This is really, really interesting ... a Firefox add-on that enables you to see the web from a Chinese web-user's perspective.
You can download it here ... As the site-owners put it ... "Take an unforgetable virtual trip to China and experience the technical
expertise of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (supported by
western companies)."
Your connection is then routed through a proxy web server located somewhere in China, which means that you experience the Chinese web ... "For the most part the Chinese web will feel a lot like home. You will,
however, begin to notices differences if you start asking Google about
sensitive issues (for example Tananmen Square protests, or Pro Tibetan
issues)."
Really interesting idea and a great way of bringing an issue to life ... quite literally enabling us to see the world through the eyes of the people that an organisation is supporting ...
Came across these lovely MYT Mugs for everyone in the office via the guys who designed them as a self-initiated project ... A+B Studio.
And very lovely they are, too.
The perfect solution for large orders of tea and coffee in the office (not that I would actually know, truth be told, I'm shocking at getting the rounds in, being a latte lover myself). Still, I'm told that, if I were to make a round of tea, these would solve a basic memory problem ...
They're available at the Design Museum, Magma and on the A+B site.
Our chums over in Fishburn Hedges did their latest "What's Next ...?" event this week - as style writer Peter York and William Eccleshare, CEO of BBDO Europe,
talked to our friends and colleagues about changing consumer attitudes
and how brands and businesses should respond to these shifting sands.
The debate about what's next for style, advertising and consumer choice was wide-ranging ellicited some lively debate.
William's piece in the film below spans areas as diverse as whether there will be any structural differences between a pre- and post-downturn world - a new frugalism, the role of celebrity and humour in branding - and some things may well not change at all ...
Featuring the thoughts of 236 leading thinkers ... and me ... on social media and why it's important, it's sure to be a bloody good read full of interesting perspectives on the world of marketing today.
What's more, it's all in a good cause: the aim is to raise £15,000 for Variety ...
For those who might be interested, the various other authors are established bloggers in their own right and are well-worth checking out. The author list includes a bunch of names that will be familar to the UK ad blogging scene including Aki Spicer, Faris, Mark Earls and Richard Huntington. So it'll be a good read altogether ...
I thought that Creative Review's Patrick Burgoyne was a bit harsh about this latest Levis campaign. The magazine's editor seemed to take issue with a shift away from product-focus for this brand-association campaign.
Actually, I think that Creative Review as a mag is reading rather like a blog - mebbe a bit too much opinion expressed ... but that is a post for another time ...
Patrick says ...
"Hilson makes the point that, like the best Levi’s ads, all four films
do make reference to the product – in this case the 501 button fly, the
top button of which is pointedly left undone in each spot. But there
are many jeans with buttons these days."
"There’s nothing uniquely Levi’s
about leaving your top button undone, something that reminds us more of
the after effects of a particularly big dinner more than a spirit of
unfettered devilment."
But that rather misses the point. The whole problem for Levis is one of needing brand re-appraisal. The brand was associated with middle-aged wearers when I was a teenager, for God's sake, they've needed that re-appraisal by youth for while ...
The point is that the denim market is a nightmare right now ... you've got the premium brands (think Acne, James, 7, For All Mankind, Nudie, True Religion ...), you've got both lifestyle (anyone from Diesel to the skate brands) and mainstream retailers (Gap the most obvious) selling denim lines - and then you've got the discount brands that have pretty decent fashion jeans. Who'd be Levis in that little world?
So what's needed for Levis? Well, you know that they are hard wearing, they have heritage, they might have fashionable cuts. But they're not the brand that anyone under 40 wants to be associated with.
In which case, this campaign works. Unbuttoned as a campaign thought is rather lovely ... there's sexual connotation, but there is also a sense of freedom, of casting off work, of kicking back.
You can see how the theme of unbuttoned is going to work beyond ads ... "Levis Unbuttoned" events would be cracking ... Unbuttoned Magazine sounds pretty compelling too.
So I reckon that BBH's work deserves a bit more of a hat-tip than it has been given so far. And the films are belting to boot ...
One from Caroline this week as we salute the lovely Photofunia.com as part of our latest Seventy Seven Loves ...
The site basically enables you to upload a photo and apply a whole series of daft effects to it. What's fun, though, is that it enables you to create your likeness as though it featured as a Times Square billboard poster, really giving full reign to your ego. Marvellous for a bunch of PRs, I thought.
Personal favourites are the effects that enable you to turn yourself into a Polaroid dress (hmmm ...), impose your likeness onto Angelina Jolie's chest (I kid you not), create a situation in which two cats stare at you (and you thought that Angelina thing was weird?). Oh ... and you can even appear in Paris Hilton's hand apparently on the front cover of her album.
Caroline's own effort is here ... and relative to some of the things that she COULD have done to herself, it's a pretty tame effort all of a sudden ...
Those familiar with Nokia's "Music Almighty" campaign will be familiar with the really rather extraordinary headset that follows in this post - as variations of them feature across the advertising.
Now, the nice folks at AKQA and at W+K (who created the work) have put together a cute website that enables you to create your very own version of the headsets and save them off.
You can either use the website to create your own headphones from the elements on offer or you can download a template and make your own from scratch if you are design-minded.
Thought that this was rather a sweet extension of the campaign into the online space ... there are lots of places that it could go next, but it's a cracking piece of work thus far ...
Barclaycard's move away from comedy in its ads (as it turns out, a prescient move given the current market situation and the generally low opinion about financial services businesses).
However, its latest work ... Glide, I believe ... launched over the weekend.
It feels like a bit of a "BIG ad" in the spirit of a Sony Balls or Paint, featuring as it does a chap leaving his office and making his way by way of a giant slide. As he travels on his way, he uses his card to make various acquisitions swiftly and painlessly.
It really is rather good, I reckon. The soundtrack and occasional comedy moments (the library is cute) keep it human and prevent it coming across as a big, corporate, chest-beating piece of work.
The CGI is slick (there was no way that this ad could have been shot in camera a la Sony) and the cuts between cityscape and more personal shots of our hero work well.
Altogether a rather lovely piece of advertising, in my humble ... now let's see if it gets the same amount of online chatter that similar "BIG ad" campaigns have generated for the brands concerned.
Oh ... and there is a making of film on YouTube that is worth a quick watch ... And for those interested, the soundtrack is the 1976 hit "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers.
Bit of a disclaimer: our chums in Fishburn Hedges work for Barclaycard. Not that this influenced this post in any way.
Perhaps this is something that will filter over to the UK at some stage ... Sustainablog is mounting a bit of a campaign to get people to "just say no" to receipts.
As their piece (entitled "Make receipts optional to save paper") says ...
Of course, some receipts end up being helpful, even if you initially
might not have wanted them.
I have found myself digging through my
recycling box countless times in order to find a discarded receipt so I
could return a now-unwanted item.
And no one would want to buy some
big-ticket item, say a TV or computer, and not get a receipt. But
still, by and large, most receipts are rather pointless.
I mean, do we
really need de facto receipts from fast-food restaurants?
Interesting stuff and the stirrings of a campaign, more than likely ...
I seem to have got involved with another IPA event. Should be fun, I reckon. Thought that I would give it a plug as (with the exception of me), there are some cracking speakers. More detail here and the blurb from the IPA is below ...
In the current financial climate, it's vital that planners and
strategists are on top of their game. For one night only, the IPA
Strategy Group, in association with News International, are gathering
eight top planning/strategy types and giving them a soapbox to bring
alive what strategy and planning means from their very different
perspectives.
Expect it to be a bit spicy, to challenge some stereotypes and industry
clichés… and to satisfy a planner’s natural curiosity about what
planners do in other agencies.
Each session will be short, with
plenty of time for questions. They'll also run twice across the evening
from different stages so you can dip into those that are of most
interest.
Curious? You should be. With a thrifty mood spreading
across the industry, tickets are only £25 (£35 for non members) and
we'll even be throwing in some drinks and nibbly things.
The line-up includes: - Guy Murphy from JWT on global network agencies - Martin Bailie from Glue London on digital - James Gordon-MacIntosh from 77PR on, well, PR - Paul Gage from Proximity London on direct marketing - Max Wright from Rapier on integration - Simon Myers from Figtree on design and branding - Sam Noble from Iris on sales promotion - TBC exciting person on life in an advertising start-up
Everything starts at 6pm on Monday 10th November under the roof of Mary Ward House (5-7 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9SN).
The ever-entertaining (and clever to boot) Droga5 (or Dro5a) have created this rather wonderful category for the Young Guns advertising awards: Craft in Quitting.
And the name is pretty self-explanatory with the award bestowed on the creatives who submit the finest manner in which someone might bail from a much-loathed role with real style.
Alan and I had a bit of night out at the IPA and ThinkBox-backed "Night of the AdEaters" yesterday.
Has to be said that the event did not start well. In fact, "a bit of a car crash" were the words that sprang to mind as we entered (late) to find some bloke playing accordian pop tunes badly.
However, once the reel of 350 of the world's best ads started to roll, things improved immeasurably. Based on an archive of over 800,000 ads from the five continents, it was a bit like watching Jimmy Carr's Commercial Breakdown without the irritating commentary. Cracking.
Thought that it would be well-worth sharing some of the pieces that we thought stood-out from those we were there to watch ...
Without question, this was the piece that raised the biggest smile and much whooping ...
Other than that, the other things that got the crowd going were those spots that delivered belting little insights, a spot of high-grade comedy and heart-pulling appeals for charity campaigns. A combination of those in our picks below ...
High class comedy ...
Cute ad series ...
Heart-strings stuff ...
Cracking night out ... thanks ThinkBox, the IPA and Nuit des Publivores ...
A quick handful of thank you's ... In a blatant social network-ey kind of way, wanted to say thanks to a handful of folks who have linked to our humble blog for all manner of reasons ...
A lot of the time, it's not about the volume of the coverage that you generate for your campaign, it's about the depth of messaging that you convey. The launch of Fiat's eco:Drive ticked that box big time, in my humble ...
We read about the new eco:Drive system in Contagious Magazine and thought at the time that it was an interesting thing because it was created by a marketing agency but goes to the heart of both product and brand.
In their words:
eco:Drive is a downloadable widget that can be transferred onto a USB stick and plugged into Fiat’s Blue&Me technology
(a USB port on the dashboard).
The software then evaluates your driving
and marks it out of 100. Tutorials then encourage drivers to improve
their driving, their score and ultimately, reduce their carbon
emissions.
The clever bods at AKQA have taken all the
favourite bits from Nike+ and worked them into their cars which we
think is pure genius.
Clever, huh?
So, to launch the service, the team pulled a bit of a PR blinder. They partnered with the AA to enter a Fiat 500 equipped with eco:Drive into the MPG Marathon: a 400 mile race in which the winner is the motorist who drives most efficiently and has the lowest MPG. Then they popped AA CEO, Edmund King into the motor in question.
The clever bit was popping the BBC's travel corrie, Tom Symonds into a similarly-equipped car.
So it was that on day one of the campaign, Tom was featured on Breakfast (and pretty much every other rolling news outlet) taking a lesson in fuel-efficient driving alongside an AA instructor (nice plug for the driving school).
But then, on each news outlet through the day for two days (day one here and day two here), Tom was featured driving his motor and giving updates on how he was getting on: how his driving style had changed and what impact that was having on both the eco-friendliness and cost of his motoring.
Which is just the kind of exposure Fiat needed, really. Cracking work, guys.
Well behind the times on this one (since the app was created back in May) ... But, nevertheless, have come across and am seriously in love with Uniqlo's UT Loop application, which lets you create your very own looped sample on the world wide web ...
In essence, it's a little widget that you can customize with your own “beats” from their library. The UTloop has lot of claps, laughs, and other snippets to piece together with your keypad. Then, upload and share your creation.
So … we get through a lot of cultural stuff in Seventy Seven – either going to it or just reading about it (as is sadly increasingly the case for me what with a 17 week old kicking around … but that is another story …).
I thought that it would therefore be worth sticking together a quick list of the really good stuff that is on during the course of the month that we’re hoping to get to at some stage.
First up, the Banksy show in New York - entitled The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill - has been getting ACRES of coverage across pretty much every media outlet. This time around, the cunning little devil has created a load of pieces that TV is just lapping up (as is an eager YouTube audience). Self-publicity appears to be something that comes rather easily for the masked man of British art. Let's hope that he keeps it up, I for one am sitting on a couple of prints that I am hoping will continue to appreciate (sorry, Banksy).
Those unlikely to make it might be interested in this clip and this YouTube channel ...
Second attraction (a bit closer to home), is The Night of the AdEaters. An IPA-backed and ThinkBox-sponsored event that takes place on 16th October in Bloomsbury. "Nuit des Publivores" - so-called because its founding was by a French fella - is a screening of the 350 best TV ads ever from around the world in a single evening. There are now events in over 40 cities and it seemed high time that it came to London. Information here if there are still tickets. The international version of the site, with loads more about the concept is here for those who might be interested. See you there if you do make it along.
Thirdly (and finally) hardly an event, it has to be confessed, but The Other Side Magazine is something that I plan to enjoy in the month ahead. Full of interesting and creative-industries-related bits and bobs, it is almost always well worth a read, in my humble. Most recently, they took over Brick Lane bar-cum-club 93 Feet East and set up a big old Market Stall packed with their favourite finds. Nice bunch. Worth a read.
I didn't like this spot for Ford Fiesta at all when first I saw it. And a lot of people who know a lot more about advertising than I do did like it.
The premise, I thought, is utterly pointless. A bunch of screens emerge and "drive" through a city-scape. They show random images throughout before turning into a car. Hmmm ... Here it is for those who don't know what I am on about ...
But I just read a piece about the films that are shown on the screens as they travel through the spot ...
Apparently, there are around 20 of them, each made by a young creative team with the idea that collectively, the ad would capture a sense of all that is "now". At the very least, it gave Ford a whole heap of content with which to promote their car ...
To be honest, I've rarely been into the concept of an ad, rather than the creative beauty and the delivery of the message. In this case, the idea of the spot is interesting enough and engaging enough to make it great, I reckon.
Oh ... and I bumped into Robin from We Are Social, who is running an online campaign around the ad. There's a pretty blog here that is worth a peak.
Also worthy of note are these spots that show one of the particularly fab films and has a "making of" that repays a couple of minutes screen-time. This section was made by John Sanders, who has done a fair bit of work with Seventy Seven, as it happens. He's a good fella altogether.
Meatime, some of the cute films that show on those screens in the main ad ...
Haven't seen a Royal Mail ad that I liked for a very long time.
However, the brand's "Grow" spot is lovely in itself. And all the lovelier because SME briefs are always tough ones to crack: this one does it beautifully and with all the care that might have been lavished on a consumer or corporate b2b piece.
Have to say that Google is not a brand that I ever thought that I would be writing about as a "hats off". Apart from anything else, Google only has to sneeze and it gets coverage.
But I do have to say that Google Goggles was a belting idea neatly PR'd by the team there (Laura in the UK, I believe, amongst others).
For those who don't know already, GMail can now be set up to ask its users a number of maths-based questions late night and early morning (those prone to lunchtime drinking can re-set this). It works on the basis that, if you can't work out the answers, you shouldn't be sending emails at all ... or should at least be double-checking and thinking twice.
As the Daily Telegraph puts it ...
The goggles were developed by Jon Perlow, a Gmail engineer who
admitted he had been inspired by his own weaknesses. "Sometimes I send
messages I shouldn't send," he wrote in his company blog announcing the
new feature.
"Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her
over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my
ex-girlfriend that we should get back together."
The story got a mass of coverage (over 300 results for Google Goggles on Google News). But more than that, it added some humanity, personality and humour to what was becoming a bit of a characterless organisation. Good on you, Google ...
A couple of new folk to welcome to the UK list this month, so to those who have recently entered the AgeAge chart, once more a very big welcome! For those who may be interested, this chart is based on the AdAge Power 150, the top UK bloggers on all things advertising and marketing on 1 August 2008.
If you feel that you should be included, you can get in touch with AdAge here, who will sort you out. As soon as you're in, I'll pick you up in this filleting of the AA chart.
Apologies for absences of late are due. There's been a gaming brand in my life of late.
I've got some time off coming up so promise more stuff - there's a backlog of stuff to put up here and so I'm actually looking forward to some writing time.
Clearly not getting through things fast enough.
On which note ... those who read the piece on FAST Strategy (and thanks to those who gave comments and tips) might be interested to read this piece by Amelia recounting her experiences of the FAST Strategy day at the IPA.
Fab event and congrats especially to Amelia, Yusuf , Adil, Martin and Martin who were the winning team. FAB work, guys, loving the three hour solution to all things hybrid.
Those interested in the debate about whether fast strategy is a good thing might also want to read some of the debate that seems to be going on online about the whole thing ... The Kaiser, Russell and Faris have all posted thoughts on the matter of late.
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