Sunday, 6 December 2009

Internet Vices

Click to enlarge

@music

0-10  This sound makes me go bouncy and I can shout it.

10-13  This music is good for dancing and singing and it reminds me of telly.

13-15  What music do my friends like? I must like the same music.

15-17  If I like the right music then girls will like me.

17-25  Nothing is more important in the world than [insert band] and only I and Paul Morley understand their significance. I don't care that girls don't like me.

25-30  What is it with [insert band]? They are ridiculous, strutting sell-outs. Music is just a rip-off man.

30-35  There's more to music than pop you know. This jazz stuff is fascinating, and there's music from round the world and have you heard some of those blues guys and John Cage and everything.

35-40  I'm still very much aware of today's music, there are a lot of incredible bands out there, even these days. I'll never get caught in some retro trap.

40-45  I only really listen to the music I liked when I was 17.


From the excellent Russell Davies

Thursday, 3 December 2009

Christmas Barrel

Welcome to the Christmas Barrel
Christmas is just around the corner.

So i will be stepping up the posts and making sure this blog ends the year looking healthy and sounding sober.

Note my sterling attempts @ Christmas'ing up the blog.

The Great Ad Melting Pot

Strength in numbers.


Weetabix, Drench & now Vittel.

Saturday, 28 November 2009

The Highest Point in the World


from this nice blog by Blake

Monday, 16 November 2009

Hello. I'm here to be Polarized.


It seems that brands want to be loved. Thats a fair assumption. 

But wanting to be loved isn't very good, when they have no intention of making it happen.

You watch TV and see Ad after Ad that could be for anything, no real style or feel.
It's all wallpaper, until you get a nice little animation which splits it up. You take notice.

Brands have to polarize. they have to be the 1 out of 6 ad's that you actually see in a tv break. 

The circle not the square.

But it seems like they just expect to be loved.

How about actually doing something non conventional? Doing something for people. Make them laugh. Help them with a problem. Do these things and you can still make money. Infact you can make more money. 

Essentially, what i'm talking about is Marmite.

Marmite. You either love it or you hate it.

Around 40 consumers have been invited to join the ‘Marmarati' secret society. To create a new variant product using Marmite. People actually want to do that. Why? Who knows. Who cares? They want to be involved, so let them.

Say people hate your brand and talk about it on facebook and twitter. The thing to remember is they still talk about it. You're in the discussion. You're there and now you're in there you can change peoples minds. Be news worthy, be interesting.


Sunday, 15 November 2009

The Machine Trundles on

Yeah, yeah everyone is talking about X Factor and ofcourse about Jedward. 

They're still there, they're still getting the votes.

But with all their popularity it's suprising a brand hasn't latched onto the huge internet potential they have.

Ofcourse maybe they have and i haven't seen it yet?

Anyway. why don't Brylcreem get onto it. There's all this sort of stuff floating around.
 

It's ready made for this Social Media thingy

That Social Media Thingy



I went to a talk by Steve Davies in Newcastle recently about Social Media and how brands can use it successfully. I've heard plenty stories from Ford to Dell of how to use it and how not to use it. But it's an interesting subject and something worth refreshing on as it gains momentum in marketing budgets.

Monday, 5 October 2009

What happens in a Lift?

People, in real life. Normal people. 
Short film. Interesting.


Some real posts will be coming shortly. 
With words and thoughts. But this is good enough for now.


Tuesday, 29 September 2009

Would you believe it? Humour still exists!

So, what do we think?
I think YES. Mother are back
Different, funny and a bit mad. 
This will stand out. 



Sunday, 27 September 2009

Oh and...

How could i forget.






Thursday, 24 September 2009

Work out there doing the business.

My favourite picks of the last week or two unless i've forgotten something!? 

Feel free to correct in the comments. 

Art Direction is coming in for some kudos.






and then this by RKCR/Y&R.




The simple idea wins.

Friday, 18 September 2009

Mobilogo



Saturday, 12 September 2009

You Stole

You're in a band. You have no money, no record label, no manager, no tour bus. 

You have a bunch of songs you've written. You have a myspace with 1000 plays but what can you do to really get noticed?

Be clever.

This is a way that a lot of people are choosing to promote themselves.

Taking an upcoming release from a major band and releasing leaks of their songs. or rather titling your songs as a leak from their album.

It gets hits, it gets press. People say they love it. But then it comes out it's not them.

What's to gain from this? You get people to listen to your music first of all.
Will they actually visit your myspace? Buy your CD's? Become a fan? Who knows.

Here is an example. 


What are the long term benefits of this?

Well looking at a similar example from a couple of years ago, 

Coldplay released Viva La Vida with a lot of controversy. 

A band called Creaky Boards said they'd ripped them off. 
(okay it's not exactly the same but go with it)

There was a lot of press about it.



So where are they now?

Well they have just 3000 friends on myspace. 
If that's anything to go by then the jury is still out on this one.

Saturday, 5 September 2009

Targeting your Market



Many would deem this the best Lynx commercial produced by BBH London. 

A lovely film that stands apart from the dross of most commercials and even some programmes.

It shows great thinking, great direction, a lovely soundtrack and a subtle idea that is slowly released, which in the end shows the product to be the king.

But it didn't work.

It was apparently the worst performing Lynx ad done to date.

Sales didn't shoot up. Men didn't rush out to buy a can.

And that is the very real truth of the state of most advertising.

Done to win awards, done to look great, done to sound great. 

But talking to the right people, no. Selling product, no.

The people who buy Lynx paid no attention, it wasn't right for them. It was too intelligent, it was too complex, too slow, too subtle.

and that is a real lesson to someone like me. Trying to get a job in this industry. In this climate.

A couple of days in London give good perspective.

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Free Quidies

TALKTALK

Gloom, doom and the recession kaboom has lead TalkTalk to give away free moneys.

Personally I'm sure i speak for everyone, when saying i hate broadband providers.

I've been trying to change mine for the past week and god do they make it difficult. But i digress.

This is the news that TalkTalk have employed 20 'put-pocket' to drop money into peoples pockets, coats and bags over the coming weeks. Giving you something back in these difficult morbid times, to make people feel better.

Although i sound sarcastic, this actually sounds like a great idea, with them planning to back it by giving out £100,000 (from £5 up to £20) and launching it UK wide.

Just tell me when and where and i'll be sure to bring an empty suitcase.

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Brain Surgery





I've just seen a programme on Dave called "should I worry about my spending?"

Basically showing how small changes can change our spending habits.

He did an experiment in a supermarket moving the Heinz baked beans down a shelf from the prime spot and moving other items around.

Sales of the products in the prime locations, like the end of the isles or at eye level on the shelves increased from 100% up to 500%

Makes you think about all these expensive advertising campaigns that never get seen or fail to sell products.

Why not pay to get it in more stores or in better positions in those stores?

Its all the fault of the emotional side of your brain.

Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Je Suis TwaT


I post this fully aware that i am quite possibly well out of date. You readers that flock in on your unicycles no doubt know about this cock up, but still it's fun to laugh right? 

It seems like a very minimal thing but it turns out the entire internet was buzzing about it.

Tory MP Ann Widdicombe fumed: “It is deeply tasteless.”


Makers Britvic said it was a “coincidence” (Corporate cock-up)


Bring back Blackcurrent Tango and i might start drinking it.

Thursday, 13 August 2009

Missed Dave Trott?

You can view the whole Dave Trott and Mark Denton webcast from last night below if you missed it. Ah technology!



Wednesday, 12 August 2009

Dave Trott Live tonight


If you are one of those people who find Twitter pointless or a waste of time, this could change your mind.

Dave Trott is tonight talking to the drum magazine, not sure exacty what the topics are but if you remember the Scamp live chat it was pretty insightful.

This obviously won't be quite as straight forward as that but atleast there might be less anonymous sniggers and less Juan Carbrals in attendance!

It's live on Twitter sometime tonight,

You can ask questions too, all you need to do is follow the Drum's Twitter account.



Friday, 7 August 2009

Got a job at Y&R New York


Yes that's right. 

Graham Hall (of DDB London) has got a job at Y&R New York.

He's leaving DDB along with the head of planning (who's going to Ogilvy New York)

Some of his best work as presented by the ridiculously annoying Brand Republic presenter.

Thursday, 6 August 2009

Free Budweiser


Four becomes two. Fallon are the latest agency to drop out of the Budweiser pitch. 

Declining to repitch, but perhaps with good reason.

Turns out all the agencies pitching must produce 3 fully formed campaigns in two weeks, 
as well as also waiver any rights to the work. 

Therefore Budweiser could actually use all 12 campaigns (if all 4 agencies pitched) without 
appointing any of them.

So now it's down to just RKCR/Y&R and DDB London to pitch for the business.

Really you can't blame TBWA/ or Fallon for this, who wants to put all the work in when there is a good chance
you won't get anything out of it at all. 

It's not like ABInBev are strapped for cash, they just bought Budweiser for literally billions of dollars!  


Wednesday, 5 August 2009

TBWA/ & Budwieser


First casualty of the Budweiser pitch.
TBWA/ Media Arts London have decided not to pitch. With Tim Lindsay giving the reasons for this on his new blog
here (or you can read below)

Long story short, they are simply to busy with existing clients and all the upheaval of moving into one office, to deal with such a big pitch, in such a short space of time

This could have been a big one for TBWA/ after all the trouble they've been having, with redundancies and account's jumping ship. Perhaps they can start their creative revival on an existing account, they do still have some good 'uns after all.


TOUGH DECISION

We had to make a really tough decision today.

You may have read on the front page of Campaign that Budweiser have asked us to pitch for their UK business. (What’s happening round at Fallon, by the way?). It’s a great brand and arguably a chance for glory, but an incredibly tough brief and a very short space of time in which to deliver it. We would have had to throw an enormous amount of resource at it – which would have consumed the agency for the next three weeks.

Trouble is, we’ve got a huge amount on. Two huge and exciting international pitches. Another big regional pitch about to walk in next week (we hope). Two RFIs from the AAR. A big Nissan task about to land. Lot’s of work on PlayStation in preparation for the arrival of a new European President. In August. When a lot of people are obviously on the beach. Oh yes – and with 150 Dean Streeters about to come up the road and move in with us.

So we’re not going to do Bud. It’s a tough call (and I can promise you Matt, Mark, Tom M, Julie, Ed and I went full circle on it at least twice this morning) but it’s the right call. We have to be able to do what we’re already committed to do well. And our first obligation is to existing clients.

I thought I detected a slight flicker of relief on Tom C’s and Paulo’s faces when they heard the news. Thanks for the work you put in chaps, it won’t go to waste.

Craigen isn't impressed.


Top Gear, making a VW advert, Jeremy Craigen looking on in disbelief.

You can imagine the quality of Clarkson and Captain Slows advert; for the VW Scirocco, wasn't quite up to the standard of DDB and Mr Craigen, nor the head of Volkswagen.

Mr Volkswagen client had out his 'How to write a Volkswagen advert' rule guide out for them, to which they would obviously pay no attention to.  

Watch from 19:20 - 40.00 on iPlayer. (apparently you can't embed iPlayer anymore?)


or watch one of the many they made here;


Friday, 31 July 2009

Bollocks


Found this interesting little film of Dan and Amber at RKCR/Y&R. 


They answer questions about advertising, and attempt to sell us Helix rubbers. 

They used to work at DDB London, where they did this.

Thursday, 30 July 2009

John Webster lives on.



Is it just me or is there a theme here? 

Everyone seems to love Comparethemeerkat.com

People who don't have cars.

 Kids. O.A.P's, my dog. 

But why do they love it? Not for the cheesy pun. 

But because of the character and the personality? (a la Webster) 

To be fair to Comparethemarket.com they are backing it and pushing the campaign as far as they can and are being rewarded for it. Making people talk about an insurance comparison site!

But with this campaign being such a success.

Why aren't more brands using a character or personality? Is it now going to become cool again? or is it still a creative no-no?

Heineken have been using a character in the US, 'The Most interesting man in the world' which has increased sales of their import brand so should brand characters be back on the table?

It's Pitch O'Clock


Budweiser has decided it wants a change. 

The UK account (Fallon) and the Ireland account (DDB) are both up for pitch.

As well as Budweiser, Beck's has also decided they want a new agency. According to Campaign, Lowe resigned the account but it sounds mutual. 

So that's £5.5 million for Budweiser and £25 million for Beck's. 

Of course both are owned by Inbev so it's no real surpise their both up for pitch.

When brands go up for pitch i always assume they're not happy with how the ad's are going at the moment, but i'm sure there is more to it than that. 

But can anyone remember the last great beer ad? 

Sure, the Bud spot up there is good but it's not something you will remember like Wassup or John Smiths (TBWA/London are on the pitch list for Budweiser). Beck's latest spot below didn't exactly blow me away, i know it's said beer is such a difficult product to advertise but it's also one of the briefs everyone seems to want too.


Less Than Zero



Great book i'm reading at the moment.

Sharp, short and very matter of fact.

Nice to read something with a different kind of tone and i always admire writers who can keep you interested whilst nothing much seems to have developed in an obvious story line kind of way. 

Any recommendations for something to read next?

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Simple Thinking Works.


First of all, no i haven't adopted a Polar Bear. But it's possible to adopt anything from a Polar Bear to a Donkey these days.

This appears to be a simple and straight forward idea but look at charity advertising on the whole and it's actually a lot of cleverer.

How do you solve a problem like getting people to give to charity? Give them something back.

You never meet the animal you adopt (i assume they don't actually exist?)
But it's a brilliant idea that gains your initial interest and then maintains it for a significant period after the original donation.

As Dave Trott would say, simple preditory thinking. Executed brilliantly.

Saturday, 18 July 2009

Scamp is alive

Sympathy For The Devil - Egos of the Advertising Industry from Toodle Pip on Vimeo.


Found this video on Toodle Pip's website, a student team trying to get into advertising. Featuring bloggings very own Scamp.

Monday, 22 June 2009

Be Nice or Leave

Be Nice Or Leave
View more PDF documents from Faris Yakob.

Slides and Audio. 
Great Talk by Faris Yakob at McCann-Erickson NY about Social Media


Do Not Shave


We all hate those Gillette ad's right?

This one is a bit different.


Infact it's REALLY interesting!

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

Teepay



Teepay is a company that allow anyone to submit a design for a t-shirt.


It then gets uploaded to their website  http://teepay.com

and then every t-shirt is available to vote for. 

Basically if enough people pledge a vote to buy your design, it then goes into production with the designer of the T-shirt getting a slice of the profits!

It was brought together by these lovely people.





So have a go!

or visit


for other cool stuff!

Interview with Dave Trott



Found this on ]-[appy Thought's blog! Only found it by chance so doubt many will have read it, anyway it's a great read.

It can be found here

50% Killing spree




Now for some advertising gaming i do like!

Created by DDB London



Rubbadubdub



So i'm guessing most people have seen Rubberduckzilla by now. I'm not really sure what to think of it, is it a bit crap? Or will it actually be something that stands out amongst a lot of dross?

Anyway after seeing serveral phonebox's with Oasis posters on i decided to go on the website and see what else they were doing to extend the campaign. 

I found 3 arcade type games, using that technology of holding up a symbol to a webcam to show a rubberduck (bit like E.ON did with the F.A Cup online stuff http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/theWork/news/905110/gallery/4729/page/2/#4729

Not overly impressed as it's a bit fiddly and can't see people having the patience to print out things and then deal with a hit and miss technology for games that aren't all that fun really.

Have a go for yourself and see what you think.




Monday, 15 June 2009

Mr Food

Monday, 8 June 2009

Bing.com




So i've heard a lot about this Bing.com 

A new search engine by Microsoft, except they're calling it a 'decision engine'
it's more than a search engine apparently.

Now it may just be me, but i've used it and searched a few things. Asked a few things and it seems very 'googley', on first glance i can't see any major differences with searches and more to the point i don't see any reason to change to using Bing.com for my searching needs.

Looking at it on a very basic level, i'm actually wondering why it exists?

Do we have no search engines - NO

Do the ones we have not work? - NO

Is there actually any need for a new one? - NO


This is what it looks like - 


Deffinatly not the most pleasing to the eye. This is what a search result looks like -




Is it just me is there something very google again. But it looks like it's been designed by a 12 year old who just found out that Powerpoint exists?





Again i also have a problem with the ad's they've just launched in support of it. I have a problem with a lot of this stuff don't i?

JWT New York are usually brilliant, but this ad at over a minute long is just bizarre. They go on about this and that, failing to tell you what it's about for at least half of film.

 Now wouldn't it have been a better idea to create 20 x 5 second executions of a search and a result. Actually showing it's effective and not talking a load of gibberish. Surely this 'decision engine' is supposed to get you the right results FAST? 

Or why not do something ONLINE the medium that it's actually based in? 

How many people have Google as their home page when they load up their internet browser? (i do)

Why not try and change online users actions with a campaign to replace your home screen? Wouldn't that be targeting the right people as well as actually producing results at the same time?

Time will tell what will happen with bing. Even so going after Google seems extremely naive from Microsoft. We already have Yahoo and Ask? amongst a hundred others. 

Do they really think they can topple Google with this half hearted attempt?