Only Dead Fish

Secondary smoke

Not often I post on stuff we've done (in fact I don't think I've ever done it) but this is unusual. We've just worked with the Dept of Health and Mediaedge:CIA to produce some creative work for their secondary smoking campaign. The campaign focuses on raising awareness of the dangers of just being around others who smoke (using scary facts like you can't see 85% of the smoke you breath in). The TV creative, by FARM, is set at a family wedding where all the invisible smoke suddenly becomes visible and all the guests are shown breathing it in.

We're supporting it with advertorial executions in our soap titles featuring the story behind the wedding bringing the characters from the ad alive. In our biggest TV listing title, Whats On TV, a trail of acrid smoke curls through the magazine around the edges of the listings pages before ending on a spread where the listings are all obscured by smoke except for one programme called 'The Invisible Killer', which features the main character from the ad. Worth a mention, not only for the nicely integrated way this uses the magazines, but also for the unusual way in which the print creative in the TV magazine works with the TV creative (TV mags are, of-course, consumed in front of the TV). A great piece of work by all concerned.

Boo 2.0

My stalker from boo.com has paid me another visit. 'insider@boo.com' has just left another comment for me on the last boo post:

"It won't be fashion but will still be fashionable.It will still have an offer for each season.You'll still be able to shop for the cool and trendy. It sure is tailor made..."

Sounding distinctly Boo 2.0.

Pizza anyone?

Rather like this.

From Saatchi and Saatchi Brazil. Via.

What every planner wants (2)

Hot on the heels of the launch of Apple TV comes these. Like everything else Apple do, don’t these just look sooo sexy compared to what you’ve got right now?

 

Every cover tells a story

Inspired by reading Steve Taylor’s book on 100 Years of Magazine Covers, I have dug out the link for a project the American Society of Magazine Editors ran not so long ago to pick the most iconic covers of the past 40 years. Everyone one of them tells a story…I’ve picked one from each decade for this post:

A story by the legendary writer John Sack inspired this Esquire cover in October 1966. Sack had just become Esquire’s war correspondent in Vietnam, at a time when America had less than 100,000 troops in the country. At 33,000 words, the story was and still is the longest ever published in the magazine, and was a ‘landmark in the history of New Journalism’.

In October 1971 model Darine Stern was the first African-American to grace the cover of Playboy, doing it in some style on a bunny chair specially created by Art Designer Len Willis. Richard Fegley was the photographer.

This unbearably poignant Annie Leibovitz image was photographed just hours before Lennon was shot on Dec  8, 1980, and was used on the cover (chosen as the best cover of the last 40 years) of Rolling Stone’s tribute issue to Lennon on Jan 22, 1981.

Another classic Annie Leibovitz cover shot, this time of the naked and hugely pregnant Demi Moore. It was August 1991, the year after Ghost, and the cover helped cement Demi’s place in the early 90’s Hollywood ‘A’ list

The Sept 14 2001cover of TIME featuring a dramatic and tragic image of the Twin Towers terrorist attacks taken by photographer Lyle Owerkoof

Blogging yolk

This is my 100^th post, so I thought I should mark the occasion with a few observations about this blogging lark. I promised myself I wouldn't turn this into another of those ‘why I love blogging’ essays, so I have concentrated on what for me is the essence of its value - the really nutritious bit, the yolk of my blogging egg so to speak.

There was something Vando (who was the first person to link to my blog) wrote, which I’m sure we all identify with, about not having the time to think strategically anymore. I know how he feels. I find that I consistently have to post in moments snatched from the jaws of the latest deadline, but the fact that I do provides me with an unexpected benefit - some kind of weird continuity, direction and a happy structure (of sorts) to my thinking. I may not always be right, but at least I have an opinion. I have an opinion about a lot of things. In fact, since starting this blog, I find I have more opinions than I ever knew.

And that, for me, is the nub of it. I love the challenging thinking, the new connections, the fun, the openness, the ‘effortless internationalism’ (to paraphrase Richard). But most of all I love the opinion – the fact that I can shoot my mouth off via my keyboard and someone will want to read it, the fact that I can easily and efficiently be exposed to (sometimes radical) new thinking on the state and future state of the industry I work in, the fact that it is all so gloriously uncorporate.

The name of this blog is a quote from Malcolm Muggeridge and I chose it because it seemed to express neatly how difficult it can often be to challenge, to question, confront, to go against the tide. But also what a fantastically life-enhancing thing to do it frequently is.

So to all those people who swim against the flow and whose blogs I read, I salute you (there are far too many to mention but just some of the more recent swimmers include Paul, Manish, Jason, Stan, Amelia, Dino, Jon, Doug and Faris) . I’d better sign off before this turns into a Gwyneth Paltrow Oscars speech.

Thought for the day

A thought on the new age of connectivity from American stand-up Mitch Hedberg:

"I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say 'Mitch,' and I say 'what?' and turn my head slightly"

Thanks to Paul at twopointoh for that one

Mini Rock 'n Roll

Nice print ads from BBDO Milan with the Mini referencing 3 famous rock bands. Took me a while to get the second one but I'm not feeling that sharp today...

(Via) .Also worth checking out is the Mini roof designer facility (in partnership with 3M) on the Mini Italia site. Couldn't find this on the UK site but love the idea...and the way it's presented.

Everything you ever wanted to know about women

We are about to undertake a major research project into women (it’s a huge audience for us). We are just formulating our ideas for what the issues/areas are that we are potentially going to investigate – so in the spirit of open source I thought I would open it out to you guys for input.

What are the themes you would most like to explore? What are the topics that you would like to know more about? Do you want to know what bothers them? What makes them laugh? Are there specific topics (environment, childhood obesity, work/life balance)? The results will be UK focused, but in return for your input, I will share and post some of the findings from the areas you suggest in the future. Any thoughts?

Image courtesy

Am I missing something?

‘Digital magazines’ like Monkey and the recently launched Jellyfish - I just don’t get it. Using your mouse to ‘turn the pages’ in a digital facsimile of an offline format may be a neat way of sampling an offline magazine online (in fact we've used the same technology for exactly this) but as a consumer proposition..? You might have the best content in the world but surely this is not the most usable, user-friendly, or intuitive way of accessing it. Online protocols and configurations have developed over time to specifically drive the best level of usability for content and functionality (if you want to go to a new page you don't have to 'turn it' , you just click) so why try and override them with an offline based format? Surely you need to think more about the user experience rather than the way you are used to delivering content? Am I alone in thinking this...?