This is the newsletter from my local organic veg delivery scheme (you can see the mud). I love being talked to like a person, and from a person, not a company. Trouble is, when was the last time you read copy like this? Because we’ve turned writing copy into a trade, we’ve lost the ability to write like this.

It reminds me that Helmut Krone often used to write or amend copy for Avis ads, because he said copywriters couldn’t write like he wanted them to.

Reuben Turner, creative director, Cascaid / The Good Agency

I’m delighted that the DMA has finally decided to take digital seriously, with its ‘revamped’ awards for 2008.

A little bit late to the party, perhaps, but better late than never.

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for the agency blog about how DM was failing miserably to embrace digital.

I thought then – and I still do – that digital belongs to us. After all, we already understand the idea of bringing brands to life; the importance of involvement and engagement; the secret of getting people to do something. We know all about targeting and measurement and testing.

Combine that with the expertise of online practitioners - interaction designers, information architects, developers – and I think you’ve got something special in the making. And something that sits right in the middle of our domain.

So why have we been so reluctant to grab the opportunity? (more…)

http://scampblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tuesday-tip-no-36-how-to-do-direct.html

RT

Utterly gratuitous post, I admit. Nothing much to do with DM either, I admit. But I have to admit that I think the ad campaign for Tom Ford’s perfume and eyewear, which has just been banned in Italy(!), is amazing. In a sort of how on earth did they allow that in the first place kind of way. Superb art/porn. Discuss. Etc. (Google it. I am not posting it.)

I started writing a ranting post just now but then I remembered the words of some amateur philosopher friend of a friend in The Swan the other night: “Why are we all so negative these days? Why don’t we just be optimistic instead? We’d be a lot happier”. So instead of moaning I thought I’d just send a link to a site that made me laugh and reminded me to never take this industry too seriously. http://adverbatims.blogspot.com/

 

You may have seen it before. Don’t worry if you’ve heard some of the quotes where you work - I have.

 Scanned from The Copy Book.Â

In the last couple of weeks both Ogilvy and RKCR/Y&R have been victim of green activists. Ogilvy because of Dove and it’s links with palm oil and RKCR/Y&R because it works for Land Rover and BAe Systems.

Just when Dove was winning hearts and minds with their campaign for real beauty, out comes an ugly skeleton from the cupboard. Dove are the biggest users of palm oil and that’s causing the Indonisian lowland forests to be laid waste.

(more…)

To that point, has anyone ever seen a great TV ad done by a DM agency?

Just curious.

Chris Catchpole
Creative Partner
catchpole&friends
Chair of the DMA Creative Forum

It was The Precision Marketing Awards the other evening. We were nominated in the Best Integrated Campaign category. It’s always nice have your agency’s name read out at these events, better still taking the walk to the podium. As usual, there was a mixture of ‘well done, great work’ and ‘well who would have thought that’d win’…

I used to be an old cynic when it came to awards – a love/hate relationship. As much as I wanted to mock the chumminess, the ‘I’ll vote for you if you vote for me’ set, the correlation between those who judged the awards and those who won the awards, the dodgy tactical voting, you still can’t beat the feeling when your agency’s name is read out a few seconds before the overall result. (more…)