Bollocks

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

http://www.careerplayer.com/careers/advertising-and-pr/advertising/creative/dan-hubert-and-amber-casey---senior-creative-team.aspx

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137070

Infact it's REALLY interesting!

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

www.howies.co.uk

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

http://squarebrains.com/happythought/Trott_Interview.pdf

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.

Mr Food

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?

Lorry Driver

No matter how much you might hate Chris Moyles this is most deffinatly right if not hilarious.



Saw it ages ago but just popped back into my head while swimming for some reason...