J.S. Gilbert's Blog (14)

Dear Diary or whatever. Well looks like things with me and the Create Magazine folks are cool and groovy. I'm on the Advisory Board for another year and will even have my own monthly rants and raves column on their website. (More on that to come)

So I checked out the November issue of Create and looks like some ofthe judges agreed with some of my picks but not with some of my other picks. But then again, I'm still a little foggy over exac

Forgive me father, it has been 48 days since my last confession, er, I mean blog. Oh how I envy those bloggers who live roller coaster lives that allow for them to consistently come up with witty prose every day or so (some a few times a day). Of course there are the bloggers who feel the need to write each day about what they had for breakfast or some other type of drivel for whoever's reading pleasure. I suppose the somewhat episodic tidbits from some of the folks who open their lives up on

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged. I've been busy and I'm afraid I just don't have the blogging routine down yet. So what shall we talk about today?

Let's talk about Car Dealers. For the past few months I've taken a contract to be a creative director for an agency that only has car dealer accounts. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure someone out there is actually working as a creative for a car dealer that actually wants to have decent concept and execution. I'm praying that one

Now don't get me wrong, some of my best friends push performance metrics. O.k., none of my best friends do and when I find some pencil sharpening, numbers lover at an event, I run the other way.

It's not that I don't believe in statistics. I am a true believer that history repeats itself and that 4 out of 5 dentists is indeed 80%. I just have a hard time with statistics for several reasons.

Statistically speaking, people are liers. We know that most of the time people lie when t

I'm not sure if it's chic to still bash Microsoft. They got the whole charity thing going and then out pops VISTA with 47,638 more reasons to bash the Redmond, WA giant right on it's bloated code nose.

I do know however that it is chic and hip to bad mouth Google. I actually have a legitimate complaint. A personal issue. It's too bad too, becuase I was so looking forward to a life of Liberty, Justice and Google for all. I think personally

I've been conversing (actually email dialoging) with Steve McNamara here. (www.adcracker.com). I've talked to him about some of my ideas about creative and production and mentioned that I use improv actors to come up with potential ideas for t.v. or radio spots or even potential full-on campaigns. Steve suggested I might want to share this on here.

Having a little background of being a stand-up comi

Out doing some shooting for some local t.v. spots and found out about these guys that mount an HD video camera and still 10 megapixel digital cameras to a gyroscope mounted to a radio controlled helicopter. You can see some of what the footage can look like at www.imageabove.com . Went out yesterday to Marin County on what might have been the single best day of the year to shoot and I am stoked. We got some absolutely rocking footage and hopefully we'l

Well, I'm going to try blogging a little every day. It's good therapy and perhaps someday when I go totally postal, someone will look back at these posts and say "we should have seen it coming."

So, I had a major victory. I did some scratch tracks to pitch radio concept and the client liked it so much that he said "let's put them on the air just the way they are." Now I'd like to hear from some spot producers out there and see how often this comes up because I believe it's my first tim

I got pegged to write and produce a couple of radio PSA's for a well respected local charitable organization. This is pro bono work. I'm happy to do it and quite honestly I don't do enough. I got asked to do this by the organization and sent them off to their radio "go-between-public affairs dude."

I thought while I was at it I'd offer to the radio guy that if he had other worthwhile groups that needed production and I had time I'd be happy to consider producing radio spots for these g

Well, I have heard it said that doing creative for car dealerships either signals the beginning or end of one's career. Since I've had a sort of career in advertising for a while, this ain't the beginning. I am however determined not to have this be the end. So, over the next several months, I will be attempting to pump, life, love and humor into some Nor Cal local car creative.

Thus far, my attempts to produce t.v. and radio spots that D