The Best Digital Work of the Year

We're approaching December which means it's list time. I think my first post on this blog was a reflection on last years Top 10 digital ads and how the specialists dominated that list. I predicted it would be the same for this year. Whaddya reckon?

Sadly I can't link to that first post but I'll give you a synopsis. Campaign's Top 10 digital ads were all from digital agencies rather than digital departments of big agencies. Much had been said about 2007 being the year the big boys got their digital act together. I predicted that of the 10 for 2007 only one would come from a TV agency.

So far, I reckon that's looking like a pretty good bet. AMV's 'hands' work for Guiness is the only thing I can think of that would make the list. But who knows, Campaign like to throw the odd cat amongst the pigeons so we'll have to wait and see.

What does anyone else think. Am I missing a great piece of work? What have been your favourite pieces of the year? And has any traditional agency got a digital department that can match the specialists?

The future's bright, the future's orange, pink, yellow and green.

Last night Florian and I went to the creative review 'Creative Futures' event in Shoreditch. There were two talks that I thought gave a really good snapshot of where our industry is heading. A clue, a huge willingness to experiment and a wonderful lack of ego.

First up illustrator and graphic designer Kate Moross spoke. Kate is 21 and still at Camberwell but has a body of work, both personal and professional that any full time designer of 10 years' industry experience would be proud of. I guess she is sort of the poster child for the Nu-Rave scene having done work for all those bands that I love to hate: Klaxons, New Young Pony Club etc etc this giving her international exposure but it was her willingness to get on with shit - with a smile on her face - that really impressed me.

She started off her talk saying that she thought it was important to be nice. Some of you may know dare's slightly happy-clappy recruitment policy of 'good and nice' but it sure makes a change from the snipey, bitchy creative departments of most traditional agencies (don't believe me? - just visit Scamp's blog and watch them tear shreds into each other when another big campaign launches). The other thing that Kate did that I really liked was a web app that let people draw in triangles (another of her trademark styles). She had no web experience but taught herself, got on with it and produced a wonderfully simple page that any web agency would be quietly chuffed with.

After Kate came Digital Club. I must declare an interest here. After seeing them speak at the ICA at the start of the year I got them in to help out on the product demo bit of our Bravia site. They did a great job for us and it was sort of surreal seeing them present the site on a huge Bravia screen.

As with Kate colours and experimentation were everywhere. They had ideas for sites that made art from google search images and a lovely site for minivegas based on the idea of 'business at the front - party at the back'.

I walked back from the talk in the pouring rain feeling very upbeat about the future until I went past a pub as Croatia went 3-2 up. I stayed for the last 10 minutes to watch the panto unfold (Dan's nice use of the word). I have a theory that English Football and traditional English advertising suffer from the same maliase - incompetence mixed with misplaced bravado - but that's a whole other post. For now let's celebrate the Under 21's creatives coming through.

She Says Party on Thursday

A quick post to remind regular digital dudes and dudettes that the party season is upon us (I went to the Microsoft Winter Party last week - Posh!) so She Says are having a party this Thursday.

She Says is the group set up by Laura at Glue and Alessandra at Republic to get more women in top jobs in digital and so far they are doing a cracking job. They have made movies, held loads of talks that are always oversubscribed and given women in agencies professional mentoring. To celebrate this rapidly growing group they are having a party. It will be supported by the nice people at Propel so if you get there early enough you'll get some free booze.

More details here.

Hopefully see you there. 

"It's OK pops, we're going to California and we ain't coming back."

Last night I went to the Paul Lavoie from Taxi lecture at D&AD. It was one of the most inspiring and genuine presentations I have seen for a long time.

The talk was filmed and I would imagine will appear on the D&AD web site so I won't go over everything. There is a really good text interview with Paul here too (best line "If you are programmed to win awards you are becoming a dinosaur"). But there are a few things that stuck in my mind.

Paul talked about the cover of Time Magazine in 1983. Instead of the 'Man of the Year' it was 'Machine of the year' and yup, you guessed it, it was a PC. He then talked about how this had totally revolutionised the industry. And of course he's right. He's not a geek, he's an art director, but he got it - a long time ago.

Taxi are not a 'digital' agency, they started as a pureplay design and ad agency. Print, TV, Posters. They still do that - bloody well too. He said they didn't have a house style. I would disagree: everything he showed was cool, crisp, funny and successful. I'd be happy with that as a house style. The great thing was that this style, or tone, was spread evenly amongst ALL disciplines. The same humour in some great Viagra ads appears in lovely sites for Mini. And not content with diversfying into digital they are now doing NPD.

They had a great idea for a homeless charity. Instead of spunking an extra 200k on a christmas party they set up a clothing range called 15 Below that makes a parka that can be stuffed with newspaper for insulation. They are given to to the homeless or sold in stores (for every parka sold one is donated). Paul's point was that it is this sort of creativity that keeps him buzzing.

He still loves TV, we all love (good) TV but understands it's not always the answer and sometimes money can be more effectively spent elsewhere. I still don't think there is a mainstream agency in London that honestly thinks  or acts this way. They may say they do but they don't really.

For him the line has clearly been crossed. He told a story about his dad in freezing cold Canada selling a car to some kids. Before he sold it to them he warned them, "It hasn't got a reverse". They replied, "It's OK pops, we're going to California and we ain't coming back."

I was wrong - sort of.

I just went to have a little squiz at the Apple store - remembering that it was the day of the launch of the new iPhone. Would there be the same madness that there was in NY?

Ermm. No. There were a few people waiting, see a pic here, but nothing remotely close to what went on in NY when Johnny from Anomaly (more on me leaving Dare for Another Anomaly next week...) queued for five days and was on every TV news show.

When we heard that Vodafone were not getting the iPhone we had a few thoughts about whether there was anything interesting we could do around the launch. One idea was to pay a dude to be at the front of the queue, film the whole episode and then when he (for they are always male) got to the front he would ask whether it was available on Vodafone. The Apple staff would say 'unfortunately not' and then he would say, 'Oh, OK. Don't think I'll bother then', and walk off. Cue much hilarity.

At the time I was convinced the iPhone luanch would be a huge deal. Dare is very near the store, we could set up soup runs and do all sorts of things. But it just hasn't really happened. With Steve Jobs making a hash of the pricing in the US and all the geeks and chavs over here already offering hacking services it's all been a bit of a damp squib. At least it's not raining.

Still, it took 2 years for Apple to sell 1m iPods, I think they are nearly there for iPhones already. The service will get better and whenever you see someone with one you can't help but want to play with it. I reckon in this country it will just be a grower rather than a shower.

Make a Movie with Malkovich

"Most digital work is pony", reported Campaign last week. I have always been the first to agree with that - with the proviso that most TV and Press is equally pony. All we can do is try to not be pony more often than not. I'm hoping the new Sony site we have done for Vaio laptops with John Malkovich will help convince even the moodiest traditional creatives.

We have a really simple idea for the site - which is an extension of Fallon's press and cinema work . John (Mr Malkovich to you) has written the first scene to a movie and the web community is going the write the next few scenes. John will choose the best scenes each month until we have a script (that will an Oscar and make us all millionaires...)

What I find most interesting about this is that it is a great way of producing quality user generated content. A  lot of people have criticised UGC for being cheap and nasty (neatly sidestepping the point that it puts them out of a job) but as with everything context is all. Sony is premium so it's needs premium UGC, something like Mentos less so.

The site is live now - so have a peak. The actual script project officially opens on Nov 16th but you can see John reading the first scene and get an idea of what to do next.

Adland has always been full of frustrated script writers and film wannabes - so here's your chance. Show us what you got!