Before it's news, it's Reuters

In the hands of advertising copywriters, the English language is a powerful tool. And copywriters, sometimes, are children.

Children should never be allowed to play with power tools.

Once in a while, however, a humble copywriter taps into something truly amazing, truly magical, that captures the essence of a brand in a heartbeat, stops competitors in their tracks, and reinvents the category.

Some brilliant writer, somewhere, not so long ago, coined five simple words, in an eternal verity, to announce Reuters sponsorship on National Public Radio. I almost drove off the road when I first heard it:

"Before it's news, it's Reuters."

In today's topsy-turvey world, where the news really isn't The New York Times anymore, nor ABC, nor NBC, nor CBS, nor frankly, even NPR. But rather, the Internet in all its forms, including Yahoo!News, just to give one example, where we can decide if we prefer the Associated Press (AP) view of the universe, or Reuters, or both on our home page ... this killer phrase defines Reuters in a new world.

We happen to like Reuters. We think Reuters offers a balanced, global perspective. And that's our perspective.

We have no connection to Reuters, just so you know. And to be truthful, we are shocked that Reuters doesn't use this brilliant 30-carat diamond idea anywhere else, at least so far as we can tell, other than on NPR.

Yet it belongs all over their brand.

This five-word pearl defines the Reuters brand.

If you know Reuters, tell them.

Victoria's Secret wins Super Bowl XLII

Adriana Lima warms up for her Victoria's Secret
appearance promoting sales for Valentine's Day which
was broadcast immediately after Super Bowl XLII.
The most compelling of over 50 commercials aired, it
was the strongest, most authentic brand communicator.
Even better than the Clydesdales.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the happy pranksters who typically write Super Bowl commercials were on vacation. This year's crop of spots were authored by minor leaguers. No standouts. No drop dead winners. And no wardrobe malfunctions. Certainly, it was not a toilet bowl (as in years past). But not a victory bowl, either.

As usual, brand messaging took a vacation, replaced by stunts, gags and games. But it's the Super Bowl. It's about entertainment, not marketing. There probably hasn't been a major marketing tour de force on this broadcast since Apple's '1984' epic in, well, 1984, created by Chiat Day's Lee Clow and Steve Hayden for Apple computer.

Popular favorites this year were a big, cosy brand commercial for Budweiser (a Dalmation carriage dog trains a Budweiser Clydesdale for next year's Super Bowl horse team) and an epic for Coca-Cola with Peanuts characters joining a mega-sized Coke bottle, portrayed as balloons over Fifth Avenue, in a Macy's-style parade that only had us thinking about high winds, uncontrollable balloons and falling light poles.

As for the rest, some very funny spots (and some unfunny spots) filled the gaps between the action in a great football game.

Notably, Charles Barkley, personally stunning in a brilliantly scripted and produced spot for ... who? And Will Ferrell, in a typically brilliant Will Ferrell performance ... for who? Otherwise, sometime-model Naomi Campbell with some creepy dancing gekkos, some with flashing diamond teeth, for someone (not Geico). Creepy cavemen (for Geico). A very creepy fang-nashing possum for ... a car? Creepy was a theme this year.

But supermodel Adriana Lima silenced the room, focused men and women, a cooed a soothing, sultry message for people with passions to indulge them in time for Valentine's Day. Check out Victoria's Secret for the real thing. This is what great brands do when they know who they are and what they have to do to connect.

Kudos of the Year to Victoria's Secret and, of course, to Ms. Lima.

Starbucks to rebuild the emotional core of the brand

Make no mistake. It's not about 'feeling good' about Starbucks. At least, not in any simplistic sense.

It's pure business.

In the same week that Starbucks Chairman and pioneering brand-builder Howard Schultz was (re)appointed by the Starbucks board to the instantly-vacated chief executive position, McDonald's announced their intention to expand coffee service in McDonald's restaurants and add barista positions.

Which came first?

On January 7, 2008, making a conscious decision to slow U.S. growth in order to refocus the customer experience, Howard Schultz announced an agenda committed to "re-igniting the emotional attachment with customers and restoring the connections customers have with Starbucks coffee, people, brand and store."

In a letter to customers on the home page of the Starbucks website, Howard Schultz says:

"Twenty-five years ago, I walked into Starbucks first store and I fell in love -- with the coffee I tasted, with the passion of the people working there, and with how it looked, smelled and felt. From that day, I had a vision that a store can offer a welcoming experience for customers, be part of their community, and become a "third place" that is part of their lives every day -- and that it can provide a truly superior cup of coffee."

Later in the letter, he promises a new Starbucks, which is actually the old Starbucks, re-envisioned and renewed. But the last phrase of his comment is critically important. If McDonald's, somehow, can provide a very good cup of coffee, perhaps at a lower price, then Starbucks faces a very serious threat.

The departing Starbucks chief was given great kudos for his business and operational management. But clearly Howard Schultz and the board felt more must be done to buttress Starbucks against McDonald's, particularly if McDonald's finds a coffee recipe that works and can also find the raw ingredients to make their expansion possible.

One of the big problems is the world's supply of quality Arabica beans.

Earlier this year, Howard Schultz defined his priorities as securing the world's best supply of the best beans by working with the best growers in the best way. That's great.

But perhaps we see there an inkling of other objectives -- to protect Starbucks, of course. To honor growers, naturally. But above all, to defend against the Golden Arches.

Obviously, that's the priority.

We salute Mr. Schultz for rebuilding coffee as the American beverage.

For years the folks at Maxwell House, we know, felt coffee had ceded ground to Coca-Cola as "the national beverage." But Starbucks ignored everything and actually changed how we think about coffee.

Thanks to Starbucks, we have a different idea in our minds about what coffee is.

Now Howard Schultz is determined to protect that idea and defend it against allcomers, including the greatest potential threat on the planet, Mickey D.

His offense and his defense?

The Starbucks brand, and the Starbucks experience.

It will be a great encounter.

Brand Advertising Campaign of the Year!

It's iPhone. The best brand-driven advertising program of the year. One of the best advertising campaigns in recent history, maybe ever. We're proud to announce it.

No product has been better or more successfully introduced in classic, charming, demonstration commercials that elegantly show us everything we can do with the amazing iPhone.

Including making phone calls.

iApple, to coin a phrase, is one of the biggest, most competent, most capable brands on the planet. It's also one of the sweetest, neatest and most inviting brands we'll ever encounter.

Nobody matches Apple for truth and reality. Genuineness. Honesty. Simplicity and clarity. We feel good watching iPhone advertisements, we are totally seduced and entertained, and we feel the iPhone was made just for us.

Most companies don't understand 'brand' advertising. They think 'brand' is about image. Or just corporate stuff. Or about how good (soft, sappy, emotional) they are.

That's a juvenile perspective.

Yet it's a perspective still shared, believe it or not, by old brains.

Most people know that an authentic brand-driven advertising platform shares what the brand means, what it does, how it connects, how it helps, how it charms, and how it pleases.

You know, all the things that ... sell.

All of us loved iTunes. But there's nothing necessarily youthful about this new product. iPhone is just very real, very ageless, very timeless, very beautiful, certainly made for all of us, and maybe, just maybe, perfect.

Kudos to Apple and their internal teams and outside partners.

Advertising isn't dead, it just belongs to Google

Advertising is thriving.

Unfortunately, advertising agencies don't seem to be.

If advertising agencies and their holding companies had convinced themselves that the status quo somehow still prevailed, they haven't logged in to Google lately.

Those little Ads by Google. Charming, aren't they? Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Now, as of this week, Google will place your real live display advertisement, a real print advertisement, in the newspaper of your choice -- The New York Times, the Des Moines Register, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and hundreds of other major newspapers across the country. All you have to do is click. And if you don't have an advertisement you can place, well, that's not a problem. They have templates you can use. Or you can build your own. They even do "image" ads.

Is that enough to convince you that advertising as we know it is dead? No? Well, consider this.

Google will help you create a radio commercial and place it in a hundred-plus radio stations across the country.

Rupert Murdock, Chairman of News Media, owner of My Space and The Wall Street Journal, recently explained his anxiety about new media, moving fast, and being first.

We have to get there before everything belongs to Google, he said.

WPP, Interpublic and Omnicom probably lost 'agency' status long ago, as their agency brands burrowed deeply into online, public relations and other businesses.

Yet they jealousy guard their 'creative' turf.

But if a group at Unilever's Dove decided they could create nifty radio commercials of their own making and place them with Google. And if a team at Ford did the same thing. And the folks at Pepsi decided an exciting promotional radio campaign could be created, craftsperson style, right in their own offices, and placed on radio stations anywhere their sales people asked for ... aren't we looking at an advertising armageddon in some way, shape or form?

Those Google ads may be unsophisticated.

(Actually, Google Adwords today are very smart, and a lot of very smart writers are creating them.)

It's only a matter of time. Google ads will be as slick and polished as they need to be and no advertising agency fingerprints ever will be found on them.

It's just another way our world has changed.