Unintroducing the Kombi

Of course we call 'em Kombis not Buses.

And they were phased out down under a long time ago.

But the news that the last ever Kombi will be rolling off a Brazilian production line sometime soon leaves me feeling a little sad.

I've always wanted a Kombi. But somehow never got around to one.

Maybe one day. 

Before # was a #hashtag

Art directors take note

Some time ago Dave Bell the founder of Mercer Bell in Sydney posted a great Slideshare called 33 things I know about art direction.

This week he's released his sequel. Like the first instalment it's filled with gems. Well worth checking out. 

John Webster the Human Adman

Wonderful 30 minute film about one of the legends of British advertising John Webster.

If you grew up in the UK in the 70's and 80's then Webster pretty much soundtracked your childhood.

The man is a genius.

But don't just take my word for it. Save this video for lunchtime and enjoy 30 minutes of magic with your sandwich.

You can thank me later. 

Shopping for Lego

Personally I'm a bit over all those grown ups who worship at the altar of lego.

But even I can see that these Lego gift bags are top notch.

Love to know who was behind them.

Ben & Jerry in Japan

Yeah. Umm...

Running out of ideas

I often wonder if it's possible to run out of ideas.

Not during the course of a long day or a busy week. But over a lifetime.

Look at the Rolling Stones for example.

They haven't written a decent song in over 30 years but they still keep on touring and making records.

And yet people like Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young continue to make new music that I would actually pay for.

In adland it's rare to see anyone over 50 in the creative department. Except for maybe the creative director.

Yet mature creatives generally seem to do okay as freelancers.

So how long do creative people have before they run out of ideas.

A few years or a lifetime?

Personally I think it's a lifetime. I just don't think it applies to everyone. 

WiFi for football fans

Earlier this year I worked on a pitch for a brand that was a major sponsor of the MCG.

As a football fan and twitter lover I've been driven insane trying to get a 3G signal at the MCG.

So I pitched the idea that rather than simply sponsor the stadium the brand actually pay for wifi to be installed.

We even went so far as to get indicative costings done.

Suffice to say we didn't win the pitch. And the MCG is still a 3G deadzone.

I suspect the problem is actually caused by many thousands of people all trying to access a signal at the same time.

So wifi is definitely the answer.

Over in the UK Liverpool became the first club to install a large scale wifi network at their stadium.

Sadly it's been plagued with problems.

In fact an unofficial survey this week found it was basically a dud.

Sounds to me like there's a seriously big opportunity for a telecom provider here.

Or maybe we'll just continue to put up with the situation.

Who'd be a suit?

I've often wondered why on earth anyone would want to pursue a career as a suit.

It's a job that as far as I can see is the meat in a sandwich which is stuck somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Clients make ridiculous demands. You make sure they are met.

You tell the creatives about the clients demands. They tell you where to go. Usually.

So you go back to the client and try to reason with them.

But the clients says jump and has no expectation other than you asking them how high.

So then you stew over the problem. A lot.

Before trying yet again to get the creative people to do what the clients has asked.

And so it begins again.

Honestly why oh why would anyone want to be an account service person?

How to be creative

If you can find ten minutes in your day, grab yourself a coffee and watch this excellent little film.

An ad that doesn't stink

Here's where to buy:

Dreams not products

Tasteless cider

Ah the good old days.

When men were men. Women were birds.

And sexual innuendo somehow managed to get past the client.

 I've never seen a campaign quite like this to be honest.

Obviously things were different in the 1970s.

Very different

And apart from the smutty innuendo how about this beauty that actually promotes the benefits of the product?

The IKEA cookbook

The humble cookbook.

Not so humble in the age of the celebrity chef. But you know what I mean.

Essentially they're all the same.

A list of ingredients, some instructions and a pic of the finished dish.

Now the brand that reinvented furniture has reinvented the cookbook.

It's the cookbook - IKEA style.

All the ingredients laid out to make assembly easier.

Beautifully designed but at an affordable price.

I'm just surprised I'd never heard about this even though it was published about three years ago.

Gorgeous don't you think?

Prius goes vroom

Every now and again a car company does something nice.

Something simple.

Something cute.

Nice one Toyota.

A remote control tourist

Love me a nice bit of opportunistic culture jacking.

Today saw the launch of the Remote Control Tourist by the city of Melbourne.

It was much discussed on social media this morning particularly by ad industry types.

Kudos to Bella Caruso a third year student from the advertising school at RMIT university for getting herself and the url for her portfolio into the feed of the Remote Control Tourist.

Very smart or should I say quick thinking.

Although I just checked her twitter and it seems she may have had an ulterior motive.

But I love that she had the gall to do it anyway. 

Only in Japan

What the!? 

The missing comma

Twitter and Facebook seems to have brought out the inner grammar nerd in a lot of people of late.

So much so that I'm getting a bit tired of all the 'high horse' and 'told you so' mentality.

People make mistakes. Get over it.

Nobody's gonna die.

Unless of course you like cooking your family and pets.

Ways to sell You

Great advice from some great minds collated for you by Marc Ecko. 

Don't flush

Seems I'm not the only person who looks at their iPhone on the toilet.

Dave Birss snapped this pic on a Virgin train.

I'm glad he did.

Love the tone of voice. Love the randomness.

Everything you'd expect from Virgin.

Chocolate typography

There's nothing new about bottle shaped type treatments.

Hell even Banksy has used it.

So even though I'm not seeing anything new in the way these ads look I am seeing the work of someone who understands women and chocolate.

Which mean a big thumbs up from me.

Campaign by Richter7 out of Salt Lake City in the USA.

Positive or negative?

I saw this 'conversation' the other day.

Yet another example of how a machine can't think like a human does.

A few months back I did a lot of research on social media monitoring for a client.

I learnt that many of the best social tools were able to differentiate between negative and positive chatter.

Which is very clever.

But I guess buying weed in a car park doesn't fit into either of the negative or positive sentiment boxes. 

Cheap memory

Last week I got tired of the spinning wheel of death on my Macbook and upgraded the RAM.

I bought 8gb for $104.

The official Apple RAM was double that. So I got a bit of a bargain.

But even at the Apple price RAM today is a fraction of the price that it was back in the 70's when home computers were just a dream.

If 64k cost $1,495 just imagine how much an iPhone would've cost back then!