Another year of NFL football has come and gone, and the Green Bay Packers can take some time to celebrate a phenomenal SuperBowl win. Unfortunately, with the way the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) talks seem to be going between the owners and the players, the Packers might be able to celebrate being champions a little longer than usual, but that is a whole different topic. Rest assured, I would love to comment on how pathetically greedy these millionaire players and billionaire owners have to be to screw up such a successful product as NFL football, but my internal dictionary of negative adjectives would run out long before I reached the second paragraph. And, as an advertising agency, there is a topic that is so much more important than the CBA, the SuperBowl, or the spoiled participants involved: The COMMERCIALS!!!

According to America’s best source for facts and figures (Wikipedia), the cost for a 30 second spot in this year’s SuperBowl was $3 Million. Which would mean $100,000 per second or $100 per millisecond. And since Wikipedia also confirms that the average length of a blink is 300 to 400 milliseconds, we can scientifically conclude that you wasted $30,000 to $40,000 every time you blinked during one of these commercials. Therefore, ipso facto, the importance for the product or company to create a lasting impression or memory for the 27 to 30 seconds that you were non-blinkingly watching the commercial CANNOT be understated! Which basically means that memorable commercials become better investments and that non-memorable ones become complete wastes of money.

It’s easy to talk about which commercials were memorable and which weren’t right after the SuperBowl. The whole event is still fresh in your mind. You are still upset that Christina Aguilera (which I spelled correctly before checking google) botched the anthem. You are fired up that you made a few extra bucks because Green Bay won by more than 3. And you still have a little heartburn from the Teriyaki Barbeque wings from the day before. Things are fresh. However, fast forward a week (or nine days), and now tell me what your favorite commercial was? I did my own survey, and here are a few answers I got from inside Doggett HQ. Please note, I did not tell anyone what I was writing about:

Jeff – “The only ones I remember are the Dorito’s ads. The dog knocking down the door, and the guy sucking the other guy’s fingers.” Me – “Have you ate any Dorito’s since?” Jeff – “No. I’m more of a French fry guy. I should eat more chips.”

George – “Well, what was yours?” Me – I don’t want to sway your answer. George – “Just tell me your top three.” Me – (I provided him with three examples). George – “I don’t remember any of them. Really, none of them were memorable.”

Me – I loved the ad with the kid in the Darth Vader costume. I DVR’ed the SuperBowl and I actually have the DVR queued to that commercial. I love when he pushes past his dad to run to the car. That push and his ensuing response to the car starting make me laugh every time. Now, have I purchased a Volkswagen since the commercial aired? Nope, still have my new Camry.

So what does all this mean? In the long run, probably not much, except that advertisers should make sure that their ads are memorable, that consumers should continue to enjoy the commercials for what they are, and that NFL players and owners should get over their petty, greedy selves and make sure we can do this all over again next year…

Last month, I was searching online for my brother-in-law’s Christmas gift. I had drawn his name for my family’s secret Santa drawing, and I didn’t have a clue what I was going to get him. I had done gift cards last year, but, this year, I wanted to change it up, make it a little more personal. As he is a big watch fan (and I am not), I started searching/’bing’ing/’google’ing for watch stuff online. Rolex, Tag Heuer, Fossil, Citizen, Swatch. Numerous brands and styles were served to me with just a click of the mouse. After a couple of days of research, it became very apparent to me that I really had no idea what type of watch he might want or might not already have. So I moved on to something else. Unfortunately, my computer did not. For the next three weeks, almost every time I logged in to Facebook or checked the scores for the 256 bowl games, I would get an ad for a Tag watch. Sometimes a Rolex. Even a couple of ads for the World of Watches. Why was this happening? Because someone was watching me as I was watching watches.

This phenomenon is actual a very interesting marketing tactic that is becoming increasingly popular with many different companies and agencies. Doggett Advertising has been utilizing this strategy for the last 9 months, and the success that we have experienced has truly been phenomenal. If you would like to learn a little more about this tactic, please take a look at this recent article from the Charlotte Observer entitled (coincidentally enough): “Advertisers are watching your online moves” at

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/31/1798911/advertisers-are-watching-your.html

Feel free to call or email us if you would like to learn more about this exciting and growing opportunity. And for those who might be interested, I did end up getting the bro-in-law a leather Tommy Bahama traveling cigar humidor, as well as a “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” t-shirt, and (since he’s a cop) a gun-shaped egg frier and a bullet-shaped ice tray. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like weapon-shaped kitchen implements. Hope you all had a great holiday and have a fun and successful New Year.

At Doggett, we pride ourselves on providing a very unique and strategic brand development process that helps our clients explore and discover the essence of their brand. This process evidences a large difference between brand development and branding. Unfortunately, through some of our presentations, we have come across a widely held, yet incorrect belief that has permeated the marketplace: Brand = Logo. This misconception leads to an erroneous conclusion that, in order to have a successful brand, you just need to come up with a distinct and interesting logo. Do that, and the sales will just flow in; just ask BMW or Nike, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. Though a nice logo is important, it is just one of many tactics included in a successful brand development.

Speaking of logos, have you had a chance to view the new Democratic National Committee logo? It’s a big, blue capital D inside a darker blue circle.

Take a look at this recent article from Advertising Age to see a picture of the logo:
http://adage.com/campaigntrail/post?article_id=145988

So they’re going with the big ‘D’ (and I don’t mean Dallas). My first thought, upon seeing this, was: “What was the old logo?” I had never really thought about the Republican or Democratic parties in terms of logos except for the big elephant and donkey (which both seem to aptly apply). Thus, I looked up the previous logo and discovered that it was the capitalized letters ‘DNC’ with a waving American flag as the font color. Simple, patriotic, and, in my opinion, quite nice. I also noticed that many of the previous Democratic logos all seemed to have a patriotic slant, whether it be stars & stripes, the red, white & blue colors, or some other allusion to America. Which begs the question, “Where is the patriotic symbolism in a light blue capital D inside a darker blue circle?” If this was the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which has a light blue flag and starts with ‘D’) or if we were the United States of Facebook (which has a very similar looking lower case ‘f’ as it’s logo), then I could see the significance; however, this being the United States of America, the loss of a patriotic correlation in the new logo just seems a little disappointing.

For purposes of fair & balanced blogging, I googled the Republican party logo. I discovered that the right seems to embrace the elephant a lot more than the left embraces the donkey. I also discovered that there is big hullabaloo about the 2012 GOP Convention logo and the possible inclusion of a minaret in the Tampa Bay skyline drawing. Basically, a minaret is the bulb-y shaped building that you see a lot in pictures or movies about the Middle East. For example, it made me think about ‘Aladdin’. It also made me think that people have way too much time on their hands to worry about something so trivial.

You can view the new logo and additional information about the issue on this recent TPM LiveWire report:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/does-the-2012-gop-convention-logo-include-a-minaret-or-is-it-a-cupola.php

We’d love to hear what you think about the D or the minaret. Let us know and enjoy your weekend!

By David Anderson, Director of Business Development

As many of you might know or at least might venture to guess, there are a lot of fun and interesting aspects about working for an advertising agency: You get to meet a lot of different people through social gatherings, cocktail parties, and business events. You get to see a lot of tremendously creative presentations and hear some phenomenally inventive ideas and proposals. And you also get to work with a truly diverse collection of companies across a wide variety of fascinating industries. At Doggett, we experience and enjoy each of these events on a weekly basis.

Another aspect that we enjoy on this weekly basis is the obligatory discussion of the previous Sunday night’s presentation of AMC’s “Mad Men”. This hour long drama about a fictional advertising agency situated in the 1960s has been a critical success since its premiere on July 19, 2007, and has steadily grown in mass appeal over its 3 1/2 seasons. To say that we like the show is a tremendous understatement, and this past week’s episode was no exception.

Here were five of our favorite scenes, quotes, and observations:

1) Don Draper, responding to a report who had just asked him about a rival agency’s creative director, “On the record?…I’ve never heard of him.”
2) Don and Lane scoff at their opportunity to have the Honda car account because, back in the 60s, Americans didn’t like Hondas. They were too small and too slow. Present day, Honda consistently ranks in the top 5 of market share for auto manufacturers in the US market.
3) At a television studio, the rival agency attempts to spy on a (bogus) commercial shoot and are turned away. Inside the studio, Peggy is just riding a Honda motorcycle in circles.
4) “Not very subtle, are they?” Joan sarcastically remarks as she is being ogled by Japanese businessmen from Honda.
5) After Pete describes the eclectic way that they come up with ideas in the creative room, the Japanese translator tells Pete that what he just said doesn’t translate well. Pete says, “Tell them something”, and the translator says to the Japanese businessmen, “I don’t know what this room is for.”

Also, if you watch the show live and have to see the commercials (rather than recording it so that you can watch Entourage), you might have noticed a Unilever commercial campaign that blatantly imitates the show. We found a pretty interesting article about the campaign from ‘Advertising Age’. Check it out:

http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=145212

We’d love to hear what you thought about the show or what you think about the Unilever campaign! Let us know and enjoy your weekend!

Things to know about Dogbytes and me, the author…