to. wa.- walking on the insight road (and not halfway there).

Now I haven’t posted an ad here in a while.

I have to admit that I’ve been a little fed up with advertising recently. Not because I’m surfing on the “advertising is the price that you pay for a bad product” wave. I don’t. Or because I’ve been preaching “social media” on a daily basis only to see people now abandoning their former golden calf. I don’t do that a lot either. Not even because I’ve typed myself silly about the “new customer“, agency models or how innovation is the new black. I think I’ve kept all that to a reasonable minimum.

Rather, it’s been precisely those debates and discussions that have made me a little tired of the bulk of the advertising discourse. Looking at twitter, blogs and AdAge It seems like everybody who’s holding at least a senior planning position in agencies big or small is busy hopping from conference to conference talking about the demise of the industry. Of course, not every stream of that discussion is dull and I’ve learned a lot from reading people who are incredibly smart and generous with their knowledge and experience. I’ll attend a planning barcamp myself this summer. And anyways it’s probably more an outsider perspective than an informed insider view. But still, my impression is: a lot, a lot of talk.

(Disclaimer: The next sentences may come across as a little bit of ass-kissing. And I agree. But then again, credit where credit is due.)

When I talk about exceptions, one of the agencies that has always been impressive in my eyes is - of course - W+K. Yes, they blog. Yes they retweet when their work is mentioned. Yes, they even have an opinion and voice it from time to time. But in general, their planners seem to be more busy (unsuccessfully) helping Labour to win elections than further contributing to the echochamber. Or repeatedly doing awesome stuff. And this is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing.

Now that was a very long prelude for a video. Here it is: Nike “Write The Future”.

This fully integrated campaign, spanning TV, cinema, print, digital, out-of-home and non-traditional executions is the culmination of an 18-month long collaborative effort led by W+K Amsterdam with support from W+K London and W+K Portland. While digital teasers were released on May 15th to build buzz ahead of the campaign, the official unveil is this epic 3-minute film called “Write the Future,” launching online tonight. The global broadcast will debut during the May 22nd European Club Final, a feat that required seven versions and 30 cut-downs to accommodate distribution to major networks in 32 countries.

Put simply: it’s an awe-inspiring peace of film. (Read their full background info here.)

From what can be seen in the admitedly media-biased twitter search people are loving it. They talk about it. And they will implement it in their lives. Heck, the whole set-up with different slices and pieces of film for different culture is brilliant. This is probably what Ehrenberg meant when he wrote about “Advertising as Creative Publicity“. This is what Lannon/Cooper meant when they wrote about humanistic advertising and asked the question “What do people do with ads?” - in 1983. And this - too - is advertising.

Haven’t posted in a while. Since coming back from Canada I’ve been reading a lot on- and offline, working on some projects, meeting a lot of interesting people at the remix09 in Hamburg. The following presentation is what I’ve been digesting so far. A work in process, a way for me to frame what I’ve been thinking about lately.

Rotznase wird ernsthaft bis vulgär in der Alltagssprache von älteren Menschen verwendet. Sie bezeichnen damit zumeist Kinder und Jugendliche, wenn diese sich frech, respektlos oder nicht altersgemäß äußern oder verhalten. In dieselbe Kategorie gehört auch der Ausdruck “Rotzlöffel”, “Rotzbengel”, “Göre” und “rotzfrech”, im österreichischen Sprachraum auch “Rotzpippen” oder “Rotzpipn”. Im positiven Sinne können hierfür die Begriffe “Naseweis“, “Schlauberger” oder auch “Dreikäsehoch” verwendet werden.

aus http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotzpippen#.C3.9Cbertragene_Verwendungen

Das wäre wohl der urösterreichische Ausdruck dafür, was sich die Damen und Herren von der TBWA Media Arts Lab da regelmäßig über Microsoft ausdenken. Diesmal animiert und weihnachtlich, aber kein bisschen braver. Ich bleibe dabei: die Kampagne muss aufpassen, dass der PC nicht immer mehr zum liebenswürdigen Tollpatsch wird. Any comments?

via werbenews.at