Hope the folks at ADCO are happy to see “Famously Hot” everywhere. Good work that I think will pay dividends for years to come. Merry Merry!

Yes, we are — happy, that is. And it’s great to know that the mayor joins us in celebrating the success of Famously Hot!

The University of South Carolina just put out this release:

Up in smoke: Research shows graphic images can deter smokers

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but its worth might just be measurable in terms of lives, according to research by a University of South Carolina public health professor.

That’s because visual imagery on cigarette packages deters smoking, and the more graphic they are, the better the results, said Jim Thrasher, assistant professor in the Arnold School of Public Health Department of Health Promotion, Education and Behavior.

“Tobacco use continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and graphic health warnings are among the most cost-effective interventions that exist,” Thrasher said….

Of course, there’s graphic, and then there’s graphic.

The above image was the winner of a contest in California:

The challenge was to create a anti smoking ad powerful enough to turn people off cigarettes without resorting to the gruesome imagery so prevalent in anti-smoking campaigns. With the help of a couple of dancers, an up-for-anything ad agency and hundreds of yards of Lycra, Los Angeles photographer Ricardo Marenco did just that.

“I wanted to evoke a sea of people trapped inside their addiction,” says Marenco, who created the shot for the California Department of Public Health’s billboard and print campaign. To achieve his desired effect, he photographed the dancers individually inside 7-foot-tall Lycra cigarettes. Then he digitally overlaid embers and smoke from real cigarettes on the figures. The ads ran without any words, only a helpline number — the image said it all.

But apparently, you have to be really gross for some people. Below is one of the images that came with the USC release. Why is it in Spanish (“garganta” means “throat”)? Probably because of this part of the release:

As a result of his work with colleagues from Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, Mexico’s Minister of Health adopted their recommendations for which pictorial warnings to put on cigarette packages, which began circulating in September.

Thrasher, who has a joint research and faculty appointment with Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, is also assessing what labels are the most convincing for low socioeconomic status groups…

We much appreciate the two shout-outs we got from Kelly Barbrey Wednesday at the Hospitality Hotspotters meeting, giving us credit for helping the community come up with the “Famously Hot” campaign.

We’ve been greatly gratified by the wide acceptance the campaign has achieved, from social media to major local events to common, everyday conversation in the Columbia area.

But even we were not quite prepared for this photo that Kelly flashed on the screen at the gathering. It was taken at Williams-Brice Stadium during the USC-Georgia last year.

So now we have the key bodypainters demographic on board. Wow. We’ve achieved acceptance with every group now.

We’ve never felt validated with such … enthusiasm… before.

And now we can celebrate the wide acceptance of the campaign (which was created by guess who) at the official Famously Hot New Year’s Eve party:

Get excited because this New Year’s Eve, the biggest, most exciting event in the Southeast is the Famously Hot New Year celebration on South Carolina’s Main Street in the heart of Columbia, South Carolina. This is not your grandmother’s family get-together, unless of course, your family likes to party. With beer, wine, and champagne vendors, an ESPN Zone playing the college bowl games, a Palmetto Tree and Crescent moon display during the midnight countdown, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, George Clinton, and his group the Parliament Funkadelic headlining, this is a one-of-a-kind celebration you will not want to miss. Plus it’s FREE!

See you on Main Street in 19 days…

On Monday, the Riley Institute’s Diversity Leaders Initiative class in Charleston contemplated the above, short-lived, Intel print ad. The class is filled with experienced South Carolinians who have seen a lot, but their minds were fairly boggled by this.

See if you can find, without Googling the controversy, how many ways the ad is racially offensive.

No, there’s no right answer, but ADCO’s Brad Warthen, a participant in the class, came up with three. With more time, perhaps he’d have come with more.

Intel withdrew the ad — which appeared in a Dell catalog — and apologized. Not surprising. What is surprising is that this thing ever actually found its way into print.

Check out this hilarious depiction of a traditional agency trying to put out its first Tweet.

If you’ve worked at an agency — any agency other than this one, of course — this may seem familiar.

By the way, that account now has a grand total of 10 Tweets. All of them very well thought-out, of course.

You probably have, since this one has already been watched 1,644,717 times. But in case you haven’t, do watch.

And then watch some of the other “RSA Animate” vids.

Wonderful, thought-provoking content presented in a highly engaging, multimedia format. Can’t beat that.

Check it out.

Some of the conversation at the start of this morning’s traffic meeting was about the Super Bowl ads. I missed part of the exchange on account of going down the hall to get more coffee, but I also felt a bit left out since, well, I didn’t see watch the whole game. In fact, all I did was record part of it (I didn’t think to activate the DVR until long after it started), and occasionally flip back to it in hopes of catching a commercial.

Not having seen them all, though, I felt unqualified to say anything at the meeting about which was the best, or anything like that. I was able to chime in when someone mentioned the beaver one (below). That was awesome. I called my wife into the room and replayed it for her.

So, since I don’t have time to sit here this morning and watch all of these… which did you think was the best, and why? What should I go find and watch? What would be worth my time? Or rather, ADCO’s time, since that’s what I’d be using.

– Brad Warthen

I keep hearing Chevy’s tagline for promoting the new Volt on the radio:

“It’s more car than electric”

And every time, I am deeply underwhelmed with GM’s lack of enthusiasm for its new product.

What ad wizard decided to say, in effect, “We know you don’t want an electric car any more than we want to make one for you. So rest assured, this is nothing cutting-edge, it’s way more like the sucky cars we’ve made in the past.”

While others out there get the idea that Americans (and the rest of the world; after all, it is a global economy) kind of like something new, something better — take Steve Jobs, who totally get that people want something better than what they’re used to, something original and even exciting, something that enables them to do things they couldn’t do in the past — GM wants to make sure you don’t think they have any such notions.

I thought GM got the “thanks, America” thing right. But they’ve got this wrong. And I’m not alone. Here’s another view on it:

The Chevrolet brand name is a major problem. Chevrolet stands out in the mind as a classic American brand. In its heyday, they built big steel cars that looked great and endlessly chugged gasoline. In fact, not even two years ago Chevy was running an awesome billboard campaign to reinforce this perception for a powerful and classically American car. Yet now the consumer is supposed to associate Chevy with a small car that can sip gas ever so slightly and still be great.

I doubt that that will happen, especially with the Volt’s current positioning strategy: “More Car Than Electric.” That positioning hardly screams out “Chevy is a small, fuel-efficient car.” Instead, Chevy is attempting the impossible task of fighting deep-rooted perceptions, specifically that small (and electric) cars are not powerful. For consumers, small and powerful are conflicting qualities in a car. Any consumer making judgments on vehicle horsepower or toughness will make a strong determination without even hearing so much as the sound of an engine. A simple eyeball test will tell them that a Chevy Volt is not “more car” than the significantly larger vehicle it’s parked next to. Trying to convince the American consumers otherwise is an exercise in futility.

And yet another one:

I have been waiting for the Volt since it was announced in January 2007. From what I have been able to read through October 2010, all of GM’s buzz about the Volt has been positive. So I was flabbergasted and deeply annoyed that GM should choose the slogan, “It’s more car than electric”, as their lead advertising catch-phrase. What a negative way to advertise GM’s outstanding engineering achievement!

One university student who knows my Volt advocacy — I wear a Volt tee-shirt during the summer — has asked me, “Is GM apologizing for this car?” Another asked, “Why would anyone want to buy it a Volt if GM is ashamed of the engineering that makes this car both unique and ecologically appealing?” I can’t answer them because this phrase is so out of character for the group that made this car and for potential customers like myself who have been cheering on GM since January 2007. Did this phrase arise from a focus group packed with folks who’d rather be driving a Cobalt or a Cruze?

Yeah, I get it that they’re thinking an electric car won’t have the range, or the pickup, that their 2000 Buick Regal with the supercharger has. But it completely ignores that people likely to buy an electric car are looking for something completely different, something that gets them from point A to point B more efficiently, cheaper and without the harm to the planet and national security. People like that — or at least, like me — don’t even care if that something is a “car.” We actively, ardently want something different.

This approach is made even more ironic, sounds even more tone-deaf, because I hear it during the sponsor breaks on NPR news shows. Like you’ve got to apologize to that audience for making a break with the internal combustion engine. What ARE these people thinking?

But GM doesn’t get the likely customer for an electric car. And I wonder whether it ever will.

— Brad Warthen

They’re changing the logo. I didn’t like the sound of that when I first saw the headline of the release a colleague had shared. Now that I’ve seen the new logo, I like it less.

How does it strike you? I think it looks naked. The poor siren is suspended in space, unanchored. She looks insecure. And now that it’s monochromatic, now that the “siren” is green and there’s no black to offset it, the whole lacks contrast, definition and character. Also, removing the words suggests a surrender to a post-literate world — and while I may have this wrong, I would have said that Starbucks’ constituency would tend to be more literate than the general population.

Moreover, it’s an unnecessary break with tradition, which on principle I abhor. (I’m not much on show tunes, but to the extent that I have a favorite, it’s “Tradition” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” The rest of the play, in which Tevye is forced to accept successively more jarring breaks with tradition, I like less.) It’s insupportable, as the original Darcy would have said. And then, when I read the reasoning — that it’s intended “to move the Seattle, Washington-based company beyond coffee“ – I was nothing short of appalled.Beyond coffee? That’s like the church moving “beyond God” (which you might say some churches have done, but let’s not get off on a theological digression).

You ask me, I say if you must change, go back to the original brown logo (except that it had “and Tea,” which also distracted from the point). But, well, they didn’t ask me…

– Brad Warthen