WAKE UP WILLIAM

The William Hill in East London must be the most out of date shop window (if you can call this sordid little gambling tapestry a shop window) in the world. The picture of Sally Gunnell is from the '92 Barcelona Olympics and I can only presume the Shearer one is from the same year. With a bit more digging I'm sure some football geek would be able to give me the exact date, game and even minute when the ball struck his head, but I have settled for checking Wikepedia to see if he went to Blackburn in 1992. Which he did. I'm not old, but the fact that this was 17 years ago makes me feel pretty old. Way to go William. Nice one.

Anyway, considering the fact that gambling is all about what's happening right now. And exciting precisely because of its moment to moment alterations, odds going up and down, ooh what's going to happen, winning or losing by milliseconds, etc, it seems a bit rubbish that William Hill have decided to represent this excitement with a 17 year old static billboard. At least Ladbrokes have dynamic window displays that change daily (via the illiterate daubing's of their staff members) in order to entice people in with the latest sweaty changes to the gambling form guide. And they have better ads too.

I bet there is a good opportunity to do some nice interactive window displays for a Gambling joint. Nice info graphics, live data from the website, latest winnings from the shop that day. Might get more people across the threshold than a perspiring Gunnell or gurning Shearer.

DECODE: DIGITAL DESIGN SENSATIONS

Wake up, smell the digitally grown roses, and get yourself down to the interactive design exhibition at the V&A. But perhaps wait until the 8th December, as that's when it starts.

Curated with onedotzero it looks as though there's going to be some pretty cool stuff on show. Look out for Daniel Browns projected surfaces that give crockery (as above) and walls infinitely adaptive designs. This sort of thing will undoubtedly be the future of interiors but I'm sure it will also become a relevant application within the world of adaptive branding. Daniel Rozin has some nice stuff which, incidentally, is very reminiscent of a project we did at Digit for Motorola. And there will also be some work on show from D&AD yellow pencil winning cloud carvers Troika (see below).

WELL DONE LOVE FILM

I have just signed up to LOVEFiLM.

LOVEFiLM is brilliant. And, although I have only just signed up, I have know this for a while.

Yes it is an inherently better system than Blockbuster. Especially if your local Blockbuster happens to be on the Seven Sisters road. By God what a sordid little grief hole this outpost to the Blockbuster brand is. But, more than this, I just got the sense, mainly from people who won't stop banging on about how great they are, that they really knew what they were doing.

Two weeks into my free trial with LOVEFiLM I received this. And LOVEFiLM just got their customer.

"You may be aware of the national postal strikes which have been affecting deliveries across the UK.We don't want you to lose out, so to make sure you get the full LOVEFiLM experience we will add two more weeks to the end of your free trial period. This means you will have a further 14 days to explore all the goodness that LOVEFiLM has to offer, completely free."

CRASH TEST CHEVROLET

This would make a cracking ad for Chevrolet. In fact, it sort of is an ad for Chevrolet, but it's apparently done by some highway safety corporation over in the US. Two Chevys, that's what the yanks call Chevrolets by the way, one from 1959 and one from 2009, crash into each other at 40 miles an hour. The result is conclusive, and obvious. Still, I feel pretty safe in modern cars because of it.

Let's go speeding.

TODAY IS THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF SESAME STREET

Enjoy

TEENAGER'S FANTASY

This is like properly down with the kiddies - BF GF MOS DOS POS OMG - ace. It's also a sweet idea done by two of my friends over at Altogether. Not that I'm biased though, for this blog, as regular readers will surely know, is the definition of impartial, goose stepping, trench-coat-wearing investigatory journalism.

It's basically like, the idea not my blog by the way, a cross between Fantasy football and celebdaq, that great idea that used to be on the 11 0 clock show (I think). What you do is pick a fantasy festival lineup (they really should have used that as the name) which scores you points, and here's the clever bit, depending on how many times the artists get played on Last FM and how much chat there is about them on the web. Very nice.

I've picked mine, which, if Timmy Mallet makes a come back, is a sure fired billy bollocks winner. You can make yours here

EVER DREAM THIS MAN?

This is a thing that has been doing the rounds on the world wide webber recently.

The story goes like this. A patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams yadda yadda yadda.

That portrait lies forgotten until one day another patient recognises the face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams too etc etc etc. Blah blah blah and at least 2000 people have now claimed they have seen this man in their dreams!!!

However.

The website seems to be registered to Andrea Natella, director of guerrigliamarketing, an Italian marketing agency renowned for, well, stuff like this. Tinterweb speculation is currently leaning towards this being related to a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie (hence the dream link).

On a side note I think it's interesting that, presumably intentionally, guerrigliamarketing have registered the website to Andrea rather than Dr Jake McPsychiatrist. Which perhaps means they think it will be a more successful viral if we know straight away that it is a marketing viral. That people find it more interesting and therefore more spreadable when they are guessing which product it is going to be for rather than just being intrigued by the psychobabble for a bit before the big reveal.

I shall be giving away a miniature dolphin figurine from South Mimms service station to the person who can guess the product.

HIRST GOES ALL SHIT. BUT TELLS US SOMETHING ABOUT BRANDING IN THE PROCESS

Art is all about the relationship between things. Many of which are not 'in' the painting itself and certainly not controlled by the artist. Instead, like unwanted Christmas presents, these relationships are foisted with wrinkled hands upon the work by all that surround it. But the artist accepts this, for this is what it means to create public art.

Here's how it works.

Damien Hirst makes a load of blue paintings inspired by the works of Francis Bacon. But what they mean is not dependant on just this, i.e what he actually painted. God no. For Hirst has chosen to exhibit them not in the white tranquility of the Tate, but in the Wallace collection surrounded by Old Masters such as Poussin, Rembrandt, and Titian.

OK, fine, we see what he is trying to do.

Unfortunately many disagreed with this attempt, instead calling them the work of an amateur or student. Which suddenly changes their relationship with the Old Masters they have been hung with - they're shitter than those, rather than they're similar to those.

Then I see this picture in the paper, along with all this criticism about Hirst being all studenty, and his t-shirt starts to make me think.

For anyone who doesn't know Robert Hughes' 'The Shock of the New', it is a classic entry level (i.e studenty) introduction to modern Art. A yarn, a frolic through the household/celebrity names that have made it big in the artworld. It is not, as many writer has pointed out, a work of 'serious Art criticism'.

So Hirst's paintings are inspired by Bacon and therefore hardly shocking in their newness. And, according to many, studenty and frivolous in the same way as the book by Hughes. Now suddenly this relationship, between work and t-shirt, 'means' something.

Now this does have some relevance to those trying to 'sell' a brand or product. You see, nothing works in isolation. And when trying to develop a certain message what we make, the particular piece of communication we are currently concerned with, is not the only thing of importance. This picture of Hirst shows us we should, especially in the hyper connected mashable culture of the Internet, embrace an advertising of associations.

An advertising that aims to, wherever possible, control and keep positive as many of the associations that surround your brand as possible. This is also what communication is about. Art knows it, celebrity knows it, and so does politics.

THE SOCIAL WEB IS ONE FAT MUTHA. AND SHE AIN'T SLOWING DOWN...

Fragmented communications landscape anyone?



Created by Gary Hayes.

CROWD SOURCED CARTOON BY AARDMAN

The Tate is going to team up with Aardman to create a cartoon drawn by Britain's kids. The animation will be an amalgamation of drawings, ideas, sounds and words sent in by children up and down the UK, all lovingly stitched together by the direction of Aardman.

It is a nice little crowd sourced idea from Fallon, supported by the Olympic cultural charity thingi-me-bob Legacy Trust UK. Naturally Aardman will make a good job of it. And I'm sure Tate will do very well out of it too.

Guardian says Aardman says

WAIT FOR IT...

Surely this is ripe for being stolen and turned into an ad? It certainly wouldn't be the first socio/psychological study to have been pilfered by the ad world if it was.

OK, so the researcher tells the kids that they can have another marshmallow if only they can sit in front of the first marshmallow for fifteen minutes without eating it.

Two out of three kids can't and gobble the marshmallow up. Many immediately.

But what's really interesting, if you read about the study, is that the researcher revisits the kids 15 years later. What he finds is amazing, if a little concerning. Because he sees that the 1/3 who were able to wait the 15 minutes are performing much better. They have better grades, more friends, their slower to anger, have goals, get on with their teachers, and are generally more adjusted.

The impatient little gluttons, however, weren't.

Perhaps best, if you do decide to nick it for an ad, to leave out the last bit and concentrate on the cute little kids.