“Post 390 is busy trying to keep up with the crowds”

December 2, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments

"The seafood entrees, including the lobster roll served with fries, stand out at Post 390." (Photo by Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

A mixed but on balance positive review of our wonderful Post 390 client in The Boston Globe. Bottom line: The restaurant is a runaway hit, even as it works out the inevitable kinks.

From the piece:

“To its credit, the team behind Post 390 knows the food is not yet up to par. Several days before this review was scheduled to run, the restaurant’s publicist called to say as much. The crowds have been greater than they anticipated, she said. It’s hard to refine things when the kitchen is struggling to keep up.

Still, crowds were the goal. A month before the restaurant opened, I spoke with Kenneth Himmel, founder of the restaurant group. “It will be very high energy, very high volume,’’ he said. By that measure, Post 390 succeeded as soon as it opened. Now the restaurant needs to work on tasting as good as it looks.”

What do you think? Have you had a positive or negative experience at the restaurant? Anything we should make sure they know??

Post 390 Opens with Fireplaces and Flatbread in Back Bay (bostonist.com)

Filed under Consistency of Experience, Getting to Imperative, Relevance of Offering, The Holland-Mark Way · Tagged with Boston Globe, Business and Economy, Food, Greater Boston, Massachusetts, Post390, Restaurant, Restaurants and Bars

What Makes Great Advertising?

October 5, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments

If you’re expecting a post about insightful strategy, a celebration of great design, or words that touch the soul, leave now. This post is about boobs.

More specifically, it’s about the troubling observation of fact that sometimes, a pair of fun bags beats a full house of all the things we celebrate here in the advertising blog-o-sphere.

At some level I am troubled by this. I am an enlightened man, an educated man. While I’m as curiously fascinated with the female form as any such man, I can say truthfully that I actively dislike the “Go Daddy” guy, and that I think his advertising diminishes us all.

He defends it in the context of four other “rules of entrepreneurship” in this piece, which I believe was originally titled, “Why I’m So Freaking Great, And You’re Not”:

Whatever, dude. Go knit yourself a Harley cozy.

But… dammit… from a 16% share of all new domain registrations to a 25% share of the same market, worldwide. Nine share points. Overnight. DAMN.

And thus my dilemma.

I think great advertising is advertising that delivers great results. Awards are nice (and I have a few, thank you), but we want to be an agency that — first and foremost — gets results. Period.

Does that mean, by our own definition, that this is great advertising? If we delivered something less offensive, and likely less effective, would we be breaking our own rules?

Now, don’t wimp out and give me that “Shock works for a while but great brands endure” stuff either. GoDaddy is still killing it, even after all this time.

So which is it? Is obvious crap like this “great” if it delivers the goods? Or is it always better to trade off business impact for work we and our fellow PBS-supporters can celebrate?