Wood for the trees

Research carried out in 2008 by a Robert Heath.. whoever he is.. showed that the average consumer (who isn't a consumer?) is exposed to over 5000 brand messages per day.

" Well, according to this researcher, it must be understood that we absorb a large part of this information unconsciously. This is his theory of Low Involvement Processing (LIP).

Without us realising it, without any special effort on our part, our brain records this information subconsciously. That will obviously play a role in our knowledge of products and brands from all household consumption categories.

Our brain constantly chooses what “interests” us. It stores this information at a “conscious”, accessible, close level and classifies elsewhere what “doesn’t interest us” and archives it in an area that is, so to speak, more “distant and less of a priority”.
It’s often said that we are entering an era of “Permission Marketing” in which the consumer is more and more able to build barriers around them to stop appeals that they consider undesirable.

The practical consequence is that the only means of convincing the maximum potential clients is to try to be present in the media as often as possible in order to have a chance of getting there “with the right offer, at the right time”…when such and such an individual’s “drawbridge” is open"

- taken from: http://treguer.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/a-consumer-is-exposed-to-an-average-5000-brands-message-per-day-tvlowcost-will-help-your-brand-by-reducing-spectacularly-the-cost-of-the-most-powerful-and-influential-media/

Now i'm not wholly sure if i buy into this theory. Yes we are more susceptible to what we are interested in and looking out for. I still can't see that moonwalking bear if i'm counting the passes. I don't think this means that you have to barrage people with images and messages in the hope that maybe one day they might think about your product. You could beam a subway sandwich sign into my brain 24/7 and i still wouldn't eat one unless it was absolutely the last option. This research was promoting cheap advertising slots for a network. In my opinion it's less about forcing the brand on the consumer as it is about breaking down the barriers that make them see it as undesirable.

The man your man could smell like

Isn't it great when adverts are actually good.

" We're not saying this body wash will make your man smell into a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it"

.. I'm on a horse.

Guerrillas in the midst

The great comedian Bill Hicks (RIP) once said, "if you are in marketing or advertising... kill yourself. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now."

He was a pretty harsh guy old Bill but i can see why a lot of people hate it. The reason it attracted me in the first place however was not exploiting people and clocking up the dollars, i'd be a fool if it was with starting salaries at an absolute pittance. It's the creativity you can express whilst trying to make a success of a brand or a service.

Something that i think most people will like is what is now referred to as 'Guerilla' advertising. The concept is basically that you can promote something around an imaginative, creative concept without having to spend a huge amount of money on the campaign.

The ideas behind the campaigns are often unconventional, interactive and unexpected. They can be pretty subtle like this Axe deodorant sticker..

or subtle as a brick..

Here's a few good'uns,

Mr Clean.

Interactive red carpet Nikon ad on the Seoul Subway. (motion sensors make the cameras flash)

And hey. if you're going to write a book about Geurrilla advertising why not make the book advertise itself, that's what the Tokyu agency did for the release of Gavin Lucas's book in Japan by the addition of a handle to the cover.

And this i just think is pretty shmaert..

Hell Vetica

Now technically i'm not a designer, i don't really have skills to get whatever is in my head onto the computer and my drawings are more than a little dodgy. I've always had an interest in it however, i do care about layouts and colours and logos. I can even spend a day or two on photoshop and come up with something passable but that is about as far as it goes.

Last summer i was at the Wickerman festival in Dumfries having a jolly good old time. Now you may be familiar with that feeling of lying in your tent and hearing the more hardcore of your friends jabbering on outside about god knows what. This time i was pretty taken aback by the conversation topic... fonts. Something to do with the merit of serifs. For gods sake you are at a festival, if i hear any more about fonts i am going to have to kill you and write your obituary in 'wing dings'.

Now the more i look in design related stuff the more i feel like i am becoming one of these font followers. Enter this film:

This is a feature film about typography and graphic design released in 2007 to commemorate 50 years of the well used font of the same name. You may not know the name of it but trust me you see it everyday. 'Arial' is its bastard (ugly) cousin by the way, don't get confused. The film is a pretty geek tastic but i found it interesting. The side affect is that i now devote a silly amount of time looking at shop signs, print and logos trying to analyse the merit of how they've used typography. Many agencies seem to specialise in taking brands and helvitcising them to death. Whether its a good thing or not confuses me daily. So basically don't watch it if you like being oblivious to such things, ignorance can be bliss.

On a Glasgow related helvetica note check out this calendar designed by Effektive.

S'nice intit? I want one. Again produced for the 50th anniversary you can't get hold of this as yet but Greig Anderson the designer is currently working on a non year specific version so keep an eye on the effektive website if you like the look of it. Here's a sneak peak at the new version:

This gun's for hire

This is a wee slideshow i made to support an application for a job with a back-catalogue film company a couple of years ago. Basically to illustrate that i did have an interest in filums. I didn't get the job but i reckon this helped me get the interview out of the 200 odd people that had applied. Goes to show that sometimes a little something extra can go a long way. Obviously i'd do it a lot better now and yes i know that scrolling text at the end of it is horrendous but hey-ho..

this gun's for hire from scotiamacb on Vimeo.

Smashing

Is it just me that gets an urge to take a baseball bat to furniture now and again? Apparently not. Here's an exhibition that a young lady called Nikki Lau came up with, making an entire living room Pinata style. Nice. Courtesy of the Medicine Agency, San Fransisco.

Video of the wreckage below:

Nikki Lau smashing a giant pinata living room at Medicine Agency from Medicine Agency on Vimeo.

So Macho

So what better way to kick off than with the upcoming masterpiece from A-deen's finest, Alex Craig. Friendlyfire Productions presents 'Machotaildrop'.



In 2005 Alex and co-producer/director Corey Adams made the film Harvey Spannos for a competition for Fuel TV. They won. The film gave them the opportunity to spend their $1m winnings on a new project - Machotaildrop. Featuring Rick McCrank, John Rattray, Anthony Amadori, James Faulkner, Lukacs Bicskey, Vanessa Guide, Fred Mortagne, Frank Gerwer, Steve Olson and more. The trailer tells you what you need to know so check it out and keep your eyes peeled for it hitting the big screen.