Category: Creative

A Commentary on Bad TV: Who’s writing this stuff anyway?

Did you ever watch a television commercial and wonder, who wrote this stuff? I do. Every day.

I watched Al Roker (ala The Today Show) on-camera for The Office Depot open with, “Who helps businesses and kids succeed?” Really? The Office Depot help kids and business succeed? Are you giving away school and office supplies for free because you’re a commodity retailer and customers can buy what you sell from any competitor, a grocery store, a drug store or by bulk at Costco. And are you tutoring or offering free consulting because that’s what kids and businesses need to succeed, not another pen supplier. And the close – “Life’s good when the kids are happy!” Really, Al? Really?

Lipton Iced Tea details their three simple ingredients (two if sunshine is not an ingredient) in a spot as the Terminator-Tea girl catches a ride on a Vespa through downtown rush hour traffic to the zen-like close…

Making Sex Look Cool

In the world of nightclubs, getting different cultural factions to party together is about as difficult as bringing the Serbs and the Croats to the same table. Pittsburgh has its share of black clubs, gay clubs, and big hair clubs and sports bars, but night spots where elements of these different lifestyles come together are few and far between.

For the past seven years, Metropol in the Strip District has been our best shot at achieving a progressive urban mix. For almost a decade the venue has held up well, doing its part to keep what there is of a dance scene in this city simmering. Recently, however, Metropol owner Robin Fernandez decided it was time to raise the heat. In an effort to generate some new excitement and take Metropol back to the edge of what’s happening nationally in the club culture, he initiated the idea of “Sex and Violet’s,” and hired the South Side-based team of Ideahaus to carry the concept through…

Great Acoustics, Lousy Seats

This full-page ad for the local symphony – aimed, of course, at a youth audience – was preceded by a 1/4 page teaser of just the “for a good time” graffito.

“They brought us in for our pretty extreme ideas,” Kevin Popovic begins, then backs up to recite his original quote on the wall, a “Man from Nantucket’-ish limerick.

“The client proved skittish about that. They told us to lift something from the music’s text – food, drink and lust-,” he gives a nod of approval to the song cycle’s pagan themes, “This [Give me color...'] was tame compared to some parts. Then, we shot it in the symphony hall bathroom. The duotone has that ‘red light district’ look.” Popovic adds that the orchestra had been adamant about doing their ads in-house. They still made a big effort to keep this away from their older subscriber base…

Lollapalooza: Just for Fun.

In my later years I realized that the crowd doesn’t like to catch the old kid, especially on his sixth dive (that’s another story ;-).

In the midst of my adventures I would crack out a little disposable camera to catch the perspective from the inside – eye of the hurricane, if you will. And if I got busted for taking pics by security it wasn’t too much of a financial loss. The images I caught we at times amazing. The introspection, the collision, the swift justice of a mob on a bully jock gone wrong, the systematic violation of a girl on her third ride through the gauntlet…

Emotion. Sweat. Insight. That moment. An embedded reporter showing everyone else what I saw. And it was just for fun. Just a reminder while I’m flashing back to remember what got you excited about our business in the first place…

Remembering SWATCH

It’s because we pitched them back in the day as a little creative shop that could – but in the end we did not (there’s a very short story and a lesson at the end ;-).

So, we we’re doing work for a retailer in Downtown Pittsburgh who knew a Regional Guy at SWATCH who told us if we did work he liked he’d let us pitch to the forces that be. We put our best “heads” together to look at the brand that was the rage in the day.

Remember, everyone had at least on SWATCH watch, right?

Back to the story. So we developed this work that was “thinky” enough for the the fashion elite, deep enough for the true surf market, and stylish enough to contribute towards the expected creative SWATCH had brought via the product design. We worked on the visuals internally and finally decided on using a flatbed scanner propped with hands and baubles. On its side, we looked like a Mamogram in action with the sweeping light bar…