CREATE AND CONNECT

We are moving the Karsh & Hagan blog to Tumblr, which makes it easy to post our sometimes pithy sayings, often fun links and occasionally charming photography. Please check out Karsh & Hagan Connect.

The Egotist has a long post about the Denver market on AgencySpy today:

Karsh\Hagan, previously owned by The Integer Group and Omnicom, was sold back to former owner and agency head Pocky Marranzino. For reasons unknown, the deal has taken place under the radar and without much press.

AdPulp continued:

Interestingly, the agency’s site says it’s part of the TBWA \ Global Creative Community. So, the site’s either out of date, or they still have a relationship of some sort with Omnicom.

Revisions to karsh.com are in the works. Stay tuned.

How did we manage to leave print production manager Shirley Richter off of the credits for our Denver 50 winner? Especially considering one of the main components of the campaign was a book? Sheesh. Thanks for all your hard work, Shirley!

Our work for the Kappa Alpha Order was named one of the 50 best branding ideas of 2008 by the New Denver Ad Club. Check out the website, brasstacks101.com.

It’s almost time for turkey and you know what that means. No, not still having to sit at the kids table during dinner even though you’ve graduated college. I’m talking about pardons. You know, the gift that keeps on… well, actually, it’s kinda just a gift. Sarah Palin was pardoning some turkeys up in Alaska recently. And President Bush has been handing them out to real people all across the country. So in the spirit of the season, we here at Karsh\Hagan would like to grant you the power of the pardon as well. But there’s a catch: it has to be an advertising pardon. You can pardon yourself, for that sick dog of an idea you turned in last week that the client ran with. Or pardon your client. Or your boss. Maybe even a whole agency. Or just an ad that’s gotten a bad rap. Whatever or whomever you choose to pardon, just let us know below in the comments.

Some of us at Karsh\Hagan spent last weekend in Tampa, shooting a TV spot for Pinnacle Bank. See the photos on Flickr.

This morning Karsh\Hagan launched HearYourPeers.com, a new microsite for TD AMERITRADE Institutional. Here’s some more of our recent digital work.

• Brasstacks101.com - A microsite for KA
• DenverBlueBear.com - A video game for DMCVB
• PinnBank.com - A website for Pinnacle Bank
• 2020TaxResolution.com - A website for 20/20

Each of these efforts was part of an integrated campaign, backed up by some combination of print, poster, email, TV, direct mail, mobile, and in one case a book.

Benjamin Palmer, in AdWeek, via AdPulp and the Egotist:

We review people’s portfolios here quite often and one thing that stands out is how few advertising copywriters actually blog. It’s really amazing. An entire copywriting Web site might consist of 500 words. What’s needed now are copywriters who not just write entire Web sites, but actively blog. For creatives, maybe look for someone who has made a popular YouTube hit on his or her own, or who shares his or her photos on Flickr.

Couldn’t help but notice how well that defines the way Karsh\Hagan has rebuilt it’s creative department over the past year. We’ve hired integrated creatives who, as Palmer writes, possess a “genuine personal motivation to be part of the current social fabric.” Ali blogs. Kerry has a YouTube channel. Peter has a blog and a YouTube channel. Sean’s on Twitter. Matt creates so much content he had to aggregate it on Friendfeed. (In fact, he’s even blogged about Palmer.) And so on and on and on. And it should go without saying that everyone in the room has a personal site and is a member of at least one or two social networks such as Facebook.

It’s not that there’s no role for TV or that a great print ad is any less great. It’s that creatives need to be able to speak the language of the audience. As those languages change, we do our best to learn them.

Good isn’t good enough anymore. Most people in advertising have come to acknowledge this. Will good work? Sure, it will sell some products\services. It’ll hit some GRP targets. But it’s not going to push the brand, client, category or audience to step out of their daily routine. It’s not going to Disrupt anything or anyone.

But how do you Disrupt? Do you have to do some crazy whacked out idea like putting signs in dog poop or making a road play the William Tell Overture when you drive on it? No, you don’t have to, but it doesn’t hurt to try something so new or different that it just begs for everyone who encounters it to hit pause for a moment in their life and let your message play. Can it be done in traditional mediums? Sure, it can be on TV or print or whatever your definition of traditional medium is. You just have to push beyond the easy and obvious solutions.

Of course, luck can play into it too. On my daily commute I pass countless billboards. One just like the next; a few big words and a flashy graphic from the big names and a few big words and lots of little words that no one will ever read from the small names. (Side rant: Seriously, does no one think about how readable their signs will be when they put them up? Looking at you, cities of Greeley and Fort Lupton.) On my way home the other day a billboard caught my eye—literally caused my head to jerk to the left—as I passed it. It was flapping in the wind, asking for attention in a field of static images. A McDonald’s billboard had come unglued and most of it had ripped off. What was left was unmistakably a double cheeseburger from the dollar menu. Around it flapped the shreds of the rest of the ad. This, of all things, disrupted my usual commute karaoke session and made me pay attention. I couldn’t describe to you the dozen other billboards I see on a daily basis, but I remember vividly this one torn McDonald’s billboard.

Every day, in countless agencies across countless accounts we are given the chance to fall in line and continue to make good ads. We are also given the chance to rip up the script and post a double cheeseburger flapping in the middle of nowhere.

After Crispin parted ways with Pearl Izumi, Karsh\Hagan reached out with a campaign that - we hoped - would show them we’re able to create the sort of brave, cool work that they want. The work won an award from ADCD. And today it’s getting buzz on the Egotist, on AdFreak, on Agency Spy, on AdRants, on AdPulp, on Prostituted Thoughts, on Bhatnaturally and on The Scary Basement.