Eventhough I am not a big Starbucks fan, the convenience of its locations makes me, like most of us, sometimes stop by for a cappucino on my way to, or from meetings. I have done so the past two weeks when I drove to teach a class at Art Center College Of Design. I was surprised to find a free mini-version of GOOD magazine at the counter where consumers patiently wait for their beverage to arrive – a great place to serve me some easy to digest information since it is one of the rare moments in my day where I am not busy. As I am a great fan of the design and the message of GOOD, and often the editorial, I took ‘the Good Sheet’ with me. It’s a conversation starter. A socially charged, non-partisan (or so they try) fold-out dedicated to a larger election issue at hand. Click here to view and read the GOOD Sheets so far. The topics are successfully communicated by use of extremely easy to gasp, yet modern, information graphics targeted towards the vast Starbucks audience. Apparently fully sponsored by a weekly advertisor, it is of little expense to Starbucks (obviously struggling to sell its $3.50 lattés after opening too many stores too quickly in this economy and therefor must have little room for additional advertising budget), while it is a fantastic way to spread the word of GOOD magazine. A great example of 3 companies coming together for the greater good – and the greater profits, with only the advertiser paying dollars he would end up spending anyways. Good to great is my prognosis for this campaign…

To read an opposite opinion head over to Creativity Magazine.

The latest issue of Creativity Magazine features a replica of the ‘sticky-flags-to-bookmark-certain-pages-idea’ that I wrote about in April, when I gave kudos to Domino Magazine for introducing this engaging and fun tool.

For a magazine like Creativity, which is all about fresh ideas, it is rather sad to be recycling someone else’s idea. It is another great example of the ‘Me-Me-Me’ attitude of a lot of advertising creatives, and creatives in general, burying the lack of concept under a great pile of Wow-factor, even if it is an idea that is ‘borrowed’ from someone else, and even if it does not make half the sense in its new, adopted, environment.

Looking through the magazine’s special Awards edition, it sheds light onto why so much advertising does not make any sense anymore, although original in all sorts and forms. The center of the magazine has a chart detailing how many awards which agency, which Ad, which CD, et cetera has scored ‘this season’. This is the target audience, this is the market, this is what’s on the mind of Creative Directors out there. You, the consumer, definitely come second. (I wrote about the decline in Advertisings’ messaging a while back as well.)

On a positive side note, and to give Creativity some Kudos as well, the ‘Peel ‘n Taste’ experience I wrote about yesterday, see below, was featured in the very same issue of the magazine.