Everything's Better With Brentter

So if your job has anything even remotely to do with advertising, social media, marketing, PR, porn, blah blah blah.. quiet honestly, you could shovel sh*t for a living and you would still fall under the target group for ad:tech NYC. Now I don’t mean that as an insult, in fact, it’s quite the compliment. From Andrew the As*hole Agency Acount Exec, Peter the Paper Salesman, Ian the Interactive Shop Owner to even folks like Dave the Ingenious Database Management Software Owner who used delicious pie & warm coffee to keep his booth crowded throughout the shows, they all can be found at an ad:tech conference. Heck, ad:tech NYC is even a great time for those ‘average american types’ like Joe the Plumber thanks to the non-stop corporate sponsored parties that everyone goes to each night.

I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of the ad:tech writing/blogging team for the last few conferences, and needless to say, I am pretty bummed out that I’m missing what I’ve been told is the best (if not then it’s second only to the SF version) ad:tech party thrown each year. Now that’s saying a lot seeing how there are eleven of them all over the globe…. they’ve even got one in Shanghai, and everyone knows

there ain’ no party like a shanghai party!

While Angela and Steve have been partying it up in NYC the past few days, you may or may not have noticed that the AdRants blog was still being updated. Well, I don’t know about you but I didn’t even think twice about it until I saw this poll from the other day which reminded me that Bill Green from Make The Logo Bigger is acting as a fill-in writer while the AdRants team goes out and gets pampered by companies hoping for positive write-ups (btw guys, it’s called payola for a reason..that 256 meg flash drive you gave us with a wink won’t help you…. a company called PayPal will.)

Two small things to point out though Bill:

• 1. Steve doesn’t get stuck taking pictures of drunk SEO dudes…SEO dudes take photos of Steve when he’s drunk
• 2. Angela doesn’t put up with crap from just any ‘ol drunk SEO slob……had i been able to attend she’d probably only get stuck listening to me

That being said I have to hand it to Bill, I’ve been reading his guest posts on the site for the last two days and can barely even distinguish any change in tone/style/language. Let me show you what I mean: The following are three legitimate blog post titles from AdRants. Without cheating (or posting the answer if you’re the original writer) try to guess who wrote which post: Angela Natividad, Steve Hall, or Make The Logo Bigger’s Bill Green:

• 1. Wow. It’s Everything I’ve Ever Wanted In A Stimulant.
• 2. The Art of the PR Release, aka, Try a Stap…On
• 3. When You Make That Transaction, Be Sure To Wear A Condom

See what I mean? For the correct answers just click on the links and you’ll be taken to the original posts. These are three folks you can always count on for quality material. It’s people like Bill who will give you the raw, “Is it really considered racism if it’s funny?” articles, Angela for the pseudo-feminist post that’ll start out like a rant but will quickly turn into just another gratuitous display of All-American T&A… and then there’s Steve. For years his site has been heralded as the one place you could go to on any given day and you’d be sure to find ad campaigns with half-naked women, one “except for a couple hundred post-it-notes this is a completely naked woman” post (i actually couldn’t find the link.. steve?), or even the occasional “hey check out this foreign ad, it has a completely naked chick in it… no really.. completely naked” post. Sigh Advertising.
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Now in case you were wondering what the deal is with the title of this post, it is because Steve Hall’s partner in crime, Angela Natividad (shown below), will be leaving us shortly to move to some far off tiny hamlet in France.

I don’t remember the exact story that she told me when we were in Chicago, but I think it had something to do with waking up one day and realizing that living in Europe was the only way that she could get Steve to pay her to cover the European ad:tech shows………well at least I ‘think’ that was the story… we’d been drinking so I may be getting it confused with one of her many pro-communist/anti-establishment rants that she was taught while at school at Berkeley… so who knows?

Either way, I’m jealous that you guys are there without me……now if only I can find a client who will pay for me to fly out to the Sydney ad:tech, I think it’d be a great spot for a group reunion.

One last comment about ad:tech before I end this early morning post - I’ve been seeing a lot of tweets/blog comments asking who’s responsible for the ridiculously large collection of conference photos that go up on flickr each day. Well, typically they come from Steve…but then again, we’re all photo dorks once we’ve gotten a few drinks in us:

Meet iList. Launching today out of their über-secret ’stealth mode,’ this new online classifieds service hopes to give Craigslist a much needed run for their money. The whole angle that 25 year old CEO Chris Abad hopes to monopolize on is the ability to integrate listings with popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce and even on rival Craigslist. Upon first signing up on the site you’re asked to verify your phone number in exchange for ‘Karma Points.’ These Karma Points are part of a rewards system that will eventually be linked to redeemable prizes. Every time that you post an item or help promote someone else’s you are rewarded these points. How you help promote offers is by linking up your arsenal of social-networking sites to your iList account and then ‘pushing’ the listing through your own network. This is done through their integrated applications available on each of the networks.

Another selling point for iList is the promise of less fraudulent activity. Craigslist is notorious for being a den of scammers and spammers. Hoping that regular Craiglist users would be open to shedding their view of anonymity, an iList account is linked to your social identity. So if someone scams you, they probably have either fake profiles or you’ll be able to track them down.
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Here’s a new Canadian Mastercard campaign that my friend Shannon Stephaniuk just sent my way, the above spot is named Pep Talk.

For anyone who’s ever had to face a half-time locker room when everything is on the line and you’re down too many points to think about, this one will bring back some chilling memories. Gotta love it when a commercial can get their point across without having a single line of dialogue.

The second in the series is named Timeline and it takes us through the history of an athletes scarred knee, each mark signifying an important event in their life. Interesting.

Timeline

MacLaren McCann, Toronto was the agency that produced this campaign, with Laurence Thrush from Suneeva as the Director. Gary Young was the Director of Photography along with David Baxter as the Editor from Panic and Bob. Visual Effects were done by Compositer/Lead Compositer Pat Moore & David Whiteson over at Crush, Toronto. Jo-ann Cook was the Executive Producer. Music for Timeline was provided by Vapor, Toronto.

When I first started this clip I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, it had all the common characteristics of a Honda ad…it was boring. That is at least until they decided to do a cross-cut look into the busy world that lives inside each Accord, reminding me of some of the camera techniques used in Wes Anderson’s Life Aquatic movie. Luckily for them I’m a die-hard Wes Anderson fan. It’s a short clip, but if you’re into Vfx mixed in with live-aciton, you might enjoy it.

Hobart Birmingham and Dirk Vandeman were the Art Director/Copywriting duo who came up with this piece for Los Angeles based Rubin Postaer and Associates. Director credits go to Matthew Cullen and Jesus de Francisco with Guillermo Navarro as the DP. VFX was done by Motion Theory. Doron Dor was the Editor with String and this short spot had music by Robot Repair.

Here is a touching new ad from Zales Jewelers coming out of good ‘ol Dallas, TX. Created by The Richards Group, this spot shows us a very clever way of asking your girlfriend if she will marry you. I liked this ad, it took a unique approach to conveying the emotions typically attached with being in love, the whole time still maintaining their brand objective (sell diamonds). Cheers!

Something cool about this spot is also the song that was used. It’s called Don’t Forget Love by Robert Francis and get this, was an original romantic ballad written specifically for this commercial. Nicole Dionne, CD and EP for PrimalScream Music had this to say about Robert:

I knew that Robert was the ideal choice to elicit the emotional overtones of the spot. He is an incredibly talented songwriter and his authentic, acoustic style perfectly captures the raw emotion and longing required to underscore the visuals.

Mike Duckworth and Terence Reynolds were the Copywriter/Art Director team from The Richards Group for this piece along with Agency Senior Producer David Rucker.

Ray Dillman from MJZ was the Director alongside Pieter Vermeer as the DP. Jeff Scrutin and Phillip Ruddy were the EP/Producer for the project.

Jack Waldrip from Charlie Uniform Tango was the Editor with Mary Alice Butler as the Editorial EP. Telecine was Co3 with Stefan Sonnenfield as the Colorist. Post Effects were also by Charlie Uniform Tango and featured Joey Waldrip as the Vfx/Interno Artist (Lola Lott was the EP). Scott Burton was the music producer for PrimalScream Music working with Sound Designer Scott Burton. Russel Smith did all the audio post work.