The most comprehensive infographic on Facebook ever...until next week.

Kind of humbling to think that in the time it took me to finally get around to replacing the light bulb in my refrigerator, Facebook grew from 12 million users to over 400 million.

Did I say humbling? I meant humiliating.

Infographic from Website Monitoring Blog via these guys.

(Click it to go big. Or go home.)



Previous Facebookedness: I hate Facebook's stupid face; Filchbook.

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Intern Sweatshop: Is Dove’s new Men+Care line really targeting men?

Here’s the Dove Men+Care ad, which premiered during the Super Bowl, courtesy of Ogilvy, who also brought us Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty.”

The spot shows the journey of a man’s life, ending with, “Now that you’re comfortable with who you are, isn’t it time for comfortable skin?” Even if you’re a man who has reached that point in his life, is this the best way to get your attention? If you’re a man, maybe it’s not your attention Dove is trying to get.

Here’s their new print ad. Now if Dove was really targeting middle-aged men, would they create ads with dripping, shirtless hunks? Well, they would if their intention was actually to reach women.

Let’s face it: Dove screams feminine – everything from the bottles, to the font, to the logo. The bottles are curved and sleek, and the font is thin and rounded. Even their logo – understandably a dove – is soft, pure and angelic. Not too many men I know worry about being soft, pure and angelic. I have heard some say they would use shampoo to wash their body if that was all that was in the shower.

So this draws a good question: Is Dove really trying to target men? Either 1) Ogilvy was trying to reach older men, who would be the direct consumer of the product and show them that if you are really comfortable in your own skin then you would use Dove. Or 2) Ogilvy was trying to reach women, who more than likely would be the one purchasing the product for their man. If the latter, Ogilvy did a great job targeting women, some of whom I have already heard say, “I want my boyfriend to use Dove.”

But let’s recognize that this could perhaps be targeted to men as well. Unilever is the parent company to Dove, as well as the younger male demo targeted Axe. Unilever is obviously trying to attract a different age market. While Axe appeals to the younger generation, Dove Men+Care is targeting an older market consisting of those who are comfortable with themselves, and therefore comfortable with having soft, moisturized skin. Here's an Axe commercial, in which you can see they are clearly going after a different audience:

Dove is already a strong brand among women, but approximately half the world is male (give or take), so Dove needs this male market if it wants to continue to grow.

Personally, with this campaign I think Dove is courting a female audience who want their significant others to feel just as comfortable as they do with their own Dove products (or at least smell nicer), and more than likely that was Ogilvy’s goal (the man in the shower was quite the giveaway). But if their spot was really trying to target to men, at least Dove changed the color of their Men+Care bottle to a charcoal gray. Personally, I think those guys at Ogilvy are a little brighter than that. Kudos to them for a smart strategy to attract a difficult market. Now let’s just see if it works.

--Tara Cammarata, Creative Intern

Previously from the Intern Sweatshop: The Burger King's Comeback

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Friskies: LSD Trip or Avatar for Cats?

Although this Friskies spot has been on the air for a few weeks, I saw it for the first time last night, probably because I've watched almost nothing but the Olympics over that same time span, possibly because I gave up watching most network TV about six years ago.

1) Whoa.

2) The spot is by Avrett Free Ginsberg. You may remember their work from this intense Zenith commercial or the Biolage spot featuring Rebecca Romijn. I'll ignore Paris Hilton's "Fairy Dust." According to BrandFreak, this marks the first major campaign Friskies has mounted in seven years, and boy did they go for it.

3) It's amazing the commercials you don't see when you tend to watch only Football, ESPN, Comedy Central, Syfy, BBC America and any one of the Discovery or History Channels. I saw this awesome Kaiser Permanente "Thrive" spot about two years after it actually started airing.

But I'll bet I've seen every Burger King, Axe, Old Spice and Bud Light commercial that's aired since '04.

4) But back to Friskies. A current trend in the advertising world is to sell the experience rather than the function of the product, like showing a cat's trip to Narnia rather than explaining why Friskies' higher protein count is good for your cat. The idea is that these days people need to feel their life will be improved in order to part with their hard-earned money. Looking into some older Friskies spots, though, the brand has tended to focus on active cats enjoying Friskies, which, if you've ever lived with a cat, was kind of like Michelob Ultra advertising with rollerbladers. This current campaign definitely fits the Friskies brand historically. Still, every cat I've ever lived with has been more this:

than this.

Personally, I hate cats and can't understand why a consumer would want to send their cat through the looking glass just to feed an animal that craps in a box in the kitchen. However, I do know people who treat their pets better than I treat myself, and might be too excited by the prospect of sending their cat to Cool World with every meal...that is if they've actually seen Cool World.

Like with any campaign, Friskies' bottom line will tell us if this campaign was worth it. Personally, I'm skeptical that they will get the return on investment they're looking for. Then again, there are a lot of stupid cat people out there.

--George Convery, Copywriter

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