If you were launching a new agency today, what would you call it?

They then offer an impressively quirky list that includes the new Kids Love Jetlag, which families nicely with sister agencies Hello, Sunshine and Furious Monkeys, all the brain trusts of France’s eccentric Fred & Farid Group. Naked is also a nice one. It’s a clothing-optional agency, of course, where employees get a subsidized gym membership as part of their compensation package. (I’m making this up.)

Me, I’d probably call mine “I Must B Off My Meds 2 Start N Agency” though I’d entertain shorter options. Maybe just “Off R Meds,” and then, of course, go after pharma accounts.

Related posts:

1. See ART & COPY, the new film about advertising Check out the trailer for ART & COPY, a new...
2. Bank advertising takes disaster head on Get eaten alive, still earn interest You wouldn’t expect armageddon...
3. Advertising is a really weird business. Just ask Jean Paul Gaultier’s Marionettes. Ad Campaign: Jean Paul Gaultier Whips Marionettes Into Shape for...

‘Miss O!’ diet drinks paint woman as animals that blithely drop good guys who are looking for commitment or–heaven help us–making them dinner. Really? I guess that may sound good to the 20-somethings who like “dirty boys,” as my friends used to call them, or have revenge fantasies, or want to assume the stereotypical male jackass role. Again, would love to see the brief’s description of the target audience, because whatever possessed the creatives to deliver this approach must have had some fairly negative insights about some aspect of the target, or the target’s target.

Related posts:

1. 7 and-a-half tips to start social networking 1. Get on Twitter. 2. Try Twitter Advanced Search to...
2. How to know what to write Most copywriter blogs, articles and how-to’s tell you how to...

Ad of the Day: Orange Enlists TSA Types to Silence Your Cell Phone at the Movies | Adweek

Why does everybody hate the TSA so much? Totally kidding. I know why. Orange, a U.K. telecom, scores points off our very own Transportation Safety Administration in the silence-your-cell-phone ad below from Fallon London, now running in British cinemas. And you can practically hear American voices cheering them on…

Related posts:

1. Features versus benefits: Can we end this now? On the very first day of Copywriter or Sales 101...

If you missed NPR’s interview yesterday with legendary adman George Lois about his new book, Damn Good Advice, it’s worth going back and giving it a listen. The highlight for me was hearing the tale of how Lois (in his version of the story, at least) single-handedly invented Aunt Jemima syrup.

It’s one of those advertising yarns you’d expect to have heard a million times over, and possibly you have, but it was new to me. When Lois was working the Aunt Jemima account, the Quaker-owned brand was known for pancake mix but didn’t make a syrup. “I said to them, ‘How come you guys don’t have a syrup? You own the pancake business,’ ” Lois recounts in the NPR interview. “And they said, ‘Well, that’s not our business,’ and they came up with 12 reasons why they don’t have it.”

Not getting any traction after months of pressing the issue, Lois decided to drop the idea into a consumer survey about pancake habits. “The last question in this questionnaire about pancakes listed a bunch of syrups, and I included the words ‘Aunt Jemima syrup,’ and I said, ‘Which of these syrups have you bought in the past year?’ And something like 90 percent of the people circled that they had bought Aunt Jemima syrup, which was nonexistent. … I showed them my research and said ’90 percent of Americans believe they are already buying Aunt Jemima syrup. Would you please make Aunt Jemima syrup?’ And of course they created the syrup, and they became the leading syrup brand in the world in two days.”

Just goes to show, there’s no limit to what creativity can accomplish when you add in some pestering and unsolicited advice. Photo: Phaidon Press.

Related posts:

1. See ART & COPY, the new film about advertising Check out the trailer for ART & COPY, a new...
2. Copywriting FAQs; What Makes a Good Advertising Writer Copywriting Frequently Ask Questions – Copywriting FAQs (tags: advertising copywriter...

Diet soda is one of the few substances scientifically known to be ingested by fashion models. So, it’s not completely off the wall that Jean Paul Gaultier has been named creative director for Diet Coke in Europe. (He replaces Karl Lagerfeld in the role.) What is off the wall is the new ad campaign. See it here.

Related posts:

1. Bank advertising takes disaster head on Get eaten alive, still earn interest You wouldn’t expect armageddon...
2. See ART & COPY, the new film about advertising Check out the trailer for ART & COPY, a new...
3. Porter’s Five Forces: Tipping the Balance of Power in Any Business Situation No matter which industry your business is in, you can...

I’m a sucker for CEOs who do their own company spots. (OK, not really, but it’s amusing.) DollarShaveClub.com’s 90-second promo clip is on the cutting edge, with more than 3 million views. Smells like Old Spice? Sure does, but also smells like cross-promo opp.

Related posts:

1. Plugins That Make WordPress Into A Company Intranet Plugins That Make WordPress Into A Company Intranet | StylizedWeb.com...

Actually I think most of us in it see everyone including ourselves as the jackass.

Related posts:

1. 7 and-a-half tips to start social networking 1. Get on Twitter. 2. Try Twitter Advanced Search to...