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Funny advert though, loved the use of the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck who was also featured in another spot, Matt Hasselbeck in his NFL Story for Super Bowl Sunday.

Back in 2003 the job finder site CareerBuilder had a tough battle ahead of it.  A distant 3rd place holder in the online job search market, and they couldn’t spend even a fraction of the money Monster was throwing at advertising.  But due to some brilliant ad work by Cramer-Krasselt via two very memorable Super Bowl campaigns, CareerBuilder saw it’s star shoot waaaaay up.  So what’s the problem?

Well, apparently CareerBuilder wasn’t happy with the USA Today post-Super Bowl commercial poll (which is conducted by volunteers and readers) results, which put CB’s great ‘it’s a jungle out there’ spots at #16, so they called for a creative review of C-K’s handling of their account.  Baaaaad move, CB.  Because their spots didn’t sit well with people too stupid to get out of doing a market survey for USA Today, C-K was looking at the loss of a 60 million dollar contract.  So what did Cramer-Krasselt do? 

They said ‘screw you, CareerBuilder’ and dropped the account before the review.  Now that’s ballsy.  It’s also a telling indicator of a market where advertising groups no longer feel the need to kowtow to their client’s every capricious move and jittery board shuffles.  Of course, I’m not sold on the idea that a advertising group is more important than the clients they serve, but I also understand what it’s like to knuckle under the whims of those who don’t even understand the market they’re trying to serve.  So kudos to you, C-K.

To Organization:

It’s A Jungle Out There Filled with Monkeys

A few years ago CareerBuilder came to us – a distant third in its category, an unknown to most, and with so little money to invest, we seriously thought about putting them on a cash up front basis.

Our first work was ok. Then we had an insight into how to go from chasing the same job seekers as the monster in the category (Monster.com and everyone else in the job search industry was doing), to going after the much bigger opportunity of those frustrated in their jobs but needing a push to make a switch. It was a gold mine for CareerBuilder and our 360° thinking drove it. We made them famous. In less than 36 months, C-K helped put CareerBuilder and their management on the map.

We helped drive up traffic 43%. We grew their awareness by 64%. We helped drive their shares from the low 20’s to 40%; while driving Monster’s share from 50% down to 36%. We made them number one, even while being outspent three or four to one by Monster. We created a brilliant media strategy by concentrating most of their media dollars on Sunday and Monday, when people are most frustrated about starting another work week. We told them why they needed to be on the Super Bowl. It was not just because it is a big media event but because it was the right event at the right time – New Year’s resolution time: “I’ll diet, I’ll exercise, I’ll get a better job” etc. etc. We also created two of the biggest and hottest sites in Internet history. Monk-e-mail is the most visited site ever. Age-o-matic, at its launch, is more visited than Monk-e-mail was. Of course, we did the phenomenal “I work with a bunch of monkeys” series and “I work in a jungle” TV series. The former has won every major award there is. The latter has so far had some of the most spectacular publicity and results; it drove double the visits to CareerBuilder the Monday after the Super Bowl than did the previous campaign. Neilsen reported the largest site traffic increase (148%) of any Super Bowl advertiser; the 10,000 people Tivo polled voted it the sixth most popular; the commercials had the highest same day DVR playback (over 2.5 million) in the country; the monstrous content ladened YouTube had CareerBuilder as the 12th most visited commercials; Business Week called it the best ads, Sports Illustrated said it was the top five and of course we blew every brand out in terms of all the free publicity the campaign generated.

Overall, CareerBuilder’s revenue shot up from $100 + million to $700 + million. Number one in share. Number one in visits. Number one in listings. C-K contributed enormously to that – all in less than 36 months. A week and a half ago they told us our performance report card would be at 100%! We were so friggin’ happy!

There was only one place we didn’t score at the top: with the 238 people that comprised the USA Today Super Bowl poll (all located in Houston, TX and McLean, VA) who voted us 16th and 27th. (That means there were 41 ads below us.)

To our amazement, to our total astonishment, all that astounding business success was less important than one poll. They wanted us to make them famous; we did that in spades (brand awareness up by 64% - even Millward Brown, the venerable research firm said their brand building model couldn’t explain such incredible growth.) But the TV ads did not make the top 10 in the USA Today poll – a poll that everyone knows doesn’t mirror results (see the continuing Bud sales decline for one!) - they just told us they will do a creative review.

Wait a minute we said, what about the incredible growth that is going on, the shares, the revenue, the awareness, the two best internet sites ever, the massive buzz, etc, etc.

What about all of that? That’s huge.

“Yes,” they responded, “but you (C-K) didn’t get the top ten in the USA Today poll.” Hold on… we crushed every possible business metrics/barometer for success. Out of all the metrics and polls, it’s all about this one?You have to be (explative) kidding, right!? “No, that’s it. It’s because of the poll.” That was about the extent of the conversation.

C-Kers, we have to tell you – in our entire history, hell in the history of this crazy thing called advertising, I’m not sure there has ever been any thing as baseless or as unbelievable as that. It’s so ludicrious and they are so serious about that poll it’s almost funny.

Being floored would be an understatement. We can proudly take credit for their success. We certainly don’t think one poll builds a brand. We don’t think that our tremendous results should be defined or denigrated by a measurement that everyone knows is not related to business success. Most importantly of all we take great pride in being a very hot, highly successful agency. We consistently and dramatically help brands change the conversation in their category. We did it in spades for them. Despite all the great work and making them famous, their sole reason is, at best, unsophisticated, unbusiness like and from the standpoint of how to run a business, unprofessional. They may not be the kind of people we should do business with. Therefore we can’t justify any reason to participate in a review and have just notified them accordingly. The good news is that we are on a roll that looks even better than the incredible 2006 growth of 23%. We’re moving on!

So when people say that it’s a jungle out there filled with monkeys…

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Emerald Nuts and Robert Goulet is an odd mix but nutty so I guess it fits. What am I saying, anything with Robert G involved makes sense.



V.O: Around 3PM, your blood sugar and energy are low. Some say Robert Goulet appears and messes with your stuff. But the natural energy, in just one handful of Emerald Nuts, is enough to keep Robert Goulet away…Until tomorrow anyway.

Here is one from last year: Druids Love Emerald Nuts

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The usual cast of characters of late for Sierra Mist, make a showing during this years Super Bowl. I think the comb-over spot is the funniest of the two but both better than average.

Although these are better than average, overall, still disappointed with the creative power (or lack of) we expect from the Super Bowl ads.

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Rather than doing 6 individual posts for Bud Light, just going to put them all in one.

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With the waxing dominance of the Internet in people’s lives, many large companies are bravely forgoing the exorbitant “internet consultation” fees of Senator Ted Stevens and making a go of it alone.  Some companies, like and took to the web to have people submit their own ads to be shown during the SuperBowl.  Pizza Hut took a bit more involved tact, though, with their Cheesy Hunt SMS campaign.

Like the others, this campaign debuted during the SuperBowl (just before really)- you have to watch and find the “hidden word” - a word so hidden that my 80-year-old grandmother who has severe cataracts and mild dimentia had a little trouble finding it.  Jeez, Pizza Hut, it’s almost as if you want people to find the word!

One of the differences in the various consumer involved campaigns is the reward. Pizza Hut is taking the SMS campaign to a new level (beyond voting for your favorite American Idol or Top Chef) by giving away some good loot. Check it out over there.

Anyway, once you find the word you must navigate the series of tubes to get to their site and enter the word to win prizes.  Oh and you can order pizza.  I thought it was rather clever afterthought on their part that you could also order pizza after playing the contest. ; ) And all without Ted Stevens.  (Yeah, I know jokes on Ted Stevens are old news.. but “dumbassedness” is eternal.  You know that.)

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Here is one of the better spots from the Super Bowl, Snickers Kiss. Snickers has done some very creative - funny commercials in the last year or two and I hope they continue. 

Here are some other Snickers commercials we have posted on DHADM:

Snickers Toupee | Snickers Fire | Snickers Deer Hunting

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Garmin goes wild with a rock out, action adventure commercial that’s just a trip.

The Garmin holiday commercials are so catchy and perfectly done, which makes them hard to beat. This quirky concept is definitely a effort to go beyond a typical tech spot and push in a entirely opposite direction.

The Garmin web site highlights the characters of the commercial, odd stuff. Lower right hand corner ”The Battle Continues”. They have certainly put some effort behind this latest commercial.

I still love my Garmin, even walked around with it downtown a few weeks ago, navigating while on foot. So cool.

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