Tuesday 31 July 2007

Sky high astronauts


Nice work from the always reliable Jetpacks.

Monday 30 July 2007

Who is she?


This piece of stencil art by Melbourne street artist Rone used to be pasted on a railway bridge around the corner from where I live.

Every night on my way home from work the mysterious young women in black and white would glance down at me.

Then one day she was gone.

Covered up by some godawful excuse for an advertising poster.

Although she pops up all over Melbourne, I miss her on my drive home.

Today I found out a little more about this mysterious black and white women.

Her name is Suzanne. You can read more here.

Seven sins of digital


Iain Tait from the agency Poke in London has just written one of the best blog posts I've read in ages.

The Seven deadly sins of digital.

In a nutshell, Iain talks about the ideas that people who are just getting into digital always seem to propose at some point or another.

He's kind hearted enough to admit that he's tried most of them himself.

As have I for that matter!

The best thing about his post is he tries to explain why they’re not good ideas in most cases.

It's a terrific read. Click here and take a look.

Don't forget to tell him Stan sent you.

Sunday 29 July 2007

Cute butt


I've been doing a bit of work on a dog food this week.

One of my concepts featured a dog whose tail was a blur because it was wagging so much.

The suits loved the idea but...

There's always a but.

But the client would never run the ad because you can see the dog's bum.

As you can see, that'd never happen in Japan.

Thanx again to antjeverena for the pic.

Still life with mop


I don't think i'm the first person to say that they do things a little differently in Japan.

Where else would you see a hot teen in school uniform brandishing a mop on a billboard?

Definitely not Kansas that's for sure.

Apparently the billboard is advertising 'Life' - a new Japanese TV show.

And if you're one of those people who, like me, think that too much mop is never enough, here's another 'Life' poster.


Thanx to antjeverena for the pix.

E-Sports in Korea


It took me a while to warm to Tyler Brule's Monocle magazine, but half a dozen issues in I'm hooked.

Last issue they had a brilliant article on mobile comms in Korea. It is a must read if you want to see what we'll be doing with our phones a couple of years from now.

Super fast broadband and electronics generally are currently booming in Korea. And one of the by-products of this is the rise of professional computer gaming.

In fact they have their own TV network, Ongamenet, where gamers do battle in stadiums and arenas.

Click here for a great little Monocle video on the Korean pro-gaming phenomenon.

Forget India and China. I reckon South Korea is the most rapidly emerging new superpower.

Thursday 26 July 2007

Alcohol impairs your judgement


How refreshing to see humour used in a public service ad.

Nothing overly funny or clever about the line 'Alcohol impairs your judgement'.

But combine it with un unexpected visual and bingo!

Drinks on the house for Andrew Tinning and his team at Marketforce in Perth.

Click the ad for a closer look.

Looking ahead


Way back in 1900 the Ladies Home Journal published a fascinating list of predictions of what the world would be like in the year 2000.

The prediction that really caught my eye was about the alphabet and our use of language.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Obviously C, X and Q are still hanging around, so no change there.

But the condensed words and spelling by sounds seems very much to me like text messaging.

I wonder what they had in mind when they made this prediction?

Wednesday 25 July 2007

Banc de Sang


YouTube has only been around for a relatively short time, yet its video frames are instantly recognisible.

To raise awareness of how easy it is to give blood, the Spanish Blood Bank took the YouTube video and gave it a very clever twist.

Click here to see it in action.

I hope this idea helped get plenty of blood into the bank, as I think it's brilliant.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Product placement?


If there's one thing us creatives hate it's having to bold, highlight or increase the size of phone numbers in ads.

Looking at this pic it makes a little more sense now.

The bus ad is for GIO car insurance, just in case you can't read it.

Do it yourself


I stumbled on this video a little while ago, but I misplaced the link somehow.

Obviously I've found it again now.

Funny. Very funny.

Monday 23 July 2007

Black 4C coffee please


The perfect birthday gift for art directors everywhere.

Colour correct Pantone coffee cups.

Available here.

Let's talk


Thanks to Lynette for spotting this quote from Chris Anderson’s Long Tail book.

It sums up beautifully the topics and thinking behind the Age of Conversation book.

There's been much talk about the book, in the blogosphere obviously, and also in the traditional media as well.

Being in Australia I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive.

Guess I’m a victim of what Geoffrey Blainey once called the tyranny of distance.

Saturday 21 July 2007

Giving money away

A so called ‘proofreading error’ has resulted in a US Honda dealer having to dig deep into their pockets.

Roswell Honda commissioned 50,000 scratch-and-win tickets as part of a promotion, with a grand prize for the lucky winner of $1,000.

Problem is, every single ticket was a grand prize winning ticket!

Oh dear….

Friday 20 July 2007

VW snowplow unearthed


Big thank you to Mike Coulter from Digital Agency in Scotland for helping me track down the VW 'snow plow' ad I mentioned the other day.

It's not the best quality video, and it's a 30 second cutdown of the original 60, but it's a classic ad none the less.

Not so innocent Virgin


A month or two ago the latest Virgin Moblie campaign started appearing on bus and tram stops here in Melbourne.

The ads are pretty quirky and all feature slightly odd, almost mundane photography.

As I walked past a poster one morning I noticed in the bottom left corner a tiny credit for the photo.

The reason it caught my eye, was because the photo had come from someone’s Flickr site.

This resulted in much discussion in the office, as we’d recently used a pic we’d found on Flickr for a concept layout, and were wondering how to gain permission to use the photo if the concept was approved.

Our ad eventually bit the dust, so it didn’t really matter, but I wonder what the team behind the Virgin campaign did?

Not too much if the current discussion on the Flickr blog is to be believed.

It seems most photos on Flickr are covered under a Creative Commons licence. This means anyone can use them, so long as they acknowledge the source of the image.

Problem is, this doesn’t cover the use of the people in the pics. They surely need to sign a model release for the use of their image?

Many of the people whose photos have been used in the campaign have contributed to the Flickr discussion and they’re starting to get pretty hot under the collar, as you can imagine.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on this debate, as it could have wider repercussions. In the mean time, click here to see what the Flickr users have to say.

Thursday 19 July 2007

Dead horse flogging

There's not much to add to the email blurb above really.

It's absolutely appalling.

It was sent to Iain Tait of London agency Poke.

If you're not familiar with Iain, he's the guy behind the Crackunit blog.

Obviously the link baiters from Toyota didn't realise this, as Iain's email is addressed to "Dear Crackunit."

Oops!

Post-Modern VW


Oh so subtle and very clever new print ad for the VW Touareg by DDB London.

Given the cold snap we're currently experiencing here in Melbourne I can't believe VW are not using it here.

Anyway, I have no doubt whatsoever that the team behind this were referencing the classic VW 'snow plow' ad from the early sixties.

I tried searching YouTube to include it in this post, but I couldn't find it.

Well not in English anyway.

If you're interested in seeing it here's a link to the ad with a Dutch voiceover.

Click the pic to enlarge.

Wednesday 18 July 2007

Mystery man or serial pest?


"Just browsing the internet, very interesting blog."

This seemingly innocuous comment has been left on many of the blogs associated with The Age of Conversation.

I thought I'd do a bit of internet detective work and find out more.

The comment is credited to Freddie Sirmans.

I can't work out if he's a religious fundamentalist, an oddball real-estate broker or simply an annoying spammer.

He's probably all three and more.

You can see for yourself by visiting his website.

It's the wackiest website I've seen since I can't remember when.

Here's how he describes himself:

"Freddie L. Sirmans is not educated, but he is a fairly well read neurotic survivor. His writing is raw, crude, and uncut."

Yeah, right...Like....Umm!?

Tuesday 17 July 2007

Engaging Conversation


The Age of Conversation book has been on sale for 24 hours and is generating plenty of conversation.

It's been covered in AdAge, Business Week and Fast Company.

Fingers crossed we'll raise plenty of money for Variety the Children's Charity.

Paris, the pooch and prison


Love this ad for Paris Hilton's post prison chat with Larry King.

Hopefully the dog didn't try to recreate the prison glass scene from Midnight Express during the shoot.

Thanx to ThoughtSpurs

Monday 16 July 2007

The Age of Conversation


The Age of Conversation is a fantastic new book, launched today, that I have somehow managed to contribute to.

Born out of idea from Drew McLennan and Gavin Heaton, the book is a great example of the collective wisdom of the advertising and marketing blogosphere.

103 authors volunteered and were each given a 400 word limit, to write about whatever they wanted in regard to the conversation age.

Proceeds from the book will benefit Variety the Children’s Charity. The book is available to purchase from here.

You can find out more about the authors and their blogs here.

The authors are from all across the world. Click here to see where they’re located.

For more info and opinions on The Age of Conversation click here.

Saturday 14 July 2007

Nigerian economy in tatters



via

Spinal Crap

In the immortal words of Spinal Tap - There's none blacker.

Friday 13 July 2007

Bye bye iPhone


Blendtec's 'will it blend' virals are some of the best product demonstrations around.

Never one to miss an opportunity, now they've gone and jumped on the iPhone bandwagon.

Brilliant!

Thursday 12 July 2007

Anything but great news


BuyBlogComment lets you purchase blog comments in bulk.

They specialise in selling blog comments for dodgy spammers looking for quality backlinks.

You can buy either 100, 500 or 1000 blog comments at a time.

Just what the world needs. Not.

Wednesday 11 July 2007

A date for your diary


Melbournians with any interest at all in design or creativity be sure to make a note of 22 July in the diary.

Gary Hustwit will be introducing and discussing his much talked about film Helvetica at the ACMI in Federation Square, Melbourne.

This is Hustwit's first film as director, but he should have plenty to talk about.

He produced two of the most interesting music documentaries of recent times, Moog and the Wilco film, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

Click here for more about the film. Click here for tix.

Tuesday 10 July 2007

Advertising on YouTube


Stefan Kolle from Futurelab gives us a sneak preview of the new advertising format being developed by Google for YouTube.

I always wondered how YouTube ever made any money. Guess I won't be wondering that for too much longer.

Love those locks


I'm an absolute sucker for nice bit of typography.

This is some of the best I've seen in a while.

Really made me smile.

Air-kisses to Danny Searle and the team at Clems in Sydney.

Monday 9 July 2007

Translation required


Found this on the back page of this week's AdNews.

Not sure what it means exactly.

How 'bout you?

Sunday 8 July 2007

Brand DNA now in Print


I've just started a regular column for Marketing magazine called Around The Blogosphere.

Each month I'll be looking at what's generating talk around the advertising and marketing blogs.

You can find Marketing in most newsagents down under.

A word of warning - my byline photo is a shocker!

Saturday 7 July 2007

Headline of the week


Via

Now that's popular


Another spicy statistic from Lynette.

It's taken from a recent New York Times article on Wikipedia.

Friday 6 July 2007

Nice hat Colonel


You see some pretty strange stuff in Japan.

None of it is as downright weird as Colonel Sanders with a giant shrimp on his head.

Some kind of chicken shrimp wrap combo thingamy apparently.

Hopefully the food looked better than the Kyoto Colonel!

Consoles – Who needs em?


Just back from a couple of weeks in Japan, land of the advertising overload.

One Japanese brand that seems to be doing a lot better than I realised is Sega.

I remember when Arsenal players started sporting the mysterious Dreamcast logo on their shirts a few years back.

There was much talk about who or what the brand was.

And there was just as much talk when Sega decided that they’d had enough of the console wars and killed off the Dreamcast.

Apart from Sega stalwart Sonic the hedgehog, you very rarely see a Sega logo on the streets of Melbourne these days.

Not so in Japan, where Sega is everywhere.

There’s a Sega arcade on almost every block and they’re packed with punters most of the day and night.

They even have Sega Premium – Gambling machines for the over 18s.

Given how much time we spent in Sega arcades over the last two weeks, it looks like the decision to get out of consoles was the smartest thing Sega ever did.