I like ads that work.Also, I like ads that don't suck.
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DoDo is a whole lot of fun to do. And it shows.
First campaign I ever wrote. Creative director Steve Crane called me about a pitch. "We have a tag line but no campaign. First presentation in three days." It was a good tag line. After two hours in a borrowed cubicle, I had nine ads for them. They won the pitch.
There's no such thing as
a little ad. Claus Rodgaard and
I did a couple of 5 x 7-inch ads for his Danish sperm bank. We ran one in
a trade magazine for fertility specialists. A reporter spotted it. Client
Claus and his company wound up profiled in Newsday and the New
York Post, then he was interviewed by Good Morning America and the Today
Show. The campaign later showed up in a novel, a non-fiction book and
as an issue in an Italian political campaign. Little ads? Pah.
There's no such thing as
a little poster, either. Claus and
I sprinkled a number of these around lower Manhattan. A reporter noticed. Then he checked out our web
site and called Claus. Result? A story about Cryos on the cover of
the Sunday New York Post. Then
the client got interviewed by CNN and
by Reuters, followed by National
Public Radio, the Associated Press, Channel 4 in the UK and a couple
of Scandinavian media outlets. Not bad for a $10,000 media buy.
What
to wear to an economic meltdown. We
had this baby ready to be walked around Wall Street in December of 2008.
Once upon a time I knew nothing
about designer bedding. From ignorant
to not-quite-so-ignorant in four weeks flat, thanks to a call from the
Ed Hardy Home Collection.
Drinking? I know a little
about that. I can guess the rest.
Wall Street can be dangerous to your wealth. Who knew? In
2000, the attorney general of New York forced the securities industry
to run several ads in this campaign. Hat tip to writer Steve Crane for engaging explanations of complex topics like market
limit orders and the perils of initial public offerings.
I hate most commercials. So I try to do stuff I don't hate. Click any image to see a QuickTime video.
Three scary things. 1:
Root canals. 2: Right-wing Republicans. 3: Renovations.
No money, no problem.We shot a tv spot featuring classic vehicles like these. It cost next to nothing. Then I used my old Nikon to shoot them for a national print campaign. For really, really next to nothing.
Internet
search? What's that? Our Valvoline
client went to Lycos, a search engine startup. As with Valvoline, he had just enough money for a single tv spot. So I took the Nikon along and once again, we had a print campaign for zippo, nada, nothing.
Introduce a new idea called
an angel investor forum. Define it, make it memorable. Your audience will
give you a whole three seconds to do this. Go!
How
to drag a car brand out of a ditch. Make better cars, do better
marketing. The folks at Chrysler did both back in the mid-90s. Ron Wachino was
the writer for these.
WTF?Agencies
called me all the time about projects like this during the dot.com era:
"They're called esecurityonline.com. They're ethical hackers, whatever
that is. Need a strategy to sell them to corporate IT managers. Need a couple
of campaigns, need some logos, need to show stuff in four days. Go!" Jeanette
Tyson wrote these.
