Southbay is a lifestyle magazine serving one of the most culturally, economically, and ethnically diverse areas in the United States.

The current issue features Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day on the cover and inside contains profiles of Clow, Paolucci Communication, Team One and Margaret Keene and Chris Adams, co-executive creative directors at Saatchi/LA.

Both Margaret and Chris have young families, and Saatchi’s emphasis on a prioritization of life appealed to them. “It’s the concept that everyone matters … that everyone’s ideas matter. All the shops in the South Bay agree with that,” says Margaret of the local ad agency culture.

Chris adds, “It’s that culture of creativity meeting commerce that exists in Southern California in a way that it doesn’t exist in other places. The difference between Madison Avenue and Southern California agencies: You can still do really breakthrough creative. You can do really amazing things. You can get results for clients. You don’t have to take yourself so seriously. You don’t have to have the pressure and the conflict to get things done and do amazing work.

I know it’s a lifestyle magazine, but the description above of how Saatchi/LA values the right things in life sounds more like a Hollywood scrpit. I’m not saying it’s not real, just that it sounds like a story that’s been touched up, or “had some work done” in the local parlance.

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“Can our account director in training balance between the steel trap of client concerns and groundbreaking ideas?”

Talk about asking the hard questions…

According to Adfreak, this video was part of a staff town-hall meeting at Draftfcb Chicago in January. See Adfreak for the other video about the agency’s approach to copy.

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I am not a social media fan boy, but I recently had a customer service experience enabled by social media that gave me new found respect for the channel (as a customer service opportunity of untold magnitude).

More on my story in a minute, but first, let’s have a view from the mountaintop.

Open Forum points to a new study commissioned by Conversocial and conducted by New York University professor Liel Liebovitz.

The report argues that “businesses seem to be struggling to deal with the volume of communication on Facebook and Twitter; they aren’t equipped to deal with this new public forum and issues are slipping through the cracks.”

Confronted with unanswered complaints on a company’s social media site, 88 percent of customers said they’d be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to do business with the company in the future.

Other findings of the report: Half of consumers use social media to communicate with companies and more than three-quarters (78 percent) think social media platforms will either replace other forms of customer service entirely, or will become the most popular form.

Three in four believe in social media as a customer service channel, regardless of what brand managers, CMOs and others might think. I have to say, I am now one of the majority of believers, thanks to the commitment that AT&T Wireless has brought to bare.

After talking to three AT&T Wireless customer service reps on the phone last Friday, and getting nowhere at all regarding the problem — AT&T Wireless erroneously added a fourth line to my account, and then wouldn’t remove it or the charges associated with it without a contract buyout — I finally hung up in frustration and considered breaking all of the above contracts to go to another carrier. In short, I was extremely bent out of shape by my phone interactions, and by the issue itself.

I will admit, I sometimes bristle when I encounter complaints on Twitter about a bad flight, hotel or restaurant experience. I bristle because it’s a private matter and the there’s a desperateness to it all. And a threat. Yet, the need to be heard is real and so are the word-of-mouth networks many ordinary people have digitally constructed.

The other day I needed to be heard. I turned to Twitter, not to shame AT&T into action, rather to vent and to see if any action on my behalf was possible via this alternate route. It was that or go back into the retail location, recount the details once again and hope for the best.

Happily, as soon as the Social Media Team at AT&T Wireless took note of my situation, the whole tenor of the flare up changed. Now, I was in the hands of a proactive professional, able to think on his feet and empowered by his employer to solve problems. That didn’t change the fact that the problem existed in the first place, but it sure did put a different face on a company I was viewing as deaf, dumb and blind.

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Show. Don’t tell. It’s an age old maxim in this business, and one that 180LA has taken to heart for their Mitsubishi Motors client. And it’s working — the brand’s market share has almost doubled year-to-date with significant monthly sales increases every month, since 180LA took on the business 19 months ago.

For this new “Ride the Storm” spot, the 180LA team chased a storm from LA to Kansas with the expert help of Weather Underground. The film was shot documentary-style with Directors Emmett and Brendan Malloy, two brothers who say chasing unpredictable parts of nature is a big part of their filmmaking process. A member of Mitsubishi’s social media team went along for the ride, tweeting and posting their whereabouts.

Gavin Milner, CD for 180LA, says “The team hit on a beautifully simple premise that elevated our message above all the scary winter season driving noise: with Mitsubishi’s all-wheel control technology.”

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There’s no doubt that Gerry Graf, now head of Barton F. Graf 9000, has done, or overseen, a lot of great TV commercials in his career. Here’s just one:

On FastCoCreates, a project of Fast Company magazine, Graf shares the ingredients of a great commercial. Here’s the part that caught my eye, as Graf describes “The Ideal Team”:

Account people: no one who has a vested interest in making sure the client is happy. I don’t want anything to do with people who think they work for the client. Many account people get their bonuses based on how clients rate them. If your salary is based on keeping a client happy you don’t fight for work. Everyone on the agency side should have one goal–make the best work.

I get where he’s coming from, but I’ve never worked in an agency where that was the way things worked. Don’t we all have some sort of vested interest in making sure our clients are happy? That doesn’t mean saying “yes” to every whim, but I’ve never met an AE who didn’t, at the end of the day, want happy clients, or at least ones who were pleased with the work.

Have you worked in an agency with AEs the way Graf describes them? I have seen the opposite side of the spectrum: I did interview once at a rather large agency that still paid Account Directors partly on commission based on quantity of work sold, and have seen plenty other agencies where AEs had client revenue numbers they needed to meet to keep their jobs. But I don’t think I’ve seen such a seemingly adversarial setup as he describes. Or frankly, a place where everyone, creatives and AEs (and everyone in between), agreed on what “make the best work” actually meant.

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Old Milwaukee rolled out a new TV commercial starring comedian Will Ferrell during the Super Bowl. You probably didn’t see it though, as it only ran in one place–the country’s second-smallest TV market, North Platte, Neb.

According to BusinessWeek, despite its tiny TV audience, the Old Milwaukee ad managed to outperform some of the nationally broadcast Super Bowl commercials in an increasingly important metric of Super Bowl advertising bragging rights: chatter on social-media networks.

On Sunday night, a user named Daddymcc uploaded a low-quality copy of the Ferrell commercial onto YouTube, which was subsequently linked to by Old Milwaukee’s official Facebook page. At this time, the video has been viewed 564,154 times.

What this says to me is that TV may be the source material that social media users spread, but the choice to spread one item over another is not determined by quality storytelling or production. Online, quirkiness is awarded. Hence, the popularity of cat photos and videos.

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The other day, Gary Vaynerchuk predicted that Super Bowl advertisers would extend the story told in their Super Bowl ads to online venues, and that these extensions would have us talking on Monday morning.

Didn’t happen (except in a few rare exceptions). In fact, if you look at the Toyota Camry spot, to name just one, it ends with the point that all Camry drivers have stories to tell. Yet, there’s no pointer for the viewer to follow, no place to hear more Camry-centric stories, or to tell them. Granted, there is a Toyota.com graphic at the end of the spot, but that’s hardly the “force ‘em online” that Vaynerchuk had in mind.

Which says what? Does it say that when it comes to Super Bowl advertising, it really is all about the TV audience, and the nerds with second and third screens can buzz off? I think it might.

In related news, Bob Hoffman is very disheartened by what he saw on Sunday.

This could be a turning point. It could be the year that the ad industry throws in the towel, admits it is bankrupt, and hands the keys over to the metrics maniacs.

I am afraid the advertising industry has been infiltrated by people who don’t really believe in advertising, don’t care much for it, and are not very good at it.

I feel Bob’s pain, but there will be no admission of defeat from industry spokespersons. The industry will continue to respond to clients’ whims, and to trends in media (like consumer-generated spots). What very few in the ad business will successfully do is lead. There’s reactive and proactive, and the ad business is the former, because we are all in client service.

Only a handful of agencies have ever shifted to a proactive stance, but even those masters have retreated, and begun to recycle their old spots, instead of driving hard to find a new way to do TV and a new way to make meaning in consumers’ minds.

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Public service advertising has been around for a long time. But there’s a new kind of public service advertising today, which should not be confused with the pro-bono work agencies do for charities. No, this new service work is done by brands to directly benefit a community. It might be Tide helping people do laundry after a hurricane or tornado. In this case it’s a candy maker, helping to fund a hockey rink.

Last year, New Brunswick island Grand Manan got what every small Canadian town dreams of – its own ice hockey rink. And this winter the makers of MARS partnered with Hockey Canada to lend a helping hand by adding in a heated mezzanine.

BBDO Toronto Associate Creative Directors Jaimes Zentil and Craig McIntosh developed the concept and script, and were drawn to Grand Manan by the island’s unique culture and close-knit community. To bring the story to life, Emmy award-winning director Doug Pray and Holiday Films were brought on board to shoot a 30-second commercial and five-minute web film.

“I was attracted to the script because it was real,” comments Pray, who won international acclaim for his 2009 documentary Art & Copy. “Mars Canada Inc. really did make an important donation to the community and the community really did appreciate it.”

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Why do I feel like Dan Wieden and crew have a not-so-secret deal with the White House to promote American values in this time of trouble? Probably because it shows in the agency’s reel.

Clearly, bailing out Wall Street and Detroit’s automakers was a political act; therefore, reshaping those brands is an also a political act, to some degree.

Here’s the original ad from Hal Riney that this new Clint Eastwood for Chrysler spot emulates:

And here are two other recent pro-America messages, brought to you by a big American brand and Wieden + Kennedy:

Understand, America and American brands need an awesome cheerleader, and I’m glad that W+K is doing this kind of work, because it’s not a job for hacks.

It should be noted that W+K also brings its pro-America, pro-poetry lens to the state of Oregon. Have a look:

Previously on AdPulp: Despite Massive Under-Employment, “We Are All Workers” | When It Comes To Muscle Cars, U.S.A. Doesn’t Tie

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I didn’t care for this ad when I saw it during the Super Bowl, but now I see an unhidden message in it. Bud Light Platinum is a 6.0% alcohol by volume. Why the brand and its agency didn’t make the entire spot about that significant point of difference, it’s hard to say.

“Man has long dreamed of turning lead into gold. We dreamed of turning gold into platinum.”

What? Who cares what “you” dreamed of Budweiser? Tell me instead why this new version of Bud Light is something I might want to drink. Tell me it drinks like a micro.

According to Los Angeles Times, the brew’s 6% alcohol content reflects Americans’ growing thirst for drinks with more kick and perceived sophistication.

Visually, the commercial says made in a factory of the future. Is that where the best beer comes from? I know some monks in Belgium who would argue otherwise.

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Indie rock and the Super Bowl? Thanks to Chevy and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, they do indeed mix.

OK Go set up over 1000 instruments spread out over two miles of desert near Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of “Needing/Getting,” singing as they played the instrument array with the car.

“Car advertising, so long a well-polished mirror of contemporaneous trends in America, adjusts to suit the changing times,” writes Car and Driver.

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I didn’t see any great ads during the Super Bowl tonight. But there were a handful of good ads.

Given the big stage, and the exorbitant cost to make and run these spots, there really should be a number of great ads every year. But no.

Regardless, let’s have another look at some of the best of this year’s sub-premium lot.

Volkswagen: The Dog Strikes Back (my favorite ad of the bunch)

Budweiser: Return of the King

Chrysler: Halftime in America

Kia: Optima – A Dream Car. For Real Life.

Pepsi: King’s Court

Suzuki: Sled

M&M’s: It’s That Kind of Party

What were your most and least favorite Super Bowl ads this year?

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Gary Vaynerchuk of Vayner Media has some thoughts on this year’s Super Bowl. As a Jets fan, he’s unhappy to see the other New York team make it to the big game, which he will not be watching. However, he expects big things from the commercials, and better bridges to online where the story can continue.

I’m not ready to say that “content” is what commercials are made of, but I do see Vaynerchuk’s point, and for Super Bowl spots especially, they do tend to focus more on entertaining people than on selling a product.

Now, let’s move off the Super Bowl for a few minutes and address this darker, more brooding video offering from they guy who reinvented wine criticism with WineLibraryTV.

There’s a passage in the video above that I’d like to draw your attention to. It begins at 3:38 in and ends at 4:13. Here’s the transcription of that segment:

“Do you know how obnoxiously thick my skin is when it comes to business? I don’t give a fuck what anybody says about me or thinks of me, or thinks about what I’m doing when it comes to business, because I trust my intuition one gadrillion percent. I know that I’m built to win when it comes to business. I always win. I’m gonna win. And people that don’t understand my style, or don’t think that I’m not doing the right thing, or think that Vayner Media is a dumb idea because it’s client services, they just don’t know me. They don’t understand what I’m going to do.”

Vaynerchuk, who is 36, goes on to explain how early it is the game for him. That he’s just a kid. He also says later on in the video how he wants to make a billion dollars so he can buy the Jets. All of which makes me think what a different time this is in media and marketing services, and in the culture at large. You might view his London-to-New York video above and find nothing to admire or concern yourself with, but the reality is Vaynerchuk and his younger brother, AJ, have a thriving marketing services business going in Vayner Media. In other words, you’re competing with this kind of showmanship and ability to build a community around the offering.

Speaking of community, if you examine the comments on Vaynerchuk’s videos, it’s one person after the next singing his praises. Maybe his audience is not used to someone being so open and willfully vulnerable. No doubt, it is genuinely inspiring for many. Yet, it’s not prudent to go by comments alone to determine how a person, product or service is being received in the marketplace, because people with dissenting views often keep them those views to themselves, especially when there are hundreds of supporters flocked around a particular thread.

What dissenting views might I, or you, offer? I’m tempted to say, “Hey, put the video cam bag in your bag and take a freaking nap next time. There is such a thing as overexposure and saying too much.” But that’s not really what I’m thinking. I’m thinking there’s something for me (and you) to learn here. Sure, one could be put off by his F-bombs, or his over-the-top confidence when it comes to business. He’s “built to win,” by his own admission. The thing is, clients clearly want some of that Vaynerchukian confidence for their own initiatives.

Vaynerchuk’s packaging isn’t slick, but that’s his point. What’s in the package is right and good, and that’s what matters.

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Making Super Bowl commercials is an annual activity at Weiden + Kennedy, but there’s another Portlander with a Super Bowl commercial this year, and he’s not even out of school yet.

According to The Oregonian, Lewis & Clark College student Remy Neymarc, 21, won a competition to make the Super Bowl spot via Poptent, a social network for videographers, directors and filmmakers that connects companies with creative talent through selective crowdsourcing.

Without further ado, the crowdsourced (or is it consumer generated?) Super Bowl ad for Dannon’s Greek yogurt, OIKOS:

According to Poptent, the site’s top producers delivered 34 fully-produced videos for the brand team’s consideration. All productions used a stand-in for John Stamos in their original commercials.

[UPDATE] A controversy is now brewing regarding the spot above. It seems the sound for this spot is an awful lot like a song from John Butler Trio. And the spot itself is pretty much a direct lift from an earlier 7-Up spot, as well. I suppose the brand saved money by crowndsourcing the creative here, but what will it cost them in the end?

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If you read a lot of marketing advice these days, then you’ve seen the word “mobile” used as the key to the future – much the way “plastics” was in The Graduate. But for those businesses and brands that can’t quite grasp the mobile world, Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner offer a good overview in Go Mobile: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business.

The title of the book gives away the dilemma most brands face: Planning and executing mobile marketing is itself as complicated and multi-faceted as anything we’ve ever seen. So Hopkins & Turner cover a lot of ground, starting with many successful Fortune 500 uses of mobile and a look at many current popular apps. Then, Go Mobile goes through all the tactics, including search, LBS, SMS, MMS, and others.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly who Go Mobile is aimed at, since it’s both a broad and detailed at the same time. Anyone navigating mobile marketing at this scale ought to have some experienced help. But any marketer who simply needs a comprehensive course in the state of mobile marketing right now will find it useful. This is one of those books you ought to read soon, since it’s certainly going to be outdated this time next year.

Special thanks to Wiley to providing me with a review copy.

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Regional media buys are often overlooked during Super Bowl advertising coverage. But not here. We leave few Super Bowl advertising stones unturned.

Portland’s office of StruckAxiom, combined forces with Secret Weapon Marketing, creative agency of record for Jack in the Box, to create a “Marry Bacon” campaign promoting their new BLT Cheeseburger Combo.

The TV spot breaks on Super Bowl Sunday in approximately 20 western and southern states.

Nick Fletcher, DVP of Marketing Communications for Jack in the Box, says, “We know our audience is digitally focused, and we wanted to create online engagements that amplify our traditional strategies.”

“The Jack in the Box brand is the perfect platform for snack-sized, entertaining and shareable content,” adds Matt Anderson, creative director at StruckAxiom.

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Susan Krashinsky, Marketing Reporter for The Globe and Mail in Toronto, reports that this Sunday’s menu of adverts won’t be on air north of the U.S. border.

The prevailing notion is that the game just does not have the cultural resonance here that it does in the United States. And yet, the Super Bowl was the third most-watched television program in Canada in all of 2011 – only the Stanley Cup Finals were bigger – drawing 6.53 million viewers, according to BBM Canada. Why not take advantage of those numbers?

Krashinsky points out that marketers could buy their way into Canadian living rooms for a song. NBC is charging $3.5-million (U.S.) to run a 30-second commercial during the big game, according to reports. By contrast, sources here say a 30-second spot on CTV runs closer to $130,000 (Canadian).

Krashinsky also explains that talent fees are country-specific, so a Canadian marketer would be faced with paying extra fees. That could mount up quickly in Super Bowl Sunday, with celebs like Elton John, Flavor Flav and many others appearing in ads and collecting fat paychecks.

This Pepsi ad, for instance, will not be shown in Canada:

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David&Goliath and Siltanen & Partners in El Segundo; Saatchi & Saatchi in Torrance; Team One in El Segundo; RPA in Santa Monica; and Innocean in Huntington Beach. All have been toiling away on Super Bowl commercials for their clients.

Meg James of Los Angeles Times notes that 20 of this Sunday’s Super Bowl commercials, including those for Hollywood films, were made in Los Angeles.

“We look at this as the ultimate showdown with other advertisers and other agencies,” said Michael Sheldon, chief executive of Deutsch LA, which handles advertising for Volkswagen. “This is a creative arms war.”

“We have the best editors, the best music houses and directors. Over time I think you’ll see Los Angeles become the epicenter for advertising, “Rob Siltanen said.

Los Angeles has experienced a shooting spree as local agencies have expanded and new ones have opened. Together, local agencies make for an estimated $4-billion annual industry.

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Special thanks to Justin Bajan from David&Goliath in LA for providing AdPulp readers with this special inside look at the making of KIA’s “Dreams” Super Bowl spot.

It all started with a dream. Sort of.

I was sitting with my composition book in hand staring out of the window watching planes land at LAX when I blurted out to my partner, Dan Madsen, “Hey, what if we did something with dreams?” Little did I know that a random question like that would turn into months and months of writing, crafting, presenting, killing, changing, selling, licensing, bidding, re-thinking, shooting, editing, mixing, coloring and visual…effecting.

Dan and I were one of many teams working on this year’s Super Bowl commercial for Kia at David & Goliath. We competed against lots of amazing creatives and ended up working nights, weekends and everything in between, as we hoped to crack the winning idea.

After we got our concepts into some kind of digestible state, we presented them to our boss, ECD, Colin Jeffery. He smiled at this spot in particular— a good sign, and instantly saw what we were trying to do. He told us our concept would get to live in the Super Bowl war room—a conference room with bulletin boards filled with tons of amazing ideas.

So we boarded our precious baby up and hoped it would outlast the thousands of ideas the rest of the agency came up with. We watched it sit safely on a wall in the Super Bowl war room as countless other campaigns were posted and ripped down all around it.

Then on October 7th, something great happened. I turned 29. Well, that wasn’t that great, but what was great—our spot sold. We couldn’t believe it. Dan and I were in shock—we ran out of the office in joy like a scene from Jerry McGuire. Oh, and then I had my first child, Lydia, two days after. Cameron Crowe, eat your heart out.

After a week of paternity, we were back at it, talking to Noam Murro and other A-listers, then awarding Noam the job. Awesome guy on the phone. Equally awesome guy in real life. He really upped my Yiddish game.

Then we tried to secure the celebs and get the jokes we wrote into our spot. Dan had used a picture of Adriana Lima for his comp and boom: she agrees to appear in the spot. We had a fighting scene with Chuck Liddell in it—and eventually Mr. Liddell signed on. Colin, our owner/CCO, David Angelo, and our producer, Paul Albanese, drive up to meet Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue and the world’s most notorious band is in it. We thought a cowboy riding a rhino would be funny. We thought dual lumberjacks sawing a 50 ft sub would be cool. We wanted the entire stadium filled with bikini girls. Then we read all of this as line items in an official document. Rad.

Cut to us on day one at the Speedway in Irwindale, CA. I park and get asked if I would like to meet Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx. Um, yes please. I walk into their trailer and find two of the most down-to-earth and normal people I’ve ever met. They mentioned how much they liked the spot while I marveled at their trailer.

A couple hours later, we’re shooting. It’s dark. It’s cold. Good thing we have literally tons of pyro to keep us warm. Motley Crue plays Kickstart My Heart for like 6 hours. Those guys are pros.

Day two was the meadow scene. Never have a horse, a deer, a rabbit and grass been that interesting before. Ever have a van drive you a mere 500 feet over and over again from craft services to the set? I can now say I have.

Day three and four were back at the racetrack. Dan and I watched a giant sub get trucked and forklifted around. We witnessed 200 bikini girls scream for hours in the stands, Chuck Liddell fake-fight a huge Eastern European dude, a guy pretend to catch a giant shark (RIP giant shark scene) and last, but nottttttttt least—Adriana Lima wave a huge flag back and forth for hours. I think there’s a video of this on Youtube somewhere. She was amazing. She had these assassin laser eyes that could steal your soul if you looked too closely. She was and is the real deal.

The last two days consisted of us shooting at Universal Studios. We were at Stage 27, where they shot scenes from Indiana Jones, Die Hard and Jurassic Park. Not bad. I got to see the tallest closet ever—20 feet tall. I got to learn what a motion control camera does. And I got to watch our Sandman actor, Ric Sabien, sacrifice his body for Dan and I’s silly idea.

All throughout production, I kept thinking of how crazy it was that Dan and I scribbled this idea into our notebooks and then all of a sudden, like 500 people helped bring it to life. And oh, did I mention this was Dan’s first spot? Ever? How’s he going to cope with reality after this?

So there you have it. If I wasn’t already 1000 words over a typical blog post, I could regale you with how Adriana wore the wrong bathing suit, but we loved it anyways, Chuck Liddell’s surprisingly minimalistic outfit while it was 35 degrees out and Noam Murro’s use of the Yiddish word schmekel.

The biggest thanks in the world goes to my wonderful wife, Becky, for putting up with endless all-nighters, all-dayers and for never complaining at all. I was treated way better than I deserved.

Shoutouts to Jim Haygood and his assistant Dylan at Union Editorial. Great guys. To Pip, Patrick, Rob, Marissa and the smoothie girl at Method—super accommodating people who laughed at 97% of my jokes. To 740 Sound, Lime, and Stefan at Company 3—I’ll miss your Michael Bay and JJ. Abrams’ stories.

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This new GE spot touts American manufacturing, but treads lightly so as not to feel too jingoistic.

Obviously, GE is a global company. So what’s an American company to do these days about its heritage? How far will “Made in America” take a brand?

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Apple take a few lumps in the press because of the working conditions at the Chinese factories that make their products. There have also been a few rumblings about GM’s decision to award its billion-dollar media buying business to a European-owned agency, a perceived slight after the automaker received U.S. government financing to help it bounce back from bankruptcy.

As in so many things American, our sentiments are riddled with contradictions. Many Americans say they prefer to buy American products but don’t put their wallets where their mouths are.

It’s the subject of my latest column on TalentZoo.com, which will be on the home page tomorrow.

And, since February marks the 10-year anniversary of my columns, you can get the Kindle version of my best-of book for just 99 cents this month.

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