I'm alive

I've been out of town, out of internet range, and mostly out of cell range for the last couple weeks. I met up with the one and only Todd Banta down in Northern California and we drove and hiked, drove and hiked. Here are a few picks:





Of course it's always nice to go on vacation, but there was something especially refreshing about having so little contact with the outside world. N. California had some very remote places where there was no cell reception on the road for hours at a time. And, of course, no internet or cell reception while we were on the trail. It's strange to think, as you're sitting on rocks in the wilderness, that computers, the internet, etc, came out of a raw environment. Sure, we use processed metals and plastics, but not long ago those didn't exist, and things were made using materials directly from the earth such as wood, rock, clay, etc. In a very short amount of time, we went from that "primitive" way of life to photoshopping pics on our Macbooks. Anyway, as nice as it was to get away from it all, it's great to be back. That's my deep thought for the month, I promise I won't think that hard for at least another 30 days.

Good, Bad, or Just Plain Galifianakis?

I've been a fan of Zach Galifianakis for awhile, so when I heard he did some "ads" for Absolut Vodka I was a little curious. This is the description that goes along with the video that Galifianakis posted on Myspace.

"Zach was asked to make an ad for Absolut Vodka as part as their ongoing artist series. He agreed as long as he got to do what he wanted without any restrictions. He asked his friends Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job" to join him in creating the spot.

The following clip is the first in a series of 3:


Zach Galifianakis' Absolut Vodka ad featuring Tim & Eric



So it's basically just a comedy skit that somehow involves absolute vodka. Is it good advertising? I think it's a funny clip, but I don't know what I think of it as advertising.

NYC book

Michael, Nicole and I made a little book about what future students can expect and what they should do to prepare for the NYC trip. It's not the final draft but you'll get the idea. Here it is: http://issuu.com/nschultz/docs/newyorkguide

Advertising

Preface: The point of this rant is simply to communicate how I feel about the state of advertising and advertising in general. It's entirely possible that it in no way reflects reality and that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I always find it amusing when I tell people I'm going into advertising. Their reactions vary, but generally very slightly. Some people just say "ohhhhh...good, well good for you" (perhaps implying that it's not good for anyone else). Some people say stuff like "gonna be one of the bad guys, huh?" half joking. Then there are those who will immediately tell you about their favorite commerial of all time. What I've come to realize is that the general public thinks of advertising almost strictly as television commercials. This makes sense because they most often grab our attention. Billboards are passed by, magazine ads are flipped over, but TV ads are programus interruptus, a sudden halt of our entertainment. We either watch the ads (and have a reaction such as being entertained, disgusted, indifferent, etc), get up to get food or go to the bathroom, or, my dad's all time favorite, mute them and sit in silence. The point is, they in some way affect us directly.
On the other end of the spectrum we have people who work in advertising. My experience is as a student working with instructors and other students, so I can't speak for the professional world. We throw around words and phrases such as integrated campaign, social media, thought leader, true to the brand, target audience, creative strategy, USP, and countless others.
Sometimes I feel like we lose sight of what advertising really is, and how our "target audience" really receives it. Advertising is simply a communication from a medium to an individual. Generally it's paid for by a third party and is executed poorly. This sucks for people like me that are going into advertising because people assume I'm going to do the same awful "saved by zero"esque commercials that they've been annoyed by for the past decade.
So what can we do to make advertising better? I have no idea. Part of the reason I like advertising is because it's hard. It's not a movie. You generally have 30 seconds of video, a single image with some text, or a short flash animation. It's hard to develop a character or an idea that people can relate to or care about. This is why there are those integrated campaigns that we talk so much about. Unfortunately, campaigns often times miss the mark or people only see one or two executions, rendering the point of the campaign useless.
All we can really do is continue to try to make advertising better by putting smart, creative people behind the wheel. I would encourage anyone working in advertising to look closely at how people outside of the industry react to ads because this, not award shows, is reality. Our motivation as much as possible should be to benefit the audience in some way, to engage them and affect them in a positive way, and not just signal that they have 3 minutes to pee and get back to the couch.