Adbusting. More Skateparks for Denmark.

September 14th, 2011 • 2 comments Experimental
Tags: Campaign, denmark, Funny, Lifestyle, ooh, Politics

I have to admit since Denmark found it necessary to re-initiate border controls because of some right-wingers there is something dislikable about Danish politics. Anyway Ali’s Skate Gear, a Skate shop in Copenhagen, just showed that this is not true at all. Check out their nice adbusting idea for more Skate Parks.

Well…to be honest – I think it was an award project idea by DDB Denmark. But anyway.

via whudat

Hiroshima. A Panoramic View from August 1945.

August 10th, 2011 • Experimental, Politics
Tags: history, Panorama, photo, Politics, sad, visual, War, World

August 6, 1945 was a turning point for mankind. At 8.15am the mushroom cloud of the world’s first Atomic Bomb rose over the City of Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands and pushing mankind into a future threatened by constant mutual destruction. Hiroshima and Nagasaki influenced my life even five decades later. As a kid growing up in Germany of the 1980s Cold War era I knew everything about the bomb. Years later the fear of it made me study Politics and specialize in security Politics (writing my thesis about Nuclear Proliferation in North Korea).

Last week the world mourned the end of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the 66th time. I just stumbled upon this breathtaking 360 panoramic view of the city of Hiroshima, taken in August 1945. As there were really few pictures of the actual bombing this is one of the most shocking views I have ever seen. What you see below used to be a buzzing city of 330,000 inhabitants.

The Panorama consists of 5 pieces taken by U.S. and Japanes photographers. I have integrated Piece 1 and Piece 3. Find all the other pieces here.

Hiroshima after the Atomic Bomb (1 of 5) by Shigeo Hayashi in Japan

The following Panorama was shot from a different position by the American photographer Harbert F Austin Jr.

Read more »

Soulbot 3000. Looks great, safely contains human Souls.

Juli 20th, 2011 • Experimental
Tags: Cool, Creativity, Design, Experimental, Future, Ideas, Presentation, products, video

They say that we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of death. They say that it’s the weight of the human soul. Soulbot 3000 is now able to contain this amorphous mass: The Soul. Thanks to Andreas Wannerstedt for making Soulbot 3000 possible.

(via Fubiz)

Sweet. Sagres sculptures a Chocolate Website.

Juni 15th, 2011 • Experimental, We like
Tags: Beer, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Design, Funny, Ideas, Interface, Sagres, visual, We like, Website

I am not entirely sure how I should feel about a chocolate-flavored stout. But at least it’s a novelty – both as a product as well as an interactive experience. Portugese brewer Sagres has just launched a website made of real chocolate to promote its new “Sagres preta chocolate”. To make the interactive experience become as choco as possible the whole website was designed and sculptured by chocolatier Victor Nunes before it was photographed to become components for the online venue. (via adweek)

Here is the making of

Here is the beautiful result.

BMW. The Revenge of the Lonely Copywriter.

Mai 27th, 2011 • Allgemein, Brands, Experimental
Tags: Automotive, Banner, bmw, Cool, Copy, Copywriting, Creativity, Experimental, Funny, Ideas, visual

I don’t know how to call these ads/banners/posters that you see sometime when a copywriter is supposed to write a really long text for once. You know…when you get surprised by a format which is copy, copy, copy and it goes on and on.

It’s one of the saddest ad formats. The copywriter knows nobody is going to read it. He knows his copy is cursed to serve as long typography here. And that is why he is holding an inner monologue in this type of ad format where he consistently speaks to the reader as a copywriter – not necessary as a brand – thanking the reader that he fights his way through his copy. What makes it even sadder: Most often it is indeed great copy.

Check out this banner ad for BMW. It was done by the Canadian agency Cundari and it starts as a 300-by-250-pixel box. And then it expands and expands and expands. When moused over it turns into a 18,000 pixels high monster—that’s 20 feet—with more than 5,500 words of copy going on and on (and on and on).

As usual. The copywriter wrote a great text. But I always feel a certain sadness when I see letters mutating into typo. Great banner idea. But I think after years of working as a copywriter I know what this poor guy went through who wrote that. (via Bannerblog)

.

Back to the Future. The Apple Knowledge Navigator.

Mai 24th, 2011 • Experimental, Ideas, Media, Mobile, Tech, Tools
Tags: 1980s, Apple, Brands, Cool, Creativity, Experimental, Future, Ideas, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, products, Tech, Tools, Touch

The following video was filmed in 1987 and stages a conceptual Apple design called the ‘Knowledge Navigator’. It is a concept described by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley in his 1987 book, Odyssey. It describes a device that can access a large networked database of hypertext information, and use software agents to assist searching for information. Gesture control is included as well.

Apple produced several concept videos showcasing the idea. All of them featured a tablet style computer with numerous advanced capabilities. And I guess it reminds you of something. If you watch closely you will realize this video plays in the year 2010 or 2011…

White Bull Army. Everything that was ever wrong with Ad Awards in just one Video.

Mai 8th, 2011 • 14 comments Brands, Experimental
Tags: Ads, Africa, Agencies, Alcohol, Awards, Beer, Brands, Future Lions, Ideas, Politics, Strategy, Sudan, Viral, visual

A little update to this article: After bashing the video below as “either an extremly sarcastic subtle protest against ignorance in advertising. Or the saddest thing in the industry” I was now contacted by a couple of people who commented that anyone (except me) found it extremely obvious that it is not the saddest things but a very subtle protest. But what is it that this video wants to achieve?

Is it taking the piss out of award videos? Pink Pony does that without touching the Sudanese civil war. Is it supposed to remind us of South Sudan? Not really. So in fact whatever it was that this video wanted to be ironical about – it crossed the line from irony to cynicism.

To make my point I. I don’t give a damn if this is an official award video. I just think it’s extremely tasteless and stands for a very acultural cynicism typical for too many people in this industry. Generate buzz no matter through which method. That’s pathetic.

Follow the rest of the conversation on adland.tv

——————————

Actually everything that was ever wrong with ad awards can be studied in the video below. It is a submission to the Future Lions, a sub-award of the well known Cannes Lions. And it is given to anyone (you can be a private person) who comes up with a hypothetical idea for an existing brand that wasn’t technically possible five years ago.

So the following video showcases a hypothetical idea on how to promote a beer in the soon to be independent state Southern Sudan. Key elements of the story are true. White Bull Lager is in fact the first major locally produced beer in Southern Sudan. But the hypothetical campaign described in the film gave me Inner Mouth Vomit.

It does not just show a deep lack of historical and political understanding – it’s just cynical (even worse than Jung von Matt’s great guerilla stunt that took the piss out of German anti Nuclear protestors…2 months before Fukushima).

Stuff like this is the end result when ignorance meets fake caring. Seriously? This is either an extremly sarcastic subtle protest against ignorance in advertising. Or it is one of the saddest things I have ever seen coming out of the industry. Two million people died in Sudan and some hipster presents beer logos on T-72 tanks to win an award. Oh…the best part: In the end they even dare to dedicate this to the people of South Sudan. Makes me want to kill myself.

Campaign + LinkedIn. Just a more serious Facebook Connect?

April 27th, 2011 • 2 comments Brands, Experimental, Social, Tech, Tools
Tags: Agencies, Amex, Amsterdam, Brands, Creativity, Experimental, Ideas, LinkedIn, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy, Trends, Volkswagen

Yesterday I stumbled upon the first major digital campaign that builds upon LinkedIn’s open API – Volkswagen’s LinkedUit campaign here in the Netherlands (Source). The online special builds up on the Volkswagen Passat campaign ‘Nogal vol van zichzelf’ (‘quite full of himself’) and uses your LinkedIn connections to discover profane information in your profile and compares it to an opponent’s data in your LinkedIn circle of connections. The more information your profile contains the more likely you will win against an opponent of your chosing.

Volkswagen’s online special is light weight fun, looks nice and is well integrated with LinkedIn – which is of course the actually interesting aspect of this digital campaign. Because of course – Achtung Amsterdam and Volkswagen could have alternatively used Facebook Connect. But they went for innovation and decided to use LinkedIn’s open API.
Read more »

Threadless. How they get their Photos.

April 21st, 2011 • Brands, Experimental, Interview, People
Tags: Cool, Creativity, E-Commerce, Experimental, Fashion, Funny, Presentation, Strategy, threadless, visual, We like, World

If there is one online e-retail brand that has redefined social commerce at a certain point in time then it is threadless. What the guys did was to socialize creation and distribution of t-shirts (one of the best presents I ever got was a 12 month t-shirt subscription). Oh…and simultaneously they fucked the hipster perception of the world, which is good. Simply because they turned hipster fashion into a fun mainstream retail experience. But beyond the t-shirts there is actually one thing stunning about threadless. It’s the way how they present the shirts created by thousands of people in an extremely unique way.

In the following video, we get a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most important aspects of the Threadless website: the pics and how they get it done. In the interview in-house photographer Sean Dorgan and creative director Sean Donohue explain how they do it. It’s impossible not to love them…

(via mashable)

Fake of the Day. The GranataPet Snack Check Billboard.

März 30th, 2011 • 5 comments Ads, Experimental, Fake
Tags: Ads, Advertising, Fake, Foursquare, Germany, Ideas, Out of Home, Social Influence Marketing, Tech, World

Time for a new category on davaidavai – the fake of the day.

More and more I get sick of unapplicable fake campaigns that get retweeted over and over again to generate PR for the phantasies of an agency. The beauty of (tech) creativity is to work under certain limitations. And is absolutely legitimate to play and experiment with prototypes. But to mark an unapplicable prototype with a reach of 3 persons in your bathroom and a Youtube video to promote it as a campaign is strictly unethical.

The fake of the day came via geekosystem, Creativity Online, and mashable and is currently getting retweeted all over the web. The idea goes like this: ‘GranataPet brand dog food figured out a clever way to beat the problem with food ads: In most forms of media, consumers generally can’t taste or smell the food being advertised. When one checks in at the billboard via Foursquare, some of the dog food slides out of a dispenser and into a bowl, ready for dogs sample.’

Yeah, right. On one billboard?

Questions:

• I am German. Has any German ever heard of this dog food brand?
• Has any German ever seen one of these billboards?
• How should this billboard work if (in 2010) only ~20,000 Germans were actual Foursquare users

Read more »