There Will Be Blood for the SNES.
Surprisingly engaging gears and cogs:
Amazing folded paper art (thanks to K for all three).
The real Masterchef Final (Thanks, J):
Do any readers under the age of thirty appreciate this?:
I was reading something quite embarrassing on the weekend (I think it might have been the Style section of the Sunday Times), but there was something in it that I thought might be blogworthy:
I think it said that Alain de Boton tweeted that your job is worth doing if it reduces someone’s suffering or increases their joy.
And I suppose, by extension, that means your job is not worth doing if it does the opposite of those two things.
Both categories can of course encompass advertising.
Your work can annoy and degrade people. It can belittle them, make them feel awkward and inadequate; inspire insecurity, misery, bullying and fear. It can make people’s children resent them; it can promote obesity, indolence, ignorance and profligacy.
On the other hand, it can comfort, encourage, educate and broaden horizons. it can inspire creativity, make people realise their potentials, save lives and reduce suffering.
In almost every brief you have the choice to do one of the above, and that is a rare and wonderful privilege.
Striving for intelligence, tolerance, warmth, understanding and the promotion of the kinds of values that make the world a better place is a noble way to spend your working life.
Undermining any of that is wrong.
You only have a certain amount of time on this planet.
Perhaps this can all be distilled into a single simple phrase:
Don’t be a cunt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVx_NNiVQXw&feature=youtu.be
My enjoyment of it is hampered by the fact that I absolutely fucking hate that fuckfaced talent vacuum, Danny Minogue.
Yes, I know I’ve spelled her name wrong.
It’s because I hate her.
Fuck off Dan Minohg you bucket of kangaroos’ anuses.
I hope Santa shits down your chimney into your mouth.
I really like this, and not just because the boy in the cap at the start is my son, the babe in arms is my daughter and their ‘mum’ is their mum.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiJjkNN3z5M&feature=player_embedded
I think they’ve gone all out to execute this idea properly, but how much meaner is the stuff?
Then again, how lovely was the Cake stuff?
Fuck knows, but they both beat most other ads into a cocked hat full of Idi Amin’s tears, Hitler’s piss and Ian Huntley’s spit (that scene is in the two minute version).
The odd thing is that the judging criteria will be divided between results (50%), idea (25%) and strategy (25%).
So I’m not sure how you incorporate the brilliance of an idea into an ad’s effectiveness (aesthetic effectiveness, perhaps?), but I’m going to stick my neck out here and say that the above proportions should be how every ad is judged.
An ad that is not seen is like the proverbial tree falling in the wood, and an ad that is seen but is not effective must be counted as a failure. That means that the 50% is essential to an ad’s success, whether it’s a 25×4 for a chip shop in Grimsby or a multi-million pound 360-degree fuckfest.
Then the idea part: this is very important because an ad can still be effective even if it’s a pile of shit/rip off/only effective through repetition. The idea part would then reward the pursuit of originality and freshness.
And the strategy: coming at an old problem (they’re all old problems) from a new perspective is always a challenge, and therefore worth rewarding.
So even though this award suggests that it rewards effectiveness, I think that makes it too easy to pigeonhole as results-over-creativity. However, if they really are going to take the process of creation into account, then maybe this is the one to win (obviously, the juries have to be very well chosen).
Behold! The lone creative! Purveyor of both art direction and copywriting from a single brain!
In my career there haven’t been that many of these freaks of nature, but they tend to be really fucking good at the job (no one lets you work alone without a shedload of proof that you can do both disciplines to a high standard). Names that spring to mind include Grant Parker, Jeremy Carr, Jeremy Craigen (they used to work together. It must have been like being in a room with four creatives), Paul Silburn and Dave Dye (ditto).
So anyway, although they are expensive, you only need one of them, so if you currently run a creative department, surely it makes sense to hire two of these multi-disciplinarians rather than a single team for the same cash.
Aside from that financial benefit, they’ll use half as much loo paper, cause half as much wear to the carpet and need half as many keycards to get into the building.
Big savings all round.
And you’ll only need one invite to all the awards dos they’ll inevitably attend.
Check this out.
(Thanks, D.)
Um…?
(Thanks, L.)
(Thanks, J.)
The Church of Christian Kindness (Thanks, W).
Worst campaign speech of all time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMgyi57s-A4&feature=player_embedded
I wasn’t alive in the fifties, but it strikes me that there are some pretty odd things about advertising today that can’t possibly have been the case when the industry was getting into its stride.
Making non-existent ads to win awards
Taking on accounts for nothing to make your agency look fat and healthy.
Recommending media channels because they’re new rather than effective.
Moving accounts around in London because of a decision that was made in Nairobi.
Creating another awards scheme that caters for much the same ads as several existing ones.
Agencies making a huge amount of their income from behind the scenes client services that have little or nothing to do with advertising.
Strategy trumping work.
Clients binning hundreds of thousands of pounds of work in the middle of a recession.
Lots of big agencies scrapping over a crumby little account just for the chance to say they’ve won something.
It just seems, occasionally, that advertising has gone from an industry that promoted the goods and services of others to something slightly different. It now appears that the image of the agency has become excessively important, leading to odd behaviour that has in turn led to a lack of respect from clients who know they have the pimp hand all day long.
Have we become our own worst enemies, appearing like a series of desperate suitors, each fighting to impress a bunch of boss-eyed munters, whilst forgetting that said boss-eyed munters (and her fit friends who left town a long time ago) don’t find desperation attractive or respectable?