Twitter magnets

I've been developing an idea using magnetic poetry for a while now.

Fingers crossed it'll be ready sometime this month.

In the meantime I'll be killing time playing Twitter magnetic poetry.

Click here to give it a go.

Early prototype of Skype?

This ad dates from 1969. The video phone was first demoed 10 years before that. Read all about this precurser of Skype here.

It's obviously good

You need to squint to see it, but I reckon the headline on this ad is a great piece of copywriting.

But it's so bloody obvious you're probably thinking.

Well that my friends is what makes it so good.

An idea so obvious it's easy to dismiss it.

Sitting in the copywriter's bottom drawer are probably a dozen or more other headlines.

All of them perfectly good.

But none of them as simply perfect as One in a billion.

Legal art Vs Illegal ads

I was very surprised to discover recently that there are literally hundreds of illegal billboards in New York.

The ads on these poster sites are legitimate. It's the sites themselves that are illegal.

Street artist Jordan Seiler decided to do something about it.


Seiler organised a street advertising takeover which saw over a hundred of the illegal billboards whitewashed.

The resulting blank canvases were then given over to a group of artists to express their creativity on. Sounds like a fun idea to me.

Forgotten children

Hot on the heels of my post yesterday about neglected children comes this riveting promo for a season of programs devoted the same topic from Britain's Channel Four.

Clicik here for further info on the series.

Must see advertising

Big thank you to Kirsty for alerting me to this thought provoking idea by one of my old employers - JWT Melbourne.

It's for the Australian Childhood Foundation as part of their ongoing Stop child abuse now campaign.

The childsize manequins were eventually removed from underneath the posters to reveal the payoff to the headline.


Much as I love this idea I do have one minor quibble. Where's the call to action?

A piece as powerful as this is sure to provoke a response. Yet the call to action is tucked neatly away in the corner of the poster. Making it almost as invisible as the child.

I know award juries don't care about this sort of detail. But I do. Especially where abused children are concerned.

Still a damn good idea though.

Power of persistence

What's that up in the sky?

In the early days of this blog I often used to write about urban spam.

You know the kind of thing - ambient stunts and other dodgy 'strictly for award entry' type stuff.

Well today I learned about another utterly unnecessary advertising medium.

The Flogo.

Actually that's Flogo with a small TM above the name.

With Flogos you can create a bloody huge logo or message out of soapy bubbles that floats in the sky like skywriting.

Why? You're probably thinking.

I have no idea. No idea at all.

KesselsKramer downunder

I'll never forget the day I introduced the Dutch agency KesselsKramer to a group of 2nd year advertising students at RMIT.

To say that their work had an effect on these kids is something an understatement.

They were literally blown away by the random genius of KesselsKramer.

Now it's your turn. Well almost.

KesselsKramer Exports -12 Years of Posters and more will be on show in Melbourne from 4th to 14th June and in Sydney from 18th to 28th June.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, the agency's Creative Director and Strategy Director are holding a series of workshops.

Tickets are limited for all events and will be available for purchase via Ticketmaster from Tuesday 28 April, 2009.

Further information visit www.thesurgery.com.au.

One in a million

Winning an advertising award is never easy.

Take a look at this pic of the print entries at this year's D&AD Awards and I think you'd have to agree.

That pic was taken by Mark Ashley-Wilson from Three Drunk Monkeys who is judging at D&AD as I write.

You can follow his judging diary over at the CB Blog. Which is where I borrowed the picture from.

Got any ideas to spare?

Very interesting article on the AdAge website this weekend, asking whether creativity can be crowdsourced.

The answer is of course it can. But so what?

The article by Garrick Schmitt argues that new tools and technology are forcing big changes in the advertising industry.

No surprises there really. But are these changes going to lead to bigger and better ideas?

In my humble opinion no.

Not always no, but mostly no.

Why?

Because having ideas is often the easy part. It takes an agency client relationship built on trust and respect to bring a truly original idea to fruition.

So yes a creative tender of sorts may result in a collection of inspirational ideas.

But as anyone who has ever produced an award winning idea will tell you - the idea is only the beginning. Not the end.

Happy birthday to me

Brand DNA turns three today.

No idea where those three years went.

This is post #1,414.

Big thank you to every single person who has ever stopped by.

Drinks are on me!

Stuck for an original thought

There wouldn't be an ad student in the world who hadn't at some point considered an idea like this for their folio.

Which is where this idea should have stayed.

Yes it's funny. Kinda. But it's so bleedin' obvious it's just not funny.

Time for the creative dept at DDB Lisbon to dig a little deeper in their bottom drawers of unwanted concepts me thinks.

Smart thinking

How smart is this?

A tiny url generator to help you to park a large url into a tiny space.

Lovely!

I think it may be a Webby Award finalist too.

Click here for a test drive.

Keyboard cushions

My inner nerd loves these cute cushions.

Although the Mac man in me can't help noticing that they're PC keys.

Regardless I still think I'd like to see them tossed casually across my couch.

It's chocolate time

An oldie but a goodie.

The whimsy of Miss Dior

Very cute little TV spot for Miss Dior by Sofia Coppola. There's nothing amazing about this ad really. I guess I kinda like it because I have a bit of a soft spot for Sofia.

BBDO goes old school

BBDO in Italy have just launched their new website. It's a strictly old school affair.

And when I say old school that's exactly what I mean.

As the site loads you hear the sound of an old dial up modem.

Once loaded the site looks like it was programmed back in the 80s.

It's very creative. But so what!

I just don't know what a site like this is supposed to be saying about the agency.

Does it imply that they're stuck in the 80s? It certainly looks like it.

Click here to go take a look. Be sure to let me know what you think.

Bombing with Twitter

Twitter is seemingly everywhere these days.

It's on the web and mobile phones.

It's been on TV thanks to the likes of Rove and John Stewart.

It's in dozens of mags and newspapers too.

And now it's started to turn up in graffiti.

I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing more of these graffiti tweets. They're kinda cute I reckon.

Thanx to Dave Birss for the tip.

Simpsons & Mastercard

Not sure if this is legit or not, but thumbs up to Lucio for sending it my way.

Introducing Flutter

If you can't find time for the 140 characters required for Twitter, why not give new nano blogging service Flutter a go.

Looks kinda familiar?

Creative people can find inspiration in just about anything.

Which makes me wonder if the people behind the new Woolworths' logo have a copy of the soft porn flick Emmanuelle Steps Out in their dvd collection.

The image below is taken from the film's promo poster. There are some definite similarities don't you think?

Some pretty good advice

Whenever I come across helpful advice for people looking to get a foot in the door of the advertising business I like to share it.

Gavin tipped me off to this great piece by Stephanie Kelly.

Well worth a few minutes of your time.

Stale Tic Tacs

Just read about the iPhone app developed by digital agency Webling for Tic Tacs.

Being the curious type of course I downloaded it.

It's uses the iPhone accelerometer to allow you to shake your virtual Tic Tacs. You also get to hear the sound of the Tic Tacs being shaken.

And that's pretty much it. I think.

No real reward that I can see. So I showed it to my teenage daughter.

"That's so lame'" she said.

Wisdom of Trott

A good waste of money

I have no idea who was behind this eye catching campaign for the Zimbabwean newspaper.

Proudly positioning itself as a voice for the voiceless the paper's poster is actually made from real money.

That's an entire billboard covered in legal tender.

Sadly it's worth two thirds of bugger all thanks to Mr Mugabe.

For more from the Zimbabwean go visit their website.

Tooth Fairy

This cracking print ad from Y&R Jo'Burg really made me smile.
Much like the product does I guess.

Jack's life lessons

As seen on Caroline's fridge. Click pic for a better look.

Around the Blogosphere

This month's issue of Marketing magazine is out now.

In my Around the Blogosphere column I share my thoughts on the coming together of search and social media.

Click here to go take a look.

This just in!

Just spotted this on Mumbrella. Best April Fools gag of the day thus far.

Skype on the iPhone

I'm not that big on talking on the phone so I've never bothered with Skype.

So many people I know rave about it but I hardly ever call people.

Anyway yesterday I heard that Skype was available for the iPhone.

I saw several tweets about it. So I downloaded it.

But what now?

A regular Skype user would probably know what to do with it but I'm a little unsure.

If I make local landline calls what do they cost and how do I pay for them?

Anyone?