An advert advertising advertising

I’m convinced. Where do I sign?

Link Digest. February 2009

Do it, then fix it is a blog post from ad guru Dave Trott. In it he comments on something I agree with wholeheartedly. Why sit around talking about something when you can just get on an do it? One of the analogies he uses is from the film set.

“On a film set you’ll always have to choose between two ways of shooting something. The worst thing you can do is sit around thinking about it. Because you’re wasting time and money, while the actors and crew sit around doing nothing. And when you’ve done all the thinking you’re no nearer to solving it. So the best thing is just pick one route and go for it. Then you can change it as you see whether or not it’s working.”

I’m subscribed to his blog and I can recommend it. Even though every post is written like an ad end line.

Ever been doing a piece of work and needed a beautiful ampersand? Well, The Mesmerizing Curves of Ampersands is a great resource for helping to find the right one for the job. With links to download and buy – some of them are even free.

Courtesy of James Higgs, Layers is a great little tool which captures your display in a layered Photoshop file. Think Cmd+Shift+4 on steroids.

Grappling with some difficult interface design? ecommr may provide the answer through its extensive gallery of interface design elements.

Just recently found MediaShift. Haven’t spent long rummaging round but first impressions are good. In their own words. “Since January 2006, MediaShift has been tracking how weblogs, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators and online video are changing our media world. MediaShift includes commentary and reporting to tell stories of how the shifting media landscape is changing the way we get our news and information, while also providing a place for public participation and feedback.”

Want to know how social media tool du jour Twitter came into being? Well now you know.

The Art of the Title Sequence is a collection of some of the most beautiful movie title sequences.

The Directory is a list of design studios, individuals, blogs, shops, photographers, resources etc. May take some time to go through that lot. If I find anything of particular interest I’ll post it here next month.

Have all the best ideas been done before?

When The Guardian first ran their rather beautiful set of print ads executed by Wieden + Kennedy back in 2007 there was something intriguing about one of the posters in particular. Something familiar. At the time I put it down to the ‘I wish I’d done that’ feeling. Also the fact that they were so polished and well executed there would be an immediate ‘rightness’ about them.

Fast forward to this morning and a link to some lovely old Olivetti print design work on flickr. Low and behold, a poster for Olivetti by Giovanni Pintori that must have sparked that feeling of familiarity 18+ months ago.

The original Olivetti poster by Giovanni Pintori from 1956 next to the Guardian print ad of 2007

Surely there must have been some influence here for the Wieden + Kennedy designer? I’ll leave it up to you whether that influence has stepped over any marks, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery and all that. Take a look at the full flickr set of Olivetti work. And remember, no Illustrator or InDesign in the 50s and 60s – all had cut. Lovely.

New site launch – Fridge Raiders Chicken Bites

After weeks of hoop-jumping with the YouTube API, the new Fridge Raiders site, aka ‘Carnivorous World’ went live quietly at the end of last week. I say quietly as there was a TV ad going out at the same time but, alas, despite pleading with the client, the URL failed to make it into the final frame of the ad. This was disappointing and has forced us to spam all our friends; getting them to join the Facebook group or befriend the star of the ad on MySpace in order to spread the word about the accompanying competition.

The new TV ad

Back to the site. We devised a competition to ask users to view the new TV ad, film their own alternative ending and upload it to the site. When you watch the shortened ad, it throws up all sorts of possibilities for video shenanigans. The winners (as voted for by the public) will receive one of four DVD Camcorders.

We used the YouTube API as it allowed us to upload videos and video responses to YouTube direct from our own site and add/edit user and video metadata (titles, descriptions, ratings, comments, favorites, contacts). This saved a load of time and the pain of building out own software.

There’s the other usual stuff on the site, nutritional information and past competition winners.

We’re just waiting for the hordes of users to get their video phones out.

Fridge Raiders site home page

Spot the difference…

…or not! Don’t even get me started on this weak, unimaginative, feeble, blatant rip off.

The original, brilliant, inspired, impeccably executed video for OK Go – Here It Goes Again.

The rip off for Berocca.

The Ramp

Great story about the people of Oberpfaffaelbachen building a ramp to ‘launch’ the BMW 1 Series in the USA during the ‘Rampenfest’ festival.

Check out the teeth! The stunt driver is gold! Watch it here.

Obligatory Facebook page to accompany the movie.

Anticipated, personal, relevant

As with all advertising, if you can hit these three things right then you have more chance of communicating your message.

Now and again you see some shining lights which just make you smile. Often the subtlest of touches are the most impactful.

Yesterday, whilst picking some of Moo’s great little MiniCards out of their box I stumbled across a small card inserted in amongst the rest [see image]. It was alerting me to the other services and products on offer from Moo.

Was it anticipated? not really, but it was completely in context and so very relevant. It felt very personal as someone had placed it in amongst my own order and as I had already bought one of their products it is entirely logical that I may be interested in their related products.

I think it was a Gaping Void sketch which said “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face”. In this case, Moo deserve a very affectionate pat on the back.