Can anyone explain what’s going on here?

Creative

Leo Burnett has launched a campaign using Walker Evans’ photography of the Great Depression in ads for Allstate Insurance.

What exactly they are trying to accomplish using these powerfully depressing photographs evades this simple-minded blogger. Perhaps they should steal a move from Grace & Rothschild’s playbook during the recession in the early 90′s. Check the copy from an ad they did for Range Rover in 1991 that is a rare example of effective recession-aware advertising.

Buy Something
Our preference, of course, would be that you buy a Range Rover. But if that’s not in the cards, buy a microwave. A basset hound. Theater tickets. Because if we all wait for the recession to be officially declared over to start spending again, the problem will simply keep feeding on itself.

Creative, Economic Meltdown, Trends

Writing in Ad Age, Reuben Steiger is CEO of Millions of Us reflects on why the traditional agencies failed to swoop in on the digital planet, making it their own, ten years ago.

1. Traditional agencies were in the process of distancing themselves from production work.

2. The web looked crummy. Ad agencies are about beautiful work that wins awards. Bad fit.

3. It kind of was rocket science: At least from the agencies’ perspective. Tech was critical to success, and they were primarily creative organizations.

This jog down memory lane is worth revisiting because it’s still an issue. Clients don’t know who they can trust to lead now, the Mad Men or the digerati.

I love Steiger’s second point above. The Web is indeed a huge mess. I understand we’ve dressed it up in places, and that engineers see poetry in code. But I still like his point. You can’t hold a well done Web site in your hands like you can a double truck in Rolling Stone. It’s a different kind of satisfaction, and one that’s ever elusive, since Web sites are not static like TV, radio, outdoor, print and POS. Web sites are alive, so when you give birth to one, you become like a parent, always care taking the new baby. In other words, it’s totally foreign to people born and bred in Adlandia.

Granted, many Adlandians are fluent in this new ‘second language’ today. Some of us even dream in html. That’s when you know it’s in there, when you become a cyborg.

This is what I see in the tea leaves…Adlandians will continue to morph into cyborg marketing machines and will retain their leadership roles with clients, because the trick is to walk between worlds. With the media landscape we live on today, specialists might get you through the mountains in Springtime but brands need someone to take them on the whole journey. That someone ties it all together. That someone is a campaigner.

(Via AdPulp.)

Trends

News of Steve Jobs’ ailing health has the ‘experts’ coming out of the woodwork to offer up their opinions. For all the rampant speculation about the future of Apple, one thing is for certain: AAPL has taken a pounding.

Shares of the company are trading at pre-iPhone prices despite the fact that none of the fundamentals of the company have changed. Remember that break-through smartphone that every player in the industry is copying?

Industry News

It appears Motorola’s handset business may be a one hit wonder. Motorola’s latest quarterly handset shipments fell an astounding 50% this week. The company also announced yesterday that of 4,000 planned layoffs, some 3,000 workers would be from its handset unit.

The causes for such a decline in a business the size of Motorola are varied and numerous but a recent stream of executive departures may have precipitated the the fall. Motorola has been accused of wearing RAZR blinders, referring to the US’s best selling handset for three straight years.

The RAZR won customers based on it’s sleek design, not features, which are becoming increasingly important to consumers in the rapidly expanding smartphone market.

Industry News

After a two-month search Yahoo has selected Carol Bartz to replace Jerry Yang as their CEO. Bartz has a long career in the tech industry, most recently with the software company Autodesk, but little experience in the media industry. She currently sits on board of directors for Intel Corps and Cisco Systems.

Yahoo President Sue Decker, a contender for the CEO spot, will resign from the company after a transitional period, Yahoo said.

Industry News

After all the inane creative Burger King has been unleashing on the public lately their new Facebook app is breath of fresh air (and did they ever need to clear the air of the BK Flame odor, blegh).

The app’s concept is brilliantly simple. Delete 10 Facebook friends get a free Whopper. As you delete friends through BK’s installed app, your feed is updated letting all your friends know who you are sacrificing in the name of having it your way.

Creative

Panasonic is footing the bill for six elite geek bloggers’ trips to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The bloggers have not been given any editorial guidance by the mothership, instead Panasonic kited them out with their latest A/V gear and said “go nuts!” The bloggers write on their own blogs, not Panasonic’s, and were chosen for their credibility in the tech-enthusiast audiences they bring with them.

The initiative was conceived and executed by Crayon.

Trends

Campbell Soup has placed an ad in gay magazine The Advocate. The ad, which shows two lesbian parents and their son, touts Campbell’s Swanson line of broth.
Predictably, the placement has stirred a ludicrous ‘controversy,’ with the right-wing American Family Association accusing the company of embracing the ‘homosexual agenda.’ Campbell has brushed off the criticism.

(Via BNET Advertising.)

Industry News

The New York Times is reporting that the January 2009 issue of Allure has only 41 pages of ads, a decline of 41% from the January 2008 issue with 70 pages of ads.

Allure isn’t the only Conde Nast magazine being hit hard by declining ad sales. Wired magazine is down 47% from last year, Architectural Digest down 46 percent, and Vogue is down about 44 percent.

Conde Nast is holding a hard line on their ad rates, resisting setting a precedent of discounting prices and preserving their premium price position.

Economic Meltdown