Connected TV (CTV) advertising is when marketers utilize Smart TV’s capabilities to add an “interactive” element to their ads, prompting viewers to engage further then just watching. You will often see QR codes, choose-your-commercial, or even sneakier, pop quiz questions about the product disguised as trivia. While these can be seen as good things by those who equate instant engagement and clicks with an ads success, does it come at the expense of the creatives? Commercials are a huge expense. It takes an entire team of writers, set designers, agents, videographers, gaffers, editors, sound designers and a woman to watch it while driving and emailing: “looks good. T Sent from IPhone.” to get it from storyboard to screen. Weeks, months of work to make something that will now be shrunk to the top third of the screen, overtaken by a big frame and a QR code. I just think there’s got to be a balance between making good ads that use interest and creativity to compete for viewers attention, and making an af that has to compete with itself in the digital form of a car wash sign flipper! What do you guys think? Are CTV ads like this inevitable, or is there a better way?

I recently made this post on my company's FB page... For all of the profound usefulness of ChatGPT and AI tools in general... it's "refreshing" to find that Open AI can be just as bad as a sleepy intern. We asked it to take care of a 2-hour mundane process to find and populate two columns within a spreadsheet that it could do in mere minutes... which turned into 2-days of utter failure on the part of AI. The idea is to be better, faster, clearer, more effective. Will Rogers always offers good advice, even in the age of AI. Guess we'll take the two hours by the sleepy intern and get it right.

The sh*t that you see below is from a search for ad agency "creative briefs"... basically, the one page message from the agency's Creative Director to the creative team on what we are about to work on for a new client campaign. Why 💩? OK, it's not 💩, it's just not that helpful — tries too hard to make the writer sound knowledgable. Takes too long. In practice, "booed off stage" by a real team of creatives. 😝 Yes, let the research guys do the research. Learn everything you can about the brand, it's audience and what seems to make it tick.... but there's a reason why you got the assignment — something's NOT working — and you need to fix it... FAST! _ _ _ _ HERE'S HOW: CONVINCE-THAT-BECAUSE Three sentences that boil everything down to a single, albeit (sometimes) run-on sentence. That's your brief's POWERLINE. You find that, by doing this: CONVINCE (someone) THAT (something) BECAUSE (something special). Sounds easy enough, yes? Start by just writing down the first thing that comes to mind. Don't worry, it's usually 💩, too. That's OK. You have to start somewhere. Then continue to refine your thinking until it's a sentence worth repeating. Let's take a classic: GOT MILK (1993) Milk had always been sold as being "good for you". By the early 90's, for the first time, milk sales started to fall with new "soy milks", "lactose intolerance" and "soft drinks" for breakfast. Bring in Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to the rescue. Concise and Clever... CONVINCE grocery shoppers THAT they have to put milk in their cart BECAUSE without milk, you can't eat certain foods. Really, the absence of milk is the POWERLINE. Think about it. The California Milk Processor Board (the actual client - renamed Real California Milk today) just wants to see the sales trend return to a positive rend. This POWERLINE isn't for an age demographic and psychological profile — it's anyone who is in the grocery story (that's everyone) with a basket or a cart ready to BUY some 💩!