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Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: The industry’s sordid little past. The past.
Wednesday May 11th 2011David Ogilvy is the past. Bill Bernbach, Jay Chiat, George Lois, and Mary Wells are too. The iconic swoosh? Past. 1984? Humph, TV! So past! 60-second radio? Past. Believing the past has something to enrich us? Way past!
Technology and using it to reach the consumer where they happen to be and with what device they happen to be using has unsettled our advertising and marketing “agencies” rendering them obsessive about getting on top of how to occupy this new age and to appear to be as cool as Steve McQueen. Oops! That was so past. THAT WAS SO PAST!
Nowhere does the past seem more onerous and disposable than in last year’s tongue-in-cheek rebranding of GJP. In case you’ve forgotten the origins of BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, the past and future went down this way:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fqRpsqLGQ8U
Alan Gee (who knew he was so funny?) and his creatives decided to rebrand themselves with a fire sale on YouTube. Gee did a send-off of a local commercial (ironic choice to launch a worldwide iteration?) with the ubiquitous Russell Oliver’s Toronto jewelry and loan ads. During this real liquidation sale Gee offers up GJP phones, rulers, cookie platters, executives, the walls – even his stylish British accent. It’s a riot. But it leaves a bitter aftertaste when Gee gives away all its awards. Past. Gold Lions from 2008. So past.
From the ashes of GJP emerged BLAMMO WORLDWIDE. The new name, Gee said, was a recognition of the explosive way in which the industry changes. “Many agencies are struggling with that change, but clients are eager for it. We want to take the best of what we had-insightful strategy, fantastic execution and inspired creative-but now look at it in completely unexpected ways. Blammo is about doing the unexpected.” Blammo sold its entire contents to symbolically erase the past…” As much as I love the awards, that was yesterday,” Gee said. “We’re all about tomorrow. You can’t live in the past.” *
As Matthew Creamer wrote in Advertising Age about the industry’s rejection of the passe word “agency” “…It’s clear there’s a hell of a lot of people who don’t want to be confused, under any circumstances, with an ostensibly respectable category of business that, for more than a century, has bestowed fantastic wealth upon a few, and a respectable living, low handicaps and battle-hardened livers upon many more. Sure, cancer is not being cured at Grey. But, at the same time, it hasn’t started any wars or crashed the economy. Still, the aversion is strong enough to cause people spanning the globe to commit great acts of violence against grammar and syntax and logic and semantic systems all to dodge the label. When one of the industry’s oldest shops, Campbell-Ewald, celebrated its 100th anniversary in February, it revamped its website, adding this descriptor to it: “We’re not an agency. We’re hundreds of diverse minds rattling as one.”
The Brief feels compassion for reinvention. It’s a very human business issue for the industry. The client perceives that if their agency is unable to engage the consumer holistically, they’re yesterday. The BLAMMO WORLDWIDE’s have to position themselves in such a way that leaves no doubt that they can – let’s drum up an anachronism here - ’Just Do It’. The answer is a resounding Obama “YES WE CAN!” All of it. As BLAMMO writes in their website, “We specialize in the unexpected – unexpected connection points, unexpected thinking, unexpected creative ideas.” And john st is “be unignorable”. Both ‘slogans’ set in lower case.
With the past now buried in the past, Gee says “Blammo is also a blank slate as far as Canadian agency brands go, which Gee hopes will serve as an example of the agency’s branding prowess as it grows over the coming years.” *
But, but, but… can’t we hold onto some things from the past? Award annuals, for example. Like the dictionary and the thesaurus there’s stuff to learn inside. And your agency awards. They remind young people looking for mentorship that they’re in good company.
Tell me if this JACK IN THE BOX spot circa 1980, the brainchild of Howie Cohen and Bob Pasquilina and shot by Howard Zieff, didn’t inform GJP’s fire sale just a teeny, tiny bit. The fast-food hamburger chain’s re-invention campaign was an event marketing, mulit-media, blow-out idea worth recalling.
Then… THE JACK IN THE BOX RE-REINVENTION Jack was reintroduced specifically to signal a new direction the company was taking to refocus and regroup after the E. coli disaster. In the original 1994 spot, Jack (“through the miracle of plastic surgery,” he says as he confidently strides into the office building) reclaims his rightful role as CEO, and, apparently as revenge for being blown up in 1980, approaches the closed doors of the Jack in the Box boardroom (a fictionalized version, shown while the aforementioned minimalist theme music from the 1980s Jack in the Box commercials plays), activates a detonation device, and the boardroom explodes in a shower of smoke, wood and paper.
The Brief hopes you have a terrific week and stay strong. Please write in with comments, suggestions for articles, complaints about picking up dog poop and recipes for jello.
SOURCES:
- MARKETING MAGAZINE, AGENCY NEWS GJP REBRANDS AS BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, Jeromy Lloyd, November 18, 2010
- ADVERTISING AGE, When Did ‘Agency’ Become the Thing Nobody Wanted to Be?’ Ad Age
Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: The industry’s sordid little past. The past.
Wednesday May 11th 2011David Ogilvy is the past. Bill Bernbach, Jay Chiat, George Lois, and Mary Wells are too. The iconic swoosh? Past. 1984? Humph, TV! So past! 60-second radio? Past. Believing the past has something to enrich us? Way past!
Technology and using it to reach the consumer where they happen to be and with what device they happen to be using has unsettled our advertising and marketing “agencies” rendering them obsessive about getting on top of how to occupy this new age and to appear to be as cool as Steve McQueen. Oops! That was so past. THAT WAS SO PAST!
Nowhere does the past seem more onerous and disposable than in last year’s tongue-in-cheek rebranding of GJP. In case you’ve forgotten the origins of BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, the past and future went down this way:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fqRpsqLGQ8U
Alan Gee (who knew he was so funny?) and his creatives decided to rebrand themselves with a fire sale on YouTube. Gee did a send-off of a local commercial (ironic choice to launch a worldwide iteration?) with the ubiquitous Russell Oliver’s Toronto jewelry and loan ads. During this real liquidation sale Gee offers up GJP phones, rulers, cookie platters, executives, the walls – even his stylish British accent. It’s a riot. But it leaves a bitter aftertaste when Gee gives away all its awards. Past. Gold Lions from 2008. So past.
From the ashes of GJP emerged BLAMMO WORLDWIDE. The new name, Gee said, was a recognition of the explosive way in which the industry changes. “Many agencies are struggling with that change, but clients are eager for it. We want to take the best of what we had-insightful strategy, fantastic execution and inspired creative-but now look at it in completely unexpected ways. Blammo is about doing the unexpected.” Blammo sold its entire contents to symbolically erase the past…” As much as I love the awards, that was yesterday,” Gee said. “We’re all about tomorrow. You can’t live in the past.” *
As Matthew Creamer wrote in Advertising Age about the industry’s rejection of the passe word “agency” “…It’s clear there’s a hell of a lot of people who don’t want to be confused, under any circumstances, with an ostensibly respectable category of business that, for more than a century, has bestowed fantastic wealth upon a few, and a respectable living, low handicaps and battle-hardened livers upon many more. Sure, cancer is not being cured at Grey. But, at the same time, it hasn’t started any wars or crashed the economy. Still, the aversion is strong enough to cause people spanning the globe to commit great acts of violence against grammar and syntax and logic and semantic systems all to dodge the label. When one of the industry’s oldest shops, Campbell-Ewald, celebrated its 100th anniversary in February, it revamped its website, adding this descriptor to it: “We’re not an agency. We’re hundreds of diverse minds rattling as one.”
The Brief feels compassion for reinvention. It’s a very human business issue for the industry. The client perceives that if their agency is unable to engage the consumer holistically, they’re yesterday. The BLAMMO WORLDWIDE’s have to position themselves in such a way that leaves no doubt that they can – let’s drum up an anachronism here - ’Just Do It’. The answer is a resounding Obama “YES WE CAN!” All of it. As BLAMMO writes in their website, “We specialize in the unexpected – unexpected connection points, unexpected thinking, unexpected creative ideas.” And john st is “be unignorable”. Both ‘slogans’ set in lower case.
With the past now buried in the past, Gee says “Blammo is also a blank slate as far as Canadian agency brands go, which Gee hopes will serve as an example of the agency’s branding prowess as it grows over the coming years.” *
But, but, but… can’t we hold onto some things from the past? Award annuals, for example. Like the dictionary and the thesaurus there’s stuff to learn inside. And your agency awards. They remind young people looking for mentorship that they’re in good company.
Tell me if this JACK IN THE BOX spot circa 1980, the brainchild of Howie Cohen and Bob Pasquilina and shot by Howard Zieff, didn’t inform GJP’s fire sale just a teeny, tiny bit. The fast-food hamburger chain’s re-invention campaign was an event marketing, mulit-media, blow-out idea worth recalling.
Then… THE JACK IN THE BOX RE-REINVENTION Jack was reintroduced specifically to signal a new direction the company was taking to refocus and regroup after the E. coli disaster. In the original 1994 spot, Jack (“through the miracle of plastic surgery,” he says as he confidently strides into the office building) reclaims his rightful role as CEO, and, apparently as revenge for being blown up in 1980, approaches the closed doors of the Jack in the Box boardroom (a fictionalized version, shown while the aforementioned minimalist theme music from the 1980s Jack in the Box commercials plays), activates a detonation device, and the boardroom explodes in a shower of smoke, wood and paper.
The Brief hopes you have a terrific week and stay strong. Please write in with comments, suggestions for articles, complaints about picking up dog poop and recipes for jello.
SOURCES:
- MARKETING MAGAZINE, AGENCY NEWS GJP REBRANDS AS BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, Jeromy Lloyd, November 18, 2010
- ADVERTISING AGE, When Did ‘Agency’ Become the Thing Nobody Wanted to Be?’ Ad Age
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Front Page, Industry News
THE BRIEF: The industry’s sordid little past. The past.
Wednesday May 11th 2011David Ogilvy is the past. Bill Bernbach, Jay Chiat, George Lois, and Mary Wells are too. The iconic swoosh? Past. 1984? Humph, TV! So past! 60-second radio? Past. Believing the past has something to enrich us? Way past!
Technology and using it to reach the consumer where they happen to be and with what device they happen to be using has unsettled our advertising and marketing “agencies” rendering them obsessive about getting on top of how to occupy this new age and to appear to be as cool as Steve McQueen. Oops! That was so past. THAT WAS SO PAST!
Nowhere does the past seem more onerous and disposable than in last year’s tongue-in-cheek rebranding of GJP. In case you’ve forgotten the origins of BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, the past and future went down this way:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/fqRpsqLGQ8U
Alan Gee (who knew he was so funny?) and his creatives decided to rebrand themselves with a fire sale on YouTube. Gee did a send-off of a local commercial (ironic choice to launch a worldwide iteration?) with the ubiquitous Russell Oliver’s Toronto jewelry and loan ads. During this real liquidation sale Gee offers up GJP phones, rulers, cookie platters, executives, the walls – even his stylish British accent. It’s a riot. But it leaves a bitter aftertaste when Gee gives away all its awards. Past. Gold Lions from 2008. So past.
From the ashes of GJP emerged BLAMMO WORLDWIDE. The new name, Gee said, was a recognition of the explosive way in which the industry changes. “Many agencies are struggling with that change, but clients are eager for it. We want to take the best of what we had-insightful strategy, fantastic execution and inspired creative-but now look at it in completely unexpected ways. Blammo is about doing the unexpected.” Blammo sold its entire contents to symbolically erase the past…” As much as I love the awards, that was yesterday,” Gee said. “We’re all about tomorrow. You can’t live in the past.” *
As Matthew Creamer wrote in Advertising Age about the industry’s rejection of the passe word “agency” “…It’s clear there’s a hell of a lot of people who don’t want to be confused, under any circumstances, with an ostensibly respectable category of business that, for more than a century, has bestowed fantastic wealth upon a few, and a respectable living, low handicaps and battle-hardened livers upon many more. Sure, cancer is not being cured at Grey. But, at the same time, it hasn’t started any wars or crashed the economy. Still, the aversion is strong enough to cause people spanning the globe to commit great acts of violence against grammar and syntax and logic and semantic systems all to dodge the label. When one of the industry’s oldest shops, Campbell-Ewald, celebrated its 100th anniversary in February, it revamped its website, adding this descriptor to it: “We’re not an agency. We’re hundreds of diverse minds rattling as one.”
The Brief feels compassion for reinvention. It’s a very human business issue for the industry. The client perceives that if their agency is unable to engage the consumer holistically, they’re yesterday. The BLAMMO WORLDWIDE’s have to position themselves in such a way that leaves no doubt that they can – let’s drum up an anachronism here - ’Just Do It’. The answer is a resounding Obama “YES WE CAN!” All of it. As BLAMMO writes in their website, “We specialize in the unexpected – unexpected connection points, unexpected thinking, unexpected creative ideas.” And john st is “be unignorable”. Both ‘slogans’ set in lower case.
With the past now buried in the past, Gee says “Blammo is also a blank slate as far as Canadian agency brands go, which Gee hopes will serve as an example of the agency’s branding prowess as it grows over the coming years.” *
But, but, but… can’t we hold onto some things from the past? Award annuals, for example. Like the dictionary and the thesaurus there’s stuff to learn inside. And your agency awards. They remind young people looking for mentorship that they’re in good company.
Tell me if this JACK IN THE BOX spot circa 1980, the brainchild of Howie Cohen and Bob Pasquilina and shot by Howard Zieff, didn’t inform GJP’s fire sale just a teeny, tiny bit. The fast-food hamburger chain’s re-invention campaign was an event marketing, mulit-media, blow-out idea worth recalling.
Then… THE JACK IN THE BOX RE-REINVENTION Jack was reintroduced specifically to signal a new direction the company was taking to refocus and regroup after the E. coli disaster. In the original 1994 spot, Jack (“through the miracle of plastic surgery,” he says as he confidently strides into the office building) reclaims his rightful role as CEO, and, apparently as revenge for being blown up in 1980, approaches the closed doors of the Jack in the Box boardroom (a fictionalized version, shown while the aforementioned minimalist theme music from the 1980s Jack in the Box commercials plays), activates a detonation device, and the boardroom explodes in a shower of smoke, wood and paper.
The Brief hopes you have a terrific week and stay strong. Please write in with comments, suggestions for articles, complaints about picking up dog poop and recipes for jello.
SOURCES:
- MARKETING MAGAZINE, AGENCY NEWS GJP REBRANDS AS BLAMMO WORLDWIDE, Jeromy Lloyd, November 18, 2010
- ADVERTISING AGE, When Did ‘Agency’ Become the Thing Nobody Wanted to Be?’ Ad Age
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