Agencies have gotten leaps and bounds more innovative over the last year or so with their websites. After all, doing work for yourself is sort of the dream. You're the client. If you like it, it's going to run. Guaranteed.
One of the biggest trends has been the move away from the labor-intensive and usability-crushing Flashturbation extravaganzas of past years. Instead we've seen the reemergence of HTML-based sites. Easier to navigate and update, they provide more function over form—which is really the model the web has embraced.
Still, agencies are coming up with some killer ways to make their sites engaging and really surprising. The best example is Modernista!'s overlay site, which recently won a Gold Pencil, along with a straight rip-off courtesy of the folks at Agency.com and Skittles.
Well, here's another brilliant stroke, the Boone Oakley website.
Don't be fooled. That's not a video about the website. That is the website. Contained all within a series of YouTube videos, it provides a showcase of work and navigation within the video itself. It screams all kinds of smart and has garnered over 100,000 views in just a few days, even cracking the Viral Video Chart around the 14 position. It's not a sustainable model or one that others should replicate, but it's something brand damn new that will surely work wonders for a little shop based out of Charlotte, NC. Cheers, guys.
I wrote a little while back about the idea of exclusively iPhone-produced music.
Well, here it is. Middle-aged women dressed in funky clothes to make them feel better about their waning hipness playing "Kids" by MGMT on their Apple-birthed devices. (I'm sure that's not what they titled it; they just called themselves The Mentalists. But I find my nomenclature more accurate.)
OK, I know I'm a little late on these, but somehow I managed not to click on these for the past five months. But now, thankfully, faithful reader ___ has brought them to my attention. They're nice 'n tricky, just the way the internet likes 'em.
I'm a mild sucker for infomercials. I've never actually purchased anything from them, but they tend to fascinate me. When I was younger I used to watch late night half-hour spots about a machine that could dry any food so I could even make my own beef jerky right at home. It's a bizarre world that I don't full understand.
Anyway, I just found this one with Vince. You know, Vince, the guy from the Shamwow spots. He's good. I totally believe the Shamwow, and this new Slap Chop looks pretty awesome. There are some really good lines in here too.
The Super Bowl comes around every January (or sometimes February) to turn the country's eyes to the advertising industry for at least a few hours of the following Monday at work. (There's a football game I've heard about too.)
In Bowl spots, two makes a trend. Thus, there were a number of trends I noticed early on. (Later on in the night after a few Left Hand American Pale Ales, I stopped paying as close of attention. Go figure.)
Trend #1: People going through windows. Bud Light's first spot + Audi's Transporter spot + Dorito's "Crystal Ball."
Trend #2: People getting hit by buses. The second Dorito's Crash the Super Bowl spot ("Magic Bag" we'll call it) and Jack in the Box (in some markets).
Trend #3: Yellow cars. The Potato Heads spot for something (Who remembers? It certainly had nothing to do with the Potato Heads), Fast and Furious (which has the same name as the original, just a different tag) and Hyundai (who ran three spots!)
Trend #4: 3D. SoBe, Pixar, NBC. WHO CARES? They ran 3D spots twenty years ago. We need holograms. Plus, Sobe spots are infuriatingly awful.
Trend #5: GoDaddy sucking. They continue to make ads that make me want to quit my job tomorrow and take a position at AdBusters. Awful. Awful. Awful.
Trend #6: Badass movie trailers. GI Joe, Star Trek, Year One. Yessss.
Trend #7: Heart-felt fake-outs. Frosted Flakes, Cars.com, Universal Studios. When you reveal the logo at the end of your spot, the audience shouldn't groan.
Trend #8: Showing old things next to their modern, updated counterparts. Audi "Transporter" and Pepsi's "Refresh."
Trend #9: Hostility in the workplace. Careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, Bud Light, Doritos and probably ten others I forgot. Not a big surprise here. Everyone hates work, right?
There were undoubtedly plenty more, but my beers were calling me later on in the game. As for my top picks, they are, in no particular order:
Also, if you happened to be viewing the game in Boulder, Colorado, you saw a spot for Mile High Flea Market. Very random. I have a sneaking suspicion that Cash4Gold will get the highest recall simply from a WTF standpoint. Overall, I thought it was better than some past years. There was a decent enough mix to keep things interesting, and nothing so unforgivably bad I wanted to murder myself (except GoDaddy and SoBe).
So, that's my wrap-up. What'd you think? What were your favorite/most despised? Should advertising be abolished, or can we stick around for at least another year? What says you?
Finally. After all these bitter years of having to deal with the broken promises of "It." (Remember how they said It was going to change the future, the structure of our cities, our very society?) Finally, someone pays.
Sounds awesome? Too bad. Syke is a fake out. Over the course of the next few months this stereotypical energy drink product will be revealed to be a metaphor for cigarettes. It's the newest stab at an anti-smoking initiative and comes from the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation. Basically, it's the same thing that kicked off the ever so infamous Truth campaign in the early 2000. (I still remember when they brought a blackened human lung to our lunch area in 10th grade.)
Anyway, you should read the whole article over here in Richmond's Style Weekly. And check out the Syke site here.
So, what do you think? Will it work? Is it too prolonged and convoluted an effort to really reach kids? Or will it be a huge breakthrough? The effort reminds me of Truth. I wonder if the results will too. Perhaps it's too narrow an idea to continue on as long. Maybe not.
If you've been on the internet the last few days you've probably seen this. Either way, you should watch it again. It's pretty mesmerizing. And just pretty.
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