Goodbye to All That…
Posted on January 18, 2010 - Filed Under Uncategorized
Salutations and good day…
I just wanted to drop a note to let you know that this will be my last week at Advertising Age.
After more than three years in New York, my wife and I have decided it’s time to take our recently-arrived son back north to a place many Americans refer to as “that big gray blank space above us on the map,” but what we like to call “Canada.”
Don’t worry, I haven’t crafted some hackneyed, Didionesque rant about my time here, but will say it’s been a hell of a good time working with the classy folks at Creativity and AdAge over the last few years. A particular thanks to Teressa Iezzi for hiring a fellow Toronto ex-pat with no fixed address or experience covering the ad industry, back in 2006.
By the time February starts, I’ll be back in Toronto and a staff writer at Marketing magazine. I’m excited to start work with the crew there and continue talking about the interesting, inspired and insidious ways that business and popular culture cross paths.
So thanks to everyone I’ve worked with and covered so far, please stay in touch and keep me posted on your adventures. I’ll still be wandering the interwebs here, as well as @jeffcbeer, while the sports-related ramblings continue at The Cheap Seats. You can also reach me at theycallmebeer@gmail.com.
And with that, a gentlemanly slap to your raised open hand.
huzzah,
jeff
2010 NHL Winter Classic Can’t Miss, Commercial Does
Posted on December 7, 2009 - Filed Under Advertising, culture
Last week, I wrote in Ad Age about the coming third annual NHL Winter Classic and how it’s become a very important brand for the league. The consensus among U.S. ad buyers, NBC execs and the NHL itself was that the game had put hockey into a lot of business conversations that it previously hadn’t been a part of. It’s elevated the NHL’s status (at least in the US) by creating a meaningful event that’s acted as a magnet for casual fans and marketers. Yeah, yeah, feel good hockey stuff, right?
Well, while the game and event itself may be bullet-proof — how else would you describe a game at Fenway Park between the Boston Bruins and Philly Flyers on New Year’s Day? — the newly unveiled commercial made to promote it is not. As I said in today’s Cheap Seats entry, I get it, I know what the folks at the NHL’s ad agency Y&R were going for. It’s the modern rink-morphs-to-frozen-pond thing. Makes total sense. Except the end result is just utterly lacking any sort of emotion, be that nostalgia, adrenaline, humor, anything. This is hockey. The ads for a game like this in a city like Boston should feel more like a punch to the face than a long-distance phone commercial.
An Interruption of Regular Programming
Posted on November 6, 2009 - Filed Under Uncategorized
Although this is, technically, a personal site, I’m not really of the online type to regale you with tales of my toothbrushing technique or why tomato soup is my favorite of all the warm, fluid-like lunch options. But! Last Wednesday my son Henry was born. And seeing as he’s not unlike many a newborn, my activity here will probably be somewhat interrupted by this sudden and vigorous change to my daily life. But don’t worry, I’ll adapt soon and eventually you’ll see just as many infrequent updates here as before. Besides, wouldn’t you rather just read the twitter version? (Pssst, it’s on the right.) huzzah!
Marketing and ‘Where The Wild Things Are’
Posted on October 24, 2009 - Filed Under Advertising, culture
This week, AdAge published my piece on the various marketing efforts behind “Where The Wild Things Are,” particularly those involving or influenced by the film’s director Spike Jonze. I was disappointed not to get in touch with Capt. Jonze himself, but had some great conversations with Girl Skateboards co-founder Megan Baltimore, artist and designer Geoff McFetridge and Vice/VBS creative director Eddy Moretti. Interested? Check it out here.
Soundville: Creativity at its best, but will it sell you a Sony?
Posted on October 7, 2009 - Filed Under Advertising, culture
Let’s just begin under the obvious assumption that 99% of advertising is utter bile. So, any criticism leveled at Fallon London director/creative/wizard Juan Cabral must be taken with the proverbial bucket of salt. Cabral is the guy responsible for some of the best Fallon creative over the last few years (also the worst, read: Trucks), starting with Balls, moving on to Paint, then Play-Doh, a quick diversion over to Cadbury for a Gorilla and now back to Sony. With Soundville.
Creativity has a great Q&A with Cabral about this latest effort, the details of which I’ll leave for you to go there and read, but rest assured it’s all very cool, eclectic, original and creative. (Cliff Notes: Town of 400 in Iceland hooked up with speakers for a week, all set up with the help of Sigur Ros technicians. All the bells and whistles. Hot. Shit.) And yet, in the end, I can’t help but feel like the story, effort and general creativity behind the idea come off more impressive than the actual film. All these snazzy background details go a long way to give industry nerds and creative folk an adverchubby, but will it really get Tommy Whogivesasweethell to buy a Sony over a Samsung? Is that even the point?
The Cheap Seats Book Club: Leafs AbomiNation
Posted on September 14, 2009 - Filed Under culture
The following is a lil’ book write-up I did for the sports blog thecheapseats.ca, where I ramble on semi-coherently from time to time.
As the 2009/2010 NHL season approaches, Toronto Maple Leafs fans (once again) prepare themselves for the unknown. While, as the late, great Joe Strummer said, the future is unwritten, a new book by two Hogtown scribes examines the sins of Leafs past to get a hint at where the club should head in the years ahead.
Leafs Abomination: The Dismayed Fan’s Handbook to Why the Leafs Stink and How They Can Rise Again by Dave Feschuk and Michael Grange is like a painful intervention. Far from having a grudge against the Leafs or their fans, the book does a great job of simply lining up all the facts – like a four decade long buffet of hockey incompetence and underachievement.
As a Leafs fan, it’s a lot like waking up hungover and having your friends recount every single transgression from the previous evening’s events in horrifying detail. I slept with who? In the ladies’ room? I drank pure gasoline? We killed a goat in ritual sacrifice in the backyard? Now imagine that night was 40 years long.
Yep, talking animals still funny.
Posted on August 27, 2009 - Filed Under culture
In the vein of Simple Ideas That Work, here’s one from the Beeb: Adding funny commentary to nature footage. The result? Gold.
From Missouri With Love
Posted on July 31, 2009 - Filed Under Creativity, culture
Yeah, yeah, I know… A MONTH. It’s been a month since I posted anything here. Pathetic? Indeed. But really, the current obsession with operating 140-characters at a time dictates that everything I come across that’s worth an eyebrow raise get fed into the ever-gaping maw of the Twitter feed (see it? It’s right there. On your right. No, no, your other right.).
Anyway, yesterday over at Creativity, I posted a Q&A with motion graphics wizards MK12. Really nice guys who just happen to do amazing work for brands and feature films. So yeah, check it out… if for no other reason than because they did this:
Creativity: MoMA’s Latest Goes Behind the Art
Posted on June 23, 2009 - Filed Under Creativity
(Originally appeared last month at Creativity)
TAXI’s Paul Lavoie and director Azazel Jacobs’ short film looks to attract new audience to the art museum.
by jeff beer
Living in New York, there are gaggles of cultural must-sees and everyone has their own particular way of prioritizing which ones are worth their time. One person’s Lincoln Center is another’s Yankee Stadium. To that end, MoMA’s most recent project reaches out to those who might not have the museum at the top of their visit lists.
In “I See,” by TAXI, New York, Frank stands looking at Russian artist Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné’s 1913 sculpture, Symphony Number 1. He’s got that bored look in his eye of someone forced to be there by friends or out-of-town visitors, until the robotic audio tour voice begins to relate the piece of art and the inspiration behind it, to Frank’s own life.
Hello Von
Posted on June 23, 2009 - Filed Under Art, Creativity
This is an older piece I forgot to post here last year… still dig the Von.
(originally appeared in the Nov. 2008 issue of Creativity)
Hello Von
London illustrator brings artful design to the commercial space
From Madonna to Seal, Bono to Liberace, the mono-moniker has always intrigued. For U.K. artist Von, it works too, and, like those more famous characters, the work backs up the bold name. The 28-year-old artist, based in the U.K., is the singular talent behind the recent two-part exhibition “Migration,” a spectacular “moving” piece featuring beautiful, abstracted birds. “The project inherited the migrational nature of its content,” Von says. The exhibit’s first “flock” initially appeared on the Truman Brewery in London in late August and then in September resurfaced in New York, the birds traveling towards the billboards on the side of the Espeis Gallery in Williamsburg.
“Migration,” and Von’s other works demonstrate a striking balance between traditional illustration and cutting edge design, with craftsmanship playing a huge role—one possible reason art lovers and commercial clients alike are drawn to his work.
