A hurried video on Third World Debt

Marc at SCA gave us one day to research and produce a presentation on Third World Debt.

This is what Olly and I came up with - it's a bit rough and ready in both writing and art direction, but it's a fair representation of our research.

Bad Taste

Today's Town Hall was an especially inspirational one, offering us a live brief to really get our teeth into - naming a charity.

It feels good because the man setting the brief gave a distinct impression (Sandhurst, army, previous charitable experience) of being someone who Got Things Done. A man of integrity and honesty.

It stands in refreshing contrast to certain other briefs. That's all I'll say.

Except to mention that he told a story about saying an unfortunate idiom to an ex-serviceman with an arm and a leg missing. I just wonder what he would make of this?

A quick bit of genius to share

Found in an interview with Dave Trott; one of his favourite adverts:

It's so simple, but it actually takes a while for its genius to sink in fully. The "by tube" pun. The fact it ends at Pimlico (the station shown on the tube of paint). The immediate visual schemas for "art" and "London".

And if that isn't enough fun, you could try looking at where the Jubilee line ends and try to work out what year this might have been produced...

Planet of the Apes - Flip Reverse It

Dear me, a 5 day gap in posting. I need to get back into this, especially with the holiday coming up. There'll be fewer posts then, but I don't want it to lie entirely fallow.

Anyway, ads during the X-Factor final. Most had already been extensively scheduled, but one was new (to me at least) - the trailer for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The problem they had was that the cinematic release had already been heavily promoted on TV with action-packed trailers, and the audience could easily ignore another advert - especially if they'd already been to see the film.

So the advertisers (not sure if this was agency work or in-house) came up with 2 simple devices to get the viewer's attention and signal that this was something new. The first was to play the footage in reverse. The second was to have soothing music ("Sad Eyes" by Bat For Lashes) playing over it.

OK, so the second device was a bit cribbed from McCann SF's ace advert for Gears Of War (see second video), but it worked very well nonetheless.

Love it, but will they get it?

Just a quick post tonight - the rather amusing new ad for Cockburns from BETC London. Taps into a product truth in a "well everyone was thinking it, but no-one wants to say it" kind of way.

But I do wonder if everyone will actually get it...

Barnardos

I was going to blog on this advert at some point anyway, but it's particularly timely, so I'm pushing it forward.

Tonight I attended a seminar on creative education chaired by Sir John Hegarty. He was talking about the democratic nature of creativity - that anyone can have a good idea - and used this new BBH ad for Barnardo's as his example. Apparently, although they had the best production team working on it, the initial idea came for a junior creative team (jobless students just one year ago) in the BBH playpen - Melanie Lynch and Rory Hall.

That's going to take some beating on their showreel. Read more here.

A boring ad that probably works

An ad created for Red Letter Days by Quiet Storm, this is one big call to action - hence sticking the web address and clicky mouse upfront rather than waiting till the end (where they also have it).

It reminded me a little of the cheap radio ads played to us last week by Radioville Creative Director Tim Craig, which were just interested in getting people who were already thinking of buying such a product. It's the Christmas version of price comparison ads, and if it gets more competitive, they'll have to get a bit more creative than this...

Facilitation for the nation

Exciting times at the School of Communication Arts, as a halfcoachload of students were packed off to Newbury yesterday for the racing.

Oh, ok, it was for a Vodafone conference on privacy, where we had been assigned to lead Vodafone suits in sessions of creative brainstorming. We came out of it unscathed, but we learned a number of important lessons - the main one for me being that teaching is bloody hard. And teaching is what it was - leading a session and paying constant attention, processing everything given to you and never switching off, keeping your energy levels up and focusing your efforts on controlling the room.

I think I was lucky with my participants; although some were more vocal than others, no-one tried too hard to control the room or dominate the conversation - and conversely, no-one questioned my qualifications or the validity of the exercise. I understand that other groups weren't so lucky, and that Marc's techniques didn't always work as smoothly as we'd hoped.

Still, at least next time we have a better idea of what to expect - and will be a bit more prepared the first time the suits from Proctor & Gamble come to visit...