Mike, published.

A couple of months ago, I had the great pleasure of having Stevie Archer, one of the first interns I hired at RBW (and later hired full time), as a guest speaker in my UNC copy and communication class. I'd tried to follow Stevie's career as she went from RBW to Mullen to now McKinney.  And I have totally enjoyed watching her become the star I always knew she'd be. Stevie was the first and only intern I've ever hired to have actually produced a TV spot - she wrote a fantastic :60 spot for Duke Orthopaedics that Raymond Bark shot. It's beautiful film. I knew she was a great writer and always had a insatiable curiosity to just...create.

But I was floored by what she showed the class - just stuff she'd done in the "spare" time you have when you work at McKinney.  (McKinney, by the way, is a lot more than an agency. They encourage their employees to spend their spare time just thinking of cool stuff - different ways to be creative that have nothing necessarily to do with advertising. And if they like the ideas, McKinney helps get them produced.)

So, Stevie showed a couple of ideas that she and her friends had not only thought of, but actually produced. The first is this: http://twerribletowel.com. 

It's the first Twitter powered NFL fan towel, a thingamajig they thought up and rigged up with an old fan motor and a Steeler Terrible Towel. You tweet with the hashtag #steelernation and the motor turns, waving the towel. It got so popular so fast that the NFL wanted to use it for the other teams. Again, nothing necessarily to do with advertising, just a cool ideas for using social media for something completely unexpected.

Another site Stevie created is this: http://www.iwasthecoolestkidever.com. 

It's just a site where people can post photos of themselves as kids being cool. Nothing fancy, just fun. It's gotten so popular that she's actually been able to sell ad space (albeit small) on the site. At least it covers the hosting fee.

And here's a more recent site she worked on: http://poorbabies.tumblr.com. Its a site where you can post photos and report young children being humiliated in various ways including being forced to wear unfortunate clothes and do unfortunate things for their parents' amusement.

My point is, Stevie is doing what creatives should be doing: being creative ALL THE TIME. Not just between 9 and 5.  She's one of the rare members of her generation who doesn't sit around twiddling their thumbs when they don't have real work to do. They refuse to let their minds sit on idle. They are always thinking. Always.

Stevie's presentation to my class not only thrilled me, it inspired me and lit a fire under me at the same time. As I get older in this business, I find myself looking forward to getting away from it one day. And I hope I'll have a great retirement and not miss advertising. But her presentation reminded me that we're in the business of ideas - not ads - ideas. And that we have a gift to create stuff that nobody's ever seen before, and do it on a daily basis if we choose. And that should never be a burden or a job or a task. It should be embraced, celebrated, relished and practiced as much as humanly possible.

So thanks, Stevie, for reminding me why I got into this business in the first place.

Follow more of her creative adventures at http://twitter.com/#!/girlnamedstevie.

I heard the news today that R.E.M. had decided to call it a day.  I came over some random XM radio channel as I was driving through the North Carolina mountains and I had to pull over at the next exit just to gather myself.  I really did feel like I was punched in the stomach.

They have been off the radar for most of us for a while - and certainly don't mean much if anything to the 20-somethings of today.  But for me, R.E.M. supplied the soundtrack to my college life and probably ten years beyond.

I can't remember who played it for me, but when I heard "Chronic Town" for the first time, it was like somebody had wiped away the musical grime of the late 70s and I was seeing and hearing the future of music for the first time.  It was like taking a shower and washing off the residue of Styx and Foreigner and...you name the band.

I'd never heard anything like it. It was simultaneously addictive and mysterious.  Catchy, poppy and sublime.

Some people didn't get it. Hell, I didn't really get it. But I listened. And kept listening. And kept buying every bootleg record I could get my hands on. And between 82 and 88 I bet I saw them live 20 times at least. I became a groupie of sorts.

Yes, they had some duds, but I never ceased to wonder at how they consistenly reinvented their sound and always gave us something new on every record.

The last time I saw them live, in Raleigh a few years back, Bill Berry made a surprise appearance and it was one of the most electifying concert moments I've ever witnessed. There was a young couple sitting next to us and remember leaning over and yelling, "It's Bill Berry! The original drummer!" They just looked at me with a puzzled expression. No idea what I was talking about.  But then they turned away, listened and big smiles broke out on their faces. Simply because of the music and the moment.

You didn't have to understand R.E.M. to get R.E.M. And that is the legacy they'll leave behind.

 

 

 

If there are three things I'm really passionate about (other than my family), they're music, great design and trying to give back when I can. That's what makes the Yellow Bird Project so cool. It's a Montreal-based organization that lets Indie bands design their own tee shirts, and when you buy one, a contribution to the band's chosen charity is made. Great idea. Very cool designs. They even have their own theme song, written by The Tallest Man On Earth:

 

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So, after 25+ years of steady agency employment and going on two full years of a successful freelance business, I've decided to stick my toe (very gingerly) into the interviewing pool again, and I'm not really liking the temperature. "What digital experience do you have?"  "Have you written a lot for social media sites?"  "How many websites have you done?"  "Do you understand coding?" Now, don't get me wrong, I know how very important the digital platform is to engagement. And yes, I've written everything from Facebook content to microsites to display banners. But there I sit in interview after interview, with my own website full of years and years of great IDEAS - TV, print, radio, outdoor, non-traditional, and yes, digital work - and nobody seems to be paying attention to the fact that I can actually think and create and have big ideas.  They're more interested in whether I know how to supply write blog copy and understand SEO.  Very frustrating.  What happened to creative directors who are hired to lead, inspire and teach?  There have been shops I've talked to that really do get it - that look at me for my creative and leadership abilities, and I really appreciate it.  But there are others that are completely blinded by the whole digital thing and see it as the be-all-end-all instead of simply another effective tool, another great touchpoint, for consumer engagement.  Social is a great way to tell a story and have a conversation with your audience. But so is a well-written print ad or an engaging TV or radio spot. And no matter how advanced we get with our communication toolbox, the ability to write and tell a story will never be a thing of the past. So (with all due respect and love to my sweet wife and kids), maybe I'll just stay "single" when it comes to rejoining an agency. We'll see.

The most powerful element in advertising is the truth." - Bill Bernbach

It was totally off my radar, but on August 13th, 2011, Bill Bernbach would have been 100 years old. Who is Bill Bernbach, you ask?  Well, if you're in advertising (especially if you're a writer), you take a knee at the mere mention of his name.  He would be on the Mount Rushmore of advertising if there were such a thing.

If you're not in advertising, you can still thank him for helping making the ads you read and the TV commericals you watch more informative, thought provoking, entertaining and much, much smarter. He never talked down to his consumer audience. He treated them with respect and never like they were not the "lowest common denominator."

And he wrote beautiful copy.  Just read the original Volkswagen campaign and you'll see what I mean. "Lemon." "Think small." And the list goes on and on.

My Facebook friend Patrick Scullin has a very nice tribute on his blog: http://blog.asoy.com/2011/remembering-bill

I teach my students at UNC that writing copy doesn't have to be scientific and formulaic and just a bunch of marketing points strung together.  It can be powerful and inspiring and intelligent and may actually sell something.

The craft of copywriting may be a dying art, but every time I read something Bernbach wrote, it restores my faith.

If I could be 1/100th of the thinker and writer Bill Bernbach was, I'd be happy.  And probably rich.  But he's given all us creative writer types something to aim for.

Thanks, Bill.

I worked with a great art director (Steve Davis) on these ads for Doctor's Vision Centers, a chain of eyecare centers around North Carolina.  Beautiful photography courtesy of Bruce DeBoer. Created through Sinclair Advertising. Maybe one day the campaign will see the light of day!

For the first time since I've had an email account (over 11 years), I've been hacked. And used to spam every one of the friends I have in my online address book. So, sorry. I fixed it. But as I woke up this morning to discover the breach, I've also been thinking a lot about the stalemate in Washington over the budget, the Republican Party in NC trying to redraw the districts to suit their own needs, and Amy Winehouse dying yesterday. I guess I really don't have much of a problem, do I? Gonna be a nice Sunday here. Hot but nice. Heading off to the cooler climbs of Wisconsin in a couple of days. 20 hours in a car doesn't really appeal to me, but we do it every year and it's always fun once we get to Cincinnati and then to Door County.

Just took the kids to see the new "Winnie The Pooh."  Have to say it was so, so refreshing to see actual hand-drawn cel animation again.  No digital stuff. No having to put on 3D glasses.  And what a great stroke of genius to have Zooey Deschanel sing the title song and John Cleese do the narration. Have to hand it to Disney. I wish they'd make more of their kids' movies this way. Technology can't take the place of a great story and smart execution.

I'm here in Atlanta to spend a full day with Kristina Halvorson (@Halvorson) talking about Content + Strategy. Kristina is a dynamic speaker and runs a really cool company (http://www.braintraffic.com/) in Minneapolis.  Stay tuned for a summary.

Since this past Monday, I've been attending a pretty cool conference in Atlanta called "An Event Apart." (http://aneventapart.com/2011/atlanta/) It's pretty heavy on web design, coding, CSS and the like, but we dive into content today for a full day.  As a writer, I've been pretty lost with a lot of the language - and it's a whole new vocabulary to me.  But a lot of what I've seen and learned so far is very similar to advertising and marketing. Express your information simply and put it where your consumers can get to it easily.