Bogusky, creativity and a haircut

Alex Bogusky, now and before

Cannes 2007 went by. Amazing stuff. Great advertising. Loved the work. Some good blog posts on that topic around.

Personally I was amazed (in a bad way) by Alex Bogusky's (Crispin Porter + Bogusky) new haircut. He looks somewhat like after a rehab. But that's fine. He's a great person, a great creative. I admire his view and opinion on ideas and advertising, and. Don't miss out on this audio interview with him.

Alex Bogusky on creativity

AHA!?

Above, random notes from yesterday's AHA! – a meeting, full of Eurekas.

A whole lot of interesting people, mostly young London creatives, attended without knowing what it will be like. Neither did we. Frankly, not that many big ideas were born. Friendships were. Thanks everyone for coming. Hope to see everyone in July at the next AHA! Anyone has suggestions to improve this thing?

from left: Reinhard, Wal, Renee, James, James, Katya, Gareth

from left: Josh, Nick, Kyle, Oksana

Designer like boring pictures

Ray competing with the decor

from left: Christos, Oksana, Marco

from left: Constantin, Gareth, Stavvy, Nick, Julien

Commercial Tavern is one of the nicest pubs in London

interesting2007

It took my Saturday. And I was very much willing to sacrifice this day! What a great conference it was! interesting2007 initiated by Russell Davies. I learned about the right way to split a log, why tubes are actually cool, nine ways to improve erotic movies, why swimming might be a good sport for me, about awesome things happening in comics, why Oprah is evil, meditating and the chemical process to make a modern version of egg bacon chips and beans.

It's almost impossible to summarize all the randomness going on that day. Even Sacrum came around to say hello. Thanks a lot to everyone speaking, check out my pictures on flickr.

AHA! June 2007

AHA! is a creative gathering in London. We'd like to invite everyone along, young creatives, senior creatives, planners – everyone who likes ideas. Come along, have a drink, have a chat. And if you like, send on the invitation.

Advertising Plannng School of the Week

My friend Jai & I participated in the new Advertising Planning School of the Week. It used to be led by Russell Davies but now Rob Campbell has taken over. His brief was delightful and made us participate for the first time in a planning exercise as creatives. We very much enjoyed it. The brief was:

HOW CAN YOU ENCOURAGE MEN TO BUY A HUMMER OVER OTHER 4×4 VEHICLES - DESPITE BEING BIGGER, MORE COSTLY AND MORE EXPENSIVE TO RUN THAN THE COMPETITIVE SET.

[The Brand Essence of Hummer [for this exercise] is TOUGHER THAN TOUGH

Thank you very much for the challenge – we are curious about the results. Here is our answer.

Zoom Festival & Billy

While chillin' in Hamburg I was lucky to enjoy the Zoom St. Petersburg Festival. The finest contemporary music from Russia. My favourite concert was the one from Billy's Band. Three intelligent underdogs from St.Petersburg able to excite with the finest Ghettojazz, the most drunk street chanson and the most danceable Accordion solo's of all times. Comparable to the Tiger Lillies and sometimes a Russian version of Tom Waits. They call their music 'Funeral Dixiland With Endless Happyend'. Worth tuning into their myspace page on www.myspace.com/billysbigband

My favourite song is Оторвемся по-питерски.



The festival was accompanied with film showings of the new Russian cinema. Unlike every Hollywood film, Russian movies have almost always have a UN–happy end. Inspiring. Some impressions from the concert. The band was followed by an Art Trio from Petersburg, cunning!

Creativistan

Finally my home country released their website.

www.creativistan.com & creativistan.blogspot.com

And all the waiting only for some lime with a paperhat? Why the flowers? Crazy creatishs. Hoping that they'll share all the beautiful things from our country soon on their web presence. AHA!

Lonely Hearts Book Club

Since being a single creative I attended yesterday's Lonely Hearts Book Club, organized by NABS and The Talent Business (formerly known as Kendall Tarrant).

It was a very joyful thing to do. Speed dating for creative partners. Brilliant. Obviously, I tried to apply the tips given by Scamp. For me, finding a partner has been somehow odd so far, but very pleasurable. I've met many people, all very different, all have absolutely different work. Meeting people is probably the greatest thing about searching for a creative partner. You have a ton of topics to talk about and you get to know the person relatively quickly.

Now it's about to narrow the search down to the ones I like and do some trial working. Currently, I think it's gonna be a tough call, and an important one – looking forward to it. After that, I need to keep my fingers crossed that the other half agrees as well.

Thanks to everyone who's presence I could enjoy. I had a good laugh meeting these guys. Reminded me why I like this industry so much – the people, then the work.

Half of the cast from left: Rein, Giles, the strange guy, Shweta, Priyanka and Renee – great company

Most creative meetings end up like this

KCAB

Let's start again. From scratch.