Damn good advice

Fun ad for fun car

I very much doubt this ad is going to be troubling any award juries but damn it makes me smile.

Why?

Because I love animated GIFs and Fita 500s.

And this spot features both.

Huge thumbs up to Olivier Francois from the Chrysler marketing team in the US for commisioning this from his agency.

Yes it's silly. But isn't that what fun is all about? 

Guns kill you know

I guess this falls into that category that we Aussies like to refer to as Only In America. A beautifully shot commercial that really tugs at the heartstrings. It involves kids, danger and death. But seriously folks rather than getting our cousins in the US to store their guns securely why don't they just get them to hand them in to the local police station. I mean really!

Conde Nast + Publicis + Google

One of the most talked about deals in adland last year was the sale of 49% of Droga5 to the William Morris talent agency.

It marked the beginning of a new type of brand communication.

One where celebrities were actually involved in an idea rather than simply cast for their talent.

At Cannes last week we saw several high profile people on stage who normally would not have been sighted at an advertising event.

I'm talking about Jared Leto, Kanye West, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bono etc etc.

If you don't already believe that this is a whole new way for brands to communicate then you really need to wake up.

This week a new liason was announced between Conde Nast, Publicis and Google.

They've gotten together to form La Maison -  a new marketing service focussed on branded content for upmarket and luxury brands.

If you're a young writer or art director sitting in the creative department reading this I urge you to take it very seriously.

There's far more to the advertising business than advertising. And La Maison and the Droga5 deal are just the beginning. 

World Cup scoreboard

Two World Cup ideas in a row. Today's comes from Audi in the US.

This is hardly earth shattering but it is a fun concept none the less.

So sit back and enjoy the video.

World Cup white lines

As everyone knows I love a nice bit of topical advertising.

So kudos to the team at DLKW Lowe in London for spotting the opportunity in the ridiculous white spray used by the referees at this year's World Cup.

Not exactly a great ad. But guaranteed to get noticed.

Go make something

Saatchi makes great ad

Love this ad by London agency Sugar and Partners.

Sadly it never ran.

However it was awarded at the annual Chip Shop Awards.

Sadly the ads in the Chip Shops are generally ones that never got off the ground.

And whilst it's great to recognise work that would otherwise end up in the bottom drawer I can't help wishing the Saatchi ad had run.

In fact I'm pretty sure the young Mr Saatchi would've loved it too. 

The power of Google

The king of clay

I'm not that big on tennis if truth be told.

But even I know that Rafa Nadal is the undisputed king of the clay court.

To celebrate his record breaking ninth French Open win Nike commissioned a life size statue of Nadal made from actual Roland Garros clay.

It's currently on display at a well known tennis store in Paris with a plaque that says - legends are made of different stuff.

Nice one Nike!

Cannes = Yawn

I'll never forget the first time I got a piece of work shortlisted at Cannes.

It was back in the late 90s and I was in Sydney for a conference.

I came back to my hotel room to find reams of congratulatory faxes slid under the door.

It really was an amazing feeling.

The thing is back then international award shows didn't seem like such a huge wank.

There was no Campaign Brief blog full of ECD diaries ad photos.

And news of wins took a while to arrive.

I'm sure if I was still in the early stages of my career I'd still find the whole thing quite exciting.

But I'm not. And I don't.

That's not to say you shouldn't love it though! 

Ever heard of FutureBrand?

I went to get my eyes tested this morning.

The optometrist was a lady about my age who was quite chatty.

She asked what I did for a living and when I told her she told me about her brother who was a creative director at a graphic design firm.

Then she went on to tell me that he was based in London and asked if I'd heard of the place he worked.

Turns out her brother was global creative director of FutureBrand.

Of course she was proud of him. As were her parents.

But I don't think she truly appreciated the magnitude of his job.

Which really made me smile. A lot. 

I get knocked down...

I work a lot with young people and they're often so worried about getting it wrong that they don't get it right.

So I keep on telling them to be brave enough to push past their fear of failure.

Not all of them can do that. But those that do go on to great careers. 

Coca Cola Second Lives

This has to be the best idea I've seen in ages.

Rather than encouraging the people of Vietnam to recycle their empy bottle Coke are getting people to re-use them instead.

It's still recycling. But much much cleverer.

And useful.

Check out the video below for more info.

Banksy goes snip

It's been absolutely ages since I had some Banksy on the blog.

This piece is a cracker don't you think. 

Now that's powerful

It's nigh on impossible to read the copy at the bottom of this ad.

So double click the pic to enlarge it and prepare to be stunned.

Truly great work from Grabarz & Partners in Germany. 

Mario + Mercedes

Super Mario is a plumber. And yes I know plumbers charge a lot of money. But I very much doubt they are in the Mercedes demographic. Except of course in Japan. Where pretty much anything goes. 

Getting smaller and smaller

I was watching the last episode of the current season of Mad Men the other day. It featured the a story around the first moon landing.

One of my kids said that there was more computing power in an iPhone than the room full of computers that it took to land a man on the moon.

It's a stat I've heard many times before but this IBM ad from around 1980 shows it is quite probably true.

The storage capacity of the computers in the back row of the ad is 60GB.

That's twice the size of the USB drive that I keep in my workbag!

Falling phones

My first ever mobile phone was a Motorola. Mind you they were cool back then. These days not so much. Although they do fall beautifully in this new spot from Droga5. 

Smoking - Sexy or Quit?

This Vine was created for World No Tobacco Day.

It was designed to encourage people to quit smoking.

But I reckon this video does anything but.

Yes the copy is strong and succinct. However the message it's delivering isn't.

It makes smoking look sexy.

Especially if you watch it with the sound on.

Weird. Very weird.

Who's watching who?

Based on the endless stream of irrelevant badly targeted ads I get on my Facebook I suspect marketers don't know what to do with all that data they collect. Bit of a shame really.