A few of my favorite links

Over the last few years I have come across a ton of different blogs that are valuable to my research and writing. At times I have felt that I should protect them...I don't want to give away all of my secrets!

The truth is, I didn't write these blogs, others did, and they are meant to be shared, and as we share resources, we all get smarter. So I am putting 80 of my favorites on the right-hand side-bar of this blog for you to check out. I have divided them into the following categories: Advertising, Cultural Trends, Action Sports, Design, News, and the Relatively Awesome.

I hope you find some in there that you haven't seen before and if there are any that I am missing, please leave me a comment and share some of your favorites.

Video: Shepard Fairey Speaks to PSFK L.A.

Shepard Fairey, skateboarder, contemporary artist, designer, illustrator, and OBEY Giant creator recently spoke at the L.A. PSFK conference on his background, motivation, his process, and his art



His perspective made me proud to be a skateboarder and really inspires original thinking.

Fairey explained, “At 14, I started skateboarding, which was linked to the culture of punk rock. Neither were mainstream and they were both very DIY. It had a creativity that said it was better just to make your own stuff.”

Speaking about how he got started during his education at RISD, Fairey said “After getting some attention for my stickers, it really opened my eyes to the idea of putting something in public that people see and get curious about. It really opened my eyes to the power of communication in public space.” This made me think about something a mentor of mine used to say quite frequently: "Stop interrupting what people are interested in...BE what people are interested in." Fairey has certainly found a way to get people curious, especially with his iconic image that he created during the Obama campaign.

Shepard's work and story really is inspirational, you should definitely watch the video

Source: PSFK (1/23/09)

TNT's Trust Me: Where are all the planners?

This last Monday marked the season premier of TNT's new advertising agency based TV series, Trust Me. The show stars Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh, who play a creative director and his copywriter sidekick.

I will pretty much watch anything made for TV if it is related to advertising. That is my world and I, like most of you, like to see how badly others will portray my life. Most of the time this portrayal is grossly inaccurate and yet I continue to give these shows a shot.

Being that I am an account planner/strategist, I of course felt that the creatives get way too much coverage in this series and that my kind were portrayed in a negative light. That portrayal was about 10 seconds worth of footage, the first of an awful focus group moderator, and the second, of an annoying planner who comes in to "brief" the newest copywriter on the team.

While the portrayal of ad agency life on the show was probably more indicative of big agencies ten years ago than what it is actually like today, I did enjoy the show and will continue to watch and will postpone further judgment until after a few more episodes. Look to see me glued to the TV late Monday nights after my "Monday Night Skate Night," watching intently for the moment that a planner or an amazing creative brief saves the day...It WILL happen.

Mammoth Billboard doesn't "Play Big" enough

Mammoth Mountain, one of my favorite places in the world, a place I used to call home and a resort of which I currently have a season pass to, recently ran this billboard on the 405 freeway in Southern California. David and Goliath, the resort's El Segundo based ad agency turned the billboard into a life size replica of a piece of the wall from the mountain's Super Duper Pipe and put a life size mannequin -- equipped with gear from Quiksilver and Vans -- posed airing out above the deck. I am all for making the medium itself be part of your message and I think the strategy behind this billboard is really cool but the execution...well, the execution sucks.

How does it suck? let us count the ways. first of all, the mannequin performing the backside air has super wack steez. I will illustrate below with other examples of bad method/backside air style:



Now that you have seen the bad, here are a couple of examples of a proper backside air as demonstrated by Terje Haakonsen and Jamie Lynn:




Secondly, the "snowboarder" on the billboard was getting two, maybe four feet of air at the most. For a campaign with the tag "Play Big," this snowboarder was certainly doing the opposite. below is an example of what it is like to really "play big" out of a halfpipe as demonstrated by recent Fast Company coverboy, Shaun White:


The moral of the story is...Whoever is executing your super cool idea, make sure they know what the hell they are doing in relation to the subject matter.

In spite of a shitty execution, the idea was very cool and props to Mammoth Mountain for all of the ad dollars they are spending. I see your emails in my inbox and banners on the internet and they make me want to get out there and shred. See you soon.

Welcome to Planning for Action

In an old blog of mine, I focused on what Lee Clow refers to as Media Arts. The idea that everything a brand does is media and my posts showed this by featuring what brands of the world were doing to tell their story in unique ways. Whether that was a unique use of a traditional medium such as print, television or outdoor, or how a brand was using a completely new medium to tell their story. This blog will still have plenty of that because I think it is damn cool and is the future of advertising but it will also feature other stuff that brands are doing right.



Main topics will be advertising, branding, media and cultural trends but to make this even more fun I will be staying true to my roots by tying subject matter to the action sports world when relevant news comes along. I have been skateboarding for 21 years, snowboarding for 20 years, and surfing for 15. I am a professional advertising and strategy guy but aside from that I never grew up so I am well tapped in to what is happening in youth culture and feel that is a key reason why I am good at what I do.



My professional experience comes from a Bachelor's Degree in Communications/Advertising, time spent in Media Arts Planning at TBWA\Chiat\Mal in L.A., and two years as an Account Planner at DGWB Advertising in Orange County where I currently work. I also spent a few years slinging snowboards and skateboards at a skate shop and spent some time living in Mammoth Lakes to pursue my snowboard dreams. I specialize in quantitative and qualitative research methods; studying popular culture and consumer behavior; studying trends in the digital and social media space; and developing creative strategy based on all of those things.

Thanks for reading, you are gonna love this.