The best thing about mud is...

I'm sure many will attest to this. Glastonbury is quite truly an experience. Probably one of the best things I have done. Everyone is just so happy. There's so much feel-goodness about it that I felt like a hippy, in clean socks and spotless t-shirts (I change everyday and tread carefully).

It's one of those things where one minute I wondered what the fuck was I doing there and the next, I thought to myself, "This is an experience of a lifetime". Like on a roller coaster.

The only real poster I saw. A spoof movie-like poster that warns people against taking drugs with those classic quotes like "You will never forget the single 'The Cell" and etc.

Yup. Mud.

I love big colourful tents. It just reminds me of my childhood.

And nice flags.

Other than seeing how dire the ground was, there was a little stage at the far end in this picture where people turned up and play random tunes. I heard country and western when I walked by. Yes. People did stop and watch.

Spot the pepperami at the far left.


Best bit about mud is once it's in it's semi dried up stage you can almost peel it off revealing a clean pair of wellies!

PFSK Conference

My camera phone has been playing up of late so this is the only image I could get from the PSFK conference last month. It was put up by Hugh MacLeod one of the highlights of the day.

He talked with such passion about how he had created a campaign for a South African vinyard Stormhoek by using the geek blogging community to generate a buzz. This snowballed with it becoming the cult drink at Microsoft to th epoint where they even got their own lablels!!

A great presentation and a truely interesting guy, it really showed the power of 2.0.

I've just finished reading "A GUIDE TO BEING CREATIVE" which is a collection of his musings and lessons which he a learnt over the years. I don't think i have read a better piece about being young creative yet. Drink it in here

Check out his wonderful site and drawings here

I LOVE TYPE

Falling type from the 56 on the way home from the airport.


Nice type from a shop in Spain.

More from Barcelona

I do love people who just get out there and do stuff. These posters where plastered all around sonar i don't what they mean but you can just about make out an email. I'll try and decifer it and get in touch.

Sonar 07

While Janson was out watching Daft Punk last weekend I was on a jolly in Barcelona at Sonar. If you have'nt heard of it it's a electronic music festival which runs over 3 days and 2 nights in the heart of the city. Theres a bit of beard scratching by day but it gets very messy at night.

There where thousands of people their but it seemed that no brand had managed to genuinely intergrate itself within the festival.
T-mobile had some Bumper cars which didd'nt strike me a logical idea when your trying to sell European roaming. Plus they had these beautiful signs up saying that you could'nt bump, brill !!


Budweiser did have some nice ident films which they used as visuals around the venue. But they missed a trick here i think, as they should have had a booth where you could go and film your own clip, upload it and become part of the visuals for the festival.

Head Spinningly, Mind Blowingly, Eye Pleasingly, Ear Splittingly, Jaw Droppingly (and etc.) ...

good.

Cunning Rebrand

As part of the Cunning's rebrand, we were told to each produce a logo that will become a collective of Cunning's logos. It is a pretty neat idea and here's our Cunning logos.

Feel free to submit one if you will. Visit us and our new website to submit one of yours.

PS Special thanks to James Cuddles Cuddy, our designer, for making all this work; from start to finish!

Best Female Artist 1993

Jess our in house designer wins a SMASH HITS AWARD.

JANSONS LOVELY POSTER

Doing our bit

A while ago we where given a brief for IFAW to come up with some ideas to warn of the dangers of ivory trade ahead of a major international conservation meeting.

We sent over a few thoughts one of them being a funeral procession with a giant elephant coffin.
They liked it but we didd'nt hear back for a while. Then last friday we got an email saying that the coffin had been built and on Sunday morning it was off to be toured round London. What a nice surprise, doing our bit and getting an idea out the door!

Unfortunatly we both couldnt make it but please let us now if you saw it / heared it / read about it. ; )

Check out the article on their site here

Fun in the cunning window

Our wonderful graphic designer Jess fresh out of the jar from Marmalade has help create a beautiful focal point for the front windows of Cunning HQ.

Each person in the company was given a box to put in what ever they fancyed, sienna miller could'nt fit in mine (i know , I know)

The results are below, Jansons camera was on the blink so some of the shots are a bit dodge.


Theres a better view now from across the road.



Janson checking out the finished boxes


My box testing the power of the mind.


Jansons lovely animal eye chart which we should make into a poster.


Whats that naughty boy listerning to?


Some dirty strippers thats what!


Mix tape from James " CUDDLES" Cuddy.


Pissed up animal farm. By Jess a farmers daughter


Matt PP's staring contest.



Rob who has just joined us from Dubai with a winning £100,000 lottery ticket.


David Dao presents love is?


Matt J 3D killer insect.

CHANGE IS GOOD

We have upgraded so you can now check us out at
WWW.ADSAREBORING.COM

Here's OUR lunchtime revolution

Ad coincidences happen all the time. Sometimes they are deliberate because that particular style or execution is in vogue. While rarely it is down to pure coincidence.

What do you do when someone made a campaign that has a rather uncanny resemblance to yours; from the style, the line and right down the sentiments.

We were alerted to this by a kind friend in February. He asked if we did a placement there. We wished. (Well, we could have. But that's another story.)

Then we saw the ads start popping up all over the place last month in the papers. Just last weekend, Theo asked if I saw the ads on the Internet. Apparently they were all over hotmail as well.

I was desperately scouring the Internet for examples of that work for the last hour or so. Then strangely enough a look on their blog and the latest post is about that campaign.

And there's an icing on the cake. They have won some award from Metro London for having an "innovative creative that successfully communicates with our urbanite audience".

I am not saying that they are blatantly copying us. We haven't got any proof. How do you proof that anyway? Theirs ran. Ours didn't. But if those ads were done by a particular team then we have no doubt it is a rip off.

Maybe it's great minds that think alike and I would like to think so. It's a strange, mixed feelings of flattery and disappointment if it is not.

And here's the worst and most frustrating bit: showing people our book and hearing them say, "Seen this before."

It's no longer in our book now anyway. We took it out quite a while ago. They were not good enough. :P

(PS If you did see any of those ads, take a picture or screen shot and send it to us. We will post it up. Don't worry we will credit you guys. heh.)

GET ON BOARD

Friendly Fires 'On Board' from O W L S on Vimeo

I had a great laugh a few weeks ago helping make a music video for the band the Friendly fires.
It was great fun a proved what you can do in a day with a bunch of mates and some energy.
I'm the geek in the dolphin outfit!!

"Good night and thanks for watching"

Waiting for the next band to play at a concert is simply dreadful. You either go get more beer, talk about the previous band, talk about the band that's coming up or eavesdrop others talk about the previous band and the band that's coming up.

I do not know why there are such a lack of activities in between the changeover of bands at a concert. Here you have the perfect opportunity to entertain the restless crowd and anything you do, music related or not, will be appreciated. This is pretty much a marketer's dream playground, a place to pillage and plunder as the crowd are at their most vulnerable but receptive best.

Like promoting a new band from the same label/concert promoter, show music videos, screen movie trailers, play XFM, get someone to do standup, do a contest... anything. Anything is better than listening to a couple of 16 year olds rambling about Johnny Borrell and Kirsten Dunst.

The woes of engine searching

The recent and perhaps sudden switch in strategy by Ask.com just proves how difficult it is to change, and to borrow the term used in their radio ads, ‘the status quo’.

I really like their “Ask and you will get” strategy but the current “The other search engine” just fall way short of the warmth and fun generated by such a great brand with a great name. I just felt that it is too familiar and generic, probably deliberately.

Ask.com is not alone. Every search engine is in the same predicament except the web monster we now know as Google. Strangely enough Google finds itself in the same boat in China which again proves how tough it is to change behaviour and norms.

Amazingly not a single person I spoke to over the weekend remember what search engines they were using pre-Google. Google only gained it’s dominance over the last 2 years so surely some of us must have relied on one of the search engines in the picture above.

I have fond memories of using Alta Vista and this other search engine named either ‘monster’ something or something ‘zilla’. It was the alternative and rebel of search engines then and appealed to us, teenagers, almost instantaneously, which is somewhat the current strategy of Ask.com.

The question is how do you make Ask.com (or any other search engines) cool and relevant?

For a start Ask.com should start a diploma/degree course in Internet research or something similar. Lessons should be fun and fulfilling, like putting students in foreign countries and giving them specific tasks.

Ask.com should then move on to create their own educational institutes.

GIRLS ON BIKES

Working out east you get a lot of well dressed women on bikes. But none of them wear any protection mainly due to the fact that most of it does'nt really go with S/S 07.



What's needed is a line of safety gear for women which is trendy , modern and wont leave you looking like a parking steward.


My first thought on this is a Brouche which will WOW your friends by day and doubles as a safety light at night.

War? Cool!

So wrong it's unbelievable.

Here's why.

This is a great website
There are literally thousands of meetup groups all over the world talking about everything from fishing to Dolly Parton. It’s so simple as well. Pick a spot; name a time and your rocking.
But why is it only planners that meet up?
Do they have more to bring to a coffee morning than creatives?

Janson and I are toying with the idea of doing a creative meet up once a month, but we wanted to test the water first.
David our creative director was hesitant saying that creatives are too ambitious and are not known for sharing ideas unlike planners. Fair point, but something with a monthly structure would be nice even if it were just " THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF PHIL COLLINS" (You know who you are.)

Spot the stooge

Really interesting piece from the bbc website. It will be interesting to see who they pick for particular brands. I could personally talk all day about the high you get off Leffe.
Check story here