CommunicationFAIL

Let's say I got to see The Phantom of the Opera at her Majesty's Theater in London. So far, noting special.

The performance is great and inspiring, so when I come home, my first move is to update my facebook page to share the joy. Still nothing special.

The next move is (of course) to go on youtube and to dig a bit to pursue the enjoyment, listen again to some of the more emblematic songs, maybe find material to illustrate a potential blog post about it.
There, I find the official trailer of the show, posted by the theatrical company. It is well done, inspiring and makes me want to see the show again: perfect! It is exactly what I needed to propagate the love.

But here is the communication failure: the video embedding has been purposely deactivated. The trailer can't be directly posted on a blog. A facebook link will only give a nameless and captionless youtube link no one will click on.
This kind of comportment is quite common coming from official bodies, but it reveals an abyssal lack of understanding of the way the web 2.0 and it's users work.
By trying to keep the control of the content, the company is in fact killing in the egg any chance of propagation of the trailer and reducing greatly the potential word-of-mouth musicals -or any brand or product really- thrive on.

And so, what was going to be a "Brainfood: The Phantom of the Opera" post turned into a "CommunicationFAIL" post.
Sad isn't it?

The miniskirt theory

The rule of thumb known as “the miniskirt theory” applies to almost everything: viral movies, client presentations, blog posts, cover letters, even sex.

Here it is, in all its concise glory:
It* has to be like a miniskirt: long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep the attention.

* The viral movie, client presentation, blog post, cover letter, sex.

I love it.

Sorry we're fucked

Last Sunday, life threw at me the most randomly desperate picture ever. Like, for real.
I managed to catch it before the three-legged dog walked away.



This is the stuff of nightmares, or of very cool Punk album covers, I can't quite decide.

DesignFAIL

One of the frequents stops of my daily internet-tour is the wonderfully awful blog Photoshop Disaster.
Beware; you enter the realm of the random copy-pasting, the mad cloning tool of doom, the forgotten Llorem Ipsum and the “can’t you make her look less like a real human being with, you know, curves?”

Apart from the good laugh, I find this blog precious because it reminds me that:

- staring too long at a photoshop document is not good. After a while you don’t see the glaring, in-your-face mistakes anymore.
- proof-reading works with images too.
- clients asking for miracle pictures from scratch with absolutely no money to even buy good stock pic get what they deserve.
- “Dove: Evolution” has never been so true.
- I didn’t lose my time taking live model classes. Hey, I can tell that the “girl” in this picture can’t be real and thus is probably an untalented alien shape-shifter with a very loose grasp on human anatomy trying to make some pocket money. Being able to tell the difference is a useful skill to have in life.

The Road to Success...

is always under construction and mine has gained a new (small) paving stone.


The .(cicada). and the Ant, by La Fontaine.
Tag line: 50 years from now, one in two species will have disappeared. Act now.


The .(wolf). and the Lamb, by La Fontaine.
Tag line: 50 years from now, one in two species will have disappeared. Act now.

Last year, the first of those two ads I created for WWF during advertising classes ran into the infamous Lürzer's Archive’s student page, de facto nominating me for their 2009 ‘Student of the Year’ Award.
I found out when I received this impressive looking tablet through the mail.




If you have the Lürzer's Archive at home, leaf through issue 1-2009 to page 173. Here it is!

Where is the car?

To open this blog, I will start with commercials.
Car commercials to be more precise, which are a very specific exercise. The product is more often than not very technical and cutting-edge, the purchase is a very serious one, and the advertisers won't throw the money away.
A car commercial without cars in it? Impossible, you say.
And yet!

Here is a selection of very clever ads from different brands, all having the peculiarity of being almost totally car-less.

First, Wolkswagen. The brand has a history of creative and edgy adverts and those two commercial stay true to the legend:


“The Great Pretender”
DDB, London (2007)
A.D: Shishir Patel, C.R: Sam Oliver
Director: Patrick Bergh (Partizan)


“Balloon”
Try, Oslo (2009)
A.D: Thorbjørn Ruud, C.R: Petter Bryde
Director: Thomas Hilland (Partizan)

Peugeot did it as well for the 206, with a highly awarded commercial.
The sound design is perfect as well as the enormous art direction work. I find the sequel for the 206 SW to be weaker (but apart from The Empire Strike Back, which sequel can claim to have been better than the first movie?)


“The Sculptor”
Euro RSCG MCM (2002)
A.D: Giovanni Porro, C.R: Roberto Greco
Director: Matthijs Van Heijningen (MJZ)


Euro RSCG MCM (2002)
A.D: Giovanni Porro, C.R: Roberto Greco
Director: Pedro Romhanyi (Outsider)

Toyota managed as well to come up with clever commercials for the Yaris, more targeted toward women. I couldn’t find the other two movies online, “Tag” and “Rope”, but they are well realised and true to the idea.


“Plane”
CLEMMOW HORNBY INGE (2007)
A.D & C.R: Wayne Robison/Matt Collier/Ewan Paterson
Director: Dominic Murphy (Partizan)

And last but not least, Seat recruited volatile tennis player John McEnroe to play himself in this nice little ad not without a touch of self-derision. True, there is a car in it, but it’s not the main character at all.


“It’s in!”
Grey, Barcelonna (2005)
A.D: Jason Bramley, C.R: Jonny Biggins
Director: Warren Kuchner (Partizan)



That’s all for today, but don’t hesitate to drop a line or a link if you have other examples in mind.