Conversations on Quitting the Cancer Stick

In advertising, we pick up a lot of habits - "creative" habits, mostly - that we occasionally are and aren't proud of, depending on our mood and who's looking. The Cannes Lions becomes a magnifier of all those habits: there, trapped in paradise for a week, people don't just drink until 5 in the morning; they often smoke as if all the weight of the world depends on it.

"Last night I knew it was time to go home because I started chainsmoking," complained Shannon Stephaniuk of Glossy. "I hate smoking more than anything else in the world!"

I suppose I believe her. I've never seen Shannon pick up a cigarette, not once, and I smoke a great deal, which usually outs the casual smokers in party atmospheres.

Anyway, this Cannes phenomenon leads to a lot of semi-casual conversation about why we all started smoking in the first place, which naturally drifts over to quitting and efforts to get there.

This is why I started smoking (in earnest, not counting the flirtation I had in college when my best friend gave me a pack of Vanilla Dreams for my 18th birthday): to eke a promotion out of a boss who only discussed "the future" with his subordinates during smoke breaks. I was 19, maybe 20.

"You know what Gabriel Garcia Marquez did to quit?" began Draftfcb ECD Mark Fiddes, rather grandly, at a beachside luncheon for production firm Mad Cow. "Gabriel Garcia Marquez buried his last packet of cigarettes. Big mound. It was something he could walk by and look at every day."

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AdVerve Episode 36: Copycats

Play the show now.

Don’t pretend like you don’t know. ADS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE BEFORE. Like, the exact same ones before.

Joe La Pompe from joelapompe.net joins us for a discussion on twin ads: copycats or coincidences? This unfortunate yet inherent aspect of the advertising world is alive and well, trust. As if that weren’t enough, Åsk Wäppling, editor and publisher of Adland.tv (Dabitch on Twitter), joins us for une petite Wrap of Cannes.

This all occurs amidst hotel lobby slash cafe madness. Madness which includes topics like anonymous bloggers (and why we’re not), Facebook and that smarty smart Mark fella, and life in Cannes come ad time.

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I'll Honour the Fucking Embargo.

"...but we are working on an API."

Also see iPhone 4 vs HTC Evo. IT'S 3G AND HAS THE WIFIS.

(v + v)

This Picture Reminds Me of The Twins from 'The Shining'

If they were permitted to live, have careers and somehow still be creepy.

Twilight and Volvo Don't Quite an Immortal Make

There's what you can expect: being kissed. Desired. Loved. Missed.

Don't the Twilight vampires drive, like, Porsches and Range Rovers?*

What deluded** 13 year old girl would go Team Volvo? Maybe the idea was to aim for their moms?

...And who wrote that stunningly awesome narrative?

Via et via.

___

*Correction: apparently Edward drives a Volvo. It's his "fitting in with humans" car.

**They think vampires SPARKLE!

@DavidonDemand: Man at the Mercy of The Internets

Yesterday Chelsi and I had the curious experience of meeting @DavidonDemand.

Here's the story: David Perez, creative recruiter over at Leo Burnett Chicago, really wanted to come to Cannes. In its infinite kindness, LB found a practical reason to send him: he could promote Wildfire, the agency's self-conscious celebration of spontaneity in the art and craft of modern marketing.

So for the next seven days, this poor sod is strapped to a live feed. His job: to do everything Twitter tells him to do.

Can you imagine being at the mercy of the lulz internet for a week straight?

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Things I Now Know About Cannes

This is what I know about Cannes:

• It is humid, but not always sunny; often it rains in torrents, and street vendors make a nice profit selling umbrellas to unprepared visitors outside the Palais des Festivals. Be smarter than your deluded sun-thirsty colleagues: pack a spring coat and your own parapluie.


• For wifi that doesn't cost 20€ a night, you go to a flea-bitten hotel on a side street, not a Croisette institution. I quite like Hôtel Athénée, which is also 5 minutes walking distance from the Palais. Basic amenities are lost, but dude, we're talking about free wifi.

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AdVerve Episode 35: Moonwalking

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Some say we could rant forever. Walkin' on the...

No show is as topically diverse as this one. In the broader sense as well as this particular episode. If we had a tagline, well, it would simply be “Earning that explicit tag every day.”

This week’s rantage is set to fully-automatic: guns, MTV’s TJnistas, moon clone sexy time, Dov love and crowdsourcing do not stand a chance. If you can *go there,* we did.

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Topics:

00:00 – Intro, guns, Crispin Glover’s Drunk History
06:50 – Crowd source ftw
35:40 – Moon clones
52:53 – MTV’s TJnista
01:01:49 – American Apparel
01:10:08 – Wrap

Linkage:

• Moon.


• Drunk History — Crispin Glover edition.


• Tesla.


• The other Tesla.


• The, other, other Tesla.


• Giant Hydra.


• MTV TJs.


• Oil spill list.


• Black Wave doc, BP doc, and OSHA safety records.


• Call Dov at American Apparel.


• Gatorade Mission Control Center.


• XKCD comic.


• Time Traveler’s Wife.


• Megan Fox Interview magazine.


• Kevin Smith’s Smodcast episode. (NSFW)

To subscribe to our newsletter, ask a question or give us love, email us: advervepodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. You can also leave a review.

Next: WORLD DOMINATION.

Via my darling Milan.

BP Spills Coffee

An environmental disaster from which the table may never recover. (Thanks, Maël!)

"Hello": Agent Provocateur's '09 Social Media Foray

I was really impressed by "Hello" when it came out; it had a low-key attitude with a wit and intelligence that I found intuitively sexy. Finally: lingerie marketed to real-life grown-up women!* I read the blog, I followed the tweets. That persona - intuitive and truthful, fallibly human - is what convinced me to walk into an Agent Provocateur store for the first time.

(And I bought things! So many things!)

This video falls flat in comparison, though. The script is poor, that background music is lame, there are no statistics. I don't really understand why it exists, apart from that it half-heartedly revives memory of a promising campaign that was snuffed, inexplicably, shortly after launch.

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Rules of the Game, and Our Inconstant Frontiers

This is an article I did for a session at MIPTV this year. I've been thinking a lot about this conversation lately in the context of how data visualisation can change the way we see, and how game mechanics are (finally!) being exploited by marketers.

"Maps are very simple," began Orange labs researcher Christophe Aguiton. "They are practical things. But at the same time a map is a dream engine ... people dream on maps."

Once upon a time, ordinary maps were given depth with topographical tricks. Today you can layer maps with data - examples of which we see in plenty, like how criminal acts, bars or schools can be mapped for the BBC's The Truth About Crime project.

And as an example, Aguiton showed us a map of France, seen from above, layered with the frequency of real-time SMSes in a given area on new years. SMS concentrations were illustrated to look like flames, burning calmly over the country and culminating in a gleaming ball of fire in Paris. When midnight hit, the lights suddenly exploded upward and outward, indicating the immediate rise in text messages - a fireworks show composed by data.

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AdVerve Episode 34: Bob Knorpp Saves the World

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As host of The Beancast, Bob Knorpp has had us both on a gajillion times, so we return the favor and let him go off on us. And journalists vs. bloggers. And Facebook vs. useless info. And a deeper look at his 3Six5 post that got a fair amount of attention, as well as Angela’s space travel. Do we want to spoil it and tell you about it? No. SO LISTEN NOW.

(Also, we identified the show throughout as episode 33 when it’s really 34. Sorry.)

Bob on Twitter.

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Make Homosexuals Marry! ...Because It's Horrible!

"You're a cliché!"

Good work for GLAAD, and featuring the pro bono talents of Mike White and Justin Long. The objective is to get people to seriously discuss different sides of California Prop 8 instead of blindly accommodating facile truths.

My complete review is herey-here.

Everything from BP to Game Mechanics.

Had the curious and titillating pleasure of appearing on The BeanCast's 106th episode, "Shut Up Already," alongside Jonah Bloom (Breaking Media), digi-friend Herbert Krabel (Guerrilla Communication) and Duane Forrester (SEO manager, Microsoft). The chemistry was great and we even got to fluster Bob a few times, which is always fun. Listeny-listen.

Lost in Translation

Him: You are one of the funniest girls in the world.

Me: Really?

Him: Yes. You, and Dita von Teese.

The World Cup Predicted

I love how data visualisation, coupled with easy access to information, is now fueled by a subculture of people interested in presenting information - telling new stories, really - in creative ways.

And one of my favourite things to watch is how some are trying to suss out the perfect formula for predicting outcomes, particularly in niche series of events with clear rules and variables, like the World Cup. (Barring any shenanigans, anyway.)

Image credit: Section Design.

Inklust #9: Love

I discovered I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people's time. I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.

-- Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Gabriel García Márquez

Image credit: mary_gaston22.

---
What the dickens is "Inklust"? Boy am I glad you asked. Here's the manifesto: part I and part II.

Visualizing the BP Oil Spill

Over France:

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Clarifying Cloning

...oh, why the hell not.

AdVerve Episode 33: Harry Webber and The High King’s Oil Spill

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All kinds of magic this week, folks, and not the kind that requires a wand. We sit down with ad land myth-cum-legend Harry Webber and hash out The Facts of Life for ya: Agencies’ historical role as a government front, plus why Millennials are doomed, social media experts are full of shit, and BP will go back to business as usual.

Amidst all that, we still find the time to outline the iron hand of religion (and how we'll NEVER BE FREE), the most important thing Harry's learned in his working life, and what really made Michael Jackson bitter. (Hint: It wasn’t Jesus Juice jokes.)

Also, Harry really wants you to watch this movie. IT WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. Catch him on Twitter too.

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Linkage:

• BP NOAA story.

Send questions or comments to advervepodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. You can also leave a review.

(Image.)