Creative

The man in the chair

Advertising, Brand, Creative, Inspiration 0 Comment

Apparently the below is one of the best known, and most oft quoted examples of advertising advertising.

Not so for me, I only came across it last week as I plough through The Intention Economy, the latest book from Doc Searls, of Cluetrain and Project VRM fame.

Created for The McGraw-Hill Business Publications Company in 1958, ‘The Man in the Chair‘ ad is revered as one of the most effective and influential works in the genre. In a 2012 context there is still much to be gleaned from its message. Read More

Time and pressure

Advertising, Creative, Inspiration 1 Comment

As creatives we spend our careers carefully explaining that good creative thinking needs plenty of time and consideration “you can’t just turn creative genius on and off like a tap” we say. Equal parts Don Draper style contemplation and starring at beer mats combined with manic pacing about, smoking fags, drinking coffee and 3am wake-up jottings and hair pulling.

But, I’m always amazed about what can be achieved when the pressure is really on.

A month or so ago I was part of the Cannes Young Lions judging committee. For those who don’t know the process young hopefuls are given an initial brief to respond to in their relative leisure. The fruit of their time is laid out on a table whilst judges um and ahh, pick the best few to move on to the next round – the 24hr start to finish brief test. The winners of this round go to Cannes to compete against other top teams from around the world in a final 24hr showdown. Read More

Curiosity

Creative, Inspiration, Strategy, Technology 0 Comment

One of the many things we owe to the enquiring and brilliant mind of Sir Isaac Newton is our modern understanding of light and colour. Up until the late 1600s, white light was widely considered to be a pure and irreducible subtance. The notion that it constituted in some hidden way all the colours of the rainbow was not merely fanciful but arguably heretical.

And then one day Newton jammed a needle into his eye socket… Read More

Have memes gone mainstream?

Advertising, Brand, Creative, Marketing, Social media 0 Comment

[Original post by Sam Harris]

Richard Dawkins invented them, but the internet super-sized them. And now the question to savvy marketers is: could the meme actually be an effective vehicle to tell their brand story?

Whilst a great idea on the face of it, advertisers might want to think twice before they attempt to set a lolcat amongst Keanu Reeves’ pigeons.

Like most social marketing plays, the obvious watch-out for marketers is audience subversion, where your message quickly gets flipped by the community.

The internet is littered with the carcasses of such ‘campaigns’. Who could forget the eco-takeover of Chevrolet’s SUV competition across YouTube, or recent Twitter fails at #QantasLuxury and #Coles. Just this February, Coke was left mopping up the spills when its invitation to create a “happy story” on Facebook through a trail of one-word comments, was hijacked by ‘fans’ with a less virtuous vocabulary. Read More

Programming. Probably more fun than you think.

Creative, Inspiration, Technology 1 Comment

I used to be a programmer.

Wait, come back. I’ll try to make this interesting.

Over the past decade I’ve coded websites to sell things both useless and useful. To matchmake lonely hearted singles, educate university students and deliver workplace training. I’ve coded spy games for children, sprawling eLearning systems, dinky little novelty sites. And (sorry) countless advertising emails.

These days I’m more of what you might call a dabbler but I still like to dive in and write some code when opportunity arises. Whenever I do, I’m reminded of just how wonderful it is to be immersed within the buzzing, humming universe of an evolving computer program. People who don’t code rarely expect this but for all of its technical rules and structural discipline, programming at its heart is a richly creative activity. Read More

A cheap holiday in other people’s misery

Creative, Strategy 0 Comment

Unbelievably there are over 2 million (possibly even up to 4 million) men, women and children trafficked across borders – and within their own countries – every year.

These people are bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, sweat shops, child brides, circuses, sacrificial worship, forced begging, sale of human organs, farm labour, domestic servitude. Read More

Iterate and carry on

Creative, Design 0 Comment

You know when you’re re-decorating your house, you’ve got all those little tester-pot paint splodges all down the hallway like some kind of crime scene and then have to spend 10 minutes listening to every bugger who steps in the door give their views on which ones they like the most?

People are always very honest when its like that don’t you think? When it’s clearly ‘a work in progress’ they’ll hmmm along with you, tell you that they’re not a fan or that it will probably look a bit dark – be surprisingly frank.

But it’s a different matter if you’ve finished.

Only the oldest, most hardened friend would dare say that the freshly double-coated masterpiece ‘is a bit too green for my taste’ Read More

Avoid Bangkok alleys

Creative, Strategy, UX 0 Comment

I recently had the unpleasant experience of being dragged through a Westfield shopping plaza, looking for bamboo toothpicks (don’t ask!).

While traipsing around, I noticed advertising signs in many of the shop windows, each offering discounts off recommended retail prices – usually with a tiny caveat below saying ‘up to’. Read More