Cuckoo for Portland

by Susan Carroll | Dec 15, 2014 | Random

Ok, so I was planning on giving you 12 days of Xmas advertising. But what I found from the Big Brands, as clever as they are with graphic design, just doesn’t measure up to the magic of the previously featured pieces posted here in December. This cuckoo clock for Portland Tourism does. It looks like a giant gingerbread house on acid, with the irresistible quirkiness of the TV show, Portlandia, that both celebrates and mocks this hip Northwest city. So here we are on the 3rd day of Xmas, and with true love I give to you, my fellow Poets, another piece of the dream… from Weiden + Kennedy (who else but, as the agency and its “nest” was featured in Episode 4 of Portlandia). See story in AdFreak.

http://www.travelportland.com/article/portland-happening-now-seattle/

Billboard Magic

by Susan Carroll | Dec 9, 2014 | Random

We all need more magic during these dark days of winter. This billboard for the Quebec Magic Festival (what a great client) makes me love the medium of the billboard again. Except for potentially causing driving accidents, what could be a better addition to an urban landscape than a well-crafted billboard?

When I was first considering working as a creative in the magical world of advertising (as seen on TV), I was just about 22 years old and lucky enough to be the Administrative Assistant to the One Show. Sorting through hundreds of entries in this prestigious awards show, I still recall a billboard for an exterminating company (one would think, not such a great client). Headline: There are no termites in Spokane. Visual: the billboard had termites scaled to the type, with actual pieces of the board chewed away.

Now that is a perfect example of using the medium as the message (remember Marshall McLuhan).

Holiday Charming

by Susan Carroll | Dec 9, 2014 | Random

Here’s a train you won’t want to disembark.

This charming ad for AirBNB takes you on a train ride through a miniature world, exciting your imagination with all the options you have for sharing/trading lodgings with travelers around the world.

TBWA Singapore and New Zealand-based animation shop Cirkus worked together to produce this beautifully crafted little piece.
Rather than opt for CGI, they took one long shot, giving us the train engineer’s POV. The underlying message is this brand of holiday travel gives you ‘a small world’ and invites you into its magic.

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Visualization Tools for Healthcare Advertising Creatives

by Susan Carroll | Nov 20, 2014 | Random

Visualizing How Disease Affects Organs
BioDigital Human is a useful tool for viewing anatomy, including organs affected by different conditions. You can search by disease, including finding visuals created using the tool by the community. The free version is available through Google Apps. I find it helps me to visually understand new diseases and how they affect a variety of organs. Views include transparency and 3-D models.

Cowboys Herding Cats

by Susan Carroll | Oct 30, 2014 | Random

Great commercials, like pop songs, enter our collective consciousness (and sometimes our collective unconcious) and become cultural currency. Sometimes, and often, they are as annoying as a silly pop song with a catchy beat: think Mr. Whipple’s “Please Don’t Squeeze The Charmin.” Other times they cleverly catch on to a phrase that’s in common currency, an aphorism, and attach their name to it. I’m not sure how effective the latter is in driving sales, but I do believe this approach creates a deeper connection. And I think provides the work itself, when cleverly written and expertly crafted, with the power of any lasting work.

So my very first “Poet of Commerce” award goes to a Super Bowl commercial that first aired over a decade ago for EDS, by Fallon, Minneapolis, credited to Creative Director, David Lubars and Art Director, Dean Hanson. Cowboys Herding Cats.

This commercial is dear to my heart, and probably many others if over 20,000 hits on Google search is any indication, not just because it has cats. But because it celebrates the idea that small is indeed better, albeit as a parody of the cowboy ethos. Humans, like cats, have a tendency to want to go their own way.  

Ironically, one of the greatest commercials of all time has outlasted its client. EDS. The electronic payroll processing company founded by Ross Perot was bought by Hewlett Packard in 2008 for $13 billion. And now it’s perhaps the biggest business story of the year that Hewlett Packard is breaking into two different companies, to become HP and Hewlett Packard Enterprises, according to a recent San Jose Mercury news story. I wonder if it was because running such a huge company was exponentially more difficult than herding cats.

I Love Maps

by Susan Carroll | Jun 20, 2014 | Random

Countries that have Google Street View Maps

Check out this amazing compilation of maps of the world, from a map that shows Internet usage around the world by time of day to places that rapper Ludacris mentions having “hoes.” Some of these maps have quite literally changed my world view: For example, finding out that the majority of the highest paid U.S. public employees are sports coaches.

The top three essential online copywriting tools this week

by Susan Carroll | Jul 24, 2013 | Random

I may be no techno-whiz, but having started with a Mac 512K and now working under Windows 8, I have learned some software is essential and some is just not.  I’m not crazy about Windows 8, and after 4 months am still not happy about having to swipe off into unmarked areas of my screen to access my programs or turn off the computer. So, for revenge, I am swearing off most things Microsoft.  If you’re an independent and vengeful copywriter, or agency, like me, you may want to also. Here is a list of tools that I recently downloaded FOR FREE that might make your work flow more smoothly and/or give you hours of fun (vs. frustration) on a stream-lined budget. But non-buyer beware, there is loads of crap bundled with some of these programs — so carefully read what you’re installing (a lesson learned when installing Windows 8).

For a desktop Personal Information Manager like Microsoft Office or Microsoft Outlook, I got Essential PIM. This open source software, given 4 stars by CNET, can download your Google mail and calendar. And you can connect to a database. I tried importing my password spreadsheet in CSV format, but it translated all the data into one column.  I also wanted to sync with my iPhone contacts and calendar. But you have to plunk down $35 for that. Which seems a reasonable price to pay, if I can get my all my emails, contacts and appointments in one place on my desktop.

Timetracking.  I wanted something simple that would help me track time spent on various client projects. Although I thought Tiny Time Tracker would fit the bill, it turned out that once I removed it from my task bar, I couldn’t find it. It runs from an invisible Website and I had to uninstall my Java app to get rid of it.

Google app’s Time Tracker I kept as it logs how much time you spend on a website, sits up in the top right corner of Chrome, and is very transparently easy to turn off/on or remove. However, I’m still in search of a time tracking app that, like Tiny Time Tacker lets you press a button to track your work by client and also generates a spread sheet.

Concept Board is another Google app which is great for virtual brainstorming. It lets you put ideas on stickies, keeps an outline of what you add, and lets you rearrange thoughts. Your collaborators/clients can sign in and add comments.
Free and paid versions are available.

Mix and Match Top Search Terms of 2012

by Susan Carroll | Dec 14, 2012 | Random

To be or not to Bebe?