A beetle on the moon?

I was talking to a couple of the kids at work this morning about how all great advertising has its roots in the work of Bernbach and Volkswagen.

Sadly they were not familiar with either.

Half an hour later and they were converts to the self deprecating ways of VeeDub and DDB.

With the Neil Armstrong movie First Man currently running in cinemas I thought I'd show them this gem.

It made them smile. Of course. Which is brilliant considering it's a fifty year old ad and doesn't even feature a car. 

D IF FER ENT

When this GoPro poster appeared in my Facebook feed on the weekend I wished I was able to find the people behind it so I could issue them with one of the Typographic Penalty tickets I posted about yesterday.

I thought at first it might be the angle of the photo. But it's not. It's just bad type plain and simple.

Seriously who approves shit like this?

Crimes against type

Fantastic gift for the type nerds and design geeks in your life from the design team at type foundry Hoefler & Co.

This book of penalty tickets lets you let 'them' know when their work simply isn't up to scratch.

It's been typeset in Helvetica to provoke maximum anxiety, and jarringly printed in retina-scorching orange. Much like the tickets parking inspectors issue.

Click here to get yours. A book of 50 tickets costs just $10. An absolute bargain I reckon.

Phones are good

This is the print/outdoor component of the W+K Three mobile phone campaign I posted on BrandDNA the other day.

Very fresh for a phone company. Don't you think?

Balenciaga & Computers

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post about Chanel at the seaside comes this stunning catwalk setup from Balenciaga.

Apparently it's supposed to represent the inner workings of a computer.

Either way I wish I could've seen it in the flesh. Stunning.

Click the pics for a bter look at the imagery.

Chanel gets beached

When I first heard about Chanel doing a beach catwalk I rolled my eyes.

I mean really. So try hard.

And then these photos landed in my inbox.

It wasn't a show at the beach. They created a beach show.

Pretty spectacular I reckon.

Hate to be the poor buggers who get to clean up after though!

Phone Life

It's hard to remember what it was like to walk down a busy street and not see person after person glued to their phone.

Which is why phones have been copping a bit of flack of late.

So kudos W+K London and UK mobile provider Three for making an ad celebrating life without mobile phones.

Or should that be with mobile phones?

Andy Warhol Exposed

I've often spoken about how much Andy Warhol would've loved the social media age.

He was probably the original Instagram influencer.

If you've ever read any of his books you'd know that the man never left home without a camera.

He documented everything from celebrity gatherings to mundane nothingness.

And now for the first time you and I have access to his photographic archives.

3,600 contact sheets and 130,000 images.

You won't believe the faces and places captured by Waarhol.

So take a deep breath. Click here. And prepare to waste an eternity.

Be Kanye

Fun piece from the days when Kanye introduced us to the concept of the GoldDigger and Trump was a reality TV star. Boy how times change...

Apple Growth Spurt

Let's be honest. Apple really have no need to advertise these days.

But they do.

And even though this TVC is kinda cute. It's not a patch on the best Apple work to come out of TBWA.

Banksy meets Adland

The Banksy shredder stunt at Sothebys generated a huge amount of coverage last week.

As it should because it is very very clever.

Just as clever in their own way is the cheeky bugger who turned the pic above into an ad agency meme.

Original is better

One of my proudest ever career moments was making the walk up to the stage to pick up an award at the MADC Awards.

Sadly they were put out to pasture a few years ago. Victim of the increasing importance on international awards shows and the Won Report.

But now the original Melbourne award show is back.

And what better way to do it than this very clever film from my friends at Cummins & Partners.

Sadly I'll be in Lisbon on the night of the new awards...

Not hooked

I can almost picture the scene...

Man goes to hardware store, approaches counter and tells the shop assistant he needs to hang a new artwork.

Don't worry says the assistant. I have just what you need.

Picture hooks says the man.

Oh no says the assistant. Much better than that.

I have Picture Hanging Solutions. 

Learn from your mistakes

These student recruitment ads for McDonalds are pretty cute don't you think?

They were created by TBWA Brussels.

The size of the headline is very un-McDonalds. Which give the campaign just a hint of scam.

But nice work none the less.

Damn good advice

It ain't easy being green

Sustainability and environmental credentials are incredibly important to today's consumer.

We like our brands to 'do no harm' as Google used to say.

Great case in point in recent weeks is UK crisps brand Walkers.

They've said that they will not be introducing recyclable packing for their crisps until 2025.

And consumers sure ain't happy about it.

In fact they've started mailing back crisp packets. Lots of them.

This has given rise to the Post Office making an official announcement to consumers to stop doing it.

Which makes me thinks Walkers will get their shit together far quicker than they were planning too.

At least I hope they do!

Future focussed

Found this ad on a Tumblr site. It's about eight years old and years ahead of its time.

Ultra premium convenience

The way retail is heading I suspect we will eventually end up in a world of opposites.

Cheap or premium.

No middle ground.

Like them of loath them premium brands know how to market themselves.

Great case in point is the Cartier pop-up store in ultra chic Omotesando in Tokyo.

Not just any pop up store mind you. A golden hued convenience store.

It looked just like a 7/11 but with the garish red and green branding replaced withCartier"s signature gold.

Items on sale included luxury food and drinks, including cuppa noodles for $135 and slices of mango cake for around $130.

Hardly cheap. In fact anything but.

And yet fans of the brand lapped it up, with Instagrammers queued up around the block for a piece of the ultra-premium action.

We don't do ads

This quote is from 2012.

And yes they do still do advertising.

But the ads are so good they are impacting culture not building awareness.

Which is oh so powerful.

Meet the new Don

Don-O-Mite. It's blacksploitation meets Madison Avenue. Funky!

Do it - Done it

in one of the biggest moments in sport this year 42 year old Tiger Woods won his first title since 2013 at the Tour Championship in Atlanta.

And as you would expect Nike didn't let an opportunity like this pass them by.

Low budget. Very simple. This pair of Insta posts carry just one line of copy: 'Never stop chasing your crazy dreams'

Nothing else needed to be said really.

AI advertising from Burger King

This new Burger King campaign is the funniest thing I've seen out of adland in ages.

The agency DAVID in Miami will obviously get all the plaudits but it's their Artificial Intelligence (AI) copywriter who is the real hero.

Computers huh? Gotta love 'em!

Is Ogilvy for real?

Truth be told you probably couldn't make up the David Ogilvy story.

It's so far fetched it just doesn't ring true.

Decides to get in to advertising at 38. Yes 38.

Never finished his degree.

And he used to sell stoves door to door.

Like I said. Ridiculously far fetched.

Click the pic if you're having trouble reading the copy.