http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vu3dUMQ1s
(Thanks, A.)
I think this is a great idea.
It’s annoying when people have great ideas and those people aren’t you or people from whom you could directly benefit, such as members of your family.
Brilliant Amazon Mr. Man reviews (thanks, D/M).
If you enjoyed the honey badger, check out the vampire bat (thanks, C):
Brian Cox: wonders of the stoner system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhDF6_Fyv0o
A brief history of the title sequence (thanks, S):
Paris shot beautifully with a stills camera (thanks, N):
One for all you Chelsea fans (or haytaz. Thanks, J).
Interesting ad for the film Limitless:
The Yoga Farmer:
Super Mario in real life (thanks, G).
Please submit some agency cards so that they have a few that didn’t come from Iris.
And for anyone looking for something intelligent on which to waste their time, normally you’d be in exactly the wrong place, but today you can check out this excellent blog post from Roger Ebert on listening to music.
It’s a USB stick with all the work on it.
Makes a nice change, and you can view the TV.
Quite creative, innit?
D&AD, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
You can do so here.
It takes a couple of minutes.
Or you can keep the money for yourself for, y’know, those couple of pints you need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RksnKIEuVeY
Apparently this was based on The Trip. I can see the resemblance. They both involve two people speaking in a restaurant:
And there the resemblance ends. Otherwise, they are as similar as chocolate mousse and shit, or waking up in bed next to the person you love and waking up in a Turkish prison next to a sweaty rapist called Mehmet.
But back to the new Bernard Matthews campaign.
Other excruciating aspects of it include the fact that Martin Spandau is only the first of a campaign that involves (…wait for it…) Nell McAndrew! Yes! Nell Fucking McAndrew (foreign readers, she is as famous in your country as she is in ours). What do I know about Nell McAndrew? Well, she was one of those women paid to go around pretending to be Lara Croft until someone fitter came along the following year. Hang on, she’s only on fucking Wikipedia! That tells me she married a man called Paul Hardcastle (not that one) and was Rear of the Year and Yorkshirewoman of the year. But why would she be chatting to Marco Pierre White about turkey? Fuck knows. Why is Martin Kemp taking to Marco about turkey? Fuck knows. But I’m guessing these two (there’s a third, but I can’t remember who it is. Bobby Ball? Marti Caine? Eddie The Eagle Edwards?) were all Bernard Matthews (the company, not the man. The man is dead. Cremated at gas mark 7 for three and a half hours) could afford. What was the budget? 55p? Shall we have a whip round so they can afford three more famous people? How about the lead singer of Cotton Eye Joe, or the girl who said Ro-land in Grange Hill? And the fucking conversation! Don’t get me started on the fucking conversation: ‘Turkey? Is it Christmas’ ‘Turkey is one of those meats you can eat every day of the year.’ OK THEN, NAME ME A MEAT YOU CAN’T EAT EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. GO ON, YOU ARSEHOLES. ‘That is absolutely delicious.’ I’LL BET IT FUCKING IS. IF I PAY YOU TO SAY YOU PISS IN A BOWLER HAT WILL YOU DO IT MARTIN? WILL YOU? WILL YOU?!!!! OF COURSE YOU WILL. IF YOU WERE WILLING TO DO THIS FOR MONEY THEN YOU’D SHAG A GOAT FOR A FIVER, WOULDN’T YOU? SHAG IT, KILL IT, EAT IT, SAY YOU COULD EAT IT EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR THEN TELL ME HOW MMMMMMMM FUCKING DELICIOUS IT IS, YOU LYING WANKER. ‘I think Turkey is, without doubt, the king of birds.’ WELL WHY HAVEN’T I SEEN IT ON ANY MENU OF ANY MARCO PIERRE WHITE FUCKING RESTAURANT OUTSIDE OF THE RUN-UP TO CHRISTMAS? OR ANY GOOD RESTAURANT FOR THAT MATTER? DON’T GET ME WRONG, I LIKE TURKEY. I LIKE IT A LOT. YUM, YUM TURKEY, BUT THEY DON’T COOK IT IN GOOD RESTAURANTS AND MARCO CERTAINLY DOESN’T COOK IT, THE LYING CACKWIPE.
And look, even the outtakes are shit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBppze3vX_0
*Lyrics competition. Where is that line from?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A0jVkFs3C4
(Thanks, K.)
I also think Adidas have done a very good job of melding their sport’n’entertainment vibe without making either side look shit.
And the kidz will love it.
Have you seen David Eggers’ TED talk?
It’s absolutely inspirational.
So much so, that when I saw it last year I was keen to get involved with opening one of these shop/schools myself.
Unfortunately, the website said they couldn’t cope with the enquiries and were not able to think about opening a new one anytime soon.
Fortunately, they were already bringing this one to life:
The website for The Ministry of Stories is here.
Why not volunteer/donate/pop along?
(Thanks to Pete for pointing this out.)
The good people of This Is Real Art (Paul, Nat, Andy, Megan and others) have come up trumps again.
Not content with creating my website, which I fucking love, they also very kindly took on the brief to do my online portfolio (Ideally, I’d have liked to have had it all on one site, but my website is a bit odd so I needed something simpler for any prospective employers).
It’s simple because I asked for it to be that way (all the ker-azy stuff is on my website) and it’s beautifully designed because TIRA don’t know how to do anything else.
Check out their website. If they do the kind of thing you’re after then I couldn’t recommend a nicer bunch. They also work with several excellent charities (including my favourite, Reprieve), so that proves they’re thoroughly good eggs.
Before we get into today’s greedy bastard, I thought I might explain why I keep putting up these stories of non-advertising cash generation.
1. I really admire people who get off their arses and do something. It’s really easy to sit around moaning about crap briefs, tight budgets, clinically insane CDs etc., but it’s much harder to come up with an idea and spend the time and money executing it.
2. Having said that, it’s immensely satisfying being your own boss, and I hope some of these stories might make you think that your own crackpot, fuckwitted scheme is worthy of pursuit. Why not give it a go? You have nothing to lose but your dignity and savings.
3. They save me having to come up with a blog post.
So, without further ado, here’s Rob Webster of Leo Burnett to explain his Anarchy vs Monarchy revolutionary movement/excuse to sell T-shirts:
One day last month, during an excruciatingly dull bus journey, my thoughts turned to the royal wedding, or more specifically how I could cash in on it.
A couple of hours later I hit on the anarchy v. monarchy idea. I thought I might be able use the concept to exploit a divided nation, like Marmite, or Katie Price and Peter Andre.
My mate Graham came on board and designed the spiffy t-shirts and website with the help of some talented guys at Beta. Without them we’d have been way too late to hook into the whole royal wedding hoopla.
Ordering the t-shirts was a farce of Del Boy proportions. As a Northerner I found myself instinctively drawn to the rock bottom prices of an outfit I found on the internet. £1500 quid and two weeks later I was sent four boxes of shirts.
Every one was the exact opposite of what we’d ordered and approved.
Thanks to the continued efforts of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to fuck one another up the arse (and some very shoddy IT protocol at the Mickey Mouse Shirt Emporium) our Macs inverted their jpeg, so we ended up basically approving a negative.Despite, or because of our threat (bluff) to get legal on their ass they refused to accept responsibility. We ended up agreeing to disagree and had to order a whole new run, but this time at cost price. You pay peanuts….
The quality and print of the final t’s was excellent, so hopefully they should sell well, it’s just a shame it took us so long to get there.
The whole venture has probably cost us around 2.5k. After the early fuck up I’ll be grateful if we get this back, but I’m hoping for plenty of hits on the site. I still think it’s a strong digital concept (thanks to all at Leo’s and Beta for your social media help) so if all else fails, it’s something for the book.
As to whether or not we’ll do anything else with the concept, I think it’s probably got a limited shelf-life post wedding. Although there’s always Prince Andrew…
Good to see how Rob managed to enrol other people into his scheme to make it happen. That’s not easy, so well done to him and good luck with the T-shirts.
And an update on previous Monday business plugs:
Dan Hubert’s iLazer app has got tonnes of coverage on the net , leading to iTunes putting it at No1 in the entertainment “What’s Hot List”. Nice one.
And Matt Janes’ doingsomething.co.uk site has now been featured in Creative Review. To celebrate, he’d like to offer you (yes, you) three free months on his site. Just use the promotional code ‘Christmas’.
Mugshot fashion (thanks, J).
The making of Star Guitar (thanks, C&E):
Mad Men sell high speed rail (thanks, L):
Branded racism (thanks, W).
Cat vs cat on printer (thanks, B):
Ah, our Japanese cousins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W8fBsLYHcE
Brilliant Mills and Boon project from Alex and Ross.
Jennifer Aniston brings the postmodernism (thanks, W):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc47LcvIxyI
Oh, and last but not least, my glorious wife has decided to resign from her job to spend more time with the kids (hooray!). However, that will leave our excellent nanny without a job. If you need a really, really good nanny (London area) for 3 or 4 days a week from the beginning of April, leave a comment and I’ll put you in touch with her.
