Good ideas are timeless

I love ideas as in creative ideas that are playful with the written word or art directed in a way that captures your eye. (Ideally both of these skill sets work even better in conjunction). Take these two examples which came up in my social media feed, they stopped me in my tracks, my thumb came to juddering halt, I wondered why? Both have charm in tone of voice, both are also informative. They treat the viewer with intelligence and there's no need to 'fill in the gaps' as many marketing director's these like to do. This is what great ideas do, it moves you to act. To buy product, ohh those dirty words that seems to be the trend these days, to avoid selling stuff, ironically at all costs. 'Brand purpose' is all the rage but these posters have a purpose and their purpose is to flog stuff. What is also of interest, these two posters must be at least 40 year's apart, the Tide poster was conceieved just after the end of WW2, when Britain was in rebuilding mode after her cities where bombed, this is my hometown, London, East London to be precise. I love the line, it even has the brands name in the headline. (Dave Trott would I'm sure be impressed) and if you look closely it even has a bit of a special build going on, the use of type and graphics is dated but somehow would look fresh now, it has that retro feel to it. The headline" Tide's in - Dirt's out! what a line - just 4 words and hits a home run and the product benifit pitched in a charming way. Fast-foward to the 90's and we have a poster van driving around selling a bedside cabient. Again what a headline this is, it made me smile and again just 4 words to sell the product. How many ads have you seen lately that can do that? B&Q is the only work out of Uncommon London I can recall that has acheived that lately. These are timeless and like all good ideas will be remembered and recalled, as for the 99.9%, they'll all go in the black hole of nothingness. Work to be done for all creatives to get noticed and sell stuff. Tick,tock.

Sick Beats

When you see so much work throughout your career and as a Creative Director you see a lot - the good, the bad and the dam right ugly and then, a couple fall out of the bucket that come under the title; 'fuck me that is so bloody brilliant, oh my God what a fucking brilliant idea' title. 

Kids with cystic fibrosis have to go through a daily chore of airway-clearance therapy, it's not nice to say the least. 

So some smart people have created Sick Beats which is the world's first music-powered airway clearance vest. The prototype, a redesign of Woojer's consumer vest, syncs with a smartphone to pull therapeutic 40Hz frequencies from music and send them to the chest. Which helps clears the patients lungs of mucus. Bloody amazing.

Rightly it won awards but if I was the creative who came up with this idea, would I care it won? Not really but seeing the joy on the little girl's face after her treatment through Sick Beats, now that's worth its weight in gold. #hatTip team at Woojer and Area 23 FCB 

I'm drawn to Heinz

How about this for brand recall? To be fair it’s a bit like Hoover. Top draw work though from Heinz.This is also another great example of true 360’ thinking. Love the fact they also used the research as part of the actual campaign output.

Wow!! I need a cigarette after watching this

Wow. When advertising is done right. An incredibly powerful new campaign from Bodyform developed by a female led creative team out of AMV. #WombStories Truly magical story-telling. Serious #HatTip.

Interactive tech gaming

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drawing some lines, playing with some balls - interactive line drawing . . . . . #mixedreality #creativecoding #mediaart #madewithunity #unity3d #code #multimediaart #new_media_art #interactiveinstallation #projectionmapping #projectionart #projection #physics #installationart #creativetechnology #codeart #interactivemedia #interactiveart #creativecode #animation #touchdesigner #videomapping #computergraphics #newmedia #opencv #artxcode #interactive #twentytwohalo #creative

A post shared by Roelof Knol (@roelofknol) on Mar 2, 2020 at 8:05am PST

How lovely is this? This interaction is so fluid and with this tech you can see the potential from a creative perspective for brands either in-store or at a PR event.

Beautifully Sad

These ads from Refuge have been popping up in my feed over the last week or so, you would have thought this type of behaviour from men would have been a thing of the past, but sadly if anything it's on the increase :( but this is wonderful work from a creative perspective to the work they do in supporting women in abusive relationships. Very well written and art directed. #HatTip to work like this McCann Bristol.

Greggs You cheeky Monkey

When I saw this on my Twitter feed I laughed out loud. I think Greggs by doing this really plays to their strengths, they saw an opportunity to do a cheeky Christmas marketing stunt by flipping around its shop logo to capitalise on the popularity of Fenwick's famous Christmas window display opposite in Newcastle. Stroke of genius and hat tip to them as they have gained a lot of free media from the stunt, all positive I might add. To many brands now are to scared to do stuff like this, responses like; what would the customers think if we put our signage backwards? Where does it fit in with our marketing plan, and our 'brand playbook' we all follow doesn't show our signage flipped.

. Great stuff and might be the best piece of content created all Christmas for a retailer. The original post is here on Twitter with the video.

Art from fabric - Just stunning.Truly.

Just look at this - no words needed apart from inspired fabric sculptor artist Benjamin Shine

Fidget Phone.

Seen this, I really like it when you combine two things to create something completely new. Welcome to Fidget Phone - I love the fact it has a practical value too. From a marketing perspective I can also see branding and content creation with this. A new media channel. Very impressive and beautifully simple idea.

Let's Have A Beer #OpenYourWorld

I came across this piece from Heineken and when I started to read the idea I had a bit of a Coke Cola and Kendall Jenner moment. We are seeing more and more brands take this approach, take a topic and set up a social experiment and see it played out. The ad features people who disagree on issues like climate change, feminism, and transgender rights. But there's a catch: The two people don't know they disagree with each other when they first sit down. After a few minutes of getting to know each other, the pair is shown short videos that reveal their dissenting opinions on a particular topic. They're then given a choice: They can leave, or they can try and hash out their differences over a beer. I really like this idea - the actual build to the reveal was really clever and well thought out, by setting tasks you can see them bond, so when their conflicting views are revealed it adds tension and drama. I was transfixed to the end and I didn't feel the brand was forced, it dovetailed in nicely. Now there's a brand that's found its purpose, as we know and it has scientifically proven that most people can come to an agreement on most things over a beer. (As long as it's not too many beers and they are Millwall or West Ham fans:)

A Familiar Story Well Played

Spotted this little spot, really charming little film - that feeling of been rewarded as a kid, the butterflies you get in your tummy, they linked that to the NZ Lotto of winning it and the fact that they sponsor kids sports in NZ. I must say this spot is really well written and the cast of the kid, with the shot of his face at the end - is genius- nice work all round, well played, shame I can't say the same for my football team, West Ham, hey ho.

Think You Know Your Films?

Here's some lovely work, in the idea, illustration through to the art direction, it is by the illustrator Maria Suarez-Inclan “Hollywood Kits,” each colorful illustration in the series features props and images from the filmmaker’s stable of movies. While some of these objects are instantly recognizable, others will surely require a bit more thinking. The collection, which is exclusively available on Curioos as art prints, includes twelve original artworks inspired by icons like Steven Spielberg, David Fincher, Martin Scorcese, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers my personal favourite is the Coen Brothers - what is yours?

Some problem solvers create even more problems

Sometimes as problem solvers we get wrapped up in our own little world. It could be; over indulgence with a design, we make it way too complicated for the customer to know where to look. Sometimes we're tired, maybe out the night before drinking, and thinking that maybe that last shot should have been the last shot, so you cut corners. Whatever the reason as problem solvers we aren't important, neither is our own little world, what is important is our customers and the challenge they face. Take this example they must have had all massive hangovers surely this can be the only reason. They didn't think about their customer whatsoever, do you really think that your customer is just going to sit their while their mouse charges? The end solution should always be seen through the eyes of the end customer. Problem solved, maybe they could have designed a re-chargeable mouse mat so they could carry on working.

Reinventing the wheel, literally

Here is a wonderful piece of engineering and what can I say, this has literally reinvented the wheel, well how we harness it anyway, massive backing from Kickstarter and a reasonable RRP, a real wheel of fortune for the maker me thinks.

Clever Interaction in one easy swipe

Cat Memes

Just brilliant- what more can I say

Sounds A Great Idea

As a lover of old school Soul and with my love of vinyl and tech, by the way my record boxes and old school stack system is still out in display in my living room. (My kids still aren't quite sure what it is).So when I came across this idea, I must admit I did break into a bit of a two step across my living room floor. By harnessing conductive printed onto the vinyl cover, when tapped you can play a percussion sound. The ink responds to touch, interrupting a circuit that connects to a sound system. Sounds a great idea.

A real caffeine hit

Love this, turning brands into functionality products - like Nescafe who've turned their cap into an alarm clock - I'm also loving the tactile design of the cap too. Nice connected thinking.

Real people in ads please

Unknown Germany artist pasted photoshop toolbar on fashion posters for H&M - Genius - real people in real life I say

Google - an amazing story

This has been around for a while but if you haven't seen it - it is a cracker - just watch the film unfold, great story, great spot. Hat tip Google.