Fleetwood Mac would be great at advertising

You’re real gold record is not coming from the guitar in your office, it’s coming with the people in your group.

In Fleetwood Mac, everyone contributed solid gold ideas except the bass player. Is your group like that or is your group about one personality.

I think that the perfect ad group is one that everyone feels like they can kick ass. Most of the time the culture of low expectations makes work hard to common. The good ideas get pecked to death, (particularly in pharma.)
There’s so much cult of personality in advertising and so little real talent. Fleetwood Mac had talent. Check out Rumors and say that they don’t with a straight face.
Dude, everyone except the bass player had a certified classic hit song on that album. And frankly, bass players should never sing.
Anyway, instead of creative departments where one cretive director with a guitar in his office and his shirt un-tucked over his size 38 waist has veto power over everyone you could have a creative department that saw themselves as contributing to the common well being of the department.
Think of everyone in your group right now and see if you see any Christine McVie or who’s Lindsay Buckingham. That dude wails. Every guitar player worth their salt will tell you that cat is sound. And Christine McVie, great singer and songwriter, but can be an ensemble player when she’s got to. Same with Stevie Nicks. The same with Mick Fleetwood. They’re dramatic, they are tight, but in the end Fleetwood Mac realized one thing about them all. That the music meant more than the band. And the band meant more than the bullshit.
Take that look at your group. As a creative director, you need to find ways to love and grow your group. Don’t be so quick or so ambitious that you forget to fight for your friends.
If your buddy needs to know that his storyboards are holding his ideas back, you MUST find a way to tell her. Then offer a solution and help them meet the challenges you put forth.
Be a slave to the work, the creative. If you remember that it’s about the work, you will get your rewards.
Make sure everyone in your group has what they need to bring a hit, a classic, to the group. Be their psychologist, their coach, their cohort, and their best friend. Realize that they better their reputation, the better yours. And try not to screw them over a few thousand bucks.

Sugar Magnolia, 4:20 and Viral Marketing

The Grateful Dead allowed fans to tape their live shows. The conventional wisdom stated that the band was losing money by not charging and protecting the songs. But Jerry Garcia didn’t agree. He said that once they were done playing the notes, they had no use for them. They’d served their purpose and the fans could do with them as they wished. That’s how taping sections were born.

Taping sections were groups of people who would set up in a designated area at the live Dead shows to record the show. The tapers would then make copies of their recordings and trade them with other fans who would make copies and send them out into what grew into an enormous music genome project long before Pandora.

As long as people didn’t profit from the recordings, they were free to trade as they wished. And by allowing this, the band allowed it’s network of fans to grow and expand beyond the gates of each performance. They saw their fans become ambassadors and a show that was otherwise lost to time and memory was now a sales tool for brand evangelists singing the praises of the band’s live shows. By showing restraint and not trying to squeeze every last buck from the band’s music, they gave some of it away and facilitated the creation of a culture.

The Grateful Dead realized that the value of a fan or customer over time is far greater than the profit margin on a single ticket sale. For that, I would count the Dead and their fans, the Deadheads themselves, as brilliant pioneers in the world of viral marketing.

If you spot a virus, remember one or even think of one, share it here!

Big Tongue. Big Virus.

Check this out. It’s unreal. It’s not the shock that makes it so amazing. It’s more than that. There’s someone like this in every town, every village in every corner of the world. In my high school, my friend John could flip his eyelids inside out. I met a fireman from Ft. Lauderdale that could fart on command. The weird shit is among us and now it’s down to who’s willing to go find it.

Viral can be more than just creating. It can be discovering and uncovering.

The video grabs my attention with this guy’s surreal tongue, but the delight of the camera guy and the good natured way in which he takes it makes me like them all the more. He’s trying to drink his beer, this friends are piss drunk, he’s in the middle of taking a piss and they want to see his tongue. And he thinks it’s funny. He’s like everyone’s drunk uncle. ‘Cept even my drunk uncle washed his hands.

And, if you spot a virus, remember to forward it here.

BudTV winning blog submission

WHO THE HELL IS SCOTT BROWN?
I’m kind of the unofficial guide to Bud.tv. I’m a comedian and comedy writer in Chicago with a few friends that put together Bud.tv. They were my ‘in.’

I’m also a critical bastard that wants the content to become much better, because, like many of you, about the only sunshine in my day is that 43 second funny video link that shows up in my e-mail. My mission is for Bud.tv to get to a place where it’s all funny. In the immortal words of Sum 41, ‘all killer, no filler.’

So help me shoot for the funny by sending in links, responding here when I’m full of crap, giving me an amen when I’m not and keeping your eyes peeled for the kind of stuff beer guys appreciate. With that, let the party begin.

For more on who the hell I am, check out my website.

WHAT IS RSS or JUST POINT ME TO THE NEW STUFF
The benefit of RSS: getting to the new stuff without going back through all the old stuff.

Isn’t it amazing how the tech geeks can make something simple seem so difficult by naming it something stupid? Take the RSS feed. From the name, I’m lost. So, after some digging on our behalf, allow me to demystify.

Picture Blockbuster minus the movies you don

Using RSS feeds is like walking into Blockbuster and getting your very own ‘new releases’ rack. It’s a program that gathers video, news and content from the internet and put it into a list. It updates as often as you want it to. Click what you dig, ditch what you don’t. That’s RSS.

iTunes Podcasts are RSS feeds. Easy enough, right?

With this in mind, Bud.tv offers several ways to get just the latest content without going through the stuff you’ve seen or don’t care to. Check out the del.icio.us, reddit.com and Digg this video links under the videos on Bud.tv. It takes a second and saves hours.

For more on this, check out howstuffworks.com/podcasting

WHAT’S BREWING: RECCO’S
Here’s a quick look at some of the Bud.tv shows that caught my eye.

WTF: Knob.
This series has the potential to be hilarious. Like when my girlfriend found my porn stash and pasted her face over faces of all the models in the magazines. She thought it was cute, I thought she ruined several thousand dollars worth of Swank. My reaction…WTF.
Recommended if: You like seeing people screwed with minus Ashton Kutcher.

Bad Dog: Brakes
Not sure about this one. The opening is funny, but not sure after that.
Recommended if: You like dogs and watching guys in cargo shorts drive off a cliff.

Slow Mo: Leaf Blower
Thought this was funny as hell. Woulda liked to have seen some of the lingerie girls get this one. And what the hell is flying out of Todd’s mouth? I pray to God it’s Cheetoes and not plaque.
Recommended if: You like ‘see-food’ or deformed people in shop goggles.

Notice the RSS links at the bottom.

The Surgery Show: Breast
Finally, someone makes fun of the phony bimbos and their metro-sexual Beverly Hills boob doctors. This clip is full of what the doctors on TLC or Discovery Health MUST be thinking. This one is hilarious and my favorite since Swear Jar. It’s about time someone put a laser pointer on that bullshit.
Recommended if: You like boobs, hate Beverly Hills or want to laugh your ass off.

Bud Select Lingerie Show goes to Las Vegas

It took me three years to learn how to type with two hands and about two seconds to learn how to type with one. DO NOT MISS. This stop, Las Vegas. If you’ve ever been there, you know it’s full of hot women. Even the litter has porn on it. My kinda town. Personally, I’m voting for Teresa. She’s got a great body, dyed hair and tattoos that scream “I hate my dad.” My kinda girl.
Recommended if: You dig looking at chicks that you will never, in a million years, get next to unless you win the lottery. LUCKY STRIKE EXTRA: Don’t turn off the sound! I you’re feeling bad about your IQ, just listen to some of these interview answers. If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be hot.

And remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas…except herpes.

ONWARD
Write me with your suggestions. Call me with your ideas. Leave me a funny voice-mail and we may put it on Bud.tv.

Here’s a list of things I’m looking for from you:

Angry voice mail messages you’ve received.
Video of your friends dancing badly.
Reviews of where to go for a perfect pour of Bud in your town.

Later dudes.

Why Wouldn’t You? State Farm TV

This is one of the spots from the State Farm Why Wouldn’t You series. This one targets women and was the first script I wrote for this assignment.

Hanging with Howie

This is a fifteen second promotional spot for the NFL Pro Bowl contest sponsored by State Farm. According to the NFL, this was one of the most successful ads run for the 2007 – 2008 season prompting a larger than expected response to the website.

Bud TV Viral Video

Here’s a viral video I created for Bud TV. We had no budget and one rule: use a bottle cap to create a viral video. The idea is that this character, Cappy, would go on with fun quotes –the kind you hear on the construction sites I grew up on. Those guys always peddled their wisdom over a few beers. I wanted Cappy to be a representation of those guys.