Here Be Monsters|blog

politics the way forward

Without getting into the politics of it all, I thought the Put People First campaign made an impressive effort at bringing relevance and fun to their site. Obviously they've studied the Obama campaign, twitter feeds, downloadable posters, message boards, links for your site, or blog etc. Some of it works well; the list of radio stations and numbers for people to phone in to on their way traveling down so as to request a shout out and a 'relevant' song (Money, money money - by Abba, that kind of thing). Others not so well, the Obama-izer, where you turn a picture of yourself into the iconic Obama poster, just doesn't really work, more's a pity.

leave your finger print on everything you touch

Back in the day.  I got my second job at CDP, it was the mid-80s, when CDP was all upper case and still a great place for a creative to ply his trade. (No offense Dentsu, but even you must admit, cdp is not what it was.)

Anyway, an endless line of creatives would pass through on placement, stay two weeks, if they were lucky, a month, and then leave. During this time, nearly every one of them would work terrifically hard in their little office and never venture out to play pool or go upstairs to the bar for a drink, believing that hard work was their key to employment.

And so, I can hardly remember anyone who passed through at this time. Occasionally, very occasionally, someone would be employed and, other than a tiny little bit more money, nothing much would change, as they were fed a stream of briefs and told to crack them.

At the same time, account graduates would join but there introduction to the company was different. They would spend 2 wks in the creative dept, 2wks in production, 2wk planning, 2wks media buying. Only then they would start their job as an account manager.

And CDP wasn't any different to any other agency in that respect.

And today, nothing much has changed. I don't know of one agency that believes a creative would benefit from understanding the other jobs in the agency. Which leads to an arrogance from the creatives about whose work it is and who is working for who. And the idea that creatives aren't serious about business problems/solutions, so keep the real work away from them.

It is this legacy that is now giving the industry such big problems.

On the several occasions when I've run departments, I've always implemented a very simple philosophy. It you touch a piece of work then you must leave your finger print on it.

By that I meant, you had to be able to show how you improved anything you worked on, regardless of what department you worked in. Likewise, creatives would be responsible for improving briefs and working on presentations.  And it made a massive difference in getting an agency to work together.

Found, the grandfather of Lynx

Lazy or courageous?  There's nothing wrong with rehashing an old strategy, as long as you know how to make it your own, after all human nature hasn't really changed for thousands of years.

Sign of the times?

I pinched this from Brand Republic,

Coke briefly turns off landmark Piccadilly Circus ad in support of CO2 initiative

LONDON - Coca-Cola Great Britain (CCGB) is switching off its 'Coca-Cola' sign at London's Piccadilly Circus for only the third time since World War II to support WWF's Earth Hour.

WWF's Earth Hour takes place from 8.30 - 9.30pm on Saturday 28 March. WWF is asking one billion people across the world to switch off their lights for one hour in support of action against climate change.

As well as the switch off, CCGB has created an ad dedicated to Earth Hour which will run on the Piccadilly sign from 13 March. The advert runs for 36 seconds and opens with a multitude of bright lightbulbs floating in outer space. To reinforce the message Switch off for Earth Hour', the lightbulbs turn off one by one and the closest bulb then transforms into the Earth. A countdown timer to Earth Hour is also included.

It is estimated that 1.2 million people will see the Earth Hour ad whilst on display on the Piccadilly sign

Earth Hour will also be promoted on the ‘Coke Zone' website and an advert will also run in all football programmes at ‘Coca-Cola' Football League matches on the 28 March, providing 136,000 opportunities for people to see the ad.

Across all materials, people are encouraged to sign-up by either visiting or by texting EARTH to 84800.

Is this an example of a company helping to highlight an issue with it's own money and throwing its support behind a worthy cause? ?  Or simply a cynical attempt, via a lame gesture, to jump on a bandwagon?

Okay, I think you know where I stand on this.

A message to you all at Coca Cola, the world has changed, you can't do something so lame and half-arsed and expect to be congratulated for it. If you were at all serious about making a real difference you would move away from illuminated signage altogether - after all what good does it really do? You're just burning money and resources. And before you even start on, it's a tourist attraction, it's part of the culture of this great city, may I respectfully remind you, so were hangings, but Marble Arch has survived pretty well without either.

Another lovely idea

 

I love this. It doesn't try too hard, it doesn't scream seasonal promotion, it just quietly and simply goes about connecting the product with its audience in a relevant way and trusts their audience to spread the word.

Brilliant design.

What's not to love.  Got me thinking, what other of life's little problems need solving and who could do it? Surely, a smart client and/or marketeer should look at doing stuff like this from their comms budget.

Like the above - if it was offered to you in a Chinese restaurant thanks to Persil/Ariel, you smile, wouldn't you?

Grown up comms

This is a lovely site from honda. Currently it holds 3 films, my favourite being mobility 2088. There's much I like about them, not least the fact that I feel better of the company than I did previewing. It's intelligent communications and a perfect example of where the net and film can work well together.

New ads coming your way soon #7

Edith Zimmerman makes art out of food, and you just know they're going to turn up in an add for healthy eating or in a supermarket promotion soon.

lovely, simply lovely

Ornamental Life are a Danish design company, who have taken some chipped white plates and painted the most delicate of little flowers on them. Thus turning the flaw into a feature. I think they're beautiful. If you do too and want to see some more, you can do so here .

You are what you eat

I'm either not busy enough or I'm too self-obsessed, I'll leave it to you to decide which, as yesterday I had the idea that I would photograph everything I ate and drank. Here's the results:

8.00 breakfast

2x toast with orange and mango marmalade, plus homemade smoothie (banana, aloe Vera juice, blue berries, raspberries, papaya and wheat-grass powder)

10.30 - 12.40

1x lemongrass tea, 2x green tea

12.40 lunch

Butternut squash mixed dahl with brown and wild rice

plus supplements: 1x multivitamin, 1x St Johns Wort, 3x IFA capsules, 1x antioxidants, 1x Vitamin B complex, 1x echinichea

12.40 - 20:05

I.5 ltr of mineral water

 

A handful of crisps in a meeting. I think they were salt and vinegar, but not 100% sure.

2x jasmine tea

20.05 dinner

 

10 x pieces of nigiri sushi

1pt sparkling mineral water and blueberry cordial

20.10 - 11.50

2x jasmine tea

 

1x packet of maltesers, which nowadays are really just tesers, mores a pity.

And there you have it all that I ate and drank on Tuesday 10th March.

When I started this I thought that it was going to be a bit of web-based navel gazing, but actually, now that it's on the page, I see that it's more interesting than that.

I've never thought of myself as being much of a tea drinker - but obviously I am. I'm horrified at what a typical middle-class diet I have and how revealing it is of me in many ways. I'm also amazed at how much I actually consume in a single day, way more that I thought.

I think I'm going to extend this further and do it for a whole week, don't worry I'm not going to stick it up here, I wouldn't do it to you, but if you're really sad or have stalker tendencies you'll find a whole weeks result in my Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread group on flickr. 

I'd also go as far as to recommend you give it a go, it's much more interesting much more personal insight into your life than at first you might think.

Just what you want from a hairdresser

This isn't the worst ad in the world, it's probably not even in the top 10 worst ads in the world, but it still deserves to be well and truly ridiculed, if for no other reasons than Toni Mascolo OBE, not only thinks we care, but also because he spells his name with an i. Come on Tone, go the whole way next time and stick a smiley face above it when dotting that i.

And as for being the only hairdressing superbrand (whatever that is), I would have thought Vidal Sasson, for one, might have something to say about that.

Now, let me tell you what this ad does tell me about Toni&Guy.

The CEO has an ego to rival Madonna's, despite the fact they profess to love fashion, they have no interest or understanding of design and what looks good (pretty important for a hairdressing superbrand, I would have thought) and that there are more awards ceremonies in hairdressing than in advertising.

It's utter garbage. But what I find more offensive is that someone, maybe Toni himself, believes advertising is that easy and that stupid, because if that were true I'm wasting my life.

great post on taking pictures with you iphone

This is a lovely post from Meg Pickard's blog. Telling how to take half decent photos with your ipod.  There's also small list of apps worth exploring too.

Worth a read, ladies and gents.

AAAAGGHGGGHHHHHHHHGGHHH! (and repeat for an hour)

Last week was a complete waste.

Last week was spent frantically running around to get back to where I started from.

Last week was brutal and traumatic.

Last week I cried, screamed and pulled out some hair.

Last week I declared a fatwa on Steve Jobs.

Last week my hard drive crashed.

And as we all know, Backing Up is for Pussies.

I've now learnt my lesson and backed up 3 times already today.