Daily, we scour the capital to bring you the coolest, most creative stuff we can find. But we know there are literally thousands of artists, musicians, boutique agencies and others who fly under our radar - but not under yours.
So who are we missing? Do you know an awesome, unknown local agency we should highlight? Or maybe you're friends with a screen printer who does incredible posters. Hell, even if you did a portfolio-worthy print ad we haven't seen and want to show it off.
You tell us. Click on the Submit tab and let us know. Or you can email us any tips, work or general thoughts of well being to stlouis@theegotist.com
This craigslist ad was submitted to us by a few people about a month ago. We appreciated the low-brow humor but were perplexed by how to show the single tallest image we've ever seen.
Little did we know that it actually went full viral with multiple outlets covering the story and AdWeek actually conducting an interview with the (formerly) STL-based copywriter, Nate Walsh.
An excerpt from the interview: You're funnier than 90 percent of copywriters. Do you work in advertising?
I do work in advertising, as a writer. I'll be using the weird virality of this piece the next time a client tries to disagree with my recommendations. "Did you SEE how many repins I got with my shit?"
Actually, the main reason I have to tear myself away from such a sweet ride is that I'm about to leave St. Louis, where I've been working for the past five years, and move out to San Francisco. Right now I'm mostly going to be doing freelance for startups and working on some of my own dumb projects, but … hmm … what is a classy way to say "SO TELL YA FRIENDS" to any agencies that might be looking for a writer? Help me out here, Emily Post.
As far as that other part, well, obviously most funny people use humor to mask deep-seated neuroses and self-esteem problems, so of course I read that question as, "How could you let 10 percent of ad writers be funnier than you?" Then I cried a bit.
In 1965, Sol LeWitt wrote fellow sculptor Eva Hesse a four-page letter of encouragement, urging her to stop doubting herself and to simply continue making her work. Despite the fact that some would consider their friendship unlikely, the two sculptors were close friends and wrote to each other frequently about their ideas, work and personal lives from 1960 until Hesse's death ten years later. Often quoted, LeWitt's letter has become a source of inspiration and a vote of confidence for many artists the world over.
Producer Aaron Rose (Beautiful Losers, Become a Microscope) worked with punk rock band Rancid to remake LeWitt's words into a bold and boisterous song. With wild and wavy LeWitt-inspired animation, this video energetically embodies the message of its writer.
If you’ve been online at all in the last week or so, you’ve likely seen this funny and suggestive play on words "Ship My Pants" circulating. Who can resist a double entendre that alludes to the gold standard of embarrassing situations? Surely not the Internet. The fact that a clever one-line concept racked upwards of 13 million views on YouTube in one week is hardly surprising. The fact that it’s a commercial for Kmart, however, is. One hardly expects such boundary-pushing work from the conservative retail sector.
But that, says Bill Kiss, chief digital marketing officer for Sears and Kmart, was the point. The company was looking to promote its integrated retailing approach, one where customers can seamlessly decide whether to have items shipped for free to their homes or to any store they choose. It’s a fairly dry topic--if very important for the retailer--and Kmart wanted to bring this to life in a memorable way. “As of today, we’ve got almost 70 million items online and we’ve got a very aggressive goal to go way beyond 100 million items. We wanted to make this really clear and compelling to our customers, so we felt that notion of ‘if you can’t find it, we’ll ship it to you free,’ was a sticky, breakthrough idea,” says Kiss.
With a catchphrase like "Ship My Pants," it’s easy to see why the spot, from agency Draftfcb Chicago, quickly went viral. What’s more interesting is the strategy behind the launch. Kiss says that rather than start with a print or TV idea to communicate the idea of integrated retailing, they decided to “build some content and put it out there, and let America react.” With a dedicated in-house, data-driven, social media team, they closely monitored reaction to the spot. “We’re very nimble and when we push something out there we watch very carefully how America reacts to it. We were tallying sentiment, which was overwhelmingly positive. That’s where we knew, without relying on some sort of software package, hey, we’re onto something. We did that deliberately. We wanted to make sure that this wasn’t off-putting to our customers.”
In fact, the spot’s been so successful that Kmart has decided to run it on TV starting this week. “It’s a formula," says Kiss. "You put things online, you get reaction, you get real-time feedback and data, and then you can make the decision on how big and bright you want to go with it.” According to the statistics from YouTube, the formula worked extremely well. Ted Souder, head of industry, Retail, Google, says that the spot succeeded in taking a rather dull topic--online shopping--and turned it into something people wanted to share. “Reaching 12 million views in a week puts this video on the same scale as this year’s Super Bowl ads on YouTube. And if you look at the search data, the video drove a spike in searches not just for the ad, but for the Kmart brand as well,” says Souder. “We’re in an age where a single video can put you on the map, and with this one video, Kmart was able to reach millions of people with a really clear message about their brand.”
Here's an interesting short showing the amount of setup time it takes to capture a one second trick from a professional skateboarder. It's an interesting perspective on photos that we often take for granted. The short was produced by German filmmaker, Sebastian Linda.
Very fun & whimsical little piece by one of our favorites from the WILTY series.
Local photographer, Ashley Gieseking brought in friend and pastry chef, Simone Faure of Chouquette as star of her latest work, Voila! A simple and colorful motion piece that captures Simone making her delicious macaroons. It was a passion project for Ashley, and she brought in Hilary Clements of Moosylvania to assist with art direction along with Spot MPG for production and post. - http://agieseking.com/motion
Description: We are looking for an experienced, passionate, and talented ACD/writer to join our creative team. A strategic thinker who can create big ideas and push them forward, really knows the beer business, the millennial target, possesses great presentation skills and can lead and mentor others.
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Apple's latest spot for the iPhone 5 moves in a decidedly different way. Where we normally see a focus on product features and the form factor itself, this spot focuses on people and the way they use their iPhone in everyday life. Taking that step away from internally focusing on the device and re-focusing it on how we integrate the iPhone and its features into our daily lives seems to be becoming a more common theme amongst tech companies lately (the new Facebook ads immediately come to mind). Perhaps we're looking at a more “experience” focused period of advertising coming up.
by Moosylvania
