Choosing the Right Words

As a copywriter I spend a large part of my day thinking about words.

As a human I spend a large part of my day using words.

The difference between the two situations is that in the first I analyse each individual word that I use over and over again whereas in the second I usually use the first word or collection of words that come into my head.

But in advertising we would like to think that our copy sounds more like the second scenario than the first.

We want to write stuff that sounds natural and real, speak to people as we speak to each other.

But it doesn’t always work out that way.

I mean when was the last time you heard an ad on the radio that made you want to punch walls it sounded so ludicrous? Or saw a TV ad with such moronic dialogue that you ended up wanting to throw the remote at the telly, only stopping yourself because it's a fancy new 48inch widescreen HDTV?

I'll take a wild guess and say that it was the last time you listened to the radio or watched TV. Am I right?

As advertising copywriters we spend hours poring over each and every word in a radio commercial or outdoor poster. We let so many people have their say in what word should be used here or how this sentence should be phrased that we often end up removing any hint of naturalness that was there in the first place.

Natural sounding copy should be just that - natural. Dissecting each individual word under a microscope is not conducive to natural sounding writing.

That’s not to say that analysis, editing and revision of what you’re writing is a waste of time. I'm not that brainless.

At the end of the day we’re not writing for the sake of writing, we have a job to do. We have to sell stuff.

So it’s no good writing the most natural sounding copy if people aren’t going to pay a blind bit of attention to it or be motivated to take action.

But it’s also no good editing and overthinking copy to within an inch of its life in the pursuit of natural sounding copy.

People very quickly see through contrived ‘natural’ writing.

And they’re very quick to shut it out and ignore it as well.

The secret to good advertising (he says as if he has decades of experience and it were the easiest thing in the world) is having something good and worthwhile to say. If you have that as your starting point then natural copy should, well, naturally follow.

But just because the writing should be natural doesn’t mean the situations always need to be completely natural.

The latest John Lewis Christmas ad (which I think is great) has been criticised by a lot of people who say that you’d never see a real kid acting like that.

And they’re not wrong.

But when has anything creative been bound to rely on real characters?

Engaging, well developed characters, yes, but real?

Have the characters in every good movie, play or music video you’ve seen acted exactly the way people in the real world do?

No, of course they haven’t.

But if the characters are written well they can still draw you in and feel real and believable in the context in which they appear.

Whether it's in advertising or another creative discipline choosing the right words to put in the mouths of your characters can make you. But trying too hard to choose the right words will definitely break you.

An Interesting Concept

I’ve never been a particular Metallica fan. That’s not to say I dislike them. They have a bunch of great tunes - you'd have to be musically numb not to want to rock out to 'Enter Sandman' or 'Master of Puppets', and 'Nothing Else Matters' is one of the best tunes from the past 20 years, particularly when it's performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, but that's about as far as it goes for me when it comes to their music.

The same can be said for Lou Reed - who doesn't automatically think of 'Perfect Day' when they hear a mention of something that happened back in 1997? But again, I'm no hardcore Lou Reed lover.

And for me these two acts have always been in completely separate musical spheres, travelling on different orbits, never even threatening to collide.

I’m sure I’m not unique in thinking that.

That’s why my ears pricked up when I heard that Lou Reed had invited Metallica to collaborate on a concept album inspired by 2 plays by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

On first appearances it’s not exactly a musical combination crafted by the hands of the great Apollo himself.

I’ve been dipping in and out of the album for most of today and my initial reaction is, well, I don’t quite know what my initial reaction is.

Concept albums themselves can be dodgy territory. Sometimes they’re sensational, groundbreaking, era defining albums. Sometimes they’re annoying, musical wankery, full of their own self worth. Other times they’re just pure musical sludge.

Where Lulu falls I’m really not sure. Apologies for planting my arse so firmly on the fence on this one but all I can say for now is that, for me, it sits somewhere in the triangle of those three extremes. It’s exact position in that triangle? I’m currently undecided.

Lou Reed supposedly claims it’s the greatest thing he’s ever done. Album sales would beg to differ (it sold only 15,000 copies in its first week on sale).

Reviews can't seem to find a consensus. Some say it's 'excellent', while others claim it's the 'worst piece of junk to be produced in album form in the last 20 years.'

Luckily for us recovering students and people with security codes on our wallets we don't need to fork out hard-earned cash to figure out who we agree with because Lou, James, Lars, Kirk and Robert have kindly put it all online here, for free. Why, I don't know.

If you're not bothered listening to the whole thing here's one of the tracks, 'The View', for your aural pleasure:



Now, to go find someone I can pitch that Leonard Cohen/Slipknot duet album to.

There's a War on. See Twitter for Updates

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I've written before about why I think it's so great and some of the incredible things people have done using Twitter as their foundation.

Well lately I’ve come across a great new account that's my latest obsession: @RealTimeWWII

It’s a fantastic idea. Someone (my guess is that it's a group of people) started tweeting on September 1st, the day in 1939 when the Germans invaded Gdansk in Poland and World War 2 began, real time updates as if we were back in 1939 and the war were taking place.

Something similar was done through Facebook a while back (you can see a jpeg of it here) and while it was impressive and well done, it wasn’t nearly as detailed or as engaging as this Twitter account.

This guy (or these guys) tweet several updates a day including quotes, pictures and videos. The amount of information and the level of detail is astonishing. We get tweets about the famous speeches and actions of Hitler at the major Nazi rallies as well as quotes and pictures from individuals you've never heard of who were living in the ghettos or concentration camps. It literally covers the whole spectrum, from the major turning points in the war to the daily lives of those suffering through it.

Here's just a small sample of some of the tweets:










Aside from being a really interesting account of the events of World War II it also gets you thinking; we’re so used to instant updates on major world events through Twitter, what would it have been like had Twitter been around for other historical events? Would it have shaped their progress and outcome, as Twitter has done with major events like the current ‘Occupy Protests’ or the political movements in the Middle East over the past few months?

Wouldn’t it be great to see similar accounts for other historical events – the Irish Civil War, Columbus’ voyage to America, the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course the thing about WWII is that it was in the very recent past so there are lots of video, photographic and documentary footage and resources available, that’s why this one works so well.

To say that something is ‘brought to life’ is a bit of a cliché but it definitely presents the events of the war in a way that hasn't been done before and a way that is really engaging and captivating.

There's also huge potential here to use Twitter as an educational tool. I reckon social media is going to be used more and more in education in the future and this is a great example of how it can be done.

So go and check out RealWorldWWII and if you know of any other Twitter accounts doing somehing similar involving different events from history please let me know.

Facebook - You're off the Christmas Card List

Here, Facebook, Zuckerberg, listen up.

I’m angry. And it’s your fault.

I know how this game works. I sign up. You collect as much data on me as you can possibly get your money-filled hands on and then use that to sell access to me and my mates to advertisers.

Then you give me the option to choose exactly what updates I see from each of my friends so it seems like it's actually for my benefit that you're making all these changes.

I get that. Welcome to 21st Century internet, please leave your privacy at the door. I’m not totally cool with it but I don’t lose sleep over it.

And I’m still a Facebook user so I obviously don’t have too much of a problem with it.

But where I do have a problem, Mr. Zee, is when you make me miss out on cool shit. Cool shit like this:



I don't understand exactly how you’re doing it but you’re only showing me the things YOU think I’LL be interested in.

How do you know what I’m interested in? All your delicious data tells you everything you need to know about what I like, doesn't it?

Sure it does.

My brother posted that video by funny Ozzie Tim Minchin to Facebook a few days ago. It didn’t appear in my timeline because I’m automatically subscribed to most of his updates instead of all of them. Facebook decided that this was one I wouldn’t like so it kept it hidden from me (or maybe they decided I’d be offended by the repeated use of the most vulgar of words – boobies). When my brother asked had I seen it I went to find it on his page – no sign of it. So I signed out, my brother signed in and lo and behold the video was there.

Back the truck up a bit. Now you’re not even showing me everything on someone’s own profile page? What the hell is going on here? What's the point in posting anything if you get to decide who sees it and who doesn't? Are you only showing me what you think I’ll like or are you only showing me what you want me to like?

The thing is Mark (do you mind if I call you Mark? Mr. Zuckerberg is so formal), you can gather all the data you want on someone but it’s very bloody difficult to predict what they’re gonna like and not like. Start doing that and you might start pissing people off. Sometimes we only know what we do or don't like after we've seen it.

If I'm friends with someone I generally have something in common with them and want to see what they share. If I don't like it I'll unfriend them or else I'll comment and tell them that their tastes are far inferior to mine could they please stop wasting my time with mindless links and updates.

I don't need you to do it for me.

I know, I know. I can go and change the settings for each of my friends so that I see ALL of their updates instead of just MOST, but why make it so complicated? How about you just let me choose who to be friends with and who not to?

The thing is, you're hiding genuinely funny and interesting content from me (there were about four other posts on my brother's wall that were hidden to me) but I'm still seeing all those stupid posts about how someone had cold beans for dinner or how someone’s cat just winked at their frog and the frog smiled back.

You're doing a job I don't want you to do and you're not even doing it well.

Jeez, I’m a hard man to please, eh?

All Aboard the Bandwagon

Yes I’m jumping on the bandwagon.

The bandwagon whose name I won’t mention because that’s what they want me to do. But you all know the one I’m talking about. The one with women playing sports and eating crisps.

I’m jumping aboard because it pisses me off.

Not because it’s offensive to women or anything like that.

But because it’s just stupid, and cheap, and easy, and it gives advertising a bad name.

And God knows it already has a bad enough name as it is.

Advertising is exploitative, manipulative, lowest common denominator stuff.

Or that’s what people tell me anyway.

But it doesn’t have to be.

When it’s done properly, when it’s genuinely creative and engaging, advertising can come up with some of the most powerful and impressive stuff you’ll see.

Sure, the objective is to sell stuff. But at the end of the day we’re all trying to sell something.

It’s a bit like in school when it’s always ‘a few of the bad kids that ruin it for everyone else.’ Easy, cheap and crap advertising like this just perpetuates the bad image that advertising has.

Sure the advertising world is populated by twits and tossers just out to make as much dough as possible, but you get people like that in all walks of life.

It’s also full of genuinely creative and ambitious people who want to make something new, worthy and interesting. Guys who want to do amazing stuff like the spectacular ‘1984’ ad to launch the Apple Macintosh, Bing’s brilliant Decode Jay-Z campaign from last year or the Voyeur Project from HBO in 2007, stuff that’s about much more than just encouraging people to put their hands in their pockets and splash out on your latest moneyspinner.

I’d like to think that most people get into advertising to be a part of really cool things like these. Using a hot model with digitally enlarged knockers to sell crisps just makes it harder for everyone else to get some credit and respect for the great work they do.

Selfish gits.

But what do I know eh? I’m just a noob. This whole business could chew me up and spit me out before I’ve had a chance to use sex to sell anything. All I'll have then are my naive ambitions and a packet of crisps (come on, I had to buy the crisps, did you see that girl's chest?).

Touch, Pause...Engage: It's Rugby World Cup Time

September is just beginning and for the rugby fanatics among us that means that the long awaited Rugby World Cup is almost here. At last.

A month ago I was bursting with excitement in anticipation of this competition but after spending August watching Ireland splutter and fumble their way through four frustrating warm up losses my excitement has been slightly dampened.

But I’m not here to vent and rage about dropped passes and knock-ons. And anyway, no-one cares what a guy who gave up playing rugby when he was 13 because training clashed with Eastenders (No, I’m not proud) has to say.

But I am here to talk about ads and with a global audience of over 4 billion people advertisers are wetting themselves with excitement, not at the thought of watching six weeks of scintillating rugby, but at the opportunity to capitalise on people’s passion for the sport and its premier showpiece.

So over the past few weeks we’ve seen more and more rugger related ads grace our screens. And if you couldn’t give two hoots about 30 men putting their heads between each other’s legs and chasing an egg shaped ball around a field for 80 minutes then unfortunately September is only going to get worse for you.

So what kind of ads are people putting out there?

Well, the New Zealand company Telecom, who sponsor the All Blacks, put their heads together and came up with a foolproof plan to encourage people to get behind the competition and their team – they asked people to abstain from sex to show their support.

No really, I’m serious.



It won’t come as much of a surprise to discover that the campaign was cancelled before it even launched. What, you mean New Zealanders found the idea of abstaining from sex to support their national rugby team to be stupid and embarrassing? What’s wrong with these people?

Across the water O2 and our auld enemy England have come up with a nice little idea to encourage people to get over the early kick-off times and get behind their team – free breakfasts.



Now I actually quite like this ad and the free breakfasts idea. Sure it’s nothing special and it won’t have awards juries picking their jaws up out of their Cornflakes or grinning from ear to ear, but it’s a nice idea and it’s well done, even seeing the big happy heads on Martin Johnson and Chris Ashton doesn’t make my blood boil too much.

My only qualm would be the line ‘Get up for England.’ Maybe I’m being childish and juvenile but it just feels like there’s more than one way to interpret it, and one of those interpretations is the complete opposite to what the folks down in New Zealand were being asked to do.

Or do I just need to grow up?

Over here O2 have enlisted the help of a few of the players for their RWC campaign too and have offered fans the chance to play them next.

I’m not really sure when or where you get to play them but if you do then it’s quite a nice idea to get people involved. People always like seeing their sporting heroes in contexts other than on the pitch and of course plenty of people would sell their granny’s false teeth for a chance of a kickabout with Messrs O’Driscoll, O’Connell and Sexton.

Possibly the best ones I’ve come across are from Sky TV in New Zealand. Unlike Telecom they’ve managed to have a bit of a larf without making complete tools of themselves in the process.



No need to reinvent the wheel when you’re trying to be funny. Just take a bit of a sideways look at things and you’ll usually be onto something. There’s another one of these here.

We could go on and on here folks. Everyone wants to join the party. Mastercard have done a series of short videos celebrating rugby traditions in Samoa, New Zealand and South Africa. Quite nice they are too if you’re a rugby fan. Probably just more noise if you’re not.

Toshiba have covered your walls in crayon and colouring pencil but don’t worry, they’ve much better drawing skills than your little 4 year old terror. Powerade and Heineken have gone down the passion route. Fine, if that’s what you’re into.

And of course it wouldn’t be a global tournament without Coca Cola getting in on the act.

I’m sure there are tonnes of other RWC ads out there so feel free to share any others you find.

In the meantime I’ve got to go catch up on recordings of Eastend…eh…Britain’s Toughest Gangs. Yeah, I only watch the manly stuff me. Innit!

Moving House

Why on earth would anyone choose to move house?

Seriously, it’s so much hassle it makes planning a campaign for the upcoming presidential election and keeping past indiscretions away from public eyes and ears seem like a walk in the park.

In my case I’m moving because my better half has gotten a new job across the other side of the city and doesn’t fancy a 2 hour, 2 bus commute to and from work each day. Seeing as I work in the city centre I theoretically have an easy commute from anywhere.

So we’re packing our whole lives into boxes and moving into a smaller, more expensive apartment in a ‘cooler’ part of town, whatever the hell that is.

Packing can be quite a demoralising exercise when you realise that you’re filling box after box with clothes that no longer fit you and photos and memorabilia from your J1 trip back in ’06. I find myself wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the past 5 years, aside from eating too many Oreo Double Creams and staring at my brand new runners sitting, lonely and unused, by the door.

For sure there’s something exciting about moving house. Getting the keys to your place and beginning the process of making it home.

“Where’ll we hang this picture, the only one we have in seven years of dating where we’re both looking at the camera, eyes open, nice smiles, not looking like something that’s just been dragged through a bush backwards?”

“Yes I want to keep that oversized cardboard guitar I snuck out of the Irish bar in San Fran. We’ll find room for it somewhere. Sure isn’t it signed by yer man who was nearly the guitarist for The Strokes, we can’t throw it out.”

“Oh and make sure you leave room in the press for the smoothie maker I got for Christmas two years ago and have only used once, I’m definitely gonna start using it again once we’ve settled in.”

It’s also a big massive pain in the arse! I was happy where we were, I knew the whole setup. Rent was due the day after wages landed in my account – sweet. I knew the neighbours. OK they didn’t really speak any English and there were what seemed like 18 of them in a two-bed apartment, but at least I knew they weren’t crazies and they did give us a jug of milk that time we ran out so they must be sound.

And the recycling. Oh God, I’ll have to get used to a whole new recycling system. At least in the old place I knew that drinks cans could go with plastic bottles but food cans had to go in a separate bin. And paper always went in its own bin. What if it’s different in the new gaff? What if I end up inadvertently mixing dry recyclables and, well, not dry ones? Jeez, I could be making enemies of the bin men before I’ve even had a chance to mumble an awkward hello as I pass them in the morning – and they’re pretty menacing looking guys.

Then there’s parking. This new place only has on-street parking and, ashamed as I am to admit it, I never learned to parallel park. I’ll probably end up using a car park in town and getting a bus out to the apartment. Sod the expense, it’s easier than having a queue of angry drivers beeping at me as I try for the fifth time to reverse my little Corsa into a space the size of a village in Kerry.

OK my panic levels are beginning to get a little too high. Time to take a deep breath, lie down and maybe watch some telly to relax.

GODDAMMIT! This couch doesn’t have my groove in it and I haven’t a clue how to work this bloody remote.

Call the old landlord, tell him we’ve had a change of heart.

Social Media After You Die

I came across this interesting TED talk about what happens your social media profiles after you die recently.

It's something not a lot of people ever really think about but if you died tomorrow how long would your Facebook or Twitter profiles last and what kind of lasting memory would it leave of you?

I remember a few years ago when Bebo was still king I knew of a few people who died tragically young and I remember seeing all the messages left on their page in awful txt speak and it just didn't seem right. The setting and style of the messages just didn't seem appropriate.

On the other side of the coin a friend of mine passed away a little over a year ago. He was in his early thirties and was an extremely popular guy. In the few days after he died his Facebook profile turned into a collection of stories and memories people had about him. They were all really nice, funny and fond memories of the guy and I'm sure it would have been nice for his family to read, given that they probably hadn't heard a lot of them before.

Adam Ostrow looks at it from a slightly different but still rather interesting perspective in this Ted Talk.



It's something that we'll start to think about and discuss more and more as a generation of people who grew up on social networks begin the long walk towards the light.

Give Brando a Sweet

Brando, the agency I'm currently interning at, are running this really clever and fun project via Twitter. It's called Tweet Sweets and it makes going into work even more fun than it was before.

Some of you will probably have seen an awful lot of #imjusttestingthisatbrando and then, more recently, #tweetsweets appearing in my Twitter feed. Apologies for clogging up your feeds with annoying hashtags for a while, things should go back to normal now.

'But what the hell is going on?' you're wondering?

Well, the clever kids a Brando have hooked a gumball machine up to Twitter so that whenever someone sends a tweet to @Brando_Digital containing the hastag #tweetsweets.

There's a live webcam set up so when you tweet us a sweet you can watch us collect and eat the sweet. We also get up to all kinds of silliness and crazy antics just to entertain our tweeters (and to avoid having to do any real work).



I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing in the photo above but on Friday I made a fool of myself on camera by doing the Hucklebuck, the David Brent dance, playing Rocky and Harry Potter, among other things.

It's great fun and a great way of having conversations with people.

We've had an unbelievable amount of sweets tweeted in so far, the collective weight of everyone in the office has probably risen by several stone in the two days it's been live, I shudder to think how many sweets we'll all have eaten by the end of next week.

The magic gumball machine is resting for the weekend so it's ready to pump out sweets again come Monday morning.

Be sure to pop over to the Tweet Sweets Website on Monday, send us a sweet and make us do something silly.

Are you a Plank or an Owl?

Me, I'm neither. And never will be. I should hope you're the same.

Everyone's seen this new 'craze' sweeping the globe and clogging up my twitter stream - Planking and Owling.

I'm not going to soil this blog by posting pictures of either activity here - I'd rather post pictures of a certain female former minister for health dressed in her birthday suit - but if you don't know what they are a quick google image search will show you everything you need to know about this moronic activity.

Seriously, is this what we've become? I just don't get it. How or when did this become accepted as something that we not only tolerate but that we actually encourage people to do, and then look at their stupid photos afterwards?

We are (supposedly) an incredibly advanced race, capable of amazing and wondrous things. We've been to outer space and to the bottom of oceans. We've created the internet, a mindblowingly powerful communication tool.

And what do we use it for? To post photos of people lying on random objects and squatting as if they're about to poop on top of a chair/table/person/wherever the hell you think it's funny.

I despair, I really do.

Thankfully karma can be a bitch, and has a great way of righting some of the wrongs that these planks and owls have inflicted upon us.

I have no sympathy for this girl. But I do owe her a huge thanks, she made me laugh almost as much as the weird clown girl dancing to Beyonce.



Please be sure to share and more videos of spectacular planking fails.

Apologies for the amount of anger and vitriol in this post but it's Monday, I'll cheer up soon, I promise.

Right, I'm off to curl up in a ball and lie on a lit barbecue, I think it could catch on.

Ireland in Bitesize

I really enjoyed this video with some interesting and 100% accurate observations about Ireland from the brilliant Colm O'Regan.



Colm is playing at Whelan's tonight tonight (and I'll be there, not performing, possibly heckling) and you can find more info about his upcoming shows and read some of his previous articles he's written for The Cork News I suggest that you pencil in a free afternoon for these because once you've read one or two you'll want to read the whole back catalogue) at his website.

Now, time to go enjoy a bit of this rare sunny afternoon.

Er, Keep Your Bits In Luv

So circumstances* conspired against me recently, which resulted in this blog being cast aside like an old mattress when you've just bought a fancy new memory-foam one. Well fear not old mattress fans, I have returned, sans memory foam.

So I know this is a few days old now but I just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the ring on the ad that's making a few waves in the Irish advertising scene at the moment - the new Club Orange ad.



To be honest I don't find it offensive, obnoxious or rude, although I can see why other people may react that way to it. I just find it a bit stupid. I know, I know, the whole point of it is to be controversial, get people talking about it, generate word-of-mouth, get as many mentions on blogs and social media as possible, yadda yadda yadda. I get that that's how ads like these work I just think it's the easy option.

We all know that sex sells. We all know that controversy generates word-of-mouth and that there's no such thing as bad publicity. But it's easy to put those ingredients together and come up with something like the ad above. What's much more difficult is coming up with a clever and engaging way of selling your product, a way that will grab people's attention because of it's creativity or it's uniqueness. Just throwing a few hot women in bikinis in your ad is talking down to people and treating them like morons, it's not trying to speak to people on their level in a way that's never been done before. I'm sure this ad will be pretty successful but for me successful advertising doesn't necessarily mean good advertising (Let's leave aside the discussion on what is 'successful' and what defines 'good advertising', that's for another day).

So fair play to Club Orange, I'm sure this ad is doing exactly what they had hoped it would but in my opinion they've taken the lazy man's approach to advertising.

I really enjoyed this blog from Una Mullally over on The Anti Room about it and there's a good debate going on in the comments there too, well worth a gander.

Anyway, I've given the suits at Club Orange exactly what they wanted, a few extra views of the ad and a bit more discussion around it. I'm just another cog in the machine.

*In reality I was completely snowed under with college work in the final build up to the industry presentation, which went really well, thanks for asking. After that I was getting stuck into job hunting, which I'm happy to say was successful as I've somehow managed to land myself an internship at Brando, an awesome digital agency in Dublin. Wish me luck

IKEA Goodies

Seeing as IKEA was recently named as Advertiser of the Year at Cannes I decided I'd drag myself away from tweaking my portfolio in preparation for Portfolio Night 9 in two days time to root out a few of my favourite IKEA ads. There are an awful lot of great ones to choose from as in general IKEA have produced some outstanding advertising over the years. This could turn in to a very long post so for the sake of brevity I've limited myself to three ads and only allowed myself to choose one from any given medium - no easy task.

First up is this brilliant ambient piece from Frankfurt in Germany:


When it comes to TV it's so hard to choose. I went for their recent 'Kitchen Party' ad. The music is as if it were written for the ad (although it wasn't) and the design of the set is simply brilliant. I could just as easily have gone for the ad directed by Spike Jonze or the Cats commercial either.



And lastly I like this press ad, also from Germany. It's nothing astounding or groundbreaking, just a funny idea, well executed to make a simple point.


In college recently we worked on a brief for IKEA and some of the work was pretty outstanding, even compared to some of the stuff above (I'm not talking about my own campaign here, but some of my classmates') so if any IKEA bigwigs happen to randomly fall across this site then you could do a whole lot worse than drop over to www.adgrad.ie (our shiny new class website) and check out some of the burgeoning talent we have among our ranks.

Right, that's it, time to get back to this blasted portfolio. Wish me and my fellow adgraders luck for Thursday night.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

I wrote a few weeks ago about some cool new projects that are being made possible thanks to new social media like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube (How long do these have to be around before we stop calling them 'new'? They've all been around for a good few years now. Or is it just me that's still calling them new?). I'd forgotten about this one at the time but it's another brilliant example.

Eric Whitacre is a young grammy nominated composer from the states who used Youtube to put together a 'virtual choir' to perform a number of his compositions. I won't go into too much detail about it because he explains everything you need to know in this talk from Ted 2011. The video is about 15 mins long and even if classical music isn't really your thing it's still well worth a look. The sheer volume of work that must have gone into a project like this is in itself pretty astounding.



Personally I prefer the music of Lux Aurumque but I love the artwork on Sleep, it's really clever and does a great job at visually demonstrating how the whole thing was as much about connecting people as it was about the music. The full version of Sleep is available on youtube here, Lux Aurumque is here, and if all this stuff has really got your juices flowing then Eric's personal website is positively brimming with information.

As is said on Eric's own site, this project is another example of 'the power of the internet to connect people of all backgrounds and abilities and create something beautiful across time and space.'

Ads From Your Childhood #3

Time for another blast from the past.

Remember this ad for Rolo? While my opinions have obviously changed since I first saw this I remember at the time thinking that it was the funniest thing I had seen in my life. I also remember that it very quickly became common practice whenever you had a packet of Rolos to offer one to a friend, quickly withdraw the offer and laugh at them while singing the 'na na na na na' line at them. It became a bit of a catchphrase in my school playground at least.



I had intended on making this an all confectionery blast from the past and showing a classic Milkybar ad as well but they are surprisingly difficult to find. Anything I could find was either too recent, from abroad, or too old. If anyone comes across a Milkybar ad from the UK or Ireland from the late 80s or early 90s be sure to share it.

So I'll have to deviate from confectionary a bit but we won't stray too far, we'll stick in the food category at least. For years the Pat the Baker jingle was probably the best known jingle on Irish TV. I've never actually tried Pat the Baker bread (haven't a clue why) but hearing this song and seeing this ad always makes me think "OK, I'm definitely gonna buy some next time I'm shopping." I always forget about it though. Still, it's a great ad.



I had a bit of fun with an older brother of mine a couple of months ago recording cheesy jingles like this one. I was on drums and he was on guitar and vocals. We spent the best part of a day recording the likes of Pat the Baker, Saved by the Bell, Toys'R'Us, Postman Pat and a bunch of others. We videoed them too but I think it's probably best if they remain hidden, the world's not ready to see some of it's favourite jingles butchered beyond recognition.

Stunning ISPCC Ad

I was shown this in college earlier today and I've since seen it on a few blogs, where it's making quite an impact. It's not hard to see why.



What an ad, almost leaves you speechless. A combination of exquisite copy and an astonishingly good young actor, it's pretty rare to see child abuse tackled in such a head-on and in-your-face manner. Hats off to Ogilvy here in Dublin who created it. You can be damn sure that this will get a lot of attention over the next days and weeks and will definitely get people talking. I'd expect a similar reaction to a lot of the road safety ads I was discussing previously. I doubt that was the reaction that Ogilvy or the ISPCC were looking for but it could work out quite well for them. Hopefully it will encourage people to donate to such a worthy cause.

So This is Research? That's Cool With Me

So it's all systems go over here in DIT. The Big Project, as it is commonly referred to, is in full swing. A lot of the fun stuff like choosing a name for our agency has been done and now it's time to get stuck into the nitty gritty of the details of the project. First on the agenda: Research - Is that a mighty cheer I hear rumbling in the distance?

Luckily for me I'm a copywriter so instead of trawling through business reports and lengthy transcripts of interviews and focus groups a lot of my research involves doing something I spend a lot of my time doing already - looking at ads. Oh what a troubled life I lead. You could spend days on end looking at road safety ads from around the world and only see a small percentage of them. There are so many ads out there that are trying to convince people to drive carefully on the roads and quite a range of techniques are employed in order to get the message across. Unsurprisingly, attempting to shock audiences is the most common one, although not always the best.

As with all advertising there are some truly inspiring road safety ads out there, then there are some decent enough campaigns and of course there are some absolute shockers. An honorable mention in this last category has to go to the 'Don't be a Dickhead' campaign from the Transport Accident Commission in Victoria, Australia (there are a series of ads there if you fancy torturing yourself). I like the angle they've taken and I think being slightly abusive and derogatory towards people who drive dangerously or do stupid things when driving is a tactic that could be used more often but in this case they've taken a decent idea and done everything in their power to make sure it results in a truly awful series of ads. That takes a lot of work so fair play to them, they should be proud.

But now, for some road safety ads that I did like. I've already posted Enjoy The Ride from the Safety Countil of Western Australia before so I won't take up precious blog space with it but I think it's a beautiful ad, everything about it just works.

Then there's this little beauty from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership in the UK which proves that you don't have to shock and disturb your audience to create an incredibly impactful ad.



I also love this one from the Transport Accident Commission in Victoria (so they CAN make good ads). To be honest if watching this doesn't force you to think about your driving habits then I don't know what will.



This last one is from Brazil and while it's not the most amazing idea ever it is a really simple and clever idea used to make a very simple point: Never drink and drive.



I could go on and on here but I'll leave it at that. What's really interesting is to see how advertisers are using new technologies as part of road safety campaigns. There are a whole bunch of great new apps and digital campaigns using unique and clever techniques to encourage people to slow down on the roads or not use mobile phones while driving or whatever the particular issue may be. This is an excellent example from OVK in Belgium.

The challenge for us in DIT is to create ads that will be just as meaningful and impressive as these and that will ultimately change the way people act when on the road. No problem at all.

Now make sure you drive safe y'all.

As a little aside: Over the next few weeks I've got Portfolio Night on 26th May and the presentation for this project on 9th June so I hope to be meeting various creative directors and general ad-people from Dublin who will be just bursting to give me (and my classmates) a job. To remind them that they want to hire me (as if they would forget) I've gone and kitted myself out with some fancy business cards - a pretty unimportant and dull issue for most people but I've never had my own business cards before so allow me to feel important for just a few moments. Anyway, being a copywriter my design skills are, well, limited at best, so I got some (I say some, I mean a lot) help with the design from Curious Design who are a great new design company here in Dublin. They were so so helpful and even though it was a tiny project for them they really paid attention to detail and helped me to get a design that I was happy with. Why not pop over to their site, see the kind of things they do and have a read of their blog while you're there?

No Free Beer For You, You Greedy Lot

Last week I was quite excited about Budweiser's new Ice Cold Index app. Well it appears that an awful lot of other people were too because Budweiser apparently hadn't expected the app to be so popular and have temporarily pulled it. If you visit www.icecoldindex.ie now you're greeted with this message:


(Sorry about the poor quality image. Visit the site to get a clearer image)

So Budweiser are claiming that the unexpectedly large number of downloads crashed the servers I have heard that there are other reasons for removing the app but I haven't been able to find much else online about it so maybe I shouldn't add fuel to the fire. If you were that way inclined, though, you certainly could take a very cynical approach to the whole thing.

I have to say that despite my initial excitement I wasn't really impressed with the app in the few days that I did get to use it. Most days the temperatures the app gave were completely different to the actual temperatures. I had a look at the terms and conditions and saw that they take their readings at 12 noon each day - hardly the hottest time of the day and most likely a completely different temperature to pretty much any time during the afternoon or evening. I suppose they have to take the temperatures at some stage and can't really monitor or change them throughout the day but this is beginning to look more and more like a poor marketing gimmick rather than a genuinely creative and clever way of getting people to drink your beer.

Unless they can rescue it soon then it will ultimately have been a failed poor marketing gimmick, just one more in a long line.

And so it begins...

Well it's finally here. This morning we had the briefing for the end of year project on my masters. The class are split into two separate 'agencies' and given a real brief from a real client. Then for 6 weeks both agencies put all that they have learned over the past 8 months into practice and develop an integrated advertising campaign. On the 9th of June (a date for your diary if there happen to be any agency folk reading this) there will be a very daunting presentation to roughly 300 of the movers and shakers from the advertising industry in Dublin. It's a bit intimidating, but all very exciting.

Every year this is the most exciting part of the course and realistically this is what we've been looking forward to since we began last September. The client for the project is always top secret information right up until the day of the briefing so there was a lot of suspense and anticipation floating about over the past few weeks. There was also quite a lot of speculation, I even dreamt last night that the client was Bostik glue and that we were given a tour of their factory as part of the briefing, it was all very random.

Thankfully we were put out of our misery this morning and for the next 6 weeks we'll be working on a campaign for the Road Safety Authority. I don't think I'm supposed to be keeping schtum on what the actual campaign is but I won't mention it here just in case. I'm really excited about it though, it's a great brief and something that we can really have fun with. It's also nice to work on a campaign that will hopefully have a positive societal impact.

It's all very real now that it has started and we're literally hitting the ground running. The next few weeks will be spent intensely researching - oh how glamorous - and then after that the real fun of the creative work begins. I spent a lot of today looking at road safety campaigns from all over the world (one of which I'd already posted about here) and there's an awful lot of great stuff out there, and a fair amount of terrible stuff too. I'll most likely post some of it here over the next few days.

It's a very tricky and challenging brief. As I already mentioned when I previously talked about public service advertising it's hard to avoid being too preachy and talking down to people. It's also very tempting to just go for the shock factor but that's not always the best technique and the real challenge is to create something that people will actually care about and will encourage them to change their behaviour. These are all challenges that we'll be facing over the next 6 weeks and I'm honestly looking forward to them, for the moment at least. But for now: let the shouting begin.

Fancy a Free Beer?

I never drink Budweiser, ever, it's a horrible beer. But if we have a hot summer you can guarantee I'll be drinking it thanks to this brilliant new idea from Budweiser.

What's not to like about this? If the weather goes above 20C you get a free beer. Maybe I'm being too optimistic but surely that'll happen at least once over the summer. But even if we don't hit the heady heights of temperatures in the mid-twenties you can still get a couple of euro off your beer. I don't know about you but I'd drop my standards and drink a Bud or two if it's gonna save me a few quid, it's not THAT bad a beer is it?

My uncle is a weather forecaster* and judging by what he says we have in store for the summer I predict we'll all get one free pint and save about €2. Ah well, it's better than a slap in the face with a wet fish.



Check out www.icecoldindex.ie for more information.

Now, who's round is it?

*I can't confirm the truth of that statement.

Long Copy

I'm a bit of a sucker for long copy press ads. It's a bit of a double-edged sword because they're so hard to write and more often than not they end up being terrible ads that no-one will read. I've tried, and failed, several times to write nice long copy ads and it really is an art in itself, a very difficult and skillful art. Get it right and it's fantastic, get it wrong and it's a disaster.

I can't quite say exactly why I love them but when they're done correctly they're some of the best ads you'll see. Art direction is vitally important too, there's no point in having stunning copy if it looks like something your granny threw together in Microsoft Word.

These two ads do a pretty great job of combining great copy with great art direction, and are good examples of why I like long copy so much. They're a both a few years old. Click on either ad to see a larger version. I particularly like the excellent art direction in the Sky Arts ad.

Sky Arts TV Channel


Tate Britain Exhibition

Limitless Collaboration

I've been reading a bit about two really interesting projects recently, both of which aim to harness the amazing possibility to collaborate on a massive scale that has been created by new media and social media. They're actually both fairly similar in what they're trying to do, so much so that you'd wonder if one was inspired by the other.

The first one is a film from Irish filmmaker Frank Kelly and is inspired by Twitter and the 140 characters you're allowed per tweet. It's called '140' and is a feature length movie cut together from 140 individual clips, each 140 seconds long and shot by 140 filmmakers (ranging from absolute beginners to professionals) all over the world at the exact same time on the exact same night in the summer of 2009. The theme for the videos was 'connection.' I had originally signed up to take part in it but had to pull out because I ended up having to work when it was supposed to be shot. I'm raging now because I think it would have been great to be part of such an interesting and novel project. It's such a simple yet powerful concept.

140 has been doing the rounds on the festival circuit and seems to have been very well received. It actually recently won what I think is its first award - a Bronze Palm at the Mexico International Festival.

I haven't actually seen the full film yet but the trailer looks interesting:



The second one is somewhat similar but will most likely gain far more attention because it was produced by none other than Ridley Scott. It's called 'Life in a Day' and uses Youtube as its foundation. Several thousand people all uploaded a video of their day on 24th July last year. Those hours and hours of footage were then edited into a feature length movie. Judging from the trailer it looks to be a slightly slicker production than 140 but when you compare an independent filmmaker from Ireland to someone like Ridley Scott then you're not really comparing like with like.

Life in a Day has generated quite a buzz at several high-profile festivals such as Sundance, Berlin and SXSW. As far as I know it's set for a US cinema release later this year, not sure about a European one though.



Not having seen either of these movies yet it will be interesting to see whether or not they're interesting enough and can create enough of a narrative from such random and disparate footage to hold the viewers attention for 90-odd minutes. Hopefully they can. They're two excellent examples of the type of possibilities that have been opened up by new media channels and social networks, creating the type of work that wasn't possible less than ten years ago and with people with whom you'd never have a chance to work with were it not for these exciting media. I'm sure there are hundreds of other examples of similar types of projects that I've not come across.

It's an exciting time to be a part of the creative arts, it's an exciting time to be online and it's an exciting time to be making connections with people.

A Real Royal Wedding

After the seriousness of today's post I thought I'd lighten the mood a little with this brilliant video from T-Mobile. They have a track record when it comes to great virals and in my opinion this one maintains the high standards they've already set. Nothing wrong with a bit of shameless capitalising on the Royal Wedding, especially when it's this funny.

Apparently a lot of viewers in America were slightly confused and thought it was the actual wedding. Why doesn't that surprise me?



Altogether: "Everybody in the house of love..."

The Big Alcohol Question

A discussion about alcohol advertising and sponsorship raised its head in a rather indirect sort of way over the last couple of days. I'm a pretty big rugby fan, any of you who follow me on twitter will have noticed a not insignificant number of tweets about Leinster. Leinster play in two European competitions, both sponsored by alcoholic drinks manufacturers - Heineken and Magners (or Bulmers as it's known in Ireland. The Magners League is a competition featuring teams from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Italy and is about ten years old now. For five of those ten years it has bee sponsored by Magners but they announced in the past few days that they'll be ending their sponsorship at the end of the current season, which finishes in about a month. So the search is on for a new sponsor - not the easiest of tasks in the current economic climate, but that's not the point of this blog.

On various rugby forums and blogs people have started to discuss possible new sponsors and who they'd like to see as a sponsor. But people are also speculating as to why Magners have ended their sponsorship. One possible reason being thrown about is that it's quite possible that in a few years time (or maybe even less) alcohol sponsorship of sports events across Europe will be banned, similar to the current situation in France, and Magners are just preparing in advance for this. This in turn has caused quite a few people to say that they are pleased that Magners are pulling out, and they hope that another alcohol brand doesn't take over, because alcohol destroys so many lives.

This got me thinking about the role advertising, and sponsorship in particular, plays in fueling our excessive drinking culture. There's no doubt that in Ireland we have a big drinking problem, both with underage drinkers and binge drinking, and something really does need to be done about it, but I think that pointing the finger at advertising is just going for the easy target. Of course drinks retailers and manufacturers and the people who advertise their brands have a duty to be responsible, encourage responsible drinking and to discourage underage and binge drinking, that goes without saying. I can't speak for other countries because I don't know the regulations there but in Ireland there is a very strict code to which all advertising must adhere when it comes to alcohol (Central Copy Clearance Ireland or CCCI for those who don't know it). I'm not saying this code is perfect but it does keep all alcohol advertising up to a certain standard and ensures that it doesn't appeal to youngsters and limits how exciting or fun drinking can appear to be. In college I've worked on a few briefs that had to comply with it and it does it's best to make drinking to be a thoroughly unenjoyable experience.

I think society's problems with alcohol are much more deep-rooted and far more complicated than just over-exposure to advertising and trying to solve those problems requires looking at far more than just restricting or banning advertising and sponsorship. Like I said advertising and sponsorship are the easy targets, just like reducing pub opening hours, which is another pointless exercise in my opinion. I'd be curious to know if there have been any studies into the effect the ban on alcohol advertising in France (where the Heineken Cup is known as the H-Cup) has had.

People have made the point that the real effects of a ban on alcohol advertising and sponsorship won't be seen for another 20 or 30 years, as it's changing the mindset of a whole generation and that's something that takes an awful long time. This is very true and must be remembered when discussing the issue, but I would be of the opinion, and feel free to disagree with me, that if you ban alcohol advertising and sponsorship you will do very little to sort out the problems with alcohol in this country.

I'm not saying that advertisers can completely wash their hands of the whole situation. It's very important for them to acknowledge and accept the role they play in the whole drinking fabric of society and to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that they act responsible. But ban advertising outright and all you're doing is putting a plaster over a gushing wound.

I don't disagree for one second that it can cause huge problems and can ruin lives. I've seen first hand the chaos it can cause for individuals and families but, like all things, it is safe and enjoyable in moderation and this needs to be at the core of any efforts to solve the problem. Moderation is most likely the best approach to take when it comes to consuming alcohol as well as advertising it. Banning alcohol will hardly solve the problem (it works so well for drugs doesn't it?) and neither will banning the advertising of alcohol.

I don't have all the answers. In fact I don't think I have any of the answers, but I do know that often the most obvious answer isn't the right one and in this case I think the most obvious answer to our drinking problem is to target alcohol advertising.

Ads From Your Childhood #2

Time for a new installment of Ads From Your Childhood. This is really just an excuse for a good old trip down memory lane rather than showcasing great ads. The following ads are real blasts from the past and they bring me back to being five or six years old, sprawled across the carpet in the sitting room watching Saturday morning cartoons on the DJ Kat Show (which an alarmingly small number of people seem to remember. Please tell me you remember it?). This was long before Spongebob Squarepants made an appearance and Dora the Explorer wasn't even a thought in some animator's head yet. Carebears, Superted, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (even at that young age I fancied April O' Neil, who didn't?) and Alf (OK he's not strictly a cartoon but Alf's so cool he makes his own rules) were where all the fun was at in those days.

It was also a time of cool kids jingles. Who didn't love this one?



And this ad made me envy every single kid in the UK at the time because they had Toys R'Us and we didn't. I remember once in the early ninties we were going to visit friends of my parents in Southampton and for weeks beforehand all I would talk about was the fact that I'd get to go to Toys R'Us. To be honest I'd still love to go and just play in Toys R'Us.



And the last one for this installment, I reckon I'd bop along to this if I saw it for the first time today. We all adore a Kia-Ora.



Ah, the memories!

Hella Cool!

Keeping with the theme of 3D projection mapping this car launch from Hyundai takes it a step further and uses an actual car suspended in front of the building. Pretty cool eh?



I have a very busy week coming up in college with a lot of project deadlines looming in the next ten days or so, so I'm expecting a lot of long evenings and late nights. Luckily for me one of my favourite Irish musicians, Declan O'Rourke, has just released a new album, curiously called Mag Pai Zai. I haven't gotten my hands on the album yet but I'll be picking it up tomorrow and am hoping that Declan's tunes will get me through the week. For those of you who haven't heard of him have a listen to this song from his first album. I dare you not to love it.



If Declan's album fails to keep me motivated and I find myself succumbing to frustration and despair then I'll resort to the age old trick of using lolcats to lift my spirits.


Good old lolcats, never fail to make me laugh.

Fanta-stic!

Quick post today. Saw this over on Simply Zesty's Simply Viral page (which showcases a great new viral video every day of the year) and I was really impressed by it - you could say that it's Fanta-stic! Boom Boom! Sorry, I just started following @funnyoneliners on twitter so my head is full of cheesy, stupid puns.

Anyway, as videos/light shows which interact with buildings go I reckon this is about as good as it gets so hats off to Memac Ogilvy in Dubai, they've done a great job.



You could literally spend hours on youtube looking at videos of 3D projection mapping (ooh, look at me trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about!) and there is some truly amazing stuff out there. I'd highly recommend checking out LD Systems channel on youtube, they do some really incredible stuff. In particular I liked this one. How much fun would it be to work on something like this?



Anyway, gotta run because, as it happens, I've to go work on a Fanta brief for college. I have this cool idea for an animated projection onto a well-known building somewhere, it's a pretty original idea too so I'm quite excited.

Recycled Phones & Bike Thieves

This seems to be getting quite a lot of attention online in the past few days. According to Copyranter (an angry and bitter copywriter from NYC, he keeps a great blog) it's due to be released in Japan later this year.



Maybe I'm just being fussy but as an ad I don't think I like it. As a piece of art or as a performance I love it - that's assuming the makers aren't lying when they say they didn't use any artificial music in it. I can't quite explain why I dislike it as an ad but like it otherwise, I guess I'm just weird like that.

While I'm here I'd be curious to see what people think of Heineken's April Fools' Day prank. I know the video takes it as a light-hearted joke and some of the 'victims' certainly see the funny side of it, but I wonder is it taking things a step too far. If someone did this to my bike (I don't actually own a bike but let's ignore that for the moment) I'd be pretty pissed with someone who stole my basket and forced me to become a mobile ad for their brand. Maybe they bought them over with a few bottles of Heineken once they'd gotten their reaction on camera - if that were the case then my anger would probably be quenched a little. I'd still want my own basket back though.

What do you think of it? Am I just being a killjoy?



As a little aside I've just bought my ticket for Portfolio Night 9 in Dublin in May and I'm really looking forward to it - although I'm nervous too. I've written here before about the daunting task of trying to find a job once my masters finishes and it's great to see initiatives like this which give young creatives a helping hand. Fair play to Ogilvy for hosting it and to all the other agencies who have gotten involved. It also sets a good deadline by which a portfolio has to be ready to rock - it's always good to have deadlines. Now, to get making that portfolio as creative as a Renaissance painter.

Ads From Your Childhood #1

So I've decided to start a new series on my blog where I can look back and remember cool ads from yesteryear that bring back memories. I've called it Ads From Your Childhood but of course that's a completely meaningless title because people of all ages read this blog (or so I'd like to think). I could have called it Ads From My Childhood but to be honest there are a lot of classic ads that I really like, and might want to show here, that I don't actually remember seeing as a kid so I decided to avoid that. Apologies for the lame excuse - it was either that or the dog ate my title, and seeing as I don't have a dog I thought that was too big of a risk.

Being an aspiring young advertiser who is hoping to impress people and climb the ladder of success in this industry I should probably choose Apple's 1984 commercial as the first ad to showcase here but I'm not going to, for two reasons. 1. It was before I was born - a pretty good reason I think, and 2. I actually never knew this ad existed until I was on Erasmus in Germany in 2007 and saw it there. I'm impressed by it, and appreciate the balls it took to invest so much money in an ad that was only aired once but it honestly doesn't really feature on my radar when I think of great classic ads. Maybe it should but it doesn't.

The one ad I remember most from being a kid is one that everyone knows and almost everyone loves. I was only 8 when Guinness' Anticipation ad was released so it certainly wasn't aimed at me or my friends. It definitely made an impression on us though and I remember we used to have competitions to see who could do the the best impression of the dance (which usually ended in an argument as we all thought our dance was the best one). I've been told that this was actually filmed in the basement of the studio where a Guinness ad was being shot but there was disagreement between the agency and Guinness over the ad which delayed the shoot. A bunch of the crew then apparently went off and shot this on their own and it ended up being used. I can't say for definite that this is true but the source from which I heard it is pretty trustworthy.



There's something quite timeless about the ad. I reckon if the ad were run now it would be just as successful as it was 17 years ago - a true sign of a good ad.

I'd worry about some of the ads that todays children will be looking back on in 15 or 20 years time. Take the new ad from Jacobs for their range of biscuits.



Apologies to anyone who was involved with this (a bit presumptuous to think that they'd be reading my blog?) but I just don't like it. Actually I can't stand it, not because it has totally ramped up the sex content in an ad that is targeted at a young audience, although I'm sure that offends a lot of people, but because it's cheesy, repetitive, uses a poor jingle and is completely opposite to what people expect from Jacobs. Don't get me wrong, going against people's expectations isn't always a bad thing, in fact it quite often makes for great advertising, I just think in this case it's a bad call. I'd love to see figures for how effective this campaign turns out to be, maybe they'll prove me wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns a lot of people off. (There is actually one thing I like in the ad - the DJ's headphones, I want a pair!)

Something tells me that people won't be writing about that ad in 17 years time. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Digital Inspiration

Man, today I seem to be coming across great ads everywhere I look, maybe it's the great weather that's bringing them all out. I love the new Toyota Ad from Saatchi & Saatchi in Australia. It probably has more to do with the fact that they made a full size person out of glass, rather than what the ad is actually saying. I mean it's not a particularly new concept or anything, just really cleverly executed.

I saw an odd new Skittles ad that fits in with the ads I've shown on here before. It's just bizarre, and interactive too.

I also came across this clever ambient/digital idea for GranataPet dog food. Not the most amazing idea ever but pretty cool nonetheless.

But the main reason for this post is that I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to the National Digital Media and Marketing Summit in Croke Park in Dublin today. It's great for us students to get the opportunity to go to those industry events. It's a whole different perspective on the type of work we do every day in college, gives us a small idea of what we can expect once we (hopefully) get jobs in the industry and, most importantly, it's an opportunity to meet people and to 'network' (a phrase which I detest, but that's not for here). It basically makes the whole thing a bit more real for us.

There were some really interesting speakers there but unfortunately I had to leave early because we were recording radio ads in college this afternoon (which was great fun - it's brilliant to see a professional VO bring your words to life) and we couldn't miss that class, so I'm sure there were plenty more fascinating speakers that I missed but the ones I did see showed some great videos to demonstrate various points.

Inma Martinez gave a talk on how to build a digital brand on no budget and as part of it she showed this brilliant ad from a couple of years ago for the Audi Q5. I love everything about it. It was made just after the whole car market collapsed and it's a real back-to-basics idea and is brilliantly executed. The art direction is superb, the music perfectly suited and the idea is stunningly simple yet super effective.



The next video was shown by Jonathan Forrest, who is CEO of Cybercom here in Dublin. His talk was focussed around digital advertising and how it is this generation's "Parsons' Moment", in reference to Charles Parsons' steam turbine and how it was such a defining invention in the history of engineering.

He gave several examples of great digital campaigns (oddly enough they were all from New Zealand) and this one really stood out for me, and for most people I was talking to at the summit. The campaign, done for Coastguard New Zealand by the DDB New Zealand Group is one of the best, if not the absolute best, digital campaigns I've come across. Watch and learn.



There were plenty more great ads and videos shown there today, as well as some really insightful talks and observations, these two just really stood out for me. It's a real pity I didn't get to stay for the whole thing but I guess it was great to at least be a part of some of it. The future is digital so I guess the sooner we can all wrap our heads around it the better!

What's Your Favourite Ad?

Advertising, and creativity in general, is such a subjective thing. There have been plenty of ads that I've absolutely loved and most other people have hated, and vice versa. I'm sure it's the same for everyone. I guess that's what's great about it. It's also what makes it desperately tricky and unpredictable.

Out of curiosity (or is that boredom?) I decided to do an online search to see what the most popular ads are. I decided I'd use the most scientific and rigorous resource I had available to me - Google images. The integrity of my findings is therefore unquestionable.

The following are the first 6 images, in order, that came up when I searched 'best ad ever'. I actually searched 'best ad you've ever seen' first but none of the first 15-odd images were ads, go figure.













I like most of them. Not sure why the Rafa Nadal one is there though.

Note: I'm not an idiot. I know that Google images doesn't rank images by popularity or anything. I'm no expert but I understand how SEO works. This is just a fun way to check out what ads people like or what other people think are the best ads ever.

Making Old Hat New Again

Advertising has a way of latching on to new and innovative ideas and taking ownership of them. Take online virals for example. About 10 years ago the concept of a viral was relatively unknown among most of the general public but through the huge boom in online user numbers and websites like youtube viral videos are now ten-a-penny, and virtually everyone with even a minor understanding of what the internet is knows what they are. Advertisers latched onto virals pretty quickly and some early and incredibly successful examples, Burger King's Subservient Chicken probably being the best known one or BMW's The Hire another very popular one, showed advertisers just how powerful this new tool could be. Nowadays advertisers everywhere are trying to come up with the best new viral video that will catapult their brand to new levels of popularity. In my opinion most fail because people are too familiar with virals now. They used to be new, different and intriguing to customers, now they're just another video in a long list people have seen on any given day. Last year's Old Spice campaign was the only one that's really stood out for me recently. There's also the problem that there are just too many great videos online that aren't related to advertising that people can entertain themselves without having to rely on advertisers input.

(While we're on the topic of virals I disagree with the notion of 'creating a viral' as advertisers try and do. A true viral happens spontaneously and unexpectedly. It's a random video that suddenly becomes massively popular. Maybe that's just semantics though.)

Flash mobs are another interesting phenomenon onto whose bandwagon advertisers gleefully jumped. Similar to virals flash mobs started to become popular about a decade ago and since then there have been countless examples of famous and successful campaigns built around flash mobs (you've surely seen T-Mobile or The Black Eyed Peas on Oprah by now) that it's almost an overused medium. They're just not surprising for people any more.

Well this video shows that flash mobs aren't completely redundant yet, you just need to turn the whole idea on its head.