I started to think about this old little friend the other day.
Actually, I received two different jobs with the same recommendation:
“The client wants us to think about a strong call to action in the end”.
So I did it. I thought about it.
And my conclusion was pretty simple.
Shouldn’t every ad be the call to action itself, always?
Ok, this is not a conclusion, this is a question, but let’s move ahead.
If a commercial is good, I immediately will start to think about using the product (unless, of course, it’s a tampon).
I don’t …

I went to the Cannes Lions festivals this year.
The festival is different than it used to be. It’s now much more a networking/seminar week than an exhibition and celebration of the world’s advertising excellence.
Which is good, because it gives us the opportunity to listen to people like Spike Jonze, Ben Stiller, Mark Zuckerberg (who didn’t talk much, actually) and Jon Landau. But it’s also bad, because of the shortage of excellence in the work, shown and awarded, there.
Curiously, this year, the two most classical Grand Prix, Film and Press, were …

I worked on big tobacco. I also worked on anti-tobacco. I prefer big tobacco. Please smoke more so we can prove anti-tobacco ads don’t work. Any idiot can write an anti-tobacco ad. To prove it, I am going to write 100 while watching 2 and a Half Men. For visuals, just picture a lonely kid or a lung x-ray or a guy talking with one of those buzzers to the throat.

-Smoking kills 45,000,000 people a year and orphans twice as many.
-Smoking isn’t just for losers, it’s also for dead people.
-Smoking is sexy, …

This video…
Looks a lot like this…

You take the great ad that was done by Levis, change it around enough so that your peers won’t notice and then present. Upper management will love you. Doing something that looks like it’s been done before but with enough change for no one to notice is a great way to look creative while avoiding risk. You’ll probably win awards, get promoted and start sleeping with the hot girl in media. I’ve always tried to avoid this approach because I’m a self-destructive asshole who’s going …

It’s World Cup time.
And in Brazil, the World Cup is a religion.
Every four years we decorate all the streets and houses with green and yellow.
We spend all our money in jerseys, flags, paint, horns, fireworks and brand new TVs.
And we don’t work at game days. It’s like a month with 7 holidays, if we get to the final.
For advertising, it’s time for new ideas to catch people’s attention.
One of the greatest hits of this year is the talking beer.
You go to the bar, ask for a regular can of beer …

Sometimes they ring the doorbell.
Sometimes they simply appear in people’s bathroom discovering germs in their toilets or in their mouths.
Sometimes they pop in the TV asking about somebody’s digestive system, clothes’ stains and if the victim wants to try a new brand of yoghurt or detergent.
The reporters from the commercials.
Always wearing suits or lab jackets, holding their microphones displaying the brand logo to the camera.
They just can’t find the answer of one simple question:
Why brands insist on this format?
It is not because of the originality, for sure. And, I hope, …

Is good advertising always good?
By good advertising I mean the stuff that either wins awards or gets recognized around the office.
Is it really good though?
Is it working for the client? Is it selling anything? Is it making people think differently about a product?
So many creatives get hung up on doing something cool that they forget the main goal of our jobs—to sell shit.
We can make as many excuses as we want, like ‘I’m protecting the integrity of the brand.’ or ‘It’s going to get create a ton of word-of-mouth.’
Maybe.
But I’ve …

(Videos embedded)
Big ideas are cool. But they demand big money.
What about a small idea?
An idea so tiny that uses ants as the media.
Check this new viral from the Giovanni+DraftFCB guys here in Brazil.

After watching this I said, ok, what was the post production trick?
And then, they released their making of. 100% DIY.

- Fabio Seidl

I had the privilege of teaching a class of college students recently. The job was simple—come in one week and provide an assignment, come in a few weeks later and review the work.
I figured it was best to make the assignment pretty challenging. So I decided to ask everyone to create an interesting banner ad for a pretty tough client.
Not surprisingly, the class was a bit intimidated. Also not surprisingly, one of the first things a bunch of them said was “banner ads suck”.
A quick look around the Internet would …

Sad, yet so true…
- Tommy Troncoso