Here's to more Britney Spears

It has been a pretty good year.

We have received numerous messages and support from people who has stumbled upon our blog.

It has also helped us open some doors that had us meeting some great people, one of which is our current employers.

To which we thank all of you.

However we are getting bored now.

The very existence of the blog is to do something different. That is what we (try to) pride ourselves against. And we have seen enough people doing the same thing these days that makes us want to do something different.

Do not get us wrong. We did not invent this whole blog/potfolio showcase and this idea thing. Credit must be given to Martin and Theo, The Staufenberger Boys and personally, a certain creative team's book I saw at TBWA about 2 years ago.

Besides, over the last month we debated that we might have veered off course a bit. Posting irreverent images and texts that probably make no sense.

So here we are, back to basics and sticking to what's true of what we first set out to do.

We do not know what it will be yet. But we may have an idea.

Here's wishing everyone a great New Year ahead and may Paris and Britney continue to be friends forever.

Janson

PS As a personal side project, here something I've realised.

Life's too short

I desperately want the new Sony W950i phone.

Doesn't help that O2 refuses to give it to me for free.

Worse, my gf got it for free from Carphone Warehouse. She simply phoned up and blagged it.

So I went to ebay to browse and see if I can get a good deal.

And this auction I came across had me in stitches.

When I put up something up on ebay, I try to be as precise as possible. Sometimes it took me about 15mintues to research then write the description.

But this guy wrote about three lines and said, "Life is'nt long enough to list all the details and functions..."

How true.

I should make better use of my time.

Watch them waste away.

Since the summer everyone out east and maybe west have been wearing these 5 bucks shoes. I've gone through around 3 pairs so far and have finally upgraded to a proper pair of leather converse. But cuddy our in house graphic designer is still going dispite the bad weather. So i thought i would document the downfall of these shoes. This is the first shot ohhh dont they look nice.

There's light...

Coach journeys are horrible.

And I just feel that train companies are underselling their 'product' a bit.

Or it's probably complacency.

Train journeys are like flying.

Except it's far less restrictive, more comfortable and actually city-to-city, if you know what I mean.

If there are numerous award winning ads for airlines, I don't know why train companies can't achieve the same.

Especially in this country.

Maybe it's an aspirational issue.

Flying is, afterall, sexier than any other mode of transport.

But train beats coach anytime, anyday.

When the going gets tough...

We are almost certain they are put up in corresponding order...



Bless her.

Just say no.

Since we moved to Cunning we have been using our friendly local convenience store TESCOs on a daily basis. What struck me was the amount of paper being collected due to people getting receipts for buying an apple.
Its funny, anytime i've ever wanted wanted a receipt i have had to ask for one yet Tecso gives them away with everything. People take it and then throw it straight in the bin. So i'm jumping on the green band wagon by urging you to say NO.
I've started doing it with Carrier bags when i have ample room in my man bag and now i'm turning my attention to receipts.
I'm gonna head down today see if there is any method in their madness or is its that they can't shut the bloody machine off.

See you after lunch
Ollie

What's that coming over the bridge?

Saw this over Farringdon Bridge, near Clerkenwell.

It's still there.

Nice use of the media and something otherwise plain and boring.

Simply visually pleasing.

Flickr Free

Flickr is probably the best thing to happen on the internet, next to Youtube.

Especially in this business.

It is no longer just a place to display photos. It is increasingly becoming a community for like minded people to share their interests.

And it puts google images to shame with their search options, the sheer numbers of quality photos and of course the non-stock images.

And then there's people like us who use it as an online portfolio showcase/critique.

I've been doing quite a bit of searches on Flickr and is surprised at the number of artistes doing the exact same thing (I'm not saying we're the first to do this).

From doodles, sketches, paintings to amazing adobe processed files.

There is such a massive collection of work, artistes/illustrators and communities that it feels a bit like walking into college on open day.

Maybe Flickr could do this. Charge, say, £1 for every picture downloaded and 80p will go to the author of those pictures. In that way everyone will want to constantly update and put up more pictures online so they can get paid for it.

Even better there should be a 'live brief' section where say if I want "A life-like but in colour pencils drawing of a smiling cat standing on top of a statue, waving at the camera, portrait, the cat preferbly with light brown stripes, the statue must be in marble...".

I will have to pay a premium price of say £25 for it. Anyone can respond to the brief and the author of the selected work will get paid a premium sum as well.

Supporting a Nocturnal Nation

Here's an Idea for Iceland; the frozen supermarket, not the freezing country.

(Although we did do a camapaign about the country some time ago and I've always thought it was quite sweet. Will post it up.)

A documentary styled program following a guy who takes on different night jobs.

From a minicab driver to a bouncer, an undertaker or even a tesco packer.

Showing the trials and tribulations, the funnies and the weirds of working when most of us are dead in sleep.

And when he returns home in the wee hours, he finds solace.

ITV's 'The Mint' is on, friends around, a cup of hot chocolate and some frozen food (from iceland) in the oven.

It will not be heavily branded. Just a product placement idea.

And I found out recently that product placements are banned in the UK.

WE'VE MOVED AGAIN

I've got to take this opportunity to say sorry to the man J for not posting more often.

Well we've moved home again on what seems to be a never ending search for getting a job.

We left Karmarama two weeks ago after two months down there. It was a great experience to be at a company which is on the up. We had a chance to work on some great briefs including the new Conservative work which should be out mid november.
Great thought which i can't believe Big D signed off. Big thanks to Sarah and Gina for all their help and support xxxx

We've just finished our first week at Cunning. It seems to be a pretty exciting place they have a new creative director by the name of David Dao and some good solid clients. We will keep you posted with the progress.

Karmarama have a blog now thanks to digital Craig at Karma HQ which we've linked so be sure to check that out.

Look How Jamie Has Grown

Saw this, neatly arranged, at Borders a while ago.

Nice photolog we thought.

Anti-clockwise from bottom left.

Remember that flying feeling?

PAPER PLANE, originally uploaded by adsareboring.

Yup.

Other 2 campaigns here.

Comments?

Credit: Illustration by Han Lee

At the end of a storm...

...there's a rainbow in my home.

Janson

ROUND 1 - FIGHT

The London Paper vs London Lite

Han - Solo

Special shoutout to our very good friend and the very talented, but only an illustrator, Han Lee, for being part of the team that was involved in the design of Beck's latest album.

It's a really cool idea where you can pluck out the stickers and design your very own Beck album cover.

It's featured in this month's Creative Review.

Also Han had 8 freaking pages to himself and named 'Future Illustrators to look out for' (or something to that effect) on Graphic Magazine last month.

Janson

PS Stickers are cool. There should be more ads and communication using stickers. I get really excited when I see a Don't Panic pack with stickers.

Random Photography

Took this picture when I woke up in the middle of the night and realised I had left the bathroom light on.

There's something quite symmetrically aesthetic about it, I think.

It also looks like one of those pictures you put with crap motivational lines at the bottom you see selling at cheap bookshops.

"A door left open..."

Ok I shall resist.

Janson

The rules of engagement

It's so horrible it's funny.

I was told someone made this as a joke. I certainly hope so.

Which made me think... wouldn't it be fun to do politically incorrect ads?

Of Music Videos

I read a few days ago that Universal Music is on the verge of filing a multi million lawsuit against Youtube and Myspace.

The reason? Broadcasting music videos online.

Universal Music said that they made the mistake of allowing MTV to broadcast music for free 20 years ago and MTV went on to create this phenomenal product based on something they got for free.

It just goes to show how out of touch the music industry is.

Napster shook them almost 10 years ago and since then they have been playing catch up and still are today. Music videos are unlikely to cause a simliar ripple effect but to restrict and ban the broadcast of music videos online is just another step in the same direction.

Wheter it is doing a synchronised dance on treadmills to frolicking on the beach or performing in a big room, slowly to be filled with erm... oil, Youtube has only helped raise the profile of bands and artistes (I for one have no idea who OK GO were).

Besides you can't even download the clips. You can only watch, admire and send it to your friends so they think you are pretty damn cool.

And your friends will watch them, think it's cool and send it off to their friends so that those friends will think your friends are pretty damn cool too.

In another world, another product, those marketing men will be having multiple orgasms.

Janson

PS Speaking of music videos, who watches MTV these days?

We're with Hoff

One of the things we do on a friday afternoon.



The day we felt like we're on Entourage.

An Hour Lunch Revolution

Dave from Finance, originally uploaded by adsareboring.

Something we did a while ago for Pret but we'll probably take it off from our book.

Comments? Feedback?

watch MORE tv

I've been watching football games via pirate internet broadcast for over a year now.

Using Peer-2-Peer, the streams are really getting better. Just last week and for the first time I watched one full game without any interruption or broken connection.

Now here's the interesting bit.

Other than football games, these P2P softwares are now broadcasting TV shows from Asia (largely China). They also now have dedicated movie channels showing films from a particular actor/actress, genres and etc. The movies are on repeat 24/7 and the softwares comes with a interactive program guide to tell you what's on.

Just yesterday when I tried to connect to watch the Da Vinci Code and just before the stream buffered to the broadcast, an ad appeared on screen! It's an anti-smoking ad in Chinese and right after that there's another ad by the makers of the software to contact them if you want to run ads.

ingenious.

PS I later realised that ads only appear before and after the movies and not in between.

ON SUNDAY GOD WENT TO IKEA

Having just moved into a a new house i thought this sunday would be a perfect time to take a trip to IKEA.

Wow what a trip. What gets me is that you can advertise all you want, but as a punter trying to get to the fucker is a nightmare.

I knew i could get a bus but which one and where do i get off? What they need is an ikea branded bus with extra storage and a roof rack!

Brand it up, put some maps inside and everyones happy.

But if you dont want to know the best one to get to is in Edmonton. Jump on the 149 get off at angel corner then jump onto the 34 to the wonderful world of flat pack.

More IKEA thoughts to come as i recover from the jet lang of north London.
Ollie

Hey watch this

I don't mean to be over dramatic but I think I might have witnessed the beginning of something that will probably change the way media, and especially TV, work soon.

While watching Da Ali G show yesterday night, one ad particularly stood out for me.

Redbull advertised that they will be beaming the Red Bull X-Fighters Competition live here on September 14th at 8pm.

I was in disbelief.

Red Bull buying an ad space on prime time telling people to go online and watch a prime time live broadcast. What surprises me most is Channel 4 allowing that ad to run.

Ok maybe Ch 4 don't think that many audience will log on to watch it, OR on September 14th at 8pm they have a great show on, or a shit one so much so they let RedBull win and get some money out of it.

We all know where the future is heading but this is like a public admission by a national broadcaster.

"If we can't beat them, let's get some cash out of them".

Take loads of holidays

shop
Originally uploaded by adsareboring.

Here are some new work we did recently.

Go to our Flickr page for the whole campaign.

I will be updating more work over the next few days.

Let us know what you think!

We would like to thank

Big shout out to everyone (and their moms!!) for clicking in and voting for us in the Luerzer's Archive Student Of the Year 2006.

Really, really appreciate it guys.

We didn't win it though. The winner garnered over 7000 votes! We have to put our hands up. We haven't got that many friends. :|

Martin must be wondering why we didn't do this earlier. I don't know. I suppose it didn't occur to us that we should be bragging our arse off. Besides I don't know if it meant anything really but here it goes anyway...

At Cream 2006 a few weeks ago, Tony Davidson of W+K picked us out and awarded us the Cream Creative Excellence. We suspect it's a case of, in social psychology terms, the 'recency effect'. Not that we are complaining... :)

It is now sitting proudly at a very visible part of my house.

Thanks again to Gemma, Lottie and the rest of KT for Cream 2006.

The Football Big Issue

A trip up to Liverpool yesterday made me realise one thing.

Outside every football ground on matchdays, illegal hawkers will be selling all sorts of things. From scarves, to T-shirts (with irreverant or ironic humor), pennants (come on Jermaine), home-made/DIY magazines (from b&w to glossy), air horns, wrist bands....

The whole area just transforms into a football market.

And football fans will buy them. Anything you sell, someone will buy them. It is pretty amazing and i'm not just talking about tourists or day trippers who find some of the items pretty alluring as they go to games once in a while, perhaps once in their lifetime. I've also seen locals succumbing to those funny (and definitely 'limited edition') items.

Why don't the Big Issue do a Football Big Issue? Not only they can be sold everywhere, the homeless can go to football ground on matchdays to sell them. With an average of 2 games a week for a club I'm quite certain fans will buy them.

And there can be different front covers to entice the fans.

Janson

Snakey B

Snakes on the Plane is potentially the worst film title ever. Just renaming it to Reptiliair or a logo (like Prince) is already erm... much better!

On the bus earlier I saw a poster for "You, Me and Dupree" with the sub heading "2's a company, Dupree's a crowd".

I pray everyday that I don't have to write lines like those.

I want to set up a company where before an agency runs a campaign, we will run checks for you and see if the line/visual/thoughts has been used before. In that way the agency can't say "Oh we didn't know that" or get embarrassed when the work goes out (or even worse, embarrassing the client). But of course it's up to the agency to run those ads if we showed them those were done (to death).

Even for movies we will do the research for you and see if cheesy titles (or lines) work.

Maybe D&AD, Cannes, One Show should do that. Or even Kendall Tarrant.

Ahem...

I know some of you were wondering what the hell the previous post was about... it did look as though I just came back from some hippy funfair/festival. Heh.



It was the annual Cream exhibition. We were selected to exhibit some work and given a space to do so. Instead of putting up work on the wall (which will be contradictory to the very existence of this blog ;} ), we decided to do something, erm, a bit different.

The Staufenberger boys summed it up for us here (cheers guys). Also thanks again to Haruka for taking time out to be the mystery tattoo-er.



I'm getting more and more absent minded. I forgot to bring my camera that day and have to rely on others for pictures. I will post more when i get hold of them.

Janson

Tattoos are like a bad dream

tattoos
Originally uploaded by adsareboring.

It is.

I woke up this morning with these 'tattoos' on my arms.

And I felt somewhat embarrassed. It will make interesting conversation with people but I'd rather avoid those staringly looks on the bus.

Don't get me wrong. It was great fun yesterday having our 'team' of artistes doing mystery tattoos on people and ourselves. The insane amount of drinks probably helped and got us carried away a bit.

So I have to put on a jumper this morning.

I noticed Ollie came in with a long sleeve shirt ;)

And it has made me think twice about having tattoos. I certainly will never get one on visible parts of my body.

Sounds really obvious and it probably has already been done but for the sake of it, tattoo parlours should do non permanent tattoos for people like me who was all set and gung-ho about getting one but looking at them now I wish....

The tattoo parlours will still charge for it. Pay 100 quid to get a non permanent one. If you like it, top up the rest.

Just stay sober.

Janson

WHAT ABOUT A LONDON BLACKOUT

I saw this idea online and thought how great it was. The premise is that New York bars cremorate the power black out in 2003 by turning off their lights and having a night of drinking by candle light.
What struck me was how much of a great idea this would be in terms of promoting using less power. Why dont Powergen or British gas get involved and organise a night of supping ale by candle light.
Check out the link below.
http://www.tonightsnyc.com/blackoutnyc/search/search.php?hood_id=18

But

What if Banksy made a mistake?



What will he do?

Pantone T Shirt

Pantone T Shirt
Originally uploaded by adsareboring.

I saw a pretty cool thing a few years ago at the Design Museum. Some designer actually designed mugs of different brown pantone colours, so that you can match the 'strongness' of your tea in accordance to the pantone.

But I thought it was one of those things that has great potential to be great but were let down by he uselessness of it; looks great, great idea... for 3 seconds.

Anyways here something, somewhat inspired but those mugs.

The most fucked phone box in London

In reference's to one of Martin's great idea here, Bouha chanced upon this phone booth when we were helping Sean move the other day.

(just look at the receiver)

It's not in Lewisham or Dagenham. It's in freaking Algate East.

NB photo courtesy of Bouha, in case he sues me for it.

PS Phone booths should be converted to karaoke boxes. No need for massive cosmetic changes. Just convert the phones into those snazzy internet ready ones with a screen and all. Pick up the reciever, dial a number and sing along!

The Best Festival ever for a Fiver

It's got to be it.

I was at the Ben & Jerry's Sundae festival (on Saturday) and I had such a feel good, wholesome time. Everything's about being good to the environment, to yourself, to your friends. Even with kids.

From bio-degradable plastic bottles (I was very very skecptical about this... apparently the bottle disintergrate after 12 weeks. I will let you know the results in October.) to make trade fair and toe wrestling to mosaic painting to help save the world. It is just fantastic.

Now wait for this.

There were FREE ICE CREAM ALL ROUND.

Every tub and scoop of B&J's flavour, even their new ones and those frozen yoghurt things... It's all free! As much as you want!

And there's the music.










It's really refreshing to see a band like this in the world of 'skinny jeans only please'. And they played some great stuff as well.

At the end of it, they handed out B&J tubs with compost and seeds, complete with instructions, so you can go home and plant your own tree.

I'm sold.

Which makes me think about the role of advertising sometimes.

It's Fruitstock this weekend. I hope there's free smoothie.

janson

When Neil French seduced

Was browsing through my shelves a couple of nights ago and found this ad from the early 90s by the (now) legendary Neil French.

It's still quite relevant. click on it to reveal a bigger picture so you can read the copy.



I wonder who he managed to seduce.

janson

I'LL HAVE THAT ONE

HEADING OUT FOR A DRINK A WHILE AGO A SAW THIS POSTER ON THE FRONT OF THE NEWAGENT.
WAIT TILL THE NEWS OF THE WORLD FINDS OUT!

5 a day

5 a day
Originally uploaded by adsareboring.

It's ready now. All our work. Everything.

Go to the link on the right of this blog to see our work.

Flickr is a bit of a mess but on the right side of flickr you can view each campaign as a set.

write to us.

janson

PS give us a vote on Archives (the link is also on the right) if you can. seems like we can vote once a day, sometimes twice... but if i were you I will do 5 a day :)

Shoot in the foot

Apologies. Apologies. Apologies.

I know everything should be up and ready last weekend but I'm still toying with the idea of buying a webspace and create a mini-site for our work or should I just stick with flickr... Flickr is great but it's quite untidy when you view it. I will most probably switch to the pro version of flickr.

----

I know we are constantly lamenting that ads are boring... Sounds like we are 2 bitter boys trying to break into advertising but if you are familiar with archives you will get what I mean. Most of them are either super duper USP or just visually punning (if ever there is such a word).

But here's proof advertising need not be boring:





It's mind blogging and the possibilities are huge.

janson

Our last day

It's been our last day at PD3 today. We've had fun but its good to move onto something new. To celebrate we headed out for some vietnamese on our way we discovered a new breed of tomato.

Coming Up

tying some loose ends.

Linking blogger to flickr is more fun than i thought.

In fact, it's pretty damn cool.

We promise it will be up and ready this weekend. and I will post something up.

in a nutshell, this blog conveys our thoughts and feelings about advertising, which are generally quite boring. (er... the boring bit refers to advertising, not this blog)

that's why we've embarked on a mini project which should also be up and ready on flickr this weekend.

janson

We're up and running.

12.01 and its up and running. Proper post soon.
Ollie.