Hyper inked.

In writing to my advertising friends at BBDO, I have learned of two copywriters that I worked with who passed away a while ago.

One was Bob Mallin, a boss of mine at BBDO. He died in Dobbs Ferry, NY at the age of 51. I do not know the date of his death, so I’m guessing 1995. He was a longtime BBDO copywriter who became an Associate Creative Director. He had been to rehab for alcohol, but relapsed. Terrible news.

The other death was another Bob, Bob Smith who was the best man at my wedding. He was one of my closest friends and all my BBDO stories, it seems, include him. (My other close friend at BBDO was Al Merrin who as far as I know is still with us and still doing well at BBDO.) Bob Smith was simply the world’s nicest guy and I can still see his smile and hear his voice. He was creative; he was funny; he was my friend. I miss him right now.

Bob Smith apparently died in the early 1990’s possibly within a year of when I last spoke with him. Over the years I knew him, I could see the growing effects of his drinking, but denied the seriousness of them. He was in LA working as a marketing guy for a major hotel, possibly Marriott. He was from Long Beach, California and had the support of his family there. From what I heard, he did not enter rehab, but tried to cut back on his drinking. Apparently, he died alone at his residence. A damn good copywriter. An enormous personal loss for all of us who knew him.

Requiescat in pace. Vita brevis.

(My apologies for the lack of detail in this post, but I have been unable to find any published obituaries.)

I found this interview in which Ted Sann, former Creative Director of BBDO New York, surveys the rocky field of internet advertising.

At the time, he was extremely negative on it or as the article says “The people in his business who can make it work just aren’t paying attention. Call them the unbelievers.”

It cites click-through stats because it’s one of few yardsticks of online advertising success. The article puts the click-through rate at way under 1%. How high are your click-through rates on banner ads?

Or as I see it, my small purchases like books, electronics and things raided from America’s attic on eBay are huge. But I have yet to choose a car based on any Internet ad.

I have seen an amazing tv commercial. It’s a commercial that sells the charitable work of veterinarians reattaching rabbit’s feet back to their original owners.Uh-huh. Because?

Because people don’t need luck any more now that they have Traveler’s Insurance.

The ad agency is Fallon in Minneapolis. It’s was realized on film by Tim Godsall at Biscuit Filmworks, as reported in Adweek.

Two Deans, Hanson and Buckhorn, art directed and wrote it. For the complete credits for this creative gem, go to adforum.com.

Some comment on the commercial here and here.

At first viewing, I thought the bunnies were wearing colored bandages. Now that I get it duh! I am a little squeamish myself. (Yep, I know what a lucky rabbit’s foot is,. I just didn’t want to take the clever idea that far.)

When you read the label on Zest soap, you discover that most the the seemingly incomprehensible ingredient names are soap. Sodium Tallowate? Soap. Sodium Palmate? Soap. Sodium Cocoate and/or Palm Kernate? Soap.

There is one plentiful ingredient ether sulfonate that is not soap. It is a surfactant, or surface active agent. These chemicals reduce the surface tension of water. Their molecules have both a hydrophilic end and a hydrophobic end. So one side of the molecule aligns with water, the other with oily dirt. They keep the dirt in suspension so it can be freely rinsed away.

In researching this, I encountered the themeline “Zestfully clean” first used in the 1980’s. This was written by the redoubtable James J. Jordan, Jr. who was a prime mover at BBDO for many years. He was Creative Director before being promoted to President of the agency. Incredibly talented, he coined memorable lines including “Wisk beats ring around the collar” and “Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch.” The fact that these themes are still remembered today testifies to their creative power.

I knew Mr. Jordan and I am sad to see that he passed away in 2004. He was a force of nature, and a passionate lover of great advertising. He will be missed.

Remember the outcry over U.S. films being shot in Canada to cut production costs? Or using the Internet to allow programmers in Asia to compete with American programmers — another “world-is-flat” bid to cut costs to the bone?

Now, with the founding of Banerjee & Partners of New York, Bombay and Bangalore, this outsourcing has begun in advertising. Not only is there serious, American-culture-infused, creative talent in India, there is a booming film industry there to implement further cost savings.

Losang Gyatso, the executive creative director in New York, explained in an Adweek article that because Indians speak many different languages, all the advertising is created in English (former British colony) and driven by strong brand-building imagery.

The foreign creative idea has its detractors. Kevin Roddy, ECD at the Bartle Bogle Hegarty ad agency in New York said “It’s incredibly difficult to creatively direct someone who is thousands of miles away.” While he was Creative Director at Fallon in New York, he had to manage creative teams in Minneapolis.

Still the ad talent in the region is undeniable. In the last three years, Indian advertising has won thirteen Cannes Lions.

Apparently, the dreaded popup print ad is starting to appear offline as well as online.

ComputerAssociates has a watermark ad in the stock pages of The Nw York Times, according to AdRants. When you chck your stocks you are looking right at their CA logo.

Inventive, and not nearly as annoying as the online version.

To tell more the Computer Associates story, a small ad appears at the bottom of the page.

Neil French, the worlwide creative director of WPP Gtroup has resign after causing a storm with his remarks about women ad creatives, according to an article in The New York Times.

In a meeting in Toronto on October 6th, he said women “don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to.”

Nancy Vonk, Co-Chief Creative Director of Ogilvy in Toronto, writes about this over-the-top evening here. Her agency is part of the WPP Group. She attended the event and has known Mr. French for several years. She is familiar with his attitudes toward women. She writes, “Before us was a big part of the explanation of why more women aren’t succeeding in advertising,” as she believes his ideas are representative of the way top executives in the advertising business think.

Moreover, according to Vonk, Mr. French said most women leave the business to “go suckle something.” Was Mr. French trying to get fired? Was this a $100-a-seat frat party?

From my experience in advertising, listening as a guy to other ad guys talk, I have to say she is right. Often these conversations are straight out of the men’s locker room. I haven’t of course heard the discussions about who gets promoted to the top creative spot, but I can’t imagine ther whole good ole boy tone disappears.

The latest Fortune magazine, dated October 31, 2005, has an article on how to create a beakaway brand. They give examples of major brands that have broken away from the pack: the Apple iPod ™, Google ™, DeWalt power tools, Eggo ™ waffles, to name a few.

The brands singled out command a premium price, and have customer loyalty. (Just ask an iPod user about their MP3 player. Then ask them to name another brand.)

The article singles out ten successful brands, and draws a different lesson from each one’s story. It’s a fascinating article, even if it is more than a little slanted to account side of advertising, definitely worth a trip to the newstand.*

* Creatives should read the description of the BBDO campaign for Sierra Mist ™. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like a hoot: five comedians dubbed the “Mist-Takes” doing mini sitcoms about Sierra Mist ™. After only five years since its introduction, the brand is second in its highly competitive soft drink category.

AdRants is annoyed by their “Pompous Flashturbation” on their website as they lecture the Flash-deprived on the need for the plugin.

According to AdRants, W+K website’s source states:

“You will need to install a couple of plug-ins to fully experience our site. That is not because this is another one of those mindlessly flashy Web sites that give you a headache and make you wonder how you could ever sit through a meeting with those people.”

I frankly couldn’t find this writing anywhere in the early source pages I checked, but it does seem an unneeded lecture.

However, the Flash-powered version of the W+K site is nifty. And they have the courage to put up famous older work — like the dot-com-boom era stuff — that is well-done and fascinating. (Does anyone still use AltaVista? Don’t get too mad: they used to my starting page each time I surfed the web.)

Try the site, and go ahead and download the Flash ™ plugin

The new Apple TV spot featuring Eminem sure looks like borrowed interest — borrowed from a spot for Lugz running shoes.

See a discussion of the remarkable similarities here at Adfreak.com The shoe commercial is from 2001. It is at this site, under Archives, Lugz, 01.

This makes me wonder is the commercial merely derivative or is there a sharing of talent somewhere — designer, or production company?