tantramar

Weigh It Up

Stockmann is a big fancy department store in Helsinki. These are some of their lunchtime salads. The price is established by weight as you can see. You simply browse your desired size and spend. This is so nice.

As a consumer you feel far more catered for, than from a 6.99 ubiquitous price tag. Condsidering the fact that a considerable chunk of economic thinking and a bit of behavioural science defines most prices in supermarkets this is very refreshing.

Clearly many things are bought by weight but not many are then wrapped and sold as complete items with weight choices. Normally you do this yourself. It's a shame more places can't adopt such people centred technique for pre packaged goods.

Blood On The Brand?

So the Barclays Bank cycle scheme has started and I have some issues with it.

On a design and urban culture level I think it terribly sad that the only way something like this could be implemented was via massive brand sponsorship from a bank. Is this just an elaborate tax break for Barclays?

So now the transport for London brand has been completely tarnished by having Barclays branding and colour palate on cycling. They're trying to own cycling and not doing badly - blue cycle lanes! What's next the KFC northern line?

See the We Made This story for good coverage of the brand excursion.

Secondly very few people seem to asking if this should have been done in London at this time. The London roads are very busy and cycling on them is something that requires some practice. Old St roundabout and Elephant & Castle for starters. London already has too many people on bikes that don't know how to use them or the roads. As a cyclist I see this frequently.

The people that are going to use these bikes are going to be drunk locals and tourists. Neither of these groups should be on bikes that they don't know and on roads they don't know. The 'oh this will be fun way way to see the city' or 'a cheap and fun way to get home after the pub' is going to get people killed.

Of course, preaching aside, I have been that tourist but in cites far more bike friendly than London. Cities that have more than just blue paint on the street! In 2009, 13 people were killed and 398 seriously injured on London's roads. I sadly have several friends included in that statistic, some luckier than others and I've seen many incredible scenarios of people very lucky to get up and walk away.

The City of London has endorsed this cycle scheme and therefore it will be in travel guides as something to do. How long will it be before 11 year old Sally from Arkansas is killed by a bendy bus? Sadly not very long. Barclays must have done a brand damage assessment based on the brand cost of having someone die on one of their bikes. I'd love to know what they value a human life at.

I hope none of these problems occur but I know they will sooner or later. Because Berlin or Paris have cycle systems doesn't mean London should. Sorry to be a hater and I'd love to be proved wrong.

Look! No One Died!

I saw this on a building site in Hackney. 153 days! Good job! No one died - what an achievement! This is advertising for Balfour Beatty. Their advertising message is:

                   We didn't hurt anyone.

Not: Look at the lives we're improving by creating superior houses or anything like that, no, simply stating no one died. I find this amazing. This next one is even better

 
Hey you guys, no one died, not even any members of the public - as if that's a great achievement. Struth. How did this get approved? Just incredible.

I'm now awaiting signs from Hackney council that say:

Amazingly no one was stabbed last night,

well done everyone!

The Disciples

Another great, it's content, wait it's an advert type thing. There was this one I found a while back which is more in depth but this here is still pretty fun.

Are people starting to realise you can do more than a 20 second spot? Maybe they are...

via the grumble

The Original Advertising

Anyone that knows me, will know I have a bit of thing for sign painting. This is a great little film about some sign painters still painting big adverts the traditional way, instead of using nasty big vinyl banners.

What I barely noticed was that this was essentially an advert for Stella put together by Mother (I think) and presumably paid for by Stella. Hat tipped to a nice job done.

W&K Entertainment

W & K aren't your usual agency, at least that's what they'd have you believe. But then, if you've ever seen either of the founders talk you might believe it and they've put their money where their mouth is again.
 
They established an entertainment channel at the tail end of 2009; Wieden and Kennedy Entertainment, and it's getting quite good. I've enjoyed several short sharp clips about the Portland tape scene, the lo-fi and creative nature of skating and a nice piece on Os Gemeos.
 

They are highlighting the DIY nature of underground American culture and American culture is pretty damn good at that.

Why have they done this?
We are an arts and culture digital content delivery platform, a subsidiary of advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy. Our goal is to renegotiate the relationship between art, media, advertising and the consumer.

They've basically done this because... they can. 10 points

Piano Stairs

Holy cow this is great.

Ping Pong Penguin

While not being the biggest ad fan, I do like table tennis and penguins. Bam.

via Canoe

More Please

I saw this in Williamsburg. More social comment on the actual ads please, no simply around then. Fantastic.

Lots At Stake

This ad for Trueblood is just perfect. Sometimes ambient ads get right to the heart of the matter (sorry).

See more on my Flickr set

Clever Doctor

I read recently about the latest development in the Guns 'n' Roses / Dr Pepper marketing event, which is the best piece of marketing I've seen this year. I wrote about it previously here. Basically Dr Pepper said they would give out a can of Dr Pepper to every American (except Slash and Buckethead) if Chinese Democracy (their new album) was released this year.

A release date has been announced - November 23rd and Dr Pepper have confirmed they will be honoring their statement of Dr Pepper for everyone in the U.S. of A. You can go to a website, register and get sent a can. Simple.

It actually only occurred to me today how clever this whole idea was (sorry I'm a bit slow). They couldn't loose. By making the initial announcement they show themselves to be 'into music' but not through to some lame 'collect 10 labels' campaign. Connected through an actual insider element of music that had people talking.

So back to the promise. At most they'll give away 300 million cans. But how many Americans will actually go on the site? 10%, 5%? I think 2% would be amazing and that would be 6 million people drinking Dr Pepper! They shift around 730 million cases of Dr Pepper (inc diet) each year. 6 million cans is only 250 000 cases. A lot of this extra spend could be cut from their sampling budget which is what they're actually doing here anyway. And then think of all the addresses they are collecting of people who have requested a can of Dr Pepper. Oh my God, that's a seriously good mailing list! How much money is that worth?!

And then think of the number of column inches they got when they started this 'campaign' in the music press as well as general press. And then again a huge amount at the end of the year when G'n'R don't release the album or even more inches if they do release it. A double win. And no advertising spend (to my knowledge). Amazing.

Possibly the best bit of band wagon jumping I've ever seen. 10 points.

The Ambient Rules

For some time I've been collecting the best ambient ads I saw around and storing them on my Delicious account. which is dumb, as Delicious is about the worst online visual resource. Flickr however, is one of the best, so I have moved them into their own set.

If I worked in advertising I would be doing ambient ads (or rather trying to), they are far and away (in my opinion) the most inventive form of advertising. Enjoy.

Branded and Tagged

This is a nice little idea from Noah Brier.
You simply write a word that reminds you of the brand in question. While the brand world doesn't excite me terribly this is a beautifully simple idea carried out in a flawless manner. 10 points.

I've noticed that Noah has had some pretty good ideas over time. He's inspiring me to get my pen and pad out.

via Faris

10 Down

Profero, have some of the smartest folk in advertising I've met. They are doing tremendously well, perhaps obviously and they have always been very nice to me, despite the fact that I've technically never worked for them. Because they are currently celebrating being ten years old, they had a big party and invited me. I drank, I danced, I'm sure I said dumb things to lots of people and I came back with a t-shirt.

I have no recollection of this item. If it belongs to someone please let me know.

I think Team Awesome might have been there too!
Thanks Wayne, Nick and all Profero crew. Good luck for the next ten...

And of course thanks to Jamie for the invite.

Just Blew It

Everyone seems to be getting quite excited by the new Nike ad. I don't like it at all. It reminds me of a weak version of the Smack my Bitch Up video. Nike football ads used to be like this:

Nice