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).

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.

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.

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.

I thought this week’s Brand Camp cartoon was pretty spot-on  and thought provoking.  It talks about how excited we are about social media as marketers, and yet how little respect we give it as permanent and public representation of our brand.  In many ways the rules and tonality with social media are much more complex than those of more traditional outlets, and should probably be managed as carefully as we fuss over the typeface in our advertising copy.   

The internet as we know it is 40 years old next week. October 29th 1969 was when the first two computers (one at Stanford, the other at UCLA) connected to each other. They were the first two “hosts”. At the end of the following year, there were 13 computers talking to each other and so it goes. The Guardian has a brilliant internet timeline, with milestones of each of the last 40 years. Glancing through it, it struck me how significant the pace of change has been in the last 10 or so years. Each year, something arguably massive emerges (1997 blogging, 1999 Napster, 2001, Wikipedia, 2004, Facebook, 2005, You Tube, 2006 Twitter).  This brings us up to today and a story in AdAge announcing VW’s launch of the new Golf GTI - a car I once owned and absolutely loved.  When the last version of the GTI was launched in 2006, VW spend $60 million on TV advertising.  In 2009, they are launching the new GTI with an app only available on the iPhone, costing them about $500,000 to do it. I love this for a couple of reasons:

1. I’m guessing the correlation between iPhone ownership and VW brand love is pretty strong…so a decent partnership

2. Driving a GTI is like driving a toy car on steroids…a neat creative spin to promote the launch with a driving game

I also just want to see how it works out…what a brilliant case study if it does and a ballsy move by VW.

I came across the photographer Fred Herzog a few years ago and loved a retrospective of his work shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007. Walking through the airport the other day, I came across this shot, showing a bunch of kids at a corner store and the obligatory retro style ads for Coca-Cola. The one I loved was for 7-up, with the fabulous message “You Like It..It Likes You”. Six words that basically sum up the goal of online brand relationship building. From 1960.

I am totally inspired by the groundbreaking force-to-be-reckoned-with of social media it what is proving to be pivotal in the historic events in Iran this week.

It has catapulted a technology that I was previously entirely cynical about into the realms of the truly revolutionary with average Iranian citizens able to get their personal experiences out to the world despite media blackouts and internet censorship with simple micro-blogging.

Hooray for a media coming of age and finding it’s worth. I am brimming with ideas to incorporate Twitter methodologies into our work!

Back in the dark depths of January we blogged about the interesting new campaign from Queensland Tourism, which advertised the best job in the world - caretaker of a tropical island for six months, with job responsibilities including: scuba diving and blogging. This week, the campaign got another boost in the news. First - the lucky guy (I wanted to use stronger language, but this is a family blog) who was hired for the job was announced.  Ben Southall.  Remember that name the next time you’re having a bad day.

Second, the campaign won Best of Show at the One Show in New York this week and I can see it cropping up in the other award shows this season too. While it’s a great creative leap and lovely idea, I was most impressed with it’s effectiveness too. The campaign cost $1 million to produce and run and has generated $150 million in global PR coverage for the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The announcement of the winner was carried live by 70 news organizations around the world, allowing millions of people to immediately feel sorrier about their lot in life. Well done to all involved (apart from Ben Southall).

Back in the 70s BMW commissioned some of the hottest artists of the day (Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg etc) to paint a range of their cars. Check them all out here. These cars are going on display again at Grand Central Station in New York, for a couple of weeks only (the installation closes on April 6th).  While Warhol may have elevated everyday brands with his work (Campbell’s Soup Can etc), it seems more appropriate that a brand like BMW is re-imaged in this way. Actually using the cars as part of the art rather than portraying them on canvas, makes a difference, but I think it’s the fact that BMW were collaborating with this creation that elevates their part in the show. Campbell’s Soup didn’t ask Warhol to paint their cans. I wonder what would be a decent equivalent today (apart from Apple).

Honesty is always a powerful force in any aspect of brand communications, which is why I like Fat Pig chocolate, which I found at a great packaging site called Lovely Package. Thanks Alison and Dave for pointing me there. The Fat Pig stuff reminded me of the Dudley Moore comedy, Crazy People and the notion that only lunatics would write “honest copy” and that this would be a huge revelation on Madison Avenue. Clients and customers would love it too.

The best advertising is honest. If it isn’t, the first time you try a brand and it doesn’t live up to the promise of the ads, you despise it twice. First for being a poor product and second for lying to you. Honesty in advertising can also come from a consumer insight so poignant and true, that it’s unavoidable.  Like this…another favorite: