My name is Bond. Jane Bond.

RestrictionsApply and I had a chat this morning. I told him about a certain situation that happened and he told me that I had to write about it. So, again, true story.

You know when sometimes your client wants to put the offer in the header of an ad and you think... Jesus kill me? You know. They think that the offer is so damn great, it doesn't require any creativity. Example:

THIS (PIECE OF JUNK) NOW ONLY 89.95!!!

Yeah. Those kind of headers that we hate, hate, hate. We sometimes win the fight and tell them, hey, can't we put another thing instead, a little more cool so that people relate to the piece of junk instead of the usual "shopperish" header? Yeah...

Anyway. This week I lived what turned out to be a Bizarro-Supermanish situation. A client calls. They have this offer. Damn. It's a great offer. Those that make you think: Jesus, what a golden opportunity to sell the shit out of (insert here, again a piece of junk). It is so damn powerful, it would make you shit in your pants. I start to laugh. This is the one time that makes total sense I just tell it like it is. This is the first time that... yes... I should put the offer as the header. Life has a sense of humor.

So I happily place that offer in bold, huge letters. Against all that we think of what to do, this offer is so damn good it deserves the full attention. It doesn't need any icing on top. It is delicious. I cannot, for the life of me, put this incredible information down in the body copy. Make it big. Make it loud. Readable. Easy to understand.

This ad will sell like the chicks at Dennis Hoff's Bunny Ranch.

You will not believe the following statement: can we do another header which DOESN'T have the offer up front? What? Um. WHAT? Dude! You won! You delivered such a great marketing idea, and now you want to hide it? Are you nuts? Why?

Um... Don't know. I just want more headers. Great. Ok. I'll play along. It's your piece of junk. Sell less. I get paid anyways. I send in some crappy creative headers that, even though are great and... witty - ugh, still have smaller penises compared to the offer in the header. Big. Big is good. If you got it, show it. Anyways...

I send them in. To make a long story short, after hours of debating why the header should remain and the first alternative is the winner - yeah, sometimes I don't like to give up so easily - the header won.

I had to write about it, because it is ironic. We bitch about not doing it, we promise ourselves that we will never do it on purpose. When we do, it's because our client demands it so much that we give in. But I learned my lesson.

Never say never again.

PS: Roger Moore's Bond sucked. And one of his Bond Girls was a guy. Like Seinfeld said: not that there's anything wrong with that...

Penguins Rock.

Jesus, No, please...

First of all, I am still working. If you can believe this, I am still getting revisions and it is almost 1am in the morning. A couple of hours ago I was told that I would have to work the weekend because I need to hand out a bunch of artwork for Monday AM. Needless to say, my mental state is not so great at the moment. I am tired as hell and the news were not so welcome. So in a break, I decided to browse my favorite webpages to cheer me up...

The Virgin MegaStore @ Times Square is closing. This is a sad day. It was a great store. Not because it had cool as hell stuff. Just because you could spend hours looking at books, listening to the cool ass music, having a cup of coffee... and now it will go away. I don't usually enjoy Times Square that much anymore, it has become a Disney-like enviroment. I prefer enjoying my city elsewhere. But the Virgin MegaStore has cool memories for me and someone I know. It's ok, we'll survive, but still... we will always have Paris, and for us, we will always carry the MegaStore as a cool place to hang out and finish the night.

I'll miss the bright red lights, the great coffee and the fact that it was opened until the wee hours of the morning. If they take down the sign... jesus. Times Square will never be the same.

Say it isn't so...

Way too funny.

Movies I wish I never saw

They say heavy drinking kills brain cells. Well, so does watching bad movies. As a species, we humans instinctively recommend things that are good for us. So, to break the tradition of talking about cool stuff, I am posting a list of awful movies I wish I had never seen. It’s amazing to think that I spent my hard-earned money and valuable time sitting through this crap. What the hell was I thinking? Please feel free to add your own and comment:

** Eragon – A great book gone bad on film. Actually, the film was a victim of timing. There was just too much fantasy shit going on at the time: Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Golden Compass, etc. The potential was there, especially with Jeremy Irons as the main dude, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.

** Weekend at Bernie’s – It was the summer of 1989, the cusp of my high school career, and it was one of those days where there was nothing to do. Plus, it was about 100 degrees… at night! So, let’s cool off at the theater… and get rigor mortis watching this piece of shit.

** Lions for Lambs – This is one of those “thinking man’s” movies. Great cast (Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford), but man, I’ve sat through enough lectures in college than to have to pay for another one. The message is solid, if not cliché – war as a tool of the Administration – but can you justify a class in political science as entertainment?

** Godzilla – Not even Ferris Beuller could save this one. Everything was just so expected. The monster wasn’t even engaging or mysterious, and the drama… what drama? I love exploding shit as much as the next guy, but even big bangs get old quick. Thank God Colverfield came around to save the genre.

** Timecop – Van Damme is the man. Even on a bad day he’s cooler than most of us would ever hope to be. In fact, he’s not even the problem in this film. The shit hit the fan for me when the film shows us “the future” and it looks like 1988. In fact, it looks like what films in the 1980s thought the year 2000 would look like. Of course, this was done during the dawn of the digital age, so the effects are unremarkable.

** Right at Your Door – They say less is more, but when you shoot a film for $2,500 using just three actors, (one of them your brother), you can’t expect much. Of course, I’m a exaggerating as to the specifics, but you get the idea. The story idea is interesting (a virus breaks out in LA and all hell breaks loose), but the execution wasn’t there because, I guess, the budget wasn’t either.

** Stealing Beauty – European sexual awakening movies and coming of age stories are always cool, especially for the inner pedophile in all of us, but there comes a point when too much is too much. A young American girl (Liv Tyler) spends a lazy summer in Tuscany. You fill in the blanks.

** A Life Less Ordinary – This movie came out just when every young director in Hollywood thought they were the next Quentin Tarantino. Enough said. The future young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Cameron Diaz fell in the trap.

** The Phantom Menace – I am a die-hard Star Wars fan. I quote the films on a daily basis and have even based some aspects of my life on the teachings of the Jedi. This is why it pains me to admit that I simply could not stand this movie. I’ve even changed the channel when it’s on TV. The only thing that saves it are the few minutes with Darth Maul.

Guess where...

The definition of going ape shit.

Camera 1:


Office Worker Goes Absolutely Insane - Watch more free videos

Camera 2:

Office Worker Meltdown Second Angle - Watch more free videos

One Word: Bazooka

More videos from the "Contagious" channel at Heavy.com

From comment to post

This is a comment I wrote in regards to a recent post on Dear Jane . It was so ridiculously long I decided to make a post out of it.

Here's the deal:

"Autoextremist .com has put together a handy guide of Auto Industry terms that all Ad people on car accounts should know."

BONE MONKEYS - Anonymous trolls existing in all car companies who are impediments to progress, who revel in mediocrity, and who derail programs through their incompetence, laziness and “not invented here” attitude, as in, “That program would have put this company back in the game, but once the bone monkeys got ahold of it, we were dead in the water.”

LENS-LICKER - A highly unflattering reference to an auto exec who just can’t seem to get enough of being quoted on TV, or being the center of attention for the media, as in, “He once actually knew what he was talking about, now he’s just a lens-licker looking for his next media fix.”

PONTIHACKED - When a car company squanders its legacy and loses its way, only to realize (too late) that their mojo is irretrievable, as in, “That used to be one of the great car companies until they pontihacked it to death with their own serial incompetence.”

The entire list is here.

Well in my experience with Car Companies (1 American 1 Japanese) I learned a couple of things from my clients and seeing as the list wa short some of the asshole I had to deal with, might I offer my two cents.

Rimjobs- suckups are universal and car companies love to surround their marketing people with lackeys they can easily blame failure on. To make it worse, these carefree suckups like what they do, pride themselves on being Brown Rudolphs, and hover in between wormtongues and Axeman’s jester. They are a total waste of space but they will always have a use, albeit an expendable singe time use.

Geriatricsmobile

Oh lawdy, if you think you’ve had to work with old fashioned people, get ready, I had to cater to the likes of a guy that was about three packs away from an Iron Lung and/or Mike Watts voice. The two car clients I’ve worked for had either a person with the age to fall into the category of a Gratricsmobile or had the attitude of one being totally alien to the concepts of youtube, facebook, myspace or the internet as a communication medium.

The Ghosn Show

Though using Carlos Ghosn’s name, this term actually refers to all client side executives looking their best when Corporate visits. Everyone suddenly has their gig line straight, they either say something valid or shit up and proceed to embarrass themselves by trying to be polite in the Japanese way because the big boss is here and he’s not in the mood to do TGIFriday jello shots.

Shock Absorbers

Anyone who is chosen as the scapegoat and is forced to face the fiery hordes as the sacrificial lamb. Conversations go something like: “Well we’re having problems with sales for vehicle X. - Don’t worry jimmy will be able to handle it.” (cut to person cackling with yellow stained bloodshot eyes while rubbing their hands).

Bumming Beamers

Asshole clients that never like what you do, demand more creativity, shoots it down and then ends up driving a BMW regardless of what company they work for.

Mercs Head Case

High-end clients with total disregard for money on a personal level but a notoriously Scroogish attitude when it comes to worker compensation and ad value. The type of client that eats pheasant and tosses the bones to the masses.

Cooper-smiths

Your average car exec that worships the ground Mini Cooper treads on and wants to have a t least one in car to get their fix.

Hood Ornament

People who are not really sure how they got their job and have the look of a deer looking towards the light. They aren’t ill tempered or unmannered. They are just totally clueless in regards to cars and are their trying to find their path to something that resembles a career.

The Tool

Ahhh… agency based creative or exec who knows anything there is to know about cars. Very handy to have around when you want leverage and credentials but if you think a baseball buff is an asshole when it comes to stats, then you ain’t seen nothing yet. As their name implies, good to have but not something you want around dinner time.

GP-assed

Would be client techies that think they are the all knowing possessors of technological knowledge because they own a Blackberry and uploaded one of their commercials on youtube to be played for free. Logic or anything remotely resembling intelligent conversation should be avoided at all costs.

Un-cool aunt

I had the bad luck of having prude women for clients both rounds when it came to cars and if it were just the woman, that’s fine, but when you have gear heads and jock assholes making decisions, the subtle touch of a woman should be the balance keeper, but rather than that it proved to be the problem of the equation and when confronted they both lashed out with true WASP fervor that what we were doing or the way we were communicating wasn’t wholesome and in one case borderline blasphemous. I shit you not.

Assclown Car

Unfortunately lackeys shall forever have a use and I coin this term in regards to meetings that were conducted without any real decision maker where you get a stockpile of “neds” rather than someone that can actually approve something… anything.




Note to self... comments shouldn't be long enough to be blog posts. D'oh!

So it's Monday...

A friend of mine made a video a few days back. Saw it and had to crack a smile. Thought I'd share it with anyone who might need one.

cheers

Fortune Cookie 500 #'s 106-110

On Healthy CEO’s

No matter the water you drink, you can’t flush out the asshole in you.


On computers

Someday I’ll realize I can’t reason with a shitty computer.



On interns

Warn rather than oversell.



On premiums

As long as it’s free, people will make a line for anything.



On ad turnover

I’ve never had a business card. There’s a reason for that.

Me's Brand Day

Let's see if I can remember all my brands. I will go the route of morning, afternoon and night.

Morning:

Motorola
Colgate
John Frieda Hair Care
Peter Thomas Roth Sunblock - It is simply amazing, you gals out there...
Murad Skin Care
Cargo/Benefit/L'Oreal/Almay Makeup
Gap/Old Navy/American Eagle Outfitters/Urban Outfitters/Hot Topic clothes
Lucky Brand Bag
Juicy Couture/Estée Lauder perfume - depends on the mood
Mini

Afternoon:

Apple
HP Printers
Office Max Supplies - no brands, cheaper!!!
Motorola
Google - Gmail, Search, Blogger included
YouTube
Facebook
Microsoft Office
Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop
Digg - this goes on all day
Flickr
PerezHilton
Diet Coke
RedBull Light/Ciclón Light - Energy, baby!!!
Mini or Honda

Night - when I don't sleep over somewhere else, hehehe:

Panasonic
TiVo
HBO
CNN
Discovery
Vh1
Diet Coke
Apple Computer
Sealy
Yasmin!!!! - Yeah, oh yeah...

I know I am leaving out a shitload of brands of food - I avoid fast foods, also, I am not going into my fridge to see what lurks there... too much work. So, that's it. Those are the brands I touch each day. Thanks for the idea, it was a great experiment, definitively.

Much love... Me.

Spread the word.

I don't know if this is a strategic thing to make you watch the video, but the video is not about boobs. It's about Net Neutrality.