Whole Foods Gets It

There was a great story on All Things Considered last night about the in-store artists that Whole Foods employs to create their unique signage. They employ them full time and provide health benefits. Wow. Read or listen to the story and if you're not already familiar with them, learn more about this remarkable business.

The New WesterBlog - NOW WITH COMMENTS!

Just a quick note to let you know that I've made a couple of modifications to the WesterBlog. The biggest is that I have enabled commenting (you have Larry Miller and his persistent lobbying to thank for that). Just remember to be nice and let's get some conversations started.

Not so new but worth a mention - I've also added category labels for my postings so now you can search for all of my rants by subject (located on the top right hand sidebar under the heading 'Labels' - just below my ugly mug). Enjoy! And if you are enjoying, feel free to comment.

I'm Nick Westergaard and I Approve This Blog Post

A recent study pointed out some stunning stats on political advertising. During this month's election, a viewer watching a 30-minute block of television was, on average, exposed to 4 1/2 minutes of political advertising. The real kicker? In a 30-minute newscast viewers only got about 1 minute 43 seconds of political coverage and even then it focused primarily on political strategy rather than a look at how the candidates actually differ on the issues.

Speaking of stance on the issues ... I'm not real sure where I stand on this. I guess it would be easy to say "yeah advertising!" but I kind of feel more like "forget advertising (in politics: spin), where's the beef?" I guess, love it or hate it, our society is really getting most of our information, on anything from pharmaceuticals to MP3 players to the people we elect to higher office, through perceptions shaped by mass media.

The Point? With reluctance, I say go advertising ... but we need to be careful. As David Ogilvy once said, "In a period when television commercials are often the decisive factor in deciding who shall be the next President of the United States, dishonest political advertising is as evil as stuffing the ballot box." You're now more than twice as likely to hear controlled spin from a politician than an objective fact so just remember that an ad for a politician is as objective as one from McDonalds espousing the dietary benefits off the Big Mac. Luckily our food has Nutrition Facts ...

Chuck Gets It

Larry points us to Slate where Seth Stevenson gives an Ad Report Card for the new "animated-reality" TV ads that Charles Schwab is using to announce their lower pricing structure. This article provides an in depth anatomy of an ad and is also a great example of targeting your message to an audience (men w/impotent anger who are upset at how their money is being managed). It even goes a level deeper and uses the media in a way that creates the right effect on this market segment (the ads leave you with a disrupted feeling -- it could really push the target audience into taking action). Kudos to Austin-based GSD&M for a kickin' strategy and execution. Well played. Quick things I love about these ads:

• The "Talk to Chuck" slogan. For the exact same reasons Slate points out. Saw it on a big billboard in Chicago and fell in love with it.
  
• The fact that for research Schwab created a "clutter reel" assembled of the bad advertising that is prevalent in financial services space (Adirondack chairs, sailboats, etc.).
• The strategic match up of a targeted message and a targeted media

The only thing they missed? Putting these sticky ads on their website. Cadillac and Snickers have this figured out. If you've created a remarkable, clutter-cutting ad that's getting some press and people want to watch it, shouldn't they go to your site to do it ...?

P.S. If you find a link to the Schwab ads, send it to me and I'll post it.

Buzzwords

Here is a great article on buzzwords from Yahoo! Finance. (Thanks to Mike for the referral.) It's a great read if you can find time in your day between working on your deliverables and your decentralization and unsiloing efforts and provided you don't have any drive bys from knowledge workers or managers who manage by walking around (MBWA).