AdScam/The Horror!

Russell Davies, world famous gastronome and author of “eggsbaconchipsandbeans,” has words of wisdom on retro-publishing!

My old mate, Russell Davies, ace planning geezer, when planning was truly revolutionary and hadn’t had the crap beat out of it by MBA poseurs, has a great piece on psfk in a mini interview with my other mate (Yes, I only have two) Piers Fawkes… Read it and enjoy…

So, at psfk, we are planning to release a magazine at the same time as our NYC conference. We will base the contents around the themes that will run through the talks at the events. Any advice for an online daily publisher wanting to go analog?

Only the obvious ones. It takes longer. It’s not the same as printing out the web. It’s easier to charge for but harder to carry.

What could we do to keep the paper interactive? For example, do we add QR codes to allow people to ‘see more’ (such as an accompanying video)?

Why make it interactive? The world’s not short of interactive things. Just make it good at what it is.

And how can me make it a social experience? What could we do to add a meta-layer above the printed page which allows likeminded readers to connect around content?

As above.

Finally, what topic area would make you pick up an special issue of PSFK, the magazine?

Trains. Or radio.

Ok then… Thanks Russell!

Being a smart fucker I couldn’t help but post this comment…

As usual, Russell is fucking brilliant. If it's a magazine, why do you need all that other interactive shit. It's a fucking magazine. And, QR codes are a joke... Trains and Radio are shitasmic. Paper rules. You can't wrap tomorrows fish in an iPad.
On another note... Does anyone post comments anymore. Or are psfk readers a bunch of lazy bastards who can only sum up their thoughts in 140 characters... Which are usually just a retweet of the posts url. What's the fucking point of that?
Gotta go now. Time to CURATE my Kate picture collection.
Well, that’s it for today… It’s March 17th. I shall have to go and drink some green Cognac. 

Meanwhile... Over at Radio Russell, waiting for the train!

 

adage is looking for heavy drinking Hacks!

Aspiring Mad Men now have their chance for fame and fortune thanks to the partnership of AdAge and Anheuser-Busch in creating “Brand Hacks.” Is it just me, or does that strike you as a rather unfortunate name to be associated with advertising? Anyway, it’s a very wanky competition for startups prepared to sell their soul for the chance to pick up a humungous $25K project that requires them to come up with breakthrough shit for Budweiser and Bud Light. Oh, fucking yes. I can already see the talking animals, football playing Clydesdales, frat boys farting while slurping nuns piss and yelling “Wassup!” This earth shattering contest will feature five categories, including, surprise, surprise… Social experiences, sports and music. Breakthrough shit indeed. Beer advertising focused on social experiences, sports and music. Whatever happened to the Swedish Bikini Team?

Can you imagine just how much of this tasteless shit you could buy for $25K?

TBWA/chiat turns “next” into noxious!

I try not to watch too much TV, which isn’t hard to do, ‘cos most of it sucks… And is it just me, or are the ads getting dumber and fucking dumber? Yeah, I know… Dumb fucking question. I just stumbled across a truly pathetic one for “Pepsi Next.” Apparently, AdAge points out that this is a “midcalorie” soda which took years of development to bring to market. Note, this is not cold fusion, or a cure for cancer we’re talking about here… This is a fucking “midcalorie” soda. According to Angelique Krembs, VP-marketing-nozzle for Pepsi, "What first gave me confidence was the blind taste-test with our bottlers, they were blown away. That was the start of the journey." In case you have forgotten, this journey was to arrive at a shitty “midcalorie” soda. Launching this potential Nobel Prize winning product is a truly moronic TV spot from TBWA/Chiat, showing husband and wife douchenozzles having fucking orgasms over the taste of Pepsi Next, while their ignored infant in the background is splitting the atom and turning lead into gold. The spot really sucks. My oh my, Chiat has truly degenerated into a sad reflection of what was once great agency. Jay would kick their fucking arse black and blue.

No more bozos... Right Jay?

wpp to open Tehran office?

AdScam Deep Throat’s who hang out in the Dublin boozer located next to WPP’s global headquarters, which is situated in Ireland to avoid paying UK taxes, tell me that the Poisoned Dwarf has big expansion plans afoot. With the news that Maserati is opening a dealership in the Iranian capitol, it would seem that so-called severe sanctions are having little effect on the Persian Hoi Poloi. Gucci, Versace, Dior, Armani and all the usual suspects are readily available. So, the rumor overheard after several pints of Liffey Water that His Gnomeship is looking to do an Enfatico (Team Maserati anyone?) in the heart of the evil empire, is a possibilty… Hey, business is fucking business. Right? Loyal AdScamers will remember that back in 2006 I posted about JWT opening an office in Kabul! While in 2011, I posted about WPP’s relationships with Gaddafi and Mugabe! Like I said… Business is fucking business. Good job I’ve got all my millions in Goldman Sachs.

It's his mind I lust after, not his millions!

Nick Brien heads for the lifeboats at McCann!

Rumors are flying that Nick Brien, Global Obersturmbannfuhrer, of McCann Worldgroup, will shortly be exiting the premises, probably with a humungous Golden Parachute necessary to maintain his lavish life style. Over the last few years, what was once the crown jewel of the world’s dumbest of the BDHC’s, Interpublic, has suffered account losses from Nestle, Unilever, Exxon Mobil, GM and nearly $700 from Microsoft, which have decimated the place. Now, as a result of Brien's disastrous fucking around with the L’Oreal, business, most of it is about to go in-house. This pantomime is going to be well worth watching over the next few weeks, particularly when Michael “I know Insurance” Roth decides it’s time for another well deserved “Performance” bonus. As I posted yesterday. Shades of Goldman Sachs, indeed.

Meantime, back at Interpublic!

draft/fcb, chicago is stunned, I say stunned, that faithless employees are jumping ship!

Oh dear, oh fucking dear… It would seem that “Agency of the Future,” Draft/FCB, Chicago, is suing two ex-employees who jumped ship to Digitas. Not cos they jumped ship, I mean fuck it, who wouldn't do a sayonara to the “Agency of the Past?” No, apparently it’s ‘cos they recruited other Draft people to follow them to Digitas. To which you have to ask the question… Why would they not… What the fuck is there to incentivize them to stay at the rapidly sinking hulk of Draft/FCB Chicago? You can read all the sordid details at Crain’s Chicago Business. How long can this stinking pile of shit remain afloat? Anyone remember all those pathetic videos I used to post of “Hughie, Dewey & Louie” going on and fucking on about how they were going to transform the ad biz… Starting off with their acquisition of the Wal-Mart account. Ha, many NoBu lap dances and cases of “Effen-Fuckin-Effen” have passed under the bridge since then. Report to the corner gym immediately!

Should I put the lights out when I leave, Laurence?

Why Tom Friedman pisses me off!

Living out here in the Fourth Reich (Idaho) I still manage to get the New York Times every day. Not delivered, the wagons don’t reach this far, but from the local supermarket when I’m picking up my ammunition and beef jerky. Anyway, I still think it’s worth the effort, ‘cos it’s a pretty good paper… Except for Tom Friedman’s columns. The guy is a wanker. He keeps banging the same old drum about how we should be investing in education and technology so that every kid can grow up to be a fucking brain surgeon or a rocket scientist. So, who the fuck is going to serve me when I go to the supermarket? He was gung ho to bomb the shit out of Iraq because they had all these WMD’s, then when it turned out there where none, he forgot all about it. He is also famous for the “Friedman Unit.” That’s six months, named after his repeated pronouncements that conditions in Iraq will improve "in six months." In fact, everything got more fucked up. Be careful though not to confuse a “Friedman” with a “Kardashian.” Which is a mere 72 days. Anyway, the thing that really pisses me off about this fucktard is the way he sprinkles his columns with the names of all his BFF’s. Which run the gamut, from Gandhi to the Dalai Llama (when he’s not in Alex’s Shed.) Yesterday, he mentioned how over tea with Bill Gates, they sorted out the future of the planet. Give me a fucking break. I know it’s got nothing to do with advertising, but I wish the NYT would dump the wanker. Oh, and while they’re at it, will they please shit-can Stuart Elliott? 

How about a "Friedman Fart?"

Why does goldman sachs = Interpublic = Omnicom = publicis = wpp?

All the obscenely rich fucktards on Wall Street are freaking out because of the Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times by Greg Smith, who resigned from Goldman Sachs after twelve years. Titled “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs,” it spells out on horrific detail how one of the world’s biggest, and at one time, most respected investment banks, has been severely fucking its customers for years. There’s lots and lots of juicy bits in it, but this one in particular caught my eye… “The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.” Then it struck me, simply swop the name Goldman Sachs with any one of the four Big Dumb Holding Companies, (BDHC’s) and you have a perfect explanation of why the ad biz is as fucked as it is today. Two more nuggets from the piece… “Senior management doesn’t get a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you.” And this… “Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist.” The Bernbach’s, Ogilvy’s and Burnett’s understood this cardinal rule of business implicitly.

Jesus, how many fucking times do I have to hammer away at this oh so obvious truth?

Just ask these guys!

facebook talks uber-shit… again… and the ad-ignorati swallows it up... again!

Just the other day I did a post about how you can lie through your teeth by juggling numbers to suit whatever piece of shit you are currently peddling to the great unwashed masses. I made a point (no one else seems to have picked up on this) of how Facebook has kinda stalled in the claimed user stakes, ‘cos they appear to have been stuck at the 850 million fucktards signed up for retard/social/networking for the last couple of months. Now, the ZuckerNozzle empire is claiming that they have signed up EIGHT MILLION brands, from carmakers to rock bands, who have switched to Facebook's new Web page format 10 days after the revamped pages were introduced at a super cool and groovy launch in New York last month. Well, hello, you wankers. Mastermind I ain’t, but can anyone out there name EIGHT HUNDRED brands, let alone EIGHT FUCKING MILLION? This is getting more cretinous by the day. Why am I the only one who isn’t prepared to swallow this completely over the top bullshit? Probably because way too many people writing about the second most fucked up business in the the known universe, have no idea what the second most fucked up business in the known universe is all about. Cocktail time!

The EIGHT FUCKING MILLION attendees to the AdScam, Idaho, Aryan Nation blogging conference, breathlessly await the arrival of Obersturmbannfuhrer Parker!

79 things to do in Austin before you die!

I’ve been reading Steve Hall over at AdRants, and his excellent coverage of the SXSW Wank Fest in festering Texas. As usual, he manages to sprinkle lots of tis, arse & porn references through his posts… Yeah, the guy certainly knows what his audience is looking for. Anyway I was particularly struck by his post about the “Agency King of SXSW” award, which goes to the agency sending the most douchenozzles to the Geek Gomorrah. This year, the honor went to Digitas, who sent a total of SEVENTY NINE employees! Is that really fucking necessary guys? Don’t you have shit to do back at the office? Can’t you just read the tweets of the fucktards already there. Can’t you look at the pictures of attendees on Pinterest? Can’t you go blind reading all the stupid shit about it on Facebook? Can’t you get a real fucking life? Worst case, read fucking AdRants. Hey Steve, this isn't personal. You’re a fucking prince… Just like me. Although, you still owe me dinner.

So, this fucker, Steve, keeps grabbing my ass and asking me to flash my tits. I think he's some kind of ad blogger!