If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

The best mash-up of all time (thanks, T):

Another fine Amazon takeover (thanks, S).

Have fun looking round Manhattan (thanks, S).

Film photos and their locations.

Compressorhead Ace Of Spades (thanks, V):

Polanski on leaving the audience wanting more:

Every pop culture reference from Tarantino movies in chronological order (thanks, K).

It’s a gold shirt, motherfucker (thanks, J).

Edith with googly eyes (thanks, J).

Sweet Brown autotuned (thanks, A):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7UgAprdpM

‘Kick the little face… in the place,’ (thanks, M):

Lord of the Strings: the influence of Tolkien on heavy metal.

Darth Vader is hard of hearing:

Muhammed Ali on Candid Camera (thanks, V):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X5iWTj1ySKo#!

Revving motorbikes vs pedestrians (thanks, J):

Howard Stern interviews Tarantino (find a spare 75 minutes and listen to it all. Really excellent stuff):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVo8WfALdaY&feature=player_embedded

Qualcomm’s insane CES keynote (thanks, S).

Celebrities read mean Tweets (thanks, S):

News reaches me from Australia that McDonald’s is changing its name to Macca’s (its Australian nickname) to celebrate Australia Day.

If you have a look at the link you’ll see that they’re changing everything from the the outside signage to the little badges the staff wear.

I admire the idea, but I admire even more the fact this it’s actually happened.

getting a corporation the size of McDonald’s to mess with its branding is like trying to fix up a friendly between Israel and Palestine. The machinery, the process, the levels of approval… I can only imagine.

It now enters my Fucking Difficult Hall Of Fame, alongside Nike Plus (how the hell did anyone get Apple and Nike to join forces?), The changed Heinz labels and the Simpsons rebrand of 7-11.

Hats off.

You might recall that I have trouble posting images on here, so check the link.

I’m particularly impressed by the art direction, which makes these impossible to avoid reading.

And such a simple idea that I’ve never seen before (cue several comments with links to Spanish ads from 1995 that are similar).

I remember when this ad was originally on air:

It was on quite a lot (particularly during the football, if memory serves) and it stood out for reasons that might now seem obvious. Since then it has cropped up in conversations and newspaper headlines so many times you almost forget how odd it is and where it came from.

It’s now back in the news because David Cameron has actually named an entire style of government after it. Yes, that’s right: the Prime Minister of Great Britain has named his governmental methodology after a slogan for some DIY varnish from twenty years ago.

Interesting.

I’ve long admired the tendency of that line to crop up time and time again, many years after its inception. After all, to have written something which becomes part of the vernacular is what we should all aim for: every time anyone says that phrase it’s a like a little free ad for Ronseal.

The only other line that has come close to it in recent years is ‘You either love it or you hate it’ from Marmite. This might have even surpassed the Ronseal line because people have been referring to others as a ‘Marmite person’ (‘you either love them or hate them’) for ages. ‘Marmite’ now means ‘loved by some; hated by others’. That’s a whole new word, or at least a whole new meaning of an old word.

I guess the tricky thing is that it’s impossible to predict what will be used beyond its 30 seconds of TV time. A friend of mine once created a TV ad which featured a silly action with the expressed intention of trying to make kids copy it in the playground. I think the ad disappeared without achieving its goal, but my friend had the right idea: don’t just sit on the side of culture – become it.

A nothing brief leads to a lovely ad.

That’s how it’s done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iokbOTEiMtU

It’s quite funny, parts of it aren’t badly shot and hats of to the company for doing that to themselves.

Great article on creativity here (thanks, T).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q8bQXgvuYwU

It’s because I don’t recognise any of the Liverpool players (I know a few LFC fans read this, so apologies to them).

The odd thing about that is that I’m quite an obsessed footie fan and I recognised all the Man U players, so it’s not as if I only recognise those who play for Arsenal. That leads me to believe there will be quite a few people in my boat, making the ad a bit of a waste of money (cheap production budget, I s’pose, not counting the fees to the clubs).

Then I see the punchline at the end and it makes even less sense. (Massive apology again, LFC fans.) Liverpool and Man United aren’t even vaguely equals anymore, so the thrust of the ad, which kind of suggests that they are, is fucked, really.

But whatever the oddness of all that, it pales into insignificance when placed beside this unholy steamer:

Seriously? Turkish fucking Airlines? Seriously? I mean, seriously? (I wish it were possible to italicise a bit harder. Hang on… Seriously?)

WTF?

Well, I guess they’re better known than they were before this somewhat odd piece of poop hit the airwaves.

Job done?

UPDATE: as I have no idea what Turkish Airlines is trying to accomplish, if it is just to seem big and legit, then job definitely done. These ads are even running on billboards in LA, so that might well be the case.

The best lists of all time (thanks, J).

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