Live and Uncensored!

Google Sure Can Tug a Heartstring.

2012-01-31T04:53:00.000+01:00

Loving these new ads for Google Chrome in France (captions available by clicking the "CC" button at bottom). Whenever one appears on TV, I just stop what I'm doing and watch.

I've Activated My Tumblr!

2012-01-26T05:13:00.002+01:00

You can follow it here if you're into that kind of thing. Or you can stay right here, because I'll go on updating this for, I don't know, other stuff.

I didn't even know I excelled in that.

2012-01-26T02:21:00.001+01:00

Thanks, Klout, for keeping me abreast of all the previously-unimagined ways I can expand my sphere of Influence™.

"Time Warner has called. And they want us all back on the couch."

2012-01-20T15:48:00.001+01:00

Let's go back to the way things were. Let's go back to when nobody complained, nobody could produce their own entertainment and nobody could appropriate your slogan, logo or message to reveal an intent different from the one your PR firm so painstakingly produced. Let's go back to a time before Rick-Rolling and a world in which Edward Khil was rediscovered in the magic of trololo.

Let's go back to suing kids and shutting down online enterprises, no matter where they're based, because they cause the MPAA harm -- the same MPAA whose leaders are systematically chosen for their high political connections. Let's go back to the Top 20 playlist defining our tastes.

Wasn't it better then?

"In the end, the real threat to PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another," Shirky says in the video above.

These laws place the burden of proof for demonstrating goodwill toward copyright holders onto us. Us. That's mashup makers. That's your kids, fooling around on their new computers and doing what they think is a creative sendup of their favourite cartoon. That's you embedding "Every cigarette smoked in 'Mad Men'" onto your blog.

Other People's Nostalgia

2012-01-20T11:59:00.000+01:00

Publicité pour les Gateaux Bamboula par odilederey

One of the toughest things about getting along in a new country is trying to grasp the cultural references: that campy movie everyone's seen, the candy kids ate in the '80s, or the ads and the brands, whose context, though long forgotten, have become part of modern culture's quilt.

Today on Facebook, Osmany Barbosa shared this little spot for Bamboula cakes. It isn't a brand that exists anymore, but the biscuits were evidently so good that there are recipes seeking to replicate them across the French 'net. The ad's got a clear aesthetic that you can easily tie back to the '80s, but it also speaks to France's own colonialist history and efforts to come to grips with racism. Bamboula wasn't the only brand that reflected this struggle; Banania, which still exists today, is still the source of great argument about whether or not its logo and slogan had clear colonialist slants.

From there you can easily take the leap into our own advertising history. Uncle Ben's Rice and Mrs. Butterworth's have both been criticized for depicting African-Americans in a domestic service role, although that has largely changed (depending on who you ask).

The Kind of Thing that Haunts You Forever.

2012-01-16T18:14:00.000+01:00

Stargate's early take on grey goo. Greygoogreygoogreygoo.

My favourite quote from the internet today:

The term grey goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation, stating that "we cannot afford certain types of accidents." In 2004 he stated "I wish I had never used the term 'grey goo'. Le sigh.*"

It's okay, Eric, I don't mind "grey goo." It sparks curiosity and curiosity sparks Google searches, which can lead to wondrous learning experiences followed by a love of science and speculative technology. (And as probably only five people in the world watched The Stuff, you don't even have to worry about inviting the comparison.)

In other news, this wikipedia article about grey goo makes me miss Stargate SG-1. Remember that crazy little sad girl who made the Replicators? The mere thought of them still gives me the chills!

---

*"Le sigh" part added by me. But I could tell he wanted to.

They Never Ask Enough Questions.

2012-01-12T15:58:00.002+01:00

Him: ...so R said he saw you on the street the other day. He said he thinks you got skinnier.

Me: Good skinny or bad skinny?

Him: ...what?

Me: Like, "wow, she got skinny" or "my God, she's so skinny"?

Him: I don't know. I didn't ask. Do you think you lost weight?

Me: Why didn't you ask clarifying questions? What did he mean?

Him: I don't know! I don't think it was good or bad. His tone was just neutral. Like me, speaking now.

Me: THERE IS NO NEUTRAL.

Him: Should I ask...?

Me: No! It's too late.

Image: mugley.

Ernest Dichter: The Soul of Brands + Why We Buy

2012-01-03T12:56:00.000+01:00

In the case of soap, he found that bathing was a ritual that afforded rare moments of personal indulgence, particularly before a romantic date (“You never can tell,” explained one woman). He discerned an erotic element to bathing, observing that “one of the few occasions when the puritanical American [is] allowed to caress himself or herself [is] while applying soap.” As for why customers picked a particular brand, Dichter concluded that it wasn’t exactly the smell or price or look or feel of the soap, but all that and something else besides—that is, the gestalt or “personality” of the soap.

This was a big idea. Dichter understood that every product has an image, even a “soul”, and is bought not merely for the purpose it serves but for the values it seems to embody. Our possessions are extensions of our own personalities, which serve as a “kind of mirror which reflects our own image”.

- "Retail Therapy: How Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing", The Economist

The Future is Now! -- Lumus' AR Glasses.

2011-12-30T20:45:00.000+01:00

Israeli company Lumus has produced a pair of futuristic but otherwise totally wearable glasses that enable you to interact with the world via AR. They also display 1280 x 720 HD video -- also 3D-capable -- without anyone able to see what you're watching.
How they work:

Light pumps in the earpieces send and refract light down the lens. This moves the electronics away from the eyes, offering a lighter, more streamlined experience. The lenses are transparent and display an apparent 87-inch screen about ten feet away. Because each eye display works independently, you can also view 3D video.

"But wait!" you say. "Why not contact lenses? Aren't those sexier and infinitely more discreet?"

Don't worry, those are coming.

Happy Hollydays, Internet Friends!

2011-12-24T20:07:00.002+01:00

Please enjoy this X-ray of a Christmas tree and its gifts.

Interaxon + the Evolution of Thought Computing

2011-12-19T17:24:00.000+01:00

In April I wrote an article on how mind control technologies are worth keeping an eye on because they fall in line with how technology must become more intimate and less visually invasive. At Le Web, CEO Ariel Garten of Interaxon summed this up nicely and provided a roadmap to where "thought computing" is headed (included at the bottom of this article).

Thought computing is the process of eliciting responses with the power of your mind. It's still in its early stages, in the sense that the hardware can't yet detect words or specific commands, but basic interactions are now possible. We can also play with their possibilities via providers of low-cost headsets, like eMotiv.

These headsets work "by reading the electrical signals on our heads," Garten explained. "When you think, or engage in anything mental, your brainwaves change."

Among other things, Interaxon experiments with producing musical interactions and even levitation (example: as your alpha waves rise, so does a chair that's wired to respond to your brain signals). It also built a thought-controlled computing installation at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

"Once you have a system with a human and a computer in the loop, the computer starts to know something about you. And you can participate in the experience together … you can be inside the experience and it'll respond to you," said Garten.

She used Loic Le Meur's wife, Géraldine Le Meur, to give us a live demonstration. By projecting a screen reading signals from a small headset attached to Géraldine's head, she showed us how the signals changed when Géraldine did small things, like blink.

"These responses can be plugged into games," Garten said, and the screen changed to reflect an ambient game setting, which changed in small ways when Géraldine sent subtle signals into the system. She blinked, the clouds moved; she grinded her jaw, and a boat rocked.

Games like Zen Bound 2 are taking these capacities to another level. This iPhone/iPad game tracks your level of focus and meditation with a small, ever-changing ticker on the side of the screen. The more you focus, the faster an object of your choice rotates, for example.

In practical terms, this technology can help us do things like chart unwanted symptoms (like chronic fatigue) or alleviate stress. You can begin understanding how to be in an optimal state, how to avoid being chronically exhausted.

"We can begin to see the underlying narratives that propel us forward," said Garten, who explained that tracking when you're more focused, and less focused, helps you optimise your work and play time.

The Zeo Sleep Trainer, for example, tracks your brain waves while you sleep. You can review its data later to make educated choices about improving your sleep quality.

There are also huge implications for helping children with ADHD: showing them what happens in their own minds can empower them to optimize their abilities to focus -- without Ritalin. They can be encouraged to access and manipulate these states in a gaming environment.

Garten wrapped by providing a roadmap for how thought computing technology will evolve.

ROADMAP FOR THOUGHT COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY

Development of monitoring and performance tools
Sharing and communication tools. Once critical mass hits, functionalities that enable sharing, emotional tagging, dating, and parental monitoring will develop.
Responsive technology. Once mainstream, this technology will be as ubiquitous as smartphones are today. Your home, sensing you're cranky or stressed upon walking in, will be able to adjust the environment to relax you.

"This helps technology fit into our lives so that it virtually disappears," she said, observing that technology should not detract, distract or intrude (as it often does today). It should support our mental and spiritual pursuits without cluttering our existence.

Virgin Galactic's George Whitesides on Space, Dreaming + Sustainability on Earth

2011-12-16T17:23:00.000+01:00

Last week at Le Web, I got to hear Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides talk about the commercialisation of space travel. Here's an interview I did with him, followed by video of his talk.

Among other things, we discuss where the program is now, its potential for facilitating sustainable development on Earth, and product partnership opportunities. Dig in!

Talk a little bit about where the Virgin Galactic program is now.

We are deep into the test flight program now, which is an exciting place to be. We expect to integrate the rocket motor in 2012 and plan to get to space during the year. We’ve taken deposits from 475 amazing individuals. The spaceport in southern New Mexico is getting close to completion, and the Spaceship Company – a joint venture with Scaled Composites – has begun building additional vehicles.

You spoke at length about the importance of dreaming, and indeed Virgin Galactic speaks to many people's dreams of space travel. Still, it's an ambitious effort that demands significant investment and a certain level of technological rigor before it can even expect to begin making money. How does Virgin strike a balance between dreams -- like that of visiting space -- and long-term business sense?

As with any Virgin venture, a rigorous business plan has been developed, and we are very encouraged by the underlying economics of the suborbital space launch market. What is exciting about Galactic is that we are creating a fundamentally new service while building a great business.

Virgin's said before that the commercialisation of space can facilitate development in sustainable efforts, like the beaming of natural energy to earth via satellite. Can you talk a little bit about that?

What is clear is that more frequent and lower cost access to space will enable a range of services and research activities of benefit to humanity. These may include revolutionary environmental monitoring systems, to systems that are much more in the future, like beamed energy from space. While it is hard to predict with absolute certainty which of these will be developed on what timescale, it is clear that there will be enormous benefits to life on earth.

What are your personal ambitions for Virgin Galactic?

Our team is unified in our ambition to create the world’s first spaceline. That means taking thousands of people into space over the coming years, as well as enabling breakthrough science by researchers. Someday we may be able to develop a point-to-point vehicle that would revolutionize the speed of transport around the planet, but for now we are focused on the first goal of safe and successful suborbital spaceflight.

Virgin Airlines has partnerships with companies that speak to Virgin's values -- like Method Home, whose products are used in airline bathrooms. Is this something you think about at all -- what kind of product or service partnerships to conduct to enrich the space experience? If so, what are you looking at?

This is an area that we are starting to spend real effort thinking about, and I think we’ll have some exciting announcements between now and the launch of commercial service.

Thanks for your time!

Absolutely!

Whitesides at Le Web:

YouTube for Schools, Stanford Online: Liberated Education

2011-12-16T17:06:00.003+01:00

In high school, the books fell apart in my hands. Most of our instructional videos were probably made in the '70s -- with the possible exception of the drivers ed program, which profits from frequent updates of the unintentionally hilarious "Red Asphalt" series.

Anywho, YouTube is launching YouTube for Schools, an education program that'll avail access to safe video content for schools. Content providers include Stanford, PBS and TED.

Given the dearth of funding in our public school system, programs like this can be hugely beneficial for teachers hard-up for content.

Another great liberated education experiment is Stanford's online course program, which enables you to follow some of their best courses online. It's free, requires that you do the homework, and enables you to ask professors questions on Google Hangouts. If you pass the class, you get a badge à la Foursquare. I've registered for three starting next year.

None of these efforts are going to change the state of our education system overnight, but they're positive, enterprising steps in the right direction. As for easier access to updated books -- that's in the bag, the 'net and tablets are making quick work of that problem.

Karl Lagerfeld, Le Web + Fashion as the Ultimate User Experience

2011-12-08T14:59:00.001+01:00

Photo: TechCrunch EU

Karl Lagerfeld opened Le Web yesterday morning, in part to announce the launch of a new online fashion brand, Karl, which he's producing in partnership with founder Natalie Massenet of Net-A-Porter. It goes live in January.

According to Massenet, the collection will be about "accessibility". I gathered this referred to it being online (free of geographical limitations) and more cost-feasible for shoppers. (I wouldn't expect Isaac Mizrahi for Target prices though.) This is a nice manifestation of something Lagerfeld said about social networks just prior: being over-connected doesn't make you well-connected.

This is easy to forget when you consider how "accessible" everyone is today. But Lagerfeld is playing with the ways in which technology can draw global crowds, ignite creativity and facilitate work.

While paper remains his favourite creative tool, many of his designs are now produced on drawing apps for iPad. He demonstrated by using his iPad to sketch a portrait of Steve Jobs onstage:

The conversation didn't go into much detail about the impact of design on usability, or how today's simple and elegant interface aesthetics speak to how function informs timelessness. Some even wondered why Lagerfeld was there at all.

"He's the #1 design expert in the world right now," observed venture capitalist Michael Jackson at a cocktail party later that night. "Entrepreneurs should be soaking in everything he says. What Karl Lagerfeld understands is that fashion is the ultimate user experience."

The Declaration of Interdependence

2011-12-07T02:01:00.001+01:00

"It's important to remember that technology is just us. It's not this separate thing."

Tiffany Shlain gives an emotionally rich talk here about how connections are worth little unless they're deep, and deep connections require attention -- something we lose if we don't harness the technology in our lives. She wraps with her four-minute "Declaration of Interdependence", which I quite liked.

In April I was lucky enough to liveblog Shlain's keynote for MIPCOM, preceding a screening of her film Connected: An 'autoblogography' about Love, Death & Technology. I love her way of weaving seemingly-unrelated topics together and infusing them with (sometimes overwhelming) feeling. She also invests technology with an importance, and an optimism, rarely experienced -- even while admitting that her family takes a tech break one day a week.

Augmented spaces: Nimble's Digital/Tactile Library

2011-12-05T17:13:00.001+01:00

Nimble's produced this thought-worthy video on how augmented reality can be used to help people better navigate their way around libraries. It posits hypothetical solutions for finding books (even -- or ideally -- when the book you want is on a table somewhere), digitally interacting with what you're reading on paper, and sharing knowledge via social networks.

Sures Kumar, who built the concept and experience prototype, explains it thus:

Nimble shows what a mixed touch, digital, projection, and book-based library might look like. This is relevant because people still like the tactile feel of books and other printed media and they also like to browse.

It isn't immediately obvious to me how digital technology will be able to recognise and readily communicate with non-connected objects like books and newspapers, but I like the vision behind it: there will always be room for tactile objects, and we'll move between those and our digital "objects" with fluency. This also does a nice job of illustrating how important augmented spaces will be in the near future, as everyday and digital experiences build intimacy with one another.

Take the example of the new touchscreen-saturated Sephora store in New York. This screams "we're investing in experience", but I still think the integration is clumsy, simply because the screens themselves are so obvious.

What's cool about the Nimble video is its vision that interactive screens won't be obvious. In the next five years we will just expect banal everyday things to be able to engage us on an animate level, much like how, today, we increasingly expect to walk into a public space and have wifi.

(Via.)

High Culture Meets Tech Culture: Tweet Seats

2011-12-05T17:11:00.001+01:00

Love this article on how theatre venues, including the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Raleigh's Carolina Ballet and Ohio's Dayton Opera, are beginning to incorporate seating for people dead-set on "livetweeting" highbrow cultural events. As PSFK mentions, this is a great way to introduce young, spendy techies to classical music, the opera and ballet. The only caveat: why stack them all in the back?

I'd pack these guys into boxed seats or give them front-row space, maybe at a relative distance from the audience, to ensure they get a stellar experience. That's how you properly earn your earned media.

Flash photography is a problem at these events, which is one reason why sites like Carnegie Hall or the Kennedy Center demand that patrons switch phones off (in addition to accidental ringing). Solution: make like the tech conferences and avail high-quality photos to people who have registered to the events as tweeters or bloggers.

Of all the things to dedicate your life to...

2011-12-02T01:50:00.001+01:00

...why advertising?

A few days ago Jeff Kwiatek sent me this screenshot of a conversation that took place on Twitter between Mark Wnek and Edward Boches. It's interesting because it poses, aloud, a question people must ask in their heads all the time:

Why write about advertising? Even if we all agree that advertising can serve noble purposes, or at the very least has a great responsibility in its ability to influence, why write about it?

A few years ago, holed up in Ithaca and pushing out 16, sometimes 20 articles a day for two ad and marketing publications, I shot up out of bed and had a horrible realisation: I've given my life to a banality, something that really doesn't matter to anybody -- something most people claim to hate.

I spent a few days freaked out and feeling demotivated. Then I realised something important: your time isn't wasted when it's put in the service of something you care about.

So why care about ads? Because they're with us all the time. They are so present in nearly every moment of our lives that we forget their impact, often convincing ourselves that, because many are ineffective, invasive, and poorly produced, the entire metier is invasive, ineffective and poverty-ridden.

This isn't true. We wed ourselves to brands, see ourselves in the things we purchase because they become personal objects that we invest time and care in. We give them as gifts, wear them on our bodies, use them to facilitate our lives. It makes sense to want them to reflect some quality we have, or aspire to have, from the get-go.

Advertising helps us make quick decisions -- and when I say "advertising" I'm not just talking about ads. I'm talking about packaging, the treatment of customers, referrals from friends, YouTube how-tos and product reviews. We can't give a significant portion of our lives to due diligence on the chemical contents or product development of a deodorant or shampoo. We need semantic shortcuts, but we also need to feel like we're making choices for the right reasons (be they status, environmental goodwill, a kickback to a charity). A brand we trust, a brand we feel we know and that respects us, helps make otherwise-paralysing choices easier.

Being that brand -- one who conveys a message properly, consistently and with verve! on an ever-diversifying landscape of media channels -- is getting harder. Being the agency helping it along is also hard, because agencies are facing their own crises: the coming freefall of TV ad prices (the bread and butter of so many!), and the need for ambidextrous minds who can be both creative, socially strategic and highly technical, to name just two.

So communications is undergoing an evolution -- a huge renegotiation of space that is anthropologically fascinating to watch and to try to help along. But as Wnek observed, if you're going to write, why not "expose corruption and injustice"?

"There are plenty of people writing about corruption and justice, too," Boches replied.

Simply put: we have the joy and luxury of being able to choose what to give our lives to. I think we all martyr ourselves this way, even while extracting great pleasure from our work, so it's important to choose wisely. You can make the argument that certain ways of serving people are more noble than others, but in the end we are at our most productive when we choose a service that impassions us, obsesses us, makes us feel alive and awake.

(Also, feeling this way about your work makes you more likely to do awesome and inventive shit.)

I have a lot of admiration for journalists that expose corruption and wrongdoing, or unearth beauty and innovation hidden in unexpected places. They maintain a yardstick of accountability whose limitations are constantly being pushed. But there's plenty of that to be done in communications, too. That cause also needs its devotees, unearthers of innovation, and scribes: the bench markers, best practice-sharers, pundits, critics, whistleblowers, sociologists -- the people setting down a painstaking history of what has happened, is happening and will happen soon.

This matters because as the world grows smaller and people become more dynamic, we'll need our semantic shortcuts more than ever. So the work and scrutiny behind all those shortcuts -- those brands who compose our quotidian constellations -- must be rigorous and dedicated.

I'm proud to be part of this, even if the big fights consist of constant small battles and will take years to iron out ... and even if I spend most of the day writing about car commercials. Sometimes you come across stuff like this ... and lo, all is well.

On Profile Photos of Obnoxiously Hot Women

2011-11-23T17:54:00.001+01:00

It's funny how quickly things change. In the MySpace days I would look at profile photos like this and think "low-hanging fruit", but today I just think "spambot".

Yesterday I cried because my pants didn't fit.

2011-11-22T15:19:00.001+01:00

Please don't ask me where I found this. But isn't it amazing?

The older I get, the more stereotypically psychotic I become during my period. I didn't used to be this way. I used to be relatively normal and to pride myself on that anomalous sense of control. But last night, feeling that familiar pressure rise up in the general location of my ovaries, I was inconsolable, dragging my feet and slamming into walls and falling onto my bed in abject despair.

I also ate all the candies.

This is a trend that worries me. Every time it happens, I can't help but wonder if it's time doing its work, or if I'm behaving this way because of what TV taught me to do.* It is hard to know. I wish I had a team of scientists.

---

*I also wondered this the first time I got drunk.

The Best QR Code Action I've Seen in Awhile

2011-11-18T11:57:00.001+01:00

Look how useful and not pointless it is! Look how good it makes people feel, how it provides value (giving to the less fortunate) while compounding that with a captivating experience (animation)! I even almost forgot this was eBay.

We should be thinking more about intuitive integrations between the real world and digital. And, because you can't say that kind of thing without an associated buzzword, industry people are calling this golden solution "SoLoMo" -- a contraction of social, local and mobile. This combo has great natural implications for tourism and hospitality, but also consider how intuitive executions can change our everyday experiences, too.

Like this eBay thing. This time of year, everyone's susceptible to holiday altruism and the spreading of cheer, qualities which extend themselves nicely to social sharing. Make it as easy as possible for users to cash in on emotional investments they're already looking to make, all day long as they traverse those chilly streets, clutching their peppermint lattés and passing fleeting smiles of hope at small children and the grizzled homeless.

Viiiiiiiia.

Benetton to Politicians: Kiss + Make Better

2011-11-16T14:52:00.001+01:00

Benetton loves itself some shock value, a superpower generally used for good but often too provocative for comfort. Its latest went live in Paris this morning under the campaign name "Unhate."

The film, which includes protesters against cops and hijabis in Sapphic passion, seizes eyeballs in its own right, but the print work will cause the real heat.

Each features two prominent world leaders mid-smooch: above, you'll find President Obama giving one to Hu Jintao of China. It appeared on the Piazza Duomo in front of the cathedral of Milan.

This one showed up on the Sant'Angelo bridge in Rome. It depicts Pope Benedict XVI cosy-facing Cairo's Imam Ahmed el Tayyeb.

Lastly, witness a kiss of dreams between Palestine and Israel:

Banners guide people to the Unhate Foundation website, where you'll also find a Kiss Wall. Upload kisses of your own to bring the controversial fun closer to home.

See? This is the kind of thing that could use a Facebook app. Otherwise, winning work by 72andSunny Amsterdam; photos courtesy of Claudio Gagliardini and SuchaBlog.

This is Your Date on Heineken

2011-11-15T14:13:00.001+01:00

Okay. You know how perfume and car ads are predictable, banal and basically always objectively suck? Beer ads have this magic way of being the opposite. Think Stella, think Heineken -- hell, think Budweiser for every last Super Bowl as far back as you can remember. What is it about the beer sector that takes a possibility and just stretches it beyond imaginable elasticity...? I have cream dreams about doing beer. (The ads. Not, like ... bottles.)

I'm late to the game in discovering "The Date" (Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam -- of course!), and probably wouldn't ever have seen it if I wasn't doing Epica Awards judging this year, but it has this fancy-free Shangri-La magic that makes you want to go back to the '70s and dance on a table or something.

The making-of is jam-packed with the same playful irony for double the time:

Think John Lewis for the Gifts You're ACHING to Give

2011-11-15T13:01:00.001+01:00

Here's the requisite bittersweet holiday-countdown ad that yields inhuman cravings for tinsel and an advent calendar. (I have one already. It is sitting on the shelf and I twitch every time I look at it, because if you forget to start opening the little paper doors right on December 1, ALL IS LOST AND GOD HATES YOU.)

Anyway, this piece for UK-based John Lewis department store (now online and on mobile!) takes its sweet time building a nostalgic universe around an antsy boy in the days before Christmas. We can all relate to his impatience, even if his reasons turn out to be warmly opposite our expectations.

The ad is pensively punctuated by a delicate cover of The Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by Slow Moving Millie. Catch the making-of, plus a link to download the music on iTunes, on the John Lewis website.

This cosy fireside holiday ham is brought to you by Adam & Eve.

AdVerve Episode 80 - Halloweeness Edition

2011-11-14T15:47:00.001+01:00

Download the show now. Or subscribe through iTunes.

Better late than ever! Primal fears will always make great movies, and we hit all the points this ep: our favorite horror flicks and why, the best villains, and an opening tribute to the best villain-slash-hero of them all: Steve Jobs. All that angry action, coupled with Halloween ads, reflections on the ethics of stealing, the mindset of startups, race in costume, and when the world will be ready for an evil unicorn movie. (Also, whatever happened to movies about sea monsters?)

Our movies of choice:
- The Exorcist
- The Shining
- Silence of the Lambs
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- The Countess
- I Am Legend
- Juon (English version: The Grudge)
- Paranormal Activity
- The Saw series
- The Friday the 13th series
- 30 Days of Night
- The Lovely Bones
- The Hunger
- The Addiction

Linkaphoria:

- The Method Method
- Apple iPadfomercial
- Joshua Hoffine's horror photography
- Bill's Instagrid
- Angela's Instagrid
- Halloween ads: Axe and Agent Provocateur

Imagine if this actually did work in prisons. Wouldn't that be fun?

2011-11-10T17:09:00.001+01:00

Not all digital ads are a flickering Technicolor ego-vomit. Amnesty International's slide-to-unlock "Prison Bars" effort doesn't just provoke, it's also elegantly done and message-relevant. Work by Garbergs Sweden.

Hat-tip, So Particular.

Reassurance

2011-11-10T15:12:00.000+01:00

Sometimes we need some -- from Einstein, good designers and friends like So Particular who know when to pass along a good JPEG.

Starbucks' AR Cup Holiday Characters

2011-11-09T15:32:00.000+01:00

Blast Radius just produced Starbucks' first-ever augmented reality app, and you can swoop it up next Tuesday from your Android or iPhone.

Remember how you used to be able to collect all five mini Barbie dolls or Cabbage Patch kids in a McD's Happy Meal™? It's kind of like that, except not a choking hazard.

The app interacts with various characters that will appear on the company's trademark red holiday cups. When you point your phone camera at the cup, they come to life, and can interact with you or different objects (47 in all!) at the store, like bags of coffee.

The characters include an ice skater, a squirrel, a boy, a sleigh dog and a fox. If you activate all five, you get a prize. In addition, you'll also be able to do basic mobile app stuff, like send ecards or Starbucks holiday offers.

Mobile is becoming a dominant player in Starbucks' social experiments. The company was among the first to partner with Foursquare last year, and as of January, it processed over 20 million mobile payments -- making it a prime model for how American companies can mainstreamise mobile payments.

What I really like about Starbucks' evolution in mobile is that it's done a good job of balancing just-because human interaction and more sharply defined revenue-based interests -- without sacrificing one or the other. In the case of this AR app, we're also seeing more maturity in the company's efforts to integrate digital with packaging.

One past effort comes to mind. "The Way I See It" was a good digital + packaging effort because it had a website where people could post stories. It also inspired a lot of online fan action: 1, 2, 3. But taking down the website...? Faux pas. Shoulda aggregated the fan stuff and kept it going in a more easy-to-post Tumblr format. Can you even imagine how rebloggable an #occupywallst "Way I See It" would have been?!

Que Boire Que Manger: Shortcut to Wine-Pairing Mastery

2011-11-09T13:01:00.000+01:00

If you have ever made the mistake of pairing an Australian Shiraz with curry, like I have, this will save your life ... or at least the 4 minutes at dinner your friends usually spend making fun of you while you're in the loo.

Que Boire Que Manger is a French startup that launched in summer 2011. Its proposition is simple: email a meal to queboire@qbqm.fr, and in a minute you'll have a detailed and easy-to-read survey of the best wines to match it, any unique qualities they possess, a brief history of their territories, and price ranges (from € to €€€). The service works on any device that can send email, and an app is available on iPhone.

Today QBQM launches its free iPad app, whose intuitive interface permits you to match food to wine and vice versa.

You can also make selections more granular (find matches for "tomatoes and mushrooms" if those are your main ingredients, versus putting in the name of a meal):

Très classe ! And practical, to boot.

...but how does it make money?

Co-founder Julie Coutton (super-responsive on Twitter, by the way) and her team of "high-level sommeliers" plan to monetise QBQM by leasing their automated food-pairing capabilities to other service or hospitality firms. And because wine pairing is inherently brand-heavy, there are big opportunities for the promotion of producers, distributors and wine organisations. Naturally, the service also lends itself to tie-ins with specialty products like carafes and, oh, who knows, stemless wine glasses.

For the time being though, it seems like the startup's in a pretty good place: Que Boire Que Manger is nicely designed, simple enough to understand at a glance, and seems able to provide reliable service without heavy manual labour on the backend (at least for now). The team's focus appears to be on expanding availability and growing fidelity via social.

As mentioned, Julie's easily accessible on Twitter (@juliecoutton). The company also reaches out to fans and plans wine tastings on Facebook.

The Kinect Effect/L'Effet Kinect

2011-11-07T12:55:00.002+01:00

The Kinect gaming experience is surprisingly delightful on its own, but better still are the hacks sprouting up as a result of what it can do.

This isn't just about its potential to bring Star Wars technology out of the fictional realm. My favourite hack turns tourists into statues, but a more dedicated gaming public will probably be more interested in Kinect's possibilities for cybersex.

All that's just iceberg tips. In a rare and beautiful moment of lucidity, Microsoft -- with help from twofifteenmccann San Francisco -- gives us "The Kinect Effect", a human and impactful piece of work that provides a survey of what's been done with Kinect so far, using a voice that both illuminates viewers and seems touchingly grateful.

"Even though the world keeps asking us what we'll do with Kinect next, we're just as excited to ask the world the same thing," simpers the narrator prettily. Meanwhile, the music slows to a stop in time with a girl playing an invisible violin, drawing heartstrings taut with her suspended fingers.

Visit the Kinect Effect website for news and video on how the console is being used to help stroke patients, kids with autism, and the terminally bored. You can also upload your own stories.

For now, this is the closest Microsoft gets to the coveted iPadfomercial, but then again, the Kinect makes a better brand equity rival to iPad than any of Microsoft's other products do. We root for both in equal measure, because the sky's the limit on how both turn human imagination into innovation. As reader Atif Chaudhry put it, "What is impressive [about the Kinect] isn't what it can do ... but that it is affordable. The reasonable price point makes it viable for all sorts of applications!" Well, here's to cheap dreamcatchers.

Below is the French version of the ad, "L'Effet Kinect", and accompanying site. It's the same, but in French; we are just posting it because we saw this version before the English one.

Because theatre should feel like magic.

2011-11-04T16:40:00.001+01:00

In time for the reopening of the Bolchoi Theatre, Russian motion designer Anton Nenashev produced this video to celebrate the venue's spirit.

This is how the theatre-going experience should feel. The problem for most young people is that it takes a lot of imagination when you're actually sitting in those seats, watching what are obviously people in costume on a set. Then there's the issue of education: depending on what you're watching, theatre is one of those things you often have to prepare in advance for, either knowledge-wise or in terms of honing your listening ear.

But I think its stripped-down quality, its way of putting talent at the forefront and forcing you to penetrate its barriers in order to lose yourself, is part of the magic. It demands an emotional investment as large as what the actors are putting in, and the energy that results feels like nothing else.

Via Fubiz.

Acrobats + Wall Rats: Finally, You Unite!

2011-11-04T15:26:00.002+01:00

Director Sébastien Montaz-Rosset plugs his upcoming documentary with a video that provides a quick run-through on the new free-flying: a combination of climbing, slackline and tightrope walking. Add that to the list of things I'll never do because I don't like the feeling of my heart leaping into my throat.

See a full 14 minutes worth of the docu at SebMontaz.com.

The amazing is calling ... from a Nokia!

2011-11-04T15:20:00.003+01:00

Buzzman does it again with The Amazing Calls, an ad that brings high drama to what is basically a catty grab (as evidenced by the hair pulling and necklace yanking. We still liked it though). Between 7 and 13 November, the Nokia Lumia featured on Theamazingcalls.fr will ring. Be the first person in France to pick it up and something might happen that will "change your everyday". Take your best guess as to what that might be, based on the caller: anybody from Metronomy to Joeystarr to British sports journo Darren Toulett.

UPDATE: A video's just been posted, featuring Metronomy. They promise to do a live concert just for you and your friends if you manage to answer their call, slated for the 7th:

If you plan to play, it won't be easy. The website lags like crazy and the background music plays mercilessly. But maybe that's just a strategy for weeding out the weak.

I Haven't Been This Excited About a Robot Film Since Wall-E.

2011-11-01T16:09:00.001+01:00

Or possibly Bladerunner.Dvein was selected to produce the title sequence for Spanish director Kike Maíllo's film Eva, a "retro futuristic sci-fi thriller". The plot: a young scientist called Alex returns home to complete an unfinished project: a boy robot. The trailers feel vaguely Pinocchio, and the vintage-style filming is a delicious frame for both the miraculously human robot and his Minority Report-style workstation, The Hand Up.Handy PR description:

The Hand Up is the name that the script uses to refer to the machine that the main character of the film uses as the interface to manipulate the consciousness of the robots. We designed this interface and the titles are just some sort of a closer approach to this interface, like an aesthetic essay, so to say.

That's understating. The elegance and quality of the production is almost god-like. Find two trailers on the equally impressive (and fast-loading!) website, Eva Pelicula.

BeanCast 174 - Relationship Marketing Hits the Rails

2011-11-01T15:06:00.002+01:00

The latest BeanCast, featuring me, Ted Rubin of Collective Bias and Mike Rynchek of Spyder Trap, is an accidental tribute to how much relationships play into the work we do. We cover rogue QR codes, malware, whether mobile advertising truly peaks at mobile display, brands young people like, and the UK's attempt to maintain a semblance of privacy on Google. Conversation gets hot and moody, just the way host Bob Knorpp likes it.

Read the full menu and listen to the show. You can also subscribe for autodownloading on iTunes.

PS. If you're wondering what's going on with the AdVerve podcast, we recorded a nice Halloween special for you. Just working out sound issues. Don't worry, it's comin'.

'The Process' of Making a 686 Parka

2011-10-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

We're approaching a world where you can print out your party shoes the same way you used to print out study notes. This makes it easy to forget what kind of work really goes into producing something you bought off a rack ... especially if it was hanging there with five other windbreakers that looked exactly alike, accounting for differences of size.

686 takes us to a factory in China to show us roughly what goes into producing one of its jackets. I still don't know how a sewing machine works and am afraid of learning at the risk of having my fingernails stapled permanently to their nailbeds, which is sort of embarrassing when you think of how many other people's nailbeds are at risk so I can have orange snowboarding pants.

Poll: Favourite Monsters.

2011-10-29T16:44:00.001+02:00

Someone once told me that you can tell a lot about a person based on their favourite monster. I think I have always liked vampires because of their hipsterish sadness. They have eternal youth going on, coupled with the whole "being alone in the dark with no one to love me is so lonely" thing. It's the human condition, except their cocktails of choice are alienating.

They are also nicely dressed and seem to favour the arts and solitary forms of leisure, I guess because what else are you going to do for all eternity between eating sprees?

So. What's your favourite monster and why?

Because Your Eyes Have Better Things to Do. Like Dart!

2011-10-28T17:34:00.001+02:00

In "Vision" for Verizon FiOS, McCann NY captures a moment we've all experienced and can immediately recognise once we see the punchline. We'll give you a hint: it puts you in a trancelike state of wait, but instead of relaxing you it makes you want to kill small mammals.

Very clever, and the pacing doesn't rush the message in. Nails a problem we've learned to live with (the worst kind!) right on its head.

A Story 'Framed' on an iPhone 4S

2011-10-28T17:33:00.001+02:00

There's nothing flashy or tech-sexy about Maël Sevestre's "Framed", but that's what makes it special. Sometimes it helps to be reminded that, as handheld technology improves our production capacities, we can still tell timeless, slow-moving stories in addition to the hard stuff that dilates pupils.

This is also solid soft marketing for the iPhone 4S itself, which boasts an 8 megapixel camera that drive-by photogs, camera guys and citizen journalists can use to better capture what's going on behind their eyes.

(Not so) Strictly ballroom + the private label content evolution

2011-10-19T15:43:00.000+02:00

Sosh, a new mobile brand owned by Orange, has released this gorgeous homage to dance, appropriately titled "Danse(s)", with help from photog/director James Bort.

The Bortstah on its roots:

I wanted to pay homage to dance, all forms of dance, like a piece of music played with multiple instruments. The idea was to reunite seven dancers and as many universes, countries, styles, ages and personalities.

The casting call happened September 19 via a number of socnets, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Amateur and professional dancers are included. Production happened in early October at Paris Beaux Arts.

This is one of many fresh inroads in premium social branding. (Consider. And also!)

Companies forming production partnerships with artists like Bort reminds me of when Target first partnered with high-end designers (like Todd Oldham!) for cheap/chic product lines that made private label consumption sexy. These kinds of collabos are de rigueur today: remember Sonia Rykiel's H&M collection?

Now in digital, brands are evolving past weak CGM-looking YouTube crap and taking advantage of that ever-present HD button, yielding material we want to pass around because they're beautiful, teach us something, make us laugh, or speak to one of our deep and diverse loves. To do this, they need guys like Bort, and they're making better use of the social space to source talent and spread their work. (I've seen "Danse(s)" at least 5 times in my Facebook feed over the past 2 days.)

Private label content is sexing up the same way private label merch did. It'll never replace the cinemas or an Arrested Development binge, but boy do they make those long lulls at work more bearable. And the fruits they bear for otherwise-unknown artists and directors are immense.

It's symbiosis!

Proof that We Are Masochists

2011-10-19T00:20:00.001+02:00

I didn't care much before, but now I really do want that goddamn 4S so I can sing to her and she can push me away in her coquettish robotic doing-the-best-I-can-knowing-I-can't-sue-you-for-harassment-because-I'm-not-human kind of way.

Siri, will you...?

Via the one, the only So Particular.

(FYI, AdVerveBlog.com is currently tumblr-transitioning so in the meantime I'll be impulse-posting here more than usual. Probably. I am still trying to think of personal things to say that don't involve poo but am having trouble. Oh! I got my hair cut today. And while gazing up at the spotlights during the washing part, I saw sunspots shaped like pixellated LOLcats. I swear to God this happened.)

Scorsese's George Harrison Documentary...

2011-10-18T11:55:00.000+02:00

...looks so epic that I'm getting stomach cramps. There's something about Beatles memorabilia that makes me feel desperately nostalgic for a time I didn't even live.* How does that happen?

---

*These kinds of feelings are like dangerous black holes that you have to watch very closely, because if you're not careful you could topple into them and become one of those wild-eyed dusty people whose homes are decked out in Sgt. Pepper posters and Beatles biographies. I sometimes also feel this way about Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Like, when I've had too much to drink and am feeling dejected, I am filled with the conviction that all my competencies would be appreciated on DS9, and I would be well-loved and witty like Jadzia Dax, and it seems wildly unfair that this world in which I so obviously fit is completely inaccessible -- not because it's the past, but because it is fiction.

This is the kind of stuff that can devastate you emotionally if you're not careful. So take a sip (in this case, WATCH GEORGE HARRISON'S BIOPIC) but don't fall into the bottle like Alice did.

Air France, "L'Envol" + the Sublime

2011-10-07T11:55:00.001+02:00

This ad by BETC Euro RSCG, an Air France piece called "L'Envol" ("The Flight"), is my favourite :30 thing in the world right now. It doesn't overexpress and leaves ideas about flying, trust, well-choreographed harmony and abandon simmering quietly under your skin.

Here's the making-of. The director's comments are great.

I've just returned from MIPCOM in Cannes; more on that later. But this was passed to me by my friend James and was exactly what I needed after a week of "transmedia" chatter and too many watered-down vodka tonics. You want home, you want to feel safe, and you want all of it from the very beginning of the return journey.

Dream a Little Dream.

2011-09-22T11:42:00.001+02:00

I covered this for the AdVerveBlog today but wanted to toss it up here too because I miss posting stuff on L&U. We've got big plans over yonder, but shit just ain't the same, you know? This blog is like my bedroom (where, as luck would have it, George Clooney isn't. But I am used to life's hard knocks).

I need to figure out what to do with this space apart from talking about poo.

Friends with Whom You Can Share All Things

2011-09-21T14:08:00.001+02:00

The little bastards.

Me, 3 days post wisdom-teeth removal: I'm really sick of food I can't chew. Gazpacho, purées, pudding. It's not even really food. What is my poo going to look like?

Her, after a long and thoughtful pause: Angela ... your poo will be beautiful.

AdVerve Episode 79: The Show-Stopper

2011-09-13T14:36:00.000+02:00

Play the show now.

First, an announcement. LADIES AND GENTS, WE GIVE YOU ADVERVEBLOG.COM, a labour of love that incorporates the magic of Make the Logo Bigger, Live & Uncensored and Darryl Ohrt's Brandflakes for Breakfast. (Some math: Bill + Angela + Darryl = BAD. THAT'S DESTINY!)

Here's our launch article. Follow with great enthusiasm and mass. Also, expect more Darryl action on future podcasts.

This episode kicks off on a battle of the films, then drifts fast and loose into TV show territory. Breaking Bad plays a starring role and I demonstrate once again that I can work a Buffy reference into any conversation -- in this case, Bill's reflection on the heroization of white male criminals. (Jack the Ripper wiggles his way in somehow, too. Who do you think he was, by the way? This guy or this guy?)

Movies we're dying (not literally though) to see? Red State and This Must Be the Place. WATCH THAT SHIT!You also find out what stars get us going and -- and! -- what our superpowers are. It's a show-stopper like no other.

Linksophrenia:

- Kevin Smith protests the protesters at his "Red State" Sundance - not mentioned on the show, still worth watching though
- The hyper-awesome OK Cupid blog
- Jetpacks' awesome AdVerve Blog post. Credit also goes to him for our Supergroup comic up top
- Caustic Soda's Jack the Ripper episode
- Dior's new Charlize Theron ad

Ch-Ch-Changes: AdVerve the Blog, She Cometh!

2011-09-06T15:19:00.001+02:00

It's with an inordinate amount of excitement that I declare the birth of a new era: the era of AdVerve.

You already know about AdVerve the Podcast, but this is next-level shit. Darryl Ohrt (formerly of Humongo and author of Brandflakes for Breakfast), Bill Green (Make the Logo Bigger) and I are joining blogger forces to produce AdVerve the Blog. It's going to be an explosion of face candy and inexplicable ear-licking awesome. Darryl will also be joining us on the podcast that started it all.

What does this mean for you? Three for the price of free, that's what. We'll bring multiple perspectives, irreverent views, a contagious love and occasional complete disdain for the industry that stingily issues our Wonderbread and butter. You'll find us all together -- still live, still uncensored -- over at AdVerveBlog.com.

So what are you waiting for? GO SUBSCRIBE AND FOLLOW OUR TWITTUMS! We love you.

Fo' life,

Bill + Angela + Darryl (which equals BAD as in BAD ASSSSSS).

I Don't Normally Advocate Reanimating the Dead...

2011-09-05T20:05:00.001+02:00

...but in this case, the result is almost epic. And stacking Charlize Theron in the same league as Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly and other icons of glamour, under the roof of the Château de Versailles, doesn't smart all that much either. It was a quality choice.Requisite PR byte:

Our wish was to make everyone take part in a timeless, mythical and contemporary adventure, embodying the values of Dior. To help us achieve this task between dream and reality, we have chosen to put our trust into the hands of filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud, who has risen to the challenge in a most remarkable way.

-- CEO Guillaume Pannaud, of TBWA\PARIS.

Pas mal, guys, pas mal. The campaign went live yesterday and I'm hoping to see more development around this theme, because it would be a shame to leap into the stars like this and then fall flat with a series of weak follow-ups. Or no follow-up, just an aggressive TV placement campaign. Which is what often tends to happen with even the best perfume ads.

A Not-So-Improbable Future

2011-09-05T12:59:00.000+02:00

It's the stuff that looks and feels like our reality, but isn't quite (yet), that's the most interesting to watch. They're like messages from the Great Beyond.

(Or Blind Films. Whatever.)

...Swarovski gas masks? The sex!

Written and directed by Yukihiro Shoda. Via.

A Purity Message from Pharrell Williams.

2011-09-01T18:05:00.002+02:00

When you think clean starts, you think Pharrell Williams and a full bottle of vodka, right? Because I sure do!
Any work involving Pharrell rocks well, but Cutting Edge's Darryl Ward also has his hands all over this. Whether it actually gets you drinking Smirnoff is your business -- that brand's got a long hard road ahead of it if it wants to shake off the stigma of all those high-schoolers looking to get CRUNK! on a hot weekend.
But maybe with a price hike and more work like the above we can get serious.
Via Fubiz.

Following MINI + Vice to All the Wrong Places

2011-08-31T12:19:00.005+02:00

The first MINI campaign I fell in love with was Profero London's "White Rabbit" execution in 2006. For me, it first positioned the iconic car as a symbol of whimsical pursuit. While Louis Vuitton positions travel as a single moment of static luxury, MINI is all about the spirit of the move, with chase starring both as adventure and game.

BSUR Amsterdam gave this approach an exciting new angle with ROCKETMAN, tying MINI back to its roots while imbibing us with a strong whiff of nostalgia -- not the stuffy kind, something more akin to patriocy. It also wed MINI's past to our future.

I talked to ECD Jason Schragger a few months ago about where MINI's headed and what it takes to build a MINI idea. He provided a vague sketch of what came next: they wanted to take the idea of exploring to cities around the world. Not cities everybody knows (New York, London, Paris), but places nobody thinks about. Then, instead of using the resulting ads to talk to those places, the ads about those places will be used to talk to us living in New York, London and Paris.

In short, work that makes people living in dream travel destinations dream of traveling again.

Those are the roots of the "All the Wrong Places" campaign, whose video manifesto you see above. Like MINI on Facebook for the chance to become a co-pilot. Here are the uncut TV executions:

Hitchhiker (Iceland)

Love is in the Air (Hong Kong)

Sunday in Rio (Rio de Janeiro)

The work is cinematic but still whimsical in classic MINI style. It also reminds me of Diesel's "Be Stupid" but with actual legs. What I'm loving about BSUR right now is that they're stretching MINI's marketing horizons without tossing out any of the basics that fit the brand well: adventure, play, deep roots, games of pursuit and juxtapositions of size. This is a good exercise to watch.

AdVerve Episode 78: The Rapture

2011-08-29T12:59:00.000+02:00

Play the show now.

Wait, that’s the end of the world, innit. WELL IT’S NOT. We have more AdVervial goodness for you people and that other stuff will just have to wait. Pick a topic because like a potluck from hell, it’s in here. Movies to watch, commercials to avoid, and politicians to vote for. But wait, there’s more: Other podcasts of note and blog projects to read. I even dish on why Egypt is a swell place to visit and why the lira is was an even sweller currency. But we digress. Which is why you listen.

The Linkage You Need:

- Vintage Palmolive ad: "Most man ask 'is she pretty?', not 'Is she clever?'"
- Mohr Stories
- This Week With Larry Miller
- Big Lebowski
- Sarah Palin’s Grizzly spot
- The 3six5 Project
- The 3six5 Project, Chicago edition

(Image.)

I Am Going Away! Far Away.

2011-08-13T02:57:00.006+02:00

One of the nice things about moving to France is learning the importance of vacation time. It's even kind of imposed upon you because everybody basically peaces out in August, leaving you with nothing to do but ruminate over all those closed restaurants and ponder WHY YOU'RE NOT ON VACATION.

And one really nice thing about being expatriated is having suddenly-accessible friends all over the world. So about a week ago, I decided I'd shove off to Egypt and crash at my friend Candace's* swank-ass Heliopolis pad with all its Bedouin rugs. As a plus, I'll finally be able to hang with Sandmonkey.

My taxi arrives in about a half-hour.** I'll catch you guys in about 10 days.

---

*Fun fact: Candace is from Minnesota and we never physically met before she moved to Egypt and I moved to Paris. We have been friends for 8 years.

**Fun fact #2: as evidence of my general traveling wackness, I actually thought my flight departed at 13h30 today. It doesn't. It leaves at 06h45. And I found out because Candace checked my docs for me AT TWO IN THE GODDAMN MORNING. So also, I've had no sleep and way too many cigarettes.

The Gods Are Waiting to Delight in You. Or Something.

2011-08-10T12:32:00.005+02:00

Co-opting the powerful poetry of Bukowski, Levi's releases this ad-cum-manifesto in the wake of global strikes and riots. It's apt to see it now, given what's happening in London, but it would have risen more readily to its Grand Youth Anthem! potential if the agency resisted the urge to toss in that kissing-in-the-swimming-pool potshot that all indie ads need to include under penalty of death.

You could have been braver, Levi's. Kids are dying out there, protecting one another, painting their faces, camping out all hours and wielding makeshift torches. This is the one instance in which they didn't need to be depicted as whimsical and romantic; you could have just focused on the strength, gritty unity and insane heedlessness that animates the conviction of youth.

Scrape Scraperteeth: Artgames Recognised as Gameification Seizes Our Souls

2011-08-02T18:08:00.004+02:00

Scrape Scraperteeth is a new artgame by my friend Jason Nelson, who, with it, has received some much-deserved recognition (at long last!).

In his words:

The game was commissioned by the San Francisco Gallery of Modern Art for a series on interactive works. Hopefully this is a sign that, as the recent Supreme Court ruling stated, that games (even simple/odd ones like mine) should be seen/created as artworks first and galleries are recognizing the artistic potential of the game engine and playscapes.

What I love about Jason's games is that the rules aren't obvious. You have to learn and relearn them in the landscape provided -- a landscape so loaded with cultural cues that they're an exercise in themselves. Let me know what you think. (Jeff Kwiatek has already responded to me with, "Oh my god what is this? It's overwhelming ... the stress.")

Here are other games of Jason's that I've covered, over the years. I have always found that with him I don't just play, I linger.

Old Spice Mano a Mano: The Concession Nobody Actually Should've Received

2011-08-01T02:28:00.009+02:00

I think this was done because people freaked out at the (ludicrous!) idea of Fabio replacing Isaiah Mustafa as Old Spice guy, so kudos to W+K for the lightning-fast responsiveness it's demonstrated throughout this campaign. It's what's made it a living part of the culture.

But this still sort of hurts me to watch. It's kind of like, "Okay, here's what you want on a silver platter, and while we're at it let's make fun of Fabio's acting skillz and general incoherence."

Never mind the piles of Harlequin novels he punted with just a swish of his hair and a ripped-open vest. Wasn't he great at selling butter? I still want butter when I watch this guy. Credit where it's due, right...? Come on, guys, you're gonna ruin Isaiah for me.*

This is one of those Gone with the Wind situations where people bitch for something (in this case, the perpetuity of Mustafa) but know deep in their hearts that what they want, if realised, will only spoil a great thing. But I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. It could have worked the other way. Maybe what Isaiah wants is a long, vibrant career as a deodorant mascot, as opposed to riding this righteous wave into bigger opps in the culture.

It seems like Old Spice wants to move on though, and if it does, it should commit instead of being all waffly about it. Fabio struck me as a defining choice, even if I wasn't necessarily crazy about the new tone.

But that's not Fabio's fault, either. His launch as New Icon was weaker than it could have been.

---

*Actually, it is with great displeasure that I proclaim he is officially ruined for me. This self-effacing victory dance was one video too many. Way to win, Wieden.

We All Love a Cameo Ad.

2011-07-28T11:35:00.008+02:00

Here's work that bounces by Sid Lee for Adidas' "All In" campaign. The famous faces and choice of music do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the production's focus on the strength, grace, sense of connectedness and power that animates the active female is what makes it electric.

I actually want to get out of my seat and go get streamlined to a soundtrack. Possibly in a hoodie. Although that probably won't actually happen until I get another back roll (nothing, in the end, is more motivating).

Want more? Visit the Adidas Women Facebook page. (Thanks to Adidas France CM Brice Mazenod for the linky-loo.)

Ad via Le Publigeekaire.

It's Okay to Go Left Field...

2011-07-25T15:13:00.005+02:00

...if you can tie things nicely back to the brand.

We all have a kid inside who's thirsty for stories, who's waiting to fall in love with a moment, and who wants to laugh. This walks a nice line between modern self-deprecating humour and taste. See? It's like the difference between a good comedian and a bad one: you can be ostentatious and provocative if you're hitting those deeper chords, but if you're crass just to be crass, you're shooting blanks.

We Need More Stuff Like This.

2011-07-22T14:53:00.005+02:00

Someone recently asked me if I am optimistic about the future of humanity. Despite dire statistics and the (anecdotal?) knowledge that people care more about maintaining quality of life than about big-context global sustainability*, I still feel that people work best at gunpoint. The worst may not yet have arrived, but neither has the best, and we have to traverse the former for the latter. That is just how we are. (Hopefully the wake-up call isn't full-on apocalypse, though.)

For as much waste and destruction we're capable of producing, we are just as equipped for producing miracles. There are some who say we are fascinated by our trajectory toward imminent tragedy. This isn't the case, and every little thing we do -- connecting with the world, self-organising for human rights, cooperative farming, purchasing locally, correcting wrongs, even advertising with greater care for both the long-term sustainability of the brand and our children -- makes a ripple in the sea of our collective destinies.

---

*There are currently as many people alive on Earth today as the total number of human deaths since the beginning of organised civilization: 6.8 billion. Is that not ostentatious?

Bubblegum Love: All Candy, No Nutrients

2011-07-21T14:32:00.003+02:00

Here's some pretty work by director David Lobser for production company Blacklist and MTV World Design Studio Milan (CD: Roberto Bagatti). One commenter, pointing out the jarringly obvious, has already observed, "inverted hearts look like ballsacks." The butterfly stomach explosion doesn't help matters either.

But it's still pretty work. I am vaguely reminded of Frito Lay's 2009 campaign, "Made for Each Other," except this wee :20 piece is less substantial. (Substance was never the strong suit of MTV ads, though; their stuff leans more toward short, ambient and otherwise without core.)

Your call as to where the actual bubblegum is.

Audi + Bose: A Match Made in Minimalism

2011-07-19T14:24:00.008+02:00

Today Bertrand over at VOTW bombed me with a bunch of ads I haven't seen, kindly catching me up after a short vacation. This was my favourite. For Audi's "A Big Idea: Condensed" campaign, BBH London expresses the power of the A1's integrated Bose speakers using imagery that pops hard and a cinematic voiceover. Both brands were served nicely. They didn't even need the full 30 seconds; 11 did the job fine.

Pack it small but pack a punch. Masterful work in a genre where little changes and little art is left.

Can't wait to watch and hoard campaign variations; it's healthy candy for the eyes. One last pretty pretty for the road:

AdVerve: Spirit of 76

2011-07-11T17:24:00.003+02:00

Play the show now.

Not just because it’s episode 76, but we were supposed to record over the Great American holiday that was the Fourth. Instead, work took over and we’re actually closer to celebrating Bastille Day as Bill and I kick it live and uncensored, French style.

So what’s new in this one? We actually cover a Wrap Of Cannes and my trip there on behalf of Yahoo! But wait, there’s more: Official French grammar watchdogs - yes they have them - why The Dude wears a bathrobe and why no guy outside of a Big LeBowski convention ever should. You will not believe the places we go. Or maybe you will. Listen you some.

Linky-loompas:

- Paris Syndrome strikes Japanese
- Yahoo Scene's Cannes Coverage

(Image.)

People Staring at Computers

2011-07-08T14:07:00.003+02:00

"If we could see what our computers see, would we stare differently?"

- Kyle McDonald

Track the project on the People Staring at Computers Tumblr page.

Google+ Could Change PR and Influencer Marketing

2011-07-07T12:15:00.010+02:00

It's been awhile since I've written in, mainly because Cannes eats all will to live. Since recovering I've been fooling around with Google+, trying to decide where it fits into my life.

The super-short first impression: Google+ goes right where Google Wave went wrong. This time around, it's hitting all the right buttons, especially where privacy and ease of use are concerned.

Early on, adding random people to "Circles" (the idiot-proof version of Facebook's wildly complex Privacy settings), I got the sense it would change my web experience. Enough time has passed since that implications for marketers remain speculative but generally agreed-upon:

The +1 feature may change the face of SEO, tilting it further away from black-hat marketing tactics and more in favour of content usefulness.
Its ease of use and potential to scale will make the data accrued on it increasingly important for social media monitoring.
Content engagement is significant. It's easy enough to +1 something, but it's also re-enlivening comment culture. I made one comment today on a totally innocuous post and people from all over the sphere are leaping onto the stream, adding value to an article that would have gone unnoticed on Twitter, or that wouldn't have received much response on a blog.
This is a new avenue for influencer marketing. And while influencers may remain roughly the same, its unity of multiple useful Google properties will change how we treat content being shared there. To wit:

In terms of feel, posting on Google+ is about as easy as on Twitter, with a final publishing result that more resembles Tumblr or Posterous. Images and videos are beautifully presented.

It also has an advantage over such platforms in the sense that you don't have to work so hard at outset to build your community -- nearly everybody uses Gmail and is hankering for an in. (In Early Adopter-land, anyway.) Days after joining, over 100 people added me to their streams -- well before I'd posted anything, and most were people I knew and had already engaged with previously. That's a good figure.

As previously mentioned, Google properties like Picasa and YouTube are automatically integrated -- so if you're not already a user of these services, they are instantly more accessible. I generally favour Flickr and Vimeo but have already tested the photo-upload feature, which is ridiculously simple. Presentation is great and privacy settings are intuitive. This has basically made me a Picasa user overnight, and I'll probably use this for quicker video uploading and sharing, too (which will likely resuscitate my dead YouTube account).

I said in the title of this post that this could also change PR. When you write about ads and technology, you're heavily reliant on imagery and videos -- tools that help illustrate the merits of a product, service or campaign. Email is the traditional darling for getting PR messages across, but it isn't great for scrolling through imagery or videos in an intuitive way -- you usually have to leave your email client. And then there is the question of organising PR notices that you mean to cover, but never do, because it gets lost in your email.

These problems don't exist with Google+. (Not yet, anyway.) PR folks can write a quick piece, add imagery and videos in a snap, and publish only to a circle of journalist contacts (or the wider public). The publishing style feels like Facebook but is less ephemeral -- it is easy for people to skim, copy/paste from and return to later, making it more like Tumblr but in a closed ecosystem with great scale.

Then there is the "Hangout" feature, which enables you to video chat with up to about 10 people. Nice option for briefings, meetings ... or hell, just hanging out.

The main reason I think Google+ is interesting is because the barrier to entry is low, potential to scale is high and usability is fantastic. I can see people compulsively using this the same way they compulsively use Facebook, except they don't necessarily have to leave universes that are important, like Gmail or Google Docs. This is a bit like what Rockmelt tried to do except you had to download a new browser -- a small but irritating obstacle to use, which Google has the luxury of being able to skip.

It's also directly linked to the identities of most people via their email, connecting their social activity to their existing Google profiles and producing a broad picture of who you are and what you're doing on the Web. This also minimises spam inside the platform.

One critique thus far. My impression is that you can upload to your Google+ via mobile, but only from Android. That's not necessarily bad news, given that Android adoption is exploding, but it does cut out tech-savvy compulsive socialites who are anchored to iPhone or other smartphone platforms. Google's attitude is historically more open than its peers, so I hope this changes once confidence in the viability of Google+ grows.

List of Young Director Award Winners

2011-06-23T19:18:00.007+02:00

Last night the Palais Stéphanie hosted the 13th annual Young Director Awards, which promotes the work of young directors in advertising, short films and music videos.

Here is the list of winners (videos included when they were available). European and non-European entries were awarded separately. Note that some categories only awarded second prize winners:

Music Videos

Second Prize EU (two awarded):

"Esther's" by Director Charles de Meyer (UK). Production company: Tall Stories.

"Flames" for karl x johans (Sweden). Director: Gustav Johansson. Production company: Camp.

First Prize Non-EU:

"Control" for Spoek Mathambo (South Africa). Director: Pieter Hugo and Michael Cleary. Production company: Orange Films.

Second Prize Non-EU:

"Always Coming Down" for Cordrazine (Australia). Director: Stephen Carroll. Production company: The Otto Empire

Broadcast

Second Prize EU:

"I Am the Rules" for client Nike/Foot Locker (UK). Director: alexandliane. Production company: factory films

Second Prize Non-EU:

"Dad's Love" by director Wataru Sato (Japan). Production company: tyo inc.

Test Commercials

First Prize EU:

"Femme-o-Matic" by director Jelmar Hufen (Netherlands). Production company: comrad.

Second Prize Non-EU:

"First Date" by director Ben Callner (USA). Production company: Collective.

Film School

First Prize EU (two awarded):

"Exorcist" for Dirt Devil (Germany). Director: Andreas Roth. Production company: filmakademie baden-württemberg

"We miss you" by Director Hanna Maria Heidrich (Germany). Production company: filmakademie baden-württemberg

Second Prize EU:

"Whatever Happened?" by Director Christian Mielmann (Germany). Production company: filmakademie baden-württemberg

Second Prize Non-EU:

"Public Execution" by director Y-C Tom Lee (USA). Production company: Art Center College of Design.

Web Films

First Prize EU:

"Nokia n8" by director Sumo Science (UK). Production company: aardman

Second Prize EU:

"The Carpet" for No Hair (Germany). Director: Georg von Mitzlaff. Production company: Element E Filmproduktion gmbh.

First Prize Non-EU:

"Words" by Director Everynone (UK). Production company: Epoch Films

Second Prize Non-EU:

"Wolf is Back" by Director Michael Lockshin (Russia). Production company: Bazelevs.

Branded Shortfilms

First Prize EU (two awarded):

"The Car Parts" by for Subaru (Germany) Director Timo Schaedel. Production company: Infected Postproduction GmbH.

"We Miss You" by Director Hanna Maria Heidrich (Germany). Production company: filmakademie baden-württemberg.

First Prize Non-EU:

"Hong Kong Honey" by Director Kiku Ohe (Australia). Production company: Exit Films.

Special Jury Award

"We Miss You" by Director Hanna Maria Heidrich (Germany). Production company: filmakademie baden-württemberg.

Eric Schmidt Talks Revolution + Consumer-Driven Innovation

2011-06-23T17:18:00.004+02:00

Yesterday afternoon at the Lions, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt sat with VP-Google Creative Lab Andy Berndt to discuss innovation, imagination and the internet.

Schmidt kicked off the discussion by pointing out the internet is a special kind of business because it is highly Moore's Law-driven: "If you take a country that's got 40% internet penetration, and you see it in the next five years, broadband penetration will be up to 80%." Your business just doubled and you didn't have to do anything -- this doesn't happen in any other industry.

The idea that your business can be expanded as a function of users broadening your market, as opposed to you taking steps to expand in the traditional sense, is something we are still grappling with.

"The implications for this consumer-driven phenomena are not well-understood," Schmidt said, pointing out that the Middle East's current ongoing social media-driven struggles for democracy are a good example of the unexpected fruit such phenomena yields. This is just the beginning of users' muscle-flexing.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

'Transparency' Used to Hide Truths, Says Terry Gilliam

2011-06-23T17:15:00.001+02:00

We had a treat on Tuesday night. Fast Company's Le Rooftop party played host to a short evening panel featuring American Express, Arcade Fire and Terry Gilliam, best known for his Monty Python work (and maybe also for Lost in La Mancha, because that was bloody magnificent).

Gilliam didn't speak much, but when he did it was with a kind but long-suffering smile -- the sort you give when you're tired of a topic but understand others' persistent curiosity. Of the things he said that one can easily scale from advertising to life, he half-jokingly observed that "transparency is a word used to cover the truth in most instances."

Read the rest of this nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

The Cannes Lions Midweek Existential Crisis

2011-06-23T17:13:00.001+02:00

It's hard to describe the state of you in Cannes by the middle of the week. By Wednesday night, it's likely you haven't slept in four days. The drinking starts around noon, and you're constantly being blindsided by huge vacuums of people who want to chat about their creative ideas, which seesaw between brilliant and horrific, depending on what fluid you just swallowed.

One guy spent a night regaling Ask Wappling and me about his "sublime" comic strip idea, in which men and women have short, terse exchanges -- sort of like XKCD but stupid. (Man: "Hi!" Woman: "I shaved my legs for this?") The men are always smiling penises, and the women are squiggles in the shape of their pubic hair. Squiggles can vary by size and type.

Be careful when you've been chosen for a creative revelation like this. The less convinced you look, the more insistent the person gets about his genius.

But the trauma I felt, watching those banal prattling penises and vaginas appear in front of me, is only a distant memory. It was Monday around 5 AM.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene.

Bob Garfield on Creativity + the Ad that First Inspired Him

2011-06-22T21:39:00.004+02:00

Creatives young and old have had a love/hate relationship with Bob Garfield, who for the last 25 years has produced his "Ad Review" segment on Advertising Age. (His position on this? On a scale of one to five, few ads are total zeros and few ads are prize fives. Over his whole career the average ad has received about a 3.4, significantly higher than the average true quality of industry television advertising output at large.)

Ad bloggers, whether or not they agree with his arguments, arguably see him as the person who began what they continue today. He's also the author of The Chaos Scenario and co-hosts National Public Radio's "On the Media."

I ran into Bob at the Carlton this weekend, then later Monday in front of the Palais, sporting a decidedly cannois summer hat. (I didn't know at the time, but it was also his birthday.) He thoughtfully agreed to sit and talk at a nearby beach side restaurant -- which we only later discovered is probably the loudest atmospheres in all the land.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

SapientNitro: Anatomy of a Culture Cult

2011-06-22T21:33:00.004+02:00

Some moments after I sat down with SapientNitro’s Worldwide Chief Creative Director Gaston Legorburu and Creative Director John McHale, I got a hard sense of what our time together would be about.

“Our secret weapon is our culture,” Gaston said. And the culture is bred and nourished with conscious attention.

They reflected that they've never actually discussed this with the press before, and maybe because of that, they sat and outlined the entire blueprint.

Read the rest of this (EPIC!) nummy num-num on Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

SpongeBob in Stop Motion

2011-06-21T09:47:00.007+02:00

I don't think I need to tell you this is magnificence to the nth.

This reinvention of the Spongebob Squarepants opening theme, which bears new fruit without losing fidelity to the material of origin (like all good tributes should - consider), is brought to you by Screen Novelties. Added bonus: music by Cee-Lo!

It appeared in place of the normal opening theme for SpongeBob Squarepants' 10th anniversary episode (which I would now very much like to see).

Via The Curious Brain.

Jonah Lehrer at Cannes Lions: The Science of Creativity is Instinctive

2011-06-21T08:08:00.005+02:00

Author and Wired editor Jonah Lehrer joined DraftFCB's Director of Strategic Planning Matthew Willcox to discuss the science of creativity, specifically what triggers it and whether it can be honed.

One major problem we have with creativity reveals itself in linguistics: we talk like it's singular, but it's plural. Our job is to think creatively the right way at the right time, applying the appropriate mental tools to the task at hand.

Relaxation Breeds Insight

To understand the different facets of creativity, it helps to know what precedes a moment of insight: alpha waves, closely associated with states of relaxation. Walking to the beach, taking a shower, daydreaming -- doing something you really like doing, in other words -- is what makes it possible for your mind to arrive at what we traditionally understand to be creative epiphanies.

The logic is simple. When we're not relaxed, we're too focused, producing both physical and mental tensions. Tension only restricts and builds upon itself, stifling any semblance of insight before it can even be born.

This is the first key: We assume productivity means we're at our desks, staring at a computer screen. But when you need huge conceptual breakthroughs, get away and bury your toes in the sand, or take a warm shower. Do whatever you must to release your mind from the manacles of the problem.

Read the rest of this nummy num-num at Yahoo! Scene, for which I'm doing Cannes Lions coverage this year.

Because Every Dog Show Should Have a Rube Goldberg.

2011-06-16T12:34:00.003+02:00

Then, more people would come.

This cheery piece of work, dubbed "Un chien conduit une voiture" ("A dog driving a car") in hopes of maximising YouTube spread, is by Ford France for the C-Max with Active Park Assist. (For a minute after the video, I thought the latter had something to do with helping you out of parks, but that's probably just symptomatic of sleep loss.)

Find Us At Cannes. In PowerPuff Girl Outfits.*

2011-06-15T15:09:00.006+02:00

With a little help from Cake Group, Yahoo's launched Yahoo Scene, a magnificent little destination that aspires to give you your industry conference + nightlife fix in the unhappy event that you can't dance on the kegs yourself.

Beginning next week, I join Steve Hall of Adrants and Ask Wappling of Adland in covering the Cannes Lions for Scene. It's going to be entirely too much awesome; what's more, Ask has already promised the whole internet we'll be coming as PowerPuff Girls. (I will be the angry one, Steve will be bubbly blue, and Ask, of course, will be Blossom.)

If you miss our coverage, you will die of sadness. But if long-form bloggage isn't your style, catch our up-to-the-moment tweets on who's where, who won what and desperate cries for attention: @adland @adrants @luckthelady.

Do not miss! Also, for a feel of the ... feel, catch my wrapup from last year, and this reflection on seaside smoking, and this interview with Richard Gorodecky whom I love more than highly productive anthills.

We are so going to rock your ad shit for seven whole days.

---

*Actually, not really unless Ask pushes hard for them.

Hey Adrants, Long Time No See!

2011-06-07T17:33:00.005+02:00

This week, I'll be guest-editing for Adrants while Steve Hall gets his jollies at Internet Week in partnership with Yahoo! Scene.

Finally, a place for all my rage and bile!

Actually, it's not all that ragey and biley -- today is my birthday, and age has softened my gnarly griffon's touch -- but if you miss reading my reviews, tune in. Adrants is still the best place to get your ad fix, be yours shock-factor, gags, tits or beauty. It feels good to be back.

AdVerve Episode 74: McGameification.

2011-06-07T01:13:00.002+02:00

Play the show now.

Aka, that big, juicy badge in the sky. It was one mic/two guys as Bill took a roadtrip to Savannah to join one of his co-strategists in crime at BFG. The Frenchman Known As Cyril Guichard (@luxregina) went live and uncensored as we kicked back for a high-rolling adventure on the topic of gameification.* It’s probably a word you're sick of, but he takes us deep into the philosophy of gaming, and why sites that "gameify" – like Foursquare – aren't games, per se (but will need to be).

Want more? We also find a way to pose that age-old question: can social media sites like Twitter really be used to construct the governments of tomorrow? Learn all the nuanced answers to this riddle, and others, this week. WE EVEN TALK 3D. Of course we also take our trademark™ left into fun areas like politics and discuss how Gen My dealt with the end of Osama, if at all.

(Also, learn why you're becoming a symbiant.)

Linkfegnugen:

- Heineken Star Player
- Cyril's blog on Luxgames.net

*Gamification or Gameification. Spell it any way you want, we don’t judge.

(Image.)

PacSun's Sinatra-Laced Anthem for 'Irresponsible' Youth

2011-06-01T09:52:00.007+02:00

Not sure when last you walked into a PacSun. But for certain you'll see one at any suburban shopping mall, a fact as ageless as this ad dripping heavy with American Dream As Seen By Cameron Crowe.

The choice of Sinatra's "Call Me Irresponsible": apt, because we've been recounting this same myth about ephemeral adolescence, carefree and sexy youth, Lolita if she'd had the means and the chance, for generations. Sinatra is part of this same thread, and his voice frames this beatific ruddy-cheeked PG-rated chaos as faithfully as it did his swooning, screaming PG-rated Bobby Soxers.

And hell, it is a little irresponsible to gallivant into a PacSun just for a pair of Billabong shorts to muddy up two weekends out of four. That place is crazy expensive for its target market and product proposal. But I guess if teens can afford chrome rims, they'll find a way to afford Roxy sunglasses and faux-bamboo flip-flops, too.

This charming piece of Americana is brought to you by 72andSunny (@72andSunny) and production company Brickyard VFX.

AdVerve Episode 73: World O' Wheaton

2011-05-31T14:16:00.002+02:00

The long wait is over, sweethearts.

Play the show now.

Alongside special guest Ken Wheaton (@kenwheaton), we cover stuff from book publishing and promoting, to the rise and further decline of American airline service, to whether advertising will protect us from the maniacal ambitions of Donald Trump. (I try broaching the topic of The Royal Wedding, but ultimately fail to make it stick.)

There's also a smidge more Southern Comfort for those of you riding Bill’s ongoing fascination with his new homeland.

Linksomania:

- Ken Wheaton’s blog
- Ken's Book, The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival - get it before Amazon runs out!
- Advertising May Be the Thing that Saves Us from Donald Trump
- TINY MINY MINUTE SUITES

(Image.)

Renault ZE: An Electric Life, One We're Ready For

2011-05-28T16:31:00.011+02:00

However much you may advocate the adoption of the electric vehicle, it's still difficult to face skeptics whose arguments often boil down to "we're not ready for that." That statement is usually supported by a number of vague "facts" that betray how little we actually know about electric cars: the little mileage you get, how they're too slow to drive on freeways, how it only makes sense if you have a house with a garage so you can plug it in...

(Actually, this last is a problem, but what if we all make like Manitoba and start changing our communities as a function of where we're headed? A plug on every street, sir!)

I like this ad because it distills all the cloudiness surrounding the electric transport quandary into one reasonable message: We've already switched to electricity for many things; why not for travel?

The ad preps you for this message by depicting everyday scenarios in which electric gadgets -- blow dryers, vending machines, credit card readers -- possess combustible engines, with all their fickleness and the pollution that comes along. The people in the ad simply live with it, the same way we live with car pollution.

That they never complain, never so much as wrinkle their noses, is part of the ad's charm: it enables you to laugh at the grace with which all that exhaust is dealt, to see the situation with clearer eyes, to accept that we've also been a bit silly about this, because it's what our society has collectively decided to accept, in the same way the ad's fictional society accepts combustible engine computers and toy dogs.

All this builds elegantly in your mind as the piece progresses. The narrator only raises her voice to drive the tagline and brand home. But the crazy thing is, you feel convinced.

UPDATE: Jeff Kwiatek sent over this variation on the ad for the Nissan Leaf, which launched on the same day:

The two companies are basically one (Renault holds something like 43% of Nissan, and the latter holds something like 15% of the former, so it's all one big mutual neck-sucking fest). It isn't unusual for companies of global scale to have a kind of "share with pride" policy on the inside, which doesn't exactly thrill their myriad agencies, but it does save them money: a good idea on one side of the world gets generously replicated elsewhere, or for a "different" brand.

I have to say though, the Leaf variant lacks the finesse of Renault ZE's "The Electric Life." Even its name fell a few points on the je-ne-sais-quoi scale: "Gas Powered Everything"? Would a little less obviousness have killed us?

(Maybe. Consider.)

Government Tips for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse

2011-05-21T23:01:00.013+02:00

As America regains composure following another failed Rapture, Asst. Surgeon General Ali Khan arrives at an epiphany: the only way to get enough people to listen to reason is to wrap it in a big beaming package of insane.

I give you the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Safety Guidelines for a Zombie Apocalypse.

"So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen?", Khan begins after giving a weirdly detailed explanation of the significance of zombies. "First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house."

He describes in bullets what such a kit should contain, then asks you to assess disasters that could occur in your area ("Besides a zombie apocalypse, this may include floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes"), identify possible evacuation routes, and set up two accessible meeting places for family members if connectivity wanes.

Those seeking combat tips for zombie hordes will be disappointed.* Khan justifies this omission with a wink, the kind parents share when sending a kid to bed before Santa's visit: this guide is only meant "to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp."

The idea is to get people to learn basic skills for surviving a natural disaster, which could happen to any of us anytime, but which is so remote from our daily lives that we're not gonna blow thirty seconds of Twitter time to practice our stop, drop and roll.

Sly government work that speaks to a generation whose biggest corporate influence provides search options in Pirate, and whose comp sci students get Web kudos for Rickrolling in university essays.

I'm not saying Americans are stupid -- we aren't. People often refuse to ingest information they know they should know because they have more pressing concerns. If you can "trick" us into learning by way of entertainment,** it goes down easier for everybody, and we're even grateful for it. (Consider the popularity of Conjunction Junction!)

This is universal. Someone once told me that the Japanese personify police forces with doe-eyed cartoon animals in their PSAs to ingratiate them to the people. I have yet to confirm that this is true. (If you can, do.)

The gleaming takeaway: Don't be a dick, just get people. That shouldn't be hard; you're a person, too. You may have to break with tradition, or be silly, or slightly too candid than is comfortable. It puts you on the line, sure, but real people do that every day. It also makes users feel okay about respecting you, listening to you, buying what you're selling.

I hope -- oh, I hope! -- they make TV ads for this. (They probably won't, as the guidelines are just one single post by one guy, but pinning my dreams on spinoff ads seems somewhat more reasonable than pinning them on, oh, other things.)

---

*For this, I recommend watching Zombieland. If your attention span doesn't permit a feature flick, that's okay, they've also disseminated zombie combat training videos on YouTube.

**It's only fair to add that some feel this approach isn't just entertainment, and a zombie apocalypse is as likely as any other kind.

What Is It About Maids, Anyway?

2011-05-20T14:36:00.004+02:00

Egged on by New York-based blogga disruptah So Particular, French media publication Influencia front-paged the Bud Light ad (circa 2009) above, teasing readers with the titillating header, "DSK: American experts reconstruct the scene."

Word has it that the piece has resulted in the highest number of hits in the magazine's history. Not bad, even if you are riding the coattails of two cross-Atlantic scandals (behold hither and thither).

It's scandal sandwich!

NO BRANDCUFFS! Startups That Don't Do Jack.

2011-05-19T19:01:00.004+02:00

...and to make this a bad French tech startup scenario, just replace the two guys talking nonsense with two academics.* And turn the shades into hipster prescription eyewear.**

Via @JeffKwiatek.

---

*One fresh out of a Grande Ecole, one a philosophy PhD who didn't know what "R&D" stood for 3 months ago. You will recognise the former by his slightly too-clean buzzcut.

**In their defense, the eyewear really will be prescription.

Milk: A Love Story (+ a Lesson in Semantic Strategy)

2011-05-16T01:14:00.012+02:00

I like this because it speaks to our compulsion to personify the non-human and wrap stories around them, seeking meaning and a means to connect where oftentimes there isn't any.

Obviously this is an ad, so there is clearly a message that's constructed and conveyed, and you are meant to sympathise with the cartons of milk. (Something new to discuss in therapy!) Still, as the video progresses you can literally feel your brain trying to catch the cues: here you're supposed to see a face, there a flirtation, here a kiss.

This work you do of completing that web of meaning in your mind is sometimes just enough to justify a bond.

The ending is easy to guess well before, but I like how it concludes by leaving the viewer with a sense of agency over the tale instead of giving you the flat, too-easy "...and this is why you should...!"

By Catsnake for Friends of the Earth, UK. The website could be more engaging, especially now that I'm all emotionally invested in two empty estranged cartons. FOE, you could've turned that call to action into more than a mere flirtation with agency. You could have directed the (now primed) energies of those who want to change the story and save the world.

(Consider the Rainbow Warrior.)

Nécomimi: For Those Who Ever Questioned the Utility of Playboy Bunny Headbands.

2011-05-12T09:34:00.000+02:00

Don't you love how those ears perk up when she gets all feeny?

When I came home from Switzerland yesterday, The Man was all in a state about NeuroWear, the people behind the technology above.

"Do you think it's real?" he wondered.

Why not. It was only last month that I mentioned mind control tech was the new frontier, and NeuroWear's Nécomimi thing, which is basically a mood ring, doesn't represent the most serious ways in which mind-interfacing technology has advanced (1, 2, 3). But it does represent how cheap the technology has become, how sensitive, and how important it'll be for the future: people are playing with it.

To wit: BCI (brain computer inferface) users can even make beats.

I wouldn't worry about everybody and your mom getting "Nécomimi" bunny ears, though. (I am holding out for a tail.) The money's on the gaming industry, and eMotiv is already conducting open experiments in that arena.

Via.

Russian Roulette is Not the Same without a Gun...

2011-05-09T13:13:00.004+02:00

Is there something you'd risk your digital life for? Russian Standard Vodka poses the question with Russian Facebook Roulette, a game where you really stand to lose your Facebook profile. In exchange for taking the risk alongside four other compulsive identity-gamblers, you could win a free trip to Russia for seven days. (Where you can play Russian roulette for real...?)

Dangerous work, and I like its taste; it bears a degree of risk that forces you to ask how important your FB identity has become. (And why?) It also serves the brand well by leveraging that "dancing on a razorblade" feeling we associate with Russian vodka (or Russian anything).

If it happens to catch, I don't imagine Facebook will let the game fly for very long, though. (Consider the fate of Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice.)

Shake Well for Love

2011-05-09T11:45:00.011+02:00

The Zuck may spend his private time producing hook-up algos for Facebook users, but the socnet that's managed to weld all our social circles together (for better or worse) still lacks plenty in the matchmaking arena.

But who wants to use Facebook for love? How lame are you? ...It's a fine line, certainly, but one that can be exploited.

With that in mind, some friends of friends have produced ShakeCoeur, the iPhone/Android app that lets today's discriminating and time-constrained networker pick and choose would-be mates from friends, and friends of friends, via Facebook Connect.

The idea is deliciously simple: enter your stats (26/female/single). Specify your range (28-35/male/single). Then shake.

A visual cloud of potential mates, gleaned from your own network and networks nearby, appears. Click on a face you like (because admit it: that hippie crap about "it's the soul that's important" aside, you want to be physically attracted to the dude you're gonna have babies with or whatever). The friend you have in common appears between the two of you: useful data in case of awkward questions, or for setting up an intro. Otherwise, go ahead and send the person of your interest a Facebook message (directly from the app!); what you say to seal the deal is up to you.

If it all goes horribly wrong, shake again and change your approach. It's like a petrie dish for your libido.

(What else do you need for max efficiency? A five-hundred question personality test? ...right.)

And remember, if ever you find yourself at a loss for words...

The app goes live Monday and will be free on Day 1. After that, all bets are off!

Crash Course: Dark Matter, the Universe, What We Know (and Mostly Don't)

2011-05-05T12:49:00.012+02:00

Some exciting things happened in the last few days. Scientists at CERN managed to trap antimatter for a record-breaking 17 minutes, availing new opportunities to study its properties. (If you have ever read the Golden Compass series by Philip Pullman, you are hopefully as excited as I am, even if antimatter doesn't turn out to be able to produce self-awareness, communicate via iChat, or invest certain items with "intentions.")

Secondly, research has turned up confirming a handful of Einstein's theories of the expanding universe, black holes and relativity in general:

Einstein’s theory relates gravity to the sagging of cosmic geometry under the influence of matter and energy, the way a sleeper makes a mattress sag. One consequence is that a massive spinning object like Earth should spin up the empty space around it, the way twirling the straw in a Frappuccino sets the drink and the whole Venti-size cup spinning around with it, an effect called frame dragging. Astronomers think this effect, although minuscule for Earth, could play a role in the black hole dynamos that power quasars.

Watch the handy-dandy video above for an entertaining overview of where we are in terms of understanding the universe (almost nowhere! But that is changing as we speak!).

I like this idea that we're at a turning-point in our education about the origins of things and the composition of everything. I also like that two perfectly respectable worldviews at complete odds are forced to meet eventually, forced to acknowledge their connectedness and ultimately shared interest. That is a universally applicable lesson.

What does this have to do with advertising? Well, nothing.

In recent discussion, my friend Len Kendall of The 3six5 Project talked to me about a book called The Medici Effect, which posits that exposing ourselves to a variety of knowledge sets and experiences fuels our core creative endeavors.

"So instead of going to seminars about actionable things that we can do in our industry, we should be learning about totally unrelated things," Len concluded. This isn't to say that learning about actionable industry things are bad (au contraire), but we shouldn't let the other things we wonder about go idly by either.

I may never merit employment at CERN, but the universe has always been a topic of especially passionate interest. Once I got over the idea that spending time learning about things I could never master would be time lost on "my profession," I discovered that thinking about this stuff does affect how I think about the industry, my place here, where people are going, and to what degree our relationship with technology is complicated (but is a relationship and an intimate one).

This gives my life a meaning it would otherwise lack. To read what I'm learning day by day (or week by week, as the case may be), follow my Scoop.it page on Theoretical Physics. It's where I curate material of ongoing interest related to this topic.

Special thanks to my friend Atif Chaudhry for sending the video over. He always packs the neat shit. I just wish he had a blog so I could show you the videos he makes of his walking robots.

Is a Wall Ever Just a Wall?

2011-05-04T11:35:00.004+02:00

Usually not.

Via @maximeparis of MinuteBuzz.

Aussie TV Welcomes Refurbished Virgin Blue

2011-05-04T09:08:00.003+02:00

In 2009, Virgin Atlantic fêted its 25th anniversary with a sexy retro-style ad that followed red-clad flight attendants and a grinning movie star pilot through the airport, practically red carpet style, on opening day in London.

It was epic, like a fantasy you have when you're preadolescent and square.

The above is a spin on that for the freshly-rebranded Virgin Blue in Australia. Created by Clemenger BBDO Sydney, it includes a cameo from Hans Hulsbosch, who created the airline's new look, and was filmed in Sydney, Melbourne and Shanghai. The tone pops less, the electric downplayed; but you still feel the energy of that something building, laced with a very faint Australian-ness.

Hulsbosch explains: “The television commercial communicates that, for the first time, Australia’s airline industry has a genuine alternative. It has listened to what customers want today – and created the right kind of experience [...] a modern, dynamic service offering" expressed in a cinematic style.

Much ado, much ado. When's Virgin Galactic gonna start doing TVCs? And do you get stewardess uniforms on a space ship?

Is Social Vending Anything Like a Happiness Machine...?

2011-05-03T12:04:00.004+02:00

Pepsi's testing a touchscreen "social vending" machine that aspires to turn your thirsty impulse buy into a potential act of empowerment or goodwill.

Choose from three options: buy a drink, connect to the Pepsi Refresh Project or commit a "random act of refreshment" -- that is, gift a drink to somebody who deserves some carbonated sweetlove. Enter their name, mobile phone number and a personalised message; the machine will send that person an SMS with a code enabling them to redeem their beverage from any other "social vending" machine.

And not that I needed to invite the comparison, but hey, this reminds me a lot of Coca Cola's Happiness Machine, except infinitely more scalable, for obvious reasons: you don't need people living inside it, doling out six-foot subs and whatnot.

'We All Have 20 Minutes in Common'

2011-05-03T11:33:00.004+02:00

A rep from French agency La Chose is using Facebook to share its latest work for news publication 20 Minutes. "On a tous 20 Minutes en commun," or "We all have 20 minutes in common," uses the tendency to lift newspapers to our faces to turn our own bodies into promotional frames. (Do people actually do this with iPads? Unlikely. But maybe they'd do it just for the pleasure of the effect, the way smokers occasionally enjoy lifting cigarette packets with rotting teeth to their mouths.)

The facial mosaic thing isn't original, but it does bring to mind the trend Alexandre Oudin kicked off of creating a mosaic photo effect on Facebook profile pages. If you dig that shit, here's a tutorial (and app) for producing the same.

Willy + Smutley Have Been 'Round the Block

2011-04-28T12:33:00.005+02:00

The French are privy to the best AIDS awareness ads in the whole wide world. (Consider. And. And!) Work for Aides by Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Here's another from the same campaign: I give you Smutley the promiscuous cat!

When I first decided to visit France in 2006 (a kind of scouting vacation), my dad invited me to dinner. We didn't talk much, but toward the end, he suddenly went, "One of my co-workers had a daughter a lot like you: smart, pretty. Whole world going for her. She went to France on vacation and fell in love. Then she got AIDS, and now she's dead. Have a good trip."
And on that somber note, he ushered me out the door and on my merry way.

The Stakes Just Rose for Fantasy Football.

2011-04-28T11:42:00.004+02:00

How do I begin describing what Contagious Magazine called "the most nauseatingly exciting bit of advertising" it's ever seen...?

It's like your fantasy league meets futures meets Foursquare meets Facebook meets I AM PLAYR meets the UEFA Champion's League in real-time.

With help from AKQA, Heineken's launched Star Player, an iPhone app that lets you "play" matches alongside the UEFA Champion's League. It launched just in time for the start of Man U vs. Schalke's semi-final (April 26th).

Ten minutes prior to the match's start on your telly, the app opens for play. When the whistle blows, the game timer syncs automatically with the time on your TV. You're given 8 chances to accurately predict which team will score, or whether one will, in 30 seconds -- positioned in the video above as a test of your pro acumen. You win badges or points for accurate calls ... and the earlier you make them prior to the goal, the higher the points, adding the pressure of speed.

Results can be published on Facebook Connect. You can play against friends or the world; it's your call.

This isn't the kind of thing I can play (my head would explode; I'm finger-slow), but even if it's not for you, it's not hard to see why this is cool shit that hits the spot. Star Player harnesses enthusiasm surrounding a match and get users engaged exactly the way they've always wanted: participating in social competition while collectively witnessing pro competition on-screen.

(How many bar fights have been started over somebody shouting "I CALLED THAT!"...?)

And the technology isn't new, or relegated exclusively to sporting events. Nearly two years ago, the BBC developed an iPhone application that delivers predictive plot quizzes that sync in real-time with televised soap operas. The phone mic is used to cue the quiz timer.

(...Doesn't that sound easy? Go use it in something.)

Hyper Island on a Wall

2011-04-27T12:31:00.004+02:00

Contemplating ad school? I often did. It doesn't hurt to think about it, and I like the way Hyper Island went about producing its own manifesto.

If I had decided to go to ad school, Hyper Island would've been the first one I checked out, and only partly because its name makes me think of speed muffins.

Via Swiss Miss.

GIFs Gone Wild

2011-04-26T17:37:00.003+02:00

Where would you be if GIFs could leap out of the internet and penetrate your mediocre life like a loud garish sparklephallus?

Brought to you by Buzzman (you know the one!) for MTV Mobile.

It's probably overreaching to find rhyme/reason in an MTV ad, but I guess I can see how a proper mobile experience can leap into the real world and engage you the way a dead Flash window won't. As it's MTV (in your pocket!), multiply the technicolor WTF factor by 10. (Consider.)

...Because Was Your Belief Ever Truly Suspended in the First Place?

2011-04-26T15:21:00.022+02:00

We give the fashion industry a lot of leeway to be pretentious: that is, to produce a false universe that's supposed to feel aspirational but is often so far out of the realm of the real that it becomes little more than snobby farce.

Part of this is our fault; we don't ask fashion a ton of deep questions. (Do we even want to?) And as long as it's teetering on this precarious ledge, the door is open for somebody to give it a little shove.

Case in point: Etam Takes on The Kooples

Fashion here is manifested by The Kooples, a beautiful high-end French-meets-hipster brand whose founders, in a recent issue of Grazia, confessed to having visualised the ad campaign before setting themselves to the actual task of designing.

The offline ads are homemade (digital's done by Digitas) and follow the same general format. They highlight a glamorous-looking couple, list their names, how long they've been together, and sometimes where they met. (The stories never go deep; couples typically only boast a track record of a couple of years, and often meet at less-than-profound places.)

If you seek relatability in a Kooples ad, you'd be hard-pressed to find it: this is drugs, sex and rock-n'-roll for the privileged set, only thinly disguised as love (if you think it is at all), or even as real people.* And while I dig the brand, every time I come across one of these ads I still have to stop and be like "Are you fucking serious?" Because matchy daft couples that somehow managed to outlast their coke-laced one-nighter aren't the people I want to dress like.

I apparently wasn't the only one who felt this way. Out of left field comes budget brand Eram, who, with help from Havas' agency H, takes the Kooples concept and exposes it for flagrant plastic shammery:

Translation: "Karl is a photographer. Bahia's a DJ. It was love at first sight at a New York rooftop soirée."

Close in for the kill: "These shoes cost €49,90 -- and that, that's actually true."

Followed by tagline: "Eram: You'd have to be crazy to spend more."

Same basic idea for this one: Barry's an architect, Keira's a performing artist, they met four years ago in a Berlin squat house, these sandals cost €39,90 and that's the truth.

This comparative work serves Eram's brand perfectly: it's a format and a message that drag you back down to earth ... where, incidentally, you'll find even the prices more terre-à-terre.

More images at Dark Planneur's blog.

Examine What You're Asking People to Believe.

(Even in fashion.)

A lot of the time your audience will cut you slack. Once in awhile, though, they'll be like, "Seriously? Are you sure you want to be saying that?"

When this happens, sometimes it's best to stick to your guns, as I'm sure The Kooples will. But other times you should ask whether they're right: did you -- and your brand -- get lost in the weeds during conception?

All that said, here's full disclosure: I'm a Kooples shopper. I have never been inside an Eram, and because I'm elitist and spendy, I'd prefer to keep it that way. Do these appropriations make me want to change my mind, considering they validate how I felt about The Kooples' ads?

Not yet. But I still like that somebody called them out. And I like that Eram had the balls and the finesse to do it well. This is the beginning of a relationship.

A big thank-you to @BranislavPeric for furnishing me with the agency information.

---

*I stand corrected. A friend messaged me today to say he knows a Kooples couple, and they're really a couple!

Get Your Enhanced Meat-Eating Experience, Right Here: The BeanCast 150

2011-04-25T13:54:00.006+02:00

Against his own better judgment, last night Bob Knorpp invited AT&T's Chris Baccus, Modea's Kelly Eidson, the BFG's Bill Green and me onto the skypez for the 150th episode of The BeanCast: Enhanced Meat-Eating Experience.

Listen (here!) while a cast of old regulars struggles for anarchy against Bob's sharp new "stay on-task" skills. We cover mobile tracking and your privacy (or lack of it), Victoria's Secret's 12 million Facebook likes, mobile optimisation and payment models for digital content. The usual song and dance in media land.

That's right, this makes two podcasts for the price of one! What better way to fête your chocolate egg hangover? Oh, wait...

AdVerve Episode 72 - Southern Ad Law on the Skids

2011-04-25T12:39:00.003+02:00

Play the show now.

Michael McSunas (@adlawguy) of law firm CBS – the guy we'll call if things go awry – joins us to give perspective from the legal point of view. We cover everything from incest gameshows (they exist! ...don’t they?) to legal precedent in cases involving both source protection and blogger disclosure. Sprinkled in is an uncomfortable discourse about death and whether your online "assets" count as property; if so, who do they go to?

For those following Bill's southern evolution, Mike tosses in a swashbuckling funeral tale. And in case you were wondering how any of this comes together, Angela manages to string it all along with everything she learned at MIPTV, that scary place in Cannes where TV networks sell each other what they'll be selling you, all year long. (And if you're in Japan, yes, you may just get an incest game show.) It’s techno mind tricks & legalese and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Linksopolis:

- Official trailer for Tiffany Shlain's "Connected: An Autoblogography about Life, Death and Technology." Her keynote talk here.
- Piracy: a path to innovation? Matt Mason's full 30-minute talk at MIPTV.
- Cmp.ly: the new short-linky way of disclosing.
- Baroness Greenfield talks about how the brain is changing as a function of technology use.

In Case You Ever Doubted the Industry Was on Drugs

2011-04-20T00:13:00.009+02:00

When I was younger I told a friend, then in the business of childrens' entertainment, that I had the hots for Darien from Sailor Moon and that I wondered if there was something wrong with me. He quickly reassured me by saying that people who work on cartoons talk about bangable characters all the time. It's a thing.

I guess we all have a thing like that, although you're still forced to wonder why Kate Moss invites the gazing public into imagining hers is bunnies.

I don't understand why this happened. But I guess whatever your fetish, wear a condom...?*

Via the Nuddstah chez AdFreak.

---

*As for whether shopping at the Basement will get you impregnated in your sleep, it's a question I don't even dare pose.

Burberry Fashion Show Sports Holographic Models

2011-04-19T10:58:00.003+02:00

Holographic concerts: not just for the Japanese anymore!

In yonder Beijing, Burberry fêted the opening of a new flagship store with a holographic catwalk show, featuring only six human models. The rest were 3D projections that the Digital Buzz Blog says were "almost undetectable and seamlessly integrated into the show."

The new store is one of about 100 Chinese Burberry locations that will be outfitted with "digital experiences."

Last February, Burberry kicked off what it called the first-ever 3D livestream fashion show. Footage appeared in real-time on select fashion blogs, sometimes in 3D, sometimes not (depending on how high up your publication was in the readership hierarchy).