on the shore of the ultimate sea

new york magazine advertising spread, originally uploaded by nparish.

Over the last month or so I helped compile a list of the most memorable New York-styled ads for New York Magazine, and, at long last, here it is. We polled a whole host of past and present NYC ad luminaries to determine a big list of spots that had grabbed the city’s attention, then narrowed them down with a poll to find out which rated highest.

New York’s 40th Anniversary issue is fat, well worth the $4.95. Head over to NY Mag’s site for a legible version of my thing, but don’t forget to pick up the magazine–there’s a ton of good stuff inside.

Next week is Advertising Week in New York, the week many in the industry gather for a celebration of selling things. It’s not all parades with mascots down Fifth Avenue (though I can’t find any info this year about the “Procession of the Great Icons”); there’s some jibber-jabber too, and an unhealthy amount of socializing.

I’m going to be moderating a panel Tuesday, talking with three very intelligent guys about the potentiality for big ideas on Facebook and other social media. If you’d like to come by, it’s free, all you have to do is RSVP. (Oops–I just looked, and it says it’s sold out on the Advertising Week site. Contact me if you’re interested in coming, or just show up early.)

Anyway, we’re going to be (hopefully!) talking about interesting stuff, including a pretty conceptual look at what some future hypothetical Facebook marketing efforts might look like. I’m joined by some great creatives/forward-looking digital guys, so expect some cool ideas to pop out.

The Facebook Spark Series: Spark The Big Idea

How do good ideas spread? What does it take to get people to share branded content or offers with their friends? Top creative thinkers discuss innovative work and the methods to developing big ideas worth sharing in today’s social media world.

Moderated by Nick Parish, Associate Editor, Creativity

Panelists:
Rei Inamoto, Co-Chief Creative Officer, AKQA
Richard Ting, VP & ECD, Mobile and Emerging Platforms Group, R/GA
Rick Webb, Co-Founder and COO, The Barbarian Group

Tuesday, September 23
9:00 AM to 09:45 AM
The Times Center
242 West 41st Street
New York, NY

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for coming to what turned out to be an interesting session. Audio is here, and video may or may not be coming soon. Ad Week saw fit to dispatch a reporter, who summarized the event quite well.

All this looks like small beer compared to the meltdown here on Wall Street this month, but I was back in Michigan over Labor Day and found myself thinking the state’s huge production incentives program isn’t being fully utilized.

Up North, things are particularly bleak. In the town where my parents stay, Boyne City, 95 people started Labor Day weekend with a pink slip, as LexaMar, one of the biggest corporations in the town of 3500 laid them off on Friday. It made small talk everywhere, downtown, strolling past the classic cars on display, at the police-sponsored drag race at the city airstrip, another midsized manufacturer slicing off jobs as the economy expels another ragged breath.

The one point of light in a state with its biggest industry, automobiles, breaking down, is film production. It’s exceptionally cheap to shoot anything in Michigan right now, and that has ushered in the closest thing to a business renaissance the region has seen in years, at least the latest Band-Aid to create an economic buffer around the doomed car business, like Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson’s Automation Alley plan that began about a decade ago.
Read more about Michigan's Film Incentives and digital production

It’s been an interesting, albeit slow, few August weeks round these parts, so here’s a bit of a Creativity-related fill-in.

One of our favorite publishers, PowerHouse books, sent by a catalog for its new season, which, strangely, included a huge, front-and-center push for a book on small-plates portion control written by none other than Alex Bogusky. If you failed Know Your Advertising Creatives 101 (and no shame in that–certainly other coursework has greater world relevance) Mr. Bogusky is the Chief Creative Officer of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, the Miami-based ad agency whose clients include Burger King and Domino’s. The evangelical pizza business is new, but CP+B’s relationship with Burger King is going on a decade, in which time they’ve revitalized the marketing, with a rock-n-jock approach hitting hard in the agency’s breadbasket, the young adult male. Read more on Bogusky's diet book

Here’s a piece from the June issue of Creativity I feel came out quite well. Pulling in young talent is a constant source of gnashing whether you’re blogging or running a basketball franchise–but as far as digital marketing goes, it’s time to take the next step from hiring designers and coders who can make things look cool to hiring developers who can form concepts and bring together a team with knowhow to execute higher level things. Software tools. (Like, imagine if Chase built Mint.) There aren’t any great case studies yet as to how these things will look but smart agencies are already thinking beyond microshites to applications.

Here’s the full thing; poke around on the site for more goodies–we were all really proud of the June issue (let me know if you’d like me to send one). I’ve also pasted it below for convenience (erm, and search engines).

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Some Flash genuises in NZ have turned classic boox into PowerPoint and mocked up a Windows interface to make it look like you’re absorbing chartjunk while reading Animal Farm. Splendid.

Readatwork.com

I was excited to see the latest ditty shot by my buddy Kris (Kris shot and composed the music for a fun project we did as TooCoolForLife, “100 Slaps“), a recruitment video for Avenue A/Razorfish. Catchy song, fun premise. Great work Kris (and Razorfish)!

This is the part of the show where I take responsibility for a profound lack of updates and pick a few bits of angry mail from you, the reader, in hopes of talking myself out of this jam.

Q: Why has it been three months since you posted?

A: En route to midtown one morning I was hypnotized by a pair of twin gypsy children and forced to write their organization’s bi-weekly e-newsletter, subsisting on a thin porridge made of drywall and insect husks. They allowed me out but once, to secure them a virgin, but I just awkwardly played with my hair and gave the secret middle finger. Eventually they allowed me to pitch stories and just last week I wrote a small item on the little superstar. Upon watching the clip their hearts were filled with such love and gratitude they granted me my freedom.

Q: What is your favorite TV ad, funny/thought provoking thing on the internet, etc.?

A: Funny you should ask. These are things I write about for a magazine and a website. You can sign up for our free email newsletter to get the gist without plunking down the scrilla. The awesome Digg script sitting in this sidebar has links to nonsense I enjoy among all the fluff bandied about the web. The gypsies allowed me to access Digg, unlike Movable Type, so there’s a good backlog of stuff there. And, because clicking buttons like a chimp is much easier than scanning livejournals for the hippest neologisms and arranging them like a boss, it’s updated much more frequently.

Q: What shiny thing, true tale of exciting adventure or gratuitous plug will you provide so I forget this heinous transgression?

A: This week I’m off for Japan and I promise to bring back evidence of the sorts of oddities impressions you’d expect from a neurotic running on a speedball of extreme culture shock and nasty jet lag. In the meantime, read this story on Santo, the funniest advertising agency in Buenos Aires. Look after the break for embedded audiovisual treats by Santo. If that stuff doesn’t sate you for the two or three weeks it takes for my Tokyo tour and subsequent reintroduction to western society, check out the online home of Danica Lo or follow the adventures of Clipper Face, both destined for the Honor roll in the not-too-distant future.
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