Carmichael Lynch

Carmichael Lynch is masked in secrecy - well, at least on the web. They don't give much away about themselves on their website other than that they are devoted to creative advertising solutions. Founded in 1962 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, CL is a pretty swell agency. Their clients include Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, IKEA, Porsche, Rapala, Subaru, and Gibson.

Carmichael Lynch (Minneapolis). I've posted an ad for Harley-Davidson before, but this one is different because I feel that it reaches a different audience. The others I have seen focus on the gruff, rough and tumble, nature of the Harley-Davidson driver. This one does something else, it focuses on the idea that not only can you build your own bike, but your own identity as a Harley-driver. Cool concept, cool visual, cool copy.

Lowe

Headquartered in London, Lowe Worldwide has had a very interesting history which somewhere down the line involves a merger with Ammirati Puris Lintas, making them the 4th largest advertising agency in the world in 2000. It is part of Interpublic. Some of their famous clients are Unilever, Johnson and Johnson, Nestle and General Motors.

Lowe & Partners (El Salvador). I love a good outdoor installation. Once again, this one is simple and gets the point across without being too wordy or showy or in your face. The only issue is that some might consider it ugly. This one shows me that I can drive my Frontier through the wind, sleet, snow, and mud, and it will still endure. Awesome. It reminds me of the outdoor stuff I have posted earlier fron Y&R and the like.

DraftFCB

x

DraftFCB is next on the list. Actually, I'm glad that it was because having to search their website for good work redeemed them for me. All I had previously seen were their awful Taco Bell ads during the Superbowl. I am SO relieved. DraftFCB is part of Interpublic. The agency as it stands today is the product of a merger between Draft and Foote, Cone & Belding, hence the title. Their headquarters are in New York and Chicago. They are currently the largest agency in Chicago. I wonder if that would still be true today if Leo Burnett hadn't gone out of business... The clients include:

• Boeing Co., Citigroup, Chicago Cubs, Del Monte, Dow Chemical Co., Eli Lilly & Co., Hilton Hotels, KFC Corp., Kmart, Kraft Foods, Levi Strauss & Co.'s Dockers, Merck & Co., MillerCoors, Pfizer Inc., Taco Bell Corp., Office of National Drug Control Policy (US), Qwest, S.C. Johnson, U.S. Census Bureau, Volkswagen and WWF

The following ad is from a campaign that I love and was shocked to discover that the same guys who made those stupid Taco Bell ads made this beautiful campaign:

DraftFCB (Lisbon). This campaign is cool because it takes something so common (a country's flag) and turns into something more truly representative of the nation. I think it is interesting to the that the flag itself represents the nation, gives it a face and an image, but sometimes we don't stop and think about what is really happening. So, they turned the flag into a graph, shedding light on issues that are normally not brought to light, especially by the countries themselves. Overall, I think this campaign is genius and eloquent. Sadly, though, flags have been used time and time again by other agencies for other products. The following is similar to DraftFCB's work. Please forgive me, but I could not find which agency was responsible for this:

I think DraftFCB won this one merely because they actually present more of an issue rather than mere discontent.

TM Advertising

TM, or Temerlin-McClain. The first half of which is the man for whom my school is named. TM is a full-service agency that is known as one of the biggest in the southwest. They are well-known for their work for American Airlines and Nationwide Insurance (great... "Nationwide is on your side" is now playing on loop in my head). It was founded in 1934 as Glenn Advertising, changed names a few more times until settling on Temerlin-McClain, and now just TMA. It is part of Interpublic Group. Some of their clients include American Heart Association, Nintendo Wii, Superpages.com, and Texas Tourism.

I love a good billboard. If it's good enough to almost cause a car accident, then it's all right with me! Like most good out-door ads, this isn't just an ad, it's a demonstration. What's awesome about this one is that it is bound to get the attention of passersby - especially those most inclined to slow down to observe accidents... or debris... or a pebble in the road. I like it because it isn't a grandiose display (see the Chick-Fil-A installments). It is simple, direct, and makes its point easily. It reminds me of the Y&R Tel Aviv outdoor work from Y&R as shown below:

I like TMA's version better because it is simpler and cleaner.

The Martin Agency

Founded in 1965, located in Richmond, Virginia, and now part of Interpublic (which sounds to me like the name of a ship in StarWars). Clients past and present include American Cancer Society, Discover Card, GEICO, Pizza Hut, FreeCreditReport.com (whose jingle is now stuck in my head - thanks a lot), and, most recently, Wal-Mart (awarded in 2007). Speaking of Wal-Mart... the following is an ad from Wal-Mart's most recent Christmas campaign:


I first saw this as part of an ad sponsorship for a TV episode I was watching on ABC.com (most likely LOST). I am usually incredibly bothered by the fact that agencies (or their Media Planners) play the same ad over and over throughout a sponsorship. However, this one actually made me smile. And smile again. And again. I actually looked forward to the commercial break. Until they switched it up and played a different one which irritated me. I really can't think of what to compare this to other than maybe loosely to the original Coca-cola ads that truly captured the feelings of the Christmas holidays. It captured the universal feeling of waking up Christmas morning, full of excitement and magic.

McCann Erickson

McCann Erickson was responsible for my all-time favorite commercial ever! Call me corny, but the "I'd like to teach the world to sing" Coca-cola ad is the greatest! Although I would like it more without the rolling text at the end, it still gets me every time. Formed in 1902, McCann Erickson is now part of the Interpublic holding group. They are famous for their work for Mastercard. Some of their current clients include Verizon, Weight Watchers, General Mills, U.S. Mills, Dentyne, and Avis.

The following commercial is from their work for Ad Council to promote parental awareness of the things their children watch on television:



I really like this commercial a lot. It takes a more interesting approach to PSAs. Instead of bombarding the audience with facts and statistics and frightening images of kids grown into hoodlums, this ad makes the issue seem less daunting and easier to take control of. It reminds me of the NetFlix commercials that personify movie genres, because it takes a general category of television and turns it into people you can interact with. Actually... it's almost exactly like the NetFlix ads, except with television and a social message. I guess they can duke it out with Goodby later.

Grey

The greatest agency to be named after a color! I always kind of feel bad for them since they lost Bill Bernbach and he basically exploded the entire industry into a creative powerhouse. Oh well, their loss.
Grey Global Group was founded in 1917 and became part of WPP in 2005. Their clients (past and present) include KRaft, VW, Dairy Queen, E-Trade (the talking babies), Proctor & Gamble, Playtex, and Visa.
The following is an ad for Polident Denture Care:

Grey - Malasia. Tag: You'll forget you're wearing dentures. Usually I find ads for products like dentures, toothpaste, or shampoo very drab and unoriginal, but this one totally caught me by surprise. To be honest, it took me a while to understand this campaign, but once I got it, it made complete sense. I like how it uses food (denture's classic nemesis) to get the point across - "you'll forget you're wearing dentures". Plain and simple. Instead of boring us with product benefits, statistics, or gross close-ups of mouths eating, they succeeded gracefully.

JWT

By far one of my favorite ad agency names - there's no way this guy got beat up in kindergarten, unless they called him Walter... but that's another story. J. Walter Thompson was founded in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln was re-elected for a second term (when you put it into a historical perspective it makes you realize how old the company is). It was acquired by WPP in 1987. In 2005 they dropped all but three letters in an attempt to "re-launch" the agency. Although I'm not sure it it worked, I do like saying JWT better than its original title. They have a separate entity called "Ethos" which aims to develop socially responsible marketing and advertising strategies for non-profit and corporate clients. They have done work for DeBeers, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Nokia, Royal Caribbean, U.S. Marine Corps, Microsoft, and Nestle.

I've included two print ads that I really like:

JWT- New York. For those who can't tell, it says "no" then "yes" (in Swedish, of course) and the tag is "A friend you can eat". I absolutely love Swedish Fish, but this is the first ad I've seen for them. Albeit bizarre, I like this campaign because it makes Swedish Fish more than a candy, it's an edible friend - which is strange, but totally creates a cool, hipster, brand personality that totally fits with the type of people who first introduced me to the candy. So why not go to the store and take home a friend you can eat?

JWT - Milan. Although I find that this ad straddles the fence of distasteful and respectful, I've got to admit that it's creative and gets you to think. It reminds me of some Amnesty International ads, if AI decided to take a light-hearted approach to their usually serious and visceral ads. This one doesn't scare you into wanting to help feed Africa, instead it makes you think about it in a different way, connecting the audience with people halfway across the world who, turns out, aren't as different as we think.

Y&R

Y&R (Young & Rubicam, not the Young and the Restless, sorry folks!) was founded in 1923 and has its headquarters in New York City, New York. Y&R is also the first on the list of WPP agencies which acquired the agency in 2000. Y&R's clientele include Unicef, Bacardi, Virgin, LG, Ajax, Colgate, and Landrover.



(Y&R Singapore) Not necessarily one of my favorites of their work, this is definitely one of the most interesting to me. It seems almost too easy of an idea, but then again, has anyone else done this before? What is even greater is that the process of building the installment is almost an advertisement itself, especially for locals who watched the entire process from start to finish. It reminds me alot of the FedEx Kinko's outdoor campaign done by BBDO New York as shown below:

They both take the "larger than life" approach. Actually, I think Y&R's Tonka outdoor campaign almost works better, because it's message is less literal than FedEx's "we sell bulk supplies" and more nostalgic, taking the audience back to the time when you could build the whole world in your sandbox.

Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather is based in NYC and is part of the WPP Holding group. It was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy and his associates. Some of their major clients (past and present) include: Kodak, Coca-cola, Amway, Adidas, Gillette, Nestle, and Mattel. The following is part of one of my favorite recent campaigns - Scrabble: The Beautiful Word. Ogilvy produces work for Scrabble in several countries worldwide. The following is a commercial produced by Ogilvy & Mather: Paris.



What I love most about this ad (aside from the fact that I am an avid Scrabble player) is that it is so far from the expected Proctor&Gamble-esque ads you'd expect for a bored game. The first time I saw this campagin I honestly was like "what the heck am I watching?" then the end eloquently tied it all together for me: in Scrabble you are building more than words, you are building a story. It put a spin on how you play the game, giving it an additional feature that renews itself each time to scramble the pieces. It's got a cool hipster, Juno feel that almost makes playing Scrabble cool again. In a weird way it reminds me of some of the past M-TV ads that take an abstract approach... I'll find examples of my comparison soon, I promise!