dead insect

Been doing some paintings recently in the sunshine! Aerosols on paper and cardboard.

plum blossoms, 60cm x 120cm

fish 7, 150cm x 120cm

more fish, 150cm x 120cm

fish 6, 150cm x 120cm

[Read more →]

Short video from the V&A of all the digital art going on the London Design Festival. Myself and Neil are in it near the start somewhere.

[Read more →]

The V&A have a whole load of educational/interesting talks, courses and so on. Myself and Neil Mendoza hosted a chat about our work, and a workshop session where we built a microcontroller-powered bodypopping bear. More pictures at the V&A’s flickr site.

concept

execution

[Read more →]

Have you ever watched someone in London eat a bag of crisps? They toss them into their mouths in a mechanical, grazing fashion, whilst they text, read a paper, or stare into space.

Aside from their mouths opening, their faces don’t even register each crisp going in, or the flavour of it. They’re thinking about work, people they fancy, what to wear tonight – everything apart from eating crisps.

We’ve all done this – snacking on total auto-pilot until we get a mild surprise when we look down and see that most of the bag is gone. This is a bad thing generally, because not appreciating what we consume causes over-consumption in many ways.

So here is my take on Snack Zen, which you should try the next time you get a bag of your favourite snacks – crisps, sweets, wasabi peas,organic chocolate covered blackcurrants, whatever.

It is a 5 minute Zen Snack food exercise which will make you happier, more relaxed, more mindful, more giving, less wasteful and hence greener.

- – - – - – - z e n – s n a c k i n g – - – - – - -

One should take a bag of one’s favourite snacks, and go to a quiet place, like a park bench, a hotel reception, or the corner of an old man pub.

Do not think about work, or watch people, or admire poster ads. Simply sit and prepare to give this 5 minutes of your life to snacking.

When one eats the snack food, one should attempt to focus completely on the mouth sensations of the snack. Taste, texture, moving it around with the teeth and tongue.

One should not think at all, or analyse, but just concentrate on the feelings from your mouth of eating and tasting the snack. If thoughts arise, just let them drift away, and continue eating slowly.

Initially one will find that one is able to eat only 1-3 crisps before the thoughts wander completely and one must “snap back” to the snack food. Try it if you don’t believe me.

If one has worries or doubts – like having to get back to the office, or what to do about some person who’s conflicting with us, let these thoughts go and re-focus on the snacks. Right at this moment, all the other concerns are just illusions in the head.

When one can get through half a bag without daydreaming or worrying about the past and future, that is significant progress. The heart rate will be lower and one feels very chilled and ‘at peace’ with things.

Eventually, after maybe months of practice, one can go through a whole bag of snacks in 5-10 minutes, all the while staying completely in the zone. A similar sensation is found sports, playing music, or making or appreciating art: being totally engaged in the now.

- – - – - – - b e n e f i t s – o f – z e n – s n a c k i n g – - – - – - -

You can leave the office feeling stressed and tired, and come back in 10 minutes feeling refreshed, calm and able to treat problems with a clear head. You’ll regain your sense of perspective, because you know that these problems can’t control your emotions and that by simply focusing on the present, they disappear.

(My personal favourite zen-out snack is Frazzles, by the way.)

[Read more →]

Of the 2 types of people in this world — those who create charts and graphs for fun, and those who don’t — I definitely seem to get on better with those who do.

One such person is Richard Watson at trend lab Now And Next. I haven’t ever met or spoken to him, but basically, he makes massive and not entirely serious graphs with somewhat arbitrary y-axises for a laugh, which makes him absolutely sound in my book.

He’s the guy who did that way cool Trend Blend tube map you might have seen. Anyhow here’s his latest, an Extinction Timeline, showing what ideas and things will die out, and when. I like it, don’t understand the reasoning behind some of it, which I suppose makes you want to talk more about it.

[Read more →]

This is one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life. Artist Cai Guo-Qiang had a Chinese factory fabricate 99 wolves, which he hung in the following fashion – cascading, charging into a glass wall.

I got 99 wolves, but the bitch ain’t one.

This has really given me the motivation to do more art-related stuff, rather than my usual blend of tackiness and utility.

More pictures and info here. Link to the Guggenheim here.

[Read more →]

One of the best things so far about not working in an ad agency full time is that I no longer feel the need to give a reasoned, depthy analysis every time someone asks me about a breaking campaign. I don’t even have to be passionate – for all the hype on the Cadbury’s Gorilla, I can just stay put at “quite good, nicely executed”.

So it’s rare that I get really really excited about a bit of marketing, but I can honestly say this is the most interesting thing I’ve seen for a while. Forget RadioHead (who let you download their whole album for any price you choose), Soulja Boy is where it’s at.

Link to the YouTube video here

The product, the person and marketing are so intertwined that you feel like think the whole thing is campaign for something else completely.

Every single trick that you’ve ever heard in a marketing brainstorm, he’s done.

His album is titled as a URL – souljaboytellem.com .

His URL is an entire social networking site.

He leaves nothing to chance with what he wants people to do – his music video shows teens watching his music video on their mobile phones, and then imitating the dance.

On his YouTube channel – (which has over 100 videos of various content, all with 5, 6, and 7 figure view counts) – he highlights related content on YouTube, like the Barney Remix, or a comedian spoofing his lyrics.

There are more imitations and remixes of anything I’ve ever seen including Lion King, Sponge Bob, and loads of earnest dance videos. Lots of these remixes have millions of views. I kind of wish Asi would pull some YouTube stats on this guy, as I am pretty sure Soulja Boy now rules YouTube.

I watched one of his interviews – before he was signed, he would upload his demo tracks to file sharing networks, and misleadingly title them as the newest 50 Cent track he knew everyone would be looking for. Evil genius.

He’s also got shedloads of merchandise – the music videos all feature distinctive branded gear that you buy from the website, and he has any number of bits of mobile content you can buy.

As you’d expect, he’s on every social network, with shedloads of authentic content on each one, and he even has all gear, and the dance, at Meez (avatar site for teens). Here’s me doing the dance.

Plus, the greatest meme of all – he writes his name on the outside of his shades, using Tipp-Ex.

[Read more →]

Today I found out that my blog is the 12th on the list of Advertising Young Minds Ranking List. It’s a global ranking for blogs about advertising for people under 27.

It’s been put together by Daniel at AdStructure. It’s nice that people I’d consider friends are also on the list, and it is a good way of bringing together like-minded people. I also commend Daniel on actually putting this all together, as he’s clearly a smart guy and this took time and effort.

With all respect to everyone involved though, I find it to be a bit silly, and it represents the side of blogging that I find distasteful.

If you want to bring people together I would much rather see it done:

- over something they enjoy like BeerSphere
- for a worthy cause, like AllDayBuffet

My problem with a rank parade is that it doesn’t add any additional value, other than to inflate egos and cause resentment.

We don’t need more standardized ranking and testing for 7 year olds at school, we don’t need too much pre-testing and ranking of ad scamps, and we don’t need more ranking parades of bloggers. No offence intended to anyone, I just find this all a bit gross. I think cultural differences between the UK and US are probably significant here.

[Read more →]

I’m currently working at a media-focussed PR agency called The SPA Way, where my role is to set up their digital offering.

One of my favourite co-workers so far is Nelly, the agency dog, shown here pooching out by my desk.

Here’s an excerpt from the website bio:

As Director of Security, she is responsible for the safety of the staff. She has an intuitive grasp of where danger lies and is swift to deal with any difficult situation. Very early on she identified that the greatest threat came from the large post bags used for collecting the mail. In the last two years she has destroyed countless numbers of these insurgents.

[Read more →]

I have been here a few times now since it opened, and it’s definitely the most authentically Chinese experience around East London. It serves Chinese, as in mainland China food, as opposed to the more Hong Kong kind of stuff that we’re more used to around Chinatown. About 98% of the crowd are Mandarin speaking, and there is often a big queue of people outside, jabbering and jostling in a very un-English way. It’s situated about 5 minutes walk down (away from Shoreditch) Bethnal Green Road, and the food is brilliant. It’s oily, salty, sometimes too hot and very very tasty.

The staff speak hardly any English and don’t really do service, and the English menu is not very descriptive, so unless you know the dishes, it’s a bit of a lottery. Prices without booze, about 10 quid a head. Highly recommended.

Gourmet San, 261 Bethnal Green Road, E2

[Read more →]

Yes Way, originally uploaded by manmadepants.

I’ve been busy recently, and really enjoying the stuff I’ve been working on. I just had to quickly post this that I saw on Reddit today. Here’s the text from Flickr:

“I swear on my life this is 100% real. I was walking down the street looking for stuff to photograph and this guy is just sitting outside a coffee shop with this 80 year old woman and he is taking these little sofa things out of a bag. Then he opens another compartment in the bag and there are about five lizards like this guy. Then he would pose them and they would just sit there like this. Don’t really know why.”

[Read more →]

I’ve just been working at this place Holler, and really enjoyed it. They’re a talented bunch of people with a good set up, and some clients which will let them do some interesting work.

The nature of planning work I did there was quite broad – they don’t use creative teams in the sense that ad-agencies do, so planners need to be unafraid to be a bit creative sometimes.

My highlight was planning and selling in educational content for teens, by wrapping it up in a big transmedia, ARG-esque story, but with less emphasis on puzzle solving, and more emphasis on interactive ways of telling a really good story. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you more about it soon.

Anyway they’re on the look out for good planners – people with a good grasp of the traditional account planning skillset, but who are capable of using new media in a creative way too.

If you’re interested, get in touch with James at holler co uk. Or you can email me for more info if you like.

[Read more →]

I’m currently working for this brilliant independent baby clothing label on Brick Lane (halfway down, opposite Rokit Vintage), called Oh Baby London.

They’ve just launched a brand new website, and they need someone to plan and implement all their online marketing – initially to drive short term sales, and then also to do more of an organic online brand-building job. After a day there, I’m really excited – it’s totally hands-on and I genuinely think the product’s great. My favourites are the baby hoodies.

Hannah, the label’s founder also has a blog here. On a personal, slightly silly note, I really enjoy working above a shop – it reminds of when I was little and my dad had a video rental store. Drop in and say hi!

[Read more →]

We’re camping here – top left hand corner of Green Campsite no 3:

and I’m going to deploy this flag, up a 5 meter flagpole, to mark our camp:

On Saturday, we’re going to dress as bees and meet at 2:45 at the big top, to swarm somewhere. The more bees, the better. The rest of the time, I’ll be dressed as an illuminated jellyfish, so please come say hi.

Afterthought – are there any other communications planners/marketing strategists going to this festival? There’s already Faris, Asi and I’m also going in a car with 2 other planners…

[Read more →]

apparently one of the worst jobs ever

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, as I’ve just left a really good job in a great agency to try going freelance.

Iain’s written a nice post about how it’s hard to get and retain motivated, creative, multi-skilled people, because, put simply, if they’re that good, they’ll go do their own thing.

I then read this awfully arrogant article, by a freelance computer programmer, on Reddit:

Working a real job is a win if you’re lazy, greedy, or unmotivated. If you’re average, you fit right in. And if you’re above average, the basic terms of employment and premise of the arrangement is against your interests.

So in the face of this attitude (which I don’t agree with), how can you retain smart, entrepreneurial people?

This is a prime example of how advertising agencies totally fail to walk their own talk.

You get the best people by making your work environment so unbelievably, jaw-droppingly cool, that it’s legendary to work there.

You get the best financial and care packages for your staff – healthcare, profit shares, all that kind of normal stuff. You also need the best working processes that give your staff freedom to work effectively on interesting stuff.

Those are hygiene factors – all your competitors will start to offer the same anyway.

Then, the real work starts. You have to now make sure that your workplace is the arguably coolest place to work in the whole world. You have to add little flashes of cool to every single touchpoint with your employees – you know, the kind of the thing we tell our client brands to do to their consumers.

Ad agencies are still totally stuck in the 80s when it comes to all this stuff. Think of all the agencies you’ve been to with massive plush meeting rooms, but with their creatives sat 9-6 in call centre conditions just upstairs. All the while we’re telling clients that consumers have all the power now, and it’s about real values and authenticity.

The sad thing is that business knows this already – Google’s market is the most creative and talent-driven business in the world today, and their office is a total geek’s dream.

link to video of Google offices on YouTube

It really annoys me when top creative agencies do things like rewarding employees with iPods to keep them motivated – how unimaginative is that? Would you dare suggest such a mundane promotion for your clients?

Photo from Monky

“You’re very creative. Have an iPod.”

Some numbered points:

1. People will do irrational things if they’re in love. You tell your clients this is true for consumers of their FMCG brands, so believe it’s true for your employees and your agency. People will pay £3 quid for fruit in a bottle, and they’ll stay in jobs where they could be paid a few more grand elsewhere.

2. It’s hard work, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution – building a GooglePlex wouldn’t be right for keeping talent at JWT. You need to understand your agency brand, understand your staff and have creative ideas which resonate deeply within both.

3. It’s not going to be cheap, but it will work out in the long run, and being creative can achieve better results than unimaginative spending.

4. People follow other people – especially the active ones who create the agency culture. So you have to put extravagant effort into keeping these people. For example, when a very “on-culture” person has leaves an agency, the sense of loss is huge compared to the job-importance of that person. I remember feeling like this when Cookie left my old agency, and I didn’t even know him that well then.

If you look at that list – it’s all painfully obvious stuff that we present to clients again and again, but somehow we think it doesn’t apply to the people we employ.

This would be a good time to name drop Work Club, where my friend Charlotte has just joined. They also believe that agency HR practices are in need of a shake up, and have a number of neat innovations, like planner-creative teams, and giving people a lot of freedom and flexibility in the way they work.

Anyone else seen any good workplace HR innovations?

[Read more →]

You know that game sex-marriage-death, where someone names 3 people you know, and you have to choose which of the above you’d do to them?

My friend Simeon’s agency, Hyperhappen, have made a Facebook application where you can play this online with your Facebook friends, and it shows on your profile how much you’ve sexed, wedded or killed.

Link to the Shag-Marry-Kill app.

It’s to promote the new movie, Knocked Up, which is kind of about sex and marriage life choices.

Definitely the best (in fact probably the only good one) branded application I’ve yet seen.

[Read more →]

I don’t normally just post ads and things here, but this is so dope. Saw it on my friend Vincent’s blog – it’s anti drink-driving game controlled by sensors in a urinal.

I’m not totally sure about the execution, but the idea of using the media this way is spot on.

Link to YouTube

[Read more →]

I’m currently working full time so not huge amounts of time for blogging. I’m having quite a nice time, couple of really interesting projects, but I forgot how expensive working 9-6 is! Leaving the house, travelling, eating, and generally being in a rush all the time.

Anyway someone today at work sent this utterly brilliant site round – MonkeySuicide.com

It’s so good that I think it can’t be from an agency (Mother?), but I’d like to be pleasantly surprised. It’s a bit like a live web2.0 version of Bunny Suicides.

Link to youtube of Bunny suicides video

[Read more →]