7.23.2008:
Beatboxing Flute + Cello
9:50 AMI could write something here, but honestly, nothing I can ever come up with could ever match the awesome of this.
I think I'm completely done writing anything for at least a few days while I recover.
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7.22.2008:
What I'd do, #1: Barbasol Ad
12:16 PMSo, in addition to illustration and graphic design and web development, I sometimes also do marketing and brand management for people who have money and want to waste it on a guy with Akira all over his arm telling them what to do.
Something has recently struck me and just won't leave me alone.
It seems to me that, once one company goes a certain route to appeal to a demographic, just about every single company competing with them decides to do the same thing. Take the "Hip Urbanite" angle started by Volkswagon and now copied by Ford, Chevy and everyone else who has a hatchback and a hankering to appeal to young folks with more disposable income than common sense.
The most recent one to strike me is the "Hot, Big-Breasted Chick + Absurdist" movement that's running through men's hygiene products. A transforming razor that converts from high-tech gadget to a... Well, razor. Or the Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow shit that Axe / Lynx is doing.
The most recent casualties are Old Spice and Barbasol. I can just see the board members at the holding companies for those brands gnashing their teeth and wringing their fingers when they see commercials like this one for Edge Gel:
Oh MAN! Once the Barbasol brand managers see this, they get feverish and immediately demand a Rolodex full of Hip Advertising FirmsTM to come up with something fresh and exciting and WHATEVER JUST GET ME BIG TITS AND ABSURDITY, NOW:
Come on.
This ad does not stand out. It does not promote brand awareness. It does not cause you to consider Barbasol before considering any of the 30 other brands of shaving cream / gel on the shelf at Wal-Mart. It just... Is. If anything, it reminds you just how shitty your job probably is. It reminds you that there are multiple levels above you, and in order to even consider getting to somewhere near the top, you're still going to have to push the mop, and after that, wear stupid glasses and sweat and shovel paper.
Furthermore, that ad cost probably $500,000 to make, and additional $5m - $30m to place and get promotion on networks and cable channels. And for what? The Hip Advertising FirmsTM will begin talking to you about brand awareness; that the new campaign promotes Barbasol Ultra as a Now and With-It brand on par with other "Hip" brands like Axe and Edge who are winning the 18 - 23 demo and creating loyal customers; the Ultra name will seperate this new product from the Barbasol of old; it's not your dad's shaving soap and SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY. You're wrong.
It will simply either be bought or not bought. Your ad does nothing. The slick binder with your proofs and storyboards impressed a brand manager, not the market. You get paid, the status quo is upheld, and everyone "wins". But nothing changes, it's just boring.
So, what I would do, if Barbasol's brand manager hired me:
A ten second spot. That's all - ten seconds.
The first two seconds would be a "pull out" shot of a video screen playing a hip, "edgy" big-titted blonde and fully-shaved gym-muscled male (make sure this guy looks as effiminate as possible, and completely disinterested in the female). Make them say some stupid catchphrase, like "SMOOTH!"
Once the zoom-out reached the point where the display (monitor playing the hip ad) was seen, the frame would then zoom-out quickly, and from stage right, a VERY muscular - but not bodybuilder type, more along the lines of a long-term mechanic with a real person's body (possibly a World's Strongest Man winner) man would enter. VERY manly - not this Metrosexual crap that companies seem to think we care about these days. The man would smash his fist down and through the monitor playing the commercial. He would finish wrecking this plasma / LCD display, pick up a can of Barbasol, and yell "BITCHES use GEL! MEN use BARBASOL!"
End commercial.
That's it.
Within a week, every feminist and possibly gay rights group would be in an uproar. The company would be forced to pull the ad. The ad would hit YouTube and Revver and Veoh and whatnot as a "banned ad."
Women don't buy Barbasol. They would call for a boycot. Big deal.
Homosexual men may buy Barbasol, but would probably call for a boycot themselves.
The very fact that females and "homosexuals" rebel against a product is a call for every "manly" man on earth to instantly purchase it, or have their manhood questioned. Every man who is aware of the ad who passes a shaving cream asile will, at the very least, consider the connotations of buying a gel.
Locker rooms across the nation would be stocked with nothing but Barbasol.
And the total cost of the ad? Probably $50k to shoot and produce, with another $1m in spot purchases. Once it's yanked, everything after that is viral and, thus, free. If the ad budget is $30m, you've got roughly +$28m to spend on giving away Barbasol to manly men who want it. Buy one, get one free. Get a free razor with Barbasol. What-have-you - the point is you have the money left over to get the product into the hands of those who want it.
And if the whole thing flopped and no one cared? You're out $1m + $50k on an ad. That's PEANUTS compared to the failure of the hip, slick big-titted absurd commercial you've made that does nothing for you, along with producing an entire line of "Ultra" cans.
Just my 10 minute consideration of this product and their silly commercial.
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7.19.2008:
And then 7 mins later...
5:12 PM
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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.
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Rainbow in the dark
5:02 PM
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Sent via SMS. Please forgive any typos or pointlessness.
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Fanboys? Right...
12:14 PMWhat do you do when there's a tropical storm at the beach where you're staying the weekend for a a wedding? Why, go see The Dark Knight, of course. And that's what we did yesterday, and it was as amazing as everyone's making it out to be. Go see it.
But this post is not about The Dark Knight. It is about what happened immediately after The Dark Knight.
We walked out and saw, in the lobby of the theater, tables set up by the local comic book shop, Fanboy Comics. They had toys and collectibles and comics and graphic novels all related to The Dark Knight. They had a man in a Flash costume walking around the lobby (for the record, his boots were yellow rubber galoshes... It really capped off the outfit). The main proprietor was wearing a Superman shirt, was about 5' 2", had glasses and a bit of a potbelly... Basically, he was every characture you've ever seen regarding comic book fans and store owners.
I walked up to the table with a smile on my face. "Wow, this is brilliant!" I told him. And I really felt it was - it was the first time I'd seen a comic shop take the reigns and use the power of public interest in a comic property to promote further learning of the material. I loved it.
He looked at me for a few seconds. "Thanks," he said pensively.
I knew right then what was going through his head, because I've seen it a thousand times, at every comic convention and store and other gathering I've been too - a gigantic 6' 3" jockish dude comes up to a small comic book / sci-fi fan and starts talking the talk.
"I really like that you're promoting your store with the movie," I said. "The more fans, the better the industry!"
He just looked at me strangely.
Mike pulled me aside and said "You think he thinks you're making fun of him?"
"Probably," I replied. So I took a few of the Free Comic Book Day comics they had laying out, and tried to make sure he knew that I wasn't trying to be a facetious dick. "What did you think of the movie?" I asked him.
"I liked it," he said with a note of snobbery.
"Yeah, I really like Bale's interpretation of the Miller Batman persona," I replied. "He plays the grittier Batman well."
"Sure, yeah," he answered.
"What'd you think of the locals dressing like Batman, like they did in Dark Knight Returns?"
"It was kinda cool," he replied. He was loosening up. "I like the tribute."
"Yeah, same with the Batmobile," I said. "It looks just like the one with the sonic blasters that took down Superman."
We chatted for a minute, and he gave me permission to open the bagged hardcover of The 100 Greatest Batman Covers book laying on the table. He watched as I carefully puled the tape from the lip-side of the bag, the way a real fanboy would. He noted that I didn't break the spine and lightly flipped the pages, the way a real fanboy would. When I placed the book back into the bag and sealed it the way a practiced collector should, his shield dropped.
"You collect?" He asked.
"Used to," I replied. "Had to liquidate when the dot-com crash happened."
"Bummer," he said. And we talked a bit more about what we both collected and were fans of. I brought up Akira.
"Akira?" he asked, as if to ask "You liked Akira best?"
"Yeah," I replied with a smile, and showed him my tattoo.
He stared at it blankly. "Like... The movie Akira?" he asked, confused.
"Yeah," I replied, "But also the comic." I told him about how it was one of two titles I kept the originals of, because I couldn't part with them - it took YEARS to seek out each and every Young Magazine issue, and I couldn't bear to let them go.
"Huh," he said.
"You ever read it?" I asked.
"No," he said. "Didn't even know about it."
I blinked; stunned.
I blinked again, even more stunned than I was when I blinked the first time.
With my mouth hanging open, I attempted to ask, "Really?"
"No," he said.
Heh... Fanboy indeed.
I'm headed to the shop itself today, before the wedding. I want to check the place out... See if it actually lives up to the name. But more than that, I want SOMETHING to do for the next 5 hours while this tropical storm annihilates the coast and makes being at the beach somewhat useless.
** Update 4:30 PM **
Store is staffed by jerks. Fine selection, but the staff - of which there were 4 - were completely uninterested in helping any of us. When engaged, they gave short, one word answers (unless the answer absolutely required more than one word, at which point they went out of their way to make sure to use as few words as absolutely necessary to answer the question).
Bonus - all 4 of them looked like Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. And that's not a compliment.
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