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.

Fun Bin

Here's a nice lateral way to get people to put rubbish in the bin.

Cereal Hoaxers.

Perhaps you've heard the news that Kellogg's are going to begin branding individual cornflakes with their logo in order to fight off competition from impostor brands.

Now I am sure that everyone's hoax-o-meter is burning up, presuming this is just another idea from the Ryan Air school of marketing. You may know them for previous great ideas such as 'spend a pound to spend a penny' or 'beds and blowjobs for premium customers'

But, according to this press release it's definately not, honestly we promise (even though we know it is).

This explanation of the technology says it all really, "Mirror galvanometers are then used to steer the beam creating multiple vectors that reflect the laser from different angles and ultimately make up the image."

And even if it was true, surely it is counter productive? I mean, they are claiming the point is to stave off competition from 'imitation products'. Yet surely making your own flakes pointlessly expensive by firing mini laser beams into your flakes isn't going to help yourself a great deal. Especially as no-one buys them individually but it a great big box with the word 'Kellogg's' conspicuously emblazoned on the side.

Ah, they say, with a flash of renewed vigour. The real reason is to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that we don't make cornflakes for anyone else.

What, can't you turn the laser off?

Await patiently for the 'it was all a clever marketing hoax' update soon.

I'm hard.

This is nice. It's a good idea, well executed, with some nice little moments in it and a tight script.



But its tone is very reminiscient of ads gone by. That whole knowing, male orientated, spoof-like, world constructed for the audience we're targetting or product we're pedling.

I think it began with this clever bunch of stuff from Crispin Porter. Probably the best in its catagory.





By the way there is no real point here. No clever strategic or sociological understanding of people or medium. They just feel kinda similar like. Oh and they're all good ads.

Nighty night.