Virtual Wall

This is a really interesting concept to increase road safety. Lasers create a "virtual wall," this has to be far more effective that traditional warning signs.

Co-working and shared spaces

The Whisper Shop operate in a bit of a shared space arrangement. As well as our our spaces we have a great co-working relationship with our friends at Catch Design whose office is our de-facto Wellington home away from home. We thought we were a little different in the way we operate, but PSFK have written a great article on the pro's and con's of co-working and office sharing situations. They interviewed agencies listed on Ain't No Disco (which is a simply superb and inspirational site btw) and it appears that our modus operandi is becoming scarily normal.

It's not my fault

Legendary Saatchi's London creative Paul Arden, author of It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book died today due to a heart attack. his book are genius. In tribute, from Commercial Archive here are some thoughts from the man himself.

- Blame no-one, but your self, if you have touched something accept total responsibility for that piece of work. If you accept responsibility you are in the position to do something about it. If you are involved don't blame others.
- Know your clients aims We are trained to think advertising is all about selling products. That is often not the case. The motivation may be quite different. Always find out what a client wants to advertise for.
- Do not covert your ideas Give away everything and more will come back to you. They are not your ideas anyway they are God's.
- When the client wont buy, do it his way, then do it your way Very often having given him what he wants he will give you what you want. There is also the possibility he may be right.
- Do it first, don't ask and be prepared to take the consequences A new idea, is either silly, unfamiliar or both. It cannot be judged by description, it cannot even be judged as a storyboard. It needs to be done to exist. No one will sanction the cost, therefore you have no choice but to do it whatever the cost.

Brands, My Friends Part 1

Brands aren't about form or function. The meaning of a brand is endued in the relationship you have with it. And if brands are inherently relationship based it should come to pass that you'd have friends (and enemies).

So here begins a series where i tell you about the brand-friends I have. Now i'm not just going to tell you about my best friends, but some some casual friends as well. The brands I like to hang out with on a day to day basis.

Apple

No surprise hear I guess. The interesting thing is that we are going through a bit of a rocky patch in our relationship ... I call it Leopard. In theory the new operating system is awesome. But I'm finding applications are crashing on a regular basis. Now, i love Apple because they make things easy. Like the ads say, stuff just works. Right now stuff isn't working, but I know they'll get it sorted. They always do. And if, they don't, i get the impression they'll have tried.

Foodtown

The most convenient supermarket to my place is actually a Pak N Save. If i want to buy some cereal, or dishwashing liquid, chips or coke, that'd be the place I go. Apparently it's far cheaper (although i've never really compared). But because they're so cheap I pretty sketchy on their meat and their range seems to be pretty limited. I can't say I love Foodtown, but they always have what i want and i trust the quality of their produce. They're definitely my supermarket of choice. It's comfortable.

Whitaker's Milk Chocolate

I recently got introduced to Whitaker's Milk Chocolate and Dried Apricot. Put the chocolate in your mouth, suck for a while, then add the apricot. Chew. It's amazing. No other chocolate would work so well ... in saying that I've never tried.

More of my favourites coming soon ...

The view from the home office this evening

Trends forecast from Leo Burnett

Futures Editor of Leo Burnett, Ben Houraine talks about what's coming next ...

Smoking habit for sale

Auckland man James Hurman is selling his smoking habit on Trade Me. With huge national and international interest we thought it might be nice to sneak a little of our clients product on him.

Ben & Jerry's by Parra

I love these yummy ads for Ben & Jerry's. THe lines are superb, but the typography is by on of my favourite artists - Parra. The man is a typographical genius.

How Fangio created planning

Great post from the blog of Australian media shop Bellamy Hayden.

In the Monaco GP in 1957 (or 1950, depending whom you ask, but I’m more confident in 1957), Juan Manuel Fangio was leading with a few laps to go. He was coming up to a blind 140kph bend around where today’s swimming pool complex would be.
There was a pile up of cars around the bend that was blocking the track. In those days, ploughing into stationary cars at 140kph was very bad news. Remarkably, just before the bend, and for no obvious reason, Fangio braked sharply and crawled round the corner, avoiding the cars and continuing on to win.
He was asked by a reporter after the race how he could have possibly known to brake. His (paraphrased) reply? “The crowd was the wrong colour. I could tell they weren’t looking at me and that meant something around the corner was more interesting than the leader of the race. So I braked.”
So basically, Fangio …
Spotted something that was there for anyone to see but most would not have noticed.
He realised its significance.
He had the courage to act, even though slowing compromised his lead.
His actions had a positive effect.
Sounds to me a lot like good planning.

Price is Perception ... REALLY!

The Economist recently posted this article claiming that eople do not just say they enjoy expensive things more than cheap ones. They actually do enjoy them more. THis give an interesting scientific point of view on the old adage that price is perception.

EVERYONE loves a bargain. But retailers know that people will sometimes turn their noses up at a cheap version of a more expensive item, even if the two are essentially the same. That suggests something is at work in the mind of the consumer beyond simple appreciation of a product's intrinsic qualities.

The something in question is expectation, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Antonio Rangel of the California Institute of Technology. Dr Rangel and his colleagues found that if people are told a wine is expensive while they are drinking it, they really do think it tastes nicer than a cheap one, rather than merely saying that they do.

Dr Rangel came to this conclusion by scanning the brains of 20 volunteers while giving them sips of wine. He used a trick called functional magnetic-resonance imaging, which can detect changes in the blood flow in parts of the brain that correspond to increased mental activity.

...

Dr Rangel's research also has implications for retailers, marketing firms and luxury-goods producers. It suggests that a successful marketing campaign can not only make people more interested in a product, but also, truly, make them enjoy it more.