They say past is prologue, which is just a fancy way of saying that we can't predict the future without understanding history. So how did we get to where we are today? Can the lessons of yesterday inform the strategies of tomorrow?

Advolution looks at how key developments in advertising and marketing have shaped our industry. You'll learn about how marketing strategies have changed over the years, meet some interesting characters and, we hope, have a little fun along the way.

 
Posted: January 15, 2010 | 2:45 ET
Harjot Singh, Senior VP, Director of Creative Planning at GREY Canada, offers up the first of our advertising community blogs. His entry explores the topic of the proliferation of consumer opinion and the impact on branding efforts. Read, enjoy and share your comments!

If you would like to submit a story for our media planning community blog, contact us at webmaster@globeandmail.com

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Posted: January 4, 2010 | 00:51 ET
File Under: Advertising History | Restaurants/Fast Food | Brand Management

This summer, a new cafe opened up in downtown Seattle. To the casual observer, 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea might have been just another of the many new independent coffee shops that seem be cropping up in urban centres everywhere.

15th Avenue has all the hallmarks of a locally owned small business. Funky, retro furniture and fixtures sourced from neighbourhood flea markets. Beer and wine on offer in addition to coffee drinks. Live music and poetry readings at night. No corporate-style logos or obvious attempts at creating a branded environment.

There is, however, one odd thing about this new coffee shop. Its front window sports a small sign that reads "Inspired by Starbucks"--surely an odd claim for an independently run venture to make.

Sure enough, the claim isn't being made by an independently run venture. Rather, this new cafe is part of an experiment in "unbranding" by a company that's universally lauded as one of the greatest brands of all time. That's right. 15th Avenue is not merely inspired by Starbucks. It's run by Starbucks.

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Posted: November 30, 2009 | 00:24 ET
File Under: Advertising History | Brand Management | Packaged Food Products

Presented for your consideration: two ads for the one of the world's largest food companies.

Exhibit A is a classic commercial from 1980.



It's wholesome! It's non-offensive. It positively screams family values. And it plays off Heinz Ketchup's earlier campaign, one that suggested that even though you had to wait for the product to drip out of the bottle because it was so thick, that very thickness was a sign of the product's quality. All very on-brand.

Fast-forward to 2008, when a Heinz ad sparked so much outrage that the venerable condiment-maker was forced to pull it.



Exhibit B seemed to be on-brand too, assuming the brand promise of Heinz Deli Mayo is something to the effect of "as authentic as mayo you'd find in a New York deli." So why all the furor? Seems some consumers in the U.K., where the ad aired, were offended by a man kissing another man on TV.

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Posted: October 30, 2009 | 9:11 ET
File Under: Advertising History | Fashion & Beauty | Brand Management

"Sex sells." It's been an advertising truism since Day 1. So much so, that ad pros often ask themselves whether it's anything more than a cliche. Sure it grabs attention, but does it--can it--really move product?

Of course, you could ask the makers of the 2005 Carl's Junior ads that featured Paris Hilton giving a Bentley a rub-down while chowing down a burger. But the answer to whether sex sells for Carl's is pretty obvious: Of course it does, when you're selling to 14-year-old boys. What about marketers who want to reach a more sophisticated audience?

There's one man who was able to build a mass-market empire with provocative imagery without ever falling afoul of tastemakers or the fashion cognoscenti. That man was Calvin Klein, a designer who managed to both wow the arbiters of Seventh Avenue and earn the respect of Madison Avenue.

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Posted: September 23, 2009 | 2:35 ET
File Under: Advertising History | Agencies | Branding



Ogilvy's sweeping pronouncements were repeated often, in books, memos and speeches. One of them was the notion that unless advertising contained a big idea, "it will pass like a ship in the night." The "big idea" idea was central to R. Luke DuBois' 2008 installation at the Paley Center for Media to honour Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide's 60th anniversary during the fifth New York Advertising Week.

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He's a giant in our field. And, if you'll indulge your humble clogger, a personal hero. I'm not alone, of course. Many ad pros claim they decided to enter the biz after reading 1963's Confessions of an Advertising Man or 1983's Ogilvy on Advertising.

It wasn't just his body of work--although that, of course, was impressive--that won him so many admirers. Ogilvy stood for something. David Ogilvy the man was David Ogilvy the brand. He put as much effort into crafting his own image (and, by association, that of his agency) as he did into any of his celebrated campaigns.

If AMC's Mad Men has conjured up one archetype of a mid-20th Century ad executive, Ogilvy conjured up quite another. Not for him the snappy suits, three-martini lunches or ashtrays full of cigarettes. In fact, he famously turned down a cigarette account and while, he was known to smoke them, his preferred method of nicotine-delivery was a professorial pipe. Ogilvy did, however, share one characteristic with Don Draper: he enjoyed the company of women.

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Posted: August 10, 2009 | 8:03 ET
File Under: Advertising History | Out of Home

"A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure..."



When we meet the protagonist of the 1982 film Blade Runner, he's reading the paper in a seedy downtown setting. Overhead, a rambling blimp encourages those who can afford it to get out while the going's good in a voice that recalls the cheerful, upbeat pitch of an infomercial shill.

For those who can't pursue a golden land of opportunity, the situation in Ridley Scott's 2019 LA setting is decidedly bleak. It's dreary, it's drizzly and, most of all, it's dark. But there are some sources of illumination...including billboards.

The outsized animated billboards that appear in director Scott's dystopian masterpiece are among the most memorable images in a film overflows with memorable images. And their presence reminds us that as long is there's outdoor ad space for sale, someone's going to buy it, and someone's going to sell it.

But not everybody's going to like it.

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Posted: July 4, 2009 | 20:41 ET
File Under: Public Relations

It's cited in textbooks and in countless retrospectives on the 20th-century art of persuasion.

The day was March 31, 1929. The place was New York's fashionable Fifth Avenue.

A gaggle of reporters and photographers waited expectantly for a glimpse of some of the city's most elegant debutantes. The svelte young women eventually appeared and, on cue, each lit up a cigarette. The next day, nearly every newspaper in American had a story on the historic "Torches of Freedom parade."

Brooke Gladstone, editor of National Public Radio's On the Media, observed that "[w]ithin three days, women were smoking in Union Square in San Francisco, Union Square in Denver and on the Boston Common in solidarity with their sisters in New York."

It was all the work of Edward Bernays, a man who used any opportunity to position himself as "the father of PR." And, thanks to talent, ingenuity and incredible staying power, he eventually earned that title.


Image courtesy of Adclassix.com

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Posted: May 29, 2009 | 16:18 ET
File Under: Celebrity Endorsements

Among advertising techniques, few have sparked as much debate as the use of celebrity endorsements.

Does attaching a famous face to a brand really enhance its value? Are endorsements worth the sometimes astronomical fees celebs and their agents demand? And, most importantly, do they work?



Who wouldn't want a refreshing Tokyo Drink after seeing just how much John Travolta and his merry band of workout babes enjoy it?


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Posted: April 23, 2009 | 23:45 ET
File Under: Branding

Few people need the expression "brand image" defined. Marketers certainly don't: it's well-worn part of our workday vocabulary. Nor do many consumers.

What brands stand for; why we like some, loathe others and are "meh" about the rest--these days, both professionals and civilians understand the significance of brands in the pop culture landscape. But it wasn't always so.

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Posted: March 25, 2009 | 21:53 ET
File Under: Mascots | Advertising History

There's a lot to love about MasterCard's Priceless campaign. Since it debuted it 1997, it's garnered countless awards, been subject to even more parodies and become part of the popular vernacular.

While the campaign has had plenty of highlights in its long run, my favourite version is relatively new. It debuted during the 2005 Super Bowl, but the credit card giant is re-running it now. It's the so-called Icons spot, in which classic advertising mascots--Mr. Peanut, Charlie the Tuna, the Pillsbury Doughboy and more--gather for dinner (fittingly, Mr. Clean's in charge of washing up).

One reason for the commercial's appeal, I suspect, it that the MC-chosen few evoke simpler times and simpler values, including (perhaps not surprisingly given the current zeitgeist) the old-fashioned virtue of trust.

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