Sedar::: the worst advert in the history of history. Ever.

This brand is famous with such practice

they do ads for the sake of ads......
no insights
no context...just Lebanese girls with boobs and large ass........

Pasta de Waraku: Art, culture & landscape

Pasta De Waraku, a restaurant group run in Indonesia by Ismaya Group, is promoting its menu of Japanese style pasta with a series of jigsaw puzzles combining Japanese and Italian imagery. “Savour both worlds” is the tag line, associated with Art, Culture and Landscape.

Credits

Savour both worlds.

Advertising Agency: Bates141, Jakarta, Indonesia
Creative Director: Hendra Lesmono
Art Director: Andreas Junus
Copywriter: Iyan Susanto
Photographer: Stock Photo and Handri Karya
3D artist: Geppetto Animation
Published: June 2009

George Lois: Selling a Nazi Car in a Jewish town

Arabic ad agencies see things the same!!!

Another (Arabic) ad agency just been busted for copy cat ideas

Original

http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/08/dudeism.html

Less original

http://advertiser-in-arabia.blogspot.com/2009/07/melodyaflam-3araby-om-el-agnaby.html

The Big Lebowski??? Rocky ??? & the spell of Willy Wonka

Brand:VW

Agency: DDB

Agency – DDB London
Creatives – Graeme Hall/ Hunter Somerville
Agency Producer – Sarah Browell
Production Company: Moxie Pictures
Director: Seth Gordon
Producer: Dawn Laren
USA Producer: Mary Rohlich
DOP - Bradford Whitaker
Additional Camera: Bootsy Holler
Editor - Luis Lopez
Music – Michael Wandmacher
Post – Framestore
Sound – Elmo Webber

HOW Apple did it?

How to Innovate Like Apple

Apple makes it look easy. From the sleek design of its personal computers to the clever intuitiveness of its software to the ubiquity of the iPod to the genius of the iPhone, Apple consistently redefines each market it enters by creating brilliant gadgets that put the competition to shame. What’s the secret? Apple has built its management system so that it’s optimized to create distinctive products. That’s good news for would-be emulators, because it means Apple’s method for innovation can be understood as a specific set of management practices and organizational structures that — in theory, at least — anyone can use. This Crash Course outlines the techniques Apple uses to make the magic happen.

Clear Your Mind

GOAL: UNDERSTAND WHAT IT TAKES TO CREATE TRULY REMARKABLE PRODUCTS.

The word “zen” is often applied to both Apple’s products and the company’s highly focused CEO, Steve Jobs. And while the compliment usually refers to the beauty of the company’s minimalist products, enlightenment is more than skin-deep. “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains or the sofa,” Jobs has said of his product philosophy. “But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design.” Design is a “fundamental soul,” Jobs says, that expresses itself through an end result — the product.

What is Apple’s fundamental soul? The company’s motto, “Think Different,” provides a hint. Apple maintains an introspective, self-contained operating style that is capable of confounding competitors and shaking up entire industries. For example, Nokia, once considered the undisputed leader in mobile phones, never anticipated that a single product from a computer maker might throw its ascendancy into question.

Internally, Apple barely acknowledges competition. It’s the company’s ability to think differently about itself that keeps Apple at the head of the pack. Current and past employees tell stories about products that have undergone costly overhauls just to improve one simple detail. Other products are canceled entirely because they don’t fit in or don’t perform up to par.

Apple’s culture has codified a habit that is good for any company to have but is especially valuable for firms that make physical things: Stop, step back from your product, and take a closer look. Without worrying about how much work you’ve already put into it, is it really as good as it could be? Apple asks that question constantly.

Build Your Fortress

GOAL: CREATE THE INFRASTRUCTURE YOU NEED TO INNOVATE.

From the outside, Apple’s offices look like those of just about any large modern American corporation. Having outgrown its headquarters campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, Calif., Apple now has employees in other buildings scattered across the town and around the world. Size and sprawl are formidable challenges that most companies manage gracelessly, either by splintering into disorganized, undisciplined communities or by locking employees into tight, stifling bureaucracies. Apple tends toward the latter, but it does so in a unique way that generally (but not always) plays to its advantage.

At its worst, Apple’s culture resembles the closed paranoia of North Korea. For example, one Apple source who agreed to be interviewed anonymously for this story backed out at the last minute. Why? He feared that his employer would examine his phone bill and find him out. Another spoke on background but mentioned the possibility of a lawsuit if he were quoted by name. These are common fears within Apple, and they really do keep the company’s employees quiet. The obsession with secrecy is a double-edged sword, however: It gives Apple a vital element of surprise in the marketplace, but the never-ending game of internal spy vs. spy is draining for rank-and-file employees. Indeed, the corporate culture came under scrutiny recently after an employee of a foreign supplier — reportedly under suspicion for leaking the prototype of a new iPhone — committed suicide in Shenzhen, China.

Beyond the secrecy, which affects everyone, Apple’s approach is hardly one-size-fits-all. Rank-and-file employees are often given clear-cut directives and close supervision. Proven talent gets a freer hand, regardless of job title.

Checklist

MANAGING DIFFERENT

Over time, Apple has built a seasoned management team that’s optimized to support bold new product initiatives (and recover from the occasional flop). Here are a few of the techniques Apple’s management uses to make the magic happen.

1. Ignore fads. Apple has held off building a cheap miniature laptop to respond to the “netbook” fad, because these devices don’t offer good margins. Instead it released the ultrathin, ultra-expensive Air, a product more in line with its own style.

2. Don’t back down from fights you can win. Apple is a tough partner and a ruthless enemy. In 2007, Apple pulled NBC’s television programs from the iTunes Store after the network tried to double the prices consumers pay to download shows. NBC backed down within days, and ever since, giant media conglomerates have been hesitant to face off with Apple over pricing.

3. Flatten sprawling hierarchies. Companies with extended chains of authority tend to plod when it’s time to act. Most of the decisions at Apple come from Jobs and his immediate deputies.

4. Pay less attention to market research and competitors. Most firms develop their products through a combination of touchy-feely consumer focus groups and efforts to imitate successful products from other companies. Apple does neither, and the iPod and iPhone are clear proof of that.

Cultivate Your Elite

GOAL: EMPOWER YOUR MOST VALUABLE EMPLOYEES TO DO AMAZING WORK.

In truly despotic societies, both art and science suffer terribly. Apple, on the other hand, reliably churns out the industrial equivalents of da Vinci paintings and Hokusai woodcuts. This has little to do with how the company treats employees in general. Rather, it stems from the meticulous care and feeding provided to a specific group: the creatives. Apple’s segmented, stratified organizational structure — which coddles its most valuable, productive employees — is one of the company’s most formidable assets.

One former Apple consultant tells of an eye-opening introduction to Apple’s first-class treatment of its creatives. The consultant visited Apple’s Industrial Design Group, the team that gives Apple products their distinctive, glossy look. Tucked away within Apple’s main campus, the IDG is a world unto itself. It’s also sealed behind unmarked, restricted-access doors. Within the IDG, employees operate free from outside distractions and interference. “It didn’t feel like working at Apple,” our source remembers. “It felt like working at a small design firm.” Some companies are famous for perks — Google, for example, with its free massages and gourmet lunches. Apple focuses on atmosphere, nurturing its best designers behind opaque glass in a hidden sanctuary with music playing in the background.

Despite their favored status, Apple’s creatives still have no more insight into the company’s overall operations than an Army private has into the Pentagon. At Apple, new products are often seen in their complete form by only a small group of top executives. This, too, works as a strength for Apple: Instead of a sprawling bureaucracy that new products have to be pushed through, Apple’s top echelon is a small, tightly knit group that has a hand in almost every important decision the company makes.

Case Study

NURTURING INNOVATION AT CISCO

Other firms have also found success by separating innovation from business as usual. Here’s what David Hsieh, vice president of marketing at Cisco, has to say about his company’s Emerging Technologies Group:

“Big companies have a tendency to eat their own children. They get afraid of disrupting their own revenue stream with a new unit, or someone has a great idea and an executive sponsors it, but the moment the sponsor comes under pressure, they ditch all the little initiatives to focus on their core business. The advantage of a new unit is to insulate it from people who say, ‘We can’t do it that way because we’ve done it a different way for years.’ You want to enable a group of people to think more broadly and creatively without outside pressures. Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group has been in operation for three years, and it’s created a number of businesses. The early ones are all growing successfully, even in a bad economy.”

Don’t Rush, Don’t Dawdle

GOAL: PREVENT SHORT-TERM, CYCLICAL, OR COMPETITIVE PRESSURES FROM OVERWHELMING AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY.

It’s often said that people in particular cultures live life at their own unique paces. Americans are seen as hard-driving and somewhat shortsighted — a side effect of a business culture that takes its cues from the stock market’s emphasis on quarterly results.

Apple is different because Apple dances to a rhythm of its own making. Although its rising stock has become a vital part of many portfolios, Apple cancels, releases, and updates products at its own speed, seemingly irrespective of market conditions or competitive pressure. Apple doesn’t telegraph its moves, either: The iPod and iPhone, iconic products both, each began as rumors that Apple seemed determined to quash.

Plan B

STAYING COOL WHEN THE HEAT IS ON

Your stock price is down, your customers are angry, and investors are banging on your door. Sure, acting like Apple seems like a good idea — until your board starts craving blood. How do you maintain a focus on innovation when you don’t have a few successful quarters to back you up?

For a vivid demonstration of how to publicly recover from your errors (in style, no less), check out the video of Steve Jobs’ 1997 Macworld addressand an associated BNET feature, How to Present Like Steve Jobs.

Clone Your Own Steve Jobs

GOAL: IF YOU PUT A TYRANNICAL PERFECTIONIST IN CHARGE, INSTITUTIONALIZE HIS THINKING.

New adherents to the cult of Steve Jobs may be surprised to hear this: The most iconic Apple laptop, the original PowerBook, was released in 1991, after Jobs had been absent for six years. The smug hipsters who line today’s cafes with rows of identical MacBooks are merely updated versions of their counterparts from the early ’90s. Yet Jobs was in no way responsible for this enduring innovation.

So does that mean Steve Jobs is irrelevant? Or is Jobs — and his maniacal focus on building insanely great products — a necessary ingredient of Apple’s success?

Historians have long grappled with a similar question: How critical are those rare, world-changing “great leaders” whose efforts seem irreplaceable? Most historians now believe that great leaders are made by their circumstances and that their great deeds actually reflect the participation of thousands, or even millions, of people. In the case of Apple, there would be no Mac, no iPod, and no iPhone without the efforts of thousands of engineers and vast numbers of consumers who were looking for products that better served their needs.

That said, Jobs cuts an impressive figure, and if he was “made” by his circumstances, that process took many years. Remember that the first edition of Steve Jobs — the young inventor who, at 21, created Apple Computer — was not the visionary we know today. Instead, after nine years at Apple’s helm, the young Steve Jobs was ousted because of his aggressive, take-no-prisoners personality, which created a poisonous, unproductive atmosphere when it pervaded the company.

Today’s Steve Jobs seems to have learned how to focus that aggressive, take-no-prisoners personality more shrewdly, and to great effect. While he’s still an essential part of Apple’s success, the company has also institutionalized many of Jobs’ values to such an extent that Apple is now far less dependent on him. Tim Cook, for example, worked well as acting CEO during the first half of this year, when Jobs was on sick leave. But questions remain. So long as the overwhelming personality of Jobs is present, can anyone really grow into that position? Only when Jobs steps back from his role permanently will we really be able to determine how well Apple has learned the lessons he has taught.

Four Principles of Apple’s Successes (and Failures)

As the story goes, when Steve Jobs looked around Apple in 2002, he saw a profusion of gadgets: cell phones, PDAs, and MP3 players (including Apple’s blockbuster, the iPod). In a flash of brilliance, he asked himself a world-changing question: What if all those functions could be combined in just one device? The answer to that insightful question led to Apple’s next hit: the Rokr cell phone.

Whoops, scratch that. The Rokr was a commercial flop, and Apple’s short-lived partnership to develop an MP3 cell phone with Motorola is now an embarrassing footnote. In no small part, the iPhone exists today because the Rokr threw the shortcomings of the mobile phone industry into sharp relief. Smelling the industry’s stagnation, Jobs began planning the iPhone, even as the Rokr drew withering criticism.

The above anecdote highlights one important thing to remember about Apple: Its aura of infallibility is pure bunkum. The other thing to remember is that Apple learns from its mistakes. In fact, mistakes are vital to its creative process. But what are the rules that govern this process? Here are four of the most important principles.

Principle One: Don’t Follow Your Customers; Lead Them

Apple’s design process differs from that of most other companies. Traditional design research relies heavily on focus groups and customer feedback about existing products. Apple tends to place less emphasis on evidence than on intuition, under the theory that consumers can’t tell you they want a product or function if they can’t yet envision it. Instead, they need to be shown a superior alternative. Apple sees itself as being in business to create those revolutionary alternatives.

Principle Two: Temper Engineering With Art

Most companies that try to operate like Apple fail. Often that’s because of who they tap to spearhead the creative process. High-tech devices are built by engineers — and often designed by them, too. Unfortunately, engineers tend to design products that they would want to use, which explains why a typical device is jam-packed with a hopelessly confusing array of features. Apple has succeeded by making sure its top decision makers all subscribe to the same minimalist philosophy. The result is that the most-used features of its devices — like the iPod’s famous scroll wheel — feel entirely natural.

Principle Three: Focus on the Few to Sell to the Many

Instead of trying to satisfy every fringe taste or market niche — other companies that make laptops, for instance, often sell dozens of models at any given time — Apple focuses on just a few products in each category. With time and money on its side, Apple strives to make each item in its relatively small stable as perfect as possible. Over time, that helps differentiate the products and build customer loyalty.

Principle Four: Be Your Own Toughest Critic

The final ingredient to Apple’s success is an intangible energy and interest in doing well. And if the company ever lets that vitality go, it’s game over. (That’s what almost happened during the 1990s, before Jobs returned to provide a vital kick start.) Ultimately, Apple succeeds because it not only beats its competitors but also strives each year to beat itself. As management guru Peter Drucker noted long ago, “Your being the one who makes your products, process, or service obsolete is the only way to prevent your competitor from doing so.” In the process of trying to outdo itself, Apple often leaves its competition in the dust.

Insanely Great Marketing

Apple is famous for its products, but shrewd marketing has been an essential component of the company’s success. Former Apple CEO John Sculley was not being entirely cynical with his famous observation that Apple was, first and foremost, a marketing company. While it’s fair to say that Apple’s engineers are the company’s foundation, it’s clear that without Apple’s marketing and public relations teams, its mythic aura would long since have vanished. Here’s how the company does it.

1. A Clear Sense of the Customer

Apple has positioned itself as the tech provider for the creative class, so it often injects a dose of avant-garde savvy into its advertising. The iPod’s boldly colored ads, for example, could have doubled as art school projects (or acid trips). Other spots simply articulate and emphasize the investment Apple has put into its design “language” — the engineering and styling that make its products so instantly recognizable. In almost every instance, Apple strives to appeal to anyone who lives (or aspires to live) a more creative life, and the results flatter both Apple’s products and the people who use them.

2. No False Modesty

Apple is not afraid to market its devices as game changers that are far better than the alternatives. Nobody would ever call Apple shy or self-effacing. That does wonders to reinforce Apple’s brand, but it has a risky downside: Apple’s barely concealed undercurrent of arrogance makes its fans feel like part of a special group, but it also repels some potential customers.

3. Standout Advertising

Whether you prefer a Mac or Windows PC, an iPhone or a Blackberry, there’s no denying that Apple has become one of the world’s most recognized brands, and Apple’s advertising and marketing efforts have done much to make that happen. Apple’s traditional advertising campaigns have been managed by the same ad agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, since 1997. Ambitious, nonconformist, and witty, Apple’s campaigns do more than just feature products: They also take explicit potshots at key competitors. The “I’m a Mac” ad campaign, for example, which contrasts a cool hipster (representing Apple) with an uptight office drone (representing Microsoft) was typically effective. Of course, the depiction of Microsoft as a bumbling, Dilbertesque suit recalls the powerful message of a much earlier ad campaign: the famous “1984” spot that Apple ran in 1983 to mark the launch of the original Macintosh, which characterized IBM as the agent of dystopian corporate conformity.

4. Not-Too-Public Public Relations

Apple’s PR department, which maintains contacts with traditional journalists, bloggers, television shows, and just about anyone who covers the company regularly, has never fit the stereotype of fawning, eager-to-please flacks. “The genius of Apple’s PR is the way the company uses secrecy and misdirection to generate buzz around its product announcements,” says Nick Ciarelli, the creator ofThink Secret, a now-defunct Apple blog that aroused the company’s ire. The launch of an Apple product resembles nothing so much as a military assault: months of impenetrable secrecy and denial, misdirection campaigns, waves of rumors, and finally a massive barrage of publicity as the veil comes off. “It’s a strategy that infuriates partners, big corporate buyers, and the press, but it allows public speculation to build to a fever pitch,” Ciarelli says.

It’s also fair to say, however, that secrecy and misdirection can be carried too far. Apple’s PR attempted to pass off Jobs’ recent serious illness, which ended in a liver transplant, as a “common bug,” a whopper that helped provoke shareholder lawsuits against the company.

Your Best Customer Is Not a 'Woman With Children Under the Age of 4'

Josh Bernoff

Who are your best customers?

Do you know their names?

Here's a conversation I often have with marketers:

Josh: Who are your best customers?

Marketer: Women with a child under 4. [Or "People with assets of at least $1 million." Or some such.]

Josh: No, I really mean "Who are your best customers?" What are their names?

Marketer: [No response.]

If you're seeking word of mouth, you should know who your best customers are -- by name. You should be feeding them previews of new products, asking their opinion of features you're considering, and finding out how they think to build marketing copy. You should get testimonials from them. And you should provide places where can submit their own opinions, and others can see it -- ratings and reviews, Facebook pages, community forums or whatever it takes.

Now, consider this. Some of your best customers are those who had a problem... but you reached out and found them and fixed it. There is nothing more enthusiastic than a friend who used to hate you.

Are you reaching out like this? @comcastcares is.

Or do you still think about customers by the thousands and not individually?

What if you could reach out to them individually, but do it efficiently? I ought to write a book about that.

Hot on the heels of BK Flame fragrance there's Cheetos Lip Balm.

Since the Burger King "Flame" fragrance went so well (it sold out faster than you can say "no pickles"), other junk food producers want in on the game. Now there's Cheetos Lip Balm. It does exactly what you'd think, leaves an orange fatty residue and smells like cheetos.

Personally I'd rather get that look by burying my face in a bag of cheetos. In fact I'm wearing it right now, I look hot. *chomp chomp crunch*

Perhaps it's simply Chester being more mischievous than ever, fooling us all into looking like fools."Felicia... Yes..... wear the Cheetos Chapstick. Go on. Mmmmmm." You have to obey Chester.

"What is 230?"

Perhaps you've seen the mysterious (and maddening) advertising blitz popping up on cable TV, elevator-TV screens and the internet this week. It features a smiling and winking electrical outlet that end up being the zero in the number 230, which itself appears above the numbers "8-11."

Some virtual detective work by Advertising Age -- and rounds of phone calls -- reveal the marketer behind the effort is General Motors Co. But neither the company nor its agencies would say exactly what the campaign is for.

"I'm glad it's getting out there," but no one wants to talk about it until next Tuesday, said Mike Rosen, president of GM agency Starcom, New York, who then declined to offer further comment.

A Chevrolet spokesman said he had no information on the 230 site and whether it was linked to the Chevrolet Volt, GM's upcoming electric car. He added that GM has scheduled a press conference for Aug. 11, but he cautioned it is not necessarily related to the 230 teaser site. He declined to make further comment.

The most frequent guess pins the campaign to the plug-in Volt, which will likely get its juice from the 230-volt outlets used to run heavier appliances such as air conditioners and washing machines. (UPDATE: Another guess being made by commenters and now being backed up by industry insiders is that the 230 refers to the miles per gallon the Volt will get. Though we'd love to see that math!)

Either way, why run a teaser campaign for a car that doesn't go on sale until next year -- and one that's been known about for some time? After all, the marketer has been beating the drum for the car for more than a year.

Another contender is a just-announced Buick cross-over SUV plug-in hybrid. According to auto blog GM-volt.com, the vehicle will be launched in 2011 "and is expected to be the first commercially available plug-in hybrid SUV produced by a major automaker."

Other guesses floated on the web included a prototype for a 230-mpg car (seen in this CNN video clip from last year), something to do with Apple, or the conversion of the entire U.S. electrical grid from 120 volts to 230.

Despite the curiosity in some quarters, though, the mystery and frustration haven't exactly spread like wildfire. There is a whatis230.com site, a Flickr photostream, a blog, a YouTube channel and a Facebook group -- none of which seem to be gaining the sort of traction that would make such a viral effort a true pop-culture phenomenon. (Though it does seem to be flirting with a backlash.)

Indeed, the Facebook group was one of the biggest clues. Meghan Winger, a staffer of Chicago agency All Terrain, is the creator of the What Is 230 group. She also posted a teaser about the campaign to the "What is 230?" YouTube channel. All Terrain, which among other things is touted as a "social-media expert" on its website, lists Chevrolet at the top of its client roster. Others who oversee the Facebook page include: All Terrain marketing coordinator Noor Aweidah, who today Tweeted that "should know what 230 means"; Jeff Schwartz, who lists GM and Chevy Riders as his favorite products on his Facebook page; and Ashley Berlin, a media planner and buyer for Starcom Mediavest Group, a GM agency.

So yes, "What is 230?" is an ad campaign. It's for a GM product. But that's all anyone's saying at this point.

----update________

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- Fritz Henderson, CEO of General Motors Co., admitted this morning in a live webcast that the automaker was indeed behind the mysterious, unbranded website whatis230.com, as first reported here last week.

General Motors Co. CEO Fritz Henderson at a live webcast this morning.

Photo Credit: GM

The number's significance, Mr. Henderson said, is that the Chevrolet Volt plug-in car due later this year is expected to get city fuel economy of at least 230 miles per gallon, or 25 kilowatt hours per 100 miles. That performance, based on fuel-economy methodology being developed for plug-in cars by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, would make the Volt the first mass-produced vehicle to achieve triple-digit fuel economy. Mr. Henderson said GM expects the Volt could be totally recharged for about 40 cents.

GM expects to produce roughly 60,000 of first-generation Volts, which are scheduled to go on sale in late 2010 as 2011 models.

So why run a blind teaser campaign? Mr. Henderson said that in order to win a new generation of buyers, "we need to relate to people between 16 and 30. They communicate differently and we need to make sure we plug into that. It's going to change advertising and it's going to change marketing and, over time, how we sell cars."

Campbell-Ewald, Warren, Mich., created the 230 site. Chevrolet's longtime agency of record subcontracted with All Terrain, Chicago, which activated street teams to distribute hats and T-shirts with whatis230.com in several major cities.

GM also is ready to start its car-selling pilot on eBay, which Mr. Henderson announced a month ago in a webcast the day the new GM exited from reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Mr. Henderson said the program extends the showroom into Americans' living rooms and "makes the customer the center of our universe."

He also vowed to put more of GM's communications resources to its four core vehicle brands -- Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC -- instead of the GM brand, because "we don't go to market as GM." This move is likely to severely slash the amount of work handled by McCann Erickson, Birmingham, Mich., which has GM's corporate account.

The GM chief's webcast today followed a session yesterday with invited consumers, many of whom he described as past GM owners and "thoughtful critics" of the automaker on its blog at fastlane.gmblogs.com. GM today launched a microsite called The Lab, which will feature future projects and will be another place for consumers to share their reactions. The marketer said visitors who provide detailed demographic information may be invited to participate at a deeper level in future sessions.

In other announcements today, Mr. Henderson said:

• GM plans to launch 25 new models arriving between now and 2011.
• Chevrolet will have 10 new models, including the new Cruze small car next year.
• Cadillac will have five new models, including an entry luxury-sport sedan, smaller than the CTS, to compete in that growing segment.
• Buick and GMC are adding 10 new entries, including a Buick plug-in hybrid compact crossover, in 2011