That’s why it was such a gas and a giggle to join the jury for the 2010 Advertising Community Shorts Program of the Midwest Independent Film Festival (I know, that’s a mouthful–doubt it will fit on a t-shirt).  Optimus hosted the judging last night as we worked with the show’s Director of Programming Mike McNamara to whittle down three hours of shorts to a roughly ninety minute program.  It was all wildly uneven.  And it was pure joy.

Affordable technology makes creating films cheaper and easier than ever, but it’s still a major challenge.  Coordinating scripting, acting, lensing and perhaps most challenging of all–editing–requires weeks and weeks of concentration and attention to detail.

Watching these entries really drove home the infinite breadth of human storytelling.  We saw stories of comedy and horror, ineffable sadness and inspired lunacy…often within a single piece.  For someone who works in advertising, it was like a mental palate cleanser.

If you can make it, try to see the final selections on OCTOBER 5th during the festival screening at Landmark’s Century Centre Theatre at 2828 North Clark.  You’ll enjoy it.

About the only bummer of the evening was losing this misunderstood gem from the program line-up.  Due to an abundance of music video entries, this video for Baby Teeth’s “Hustle Beach” didn’t make the final cut.  Still, its buoyant energy, irony laden 80′s synth sound and off-balance storytelling makes me smile with every viewing…even if that made me a coalition of one among the judges.  Enjoy, won’t you?

I hope to see you at the show.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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That’s an interesting assignment, but one that’s doomed to failure if it’s approached through advertising alone.  Particularly since the packaging of this product is a dog’s breakfast of serving instructions, nutritional information and the typical parade of trite, graphic category conventions.  Simply put, the existing package is the exact opposite of cool.  I told him he should get their packaging people to think of a redesign the way ad agencies think of pure brand television–long on emotional impact, short on facts, and almost no copy.

It was a radical notion…but not nearly as radical as what a bunch of carrot farmers–primarily Bolthouse Farms–are up to.  These guys had the radical notion to package their perfectly healthy, perfectly wonderful little baby carrots like potato chips–all single-serve plastic bags and loud graphics.  They then took this idea to advertising, developing a website, an iPhone game, and the following three TV spots featuring explosive silliness and unapologetically over-the-top exhortations to “Eat ‘Em Like Junk Food!”  It is, in the parlance of the industry, EXTREME!!!  And yes, that word does require a minimum of three exclamation points.

God love them, I hope this works.  It is a brilliant positioning and the freshest thing to happen to produce since those little misters on the grocery store shelving.  In case you missed their debut on Facebook yesterday (or if say, you’re not a friend of ad savant Kent Carmichael), here are the three very aware ads that take the starch out of junk food advertising conventions even as they sell these fresh alternatives.

There’s the sexual innuendo one…

The teen fanboy sci-fi one…

And the hard-rocking, demolition derby execution long on sturm und drang and short on any sort of logical thought process…

I dug around their website for more information but there wasn’t a ton of background explanation.  Only smart copy like this mission statement: “A BUNCH OF CARROT FARMERS™ is made up of, well, a bunch of carrot farmers. Our mission: To get folks to eat more carrots. Then get their friends to eat more carrots. Then get their friends’ friends to eat more carrots. And so on and so forth, until carrots are the official favorite food of everyone, everywhere.”

If God loves advertising–and every now and again, some achievement in the field makes me inclined to think that our supreme being actually does–then this multi-platform will sell boxcars of those little orange vegetables.  I for one, plan on buying a bag today simply to support their chutzpah.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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This sad reality hit me no less than three times as I watched college football game this weekend.  Even though my beloved Irish showed marked improvement on defense, this ad–and the fact that it had a ridiculously repetitive media buy–truly soured my Saturday.

This exercise in wasteful government spending comes courtesy of the Illinois Department of Transportation and it’s even less welcome than the traffic cones and lane closures on I-290.  It looks cheap because it is cheap–from the cliched concept right through the Jr. High School Drama Club performances, the entire effort is guaranteed to send right-thinking Land of Lincoln-ites straight to their liquor cabinet with the sole intent of washing the horror from their synapses.  Jack Daniels!  Jim Beam!  Make the horror stop!!

The meager production budget is particularly inexcusable given this spot’s enviable media buy.  Cleaving off even another two percent of that media to fund a legitimate Illinois production company and actual SAG actors would have made a world of difference even on such a ham-fistedly bad concept, but apparently, we’re not paying off the right people.

Technology like hi-def camera phones and iMovie have democratized the production process, making it available to the masses.  But it’s like Jerry Seinfeld’s classic commentary on the comedy explosion of the 80′s: “Before the comedy thing blew up, there were like 200 comics and eight really good ones.  Now there are 2000 comics…and eight really good ones.”

You want a really good one?  You’ll probably have to pay for it.  If not in cash, then at least in time or freedom.

And believe me, given the alternative, it will be well worth it.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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Go on, take the day off. And in your spare time, check out this wonderful Flickr set of stylish WPA posters.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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Over the past seven years, StoryCorps has collected oral histories by conducting upwards of 30,000 interviews with more than 60,000 people, all of which are preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.  And of course, you can find them online.

Which is where I stumbled across this beautiful little six minute piece called “Danny & Annie”.  It’s remarkably romantic and at times pretty funny, but it’s essentially the anti-romantic comedy.  The characters aren’t glamorous, their situation is not contrived, the storyline is simple and unadorned.  In fact, this short is nothing more than simple cel animation recreating two interviews with an elderly couple: the Perasa’s of Brooklyn.  The Perasa’s themselves are no one special–they have no claim to fame, no stunning successes of note…aside from their relationship.

But by the end of this clip, just like the end of that hoary Holiday chestnut “It’s A Wonderful Life”, that relationship is shown to be the greatest accomplishment of all.  At least to my sentimental sensibilities.

Enjoy the movie.  Enjoy this Labor Day Weekend.  And try to find time to recognize the amazing stories in your ordinary life.  Because there is no such thing as ‘ordinary.’

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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This is positioned as very scary for the luddite ‘traditionalists’ who cling to the notion of the all important television…

Or is it?

If you read past the headline, the landline phone dropped as the cell phone grew, which essentially demonstrates that the platform is insignificant compared to the behavioral need.  There are now more cell phones in the US than landline phones; we like to talk (And if you like to talk a lot, perhaps you should look into the unbeaten value of a Cricket cell phone*).

Similarly, spinmeisters conveniently overlook that in addition to “TV Sets”, the study included a category called “Flat Screen TV’s” which was up 2%, proving nothing so much as researchers split hairs far more than consumers.

Earlier this year, Nielsen released their “Three Screen Report” which features some truly amazing, myth-busting realities of the state of modern media.  Among other remarkable findings, their data showed TV viewing time in U.S. homes increasing, growing 1.3%.

That might not sound like much, but given TV’s huge base, that equals an incremental two hours per month year over year.  At the same time, Internet video viewing grew 5.9% which is real growth but comparatively, it only equals an incremental eleven minutes year over year.  So as explosive–and meaningful–as web video growth is, it still equals less than 2% of total American video viewing time.

If you are one of those new media acolytes who thinks it’s fashionable to bash TV, re-read that last sentence.

In fairness, if you do read the entire report, the good people at Pew Research cover most of these rather critical details, discussing how the growth of technology and marketplace realities impact their findings.  And personally, I believe research respondents always exaggerate activity that reflects positively on themselves–“Me?  Oh I rarely watch TV.  And I exercise religiously.  And floss.”

Still, there’s that attention-grabbing headline, and in our Immedia oriented culture, we rarely take the time to dig deeper.  We read one line from CNN.com or see a Tweet from a pundit and simply stop there.

It may build brands and serve agendas and elect presidents, but it’s not making us truly more informed.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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* — Shameless Client Plug.

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Following the example of his commercial world namesake, Greg appears throughout his site neatly dressed and sporting a patch over his eye–a lovely allusion to David Ogilvy’s classic print campaign “The Man in the Hathaway Shirt.”  .

His work is interesting and fresh, though somewhat outside the mainstream of major brands, but what really spoke to me was the work he posted to his Flickr account.  These two posters come from a collection he calls “Superman Wears Your Pajamas” and while I can’t pretend to imagine what might have possibly inspired this set of motivating graphic designs, I can say I’m a huge fan.  This work just knocked me out.

So if any potential client out there would like to hand E79 a big ol’ chunk of business, please do, so that in turn, I can look into hiring Mr. Hathaway.  Given his somewhat skewed manner of looking at things, he’d probably be pretty interesting to talk to.

In a people business like advertising, being interesting to talk to counts for an awful lot.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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According to the report, “The overall conclusion of the study is that digital billboards in the greater Reading area have no statistically significant relationship with the occurrence of accidents.”

Had the conclusions been different, we might never have seen this research (or this press release) but as it stands, it corroborates similar studies in Cleveland, Rochester, and Albuquerque.  All of which bodes well for the industry given that digital billboards are brighter, easier to update, and more profitable since they can carry multiple messages from multiple advertisers.  And all sarcasm aside, I truly believe this shiny update of a classic format improves the quality of advertising without causing any traffic problems.  In fact, given how eye-catching these can be, they would actually make traffic safer…

–because when they’re looking at this cool billboard, drivers would have to stop texting.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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Not having heard of Scoop and somewhat curious, I followed the link and read about this new online sharing platform that sounds like a point-by-point duplication of Facebook, albeit with lots of window-dressing talk about “mobile/social app”: a distinction which apparently is enough to earn it the mantel “The Next Facebook.”

Of course, in the comments section below this post, someone named “David Prentice” added another long-winded, marginally-relevant note: “One way to retain your privacy on Facebook is to CLOAK your messages which makes sure that Facebook can’t read them.  You still use Facebook as normal but protect your privacy, by CLOAKing those parts of your messages you want to keep private. Neither Facebook nor its advertising partners know what you’re writing about.  Pick a keyword, select the Facebook message you want to keep private, CLOAK it and send. Only people you’ve shared your keyword with can then read that message.”

The upper case-inclined Mr. Prentice goes on to list links to free downloads, online tools and demos, meaning he is either a relentlessly helpful advocate for this product–which is possible–or he’s got a vested interest.  My suspicions tend toward the latter.

Between these comments and the relentless flood of pornography and online pharmacy spam that Askimet constantly filters from this website, it’s clear lots of people use a simple process of Googling then comment posting to sell all sorts of goods and services.  It only costs time, and entrepeneurs are always willing to put in that investment.

But like anything else, just being there isn’t enough.  These comment pitches may be free, but to be effective at all, they need the right balance of content and context.

You know, like all good advertising.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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A few years back, my brother retired as a Naval aviator and a few years later, joined Federal Express.  I always liked Federal Express–the legend of Fred Smith’s “C” from Yale when he first floated the idea, the hilarious television commercials from BBDO, and that bold, graphic blue and orange logo.  What I never noticed until my brother pointed it out, was the arrow hidden in the negative space between the “E” and the “X.”  What a lovely, subtle touch.

For much the same reason, I love the Big 10 logo that was introduced back in 1990 when Penn State joined the conference.  Of course, the Nittany Lions make the actual count eleven, but no one wanted to go around saying “Big Eleven” when “Big Ten” had so much history and sounded so much better…not to mention, it is so wonderfully metric.  As a solution, their clever logo designers hid the number “11″ in the negative space.  Again, lovely and subtle.

But really, the whole notion of subtlety went out the window when Facebook, the 900 pound gorilla of the internet, decided to get into the location app business with Facebook Places.  Facebook Places is one of those ‘innovations’ that people with no sense of privacy or boundaries think is pretty cool, much like the stalker/home burglar favorite app “Foursquare.”   Look, I admit I’m wildly out of synch on this one because candidly, once I leave work and my clients, I can relate to Superman’s notion of his Fortress of Solitude.  I only want to be with my wife and girls and dog and thus far, far away from work and responsibility.  So I never will activate Facebook Places-that’s just not my thing.  But it’s a very big thing for Facebook, simply because Facebook is itself a very big thing.  And so Facebook Places represents nothing short of a deathknell for Foursquare which, while leading the entire notion of geolocating and creating wonderfully engaging tags and recognition for it’s most dedicated players, simply lacks the sheer, subscription heft of a behemoth like Facebook.  Which is why I think it’s fascinating that, underneath the point of the pick-like ‘locator’ in the Facebook Places logo, a very distinct “4″ lies visible on the map.

Coincidence?  Oh I don’t think so.  Something like this is too considered, too laden with import for something accidental to bubble to the surface.  That’s definitely no accident.

That’s an agenda.

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By Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79

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