Author Archives: sfeinberg

May 01 2009
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obsolesence, portfolios

Throwing out the work.



I was hunting for an old ad to illustrate a typography point to my creative team and as I dug, I started to throw.

I threw out things that started their life as physical mechanicals. Things that were set in hot type. Things that were set by Photo-Lettering and couriered back and forth. I tossed things that never were, and now never will be, digital files.

I threw work that was laminated because lamination was the archived pdf of its day. There were cheap laminations, and fancy ones with non-glare plastic, rounded edges and felt backing.

I didn’t throw away everything. Some of this stuff still elicits a “Huh…this really isn’t bad.” Some of it smiles back at me from an earlier, sweeter moment in time. But most of it was there because it used to ride around in a large black pleather bag (hence the felt backing) trying to get me a job.

These ads were trendy-looking at some point, and now look as bad as a ‘70s haircut. Or they were ads demonstrating I had experience in a category, something we mock clients for in RFPs but have no hesitation doing for our own careers.

Portfolios, physical or digital, are no longer useful in my life. The ads that were in them no longer need to sell me or impress others or tell much of a story of any kind. The ones that still make me proud go back in the drawer. The rest can go.

Apr 20 2009
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Bill Macy, Coen Brothers, Ethan Coen, poetry

Ethan Coen, kickass copywriter

Coen Brother Ethan, it turns out, is not just a stupidly great screenwriter, but a poet as well. And, being the ironic, self-aware dude he is, he refused to read his work aloud. So Bill Macy read for him. You can hear it in its entirety here. But here is the title and repeating lyric:

“The Drunken Driver has the right of way.”

Tell me that isn’t the best headline for any safety-themed car ad ever written.

Apr 15 2009
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Uncategorized

Here’s to you, Mr. Bounce-it-by-Billingsley!

I’ve got a new campaign that’s flapping its wings furiously, trying to get off the ground, and if it succeeds, it will be because of a client.

We bitch about clients when they kill or maim good work. But we forget what a Herculean task they have if they actually embrace our vision. The layers. The “stakeholders.” The politics. The bean-counters. The lawyers. The processes. The sheer inertial mass of a huge organization that needs to be overcome.

And there, slogging through it with our precious idea in his hand, is our client, in his soul-crushing, Orwellian office park with little more to help him than his belief in our idea and his own sheer tenacity.

How often does it happen? Not very. Then again, how often do we do work that justifies his thankless journey?

“I think it needs kids or animals.“

Apr 13 2009
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Speechless.

I’ve gone dark for a few weeks. Never a good blog-viewership move.

Why? I’m speechless.

Here are some things I’m speechless about:

Ad Age asking Julie Roehm to be on an expert panel.

Twitter.

The SpongeBob square bootie thing for Burger King.

Bank of America corporate advertising.

Republican “Tea Parties.”

The Celebrex :60 legal disclaimer spot.

When the bile rises high enough in the gorge, words can no longer escape.

Mar 13 2009
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bank crisis, comparative advertising, recession

Guaranteed 32% less bad.

One theory about this week’s nice spike in the stock market is that it was driven by news that shit isn’t as bad as it could be. Here’s a quote from today’s New York Times:

“General Electric, the blue-chip corporation, was stripped of its triple-A credit rating, an emblem of business prowess it proudly held since 1956. But its rating fell just one notch, less than some analysts predicted. Shares of G.E. soared 13 percent…
Less bad was good enough.”

Maybe in these diminished times, diminished claims have their place. Think about all those DTC fair-balance warnings…we could make some kickass claims out of those:

“Shown to be 24% less likely to cause blindness, insanity or death than other cholesterol reducers.”

The coal lobby’s “Clean Coal” ads, which the Coen brothers savagely and appropriately turned upside down (thanks for the tipoff, American Copywriter dudes) can escape further ridicule with the truth:

“Burning coal causes less dirty, polluting smoke than burning dung or discarded tires.”

Mar 09 2009
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ambient media, contextual advertising, recession, retail sales promotion, sign of the times

Ads of the Great Recession, Part Two.

A glimmer of genius in the gloom of recession and perpetual retail blowout sales. Snaps to New York retro-crockery merchant Fishs Eddy.

Mar 06 2009
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falling ice, freak accidents, near-death experience, New York City hazards

Advertising is a contact sport.

You are not here to marvel at the size of this woman’s diamond. You are here to marvel that she, along with me and two other people at our agency, are not dead.

We were returning from a very successful client presentation, walking east on 33rd Street, when a 50-lb. chunk of ice fell from the building roof ledge and landed two feet away. Kimb’s left hand took the ice-shrapnel hit and today she’s typing revisions. Way to play hurt, Kimb!

I’m not sure, but I think this is outside our scope of service with this client.

Mar 05 2009
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My fishmonger is better than your agency copywriter.

Seen this morning driving up 49th Street:

Photobucket

Feb 23 2009
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bad design, Peter Arnell, Tropicana

How do I get Peter Arnell’s job?

Advertising – Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging – NYTimes.com

The man’s a serial ad criminal. You’d think Celine Deon for Chrysler would be enough to kill any five people’s careers. But no! Weeks after blathering to the press about the genius of putting a hemispherical cap on his washed-out, generic-looking Tropicana redesign, Arnell was asked by Stuart Eliott to comment on the brand’s decision to dump it after only a few weeks. His thought?

“Tropicana is doing exactly what they should be doing.”

Feb 12 2009
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Show the work first.

Here’s an idea.

Show the work first. Then get the strategy approved.

I know it’s not gonna happen. But it would save so much aggravation.

This is not quite the same thing as Mark Fenske’s “no one ever wrote a good ad by looking at a strategy.”

It’s more “No client ever looked at a strategy and had any idea what kind of advertising it would lead to.”

Showing the work first would lead to better strategies. And fewer tears.

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