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main page | Monthly archives | Forward to May 2014
April 30 2014
I have two today around a theme of invention. The first, from BBC Future, looks back at past failures and how they affected – or were affected
by – the world they were part of. The other, from MarkLives.com (South Africa), looks ahead, to millennials’ dreams for the future:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
Inventing and reinventing is part of creating great advertising. Plus, it’s fun to look at past disasters and ponder the alternative futures that may have emerged from them.
Some of the bad inventions were just plain bad (centrifugal baby extractor table, I’m looking at you), without the benefit of being a step toward something better. Other failures were mere mistakes, like the one that crashed the Mars Climate Orbiter. But still others contain marketing lessons. The failure of the low-cost baby incubator, for instance, demonstrates the global power of mass media to drive prejudicial expectations that may preclude innovation. And the continued failure of personal transportation devices to go mainstream could demonstrate our dependence on cars or our inability to top the bicycle. Or both.
As for future businesses improving society as a primary function, I think even the robber barons of the last gilded age could argue that they improved society. After all, they provided training and jobs for vast numbers of blue collar and white collar employees, they funded technological innovation and educational institutions, they inspired hard work with their rags-to-riches mythos, and at their worst they spurred legislation to protect the public good. I also noticed that by “society,” many millennials apparently meant “themselves,” desiring as business focus points, not sustainability or greater global collaboration, but inflation and unemployment.
But there’s a lot of hope, and the great thing is that advertising can play a key role as a global game-changer. It’s nice to see others saying what
I've said for years: it’s a great time to be in advertising. And, it’ll keep getting better.
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April 28 2014
I’m kicking off the workweek with two articles, both loosely related to Sunday’s entry about the economic divide and opportunities for advertising
to push beyond the experiences of glass-towered creatives. The first is an experiment in empathy, in which a person can occupy, through virtual reality technology,
the body of another. Here’s the story, from BBC News Future:
Advertising copywriter blog link
I think this is fascinating. For most of us, empathy is usually a purely intellectual exercise in speculative emoting. This technology can actually broaden an individual’s life experience, enhancing one’s mental picture with a limited set of personal-by-proxy observations.
Although practical applications for such devices will likely focus on training and therapies, I can’t help but be curious about the possibilities for using mindset-altering experiences to enhance innovation.
Next up is this alarmist article about shock tactics in branding and advertising, from The Guardian (UK):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Well, this may be what happens when advertising creatives set their sights on standing out from the media environment or the competitive environment instead of the socioeconomic environment: you have to shout louder to be heard less. And the reason is simple: lack of actual relevance to the consumer. Which, in turn, means that shock doesn’t help the message; it simply adds to the noise.
On the other hand, shock tactics may simply be another trend. One that, like most trends picked up by the mainstream press, is already on its way out.
I think, too, a line needs to be drawn between surprise and shock.
A surprise opening is instantly intriguing as much for what it conceals as for what it reveals. One wants to learn more. In contrast, shock throws everything into the spotlight immediately; it’s instantly and completely understood, and that’s its weakness. There’s nowhere to go.
A surprise payoff is one of the hardest things to pull off in ad copy, requiring as it does that someone is actually paying close enough attention to anticipate
an outcome. A little tingle of surprise as a payoff is a wonderful thing. And, a little stab of shock at that point could move mountains.
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April 27 2014
I read an Associated Press interview with French economist Thomas Piketty (Capital in the 21st Century) in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune
(CA), and wanted to point to it, along with an accompanying article. Unfortunately, my access to the U-T’s online content was blocked by a permanent,
uncloseable pop-up ad, ironically for luxury vacations on Holland America Cruises. So I tracked down the AP interview straight from the source, and the short
article, to my snarky delight, from the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
I mention this rather downcast economic best-seller not to agitate for political change, but to urge greater empathy in my own tiny world of advertising creative. Whether or not one agrees with Piketty’s proposed economic solutions, the fact remains that the vast majority of American consumers face problems far greater than those reflected in the vast majority of ads and commercials. That ad disparity points toward an increasing disconnect between consumers and brands.
Where once the American middle class was comfortable and progressive, it’s now fearful and backsliding. And that, more than the competitive environment, is the background from which advertising needs to stand out and differentiate. The creative challenge is bigger now than it was during the years of the creative revolution.
Which is cool, because it could and should incite another creative revolution. Remember, it’ll be the lazy minds who embrace marketing to a second
gilded age, if there is one. The activists, the evangelists, the rattlers of comfortable cages – they will be the ones changing the landscape of
the marketplace, and to them the future belongs.
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April 24 2014
I love stuff like this. 18 prime examples of Andy Warhol’s original, very early digital art was recently recovered from disks from 1985. Here’s the
story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
It’s worth noting that Apple’s Mac, which famously came out in 1984, couldn’t be used to create digital art on this level and wouldn’t be for many more years; Commodore’s Amiga, on the other hand, was a creative workstation before the term existed. It combined capabilities from photo editing and 3D rendering to music and video, and pitched it to the home user. It would take a long time before another machine with equivalent creative processing power was available to the general public.
It’s also worth noting that Warhol created the artworks for Commodore specifically to promote the Amiga. There again, the commercial tie-up was sound and even forward-thinking.
The marketing problem, though, was that we were not a world of Andy Warhols. Nor, apparently, did we aspire to be. What we wanted in a home computer in 1985 wasn’t a tool for individual expression. In fact, we wanted – indeed, still want – the opposite of individuality: we wanted compatibility. In 1985, that meant best-selling games, WordStar, and Lotus 1-2-3. As for using the computer commercially to create and produce art, that market didn’t exist and Commodore didn’t pitch it that way.
In innovation, as in marketing, timing is everything, and a fast, hard follow almost always trumps a weak lead.
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April 22 2014
Here’s an easy way to spend a few minutes with Chuck Porter of CP+B, courtesy The Drum (UK):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Interestingly, you may find it quicker to read the text to glean the key points, rather than sitting through the video and experiencing a talking head, inadvertent proof of the power of compelling words on a page over video if the video brings nothing more to the table.
Porter says nothing earthshattering, but maybe if enough top dogs repeat the basics it will sink in at last and advertising in general will gain in relevance, capability, and power. Until then, though, it’s nice to have a secret weapon in old-school empathy and discipline.
Being something of a strategy geek among creatives, I was delighted to hear that Porter had no long-term strategic plan besides doing great work one day at a time.
That sounds like a great plan!
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April 21 2014
I have two today about how advertising and branding can drive social change. The first, from The Drum (UK) focuses on
perceptions of nations, while the second, from The Guardian (UK), addresses itself to sustainability issues:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
Key snip from the first article, from the late, great Wally Olins, a pioneer of modern branding practices: “...brands cannot be created from nothing. Instead, they must reflect truths about the subject.”
The mistake most brand development people make, is creating a brand that reflects the aspirations of the corporate marketing people, instead of looking deeper, working harder, and drawing out – and expressing – the best of what the brand truly stands for to its customers.
A brand can’t be aspirational; it must be affirmational. It must affirm a belief that’s already held, or it’s just fluff and puffery.
The second article looks at advertising as a potential prompter for improved sustainability initiatives in client companies. Advertising has long been a force for good in many areas, so there’s nothing new about using the power of advertising to kick-start social change. But this new vision places the agency in a deeper collaborative partnership role than is traditional, which is far more exciting than yet another green-issue ad campaign.
Clients aren’t always ready for such a relationship, and even when they say they are they often aren’t. But advertising is all about positioning change as a good thing, whether it’s switching brands of toothpaste or inviting ad agency insights as part of the internal improvement process.
Look: how much consumerism can we excel at? Surely there’s an alternate path that will let us stretch our legs and flex creative muscles in unaccustomed
directions. And that can only be good for us, and our work, and, perhaps, the world.
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April 20 2014
Just a weekend quickie to point out this article from BBC News Magazine on “invented tradition” and how one Indian hotelier may have created a
colorfully old-world festival on the Ganges expressly to attract tourists:
Advertising copywriter blog link
The invented tradition seems to be a tradition itself, albeit an authentic one. In advertising, there’s the Puppy Bowl, of course. And here in San Diego, retailers and restauranteurs make a bigger deal out of Cinco de Mayo than do most Mexicans. After all, there are enchiladas and cervesas to be sold. And our Christmas-themed Parade of Lights on San Diego Bay, started around 1970, conveniently routes itself for maximum viewing from all our bayfront hotels and tourist attractions from Shelter Island to Marina Park and back to Coronado.
Hey, 1970 was 44 years ago. That may make our Parade of Lights more than twice as ancient a ritual as the Indian festival at Varanasi. And for most
residents of San Diego, 1970 is practically prehistoric.
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April 18 2014
Here’s a look at how moviemakers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to break the fourth wall and directly engage audiences, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
This shows that audience engagement is an old problem, and 1950s filmmakers were quite innovative in their thinking even if the technology at their disposal was rudimentary. What’s cool, is that only a handful of these ideas – 3D, sing-along jingles, flashpolls, and audience-guided storylines – have been tried by advertisers. The world of cinema, especially alternative, art-house works, may be a rich vein of good stuff to mine. (Speaking of which, why hasn’t Dodge done anything with Vanishing Point as a cultural touchstone? Surely it’s been thought of; I’ve been waiting for a referential ad since the Challenger came out.)
I think it would be interesting to steal another immersive cinematic idea and work it into an ad concept. The obvious play, of course, is integrating the nearly omnipresent second-screen device into the primary screen ad experience, but I’m thinking of something beyond that.
Granted, one advantage movies have over ads is that the audience pays its money in advance with the expectation of watching attentively. With advertising, the money is paid at the end, assuming the ad actually sells anything. And ads have to compete for attention. So it’s a fair question to ask whether adding an immersive layer, assuming it’s relevant, would make an ad stand out or make it recede into noise.
And my answer is that it will depend entirely on the creative.
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April 17 2014
Neuroscientists have turned up more evidence that yes, artists are wired differently than non-artists. Here’s the story, from BBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
It was a small study, comparing brain scans of 21 art students with those of 23 non-artists. But the scans revealed that the artists had significantly more matter in parts of the brain thought to be associated with visualization and fine motor control.
I wonder what might be found examining the neural differences between musicians and non-musicians or writers and non-writers. I suppose one would expect to find brain differences in areas associated with those skills.
All of which seems to me to make the case for a blended view of practice and innate talent. I think what happens is that there’s a spark of innate ability that gets encouraged and nourished in early childhood and educated and challenged later. With more practice comes more skill, with more skill comes more success, with more success comes more enticement to practice. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
I believe, though, that that creative spark is part of everyone. That’s why in a group I prefer to do more listening and note-taking than talking. My own creative monologue, I can turn on any time. But I never know what great ideas I’ll be able to lift from others.
After all, to revisit yesterday’s topic, as TS Eliot said, “Immature poets imitiate; mature poets steal.”
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April 16 2014
Taco Bell’s latest ads using actual Ronald McDonalds seems to be garnering a lot of attention, at least some of it based on its alleged recycling of a
previously used concept. Here’s the story, from BusinessWeek:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Although it’s tempting to get possessive about ideas, the reality is it’s all been done before. The best you can strive for is a fresh take on the basic idea. And the same-name ad concept has been done a bazillion times, and will be done a bazillion times, in all sorts of different ways.
I was working at an ad agency in Orange County in the mid-80s when I developed my own version of that idea, for First American Title Insurance. The campaign featured branch office locations in smallish American towns that shared names with major international cities. From that, you already know one of the headlines. We can say it together: “We Love Paris in the Springtime.” Yup. Paris, Kentucky and Paris, Texas.
Thing is, another ad ran just a few months after our “Paris” ad broke. It was a larger size and had a much larger mainstream media presence. And it featured a Perris, not a Paris. So its headline was “We Love Perris in the Springtime.” Yup.
We begrudged that interloper campaign its higher budget and broader reach, despite the fact that it was in a completely different category. And we consoled ourselves with the notion that we’d thought of the concept first. But really, we hadn’t; no one can. I think sometimes a particular idea is just in the air, like pollen, and it finds fertile ground in multiple places. That’s why you'll often see similar ad ideas popping up in similar ways. Put enough of them together, and it’s a trend.
I think it’s a sign of a tyro to be possessive about ideas. Ideas are easy – they’re everywhere. But executing those ideas with relevance and passion and inventiveness, that’s where the real work – and fun – begins.
Anyways, our campaign for First American outlasted that other campaign. It ran through the late 80s and into the 90s, and featured many terrific all-American town and cities. Like Moscow. Rome. London. Milan. Athens. Versailles. Researching the towns in the pre-Internet days took phone calls to chambers of commerce, civic groups, and local newspapers. Looking back, I’d say interviewing proud locals and shining a spotlight onto some lovely places were two of the most fun parts of the job.
In advertising, as in life, enjoy the journey. Because that’s the part that will always be your own.
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April 14 2014
As the TV soap opera Mad Men winds to an end, many people in advertising are breathing sighs of relief. Among them are many original 1960s-era advertising
professionals. Here are two stories about the real McCoys, one from WTOP (Washington, DC) and the other a more personal story from The Atlantic:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
I won’t miss Mad Men. I eagerly watched the first episode, and sat through the second and, I think, the third, with declining hopes before I switched it off for good. It wasn’t about advertising at all; it was some cockamamie screenwriter’s fantasy of advertising, every bit as removed from the actual craft as Bewitched, and in almost exactly the same ways. I imagine that’s also how working police detectives view most TV detective dramas. The pathetic thing is that there are some who find the fictional little world of Mad Men appealing.
In his book Damn Good Advice (for people with talent), George Lois said, “The more I think about Mad Men, the more I take the show as a personal insult.” And he was there. As was Jerry Della Femina, who talks about real agency life in the throes of the creative revolution in his own terrific book, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.
Yeah, it’s just a TV show. But the 1960s were a time of huge social revolution. Seismic shifts were taking place in people’s perceptions of gender, race, society, and governance. Moreover, the realities were changing too, albeit slowly. There were massive innovations in media technology and our understanding of how media connects people. What happened in advertising in the 1960s wasn’t just a creative revolution. It was a research revolution, a service revolution, an economic revolution, and a customer relationship revolution, all wadded up together.
Add to that the wonderfully crazy things that happen in a business where reinvention is the order of the day, and it’s a lot of exciting material to leave
out of a TV show.
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April 13 2014
Just a quickie to comment on this article from The Tennessean comparing the power of truth to creativity in advertising:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Truth is at the very foundation of creative advertising. Any crook can lie, but lying is a loser’s game. It takes inventiveness and heart to tell the truth in a way that connects with people, grabs their attention, and moves them to take action.
We talk about the need for authenticity. What is authenticity but another word for truth?
The idea that truth is a powerful sales tool is as old as advertising itself; McCann-Erickson trademarked its motto “Truth Well Told” in 1912. That’s 102 years ago.
There’s a reason the classics are classics.
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April 10 2014
This short video, from BBC News’ Picture This, has some terrific insights from New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff on the nature of humor
and what makes something funny:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Like cartoons, ads use visuals and words to instantly evoke meanings that reach out and engage the viewer. Also like cartoons, particularly those of New Yorker caliber, ads can provoke outrageous reactions (one of which, lest we forget, is brand loyalty).
Humor, says Mankoff, is “always the right amount of wrong,” and “conflict is at the heart of humor.” The same elements are part of all effective
advertising, humorous or not: enough wrong to grab attention and enough conflict to make a person care enough to watch the whole commercial or read the whole
ad. Cool stuff!
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April 9 2014
I have competing views on creativity, one with cautions and the other a plea for more of it. The former comes from Business2Community.com, and the latter
from ClickZ (NY):
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
Most of the arguments against creativity strike me as a real stretch, and examples of poor marketing management if anything. For instance, I’ve never known a creative team to begin concepting without a strategic brief in hand. And, I’ve never known a creative director or even an account executive to play mix-n-match with ad campaign concepts. Most clients, too, are savvy enough to know better, and in the very rare cases they aren’t, the CD and the AE intercept and redirect, quickly and decisively.
As for “unbridled creativity” coming up with wildly attractive but fundamentally unusable ideas, that happens all the time. As I said yesterday, it’s what we do. Come on, if at least some of your concepts aren’t illegal or dirty or inappropriate or otherwise untouchable, you’re not having much as much fun as you should have, which means you’re not doing as good work as you could be. They’re good for laughs, those untouchables, and they stretch your brains by challenging norms. Sometimes, there’s a grain of something good in them to be teased out, but usually they stay on the pad. The thing is, only uncreative people get stuck on an idea.
It’s the same thing only different with mobile. As Marshall McLuhan said 47 years ago, “Our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old” (The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, still absolutely required viewing/reading for anyone in advertising, along with the more academic Understanding Media). The problem is, we haven’t quite figured out how to really use this new channel, so we tend to fall back on the same old-media techniques. And the more those techniques are used, the more they become embedded as part of the new model.
So, while I agree that what’s needed is more unbridled creativity, I think it needs to start swinging earlier in the process, at the strategic level.
Because that’s where you can really reinvent what good creative is.
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April 8 2014
Here’s a staggering guesstimate of the marketing value to Samsung of Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar night selfie, from The Hollywood Reporter
(Los Angeles, CA):
Advertising copywriter blog link
The numbers say 43 million viewers saw the selfie as part of the televised Oscar night ceremonies. An additional 37 million saw it on Twitter. And untold more millions have heard of it, discussed it, dismissed it, and parodied it in the weeks since.
All of which makes that $800 million to $1 billion valuation seem fairly reasonable, even considering that it comes from the CEO of the firm that engineered the product placement and the scenario around its use on-screen.
But the part that really made it work was the PR machine that made sure that the shot was identified, not with Ellen DeGeneres, not with the Samsung operative taking the photo, not with the Oscars, but with advertiser Samsung. That was the link that made it work as a piece of marketing. And it’s also the link that’s providing fuel for the inevitable backlash, as evidenced by growing outrage over another Samsung-sponsored selfie featuring a celebrity under contract to Samsung and President Obama.
Did that latter one cross the line? Yes, I think it did. But then, that’s what great creative does. Yes, the success of the first may have led to the outing of the second and perhaps eventually to legislation regulating the whole shebang. Yeah, well, when you break rules, more rules tend to get created. Because that’s what people who want to moderate creativity – which is to say, the vast majority of people, really – that’s what they do.
Meanwhile, we’ll keep coming up with fresh ways to market. One step ahead of the rulemakers. Why? Because that’s what we do.
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April 7 2014
Ads using long copy are pretty rare these days. Here’s an interesting look at why that may be so, with examples of great long copy ads from around the
world, from BestMediaInfo.com (India):
Advertising copywriter blog link
I agree with Josy Paul that long copy is alive and well in other media. After all, what is a website but very long copy broken up into interactive chunks to consumed according to the needs and whims of the reader? Most blog posts run quite a bit longer than the typical print ad. Short-form branded films may be brief next to feature-length films, but next to :15 and :30 TV commercials they offer a huge expanse of space and time. Even social media is essentially conversation – and copy – that goes on and on.
That said, long copy does seem to be on the decline in print, its mother medium. Indeed, in today’s ad campaigns, print seems to be relegated to a supporting role, which lends itself to short copy and references or direct links to long copy tools like websites and videos.
However, I think the very fact that long copy is scarcely used in print means that it’s also a way to stand out. Plus, in most major print media, the
long copy format has a more-native look and feel. Those are two reasons why long copy will probably swing back into vogue. Shortly.
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April 4 2014
Much is said about the price of failure. But what’s the value of failure? Here’s one answer, from Fast Company:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Fear of failure can be abbreviated to the single word fear. Period. And, while fearless ideas often end up in the weeds, they equally often soar to the stars. There’s no middle ground for fearless.
I question the value, though, of constant postmortems. Here’s the ideal postmortem: it’s dead. Or, conversely, it flew. Two words. Maybe three if you throw in a heartfelt expletive. And they tell you all you need to know about that concept.
Look: in the beginning there was a lot to be learned from failure. Don’t eat that plant. That animal will kill you. Important, life-saving stuff.
Today, having cracked the what-to-not-eat thing, we’re on to far more-complex challenges, many of our own making. So what lessons of lasting value can you draw from a marketing failure? Very little. If anything. Because that exact challenge in that exact market situation in that exact category against that exact background – all those stars won’t align again. And if they by chance do, there will be new tools, new channels, better ways to interpret data.
Now me, I’m a big believer in data and analysis and studying history. I find them tremendously helpful in moving forward. But, once a moment is past, it lives in the past. And deploying that level of brainpower to extract dubious lessons from yesterday’s problems seems an awful waste of today.
The last word goes to George Lois, a great ad guy who’s had more success than most of us. Here’s what he says about failures: “Onwards and upwards,
and never give your failures a second thought.”
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April 3 2014
I have two today about packaging, and how package design is used to achieve two very different outcomes. The first, about UK cigarette packaging being stripped
of its branding, is from BBC News. The second, about how sweetened cereal makers use their box fronts to engage children, comes from NBC News:
Advertising copywriter blog link
Advertising copywriter blog link
With the cigarette packaging, the government’s objective is to discourage use, with graphics aimed at the individual purchaser; with the cereal packaging, the maker’s objective is to attract and engage not the buyer but the buyer’s children.
A branded cigarette packaging ban has already been in place in Australia for a couple years, but it was rolled out with a tax increase so it’s hard to isolate one factor from another, plus (so it’s said) it’s too early to tell if there’s been any change in behavior. The fact that, two years on, there are no announcements trumpeting a reduction in cigarette consumption indicates to me that the effect has been negligible.
I think a lot of this is misguided from the get-go. They’re stop-smoking efforts driven by non-smokers; there’s an empathy gap right there. The campaign runners just don’t get it.
I don’t either, being a lifelong non-smoker. But in my lifetime, smoking has definitely gone from being a majority social activity to being a minority one. That’s what education and consistent messaging and pester power have done. What’s left though, the remaining smokers, are those resistant to such an approach. So it’s obvious to me as a marketer that more of the same won’t make a dent.
What’s needed is a fresh approach. I don’t know what that is, not being a smoker, but, being a marketer, I think the place to start is by talking with the youngest generation of smokers to reevaluate smoking’s underlying appeal. (And my gut feeling says a conscious rejection of sociocultural norms is probably a significant part of the mix, which is why social pressure doesn’t and won’t work.) Once you know what you're dealing with, only then can you map out a marketing strategy with any hope of success.
Now, as to the faces on cereal boxes “looking” at child-eye level. You can download the Cornell paper here, and it’s worth a read.
Although there is an optimal viewing angle for maximum illustrated eye contact, if you move around, you’ll find that most eyes follow you no matter where you are. In fact, in the otherwise pointless video, one of the co-hosts actually makes that observation without connecting it any further to the story. The Trix box test tested eye contact vs. no eye contact in a lab setting, and used college students as subjects – so while it doesn’t validate the idea of using eye angle to target kids in-store, it adds ammunition to the argument that illustrated eye contact matters in marketing materials.
Anyways, if kids aren’t exposed to advertising messages promoting the products, they won’t start viewing those products as desirable, and if their attempts to pester parents fall flat, they will stop pestering. And, contrary to “multiple studies,” in my experience very small children can be taught that product packaging does not reflect reality; I know because I made it into a silly game with my own kids (go to the the Ad Blog November 2003 and scroll down to the 13th). But they have to be taught.
For more about ads and marketing aimed at children, see February 26 2014, February 24 2014, August 29 2012, August 22 2012,
August 1 2012, June 4 2012, July 14 2011,
June 28 2011, March 1 2011, December 8 2010, June 3 2010, December 7 2009, October 24 2009, July 8 2009,
December 17 2008, August 4 2008, July 30 2008, November 13 2007, October 30
2007, October 23 2007, October 18 2007, March 19 2007, February 28 2007, January 15 and 31 2007, December 19 2006,
November 14, 17 and 20 2006, October 2, 3 and 27 2006, June 11 and 12 2006, April 4 2006, January 20
2006, November 22 and 30 2005, October 20 2005,
June 27 2005, April 14 and 27 2005, March
16 17 and 24 2005, February 17 and 28 2005, December 22 2004, November 15
and 16 2004, June 5 and 7 2004, December 5 2003, November 13 and 21 2003, May 6 2003,
and April 16 2003. For entries before October 2007, you have to scroll down to the appropriate entry date.
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Backwards in time to March 2014
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John Kuraoka, freelance advertising copywriter
6877 Barker Way
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