Oh, Woody.

I've always been a big fan of Woody Allen. I may not be a die hard fan, but I consider him one of my favorite directors, I like his style. And when it comes to Woody Allen there's no middle line, there's either people who love him or people who hate him.
Annie Hall and Manhattan may well be amongst my favorite movies, I even like his 90's era, like Deconstructing Harry, even Small Time Crooks made me laugh. And I've approved his latest movies like Melinda and Melinda, Match Point (which I think is one of Allen's best movies ever) and Scoop.
Now, I recently saw Cassandra's Dream, last year's movie starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, and I have to say that it has been one of the worst movies I've seen lately. The plot os so slow and irrelevant, it even makes the actors bad, a really strange thing about Allen, who can make almost anyone perform well. I had to finish the movie because I always like to see if anything happens, it never did. My wife left me alone with the movie about halfway through it.
Just a piece of advice if you were thinking about seeing it, don't. Or do and prove me wrong.

Not much has changed. From Mr. Whipple to Papa Johns.

A few days ago we served as company to our friend Charles (AKA 'chuckles') as he ventured in a local bar's open stage night in which he performed a couple of songs plus doing a small stand-up comedy set. In the latter, 'chuckles' was talking about how the Papa John's pizza commercials always star the company's owner, founder and CEO (I would guess he is Papa John), and at the end of every ad he says "better ingredients, better pizza, Papa Johns".
Charles was so right. And I was sitting there thinking of all the times I had been annoyed by those commercials. Every time I was sitting in my couch thinking 'why do we need to see this guy? Why does he have to tell me anything? Who is he? I care about the pizza, not the CEO of the company. They make pizza, not insurance. So, why is this guy making the ad better? How, in their minds, can they think that by starring the company's president they will sell more pizzas? Why do I need an asshole telling me that they have better ingredients? If they do, don't I find that by myself when I order the pizza?

But at the bar, I found myself alone. Nobody seemed to care.

Maybe Luke Sullivan was the only one who found Mr. Whipple so obnoxious. Hell, maybe someone even liked Mr. Whipple.
And here's the big dilemma, the stuff that we find so annoying, all that we think shouldn't have been even thought of at an office, the stuff we say 'how can they pay someone to do that?'. That stuff, is being liked by people. And that's scary. It's scary that people like it as much as it's scary that there is a creative director out there approving this shit, and of course, clients who are buying it.
I guess that even though we find ourselves alone in our interests and in what we think is good and exciting work, we must keep pushing towards more quality in the concepts of advertising, and into a world where CEO's don't have to tell people what their product is like, but that we can show it to them in a cool engaging way. People may still not care, maybe they won't notice it. But we'll be happier. And less annoyed.

The Cadbury Gorilla

What is all the fuzz about with the Cadbury Gorilla? When I first saw it about 8 months ago I thought it was very stupid. Then people began talking about it, blogs were being written, Creativity and other important publications were writing articles on it, and the I thought maybe I was stupid. But no. I couldn't be. It's only a fucking gorilla playing the drums. Oh yeah, and then it announces chocolates. At least I'll give them the sense of humor for picking the song.

So then I thought it was me who never got it, since I realized that the commercial won important prizes like the ANDY's, London, and now it won a gold CLIO. That pretty much lines it up for a metal prize in Cannes. Wow. But no, it wasn't me, I saw it again, and again and this is what I came up with.

It's a gorilla playing the drums trying to sell chocolates.

Alright, so advertising doesn't have to be all 50's style sell-the-product and talk about all the benefits for 60 seconds. I agree. But say something for God's sake. You have a brand, who is trying to sell chocolates, and they spend their air time and money on something like this? I just don't buy it.
Maybe it's me, maybe I'm too ignorant, maybe I don't know shit. But I'll dare to make a judgment by saying that those who have awarded this commercial or those "we're very creative" types who love it don't even know why they do it. "Because it's cool" they say. Cool? What's cool? Is this what we have come to? What is it doing for the brand? What is it doing for a consumer? Its' not even funny! I understand that there can be ads that just aware about the product and merely entertain, but at least they try to say something. How is a fucking gorilla helping the product?

I might sound old school. But this is another case of advertising done for advertisers. It's only for us nerds in blogs and judges in award show to see and understand. Real people, yes, the same ones who don't give a damn about advertising or how artsy and creative we think we might be, those people, they don't get it, they don't like it. And, sometimes sadly, they are the ultimate judges of out work.

Anyway, if you still doubt my intelligence, please see the ad for yourself. Don't be deceived, it might pull a smile off at first, specially when the animal starts playing the drums. But then, it's all vacuum.

No, you don't have to hate advertising.

I've been hearing lately this quote that people within the business like to say, "you have to hate advertising to truly love it." Besides it lacking any sense it would be stupid for anyone in the business to think that way.
Earlier this semester we were sitting at a breakout session with Brandcenter board members. Important advertising people. And we are going around the room introducing ourselves and we each said why we are in advertising. Then a guy blurts out "well, I first have to say I hate advertising...", I'm sitting there thinking what a pretentious comment. Think about it, do you really hate what you'll be devoting your career to, do you really hate what you paid a large amount of money to go into grad school and learn?
To my surprise, this guy is not the only one who thinks that way, I've seen this motto in many blogs, and people think they are so cool and so interesting by thinking so. I will just say that it's very pretentious and makes you sound stupid.
We are not in this to save the world, or make art or find the answer to the worlds problems, although some of these may come as consequences. We are here to make brands famous and talk to people about them.

Airlines.

Technology is making our life simpler. Everything in our lives seems to be easier. Think about it, technology is about comfort. You don't carry 200 CD's anymore, you carry an iPod. You don't have to go to the supermarket, you shop online.
The world seems to be turning into a more convenient and comfortable place. Everything is getting easier, except traveling.
My recent travel experiences have just confirmed my theory that while everything else in our lives tends to be easier, air travel tends to be more and more complicated.
It's not only the fact of having to arrive at the airport hours before your flight because of the lines, the security checks, in which is not only uncomfortable but invidious, the fact that you have to almost strip or that nothing can be carried on board anymore. But also the fact that airlines keep making travel more expensive and less convenient.
Most airlines don't even give you a meal anymore, they charge for it. And, are tickets getting any cheaper? No. You know how much an airlines saves just by cutting costs for food?
And now three airlines, as of May 5, have included the genius policy of charging for the second checked bag. So now if you want to take a second piece of luggage you will be charged 25 dollars for it. That is, of course, plus any heavy or size extra charges.
So while airlines keep cutting costs, giving us less and making our experience worse, we keep paying the same, or even more for air tickets.
I guess we'd have to call for a "no travel day", would it be possible? I don't really think so. They can't be fought, and that's the worst of it all. Conclusion, airlines are "the man", but we trust them with our lives.

What's wrong with the Oscars?

Sorry, rhetorical question. I know the Academy Awards were like three weeks ago (or longer) and all the buzz is gone. But I'm just catching up with all the nominated movies I hadn't seen.
I saw "Into The Wild" yesterday, and I know it wasn't nominated for anything, and I'm not saying it should have, although I really enjoyed the movie. What shocked me though, was to remember the songs nominated for Best Original Song. There were three super corny horrible songs from "Enchanted", one song from "August Rush" which I honestly don't remember, and the song from "Once", that is not half bad, at least it was written by two very humble for-the-love-of-the-art musicians, who made a movie with two handycams, acted in it, wrote the song, sang it, and ultimately took the Oscar home.
But then I see "Into the Wild" and I realize what an amazing soundtrack Eddie Vedder co wrote and interpreted for the movie. And just to make things clear here, it's not just because this is Eddie Vedder we are talking about. Sometimes, people like soundtracks or scores by default just because they're written by a good musician. Sometimes they are good, other time they are not. And I'm not even that big a Pearl Jam fan. I mean, I like the old usual stuff, I saw them live once, which by the way was awesome, but that's it. I haven't really paid much attention to their last two albums. Anyway, I think grunge is dead, but that's the subject of a future entry.
Back to my point, regardless of who Eddie Vedder is and what he has done with his band, the outcome of the songs composed for "Into the Wild" is excellent. But when a bunch of kiss ass Academy members get together to vote music, (who said they know about music anyway, what do this guys know everything? It passes completely unnoticed.
While I listened to the songs during the movie, I realized that they were far better than anything else from the past year. This is yet another reason not to trust the Oscars. I take them as a reference and let's be honest here, I can't stop watching them, otherwise, what would I bitch about afterwards?

Is Microsoft finally fighting back?

I just found out that Microsoft hired Crispin, Porter + Bogusky to be their new agency. Apparently the objective is to portray Microsoft as a cool brand, opposed to the way Apple has characterized ¨PC¨in their "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" campaign.

Desperate measure from Microsoft that despite of being a much bigger company than Apple, they have never achieved the loyalty and coolness the latter brand inspires.

Anyway, it'll be really interesting to see what can Crispin come up with, and we might expect a good advertising war here, from two excellent agencies, TBWA/Chiat/Day LA (via Media Arts Lab), and obviously Crispin.

Can they bring a brand with no soul to life? We'll see.

Click here to see the article on Ad Age.