What's the Most Interesting thing you've done lately?

I believe that most of us have tended to agree on other threads that much of advertising isn't necesarily good or bad, it's just advertising. I relaized that as a voice talent working for other creatives I get to do v.o. for projects I wish I could have written or produced. I am not one of the lucky ones out there who gets much in the way of budgets to work with and much of what I do is rather "functional", so when I actually have the reare moment to get out of my box and do something differnt and exciting i the way of writing, directing, or conceptualizing, it's just so nice.

Currently I'm finishing up a week of directing an author named Bill Tancer read his soon to be released book, "Click" for an audio book version. It's a great book and the experience of getting to know Bill has been wonderful.

So, wahat's new with you.

Tags: Bill, Tancer, audiobook, author, create, creative, different, direct, produce, write

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve McNamara on June 17, 2008 at 3:08pm

Hi J:

I recently flew to Toronto, Canada (from Los Angeles) to present a short seminar on creative briefs and strategic advertising tools. It was both a teaching and a learning experience - tremendous, really. Hope to get more gigs like that, especially with the large internationals.

Your friend,

Steve

Permalink Reply by J.S. Gilbert on June 17, 2008 at 3:23pm

Hey Steve
,
Something you might want to do is contact the AAF and make yourself available to do ADDY Awards judging. They fly you in and put you up and usually there's ad ay of sightseeing or something like that depending upon the local club. There's no pay, but a really great expereince and a way to give back. (Not that you don't already give back plenty)

Permalink Reply by lisa on July 8, 2008 at 3:50pm

strictly for the creative challenge..and my brother bet me a dollar I couldn't do it....

revived a sandcastle building competition which has been banned for 21 years - on a zero budget.

taught a bunch of local high school kids how to get free pr, advertising, publicity, and how to do everything yourself though begging, borrowing or stealing. its' been a fun pirate adventure!

we'll find out how this adventure ends august 3 - if it doesn't rain that is!

Permalink Reply by lisa on November 18, 2008 at 12:30pm

well the numbers came back - 90,000 people showed up, on the beach in a community of 19,000 residents, and 70 teams built sandcastles, piggybacked it on a dying festival which needed some life pumped into it - so it didn't cost us anything operationally. media: 6 segments live breaksfast tv, 7 minute segment interview national radio, 4 radio stations-3 minute interviews,8 community newspaper articles including 2 editorials, linked to over 200 family related websites - oh and all of this was free - we didnt' put a penny out. caught everyone off guard because the festival organizating committee didn't believe a bunch of inexperienced teenagers could do anything which would draw a crowd - to the point where they had less volunteers on the 2nd day of the festival which is when the sandcastle competition was. I needed the restriction in budget to exercise my abilities. I've been stuck with e-bus clients for a long time, so this was a fun adventure I needed. Next time I see my brother he better have that dollar ready!

Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on July 12, 2008 at 12:18pm

JS, I'm not so sure that the luxury of budgets isn't in its own way restrictive.

Back in the day, before the Adobe Creative Suite, I used to think that if a concept was really good, it ought to be able to pass the cocktail-napkin test: Thumbnail it out on a cocktail napkin, and run that in the newspaper. And if the idea wasn't that good, all the production values in the world weren't going to help.

Now, that's probably an extreme position, but the beauty of today's tools is that with a little ingenuity, we can create visuals out of thin air. Picnic invitation? I once scanned part of a checkered tablecloth.

But anyway. You asked what I'm doing lately.

Two things: One, seeing the fruit of a six-year effort to transform a local retail brokerage into a national wholesale financial product, thanks in large part to branding, trade dress and a decent set of marketing materials.

Two, positioning my own practice as a marriage of branding and positioning on the front end and targeted marketing -- with fairly orthodox DM principles -- to deliver business results on the back end.

Permalink Reply by J.S. Gilbert on July 12, 2008 at 12:51pm

Mary,
Well, I'm not talking about million dollar budgets. I personally would love to have my creativity restricted with some nice decent budgets. Unfortnately, despite my ocassionally being able to get a considerable amount of blood from a turnip, I find that clients with closed pocketbooks also often have closed minds.

Despite this, I do get to do a few cool things.

And I didn't ask what you were doing lately, I asked "what's THE MOST INTERESTING thing you've done lately. Perhaps not a significant difference if all you do is highly interesting.

Permalink Reply by Mary Baum on July 12, 2008 at 2:29pm

True. I sure wish all I did were highly interesting. But I chickened out of the interesting part of my positioning experiment (in the sense that all life is an expieriment). I watered it down into almost a platitude of corporatese proportions. But the intersection of branding and DM is more of a collision. I think it can work, but it could make me roadkill:

I'm an art director. Design is in my capillaries, lymph nodes, neurons, axons, corpuscles and a whole lot of other things anatomical that we really don't want to name in polite company.

But I know DM -- and the premise behind the way we write DM copy -- works. It can practically print money. And some of the biggest names in DM have no use for real design. Are they right? Magazine publishers and investment newsletters, another species of publishing, that cater to an upscale audience, seem to be able to marry the two disciplines. So I've gotta believe the combination can work if the target audience is right. Because that's where any advertising, in any medium, has to start. I think.

Permalink Reply by Jack Goldenberg on August 5, 2008 at 9:15pm

Today I hired a stilt walking Uncle Sam to work for me in Denver, Colorado at the Democratic National Convention. I want him to hold up a sign that says on one side: "America, it's TIME for a Change." and "www.obamawatches.com" on the other. Sunday, I interviewed George Bush and got him to endorse Barack Obama for President. He also agreed and to wear an Obama watch.

Yes, it is the George Bush who lives in a white house, but his white house is in Belvidere, NJ. (Story and photo attached.)

I'll be introducing 3-4 new Obama for President watches at the Convention, or more properly outside the Convention since I couldn't get the proper credentials. Now, where did you say those TV cameras were?

Attachments:

George Bush, in front of his whire house, wearing his Obama watch..jpg, 7.3 MB
Geprge Bush release 8.5.08-2.doc, 5.3 MB

Permalink Reply by Michael Durwin on February 21, 2009 at 4:26pm

I've just wrapped a social media campaign (at least the Valentine's Day part of it) for a national flower shop. I wrote up the outcome and am preparing for a meeting with the client next week. I also finished painting the nursery for the baby my wife and I expect any day.

Permalink Reply by Bill DeMichele on March 31, 2009 at 4:17am

I just returned from Cape Town South Africa. What a great place. It's a warehouse of talent with productions going on everywhere. Commercials, movies, fashion and product shoots are everywhere. And, the best thing is, everyone is eager. Eager to work, share and help anyway they can. I have never met so many photographers, production crews, models, make-up artists, producers and agency people who are willing to talk to you, open their resources and help in any way they can.
Of course, the landscape is beautiful and expenses are cheap.
I shot fashion there for 2 weeks and it is some of the best work I have ever done. Creativity is in the air.

Permalink Reply by Michael Durwin on March 31, 2009 at 2:48pm

Working on social media promotion of www.Autism151.com to collect 150 videos of hope for those touched by autism. Our Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and MySpace sites are live and the website launches on April 1st. Anyone interested in sharing a video can contact me at autism1fifty1@gmail.com.

Permalink Reply by Michael Durwin on April 6, 2009 at 5:24pm

www.autism1521.com is live by the way. We're on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo, Truleo and now AdGabber!