We are one! What a ride it’s been so far. Our first ever post was dedicated to our mum, so for this post we went searching through old albums for another photo of her. We knew we’d find some good pics but we hadn’t expected to find this gem. Created in 1955, it’s one of the earliest known examples of an animated gif.
Add comment | April 12th, 2009
As ideas professionals, we’re interested in creativity from all walks of life, not just advertising.
Take the latest breakthrough from Professor David de Brown, a neonatal scientist at MIT. De Brown has developed technology that allows a woman to ‘have an egg’.
Prof de Brown told us: “I had the idea of a woman ‘having an egg’ last Easter when the shops were full of chocolate eggs. I thought to myself why should I spend all my money on one of these man-made eggs when a woman could ‘have an egg’ for me for nothing? I suppose it was what they call a Eureka moment.
“After that it was just a question of labwork.”
Why don’t more scientists think like Prof de Brown? One of the lessons from advertising is that ideas are everything, and we believe it’s the same in science. Rather than messing around with graphs and test tubes, scientists should grab a lab assistant for a good brainstorm.
To show the power of this creative approach we spent twenty minutes spitballing new scientific ideas. As you read them, consider that this year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded for the discovery of a green fluorescent protein called GFP. Hardly a compelling idea – yet it is regarded by many as the discovery of a lifetime, worthy of the scientific equivalent of a D&AD pencil! It’s truly ridiculous.
Here are our ideas:
• Speaking dogs for the deaf
• Cars that visit parallel universes
• Science sweets that stop time
• Longer legs (could speed up running?)
• Edible calculators
And if you think these are good, just imagine what real scientists could come up with – if they only opened their minds to the true power of ideas!
1 comment | March 24th, 2009
We’re often asked to make mood films for clients but recently we’ve also begun making them for ourselves. It’s not only a nice creative warm-up exercise, it’s also a great way of documenting our mood on a particular day. For example, this morning Rob woke up feeling extremely angry towards tropical birds (don’t ask, it’s a long story). He wouldn’t stop shouting “Multicoloured motherfuckers! Multicoloured motherfuckers!” So we spent a few hours making this to help him calm down:
What’s your mood today? Are you excited about crisps? Envious of a man looking through a microscope? Committed to jihad? Let us know by making a mood film of your own. Or just tell us your mood and when we get a spare moment we’ll reflect your mood right back at you in the form of a film, so you can hang on to your transient emotions forever!
8 comments | March 18th, 2009
You can’t end a conversation with digital types these days without them making their fingers into guns and saying ‘Tweet ya later!’. But is Twitter really the future? Or is it the forerunner of something better…
Jaculate! is a new web service that takes the Twitter principles to extremes by giving users just a single character to play with. It may seem restrictive but just as Twitter’s 140-character limit makes users wittier and more concise, Jaculate!’s rules are also stimulating new creativity. Already a highly compressed language has evolved that is capable of surprising nuance.
For instance:
‘L’ means ‘LOL. Jac u later!’.
‘c’ means ‘If anyone wants to meet up I’m coming to Crewe on the 1132 train on 12 October. Jac u later!’
‘C’ means ‘You have got to see this. Jac u later!’
‘F’ means ‘I’m stuck in a lift with Stephen Fry, not really. Jac u later!’
Whether Jaculate! will catch on outside the digerati is anyone’s guess. Its chief rival apart from Twitter is of course Extemporise, another new service which gives users a minimum word count of 140,000. Over a million users worldwide have already signed up to use Extemporise by giving a two-page proposal of what their first post will be about, and the treatises should start to appear in 2011. We can’t wait to see what the Twitter community will have to say about them!
13 comments | March 4th, 2009
(Click image for large version.)
Rob concepted this bespoke DM piece during the cocaine-fueled 80s when he was just six. But we reckon it would still stand up today. It doesn’t clobber the reader over the head but engages them with useful content (how to make a bat do a jig; how to kill a witch). In a sense its youthful openness is ahead of its time as you would expect from a precocious junior copywriter. But Rob also shows a mature sensibility here, having the confidence to let unadorned long copy evoke an image in the reader’s mind. The only negative we can think of is the confused proposition. When you fork out for a bottle of magic stardust you want to know – is this going to make a bat do a jig, or is it going to disappear a witch?
More cards.
Add comment | February 24th, 2009
This picture is so hot it should be classified as pornography. Whether it’s the make-up or the dazzling teeth, you just KNOW that this is the face filling the fantasies of our nation’s teens!
3 comments | February 20th, 2009
To be perfectly honest, we didn’t get this ad when we first saw it. We thought: When did Beijing change its name to London? What is ‘Wagon train to the stars’? If it’s the old name for ‘Star Trek’, why doesn’t it have capital letters? We were baffled – but then we realised what was going on. The new Avibo organisation doesn’t just treat customers as adults – it flatters them as geniuses, capable of solving cryptic riddles as they rush by. The fact that we couldn’t make head or tail of it just reflects poorly on us. The bottom line is: Vivunion has real respect for us as readers – and now we have real respect for Norvivian. And we can’t wait for them to release more Star Trek DVDs!
2 comments | February 16th, 2009
Forget about Slumdog Millionaire – Stu Doku is going to be the feel-good film of the decade.
Following the lead of Billy Elliot, Brassed Off and The Full Monty, the new Britflick follows Stuart Ramsey as he grows up in a deprived brick shitpile in Newcastle. Much to the disapproval of his alcoholic father, young Stu is obsessed with broadsheet numbers puzzle Su Doku. But when he wins a place in the World Su Doku final at Wembley, the Ramseys realise they have a star in their midst.
Stu Doku is in production, but we’ve been lucky enough to see a shooting script. Tell us you’re not excited after you’ve read these excerpts:
STUART is goalkeeper in a football game. When the ball is in the opponent’s half, he gets a Su Doku puzzle out of his pocket and writes in numbers with a pencil. But he’s caught out by a long ball and the opposing team score an easy goal. Shouts of ‘Stuart, you great wankstain!’. Among the parents on the sidelines, Stuart’s father MR RAMSEY looks crestfallen in his miner’s hardhat. He speaks in a strong Newcastle accent.
MR RAMSEY: That bloody numbers game.
The deteriorating father-son relationship is movingly portrayed:
MR RAMSEY: Where’ve you been? Where’ve you been you little bastard? What’s so important you had to miss your own sister’s birthday party?
STU: No-nowhere dad
MR RAMSEY: Don’t lie to me son
STU DOKU: All right! All right dad. I went to…
MR RAMSEY: Where?! Where did you go?
STU DOKU (hangs head): Carluccio’s.
Mr Ramsey cracks Stu round the head with a POTATO he has been holding in his hand threateningly.
Later, Stu has plugged his headphones into the family stereo and is dancing around as if to music.
MR RAMSEY (from the settee): You can’t beat a bit of Beatles can you lad!
He pulls out the headphones so he can listen too and the awful truth is revealed: Stu is listening to In Our Time with Melvin Bragg.
MR RAMSEY (apoplectic): What the bleedin’ ell are you doing with Bragg?
But things improve as Mr Ramsey comes to terms with Stu’s unusual interests. In this scene Mr Ramsey is having a heart-to-heart with Stu after he comes home with bruises from bullies.
MR RAMSEY: You know when you’re doing a Killer Ku Doku lad?
STU: It’s Su Doku but anyway.
MR RAMSEY: And everything’s going like a dream until you get to the last square, and then you realise that somewhere along the way you made a mistake. And you’ve done it all in pen, so you can’t rub it out and start again?
STU: Yeah. That’s so annoying.
MR RAMSEY: Well that’s sort of what happened between your mother and me.
As the family rallies behind Stu, they all go down to London by coach, including Stu’s bickering maths and PE teachers, who act as trainers.
Stu is wide-eyed as he and the whole gang are led backstage at Wembley, where contestants are preparing for the World Su Doku final. A pretty Chinese girl, MEI LING, is limbering up with a game of Samurai Su Doku. A very posh boy in spectacles, GORDON, is being groomed by his mother.
GORDON’S MOTHER: Do say hello, Gordy. It’ll be good for you to meet someone real.
GORDON: Good afternoon, how are you? Do you like celeriac?
STU: Dad, I’m nervous.
MR RAMSEY: You’re all right, son, you’ve just got to write the numbers in the boxes like you always do. Come on Stu! This is our chance to join the middle classes!
But when he sees the first puzzle in the competition, Stu is in for a surprise.
STU: Dad. It’s not just Fiendish. It’s Super-Fiendish!
It’s not giving too much away to say that Stu makes his father a proud man. In the final scene, Mr Ramsey bursts into the local pub back home with Stu in tow.
MR RAMSEY: Ay up lads – introducing Stuart Ramsey, Ku Doku Champion of Great Britain! Drinks are on us!
Everyone cheers.
ALF: Make mine a pint of bitter.
MR RAMSEY: I don’t think so, Alf – It’s latte macchiatos from now on!
All the regulars carry Stu aloft out of the pub and into a branch of Caffè Nero.THE END.
3 comments | February 9th, 2009
If we’re a bit late commenting on this one, that’s because we couldn’t quite believe it. You think you know who your heroes are and then they go and do something like this.
Swiftcover.com has been one of our favourite brands since it was formed in 2005 – they always featured heavily whenever we made advert compilation tapes. But now they’ve taken the dollar to promote multimillionaire Iggy Pop. In doing so they go the same way as Country Life butter, a brand whose posters we displayed proudly on our bedroom walls, but who are now nothing but shills for punk rocker John Lydon. If they really needed the money, couldn’t these once-great brands just have put up their prices a bit and stayed true to their fans?
It sounds harsh, but we really hope whichever member of Swiftcover signed the contract gets chucked out of the brand.
3 comments | February 3rd, 2009
How many creatives nowadays would be bold enough to propose a virtually illegible headline? We’re not sure we would. But there’s no doubting that this piece has the power to intrigue.
If our memory is right, this card was made by Tom in 1985, possibly in a state of high fever – it looks as if he was possessed by a demon. What proposition was he attempting to communicate? Something about ‘croc’ or ‘croodle’? The thing at the bottom could be an old man looking out a window at the sun. Maybe we should call in a maverick egyptologist in case it’s the key to a stargate?
Perhaps the meaning doesn’t matter though. Although he has not communicated anything in particular, Tom has succeeded in letting the viewer know that he wants to connect with us in some way – and isn’t that the very essence of the greeting card as a communications medium?
For more of our early creative work, check out the Cards section.
2 comments | January 30th, 2009