livingbrands

MTV goes bang

After the success of our Viva launch, comes our first workfor MTV proper. The challenge was to package up and promote MTV's Sunday evening stream (featuring progs like Jersey Shore). Bang is the answer: where other stations finish the weekend on a whimper, MTV sees Sunday out with a Bang...

What's your legacy going to be?

Was rather taking with the comparisons between pop svangalis McLaren and Cowell in Q's obit to Malcolm…

"A product of art school and situationism, McLaren was interested in turning the world inside out and dancing in the ruins, not just turning it into an endless and-of-the-pier talent show and dancing in the money…

...McLaren was instrumental is pushing the cultural clock forward at terrifying speed…Cowell has been slowly turning the clock back, to a time not just pre-punk but pre-Beatles. A time of teatime light entertainment…

...Erase Simon Cowell from existence and what would we lose? Various record and TV companies would suffer lost revenue, and a lot of awful pop records would vanish. Delete Malcom McLaren from history and you say goodbye to an entire sensibility. In a terrible cultural butterfly effect everything around you would be different: the clothes you wear, the sound and look of every band worth thinking about from 1977 until today. Advertising and cinema. Typography. The magazine you are holding. All changed utterly. All poorer."

Makes you wonder. What will our legacy be, whether personally or via the work we do for our clients?

Are we like McClaren, changing the way things are, making the world a better (or, at least, more interesting) place, leaving something positive behind us?

Or are we like Cowell, just selling 'stuff' and making money.

10 things we didn't know before the 16th week of 2010

1. In America, 30% of teenagers send more than 100 texts a day.
2. Gaza has a surf club.
3. Migalki is a type of siren which allows some Russian officials and business to bypass regulations so they can get through traffic jams.
4. US President Barack Obama has played golf 32 times since taking office, beating George W Bush's record.
5. Male long tailed slugs make "love darts" from calcium minerals and use them to inject hormones into females.
6. Babies born in autumn or winter are more likely to develop a food allergy than those born in spring or summer.
7. In the 13th Century, the Chinese used covered sewage tanks to generate power.
8. Two-metre-long sea-scorpions used to roam the coast of North East Fife
9. US President George Washington failed to return a library book. It's now racked up a $300,000 fine.
10. Children who address important issues with their fathers are less likely to smoke.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Our new Mattessons commercial

Fol­low­ing hot on the heels of our first relaunch com­mer­cial for Mattessons comes another drum­ming extravganza.

Meat! It’s a Primal Thing.

Maybe we should just do an ad

This made me laugh, even if my experience is more one of trying to convince clients that digital/social/experiential does actually add value to conventional media.

Much truth in it tho, at least as far as agencies are concerned (also from my experience).

Because you've gotta love the emperor's new clothes certainty of those pure play digital evangelists: get a Facebook widget and the world's your oyster.

Although I do often wonder if they are the emperor or the tailors?!

My view?

The right thing is the thing that works.

And what works depends on many factors: your market, your brand, your audience (active and passive), your budget, your business expectations and how quickly you need to achieve them.

It's different strokes, folks.

Sometimes it's Twitter; sometimes it's the centre break of Corrie. Usually it's a bit of both.

(PS thanks to John for the original post)

How we pay for things

(Via PSFK) 

10 things we didn't know before the 15th week of 2010

1. There are leeches that like living in your nose.
2. British servicemen and women have had their own brand of tea since 1921.
3. Israeli lottery winners often wear masks to conceal their identity while accepting the prize.
4. The Turin Shroud is woven in a herringbone pattern.
5. Doctor Who regenerations were modelled on bad LSD trips.
6. Banknotes were first widely circulated in the Song Dynasty in 10th Century China.
7. In Cuba, barber shops and beauty salons are run by the state.
8. Motorists use excuses as imaginative as UFOs and "bad weather" to try and get out of parking fines.
9. Former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler used to pause Top of the Pops and stare at Johnny Marr's hands.
10. Sir Cliff Richard split up with his first serious girlfriend by letter.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 14th week of 2010

1. Marriage over the telephone is valid under Islamic law.
2. Salmonella can build up on bird feeders and then spread among birds.
3. Bebo stands for blog early, blog often.
4. Capuchin monkeys were named because of their resemblance to the Catholic friars.
5. MPs' parliamentary gym memberships are cancelled during the election campaign. 
6. Wombats produce cube-shaped dung.
7. The home computer was invented by a man called Dr Henry Edward Roberts.
8. Cillit Bang is called Cillit Bam in New Zealand.
9. Bodies repatriated to a home country from the UK must be encased in zinc-lined coffins.
10. Insect museums are called insectariums.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Ideas that do

Our mantra at Quiet Storm is 'ideas that make things happen'.

Which might seem like a no-brainer. But there are plenty of 'ideas that...look nice/just win awards/are completely unintelligible/bore the pants off people/patronise' out there.

We don't always deliver 100% (* note: see comments below if clarification on my honestly is needed). But then who does - there are just too many variables to account for. It's what we strive for though...and having a positive, action-orientated mindset improves chances of success no end.

And even before coming to QS, I had a little spiel going about advertisable ideas vs advertising ideas.

All of which gets covered off here in a succinct 5 minutes by Gareth Kay...

The art of music

Great 'audio slideshow'over at the Beeb on album design guru Storm Thorgerson, looking at his work from Pink Floyd's debut to Muse (no opportunity to embed unfortunately)

 

Favourite quote...

"It costs what it costs, and because we do it for real, of course, it's therefore a bit more expensive that doing it on a computer. But better for it"

You get what you pay for...and there's no substitute (even post Avatar) to doing it for real.