By Bre Rossetti, Captains of Industry


Following on from our posts regarding the evolution of the check-in, it seemed important to discuss the issue at the forefront of everyone’s mind: sex.  

Yes, the check-in is starting to affect people’s sex lives.

It would appear that affairs are becoming trickier than ever.  Gone are the days of anonymous pay phone calls and surreptitious hotel stays; now we are all walking around with a mini GPS in our pocket.  So, what do you do when your social network/location-based applications give you away to your nearest and dearest?  

You turn to Ashley Madison (the married person’s dating service) for their new app: iWipe.  The app will allow users to erase and modify their location data on their iphone- so suspicious partners with access to your phone will no longer have any evidence that you were out doing the dirty.  Phew.  At last cheaters can use their phones freely on dates.  You know, for important things, like Angry Birds.

So that is why Apple has been slow to allow users to opt out of location based data: they didn’t want to take sides!

  By Chelsea Hobgood, Captains of Industry

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this anecdote from one of the principals here at Captains (whose name may or may not rhyme with Shmed): “The great John Cleese once told me, ‘People won’t laugh when they are confused.’” And by golly, time and time again, the Monty Python veteran’s adage rings true.

Case in point: Honda’s 2012 “She’s all Monster” campaign. Honda, credited for ads starring ninjas and zombies recently introduced a new character to represent their Civic campaign—an ugly, hairy lady monster with eerily human features. The 30-second spot features three college girls sitting in class, shopping and cruising around in a sweet Honda Civic…only one of them looks like a Furby. While the commercial elicited countless WTF responses on Twitter after airing on Glee last night, nobody seemed to understand it. Take this tweet for instance: “Just saw a commercial with a big, hairy, ugly thingy dancing and prancing around town. Who thought that would make me buy a @honda civic?” Or perhaps this one: “Why the F**k is there an ewok in the Honda civic commercial?”

 
Now, the new “Pathological Liar” commercial by Land Rover USA, I get. It’s clear, well-executed and gets to the heart of their campaign: You’ll feel safe inside. Way to take a simple slogan and create a really funny situation out of it. Thank you Land Rover, for being clever, and for steering clear of my childhood nightmares from Where The Wild Things Are.

By Mike Kennedy, Captains of Industry


Who loves Angry Birds enough to do a cover of the theme song, complete with an appropriate music video? Pomplamoose!

By Heather Riley, Captains of Industry

My son was home sick one day this week, and as I was working he was playing a game on our laptop. He had secured parental pre-approval for visiting this particular site—as the descendant of a long line of overreactors, he understands the importance of not trolling around on the internet, or at least he pretends to understand.  (He may vaguely remember the chaos that erupted in our kitchen when my daughter innocently googled the word “angel” and lots of non-angelic images came up.)

So when the familiar “boings” and “plinks” of the game ended and I heard different video begin to play, I whipped around in a panic, sure that he had somehow stumbled upon something wildly harmful and inappropriate. “It’s only a commercial,” he soothed me. And he was right. It was only a commercial. A traditional commercial that someone had placed to pre-roll before his car-racing video game. No big deal. What surprised me most, however, was the message that came up after the commercial finished playing:

“Thank you for viewing this commercial. The game developers appreciate it.”

The game developers were thanking me for watching Giant Corporation Inc.’s ad. You’re supporting us by supporting them. What it seemed to really say is: “Thank you for bearing with us while we figure out a better way to capitalize on this. We and the advertiser lack the vision to make this blatant advertisement a seamless part of our business model, so we appreciate your willingness to sit though this old-fashioned nonsense.”

Of course, after the first time, my five-year-old has figured out how to click away from the ad and has done so on every one since.  But the developers were really grateful that he accidentally watched the first one.

By Bre Rossetti, Captains of Industry

Last week Captain Ted talked about the TV arm of Pepsi’s “check-in” campaign. Well, now Pepsi’s new ’social’ vending machine will ensure that you are a hit with your local sugar fiend.  The machines, which aren’t yet in operation, allow you to buy your friends a soda along with your own afternoon pick-me-up. You then record a personalized message which is sent to his or her cell phone with a code to redeem the beverage.  

That isn’t the cool bit though; Pepsi has also included a ‘random acts of refreshment’ function which means that you can buy a complete stranger at another machine a soda, and even record a video that they’ll see when they pick up your gift.  

I want one.

By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry


I hear this a lot. It’s the number one pain point of clients who know they need to start a blog, but are time-starved and resource-constrained. The short answer is that any company can pull off a successful blog, even a smaller company, but there needs to be a strategy and process in place to make it work.  A case in point is the blog you’re reading now, which was ranked by Bostinovation one of the top five blogs in Boston – even though our company is a fraction of the size of other companies on the list such as Hill Holliday and Mullen.  How did the Captains get ranked in the same league as the titans of Boston advertising?  Here are the basics of our plan of action – a blueprint that any good company can follow.

First, we made it a company priority. Politely urged on by our colleague David M. Scott (who basically said we’d be idiots not to do it), we simply decided to start our own company blog, and we me made sure everyone here knew that it was important. This is a crucial first step for any organization that’s embarking on this journey.

We focused on our audience, which we determined to be marketing managers, colleagues, and talented people we could hire down the road. We thought a lot about what they would be interested in reading, and how those topic areas matched against areas of Captains’ expertise: web video storytelling, branding, web content, social media, and technology trends shaping the industry. And because we as a company believe that work and fun are not mutually exclusive, we threw in a healthy dose of comedy, and what blog-watchers have labeled “sass.”

We kept SEO in mind. We highlighted topics we knew we could add some valuable insight to based on our experience. But we also knew that having continuously published content on our site would help elevate the agency in search engine rankings, especially when other blogs linked to ours.

We opened the doors of our knowledge base.  In the pre-blog era, clients would only be able to benefit from our expertise if they paid us first.  We threw that out the window, and have consistently erred on the side of giving away everything we’ve learned over the years. In other words, we lost our fear of getting our ideas ripped off.

We made sure it wasn’t all about us.  Nobody wants to read a blog that’s just another form of advertising, with the agency blowing their own horn.  That’s why we frequently publish examples of work created by other agencies that floats our boat. This is not only good business, it reflects the reality that we don’t have all the answers, and there are lots of great agencies doing wonderful work. And if we say something negative about someone else’s work, I hope we’ve done it in a way that’s respectful.

We got organized and assigned roles. Who’s going to make sure that a new, interesting post gets published daily (or almost daily)? We put someone in that lead role. But, understanding that leaders are often incredibly busy themselves, others on the team were empowered to jump in and make sure the posts got written.  Our goal is to have a bunch of posts in the queue ready to go so we’re not scrambling on any given day to get a post done.  In addition to the editorial leader, there’s also a core group of bloggers within the company who are constantly thinking up new post ideas, writing and editing. While it’s possible for one person to write the blog daily, we’ve found that having a range of voices mix together over time creates a unique flavor. Plus, having multiple writers helps share the workload.

Like the Ford Motor Company, we made quality job #1. It’s more important to post something good than it is to post frequently.  We’re always striving to post daily, but we’re not going to compromise on quality. If something’s not ready, we’ll skip a day or two until it is ready.

We engage with other blogs on a regular basis. They call it a blogosphere for a reason. It’s like some kind of huge organism made up of individual cells that are all connected.  Commenting on other people’s blogs and participating in those conversations not only demonstrates that we are part of a larger community, the process also adds to our own knowledge (see the next point).

We keep feeding our brains.  We determined that finding something interesting to write about requires constantly looking outside the company, searching blogs, watching the news,  checking out trends, and just plain listening.  By getting input from lots of different sources, we’re able to cross-pollinate our thinking and come up with original ‘takes’ on industry themes and campaigns.  That said, there are still plenty of days when we feel stupid when we can’t think of anything to write.  This is normal.
Read more Share This

By Brian Barth, Captains of Industry

“The site that spawned 1,000 memes”

The best things in life are so simple. Thanks so YTMND (You’re The Man Now Dog), thousands of silly looping .gif pages with sound have been created for your viewing pleasure.

www.ytmnd.com

Some hand-selected favorites:
http://bulbasaur.ytmnd.com/
http://powermetalpope.ytmnd.com/
http://youmakemetouchyourhandsforstupidreasons.ytmnd.com/
http://rappmusic.ytmnd.com/

Oh and also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI-Wq-e480E

Never forget. Happy weekend!

By Fred Surr, Captains of Industry


Over the past few years, the meaning of the word “sustainability” has become split.  On one end of the spectrum, it’s become a euphemism for “green,” “eco-friendly,” etc.–which means the term runs the risk of becoming a euphemism for “greenwashing.”  On the other end of the spectrum, though, there are some truly world-changing things happening.  At Monday’s Sustainable Economy Conference here in Boston, the conversation centered on sustainability as a strategy for business success.  Wait.  Sustainability and business success in the same sentence?  Real business success, as in profit, shareholder value, those kinds of things?  Yup.  Investment ratings agencies are now adding categories for “Carbon” and “Sustainability” to their assessments of companies.  If your company relies on cheap coal to be profitable, and there’s going to be a carbon tax (at some point), well, that’s not a sustainable business model.  Or put another way, find a better fuel than coal, that is sustainable, or your business (and your share price) is in trouble over the long term.  To  see how one company did it, check out this video:

From TEDTalks:  “At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.

This is a billion dollar company, by the way.  And they’re not alone.  This is becoming mainstream in the Fortune 1000, and it’s not going away.

By Ted Dillon, Captains of Industry


Pepsi recently announced a new check-in style promotion using your TV and phone.  If you audio-ID their TV ad with the mobile app IntoNow (similar to those that identify songs), Pepsi sends a free Pepsi coupon to your phone.  Now that’s a check-in.  You don’t have to get up from your couch, nor do you have to shout from the rooftops where you are by sharing your exact location with the Internet.


Companies have been struggling lately, wondering if TV ads are so passive now that they’re wasteful spending.  Well, with the help of this promotion, Pepsi could ward off the dreaded fast forward habits of TV watchers.  Pepsi has the added perk of gaining market research—when their ads are being watched, and whether it’s on live TV, DVR, or even on the web.


Everybody has been saying that Check-Ins are due to die this year.  Facebook Places has never gotten a lot of use, and Four Square check-ins are going out of style.  But is the underlying idea going to go away? Nope, it’s just shapeshifting.


Check-Ins are changing because of their big disadvantages: paranoia and effort.  First off, most people don’t want to tell the Internet where they are and when they’re not home.  For me, it’s my inner mom reminding me by saying, “Be careful of the Internet, it’s a haven for perverts and thieves.”  And secondly, opening my phone and checking in everywhere I go is not worth the effort just to become the mayor of a location.


Pepsi’s project orients Check-Ins with a situation (watching TV) more than with a location—less effort, less paranoia. Pepsi has the future in its hands.

By Jean Levasseur, Captains of Industry


A few weeks ago, I was trolling AddictingGames.com for something to do on my lunch break, and I found a game called “The Priest Game.” The description was simple. “Battle Hideous Vampires as the Priest.” What more could you ask for, right? So I played, expecting a somewhat fun, cheesy graphics game like most of the fare available on AddictingGames. Instead, I found a full flash game, with an option to be played in 3D, and artwork that looked like it came directly from a graphic novel (of course, it did). The game itself was nothing special – just a Mortal Kombat copy with terrifying vampire-beasts and predictable moves. Still, it was great fun, and I made it through all three battles. Upon completion, I was then given the opportunity to find out more about the movie. My first thought was:

“Wait, there’s a movie for this? That’s going to be awesome!”

As with the ‘Fast Five’ teaser that I wrote about last week, the marketers of ‘Priest’ really know their audience, and how best to reach us – Mortal Kombat-style online gaming. A few days later, the trailers started running in full force, and I was hooked.

Play for yourself, and find out if you’re the kind of person who needs to go Priest.

By Anna Sternoff, Captains of Industry

Sometimes you have to eat your words.  A few weeks ago we shouted from the rooftops that when it comes to agencies, bigger isn’t necessarily better.  However, Access, a self-dubbed transformational creative ideas agency, is proposing enormous Lego sculptures in prime (and often unexpected) locations.  As someone with at least a little experience with the wonders of large-scale Lego projects (see photo below), I can say that I am squealing with joy at the prospect of seeing a gigantic Lego R2-D2 somewhere in Manhattan.

And I’m intrigued by Access, who doesn’t seem to have a mailing address, and is bursting with cool ideas, but lacking in actual clients.  I’m guessing giant Legos are a way of drawing in target accounts—it’s like a direct mail campaign, but in the digital era (reminiscent of that clever young go-getter who purchased google ad words to get his first job). It’s an interesting approach to throw out your (literally) biggest and brightest ideas and see if the market bites. Good luck, Access!

By Bre Rossetti, Captains of Industry

Might I direct your attention to the most-liked comment.