Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Ad agencies selling their own products? We're one of them

The following letter was sent to New York Times writer Claire Cain Miller in response to her article in today's Times. In the article (click here to read it), she describes agencies that are developing their own products.

........................

Dear Claire,

I enjoyed your article today about advertising agencies launching their own products. I agree that agencies stand to gain a lot by developing their own products and services. In this tough economy, this will put their feet to the fire in terms of seeing how much it costs to launch and maintain a product and/or service. Often, agencies want to spend, spend, spend on building a brand, while the client has to explain market forces and the economy to the agency. With the agency's money directly on the line, they stand to learn what it's like to be a client. Due to this, even if an agency doesn't want to offer its own product or service, it should do so. By becoming the 'client,' the agency can ironically become a better agency.

I have an advertising firm. We have worked with Newsweek, Tony n' Tina's Wedding, and home goods retailers, and I recently launched a travel product company named Air Wear. We've seen from our Air Wear dealings issues that mirror our advertising clients' issues. We can better relate to our clients because we are our own client. And then their are the perks of being the 'client.' When National Geographic Traveler magazine featured our products this past summer, our name wasn't buried like it is when our work is published for clients. Our name was right out front in the article. Overall, we are benefiting in many ways when we become agency and client.

Thank you.

Jason Solarek
Creative Director and Founder
Solarek Studio / Air Wear
http://www.solarek.com
http://www.solarek.com/airwear/

339 East 9th Street
New York, NY 10003
Office: 212-254-9654
___________________
Solarek Studio
Every Product Has a Story to Sell

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

An appearance in the Friends of the High Line video



Friends of the High Line is a group dedicated to preserving an elevated railway for conversion into a promenade. I've loved this project since I heard about it first on NPR in 1999, when I moved to NYC from Buenos Aires. The park's first section will open in the spring of 2009. Wow. 10 years has gone by fast....or slow...or maybe fast. Either way, a success. Congrats FHL!

Watch the video:
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy4LcvWoIEg&feature=related

(I'm at time stamp 3:05)

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Today's Idea

TiVo can let you order PIzza from Domino's. How about letting people buy local theater tickets? Potential partners:TicketMaster or TheaterMania.com

Friday, November 28, 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Nestle owns the bottled water market

Nestle brands that rank among the top 10 bottled waters: 7

Starbucks locations

Locations in 2007: 11,000 (approx.)
in 1987: 11

Ikan grocery barcode scanner


A recent article in Wired talked about a scientist initially assigning barcodes to moths. Below is a system to organize your shopping list. Barcodes are a quick and standardized way to categorize items, and combining this info with the Web offers many opportunities. What if I scanned the pens I bought at Staples and was given a web page listing the pen, their history (Wiki style), and then was shown prices for it in neighboring stores. The page can also show other similar products. Amazon.com meets Wikipedia meets a barcode scanner. There must be a quicker way to call up info about items I'm holding in my hand. Barcodes seem like an answer, in tandem with a tool like the one I describe above.

David Pogue's article about Ikan can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/technology/personaltech/19pogue.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

Friday, October 24, 2008

Deforestation accounts for 20% of all carbon emissions

I found this in a Conversation International advertisement: "Deforestation accounts for 20% of all carbon emissions, which is twice the amount that all cars, trucks, and planes in the world emit, combined."

How do we approach that? Drive less, or drive as much and just make people in South America, Russia, and Indonesia not cut down their trees? We tend (unfairly) to do the latter.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Monday, October 06, 2008

It's the Economy, Smarty

Everyone is running around saying the sky is falling. Want to better understand the economic trouble we're in? Check out this informative and funny episode from this American Life (from NPR):

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=365


Friday, October 03, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Monday, September 08, 2008

Friday, August 22, 2008

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Sunday, August 03, 2008