This is the first piece of work to come out of Anomaly London since I joined almost 7 months ago that I’ve been involved with. I had nothing to do with the brilliant copy nor the selection of photographers, I’ve mainly been working on the digital side of the campaign but I must say I’m quite proud of it all. Adland seems to be fucked off with it, but as soon as you look at what the target audience thinks about it (on Twitter, Facebook et al), it has spurred the same reactions and inspiration as Diesel’s famous advertising in the early nineties. It’s a campaign built on cultural relevance and insight. I haven’t seen such a discussed campaign in years, but then again, I don’t often Google around after reactions to advertising.
I love everything about Halo 3’s ads. It’s amongst the best campaigns of the 00’s. Apart from the videos themselves being immaculately executed (THE MUSIC!), with insights and respect for gaming culture, the media placement is a-w-e-s-o-m-e. They know that their audience doesn’t watch TV between 8 and 9 pm, they live online. So place the ads there, properly on gaming websites such as IGN and Gamespot. And every view of the film will be relevant. The future of TV is placement, the video medium is still fit to do the job of storytelling, but TV isn’t. Release the ads on DVD’s to be rented for free on Blockbusters, screen them on city walls, locations only released to a relevant audience or if it’s good enough, sell it on iTunes.
This is all very old media planning/thinking, sorry about that, it’s just that this video was so awesome.
I have a couple of blogs, one food blog in Swedish that I’ve had for a few years, I stopped writing on it almost a year ago as inspiration was dying, but still I get visitors everyday that comes back to see if I’ve updated or not. I really want to write a RSS reader tutorial for these people, so that they will be promptly notified if I ever start writing there again. The blog you’re reading now doesn’t have that many random visitors (except for the Google ones) as most of my readers subscribe to it via RSS or expect to be notified on Twitter or Facebook whenever I’ve updated.
But it’s quite an interesting tought, ‘in the future’ when everyone will use RSS readers, the URL has become obsolete and Google has taken over North Korea, no one will have to update daily to not loose daily readers, no one will have to update every Saturday for their Saturday readers, one can just update whenever one has anything interesting to say or announce. For the first time in the history of publishing, we will not have to fill the exact same number of pages each day with news, a monthly magazine can publish whenever it has enough interesting content gathered, periodicals can have completely random publication dates and content will not be quantified in the same sense and hopefully this will mean a higher quality of information.
One thing that has struck me recently (despite my digital fatigue) is, that when brands famously converse with their target audiences online, how do they speak well? No, it hasn’t struck me that they need a tone of voice, or that this tone of voice has to be translated from general brand communications, but how hard it is to actually speak like that. It’s not easy talking like Nike, talking like Whole Foods, or to talk like an advertising agency. In the expensive, bogus, social media strategies that probably lies on the desks of every major brand in the world since a good year back, I can imagine the explicit recommendations. Nike’s would probably read “Talk with an encouraging, inspiring, optimistic, energetic, creative, and so on tone of voice and have a go-get-it-attitude with a twist to stand out etc.” Talk like Denzel Washington more or less.
Now, to the point. How easy is that really? I personally don’t know anyone that can talk like that, or that can be creative and geeky, and sensible enough to converse in the name of Apple. Not without seeming awfully contrived and false. The only people who could pull it off are the copywriters in the agencies, authors and playwriters mastering conversation, and are they worth the investment? And would Harry Pinter had been interested in Twittering for the National Theatre?
So a bit of an era has come to an end, moved to England and specifically London two years ago to study advertising at London College of Communication. Today I’m graduating, with a gown, cape and hat, not as an Oxfordman but still as a person who learned quite a lot and definitely came out as a different person. I got a 1st Class Honours Degree, the results of hard work, but foremost of two very supportive teachers, Jo and Paul, thanks, I owe you a lot.
The graduate scheme with BBH got deferred for a year due to the recession, but it could be the best thing that has happened to me as I’m currently working at my dream agency of a few years, Anomaly, helping them set up a London office. Amazing colleagues and it’s a great feeling to finally, be inspired everyday by your peers and to create communications that I think will both solve the client’s problem as well as give something to people, being neither disruptive or annoying, being culturally relevant, useful and engaging.
This is Dot Samsen’s decision maker project for RCA’s Design Interactions Thesis Show. I could write a paragraph of the things it could be a metaphor for but just watch it instead. Fantastic project. hgq693adcn
Cannes Lions is going on at the moment. The stuff I like the most are exclusively the Cyber Lions, awarded to the interactive/digital stuff, I haven’t even checked print for the usual overload of visual puns and image play, the print I like, functional and clean advertising seldom wins in France. What I miss is with the interactive stuff is that the in so many cases the brand is second hand, technology and idea is primary. This is something that ATL agencies suffered from many, many years ago with generic strategies without soul, voice or identification. One of the Grand Prix winner, Fiat eco:Drive, could’ve been done for basically any car brand with any environmental credentials. The other GP winner, The Best Job in the World, has an amazing and well executed idea, but no one remembers the damn island or who was responsible for it. Why So Serious is good but the voice and image was crafted by the movie’s director and writers, not 42 entertainment, they just utilised neatly.
I was interviewing Dave Bedwood of Lean Mean Fighting Machine for my dissertation, an incredibly inspirational conversation that I wish could’ve gone on for more than the hour he gave me, and he mentioned just this, that digital agencies has too little experience in writing ads, thousands of ads, to find that thing in a brand that makes worth communicating. CP+B is an agency that does great interactive/digital work that always has an appropriate tonality and a voice that people can recognise. Their Whopper Sacrifice campaign clearly comes out of the brand strategy not from the technological possibilities Facebook brings.
Holidays are over, it was a bit rainy, mostly sunny and relaxing enough. Expect this blog to turn into something else, something of more substantial value and something that offers a viewpoint. It will mainly look at thing from a perspective of relevance, getting some distance from communications and London, the thing that has struck me is that little means of selling or communicating bears any relevance to anyone. The question why would anyone care is as crucial as ever, but does anyone ask it? Digital or interactive agencies makes things relevant to themselves, traditional agencies makes stuff relevant to the client, but who does anything relevant to the consumer?
Also, an update on why Noma is relevant, why Loire wines are relevant, why Future Lions could be relevant, why Stoke Newington is relevant and why drinking 3 cappucinos before 9 am is really bad for the rest of the day.
Me and Alex did this for Future Lions, a campaign for National Geographic. Please comment! My last ever student competition entry, feels sentimental and wonderful.
