Classic Cingular

When a relative refers to a commercial during a holiday board game, it's gotta be gold. So as an homage to a Cranium clue answered with a nod to an old Cingular spot, here it is ... classic (although not in full, so if anyone has a full version, please let us know).

Oddly enough, there were plenty of pages of people angered over these guys not knowing the lyrics, including ones like this and a Facebook page. Turns out people really do have more time on their hands than it seems.

Ancient Agency Tradition

The holiday season typically rings in an ageless tradition at many old-line agencies ... relaxation.

It's not unusual for many shops to operate with skeleton staffs, or for the truly relaxed ... some actually close completely each year between Christmas and New Years. We're not, so I'm allowed to mock them from afar.

So if you're like us, and you don't have the ability to simply phone it in for the next month or so, I give you a little video inspiration in the way of Ben Harper and Relentless7.

Use it as you're figuring out how to eat the 'we're going to take a break' competitors' collective lunches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt2ftbMjK6M

Brand-By-Brand: The Fast-Food Flow Chart

If you ran into an executive at any of these companies, they'd all argue that they fit in every slot. Everything to everyone, right? In reality, it's just an internal view of a company ... not what the public thinks of them.

This, on the other hand, pretty much nails it ... A veritable blow by blow account of the "fast-food food chain perception spectrum", which I don't think is an actual phrase (any trademark lawyers in the house?).

Click to enlarge.

Brilliant: Volvo S60 Preview Campaign

Beautiful new work in advance of the launch of the Volvo S60, a supposed re-calibration of Volvo design.

The spots are wonderful not just for the subject matter (blind person drawing picture of a car), but because they show someone interacting intimately with the car through touch, in a non-bizarre, weird kind of way. And as in any product purchase, this is an incredibly personal and highly-positive part of the purchasing process (think about non-commodity purchases and how people instinctively touch and hold things they're considering buying when they like them).

Kicked off largely on a Facebook video page, the campaign has a flagship spot, a documentary about the series, and several micro-spots focusing on specific aspects of the car's design.

Captain & NFL. Apparently Not A Good Mix.

Thanks to Pat French for alerting of this last week.

In case you've missed it, it seems that Captain Morgan has been on a double-top-secret mission to enlist NFL players to strike their trademark pose after a touchdown. In doing so, the Captain has promised a $10,000 donation to the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, a non-profit organization which helps retired NFL players.

If not brilliant in the fact that someone actually did it, then certainly worthy of praise for the sheer angle-squeezing details of putting this together. The publicity they've garnered has been huge. And by offering ten-large to a charity for it, they've made the NFL look like a poor sport, even though it's a fraction of what that airtime might cost. Best of all, they've also gone into this expecting backlash, and will no-doube make a meal of this for weeks to come.

The anticipated NFL crackdown came quickly following the game, with the pre-requisite fines and new rules. And the Captain was right there with it's own witty comeback that's only extended the life of the celebration.

We're not huge on aggrandizing personal celebrations in sports, but we've got to hand it to the Captain and Brent Celek of the Eagles for putting this out there. With T.O. not catching passes anymore and Chad OchoDon'tCallMeJohnsonCinco distracted with Twitter, we haven't seen this kind of excitement since He Hate Me hung up his XFL jersey. Bet he's got a little Captain in him.

Everlast Print

Cool stuff from Everlast. Proof that less can indeed be more.

Ten Hundred Million Trillion Billion

Being both an advertising and soccer fan, the latest from EA Sports' FIFA 2010 lept off the screen not only for its United, Barça, and Bastian Schweinsteiger references.

Sport aside, it's a fantastically written, poetic spot that builds on the competitiveness that the video game produces ... as anyone who's beaten down or received a beat-down from their brother/friend/mother/teammate can attest.

Spin Around Paris, Anyone?

Talked to someone on Friday about cars, racing, etc. and for some reason, this popped into my head.

C'était un rendez-vous is an eight minute, single-take 1978 short film by Claude LeLouch featuring a then-cutting-edge gyro camera mounted to a Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, as it weaves through Paris in the early morning hours.

Subject of much controversy and even more cinematic rip-offs, Rendez-Vous makes appearances periodically in pop-culture every 3-5 years, the latest as a part of a 2007 Snow Patrol video.

More about the film can be found here.

Seriously, Does It Get Any Better Than This?

Who says Social Media is just a time killer? Not me, says I. Not when this shows up in your email:

Now I can ask that ever-important question ... When's the next Inside Al Capone's Vault?

What A Drive

Had this one stowed away on the computer and stumbled on it in-flight here at 35,000 feet. (technology ... what would we do with out it, other than sleep and rest?)

This is one of the all-time, all-time great spots, because it nails what driving a convertible is all about ... top down, night driving, great tunes, good friends (perhaps a romance on board?), and the realization that the journey is truly the best part.

Banner Ads On The Fly

And now for something completely different ...

I think there's a saying for this: Show me my competitors' ads on a fly and I'll show you my branded over-sized fly swatter.

Fantastic Article from Bart Cleveland

As a small agency, we like to hear from other agencies out there fighting the good fight ... showing up day-in and day-out to do great work that will truly move clients' businesses. We know that we don't have the financial support to dive into the expensive coffee every day, but what we lack in caffeine quality, we more than make up for in tenacity and good ol' fashioned blood, sweat, and tears.

Which brings us to a recent post by Bart Cleveland on AdAge's Small Agency Diary, a fixture on our regular reading list (we've cited Bart's posts before). In it, Cleveland focuses on the past as a teller of future stories. In a nutshell, the biggest and best of today - the Goodbys, the Weidens, the Chiats, the Crispins - they all had to start somewhere and usually that somewhere was a small group of people just trying to make their mark as a 'shop'. But they continued to focus on challenging themselves to raise the bar, rather than waiting for clients to demand it, and in doing so, began to build more than agencies. They built legacies.

OK, all maybe a little over the top, yes. But if you're not wildly passionate about this business, you shouldn't be in it. And what you find more often in smaller shops are people who are crazy about what they do and about what they are helping their clients accomplish. Being small gets you closer to the action and in doing so, you understand the relationship between your job and the rest of the company and see it as more than a means to another month's rent or car payment. You see it as being able to really build something and help people on the other end of the phone build something, too ... whether it's their own businesses or careers.

What the people Cleveland refers to in his post have done so well is to simply 'make it happen', time and time again, creatively and consistently. Sure, they've had some luck along the way, and yes, they are all brilliant people. But they don't have a corner on the market of leading revolutions, and it doesn't mean that there's not a storied future yet untold in smaller agencies out there right now. Like ours and like others.

To imagine what's possible in the future requires some occasional retrospection to put things in context, and Bart's post has done a great job at that. We hope you enjoy it as well.

http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=140015