What's cool in advertising these days?

There have been a few things that have caught my eye lately in terms of 'advertising' that I'm sure would be considered cool. But probably people who consider themselves cool (read traditional agency creatives) would have run a million miles from these initial briefs. Which begs the question: what's cool these days?

Please bear in mind all creatives (and suits and planners) got into advertising because they thought it was cool. Anyone who says they didn't is lying. Of course this doesn't mean that all people in advertising are cool - jesus, far from it.

Here in NY what's cool is pirate stores. Method have one on Broadway. By all accounts it's pretty cool. I haven't gone in yet (too busy working and playing ping pong). Now essentially a Pirate Store is sales promotion, the preserve of the shelf-wobblers. What self respecting scamp reader would go near a shelf wobbler brief?

The Honda ad last night was pretty cool wasn't it? It's not really a film though. It's a PR event. From what I understand this was C4 Creatives idea rather than Weiden's but that's from cursory research so I'm happy to be told otherwise. But again, PR was normally the job of some sloaney twat from Knightsbridge rather than cool people from Shoreditch.

And I see that Spot the Bull is back for Glastonbury. Good on Orange and Poke for just running the same idea. It was great, why try to beat it? Smart. Again this is a field marketing event - not a glitzy film shot by Danny Klienman or Jonathan Glazer. I used to be on thr awards committee for the DMA awards and even the DM people laugh at Events Marketing people!

And not only is Spot the Bull a peice of field event marketing it's done by those bloody interweb geeks from the basement.

Time was when the prevailing thought was that it was better to be writing TV ads anywhere - even at a crap agency, 'Well at least it's above the line innit?' - than do shelf wobblers or web sites. I bet there are still loads of people who think like that.

My attitude is, cool, more fun for me.

I love it when a plan comes together

At the end of last year I was involved in a piece of work for Sony Vaio that I really thought could be something quite special. The idea was to get John Malkovich to write the first scene to a movie and then ask people all around the world to write the next scenes. Then we would try to make a movie out of it. Well, it's finally here and I love it.

The site did well last year, getting the no.2 slot in Campaign's digital work of the year but I think now that the film is finished it's really something. There are so many reasons why things like this just don't happen, agents, timing, languages, clients - you name it the odds are stacked against work like this.

Take a look at the film it's an exclusive on Daily Motion for a few days. It's charming, funny, slightly bonkers - just like Malkovich himself. Which is perfect. The film was directed by Laurie J Proud through Sherbert productions.

One Show Wonders

Last Friday was the One Show Interactive awards here in NY. There was some good work on show, a really good showing by London agencies and some hardcore Man Wrestling.

Uniqlock won best in show which I don't think anyone can argue about. It seems to be this year's Nike + in that it's an all encompassing huge idea that has it's epicenter online. I said it last year and I'll say it again - this is the future. So far that means two clients that get it. Better than none!

For some reason I ended up sitting next to the President of the whole One Show. The Mrs was on the jury and so presenting and on the posh table, so I was with her - power dining - but after that caught up with some familiar faces from the crowd.

The Lean Mean boys were in full effect having picked up four (Virgin / Emirates) banner pencils, Glue got a couple (Mini / Marines) and Dare won a silver for their / our (I'm still not sure what the protocol is if you have worked on a project but are not at the agency anymore - do you say 'our'?) Bravia site, along with the Webby it won last week. So pretty good showing by the London crew.

It's funny how 'London' is really it's own country when it comes to business. With all due respect there aren't any pencil winning campaigns coming out of Saffron Walden which is different to somewhere like the States, obviously, but also Spain and even Sweden where the creative pockets seems to be more evenly distributed . With mobile working do we think that will change? Hope so.

The keener among you will note that I said a few weeks ago that banners are dead yet here I am gassing on about award winning banner work. I think that's more to do with the categories in the One Show. There are about 6 different sections just for banners whereas D&AD was just an 'online advertising' section. So we'll see whether that changes. Awards shows are businesses so as long as people are prepared to pay to enter banners then I'm sure awards will be given out but I still fundamentally believer the banner has had it's 486 pixels in the sun. They are going to go the way of the Mexican Wrestlers who took on a huge all mighty man beast of a sumo wrestler at the end of the show - and got their asses kicked.