We’ve been having a giggle about the new Chanel No5 ad… In case you’ve just arrived from outer space, it’s the one with Brad Pitt being all actor-ly in moody black and white.
But even more entertaining than the actual ad are the spoofs which can be found in their hundreds on youtube.
Here are some of our favourites.
Oh, and watch the real one first. Just in case you haven’t…
and obviously there has to be a cat one in here somewhere…
Guest Editor Ali writes:
This week I’d like to share thoughts on Coke Zero’s most recent activation stunt, forming part of their ”Unlock the 007 in you” European campaign that promotes their partnership with Skyfall. The activity was held at a train station in Belgium last week, giving commuters the chance to take on a Bond-esque mission in order to get their hands on exclusive Skyfall cinema tickets. A vending machine was set up for unsuspecting Coke Zero drinkers, who were set a challenge upon purchasing a drink. They were tasked to get to platform 6 within 70 seconds, and along the way were a series of staged obstacles, challenging them to find their ‘inner 007′ to make it in time. The viral has already received over £3 million hits, and although the authenticity of the case study can certainly be questioned (as the participants look suspiciously well groomed to us!), I think the activity exemplifies a fun and clever way to bring out great value from a sponsorship deal and works well as an extension to their recent TV spots.
Written by Aaron Wilmer
I was asked to write about something that inspires me. As a ‘creative’ in advertising I have two definitions of this word:
Inspire. a good image or piece of illustration or film I’ve seen on the internet that I’m going to lodge in the back if my mind or on my bookmark bar and at some point in the future blatantly rip off.
Inspire. Anything I see that make me think, wow, that’s amazing, I really should push myself harder and stop just ripping people off. This website is full of the second
By the way I was on this website before it was featured on the iphone 5 ad yeah.
After Felix Baumgarter jumped from space (almost) and broke the sound barrier last weekend, I started reading and hearing complaints like ‘what a ridiculous amount of money wasted’ and ‘doesn’t he have better things to do.’ These comments made me think; when did we become so boring! I wouldn’t be the first to jump out of a plane for fun, but I kind of admire the person who wants and is willing to put their body through death defying tasks. Where would we be if someone didn’t try something new once in a while? Lets go back to the days of Record Breakers, where families used to sit round the TV in awe of the hero like characters who didn’t just break records but made us (or maybe just me) feel like nothing was impossible.
And if you need some inspiration just listen to the show’s theme tune.
Classic 80’s
Written by guest editor Aaron Wilmer
You know, I love Spotify. It’s one of the things that makes me glad to live in the nowadays. When I’m on it I’m all over the place, one second I’m blues, then I’m hip hop, then a bit of French techno, then I check i’m not signed in through Facebook and my playlist won’t come up for everyone to see and I bang on some Subo. The only downside is I’m a big fan of ‘the album’. Good ones have a beginning middle and end, they (and I know I sound like a wanker here) take you on a journey. I miss that and a bunch of songs just don’t do it, so that’s why I chose an album like Ready To Die. It’s amazing. Start to finish.
Bonus Gangsta Rap post
I really hate it when people say culturally as a middle class white boy you can’t relate to 90s gangster rap and therefor somehow can’t enjoy it. So, what, you can relate to everything you enjoy can you? Maybe you’re into opera – war, incest and flying around on frisking horses? That was all part of the average day growing up where you were from? Or maybe you like a bit of country and western, you were a cowboy in Surrey killing men in a blaze of glory? No you weren’t. Shut up.
Written by our very own guest editor, Shaun.
Everyone loves a little chuckle at an amusing tweet. So I thought I would put together a little collection of some amusing parody accounts to follow.
@Queen_UK
Her Royal Majesty. Been around for quite a while now with a large following, over 900,000. Really giving you an insight into the daily engagements of the queen. I didn’t realise how much the queen actually drinks! Particularly interesting is her engagements with the Prime minister. The clever person behind this has also published a book!
Sample: “Queen Mother of a hangover. That’s the last time one invites Mary Berry over for a “Great British Drink Off”.“
@pigeonjon
It’s not very often that you get to see the inner thoughts of a pigeon. Only at 73,803 follows at the moment. You can also see an interview with the pigeon here:
Sample: “Shat on Louis Walsh. Yep. Twice.”
@KimJongNumberUn
Whoever said that North Korea wasn’t in touch with modern social media was wrong. The great leader himself has embraced the new platform to share his views to the world. Not a bad following at 192,450 so far.
Sample: “Iran? You’re worried about their nuclear weapons? Hello? Forgetting someone? #vpdebate #debate”
@CatBinLady
Started just after the infamous cat binning event. This allows you to see the real side of this misunderstood woman. Only 27,821 followers, but guess she is a bit niche.
Sample: “I couldn’t finish all my pancakes, so I’ve scraped the rest through next door’s letterbox, for their children.”
@shitmydadsays
The daddy of fake twitter accounts, starting back in 2009. With over 3 millions followers and only 164 tweets. Again with a book out.
Sample: “War hero? No. I was a doc in Vietnam. My job was to say “This is what happens when you screw a hooker, kid. Put this cream on your pecker.”
I’m sure there are a lot more out there, and many more to come. It’s interesting to note that these account get hundreds of thousands of followers, from essentially a handful of tweets. Additionally the people behind these accounts are actually making money from publishing books that follow on the stories.
Written by our very own guest editor Shaun.
Well I’m sure your not surprised to hear it, but yet again, the BBC has produced a brilliant new app, this time for their radio offering. The decision to create a separate iPlayer app for radio was a good one, offering users a simple, clear focus on radio content.
From an interactive perspective the unique feature here is really the scroll wheel, which navigates through the channels. This is a beautiful touch interaction, something that hasn’t been done before which I’m sure we will see many apps replicate in time.
As always, the design is in the details. Some of the key details that I love are; the way the buttons integrate with the channel branding, the ‘live’ line on the schedule and the play button aligned to the right-hand side rather then left. This actually makes a lot of sense as most titles will leave behind a space on the right, plus in a touch environment, tapping buttons on the left (for right handed people) will cover up the title – I’d expect to see this happen more often for iPhone apps too.
Lastly, my favourite feature of the app is a simple ‘alarm’ that wakes you up to your favourite radio station. A much better start to the day then the same old annoying iPhone default alarm tone! It even has a lovely night mode clock which displays when the alarm is set.
I think the only major thing I’d like to see is some social features, like being able to see what shows your friends have listened to. I’d also like to see the use of rating in order to make browsing more effective. But overall I think it’s a great app. Well done BBC. I give it five stars (out of five).
A topic close to my heart, the good old celebratory High-Five. I thought it was time for me to learn about its roots, where did it begin?
The Oxford Dictionary defines High-Five as ‘a gesture of celebration or greeting in which two people slap each other’s open palm with their arms raised’
I like to do this often in the office, much to others disapproval.
Most sources date the act back to the late 70′s and a particular baseball game. Dusty Baker and Glen Burke from the LA Dodgers exchanged a high-five after Baker scored a home run. All credit goes to Burke, as it was him that raised his hand to congratulate Baker. This action sent a ripple of excitement through the masses and the act of exchanging high-fives spread like crazy.
High-fiving was particularly popular in the sports world during the 80′s, with both baseball and basketball teams and fans participating in high-fives to celebrate exciting moments. It was through its popularity over this period that the term was included in dictionaries.
Although, there is a footnote, even though sports is the most high profile use of the high-five, it actually originated in African-American urban culture as a greeting. The sports dudes just copied!
Today is a very sad day. Laura, our wonderful, über-efficient, and immensely likeable receptionist is leaving us.
After nearly 4 years of service behind a variety of different front desks, Laura is leaving not just us, but also the UK. She’s off to Brazil to pursue exciting new ventures with her husband. We’d like to thank her for all her hard work, for keeping our clients happy, and keeping some of our less wanted callers at arms length with her no-nonsense attitude. And she drinks pints as well as anyone we’ve ever met. Heavy.
Laura, you will be missed!
Guest Editor Will writes:
There’s a lot of baby naming chat in the office at the minute, mainly because there have been a few babies born and a few more about to be born. I’ve noticed that people take this naming thing very seriously and rightly so. This is the name that will follow their children around with them everywhere they crawl and dribble, from hospital cot right through to their bed in an old people’s home. The name might change a bit on the way, but usually the name you’re born with, you die with. Anyway, it’s definitely not the time to have a laugh and give your newborn human a funny name to make your mates laugh down the pub. No, baby naming is serious stuff. But, not dog naming.
You can name a dog anything and it won’t matter because they won’t know or care, their other dog friends or f**k buddies (if it’s consential, which more often than not it isn’t) won’t mock them for having a funny name because they’re dogs and as far as I know dogs don’t mock one another like humans do. So when or if I get a dog I’d like to call it ‘Help!’ That’s not an exclamation mark to punctuate the sentence, the exclamation mark is part of the name. I’d have it engraved on Help!’s dog collar. I just like the idea of calling for Help! in public places or paying a lady dog walker to take Help! out for walks at night.
Maybe rescue dogs should be called Help!
