Lovemarks or friendship?

This very insightful quote comes from Mike Arauz. He has recently written a series of great posts on spreadable media. I suggest you go read them asap.

Twits wanted

Eaon Pritchard alerted me to this must read book.

Can't wait to get my hands on a copy so I can find out exactly what I need to know to go out and totally dominate my market.

One tweet at a time of course!

Unleashing the goo

This is an entry in the UK Cadbury Creme Egg Unleash the Goo competition.

Pretty impressive don't you think?

It must have taken absolutely ages to get that contraption working smoothly.

A look at the Whopper Sacrifice

To win an award these days it helps to know how to enter an award.

I don't mean simply filling in the form.

I mean doing everything you can to bring the genius of your idea to life.

One the most popular ways to do this is with a case study short film.

These films are rarely seen by people other than award judges.

This one for the recent Whopper Sacrifice campaign is well worth a minute and a half of your time.

Very clever idea. Explained beautifully.

A new TV channel is born

For those of you without a High Definition TV this is what the countdown to the launch of Channel 10's new 24 hour hi-def sports channel looked like last night.

Shakespeare on Facebook

I posted a while back about Shakespeare on Twitter. Now someone's gone and set up a Shakespeare Facebook. It was obviously done before the Facebook redesign but it's pretty clever none the less. Click here to take a look.

Gotta get me some of those

Everyone knows I'm big on sneakers.

So it should come as no surprise that I absolutely love this campaign by Leo Burnett Dubai.

Shame about the tag line though.

Adidas and Converse are really not hard to find brands.

Which makes me wonder if the campaign has been translated into English.

Why think different?

Rumour has it the screenshot on the left is of a prototype Lenovo phone.

I reckon it's a fake to be honest. It's just too similar to the iPhone.

Then again, you never know. After all isn't imitation supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery?

Fans of the Fail Whale

I saw the Twitter Fail Whale several times today.

I also discovered that it has a fan club!

Not sure why to be honest although he is kinda cute.

The Whale is the creation of Aussie illustrator YiYing Lu. She has some wonderful stuff on her website which you can check out here.

For more on the Fail Whale Fan Club click here.

The future of road safety

Back in the early seventies they weren't afraid to design for the future.

A future where cars flew through the air and people had personal jetpacks.

A future where even the road safety man had the ability to teleport himself.

In case you don't recognise him (and why would you) the Green Cross Man is played by Dave Prowse who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars.

Ad agency layoffs

As rumours fly about retrenchments and layoffs at ad agencies it was surely only a matter of time before someone started to cover the news.

Click here to follow their twitter feed.

Smashing idea

Apologies for the punny headline. Couldn't help myself.

Not much to say about this ad for Heinz Ketchup really except that I rate it. A lot. Absolutely no idea who did though.

Mix up of the week

It's a bit like the role swapping movie Freaky Friday out there in celebrity land today.

In news just in lad about town Liam Gallagher is launching his own brand of Tequila.

Meanwhile pop star and all round nice boy Justin Timberlake is launching his own clothing label.

Nothing too exciting about that news really. Except it's Freaky Friday remember!

So JT is the one releasing the Tequila and Liam has the clothing label.

Weird!

Eau de Scouse

As a kid I spent many a Saturday afternoon on the terraces of Anfield and I've followed Liverpool virtually my whole life.

But even a die hard fan like me can't really understand who on earth would want to buy a Liverpool perfume.

It surely has to be the least must have product ever made.

Smaller budgets = Bigger ideas

Good to see the Gruen Transfer back on TV last night.

Even better to see them discussing the merits of the Baz Luhrman helmed tourism campaign for Australia.

I can't remember the budget of those ads, but suffice to say it was a lot of money.

Which got me thinking - Will we be seeing less and less mega budget TV ads over the next 12 months?

I think we will.

Surely the days of the Carlton Draught Big Ad are over. At least for the next 12 to 18 months?

The internet is already impacting on mainstream ad budgets, so the recession will surely hit TVC production even harder.

Which I actually think is a good thing. No really!

Because with less money to spend creative people are going to have to get really creative with both their thinking and their problem solving.

Who knows - We may just be entering a new golden age of Oz ads. An age where ideas are far more important than special effects and big budgets.

60 minutes in 60 seconds

Like most of the audience, I sat bewildered during the presentation given by Bob Isherwood here in Melbourne yesterday.

He made a good point. And I've already quoted him 3 times today.

But as a presentation it really didn't work for me. That landmark ad for Apple by TBWA says in 60 seconds what it Bob took 60 minutes to say.

For the younger readers here's a recent remix.

Say cheese!

Via

Secrets of success

Melbourne's own Bob Isherwood is giving a free talk on Tuesday afternoon at his old college RMIT.

Isherwood will be sharing his personal tips on unlocking the secrets to success.

To register for this free event click here.

I'll definitely be there so be sure to say hello.

What will you do next?

I got this from Kirsty. No idea who said it, but it makes for a very interesting read.

"...and I think it's the end that makes it worth starting, because the best reasons for starting in advertising are the countless opportunities you've made for yourself when you leave.

Adland may have lost much of its glamour and its preeminence in the pantheon of global creativity but it's still the best training you'll ever get for most of the things you might dream of doing.

It's like a gateway drug for interesting jobs; a never-ending, always-changing training scheme. You're constantly moving from one client, one problem, one opportunity, to another.

No project ever lasts that long, you rarely do exactly the same thing twice and you bump into all sorts of other experts, industries and professions.

Which means ad people have the best collections of odd and arcane jargon you'll ever come across, picked up from various clients.

But all this flitting from one thing to another isn't just pointless dilettantism, you're building up a tremendous body of experience; expertise in some broader creative endeavour.

You learn how to work with talented artists and monstrous egos. You're obliged to consider what everyone in the country might want and what a few CEOs and cabinet ministers might want.

You get good at explaining the complicated and the intangible to the unwilling and ill-informed. You come to understand the peculiar and different demands of images and words, briefs and ideas, traffic and production.

You find out when to brainstorm, whether to workshop and how to take things to the next level.

And, eventually, at some point, most advertising people take these ineffable, unteachable skills and go and do something else. They pursue some private passion or quieter life".

Advertising with spine

Always make me happy when I see creatives and media planners get together to produce something interesting.

This ad for Nedeburg Ingenuity wine took an entire year to reveal itself to subscribers of Wine magazine.

Very subtle. But very clever.

Nice work by Network BBDO Cape Town.

Why book ends?

Those dodgy looking book ends came in the mail today.

They're from Australia Post.

You're probably wondering why they sent them.

I'm really not sure to be honest. Especially after reading the info below which was enclosed with the book ends.

"Make some room on your shelf. And in your diary. Set aside 45 minutes for an enlightening presentation to you and other key members of your team. Then wait for our call."

Umm. Yeah. Whatever!

It ain't getting any easier

I was chatting with a young art director today who told me that their agency was going onto a 4 day week.

If you want my opinion, I think that's a good idea.

Sure everyone has to take a pay cut, but that's surely better for team spirit and moral than sacking people who are doing a perfectly good job?

When I got home I told my wife about it. She told me that a friend of hers had also gone onto a 4 day week.

Then in the B&T newsletter today I read that Ogilvy in Sydney had introduced a 9 day fortnight.

Advertising has never been an easy industry to crack.

And whether you're an aspiring creative or someone with plenty of experience this year may well be the toughest ever.

I'd really love to hear how you see this year panning out.

Before and After

Old George W and his Whitehouse cronies are long gone. But it seems it may take a very long time before people start to forget many of the things that they were responsible for.


Via

BMW goes big

Obviously the global economic crisis has yet to impact on Russia where BMW recently unveiled the biggest billboard in the world.

How big could it be you're probably thinking. Big. Really big.

In fact covers an area of approximately 6,000 square metres.

Those cars you can see in the pic are not models. They're real BMWs!

For lots more photos of this totally over the top billboard visit the oddly named English Russia.

Ready to go shopping kids?

Because of my involvment with and mentoring of young creatives, I thought I'd ask a favour of my younger readers - what do you think of this hard hitting quote?

"For Generation Y the crisis has hit harder than September 11. This is the first financial trauma of their lives, and they have been led to believe that access to capital and spending is limitless. Many of them are just completely over their heads. They have no idea of budgeting."

That quote is taken from a Wharton study on the shopper of tomorrow. It's a very interesting study. You can read more about it here.

Very large pot calls kettle black

Earlier this year an ad appeared on Australian TV promoting a range of new free to air digital channels called Freeview.

The ad caused quite a stir at the time. Not because of what it was advertising, but because the concept for the ad appeared to have been directly lifted from a UK ad for the Ford Fiesta.

What made matters worse, for Ford at least, was that the new Fiesta was due to launch in Australia using the UK ad.

Which is why I am surprised, actually make that shocked, to hear that Freeview are taking legal action against the comedy team behind this spoof.



Talk about the pot calling the kettle etc. Here's the Fiesta ad in case you haven't seen it. And here's the Freeview ad for reference.

Oops!

After a very interesting exchange of Tweets between Lucio Ribeiro and myself, I'd like to dedicate this wonderful piece of wisdom to him.

Take that Apple

There is absolutely no way that Blackberry would ever run an ad like this. Which is a shame, because it is simple, interesting and very single minded. Props to Guava NYC who were the team behind it.

Must try harder

Younger visitors to Brand DNA are sure to be aware of the Monday Morning Whip that I write each week for Junior.

One of the topics I try to ram home is the realisation that getting a job in adland requires more than just a good folio.

I took the picture above yesterday.

Every single one of those folios belongs to a talented young creative person trying to get a foot in the door at an agency.

Do I need to say more?

The Blogosphere and Twitter

This week's issue of Marketing Magazine is out now. It's a special digitally focused issue and well worth getting hold of a copy.

In my Around the Blogosphere column I take a look at what has become the most talked about interenet phenomenon of recent times - Twitter.

Click here to see what I had to say. Be sure to join the conversation by leaving a comment.