PhotoReal

You can't help but look and look, I love the detail, is that wait, real Letraset I see? For the Gen Y out there this was some new fangled stuff that was transferable type that you used when presenting your ideas to the client it was a bugger to use and expensive so in most cases you drew the font by hand, I'm sure that's why so many headlines were so short.

Here's some more shots of how the ad was made: flickr Such a lovely simple creative idea congradulations to Bates141 Jakarta.

And the Brands are..

First up is the Commonwealth Bank
Second is Duracell and the last one is for Bunning's Warehouse

Not great sites but all credit for great branding, Well done Duracell for making a start on UGC but why doesn't these sites have more UGC? Build that relationship online.

When you read with colours

Just took a walk down the high street during my lunch break my mind is buzzing with ideas that I'm currently working on, with everyone's busy lives it amazes me how we can take it all in, one trick is the power of colour. If your brand is so powerful that you can tell the product or service just by its colour then you're doing your job, here's three I spotted at a glance, I could tell who it was, can you? or better still, any marketing director's out there who would like to test it on a few people during their lunch break, no cheating and giving clues, if the vast majority of people can't tell your brand, you might need to look for a new advertising agency

The one in the middle is a Global brand, the other two are Aussie brands.
If you haven't guessed I'll reveal the brands identity in a couple of days

When social media becomes very unsociable

The website at the centre of controversy over racist abuse of British formula one driver Lewis Hamilton is owned by a New York-based advertising agency, TWBA, which is part of the world's largest media services group, Omnicom.
Read this tonight and my first thought after reading the full piece was; 'What a bunch of arse holes' and secondly was; 'This is where social media doesn't work and can back fire and in this case not from a F1 car but from the ad agency,they now have been lumped into all this melee which can be very damaging for a company.
It reminded me also of Ian Farmer, Bullseye's online strategist who delivered a brilliant insightful presentation on social media last week on what companies should and shouldn't be doing when looking at their social media strategy, one not to do is have a blog and leave it, it's a PR disaster. Ian in his closing speech also had an 'action plan' for when things like this regarding social media gone all horribly wrong.

I suggest TWBA have a peek and get some tips on how to handle this.

Picture this- your mood

Seen this over the weekend even though I've been on Getty images for years but what I love about this particular tool is how it can refine my search depending what mood I'm looking for, it can even build a mood board that showcases the feel I'm after, great functionality and very instinctive, so you're not 'wadding' through thousands of pictures or videos, Flickr something you could maybe follow? well done Getty.

http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/usa/?isource=usa_lid_img_moodstream

Online Treasure Hunt

I had a really interesting chat with a mate of mine who doesn't even work in the digital business he was raving about 'geacache' I had a rough idea what he meant but he demonstrated how it worked as he had just downloaded the app on his blackberry or as I like to call them 'crackberry' but with his excitement in between big gulps of his cafe au lait he went on to explain how it worked and how the previous Saturday spent the afternoon with his kids on a treasure hunt, yes, yes we've seen them all before, a bit like Easter egg hunts isn't it? well no not really, this is something much more than just wandering around the back garden looking for a couple of Cadbury's cream eggs.

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. This is big, currently there are 679,530 active geocaches around the world.
Enter your postal code or address and click "go" to explore the geocaches near you so the site says, I got my mate Des to enter our postcode to where we were and hey presto there was two in our area.

He said that the kid's loved it and when they found their 'treasure' the previous week they shrieked with delight some coins, hearts, and beads with a message from the last visitor, all harmless fun and my kids have already started to dress up and started to look very much like Captain Jack Sparrow.
http://www.geocaching.com

Post modern art

We may be living in the era of the email, but one young illustrator has proved that the art of correspondence is far from dead. While working for her degree at Glasgow School of Art Harriet Russell decided to find out exactly what lengths the men and women of the Royal Mail were willing to go to to ensure the safe delivery of her missives.

To put them to the test she concealed the addresses of 130 letters to herself in a series of increasingly complex puzzles and ciphers. Among the disguises she employed were dot-to-dot drawings, anagrams and cartoons. The answer, it seems, was very far indeed. Amazingly, only 10 failed to complete their journey back to her.

What a cracker of an idea, who would have thought old Royal Snail Mail could be such an addictive and fun way to commuicate, much better than going through endless emails, who said; 'the art of conversation is dead' was talking rubbish.

An idea in which with the digital threat Royal Mail or the Australia Post could adopt, this could get people to start sending mail again, they then could 'post' the best on a mircosite gallary wall.

Encourage art students, kids to get scamping ideas.