joi, martie 30, 2006

Stikers on doors are the new pink



This one has been around the blogs for a while. I don't want this blog to have all the same things you can find on all the others, but I think this is GREAT so I had to post it! Raised awareness for sure. Hope some money too! Anyone can confirm that?
Made by Grey India

miercuri, martie 29, 2006

An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements that exemplify Bruce Mau's beliefs, motivations and strategies. It also articulates how the BMD studio works.

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."

28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'

31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.

37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

great outdoor from Saatchi&Saatchi India



There is some great advertising coming from India. This piece for Ariel is brilliant in my opinion. So natural, involving and relevant.
via brainstorm#9

luni, martie 27, 2006

all eyes on you!

Following on a previous post and still believing the differents things on the street can turn into great opportunities to make your voice heard, here's a nice idea.

Read also this interesting post on how to be a guerilla artist.

via

sâmbătă, martie 25, 2006

Creative No-Fly zone?

Communicaton Arts Magazine published this article by Ernie Schenck.
It is called Do We Need Creative No-Fly Zones?
So what's a creative no-fly zone?
Here are some questions that led to this concept:

"How many times have we used shock as a technique? The cheap grossout gag. The kid getting whacked by an eighteen-wheeler. The harp seal getting its brains splattered all over the ice. It’s not like it’s hard to do. It gets attention. It can win awards and it has. But are we too fast and loose with shock sometimes? And does it occasionally lead us over the line into areas that are better left, well, unexplored. Should there be conceptual hot zones where we dare not open the door lest something terrible comes squirting out?"

So when too much is too much?
Slippery zone indeed, but it pays the bills and unfortunately it can't be stopped, I think.
We're in such a hurry to be the first on the market, to earn money and profit, too see the results yesterday, to be talked about that there's just too little time left for thinking about the others we affect, if any. And again why bother? "It's not our problem" will probably be the most common response. And hey, there are lots of guys making those social campaigns. Isn't that enough?

Dissecting the creative thinking



Our agency has a small, but interesting library. Too bad that there are not too many people actually using it. And no, it's not because they don't have the time.

Anyway, I've run into this cool Pack the other day - Roger von Oech's Creative Whack Pack. To quote: "This book provides the fundamentals of creative thinking. Whether you're a junior in high school, an account executive at an advertising agency, a software programmer, or a mother raising a family, I think that you'll find some useful ideas in these pages"

The pack consists of a book and a pack of cards, actually "64 creativity strategies to provoke and inspire your thinking." I find the idea of the pack of cards really interesting and fun.

They are divided into four sixteen- card suits: Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior. These represent the four types of thinking of the creative process.

The Explorer highlites places and ways to find new information. Here they are:
Try a random idea, See the big picture, Change Viewpoints, Drop an assumption, Find a Pattern, See!Hear!Taste!Fell!Smell!, Listen to your dreams, Look to nature, Look to the past, Let your mind wonder, See the obvious, Get out of your box, Give yourself a whack on the side of the head, Ask "Why?", Look somewhere else, Dig Deeper.

The Artist provides idea-generating techiques. Like:
Be whacky, Exaggerate, Challenge the rules, Rearrange, Substitute, Think like a kid, Ask "What if?", Combine ideas, Make a metaphor, Reverse, Imagine how others would do it, Pause for a bit, Don't force it, Imagine you're the idea, Simplify, Change its name.

The Judge gives decision-making advice upon ideas:
See the positive, Find what's out of whack, Solve the right problem, Conform, Ask a fool, Focus on the real truth, Slay a Sacred Cow, Loosen Up, Check your timing, Beware the unintended, Get out of the dogma house, Be dissatisfied, Don't fall in love with ideas, Avoid Arrogance, Listen to that hunch, Hear to the knock of opportunity.

The Warrior gives the kick we need to get our idea into action:
Believe in Yourself, Put a lion in your heart, Fight for it, Flex your Risk Muscle, Get support, Get rid of excuses, Take a whack at it, Slay a dragon, Have something to stake, Use your shield, Do the unexpected, Sell! Sell! Sell!, Set a deadline! Be persistent, Learn from mistakes, Give yourself a pat on the back.

All these steps are explained (both in the book and on every card) with well chosen examples and everything you need to understand the process and get inspired to make it happen.

The thing with these cards is that one can use them anyway he pleases, as creatively as possible to suit the problem in question. And they can be used in every environment that needs new ideas, new points of view, new insights, and solutions overall.

Well, your average creative person working in an advertising agency knows, or should know all these stuff. That doesn't mean they are being used.
And sadly quite a few of the creatives I've met instantly reject the idea of someone telling them they could expand their thinking - even just by checking out things that might look stupid at first. Oh well, talking bout having an open mind...
It is also true most of these processes are being used subcounsciously by those earing a living out of creating new ideas. But that doesn't make this pack to be less fun or inspiring.


vineri, martie 24, 2006

Time for winterfresh, yeeeeeeaaaah?


Here's something worth freshing up with - The Winterfresh site.
The short spots in the Attraction Chronicles are fantastic!
I love the executions, the accent and the silly drawings along will all sorts of little details to be discovered in the web page. Right on the concept and fun fun fun!
Agency Energy BBDO.
via adgoodness

marți, martie 21, 2006

What American teens think


I've run into this really compelling study (9 page report) on American teens. Interesting and useful research stuff if you ever have something to sell to this target or just feel like comparing them with teens in your country. Focus and enjoy!


"Setting the stage for a yearlong celebration of our Centennial milestone, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has published the results of its Youth Report To America – the largest national survey developed and administered by teens. In the Report, 46,000 young people (ages 13-18) deliver a candid message to America.

Youth across the nation are calling for America’s leaders, community officials and parents to help bridge the gap between hope and opportunity outlined in the Report. With compelling findings on topics ranging from the Iraq war to violence in schools and from education to the pursuit of the American Dream, the Report spotlights the perceptions of America’s youth."

via ypulse

luni, martie 20, 2006

Ambiental guerilla media





The streets offer us quite a variety of opportunities for promotional purpose. Although we rarely see something like this going on in our neighbourhood. I wonder why is that exactly.
But here are some nice stuff you can find on Romanian street walls, sidewalks or signs. Everything has to start somewhere. We'll get there, I know we will!

sâmbătă, martie 18, 2006

What is a planner?


As Russell Davies put it and Diana agreed, a talking telescope! Fair enough!

Oh, my lovely superheroes



Since every man thinks he's some sort of superman, it's no wonder there are so many ads trying to use the power of the superpowered. This time, some man's clothes line gets on the mission, a little too obvious for my taste, I must admit. And the wordplay...hmm...I don't really dig it. But here they are with the nice looking photos and great art direction.

The truth is that...

"A copywriter, like a lawyer, builds cases for clients by selecting truths that are positive and omitting truths that aren't." - Paul Silverman


"Curiosity about life in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people." - Leo Burnett


"The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly."- William "Bill" Bernbach


"Man's mind, once streched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions" - Oliver Wendell Holmes


"Well, four is just about enough quoting for now..." - Me

duminică, martie 12, 2006

Adidas cools

A series of 4 spots from adidas and its new footwear Climacool.
Ahhhh...fresh and cool!
via chestionabil

sâmbătă, martie 11, 2006

Pirelli's new buzz


This is the future of advertising, or part of it:
Following the BMW steps, Pirelli is now trying to get our attention with its new project: The Call.
What is this exactly?
It's a 10 minute film (to be released on march 23th) which involves a battle between good and evil, featuring the ascetic-looking Malkovich as a priest and the modeling bad girl Campbell as the devil. Pirelli says the story provides a metaphorical illustration of its long-running slogan, "Power is nothing without control."
The Call is the first step of Pirelli's idea to make a new generation of shorts only for Internet, written and produced with the same means and professional expertise as the most famous Hollywood productions.

Pirelli says its project, developed by Leo Burnett Italy, goes several steps further (than BMV or others).
For one, the branding will be unusually subtle. "The Call" will be the centerpiece of Pirelli's marketing for several years; and advertising in other media, including print and television, will be built around the Internet film. Pirelli said "The Call" and its associated advertising would account for 60 percent of the company's marketing budget -- a Hollywood-style gamble on one production.

"The Call" is Burnett's first major project for Pirelli, which had been working mostly with an Italian agency, Armando Testa. Pirelli also chose a new media-buying agency, Maxus BBS, part of WPP Group, replacing Media Italia, a subsidiary of Armando Testa.

The film may represent a new direction for tire advertising, but it is not entirely out of character for Pirelli, which has always relied more on image-driven advertising, trying to appeal to the would-be Ferrari driver rather than the average tire kicker.

More

vineri, martie 10, 2006

play with your mind

Open minded people are nice people. They're not judgemental, they make you feel confortable, they know lots of stuff but they don't brag about it, they're always eager to learn more, they're fun, they're helpful, they're fearless, they do stuff that matter to them, they get things done, they get things changed and basically they...just get it.

Here's something to exercise an opend mind.
But beware: one hour of increased brain activity via thinking a lot or experiencing new stimuli can make you smarter, more energic, more creative and more sociable.
link found on grow a brain

joi, martie 09, 2006

PSP London spring campaign




PSP has a new campaign throughout London.

Agency: TBWA London.

It's a series of 22 posters aimed at showing off the features of the PSP.

I like it. At all unnoticed and quite involving.

via adland

marți, martie 07, 2006

what tone of voice to use...

The "tone of voice" as seen by the guys at W&K London. Which reminds me it's been quite a while since I haven't posted something about them. So here we are!

"We’re here to communicate. And there are as many ways of saying things as there are things to say. Let's start with you. Imagine you’re a brand. Who are you? You’re speaking but no one's going to listen if they don’t know who you are. So in answer to your question, you can’t define the term ‘tone of voice’, you have to define yours.

That means defining you- who are you, where have you come from, what are you about, what do you stand for? Then, you can say anything. Because it will be honest. If brands are companies and companies are humans, it's about speaking like one.

This is basically why tone of voice is so important. It’s like an ad going, “Hey, kids, buy this, it's really cool” Kids are encouraged not to take things from strange adults. And rightly so. Or, a car salesman saying, “Buy my car!” Well he would, wouldn’t he?
But if your best friend told you something he liked about the car that you didn’t know, you might get interested. So who is the car company, a bunch of guys like your friend or bunch of phoney car salesmen? Those people in the company surely work there because they like cars a little bit, maybe even a lot. That’s what you would tap into.

And I guess that also means, when you ask about lots of different tones of voice, you can’t try them on like hats. If you’re an established bank it will sound strange if you start talking like a vodka brand. It's like those clear plastic bra straps…weirdly noticeable only because they’re trying so hard not to be. "

Now this is what I call a couple



These guys look fantastic together, leaving aside they both are so gorgeous. I like them cause they seem extremely close and confortable with one another. God knows if that is actually true, but I had a nice feeling viewing their pictures at the Oscars, so I had to post this one. :)

..oh!...and hurray for Crash on winning best movie.
better late than never :)

luni, martie 06, 2006

BMW audio books




Here's a really great idea: BMW Audio Books. BMW in conjuction with Random House, brings you BMW Audio Books, a unique series of specially-commissioned short stories showcasting the work of some the finest contemporary writing talent.

And the books are FREE to download.

Just go take your BMW from where you've parked it and start riding!

via grafic

PS: Love the illustrations

My Amazon wish list

I was browsing through Amazon.com today and I thought I'd make my wish list. It's not complete of course. One can't never have enough wishes, but these are the stuff that are important for me right now.
It's still a while till my birthday, so who really loves me should start make some heavy savings :)
Mom?!?!?!!?

duminică, martie 05, 2006

The secret of headlines and body copy

A colegue at work bought this book Kiss and Sell by Robert Sawyer. It's a great book that handles the subject of copywriting in a very practical way. Here's a glimpse of it - few basic things about headlines and body copy.

A headline that works:
1. Stands out.
2. Stops readers long enough for them to process the meaning.
3. Offers a promise, an invitation, or important news.
4. Persuades readers that it's worth their time to learn a little bit more about a product.

Good body copy:
1. Says only what's important to say.
2. Addresses the prospective customer directly.
3. Uses as few words as possible.
4. It's honest and simple.
5. Sticks to the story.
6. Respects the product or service being promoted.
7. Holds the prospective customer in high regard.
8. Stops instantly when there's nothing more to say.

Pimp my ...

MTV has done it once again with their show "Pimp my ride". The trend is on - we can apparently pimp anything these days. Why? Cause it's cool.
History fact number 9.897.341.

On the other side, VW is unpimpin'. Cause they have the already pimped car. Watch the new commercials from Crispin+Porter and Bogusky here . The site also kicks ass.
via adblather

joi, martie 02, 2006

How to build a great portfolio

Most of the time a great portfolio means just quickly collecting what you think is your best work till that point. And that usually happens when you're really desperate to find a new job.
Of course this would work if you have been around the block for quite a while.

I think it's more to presenting yourself than that. I believe a great portfolio gets build in few good months (and I'm refearing here to the "putting all your work together" part), it needs to be looked at many times and not only by one person, it has to be improved - adding for example a campaign for a brand within a category you don't have any work done and it needs to be presented in a certain way.

Since I'm trying to do that these days, here is some really good advice for me and all the others interested in the matter.

Found this great article in CMYK's Magazine on-line version.


10 WORDS FOR YOUR BOOK
By Breda McGing


Ideas
This is it, where it all starts! Without ideas nothing else matters. You’re trying to convince us of your conceptual ability. You need to fill your portfolio with five to seven original and brilliant campaigns. Each campaign should have one central idea that is supported in three ads. In case you don’t have a calculator available, that comes to 15-21 ads in your book. Don’t show the advertising world your book, until you’re proud of it.

Imagination
You either have it or you don’t. Let your work show how far out there you can go. Once you start your career, your Creative Director can rein in your ideas. This is the one and only time the work you’re doing is completely yours. There is no client influence or account service person to stand in your way. Have fun and release your imagination.

Diversity
We’re talking products you choose to highlight in your portfolio and the target market your work is geared towards. Prove that you can solve tough problems. Don’t just sell fun products to yourself…that’s way too easy. Try selling financial planning to the folks at United Airlines. Are you up to the challenge?

Knowledge
You need to know what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to, and the competition. Do some investigating. Next time you’re at the store really think about your purchases. Why do you buy Crest over Colgate? As you go from aisle to aisle, be nosy, what’s in the carts around you? If you’re so inclined, talk to your fellow shoppers. The smarter you are the better your ads will be.

Personality
Put a little of your self in each ad. If you’re a comedian use that to your advantage. Most, but not all of your ads should make people laugh out loud and maybe snort! A Creative Director should get some sense of who you are from your book.

Consistency
All your work needs to be at a high level, quality over quantity. If not, a Creative Director will wonder who helped you with the good ads. Don’t make them think someone else helped you hit the highlights.

Rhythm
Your book needs it and you should have some instinct as to the order in which you place ads and campaigns. How does one campaign flow to the next? Your book should start and end with a bang. Personally I suggest your two favorite campaigns in these positions.

Passion
You have to have it to survive in advertising! The love for your craft whether it’s words or pictures needs to come shining through. It can’t be forced or faked. Each ad should reflect your passion. It should demonstrate how much you’re willing to give of yourself; hard work and a piece of your heart.

Evolution
Just when you think the work is over…it’s not (I’m yelling to keep working). Your book should always be improving. You can never settle. You should be able to see the progression in your work. Reviewers will expect to see new work if they’ve seen your book before. If this daunts you or depresses you, you’re probably pursuing the wrong career. However, if you’re up for the challenge, you’re on the right path.

Life
Live your life. Read. Go to the movies. If you’ve never been to the ballet, go see one. If you’re a diehard Country and Western fan but a friend has invited you to see the Rolling Stones…go, don’t hesitate. Where do you think your ideas are going to come from? Enjoy and absorb everything around you. Art imitates life.


Breda McGing is a creative advertising recruiter with more than twenty years experience in the business. McGing is also founder and President of Critiquemybook.com, an on-line service that offers users an objective evaluation of their portfolios. McGing has worked with agencies of all sizes and has spent a great deal of time working with entry-level creative talent. McGing has a long association with many colleges, universities and art schools and regularly instructs classes on portfolio preparation and presentation.
For more information about a portfolio critique, visit http://www.critiquemybook.com/index.html