Schmoooooooooth

A lot of people ask what Anomaly actually does. It's a fair enough question. I normally say it's easier to say what we don't do rather than what we do do. But one of the things we are definitely committed to is trying to do is launch products that we have a stake in. A few launched last year, the very latest is a cool ladies shaving cream.

Take a look at EOS - The Evolution of Smooth. Not being that big on the finer aspects of ladies leg shaving I'll spare you the hard sell but it's basically a moisturizing cream rather than foam that dries skin out.

It will be fascinating to see how it sells and what we can learn from the launch as we (as in Another Anomaly) begin to launch our own things. In the meantime check out the site, fab pair of legs and a little easter egg if you type in 'smooth'.

Lost Forever

Last night the penny finally dropped. You can talk and write about how the TV advertising model is so outdated and must change but while watching Lost I had my own little mini epiphany.

I am a big Lost fan - what can I say, it's a guilty pleasure and I can't be supercool ALL the time. I rarely watch 'live' TV other than football or stupid stuff on MTV but last night there was a new episode of Lost that was great. It was one of those episodes where stuff comes together and the plot moves on rather than just filling time while the writers work out how on earth they are going to end this thing. And lots of people got killed too. And there were lots of ads.

I swear when this crappy Ford ad came on slap bang in the middle of a juicy bit I really wanted to smash the TV. Now, I like TV ads, it's why I got into the business and I understand the economics but at that moment if a little button had come up that said 'kill the ads and return to Lost for $20' I would have gladly done it. I probably would have paid more. Any ad that came on, even the next 'Balls' would have p**sed me off. Is that what clients really want their audience to feel?

So, what's the alternative?  Maybe Lost and other things like that are made for DVD sales, but not really. You can skip the ads on PVR but only later and it's still breaking the flow. TV through the web has, I think, had a few false dawns but Hulu looks to be pretty good now. I know people who just watch Hulu but it's a solitary experience. And despite rumors of Joost running out of moolah it seems to be getting more and more content. HBO has not been doing as well recently as it used to but I think that's more to do with their top shows (Sopranos, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under) all finishing at roughly the same time. 

The fact that there are so many alternatives would indicate that there isn't actually a viable mass alternative. But I tell you what as soon as someone does work that out there will be no turning back. Like the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 life will change forever.   

Lessons from The Dark Side

Last week I went back to London to judge the online adverstising bit of D&AD. Set in the deepest darkest depths of snowy East London (just so you know it's 26 and sunny here today!) I think my main take out is that banners are well and truly dead. Meurto. Kaput. F**ked. 

Now, if this was a proper blog I would be able to link back to a post I made last year saying the same thing but you'll just have to take my word that I've said this before.

This by no means that digital is dead, oh no. Carl, anomaly main man, just got back from a meedja conference in Venice and said the only thing he really took out of it was that if you don't have your digital strategy sussed by now you may as well pack up and head home. So, no, digital is not going anywhere. But, banners - banners are going nowhere. Weird that if something is going nowhere that's a bad thing but if something isn't going anywhere (essentially the same thing) that sort of means it's good and staying. It's Friday I'll let you ponder that one. 

There was some great work on show at D&AD especially from Tokyo. But for me there were no good banners, not one. As an artform (and we are talking creative awards here) they are just too limiting. Everything that has can be done has been done. Sure, there will be the odd nice, thing, good line, nice visual but peeps - 'let's move on, cos it's time to groove on (hear the drummer get wicked!').

I'll make a little wager with you. No banners will win any awards at Campaign this year. Number of entries in all awards across the board to go down at least 50% over the next 2 years.

That is all.

The 50 most creative people in the world

Creativity Magazine, which I suppose is the US version of Creative Review, recently announced its list of the top 50 creative bods around the world. Unsurprisingly there is a bias towards American creatives - that's to be expected - but what was really interesting for me was that there was not a single English creative from an ad agency. How the mighty have fallen?

There was some English representation in the list. El Presidente himself, Simon from Poke, is in there. Great photo. Jonathan Ive, is also there, along with Radiohead (eh? - one poxy little PR stunt that didn't really work and suddenly they are god's gift?). But the only person from a UK traditional agency is, of course, Juan from Fallon.

This will no doubt cause another 200 Juan bashing comments over at Scamp's blog but that's the way it is. No other person, or team, has done anything consistently good over the last few years in that particular sphere. Where the UK continues to do well in design, digital, music, the dominance in advertising is dead.

Why is this? Well, the answer is actually also on Scamp's blog: If the people on there who spend so much time slagging off other people and bitching about budgets and anything they can think of actually spent their time reacting positively to the changes in the industry and coming up with some interesting work the UK adscene might actually get somewhere.