I'd say this is an effective self-promotion effort, easy to understand once you see the agency name/logo at the left hand bottom corner. Doesn't need any more tweaking. This already sends the right message to their prospective clients. Done by the boys & girls at McCann. Trouble is, I don't know which McCann.


Promise you won't hit me with a brick? Okay, I'll say it: This is cool. *waits for the brick - it's not comin' - phew* This is so cool it should've been mine (though, secretly I long for a creative chair at DDB or O&M and claim creative responsibilty for creating a print ad for a 4x4 brand of cars, the one where the car is parked on a staircase in front of a building with properly painted parking bay for it - you know which one.)


Saying the line "I know Kung Fu" like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix doesn't cut it anymore. If you have it, prove it. A great print ad for a dojo (is that the proper name for a karate class?). Enter through the door, exit through the wall.


There's this ad for a bookstore that Neil French did a while back. Or was it someone else? I'll look it up later.


This is fresh! Had to wait for 4 print ads to use that word, fresh. Let me try it again: A fresh way of looking at a tooth paste that are not always visible in the flood of similar products.

When you've used your BIC pen to infinity and you want to write some more, use these instead.

Featuring the crazy (note: crazy is often synonymous with being frighteningly creative) ways for people to use Post-Its.





(As usual, if you have info of the agency that did these two campaign, post 'em in the comments section. The big 0 next to the caption title. I appreciate the effort.)

I have no talent for music nor storytelling. Never could spin a yarn as well as some of my colleagues. I'm not funny. And I blame my high school for their reluctance, no..not reluctance, straight up contempt for the efforts that kids put in to be creative. They smashed our guitars. Confiscated our walkmans and our tapes and magazines, claiming that it's against our religion. Great conditioning for teenagers, brain wash 'em while they're young. Don't get me wrong. I don't harbor any ill feeling towards the religion, it's bigotry that gets to me. Well, we're not in school anymore. And if there are any aspiring authors or bloggers aspiring to be authors, here's a link to a great page full of tips by Seth Godin to learn the trade. Go now. Tell a thousand stories. Enjoy.

Possibly the best headline for Panadol. Ever.

Credits: Ad-God (a.k.a. Neil French)

Does the headline sound familiar to you? That's because we're subjected to a similarly primitive, arbitrary, in other words generally mentally incapacitated decision makers.

The report

Embarassing moment for the rakyat

Why the lack of pix for this post? Because no picture would be able to describe what I am feeling after reading those two reports. It's a sad day when the wakil rakyats (elected representatives of the citizens for a designated area) are for a lack of a better term: Political Retards (I prefer, no scratch that, wanted to use 'imbeciles' but, I'm trying to be more..decent).

Which reminds me of a story. A few months ago or was it last year, I don't really remember the exact date but I do remember it well.

A local singer performed the national anthem in a stadium during a soccer final (I think) the best he possibly could, has no other motive than to make it memorable and (hopefully) elevate its status from a lullaby to something along the lines of being socially functional, if you will.

So he adlibs the anthem a little towards the end, the way Hendrix did with the US national anthem at Woodstock (let's be honest, when was the last time you hear our national anthem and it made you stand tall and proud and stoked about contributing positively to this country?) and what did he get?

A cheap rap from some politician claiming he's ruining the song. Clearly, the simian has never had a good time in his life. Has no interest in music. Doesn't understand what music does to people. And probably listens to classical music all the time in his comfortable home. It's well known that most classical music fans aren't even musicians i.e, they don't understand the music at all - are you moved by classical music?

No offence to classical musicians, it's a great way to make a living plying your trade like that, to be honest I envy you but your music doesn't do much beyond it's function as the background music for operas. Not that I'm saying that's bad, I love music. I listen to all kinds of music produced by all kinds of musicians. But classical has never done anything for me. And I suspect it's the same for a lot of other people too.

Back to the simian.

It's these cheapshots that ruins it for the rakyat. For all we know, this rat of a politician will stand to defend his statement making everyone else look bad in the process and he gets his 5 minutes of news report. How do you do that? How do you sleep at night after doing everything with an ulterior motive that would only benefit you and your family and close friends when you're supposed to represent the people's interest?

But don't worry. I'm nowhere near interested in being one of you. I may slave away at my desk day and night for a few bucks an hour, but atleast my conscience is clear. Can you say the same for yourself?

Here's the latest headline: A mob of kangaroos have arrived at the Buenos Aires Zoo. From what I hear, they're making quite an impression and keeping the vets' hands full with their acrobatics.



Credits: Saatchi & Saatchi, Argentina.

At the moment, I'm a sucker for slick gfx design. Check these out.





The first two gfx are for Ascot, the shoe company and the red rhino is for a Microsoft campaign (finally, they're doing something right).

The 3 pieces of gfx you see above were by a designer who calls himself "Hydro74" (I don't know why he chose the word hydro in combination with the numbers 7 and 4, so don't ask me). Apparently, dude has a blog too. Mucho talent.

A brilliant piece done in London. Those DDB boys and girls sure know how to rock hard. In case your wondering why the Big Monkey is grimacing, it's because he just stepped on a Polo. Monkey works. Monkey works right.

Credits:
DDB, London

A campaign for Opel's diesel engine cars; the headline saying "Opel Diesel. Tested on environment". I'm not sure which country this campaign is made for. From what I could make out of the headline it could very well be for German.

But something doesn't really sit right with me on this one. If you take away the headline, what sort of message will it convey to the audience? Nature as their test lab? What happens to nature when they do that? And that bird? It's there, sitting pretty on that skinny branch being a crash test dummy.

No matter how much I like the execution, the message doesn't get through clear enough with that headline if, by any measure is the correct translation. If it was me, I'd use this headline instead: "Opel Diesel. Minimum impact on nature".

Great shade of yellow on the bird though.


Credits:
McCann Erikson

Sweet treatment. I like the choice of font used on this. It looks like a variant of Trebuchet. But I could be wrong. And I would buy a Chevrolet. But what has happened to Opel in Malaysia? Did they change the name from Opel to Chevrolet because Opel sounds like the go to car for cabs? What's wrong with it being cabs? Did they change it due to some sort of licensing rights? Because if I had the dough, I'd buy either a swedish or a german car. A certain german car. Not that it's related to this post because initially I wanted to talk about the choice of font used on the ad, but I prefer a german branded car over an american branded one.


Credits:
Leo Burnett, Budapest

I don't know if should elect Tuesday as the day I post weekly updates on my blog...

But here are some ups and downs for the day.

Down(s)
In light of the recent debacle surrounding the concern of a one or two denizens of the moral highground as proper viwership or censorhip, here's a comment by a former colleague, airing her views eloquently. I was first alerted of the news this morning and I found it, to be...rather unsurprising. I, however agree, that to each their own. That said, I feel that some folks should find a way to keep themselves from fidgeting everytime they see a film that features some nudity; if it's hardcore porn, I would understand - it's supposed to be lewd because the nature of such films is to make you take your kit off and act like animals in your bedroom, living room or the kitchen. In short, pure uninhibited carnal pleasure. Or perhaps, these viewers ought to do some research beforehand so at the very least they know what to expect from the film they're about to watch, that's one way off the top of my head. But why make a fuss out of this? Why is this important? Because the opportunity to view art films (shocking or otherwise) in a crowd of adults or art lovers isn't available elsewhere in this country. Unless you're a fan of a Yusoff Haslam bore and you like to give yourself a lobotomy afterwards, then be my guest. If not, then make with the research.

Here's some porn. Action figure porn.

Some more over here.

Ups
Here's a couple of print ads from a year ago. Sweet stuff. I think it won an award for best outdoor or something. If they didn't win, then they should have.


Credits:
O&M, Santiago

How do I do it? How do I correctly pile the tons of abhorence for my prosaic self and fall for this magnificent piece of print advertising for Jeep? I don't know where to begin but I hate myself in 10 different ways. This is soooo good.

Credits:
Giovanni FCB, Sao Paulo

Timely and timeless. Sweet stuff this. Makes you wish you were as imaginative as these creatives (note to self: Less self-loathing comments, please.) If you still can't recognize the image, that son, is the Stonehenge - an ancient stone circle built by a race called Druids, if I'm not mistaken (I love that sound, "a race called Druids..." - it makes me feel...all theological & archeological inside). Here's the link if you're so inclined to find out more about it.

Credits:
Fabiano Bomfim (Art Director)
Augusto Barata (Copywriter)
Photo by Jarbas.

Do you work in publishing, do you write stories for a magazine to be specific? Here's a link I found while not being particularly productive today (it's that migraine!): People in publishing discussing about the state of magazine publishing in the US.

p/s Sorry, no pictures for today's update. I'm too lazy to find that bullet-riddled mag image they used in a certain campaign featured in Lurzers Archive.

Looks like a scene from "3 Kings" with its burning oil field in the middle of a desert and a 22 year old boy from Kansas holding a rifle, pissing in his pants. Does this remind you of any recent war, umm..
where the biggest country in the world thinks it ought to try to save a smaller country from itself? Does it get any more megalomaniacal than that?
Some persons are of the opinion that I should not, ought not, discuss advertising nor should I mention aloud the very word because I have not the know how or understanding of its sophisticated techniques, i.e. I have no academic training in said field of vocation.

Well, maybe I don't, maybe I do. Anyway (never use anyways or no worries, it is a dialectal variant of which, I strongly suspect you have no relation to - and it is colloquial - meaning, never use it in a speech, in your case formal or otherwise unless, a) you practice Cockney English like it's nobody's business, b) you're English, c) you're an Aussie or d) you're an annoying prick [ed: Those two words eat me up like "tau takpe" kills Imran everytime he hears it] I found this print ad today at Coloribus and it made me wonder what those kids over at JWT Taiwan were smoking when they came up with this piece. Is this supposed to be funny or shocking, because if this is supposed to be shocking, it sure feels cheap. And it's not funny. On the other hand, is war supposed to be funny even? I'm not sure if this would help sell a camera.