I’m about to say two things that are probably going to be very unpopular around the office: I’m not an “Apple” guy, and I’m not all that keen on advertising. Before there’s a “here we go again” moment — since I bashed my own field of PR a few weeks back, let me once again explain.

I get Apple. I get that they’re innovators. I have an iPod. But I’m not going to drive around with the sticker on my car. They just don’t excite me as much as some people. As for advertising, I think it can make a tremendous impact, but that doesn’t usually happen. The vast majority of ads are stale and contrived and I’m continually amazed that they make it through agency and client approvals.

That being said, the marriage of these two things just sparked something that I’m comfortable saying is the best advertisement I have seen in years. Every day I read The New York Times online, and never once have I clicked on, let alone noticed, an ad on the site. But today, as I was reading the front-page article, that changed.

I couldn’t help but be drawn to the right side of the page and the blaring headline “Stop Switching to Mac!” as written by PC. The copy focuses on PC’s deficiencies and asks that PC’s once loyal customers stick with it, ensuring them that eventually they’d turn it around. Of course the ad bashes Mac, as well, asking whether customers have gotten sick of all the Mac superlatives. I saw all of this even before I discovered there was sound and visuals bringing in the now famous Mac and PC personalities to narrate.

A lot of money? Of course. It must have cost a ton to keep that ad up there all day. But before everyone says that if they had Apple’s budget they could create something as clever and effective, let me say that this ad’s effectiveness has more to do with message than with budget. This is what happens when the first thing asked in a creative meeting is “How can we get people talking?” It’s a simple approach, but one rarely taken. Usually the first question asked is “How do we spend this money?”

When the focus is switched to buzz and conversations, you can see the results. It’s clear that Apple worked across departments to achieve this ad’s effectiveness. Media planners and buyers who think their job is all about numbers and not creativity need look no further than this ad for inspiration.

I still don’t love Apple, and until they create something that allows me to download warm, soft, chocolate chip cookies, I probably never will. But I have to hand it to them for providing us with a real life, real-time case study on what advertising is all about.

For the first 12 years of our agency’s life, our new business efforts were pretty much about referrals and cranking out responses to RFPs…so basically, no real new biz dev to speak of. The great thing about an awful economy is that it makes us all wake up. My buddy Mike Martin, THE top dog salesman in the heavy construction demolition business (everyone needs a niche), said, “Even frozen turkeys can fly in a tornado.” Too true, old chum. So we stopped resting on our laurels and have been as targeted and determined as possible to reach out to new prospects.

Cold calling sucks!  And to tell you the truth, I hesitate to do it. It feels old-fashioned, disruptive, and, quite frankly, is demoralizing. We prefer pushing content out about our agency in the social media circles and with word-of-mouth. We educate the market about our unique brand of combustible, convergent communications and have meaningful conversations about how we can accelerate the growth of a business or a cause. It works well. No selling. Conversations, education, and voila: a new client for the agency.

We’ve found that to truly understand and leverage so-called new media, you have to use it. We’re blogging, twittering, flickring, youtubing, facebooking, myspacing, and linkedining machines. One of the biz dev blogs I enjoy the most is Michael Gass’ Fuel Lines. I found a particular wealth of info in his recent post, 50 Companies Using Social Media Marketing.

These case studies are recommended reading (”experiencing,” really) for those of us in the agency business serious about growing our companies and our clients by overlaying social media marketing with our more traditional branding and advertising expertise.

Thanks, Michael, for helping to fuel our combustible growth.

I am a big fan of the AMC cable series Mad Men. I like the show’s accuracy in depicting the style, the attitude, and the persona of the era. Being in advertising, I like the storylines specific to the business — clients, creative inspiration, and how management works. Sometimes the show does get a bit slow, but what I really enjoy is the writing and the little gems that come out of the show’s dialogue, particularly from the main character, Don Draper. Draper is fictional New York agency Sterling Cooper’s stellar creative director. He is also the stud of the show. (Darn. Why can’t account guys be the studs?) His comments aren’t unique or earth shattering, but to me they are well delivered reminders of what makes this crazy business interesting and why I think I stay in it.

Here is just a sampling of my favorite Draperisms.

• “There has to be advertising for people who don’t have a sense of humor.”
• “Part of this job is doing things you don’t want to do.”
• “Young campaigns don’t necessarily come from young people.”
• “Clients don’t understand. Their success is related to standing out, not fitting in. One wants to be the needle in the haystack, not a haystack.”
• “There’s life and there’s work.”
• On the idea that sex sells: “Just so you know, the people who talk that way think that monkeys can do this. And they take all this monkey crap and just stick it in a briefcase, completely unaware that their success depends on something more than their shoeshine. You are the product. You, feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can’t do what we do and they hate us for it.”
• Draper to his administrative assistant: “You do not cover for me. You manage people’s expectations.”
• On presenting a controversial prime time TV show to a conservative client: “Controversy means viewers. Women will find a way to watch this. Maybe just because they don’t want to get left out. It’s catharsis. That’s hard to come by. There are limits to what you get from daytime.”
• On showing only one concept for a new business pitch: “I don’t care if we are just selling a point of view, but we have to commit to one thing. They don’t like wiggle room. They like to see us blowing up bridges behind us.”
• On the creative team showing different elements of a campaign: “We’ve got a lot of bricks, but I don’t know what the building looks like.”
• On a heart-to-heart meeting with the head of accounts: “You’re pitching more to me than you have to clients. You’ve been selling their ideas to me more than mine to them.”
• After an impressive idea is not used — but is loved — by the client: “I think we bought a couple of years of security. If they ever decide they want to go that way, they know we can do it.”

Maybe you have favorite Draperisms or lines from the other characters. Please feel free to share.

You can find out more about Mad Men here.

To spark some independent creativity among our staff and have a little “viral” fun for ourselves, we’ve launched our own film festival, YouTube style. Park&Co employees were invited to create a short film — no more than 1 minute — and post it on the Park&Co YouTube Channel. The films were premiered in a gala event (beer and fruit platter) here on September 3. The filmmakers were fêted and the audience was treated to singing dogs, bat-swinging kids, exploding websites, our house garage band, pundits and buffoons, a hobo with a bag fetish, and a sneaky gnome.

Though the films were a big hit, this competition rewards marketing mastery over creative wizardry. The grand prize will go to the film with most views after 30 days. Now that you know the stakes, let the clicking begin.

“I want to reach anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time with my marketing message, and I don’t want to pay for distribution.”  A few short years ago, this was an impossible client demand.

Now, with some clever thinking and the use of free online social networks, a private Arizona company is meeting the distribution demand. Forever Living Products (FLP), the world’s largest grower, manufacturer and distributor of aloe vera-based health and beauty products, is broadcasting its videos to more than nine million independent distributors worldwide for next to nothing, saving tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

The “AloePod Online Media Center,” provides FLP distributors instant access to product training, business building and marketing videos through iTunes. In its first week, nearly 14,000 videos were downloaded from AloePod.com. These downloads saved FLP approximately $69,000 in DVD replication costs alone. With labor and shipping costs factored in, total savings were in the neighborhood of $75,000.

Park&Co created FLP’s new online strategy in three steps, culminating in the launch of AloePod.com. The first step was to launch FLP’s channel on YouTube.com in May 2008. The channel quickly became one of YouTube’s fastest growing in its first month of operation, and currently features upwards of 60 international videos with more than 350 subscribers and over 25,000 views.

For the second step, FLP introduced commemorative iPods, nicknamed “AloePods,” with a laser-etched “Forever” eagle logo and the AloePod.com URL. All of the AloePods came fully loaded with the latest FLP videos. FLP distributors purchased more than 500 iPod Nanos, Classics and Touches prior to and during the company’s International Super Rally in early August.

The third and final step was the launch of the AloePod Online Media Center. The website allows FLP to upload and archive its entire audio and video library in the form of podcasts, which distributors can access and download through iTunes. The media center makes the flow of information seamless as subscribers receive new content either directly through AloePod.com downloads or automatically via RSS feeds.

FLP is the first company in its industry to leverage the power of social networks to affect its business model, communications capabilities, and environmental impact. The company’s AloePod Online initiative not only expands their global reach, but also immediately adds to the bottom line in cost savings. With the AloePod initiative, FLP has proven that you can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time, with your message.

There is a new kid on the block. It’s Cuil, the newest competitor in the search engine wars with Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, Live.com, and Ask. With an ex-Google engineer, Anna Patterson, at the helm, the expectations of Cuil’s launch were very high. The Cuil website states that their new search engine “searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.”

And as the reviews come in, the truth is that it is not really ready for prime-time. There seem to be essential search components missing, such as news, photos and maps. Even PC World was not impressed, stating “the product has failed to meet the lofty expectations that were created.”

I am not very impressed with the results that it provides for a search inquiry and the interface does not provide more than 12 results at a time. I need as much info as I can get at one time, so that I am not having to scroll through all these pages to find the one relevant result. When I searched for Wally’s and Phoenix, I got a load of results that had nothing to do with a restaurant. I did however get a link to the Phoenix Suns website. Close, but not close enough.

As the revisions of this search engine are revealed, we’ll know whether the threat of taking down the giant will come true. You have to give David credit, though, for attempting to take out the proverbial Goliath that is Google.