Madison AveNew Means New

Laugh Out Loud. Well boys and girls, here we are again. Time for another romp through that wild and wacky world where grown-ups make big bucks drawing stick figures in little tiny squares and more money is spent on 30 seconds of film than on the entire production of "Gladiator.

First, some old business. We put out a call for wannabe "creatives" and "clients" for our made up as we go Idea Company ( Ad Agency is so last century) called "DoubleThink."

VOLUME
FOUR
WEDNESDAY
SEPTEMBER 22,
2004

The result thus far is three e-mails from potential clients saying basically the same thing. "Let's see what you come up with and if we like it, we'll pay you for it."

How do I get from where I am at this shit-pot agency in Tulsa to Madison Ave.? - F.T. Tulsa

Practice-HW

Quick, get up and run over to the window. Open it up. You should still be able to hear the echo of my hysterical laughter at even the thought of such a business arrangement. The name is "DoubleThink," not "Twice As Stupid."

I had no idea that the kind of companies you list as reading your column even knew about your column. I thought you were much more under the radar. Do you have more marketing readers or entertainment readers -Becky. Toronto

None of your bidness, Becky-HW

If I download the MP3 file they will make note of it. When my daughter turns 5, Motown and Coca-Cola will invite me to take my daughter to Universal Studios ( right in my zip code) for a free dance lesson with Michael Peters. At this event will be at least 8 other kids from her kindergarden class. All of them will have a great time.

Cool Job. No takers. Oh well. I'll just stuff these Benjamins back in my shorts. But don't count our little DoubleThink out, just because we have no recruits and three clients hitting off the same crack pipe.

Remember we are not just building an Idea Company here. We are building a test case for the intellectual precept that "Perception Is Reality" We already have a Perceptional landscape going for DoubleThink. Since Wednesday 1849 people were made aware of the existence of DoubleThink as a business concept. Now Mr. Webster defines "business" as any "purposeful activity." He doesn't get around to the revenue part until halfway down the definition.

So for my part, DoubleThink is an activity that indeed has a purpose. It's purpose is to define how, by enhancing its Perception, we can determine its definable Reality. And certainly this definition will be based upon what activities DoubleThink engages in and if the purpose of those activities is achieved. The purpose being the creation of ideas for fun and profit.

Now onto new business. Since our client invitation only yielded us a good laugh, and nobody has yet stepped up to the plate as resident genius, we will throw some more wood on the perceptual fire. Where do we begin? Why with reality of course.

To wit, the fact that recently faced with lowered second-half earnings estimates, Coca-Cola Co.'s new chairman-CEO, Neville Isdell blasted the company's recent performance and vowed to improve the beverage giant's marketing operations. "The lifeblood of this company is marketing," Mr. Isdell said in a call with analysts, as reported by Ad Age. "We have to make sure our marketing is more effective than it has been." Now what could be more realistic than that?

The latest Coke campaign effort from Coke is the "I Wish" campaign, from independent ad agency Mother of London. It was shot in South Africa and aired in 20 countries including the U.S. The commercial echoes Coke's classic "Hilltop" spot that taught the world to sing 30 years ago. According to Ad Age, Coke is scouring its agency roster worldwide to try to recapture such iconic advertising. Well DoubleThink isn't on Coke's agency roster (yet) but there is nothing stopping us from jumping in and helping Mr. Isdell and his new Chief Marketing Officer, Chuck Fruit with their quest for new. "The goal is to be able to run at least two spots and some billboard ads that are appropriate for any country, regardless of culture, and reinforce the "iconic" nature of the brand", sources said according to Adweek. We'll be working twice as hard as those guys they're paying to come up with something cool by next Wednesday.

My Heroes. O.K. I'll admit it. The hardest part about writing this column is the fact that it has to be done on Thursday night. After Survivor. After Apprentice. Yes, my name is Harry Webber and I am addicted to reality-based programming as produced by Mark Burnett.

A couple people have pinged me about doing a review of fall season lineup shows on the Networks, since they run in such close approximation to the television commercials that are the stated mandate of this column. First let me correct a common misconception about Network Television.

Programming Gurus, Corporate Holding Companies, The FCC? These are not the Masters of Network Television. Madison Avenue is the Master of Network Television. Agency Media Buyers are the shot-callers at the nets and make no mistake about it. William Paley, founder of the Tiffany Network, current ratings leader, CBS had a small bronze plaque on the wall of his office at "Black Rock." It read, "He whose bread I eat, that's the song I sing."

This is the natural order of things in Tubeland. But things they are a changin'. For the past several years the Neilsen Ratings for the national television networks have been showing a phenomena known as "audience erosion." Simply put, that means that every year less and less people are glued to the tube from 8pm to 11pm Monday through Friday. Less available eyeballs. Higher and higher production costs to get those eyeballs back. The result has been More Bucks For Less Bang. Little wonder that Advertisers have been grumbling in unison, "What's Wrong With This Picture?" Now it is true that their are still a few Neanderthal Marketing Guys who think that there is still a "Mass Market" out there, and that Network Television is the only way to reach it.

Those diehards have been the driving force behind what are known as the "Upfront Markets" or the feeding frenzy for television spot inventory on the new and top-rated Network shows. This year the upfronts were categorized as "brisk" in the industry trades. This is somewhat diminished from last year's "Robust" and the year before that's "Dynamic." What this means is that the guys and gals actually charged with signing these multi-million dollar checks to CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC are finally wising up. You knew they were pissing their money up a rope, didn't you? I know I certainly did. I knew it years ago.

In that book to your left,( "Divide and Conquer" John Wiley & Sons, NY.) I announced to Madison Avenue that "The Mass Market Is Dead." That was back in 1998. Now that concept is catching on like a house afire. So what does all this have to do with my hero? Everything. Imagine some guy seeing the writing on the wall the same way I did a few years back. A TV guy from another country. He sees the U.S. genXers bailing; the cronies getting fat development deals for shit shows; the Neilsens stumbling on their worthless People Meters; the guys at the top worried about who owns who; the agency gals braindead as media buying services eat their lunch; the Internet booming because people would rather read e-mail that watch ESPN; the cost of digital video diving to below cheap; the marketplace fragmenting into smaller and smaller segments; the worship of instant celebrity; the decline of "Star Power; the onslaught of the WGA Strike.( Hi Rachel)

What does my hero do, once he processes all of this data?. He creates the low cost- high profit phenomenon we refer to today as "Reality-Based Programming." Now I'm not saying that Mark Burnett's "Survivor" was the first of it's kind. I'm just saying nobody made Reality TV, "appointment TV" until "Survivor." Nobody. And when the field was saturated and everybody said the "reality fad" had run it's course, Mark Burnett steps up to the plate with "Apprentice." Lightning strikes twice.

Burnett knows what we want. We want our heroes to be hunks. We want our winners to be "Real." We want our Minorities to be doomed from the start, because they reinforce our racist stereotypes. We want our women to be both beautiful and ruthless. We want our locations to be both seductive and deadly. That's what America wants. That's what Mr. Burnett delivers, week after week, after week with those two shows. Sure "Restaurant" and "Casino" fell off the tracks, but they were based upon dysfunctional principals and were both basically works for hire.

Here's why the man gets my vote for Hero. He still manages to give us memorable moments in television when we least expect it. Like for instance this past Thursday. Donald Trump gives some nabob lawyer a pass from being fired and the guy renounces his immunity status. Trump looks at him like he's crazy and spends the next five minutes telling this guy Bradford how stupid he is. Then he tells him, "You're Fired." I love this guy Burnett, for bringing this moment into my home for me to share with my family. It sure beats anything on the last five years with "Everybody Loves Raymond."

My second candidate for Hero is Mitsubishi Motors of North America's Ian Beavis, the automaker's senior vice president of marketing, product and public relations. Mr. Beavis is no butthead ( I'm sorry. I couldn't resist) He has unilaterally ceased all advertising on broadcast network TV. He stated at the I-Media Summit last week that he pulled $120 million -- 75% of the automarker's advertising budget -- from broadcast this year.

Mr. Beavis also claimed that he finds nothing "compelling" in network TV's fall schedule, so Mitsubishi would be moving at least half its spending in the medium to national cable, syndicated and spot TV while increasing magazine spending by 50% and devoting more of its budget to Internet advertising. Way to go Mr. Beavis. There you have it. One guy makes Network Television more watchable. Other guy says "Too little, Too late. I'm outta here." Heroic in any book.

The Good Stuff. In its largest U.S. advertising effort in 20 years, DHL Worldwide Network is spending $150 million to go after FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service head-on. They've repainted their trucks yellow and red , they are on matching yellow and red billboards everywhere, and when I called them the other day, they picked up on the second ring and I got a real person.

DHL started in San Francisco with a $3,000 investment back in 1969. Now some 35 years and billions of deliveries later, they are an $18.6 billion company. Not too shabby. I just love there attitude. "The most exciting thing in shipping since bubble-wrap," is just one example of how their in your face messaging gets their point across.

Their tagline "Competition. Bad for them. Great for you." is clear, concise and to the point. "As our red and bright yellow trucks begin rolling through the streets, advertising increases and customers see our expanded product offering, the realization will set in that DHL is an even more powerful force in the American marketplace," claims Dick Metzler, Executive Vice President of Marketing, DHL Americas.

Their agency is Ogilvy & Mather, New York. If they came up with the yellow and red motif, they deserve all the credit they can get from this cut-through the clutter unified campaign. To see the entire campaign click here.

Sometimes a commercial comes along that is so simple and so compelling that it makes you wanna say, "Damn, I wish I had done that." Such is the case with the recent spots for Tylenol Meltaways. Having a 2.5 year old, I know precisely how difficult getting them to take their medicine can be.

This spot gives me nothing but wall to wall smiling kids, opening their mouths, sticking out their tongues and showing America that the medicine is all gone. It's a product demo straight out of the slimefests of "Fear Factor" and "Survivor" and I loved every minute of it.

Of course, when you first see this spot and these endless "Ahhhhs!" you have no idea what the hell they could be advertising. But the kids are riveting. Finally, when the title card comes up at the end with "Stop. Think. Tylenol Meltaways" all you can say is "Got me." This product is a definite shopping list item in my household. For years Tylenol was at Saatchi & Saatchi. A short while ago it bombed over to Deutsch. Great stuff, Donny.

We Last episode we talked a bit about dancing and how Mike Jackson ruined that particular pastime for me by being so good at it. Well a couple of recent spots are also killing the notion that white folk can't dance, as well. The first is an excellent "Back to school " spot by J.C. Penney which features some of the dappest sub-tween thespians I have ever had the pleasure to watch.

Those kids in that spot get Dowwwwn!

Next in line for the dance their ass off award is the current series of spots from Lee Jeans to the song "Why should I Cry" by Avia. Interestingly enough when I first saw the spots I said, "Whoa! These hunnies can work!" I went to the Lee jeans site to take another look and realized that it wasn't just the dancing, but the entire movement of the talent that had been wonderfully choreographed. But there was one hunnie in particular that had it goin' on with her groove. Smoove. Check her out

Stay Tuned.

MARKETERS FROM
THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES
READ MADISON AVENEW:

OGILVY & MATHER
MULLEN ADVERTISING
THE MARTIN AGENCY
TBWA CHAIT/DAY
GSD&M
YOUNG&RUBICAM
McCANN-ERICKSON
LEO BURNETT USA

ADRANTS
NEW YORK TIMES
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
NEW YORK OBSERVER
BRANDWEEK
ADWEEK

BANK OF AMERICA
NATIONSBANK
THE PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP
INDYMAC BANCORP
GUARDIAN LIFE INSURANCE
KMPG/PEAT MARWICK
DEAN WITTER
VERISIGN

GENERAL MOTORS
MERCEDES-B ENZ OF N.A.
FORD MOTOR CO

ESTEE LAUDER COMPANIES
THE LIMITED, INC.
TIFFANY CO.

BOEING
AMACO CORPORATION

20TH CENTURY FOX
DIRECTV
VISABLE WORLD, INC.
VIACOM INTERNATIONAL
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
DISNEY WORLDWIDE SERVICES,
INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE MANAGEMENT
HOLLYWOOD GOWER CENTERH
SCREENVISION

DELTA AIR LINES
S.C. JOHNSON WAX
MERCK & CO.
KAISER PERMIANENTE
CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSN

And You.

THE FINE PRINT

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