Seeing (red)

Death Match collaboration done with designer Krichmar and writer Liza Behles:

Challenge: Design a 10-card series for Hallmark's (red) series that benefits AIDS work in Africa.

Solution: We created a series of cards around the philosophy/tagline "Sometimes a little something can mean a lot." Each card is a celebration of some seemingly small aspect of life that holds a special, if often overlooked, significance in its own right. The cards are also physically small--3-1/4" by 3-1/4"--to mirror the smallness and ease of the sender's gesture. Their copy reflects the humor of the target market—smart, fun, a bit silly and certainly not sappy. By incorporating the word "red" into each line the brand is also linked to this idea that a little something can mean a lot; a portion of the revenue goes to fight AIDS in Africa.

Trick Dat Fish

Yo, I just laid down this hot new track on GarageBand solo under my MC moniker MC U Nex 2zday. It's a new single for Storm brand fishing lures called "Trick Dat Fish" from my upcoming release Weatherin' Da Storm. We want to reach the previously untapped urban fishing market. Hope y'all enjoy.

"Trick Dat Fish"

Great ad placement

This is what hitting your target market where they are is all about:


Man, Google AdSense is getting really good at this advertising thing.

Grammar A Go-Go

Now you all know it.

I’m a huge dork for grammar. And as proof, I present you with three of my favorite grammar-based blogs that I’ve recently discovered:

Apostrophe Abuse
The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
lowercase L

Wonderful treats such as the following examples await you.




I am humbled by their sheer lapse of any sense of grammatical obligation demonstrated here.

In semi-related news, watching ABC News this evening I learned that in my old hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, one out of every five residents are completely or nearly completely illiterate. That’s insane! It's the second most populous city in the state. How could that even happen? I guess I’m just glad that I’m one of the other four.

Go grammar.

Axe Marks the Spot

While I generally find most ads for Axe (Lynx, Tag, etc., take your pick) juvenile, tasteless, redundant and flat-out bad, I was pleasantly surprised by this spot for Axe Quake out of Buenos Aires. Even if the benefit is a severe over-promise, the spot is pulled off an a very unexpected and artistic manner. ¡Felicitaciones, VegaOlmosPonce!

Axe: Quake

Full-Tiltin' that Tatse

Ah yes, this point in the quarter.

Production has jumped into high gear just a little earlier than usual. (Thanks One Show and D&AD's.) Questions of adequacy arise hourly. Exhaustion, tempers, uncontrollable urges to drink beer, this is the stuff creativity is made of.

At this moment, I'm sitting in my apartment which reeks of skunky weed and burnt coffee (neither of which are my doing), sipping on a entirely too tall mug of lemongrass green tea and listening to old school Deftones. The observant reader will notice that nowhere did I say "and writing lines for the Sweet Auburn Curb Market presentation tomorrow." That's because I'm not. I need to.

The thing is, we're not quite at that point of panic yet--2 1/2 weeks left--but there's still a unsettling cloud of anxiety hanging above all our heads. This gray area sometimes it makes it difficult to focus forward.

I realized yesterday that I hadn't done anything creative in a while. That's not true; I do creative things every day. That's what the Circus is all about. What I mean is that I haven't done anything creative for no other reason than creativity's sake in a long time. So, last night, rather than spend another hour writing lines, I went to Michael's, bought some blank colored t-shirts and stenciled/spray painted some more of my own style of tees. Very therapeutic. A much needed release.

It's funny. I remember coming into school in my first and second quarters and seeing all these crazy upper-quarter kids running around. They were doing bizarre things, making odd noises sometimes, not wearing shoes and just generally being weird. I thought to myself, "Wow, these people are pretty weird."

And now, a year later, I completely understand their mania. You spend that much time at school and concentrating on this stuff all the time that you're bound to start going a little crazy. Then, you start doing things to keep life interesting. (Isn't it odd to think that we need to do even weirder things to keep our already very creative lives from getting stale?)

I stepped back the other day and thought about all this. Now it's me, running around, fake humping people, going shoeless, making silly noises, sketching strange words on my hands, growing unconventional facial hair. Yet, in some not entirely understandable way it's all kind of exciting.

Really, I'm not sure what this all means. Or what the end of this quarter will hold. Or even tomorrow. But I'm excited.

P.S. You should probably check this blog out: The FAIL Blog. New favorite internet destination.

Homeless Vets Posters

As part of the first ever One Show student design brief, I worked on two posters for the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans. (Additional credits go to writer Trey Tyler, art director Billy Simkiss and photographer Bobby Prokenpeck.) Click to enlarge.

"Today, 26% of all homeless in America served in the armed forces before being deserted in our streets."



"'The flag should never be embroidered on anything designed for temporary use and discard.' - United States Code, Title 4, Chapter 10, Section 8.

After they risk their lives protecting our nation abroad, many soldiers are left for dead in our streets. Today, veterans make up 26% of all homeless in America, and each day more and more join the ranks. We owe them better. Learn how you can give back to those who have already given so much by visiting the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans at www.nchv.org."

Weiner Poopie and Missing Jesus

For lack of actual content, I'm continuing to substitute funny videos.

Things at school are nuts with the One Show and D&AD deadlines coming up very soon. But at least it'll mean lots of ads soon. Promise.

In the meantime, here's some some really hard-hitting journalism from Michigan. Really remarkable.

Weiner Poopie and Missing Jesus

Two Elephants, One Trunk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2y_LEbdEVE

Please take a moment to bask in the sheer awesomeness of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0CB6URrV0

Why stop now? They didn't.

Via 2Spare.com:

(This ad is 100% real, from 1979. Scary, no?)

(Wha?)

(Wawaweewaa.)

(I love this. I wish I made it.)

Something to freak out about

A big hats off to Crispin Porter + Bogusky who, according to AdAge, logged the best ad recall rate since IAG began tracking the metric six years ago with their Whopper Freakout spots.

Undoubtedly, you've seen them on TV, but it's very worth visiting WhopperFreakout.com to see the full footage if you haven't yet. To me it doesn't work all that well in a 30-second format, but in the 8-minute extended version you can witness the true brilliance of the concept.

On the other hand, perhaps the concept seems so smart simply because the execution ended up so perfectly. In that sense, they were very lucky to get the reactions that they did. It's really not the most original idea--in fact, they've used a very similar device for their most recent Coke Zero campaign--but it is pulled off flawlessly. Some of things that patrons say in the video are 100% gold.

For all the disdain that has been slinged CP+B's way over the past few years, they still do absolutely stellar work. In fact, I think they've gotten over a low and are making their way back up.

That's all I've got.

Be happy you live in the 21st Century . . . or don't, depending on your point of view.

Continuing with my previous theme of wholly un-PC ads from the adverts of yesteryear, here's a new batch via Oddee:








Wow.

El toro sangrado

Something I just saw and dug:


If you've ever been to the Spanish countryside you've seen these guys everywhere. They're really quite striking against the landscape.

Back in 1956 the Spanish sherry company Osborne commissioned an advertising agency to develop outdoor promotions for their Veterano brand of brandy. Artist Manuel Prieto sketched the silhouette bull design on a scrap of paper, and soon the 14-meter cut-outs were being erected all along highways across the country--first as wood and then later metal. Eventually over 500 stood as giant sentinels from Cádiz to Barcelona.

After a crackdown on roadside advertising because of a law passed in 1988, Osborne shrewdly decided to simply remove all text from their billboards, leaving the pure black bulls standing amidst vast fields of wheat and sunflowers all over the countryside. They had already been widely popular from their creation, and since their repainting they've become even more--the most recognizable symbol of the Spanish nation. The design is an iconic point of pride for Spaniards and also appears on just about every tourist souvenir you can imagine.

So that's the story behind it all. I thought the graffiti was a pretty interesting commentary too (anti-bullfighting? anti-adveritising? anarchist? art?). And hey, you just learned something.

Dom Draper would be proud

Check this old ad for American Airlines from 1965.


The headlines: "People keep stealing our stewardesses."

And the body copy reads: "Within two years, most of our stewardesses will leave us for other men. This isn't surprising. A girl who can smile for 5 1/2 hours is hard to find. Not to mention a wife who can remember what 124 people want for dinner. (And tell you all about meteorology and jets, if that's what you're looking for in a woman.) But these are not the things that brought on our problem. It's the kind of girl we hire. Being beautiful isn't just enough. (We don't mean it isn't important. We just mean it isn't enough.) So if there's one thing we look for, it's girls who like people. And you can't do that and then tell them not to like people too much. All you can do is put a new wing on your stewardess college to keep up with the demand."

Ohhhh, those silly '60s . . .