A little background before any reveal. Now AdLand Suit for those who don’t know, is an anonymous character who moves among you in Advertising circles around London. Self proclaimed Senior. Self proclaimed Top Ten agency type. The kind of chap that people who are none of the above would like to know.
Of course anonymity brings both good and bad. It certainly attracted more attention than if he’d been open about his identity. I even get around 5 people a day coming to this blog just to try and find out. Anonymity is a formula which has been played out by some of Britain’s best known comic books and films – the masked, mysterious types. It’s all down to our human nature of wanting to know more. Wanting to make sense of the unknown in it’s more natural survival form it’s how we’ve survived as a race.
But AdLand Suit’s popularity is not one some online fictional character. For those who’ve engaged with him online, he has brought us wit, advice, charm, X-Factor, swearing, but importantly a highly personable, approachable flow of words. He is a talented communicator if nothing else, and a genuine online friend. And those who have socialised with him in real life speak fondly of the man.
You see Twitter and blogs allow you to get to know people more than some may think.
I speculated and fanned the flames a while ago about who he may be. But now the time has come for ***** to be revealed. Is he a bird? Is he a plane?
Today I blogged about the fabulous Children In Need video by Peter Kay. No sooner had I linked to it, and tweeted it, than Sony BMG had filed a copyright claim against it, and taken it down.
I had clearly stated it was a Charity video, linked to the original, gave direct links to purchase the video for charity, and mentioned the aforementioned brand.
A couple of things bother me here. Firstly how this reflected on Sony and its perceived lack of desire for driving extra traffic to a charity. Secondly, its lack of understanding about how young people interact with content.
The first we could argue all day about, and I have no desire to get into some horrid lawsuit for defamation. But the second issue is clear: Allowing people to share content on the internet in a controlled way is an invaluable way of spreading the word. Major brands connecting with young society must recognise that the users are now in control. They are the force behind how you promote online media; they produce and distribute content. Sony, you need to think like your audience. It not only reflected badly, it damaged my perception of your Global Brand, and from comments I’ve received, damaged it beyond my remit too.
By users sharing the video it had the potential to have a nigh on viral effect from an official YouTube version. The whole production is mind-blowing. So Sony, upload an official one to YouTube. Link through to the song on iTunes, flag up where you can buy it, seed it, and watch it go viral and make you look amazing in the process. It’s great Sony, have faith here.
As I’ve written this it hit number one on iTunes’ video chart after being released on download at the weekend. So what do you think? When you do, I’d like to have the Official YouTube version on my blog, which if you’re watching this, get’s several hundred hits a day on such a post. That’s several hundred people who could be seeing the link to buy and donate cash to charity.
Work smarter. The world is changing Sony.
Here’s to teamwork.
In any realisation of an idea, there’s the torturous process of navigating through all the approvals, the “can’t we just” slackers, the “no way” damners, and the inward gasps when you suggest what you need.
It’s with this in mind that the Children In Need animation montage spearheaded by Peter Kay is even more spectacular. As this goes on you begin to realise how seemingly impossible it must have been trying to get characters from the past 30 years animated, some of which have never even been considered in colour before. They span TV and film both from Britain, through to the most recognised forms in Animation Hollywood.
A credit to the vast teams involved in pulling this together, and for making a success of what could easily have been a mess of varied styles, perspectives and colours.
As Honda would say, “Difficult is worth doing”.
Here’s to Peter Kay and the Children In Need the world over. Here’s to a donation for this alone:
Click here to watch the making of the single and to donate.
Peter Kay’s ‘Animated All Star Band’ is available from iTunes
The single is also available from the following retailers:
AMAZON
PLAY
HMV
7 Digital
This went across blogs in 2008, but I thought I’d share this again as it’s still just as impressive.
Vogue Paris ran an excellent article featuring a series of shots of 20-years-old model Eniko Mihalik portrayed in the age of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 respectively. The entire shoot is of her as a 20 year old model, with the ages implied through pose, attitude, what’s shown off, hair, facial expression and make-up.
One model. 50 years of life. One shoot:
This truly lovely music video for Chad Kuchula, mixes up tilt-shift time-lapse and hand-drawn animation. It’s all been lovingly put together by one Nat Dart. It continues the trend towards traditional skills, demonstrating craft and creativity, over the often ‘easier’ route of CGI and CGA. Well done chaps.
Enjoy:
(via the excellent Questioning Reality, go check him out)
Yep, they did… Adam + Dan put my once-every-week-if-you’re-lucky posting format to shame. Still, they’re recent grads, and probably don’t sleep. Anyway I digress.
Cadbury set their bar pretty high with Phil Collins dressed up as a Gorilla. Since then we’ve had trucks coming alive at night, kids with spasm problems in their eyebrows, and giant dancing cocoa beans dreamed up by Art Directors on drugs*.
The beauty of the Gorilla, which ranks amongst my top adverts of the year, was that it communicated the core idea of Joy in a beautifully simple manner. Both with the joy of the Gorilla totally living his moment, and the joy of watching it for the first time along to Phil’s rock ballad. Ahhh I remember my first time; joy indeed.
The problem was that few people identified with a living truck and the pay-off wasn’t fast enough. The kids came close, but the joy remained with us, the viewer, not with the kids, and I’ve no idea about the cocoa bean apart from their Fair Trade connotations.
This latest spot resurrects that brilliant initial core idea. That moment of joy: Pure pleasure. We’ve all seen them – dogs hanging out of windows – we’ve all thought “that dog must be having the time of it’s life”. But the ad, in my opinion, isn’t as strong as it could have been.
The problem is it lacks identification with the situation. A race track, a second-hand Lambo in a flat looking purple, and too many wide shots and not enough accidental looks of joy on the dogs. For my money, I’d have like to have seen a long shot pull right up close to a glossy purple sports car on a country road, closing up to a dog with a big flabby face flapping about in the wind; it’s mouth up-turned with a look of joy, slobber flying from it’s mouth. Or even have a cute puppy doing it. Finally, set this viral moment to soaring clips from Mr. Brightside by The Killers, Knights Of Cydonia by Muse, or maybe Sex on Fire by Kings if Leon.
It basically lacked that ‘epic moment’.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s still a lovely concept, but it flopped a little on the execution (in my humble opinion), and I’ll still be munching Cadbury’s chocolate after the gym – It’s how I roll, baby.
*There is no evidence I can find that the art director involved has ever taken illegal substances. By all accounts he’s a top man.
Credits:
Creative agencies: Fallon London & Saatchi & Saatch Sydney
Executive creative director: Steve Back
Agency producer: Kate Whitfield, Evonne Sciberras
Directors: Ben Lawrence
Production company: The Feds
Producer: Emma Lawrence
Director of photography: Anna Howard
Once upon a time people such as this were known as witches, and rightly burned at the stake. These days, they’re celebrated on YouTube. Watch this:
Alexander Overwijk draws a perfect freehand circle 1m in diameter in less than a second.
THE MODKATZ CAR WRAP, originally uploaded by We’re BMB.
Coming 2010… http://www.TheModkatz.com
Poppies on War Memorial, originally uploaded by rakidd.
The point is, the elder generation understand what happened. They understand why it’s so important to continue remembering. But the children look bored. The majority of services contain lots of superfluous words, lots of long stories, hymns and tradition which is great for the elders. The youth all know they must remember, but few could tell me why it was so important or what it meant. Few could show any passion for it.
I strongly feel that in the same way that we in advertising create relevance to engage other people, we must communicate Remembrance Day in a relevant way: Create short engaging stories, bring current young soldiers to the ceremonies across the country to show the kids photos, show YouTube clips, T-shirts that have space for who you’re remembering instead of a crappy paper poppy (sorry, but they’re a bit shit).
Where’s the engagement for this new generation? There must be agencies out there which can offer help even in these tough times. If we fail to meaningfully educate the youngsters then I feel they’ll only remember out of of a forced approach. The elders who fought in the WWII will, not long from now, pass away and we’ll have a generation who despise the war because of the tabloid hate campaigns, and I fear, lack understanding of times gone before.
So if the Royal British Legion read this, I’d love to help. I’d love to work with you to create engagement for them, and I’ll even design a few T-shirts too. Because I feel it’s important. I will remember. Will they?
