Russell Davies

more big meat

More in the noble American tradition of great ads about meat. see also.

micro-targeting

David in New York sent this, from outside the Wieden + Kennedy offices there. Metro's a new newspaper. Chris Noonan's a media planner/buyer at Wieden. I'd find this kind of specific targeting a bit spooky. It's what everyone tells us is the future, with smart posters and bluetooth and all that. But I think it'll just lead to a world where we can tune out our own name like we can tune out most marketing. Which would be inconvenient.

gawd bless em

I'd like to direct your attention to an absolutely splendid organisation. The History of Advertising Trust. A group of wonderfully eccentric archivists and librarians busily preserving the detritus of one of the most ephemeral and disposable industries there is. Most of their archive is stored in old Nissin huts in Norfolk, but they're rapidly getting stuff online, and it's stuff you can't find anywhere else. I especially love the Wilfred M Freyer archive. Be fantastic to see illustrations like this being done today.

beware of the artist

A friend of mine in New York sent me this. It puzzles us both.

previous lifes

This site (via things) reminded me of my previous life as an internet pioneer. (I especially remember presenting at an internet conference in 95/96 with a little line at the bottom of a chart saying 'How many divisions has Ivan Pope?', possibly the smallest, most obscure joke ever.)

One big moment was gathering in a boardroom at Sun's offices in London. There were all kinds of UK internet gurus gathered there, in hushed expectation, not quite sure what we were going to see. There was a little bit of blather, then they loaded a webpage and this little character appeared on the screen and STARTED WAVING. We couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. character appeared on the screen and STARTED WAVING. We couldn't believe it. It was astonishing. (I still don't know enough about Java to actually make it wave here.) Living through the mass arrival of the internet was strange. My son will look at me in complete bemusement when I talk about dialling up. And he'll probably never hear that strange logging-on, hand-shaking sound you used to get out of a modem.

hotel tax

I've been travelling for a couple of weeks. Portland. Seattle. Manchester. Had a great bunch of stuff to post. But I left my trusty camera in a hotel room. And though I called the hotel from the airport, not two hours after I'd checked out, it had already disappeared. That's how it seems to be with hotels. If you leave anything behind, then your forfeit it. It's like a tax on forgetful people. Fair enough I suppose.

Anyway, I plan to buy a new camera tomorrow. So maybe I'll get a blogging head of steam up again.

best book ever

This was written during WWII by a famous american copywriter. (He also wrote 'a technique for producing ideas' which still stands up today as a great guide). It started as a diary that ran in Ad Age, and was turned into a book later. Although Young was writing in a very different age and a very different world (and clearly he could be a bit of a git) a lot of what he says about advertising (and other more trivial stuff, like life) holds true today.

I've going to fill the odd idle moment by quoting some of the stuff he said (assuming his estate don't have a big problem with that).

Here's an entry which could serve as a description of the satisfactions of blogging:

Sunday...August 16th 1942

Pleased to get from the Editor some letters which indicate that, now and then, somebody reads this Diary. Showed them to my wife - who still wonders why. If a man likes the sound of words, putting them together may be its own reward. But I notice that a neighbour of mine, who often sits on his doorstep of an evening, playing a flute to himself, doesn't mind a little audience either.

online strangeness

About this time last year we made the Honda Cog ad. It seemed to go down quite well. Created a bit of a stir. But what's been interesting has been watching the online conversations develop about it. People having been talking about it in all kinds of places - forums (fora?) discussion groups, blogs. And there have been furious arguments about whether it was real or CG. Normally agencies just ignore these conversations, but we thought it would be good to actually get involved and tell people how we really made the ad. So we posted some answers here(scroll to the bottom). It's going to be interesting to see if anyone still cares.

a picture paints a thousand etc

we took these pictures on weymouth beach. every time i look at them i just have to smile. the power of an image.

ingenious

This is the kind of imagination I'd like to see from Transport For London. Who's going to park somewhere with the threat of the car ending up on the underground?