of :30 product spots, retail promotions, outdoor—you name it. It was big. It was superbly executed. The teaser spot may only have run once but the campaign as a whole had $50 million in media spending (1984 dollars) behind it as well as the irresistible PR angle of the Apple’s David up against the Goliath that was IBM.
   So when I look at the Hail Marys looking for the 1984 Effect, the mythical Super Bowl one-hit wonder that makes a brand or a product or a whole category, I wonder whether the marketing directors realize that behind Ridley’s Scott’s go-for-broke epic was a classically executed, hugely funded product launch for a product that was truly different?
   And without all that behind it, would there be a Mac or an ipod today? Or the myth of 1984?

4:02 p.m.
   This is it. Two hours to kickoff. The excitement is palpable. Beyond palpable. It’s...transpalpable.
   I’m standing in the grand ballroom of a magnificent Art Deco Hotel in trendy Soho, New York City, surrounded by an eclectic group of sports fans who have gathered from across the country and 172 countries to watch the Super Bowl on three high-definition flat screen monitors, each the size of a master bedroom wall in a classic six on the fashionable upper west side of Manhattan.
   It’s like being at the command center of NORAD with a cast of characters from Truman Capote’s Black & White Ball.
   Well, actually not.
   I’m sitting by myself in my living room in Brooklyn Heights with my ten year old Sony TV that I don’t watch very often.
   Sometimes, during big TV events like the Super Bowl some wise guy in the hood cuts the cable connection and you just get fuzz.
   Is this pathetic or what?
   Should I order a pizza?

6:04 p.m.
   One of the weirdest things I love about the whole Super Bowl extravaganza is all the press in the weeks before the game describing the individual spots.
Most of the descriptions of the spots are longer than the spots themselves, and usually describe the spot in a clinical or academic way that is completely respectful and rather precise, while at the same time giving you no sense of the flavor of the ad.
   Here’s a description off of SI dot com: “Among returning advertisers, Diamond Foods Inc.’s Emerald Nuts brand came up with new ads after innovative spots last year that turned the company’s name into an acrostic-like word puzzle.”
   Here’s another: “Garmin International Inc…. is planning a campy spot inspired by 1960s Japanese monster movies with a showdown between an evil “Maposaurus” and a hero who uses a Garmin-made electronic navigation device to save the day.” This goes on for like a dozen column inches or so, describing a dozen or more spots.
   Well, I can’t wait.
   I mean, I just can’t imagine the creative guys sitting around and one goes, “I’ve got it! The way to make almonds jump off the shelves is with an acrostic-like word puzzle!”
   It’s like, “Jerry Seinfeld will be telling a brief, ribald parable that involves two men of different faiths who enter a tavern and when prompted by the barkeep, poke fun at the city of Cleveland.”

7:13 p.m.
   Okay, first break.
   Bud light. Rock paper scissors. Mildly amusing.
   Doritos. User generated content. Don’t give up your day job.
   Blockbuster. Labored.
   CBS promo. Katie Couric in very very soft focus.

   Second break:
   Sierra Mist. Beard comb over. Started off great, ended up creepy.
   Sales Genie. Pierce. Hail Mary!
   Sierra Mist. Self defense. Started off not so great. Kept going.
   Sierra Mist has done some witty stuff over the years - I think they were better.
   Trivia: Jim Gaffigan, star of Sierra Mist spots, used to work at O & M as a copywriter.

   Third break.
   Toyota Tundra. If it looked real it might be good. But it looked fake to me. It’s really hard to make, say, one truck running into another truck, look real. So they do it with editing and digital and it looks phony. Incredibly hard to pull off something like that.
   Moon office. Fedex. Cringe.
   Auction wedding. Bud Light. Witty, smart. Not a big laugh - but good.

   Fourth break.
   Snickers men. Points for true bizarreness. But Not Going Anywhere for a While, Grab a Snickers was a selling proposition.
   Schick Quattro titanium. Now with irony. Sort of.
   Pride trailer. Something tells me this will be a really terrible movie. Does anybody remember “Dreamer?” the bowling movie starring Tim Matheson and Jack Warden. Rocky for Bowlers. Could be in that zone.

   Fifth Break.
   Chevrolet. Nostalgia in song. You do realize this commercial cost eight or ten million dollars in rights? Maybe more. Maybe a lot more? A waste of money and music. Join the Revolution. What is even remotely revolutionary about any of the Chevy’s in this commercial? The problem with nostalgia of this sort is that it harkens back to when you were great but serves to remind everyone that you haven’t been in a long, long time.
   Mister Garcia. Budlight. Accents. Foreigners. Language class is an old joke - but it works.
   Justin Timberlake promo. Reminds me of the Janet Jackson halftime. Grandma dirty dancing with a parking lot attendant. Ick.
   David Letterman promo. Where’s the soft focus?

7:34 p.m.
   Go Daddy. Well, people, what can you say?
   Downtown. Coke. Great spot.
   CBS promo. America’s Most Watched network. So why is everybody talking about YouTube? Maybe if they got the cast of all these shows putting Mentos into Diet Coke?

7:44 p.m.
   Dogs. Budweiser. Oops. Did you have some technical problem with the spot? Mine froze half way through and resumed for the last four seconds. The dog that gets splashed and becomes a fire dog. I think I would’ve liked it, even though it’s schmaltzy. Points for counter programming - at least the parts I saw.
   Garmin. Hail Mary!
   There’s an office in the jungle and people run off a cliff.. Career builder. This looked really good but I don’t get the point.
   The next two spots: America comes to terms with our collective obesity.
   Doritos. Big man with a fu manchu and a chunky checkout girl get all hot and bothered over various falvors of Doritos. Silly.
   Chevy. Old men and skinny boys take off their clothes at a traffic light. Hump the Red Chevy. Ick.
   Bud Light pool. Face slapping is in. Harmless.
   American Heart Association. Heart is attacked by all sorts of bad diseases. Marc McClure is the actor in this spot. He’s a really terrific actor but wasted here.

8:14 p.m.
   A sweet but ineffective robot gets fired from the GM assembly line and his robot existence goes down hill before he commits suicide...but it’s only a dream. I thought it was pretty well executed but they will get letters.
   These is this wonderful little plot line in the old movie “A Christmas Story” in which the little kid saves up his Ovaltine labels and sends them into for a secret decoder ring, so he can decode the weekly message given at the end of the mystery theater radio program. Finally, the decoder ring comes and he carefully decodes the secret message. The message: “Drink Ovaltine.” He is crushed. All that work for a crummy commercial. No one can possibly live up to the hype of the Super Bowl. Commercials are supposed to be bad, to be hated - so if you see one you like, it’s a pleasant surprise. But if you show up expecting them to be great, how can you help but be let down?
   Coke. Mr Hadley. Old man never had a coke before. Inspires him to think about all the other stuff he’s never done. What a great little spot. Fabulous, rich story crammed into 30 seconds. Well cast. Nicely cut. My favorite so far, I think.

8:44 p.m.
   Back to the game.
   Do you believe the rain?
   ETRADE. I fell for it.
   COKE. This is Joe Sciarotta’s favorite spot. Coke is definitely having a good game.
   Monkees. Bud. Didn't do anything for me.
   Sheryl Crowe. Revlon. It's nice to see serious artists still have integrity. (I am SO kidding. Counter programming.)

8:51 p.m.
   CareerBuilder 2. Same comment.
   Talking lions. Personal prejudice against talking animals. Taco Bell dog defined how to do this right, if you must do it. (And I confess, I have done it.)
   Van Heusen. It is what it is.

9:20 p.m.
   Ouch! Getting slammed for IBM work by anonymous contributor! Perils of blogging huh? (I’ve never done this before.)
   But that brings up a good point - anybody playing at this level better have a thick skin - because there are nine zillion critics out there sitting in judgement. You’re playing with real money and careers are on the line - not just your own. You can achieve your objectives and still get slammed. You can win praise and still get fired. You can be compromised by all sorts of crap in the creative process - but at the end of the day, it’s your work that takes the hit. And if you don’t have a point of view, even when it’s unpopular, at some point, you simply lose your point of view altogether...and then you’re finished.
   Now, you look at these guys tonight - meaning, my fellow bloggers - and you realize that they got where they got because they stand up for something. Because clients trust them. Because they have a point of view - and if you’re a big shot at an important company, a CMO or whatever, you need a creative person you can trust to tell you the truth and help you accomplish your objectives...and sometimes, forgive your mistakes. It’s a huge issue not just of talent, but of trust.
   Because no matter what you do, good or bad, there’s always some anonymous critic taking potshots from the sidelines. Because being a critic is easy (what I’m doing tonight) - but actually doing it is hard.
   At least the bloggers tonight are signing their opinions. Agree or disagree, they stand for something.

9:29 p.m.
   Emerald nuts. You’ll never top Robert Goulet for ESPN. But I missed a lot of it. I’m getting bored, I think.
   Dwayne & Charles, his dad. T-Mobile. Funny. Cute, even.
   Fedex ground. This isn’t a new one. This campaign is very funny, very well shot, cast etc. I miss a point along the lines of “when it absolutely, postiively has to be there over night.” Sorry to beat a dead horse. I like advertising with a memorable point.
   Kevin Federline. Some insurance company (I missed it). Isn’t this a little sad? Trashy loser making fun of himself for money?
   Bud light axe murderer. Best Bud so far.
   Mercedes. S type owerns talking earnestly about how they love their cars. I have one of these cars. I never owned a fancy car so I got one. “Then, a friend of mine said, oh yeah, they used to be good cars. Years ago. But who would drive one now?” So I take the subway, mostly.
   PNC. I missed it.
   Helicopter with a guy leaning out of it trying to keep a girl from falling. Surprise - it’s....Toshiba HDTV. This fake out has been done by every single TV maker dating at least back to when we did it at BBDO LA in about 1989 (then it was stampeding bison from Dances With Wolves).
   Bud Crabs. The crabs don’t talk - they worship. I take back what I said about the axe murderer spot. This is better.
   Iraq solid retirement for Prudential. Huh? A rock a rock arock iraq. I’d love to read the letters.
   Elvis burning love for Honda. I didn’t like this spot very much - and I generally like Honda stuff. Maybe I have an Elvis problem.
   Bears are choking.

9:39 p.m.
   HP. Nice. Smart. You know, HP has become major advertiser lately - is it any wonder they have also become the #1 seller of personal computers? You can’t save souls in an empty church - as David Ogilvy said. The thing that’s great about this spectacle is that it’s big brands doing big things. Does anybody else sit in meetings where people are talking about getting ten or fifteen thousand page views and think, that’s not a very big audience...this game is still about moving millions, no?

9:49 p.m.
   Flomax. I had to go to the bathroom. Here’s a question for you: how is a half second shot of Janet Jackson’s breats offensive to the point that the FCC fined the network six figures for bad taste - and “incomplete emptying” is a-okay taste wise. This country is funny, isn’t it?
   E trade. The evil broker making a ton of money off of you. Sure, pick up some global crossing, enron and pets.com. How quickly we forget.
   Hannibal Rising. Hey, didn’t this book just come out?
   Career builder. Back in the woods again. Fun to watch. This campaign might be one of those that builds on you - will they run it enough or is this it? The payoff feels obscure to me.

9:53 p.m.
   Two minutes left and a twelve point spread.
   If your commercial hasn’t run yet, you’re not feeling so great. Especially if it’s really good.  They’re heading for the exits.
   Well, look for Peyton Manning to show up in plenty of national endorsements this year and Rex Grossman to be doing the ChicagoLand Kitchen Appliances Federation.

10:00 p.m.
   Honda. Straight forward. Not swinging for the fences. I guess if you’re looking for fuel economy, that’s enough.
   Go Daddy. In case you missed it. Or wanted to see it again. Hail Mary redux.
   Green Tea Snapple. Buttton saves it.
   Super Bowl. NFL. Hard to say goodbye. Was that the winning spot?
   Big winners in my book are Coke and Bud. Overall, about average. Lots of good, not much great. Hail Mary’s will be forgotten by tomorrow.
   The myth of 1984 lives. The commercial that ran only once and is still remembered....

Monday, Feb. 5, 2007 — 10:25 a.m.
   The Morning After.
   When I was a kid, the most popular issue of Sports Illustrated was the annual swim suit issue. But the REALLY great issue was the one two weeks later where all the outraged parents wrote in to cancel the subscriptions of their innocent sons.
   My point being: controversy is much more interesting than concensus.
   Tangerine Toad, under the cloaking device of a nom de plume, has obliged by calling me “a dinosaur,” which is the pinnacle of Silicon Valley insults. Mon Dieu!
   Obviously, Tangerine, you can’t move millions unless you engage them - that’s the “move” part. (Tangerine also says something abut “never mind not watch” but I’m not certain what that means.) Obviously, advertising has to be interesting - but that’s not new. (David Ogilvy: “you can’t bore people into buying your product - you can only interest them.”)
   On the other hand, it’s tough to move millions by engaging thousands. You can only do it IF you reach a staggeringly influential audience. That does happen from time to time - but the effect tends to be slow because it takes time to build.
   (Last year, I had a client forward the Honda Cog spot attached to an email trail that said “advertising so great you don’t even have to run it.” Except that by then the spot was three years old. How much time you got until something happens? In a world where product cycles run in months, few initiatives can wait three years or more for results.)
   This is not a new discussion. It predates the Internet. Do you go big & loud and hope something happens tomorrow? Or do you go very precise and let things build over time? There are plenty of successes to prove either way can work - and most successful efforts combine both.
   I concede, you can’t be in the communications or marketing game anymore without an awareness that everything in every media has the potential to be response oriented. (I built my career on complicated products and buying cycles where you had to give people a place to go next). But when somebody presents the results of a project with great fanfare saying “we got over six thousand unique views,” my question is: what was the impact?
   It’s surprising to me how seldom anyone asks. Or volunteers.
   Maybe most old farts like me are afraid of being dinosaurized by the jargonista set - so we’re afraid to even pose the question. But having worked on Apple, Microsoft, IBM and half a dozen other digital brands over the past two decades, I’ve been around enough to recognize there’s a fad cache on the motherboard of almost anything digital.
   I spoke at a digital conference last year where a really smart, articulate guy got up and stated with enormous gravitas, as if it was proof of the digital overthrow of an established order, that “there are more than 29,000 unsigned recording artists on MySpace.com.” Me, being a dinosaur, thought: “so what? Most of them stink. That’s what record companies are for - to go through the stinky ones and find the ones worth listening to.”
   That doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions that prove the rule - there might be 100 or 200 really great unsigned recording artists on MySpace.com - but who’s going to going through 28,800 guitar hobbyists to find somebody with talent you’ll pay to own?
   In the late 90s, the internet explosion was fueled by a bunch of young hypsters who were inexperienced in the most basic fundamentals of running a business - but who were treated like gurus and seers for a period of about two years because everything they did came wrapped in a hype-sodden veneer of socio-digital-economic overthrow.
   But how many e-tailers burned though billions of dollars in venture capital learning lesssons a junior pants buyer at Macy’s learns the first week on the job: if you advertise what you don’t have in stock, you piss people off. If you promise Christmas delivery and don’t deliver by Christmas, you go out of business. How analog of them.
   You take old ideas like “word-of-mouth”, slap some new jargon on them, and they become “viral.” But is it new? If your best friend says, “here, try this, it’s a good product,” it’s credible in a way that no advertising - digital or vegetable - will ever be.
   You hear people talking about little girls “instant messaging” each other as if it’s a behavior-changing digital breakthrough instead an evolution of what little girls have done for half a century - call each other up on the phone and talk all night.
   I love technology, Tangerine. But hype is not substance simply because you call it a fiction-based claim architecture.
   Of course, all of us are justifiably worried that user-generated content will push all of us slogan-jockeys out of the business forever. Personally, I think user-generated content is a thing of the past.
   Next year’s Super Bowl will be filled with pet-generated content. After all, it is well-known that middle-America likes advertising that features puppies and kittens. So what could be better than advertising created BY puppies and kittens. People who like pets enjoying advertising created BY pets - and no pesky creative salaries to erode margins.
   Isn’t this fun?™

February 4, 2007 | Permalink