Ooh look, it's not an ad.

In these cynical times i think it's pretty hard for multinationals to come across as cool and green. Well, it is if you think along traditional lines.  

But actually, if you take a step back and don't think about 'ads' per se then it gets a whole lot easier.

Puma have had a brilliant idea that will get them loads of coverage for what I think is going to cost them around about....$1400 and whatever it cost to make this small website.  

I'm not going to tell you what it is becuase I want you to go there and find out for yourself.

Go on, live a little.

Two things that show where we are at.

I had two thoughts - yes just the two - today about the state of the industry. One shows how far behind the states we are, the other how quickly things are getting out of control.

First up, I just read a post from Seth Godin whilst having my lunch. He talks about his new book 'Meatball Sundae'. Here's a clip:

"What’s a meatball sundae?

Maybe this is familiar. It is to me, anyway:

You go to a marketing meeting. There’s a presentation from the new Internet marketing guy. He’s brought a fancy (and expensive) blogging consultant with him. She starts talking about how blogs and the “Web 2.0 social media infrastructure” are just waiting for your company to dive in. “Try this stuff,” she seems to be saying, “and the rest of your competitive/structural/profit issues will disappear.” "

Of course he's right, no amount of fancy marketing will flog your products if your products or organisation stinks but what really caught my eye was the assumption that the client would bring a blogging consultant. And that that was such a cliche that it was worth making a point about. I don't know a single UK client that has a 'blogging consultant' - do you?

Will blogging catch on like it has in the US to such an extent that this will change or is just that clients are not going to change full stop? Let's see this time next year.

The other thing that got my attention this morning was that facebook is now worth £5bn. These figures always seem a little pointless becuase who really has any f**king clue what having £5bn is like, or even looks like?

Well, consider this. Arsenal Football club yesterday anounced their annual profits. We (for I am a gooner) are now the richest club in England due to some very shrewd financial planning and savvy transfer dealings. We are worth £1bn. Now Arsenal has been around for nearly 100 years, we have consisently been at the top of the UK game, have had a fair amount of superstars, in Thierry Henry had one of the games most bankable players (and have the next global star in Fabregas). We have tremendous assets, loads of smart people on the board, investors and great sponsorship deals. We are a big deal. We are internationally famous. And Facebook is worth five of us.

That's five Emirates stadiums, five Nike shirt deals, five Arsene Wengers...etc etc. This is a company that, admit it, most of you had not heard of even a year ago.

That, my friends, is mental. But just goes to show you why people get so excited by this whole internet thingy.

High Fives.

I'm feeling slightly bleary eyed after a good night at the Campaign Awards and Vodafone Music Awards. We won 5 out of 20 silvers which is some going I reckon. The other big winner was Nike+ from R/GA.

The most pleasing thing from my (selfish) point of view was that we had 10 nominations across eight different pieces of work, for six different clients. I think it's fair to say that a lot of agencies, digital and traditional, tend to have one or two showpiece accounts that get them their gongs and others that pay the bills.

Three of our awards were for Vodafone. I remember very clearly a rival CEO who will remain nameless - actually f**k it, it was Mr Brooks! ;-) genuinely congratulating me when we won Vodafone saying, 'it will be great for the bottom line'. The implication clearly being that we wouldn't get any dedent work out. But the brand has come a long way from rubbish TV ads with David Beckham sending text messages to Gary Neville (and Rebecca Loos) and it's great to be right in the thick of it. A public high-five to everyone at Dare and Vodafone (and BBH).

Congratulations to R/GA. The word 'awesome' is used rather too flippantly these days, especially in the USA. You could tell a US collegaue that you stayed in the night before watching re-runs of Property Ladder and the response could well be, 'oh awesome' with no hint of irony. After Nike got a black pencil I said in Creative Review that it was well deserved because I was in 'awe' of this work. Was then. Still am. Double high-fives. Tens in fact, to R/GA.

So nothing less than a business changing piece of work that combines two global superbrands and has the truest combination of technology, interactivity and life at it's core is now the bar.

We can all gas on and on about TV vs Web, new agency structures, branded content etc etc but what the business basically boils down to is this: how are you going to top that?

Computers with floppies.

We have just finished a nice little B2B site for Vodafone. It's for mobile working and links up with a TV ad but doesn't just repeat the TV thought it has it's own strategy. Some might say that's the future of integration.  

For those of you who haven't seen the Time Theft ad you can here. It's a stroy about a man who wants more time back. We thought this worked well on the big screen but actually the business problem Vodafone faced was that bosses were not buying the kit for their employees. Online is now where these decisions are made so we needed to do something that sold but of course was entertaining first.

The idea is update your boss. Taking the piss out of all those bosses who don't get the web and blackberrys and all that jazz. We had fun filming it - not so much fun putting it together (which was my point the other day about ideas vs production) but hopefully there is something there for all workforces to enjoy.

See some of you at the Campaign Digital Awards tomorrow I hope.

Dare School 2008 - open for bidniz

As promised a week or so ago here are the details for our graduate trainee programme for creatives. We are looking for 5 young men or women of sound mind and body to come along with us on the road to digital nirvana. Or something like that.

We started dare school in the summer of 2006 when it became clear to us that the only way to get the cailbre of young creatives we wanted (at a reasonable price) was to teach them ourselves. I like to think we are the Arsene Wenger of the advertising world.

So far so good, we have five schoolers who have done lots of interesting stuff from making go-carts, real wooden ones, to illustrating TV ads. You can see what they have been upto on their blog.

Now we are looking for another famous five. If you'd like to apply take a look here. (Or if you know some bright young things please pass it on.) You'll get to work with some of the nicest and smartest people in town (and me and Flo).

Remember we will be interviewing over the next few months ready to start in January 2008. And one other really important thing to note is that if you say DareSchool quickly it sounds like 'Dare is cool'.

Have a righteous weekend. You're worth it.

'Nudity for nudity's sake'

As childish as this may sound every creative wants to get their ad banned. You've got to go some to get ads banned in a media that was formed on porn, gambling and illegal copyrighted material, but hey, we’re all about pushing the boundaries. And actually it makes good business sense.We were recently asked by Barclays to do some work to entice students to open accounts. Two things sprang to mind: students hate banks; students love dicking around (on the web).

We had an offer to work with - free cinema tickets for a year - so eventually came up with a make your own Hollywood film spoof. We have created a you tube channel and a basic landing page. The ad that got banned was a version of American Beauty featuring a girl with bacon and eggs where Mena Suvari had petals. It's an enduring image isn'it?MSN refused to carry the video ad because it displayed nudity, ‘for nudity’s sake’.

Awardsville. A three pronged thought.

last night was the launch of the new D&AD annual, the Mercury Prize and two weeks today it's the 3rd Campaign Digital Awards. Could anything possibly connect the three you're wondering.

First up D&AD. The book, desinged by Fabrica has an interactive idea running through it. 500 top creatives were given a D&AD flag and asked to do something, er, creative, with it and take a photo. These photos break up the sections. It's a nice simple idea. Two of the DareSchoolers made pyjamas out of their flag and are featured in the book.

Apart from the book launch the other thing that happened was outgoing president Tony Davidson from W & K passed on the reins to Simon Waterfall from Poke. Simon is the first president from a digital background. He's a lovely and brilliant man. First a more interactive idea for the hallowed book. What next? Can't wait.

I'm also looking forward to the Campaign Digital Awards. At the start of the year there was a lot of fluff about the TV agencies getting into digital. I posted that I thought come December when Campaign do their top 10 digital ads only one would come from a non specialist. The shortlist would seem, so far, to corroborate this thought. Only AMV with their hands project and CHI with a few things have made any real progress, as far as I can tell. Whether AMV really did say they were going to become Digital Agency of the Year or not is a moot point but digital has been, and always will be, not about having the ideas in the first place, although that is clearly crucial, but being able to make them happen. And that's hard goddarned work!

I'll give you one more hunch which has been simmering away for a while now but after the Mercury prize last night I am certain will become clear for all to see. That is that the Klaxons are completely and utterly shit. Them winning the Mercury Prize is a crime against music. They are the new Darkness. A joke band that have ridden the zeitgeist wave but have no musical depth. Like the Darkeness the Klaxons will not exist in any meaningful sense in two years time.

I might be wrong about the digital ads of the year, we'll see, but I'm never, ever, wrong about music. Ask Flo. :)