Wal Scissorhands

Halloween arrived pretty early this year, our lovely neighbours had a party with the topic Tim Burton. Anyone fancies a haircut?

Black Cat White Cat

What a wonderful day for no reason. Maybe it's Thursday approaching me unexpectedly with the feeling of the weekend in a hidden pocket. The delicious cappuccino coffee I usually miss out on in the morning? More likely the music I listened to during the battle of commute. I will share some of that on a distant day.

I have never written about a movie, I never intended to – there are enough movie review resources on the net. Yet there is Emir Kusturica, a director of sheer brilliance who made my single favorite movie picture – Black Cat White Cat. There is nothing else playing in a rectangular shape that can lift my mood into such joyous heights.

Every scene is packed with vitality and music, a purely beautiful combination that is, for me, Kusturica's trademark. The characters are escorted by a gypsy orchestra during all possible situations – old school portable music I say. A spectacle of absurd but amusing characters that has to be experienced with a Hollywoodless open mind. There was never a movie I thought about countless times and dreamt of watching it again and again. See for yourself, to get yourself in the right mood listen to Bubamara, the musical theme of this masterpiece that offers unequaled opportunities. You won't forget this melody after watching Black Cat White Cat.

I do not want to link to a trailer, as I don't like these short summaries of film in general, mostly they are unworthy – especially of this movie. I would not doubt that after this on screen performance you feel the urge to go o a journey and explore more of Kusturica's work, as there is way more to discover about this artist.

'This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'.

Status from Publicis

One of the very first briefs I received at my current placement at Publicis Dialog was the creation of a new holding page for Publicis Agency since they are working on a new web presence. It's online now – lo and behold – somehow even my face made it on there. Can you spot me?

Agencies and their own websites, that's a difficult combination. There are great articles about this topic, read about digital masturbation on webink.com and here on the reasons why you shouldn't ever let an ad agency make a website. We'll see what Publicis comes up with.

Meanwhile, in the last couple of days I helped Nick & Lex, a great creative team, preparing bits and pieces for a pitch that happening pretty soon. Exciting, as pitches always are.

Publicis Dialog

Arrived here yesterday morning. Followed up the offer I received at the cream exhibition. I'll be at that place from now on for a couple weeks of placement. Let's see what I can learn here. First time on a placement without a partner – feels weird – I need to get used to it, or better, get someone in. Savour the raindrops today.

Games – the real new media

This has been on my mind for quite a time now. I am a big fan Games, all kinds of them. Chess (anyone fancies a match?), cards, board games and of course video games. I've started back with an Atari and played most of the 'important' video games systems in the last 15 years. Last evening I saw the hilarious Toyota ad for their Tacoma and tried the Yaris Video Game on Microsoft's Live, a multi player platform on the Xbox360. Here's the ad, it's running on US television and works very well as an online viral.

It made me laugh, since I used to play World of Warcraft back in the early days of the game. Nothing ground breaking though. Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam used the Grand Theft Auto look for it's brilliant Coke spot and set the first step in this direction. Games in ads – a concept to use a world familiar to the audience to tell a story. The flip side – ads in games, or adgames is also well represented – the Burger King games who've won Titanium Gran Prix at Cannes this year for example.

I preferred 7Up's game with Cool Spot from 1993, they didn't need an agency to come with the stuff back in time, the only thing they got for it was 'Best Cartridge Music of the Year'. Anyway.

I consider video games as the ultimate media, the best way to tell something and engage. Why? Let's see. If TV ads are to be considered old media, and Internet is the new revolution then movies are old hat and games are the way forward. Unlike films which tell a story to a passive beholder, games have the ability of interacting with the audience and tell the story in much more engaging way.

Wait, aren't games more about jumping from one platform to the other without falling down to be eaten by the pink giraffes? These times are long gone. There are games telling epic plots, the game series Final Fantasy had several main protagonists falling in love, experiencing adventures and dying – an emotional journey for the player – only squeezed by the pixelated faces with three expressions. Yet granted toady's technology flashing by as fast as a rabbit on speed, games can already keep up with production values of movies, the quality of sound and picture is amazing.

Take a look at Bioshock, a game experience taking part in 1960 in a fictional underwater dystopian city built on the mid-Atlantic seabed. This game is full of tension, great music score, intelligent dialogs and a story that draws you in from the first few minutes and forces you to take moral decisions later on in the game that effect the whole shebang. Watch the trailer here.

It is time that a brand makes a serious game, driving around in a pocketbike racer might be fun for a while but so much more is possible. Will we see Cadbury's 'Food Sabotage' or Apple's 'iAdventure'? Will we see a new type of creative agency emerge? One that specializes in telling the story of a brand in an epic game? Boy, I can't wait. I'd love to be a creative, responsible for making a great game for a brand. BMW could follow up its film series by asking different game developers to create a game with their brand, mmhhh…

Creative Portfolio 2.0

Okay, sorry for trying to raise the coolness factor of my topic with that number .0 thingy. It just fits and there is no other clever name for it – yet.

I'm thinking of setting up another blog dedicated to the development of a new creative portfolio. A blog that would establish a platform for an interactive online portfolio review.

It would start with the choice of brands along with the first thoughts. It would contain relevant research and links for the chosen topics. Propositions, strategies as well as first creative ideas would come next, followed by executions of the thoughts and media thinking.

During this whole process people are invited to leave comments to improve the ideas or point out weaknesses. The blog could function as documentation of the work in progress. As an application tool it shows one's thinking and what happened between the first idea and the finished campaign.

Of course there are down sides to this idea. Would people comment? This depends on the quality of thinking and the consideration of improvements.

Does this makes sense?

One day placement at VCCP

Thanks to NABS I participated yesterday in the one day live-brief placement at the London above-the-line agency VCCP. The day started early and was held by Simon and Nikki, the planner in charge was Micheal. They briefed us on an interesting project covering broad range of media. Creative starters helped getting the brain going and after some coffee it started to be fun. Three creative teams and five individuals attended. All together a good amount of work was created and at the end of the day it was a great experience. Get on NABS' mailing list in order to be informed about the next one.

Some of the young creatives in the workshop room

Simon reviewing some work on the walls

The blue walls provided a great canvas for creative ideas

Work we've done

Advertising's Young Minds

Pleasantly surprised about being on Daniel's list of Top 27 blogs of people under 27. Creative in London is ranked 23, that gives me exactly 2 years and 2 days to improve my ranking. Thanks Daniel (danielmejia.wordpress.com).

All suggestions to make this blog a better one are cordially welcome!

Damn they're good

I have to share this. Introducing the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Not quite new, actually they've been around for 14 years now.

A Friend of mine send me one of their songs, I can't stop listening to them since. I would describe their music as nu-swing rooted in classic New Orleans Jazz, influenced by international styles including asian and klezmer music. Their song lyrics are tasty – who else sings 'Teeth are extruded and bones are ground, Then baked into cakes which are passed around…' to a highly dance-able groove? The band recorded their second album 'Hot' without using a sound studio, they rather searched for unique rooms like a billiard room for their recordings to catch the room ambient feeling in combination with their music and Katherine's amazing voice, you'll hear what I mean. Great stuff.

Take two minutes and listen to them, you won't regret it. Also check out their songs Hell and The ghost of Stephen Foster. Their music videos are uniquely odd. Pure inspiration. Where are my bubbles? Bubbles.

Cream '07 retrospect

It is over. It was stressful. But very much worth it. The evening started early with a briefing with the Talent Business at 5 o'clock. The exhibition was formed of over twenty young creative teams or individuals, most of them from the UK but with special appearances from international teams as far away as North America, New Zealand and Australia. After setting up our stand we took some time to go around and gaze at some work. I was very much impressed with the standard of most of it, great stuff.

The exhibition was open to the creative 'public' from six o'clock on, it was amusing – the clock turned six and all the creative teams were watching the doors, tension in the air. The poor guy who comes in first will be attacked from all sides. Surprisingly, it was fine. Many people turned up, lots of creative directors, senior creatives, talent spotters and other important people in suits.

I exhibited with Jai, a copywriter I worked with the last couple of months, as well as doing some campaigns back in university. There were two rooms full of work, we were lucky enough to be in the one with the bar, so lots of people hanging around and looking at the work. Awkward to lurk around your book and wait for someone to talk to. They should have had pictures of the creatives next to the work like last year. We could grab some contacts, so it was very much worth it. Since I was in the cream exhibition last year, I was very happy about the clean stands – good exposure for the work. Last year was crammed, everyone customized their stands and it looked more like a circus. Personally speaking, it felt like there were more people attending last year, maybe that's because of the location being in east London, rather than central. They should have advertised with being close to the shoreditch house :)

This morning we had a first email from a creative director asking me and Jai to come for a placement starting on the 1st of October. Sadly, Jai will not be able to take it up since he's going to take a marketing job on the dark side, the client side. Please, please, let a good copywriter fall from the sky for me, I will do everything for it, I promise…

Anyway, thanks a lot to the great Talent Business crowd including Rory, Davina, Andrea, Anna and co. You gave all the attending teams the opportunity of a great exposure in this industry! Oh, by the way, I've got my powerbook back today – happy again.

(copy) Jai & Wal (art)

Our (almost completely) handmade business cards, people seemed to like them, but were reserved to rip the seal apart since it looked precious, damn.

Our stand + book, I loved the black.

Dead. For at least five days

Live from London apple store, blogging from one of the free-to-use macs. Why? My beloved Apple Powerbook died yesterday.

So I arrived here early morning to get it repaired – it seems it's gonna take the delicious amount of five days. That means no chance of gettin' some decent business card design done for Cream. Oh and printing out those A2 files? From what data? Damn… This happened just in time, like always. I'm still in a good mood though, just taking some time off from my computer. Back to pencil n' paper. Enjoy your Monday.

Crème de la Crème

Earlier this week I've received the message that the book I sent in a couple of weeks ago with Jai, a writer I worked with lately, got into Cream – an exhibition to showcase the best 25 young creative teams from England … and this time from all around Europe. It is organized by London's Talent Business. We're really excited to show our work in front of some of the greatest creative directors in the idea industry. Yay! Good times.

Lots of stuff to prepare for next Thursday. But for now – Where's the rum?

Rum alchemy

A few months ago my flatmate & I spend a day making our flavored own rum. After getting the finest ingredients from London's Borough Market we mixed three different flavours. First one is cherry and chili then peach, ginger and honey and finally a balanced berry mix out of cranberries, raspberries and strawberries. All infused with a combination of three different Havana Club rum's. They have been shaken once a week for months now and are soon ready to be tasted. Mmmhhh...

They fit a celebration – it seems some reasons are coming up soon.

Qatar Lions?

A couple of weeks ago I answered to an ad in Luerzer's Archive for a creative position in Qatar. They wouldn't give anything away in the ad itself and asked to submit some work before they would reveal their agency name etc.

So I did. They offered me an art director's job in Qatar – with a wonderful payment, you can dream of as a junior creative in London. The specs: huge client portfolio, big budget just for fake ads, no brand strategies – win awards, loads of 'em. Tempting. Very. Worth it? Let's see:

I dream myself of working in a creative London agency. It's a though one. Would it be easier to get into a good one after winning awards? Awards for fake ads, in categories which haven't been exploited that much? Could I come back to London from Qatar after a year and get a job easier? I know quite a bunch of people who came to London from other countries. They had agency experience, they had awards. Still, they couldn't gain ground in the city. After some time and countless meetings with headhunters they had to travel back to their country. Of course – there, people would throw jobs after them. London's international ad victims.

I turned the offer down. Maybe you would think that I'm really picky. Yes I am.
I'm not looking for that one ideal agency, I'm not after a big name. I want a place where I can grow and learn stuff I admire. And that is not necessarily ads just made to win awards. And hell yeah – I consider doing that outside of London. As long as I'm getting better there it doesn't matter where it is or how much they pay.

Coherent? Or stupid?

The Kaiser - Germany's ad prophet?

Countless young and old creatives from germany are fleeing their country. They long for more glory. They are attracted by the 'holy idea grail' that the UK promises, as the most creative place on earth.

Is it still? I'd like to think so, since I'm here now – but let's not go there, lots of other blogs (Robert & Richard) discussed this pretty well before.

Now, there is a pretty good chance for other countries to grab the flag and run forward and lead. And I'd like to allege that germany is in a great position for that. So thinks The Kaiser. Check out his blog, especially if you're german. Make up your mind if he's the one to lead.

Hey there

Just arrived from Gatwick airport. Had a great flight from Hamburg to London, got to write stuff, to read stuff and had the chance to nap a lil' bit. It was great to see family & friends, and have time off, but it feels like I've been away for too long – can't wait to get going again. Now excuse me, there are lots of things to do. Have a fantastic Monday everyone, it's good to be back. Quality.

Blogging pause

Welcome, to the intermission. It's august and I'm away from London in Hamburg, doing random stuff, meeting friends, playing games and working on my portfolio. Will be back in London soon - I am preparing some posts in the meantime, about music, rum, and advertising. Won't be blogging regularly in august though. Enjoy the quirky summer.

Off to see the simpson movie now. Check here for advertising world news so long.

AHA!?

Sorry for reporting back on this so late but the weather has been to good to be inside – right.

This AHA! was great, lots of people, different people, more people than last time, thanks everyone for coming around! Thanks to my dear friends from creativistan namely Reinhard, Christos, Sara and Oksana for organizing this together with me!

Besides mingling, chatting and drinking we tried this time to find the ultimate answer on how make life more meaningful. We asked everyone to tell us their secret wisdom of life on an AHA! fortune cookie paper. They did. While people were reflecting heavily about their contributions to what is now know as the 'AHA! way of life', sadly, someone nicked Charles' bag and Lauren's iPod. Have a look at the pieces of wisdom they sacrificed to write:

• 'It's all about the people' Renee
• 'Don't scream at a deaf person' Camilla
• 'The path is hard, but the butterflies are flying' Julien
• 'Star today what you've planned for tomorrow' Christos
• 'Stand on the steeple and piss on the people' A.J.
• 'Always try to remember peoples names, it's just polite, sadly I remember no ones!' Damien Knowles The Kiwi
• 'Going down every little helps' Juliana
• 'Don't get caught in the shower when a fire alarm goes off...' Ann
• 'You are going to have lot of sex, but no tonight!' Anonymous
• 'Don't shit where you sleep!' Agatha
• 'Your shoes will watch your shadow so polish them,
  otherwise you will lose your shadow.' Sara
• 'Arts Lunga – Vita Brevis. If you can't do the best why even bother with the rest?' Oksana
• 'A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.' Ray
• 'Peace still works.' Nina
• 'The yellow snow is the tastiest. Don't listen to the rest.' Peter Brown
• ' A Jelly Baby walks into a bar – bar keeper says what's that smell?
  Jelly Baby says 'Oh Fucking all sorts!' Will
• 'To thine own self be true.' Lauren
• 'An idea is like a leaf that needs rescue from the wind' T.C. Jeeves Basu
• 'You can't always get what you want.' Charles
• 'Don't take yourself to serious! Seriously.' Marco Warstat
• 'Pigeon, oiseau à la grise robe, Dans l'enfer des villes, à ma vue tu te dérobes.
  Tu es vraiment le plus agile' Jann
• 'What if OK isn't OK? If this was true, no-one would ever be happy.
  Strive for everything, but there is value in being content' Ant
• 'The Picture has a moustache. It's how you perceive it.' Matt
• 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Tam
• 'A book tightly shut is nothing but a block of paper' Ray
• 'The path is long indeed, but the door at the end is not Blue.' Wal

Enlightened? We hope so. We can't wait for the next one! See flickr (or facebook) for more pictures. And come along to the one in august. AHA!

Feedback on the Hummer strategy

A month ago Jai and I submitted our entry for the Advertising Planning School of the Web, a strategy for Hummer. Now we've received feedback saying:

'What I find interesting in this is that just like Seb, you’ve identified a bunch of really interesting ideas and then went for the most ‘creatively pragmatic’ direction which is basically a “FUCK YOU” to people who think HUMMERS are for gas-guzzling, gun-toting wankers.

I am all for pragmatism and boldness in creativity but at the heart of your idea is an advertising concept rather than something that would achieve motivation regardless of communication - and whilst it would generate tons of PR, awards and talkability, it would not necessarily translate into sales.

Saying that, you are the only ones who really took on an ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL approach … and while that would probably work VERY well in some countries/cities [Texas?] in alot of other markets, we felt the social-pressure to be ‘responsible’ may actually minimise sales rather than increase them...'

Very good constructive feedback, we fixed some parts of the strategy and maybe there will be a campaign for my book out of it. Thanks Rob and the judges for the thoughts and I'm waiting for the next assignment! You can read the whole feedback here on Rob's blog.

Campaign

A dear reader told me that today's campaign magazine (13th July, 2007, page 5) published a snippet out of the 'Street Creative' post about creative teaming. First time in campaign, yay.

It shows two things. First, someone is actually reading my blog and not only looking at the pictures and second, the creative team of today (or the future) is a rather interesting topic. While I wrote about only two factors (art director + copywriter) imagine how tempting it would be to debate what other ingredients (planner, digital expert) you could throw in to spice things up. I think the idea is everything, almost. Without the necessary skills (art + copy) it won't stand out in today's clutter. But real ad world (is there something like this?) is different from my situation. If you're trying to get a placement and the first job, execution doesn't matter that much. At least that's what they say. Great execution is a good bonus, but without the 'big idea' it doesn't matter. Imagine how crappy a Sony balls three frame storyboard would look like drawn in a student book...

What I've learned so far is that agencies expect young creatives to have lots great strategies in their book. Maybe I should try teaming with a planner?

By the way: If you look at page five, it says 2006, all other pages in this magazine say 2007. Spooky, friday the 13th stuff.

AHA! July 2007

AHA! the sequel. Unlike in hollywood, a good one. We're inviting all kind of creatives from different industries to share ideas. Come along, meet interesting people, have a drink, have a chat. Bring friends.

Wednesday, 18th of July 2007 in Commercial Tavern (upstairs) E16NU London. From 19.00 on. Looking forward to see your there!

Have a look at flickr for pictures from June's AHA!

Thanks a lot to Sara for the invitation design

Art Car Boot Fair

I enjoyed a whole lot of Brick Lane on Sunday. My quest – to gather inspiration. After checking out Nike's brilliant exhibition / brand experience Made for Skate and a graduate show about Transportation design I visited the Art Car Boot Fair – 'a day of art and frivolity'. It was east London at its best. Besides having lots of cars (seriously retro-pimped) on the Truman brewery backyard there were dozens of small art projects going on everywhere.


Vauxhall did a great job sponsoring this event and appeared as a rather brave car brand turning some cars into great art pieces.


Most of the stuff selling at from car trunks was crap. In a good way. If you visit Brick Lane often you might got the idea that Crap is Cool. It's the new Black. (for more advertising cliches join here).


The whole crap thing shows a great deal about the current materialized lifestyle of people. We want more things, just to have things, we're even ready to buy crap. The only thing missing on these Pooh Cakes is a flashy Brand mark!


After they sold London to you last year, an art group were selling the world. For just three pounds per country. Sadly, I was too late to buy Kazakhstan, my home country and free it from Nazarbayev. Still, I've get my hands on Ukraine. Odessa could be a nice retreat during summer time. I will give this country as a present to my girl. Muah!


Carbon Footprint anyone? An indication that people finally start taking the whole green issue seriously.


For the loners, you missed the chance too buy real love. In bottles. I wonder how 'love potion no.9' is different from no.2. Platonic love?


Action Figures for adults, GI Joe taking care of Guantanamo bay – Great stuff.


There was a huge amount of stands selling drinks (the fun ones). Personally I thought 'The End of the World is nigh' is quite a reason to have one at 2.00 pm on a Sunday – Cheers.

Continue, don't stop

This is for a good friend of mine. He chased his dream, but he failed to grasp it at the last second. I hope he gets his thoughts together and won't give up. Learn from failure. I do. I had a bookcrit at W+K on Thursday, it went okay. Okay in a bad way. If you're there you don't want it to be OK, you want it to be fucking great. No one can help you with that, it's up to you, and you have to sweat for it.

Hey, Life's too good to be sad about. There are always opportunities. Everywhere. Whatever you do, it's a step forward. Only when you stop doing, that's when you move backward.

Street Creative

This topic has been covered by Scamp very good. I'd like to share my thoughts on it anyway since I'm in this situation right now.

It's tough. Choosing a new creative partner is difficult. You kind of know what you want, and what you don't. You meet a lot of diverse people, you do some trial working. Some stuff is good, some isn't. There are so many elements to it. First, it seems easy to find someone you get along with. It's much harder to find someone who you great work with. I think a good partner should be able to teach you a thing or two, and the other way round as well.

On one hand you want someone different than you, but then you need to be on the same level when it comes to liking certain ideas. Discussing and arguing is cool, when there is an agreement at some point. How different can you be? How similar should you be? It seems to be a rather difficult balance act. But to get that sweet spot right is crucial.

Having a partner who shares the same view on great advertising, is that good? Do you go with someone you do smart work with, or work that is more creative and 'different'. It all depends on where you want to end up agency wise.

Taking enough time for that process is important. Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't be sitting around for months and waiting for the perfect match to come along – always keep working. Work with as many people as possible, get the big picture. Be proactive.

Another point currently discussed with many of my friends, does the old formula or art director + copywriter still work? What about two art directors? Isn't that very helpful if you're going above the line where execution has to stand out and not much writing is necessary? Can art directors write headlines? Yes they can. Can they do it as good as a writer? It depends. I'm very curious about opinions on that.

Frankly, once you've been working with someone for a certain time and then you're on your own, it's kind of fun. But it gets boring after a while and you see the point in having someone on your creative side again.

In the end, it's all down to your gut feeling. A person who listens to you, and you like to listen to, is very valuable. Someone who is able to inspire you, is as well. It's and endless topic. Share your thoughts if you like.

Let's see where the creative partner search takes me in the end. I'm curious. It's exciting. Change is good.

103

This is my 103rd blog post. StatCounter says 13.000 people visited the site so far. I very much enjoy writing and will do more of it once some stress cools off. Stress? I'm having a bookcrit at a great creative agency on Thursday, didn't have a crit for some time now so I have the jimjams – but in a good way! Still, there are things to prepare and that's very enjoyable. I'll write about it, once it happens. Also the next AHA! is coming up soon. Good things to happen.