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The new Publicis & Hal Riney site is beautiful, innovative and simple in its language and design. The menu is hidden in an awesome graphic of a plume of red dye that floats in the center of the browser, video is used throughout the site and the copy is kept to a minimum. All good ingredients for a great site, but it still lacks the most important ingredient of all: functionality.

True, the option of webcam navigation is a nice touch. It says a lot about the company—they’re not your typical agency and they have the tools to implement cutting edge functionality. Unfortunately, to get what you really want from the site, you’re going to have to dig pretty deep. The awkward in-and-out transitions of the “liquid” menu is often confusing and abrupt. In the mouse-controlled mode, the menu items themselves are hidden until you hover over them. Each page takes more than a few seconds to load, which doesn’t necessarily cater to our impatient society. In short, extensive amount of time HR & P spends branding themselves on their site takes away from their foundation—the great work that they do. This should be their focus. After all, this is what prospective clients will judge them on.

Always choose function over form.

Sure, it’s great to have a beautiful site, but beauty comes in all forms (I love her for her personality!). Seriously though. Look at craigslist.org. Horrible, ugly, basic html that is oh-so-functional and oh-so-easy to use. Beautiful. On the agency side of things, a great example of choosing function over form is Modernista!’s redesign of their site. Well, that’s if you can even call it a redesign. Check it out. Open another window and type www.modernista.com in the address bar. You’ll arrive at their “homepage,” which, as you can see, is actually just their wikipedia page with a hovering “Modernista!” logo, menubar and message to the viewer reading “Do not be alarmed. You are viewing Modernista! through the eyes of the Web. The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control.”

They use existing Web 2.0 social networks to share their company info and share their work. Click on “work” and you’ll find that all their print pieces are on a flickr page and all of their broadcast is on YouTube. Click “news” and you’re brought to “Google News” with search term “Modernista!” already entered in the search field. Click on “contact” and you have the choice of speaking with them via Skype or AIM, or you can click their address to bring to up a Google map pinpointing the agency.

What’s so great and beautiful about this? Modernista! is approaching their market instead of the other way around. They’re engaging rather than interrupting. The site employs technology that people already know how to use, which says a lot as far as the agency’s ability to evolve with the market goes. Most importantly, you get very easily get the information you came to get when you visit their site.

I’m in the process of reading former copywriter and ad-guru Luke Sullivan’s guide to creating great advertising, “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This,” and I’m glad to see he made a couple of updates (okay, so it’s the third time I’m reading the book). In this third edition, the author has added two new chapters discussing the emergence of new media (i.e. guerrilla advertising) and the growing trend for brand agencies to begin adding DR tactics to their media mix.

I haven’t finished the chapter on new media yet, so I’ll write about that in my next post. As for DR…

Sullivan recognizes the obvious fact that a lot of DRTV is bad. Really bad (let’s face it, most advertising—be it brand or DR—is bad. Luke agrees). In fact, at one point in Chapter 6 he references the industry’s general view of DRTV as the “mutant step-child, kept in a box under the basement stairs.” But he also notes that it doesn’t have to be, and when it’s good, IT WORKS. He outlines the importance of branding and DR as such:

IF [BRAND] IMAGE = EMOTION, THEN DRTV = REASON

Brand advertising creates an emotional relationship between the consumer and the brand. It helps separate virtually identical competitive products by appealing to different consumer mentalities. DR, traditionally, is an informative message with an explicit call to action: “Buy the magic Erase-O-Bald wig NOW and erase years off the top of your head!” Maybe this is an example of bad DR…

Truly, an integrated campaign is the most effective. Appeal to consumers’ emotions with a brand campaign, then provide more information and a call-to-action with DR. Mix and match, whatever. Engage the consumer then ask them to act. Why not just stick to brand work? It appears that big companies, like Nike and Apple, are successful without wasting the time and money on launching a DR campaign. Well, friends, DR comes in all shapes and sizes—even companies like Nike and Apple use it, and do so successfully. For example, putting an Apple Store in every mall in America is a form of DR (albeit, it’s not what you would consider your typical DR campaign or infomercial). These brick-and-mortar shops capitalize on the interest created by the branding campaign by making Apple products accessible and acting as transactional venues. In fact, Apple was genius enough to streamline the sales process—salespeople carry around hand-held credit card swipers instead of having customers lineup at a cash register. We’re talking about DI-RECT response here. The cash register comes to you!

To paraphrase Luke Sullivan once again—when DR is good, it works. Apple’s stock is at $126.73 as of this post.

If you’re a YouTube aficionado like myself, you’ve probably been nettled by pre-roll advertisements which began popping up over some of your favorite Web videos. Well, the annoyance doesn’t stop at YouTube, as Google recently announced the introduction of video ads to its content network, AdSense.

What does this mean? Aside from more revenue for the online advertising juggernaut, text advertisements will be placed over Web videos containing content related to the respective product/service being advertised. Obnoxious? Possibly! However, Google promises this new initiative is non-intrusive and won’t interrupt the user’s experience. That said, in my opinion, this beats the pants off of the time-sucking :30 spots some websites force you to watch before all content.

Google’s Video AdSense is in beta right now with just 20 popular websites signed on, though I don’t imagine it will be long before it goes mainstream. In the end, there’s a lot of opportunity here for advertisers and content providers alike; greater audience reach and more revenue just to name a few. Given Google’s stellar track record of always doing things right, I don’t foresee any issues.

A friend of mine gave me a small package wrapped in newspaper the other day, my Christmas present about a month late. I didn’t care because I wasn’t expecting anything, and was super-excited to unwrap two 16-oz. cans of Brawndo, “The Thirst Mutilator.”

If you know anything about Mike Judge’s film “Idiocracy” you can appreciate how amazing it is that this product exists in real life. One of the ongoing jokes in the movie is about a product called Brawndo, an electrolyte-laden energy drink that flows out of drinking fountains and has completely replaced water, even for watering plants. To quote the movie and the back of the can, “Brawndo’s got what plants crave! Brawndo’s got electrolytes. And that’s what plants crave. They crave elecrolytes. And that’s why plants crave Brawndo. Not water, like from the toilet.”

“Idiocracy” itself is somewhat of an underdog movie (having been snubbed by 20th Century Fox, the studio that created it) but it has since seen some success on DVD, at least in the circles I run in. The film follows a time-traveling Luke Wilson 500 years into the future, where humanity has devolved to a point that Wilson is the smartest man alive. Television shows have names like “Ow, my balls!”, courtrooms are basically run like episodes of Jerry Springer and corporations like Carl’s Jr.’s have slogans like “F*** you! I’m eating!” It is likely that the heavy parody of corporate culture is responsible for 20th Century Fox pulling all advertisements, movie trailers and press kits from the film and releasing it in only 125 theaters instead of the typical 2500-3000.

It was a movie that Internet nerds had been following and it just dropped off, eventually showing up on DVD about a year later. It is by no means a great movie, it’s awesomeness is also off-set by some heavy handed-narrative and weak acting. Nonetheless, it is a feel-good movie, full of small moments and details that will only continue to grow it’s cult status.

So how did this fictional product from a failed movie become a real product? Redux Beverages, the California beverage maker behind the scandalously named “Cocaine” energy drink that local newscasters were scaring grandmothers with when it was released, saw an opportunity to cash in on the cult following of the movie. In a press release for Brawndo, Redux explains the precedent set by Mike Judge’s earlier film “Office Space,” whereby Milton’s fixation on a red Swingline Stapler created such a demand for the product that Swingline actually started producing them.

Time magazine ran an article about the red stapler in August 2003: “Once the film was released, buyers began asking for the red stapler. But Swingline didn’t make it. ‘We concluded we really needed to put a red stapler on the market,’ says Bruce Neapole, Swingline’s president. He says Swingline continues to sell thousands each month of what it calls the Rio Red Stapler.”

In the same way that Swingline created a viable product with the red stapler, Redux has released Brawndo, hoping that it will appeal to fanatical consumers. It’s a weird case of reverse product placement where the products don’t exist at the time they become characters in a movie. This doesn’t happen very often and is a hard thing to predict, but it may be a trend to keep an eye on. It is especially impressive that Mike Judge has accomplished this twice in his last two films.

After Brawndo became a reality, viral marketing was the natural next step. Having recruited the voice of Mark Little, a writer for the Canadian sketch comedy group Picnicface, Brawndo’s advertisements essentially mimic the same style of Picnicface’s commercial for a fictional energy drink called Powerthirst.

The advertisement captures the ridiculousness of Judge’s future world, and quite frankly wins at being successful on the Internet, racking up about 300,000 YouTube views so far. Having downed a can of Brawndo in the course of writing this blog entry (see image above), I have to say it is an above-average tasting energy drink, though that isn’t saying much because most energy drinks are disgusting. At this point the appeal of Brawndo is mostly to people who have seen the film, and it’s unlikely that you’ll see a can unless you know someone who’s ordered it online. Redux is seeking distributors, however, so if you own a business do everyone a favor and order a couple of cases.

Australia is famous for many things, not the least of them being Vegemite, dingos and Nicole Kidman. But were you also aware that Australia has been a hot bed for some amazing beer commercials in the past decade?

TV ads are tricky beasts. Most of them are so banal and un-entertaining that viewers forget them as soon as he or she has returned to the scheduled programming. When a good ad does appear it can do amazing things. It can cut through the clutter, get circulated on YouTube and, in the best of situations, re-invigorate a brand, if not an entire industry. That is exactly what happened in Australia.

Back in 2005 there was Carlton’s “Big Ad”:

Then there was Toohey’s Xtra Dry:

And then Carlton retaliated with this:

And then Toohey answered with this:

I could list about about 10 other great Australian beer ads. I think these spots have three important elements that help distinguish themselves from the thousands of other TV commercials we see every day.

1. These ads tell a story. They aren’t your typical bikini-clad women frolicking in the snow. They draw viewers in with an interesting premise. They pique your curiosity.

2. The writers for these spots rewarded those who paid attention with a great ending and smart punchline.

3. You can almost feel how much fun these ads were to make. You can almost imagine the brainstorming sessions where writers and creative directors were (gasp!) having a great time coming up with these stories.

In summary:

1. Australian beer commercials rock.

2. People pay attention to a well-written story.

3. Advertising should be fun.

I ride the bus to work every day. It’s a good way to interact with the city and experience the advertising flora near the office. Admittedly that is not why I ride the bus (cheapskate) but overall the whole experience pays off. I was amused to notice last week that the Adult Swim billboard had changed in a peculiar way.

Adult Swim is the popular late night programming block on Cartoon Network that is aimed at young adults. The shows are generally pretty low budget in terms of animation, but the writing and subject matter more than makes up for the difference. Anyhow, there is a billboard on 3rd and Davis in downtown Portland that I walk past twice a day that has consistently featured ads for Adult Swim, and changes about once a month. Usually they are pretty great in that over-the-top bad sort of way—like the billboard with two lazy, regal looking tigers surrounded by an image of some colorful galaxy. It’s the same awkwardly self-aware aesthetic that makes sweaters of howling wolves nostalgically funny.

The billboard sometimes features actual shows but it seems like increasingly they are aiming for the quality I just mentioned. The latest installment is colorful painting depicting two horses in a meadow. It’s a pleasant sight, and certainly kitschy to the extreme but there are no words except for the simple “buy our dvds” and [happy holidays] in place of the standard [adult swim] logo. The only things that make it discernible are the stylized font and brackets used in the text [happy holidays] but more importantly, the fact that there has been an Adult Swim billboard there for as long as I can remember, which is probably less than a year (I haven’t worked in this neighborhood too long).

The whole situation reminds me of optical illusions where you stare at something for a while and when you look away you have some image burned into your eyeballs for a few seconds, according to the Internet these are called “after image illusions.” It’s seems like a risky move to go so lightly on the branding, but it certainly got my attention. But then again I am Adult Swim’s target market.

If you don’t know about Digg.com, you surely don’t spend enough time on the Internet. While I say that as if it’s a bad thing, I guess that’s really just more of a reason to read this blog. That said, by definition (per Wikipedia) Digg is a community-based popularity website combining social bookmarking, blogging and syndication in a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. Sounds boring, right? Actually, quite the contrary, as Digg is probably the best thing to happen to the Internet since Al Gore and Google. That might be a bit of an overstatement, as YouTube, pop-up ads and e-mail marketing communications from Nigeria are revolutionary achievements in their own rights. Nevertheless, Digg is extremely insightful and can do wonders for marketers and ad folks alike.

All moderately funny jokes aside, Digg is something everyone in the digital world needs to know about. There are a number of community-based popularity websites on the Internet, but Digg is unarguably the most popular. Why? Probably because Digg did it right from the beginning by enabling its users to pick what makes it on Digg’s front page. Sure, not everything on the front page of Digg is newsworthy, but you better believe that whatever article, picture or video makes it on the front page is going to be seen by tens of thousands of people. Take for example Apple’s iPhone-if the cell phone’s announcement wasn’t the second-highest “Dugg” item this year, would it have been such a big hit? I venture to say yes; nonetheless, with nearly 25,000 Diggs under its belt, I’m sure there was some impact.

So, I guess the question you need to ask yourself is -”how do I (you) get on the front page of Digg?” To tell you the truth, there isn’t a straight answer to that question, or fa magical ormula to get on Digg’s front page, but it can be done, either purposefully or by accident. For something to be truly Digg-worthy, it needs to be at least one of the following:

1. Shocking - Which entails being funny, disgusting or just plain wrong; either way it needs to be something the reader feels like he/she needs to tell their friends, and possibly the world, about.
2. Important - The definition of what is important is up for debate, but in order for someone to Digg your piece, it must be truly newsworthy. Beware, “Net Surfers” are savvy and if you try to trick them you might still make the front page of Digg, but in the inverse of what you were trying to do.
3. Insightful - The item at large has to encompass applicable information, something new to the reader and be easy and fast to implement.

In the end, breaking into the Digg culture isn’t easy, but with some amount of effort, strategic thinking and a bit of luck, it can be done and the results can prove to be invaluable.

As marketers, we have to get more and more comfortable with the fact that consumers aren’t only making their own purchase decisions, but have more and more impact on the product, price, place and promotion of our marketing mix. Personally, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for savvy marketers.

We’re constantly involving customers in the promotion of our clients products and services by facilitating community.

T-shirt e-tailer Threadless.com lets visitors design the product that’s being sold.

A couple of weeks ago, Radiohead let consumers determine the price of their latest album.

Now Springwise is reporting on consumers being able to determine the price for their magazine subscription.

Who has an example of a company letting consumers decide where their products or services are being sold?

On a Portland-y note for today’s entry, I present you with a video of “Evil Bee,” a song by the local group Menomena.

The video has been online for a couple of months now, exclusively on the PF Flyers website. As of today, October 31, the exclusive hosting privilege appears to be up, at least according to their site. PF Flyers, if you’re unfamiliar, is a company that has been making stylish shoes for the last 70 years. Through this exclusive hosting agreement, PF Flyers underwrote the video, which is entirely animated and entirely awesome. By doing this they have associated themselves with the band’s scrappy indie appeal and made their site a destination for music and animation fans alike.

Past Menomena videos have all been entertaining but this one certainly takes the quality up a notch. It is exciting to see a company supporting a band in such a productive way. PF Flyers clearly realizes that they don’t need to make a shoe commercial with a Menomena soundtrack—rather than simply licensing a song they have found a way to add value and credibility to their brand without compromising the band in any way.

Aside from the PF Flyer’s page which explains the arrangement, or the actual page the video is played from, the video itself has remarkably little branding. The only hint of PF Flyers involvement is the Pablo Ferro-esque title cards at the end. It’s a refreshing, mutually beneficial take on the business of advertising and music videos.

Earlier this week I started a new book (YES, I know it surprising that I read things other than Digg’s daily top ten) and, amazing enough, I’m already more than halfway through it (mind you it’s barely over 100 pages). Now, enough about my literary challenges and onto the book at large, which is “The Dip” by Seth Godin.

Seth Godin is widely known throughout the marketing community for his fun-to-read, extremely well-written and insightful books on topics like how to be remarkable, how to turn friends into customers and why all marketers are liars, just to name a few. The particular title I’m reading, “The Dip,” was released earlier this year and teaches readers when, why and how to quit. I know, I know, quiting should never be an option; and personally, I’ve grown up hearing my father yell “don’t be a quitter.” However, as Godin explains, quitting is an option and when done at the right time and in the right place it’s the best option. In fact, strategic quitting is the secret of most successful organizations.

Alright, so I’m not going to go into a full-fledged book (report) review, instead I’m talking about just one of “The Dip’s” topics; “the infinity problem.” What’s “the infinity problem?” I’m glad you asked, because it’s a problem all of us in the marketing and advertising sector face. In short, “the infinity problem” is defined by the insanely large number of choices consumers have. Think about it: you’re shopping for a digital music player and there’s a thousand different options, or you’ve run out of toilet paper and you have to choose between the the single, double, triple or quadruple roll, not to mention the 10 different brands to pick from. You get the point… no matter what product or service you’re shopping for, there’s an infinite number of choices.

Why is “the infinity problem” a problem? Put simply by Godin, when consumers are faced with so many different options they, for the most part, do one of three things: 1.) buy nothing, 2.) buy the cheapest, or 3.) buy the best. That’s why word-of-mouth is so important. After all, how else would someone know what the best product or service is? Furthermore, that’s why the web is so powerful. In my opinion, the most efficient solution to “the infinity problem” lives on the internet, which is what we (and the R2morrow blog) are all about.

Stay tuned, as there’s more to come in part two, Infinity Problem Solutions, the R2morrow way.