insights, ironies and idiosyncrasies in communication and design

from the wide, wide world and the world wide web

Monday 15 February 2010

The power of dreams.



While over at bleeding-edge blog The Musings of an Opinionated Sod I was reminded (again) of the power (and economy) of simplicity, clarity and candour in Asian marketing. Sex, in one form or other, is one of the dreams that sell; status – if you want to split the atom – is the other.

This was brought into sharp relief as my head returned to the psychobabble of the brief on my desk. Much of the marketing that surrounds us is blighted by impossibly broad and unobtainable communication objectives, a target market that's often as wide as the world market itself and the continual pestering of mass client intervention that W+K talk of here. The autonomy that Bernbach secured with Avis only very few (can) (dare) look for.

In the rural Cambodian shantytown of Poipet (described by the Lonely Planet as "the armpit of Southeast Asia") subsistence living forces a brevity and directness unheard of in the region's glitzy, excessive, neon capitals onto the locksmith and his brand. His communications – which contain the essential requisites, for his specific target, product illustration (literally, here) and call for action, are boosted by a simple but killer injection of emotional value – the power and status associated with getting a step closer to fulfilling one's dreams of (and with) owning Honda, even if it's just a key ring, at first.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Write it off.



More a passport office for the next life, rather than a graveyard for business careers in this one, Cards of Change celebrates the positives of being sacked by giving those that have been freshly laid off license to rewrite the scope of their new world post-job on their own business card. Online group therapy for a world still in recession.

Set up by former TBWA/Chiat/Day employees, united in Unknownlab.

Hitting back.



I've for a long time been a fan of the subversion of media in and by advertising – as in, and excuse the unabashed self-promotion, THEC's Thailand Open campaign – though this Cyberbullying spot is the first time I've seen media made as the idea online.

Although the video production quality is a just a bit too polished and the faux Youtube graphic ever so slightly off (both points are really only caveats) this work really punches.