• Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy express outrage at being ridiculed and victimised by their nation - “France has vomited on us for too long”–two outspoken Frenchmen form a common bond.

she's got mommy's lifeless eyes

Thanks to a new web promo for Volkswagen minivans, we can see what little America Obama-Palin would look like. Talk about working across the aisle. Anyone care to do a McCain-Biden mixup?

• "Politics at the Five-and-Dime: Where Pennies Matter, Change Is a Powerful Idea" By Anne Hull - From the Flamingo Trailer Curt, just down the road from my gentle suburban bedstead, comes a great look at how the election's shaping up in Michigan.
• Foreclosure Alley - SoCal Connected - This video pretty much sums up the sorry state of affairs in the broken mortgage market's fallout, at the epicenter, California's Inland Empire.

• Flickr: Panda - Reason number 1,000,001 why flickr is so great.
• Pushing the Limit - For Rock-Climbing Guru, the Sky Is His Roof - Will our new America make any more Chongos?
• WADV RADIO » Session: Facebook Spark Series - “The Big Idea” - Here's audio of the panel I moderated during Advertising Week, on the big idea and social media, two entirely nebulous topics I'd say we drilled down a bit.

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.

• Diesel: SFW XXX | Creativity Online - If you haven’t seen this master stroke, please, watch immediately.
• Putting a Price on Digital Production - AdAge picked up a piece I did for Creativity’s September issue, exploring what it costs to get digital things made and how those budgets shake out. A huge topic; i chipped a chunk off the iceberg and melted it down to see what was inside.
• The Price Is Right (Isn’t It?) | Creativity Online

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.

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.

A combination of tax credits for production and infrastructure development and job creation, investment loans, job training incentives, free use of state property and more are putting up to fifty cents on the dollar back into film production companies’ pockets. It’s having huge effects throughout the commercials industry; I’ve personally chatted with five different people or groups who’ve shot spots in and around Detroit, and there are a bevy of Hollywood productions that have moved through the state.

To second-hand a quote from the Freep, “More than 50 films have been approved since the advent of the film incentives, according to Tony Wenson of the Michigan Film Office.”

That’s all well and good, and it’s a huge source of state pride in addition to the reassuring sound of at least a few thin dimes rattling in the piggy bank, but I’m inclined to think the State and specifically the office of Bill Huizenga, the sponsor of the bill, weren’t forward-thinking enough when it comes to digital production.

See, here’s the problem: the Big Three spend millions of dollars a year on marketing, and Michigan’s plan might be bringing some of that money back to Michigan for film shoots, but the digital production is getting done offshore, at what, with the rebate and incentive conditions, are probably comparable rates to having it done in Michigan (if the hazy incentives rules cover things that are getting outsourced, like banner ads).

It’s entirely up to their advertising agencies where that money goes when it comes to production, and what communities benefit from a shoot (and there’s a big benefit, even for a two-day spot shoot, in trucking, craft services, rentals, you name it). But the biggest marketers in Michigan, the automakers, aren’t doing the bulk of their digital production in Michigan, they’re doing it in places like Costa Rica. Those dollars that go to digital production become websites, banner ads, films that play on the Internet, etc. And while the latter of those is covered in the Michigan Film Incentives plan, websites are explicitly excluded. Incentives in digital are in place for interactive games, internet video, internet programming, video games and digital animation but not interactive websites “that are primarily used for institutional, private, industrial, retail or wholesale marketing or promotional purposes.” Here’s a PDF of the application; maybe banners could be described as ‘digital animation’ or ‘internet programming’ but I’d imagine they’re excluded if not explicitly named, I’m not entirely sure.

Interactive Websites need not apply!

I’ve recently been looking quite a bit at offshore digital production, and the trend where agencies and marketing holding companies make it easier for mass-production of digital assets like banners by shops in places like Costa Rica. In the past, if your client wanted 300 different banners for a new pickup launch, for example, each customized to a different region or for a different nuanced demographic, you might quote the client a specific dollar amount and then send the project offshore; you pocket the difference. But now clients are getting wise to the pass-off, and networks think it’s smarter to own up to the business realities up front, explaining to the client the mass-production work will be done offshore and the savings will be passed along to them. The savings are great, according to the players involved, and several major holding companies are consolidating their business to make it easier to get these things done cheaper in developing nations. Read my interview with the CEO of WPP’s new venture Deliver to get a sense of where that’s going.

A great article from the Wall Street Journal shed more light on this movement, including General Motors’ involvement with Prodigious, Publicis Groupe’s offshore coordinator:

GM says that the number of variations of the ads it uses for campaigns is now several times greater than it was just two years ago. For instance, a consumer might notice 10 to 15 different ads promoting GM’s Chevy Malibu sedan online, says Mike Devereux, executive director of digital marketing for GM. But each of these ads can have up to a couple hundred variants, ranging from the background color to the text highlighting things like the car’s gasoline mileage or horse power.

GM used to work with multiple ad agencies and each had a different process for producing the ads. “It was inefficient. We never would have been able to scale,” Mr. Devereux says. Now, GM meets in Detroit with teams from Prodigious and the carmaker’s ad agencies to manage the digital production of its online advertising.

So, GM dollars funnel out through Publicis to places like Costa Rica, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, where savings occur because of lower overhead. But with these tax rebates, I’d argue it’s just as cheap to do production at present in Michigan.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for GM to take advantage of production incentives and do its part to help the local economy? It would at least soften the local economic blow when the giant ultimately topples. And wouldn’t it make more sense for the film incentives office to include potentially lucrative markets and make sure they were within range of the economic sprinkler?

Again, I have no idea why certain aspects of digital production are barred from the incentives. One argument is it would alienate present operators, but screw it, give the company that’s been making banners in downtown Detroit for the past five years the rebates too–film production companies that are already established can apply for the rebates.

Part of this argument feels like an updated, creative economy version of the old ’80s and ’90s calls against Michiganders buying foreign cars, but the shift in thinking is different than that. By clarifying the wording and specifically opening up the Incentives structure to a greater range of digital production forms, the Michigan Film Incentives office has the potential to turn the state into a center for a highly creative discipline. I can think of a few people pursuing digital startup options who, given the availability of real estate in downtown Detroit, would strongly consider a fat tax rebate on their bigger productions to be the deciding factor in their decision to open up a boutique in Michigan.

I’ll see if the Film Incentives office has any answers about what sort of digital stuff is covered. Who knows, maybe Michael Moore, yeah, that guy who used to be concerned with the Michigan economy, will want to press on the rest of his colleagues for the benefit of the next generation of communications, the good old Internet. He’s on the Michigan Film Office’s Advisory Council.

Meanwhile, Michiganders, don’t just look at the stars and the glitz when you read about the incentives, think about the how the state’s economy could look to the less fancy aspects of production and help everyone flourish.

On the set of Prayers for Bobby, a Sigourney Weaver vehicle shot in Michigan, originally uploaded by annethelibrarian.

Big thanks to all attendees, presenters and organizers for helping make yesterday’s Interesting New York conference happen. It was time well spent; I particularly enjoyed hearing about database basics from Noah Brier, fan fiction from Amber Finlay (and special guest Bud Melman of that old school advertising drama), Charles Rosen talking about the Democratic Party and the upcoming presidential election’s role as a point-of-no-return, Colin Nagy talking techno, Dallas Penn extolling the virtues of quarter water in a sarcastic fantastic exploration of the Bodega Food Pyramid and James Cooper delivering his presentation on ping pong’s beneficence while volleying.

If you’re looking for information regarding my Kombucha presentation, thanks, I’m flattered. It’s here.

Interesting New York

Next Saturday, the 13th, I’m going to be giving a quick talk on the history and preparation of kombucha, a fermented drink quickly becoming popular with the health-conscious Whole Foods crowd. While I don’t really count myself among them, I’ve been making the stuff for just over two years now and have the process pretty much down. If you’re a serious fan, you should really make it yourself–sixteen ounces costs $4 or $5 but produced at home it’s about the same per gallon.

Here’s all the info, if you’re interested in learning everything you ever wanted to know about kombucha. Tickets are only $35, and include 8 hours with a raft of exciting speakers. I’ll update this post with more details (like when, specifically I’ll be talking, and bar plans afterwards) when they arise. Eventually I’ll probably get an outline of the talk and any audiovisual stuff up here too. But first, to tinker with Keynote for a few hours and see if anything presentable comes out.

Date: Saturday, September 13, 2008
Time: 10:00AM to 6:00PM.
Venue: The Katie Murphy Amphitheater at FIT
Address: 7th Avenue at 27th Street (Building D), New York City, 10001-5992

UPDATE: I’m the last speaker, so I should be on about 5:30, but it’ll probably be after that as these things tend to go long. But come earlier than me anyway, cause there’s a load of good stuff all day. Afterparty’s at Black Door.