As i scrolled over the ads of bill bernbach, put together painstakingly by an ex-colleague, i asked myself – how would old bill have coped with all the changes in advertising? No one can answer that except for the genius writer. And he’s gone.

Bill didn’t stick around to see brands asking consumers, what changes they would like to see in their favourite brand of coffee (my starbucks idea).  Or to see an application that involved a man dressed in a chicken suit obeying every command you typed in (subservient chicken), sweeping the award shows.

But if Bernbach was the adapting sort, then i think he would have thrived even today. Insights and ideas are not dead, it’s only the language and medium that have changed. So lets call this the era of Bill 2, shall we?Where a new kind of creative thinker seduces consumers into buying. He uses not words but ideas. He writes these ideas not always using a pen, but sometimes using an application or a program. Now he may not know a damn thing about writing applications, just like most creative people got through the television era without knowing a damn thing about filmmaking. But he can ideate for all media. He is still a storyteller, only a lot more versatile. Jumping from one stage to another, keeping up with his audience. Here’s to the Bill 2s, who’re somewhere out there sweating over a brief right now.

To see Bill Bernbach’s other classics just click on the ad.

Wow!  I thought I was busy before but when we went to Portland Art & Soul we came home with the worst flu by far we’ve ever had.  Now an entire month later, I’m actually back working on the book projects.  This week I’m getting the cover candidates ready to ship off.  I’m most excited about one project in particular which I’m pretty sure will be the cover piece.  I did a 180 on what I was going to put inside and it really turned out amazing looking.  Surprised me!!!

Just goes to show (once again!) that often pieces already know what they want to be and sometimes our job as artists is just to discover what that is.   And accept it!    I hear this so much that an artist will start out making something one way and then it goes in a completely different direction.  I wonder why that happens.

Here is one of many great quotes from Michelangelo “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

And speaking of Michelangelo quotes “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”  Wouldn’t it have been amazing to have known this man!!!  Truly someone with a great share of gifts.

Oh and another little bit of news about the book is I think we *finally* came up with the title.  I really like it and hope it flies with all the powers that be at North Light.  Apparently the first meeting about it is this Thursday but that’s not the final word.  Oh well eventually I’ll know what it will be called.  : )

For some reason I just recalled a really fun (and demented) interactive site.  It’s been around for years but just in case you don’t know about it here it is.   The Subservient Chicken

It is so fun to tell this big ol’ chicken what to do.  Here he is ready to do your bidding

Here he is doing jumping jacks

And the chicken has amazing powers!  When I type in ‘dark’ he dims the light in the far corner just by his will alone.

But my very favorite thing is to tell him to do something naughty (I’ll leave that to your imagination what I asked him to do).  He comes right up close and scolds me for the offensive command.  hehehe

OK back to work and thanks for letting me ramble a while.  It feels good to be back feeling like myself for the most part.  I don’t know if that was H1N1 or what but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Birds of a feather?

As a copywriter at Leo Burnett, I cut my teeth on writing and producing breakfast cereal commercials for Kellogg’s. Most writers (then and now) don’t consider these assignments potential award winners, yet it was desirable work for many reasons. Mainly, it taught us how to make TV commercials. You laugh, but learning how to write a 30-second spot with numerous mandatory elements, and then putting it together (shooting, editing, music and AVO), is something you have to do many times before you really get it. For that, these briefs were invaluable. We became pros. The carrot, of course, was the all-expenses paid trip to Hollywood to produce these commercials. Going on production provided more than just valuable training, it also gave us dinners at the Ivy and stately rooms at the Four Seasons. Beverly Hills was ours!

Times change. Making TVCs is not the right of passage it once was. Obviously, this can be attributed to the digital revolution as well as the recession. Changing consumer behavior and shrinking marketing budgets have taken a serious toll.

Still, the demand for commercial video continues. Yet the rules for creating video content are different than they used to be. You Tube and the like have given everyone the idea that making a commercial is now cheap, fast and easy. You know: viral. Consumers are generating popular content for next to nothing. Why, clients ask, should we spend six or even seven figures?

Because that’s what it costs. In general, an “A” commercial requires anywhere from 500k to well over a million dollars to produce. Packaging two or three provides obvious efficiencies but the numbers are high. Unlike “consumer generated comment” a typical shoot has over 50 people on its crew, not including agency and clients. It may require several days to produce. You do the math.

On the other hand, a so-called “viral” need only cost a few grand to make. Or less. Right?

Not likely. Cheap, fast and easy is a myth born out of confusion and ignorance. Twenty million people watched a sleazy chicken dancing around a cheesy set, and as an industry we all jumped to conclusions. “Give me one of those!” our clients screamed. We all screamed. Everybody wanted the next big thing for next to nothing.

First off, I don’t think “Subservient Chicken” was all that cheap to make. It only looked inexpensive. I wouldn’t be surprised if the price was low to mid six figures. Not to mention operating costs.

Fact is, viral hits like “Swear Jar” for Budweiser and the seminal BMW films “The Hire” cost as much as anything you’ll ever see on TV.

And so production heads are scratching their heads over how to manage. Maddening is the client who wants a “viral” budget instead of a “commercial” budget, as if they were two different things! It’s daunting.

What is quality then? If millions of people view a piss-poor piece of film does that make it a standard bearer? Thanks to You Tube, I do believe people are more tolerant of crappy looking film. On the other hand, Hi-Definition TV gives these same folks picture quality unheard of before. Are these opposing forces or unwitting allies?

Because of the Internet, our industry and its critics like to trumpet the death of the 30-second TV commercial. But think of it this way: the Internet is also another screen, which gives life to commercials. Millions of them!

Furthermore, consider the 21st century rogue-darling agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky. They are rightly credited for taking advantage of the social web like no other agency but, if you count the touchdowns, most of their biggest gainers come from good, old-fashioned 30-second TV commercials. Like I said, daunting.

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The Happy Soul Industry on Amazon

What role does your brand play in making decisions about your business?

Using your brand to help make decisions is critical to keeping your brand relevant and consistent.

Bonnie Hammer, USA Network’s CEO, uses her “brand filter” to help her determine which shows to greenlight. USA Network’s tagline is “characters welcome” so every show must have strong characters that will connect with their audience.

According to a recent Newsweek article, “when considering scripts, Hammer and her team ask a routinized series of questions: Does the show have a fun sensibility? Does it have a “blue sky” tone of hopefulness? Does it revolve around an “aspirational,” if quirky, lead character with a moral and ethical center? Potential shows are scored based on how closely they match these dictates; only high scorers make it on air.”

So how do you create your own “brand filter”?

• Have a strong understanding of your brand promise (that expectation you set whenever someone comes in contact with your brand).
• Create and manage your brand personality.  For example, Burger King created a subservient chicken website that reflects their edgy and cool image; in contrast, Chick-Fil-A, known for family values, hosts “dress like a cow” day instead.
• Review all of your marketing touchpoints to ensure they fulfill the brand promise and are delivered in a way that expresses your brand personality.
• Analyze any marketing opportunities (remember, everything is a marketing opportunity) against your brand promise and brand personality.  For example, you aren’t going to find USA airing I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here any time soon.

Following these four steps will make it easier to make marketing decisions, enhance your brand and ultimately your business.

If your brand promise and personality are in order, you are ahead of the game.  If not, what are you waiting for?  Doing so will pay dividends.

The past few weeks I’ve heard a lot about viral marketing. The firm I’m currently working in is trying to concentrate on the digital advertising space to differentiate themselves from the pack. A good strategy, given their young, dynamic employees and a fairly good understanding of the Internet and its use as a marketing tool. However, the focus on everything viral is quite disconcerting.

Digital marketing, and viral marketing through the digital medium, is only a nascent trend in India. The current downturn has ad agencies scrambling for ideas and strategies to differentiate themselves from the pack and grab the few crubms that are being given in these times.  So in a desperate effort to stand out from the crowd, a lot of agencies have jumped into digital marketing. The success of a few high profile viral campaigns like Subservient Chicken by Burger King (http://www.subservientchicken.com/), the “Best Job In The World” by the Queensland Tourism Department, and more recently the Great Driving Challenge by Mitsubishi (http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com/) have done wonders for raising the awareness of their respective brands. It has also resulted in a lot of advertisers and advertising agencies sitting up and taking notice. All are intrigued by the power of the online medium as a viral tool that can catch millions of eyeballs at very low cost (relatively).

Is viral marketing in the online space a solution to grabbing peoples’ attention for every brand? Or is this viral contagion a harmful epidemic that needs to be stopped? No doubt digital marketing and viral campaigns have the power to singlehandedly change the fortunes of a brand. The problem it has the power to change the fortunes for the better and for the worse. Mortin’s ad which got released on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmykFKjNpdY) created a huge uproar from mothers. The ad, which suggested that motherhood is a pain that needs to be tolerated, created such a backlash that the brand may never recover.

This reveals an interesting problem. Although viral marketing may have a tremendous potential to do more with less, it is not well advised to jump into the viral/digital bandwagon without careful thought. This is true for both advertisers as well as agencies. Viral marketing can truly be an epidemic. Once it is started it is nearly impossible to stop, whether it works for the benefit or harm of the brand.

I’ll give you finger licking good!

Burger King just celebrated the 5-year anniversary of its infamous “Subservient Chicken” web campaign produced by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and the Barbarian Group.

The anniversary came and went, with the trades and various bloggers picking up the story. Certainly the hubbub was nothing like it was when SK first danced upon the personal computing screens of America. Oh, weren’t we all a-twitter? And I’m talking pre-twitter.

Subservient Chicken put Crispin and Burger King on the map. But they were different maps weren’t they? The vaguely perverse chicken became an icon for its ad agency, eliciting more love and hate than the war in Iraq. SK validated Crispin’s Fame mission. SK validated the obsession for digital marketing. SK inflamed the passions of countless intern copywriters and art directors looking for new definitions of creativity.

But what exactly did the S-Chicken do for the B-King? I’m pretty sure it was created to sell chicken sandwiches. Did it? I don’t remember. It’s a safe bet that more people were talking about chicken than eating it. And since that is the definition of fame, then by Crispin’s criteria the campaign was wildly successful.

And if Subservient Chicken was a phenomenon then Crispin’s reinvention of the Burger King became an icon. The creepy and mischievous King is about as famous as marketing stuff gets, maybe not Tony the Tiger but right up there with Madge and Mr. Whipple. And the King doesn’t even have a catch phrase!

Famous. No question about it. Crispin delivered to its client a celebrity logo-type thing out of the charcoal broiled vapor.

But is it working? After Spongebob’s booty call, after “waking up with the King,” after all the campy mayhem and frat boy antics are more people buying Whoppers than Big Macs?

Maybe. I honestly don’t know.

I do know that despite having an ad campaign with almost no creative charisma, McDonald’s is making money hand over fist. Their “I’m Loving It” mantra has contributed mightily to the golden arches golden profits. Those results are known and talked about a lot more than the advertising. I’ve never been a fan of this line. On the contrary, I don’t like it. But that’s immaterial.

Which client do you think is happier?

As I write Adweek is reporting that BK intends to significantly increase ad spending next year, so they mustn’t be unhappy. But the WSJ indicates March sales were down sending the stock price sliding 20%.

All questions aside, I am firmly on record as being a great admirer of Crispin Porter & Bugusky. In my view, they are the Doyle Dane Bernbach of our time. But for all the hype (press) and glory (awards) I wonder about sales. For all the sizzle, where’s the beef?

Subservient Chicken is one of the greatest time wasters ever. I was first introduced to it in college by my Advertising professor who deemed it worthy of demonstration during a Viral Marketing lecture. It has stuck with me ever since. 

Some of my favorite commands are as follows:

• Yoga
• Walk Like an Egyptian
• Go Vegan
• Rage

Reprinted from the Zazoo blog:

I know it’s hard for most companies to acknowledge that they are no longer in control of their marketing, and that their customers now strongly influence what happens to their brand. It’s harder still for them to take active steps to give control to their customers, particularly when stories of what has happened to companies like Chevrolet, Skittles and Domino’s abound.

Believe it or not, it hasn’t been that long that companies have used the Internet to let customers actively play with their brand. I was reminded of this when I read recently about ‘celebrations’ of the fifth anniversary of Subservient Chicken, that creepy guy in the chicken suit with garters who reponds to user commands to reinforce the message that you can ‘have chicken your way’ at Burger King (Hungry Jack’s in Australia). The guys who came up with the idea have written a huge screed about the origins of Subservient Chicken which makes interesting reading.

The most important factor leading to this iconic online campaign was that the client was open to left-of-field ideas. As The Barbarian Group director Rick Webb writes, “To be perfectly frank, even as we were building the thing, I never believed it would launch. We here at TBG are insanely good these days for convincing clients to take risks. But in 2004, there was no way we ever could have sold the Chicken through. Sometimes getting the green light is as important as the idea. Most of the time, if you ask me.”

Of course, the big question is, did it sell more chicken for Burger King? To quote from AdWeek: ”About a month after the sandwich debuted, BK reported that sales had steadily increased an average of 9% a week. Since then the company has seen ‘double-digit’ growth of awareness of the TenderCrisp sandwich and ’significantly increased’ chicken sandwich sales. And the TenderCrisp does sell better than the original sandwich.”

Yes, you can make some mistakes by trying new things. But you might also take on that concept that powers your brand to a new level – and have fun doing it. Go on, try something new this month!

It’s hard to believe, but five years ago a viral ad campaign featuring video of a guy in a chicken suit danced, spun, kicked, sat and did whatever else you could think of into our hearts. It was Burger King’s Subservient Chicken, and it was huge.

The Barbarian Group, one of the ad agencies that helped create the chicken, has a more-extensive-than-you’d-expect blog post about the creation of the ad campaign. Here’s an excerpt of when they knew they had a hit:

In the next 48 hours, before the spots even had a chance to air, the little viral site that could had already bombarded the poor XServe in Crispin’s internal data center with 25 million hits. Within days, a cultural phenomenon was spawned.

All for a creepy dude in a chicken suit with garters, who looked like he was running some sort of shady web cam operation.

The Subservient Chicken site is still up and running (how many years is that guy in the suit going to just stand there and take orders?). Stop on by for old time’s sake and wish it a happy birthday.

*Warning: These links aren’t that musicky. But here’s a list of albums that are best listened to in their entirety. To soothe the savage beast. And by that, I have no idea what I mean.

*Retail: The web object of the moment is a real-time map of what people are buying across the country from Zappos. Zappos is like the Nate Silver of shoes. Also, it looks like people are ordering really ugly shoes all the time, like forever.

*Economy: Read A Tale of Two Depressions for a comparison of the Great Depression and our current financial meltdown. Situation: Bad. Reaction (this time around): Better? [3quarksdaily]

*Birthdays: It’s the 5th anniversary of the launch of Subservient Chicken. You know you’re really getting on in years when INTERNET BULLSHIT from yesterday is turning five years old in front of your eyes.

*Dessert: A restaurant in Turkey made Barack Obama’s face in pastry – Baracklava. I find the dish too flaky for my tastes. FYI.

*Literature: Site-specific fiction – some short stories were commissioned for the Royal Parks in London. Readers are meant to walk about the scene as they read. DUDE: Maybe there’s something to be written about a guy sitting on a bus? Reading about a guy sitting on a bus? (I don’t know where it ends.)

Today is the 5th anniversary of Subservient Chicken, one of the most important pieces ever created by our industry. Rick Webb has written a very good post on the Barbarian Group’s blog about the site that should be of interest to everyone who cares even a little about the history of the interactive space. Towards the end of it, he quotes at some length an article I wrote about Subservient Chicken for Adweek several years ago. I’m glad Mr. Webb thinks I said some things that were worthwhile, though it should be noted that when the article was originally published, it prompted a rather lengthy and grumpy response (in a letter to Adweek) from Webb’s boss, Benjamin Palmer, who took exception to the phrase, “Subservient Chicken is boring.” 

Oh, and if you’d like to read my original article in its entirety, you can find it here.

Speaking of boring, Mark Cuban thinks the internet has become boring. His point is that it has matured and become another ordinary service rather than a driving force in our economy. His points merit some consideration, and you can read them here. That being said, I think some of the most interesting work being done in the online space today by agencies has nothing to do with ads. Think of RGA’s Nike+, where the site is actually an extension of the shoe rather than an ad. More and more, we’re going to be called on to produce things that are useful (sometimes actual products) rather than evanescent bits of marketing that merely catch the consumer’s eye for a couple of seconds. I, for one, do not view this development with any misgivings.

What a shocking statement, but believe it or not, that was a recent Burger King Campaign in the USA.

Previously, in April 2005, Burger King landed a massive viral marketing hit (I have discussed viral marketing already in a previous article) with the campaign of the “Subservient Chicken“. The idea was simple, the success massive. A guy dressed in a quiet poor quality chicken costume standing in the middle of a random living room and performing a variety of commands, which can be inserted deliberately by the viewer. Nothing too special to be honest – but the web page turned out to be an enormous success.

Subservient Chicken

According to an article of ViralBlog, Adweek reported that people got absolutely excited by submitting the weirdest commands, spent an average time of seven minutes on the page and also turned the subservent chicken into some sort of a “pop culture”.(read more here) It seems nearly impossible to find a command that bloody chicken does not do. From “jumping jack”, to “riverdance” to “handstand”… it even has a go when you type in “fly”.
According to AdWeek the page had over one million hits within the first day and 20 million hits within the first week. The entire campaign was launched because of Burger King’s, then newly launched, chicken sandwich that could be served the way customers wanted and thus, Crispin Porter’s campaign for them.

When Burger King introduced another spicy version of the chicken sandwich, they created a campaign called “Chicken Fight” that was supposed to represent their two burgers fighting each other. Basically, a win-win situation for them, as Burger King never looses that way.

Chicken Fight

They wanted to express that their chicken burgers are outstanding and no one else but themselves represents competition. Some of you may even be familiar with the related spoof in Family Guy, where character “Peter Griffin” and  a giant cockerel fight each other meaninglessly over and over again without a clear winner, as the chicken to date has never died.

This second page (“chickenfight”) provided users the ability to vote on which chicken should win and also a game they could download and play. Unfortunately that page shut down in the meantime and does not exist anymore.

However, both of these sites showed high interaction potential from consumers by using new media, which appears to be an essential factor for successful viral campaigns. By taking part in the evolution of a multitasking chicken or by influencing a silly fight, fans got the feeling of being involved and engaged with the brand. According to Burger King the campaign was a great success and their web traffic increased massively.

With regard to Burger King’s return on investment AdWeek reports as follows:

“BK reported that sales had steadily increased an average of 9 percent a week. Since then, Geis says the company has seen “double-digit” growth of awareness of the TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich and “significantly increased” chicken sandwich sales. And the TenderCrisp does sell better than the Original Chicken Sandwich.”

Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” and “Chicken Fight” made it into several marketing textbooks filed as successful viral campaign. Critics were concerned about the long-term benefit of these campaigns, but Burger King’s sales have improved since then.

Now they are back with another unusual campaign that attracted plaudits as well as heavy criticism. In their “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign on social networking site Facebook, Burger King created a campaign within the US that motivated Facebook users to delete 10 of their friends in order to get a voucher for a free Whopper.

Friendship is strong but the Whopper is stronger

Deleted friends were notified through a humorous notification sent by the application about what had happened and received the opportunity to send each other heavily branded “Angry Grams”.  The campaign took off and people were deleting each other for the sake of getting a free burger and obviously, added each other afterwards yet again. With reference to Inside Facebook the campaign was forced down by Facebook and the “functionality for violating users” had to be removed. Some argue that Facebook did not like Burger King encouraging aggression and that also caused some negative publicity.

A Facebook spokesperson announced to Inside Facebook the following:

“We encourage creativity from developers and companies using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications meet users’ expectations. After constructive conversations with Burger King and the developer of the application, they have decided to conclude their campaign rather than continue with the restrictions we placed on their application.” (Read the full story here)

Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice

According to the magazine The Marketer some bloggers were labelling the “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign as “puerile” and “obnoxious”. It must definitely have caused some negative publicity, but to date it is unclear for what exact reasons Facebook decided to intervene. Referencing the New York Times, Burger King responded with the following statement:

“While Facebook was a great sport, they did ask for changes that would have resulted in a different approach to our application, counter to what we developed [...] Ultimately, based on philosophical differences, we decided to conclude the campaign and chose to ’sacrifice’ the application.” (Read more here)

This was another very successful online campaign that seems to have appealed to  Burger King’s target audience. However, this sort of promotion may not be appropriate for every brand; as such an irreverent approach carries high risks for serious damage in brand reputation. The fact is that Burger Kind did their job well in terms of evaluating in advance whether their target audience will appreciate or turn down the campaign. Brand awareness and web traffic were definitely increased. At the point of closure the campaign generated 234,000 “deleted friends” which counts for over 23,400 free Whopper coupons.

Given the low costs of the campaign and the also pretty low NET costs of a burger for Burger King, the campaign must have had a positive return on investment. Free online as well as offline media coverage and lots of buzz – what else do you want as a brand, when you know that your campaigns appeal to your target audience?

Now the very important question (please vote):

Experimentation was the catchcry of the 60’s with youth, and we’re seeing it come back as a key part of brand behavior. Brands who have an ‘always in BETA’ attitude to their business are gaining traction with Gen C. These brands are constantly trying new things and experimenting, asking for a viewpoint, in all aspects of the marketing mix. As long as it delivers on the overall brand point of view, it’s worth trying. Don’t be afraid of failure, if you have a go and are transparent, you get respect and love. Burger King is a great example of a brand constantly experimenting with new ideas but staying true to a core organising thought of ‘having it your way’. Over the past few years we’ve seen the ‘Subservient Chicken’, ‘Whopper Freakout’, ‘Whopper Virgins’ and most recently ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ all bringing people’s love of the Whopper to life in very different but engaging ways. Skittles latest foray is another great example of a brand trying new ways to connect with youth and really leveraging social media to create conversations around the brand.

The Most Innovative Companies in Advertising & Marketing

1. Crispin Porter + Bogusky: New clients including Best Buy, Hulu, Microsoft, and Old Navy have flocked to the ad shop that made Burger King cool.
2. TBWA\Worldwide: TBWA’s Media Arts Lab’s “Get a Mac” tag team continues to define the brand battle of the 21st century.
3. Barbarian Group: The scrappy digital production shop behind the Subservient Chicken is now an interactive lab for companies such as Adobe and CNN.
4. AKQA: Advertising at this boundary-crossing agency spans fuel-efficiency apps for Fiat, alternate-reality games for McDonald’s, and sneaker-design tools for Nike.
5. Naked: The media-agnostic British shop has grown 80% in New York with clients such as Johnson & Johnson and Nokia.
6. AdMob: The two-year-old mobile ad network had a banner year and landed $17 million of funding from Sequoia Capital.
7. Saatchi & Saatchi S: Former Sierra Club prez-turned-Wal-Mart consultant Adam Werbach gained access to huge companies after Saatchi & Saatchi bought his firm.
8. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners: The San Francisco-based agency stretched far beyond display ads, including a Wario Wii ad that demolished its own YouTube page.
9. 42 Entertainment: The stealth multi-platform marketers built buzz for The Dark Knight with an alternate-reality campaign.
10. Obscura Digital: This band of projectionists turns the world into a billboard for brands including GM, Google, and Oracle.

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(This article was originally published in the July 10, 2006 edition of Adweek with the title “BK Redux: A Fool’s Errand.”)

Subservient Chicken was boring. There, I said it.

A fair number of people will react as if I just tore a page out of Ogilvy On Advertising and blew my nose on it. However, I suspect a good many more will privately agree. Simply put, when I’m looking for amusement, a guy in a chicken suit doing calisthenics ranks a couple of notches below a Larry Storch retrospective.

(However, the guy in the chicken suit still ranks a couple of notches above the designer barcodes that were recently awarded a Titanium Lion at Cannes. That work is the conceptual equivalent of dotting your i’s with smiley faces. But I digress.)

Before Alex Bogusky and Benjamin Palmer start building a letter bomb with my name on it, I hasten to add that even though I found Subservient Chicken boring, I also admired it. In fact, I’d even say it might be the most influential site ever created. Early 2006 saw the launch of sillywalksgenerator.com, which promotes a new set of Monty Python DVDs. It essentially uses the same trick as Subservient Chicken—i.e., it gives consumers control of what amounts to a digital marionette—and I would argue doesn’t do it as well.

So how can Subservient Chicken be so important and at the same time somewhat dull? Allow me to explain. I’ll only have to go back 110 years and six months to do it.

On December 28, 1895 in Paris, the Lumière brothers—Auguste and Louis—showed a 50-second film called L’Arrivee d’un train en gare de la Ciotat (The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station). It was the first public exhibition of a motion picture. Der Speigel reported that the audience panicked at the site of the oncoming train and scattered to get out of the way. Some modern commentators doubt that a sophisticated 19th-century French audience actually believed they were about to be run over. Whether they dove into the aisles or not, it’s a safe assumption that, never having seen a motion picture before, the crowd was impressed and, upon leaving the theater, told everyone they knew about the images they had just seen.

The film had no characters, no stars, and no plot. But it didn’t matter, because it had something no one had ever experienced before—moving pictures.

So it was with Subservient Chicken. The content people saw when they visited the site wasn’t that remarkable. What was remarkable was the interactivity—the very fact that the consumer controlled the action in what seemed to be an almost limitless way thanks to the cleverness of its creators.

Granted, the internet and interactivity existed before Subservient Chicken, but not in a form that had ever truly caught fire. The Barbarian Group’s web site claims 25 million hits in the first 48 hours after Subservient Chicken went live. During those two days, the mainstream understanding of what interactivity was all about was formed.

Which brings us back to the Lumière brothers. The importance of their work was undeniable. Their films were in large part the basis for the initial mainstream understanding of what motion pictures were all about. That being said, I am not anticipating any new Hollywood releases about trains pulling into stations. In the last 110 years or so, we’ve figured out that films of trains pulling into stations are, well, boring. Kind of like Subservient Chicken.

That’s not to minimize Subservient Chicken’s importance, but to draw a comparison between the early days of interactivity and the early days of motion pictures. Right now, we’re inventing the interactive space one idea at a time, just as the pioneers of cinema had to invent that medium one film at a time.

For the moment, game developers—not advertising agencies—are leading the way. Slick as their products are, for the most part they’re merely delivering interactive violence in a handsome package. Violence is essentially slapstick without the laughs, which is why I like to think of game developers as the Mack Sennett and Keystone Cops of interactivity. Amusing to be sure, but certainly not at the level of Chaplin, Keaton or Eisenstein.

Trying to create the next Subservient Chicken is a fool’s errand. It’s impossible. The novelty that made Subservient Chicken possible is gone forever. Today’s challenge is much more daunting. Try to create the next Battleship Potemkin.

© Scott Johnson

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Burger King

Thanks to Facebook and Ashley Parks, one of our teachers in our company, I just learned about a website the online marketing crew over at Burger King concocted called “Subservient Chicken.”  You get a website of a live guy (or it appears he’s live & it could be a gal for all we know) dressed up in a chicken who takes commands from online viewers.  At first, I don’t know why, but I told it to “die.”  Well, it didn’t do as asked.  While waiting, I saw it scratching it’s head with it’s wing (hand, I mean).

After thinking to blog about this funny little experiment that Burger King decided to put live, I went back to it and asked to do other more realistic commands like “bend over” and “lift up your leg.”  This time, it immediately did both on command.  I proceed to ask it to “sit down”, “stand up,” “sit down” and “stand up” again.  It obliged.  To throw a little spice in the commands, I told it to “lay down.” It did.  However, I threw a longer request to “turn the light off” and it just walked around in a circle.  You could kind of tell when it did commands, it looks like recorded video for the commands is being delivered for typical commands like “sit down” and “lay down.”  So, in their database, they have most of the commands covered with some sort of video.

Regardless, it was a good idea for their BK Tendercrisp which looks to be the benefactor of this campaign.  While I’m not sure if it will become viral, but I’m sure the folks at BK are hoping it will.  It does make me wonder, “why didn’t I think up something like this?” to drive traffic to one of my websites.  It reminds me for some reason of The Million Dollar Homepage the (once) 21 year old Alex Tew which I actually bought a piece of & it drove quite a bit of traffic to my real estate website when I was actively practicing.  These type of ideas are the ones I wish I was the first…maybe some day I will be.  I still have my now almost 10 year idea of When I Leave and the even older idea of the Synthesis Foundation.  Just need to get the financing…  ^^

zombie playground

On another note, I just saw this cool graphic artist a friend of mine Tom Tran posted on Facebook.  The guy’s name is Jason Chan and here is his website.  The art to the left might be disturbing to some, but I thought was a bit innovative and different — that’s the kind of art I like.

My hats off to those clever marketing guys in the US behind Burger King.

From the same brains that brought you FLAME – the essence of a Whopper in a fragrance – and legendary viral ad Subservient Chicken - comes a new campaign that questions exactly how many of your Facebook friends actually are your friends.

Hot off the presses comes a new campaign by Burger King called Whopper Sacrifice which asks users to delete 10 of their Facebook friends in exchange for a complimentary flame-grilled Whopper. Adding insult to injury, the delete friends will be informed by Burger King that you ‘love them as a friend, but you love Whoppers more’

Unfortunately for a lot of social scensters out there with friend collections made up of more than enough ‘fake friends’ the offer is only limited to one burger per person. Ouch.

A lot of peole have written about the Facebook WHOPPER® Sacrifice … “What would you do for a free WHOPPER(r)? Would you insult an elected official? Would you do a naked handstand? Would you go so far as to turn your back on friendship? Install WHOPPER(r) Sacrifice on your Facebook profile and we’ll reward you with a free flame-broiled WHOPPER(r) Sandwich when you sacrifice 10 of your friends*.”

My take? I think Crispin definitely produce a mixed bag of creativity – and for every Subservient Chicken/ whatever there are nine things you never hear about – but this one gets my vote. Brilliant!

And some news just in: their Whopper Virgin effort – which I liked less – also seems to have done pretty well …

Well, how about that! Burger King is sponsoring a Facebook application that dares users to delete 10 friends in exchange for a coupon for a free Whopper. So you get the burger by getting rid of fans? Interesting…

From CNET:

Facebook’s developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.

Fast-food chain Burger King has created “Whopper Sacrifice,” a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late (“Whopper Virgin,” “Subservient Chicken”), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. “Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test,” the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. “Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we’ll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.

The funniest part: The “sacrifices” show up in your activity feed. So it’ll say, for example, “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.” Unfortunately, you can’t delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

Can’t hear those buzzers and bells. Don’t see lights a flashin’, plays by sense of smell. Always gets a replay, never tilts at all…♫

Ready for the happy post I promised you today?

We all love to play games, right? In the spirit of fun, I’ve decided to list a few of my favorite online time wasters.  All of these can be played online from home or work (but tread carefully with the latter, unless you work from home like I do )

All of these links are safe and I am not affiliated with any of them in any way — what I mean is no kickbacks or referrals.    They are all free which is an added bonus! And fun. Trust.

Enjoy!

1.  Pogo :  Most of you have probably heard of Pogo. It’s been around forever, is free (although you can pay a small fee for bonus games, it’s never required), and there is is small chance you can win real prizes.  I’ve been a free member for as long as they’ve been around and have never won a prize, but I know someone who has.  Still, the games are really fun and they have a chat option you can turn off and on at will. They have lots of diffrent types of games to choose from.

2.  Bloons : For the simple game that is Bloons , it is super addicting. You have been warned, lol. If you get stuck, Google for help. Just remember: Frustration is half the fun. Again, you’ve been warned. (beat this game before you move on to …)

3. Bloons 2: The monkey returns! Try to kick butt at Bloons before moving on to this one.

4. Red Square Game : Again, another simple yet super addicting game. Watch your time rise the more you play!  I usually keep this open in a new tab…all day, lol.

5. Winster :  Winster has free casino type games where you and the other people in the room can help one another win. If it’s your first time playing, let the room know and they’ll show you the ropes. Playing with and not against the other people in the room will boost your winnings, and you’ll find yourself rooting for the other players (if you’re a good sport, lol)

6. Falling Sand : At first you’ll say “Huh?” but once you play around with and get the hang of it, you’ll be addicted. Read up on it a bit, use the tools, and experiment. Addiction is at hand again, lol.

7. Subservient Chicken :  Instruct and he shall obey, lol. Get creative. That’s all I am saying, lol.

8. Not PrOn : Frustration has never been so good (and so hard) as this. A puzzle game, Not PrOn will test your ability to think outside the box (and retain the remaining remnants of you hair, lol). Help is out there, but use it sparingly. Don’t give up at the first signs of aggravation (yes, you will get happily agitated). Once you start figuring out how the game works, you’ll love it.
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I know there are lots more out there, but these are the first ones that came to mind. (I know of a few other free sites similar to Pogo, but I can’t vouch for them so I didn’t post them.)

Try your hand at all these games. They all offer their own bit of fun in different ways.

Feel free to post your scores or frustrations,  or your own favorite (and free!) online time wasters.

Have fun!

Jerry Seinfeld earned $10 million for appearing in the new Microsoft ad campaign, which shows founder Bill Gates reconnecting with “the common people” at the mall and in their homes. But are these ads effective rebranding for the stodgy CEO/operating system? In today’s Station Conversation, Liz Shannon Miller and special guest star Paul Cibis discuss whether or not Microsoft is doomed to always be uncool.

Liz: So, Paul, are you watching the new Microsoft ad now?

Paul: I’m a minute-and-a-half in and I’m still not sure what this is an ad for.

Liz: The ads are for nothing. They are to make Microsoft cool again.

Paul: When did Bill Gates become an old man?

Liz: Around the same time Jerry Seinfeld got a bit of a beer belly.

Paul: So this is just, like, an image rebuilding campaign?

Liz: Either that or Bill Gates wanted an excuse to pay Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to be his friend.

Paul: I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to buy. Why won’t the ad just tell me what to buy?

Liz: MICROSOFT. Buy it. Buy its stock. Buy its T-shirts. Perhaps, if you’re really desperate, buy its operating system.

Paul: Do I have to buy Vista or can I buy an old copy of XP?

Liz: It must be NEW.

Paul: Grrrr.

Liz: Don’t you understand, Paul? Microsoft is reaching out to you. It knows what you like. You like YouTube, and video games, and the wry observations of Jerry Seinfeld.

Paul: Apparently I like two aging billionaires.

Liz: Yes. Admit it, give in, and hand over your Mac G5. To me, preferably.

Paul: Wired had a story a while back about the guy who did the Subservient Chicken stuff being hired to make some cool ads for Microsoft. Is this part of that? Oh, yes, it is.

Liz: So what do you actually think of the campaign?

Paul: Again, I’m not sure what the point is. If this is Microsoft’s attempt to make themselves cool or relevant, I think it misses the mark.

Liz: You don’t think the ads are funny?

Paul: Yeah, they’re funny, but so were the Jerry Seinfeld/Cartoon Superman American Express ads 10 years ago.

Liz: There is something very 1990s about the whole thing. Though I just instinctively react to the sight of Jerry Seinfeld by wondering where I’ve put my flannel shirt and Alanis Morissette albums.

Paul: I think it was smart of MS to not wade too far into the deep end of the cool pool (they would have drowned), but I don’t think this campaign goes far enough, either.

Liz: It does a nice job of hanging a lantern on the fact that Bill Gates as a person — and Microsoft as a corporate entity — have lost touch.

Paul: Gates is my favorite part of these ads. You’ve got two super-rich guys who have an image of living in semi-seclusion in walled-off compounds. But Gates spends his seclusion thinking about how to perfect technologies that connect people and (ostensibly) make life easier. Seinfeld spends his seclusion buying and not driving luxury automobiles. Despite being the straight man in these ads (and the far richer of the two rich guys), I actually feel more of a connection to Gates.

Liz: Well, he’s playing into his “average nerd” persona, whereas Seinfeld is just slipping back into his Seinfeld rhythms. It’s a much broader performance.

Paul: And Seinfeld’s shtick is sort of hollow now that he lives in a huge compound next to Martha Stewart’s huge compound.

Liz: Yeah, I agree. It’s hard to really sell something by complaining about the mundanities of life when you have enough money to make every single one of them go away.

Paul: The question I have is, who is this supposed to appeal to? The original point of the ads was touted as making MS hip, but by casting the biggest comedy stars in the world, they seem to be aimed at the broadest possible audience. And that’s not hip. Even if it is funny.

Liz: They’re taking baby steps towards being cool, though. You have to know who Jerry Seinfeld is before you can know who Demetri Martin is. What I like about the ads is that they carry a very strong undercurrent of, “Look, we know you don’t like us anymore, but baby, please, we can change.” They’re admitting it, embracing it as a concept, and moving forward. I don’t know where we’re going, but there’s an element of humility to the campaign that’s worth applauding.

Though you’ll never see the reverse on this, where Seinfeld is taught to be relevant again.

Paul: Well, who could tackle that Sisyphean task?

Liz: Seriously. Deceased Mitch Hedberg is more relevant these days.

Paul: I like the humility angle of these ads, but the problem is it’s hard to believe that humility is sincere when it’s coming from a mega-monopoly that essentially forces people to use their operating system.

Liz: The only alternatives to which are becoming a dirty Linux hippie or giving in to that other operating system with a near monopoly.

Paul: Apple might have a near monopoly on the digital music player market, but hardly in the hardware or OS market. That’s what allows them to be the hipster cool kids. Hip and cool come from exclusivity.

Liz: So you think Microsoft will always and forever be uncool?

Paul: Kind of, yes. You can’t ever be that cool when you’re king of the mountain. Microsoft has lost touch. They got huge and bloated and stopped innovating, which is what allowed guys like Apple and Google to catch up. It’s fun to see them acknowledge that, but I’d rather seem them make an OS that’s not a pain in my nuts to use. Make a next-gen OS that looks pretty AND actually works. Then we can talk about them reconnecting with consumers.

Liz: Is there anyone you think could convince you that they were cool, though?

Paul: That’s a tough question. I doubt it. Without cool and innovative products to back it up, these ads are just window dressing.

Liz: But isn’t that what being cool is? Awesome window dressing?

Paul: It’s got to be more than that. Window dressing is just attitude, and if can’t back up that attitude with something then it’s just empty posturing. You’re a poseur.

Liz: So what you’re saying is that this is the viral ad equivalent of Dane Cook.

Paul: Yes. These ads might have been cooler if they’d gotten Stephen Colbert to do them, but I’m pretty sure he’s a Mac user.

Liz: As are all the greats.

Paul: Picasso was a Mac user. So was Beethoven.

Liz: Hemingway wasn’t, but Hemingway was kind of a dick.

Paul: He used a PC loaded with Windows Vista. And that’s why he killed himself.