It’s been a week of ups, downs, drunken mistakes and sober pleasures. A mix of ridiculous happiness and soulful sorrows, turn-ons, turn-ups and finally, turn-offs.
Billed as “The Huge Turn Off” the commercial; starts with Alanis Morrisette sitting on a huge leather airplane seat clipping her toe nails as she explains about Earth Hour, a time when we can all turn off our lights for an hour and by doing so we will put pressure on all those nasty none green companies. Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be some kind of disconnect here. Are they supposed to be so impressed by a show of mass power, excuse the pun, that they will immediately stop doing bad things to the environment? Maybe all those years of marching up and down roads waving CND banners has made me a tad cynical about the power of the people. Anyway, it’s a pleasant enough spot for the WWF by Leo Burnett, switch onto it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl6jf-pT-dM before everyone switches off, tonight.
A much bigger turn off for those of us who enjoy nothing better than suspicious cow parts squeezed between two skanky bits of bun is the new ad for Arby’s. In a bid to find a new way to mess up the good old burger Arby’s have created the new roast burger, never fried, never greasy. The burger done better. (done better than the grammer did anyway).
To celebrate this devastating invention the ad agency, Fletcher Martin, commissioned artist Phil Hansen to demonstrate how greasy other burgers are by drawing with the them on greaseproof paper. In what is described as a “trans fat on paper masterpiece” he recreates the Mona Lisa, or Mona Greasa as some wag has named it. It’s amusing in a children playing with food kind of way and just tasteless enough to make you watch it. Get a mouthful at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITPQMOt7z10
Or better still visit their own website and win a delicious roasted Arby burger, although you’ll probably have to pay for postage and someone att the post office will most likely eat it, which will serve them right. http://www.burgergreaseart.com/
Leaving a much more dubious taste in the mouth is the new Ford commercial from JWT Sydney. It’s a corporate ad, which means it’s not selling you a product, it’s selling you a company ethos. Exactly. It’s one of those ads that ramble on about soul searching, making nebulous analogies to the freedom of the road and the freedom of travelling around in a 16 tonnes of metal at high speeds. This one is particularly tasteless as it employs Writer fallback position 3, or when you’re stuck without an idea nick a famous song or film track or, as here, a well-known poem. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” one of the most hippy-abused pieces of nonsense since “Desiderata” is read over a series of shots of some young bloke wandering roads and doing crappy macho work on boats and interfering with sheep. It’s all very idyllic and has bugger all to do with cars, still you can get a glimpse of it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQc6tYVTaM
Or, to add a dash of Culture to your life you can see the tiresome old git read it himself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG24ohpacDk
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference….”
It’s hypnotic, if you can stay awake.
Staying awake through the latest Nike commercial is no problem if you’re a fan of Eva Longoria, Sofia Boutella, Fernando Torres, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Rodger Federer.
In an attempt to reinvigorate the eternal battle of the sexes Nike have launched a “Men vs Women” challenge. If the ad is anything to go by it’s all about running up and down pavements and being a general pain in the arse, or being a jogger as it’s known. (Why is it that the Walk/Run for life people have to move 3 or 4 abreast down our roads? And what’s with the obliue slash thing? Do they change their minds as they go, “Do I run or walk…?”.) Famous people are seen running up and down pavements in that mildly competitive way that Americans are cultivating.
Run the ad down at:: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_W1sP344NM
It comes with a rather pleasant racy track by Mr Gnarls Barkley.
Some young guys are chatting outside of an office. An older guy appears, obviously the boss, and calls one of them over.
“Kevin, can we go for a coffee…”
As the horror of the phrase sinks in we cut to a montage of set ups over a coffee as the boss declares:
“You’re fired…
I love you, I’ve said it,
We need to fake your death
(He strokes his face singing softy),
You have a wonderful body. I’ve made a sculpture of you…
You’ll be based in North Korea.”
Kevin comes to his senses and, to avoid such caffeine driven nonsense suggests:
“Why don’t we go grab a Dare iced coffee.”
Super up line: “The coffee moment, without the moment.”
It’s beautifully paced and funny without being sentimental, just what you’d expect from Mr Warren Brown and his team of strangeness at BMF Sydney. Take a hit at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivzyCgj6j88
Imagine you’re a mini-cam and you’ve fallen into the hands of a Dutch creative team at Grey Amsterdam just as they’re confronted by a TV brief for Lactacyd, pH balance products for intimate feminine hygiene. The results are fairly predictable, but no less bizarre. A day in the life of a lady is seen from what could be described as “a tampon’s eye view,” it’s 30 seconds of film you may not want to watch too often. Catch an eyeful at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uO-qR8-HtY
It’s a tad unnerving for a chap, and for a chappette too as my art director proves, muttering knowingly about “gritty realism” while hiding her tousled blond hair behind her blood red nails.
Time to turn off the brain.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Fame... I wanna live forever.
With supreme aplomb and hardly a tongue planted in cheek Eamonn Holmes the brekkie guy on Sky news announced that the cricket was “exploding into action.” Now I like the long version of cricket more than any other and can think of no way better to waste a few afternoons than sticking on the telly and drifting in and out of consciousness. But even at its bollock-bashing, sledge muttering best it can’t really be said to be exploding into anything.
Hyperbole, the art of exaggeration and huge overstatement, are not only the backbone of Sky news reports but the heart of many a great ad campaign.
Coca Cola are amongst the greatest exponents of the over-promise, a fizzing drink derived from forcing bubbles through a treacle-like substance and then sent to every corner of the world, wrapped in a huge logo. Spot the relevance in the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NnyE6DDnQ
Take a pair of gym shoes, stick some studs on the bottom a big tick on the ankle and flog them to football teams everywhere. But how to make your boots irresistible? Easy, make it a contest between good and evil, or actually, Good and Evil. The commercial featured an all-star bunch of European players against a bunch of extras from 300 tearing chunks out of each other in a Romanesque arena. Hardly exaggerating at all, tune in to it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOM1k4oLGJU&feature=fvw
When I fly I like to relax in the biggest seat I can afford with the deepest glass of Mr. Smirnoff’s best clinking happily in a glass of ice. It’s a personal preference and I don’t recommend it to everyone. However, I don’t believe that being told that bazillions of others fly with the same airline would affect my choice of carrier, why not tell me how many of your planes have crashed, or more to the point, how many haven’t? In Adland of course the consumer’s needs are often trampled under the arty needs of a creative idea. The British Airways ad that showed parts of a head coming together from across the world won many accolades and still looks pretty and is a touch stone of extravagance and style, but are exploded heads the way to reassure your passengers? Cast your eye loving over the very epic nature of this classic and ask yourself one very important question, where did the ear go to? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxs106rp5RQ
In fact there are few things in the modern world that can’t be spun by spin or inflated by the over-heated air of hyperbole. Today, however, is the 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela one of the few who can wear the mantle of hero comfortably. Adland across the planet has produced many tributes to celebrate the anniversary of his birth ranging from the heavy-handed to the throwaway. In New York they have successfully launched Madiba Day, something that must rather stick in the overactive oesophaguses of our own politicians who can’t seem to get their act together, as usual, even to commemorate our country’s Father.
Anyway, perhaps it’s better this way, after all no one celebrates like our American cousins and no one deserves a really big annual birthday bash like Madiba. New York being packed to hilt with stars they all seem to have queued up to hold up their hands and sing his praise. Join the party at: http://creativity-online.com/work/view?seed=18792e44
My only problem is the underlying theme of 67 minutes, one for every year he spent fighting against injustice, they say. I know I’m being dumb but I can’t for the life of me work out the maths here. Are they counting his years of freedom? His years of incarceration? I searched the site: http://www.mandeladay.com. But I still can’t unravel it.
ESPN are hosting a night to award him the “Arthur Ash Courage Award” a gong that will look good on his sideboard beside the Nobel Prize and one he’s no doubt been sorely missing.
Locally adland’s celebrations tend to be rather more ponderous, as if the great man spent every hour of his life sitting and thinking, rather than dancing to his inner spirit dressed in shirts that would have shocked Liberace. My art director is wearing a particularly florid affair to show her support for Elvis' birthday, “Til hamingju með afmælið“ she yells, sugar rushing her way to her whimsical Icelandic roots. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
achieving perfect pitch
It’s what we put out there that either attracts or repulses people. Sorry if that sounds a tad like a self-help book full of self-indulgent Yankee quotes, but that’s the truth of it.
In the 21st century image is everything, especially when getting your foot in the door and your business card in someone’s wallet or handbag, or both.
Dating sites are the perfect example of this; I was shocked to find that people tell masses of small fibs on them; they elaborate upon their good points and downright lie hugely about their dodgy bits. They’ll perjure themselves about almost anything to get you sitting opposite them in a crap coffee house or a swanky restaurant. Body shape, age, height and the number of remaining follicles clutching to their scalp are just the beginning. And then later they’ll wonder why their relationships flounder and ultimately fail in a morass of exaggeration and misrepresentation. It’s all more than a little disheartening.
But then, of course, self-promotion is rather big business these days.
Ad agencies are like circling speed-dating gatherings cranked up on a large amount of suspicious substances, all gagging to tempt new clients through their rather too welcoming doors.
Adland is full of eclectic behaviour and none more so than when
confronted by a new business possibility. Some guys simply dust off their agency credentials, packed with scintillating facts about staff members and former glories of creaky old campaigns. Others do a lively song and dance basing their presentation on fluffy personalities and a seductive mixture of smoke and mirrors.
There was an agency called Allen Brady & Marsh, creators of the terrible Guinnlessness campaign, that would incessantly dress up in fancy dress for pitches. Anything from stripping bananas to arks full of flashy fur animals and wobbly latex pints of beer would greet clients as they got off the lift clutching their sensible briefs. “Make it memorable,” was carved into ABM’s souls and even the pitches they didn’t win, which weren’t many, left the whole of Adland breathless with legendary, and hard to follow, performances.
That’s what pitching is after all, a form of performance art, packed with subtle nuances that not only show off your own talents but also highlight the failings of the competitors. So we add flash and verve, make ourselves brighter, more colourful with an exciting soundtrack. We throw in some campaign promises that would make a politician squirm, talk vaguely of transparency and cover the gaps with marshmallow sauce and invisible tape.
“Partnerships” and “custodians of the Brand” are much abused buzz phrases, often surrounded by what my granddaddy would have called ‘”high falutin’ words.” The Universal McCann pitch film is drenched in the stuff, listen in awe at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdGFnKTZWrA&feature=related
The clients, naturally, feed it back to us in bucketfuls. With prospective market share graphs, unique product attributes and inflated budgets, it’s a game where the rules are fairly cut and dried but the floor is constantly shifting. At it’s worst it’s a back-stabbing, crony-loaded sham, at it’s best it’s an invigorating breath of fresh thinking and muscle-flexing that puts us all back in the game and brings out our natural combativeness. It’s great.
My art director, for instance, never one to hold her intriguingly pierced tongue, is a particularly gifted presenter and, while scrupulously honest in real life, will gladly spin a yarn of tortuous intricacy to win a point in a pitch.
Pitches can make you a little crazy.
Pitches can also, however, bring out the best in an agency as the people come together to use their often prodigious grey matter to solve the new challenges inherent in a pitch. A new client, or even a new product is fertile ground for people who work on the same stuff day after day and the resulting work is often deliciously exciting.
The really good agencies look for a unique insight into the client and their product, Robin Wight, founder of WCRS, always claimed he “interrogated the Brand until it confessed its strengths.” It’s phrase that has become more well worn than “I know nothing about the arms deal,” but worked perfectly well for decades for an agency at the top of their game.
On the American sit/com/dram, “Madmen,” there’s a great scene that highlights this perfectly when Don pitches to Kodak to win the campaign for their new “Wheel.” It’s a beautifully timed scene climaxing in the agency recommending a new name for the product. Thus, they would have us believe, The Kodak Carousel was born. Catch this moment of calm madness at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY
In these days where we all seem to dance to the organ grinder of reality TV there are now shows where they test agencies with fake briefs so they can do their pitch tricks live on telly. The brief will usually be something controversial, selling guns to kids; a pheromone drenched deodorant, or my particular favourite, encouraging Australians to invade New Zealand. In one Aussie show they posed this idea of down-under warfare and received a few impressive and very typically antipodean, campaigns. Have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kkVo7Rv8g
Campaign one got my vote simply because I could imagine South Africans going for it too,
The agencies involved were more than happy to flex their creative muscles on prime time TV. After all there were potential clients on the edge of their sofas out there. And as they used to say to back in the 20th century, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
For most of us this level of blatant self-promotion takes some practice. Personally I’m forever telling people I’m a nice guy, but as my closest friend often reminds me from under her bar stool, nice guys will always finish last, and no one will give a damn.
But I could just be being a little disingenuous.
In the 21st century image is everything, especially when getting your foot in the door and your business card in someone’s wallet or handbag, or both.
Dating sites are the perfect example of this; I was shocked to find that people tell masses of small fibs on them; they elaborate upon their good points and downright lie hugely about their dodgy bits. They’ll perjure themselves about almost anything to get you sitting opposite them in a crap coffee house or a swanky restaurant. Body shape, age, height and the number of remaining follicles clutching to their scalp are just the beginning. And then later they’ll wonder why their relationships flounder and ultimately fail in a morass of exaggeration and misrepresentation. It’s all more than a little disheartening.
But then, of course, self-promotion is rather big business these days.
Ad agencies are like circling speed-dating gatherings cranked up on a large amount of suspicious substances, all gagging to tempt new clients through their rather too welcoming doors.
Adland is full of eclectic behaviour and none more so than when
confronted by a new business possibility. Some guys simply dust off their agency credentials, packed with scintillating facts about staff members and former glories of creaky old campaigns. Others do a lively song and dance basing their presentation on fluffy personalities and a seductive mixture of smoke and mirrors.
There was an agency called Allen Brady & Marsh, creators of the terrible Guinnlessness campaign, that would incessantly dress up in fancy dress for pitches. Anything from stripping bananas to arks full of flashy fur animals and wobbly latex pints of beer would greet clients as they got off the lift clutching their sensible briefs. “Make it memorable,” was carved into ABM’s souls and even the pitches they didn’t win, which weren’t many, left the whole of Adland breathless with legendary, and hard to follow, performances.
That’s what pitching is after all, a form of performance art, packed with subtle nuances that not only show off your own talents but also highlight the failings of the competitors. So we add flash and verve, make ourselves brighter, more colourful with an exciting soundtrack. We throw in some campaign promises that would make a politician squirm, talk vaguely of transparency and cover the gaps with marshmallow sauce and invisible tape.
“Partnerships” and “custodians of the Brand” are much abused buzz phrases, often surrounded by what my granddaddy would have called ‘”high falutin’ words.” The Universal McCann pitch film is drenched in the stuff, listen in awe at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdGFnKTZWrA&feature=related
The clients, naturally, feed it back to us in bucketfuls. With prospective market share graphs, unique product attributes and inflated budgets, it’s a game where the rules are fairly cut and dried but the floor is constantly shifting. At it’s worst it’s a back-stabbing, crony-loaded sham, at it’s best it’s an invigorating breath of fresh thinking and muscle-flexing that puts us all back in the game and brings out our natural combativeness. It’s great.
My art director, for instance, never one to hold her intriguingly pierced tongue, is a particularly gifted presenter and, while scrupulously honest in real life, will gladly spin a yarn of tortuous intricacy to win a point in a pitch.
Pitches can make you a little crazy.
Pitches can also, however, bring out the best in an agency as the people come together to use their often prodigious grey matter to solve the new challenges inherent in a pitch. A new client, or even a new product is fertile ground for people who work on the same stuff day after day and the resulting work is often deliciously exciting.
The really good agencies look for a unique insight into the client and their product, Robin Wight, founder of WCRS, always claimed he “interrogated the Brand until it confessed its strengths.” It’s phrase that has become more well worn than “I know nothing about the arms deal,” but worked perfectly well for decades for an agency at the top of their game.
On the American sit/com/dram, “Madmen,” there’s a great scene that highlights this perfectly when Don pitches to Kodak to win the campaign for their new “Wheel.” It’s a beautifully timed scene climaxing in the agency recommending a new name for the product. Thus, they would have us believe, The Kodak Carousel was born. Catch this moment of calm madness at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY
In these days where we all seem to dance to the organ grinder of reality TV there are now shows where they test agencies with fake briefs so they can do their pitch tricks live on telly. The brief will usually be something controversial, selling guns to kids; a pheromone drenched deodorant, or my particular favourite, encouraging Australians to invade New Zealand. In one Aussie show they posed this idea of down-under warfare and received a few impressive and very typically antipodean, campaigns. Have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kkVo7Rv8g
Campaign one got my vote simply because I could imagine South Africans going for it too,
The agencies involved were more than happy to flex their creative muscles on prime time TV. After all there were potential clients on the edge of their sofas out there. And as they used to say to back in the 20th century, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
For most of us this level of blatant self-promotion takes some practice. Personally I’m forever telling people I’m a nice guy, but as my closest friend often reminds me from under her bar stool, nice guys will always finish last, and no one will give a damn.
But I could just be being a little disingenuous.
Monday, June 27, 2011
All together, now?
When Mr Gates decreed that there was now a Global Village and that no matter where we thought we lived we were all fully paid up citizens, no one really understood the consequences. In the ensuing melee Globalisation has become many things, from the White Knight of the finance markets to the devil incarnate of conservation groups.
In adland it has caused its own brand of chaos as clients stumble about trying to create global messages that are as relevant in Reykjavik as they are in Mombasa. The majority have taken the easy way out, dismantling their core Brand ethos to a simplistic series of words and images that are hopefully recognisable wherever the consumer is viewing them. It’s hit and miss stuff, to put it nicely.
Global world is as brim full of smiley happy people as a crap REM song. They jump and sing and bounce around like a land full of Irish red setters, all playfully bouncing into the furniture and being improbably giddy. Ford World in 2006, for instance was bumper to bumper waving families and fawning lovers woven together with an irritating Charlotte Church ditty, it’s all most too much to watch especially when you reflect upon where it was all headed. Still if you like them big and bouncy park your brain at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J_SuVrt6PM&feature=PlayList&p=9BB5845199A52F17&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=34#
Global is now a bad word in many parts of the planet, especially the parts that are feeling the heat. Warming and warnings thereof are quite the rage at the moment, which naturally makes them perfect for adland to get up and shout about. Even the Ad Council has a crisis ad of their own floating in the stratosphere, and it’s ok, I mean, not earth shattering or anything, but fine. Have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOi5FclEh_Q
Combating melting ice-bergs and the like has become the responsibility of every one of us, including, rather improbably, the makers of Vogorsol Gum who employed several penguins and that well-known arctic squirrel to help solve the problem. It’s a tad odd, no it’s weird, but thank god there’s still a place in the world for this type of ad. Look on in amazement at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKYZtOqTBlE
More annoyingly the backlash to Bill’s Global Village has lead to a resurgence of the lunacy of jingoism that parades around the world in the emperor’s clothes of patriotism and national pride.
Indignation at being preached to by foreigners about how we should behave at home often seems to reach xenophobic proportions since those rather gentile days of the Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem. Enveloped in her red, silk wrap-around sarong dress and waving her Soviet leather handbag in my direction, my own ex-art director often throws a handy quote from him in my direction.
“You will always find, some Eskimo willing to instruct, the Congolese on how to cope, with heat waves,”
Twee, but to the point, as she so often is.
Then again maybe a little international criticism might save us from stuff like the Castle love-in where everyone is best mates and brothers, take a sip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfc-0-Y8eIStill, it has a nice pack shot at the end of a bouncing bottle cap.
In the future things will be different, for a start we won’t have a planet to mess up and we’ll live in a very bright post-nuclear Winter. Maybe. Either way at least we won’t have to hear sing-a-long predictions of the ilk produced by Pat and Barbara MacDonald, aka: Timbuk3, back in the crazy days of 1986 in their classic, ”The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades.” Listen, hopefully for the last time at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lputIMecalw
When we fail, the earth, of course, according to all good sci-fi geeks the world will be run by robots who will take turns persecuting the remains of mankind with devilish tin-brained schemes. As with a lot of sci-fi, yesterday’s nightmare futures have already begun to form before our eyes, in this case with the ASIMO humanoid robot. First introduced to humans in 2000AD the ASIMO has since grown in its abilities and can now walk and run after unsuspecting people-kind, albeit only our Japanese cousins for the moment. If you’re the type of person who likes to watch their fellow man tormented by non-organic life-forms then the Honda commercial starring ASIMO won’t seem alien to you, see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNW51s_tQOE
Laugh all you want, it may seem like an improbable and unlikely future, then just a few years ago a desktop was somewhere you sat your typewriter and glass of Jamesons.
In adland it has caused its own brand of chaos as clients stumble about trying to create global messages that are as relevant in Reykjavik as they are in Mombasa. The majority have taken the easy way out, dismantling their core Brand ethos to a simplistic series of words and images that are hopefully recognisable wherever the consumer is viewing them. It’s hit and miss stuff, to put it nicely.
Global world is as brim full of smiley happy people as a crap REM song. They jump and sing and bounce around like a land full of Irish red setters, all playfully bouncing into the furniture and being improbably giddy. Ford World in 2006, for instance was bumper to bumper waving families and fawning lovers woven together with an irritating Charlotte Church ditty, it’s all most too much to watch especially when you reflect upon where it was all headed. Still if you like them big and bouncy park your brain at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J_SuVrt6PM&feature=PlayList&p=9BB5845199A52F17&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=34#
Global is now a bad word in many parts of the planet, especially the parts that are feeling the heat. Warming and warnings thereof are quite the rage at the moment, which naturally makes them perfect for adland to get up and shout about. Even the Ad Council has a crisis ad of their own floating in the stratosphere, and it’s ok, I mean, not earth shattering or anything, but fine. Have a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOi5FclEh_Q
Combating melting ice-bergs and the like has become the responsibility of every one of us, including, rather improbably, the makers of Vogorsol Gum who employed several penguins and that well-known arctic squirrel to help solve the problem. It’s a tad odd, no it’s weird, but thank god there’s still a place in the world for this type of ad. Look on in amazement at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKYZtOqTBlE
More annoyingly the backlash to Bill’s Global Village has lead to a resurgence of the lunacy of jingoism that parades around the world in the emperor’s clothes of patriotism and national pride.
Indignation at being preached to by foreigners about how we should behave at home often seems to reach xenophobic proportions since those rather gentile days of the Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem. Enveloped in her red, silk wrap-around sarong dress and waving her Soviet leather handbag in my direction, my own ex-art director often throws a handy quote from him in my direction.
“You will always find, some Eskimo willing to instruct, the Congolese on how to cope, with heat waves,”
Twee, but to the point, as she so often is.
Then again maybe a little international criticism might save us from stuff like the Castle love-in where everyone is best mates and brothers, take a sip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfc-0-Y8eIStill, it has a nice pack shot at the end of a bouncing bottle cap.
In the future things will be different, for a start we won’t have a planet to mess up and we’ll live in a very bright post-nuclear Winter. Maybe. Either way at least we won’t have to hear sing-a-long predictions of the ilk produced by Pat and Barbara MacDonald, aka: Timbuk3, back in the crazy days of 1986 in their classic, ”The future’s so bright I’ve gotta wear shades.” Listen, hopefully for the last time at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lputIMecalw
When we fail, the earth, of course, according to all good sci-fi geeks the world will be run by robots who will take turns persecuting the remains of mankind with devilish tin-brained schemes. As with a lot of sci-fi, yesterday’s nightmare futures have already begun to form before our eyes, in this case with the ASIMO humanoid robot. First introduced to humans in 2000AD the ASIMO has since grown in its abilities and can now walk and run after unsuspecting people-kind, albeit only our Japanese cousins for the moment. If you’re the type of person who likes to watch their fellow man tormented by non-organic life-forms then the Honda commercial starring ASIMO won’t seem alien to you, see it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNW51s_tQOE
Laugh all you want, it may seem like an improbable and unlikely future, then just a few years ago a desktop was somewhere you sat your typewriter and glass of Jamesons.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
music to a blind man's ears...
For over a year now. thanks to the creative collaboration between Y&R Melbourne and Mr. Schweppes’ fizzy pop, I’ve been humming the same tune all week, and once again I’ve been left wishing commercials came with track lists and credits. Eventually I tracked it down, well actually young Adam at HowardMusic focused my ears in the right direction, and I can tell you It’s called “To Build A Home” and was recorded by those little rascals Cinematic Orchestra. You’ll want to know because it’s dazzlingly hypnotic and will have your inner i-tunes buzzing for days. You can check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRFfJJjLpqw. The pictures are quite nice too, in that slightly over-powering, special effect, Cannes winner way.
Adland is awash with great tunes, from huge roller coaster tracks that need a full orchestra and hours of baton twitching, to simple little ditties that stick in your mind like chewing gum to your shoe. Whatever the genre advertising has stolen it, re-recorded it, and generally tweaked it before squishing it into a 30, 45 or 60-second mnemonic for toilet paper. Or computer games, if such a lowly title can be applied to the vast entertainment landscape that is Halo. The brutally invasive “Big Sur Moon” by the charmingly named, Bucket Head, swirls and dive-bombs like a futuristic bomb laden aircraft. Sign up at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCKTC50JjIE
These days, of course, a simple song is no longer enough to snare the hearts of the consumer, last week, for instance, I was booked in for something called a Sound-scaping session with the guys at Audio Junkies. Nice blokes and after several hours of “squark,” “bang” “crash” and “parp” I figured out that this scaping thing is all about adding thunderclaps, far-off cars and farting noises to “flesh out” the track of my simple ad. I must say it certainly helps create a real life ambience that makes the whole communication more convincing, right down to the barking dog next door. See what I mean at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V3R0vB12LU The Canon commercial is loaded with SFX and, well, noises, created by Toby Jarvis and Mike Connaris from the mighty sound house, Mcasso.
From the same stable the McDonalds spot shows how the sound-scaping can counterpoint humour to make the point more powerfully, love it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfMryXuRwYA&feature=channel_page
A little spaghetti western type music with a few under and overtones help tell a story of a showdown between a couple in a parked car. The soundtrack is nicely paced and relatively subtle, more than can be said for story itself. Still, It still makes me smile, take a listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9y9McTwN
Someone, probably the mighty Paul Arden, once said that a great soundtrack is 50% of a brilliant ad. The flip side of this is that a crap track can lose you half your impact and memorablity. Take the new Honda Jazz “I Can”, ad, it has a thin track with a rather clumsy mechanical finger-clicking device dropped over it for effect. The effect being banal. But it’s nothing like as trite as the Vaseline Skin Care commercial which again employs some kind of clicking sound and again seems out of place with the photography. Admittedly neither are as aggravating as that damned song that surrounds the Defy campaign, full of smarmy franglais (“pink, schmink, money, honey…) and annoying noises that seem to make each ad go on forever, and not in a good way.
To drive these impossibly catchy tunes from my inner juke-box I foolishly appealed to my musically obsessed art director, humming something by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs she ran one of Audi’s recent offerings on her Powerbook. “The slowest car ever built,” highlighting the new R8’s hand intensive building process, is under-scored by a deceptively simple track full of angel-sweet voices and a seemingly effortless melody. Tune in and hear “the beep beep song” by Simone White at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDwEE_1ESMU&feature=fvsr Just be prepared to be hated by your loved ones as your incessant humming spreads faster than flu from a pig.
Adland is awash with great tunes, from huge roller coaster tracks that need a full orchestra and hours of baton twitching, to simple little ditties that stick in your mind like chewing gum to your shoe. Whatever the genre advertising has stolen it, re-recorded it, and generally tweaked it before squishing it into a 30, 45 or 60-second mnemonic for toilet paper. Or computer games, if such a lowly title can be applied to the vast entertainment landscape that is Halo. The brutally invasive “Big Sur Moon” by the charmingly named, Bucket Head, swirls and dive-bombs like a futuristic bomb laden aircraft. Sign up at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCKTC50JjIE
These days, of course, a simple song is no longer enough to snare the hearts of the consumer, last week, for instance, I was booked in for something called a Sound-scaping session with the guys at Audio Junkies. Nice blokes and after several hours of “squark,” “bang” “crash” and “parp” I figured out that this scaping thing is all about adding thunderclaps, far-off cars and farting noises to “flesh out” the track of my simple ad. I must say it certainly helps create a real life ambience that makes the whole communication more convincing, right down to the barking dog next door. See what I mean at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V3R0vB12LU The Canon commercial is loaded with SFX and, well, noises, created by Toby Jarvis and Mike Connaris from the mighty sound house, Mcasso.
From the same stable the McDonalds spot shows how the sound-scaping can counterpoint humour to make the point more powerfully, love it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfMryXuRwYA&feature=channel_page
A little spaghetti western type music with a few under and overtones help tell a story of a showdown between a couple in a parked car. The soundtrack is nicely paced and relatively subtle, more than can be said for story itself. Still, It still makes me smile, take a listen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9y9McTwN
Someone, probably the mighty Paul Arden, once said that a great soundtrack is 50% of a brilliant ad. The flip side of this is that a crap track can lose you half your impact and memorablity. Take the new Honda Jazz “I Can”, ad, it has a thin track with a rather clumsy mechanical finger-clicking device dropped over it for effect. The effect being banal. But it’s nothing like as trite as the Vaseline Skin Care commercial which again employs some kind of clicking sound and again seems out of place with the photography. Admittedly neither are as aggravating as that damned song that surrounds the Defy campaign, full of smarmy franglais (“pink, schmink, money, honey…) and annoying noises that seem to make each ad go on forever, and not in a good way.
To drive these impossibly catchy tunes from my inner juke-box I foolishly appealed to my musically obsessed art director, humming something by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs she ran one of Audi’s recent offerings on her Powerbook. “The slowest car ever built,” highlighting the new R8’s hand intensive building process, is under-scored by a deceptively simple track full of angel-sweet voices and a seemingly effortless melody. Tune in and hear “the beep beep song” by Simone White at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDwEE_1ESMU&feature=fvsr Just be prepared to be hated by your loved ones as your incessant humming spreads faster than flu from a pig.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Don't I know You?
Napoleon once said "no man is a hero to his valet". And he should know, because it was his valet who sold his penis to a museum after he died.
To put it another way, “Familiarity”, as someone else once said rather pithily, “breeds contempt,” and nowhere are these sentiments more apparent than in adland relationships.
Year after year the bias of these relationships has swung from the agency to the client, gone are the days when clients would ply us with drinks and beg us to make their Brands famous, now it’s our knees in the dust scratching at percentages. And truthfully it’s our own fault. Too many agencies have effectively sold out, and cheaply at that, too often we say “maybe”, or “of course we can”, when we should be saying “no”, or at least “why?”
We used to have faith in our own abilities, but we gave it away for focus groups, brainstorms and the belief that an idea had en masse was somehow stronger than something that flowed from the brains of a couple of guys who spent too much time in the pub or from an inspired corridor chat. We lost the spine-tingling, head turning magic we were creating, forgetting it was the only true currency no red-blooded client could pass by.
There’s no wonder we lost their respect and no wonder that ultimately it’s lead to clients believing they can do our jobs better than us.
Take the inimitable, and now according to the Christian lobby, festering in hell, Mr. Lolly Jackson owner and purveyor of the rumpy-pumpy, flesh-pots of Rivonia and other local suburbs. His latest poster on Rivonia Road stars a young buxom lass grabbing her assets and smiling winsomely into camera, a headline covers a few parts of her shiny body and reads, “No need for gender testing.”
The ad has caused a minor storm in the media because of the heavy-handed allusion to the Semenya affair, something that the usually candid client denied vehemently. In a quote which made my post-binge bleary art director spit out her coffee tequila, he claimed, “the ad is self-explanatory” and, “I do not want anyone coming here with the idea that we don’t have women, we have 100% women here, I did a test on them, I’m a professional and they are 100% wo-men.” This, you see, is what happens when we let clients write their own stuff.
More examples of the rot in adland were on show at The Loeries in Cape Town last year, but there was also some pretty good stuff, some pretty pictures and lots of pretty crap stuff dressed up as advertising. In other words it was a typical year. With no elegant Allen Gray commercial to light up the juries TV was a tad bland, but there was some cool illustration in the magazine stuff.
Mr Lolly Jackson’s titillating poster probably will never be attractive to birds especially of the Loerie variety, but at least it was topical, but it was also crap, unlike the rather good, if locally biased, poster for the anti-gun initiative, from an original concept by one, Richard van Zyl.
Taking our Presidents favourite fireside sing-along tune and changing the words ever so slightly he produced a powerful poster for the anti-gun lobby reading “Awu Leth’ Umishini Wakho” it further encourages the people to “Nikela isibhamu sakho esingekho emthethweni ku polisteshi eseduze nawe.” A case for once of familiarity breeding content, maybe.
To put it another way, “Familiarity”, as someone else once said rather pithily, “breeds contempt,” and nowhere are these sentiments more apparent than in adland relationships.
Year after year the bias of these relationships has swung from the agency to the client, gone are the days when clients would ply us with drinks and beg us to make their Brands famous, now it’s our knees in the dust scratching at percentages. And truthfully it’s our own fault. Too many agencies have effectively sold out, and cheaply at that, too often we say “maybe”, or “of course we can”, when we should be saying “no”, or at least “why?”
We used to have faith in our own abilities, but we gave it away for focus groups, brainstorms and the belief that an idea had en masse was somehow stronger than something that flowed from the brains of a couple of guys who spent too much time in the pub or from an inspired corridor chat. We lost the spine-tingling, head turning magic we were creating, forgetting it was the only true currency no red-blooded client could pass by.
There’s no wonder we lost their respect and no wonder that ultimately it’s lead to clients believing they can do our jobs better than us.
Take the inimitable, and now according to the Christian lobby, festering in hell, Mr. Lolly Jackson owner and purveyor of the rumpy-pumpy, flesh-pots of Rivonia and other local suburbs. His latest poster on Rivonia Road stars a young buxom lass grabbing her assets and smiling winsomely into camera, a headline covers a few parts of her shiny body and reads, “No need for gender testing.”
The ad has caused a minor storm in the media because of the heavy-handed allusion to the Semenya affair, something that the usually candid client denied vehemently. In a quote which made my post-binge bleary art director spit out her coffee tequila, he claimed, “the ad is self-explanatory” and, “I do not want anyone coming here with the idea that we don’t have women, we have 100% women here, I did a test on them, I’m a professional and they are 100% wo-men.” This, you see, is what happens when we let clients write their own stuff.
More examples of the rot in adland were on show at The Loeries in Cape Town last year, but there was also some pretty good stuff, some pretty pictures and lots of pretty crap stuff dressed up as advertising. In other words it was a typical year. With no elegant Allen Gray commercial to light up the juries TV was a tad bland, but there was some cool illustration in the magazine stuff.
Mr Lolly Jackson’s titillating poster probably will never be attractive to birds especially of the Loerie variety, but at least it was topical, but it was also crap, unlike the rather good, if locally biased, poster for the anti-gun initiative, from an original concept by one, Richard van Zyl.
Taking our Presidents favourite fireside sing-along tune and changing the words ever so slightly he produced a powerful poster for the anti-gun lobby reading “Awu Leth’ Umishini Wakho” it further encourages the people to “Nikela isibhamu sakho esingekho emthethweni ku polisteshi eseduze nawe.” A case for once of familiarity breeding content, maybe.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Open up your mind...
I’ve always hated open plan offices, let’s face it, everyone does. We hate the noise, the general state of chaos and the feeling of being constantly overlooked by our bosses more blatantly than usual.
Our Australian cousins recently finished a lengthy and presumably expensive bit of research into life in an open plan office. The results were, in the words of researcher Dr. Vinesh Oommen from the Queensland University of Technology's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, “absolutely shocking.”
90% of our antipodean brethren it seems suffered lower productivity and higher stress levels when dragged into bull-pen offices.
The pit-falls of open offices can quickly lead to a hell on earth as shown in weekly bursts on the original UK show The Office, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UESU5bn-s0&feature=PlayList&p=0383DAF518D6D1C4&index=17&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL), it can lead to hundreds of petty conflicts from who stole the selotape to the tit for tat of practical jokes. It’s just not conducive to a creative environment.
Or is it? SCPF in Spain have long been hailed internationally as a major hub of Adland excellence, yet their creatives sit in what can only be described as a barn chewing the cud of joint ideas. (Check out their site at: http://www.scpf.com/).
“Mother” in the UK, the incubator of many a world beating idea, famously work from one long table, trading ideas with insults as they go. (http://www.motherlondon.com/)
Great ideas, it seems can come from anywhere and we can bend our immediate environment to suit our own needs, after all the reality of any modern office space is that the air is thick with telephones ringing, emails filling inboxes and the smog of office politics, whether you’re hiding in your own space or breathing communal air.
Get up and walk about a bit, stretch your brain, who knows you might come up with a nice simple idea like a one shot commercial. If you’re really lucky it might be as charming and insightful as the classic “Ode to a Batchelor’s pea” (Batchelor’s being the Brand not the owner of said pea). Remind yourself of the power of a single-minded idea at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAzBMgaZqA&feature=related
One shot commercials are all the rage at the moment, especially since last week’s Cannes Grand Prix winner is being touted as the perfect example. In reality Adam Berg’s beautifully shot Phillip’s Carousel commercial is a single shot ad like Christiano Ronaldo is a footballer, ie it’s expensive and shiny and rather exciting to watch. Hold your breath at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3D4CqHbJM
Another simple idea that’s once again raised its head is the “only pay for what you want” ad agency. It’s hardly a new idea and previously it has fallen on rather hard ground as clients used it for freebie scavenging. The latest incarnation can be found at www.agencynil.com
This time they claim they have thought it out properly, here’s how they say it works: The would-be client submits a work request form. The agency perform the duties they require within the time that they specify. When the assignment is done, the client decides what it’s worth and pay that amount,(the only mandatory’s would be any costs for travel, proprietary research tools, and/or production, each agreed in advance).
They say that so far no one has suggested not paying for services rendered but I reckon it’s only a matter of time before it happens.
I, for one, think it’s a downright cheek that these little people should be affronting corporate Adland like this, I mean, what if it takes off?
To those people who are really worried about the proximity of their colleagues and the inability to hide their personal foibles within an open plan environment I suggest they look to Germany for support. In Frankfurt am Main there is an ad agency which has won bags of awards for its architectural innovation and inspired working areas. The floors, walls and ceilings are all glass, as are everything from the vertigo inducing lifts to the Escher-like disappearing staircases. It’s no place for the faint-hearted, or the secretive for that matter. A whole new level of adland transparency maybe?
I mentioned the possibility of transferring there to my art director but she just turned up the new Metric CD on her PowerBook and shook her dirty blonde hair in aggressive denial.
Personally I think this new open plan office I’ve been recently transplanted to is rather growing on me. At least now I can see trouble when it’s coming my way.
Our Australian cousins recently finished a lengthy and presumably expensive bit of research into life in an open plan office. The results were, in the words of researcher Dr. Vinesh Oommen from the Queensland University of Technology's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, “absolutely shocking.”
90% of our antipodean brethren it seems suffered lower productivity and higher stress levels when dragged into bull-pen offices.
The pit-falls of open offices can quickly lead to a hell on earth as shown in weekly bursts on the original UK show The Office, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UESU5bn-s0&feature=PlayList&p=0383DAF518D6D1C4&index=17&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL), it can lead to hundreds of petty conflicts from who stole the selotape to the tit for tat of practical jokes. It’s just not conducive to a creative environment.
Or is it? SCPF in Spain have long been hailed internationally as a major hub of Adland excellence, yet their creatives sit in what can only be described as a barn chewing the cud of joint ideas. (Check out their site at: http://www.scpf.com/).
“Mother” in the UK, the incubator of many a world beating idea, famously work from one long table, trading ideas with insults as they go. (http://www.motherlondon.com/)
Great ideas, it seems can come from anywhere and we can bend our immediate environment to suit our own needs, after all the reality of any modern office space is that the air is thick with telephones ringing, emails filling inboxes and the smog of office politics, whether you’re hiding in your own space or breathing communal air.
Get up and walk about a bit, stretch your brain, who knows you might come up with a nice simple idea like a one shot commercial. If you’re really lucky it might be as charming and insightful as the classic “Ode to a Batchelor’s pea” (Batchelor’s being the Brand not the owner of said pea). Remind yourself of the power of a single-minded idea at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAzBMgaZqA&feature=related
One shot commercials are all the rage at the moment, especially since last week’s Cannes Grand Prix winner is being touted as the perfect example. In reality Adam Berg’s beautifully shot Phillip’s Carousel commercial is a single shot ad like Christiano Ronaldo is a footballer, ie it’s expensive and shiny and rather exciting to watch. Hold your breath at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ3D4CqHbJM
Another simple idea that’s once again raised its head is the “only pay for what you want” ad agency. It’s hardly a new idea and previously it has fallen on rather hard ground as clients used it for freebie scavenging. The latest incarnation can be found at www.agencynil.com
This time they claim they have thought it out properly, here’s how they say it works: The would-be client submits a work request form. The agency perform the duties they require within the time that they specify. When the assignment is done, the client decides what it’s worth and pay that amount,(the only mandatory’s would be any costs for travel, proprietary research tools, and/or production, each agreed in advance).
They say that so far no one has suggested not paying for services rendered but I reckon it’s only a matter of time before it happens.
I, for one, think it’s a downright cheek that these little people should be affronting corporate Adland like this, I mean, what if it takes off?
To those people who are really worried about the proximity of their colleagues and the inability to hide their personal foibles within an open plan environment I suggest they look to Germany for support. In Frankfurt am Main there is an ad agency which has won bags of awards for its architectural innovation and inspired working areas. The floors, walls and ceilings are all glass, as are everything from the vertigo inducing lifts to the Escher-like disappearing staircases. It’s no place for the faint-hearted, or the secretive for that matter. A whole new level of adland transparency maybe?
I mentioned the possibility of transferring there to my art director but she just turned up the new Metric CD on her PowerBook and shook her dirty blonde hair in aggressive denial.
Personally I think this new open plan office I’ve been recently transplanted to is rather growing on me. At least now I can see trouble when it’s coming my way.
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