Right-Half Chow

Worst album covers ever?

I think one of the obvious but grave downsides of the current digital music distribution trend is the demise of the cover art... Sure, you get the pdf and the image to brighten up your iTunes library, but it just can't compare to something that can be passed around fysically.

Although that might be a good thing if you consider this list of the 27 most hilarious album covers of all time. Current favourites:

It's the economy, stupid...

I've often declared my love for a complex story told simply (otherwise I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today), so here's another one from the guys at Good Magazine. You could mistake it for the new Justice clip (the track is called Genesis, and they seem to jump on newsworthy themes lately ;-) but it's actually a pretty good illustrated talk about the crisis everyone seems to be so worked up about:

why 'stop' and 'no' are necessary

We had the 'laugh with agency culture' films a while ago, but this one show the deficits of some clients in a pretty accurate way. Funny thing is, after a few years in the business this does not seem too far fetched, I can think of some cases myself...

It's the web Jim, but not as we know it

Deeplinking has this interesting article up on their blog: paper prototype versions of different popular sites. It's a good illustration of the fact that you can't beat the power of a good idea.

Take presentations for example: I come across people who never write stuff down before they start working on them, they just open up a laptop and powerpoint and see where it takes them. Cue five thousand blog posts on how powerpoint destroys presentations and presentation skills.

Some prototyping experiments go a little too far though...

Let's all go viral

It's worrying how may clients and prospects are coming in these days with a briefing that includes the word 'viral'. Usually this just means something like this: 'we don't have any budget but that's not a problem because every man and his dog is telling us that it doesn't cost a thing to reach over a few million people through YouTube and other services'...

We even have the government writing out pitches with this as a demand in the title of the tender document these days, but then Belgian politics always were pretty surreal.

Videos like these probably aren't helping either:

Laugh the stress away

The original proved to be quite controversial, but this version is well worth watching and probably a lot closer to the daily life of some of these so called gangs:

JUSTICE - STRESS ( JUSTESSE NO STRESS / THOMAS VDB VERSION )
Geüpload door Lesairsavif

Zuji Beans for holidays

A great idea to promote the Zuji travel platform: launch low-priced products (pretty hot when inflation is high) so people can save money for their holidays (which, it turns out, they're still willing to pay for):

It's something a lot of brands would be scared of: launching a product outside their core category to promote the category itself. But I think it's a pretty nifty way of selling a solution in times like these, and you avoid the devaluation of your own brand by price communication...

Style versus Design

Several links and people have pointed me to Niblettes blog and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. This post in particular was pretty interesting, since it got me to rethink the whole creative versus planner debate that's been doing the rounds for the past few years. (It's an article from 2006 but it's still of value today)

This is kind of a summary of the points but, as usual, get your ass over there to read the full post and the comments.

And if this kind of content interests you, be sure to read "The Plenitude" by the late Rich Gold as well. Marvelous stuff!

Just burn us a disc please...

It's not that hard to understand why there are still so many vinyl purists around... and why people would think harder about what they'd want to put out there, music wise.

Edu-tv for audiophiles (films are in the correct order, 2 parts):

Innocent Maid

I tried something new this weekend, the following brand extension from Minute Maid was advertised in my local supermarket:

The line at the bottom reads something like 'pure citrus refreshment, and nothing else'... Kind of rings a bell, doesnt it? Maybe this will refresh your memory:

And it's not just the line here, the drawing on the label, the way the rest of it is presented... I can only hope this is a local thing (Innocent is not readily available throughout the country), but even then it probably was inspired by them (or is there still a marketeer left who is not raving about Innocent?).

Which I find kind of weird from a company like Coca Cola, who are doing fabulous things to revive Coke, facing a very tough market where they are usually the ones being copied. Anyone remotely intelligent will tell you that the Innocent thing works because, well... they are pretty innocent, which is not one of the terms you immediately associate with Coca Cola or Minute Maid.

Especially when the expectations you raise don't stand up to any inspection of the ingredient label (concentrated juice, sugar, natural aroma's, colourants,...):

Doesn't taste half bad though...