trees are people too

There’s a lot of clever advertising out there. Snappy punchlines, cool camera angles and sexy people (c’mon, you know that is damned clever). But there’s clever and then there is clever. The latter is that type of advertising that sneaks up on you, usually so well camouflaged that you don’t realise it’s an ad at all. By the time you’ve clicked and recovered from your embarrassment (especially you, adland people), you then spend the next week nonchalantly mentioning it to friends as if you’d pretty much come up with the idea yourself, but couldn’t nail it because conservative clients had legal teams that had put a stop to it.

Think something like coca cola’s recent campaign for their new grip bottle that used velcro posters, a concept that literally stuck with consumers (although, as some pointed out, one that had potential to end in disaster). Using the same concept, Unicef spread a message about landmines, and then there is my personal favourite, a guerilla campaign for television series Dexter in Portugal, which literally scared the shit out of people to build awareness about the show. Each campaign worked hard to use a conventional space creatively and unconventionally, and although ROI is harder to measure, I have a pretty good idea how much attention I would be paying if the toilet I was using suddenly gushed with blood.

Ambient and experiential advertising seems to push these boundaries the hardest. Perhaps it’s because they have the tools to do it – we now have bus shelters that can emit smells, outdoor signage that can dispense samples and even advertisements that can recognise your response and react accordingly. But it doesn’t take crazy technology to make the smartest ads. It’s just a matter of thinking a little more imaginatively.

But how can digital advertising achieve this? How can we create something that is tactile, that elicits an uncontrollable reaction, that excites and inspires, that makes people want to reach out to the screen and touch it…(is it something like this, perhaps?) Digital suffers many of the same limitations of TV and video – we can show moving picture and sound, but we cannot create smell, taste or feel – but we have one huge advantage. We can interact with audiences.

There are limited examples of online advertising that really interact with the viewer. Somewhat surprisingly (considering the capabilities of the medium), the majority of concepts choose to go with the same stock standard banner ads, pop up displays and adwords. As the internet becomes more cluttered, however, there is going to have to be a shift in thinking. We’ll have to think outside the screen, so to speak. Beautiful websites just ain’t gonna cut it anymore, unless they are capable of something really cool. People will want to be surprised, delighted and intrigued; they will want tools and tricks that allow for this. Here’s our chance to make an online experience that is more than just beautiful and user-friendly. It can be memorable.

Alternatively, we’re just going to have to be really, really f*@cking funny. Either will require innovation.

Let’s get to it. And apologies for the use of italics, I was feeling overtly emphatic today.

Today marks the end of an era for me (unfortunately a relatively short one) at my first job in the way out world of advertising. Turns out it was not all that way out, but it is certainly turbulent.

Tomorrow I start my new job at interactive agency Visual Jazz, possibly one of Melbourne’s best interactive agencies, and I am terribly excited. For this reason this post shall follow a theme of things that are fresh, clean, new and good. And so they shall be.

For instance, how about a fancy new pair of chopsticks that double as weapons. Or perhaps some fresh insight into the lyrisicm of hip hop. I have even found a new found respect for the latest ghetto names.

A new method for finding stolen bikes, a new found aversion to tweeting too much, and a new love of cats (and stick figures).

Here’s to new beginnings, new journeys, new people and new experiences. I’m excited. Stay tuned for the next episode…

Just a quick one, for I have been frantic at work and at play. I have delved into the criminal world, built and ingested colourful things and started on slightly more academic indulgences (that’s right, I be book learnin’) as the winter months creep in.

But it was only recently that I discovered a new favourite blog – the fabulous photographic witterings that persuade me to look at this fucking hipster. I was always taught that looking smart is about possessing style, not being fashionable (of which I am neither, not fashionable nor stylish, in the conventional sense of the word) and so this website has brought me endless hours of pleasant bemusement and bewilderment. Is it cutting edge style? Victimless fashion? Do people truly have time to look so incredibly hideous?

Simultaneously, as I continue my quest for a more profound and precocious blogging style, it was with some delight that I discovered this story about the success of blogs being turned into books… one of them being my new found and fabulous documentation of hipsterisms. After long analysis of the development of print into hypertext and beyond, the communication of ideas and stories through digital platforms such as blogs, we often circled back to the question – could a blog be produced as a book… and would it work?

The general consensus was that as a book, blog content lacked all the qualities that made it so very intriguing – its ability to be conversational, easily disseminated, accessible, interactive, media rich and transient. But perhaps blogs that are predominantly image-based are different stories (pun intended). As mentioned in the article, we also have blogs such as the famous stuff white people like and the tasty this is why you’re fat being translated to print, perfect for bedtime reading.

It will be interesting to see what else transpires, and whether we might soon have Boing Boing: An Unabridged Directory, or Dlisted: True Tales of Horror. After all (and as the creator of latfh.com pointed out), why wouldn’t people want to buy a book of images they can get online for free??

The possibilities, it seems, are printable. Now please excuse me, I need to go and reserve my copy asap, for the eight copies of this will surely sell out fast.

What a fabulous concept and website this is from a digital agency that has just come to my attention, based in Sweden and known as Daddy.

Combining a beautifully designed website with all the things that are exciting about digital: interaction, discovery, accessibility, reach, integration, strategy and conversation… not to mention the inclusion of some of my favourite things – small trees and big words.

I am a little slow on the uptake (I missed the experiment, afterall) but needed to give props for such beautiful work. These are the kind of ideas and executions I want to be working with… Why must all the good things come from Sweden??

I am not sure such an accomplished digital agency exists here in Australia, but I am searching for it. Meanwhile we will continue to tinker with overworked web developers and under resourced digital strategy departments… sigh.

Big props to crackunit for bringing this lovely job to my attention. And for his unrelenting advocacy of the importance of digital. It feels good.

The japanese are the best purveyors of quirkiness. And frustration. I bought a birthday present for madcaow, but it wasn’t until we got it home that we realised you had to assemble it yourself… And thus, our friday night was made. Felt rav tbh. I think we did ok, for a first attempt. (No bloggers were harmed in the making of this series).

The production line had it all – disgruntled and embattled workers, harsh employment conditions and even some bloodshed. I am surprised there wasn’t calls for a union to be formed (must have been the ready supply of wine), but to our astonishment the final product somewhat resembled that which appeared on the box. It was a short moment of great pride. And then we found this:

Yes. It is true. Thank you for raising the bar, little brown bird’s dreams. I bow down to your felty goodness. (In our defense, she is from Singapore, which is closer to Japan than here). I feel there may be more inspired felty treats to come…

I have struggled a little this week, and so I went trawling the internet for some inspiration. Unfortunately I found some…

An inspiring place to work…

An inspiring piece of work… (although not unlike a hallucinogenic experience I had once, which makes it also somewhat alarming)

An inspiring diatribe on why you must keep creating….

And an inspirational artform (thankyou to the beautiful Sophie)…

I am trying to keep these in mind, and my inspiration alive, in this first week of dreary winter in melbourne… more to come.

Pardon me, but this is so fucking cool.

Yes, as indicated it is a Wes Anderson Film Festival. Currently only in conceptual stages, but I see no reason why it couldn’t be.

Props to you Alex Cornell. I only wish (like with so many things in my life) that it wasn’t hypothetical. Take over the world with well designed words.

This is where I work now.

Unfortunately I imagine that this is poignantly relevant to all creative organisations. All aboard the train to the CCO. Via Fubiz. Thank you for brightening my day despite speaking french.

As you will know, I recently began a new career in advertising with GPYR. It is not half as glamourous as one might think, but working with a number of dangerously creative people can have its perks. And its fails. But variety is the spice of life.

We recently launched this new ad for smart energy, junk ballet.

Not the best ad I have ever seen (currently this) but it is still good fun. More interesting though is that it took me four viewings to work out that my cousin stars in the ad (it is he who plugs the cables together). This is an uncanny coincidence. The boy gets around.

Big ups to Thomas. He is also a keen publisher, a life I lived in one of my previous careers.

So now I have worked in magazine publishing, book publishing, as a journalist and a copy editor, and here I am as an adevrtising executive. One can’t but help hope that I am getting closer to the right career. My dream is to get into strategic communications, mostly in digital spaces. I’ll be updating my progress right here. Keep an eye.

mmm-mmm. My favourite things. And brought to you by the letter M.

We have completed!! I would say we have conquered, but I am not quite convinced we have come that far. Still, we have miraculously managed (all about the mmmm I tell you) to edit, finish and compress our tiny film. You can watch it above (be forgiving on quality, as this has been compressed for the mobile phone size), or locate it in Second Life here (coordinates: 238, 87, 25), or on the pool here.

If you prefer, you can also download the video here, with slightly better sound and picture, and you can also download the .3gp version here.

While it is not the most sophisticated work, it is our exploratory journey of a completely new genre and media, constrained by extensive time and skill limitations. And yet we produced something, which is always some kind of wonderful.

Please enjoy (even if you don’t, please try) and I look forward to repo-ing my blog very soon. It’s been real, university. Adios.