It's Freedom Baby, Yeah!

Marna's husband, Larry stopped by the studio with their grandson Ben today. What a precious little man!

After seeing my big two-wheeler in the parking lot, Larry mentioned to me what a great day it was to be out on the bike. He's right! It's 12 noon, sunny and 80 and the road is calling. In fact, it's screaming. As most of you are aware, motorcycling has become a passion of mine. In late June I did a 1250 mile trek around our beautiful state on my own, then in late July, Communicores Dean Saigeon joined me for an 8 day, 1900 mile trip on our pimped out Victory Motorcycles that took us to places like Mackinaw City, Tahquamenon Falls, Whitefish Point, Munising to see the breath-taking Pictured Rocks, all the way up to Copper Harbor. What an experience! You owe it to yourself to travel and enjoy this amazing State of Michigan. However, for those that haven't, a video of our travels is in the works. Dean brought along his new Kodak HD hand-held video camera and I strapped on a new Contour HD helmet cam and we documented the entire journey. Not only will you be awed by the scenery, captivated by our narrative and thrilled by our motorcycling expertise, but you will surely be impressed by how much Dean and I can eat and drink. Especially me.

Well, gotta go wash and wax my baby. It's a beautiful day to be out on the bike.

The Mound

You should have a blog!

Alright then, I WILL!


OK, now what?

I know, I'll complain about stuff. How about when an advertiser has something good going and decides to change it, just for the sake of change. Makes me crazy. Today, an agency producer sent me a rough cut of a new TV spot to look at and asked me to help them choose some new music for it. Thing is, it looked a lot like the old TV spot. Same format, graphic treatment, same pace, same announcer, you get the idea. I suggested that since they were sticking with the same look and feel they should consider keeping the track the same. Campaign equity, branding, message consistency, I used all the buzz words. "Nope, we're tired of that music". Not the end client, mind you. The agency is tired of that music. Perhaps that's because they've heard it about a hundred times for every one time the television audience has heard it. Honestly, I'm sick of it too, having heard it about a hundred times more than the folks at the agency have. But the TV audience is no where near as in tune with it as we are. In fact, when I asked one of the folks that works in my office about it, she said "I like that music, I know when I hear it, even if I'm in the other room that it's a (insert client/product name here) spot".

But why should I care? After all, a music drop is a music drop, right? I get paid the same either way, right? Nope, still makes me crazy.

That felt really good. I think I like this blogging thing.

The Mound