Brothers & Burgers ( A Tale of Two Kingdoms)

Not so long ago in a land not so far away there were various and sundry black creative who dwelled in a land of wonder. They whittled away all day in their magic shop of ad-like wonders. But one day the King approached and all the little ad elves became gleeful and anxious. As the king always had good tidings of new creative task, often tied to ad shop sustaining budgets and a modicum of fear because said profits were always steeped in opportunities for loss. On this particular day the king bore his trademarked plastic smile, no really it's trademarked. Through those unmoving creep-filled lips came great tiding of diversity and joy. The cherub like black elves roared with delight and murmured of actual budgets and possible real world Agency of Record status. But none such status awaited them. Alas, the king declared I will unify the part of the kingdom (account) that is usually reserved for the least of you and bequeath it to thine other dudes.

The little inhabitants of Uniworld ad land were devastated. And despite their pleas sprinkle with boast of magical knowledge of the "dark" arts. The king still saw fit to let the little black ad elves craft his ad wares and spin his tiny straw-like budgets into black (or green) gold no more. There once happy work shop grew suddenly sullen, the sun shone a tad less.

The king was very pleased with himself and his decision. For he had found a much fairer village  to plunder, I mean lay his blessings upon. Though it were a far and distant land known as Boulderus Colorado. In a place Ad people believe to be veritable Mecca of marketing. There was a tiny village called Crispin Porter & Bogusky. It was indeed a much fairer place, for a practitioner of the "Dark" Arts was seldom seen there. This mythical village was a place that didn't believe you had to understand the "dark" arts to practice them, you simply had to be really good at your form of uber-hubristic arts to do anything. They had a sorta one ring to rule them all approach to creating ad magic. Why doubt it, for years it had served them and their liege well.

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Big agencies woo business from multicultural firms

Someone's about to get pummeled and it won't be the general market shops. So line up the usual suspects; black, hispanic, asians, it's ass-whooping time. 

By SUZANNE VRANICA

As they seek new revenue sources, Madison Avenue firms are beefing up their multicultural offerings, posing a challenge to specialist Hispanic and African-American agencies.

Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners has hired Sandra Alfaro to lead its newly created multicultural division, dubbed Ramona, which was formed several months ago after its parent company, MDC Partners, folded a multicultural agency into Kirshenbaum.


Over the past few months, Interpublic Group's DraftFCB and MDC's Crispin Porter + Bogusky have both hired several high-ranking executives from multicultural firms.Ms. Alfaro, a former managing partner at the independent Hispanic agency Vidal Partnership, is one of the rash of high-profile multicultural ad experts who have been wooed into joining generalist ad agencies over the past year as those firms look to take advantage of the dollars flowing to multicultural advertising.

Multicultural marketing is one of the "fastest growing parts" of DraftFCB's business, says Laurence Boschetto, Draft's chief executive. Its business in the space has "doubled in the past two years," the agency says. Draft declined to reveal its revenue.

Mainstream ad agencies have dabbled in multicultural ads for years, but many are becoming more aggressive because, they say, some marketers are now more open to working with general ad firms for this part of their business.


Earlier this year, for example, Burger King shifted its Hispanic and African-American ad work to Crispin. The burger baron says it wanted "to create advertising that speaks with a consistent brand voice while continuing to respect and embrace the ethnically diverse population."

Church's Chicken, which works with Kirshenbaum, says that pooling everything at a generalist agency helps the multicultural component of the marketing campaign be part of the initial ad strategy, not just an "afterthought."

But Andy Bonaparte, Church's Chicken's vice president of advertising, says the approach works only if the general agency has invested in hiring the right multicultural talent. (The fast-food chain is owned by private- equity firm Friedman, Fleischer & Lowe LLC.)

Meanwhile, having generalist firms bulk up on minority ad talent is a worrisome trend for multicultural agencies. It "might lead to the demise of this segment," says Byron Lewis, chief executive of UniWorld Group, a multicultural ad firm. "There are so few [minorities] in the [ad] industry, so to deplete the staffing would be a major problem," he adds.

Ad executives say they expect ad spending directed at minority audiences to jump significantly when new data emerge from the 2010 Census. Some noticed an uptick earlier this year when the Census released data suggesting that whites are on the verge of becoming a minority among newborn children in the U.S.

Mr. Lewis says it took the 2000 Census results to wake up many marketers to this segment initially.

Last year, ad spending on Spanish-language media in the U.S. fared better than the overall ad market, falling 9.3% to $5.3 billion, while ad outlays on all other media slid 13% to $121.3 billion, says Kantar Media, an ad-tracking unit of WPP PLC.

Still, marketers have a long way to go to make their advertising proportionate. Advertisers spent an average of 7.8% of their total television spending on Hispanic TV in 2009, according to Kantar. There has been a lot of "lip service," adds Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at Kantar.

The industries that have been creating ads for minority audiences most aggressively include fast-food companies, department stores, telecommunication companies and TV-service providers, says Kantar. Sectors that still lag include pharmaceutical companies.

Marketers such as the Subway sandwich chain and Coca-Cola say they are spending more of their ad dollars to woo minority consumers. Coke has recently made a multicultural approach part of every major ad push it launches.

"Multicultural consumers currently consume nearly three out of every 10 Coca-Cola products sold in the U.S. And in 10 years, all indications are that percentage will be closer to four out of 10," says Bea Perez, chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola North America. Still, Coke continues to work with several agencies that specialize in the space. Ms. Perez says Coke's general market agencies "need to partner with the agencies that have the core insights."

Ms. Perez says Coke's general market agencies are expected to come up with ads for multicultural audiences. For example, Wieden + Kennedy recently did an outdoor ad for the holidays that showed a young African- American boy sharing a gift-wrapped six-pack of Coke.

Write to Suzanne Vranica at suzanne.vranica@wsj.com

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Gender Disparities in the Design Field

Walk into any design classroom, at any college in America, and you’ll see a comfortable mix of male and female students. Turn your attention to the front of the classroom, or down the hall to the faculty and staff offices, and that wonderful gender balance starts to skew. Travel outside the campus, and there’s really no balance at all.

But why? If there are design classrooms across the country with a 50/50 blend of men and women — and in many classrooms, there are more females than males — then why doesn’t the design field represent the same ratio? Why does creative employment still showcase a male-dominated presence? What happens to these passionate and educated females? Certainly, there must be more to it than child-bearing — or is there? Is a more gender-balanced field really all that important? Why, or why not?


Gender disparities in the design field is a controversial as well as a complex topic. Image credit: Choichun Leung

These questions and many others accompanied me to a design and technology conference this past fall. Minnebar, an annual Twin Cities conference that celebrates vision, niche technology and collective wisdom, provided the perfect platform for such inquiries. I hosted a session aptly named “The Equal Sign” to pitch the dilemma of the field not representing the classroom. I played the role of discussion facilitator, and was eager to see where the conversation would go. What I hadn’t realized, was that I wasn’t the only one perplexed by this phenomenon.
First, the Stats

According to Findings From A List Apart Survey 2009, a poll created by and for Web designers, 82.6% of Web designers are male. Ironically, 66.5% of the same respondents stated there is “definitely not” a gender bias in the design field. Web design is just one segment of the design world, but the statistic is nonetheless chilling.

My audience for the session? Predominantly female. It seems the topic itself is more intriguing for women than men. What these women had to say was sobering. One mentioned that it’s foolish to expect a male-dominated field to be able to design interfaces that appeal to how women want to interact with technology. In other words, young girls put off as consumers of technology aren’t likely to desire to create in that arena.

Another common theme during the discussion was that of heroes. So few female designers exist, and of them, few are known superstars in the industry. Of these, even less are known by individuals outside of the industry. Lack of visible female heroes results in lack of female interest. But there are countless male role models in the field; why can’t they be heroes for young girls with computers? The same reason why I’d rather aspire to be Run DMC, than Mariah Carey.
Second, the Perceptions

In the book Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that “research shows that both males and females believe that males are better than females at computing” (Clarke, 1992; Spertus, 1991). This finding is nearly 20 years old, but this mindset could easily have been held by the parents of today’s college students. Going to college can be hard, but pursuing a degree with little support from mom and dad makes it even harder.

There is also an unspoken expectation that women are very creative and make great print designers, but aren’t wired to splice the intricacies of new and constantly changing software and platforms — as noted in aFadtastic.net article written by designer Matt Davies. The field generally represents the occurrence of women holding positions in print, illustration and photography, with noticeable scarcity in more technology-dependent roles such as Web design, animation, game design and programming.

read more here.


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BO KNOWS NEGROS!

And what Bojangles knows is that black people can't make it through anything without a chicken break... hold on. Let me just finish off this two-piece combo I was downing when I saw this. *smack-umm-yum* OK, that's better, my keyboard is a lil greasy but none worse for the ware. One of the most heralded agencies around Boone-Oakley dropped this ad into the chicken grease and serves it up as a hot-crispy-mess! I can't say I don't understand the back slide from greatness, have you seen the floor in a chicken shack lately? But this same some does brilliant work that usually involves more mental elbow grease and less... well I won't go there again, I think you get the point. But what the hell? After a mad chicken dash the team dumps iced-tea on the coach? Or was that oil, someone said it was gravy? At any rate, it was a big bucket of wrong! Deep fried BS, I know I said no more chicken grease jokes, but I slipped.

This industry says it's moving to an all inclusive multi-cultural model, but we are far from there. Diversity Now Dammit!




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VW Polo: Tough. Beautiful. Polo

This is the new Volkswagen Polo commercial ‘Last Tango in Compton,’ from DDB UK and award winning director Jonathan Glazer (of Guinness Surfer, Sony Paint and Levis Odyssey) from Academy Films.
Shot in north London ‘Last Tango in Compton’ stars two of the world’s best Tango dancers – Gasper Godoy, Argentinean Tango World Champion, and partner Manuella Rossi, the world number two. The pair dance a specially choreographed routine overseen by one of the world’s foremost choreographers with a unique, simultaneous set-up of over 20 different camera’s following their every move.

That's Cross Cultural!




cred:
DDB, London, UK
Executive Creative Director: Jeremy Craigen
Copywriter: Dave Henderson
Art director: Richard Denney
Account Planners: Leo Rayman, Tom Lloyd
Production Company: Academy Films
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Director of Photography: Dan Landin

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Toshiba makes T-Pain look ignorant (or vice versa?)

OK so the richest guy in the room -- is the dumbest guy in the room? In America today that is very well possible, unless you equate money with smarts. Then T-Pain's auto-tuned genius is like printing money. It was a few short years ago anyway. But the brilliant lackeys all around him can create innovations from T-Pains sloppy seconds? He's better than he knows.
Look out everybody the lovable, laughable, brutish, black man oaf is back. Not since Step'n Fetchit have we seen the likes of Hip Hop's new portrayal of buffoonery. Wasn't there an opportunity in this commercial to do a little more than a celebrity endorsement. This is more like a reverse celebrity endorsement. Opportunity maximized! I guess. It's ok to dress the black man up as a funny guy, really it is, just get the other end of the spectrum right first. There's a lack of balance missing here. Dell used a hip hopper, Dr. Dre, to actually enhance its products as well promote its brand. What score for the marketing team. This spot just goes for the low-hanging fruit of "black guy = funny," that took some research.



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Say word son.

This is for the Say Something Poster Project and will go up for voting on November 15th. The idea presented was to have a design " to inspire teenage kids and help shape the hearts and minds of our next generation." The poster will be donated to a children's home in Boston called The Home for Little Wanderers.




Jared Nickerson





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...struggle with diversity in advertising

This is a post from 2009 by an incredible blogger named Macon D, His blog is called: "stuff white people do" His writing is always amazing and well researched. Macon always tries to present a balanced view of race in America. Although Macon is not from the advertising world, he has an interesting take on what he sees.  Please visit Macon here.

I know very little about what goes on behind the scenes of advertising campaigns. I also don't know how diverse American advertising firms and departments have become these days.

However, it seem to me that if a product is not marketed to a specific non-white audience, then the advertisers still consistently place middle-class, heterosexual white people in the middle of things. Non-white characters still occupy the margins, occasionally entering center-stage to interact with the white characters, usually in order to spice up things a bit.

Sometimes, in these ads that are not overtly targeted to a specific racial demographic, the non-white characters do spend a lot of time on center-stage, fully interacting on a seemingly equal level with the white characters. These forced, ostensibly colorblind scenarios can easily become racially overloaded train wrecks, like the following Old Navy ad, which is part of their current "Supermodelquins" campaign.

Do you suppose the makers of this ad thought much at all about sexism and racism in advertising? Or about the history of hypersexualized representations of "aggressive" black women? Or about the "white male gaze," and the abusive, sexually charged power that white men long wielded, over white women, black women, and black men?

I imagine that at some point, someone working on this campaign may have said something like, "Okay, this is risky, kinda risqué, right? Attention getting! But, one thing we cannot do is have the white woman naked with the black guy looking at her!" That would have been different; but would it have been any worse?

For more clues about what was on the minds of the makers of this ad, and of the other ads in the Supermodelquin campaign, here's a sort of featurette that provides some backstory for each character:

What do you think? Is this enlightened, multiculturally aware marketing? Or more of the same old clueless recirculation of hoary racist and sexist stereotypes? Or something else?

Also, Harry Allen follows up with a post that knocks it through the roof.

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The Most Iconic Men's Eyewear in the Last 100 Years

Framework is a series of posters highlighting the most iconic men’s eyewear of the last 100 years. It was designed by Glenn Manucdoc of Moxy Creative. Framework features 28 of the most iconic glasses from male personalities in music, film, entertainment, and politics; as well five posters highlighting the following iconic individuals:

Kanye West (The Ye’s), Yves Saint Laurent (The YSL’s), Andy Warhol (The Warhol’s), Ghandi (The Ghandi’s), and Johnny Depp (The Depp).

Legends 01. Woody Allen 02. Kanye West 03. Buddy Holly 04. Michael Caine 05. Kurt Cobain 06. John Lennon 07. Geordi LaForge 08. Malcolm X 09. Johnny Depp 10. Dame Edna 11. Stephen Colbert 12. The Blues Brothers 13. Austin Powers 14. Yves Saint Laurent 15. Elton John 16. George Costanza 17. Bootsy Collins 18. Elvis Costello 19. Terry Richardson 20. David Hockney 21. DMC of Run DMC 22. Andy Warhol 23. Mohandas Ghandi 24. Steve Urkel 25. Napoleon Dynamite 26. Clark Kent 27. Shock G of Digital Underground 28. Truman Capote.

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10 Things Marketers can Learn from a Multicultural Muppet

There's been a big uproar over this cute little muppet singing about her curly coif. It was in a word; Illuminating. Not only did it hit home for many, it also pierced hearts. I've read more than one story of women crying when they saw it. Heck there was even one particular comedic, but manly, guy who blogged about tears coming to his eyes when he saw this. I waited for a reference to onions or something in his eye, it never came. He, like most, were really moved by such a public and innocent declaration of hair. But in the black community it means so much more. Hair and appearance in general is very connected to self worth and value. Mainly because it's been the sole reason we have been often times and still are ostracized. The creator of this song/video is the white Head-Writer for Sesame Street named Joey Mazzarino, and it took even him by surprise. The fact of the matter is; He did it out of love. Not because Sesame Street ran out of ideas or the end of the year budget had to be spent. It was because his adopted black daughter was beginning to feel the subtle negative squeeze of being a person of color in America & most of the world. This powerful message cleverly disguised as a singing muppet has so much to say and many could heed it's lessons. Here are a few things marketers could learn about the "MultiCultural" market from this little song & infectiously cute dance:

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Ralph Santana on Brand Culturally Relevance

CMO Sees That as His Challenge and Opportunity
from Adage
It will take more than conventional marketing frameworks to unleash the full potential of the Samsung brand, Senior VP-CMO Ralph Santana explained at the ANA conference last week. "That's my role and that's the opportunity in front of me," he said. In order for the Samsung brand to be a "catalyst for growth," the marketer must work to "infuse cultural meaning into the brand," make it mean something to consumers, he said.

See the video after the jump.
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Adidas Basketball 2010: Slim Chin and Derrick Rose, adiZero Rose

cred:
180LA, USA
Executive Creative Director: William Gelner
Creative Directors: Gavin Milner, Grant Holland
Executive Producer / Managing Partner: Peter Cline
Producer: Anne Kurtzman
Producer: Dave Stephenson
Copywriter: Eric Helin
Art Director: Erwin Federizo
Group Account Director: Chad Bettor

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Watch the Pursuit of Passion

The film really is engaging. I think it is very inspirational and will encourage young people to take a first or maybe second look at the advertising industry. The insights into the ad world are priceless and I was even inspired by lot of what was said. Did you note there was like three (3) senior level creatives of color at TBWA! (What is Lee Clow doing to the industry, I like it!) They found a pretty great group of talent to speak to and they all delivered nuggets of addy markety goodness for the neophytes to bite deeply into.

The film also has it's detractors (sometimes me), who feel the industry in a large part overlooks existing talent and ethnic talent of the past. That talent has been mostly relegated to ethnic work only or pushed out of advertising all together. Now, of course this film can't be all things to all people, but that is a true and legitimate issue.

For now I'll keep the focus on what the film is attempting to do; inspire young hearts & minds. For that task I believe it gets a 10+! I wanted to run out and get an advertising job and so will many youngsters. I just hope the industry is ready to accept (not assimilate) the new talents, cultures, hearts & minds that are probably very different and even scary to some who are not accustomed to them. There are kids on the street right now that could put the best of advertising luminaries to shame and probably will someday.

The film is 22 minutes and 34 seconds long, it is worth every second.


See the entire film here after the jump.

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EBay to Appoint Richelle Parham as CMO

By Natalie Zmuda @AdAge.com

Visa Alum Fills Role Vacant Since Early 2009
After 18 months without a CMO, eBay is tapping a new chief marketer.
Richelle ParhamThe online giant is expected to announce today that it is adding Richelle Parham, a Visa alum, to its executive ranks. Ms. Parham fills a role that was vacated by Mike Linton in early 2009. Greg Fant, VP-marketing, had been lead marketer for the company. He is leaving the company as of today, while Ms. Parham will begin work Nov. 8.

Ms. Parham will serve as the marketing chief for the company's North American business and report directly to Christopher Payne, head of eBay North America. She will be charged with evolving the retailer's mobile technology platforms, as well as its vertical shopping experiences. She will also be focused on eBay's ongoing turnaround efforts.

Most recently Ms. Parham served as head of global marketing innovation and initiatives at Visa. Prior to that, she led global marketing services for the credit card company. She also spent 13 years at Digitas in various roles, including senior-VP and general manager of the agency's Chicago office.

EBay has been focused on improving customer service, as it looks to better compete with rivals such as Amazon and Zappos. Business has been improving, with the company reporting revenue for the second quarter was up 6% to $2.2 billion. Its stock price has also rebounded. It closed at $25.68 today, after going as low as $10.43 in early 2009. The first year of the recession was tougher on the company than it was on some of its competitors.

EBay's measured media spending has been on the rise. It increased spending by 17% to $89 million last year over the prior year. Through July it spent $32 million, according to Kantar Media. The retailer's agencies include Edelman and Airfoil, a small public relations firm. It does not have a creative agency of record.

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Lincoln MKX is for the powerful sisters

The new launch for the Lincoln MKX shows a powerful black woman making moves in her career and in her love life while sporting fancy new wheels. I guess these sort of narratives are still in vogue in black advertising. I'm certain it tested well with the demographic. I'd hoped they would mimic the general market campaign starring a Mad Men character. I can imagine Carla the house lady all gussied up as the lawyer driving past all the Betty Drapers of the world. Or that other phantom black woman character/playboy bunny they promised us. Well, at any rate, this Uniworld spot conveys the message of seamless style and technology... even without the lovely Carla (Deborah Lacey).

Carla (Deborah Lacey)



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The US is now the 2nd largest Hispanic population in the world

art by el mac

A new paper from E-Tech shows that the U.S. Hispanic growth is no longer fueled by the traditional immigration flow from the past, but by new births. The US is now the 2nd largest Hispanic population in the world, according to an analysis and report by Multicultural Marketing Resources, showing the projected totals by 2050 to be over 131 million. According to this number, Hispanics will then constitute 30% of the nation's population.

Hispanic households across the United States will sharply increase their economic clout over the next ten years and beyond. This demographic explosion has continued since 1990 and there is no let up. Go to Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears, K-Mart, to name a few stores, and you will see many Hispanic families loaded with consumer goods. The fact is, Hispanics. This is not a debt-ridden community. For years they learned the hard way that to have something, one has to earn it and save. Credit card companies solicit many Hispanic households.

According to the National Immigration Forum, says the report, in addition to consumer spending, "immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion dollars in tax revenue to federal, state and local governments." They work in key sectors, start their own businesses and in general contribute to a thriving economy. They love to buy and almost always buy in cash.

But the U.S. Hispanic market is not homogeneous. It is a market "comprised of subcultures from over 20 countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Spain, 63% of Mexican heritage." While there are many differences in their countries' geographies, their indigenous ancestries and their colonial histories, the unifying factor in this market segment is the Spanish language.

Hispanic market research has discovered that of the Hispanics surveyed, they prefer ads to be in Spanish over English, even though the younger group is more comfortable in English. In addition, research shows that Hispanics like any type of media, but prefer television and radio. Radio is a very effective medium to reach Hispanics because it has been found that they tend to listen all day, says the report.

more here

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Burrell Communications to automate media buying

By Laurie Sullivan @MediaPost.com 
Most marketers seem to understand automation tools streamline media buying, but not many embrace it. Do media buyers not realize automation squeezes out excess costs from the planning process similar to the way it eliminated costs from the manufacturing supply chain.

Automation enabled companies like Intel and Dell to reduce the cost of goods sold. The same thing will happen to the media buying process for paid search and display ads. Automation squeezes excess cost from processes. Media buyers who want to remove the fat from the media buying process will automate.

Burrell Communications wanted to automate the media buying process, so it began testing about three months ago Transis, an automated digital media buying and planning system from Centro, to support companies like American Airlines, Procter & Gamble, and General Mills. Transis organizes campaigns for ad agency teams and get buyers off of Excel, paper and FAX machines. It aims to eliminate the low value work done by buyers, so they can spent more time with clients and being more credit by giving them more time to think.

Automation tools are somewhat overdue, according to Don Moore, president at Burrell Digital. "Marketers understand it intellectually, but do they embrace it?" he says.
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Q: Can you find the racist cues in this commercial?

Answers after the jump below.

Vodafone in New Zealand was way ahead of the curve years ago with selling sexting. One of the very first advertisements for Text Messaging (SMS) in New Zealand. At this stage cellphones were starting to become a must have for everyone and Vodafone was the only network where Text Messaging was possible. Telecom later introduced text messaging but wasn't available on all phones and texting between networks wasn't possible.

Free text Wednesdays was a Vodafone promotion in those days. But these little Afroid characters made it all sexty.


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Spike Lee directs for MSNBC

He's telling us to lean forward. Thanks Spike!



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African Americans continue to early indicate

Although America grows in diverse cultures and people, African Americans still lead the way in trending buying patterns and forward thinking marketing decisions.


Macy's finding success with African-Americans by focusing on local, local, local
By Stephanie Clifford The N.Y. Times
Long before it was renamed Macy's, the department store of choice here was Rich's. Opening just after the Civil War, it drew generations of Atlantans with its coconut cake and the Pink Pig, a Christmastime children's train.

Now, after years of ownership by New York-based Macy's, the old Rich's stores are feeling a bit more like Atlanta again. The generic display near an entrance at the Cumberland Mall store, for example, has been replaced with a rack of white satin suits - yes, even in October.

"We have a lot of megachurches here in Atlanta, and for first Sunday, the mothers of the church wear white all year long," said Terry McDonald, a human resources manager for Macy's Cumberland and surrounding stores, referring to a church service held once every month.

After decades of acquiring, consolidating and centralizing, the department store chain is rediscovering - and financially exploiting - its multiple local roots, advancing a trend that is quickly being adopted by other retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and Best Buy.

It is a lesson many companies overlooked in the past 30 years as they rolled smaller stores into huge national brands, and headquarters required what the outlets in Biloxi or Boise sell.

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