Time for change?

I'm not a big fan of people remaking ads but this one is quite well done.



Courtesy of the Barbour

Be prepared!

I've been a bit busy lately so I haven't had as much time to update the blog as I would've wanted. But if I wasn't then I probably wouldn't have had the idea to write this post in the first place.

Any way, the post is about being prepared for meetings and spending the time justifying you ideas, people in the industry will know at least one account manager/director which asks every question under the sun about your idea. This isn't a bad he/she is just covering all the bases that the client may query.

If you're not prepared to do this then go and become an artist, then you don't need to justify anything apart from to yourself.

I found that coming up with rationales for ideas is a bit of a pain on paper but in a conversational scenario it's a lot easier. Obviously a lot of us tend to choose visual or copy routes based on gut feeling but "I think it looks/sounds good" just isn't going to fly with some clients.

I think what I am getting at is look for the deeper meaning in why you came up with the idea. You know it's great now figure out why (colour, tone, target, etc.), this is what will give your accounts team the confidence to sell your idea if you can't sell it yourself.

what?!

Has Fallon lost the point.

The latest spot for Bravia incorporates the bond theme.



What do you think?

A night at the AdEater - Verdict

So what's my view on last night?

Well very mixed, it started out OK, the opening acts were a bit weird and unnecessary I thought but still a little entertaining.

In all I thought the format was good but it was let down by by a couple of idiots throwing stuff at the screen and blowing party whistles. I expected it to be a bit more of a serious event celebrating the best our industry had to offer but it ended up being a complete joke.

It reminded me of being at a children's party with no organiser. It didn't help that the opening act encouraged people to be rowdy.

The whole event was a farce, I wont be attending another.

Not the best ad placement ever.

This poster was spotted in Stockwell station a few days ago, it promotes the movie "Righteous kill" with the strap line "there's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people gets shot".

Not the smartest placement considering the Jean Charles de Menezes incident at the tube station.

W+K WTF!!!!!!!

I don't know why I'm so annoyed when I watch this ad, may be it's because I expected more from the likes of W+K.



What the hell were they thinking!

The wonders of tilt shift photography

I don't know an awful lot about tilt shift to be honest but I know it looks cool, below is a time lapse video of the effect, thanks to GalvoGalvo for the link.

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

It's fun right? After having watched that video I looked in to how I could achieve the same type of thing but with out a tilt shift lens then low and behold I get an email with an answer.

So with out further a do, here is my photoshop attempt at tilt shift.

Thanks to Simone for being psychic. Click here to have a look at the guide.

Table service with a difference

Inamo, a London restaurant is giving their customers the full digital experience, they have provided fully interactive table tops for their customers to use, of course this isn't anything new seeing as Microsoft surface is just around the corner but this application is just something a bit special.

Some of the things this system can do is, order food, preview food (projects the meal on to you plate, access local services (not sure what exactly) and it has a funky screen saver.

I just made my reservation for next week so hopefully I'll write about if it's practical but in theory it's a great use of interactive flair.

See some more pictures here

Agency accountability

Talk of late has been that budgets are shifting more toward digital due to economic down turn, mostly due to accountability.

Why is this important?

Well seeing ads no longer work apparently, so as a result we as agencies need to be held more accountable for more tangible results, none of this emotive crap even works any more because it can't be measured.

I find this insane, essentially this model means we treat every brief like a direct response piece. If this is the case we'll see a lot of "failing" campaigns in the coming year.

Got a nice quote here from a well respected media source.

Performance marketing, or plain old Direct Response in old parlance, is nothing without awareness activity creating a conversion funnel in the first place. It's not always a chicken or egg scenario - Branding and Awareness do really come first, then it's a question of catching the buggers...
Mike Jarvis, Director of media, Banner

Am I talking crap or do I make sense ? Answers on a comment

Quite possibly one of the best iPhone apps

Tonchidot has developed an app called the Sekai Camera ("World Camera" in Japanese).

It's quite simply the most impressive application I have seen, it has a new way to view content through your iPhone camera.

The potential in this is immense if it every gets built properly for the rest of the world.

So go see it, go now!!!

Time called on CDP

CDP (Collett Dickenson Pearce) will be rebranded to Dentsu London in the new year in a bid to boost the Japanese company's profile in Europe.

Once one of the jewels of advertising, CDP created some amazing ads for the likes of Hovis, Hamlet cigars, Heineken and Fiat.

There was a recent documentary on the BBC celebrating CDP's acheivements call "Men from the agency", you should all go and watch it if you're not familiar with the exploits of the once great agency.

The agency have produced some of the biggest ad men in the industry, take a look here.

Here are some personal favourites enjoy.



Hovis


Hamlet cigars


Cinzano

Everyone wants to do music videos

This is an oldie from 2005



Quite an impressive credit list, notice how the 3 customers are the same character.

Directed by Adam Smith.