Kon Marie your Twitter

I think most people on Twitter would be following more people than they'd like.

Probably a hong over from the early days of following back everyone who followed you.

Well now you can practice Marie Kondo on your Twiiter account and remove all followers who no longer spark joy for you.

Click here to check out Tokimeki Unfollow.

Tokimeki is the Japanese term that translates as Spark Joy.

Have fun!

A month of type

I could very easily sit and stare at this on a loop for the rest of the day. Just beautiful. Especially at fullscreen.

Great idea, but...

This ad turned up in my Linkedin feed over the weekend.

It's a terrific concept don't you think?

Also unexpected. Much like the rest of the campaign I guess.

Thing is though, when you click the pic and enlarge it, the logo/tagline/product lockup just doesn't look right.

Could be a folio piece. Could be a scam ad.

Either way it's a great concept but I'm questioning its authenticity. 

Swimming in plastic

This is a beautiful idea. Synchronised swimmers Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thrope performing their routine in a pool littered with plastic waste.

This thought provoking film highlights the threat of plastics to our oceans. Although I suspect you probably didn't need me to tell you that! 

Gender Equality in 1974

Obviously it's difficult to read the list of male and female reasons for buying the Honda Civic back in 1974.

So click on the pic and enlarge it.

You'll see the reasons for purchase are the same.

Hardly revolutionary advertising. But I doubt you'd see anything like it today.

Unfortunate Placement

Even the best media buyer in the world couldn't have avoided this unfortunate ad placement.

I mean really. What are the chances?

So low I doubt even the hardest of hardcore punters would give you odds.

A hint of movement

These Instagram Stories for UK shoe brand Dune are not exactly setting the world on fire but I love them.

Great use of colour. The random white scribble over the clothes. And the oh so subtle movement of the feet.

They're by Mother apparently. 

What the actual!?

In theory this is a good poster as the headline is under six words.

In fact it uses only three.

But those three words...Oh dear. 

These 2 look familiar

I don't know how old the poster above is.

It's a Hungarian government campaign advertising its new family policy.

A friend emailed it to me the other day. And for the life of me I could not work out why.

Until he sent me a follow on email an hour later.

Yes folks. It's the loved-up couple from 2018's meme of the year.

A load of arse

Yes I know it says ARISE.

But who amongst you can see only the word ARSE when you look at this poster?

Surely the big guy upstairs deserves better. Doesn't he?

Pretty good reasons

This poster has been popping up all over Melbourne of late.

Hardly the most eye catching piece of creative work.

But the insight and headline is top notch.

If perchance you're reading this from outside of Australia, here's some context:

We have four big banks here. They are referred as the Big Four.

They are all 'on the nose' following a long overdue Royal Commission into their ethics and practices.

 The Bendigo is a smaller regional bank that has grown to a reasonable size. Think building society with added oomph.

OK. Got it now? 

Follow the rules*

Anything but luxury

Pic above is a screengrab of an eDM from Luxury Club.

It is, I reckon, possibly the most off-brand piece of communication I have every seen.

Luxury by name but definitely not nature.

The new normal

Never ever thought I'd see an ad for marijuana. Not sure I love it to be honest. Takes itself a tad too seriously for me. Which is odd considering it was made by Spike Jonze. 

Hunt you down...

Believe it or not all the trackers listed in the screengrab above are from a blog.

Yes a blog.

Now I know for a fact that the blog owner isn't tracking people who visit their site.

So who is?

Ad serving networks and their ilk.

People have often criticised advertising for not always being honest. And yet it generally is.

Automated, programmatically controlled and served banner ads however are a whole difference story.

They're like the tech equivalent of a 'hunt you down' Liam Neeson movie. 

Life Lessons

Rams 10 Principles

A most excellent snippet from the Dieter Rams doco by the great Gary Hustwit, with music by none other than Brian Eno. 

Women of STEM

My wife is a big fan of the Nevertheless podcast. And as is so often the case she sent me a link to check it out.

And I want to. I really do. But man oh man I already have way too much stuff queued up in my 'must listen' list.

What I did love though was the selection of downloadable posters they had produced of female STEM role models.

I've featured three that caught my eye but there are lots more available here.

Parrot meets Alexa

It's going to be a long time before I can see the value of having a digital home assistant in my home.

I honestly can't see the point of it. Too darn gimmicky for me.

However I do have two dogs who may get as much out of it as this parrot does.

But then again they're more than happy sneaking up on the sofa and barking at anyone who has the audacity to wander down our street. 

What would Bernbach think?

This sponsored post from Volkswagen popped up in my social feeds last week.

As a young writer I aspired to be good enough to work on the VW brand.

When I went to London I did just that.

It took me a while to find my mojo as the brand has a very unique tone of voice.

Which is why I know there is no way that my Creative Director, or any of the legends who worked on VW before me, would ever let something like the above run.

VW was always self-deprecating. It never took itself seriously.

And I doubt it would ever have the audacity to claim it was cool. Seriously.

The Declasse Vamos

Someone shared this car ad on Twitter last night. At first glance I thought it was from the seventies.

All was revealed of course when I clicked on the link in the Tweet.

Grand Theft Auto.

I would write pages on the marketing associated with the GTA game series.

It's attention to detail is brilliant. Especially the music.

As for the Declasse in the ad, here's how it's described on the GTA site:

Believe it or not, the Vamos began life in 1960 as a sensible and straight-edge compact car. But over the course of the decade, something wonderful happened. It moved out of its parents' garage and started hanging around with V8's and fastbacks.