Earlier this week, a research team from Warwick and Sheffield universities in England claimed to have finally answered a question that has stumped philosophers for centuries, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” More here.

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How we will refer to the causality dilemma moving forward is clearly up for debate.

In honor of one of the simplest, yet best innovations of all time, let’s celebrate July 7th as “Sliced Bread Day”.  82 years ago today, Otto Rohwedder sold the first loaf of pre-sliced bread made by his innovative new machine.  Rohwedder had been working on the machine for 16 years, and it was a secondary problem that he needed to solve before it became a success. Slicing the bread was not the issue, but keeping the bread fresh was the more important factor.  He was only successful once he developed a part of the machine that wrapped the sliced bread in wax paper immediately, thereby packaging it fresh for sale.  Two years later, Wonder Bread commercialized the idea and the rest is history.  Good innovations don’t become great until all the angles are covered. Rohwedder stuck at it for 16 years.  Perseverance pays.

I learned about Robin of Shoreditch a few weeks back at Faris’ blog and fell in love with it immediately. The 100 Brands Project is a wonderful idea and truly inspirational. Even though I’m not the first to talk about this, I simply feel duty bound to put it out there and try to generate even more support.

I don’t think there needs to be much else said, other than to watch the intro video, then spend a little bit of time checking out some of the amazing ideas for big brands contained within. If you do any work for any of these clients, make sure they see this and then encourage them to participate. For what is essentially pocket change to any of the world’s top 100 brands they could get immense publicity from supporting a cause like this. Go Robin! (and Little John too).

I’m a big fan of Dave Trott’s blog. I see his posts as life lessons through the lens of advertising. A couple of days ago in a post on logic, he quoted Akio Morita, the founder of Sony:

“The greatest assistance I had in building my company was the total failure of nerve on the part of Western businessmen to move without research.”

And also Steve Jobs:

“It’s not the public’s job to know what they’re going to want. It’s my job to know what they’re going to want.”

We do a lot of research, but I can’t help sympathizing with both thoughts above. That doesn’t mean I disagree with research (which would be pretty silly for me), but I’ve seen my fair share of the wrong kind of research. In previous jobs, I’ve seen research used to dumb down breakthrough ideas and make them more mainstream. I’ve seen research be used to justify a client firing an agency; I’ve seen researchers saying that they were able to measure the effectiveness of an ad by having a few people look at a storyboard.

However, I’ve also seen research provide insights to doctors to improve the way they work with cancer patients. I’ve seen people crying in research as they discuss the difficulties of raising “problem kids”. I’ve seen lightning bolt insights about brands that come from observing people in bars or on cruise ships (yeah, those are the best projects).

What I’m saying in a round about way is that research gets a bad rap as the enemy of creative purity…as if asking people to share an opinion sullies the integrity of an idea. That’s BS.

To research or not isn’t the question. There’s always a  time, a place and a way to make research great - the good researchers know that and the best clients too.

Isn’t it nice when you see an ad that has a lovely idea, well executed.
This is one of those occasions. I think Tropicana in Canada tagline “Brighter Mornings For Brighter Days” is a lovely thought.

We have a lot of runners at Egg. A couple of us have experimented with the “freerunning” movement. In short, minimalist footwear to produce close-to-natural footstrike. While still within the minority, this freerunning movement is gaining traction (sorry, had to do it) and is proving to be a cost-of-entry innovation for most mainstream footwear companies. New Balance, Adidas and Nike have joined the race (there we go again).

These races against similar products inevitably produce a battle of differentiation (messaging, colorways, sponsors). Ultimately, the winner will harness an element of distinction its competition can’t match. I’ll propose Nike’s getting there with the below video. Always attentive to its ownership of the convergence between athletics and pop culture, Nike produced a video with the help of a couple Japanese DJ’s (not going to pretend I have the street cred to elaborate) that while absurd, highlighted the core attribute of its Nike Free shoe (next-to-natural flexibility) in a way that resonates with runners and peaks the interest of those profitable fashion-forward sneakerfreaks.

This is a challenge to rethink the way we communicate our most important attributes. Re-imagine how our targets experience the benefits we shout from the rooftops. Turn a simple function into art and in one down-beat, beat down the competition.

At the beginning of any kind of ideation, we always say to participants “it’s OK to be uncomfortable”. In fact, if you’re not a little bit scared by your new ideas, maybe they aren’t so innovative, so really you should “embrace the discomfort”.

While I stand behind this thought when brainstorming, we rarely ask consumers to be uncomfortable do we? The best innovations are nearly always those that might seem revolutionary, but really require very little change in behavior.

So maybe we should be looking at discomfort in a couple of ways. First - as ideators, if we experience discomfort, why is that? Can we figure out a way to make consumers feel more reassured? I think of this kind of discomfort as a challenge to work around…it’s a good thing. Second, any good new product idea needs to provoke a reaction, otherwise how is it going to break the status quo and sustain itself? So maybe we should harness some of that discomfort and use it to our advantage. All this said, a good bit of healthy fear keeps us on our toes, as this brilliant clip shows, but it’s respecting and using that fear that matters. Thanks to Toph for the clip.

For many of the world’s men, the airtight equation for camaraderie consists of one or both of these addends: beer and sport. The summation quite often includes both in the case of a big game. THE big game. Such as the UEFA Champions League game between AC Milan and Real Madrid football teams.

In a brilliant activation strategy,  Heineken Italy proposes that the “most sacred time men have left” is at risk, then devised a stunt to call out the increasing influence external factors have in pulling a fan away from his set (and his buddies, and, well, a profitable beer occasion). More narration will only act as a spoiler, so spend a few minutes with this excellent case study to see how, ultimately, Heineken went viral, celebrated the sanctity of male bonding and created authentic engagement with its brand.
Cheers to the weekend.

When I used to work in the agency world, clients would often refer to some of their advertising as “branding spots” vs. work that had a more concrete, rational claim or “sales” approach. This distinction always bothered me, because it implies that communication that centers on creating a feeling or stirring an emotion is less persuasive in making a sale than messaging that presents more rational evidence of uniqueness. Ideally, the most effective work does both (like Volvo, Cadbury Gorilla), but sometimes a beautifully filmed idea can simply work by creating a positive feeling of goodwill around a brand.

In the case of this wonderfully shot ad for Pedigree dog treats, I not only starting thinking about the brand in a different way, but also about dogs in a new way (elegant, emotional, so expressive). Such a great ad and no need to mention the “nutritional goodness” or other nonsense to make the spot “more believable.” The sheer vitality of the dogs says everything. This great work is from TBWA in Toronto.

I’m not a fan of Axe products, but I am a fan of their ballsy (pun intended) campaigns that appeal shamelessly to men’s more base instincts. There’s been much written about Unilever’s alleged hypocrisy of promoting such a powerfully positive female brand (Dove) here and here and at the same time running campaigns like this and this for Axe.

Personally, I think the best brands know who they’re talking to and who they are not talking to, recognizing that getting the message really right for their true audience might mean offending the others….and boy, does this new campaign do both.

When I think Puma, I think fashion, not authentic sports and in a quick word association around the office I hear “hipster, Brooklyn, single speed bikes and Wilco”. I think the move into more fashionable shoes and apparel has overshadowed Puma’s position as a footwear supplier and sponsor of athletes in both footballs (if you know what I mean). Back in the day Puma sponsored Joe Namath and Pele.

This recent viral piece, which is doing the rounds online is a lovely attempt to remind us who follow football (with a round ball) that Puma has as much love for game as it does for the catwalk. And I think it does it rather well.

My friend Mark was recently interviewed by a business magazine in Vancouver. The subject was about different ways of using visual branding in outdoor advertising. Mark asked me about some of my favorite outdoor campaigns and the one I kept on coming back to just for its sheer longevity of brilliance is The Economist. Even though outdoor is the anchor for the campaign, they’ve done fabulous TV/cinema spots and blindingly great print. At the heart of all of it is the beautifully simple branding device of the red color which is sometime dominant (as in outdoor) or a subtle accent. Most of all, I love the fact that the advertising isn’t designed for everyone to get or enjoy. If you do get it, you should probably be reading The Economist, if you don’t you probably shouldn’t even be reading this blog. Here’s the most recent stuff, courtesy of Ben Kay in London and here’s a historical perspective of all the greatest work. I challenge anyone to come up with a better example of outdoor campaign brilliance.