I was shocked by this public service announcement — a thirty second plea for workplace safety, culminating in the narrator’s horrific workplace accident.

I don’t even work in a kitchen, but this PSA makes me want to be more careful all the time, everywhere.

Link @ You Tube.

prevent-it.ca @ Workplace Safety & Insurance Board, Ontario Canada

Advertising campaign throws away money:

Carlsberg dropped around £10 and £20 notes in the streets of London with a removable sticker that read “Carlsberg don’t do litter. But if they did it would probably be the best litter in the world”.

- The Hidden Persuader

“Sears has launched a virtual closet, called e-Me, for the promotion of its back-to-school season …”

Sears has launched a virtual closet, called e-Me, for the promotion of its back-to-school season, partnering with Meez and Virtual Model, which powers Meez.

The site basically operates as a Sears-branded Meez. All the clothes to choose from are those that are being pushed for the back-to-school shopping season, such as The Cheetah Girls line and Canyon River Blue. Real photos are used for the items you can select for your Meez, though a digital representation is used for your actual avatar. All the other functions for Meez is included for the Sears-branded version, including backgrounds, pets, hairstyles, etc. There’s also a gallery for users of e-Me, where you can check out other users’ creations and rate them. Sears has indicated that it will be adding games and other user interaction in the future. Items can be saved to a closet and printed out for an in-store discount on clothes.

[Mashable: Link]

“Meez is a website that allows users to create their own animated avatars, or “3D I.D.” graphics, for the Web.” Wikipedia.

Further evidence that there’s money t0 be made in cyberspace … or that there’s money to be made selling cyberspace to Sears et. al.

Interview with legendary adman Lee Clow
By Bob Garfield - June 11, 2007

Clow: I found my way into advertising because I loved, kind of, the art of communication. I was inspired by the ’60s and Bernbach and all that stuff, that it could be smart, it could be artful, it could be interesting. So I always feel a little bit mixed, because advertising has such a, kind of, a damning definition, and at the same time, I love it when it’s done well. And that’s what I’ve tried to do for a lot of years.

… The world has evolved to a place where brands that need to speak to their audience have to understand that everything that they do is media. Everything that they do is telling their story.

… I think it’s this new age of transparency and kind of obligation that everything that a brand does is a message, and it needs to be done artfully and truthfully and intelligently, because that’s how people are ultimately going to evaluate brands that they want to do business with. And I think ultimately brands are going to become media.

… Creative people are 50% ego and 50% insecurity. They need to constantly be told they’re good and they’re loved. And nobody’s figured out a way to celebrate the people who do interesting, multimedia accomplishments on behalf of brands. Sometimes it ends up being looked at as just kind of integrated marketing, where everything uses the same typeface and the same color. So it’s kind of denigrated by, oh, well, it’s just, you know, that old integration, whole egg bullshit. And sometimes it’s viewed as, that’s the interactive guy’s job, and I’ll do the main media. …

… You also have a generational thing. I’m, like, the oldest guy in the business, and I think I get it, but so many of the older creative people are just comfortable in what they learned to do and what they like to do and what they care about. The kids that are doing the coolest stuff in our agency are these young bloods and these young, just-out-of-school [kids] who love the idea of doing all media and love the idea of doing underground YouTube films. So it’s also going to be a bunch of the older creative people retire or die, you know, and young people smart enough to know what they love doing may be the ones that figure out how to celebrate or recognize it.

… It seems like it’s the agency’s responsibility to try and harness the creative talent and enthusiasm and point it at a marketing problem and so on. It’s like coaching a basketball team. The players are young, multimillionaire kids that can do amazing shit. And the coach has to make them play together and win championships. If they were left to their druthers, they’d be out there trying to out-slam-dunk each other and not sharing the ball. So you’re basically harnessing.

… We have to figure out a way to get paid for our ideas, own some of our ideas in perpetuity. If Ammirati still owned the Ultimate Driving Machine and got residuals every year, like the voice-over announcer and the music people do when they rerun spots, it would be a much fairer model. But instead it’s just a commodity, and we pay you whatever we pay you, and we own that line forever, and you can’t come after it. I’m a huge champion that we’re going to — we should move to a compensation model that has to do with our talent, our creativity and our ideas and the storytelling ability that we have in all media. If we don’t do that, we are going to either be sliced up or eclipsed.

[Lee Clow: Advertising Age]

Via The Hidden Persuader

“Audio ‘fingerprint’ for content-relevant ads”
The Register reports:

The first thing that came out of our mouths when we heard that Google is working on a system that listens to what’s on your TV playing in the background, and then serves you relevant adverts, was “that’s cool, but dangerous”.

… The idea is to use the existing PC microphone to listen to whatever is heard in the background, be it music, your phone going off or the TV turned down. The PC then identifies it, using fingerprinting, and then shows you relevant content, whether that’s adverts or search results, or a chat room on the subject.

… Google says that its fingerprinting technology makes it impossible for the company (or anyone else) to eavesdrop on other sounds in the room, such as personal conversations, because the conversion to a fingerprint is made on the PC, and a fingerprint can’t be reversed, as it’s only an identity.

But we should think that “spyware” might take on an extra meaning if someone less scrupulous decided on a similar piece of software.

[The Register: Link]

Thanks, Geoff.

Interesing post at Waxy.org about contextual advertising generally and The Deck specifically:

Late last year, Jim Coudal started a boutique advertising network called The Deck. A few things make The Deck’s approach unique among other online ad networks I’ve seen.

First, every advertiser must offer a product or service that the Deck members have used or paid for, and we’re very picky people. Second, the ad slots themselves are very limited (currently only six slots), forcing us to choose best candidates. And the ads are cleanly designed and unobtrusive, without animation and limited to one per page.

I’d like to see a world where online ads are meaningful, representing the ideals of the writer and the interests of the reader. Careful moderation and unobtrusive presentation will hopefully lead to a better experience for everyone, which in turn means better results for advertisers. It’s an interesting experiment, and I’m proud to be in the company of net legends like Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Fried, and John Gruber. Neat guys with very good taste. [February 16, 2006]