Filed under: Comment
We recently talked to a load of 25-40 year old’s about their level of job satisfaction and found most weren’t that happy with their working life.
Many felt they were underpaid, expected to work stupidly long hours, had little career growth opportunities [unless they changed job or the person above them changed jobs] and were treated as a ‘number’ rather than as a human.
Sure, not everyone felt this way – but it was still a pretty alarming percentage and this reminded me of a great, great, great campaign developed by Naked for one of those ‘Instant Soup’ manufacturers.
Basically they were given a brief to get more and more office workers drinking soup in the office.
Whereas they could have gone with the usual bollocks – like it being a quick, easy and tasty lunch alternative – they tapped into this ‘job dissatisfaction’ attitude with this wonderful idea …
“COMPANIES LIKE YOU DRINKING COFFEE AS IT KEEPS YOU ALERT AND MAKES YOU WORK LONGER HOURS. REBEL, DRINK SOUP!”
How good is that eh? Brilliant – and all because they tapped into a powerful cultural / lifestyle insight as opposed to the usual ‘consumption / brand’ insight that most others would do.
If you want to be creative, look beyond the category norms, and delve into how people feel about life etc – otherwise don’t complain when the creatives come back with communication like everyone else.
They say a good workman never blames his/her tools – well, I do think a good creative has the right to blame his/her planner if they don’t give them something fresh [yet relevant] to work with.
Filed under: Comment
So we were recently in Sydney looking to buy a house when on our travels, we came across this wonderfully-awful street name.
Who the hell comes up with these names?
Does no one at the council [or whoever decides these things] think that it might put people off living there?!
OK, so it’s probably as aspirational street address for Accountants and Mariah Carey fans … but to the people in the real World, it’s about as tempting as a choice between burning or drowning.
I’d love to know whether there’s evidence that a house value can be negatively affected by a bad street name – because to be quite honest, they’d have to pay me to live on that street.
Hmmmmn, guess this goes hand-in-hand with the comment below!
Filed under: Comment
Believe it or not, but this is a very, very, very expensive jeweller located inside Singapore Airport.
Apart from the name of the shop being unbelievably naff … the logo design is so disgusting that you fully expect it to be a ‘everything for a pound’ type of shop.
As much as designers have an astounding ability to talk like everything has hidden layers and complexity – they are sooooooo right when they explain that font-design has an amazing ability to deliver a brand perception image to consumers.
Just imagine how differently you would look at this shop if the font-design conveyed elegance, sophistication and exclusivity – rather than the Fisher Price, 1982 look it has now.
Filed under: Comment
I’m having a quick break [so no ‘updates’ for a while as Jill has banned me from using any computer] but maybe you can help me while I’m away.
We’re compiling a list of advertising clichés that supposedly mean your brand/product will appeal to ‘the youth’.
So far we have the following …
If your brand/product name ends with the letter ‘s’, simply replace it with a ‘z’. As seen in Australia with their ‘APPLEZ’ campaign – I kid you not.
Ad’s featuring kids with baseball caps on back to front.
Kids being noisy in the family home – preferably listening to music or playing an instrument,
Kids stuck infront of the TV playing a video game.
Kids playing sport and scoring the winning goal/try etc.
Kids being all dirty and muddy.
Kids being cute and wholesome. [ie: every ad in bloody Asia!]
If you have any more … please can you let us know and who knows, you could see it in an upcoming Virgin campaign.
Ta.
Filed under: Comment
Ever since my beloved partner Andy signed up for some free-porn website, we have individually been inundated by spam.
No, not the odd email about ‘Penis Enlargement’ or ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes, I’m talking hundreds of emails EACH DAY.
After our IT man basically threatened us with violence – we called in Norton and Microsoft and finally got it sorted, except something mad must of happened last night, because when I turned on my computer this morning, I found I had received 2,467 emails – of which only 4 were legitimate.
Apart from the fact this means I’m deeply unpopular and Andy has been up to his tricks again – this surely is some sort of World Record! If it is, my Mum will be so proud, ha!!!