Cannes Lions 2009 - My Personal Top 10 Film Picks

So now that the judges have packed up their clipboards for another year, the dust has settled and the hangovers have subsided, here’s my personal selection of top 10 films from Cannes 2009…
1. Philips: Carousel - Tribal DDB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Hard to dispute the Grand Prix winner which I discussed in one of my earlier posts.

2. James Boag [...]

The Pink and Blue Project

Nice visual commentary from South Korean artist JeongMee Yoon on gender differences and materialistic obsession.

I originally spotted this exhibition in May this year in a tiny gallery in the very laid back (and relatively little known) surfing town of Bolinas, Marin County, CA. You can see more of JeongMee Yoon’s work on her personal website.

Why So Serious? Case study microsite

Here’s a handy case-study microsite of my favourite integrated campaign from 2008 by 42 Entertainment to promote the Dark Knight.

Intriguing and immersive websites, email and snail-mail campaigns, scavenger hunts involving mobile phones hidden in cakes, exclusive film teasers, page take-overs, virtual elections, real world fan conventions, flash-mobs and events, competitions, posters and unique collectables; all combined to make [...]

Inspiring Books: Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy

I first read Confessions when I was applying for Ogilvy’s grad scheme in 2004. I can remember at the time being struck by the volume of invaluable best practice principles it outlined, which seemed to be just as useful to a current wannabe ad man, as they would have been to someone first reading it in 1963.  Confessions is less a book about how to write a successful [...]

Thinkbox on the Box

I was intrigued by this new TV ad for Thinkbox.

I think it’s probably the first TV ad I’ve seen about TV ads (at least, it’s the first I noticed and the first that I can remember, which is always a good start). It does a nice job of highlighting the potency and endurance of certain campaigns (and [...]

Top Ogilvy-isms

Some David Ogilvy quotes to inspire - useful for Client presentations, essays and blogs…
Ogilvy on Brands:

Every advertisement is part of the long-term investment in the personality of the brand.
The image of any brand has been created over a long period of years. It is the result of many different factors - advertising and pricing, and the [...]

Inspiring Books: Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind - Al Ries & Jack Trout

As self-proclaimed on the cover of the 2001 edition, this one’s a classic – widely regarded as a must read for anybody in the field of marketing, or anyone wanting to “sell” anything, for that matter. Admittedly, Positioning has already been very well-reviewed since it was first published in 1981, but it’s a book that [...]

The Next Wave of Social Networking from Google

Looking forward to having a play with this new communications platform from Google. Even at beta stage, it’s already massively hyped as the rival to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and possibly also Webex in the business community.
Put very simply, the platform is a type of live chatroom with a facility to share/amend/display documents to participants in real [...]