A curious new dimention

Some beautiful pure art direction, photography and design. Great flash effects and an augmented reality section. The link came via a piece of DM courtesy of Royal Mail which was a nice change, and gave the client a chance to send a sample of their beautiful papers. The user experience is confusing and seems to have no direction or sense but in a way I suppose that's the idea. Go explore a new curious dimension. http://www.curiousstory.com/

Mission to happiness via 206 different countries

An interesting campaign by the Coca Cola crew has recently hit the internet. They are on a mission to find happiness in the 206 different countries that sell Coca-Cola products across the world.

With the Expedition 206 http://www.expedition206.com campaign, Coca-Cola is tapping regular people to be their “Happiness Ambassadors” and travel the world for the whole of 2010 and document their quest via blog posts, tweets, YouTube videos, TwitPics, and other social media mentions. A number of global markets are being forced to develop their social and digital media strategies as a result of the program, testing Cokes organisational flexibility.

Patagonia new shed- what an adventure

I love this site for Patagonia, the outdoor adventure company.
Visit their shed deep in the mountains. Beautiful flash work brings together some of the most engaging content I've seen and heard for a longtime. The trailer for 180 degrees South, the movie, inspired me and had me wanting to get out there and start a new adventure. Great flash work but content is king.
http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/tinshed/

Fresh ideas, what do you think?

The fun theory

Check out this great campaign for Volkswagen, The Fun Theory. Seemingly very boring objects are made a whole lot more interesting by a series of experiments, captured on video to find out if making the world more fun can improve people’s behavior. The top video, Piano Stairs, has achieved over 1 million views on YouTube. My favourite, the trash can that sounds like a 50ft-deep well, will make people pick up their trash. Subtle, charming, check it out and see if it improves your day.

Love this Ad every step of the way

Lovely Ad for Johnie Walker,
possibly the best this year.
Great stories make great ads.
http://tinyurl.com/ox397g

9/11 Ad for WWF reveals a wave of discontent

For too long the ad industry has been responsible for running scam ads like some little art school purely for awards. We know it happens and its time that it ended. We're in this industry to be creative. That creativity, entails creating commercials that grab people attention via exciting art direction, engaging copy, be for a real client, and on budget and run regularily in mainstream press or similar. That is great creativity and something awards shows should be all making us aspire to.

Finally the Awards Show industry and agencies that pander to them have been revealed via the very medium that has made them 'so great'. An ad that ran once in a small Sao Paulo newspaper months ago has come back to haunt DDB Brasil and its conservation client, the WWF in Brazil. Granted it's beautifully art directed and already an award winner at the One show. It now turns out to have run once in some local paper purely for awards shows. The ad ricocheted around the blogosphere, getting horrified and often vicious posts, tweets and comments, and it landed the agency on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show as the villain of his "Worst Person in the World" segment.

There's no way DDB did not know about this ad. Its beautifully art directed and produced, with amazing CGI and special effects. The campaign even includes a TV commercial probably so it can be entered into numerous awards sectors) DDB knew, but they just got caught. They are not the only agency that is responsible for this sort of thing. Believe me I have worked at a number of agencies in the past where this sort of thing was rife! Its time it stopped. We should stop CHEATERS from dominating our industry with NON ADS. Cannes, the Clios, the One Show, the D&ADs, the Andys and every other award show out there, as well as the agencies, get real.
This needs to be a watershed moment for the industry. Clean up your shows.

What do you think?

WOULD YOU!?

I can't believe how big http://www.datewithtyrone.com/ has got! BBC Bristol and now an article in The Evening Standard! eek!

New visuals and teaser for Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland director Tim Burton released the first look at this wonderful story. The visuals are fresh and beautifully art directed. Check out the trailer and more pics at Alice in http://tinyurl.com/ne329z
Starring Jonny Depp, its only to be release in 2010. Unfortunately a long wait but its already shaping up to be the hit of the year! Stunning!

Fresh ideas? What do you think?

Car, controlled typography

A superb little campaign by Toyota for its new IQ car. Creating a new font made by its small little motor. That's right car, controlled typography!? Master minded by a Dutch agency who got an unlikely collection of people, including font designers Pierre&Damien from PLEASELETMEDESIGN, software developer Zach Lieberman and professional race/stunt driver Stef Vancampenhoudt together. A camera was mounted high up in the vaults of the airport hanger filming and transforming the movements of the car into a digital font. It's a surprising friendly, cute little font now available for free download and should you want, you can also take a test drive from the same place. Sweet. http://vimeo.com/5233789

Youtube is now the new Flash

There is a lot of talk at the moment with regards to what is the best way to create your site. Flash, HTML, Wordpress etc? Well how about Youtube! Is This The Best Agency Website Ever? Maybe not, but it's got to be one of the most creative in terms of the executional media. We've seen interactive Youtube videos for a while now but a whole site? Brilliant! BooneOakley has created their full agency website on YouTube through a whole series of interactive videos to showcase their agency. Check it out, love it! http://tinyurl.com/kpjcac

Lacoste Red collection

The celebrate the launch of the Lacoste Red collection, the clothing label has come up with this little beauty… A great site full of beautiful people, clothes and great music, put together with some seamless video / flash work, and a few other neat little tricks… The site includes blogging tools which will help send it viral, a little device which checks your ISP connection (I presume) and works out which area you are based in. It then gives you a selection of shops which sell the range in the Bristol / Bath area for instance. A neat little idea we should be including in our sites to drive sales. Check it out at: http://www.lacostered.com

Cool Coca-cola site

It all started with an animated spot made by Psyop for Coke and agency Wieden+Kennedy. Since launching in 2006, the original "Happiness Wieden+Factory" has gone on to become the highest rated global spot The Coca-Cola Company has ever tested. Winning several awards including a "Silver Lion" at the 2007 Cannes advertising awards, the "Grand Prix Gold Prize" at the 2006 Epica Awards and most recently a nomination for a primetime commercial "Emmy" in the United States. Now a fantastic site chock a block full of stunning animation, videos, games and a very catchy little tune.

http://hf3.coca-cola.com/

Integrated multimedia campaign that delivers the goods

The execution is a great example of interactive video served as a rich media ad, and has just gone live on Weather.com, About.com and several other sites. A 45-second version is running on Nike.com’s homepage, and in NikeTown stores across the country. If I worked as hard down the gym as this little banner I'd be HUGE!
http://tinyurl.com/8uoc3r

Data visulisation

Particularly relevant in our business where we so often have to make sense out of all that data our talented team of planners, and data analysts glean from consumers and target markets. We've all watched bleary eyed pie chart after pie chart (obviously in other agencies), well now we can all be inspired to bring it to life and make it relevant to us and our clients.
Enter the new "visual scientists" ( http://vizlab.nytimes.com/) who are turning bits and bytes of data -- once purely the domain of mathematicians and coders -- into stories for our digital age. Read more on advertising age: http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=135313

Great advertising in the credit crunch

Doom and gloom all over the place. We've all seen them, marketing campaigns that skirt around the subject, trying to allay our fears. Well I love the honesty of this campaign, the art direction is simply superb and at the end of the day you can't fault the fact that it's pretty convincing that my savings will be all nice 'n cozy in Banco Financiero with an interest rate that can survive anything. Including the apocalypse! I love it but I'm sure it will have a mixed response:
http://tinyurl.com/bs6qrg

Tasty krafty Iphone Application

With the credit crunch well and truly here, cooking at home and dinner parties in 2009 is the hot thing to do apparently. Kraft entered the iPhone branded application fray with the iFood Assistant. They are proving, in true branded utility stylee, that if you make something useful enough, consumers will be happy to not only be marketed to, but even pay for the privilege AND exchange personal information along the way. Tasty little app, if only I could stop losing my phone!

http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/iFood.aspx

Goggle Ad words fumbles

Whilst just on Goggle/You tube feed I was watching the latest footage of
the plane crash in NYC.

Goggle ad words whilst usually a great idea for a brand,
somehow did not quite get it right this time!! Hilarious!!
Well it made me giggle!

Whopper virgins wows

This one is courtesy of Burger King, which has a new campaign called "Whopper Virgins" with a short documentary that has people in remote areas of the world taste-testing Whoppers and Big Macs.

It has received mixed reviews. Marilyn Borchardt, development director for Food First, calls the campaign "insensitive" and points out, "The ad's not even acknowledging that there's even hunger in any of these places." According to ComScore, Burger King reports that the site has had 727,075 total visitors and 698,149 unique visitors, who spend an average of nearly four minutes on the site so it seems very successful as a piece of marketing to the non vegan, sandal wearing, hippies amongst us. Exactly the objective I presume - so a great viral idea worth sharing and definitely left me looking forward to my next visit! Lunch anyone? http://www.whoppervirgins.com

Viral goes pop

As it’s the list-making season, The Guardian has ranked the top ten viral ads of 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5wg2bd

But who won the race to be Christmas number one?

I’ll spare you the Jimmy Saville-esque run-down and jump straight to the top of the pack. There proudly stands the Obama campaign’s exceptional update of Budweiser’s most famous spot. And rightly so; it’s a brilliant remake and surprisingly poignant. The original campaign was so popular that the cry ‘Wassssssssup?’ could be heard from space – it was old-school viral.
 
The new school, though, shows the remarkable benefits of online viral marketing: its affordability; it’s humanity; the freedom it offers; and the debate it provokes. Good viral campaigns show the creativity and innovation that all adverts should aspire to achieve. And it’s good to see that TV adverts are rising to the challenge. Last year, Cadbury’s Gorilla was a YouTube smash and this year it’s Nike (number 5 in The Guardian’s list).

Absolutly great site

Absolut have done it again. A fantastic site with a unique yet intuitive graphic interface, lovely flash work, great content, and Web 2.0 interaction. A portal that delivers a variety of sites in one beautiful hit. My favourite was the Absolut vision - a site that delivers the visions of some outstanding people and makes them a reality. http://absolut.com

Peggy Pounce

A number of family members have contacted me regarding her passing on. I am very sorry for your loss. She was a wonderful women who touched many lives. A few of you have asked for copies of her videos 9particularily her son Martin Pounce), I have no way of contacting you unless you leave me details. Please contact me with your email details and I will forward a DVD/cd to you. Warm regards - Tyrone