Going on summer holiday

I’m going on holiday from Sunday and will be back 31st of July. It’s been a busy month so hopefully I’ll have more time to blog when I get back.

If I had blogged more the last couple of months from the worlds of rock’n’roll & advertising I could have reported from the always splendid Roskilde Festival

I saw Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes, The Raconteurs, Roger Water (doing Dark Side Of The Moon), Wolfmother, Arctic Monkeys all in one day.

I could have joined the ongoing discussion around
Coherence vs. Consistency
Complexity vs. Simplicity
Myriad of Ideas vs. Big Idea

All extra provoked by Maurice Saatchi’s One Word Equity nonsense.
See some of the discussion here:
http://www.brandtarot.com/blog/?p=61

I could have talked about the really nice concert I saw with Gnarls Barkley

They gave an uplifting performance with their mixture of old P-funk, hip-hop, Motown and lots of more indefinable inspirational sources.

Or I could have joined Faris - at Talent Imitates Genius Steals - and his brilliant question on how to make better briefs. I would probably have said that you could add a point of inspiration to each of your what, why, who, how, when or whatever boxes. Stimuli like films, a drawing, a cartoon, a song, cultural phenomenon, a mood board etc. Or you simply answer the brief together wit the team with the help of question like you see in IDEO’s Method Cards.
See the discussion here:
http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2006/07/the_perfect_bri.html

I could have blogged more basically.

Join the team

Russell Davies has another one of his excellent projects. This time he will assemble - Six Things Creatives Need To Know About Planners.
Here is my humble advice which is all about advising creative’s to invite the planner into a true team formation – not cause the planners wants step on their creative turf but in order to collaborate like one unit and it goes.
Planners want “that invitation” as the 3rd member of the team (or the 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th depending on other creative disciplines are in the mix).

In trade for this invitation they are willing to:

- Do their best to be interesting
- Give lots of stimuli
- Find insights in the brand, corporate history or audience
- Freeze out the unnecessary and clichéd
- Work out the strategic argumentation for your solution
- Help you kill your unworthy darlings
- Share their outlook on new media and service channels
- Fight for your work

Really a rather helpful member of the team
The link to Russell’s post is here:
http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/07/doing_my_job_fo.html

Badges for creatives

Here some badges for the creative types that wants to show-off on an everyday level. I think it’s a brilliant alternative for creative prizes that are standing at home on the shelf getting all dusty.

I should ad that it’s only my interpretation of the badges and they are made on a significant higher abstract and conceptual level and doesn’t refer to either creative prizes or the need to show-off.

Badges for planners

There is nothing like a little flagging of your profession. Here displaying the part of the planning profession where people expect you to be the “Number Crushing Mr. Know It All”.

The badges are made by my brother for a potential placement in an upcoming book by Gavin Lucas of Creative Review. The book should contain the latest, coolest, most beautiful button badges around the world and is to be published by Laurence King.

See more here:
http://www.stereohype.com/pages/abookofbadges.asp

And if you like the badges I could probably have my brother do some for you (or you could hire him when he finishes ad school next summer).

I should ad that it’s only my interpretation of the badges and they are made on a significant higher abstract and conceptual level and doesn’t refer to anything remotely close to planning.

Learning the easy way

Saw these at a book shop a couple of weeks ago. It’s a splendid little series of books featuring the essential phenomenons like modernism, physiology, Darwinism, Freud, Nietzsche etc. all in the form of cartoons.

So if you don’t have the time or ability to get through these topics the hard way this is a great alternative.

True

This is always worth remembering.

Lot’s of listening

The life of planner can sometimes - just as the cliché says - be one of the most varied jobs you can get. I had one of those days yesterday. I’m doing a lot of very different projects at the moment so my day started with a lot of very different listening and questioning. I started talking visionary architecture with some of the hipster architects of Copenhagen; afterwards I went to a school talking to 13 years olds on modern technology, “file sharing” and their willingness to exercise more (it’s an assignment for The National Board of Health), after this I went to a meeting with a bank talking changing lifecycles and the meaning for different loan types and finally I got to talk a bit about Chlamydia with a doctor.

Yeah Yeah Yeah

Of all the blogs I visit mine is probably the only one without an insertation of a YouTube clips into the blog – this has to change.

So why not have this splendid little piece of video with Flaming Lips where Wayne Coyne describes the creative process technical details behind the video for "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", the first single off the Flaming Lips new album, At War With The Mystics., At War With The Mystics.

Albers & Moholy-Nagy, great planners

I found these pictures from a trip to the Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy exhibition at Tate Modern. Albers and Nagy where two of the pioneers of modernism and apart from working within a broad variety of media ranging from painting and moving sculptures to photography, film, furniture and graphic design, they where great thinkers and the exhibition was filled with thought-provoking quotes and statements – mostly encompassing their belief in art as an important tool for social change.

Many of the quotes are spot on planning principles (not strange with their thinking centred on a “consumer comes first” attitude) and more surprisingly on the current changes in how brands are communicating with consumers. It’s always great with quotes that show that current hype is based upon universal thinking that goes way back.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/albersmoholy/about.shtm

Written on the wall

Always remember, never forget.

Are you generic?

Probably a question most brands and the people behind them ask themselves everyday in the world of marketing - a world that cries for more opinionated, radical and imaginative strategic thinking - a world where the building of strong market positions - not only relies upon great creative execution for differentiation.

The “are you generic project” is funded on the same principals in the cry for better content in magazines. Content that is not dictated by advertisers, and is trying to set their own agendas.

See more here:
http://www.areyougeneric.org/confessions/

Promise not accomplished

Just stopped by this car and I didn’t really feel like joining this prestigious club. Over promising names and communication has a rare ability of creating aversions or worse brand hijacking initiatives from consumers.

Also found this article on brand hijacking by the two guys Faris Yakob and Ben Richards from Naked:
http://citizenspin.typepad.com/citizenspin/2004/12/beating_the_bra.html

Flaming Lips, Jack White, Coca Cola & optimism

I spent the first hours of long awaited summer in Copenhagen with an outside dinner in Tivoli Gardens (the rather famous Danish amusement park in the centre of the city) my destination was the newly redecorated concert hall – a truly magnificent place dating back to late modernism. The guest on the stage and the premiere act since the reopening - where the Flaming Lips one of my favourite bands out there. The Flaming Lips has a new album out and though it doesn’t top their 1999 masterpiece “The Soft Bulletin” it’s terrific stuff – with great songs like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and “Mr. Ambulance Driver”.

I was really expectant since I saw Wayne Coine & Co. back in 2003 and it was one my all time best concerts. And I was not let down this time either. The Flaming Lips have their own unique multidimensional show surrounding their psychedelic and dreamy pop tunes including dancing characters on stage, arty films and graphics on the back screen, confetti, hundreds of orange mega balloons all over the place and most importantly the charismatic Wayne Coine in the front singing, playing and conducting the epic sounds.

It’s a mesmerizing experience and as Wayne Coins preaches it’s all about creating an atmosphere of optimism between band and audience and throughout the whole concert hall. Really, kind of uplifting taken into context that most of the songs are about death and melancholic musings on life.

Most brands and agency folks could learn something from this rather complex multidimensional experience and not least the optimistic take on life.

And speaking of optimism which seems to be the key word for the new Coca Cola strategy I’m one of the ones really liking the new Coke/Mother spot with Jack White singing. The fact that the idea is basically a reprise of the director Director Nagi Noda own former work for the band Yuki on the song Sentimental Journey (which I have posted about earlier on this blog) doesn’t bother me. Call it an original idea, great pop cultural lateral thinking or simply a great stunt - it’s great to look at, it’s beautiful directed and it has a song by Jack White.

Here are the two films:

Coca Cola – “What Goes Around” directed by Nagi Noda for Mother
http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/2790/


Yuki – Sentimental Journey, directed by Nagi Noda
http://www.partizan.com/partizan/musicvideos/?nagi_noda

The Bloglines plumber

This morning I was trying to access my bloglines account and was met with the picture above and this accompanying text.

Hi,

I'm the Bloglines Plumber. Bloglines is down for a little fixer upper. We will be back shortly. Bloglines will be all better when I'm done with it.

Thanks,The Bloglines Plumber

Even though I know it’s just a small little silly rephrasing of how other companies refer to problems with your log-in I, think it’s a very powerful communication tool to show a friendly and human face like this.

The other day I also heard that Flickr was referring to technical problems with the term “Flickr has the hick-ups”.
I like the tonality and grass roots feel about many of the “Web 2.0” companies. Even though their owners probably are multi billionaires by now, you still kind of like them because they are all about consumer empowerment and they are just here to help you – often free of charge.

There is a great article from Newsweek on the successful web 2.0 companies.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12015774/site/newsweek/

Good communication

I, don’t know about you? But given such a clear picture of the consequences of my actions, would definitely make me dump my thrash somewhere else. It’s a great example of the power of contextual communication.

I found this on Jan Chipchase’s blog – a great blog, where he kindly shares his many observations and insights, from his work as a researcher for Nokia.

Here is the URL for his blog “Future Perfect”:
http://www.janchipchase.com/

Nuclear family down the drain

The sticker says translated “The Nuclear Family in Denmark”. The placement on the dumpster seems rather symbolic with divorce rates at a historical high level (approximately every second marriage ends in divorce in Denmark) and the rise of the mixed families brought together from several marriages and backgrounds.

Off course it turns out the sticker is just a promotion initiative for a Danish creative collective and has no symbolic meaning what so ever.


More about the anthropological history of “Families” and “The Nuclear Family” in detail here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family

I’m a Grup, and I’m proud

I recently turned 31 of age, and as an extra little birthday present my brother (who is on the safe side of 30 with his 27 years) sent me this article from the New York version of Metro about the “Grups Sociographic” (the name off-course coming from Star Trek).

Although being a bit NYC-centric the article perfectly explains the driving motivations for not wanting grow old and remain – sometimes pathetically – young at mind. The article was off-course spot-on a “thirtysomething” like myself working in the communication business and it’s shows some interesting rethinking on what it means to be a grown-up.

The article even includes a new series of “Exactitudes” from the Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek, which again shows the dress codes of a specific social group. It’s photographs of some of the people described in the interview and it’s the first "Exactitudes" project in New York.

Link to the article here:
http://newyorkmetro.com/news/features/16529/index.html

And to the Exactitudes project here:
http://www.exactitudes.com/

Join the überpositioning game

In marketing world we often define the competitive situation within the boundaries of other commercial companies in the same sector. Some visionary companies see themselves being part of a broader context and hereby define themselves as being in the business of “documenting life” (film, camera, phones, MP3 functionalities and all sorts of file-sharing companies comes to mind”). Some even realize that brands can be a part of actual popular culture.

Below are a couple of the positions already taken if your company wants to join the überpositioning game (I don’t remember where this list comes from):

Anne Frank The Diarist
Philip K. Dick The Futurist
Gary Null The Nutritionist
John Brown The Abolishionist
Harold Bloom The Theorist
Malcolm Forbes The Capitalist
Colson Whitehead The Intuitionist
Helen K. Foo The Dentist
Jean Paul Sartre The Existentialist
Mahatma Gandhi The Pacifist
Thom Jones The Pugilist
Philip Johnson The Postmodernist
E.T. The Alienist
Thomas Pynchon The Mist
Robert Motherwell The Abstract Expressionist
Martin Dressler The Tobacconist
E.O. Wilson The Sociobiologist
Leni Riefenstahl The Propagandist
Dave Brooks The Loyalist
Edward Hopper The Realist
Chris Martin The Scientist
Robert Penn Warren The Formalist
Sade The Sadist
Donald Antrim The Verificationist
Norah Jones The Sitarist
Piet Mondrian The Colorist
Carole Maso The Masochist
Kurt Vonnegut The Satirist
Henri Matisse The Fauvist
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow The Arsonist
Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Magic Realist
Romare Bearden The Collagist
Martha Stewart The Imperfectionist
Oliver Sacks The Neurologist
Narcissus The Narcissist
Thomas Merton The Trappist
Peter Eisenman The Deconstructivist
Oscar Schindler The List
Evan S. Connell The Rapist
Juan Gris The Cubist
Paulo Coelho The Alchemist
H.D. The Imagist
Jonathan Franzen The Correctionist
Arthur Miller The Dramatist'

From street to gallery

Barry McGee is one of those cool graffiti guys who made it from underground legend - with the notorious tag name Twist - to hot property in the art world. I saw his recent pieces in Copenhagen gallery Nicolai Wallner. I especially like the way he puts a three dimensional feel to his things combined with the theme of old frames with fresh graphics/pictures in them.

More about him here:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mcgee/index.html

Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow

I went to this seminar the other day conducted by the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. I got to hear the excellent speaker “Mr. New Marketing Manifesto” John Grant. It wasn’t that much what he preached - having read his books and articles (and similar thoughts from other self proclaimed marketing gurus) – but moreover his ability to tell them in an engaging way. He was talking about the demise of the old marketing world with it’s fixture on positioning, image, trends & messaging and change into embracing uncertainty, brand realities, “being the trend” & “touching peoples lives”. Some of his newer thoughts should be released in an upcoming book. Anyway here are his 10 rules for building brands “in a Marketing 2.0 way”:

http://www.dontstop01.com/doc/John%20Grant%20-%20presentation.pdf