Interrogating Agency Art Directors and Buyers for Shoot! the Day

Hello, Bessie. Via RoyaltyFreePhotos.

Tomorrow I'll be moderating a panel for Shoot! the Day, a stock photography conference put together by PhotoShelter. (See a recent study related to the topic.)

My panel is at 12:15pm. It will include:

• Belinda Lopez, Senior Art Buyer, Strawberry Frog
  
• Wanda Lau, Senior Art Director, Greater Than One
  
• Jen Santiago, Managing Art Buyer, G2 Direct & Digital
  
• Molly Aaker, Art Buyer, Unit7
  

My two biggest fears: 

1) making a Twitter joke

2) boring my audience, which will consist of professional photographers. I'm clearly not one of them, and I won't do justice to their angstiest stock photo/ad agency concerns, so I'll be leaving plenty of room for Audience Questions!.

Read about other Shoot! the Day panels at the PhotoShelter blog. And if you'd like to come watch me make awkward jokes and commit cheesy faux-pas, here's how to volunteer for a free pass.

I realize this is extremely last-minute. That was intentional, to minimize attendance and reduce the likelihood of damage to my id. (She is vixeny, but sensitive.)

Real-Live Mad Men, OMMA Social, and Awkward Behavior

Ric Kallaher sent over this neat picture of me recording Ed McCabe at the Real Men and Women of Madison Ave. exhibit, which was great, and which I highly recommend next time you're in NYC. (Remember: it'll be at the New York Public Library until September!)

I also got to check out OMMA Social, which was cool even if the finger food was sorta melty and lukewarm. Walking through the door I nearly slammed into my friend Josh Warner of Feed Company, who overwhelmed me with his rapid-fire greeting ("I'm so glad to see you! Married yet? Still write all day? Are you happy?") and introduced me to Rohit Bhargava, whose many interviews I've seen splayed-out all over the internets.

"You're shorter than I thought you'd be," I said.

"Well ... I'm an Indian man," he said mildly.

"It's really neat to meet a man shorter than me!" I said, banshee-like, and Josh -- ever vigilant -- saved my ass with a jovial, "Angela abuses all the men she meets."

"Does it work?" Rohit asked.

"SOMETIMES!" I shouted, unable to lower the decibels.

Rohit laughed and gave me his card: little more than a pocket-sized promotion for his new book, Personality Not Included, and an email. I thought to myself that if he ever regrets handing one to somebody (like me, for example), he never has to worry about them (me!!!) calling his cell phone at lunchtime.

Preemptive thinker.

I caught up with Josh and found Bill Green. We sat for two hours and made over-obvious facial expressions, then decided to leave for the exhibit.

On our way out I took one of the ultra-thick paper napkins from the Yale Club bathroom. It fell out of my folder and onto Bill's shoe. I looked up at his face, expecting to meet eyes with his naked condemnation, but instead he said "Aren't those GREAT?" and I said "Yeah!" and then we left.

OMMA Social shots here, Real Men and Women of Mad Ave. shots here and here (videos too!), Ric Kallaher's "zany!" Wrath of Cannes shots here, and I promise that at some point I will label all my flickr pictures.

Mad Men: Not Just a Series; It's a Lifestyle!

The magnanimous One Club has invited me back to NYC to cover the launch of Real Men and Women of Madison Avenue: Their Impact on American Culture. The exhibit will be showing at 188 Madison -- the Science, Industry and Business Library -- until September.

If you're a serious ad-head, YOU MUST GO. No excuses! I scheduled an event on AdGabber for ultra-easy planning magic.

Bring mutti and vati if you want. Everybody loves a trek down Memory Lane -- what do you think keeps VH1 in business? -- and Real Men and Women of Mad Ave. covers about 80 years' worth of crunchy nostalgia. Revisit Meowmix! M&Ms! Old-school Nike! Maybe even Snausages!

You'll also learn more about the secret lives of advertising's heroes, those engineers of my childhood and yours. Expect cameos from those still living, like legendary copywriter Phyllis Robinson; and old rogue Jerry Della Femina, whose Meowmix song and Joe Isuzu prototype still ring in my ears.

I'll be in the City from Sunday-Tuesday. I'm gonna try to catch part of OMMA, if only to abuse the finger-food; and I also look forward to swapping notes with Ric Kallaher, who mentioned he might check out the Wrath of Cannes.

He promised me zany pictures. And baby, I love me some zany pictures.

Before Hanging Yourself with that Apple Extension Cord, Consider the Park Lane

I think I'm on suicide watch at Helmsley's Park Lane Hotel.

Somewhere around Madison and 28th St., I contemplated this while absorbing the sight of the NesQuik rabbit, whose gentle invitation to "come to your happy place" seemed to exist just for me.

Everything that happened leading up to Park Lane death watch:

I woke up early today, had breakfast and plugged in my computer. One cannot eat if one does not work; and one cannot work if one does not Twitter.

That's when -- heavens above! -- my trackpad and its clicky button thing stopped working. There was a quiet moment of panic. Then I swallowed what remained of my Belgian waffle, packed my things and hauled ass to the Apple Store.

Some backstory: After attending the OneClub student exhibition last night (to be covered in one of my next posts), I returned to my hotel via subway and noticed with vague interest that I'm right across the street from the Apple Store.

"Neat," I said mildly, even though -- having spent about a quarter of my soul's value on a Macbook Pro last year -- I never planned to walk into an Apple Store again.

"Hmm," said the guy on the other end of the Genius Bar, who blew a little air between the buttons and examined the computer with friendly apathy.* "I'm not really sure what's wrong with it. You're gonna have to turn it in for repairs."

"TURN IT IN!" I exclaimed (ALL CAPS!). "I CAN'T TURN IT IN. I'M ON A DEADLINE!"

He cocked an eyebrow at me. We tried plugging in a mouse; no dice. If I get Pro Care, he said, maybe I can get my computer back in 24 hours.

We stood there while I contemplated the end of my career. I thought of all the news slipping by me, all that typing I'm not doing, and felt myself get all clammy.

"So..." I said. "What if I turn this in and get, like ... a Macbook Air?" For the time being it seemed to be the only solution, plus I kind of wanted to try one anyway.

The suggestion turned the Genius into an veritable faucet of Macbook Air laud. "I love mine!" he gushed. "I bring it everywhere."

"Do you pack it in an envelope?" I quipped, to which he immediately shouted, "GENIUS! THAT. AD. WAS. GENIUS.

"Every time an envelope is placed anywhere near a computer, there goes more brand recognition for Apple," he bragged. "And you know what else? Now OTHER companies are trying to stuff computers into envelopes. They're all saying, 'Mine fits in an envelope too!' but what they're really saying is, 'I can be just as good as Apple!'

"Apple IS THE STANDARD!" he bellowed.

I thought it might be best to grab a computer and GTFO. So I did. And I tried to be casual about it, but the thought of how much time I was losing (10 minutes until the newsletter deadline!) made me all panicky again. And I hated how, so soon after getting my Macbook Pro, I was once again dropping another two grand on some Apple "necessity."

It was kind of an emotional catastrophe.

On the way home, some other lame stuff happened involving my Verizon wireless card, which I don't really want to get into but which felt really last-straw-on-the-camel's-backish.

I got to the hallway of my hotel when my electronic key card stopped working and then something weird happened: big, deer-sized clown tears started rolling down my cheeks. I felt like a leukemia poster child who'd lost her puppy.

That's when the maid came.

"Oh my," she said. "Oh my."

She dashed over, grabbed my head and buried it in her big maternal bosom, which smelled like carnations and fresh linen.

"Let it out, sweetheart, let it out," she said in thickly accented English. Other guests inched by us, looking awkward.

"He hurt you, didn't he," she crooned, lifting my face toward hers. "You've been hurt."

"Uh-huh," I whimpered, because the actual story seemed too complicated. (In retrospect, senior copywriter Edward Herda observed that I had, in fact, been hurt by a man.)

"You don't cry anymore. You go in and lay down and don't cry," the maid said.

Oddly, the waterworks stopped the second I shut the door behind me. I powered up my swanky new laptop, got to work, and fielded a call from the Park Lane's head of security ("Just checking up!"), as well as a personal visit from the head of housekeeping, both of which gave me their names and numbers and asked me to call if I need "anything, just anything at all."

I later related this story to Diane Stefani of The Rosen Group, which does PR for the One Show Festival. She gave me something between a disturbed and amused look, then introduced me to the OneClub people and other news writers -- two girls that flew in from India and Germany, respectively.

We all shook hands and smiled, then I went back to my hotel where I found my room had been cleaned -- again. A small pyramid of chocolate mints sat resting by the bed.

What thoughtful people.

I'm tempted to ask for free wi-fi, but I don't want to seem pushy.

---

* I am actually being really rough on this guy. He spent a lot of time on my issue, trying different tactics and consulting with other Geniuses, and he truly couldn't work out why the trackpad had gotten all late-bloomer on me. I feel grateful, despite that contrasting totally-broke feeling.

One Show Events Calendar Goes Live

Ning, the platform we used to build AdGabber, has this new Events feature that lets you post happenings and solicit RSVPs.

I spent most of the morning posting the major One Show stuff I'll be attending next week. Take a look.

Hopefully I did it all properly, but to the untrained eye it looks like spam central. Also, I made no differentiation between cocktails, ceremonies and after parties. Just kind of mashed it all together so an obscure event like "One Show Interactive" appears to last from 6pm to the wee hours.

Will probably fix it sometime before next week, but right now the prospect terrifies me. Steve is planning to put a link to it on Adrants so others can either Plan Accordingly, or just Observe the Lame.

Next Time I'm Bringing an Ambient Lamp

Sandwiched between months of tortured waffling and tax time, last week I finally exchanged my CA drivers license for a NY one.

Gripe the first: My whole name was too long by one letter, so the Assigned Bureaucrat shortened it to A, S, Natividad. I was not amused. The Bureaucrat, growing ever more uneasy with my presence, said if I don't like it I can change my name.

"CHANGE my NAME," I sputtered to Benj in the retelling.

"Couldn't they have put in your first name and middle initial?" said Benj. "That's what they did with me." He showed me his drivers license as proof.

It seemed reasonable. Too reasonable. My brain shut down. "I don't ... KNOW," I said before devolving into a combusting mass of hot goo.

Gripe the second: The new picture is jarring compared to what I'm used to seeing. To start, my cherubic 16-year-old face isn't smiling back at me. For another thing...

"I don't like the eyebrows," I said. "And I have refugee hair."

"What's refugee hair?"

"It's this look that says I hacked my hair off with a dagger in a rush so I could pose as a man to sneak out of the country."

Benj gave me that you-are-so-not-a-team-player look, and life went on as usual.

The Medium is (Integral to) the Message

I hit NYC for the first time last weekend. Once I got over the elaborate spiderweb that passes for a subway (definitely a far cry from beloved BART), I fell all over myself.

New York is the living, breathing witness to America's industrialized history, stuffed to overflowing with contradictory messages and too many dreams. And like a splatter in the concrete, every once in awhile you find beauty again.

I'm accosted by ads I've reviewed, come to vivid life. It's like they were lying in wait and have leaped out to confront me, pulsing with energy and so much force. The press releases that tried to contain them simply never had a chance.

Since the awakening, so to speak, I've developed an almost superstitious aversion to PDFs. Generally speaking I don't mind them, but in the strange universe of ad critique I find them deceptive for two reasons:

1. Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. Can you divorce the medium from the message? No. In PDF form, the ad lacks the impact and gravity its creators had in mind.
   
2. Press releases, which also come in PDFs, are like cheat-sheets. PR execs and agencies love to wax creative about ad particulars on a release. The problem is, your consumer doesn't get one. He or she has no chance of knowing why you picked that color, or why the giant talking tooth made a great inside joke. Fuck poetic license in a PR; it's supposed to be in your AD! (Have I mentioned I also hate reading them?)

I'd like to gauge the quality of an advertisement in almost the same way an art critic appraises some ancient or contemporary oeuvre.

It needs to be in front of me, larger than life, involved in my world. If it's a billboard, I want to be standing under it with my neck craned as far as it will go, trying to decide if it "pops."

If it's a print ad, I want to encounter it in a magazine or discover it hanging above me one drowsy day on the train. If it's a :30 spot, I want to find it appropriately adorning some TV show while I sit fooling with a Rubik's cube on the couch.

A version of an ad in a PDF, versus the one you come across on the street, is like the difference between a 20-foot Picasso and a JPEG, or the Louvre's Mona Lisa and a postcard.

You can never learn how your advertising moves a person - provided it does at all - until you can experience it in the intended format, whether it's hundreds of feet above you on a billboard, or posing as a coquettish interactive Flash corner on the digital edition of BusinessWeek.

There's simply no comparison.