To everything there is a season

Something important to consider in these troubled times - the sarcastic wisdom of my favorite cartoonist, Bill Watterson, speaking through the eyes of six-year-old Calvin:

"Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too.

"This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice.

"Dad says the sun isn't going out. He says it's colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon.

"Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"

The Commercials About Nothing

While Jerry Seinfeld broke new ground with Seinfeld, his Show About Nothing, by proving that a story could be woven around no particular plotline, the advertisements for Microsoft's troubled Vista OS in which he stars do, it turns out, require a plot.

While television advertisements are essentially just sixty-second stories, the very purpose of a spot - to inform as well as entertain - makes the idea that advertisements need to have a plot self-evident. (Or at least evident to this self.) While a show about nothing is entertaining, the Seinfeld-esque ads starring Bill and Jerry were roundly critcized and accomplished nothing in the way of brand-building.

It didn't take long (just days, apparently) before Microsoft itself got past the infatuation with their sudden hipness (albeit borrowed from one of the hippest people of... 1994) and recognized that the ads were, in the end, about nothing, and would likely result in, well, nothing. They've now pulled them.

Microsoft's take is that because media buys are done months in advance, it 'proves' the ads were meant to be discontinued. Except we all know that cancellations are done with a phone call, so the idea that the end of the Seinfeld campaign was planned is, in my view, preposterous.

Wunderkind Alex Bogusky of Crispin+Porter+Bogusky has been profiled as a creative savior to the stale Microsoft, so what impact this will have on the agency's hold on the historically transient Microsoft account - and Bogusky's luster - has yet to be seen. As for me, I think Alex and team will prove resilient and go on to perform exceptionally well.

Too bad the same can't be said of Microsoft's Vista OS.

Supercomm Returns

Remember Supercomm?

'Back in the day', as I catch myself using phrases my father once did, Supercomm was the 'it' event of the telecom industry. It was the type of event where if you were in the business you had to launch something, or close a deal, or both, and then come back year after year with a bigger, better display - this show sucked the life out of many annual marketing budgets. And like car shows and builder shows, long before American Idol it was a haven for singer-dancers to take a break from waiting tables and be discovered in an exhibitors booth – by showcasing their unique talent of staying in key while rhyming "Motorola".

Sponsors TIA and USTelecom had split the event years ago, each claiming the mantle of Supercomm to fair to middlin' success, but in recent years their shows came together again as NXTcomm. Now, realizing that even years on from its heyday the name Supercomm has cachet, and with the June 09 Chicago event Supercomm is once again Supercomm.

According to the news release, TIA and USTelecom say the name change reflects recent developments in communications. That's a political statement in a political year. It's clear to me and other observers that the Supercomm cachet means a return to old style 'if you aren't here, you're not anywhere' power the organizers would like to regain. The demise of Supercomm was followed by confusion, weakness in both events, and general dissatisfaction with trade shows in telecom. I count myself among many irritated exhibitors who wanted TIA and USTelecom to reunite – which they did as NXTcom, then, now, properly, again as SuperComm.

Bring out the rented ficus and double padded orange carpet. I've clients to call.

The (Burger) King of Online Advertising

While Outdoor advertising is mostly ugly, television ads universally inane, and radio advertising has arguably the worst creative (few creatives are experienced enough to use the medium well or have the budgets to maintain high production values) it is actually online advertising that I find the most annoying. However, as a nascent medium, the approaches used continue to evolve and banners, particularly flash banners, have continued to progress from the aggravatingly distracting (think lowermybills.com and their dancing video clips) to the growing movement toward branded entertainment. Google itself has created an entire department within their AdWords franchise to develop the concept.

Branded entertainment takes an established business model and moves it to the web. New content is being developed with the goal to entertain, not distract the user. The result is more and more engaged viewers, and a more positive brand association between the user and the sponsor. The latest 'name' to develop this type of material is Seth McFarland of Fox Television's "No Way I'm Letting My Kid Watch That" er, "The Family Guy". He is creating unique "webisodes" that will be syndicated through AdSense to sites targeting 18-34 year old men. The first ones from the Family Guy creator are sponsored by Burger King, which places an animated ad (also by McFarland) featuring the BK king mascot runs before the animated short plays. The content is ostensibly unrelated to Burger King or its products.

MacFarlane indicates that creating the webisodes frees him from the constraints of television (Really? It's Fox, its thirty minutes, not thirty seconds, and I don't find The Family Guy particularly restrained!) So McFarlane gets another creative outlet, Burger King gets access to prospective burger eaters, and those burger eaters are entertained instead of merely distracted.

Online advertising is quickly becoming the Cinderella of advertisers. Once only favored by media buyers, agency and other creatives are also now seeing the potential of building a brand online by entertaining and engaging customers online, not annoying them into submission.