Water from a phone?

Hot on the heels of the iPhone idea I wrote about on Tuesday comes this lovely idea from Droga5 in New York.

In a nutshell is allows you to donate water to people who need it simply by putting your phone down for ten minutes.

Pretty clever huh?

Click here to find out more and get involved. 

An F U to cancer

This idea has been waiting for someone to spot it for ages.

Hopefully it's not a scam.

What I would say though is it would be 100% stronger if it had come out of England rather than Dubai because the Brits would've put a strong focus on the hand giving the two finger salute.

Still nice work by Y&R Dubai though. 

Think about yourself

Despite what the likes of Wolf Olins and Interbrand will have you believe, the Amazon boss is bang on.

I take this way of thinking as my personal mantra.

Yes you can do great work. But what do people say about you when you're not around?

Good things hopefully! 

Donating processing power

I'm not completely convinced by the 'curing cancer' hook of this idea but it is a damn good idea none the less. So take two minutes out of your day and watch it. Very clever thinking. 

Roll out the barrel

I get a lot of requests from people around the work to plug their work on Brand DNA.

Generally I politely decline. This is because DNA is all about me and my opinions.

I cannot be bought. Honest!

Today however I am breaking from tradition to share with you an ad from CumminsRoss where I have been involved for the best part of the last two years.

This charming spot was created by two guys who I've known for many years. In fact I taught one of them during my sabbatical time at RMIT.

To say I'm proud of these two knuckleheads is something of an understatement.

This is, in my opinion, great work. Hope you think so too.

The enemies of work

The awesome world of advertising

I once had a client complain that they didn't want to pay for a photographer because they thought the concept they had approved was an illustration. Seriously.

More great comic strips about the awesome world of advertising can be found here.

Sad but true

I've been in the ad game for the best part of twenty years.

And pretty much every day I've spent in an agency has involved making client changes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - When I employ a plumber or electrician to fix things at my house I never ever tell them how to do their job.

Trust your ideas

There's nothing I love more than seeing ideas flow out of a person's mind and on to a piece of paper via a pen. Preferably in black ink.

And you'll see all that and more in this wonderful little video about the development of ideas and the art of storytelling by illustrator Craig Frazier.

Check out more of Craig's work here. 

Puppy photo bombs

 This is definitely the cutest idea I've seen this year.

Puppy photo bombs on Instagram.

The addition of the dogs is obviously what catches the eye. But what really makes this concept work is the comments left below the photos.

This very clever (and cheeky) digital hijack is by Texas based animal rescue group Dallas Pets Alive.

You can read about them here.

Your house or mine?

Oh man I seriously gotta get me one of these.

Of course the Bahaus themselves would never approve this as they only use lowercase.

Still damn good though. 

This ad hits a home run

So much outdoor advertising these days is essentially n oversized print ad on a billboard.

Kudos to whoever is responsible for this baseball billboard in the US.

Very simple idea that makes terrific use of the medium.

Anyone know who did it? 

Daring to Think Different

Great insight on the birth of a truly iconic campaign by former TBWA/Chiat/Day creative director Rob Siltanen:

Jobs was quiet during the pitch, but he seemed intrigued throughout, and now it was time for him to talk. 

He looked around the room filled with the “Think Different” billboards and said, “This is great, this is really great … but I can’t do this. People already think I’m an egotist, and putting the Apple logo up there with all these geniuses will get me skewered by the press.” 

The room was totally silent. The “Think Different” campaign was the only campaign we had in our bag of tricks, and I thought for certain we were toast. 

Steve then paused and looked around the room and said out loud, yet almost as if to his own self, “What am I doing? Screw it. It’s the right thing. It’s great. Let’s talk tomorrow.” 

In a matter of seconds, right before our very eyes, he had done a complete about-face.

The personal touch

If you can't read this snippet from the newspaper click the pic to enlarge it.

I'm pretty sure the copywriter on the J&J packaging insert knew what they were doing when they wrote the insert copy but I can't help thinking they should have reread it a couple of times. 

This product does not stink

 I was advising a couple of you wannabe creatives last week who were working on their entries for Award School.

They both kept showing me thoughts that were derived from a catchy headline.

My advise to them was to try and visual visually and crack an idea that didn't even need a headline.

They both continued showing me try hard headlines. So I showed this clever campaign out of DDB in New Zealand.

Hopefully they learnt something from it.

Weetbix has more than just iron

I'm not much of an Olympics fan to be honest. Winter Olympics even less so.

But given the Games in Sochi (wherever that is) kick off today I thought it worth digging out this cracking little Weetbix ad from a few years back by Saatchis in New Zealand.

Pretty neat don't you think?

Click the pic for a bigger version. 

I before E

Nothing shits me more than holier than thou grammar nazi types.

Yes I know this stuff is important. I am a writer you know.

But the English language has a lot of rules that break themselves.

Like I before E.

Must be a nightmare learning English as a second language.

Passport or Passfolio?

I have no idea if this women's work is any good but you've gotta admire her chutzpah. Don't think I ever would've thought of this passport idea. So kudos to her. 

Can't find the links?

This has been reblogged a whole bunch of times on Tumblr and pretty much everyone who sees it says the same thing - Facebook.

I don't want you

Licensing songs for advertising is nothing new. In fact it's been going on for ages.

For starters I can't imagine an Apple ad without music.

But there are some songs that have a special meaning to me. And these are songs I do not want to see tarnished by advertising.

Songs that take me back to being a lonely lost teenager in apartheid South Africa when music was pretty much all I had to keep me sane.

One such song is Bob Dylan's I Want You.

I don't know why it means so much to me but it does.

So to see it used in an ad for yoghurt starring a bloody grizzly bear just makes me mad.

And sad.

Especially as this ad would be just as good without the song.