AgencyThink

May the foresight be with you

posted by Mad Mags @ January 5th, 2009

Recently, while working on a list of “cool things I want to buy for me,” I happened to find a few Star Wars gems certain to top my lineup.

Of course, after further reading, I realized these beauties are not for sale, and are actually concepts that had been tabled. I know. How was this possible? I wanted to order at least two Han Solo carbonite fridges, and the Tauntaun suit would have served as my go-to first-date outfit certain to weed out the unworthy in seconds.

Anyway, I shared the rejected Star Wars items with a few of my advertising friends, and everyone (Star Wars fans and non-Star Wars fans included) found at least one item they were interested in purchasing. It made all of us wonder just why the items were rejected.

After a group pow-wow, we decided that the reason must have boiled down to one thing - timing. Unlike 1999, when these items were proposed, this year’s holiday season would have embraced these quirky items. I’m relatively certain if the Death Star grill was available last November, someone would have been nicked by a lightsaber in the rush to get one on Black Friday.

The rejected Star Wars items made us all realize that whether we’re talking products or slogans or platforms, it is definitely worth revisiting ideas that didn’t make the cut the first time around. We’ve begun to keep better files and to revisit ideas before we concept, just to make sure one of our seeds hasn’t ripened when we weren’t looking.

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Recent News and Updates • Trends

If It’s Green, Is It Still A Tchotchke?

posted by Mad Mags @ August 1st, 2008

It seems like we’re all trying to think green these days. At least many of us at Avicom are since the morning one of our earthy account execs circulated a link to a slide show of animals choking on plastic bags.

(Thanks, Lisa. The image of the turtle still haunts us.)

The plastic bag images reminded me of a recent pitch we made to a client to offer reusable shopping bags as a promotional giveaway. While the client wasn’t quite ready for the idea months ago, the reusable bag concept seemed incredibly appropriate now. It spurred me to contact our promotional director Tom Scheel, to learn of trends in the “giveaway” industry. more »

Related tags: green • promotional materials

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