This is the presentation Simon Law, planning director of new True Worldwide gave here at Miami Ad School Europe. His key point was that today, as the advertising industry has evolved into a mature business, has learned and mastered many things, most of the work actually is good. (Or not as bad as it used [...]

Out of nowhere I ran again across this small section of Rory Sutherland’s “Life lessons from an ad man” talk at TEDGlobal 2009. I had forgotten how interesting and brilliant, filled to the brim with awesome it was. If you like this small section, you will enjoy all the highly recommended 17 minutes. www.ted.com Rory [...]

I started thinking about the earlier post some days ago and nodded very loudly to Rob Campbell’s observation that “Strategy Stops Stupid”, which I hereby recommend. To conclude my argument, here is what happens when you let creatives alone in a room secluded from normal people for too long: Now, if you look past all [...]

Sometimes there are moments that make me realize why I started to work in direct marketing. A few days ago I went to an optician to have my glasses repaired. I handed them the glasses, they checked customer data and I was told to come back some days later to pick up the repaired item. [...]

Dutch Design studio STUDIO SMACK has created this video to demonstrate “the immense scale of the visual bombardment” we encounter every day. Sure, in theory we have all heard the numbers of the many thousands of messages we encounter everyday, but what does it mean? In the video, all texts, logos, ads competing for our [...]

The Lurpak campaign by Wieden+Kennedy, London is one of my favourite recent advertising campaigns. I like the insight and strategy behind it and how they were translated into marvellous ads (with long copy). The rhythm, images and focus on what good you can make with Lurpak (instead of promising some super-healthy proposition) are a pleasing [...]

Last week this commercial for the Austrian Lotteries went on air. I actually like it. It has a good idea, the main protagonist is perfectly cast and it is amazingly subtle and still funny – for Austrian standards. Last year’s “Dog” was also a good idea in my eyes. Got Lowe GGK showered in awards, but [...]

Google has published Google Zeitgeist 2008 this week. This yearly summary of the year’s most popular searches at Google. So what is interesting here?  The results for the most popular searches in Austria are odd: youtube, orf, ebay, hotmail, wikipedia, herold… Not just Austria, all over the world people seem to mix up address bar [...]

Usually, I am not a big fan of the commercials made for AI or other human rights groups. Most of them feel like lion bait with lots of emotion, shock etc. instead of seriously trying to win people for the cause. But I do like this new commercial for Amnesty International. I like that it [...]

Sometimes you get a feeling that advertising hates little kids. Why else would anyone do this?   via Consumerist