insights, ironies and idiosyncrasies in communication and design

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Thursday 11 December 2008

Eye-opener.


Media agency Sybolix's graffiti campaign for Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother – which uses cleaning fluid and water as an alternative to paint – truly caught my, er, eye. And not just for its carbon-friendly formula.

Smudged out of underpass tile grime, this work is both fresh and on-brand, and will hopefully set a precedent for ad agencies (and clients) all over, showing as it does that digital isn't the only alternative to paper and ink. (An approach Stefan Sagmeister has of course pioneered in advertising's sister industry of graphic design.)

It is, though, the low production cost that makes the work really such groundbreaking stuff. And if Happy Thought feels the piece's impermanence fails to justifies its price tag, I can only think that Sybolix must have charged real big for creative. (And fair enough, really.)

As for its ephemeral quality, I'm convinced the buzz such killer work creates far outweighs its fragility. And anyway, if the piece suffers from brandalism as this Sony work did, it's not like it's hard to reproduce or to find another dirty wall, now is it?

2 comments:

Bob said...

This idea was featured on an episode of Dragons Den, however the idea was firmly shot down by the panel of dragons, I thought the idea was superb as I suppose this ad agency did.

Rupert James said...

Agreed, Bob.

In fact, the Dragons beat down Incognito – a brand we developed for a London-based client last year. It might have got scorched in the Den, but it has done pretty well on the shelves so far – it was a Harrods' best seller during the summer!

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