As a football fan and writer I’d say that they’ve got the football fandom bang-on and the writing is pretty good too.
I normally check out of these things after about 30 seconds, but I saw this through to the end.
Best shot: the Booby Moore sculpture.
Unnecessary quote marks (thanks, S).
The history of typography (thanks, D):
Google Streetview hyperlapse (thanks, G):
The McBain movie hidden throughout Simpsons episodes (thanks, J).
The very funny textastrophe (thanks, G).
What Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wishes he knew when he was younger (thanks, D).
Saul Bass: a big part of Hitchcock’s success (thanks, D).
Jeff Bridges is a great photographer (thanks, G).
The greatest rapper of all time (thanks, A):
http://vimeo.com/65215638
Monster trucks on acid (thanks, J):
The size of the universe explained.
And along similar lines, things that are only funny if you’re British (thanks, S).
Funny lost posters (thanks, C).
What the internet is doing to our brains (thanks, D):
The interior design of LA’s weed clinics.
19 emotions for which English has no words (thanks, S).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLDKRJh1EvY
Someone’s definitely been watching Wes Anderson movies, but in this case that’s a good thing.
Read the article here.
Interesting theory that throws up a couple of interesting questions:
Does Sir John believe his own agency’s creative output has deteriorated in recent years?
If there’s been a problem with advertising getting to grips with new technology, how come truly great TV work was still being a produced a long way into the digital revolution? How come advertising has suffered most in the last five years and not the ten before that?
Why did the person who wrote the article think that BBH produced the Pregnant Man ad?
And ‘…one of the other problems I have today is people have retreated to the edges of advertising. You know, they’re happy to do some small little campaign somewhere or they’re doing something on the net that hardly anybody sees and they’re getting awards for it and everybody’s cheering. But they’re not changing the way people feel or think.’
Amen.
Peerless blogger The Ad Contrarian has begun a new venture.
If you’d like read about it you can click on either of the two links above.
I’ll just reprint one of his most salient points:
It wasn’t long ago that the agency business was the province of independent entrepreneurs. In the 1980’s Y&R was the largest agency in the U.S. with a 1 1/2% share of the US advertising market.
Today, four global holding companies control over 70% of the advertising in the U.S. We don’t believe this is a good or healthy thing.
Best of luck, Mr. Hoffman.
It’s another amusing Amazon review (thanks, J).
Brilliantly defaced textbooks (thanks, A).
Teddy has an operation (rather wonderful. Thanks, G):
Kaleidopope (thanks, V).
The Nicolas Cage matrix (thanks, G).
The creepiest things kids have ever said (thanks, someone I’ve forgotten).
Tonight, Leslie, I’m going to be Gary Glitter (thanks, J):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtot09AnHI
How to play chess properly (thanks, G):
Please help me, Ja Rule (thanks, J).
Soderbergh on the state of cinema:
Stop frame atoms (thanks, M):
Film posters with the original titles of the books on which they were based (thanks, G).
And some hand-painted bootleg Ghanaian movie posters (thanks, G).
Following on from that VW commercial we have a new American ad for a massive brand that is ‘racist’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8-SaUrvQck
It’s just been pulled, apologies all round etc.
I have to say that although I see what the racism-accusers are saying, I find its offensiveness more obscure.
The problem is that it reinforces stereotypes (black criminals, white victim etc.), but I was too busy watching the strange and somewhat disturbing goat to notice all that.
Back in ‘the day’ (1996?) there was a poster campaign that depicted several fake ads where a white person was gaining some advantage over a black person (one for a recruitment company showed a white woman climbing over a black man to ascend a ladder). These were then revealed to be fake, along with an accusation that if you saw them and didn’t report the ‘racism’, you too were racist. Well, I didn’t see/report the racism because I didn’t see black and white people, I just saw people, and therefore saw no problem. Maybe that makes me a lazy observer of latent racism but I’m unconvinced.
So back to the goat ad: I just saw a situation and some people (and a goat). The skin colour didn’t occur to me as problematic because it didn’t occur to me at all. There are many depictions of black people as criminals. Many black people are convicted criminals. Many white people are convicted criminals. I suppose the racism-accusers would have been OK with a white line-up and a black victim. I just don’t think I’d have noticed either way.
But I’d love to hear what you think, dear reader.
News reaches my eyes of the interesting genesis of an ad (it’s quite old news, so bear with me if you’ve already heard it):
That is interesting in itself, but what’s more noteworthy is how it happened: the Steve Jobs visual was done by a Hong Kong student. Graham Fink, ECD of Ogilvy China (Coke’s ad agency), was so impressed with it that he flew down to meet the guy to ask if he’d work on the odd project for him. He then gave him the Coke brief, and here we are.
Nice one, Graham. Few CDs would be so proactive, and look how it paid off.
The same thing happened again recently when design student Ricky Richards sent Finky an idea for a chair made from Coke bottles. That didn’t happen, but the Santa ad you can see in his portfolio did, and is now up for Clio and One Show honours.
Lesson: proactivity works just as well for CDs as it does for students.
In fact, it works well for everyone.
