Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Casa de Jetpacks sits on a canal near the Wekiva River Conservation Area, so it is not uncommon to encounter all manner of wildlife in the yard and around the neighborhood. Sand hill cranes are regular tenants, as are otters. Lizards, snakes and turtles are of course ubiquitous. Every morning and evening you can spot deer so tame that they just look at you as if you've interrupted their private breakfast or round of cocktails in their reserved room at the club. Hawks are always on the lampposts, and they are always being harassed by smaller birds, but the hawks just sit there cool as hell while being darted at by noisy little pests. The occasional alligator wanders into the yard. Earlier this week I got so tired of an armadillo rooting around in my garage and yard that I dispatched him to Armadillo Hell, where I'm sure all armadillos go upon expiring. And then sometimes we get bear, but only at night when the trash cans are on the street waiting to be emptied the following morning. Until today, that is, when a bold bear decided he'd have a broad daylight lunch of pears from the tree in the yard. The dog followed me out and scared him/her off with some vicious barking that had it been tested, would not have been backed up by any sort of bite. 

Got my copy of Mad Men Unbuttoned today in the mail. (I had already received a galley.) Written by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, it is a complete dissection of the era in which the hit series takes place, as well as THE authoritative history of ad agencies of the time - and just in time for the new season. Copyranter has an entry in there. So does Bad Banana. So do I. Buy it for the fan in your life. Now. (That was a call to action.)

Saw a tweet from Flashman of Sydney this morning. Seems there's a course on media, society and politics at the University of New South Wales that uses one of my Mike Adams cartoons on a handout promoting the course. Cool.

Saw another tweet today from Ad Pulp that announced a contest being put on by BBR Saatchi & Saatchi of Tel Aviv. They call it "The Impossible Brief." They're asking people to solve the Middle East Crisis, since Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama or any of their staff of career diplomats, or the UN, or Bono, or Madonna, or Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie couldn't. Hell, no one can, can they? Since I'm not doing anything this summer in the way of real work, I took a stab. Frisbee, after all, is universal.

And I will commute weekly to Tel Aviv if that's what it takes to get an ad job in this economy.

Agencies - Save Money and Headaches!

Was chatting with Darryl via IM this morning about someday opening up a Plaid office down here in Florida. It's a far-fetched dream that I'm sure I hold more than he does, but I bug him about it every so often to remind him I haven't lost hope. Working with Plaid is fun as they have cool clients and the copy process goes smoothly. The Plaid designers are easy to work with and they're open to concepts. I submit my ideas and headlines, and Darryl usually replies with "You totally rock," which is a refreshing alternative to what I usually hear in my job, something along the lines of, "I think you need to give us ten more ideas, none of which we will use. If we do use it, once we've finished diluting whatever you gave us, you won't recognize it anyway."

Anyway, Darryl promises he isn't ordering this new product, hatched from my brain during our IM.

If You Say It Like This, It's Probably Not True

You are cutting edge, eh? And hip as well?

From the job description:

We are a highly creative, cutting edge, hip, and young agency and we’re looking for someone to fit in effortlessly! Applicants must have a high tolerance for pranks, jokes, and the random mix of music we all play while working.

I'm all for a fun work environment and liking the people I work with, but I must edit you now:

We are a highly pretentious bunch of third-tier wankers, struggling to stay afloat in a world of better talent. We’re looking for someone fresh out of college willing to work for next-to-nothing while tolerating our self-satisfied smugness as we fart out loud and try to best each other with shitty indie music you've never heard.

If you're interested, the job is in Tallahassee and the posting is at Craigslist Orlando.

If you fit the bill, you will be awarded with a fake-candid black and white photograph on the company's "About Us" page, where a hip and irreverent bio about you will not be funny at all.

Previously: How to Start an Agency.

Image above from "Your Scene Sucks."

Domain Names You Didn't Think To Buy

But it's not too late - if you HURRY! ACT NOW!



So often in the media business, new companies, agencies, widgets and apps sprout up with the dumbest names. It’s like the owners didn’t even try to come up with something creative, but instead made up a dumb word or misspelled an existing word. (More on that here and here.)

Being a collector of cool sounding domain names (which I have yet to do anything with, giant dreams notwithstanding) I just went to GoDaddy and top-of-head found you five six names in about four four and a half minutes that I think are damn good names. Buy them. Build an app. Sell it to Google. Thank me at your “I’m a millionaire!” party.

I’m still working on my millions. I'll let you know when that happens.

Here you go:

GIANTGREENPIGS.COM is available!
YOURMOMTWEETS.COM is available!
SICKLITTLEPUPPIES.COM is available!
SUNNYFOG.COM is available!
FOGGYSUN.COM is available!!!!
BUNCHOFSTUPID.COM is available!

That last one? Gold.

Nailin' It

Nail Communications of Providence, Rhode Island (state motto: "The Tiniest State") has a rare handle on Social Media and the Web 2.0 craze. Clicking that link will take you to an irreverent PDF/white paper of sorts, outlining Nail's approach to Web 2.0. It's long and involved, but what it amounts to is a little common sense in this wild frontier. Maybe you're already doing what Nail recommends, but I know for a fact that many of you aren't. Nail is offering this PDF for free, giving away all of their secrets to all the other shops and new media start-ups doing it wrong. (And hopefully putting a few of the scheming, scamming charlatans out of business in the process.)

Check out their 8 Internet Marketing Experts to Avoid. I've worked with a few of these clowns. If you see yourself in any of those profiles, I'm sorry. I didn't write it. It's never too late to get your girlfriend to cut your faux hawk.

Nail also has a nice site, utilizing the whimsical Flash animation so prevalent with agency sites, but keeping navigation simple, a rare thing with hipster shops. You don't have to guess where anything is, which is refreshing. I'm not sure why agencies (usually the big ones) think it's creative to create a site so unnavigable that it requires guesswork and insider cool to figure out.

Go Nail.

Notes on a Meeting, #2

A meeting this afternoon, and in this one a new character was created.
"Anne Estes, AE." Tagline: She's Gettin' It Done



Previously in "Notes on a Meeting"

Bald Bobble Bill

The Plaid Tour is the most well-executed advertising campaign for an advertising agency I've ever seen. From the concept of "Brand Aid" to the website with its little plaid van crossing the globe, these people have thought of everything. Regular updates via (cough) Twitter, instant messaging with van occupants, live camera, a growing Flickr set and the sneaking suspicion that when they get back at the end of the week, the press coverage alone should be responsible for even more new business. I expect to see this effort written up as a feature in some industry trades soon.

And Bill of MTLB finally got himself immortalized as a bobblehead figure on the Plaid "meet the staff" page. I've heard it joked that white guys can't do the bald thing very well. Bill pulls it off. He's likely using Plaid client HeadBlade to achieve the Mr. Clean look.

I predict this agency is about to explode, and I'm putting in my request now to be their Florida office.