50 Cent got shot and still whines about it on stage.
Teddy Roosevelt got shot mid-speech and didn’t leave the stage until he finished

The ads, which can be seen below, are modern, visually interesting, cleverly written and – in my opinion – just very well done. While they may be specifically geared towards a younger audience, they highlight things that I didn’t know about those historical figures and make me want to learn more. It’s no wonder the ads quickly went viral online.

The problem is that the Smithsonian had nothing to do with them.

The ads were part of an art school portfolio project by art director Jenny Burrows and copywriter Matt Kappler.

With all of the attention and positive reaction, you would think that the Smithsonian would be thrilled – I mean after all a campaign like this could drive a much younger crowd to the museum and help revenue.

However, according to Burrows’ blog, she contacted the Smithsonian once the ads went viral as a way to ‘cover her ass’, however surprisingly the folks at the Smithsonian were “less than pleased about the attention the posters were getting” and demanded that she remove the Smithsonian logo from the images on her site.

She did – but since they had spread pretty quickly through social media – it was a little too late to really lessen the impact. However, that impact has clearly been positive for the creators of the ads – their online portfolios have been viewed more times than they could have imagined and they’ve received numerous requests from history teachers looking to purchase the ads – logo removed, of course – as posters for their classrooms.

I can’t help but imagine that the ads, if silently embraced by the museum, would have been positive for the Smithsonian as well. Sure, they didn’t purchase those images or get “fiddy’s” permission – but they didn’t commission the work either. They could have turned a blind eye or tried to get permission from the artists and then work with the creators of the ads to extend the campaign.

When you look at their visitor trends, which can be found on their website, the museum, hasn’t been doing so great over the past few years – except for a bump in 2009. Hmm…what happened in 2009…Ah yes, a Ben Stiller movie called Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which if I’m not mistaken was directed towards a young audience. Wonder if there was any connection…and if it’s too late for the Smithsonian to give Jenny Burrows another call.

What do you think? If you were the Smithsonian what would you have done?

]]> http://blog.agencypja.com/2011/03/24/advertising/night-at-the-museum-battle-of-the-viral-ads/feed/ 0 http://blog.agencypja.com/2010/09/17/social-media/recap-business-to-buyer-series-meet-the-new-buyer-independent-unpredictable-and-social/ http://blog.agencypja.com/2010/09/17/social-media/recap-business-to-buyer-series-meet-the-new-buyer-independent-unpredictable-and-social/#comments Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:55:40 +0000 Jessica Weil http://blog.agencypja.com/?p=1298 On yesterday’s episode of PJA Radio, host Mike O’Toole was joined by Hugh Kennedy, EVP, Planning at PJA and George Krautzel, President of Toolbox.com to discuss the B2B buyer. As people continue to seek out information to inform their important decisions, the way they go about it is constantly changing, and they are increasingly more likely to trust their social networks over a search engine. This is just one of the many ways information-consumption patterns are evolving in the digital age. Here are some points of advice Mike, George, and Hugh have to offer about how to best approach today’s new marketing challenges, and how to reach the independent, unpredictable and social buyer.

Know your audience. Take the time to build personas. People may want to be targeted in different ways, and it’s important for the marketer to be aware of this.

Don’t smother them. Think about how you openly engage, and avoid being pushy and promotional. That doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, but be authentic in your creativity, and don’t put up big barriers to get to your information.

Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes. If you want to understand how the buyer consumes information, model the buyer yourself. Go to the websites, watch the videos, listen to the podcasts. It won’t take long for you to see who is trying to solve their business problems.

Find the watering hole. Buyers are in control and they know it, so you have to find where they are engaging and start by listening. Understand the context and the content of these communities. The rules differ by channel, and it’s important for marketers to understand that.

Build a strategy that can leverage your organization. Figure out how to build off of the participation already happening from members of your company, and use that to increase engagement and create value.

Stay tuned for later episodes of PJA Radio in which we’ll continue to explore this notion of Business to Buyer. We’ll take a look into the mind of different buyers (the CIO, the scientist, the small business decision-maker) and discuss their unique quests for information and how marketers can respond.

Listen to the full episode here: Business to Buyer Series – Meet the New Buyer (Independent, Unpredictable, and Social)

If you’re a retail business or restaurant owner, a large group of people usually means one of two things: a surge in business…or an angry mob.

Social coupon sites such as buywithme, groupon, eversave and others help bring the crowds – but businesses using

Restaurants need to protect themselves from their own coupons

those services need to seriously consider how they’re going to prepare themselves in order to avoid that angry mob.

Consider the KFC chicken-and-sides saga.

Now, this fiasco didn’t have to do with any of the social coupon sites, however it did become a social coupon and serves as an example for how things can get out of hand.

KFC announced the online coupon on the Oprah Winfrey show. The coupons were for a free meal – valued at $3.99 each – and the promotion was supposed to last 2 weeks. However, soon after the announcement, over 10 million coupons were printed resulting in the promotion being cut-off after only 2 days with 5.7 million people denied their free meal.

Since then, KFC has been tied-up in a $25 million dollar lawsuit. All due to some free $3.99 meals.

Now, a benefit of working directly with the coupon sites is that they bring a great deal of experience to the process and can work with businesses in order to better prepare them for the social coupon process – however there is always going to be risk.

Ellen Malloy, the founder of the Restaurant Intelligence Agency, recently raised the issue in a blog post. Malloy suggests that places that use social coupons to drive more business need to consider employees whose lack of enthusiasm toward the coupon-crowd could lead to bad service, causing bad buzz and so on.

Malloy’s comments aren’t completely off base. There are many stories about customers complaining of long waits, inadequate treatment, and feeling rushed.

Again, it all comes down to preparation and expectations  – just start by asking yourself: how do I keep that mob from getting angry?

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Kevin Smith is an Account Supervisor at PJA Advertising & Marketing. Follow him on Twitter: @Mr_KevinSmith

This post was featured as the social media nightmare segment during the August 5th edition of This Week In Social Media.