AdWeek asks if the new H-P campaign cuts too close to the recent boardroom scandal. Here.

While the self-inflicted carnage at H-P continues to run its course, (see this front page article from Thursday’s Journal "I spy. How H-P kept tabs on me for a year." by a Journal reporter. Ouch. Here.)

Mortarmark has to wonder what kind of questions are being raised about positioning a H-P Personal Computer as the best place to keep personal information, when, well, HP is probably the last company we should trust with our personal data.

Pity poor Goodby. One hopes the brand cops at HP can withstand the flack. As we have noted before, the new campaign for HP is thrilling. See "H-P’s computers are personal again". Here.

Ever wished you could look over a rival’s shoulder and listen to their pitch? Russell Davies (a fellow Brit if I am not mistaken) does just that and demonstrates its actually kind of like listening to a kindred spirit — only wittier and more like, totally artic-ew-lat. Check out this description of the creative process (ripped with no editing from his blog) and then read the entire post.

It’ll change what you do in your next pitch.

"… This is the model of idea creation that most agencies (advertising, digital, whatever) sell their clients. A bunch of smart strategists narrow down the strategic possiblities (with their clients or without) getting to a simple, smart, sharp, focused strategic idea
which forms the basis of a controlled explostion of creativity. (Not too big, not too small). This idea is then implemented across a number of media channels to the happiness of everyone . This model is, of course, complete bollocks, and it’s designed chiefly, to save money by a) keeping the really expensive people (the creatives) working for the minimum amount of time and b) making the process look calm and predictable. No good idea has ever happened like this.

The reality of any good process that produces great work is more like this:


It’s a mess. A good strategist involves the executers as soon and as often as possible. She allows execution to feedback into strategy and vice versa. Something that happens at the end changes something you thought of at the beginning. It’s chaotic, wasteful and unpredicatble. It involves lots of people, lots of dead-ends and wastes lots of ideas. But it’s the only way to produce stuff that goes beyond the everyday run of communications. Something that people actually want to engage with. Something that works."

p.s. And marvel at how he integrates You Tube videos and his camera into the post. We have to try that.

Last year, Burger King’s TV-ad spending fell 18%, spending on
magazines dropped 78% and newspapers declined 29%, (TNS
Media Intelligence).

An interview with the chain’s marketing chief, Russ Klein, in today’s Journal reveals why:

"…since 2003 we made a
decided push into emerging media and we decided to get into a whole
host of things from micro sites, mobile phones, video downloads, text
messaging and gaming… We weren’t going to wait around for the
traditional measurement systems to catch up with it. The eyeballs have
already moved.

[Commenting on a recent ad that pictured a faux striptease and worries that the King only appeals to young men, Klein reveals the BK has very strong sense of its customers] …our core customer is a customer who generally appreciates
the edge, if you will, that we deliver our advertising with.

…we
think that the DNA of the Burger King brand tends to be a bit more
adolescent and stormy than that of our competitors. McDonald’s tends to
be a regression to childhood while Wendy’s is more paternal and
old-fashioned.

…My personal philosophy is effective advertising stems
from tension, and when it’s provocative it’s more ingrained in the
culture…I think viewers today appreciate clever and provocative
advertising."

Mr Klein has succeeded in reinvigorating an old brand without talking benefits or following any of the fast food industry’s marketing playbook. The new work flowed from a tighter, differentiated vision of the BK customer. Read the rest of the interview here (subscription required).

Why is so much advertising so darn poor? Why do we insist on catering to the lowest common denominator?

Well if Professor James Flynn is right, our ads should actually be getting smarter because we — the global consumer — are way smarter than previous generations.

In fact, IQ scores have been rising for decades.

Despite conventional wisdom’s dire predictions of the steady, unrelenting dumbing down of society, we are better problem solvers now than our fathers, and their fathers before them.

"According to Flynn’s numbers, if someone testing in the top 18 percent
the year FDR was elected were to time-travel to the middle of the
Carter administration, he would score at the 50th percentile."