Welcome to AdHack. Our alpha website is open for you to play.
Come on in — the water’s fine.
Have some thoughts? Tell us what you think.
Hey. Wow. We’re profiled in TrendHunting: Sexy DIY advertising reveals the truth behind chocolate.
I’m tired of traditional advertising that insults my intelligence. Too often, ads are one-way messages from brands telling consumers what to purchase through overt campaigns that depend on boring stereotypes to inspire us to buy.
Yes, yes, I’m listening.
Most consumers listen to (and trust) product opinions from friends and family far more than any traditional ad developed by professionals. Savvy marketers are realizing the potential of a new (un)advertising model that highlights peer-to-peer recommendations and personal perceptions over rosy fantasies.
Houston, we have liftoff!
Communities are developing around consumer generated advertising, or do-it-yourself (DIY) “ad hacking” that look very promising as a way to share a brand story, without the message coming from the brand itself. Designers, photographers and other creative folks are pushing the advertising envelope online by featuring their own opinions, testimonials and reviews in fresh formats that threaten to blow the socks off the traditional advertising paradigm.
*blush* Aww, shucks.
Chocolates for your love on Valentine’s Day? Some people say chocolate is an aphrodisiac. But according to research, 6 out of 10 women prefer chocolates to sex. Can this be true?
Perhaps the Scots know best. According to the Scotsman, they prefer sex over chocolate.
If Valentine’s is about love, romance and feeling sexy, why are the advertisements so boring?
Love is never boring.
That’s why the AdHack community decided to spice things up this Valentine’s Day.
AdHack is a community of designers, photographers and creators who are pushing the advertising envelope.
Have a look at the ”Chocolate Love” ad created by AdHack member Giant Ant Media.
The Assignment
Create an ad for the best romance item ever received.
From the Chocolate Love Ad Concept, creators Giant Ant Media say:
“Pretty simple. We wanted to make a connection between chocolate and romance, and chocolate as an aphrodisiac but without using people. By using the chocolates, the video is still racy, which we wanted, but not crude and still retains a “cuteness” about it. This video could work as an ad for a chocolate company (Purdy’s / Lindt), or even for a brand that sells “romantic” goods (Oh My/Kama Sutra).”
“Chocolate Love” is a short, stop-motion animation, shot on a light box. 367 Frames.
About AdHack
AdHack is a web-based marketplace for advertising creative. Anyone can create an ad. Anyone can buy an ad. AdHack acts like an eBay for ad creative, connecting ad buyers and ad creators. Learn more on the public site at www.adhack.com
AdHack is currently in a private alpha rollout. For more information contact James Sherrett.
Late last week Venture Beat reported that Google and Publicis had announced plans to work together.
Publicis will contribute ad creators and clients. Google will contribute ad inventory, delivery and analytics. They each have something the other needs. Seems like a good match.
Wearing my AdHack hat, I can tell you this is a small announcement that points to larger trends in the ad industry. So here’s the big-picture in less than a thousand words.
So the volume of ads being served is exploding.
And the advertisers placing the ads or the agencies acting on their behalf know more and more about those ads.
And the more then know, the more they realize that they need specific, custom, fitted ads for each place they advertise. Adopting techniques from other media — repeat the hell out of the same ad! — is like dancing to swim.
And since media is fragmenting from mass to micro, more of those places pop up all the time, all of them with different factors to consider. Now advertisers know about all those factors too since they know so much more about their ad performance.
Mix in more contexts, more advertising outlets and more data about ad performance to prove that the one ad needs to be a whole bunch of ads. That those ads need to evolve and get selected based on performance in tight, quick feedback loops. That new ads need to get built all the time.
Except: who’s going to produce all those ads? All the variations to test and use, test and use, test and use.
Ad creators in agencies are organized to build a few big ads in a long, intensive process. What if they need to build tons of tiny ads in fast, lightweight processes? That no work so well.
The cracks are already showing. Two new models are being pursued today to deal with the inelasticity of ad creation:
Will either of these approaches work? Dunno.
But we proposed AdHack as a better way to address the problem. AdHack fits in as the place where ad production can get scaled up with content. Where a product’s users, a micromedia outlet’s audience, or anyone with desire, time and skills can make the ads. Where ads can be found and customized to fit advertisers’ needs. Or ads can be commissioned, tested, selected and delivered from a creative community.
Final thought: in announcing the Publicis / Google deal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt made two pretty interesting quotes.
First: “It is possible that what emerges could drive the development of ‘open source advertising.”
Second: “Google is many things, but one thing we are not is creative. We’re a bunch of programmers, basically.”
Both indicate to me that Google sees the problem, sees how it can affect their business, but doesn’t know how (or want) to solve it themselves. My hope is that AdHack solves it for them. That’s what we’re here for.
This Friday, Jan. 25, the 3rd Launch Party Vancouver is happening at the (new) Lamplighter Pub.
I presented AdHack at the first Launch Party Vancouver, and the video below was shot at that event. It’s a great time and a cool bunch of people to meet up with. If you’re in the area, come on our and say ‘hi!’
Our very own Alphanaut Blaiq has won an Atticus Award for his white paper The Long Tail of Brand Communications: An approach to brand-building incorporating long tail economics.
The white paper is essential reading for anyone who wants to think about how advertising, marketing and communications are shifting from mass to micro — audiences, markets, media, etc. And what that shift means for everyone involved.
The Atticus Awards “honour original thinking in communications services and are open exclusively to professionals working in WPP companies.” WPP is an enormous “communications services” company with over 100,000 employees in 106 countries around the world. They’re one of the global, big daddy agencies.
Congratulations to Blaiq on the win!
Update: The Elongating Tail of Brand Communication is now available as a beautiful PDF for download from from ChangeThis. Go git it.
Whoa. Bombast from Big Blue. Who would have guessed it?
IBM Predicts the End of Advertising as We Know It. With a headline like that, who needs to read the full article.
Okay, I did. And I liked what I read. In a more formal way, it sounded familiar to this AdHack ear. Like-ah: what we’ve been saying, but more.
The report observes four change drivers tipping the advertising industry balance of power: control of attention, creativity, measurement, and advertising inventories…
...consumers’ attention has shifted, with personal Internet time rivaling TV time. Consumers have tired of interruption advertising, and are increasingly in control of how they interact, filter, distribute, and consume their content, and associated advertising messages…
...Amateurs and semi-professionals are increasingly creating low cost advertising content that threatens to bypass creative agencies…
...Self-service advertising exchanges are attracting revenues that were once exclusively sold through proprietary channels or transactions.
Overlooking the subtle pitch for IBM’s services (’IBM believes all players will need to invest heavily in consumer analytics and automation to gain more insights about the consumer and how to reach them.’ ) the report reads to me like a great validator from on high.
Sometimes it can get a little lonely out here. Not tilting-at-windmills lonely, just the sole sound of a lone voice. To hear the shifts we’ve based AdHack on reflected back to us from a blue chipper, warms the heart and gives us a happy addition to market context slide of our powerpoint presentation All About AdHack.
So Blue, we hear you.
Despite what some folks are saying (The User-Generated Content Myth) based on looking backwards, people can make damn fine ads. They have the tools, the passion and the creativity.
And those ads can be more than just decent. They can rock as hard as any ad. Then they can catch the attention of the company they’re about and the agency that handles the account. They can be the entry for their creators into advertising glory.
The ads may run on their own. They may get reshot or edited. Standard creative process of iteration applies.
Even for one of the tightest global brands — Apple — DIY advertising is happening. They recently did exactly what AdHack proposes as the new ad creative production model. A DIY ad became their new ad.
The original ad for your consideration, created by Leeds University student Nick Haley on a Macbook with Final Cut Pro, some images off the apple site, and catchy music:
That caught the attention of Apple marketeers. They lit up Nick, flew him to their agency and asked him to help with a High Definition version of the ad. He obliged, they reshot and the following ad resulted:
By opening the creative process Apple wins, TBWA / Chiat wins and Nick wins. So how does this scale up to create a new advertising production process? Psst: AdHack. We’re playing but we’re not just playing.
Now who wants to be second to be first? Auditioning starts with the AdHack private alpha. Want to play with it? Tell me and you’ll get invited.
Update: Make sure to read the comments on the Digg listing for the story. They read like market research responses to the premise of AdHack.
Thanks to Joel for the pointers and Danny for the reportage.
Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 writes in Who’s afraid of online advertising?
A new McKinsey & Co. report called How Companies Are Marketing Online draws the astonishing conclusion that many advertisers are reluctant to shift dollars online — despite the massive shift of consumer attention online — because of the “absence of meaningful metrics and adequate capabilities.”
I know. This is sequel number what to this movie? So I made the following comments.
Point 1: people, alone and in groups, make decisions based on faith, not reason. No surprise that they stick with what they know, what has succeeded for them in the past, what presents no risk to them losing their job for advocating something new. The person who stands up and wants to do things differently gets the target on their back.
Point 2: marketers want mass audiences but mass audiences are fast becoming as rare as hens teeth. Why mass audiences? Because then marketing is a system. Design the system and then adjust it as needed. We already have the mass system—get a bunch of people and pound them as hard as you can with the same message.
But the web doesn’t conform. Given choices, people gather in smaller groups. They form social bonds or reinforce existing ones. They recommend things to each other, reflecting and tailoring to that individuality they always had. Mass media has lost its ability to focus those individuals into mass audiences at the same time as people have discovered they can do media for themselves.
So a new advertising system is needed to fit a web architecture, and that new system is emeging slowly in small pieces, loosely joined (Weinberger). Which makes a lot of people uncomfortable, even afraid.
So who’s afraid of online advertising? Everyone already in advertising, and all the companies making their living off those people.
I may have had AdHack on my mind just a little as I made the comments.
Am I completely nuts, simple-minded and focused on my own gourd, or does a call to arms like The Adpocalypse and the Next Media Value Chain simply cry out for AdHack?
Seriously. Am I just so far up my own that I can’t see anything else?
We gots to know.
Perspective, fer me birthday, please.
Is it possible to make an ad in 60 minutes?
Yes it is.
This past weekend at Barcamp Vancouver I wrangled a session called Zero to 30 Seconds in Less than 1 Hour or So You Think You Can Make an Ad?.
In the first 15 minutes we chose a product (Uncle Fatih’s Pizza, the pizza we had just eaten at lunch), created a brief and brainstormed a number of ad concepts. Then we broke into 3 groups and executed the chosen ad concept. At the end of our hour we had 3 ads in the can.
I want to thank all the folks involved in the session for making it so much fun. You were all good sports and the creativity and energy you generated rocked me.
So, no more delays with the talky talk. The ads!
Uncle Fatih’s Pizza Confessional
Cast and crew: Dobes, John, Johathan, Lee, Monica and Yonas
Uncle Fatih’s Pizza: Share a Fatih Today!
Cast and crew: Jeremy, Jordan, Monique, Boris, Linda, Warren, Scott, Michael and Roger
Uncle Fatih Pizza Programmer
Cast and crew: Ianiv, Arieanna, Igor, (more, please send names!)
It’s nearly upon us! The monster that is Barcamp Vancouver 2007 starts tomorrow, Friday, Aug. 17 at 6:30 pm and runs for 24 geek-packed hours. If you’re coming, all the details are pasted in below.
But before that, let’s pay attention to the session we’re pitching for Saturday. The pitch:
Zero to 30 Seconds in Less than 1 Hour or So You Think You Can Make an Ad?
In one session we’ll go from concept to finished product on one or more advertisements (depending on number of participants) for anything we want. Email me if you’d like to get started on a few briefs before the session. — James Sherrett, ad hacker
I’ll post a few starter briefs here tomorrow to get things kicked off.
Hey, it’s one grand experiment! I’m interested to see how it shakes out.
Hello Barcampers!
Here’s our quick note with some details about Barcamp Vancouver 2007
Below you’ll find information on:
- registry and attendance
- t-shirts
- list of topics for sessions
- schedule of Barcamp events
- spreading the love
Registry and Attendance
http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver2007AttendeesWe’re oversubscribed (yay!), which means that some people who want
to come won’t be able to come (boo!).So please, if you’re in the first 120, check your dates and availability.
Are you sure you’re coming? We want to minimize the wiki squatting.If you’re not sure you’re coming, please strike out your name and post
the name of the top person left on the waiting list in your former place.If you’re on the waiting list, are you sure you’re available to come?
If not, please cross out your name. If you’re still keen on coming,
check back on the list to see if you’ve been added to the first 120.We don’t mean to be too anal about this. We just want to make sure
that all the people that want to be there and can be there do get
to be there.And to do that, please help us get the word out to all Barcampers.
Blog this message if you can. Forward it on to friends who are
interested so people are in the know.We’ve gone through the list of signed-up attendees. Everyone who
left an email address has been sent this message. But that’s only
53 of about 160 people and email is a fickle mistress.We’re missing out on getting in touch with some folks and we need
your help to get the word out. So blog the hell out of this and
we’ll (hopefully) reach everyone.
T-Shirts
We have printed 120 Barcamp Vancouver 2007 t-shirts to cover our
collective nekkidness.They’re fuschia (!) and they’ll be available at the door on a first-
come, first-served basis.We’re taking a suggested donation of $20 for each t-shirt, to
finance our lavish unconference lifestyle. Any monies left over will
be rolled into financing next year’s proceedings.
List of Topics for Sessions
http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver2007One of the suggestions from past Barcamps has been to post a list
of potential topics for sessions before the unconference. That way,
people can do their homework and get a hint of the sessions
available.So that’s a great idea. Now let’s put it into action.
On the Barcamp Vancouver 2007 main page we have a heading called
Topics. So far, we have 2 sessions listed. The page is a wiki.
Anyone who wants to add a session, please go to it.From past unconferences, we’ve seen that topics for sessions that
get listed beforehand have a much higher chance of getting selected
and getting great participation, which is, after all, the point.
So if you want to lead a session, or even just see a session on a
particular topic, please post the topic.We’ll do some active wiki gardening to lend some order to the list
of topics, but anything is fair game. Go. To. It.
Schedule of Barcamp Events
Friday, August 17: food and drink at the Alibi Room
- appetizers all evening
- open bar starting at 6:30 pm (until our credit runs out!)
- we’re in the private area downstairs
- The Alibi Room, 157 Alexander Street @ Main (map)
- sleepover at Workspace, 21 Water Street, Suite 400
Saturday, August 18: conference day all day
- start at 8:30 AM with day organization
- pastries and coffees available
- pizza lunch to be delivered at ~noon
- Workspace, Suite 400 - 21 Water Street (map)
- end at 5:30 PM
- your own reconnaisance
Spreading the Love
Lots of folks have worked hard to make Barcamp Vancouver 2007
happen. Sponsors have ponied up cash. Busy people have volunteered.
People with work to do have reinvested their attention to see
things get done.So if you have a chance, thank a volunteer or a sponsor or one
of the folks at Workspace (our venue!) for making the event happen.Last of all, thanks to all of your for all the enthusiasm, energy
and passion. And for reading this far.Barcamp lives in the relationships between all of us. All of us
make it happen. So come to the unconference ready to rock and
help us all kick some ass.
Any questions?
Check the website for answers:
http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver2007Ask an organizer:
- Kris Krug - www.kriskrug.com
- Roland Tanglao - www.rolandtanglao.com
- Robert Scales - www.robertscales.com
- Zak Greant - www.zak.greant.com
- James Sherrett - www.adhack.com
- Ianiv Schweber - www.blogaholics.ca
- Megan Cole - www.megancole.org
- Jordan Behan - www.telltenfriends.com
- Aaron Gladders - www.2paths.com
See you at the conference!
Assuming you don’t want to hear about the 3 jackfish I caught at the camp last week, we’ll move straight ahead to news of note.
1.
Changes are afoot in how people consume media. That feels like a real wooden way of saying what we know. We’re hoovering our information, news, games, entertainments, ads in new ways. They don’t agree with the old ways or the businesses built to support the old ways. We don’t so much care. We’re in charge now.
2.
The giant global agencies are shifting production to cheaper labour. Their expensive people — the ones they keep locked up and charge a second born to work with — are still too expensive to keep up with the demand of million-media advertising.
To whit: Publicis has ramped up in India, Russia, Brazil and China. Ads will be produced in multiplicity, in droves, in clutches tailored to composites of consumers controlled by vast computer banks driving algorithms.
Same as it every was: same business, same thinking, same view of people as sheep to be herded to purchase decisions by advertising.
An ad for everyone and everyone as an ad. As long as the ads are produced by Publicis. Inside the walled garden of creatives. Sweatshops of saleable ideas. Part of the assembly line of centralized meaning making and message control.
And you wonder why I stay up nights working on AdHack?
3.
The advertising agency is dead! Long live the advertising agency!
4.
And speaking of it starting, my friend John sent along a story from a blog we’ve been fans of for a while, Church of the Customer: McDonald’s and Ethical Taffy.
Two guys created the following video. Then the company that was the subject of the video bought the video as an ad. Now that sounds familiar!
But the story doesn’t end there. The writers of Church of the Customer are clever and considered. They bring up some of the problems that can arise from what they call “citizen marketing.”
That two guys whose flash of inspiration, wit and quick work would turn into a handsome payday (Fernando told us he is sworn to secrecy on the amount; he won’t even tell his mom), creates an ethical taffy: Must citizen marketers be unimpeachable supporters of a company and/or its products in order to maintain their aura of authenticity?
What if the company is huge and has multiple divisions or units whose work is disagreeable? What if some products aren’t worthy of devotion or are outright bad?
Must evangelists or citizen marketers support a company’s broad portfolio of work to remain credible, especially if they turn momentarily pro like Thomas and Fernando? Or do they get branded as sell-outs, capitalizing on an unexpected payday?
Then over at another standout blog, Brains on Fire, some commenting breaks out on their post McSavvy Marketing. And both of the creators of the ad show up to defend themselves from the folks getting all uppity and calling them sell outs.
Please know that I was eating McNuggets when we came up with this spot. I don’t know what you consider to be a “fan” of McDonalds; I mean I don’t eat it everyday but I do indulge from time to time. I resent being called a sell-out or shill. It’s an attack on my integrity which is very important to me. Let me say here that I don’t speak for Thomas or for McDonald’s. These words are of my own. The spot initially was meant as a joke. The joke being the ridiculousness of taking something so mundane as a chicken mcnugget and being super retarded about it. That’s it. There is no hidden truth about it. I am a performer of comedy and I wanted to make a few people laugh. I never expect to be paid for video. I did however expect an acknowledgment from McDonalds which had not been given at the time of the Jackie Huba interview “Citizen Marketers.” Now I have it and am content. The most exciting aspect of this whole thing, for me, is the fact that with this commercial I am now able to promote myself and my comedic sense. The check was just a bonus. Bottom line: There is no scandal here. No controversy about it. “I’m into Nuggets, ya’ll”.
Fernando
So what is credibility? Is it based on a person who makes something? Does it live in the thing they’ve made? Maybe both?
Whatever we decide, we decide. Credibility is the value we collectively give to things, to people, to stories and culture.
On AdHack we’ve got some ideas I think will reflect the way we create and assign credibility. A reputation. We’re calling it Cred. And just like credibility itself, it will become what its participants make of it.
So far that’s our plan to deal with the conflicts that can arise between credibility and commerce. We think it offers some great promise.
And if we need something else, then we’ll figure out something else. Any suggestions?
It’s starting.
Our first group of participants in AdHack have started using our alpha website. We call them the Alphanauts. We had a party to launch the Alphanauts, Wave 1.
In the DIY spirit of the enterprise, I baked a chocolate cake.
Over the rest of the summer we’ll be launching follow-on waves of Alphanauts at the AdHack alpha website. So don’t fret if you haven’t received your invitation for chocolate cake to be an Alphanaut yet. If you’re signed up, it will come.
What’s that Lassie? You haven’t signed up yet? Well, shoot. You should. Contact me and I’ll make it happen.
Bollocks to stealth — welcome to the AdHack Alpha!
AdHack prototype home page, too.
Want some AdHack Alerts? Sign up below and we'll make it so about every 2 weeks.
Cut through the crap of advertising to hear the real deal on products and services you care about. Better yet, make your own ads. It's DIY. It's AdHack.
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