Right-Half Chow

Abandoned Places

Henk Van Rensbergen, a Belgian pilot, could be described as a modern explorer: a practictioner of urban safaris or the search for abandoned, overgrown, forgotten or otherwise deserted areas near populated areas. As he describes it on his site:

Old buildings, abandoned hospitals, industrial palaces overgrown with plants and trees, the remaining walls decorated with graffiti, smashed windows, rain dripping through the roof...

These places have become hard to find, difficult (or illegal) to access, dangerous to explore ... great to spend the day !

Today, the pyramids of the industrial revolution just uselessly stand in the way, they're a scar in the landscape.
The deafening noises have been replaced by silence, but if you listen carefully they will tell you their story.

Abandoned hospitals where you can still smell the anxiety of the ill,
where you can hear the coughing of the TBC infected
and where once doctors and nurses walked through the shiny corridors.

A 100 years old hotel, standing proudly at the waterfront, arrogantly overlooking the beach
and fiercely withstanding all the storms of the past century, a decayed symbol of wealth for the rich.

A lot of his work will be showcased in a temporary exposition (until the 20th of May)  in the MIAT (Dutch only, I'm afraid) in Ghent, drop by if you have a chance, some real powerful images and compositions. But the site already gives a very good idea of his work, and is impressive in it's own right.

Get the glass

I'm pretty tired, and I took up (ie I made it once last week) jogging before going to work so I was going to hit the hay pretty early and try to get the best out of the morning. Which would have worked if I didn't go back to this site someone pointed out to me a week ago...

This really is captivating stuff, probably the most engrossing 'brand site' I ever came across, the attention to detail, the way the game invites you into little sidegames,...

Don't even start if you don't have the time, it's loading pretty slow at the moment too, but it's worth it.

Meet the boss

I received an email this morning which directed me to Kevin Roberts' blog. I know, there was SaatchiKevin, and some updates on the Sisomo website, and a host of other stuff... But this is more 'bloggy', for lack of a better word.

More 'from the hip', direct, more personal and less focused on Lovemarks filosophy. A view inside his head, as opposed to a read in one of the books. If you're into rugby, good food, New York, music, and a wealth of other stuff, head on over and check it out.

Hybrid Advertising

Pretty smart, but LittleJohn does have a point about incrowd references...
On the other hand, The Economist should be something of an institute among their target audience. Saatchi London are the ones responsible.

2007 Planner Survey

Heather LeFevre at the Martin Agency conducts an informal survey that is designed to let us all see what planners at different agencies think about their jobs, understand what drives salaries, and hopefully learn more about how our discipline is changing. It's running for the third time this year...

You need to follow two separate links in order to guarantee confidentiality: One for the survey and one to enter your emailaddress if you would like to receive a copy.

They're pretty strict too: planners only. I wonder why actually, it would be interesting to see what other people or agency roles who would call themselves involvement in the planning process think of the role. Especially since it seems to evolve so quickly these days.

The survey

Leave your email address

We're all for sharing

But we will behave like idiots when it comes to criticising a competitor during a pitch. Or that's what I read between the lines in this AdWeek article...

In short: Wieden & Kennedy London put up a rather normal post about the pitch briefing they received on Nokia in Finland. Upon reading it I noticed the nice pictures and found it interesting that they mentioned the names of the competing agencies (it turned out that the list was openly announced), but I did not find anything particularly sensitive in the post.

I am really hoping that this will not affect the level of transparency and openness that they have consistently shown on their blog, and am amazed by the level of idiocy and hypocrisy that some commenters display...

"You never talk about a pitch publicly, it makes clients nervous. It spooks them."

"I'm a big fan of blogs and the democratization of content." But you "need to respect stuff that's sensitive and competitive."

"It was a private meeting, closed meeting, it's quite surprising. I would not [want] be the agency involved in any kind of public discussion about a pitch process."

I like the way some people think they can speak on the part of Nokia (or even telling W&K how they should feel about this), and I know i'd be very wary of an agency that would describe me as an organisation that is spooked by something as innocent as this.
Especially as social media are  close the heart of what drives their business...

It really feels like they found a stick to hit a (good) competitor with, and I hope it comes back in their faces...

The force of numbers

Dan Germain has quite an interesting take on a spot that was once presented to them for Innocent (which they liked but didn't found fitting with the brand, and you can see why). The basic idea: you need quantity to get to the good ideas. Unfortunately, not everybody tends to agree. I often get the feeling that marketeers have this 'one hit kill' attitude: maximise the impact of a limited number of ideas within budget, and then repeat the same limited number of ideas (spots, ads,...).

A small excerpt from Dan's post (as usual, check the full post for the full picture):

But you can do something else if you want to make stuff that people will send to their friends and post on their blogs. I think it's fairly simple. The more stuff you make, the more chance there is of something turning out to be good. And then people will watch it. So in 2007 we will be making more stuff, writing more stuff, posting more stuff and filming more stuff. Some of it will be rubbish and some of it might work. And seeing as we don't know which bits will work until we've done them, I guess we'd better get cracking.

And this is the film that was presented to them:

I'm a big advocate of doing lots of stuff, and hopefully getting some things right and noticed, as opposed to wow people over with one big idea. Take Adidas, their latest spot is obviously influenced by the self reporting style that's so popular on YouTube, and if you compare it to other campaigns they did these last years. And even though Beckham must have cost quite a bit, I can see them doing lots of spots around this concept, and they will appeal to different people.

I had an interesting discussion in the same vein the other day: most of communication research seems to think that consumers' ability to repeat the baseline has some important impact. Isn't it about time we start looking for ways to research what people see behind the baseline and more importantly, what they do with the idea afterwards? But that'll have to wait for another rant...

What would you throw out?

I wonder what would've happened if they'd put in mobile phones...

Via Influx

You must be the bass

MemeHuffer points out this fantastic top list of 100 basslines. Yep, basslines, not the whiny guitar stuff or convoluted drum solos, just fantastic riffs that can carry a whole song: no show, no bluff, just rhythm. Not that I have anything against drums (or guitars, although they annoy me more easily)...

Bass players are a bit like planners actually: controlling the scene from the back, drawing the structure and concept that needs to be coloured by the other instruments/players. Les Claypool always was one of the more inspiring players (music, not advertising - at least not to my knowledge), so here's one of my favourites:

Planning for change

Some of you already deduced it from the remarks around early skiing holidays, others will have heard it because we contacted you or met you in the meantime...

I don't really make a habit of posting about my personal life but as I think this will influence me a lot I've decided to put it up (pride might have a bit to do with it as well ;-): come the end of july, we'll have an extra biped in the house (although I do believe that function is not readily available at the start).

Street art by Ramimeiri

I finally got over all my pet anxieties and am pretty much enjoying the idea of the change he or she will bring to our lives. I'm hoping it'll make me a better planner as well...

At least it will force us to delve deep into new stuff  (children's television shows, books,...) and I'm kind of hoping my naivety pores will open up wider by watching my kid discover the world as well. It might even bring some more structure in my life, like getting me in and out of bed that little earlier. Being forced to put things as clear and simple as they can be won't go amiss either.

Anyway, we're really looking forward to it, and it'll be summer as well!