Top Five of 2010

It’s the end of the year, the holidays are near and, like every ad agency in the world, we stopped the presses, paused our Twitter feeds and stepped back from our beloved laptops to decide on our top five commercials of 2010. Some of our colleagues lost some hair over this, but in the end we just agreed they are what they are — astonishing, hilarious, breathtaking, concerning, sexy, loveable, hideous — simply intriguing. You might not agree with our choices and we may have missed one, but take a look and let us know what you think. Top Five (in no particular order of course): (1) Old Spice — The Man Your Man Could Smell Like As Pat Gallagher said, “You ...

Overnight Sneaks

Urbandaddy.com has the skinny on some unique kicks that give another life to the use-once-then-done envelopes that accompany your overnight-airmailed goods. Enter Civic Duty — recycled, future-perfect sneakers.

Rap Map

The mad scientists behind Rap Genius have forged new frontiers by bringing Hip-Hop together with the power of Google to bring you "Rap Map™ - your guide through the gangsta terrain of the planet."

Today’s College Grads Redefining Success

As college graduates threw their tasseled caps in the air and loaded up their U-Hauls, we stopped a few of them on the University of Texas campus to ask them about their plans. The job scene, while not exactly “the dismal environment encountered by last year’s grads,” isn’t great. Average starting salaries are still down, and “employers plan to make only five percent more job offers to new graduates this spring compared to last spring, when job offers were down 20 percent from 2008 levels."1 Judging by the optimism we encountered, you would think the grads we talked to hadn’t seen these statistics, but these grads are using a different yardstick to measure success. For them, it’s not about the signing ...

Cipher — Think Small

A couple of weeks ago we set out to talk to urban consumers about brands and came away with some big ideas about thinking small. It may seem like an oxymoron — consumers’ preference for information about brands has increased, as has their level of expectations, but individuals are not interested in how BIG brands appear. They’re interested in how brands understand the essence of what truly resonates with them. Today, consumers are smarter and as Michael Margolis wrote in his recent article, “they demand communication that doesn’t insult their intelligence.” Still, many large companies struggle with the old paradigm “bigger is better.” Many still hold the opinion that bragging about how great, big and fantabulous they are will translate from market to consumer. Regrettably, they’re wrong. Consumers, during our interviews, consistently reflected the notion that they are rather turned off by brands that seemed and felt BLOATED. They distance themselves from brands that don’t reflect their values or don’t connect with them on a more personal level. But BIG brands aren’t out of the game, so long as they keep that small-brand feel. Urban consumers told us, when large companies felt small, they saw them in a more engaging and personal light. It creates a truer, more intimate dialogue, instead of the one-way conversation they feel they experience on so many occasions. So what can a growing corporation do to appear SMALL?

Puma’s New Box

1 special bag + 1 cardboard sheet = Puma's completely reinvented new shoebox. Puma partnered with The Fuse Project for this design collaboration and is expected to roll out the new packaging in 2011. More info and video at psfk.

The Medium That Might Matter Most

Marketers around the globe are still asking the big questions: What is next in the multicultural-advertising world? How do we connect better with African Americans, Hispanics or Asians? How do we get them to buy more? How do we get them to hear us?