Advertising Dust or Magic

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon by Richard Gale

2011-10-07T18:15:00.002+02:00

The funniest thing I've seen in forever.

Then check out the interactive series where you can SAVE JACK!

This just in: Sex DOES sell!!

2011-09-22T12:33:00.003+02:00

''Draping a model seductively over the product on sale has long been a ploy beloved of advertisers.

But now scientists claim they have discovered exactly why sex sells – and it isn’t just because consumers think that if they buy the car they can get the girl.

Researchers found seeing an attractive man or woman in an advert excites the areas of the brain that make us buy on impulse, bypassing the sections which control rational thought.

Their study found that adverts using logical persuasion (LP) - simple, convincing facts - are less effective in making us spend than adverts using non-rational influence (NI) - feelgood, stimulating images.

A good-looking woman standing with her legs apart to advertise jeans was found to have a stronger influence on us than, for example, a car ad containing miles-per-gallon data.
This is because NI bypasses the parts of our brain that process ideas logically and rationally.
Researchers from the University of California attached 24 adults to monitors that recorded brain activity during LP and NI adverts.

The rate of activity in the emotional processing and decision-making parts of the brain was much lower during the NI than the LP adverts.

An cigarette advert showing a woman jumping over a fire hydrant with a smiling man behind her was likely to reduce our ability to make a considered choice on whether to buy the product.

'Watch your brain and watch your wallet,' said UCLA's Dr Ian Cook, who published the study results in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics.''

Read more

(credit: Dailymail)

Back to the Start

2011-09-02T10:06:00.001+02:00

Coldplay's haunting classic 'The Scientist' is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, "Back to the Start." The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

Sand. Up close and beautiful.

2011-07-25T16:22:00.005+02:00

Viewed at a magnification of over 250 times real life, tiny grains of sand are shown to be delicate, colourful structures as unique as snowflakes.

(credit: DailyMail)

Tropicana's simply bright idea by DDB Paris

2011-04-28T17:12:00.001+02:00

With a brand name like 'Smart Water' you need a great viral ad. Voila.

2011-03-14T15:07:00.001+01:00

Motorola gives Apple a slight taste of its own Orwellian medicine

2011-02-08T15:59:00.002+01:00

Opulance, I has it! (see if you can spot all the opulent details)

2011-01-14T11:11:00.002+01:00

Hermès Finger Skating - seriously cool way to show a product line up!!

2010-11-11T20:02:00.002+01:00

Mad Men character's fictional memoir set for real-life publication

2010-10-28T18:03:00.003+02:00

Hard-drinking, philandering but charismatic advertising chief Roger Sterling from the hit American TV drama Mad Men is to have his fictional autobiography – which features in series four of the fictional series – converted into reality next month.

US publishing house Grove/Atlantic has spotted an opportunity and will bring out Sterling's Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man by Roger Sterling Jr in time for the Christmas stockings of the many fans of the series.

Mad Men, which is set in the New York advertising world of the 1960s, has won widespread acclaim including 13 Emmys, and made a celebrity out of its curvaceous star Christina Hendricks. Actor John Slattery plays the character of Sterling, the womanising founding partner at the firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, who has used his charm on many conquests, including secretary Joan Harris whom Hendricks plays.

Sterling has "acquired quite a reputation among his colleagues for his quips, barbs, and witticisms", says Grove/Atlantic, promising the character's "pithy comments and observations amount to a unique window on the advertising world as well as a commentary on life in New York City in the middle of the 20th century."

Grove publisher Morgan Entrekin is a friend of Keith Addis, who manages Mad Men creator Matt Weiner. Even before series four was broadcast, Addis told Entrekin that the then-fictional book would be featuring prominently in the upcoming drama. Entrekin pounced, getting Weiner himself to write the preface for the book, in the voice of his character.

Typical one-liners you'll find in Sterling's Gold include: "Remember, when God closes a door, he opens a dress" and, "Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons and eventually they hit you in the face."

(credit: the Guardian)

“The Simpsons” Explains Its Button-Pushing Banksy Opening

2010-10-16T12:48:00.003+02:00

Following-up on yesterday’s extremely viral and controversial Banksy opening sequence for The Simpsons, The New York Times speaks with The Simpsons’ executive producer, Al Jean. Some interesting issues are brought including how The Simpsons tracked down Banksy, the authenticity of the animation and the potential repercussions involving The Simpsons’ network, Fox. A list of questions and answers can be seen below.

How did you find Banksy to do this, and now that it’s done, how much trouble are you in?

Well, I haven’t been fired yet, so that’s a good sign. I saw the film Banksy directed, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” and I thought, oh, we should see if he would do a main title for the show, a couch gag. So I asked Bonnie Pietila, our casting director, if she could locate him, because she had previously located people like Thomas Pynchon. And she did it through the producers of that film. We didn’t have any agenda. We said, “We’d like to see if you would do a couch gag.” So he sent back boards for pretty much what you saw.

Were you concerned that what he sent you could get the show into hot water?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it for a little bit. Certainly, Fox has been very gracious about us biting the hand that feeds us, but I showed it to Matt Groening, and he said, no, we should go for it and try to do it pretty much as close as we can to his original intention. So we did. Like we always do, every show is submitted to broadcast standards, and they had a couple of [changes] which I agreed with, for taste. But 95 percent of it is just the way he wanted.

Can you say what got cut out?

I’ll just say, it was even a little sadder. But I would have to say almost all of it stayed in. We were thrilled. It was funny, I watched “Mad Men” last night and I wondered if this was my Don Draper letter to The New York Times. I knew just how he felt. But it was great to have a secret.

One of the things Banksy is known for is disguising his identity. How can you be sure that you were dealing with the real him?

The original boards that we got from him were in his style and were certainly by an extremely proficient artist. We were dealing with the person that represented him making the movie. I haven’t met him, I don’t even know what he looks like, except what the Internet suggests. And he’s taken credit for it now so I’m pretty sure it’s him. We went through the people that made the movie so I assume they would know how to get to the real him.

Even compared to how “The Simpsons” has mocked Fox in the past, this seemed to push things to a different level. Are you sure there’s no one higher up than you on the corporate ladder who’s displeased with this?

I think that we should always be able to say the holes in our DVDs are poked by unhappy unicorns.

Has Banksy’s criticism made you reconsider any of the ways you do things at “The Simpsons” in terms of producing the show or its merchandise?

I have to say, it’s very fanciful, far-fetched. None of the things he depicts are true. That statement should be self-evident, but I will emphatically state it.

A lot of the show’s animation is produced in South Korea, but not under those conditions.

No, absolutely not.

And even that closing shot of the 20th Century Fox logo surrounded in barbed wire?

Approved by them. Obviously, the animation to do this was pricey. I couldn’t have just snuck it by Fox. I’ll just say it’s a place where edgy comedy can really thrive, as long as it’s funny, which I think this was. None of it’s personal. This is what made “The Simpsons” what it is.

(credit: New York Times)

Land of Giants

2010-08-16T16:37:00.006+02:00

American firm choi + shine architects recently received the 2010 Boston Society of Architects Award for unbuilt architecture for their project 'the land of giants', which they originally designed for the icelandic high voltage electrical pylon competition back in 2008. Making only minor alterations to well established steel-framed pylon design, the architects created a series of towers that are powerful, solemn and variable. these iconic pylon-figures will become monuments in the landscape.

The pylon-figures can be configured to respond to their environment with appropriate gestures. as the carried electrical lines ascend a hill, the pylon-figures change posture, imitating a climbing person. Over long spans, the pylon-figure stretches to gain increased height, crouches for increased strength or strains under the weight of the wires.

The pylon-figures can also be arranged to create a sense of place through deliberate expression. subtle alterations in the hands and head combined with repositioning of the main body parts the x, y and z-axis, allow for a rich variety of expressions. The pylon-figures can be placed in pairs, walking in the same direction or opposite directions, glancing at each other as they pass by or kneeling respectively, head bowed at a town.

Despite the large number of possible forms, each pylon-figure is made from the same major assembled parts (torso, fore arm, upper leg, hand etc.) and uses a library of pre-assembled joints between these parts to create the pylon-figures’ appearance. this design allows for many variations in form and height while the pylon-figures’ cost is kept low through identical production, simple assembly and construction.

(credit: Designboom)

all images courtesy choi + shine architects /

The Beauty Advantage:

2010-07-20T12:27:00.004+02:00

Illustration by Paul Sahre

Most of us have heard the story of Debrahlee Lorenzana, the 33-year-old Queens, N.Y., woman who sued Citibank last month, claiming that, in pencil skirts, turtlenecks, and peep-toe stilettos, she was fired from her desk job for being “too hot.” We’ve also watched Lorenzana’s credibility come into question, as vintage clips of her appearance on a reality-TV show about plastic surgery portray a rambling, attention-obsessed twit, stuffed to the brim with implants and collagen. (“I love plastic surgery,” she coos. “I think it’s the best thing that ever happened.”) Creepy, yes. But for all the talk about this woman’s motives—and whether or not she was indeed fired for her looks—there’s one question nobody seems to want to ask: isn’t it possible Lorenzana’s looks got her the job in the first place?

Not all employers are that shallow—but it’s no secret we are a culture consumed by image. Economists have long recognized what’s been dubbed the “beauty premium”—the idea that pretty people, whatever their aspirations, tend to do better in, well, almost everything. Handsome men earn, on average, 5 percent more than their less-attractive counterparts (good-looking women earn 4 percent more); pretty people get more attention from teachers, bosses, and mentors; even babies stare longer at good-looking faces (and we stare longer at good-looking babies). A couple of decades ago, when the economy was thriving—and it was a makeup-less Kate Moss, not a plastic-surgery-plumped Paris Hilton, who was considered the beauty ideal—we might have brushed off those statistics as superficial. But in 2010, when Heidi Montag’s bloated lips plaster every magazine in town, when little girls lust after an airbrushed, unattainable body ideal, there’s a growing bundle of research to show that our bias against the unattractive—our “beauty bias,” as a new book calls it—is more pervasive than ever. And when it comes to the workplace, it’s looks, not merit, that all too often rule.

Consider the following: over his career, a good-looking man will make some $250,000 more than his least-attractive counterpart, according to economist Daniel Hamermesh; 13 percent of women, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (and 10 percent of men, according to a new NEWSWEEK survey), say they’d consider cosmetic surgery if it made them more competitive at work. Both points are disturbing, certainly. But in the current economy, when employers have more hiring options than ever, looks, it seems, aren’t just important; they’re critical. NEWSWEEK surveyed 202 corporate hiring managers, from human-resources staff to senior-level vice presidents, as well as 964 members of the public, only to confirm what no qualified (or unqualified) employee wants to admit: from hiring to office politics to promotions, even, looking good is no longer something we can dismiss as frivolous or vain.

Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers told NEWSWEEK that qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time landing a job, while more than half advised spending as much time and money on “making sure they look attractive” as on perfecting a résumé. When it comes to women, apparently, flaunting our assets works: 61 percent of managers (the majority of them men) said it would be an advantage for a woman to wear clothing showing off her figure at work. (Ouch.) Asked to rank employee attributes in order of importance, meanwhile, managers placed looks above education: of nine character traits, it came in third, below experience (No. 1) and confidence (No. 2) but above “where a candidate went to school” (No. 4). Does that mean you should drop out of Harvard and invest in a nose job? Probably not. But a state school might be just as marketable. “This is the new reality of the job market,” says one New York recruiter, who asked to have her name withheld because she advises job candidates for a living. “It’s better to be average and good- looking than brilliant and unattractive.”

Remember the story about the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate? It goes to show our beauty bias is nothing novel. At the time, radio listeners thought Nixon had won, but those watching Kennedy’s tanned, chiseled face on TV, next to a worn-down, 5 o’clock-shadowed Nixon, were sure it was the junior senator. There are various explanations for some of this. Plato wrote of the “golden proportions,” which dubbed the width of an ideal face an exact two thirds its length, a nose no longer than the distance between the eyes. Biologically speaking, humans are attracted to symmetrical faces and curvy women for a reason: it’s those shapes that are believed to produce the healthiest offspring. As the thinking goes, symmetrical faces are then deemed beautiful; beauty is linked to confidence; and it’s a combination of looks and confidence that we often equate with smarts. Perhaps there’s some evidence to that: if handsome kids get more attention from teachers, then, sure, maybe they do better in school and, ultimately, at work. But the more likely scenario is what scientists dub the “halo effect”—that, like a pack of untrained puppies, we are mesmerized by beauty, blindly ascribing intelligent traits to go along with it.

There are various forces to blame for much of this, from an economy that allows pickiness to a plastic-surgery industry that encourages superficial notions of beauty. In reality, it’s a confluence of cultural forces that has left us clutching, desperately, to an ever-evolving beauty ideal. Today’s young workers were reared on the kind of reality TV and pop culture that screams, again and again, that everything is a candidate for upgrade. We’ve watched bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover, faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. We compare ourselves with the airbrushed images in advertisements and magazines, and read surveys—like this one—that confirm our worst fears. We are a culture more sexualized than ever (Mad Men notwithstanding), with technology that’s made it easier than ever to “better” ourselves, warping our standards for what’s normal. Plastic surgery used to be for the rich and famous; today we’ve leveled the playing field with cheap boob jobs, tummy tucks, and outpatient procedures you can get on your lunch break. Where that leads us is running to stand still: taught that good looks are no longer a gift but a ceaseless pursuit.

Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of The Beauty Bias, is herself an interesting case study. During her term as chair of the American Bar Association’s commission on working women, she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late for meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question. These were working, powerful, leading women, she writes. Why did they insist on wearing heels? Sure, some women just like heels (and still others probably know their bosses like them). But there is also the reality that however hard men have it—and, from an economic perspective, their “beauty premium” is higher, say economists—women will always face a double bind, expected to conform to the beauty standards of the day, yet simultaneously condemned for doing so. Recruiters may think women like Lorenzana can get ahead for showing off their looks, but 47 percent also believe it’s possible for a woman to be penalized for being “too good-looking.” Whether or not any of it pays off, there’s something terribly wrong when 6-year-olds are using makeup, while their mothers spend the equivalent of a college education just keeping their faces intact. “All of this is happening against a backdrop of more women in the workplace, in all kinds of jobs, striving toward wage equality,” says Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff. “So we’re surprised—but we shouldn’t be—how this [beauty curse] continues to haunt us.”

Forty years ago, when feminists threw their bras into the “Freedom Trash Can” outside the 1968 Miss America pageant (no, they didn’t really burn them!), it was to protest the idea that women had become “enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards,” as the organizers put it. At the time, women still made up just a fraction of the workforce, and yet they were rejecting the notion that, in work or play, they had to be confined to the role of busty secretary—a mere office toy. A decade later, as women entered the workforce in droves, it was boxy suits, not bustiers, that defined their dress. But today’s working women have achieved “equality” (or so we’re led to believe): they dominate the workforce, they are household breadwinners, and so they balk at having to subvert their sexuality, whether in the boardroom or on the beach. Yet while the outside-work milieu might accept the empowered yet feminine ideal, the workplace surely doesn’t. Studies show that unattractive women remain at a disadvantage in low-level positions like secretary, while in upper-level fields that are historically male-dominated, good-looking women can suffer a so-called bimbo effect. They are viewed as too feminine, less intelligent, and, ultimately, less competent—not only by men but also by their female peers.

To add an extra layer of complexity, there’s the conundrum of aging in a culture where younger workers are more tech-savvy, cheaper, and, well, nicer on the eyes. Eighty-four percent of managers told NEWSWEEK they believe a qualified but visibly older candidate would make some employers hesitate, and while ageism affects men, too, it’s particularly tough for women. As Rhode puts it, silver hair and furrowed brows may make aging men look “distinguished,” but aging women risk marginalization or ridicule for their efforts to pass as young. “This double standard,” Rhode writes, “leaves women not only perpetually worried about their appearance—but also worried about worrying.”

The quest for beauty may be a centuries-old obsession, but in the present day the reality is ugly. Beauty has more influence than ever—not just over who we work with, but whether we work at all.

(credit: Jessica Bennett for Newsweek)

Le Froglet - a plastic-goblet-of-wine concept

2010-06-17T12:00:00.006+02:00

When every member of the BBC's Dragons' Den panel says an invention is rubbish, most people scurry off back to their day jobs, vowing never to come up with a silly idea again.

But James Nash refused to give up on his dream and he is having the last laugh as Marks & Spencer struggle to keep up with demand for his 'cup-a-wine' concept.

Mr Nash's invention – a single-serve plastic glass of French wine with a tear-off lid – solves the problem of feeling like a glass of wine but not having a glass or a corkscrew.

Mr Nash first took the idea to BBC's Dragons Den last year only for it to be rejected out of hand. He asked the Dragons - Peter Jones, Theo Paphitis, Duncan Bannatyne, James Caan and Deborah Meaden - for £250,000 for a 25per cent stake in his business, Wine Innovations Ltd.

However, they gave him a torrid grilling and bowed out because they were unconvinced anyone would be interested. Duncan Bannatyne was particularly dismissive, saying: 'People don't want to buy wine in plastic glasses like that with a seal on top. For that reason, I'm out.'

The 187ml glasses equate to about a quarter of a bottle of wine, which adds up to 2.25 units and below the drink drive limit for most people of 3 units. They are bigger serving than the traditional small - 125ml - and medium -175ml - offered by most pubs and bars. However, they do not match the 250ml large glasses now offered by many wine bars.

The new M&S Le Froglet wine individual glasses, which each cost £2.25 for a Shiraz, Rose and Chardonnay, were launched just last week and the store has found they quickly sell out. The website cluelessaboutwine.co.uk said shoppers seem excited about the concept. 'Judging by the buzz in the shop I suspect that these may well be a hit,' it said. 'They look so off the wall that curiosity will force a purchase and then good old bourgeois convenience will take over.'

'This is a new idea, and what it does have the ability to do is to give the consumer a realistic portion, a more manageable drinking quantity which saves you spoiling a whole bottle for a glass. 'It also provides you with a nice collection of plastic picnic glasses. 'It does change the perception of wine, and could make a 'ready meal for one' a richer experience.'

However, the website did point out that the extra convenience does come at a price. If the same wine was bought in a full 75cl bottle the price comes to £5.49 versus £9 for the equivalent amount in four of the new packs. Mr Nash, who is based in Surrey, said: 'It was disheartening to be dismissed by all the Dragons, but I knew I had a great concept which would work in outdoor events, BBQ, picnics, concerts and wouldn't give up.

'I'm really looking forward to facing the Dragons again as 'the one that got away'. Hopefully sales of the product will show that they're not always right.'

An M&S spokesman said: 'The glasses are merchandised in our 'Food on the Move' section, which is obviously the aisle people on the go head to - particularly office workers. 'We think that they are proving popular with people who want to perhaps enjoy the summer with a glass of wine in the park as part of an impromptu picnic - either after work or for a relaxing lunch. 'They are also popular with commuters who want to enjoy a drink on the train home from work to wind down. We have found that they are very popular in locations popular with tourists.'

The M&S winemaker, Belinda Kleinig, said: 'This is a really exciting step for M&S – our research has shown that our customers really like the greater convenience of lighter weight bottles so we thought we’d take it one step further with great quality wine ready to drink from a glass.'

(credit: Dailymail.com)

KLM Comfort with a tough of Magic

2010-04-28T12:47:00.002+02:00

Slick and attractive ambient work that really got people's attention by adding a little bit of magic to something otherwise totally lacklustre - an economy 'comfort' seat on KLM.

Agency: Rapp Amstelveen, Holland

Tampon-makers can't mention the V-word. Period.

2010-04-01T15:44:00.003+02:00

For years, advertising for tampons and "sanitary products" have been shrouded in nebulous euphemism. So what happens when a US tampon-maker drops the coy messaging and goes straight for the jugular (so to speak)? Its ad gets banned by the major US television networks for mentioning the word vagina.

Even when the company substituted "down there" for vagina, two of the networks still wouldn't run the ad, so the company was forced to drop the idea altogether. That provoked Amanda Hess, author of The Sexist blog, to observe: "Now, the commercial contains no direct references to female genitalia – you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes."

An executive for Kimberly-Clark, the owner of Kotex, notes that US TV networks have no such compunction about references to "erectile dysfunction" in prime-time ads for Viagra and Ciallis.

The New York Times reports that the campaign – produced by the advertising agency JWT, part of WPP – for tampon brand Kotex was "a bit too frank" for US television:

Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying "down there", which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.)

"It's very funny because the whole spot is about censorship," Ms Harris said. "The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we're saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina."

The amended ad shown above, "How do I feel about my period?", has a series of images parodying the stock images used in sanitary product advertising, and concludes: "The ads on TV are really helpful because they use that blue liquid, and I'm like, oh, that's what's supposed to happen." The ad debuted on US television this week.

Things are different in anything-goes Britain, where the makers of the Mooncup product have a website entitled loveyourvagina.com.

(credit: Richard Adams, The Guardian)

OK Go's 'This too shall pass' video. Rube Goldberg insanity at its best!

2010-03-05T14:54:00.005+01:00

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of "This Too Shall Pass" off of the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky". The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The Rube Goldberg machine was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months.

"It's like Beirut"

2010-03-02T14:36:00.004+01:00

The expression "it's like Beirut" is a much-used comparison for everything from violent riots to a teenager's bedroom. Why do we still insist on associating Beirut with chaos?

When North East Lincolnshire Council announced this week it would be demolishing a notorious crime-ridden street in Grimsby, one resident said it would no longer be "worse than Beirut".

It's not the first time the comparison has been used and probably not the last. From Joe Public to world leaders, the phrase "like Beirut" is shorthand for chaos and decay.

Since 1991, the year after the Lebanese civil war ended, there have been more than 50 recorded usages of the phrase, according to Robert Groves, editor of Collins Dictionaries. It began with a reference to a Chicago slum on American National Public Radio.

Lebanese blogger Jad Aoun records usage of the phrase and mails the culprit a "looks like Beirut" certificate.

Last year he sent out about 30 certificates, mostly to the UK and US. But he says the phrase is also used in other countries, from Australia to India.

There is little doubt the association between Beirut and chaos springs from Lebanon's civil war. But it has been over for nearly 20 years and since then the world has seen countless other wars. So why don't people say "like Baghdad" or "like Sarajevo"?

The answer is partly down to timing. In the UK, the civil war was the first international conflict taking place in the age of 24-hour news. People were updated almost daily.

Ignorance

Since television news is a highly visual medium, the images coming out of Beirut had a lasting impact, says David Seddon, associate editor of the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. Add to that the length of the war - it lasted from 1975 to 1990 - and the cultural impact becomes clear.

"The news was saturated with stories about Beirut for a long time," says Dr Youssef Choueiri, reader of Islamic studies at Manchester University.

Those stories also became personal due to westerners being taken hostage during the crisis, notably John McCarthy and Terry Waite.

"This idea of having British hostages in Beirut and no one could rescue them... turned Beirut into a lawless city," says Dr Choueiri. "It became the symbol for urban chaos."

That sense of chaos was exacerbated by ignorance of the overarching situation in Lebanon, argue some. It seemed like everyone was fighting everyone else.

"For people who didn't know about the Middle East, it was fairly baffling," says Mr Seddon.

More recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen "episodic bombings" - not civil war, says Dr Choueiri.

In addition, the association many westerners had with Beirut as a glamorous holiday destination made its transformation into a warzone all the more striking, Mr Seddon says.

Pre-civil war, Beirut was a sophisticated waterfront locale, similar to current-day Dubai or Monaco. So the descent of glittering, cosmopolitan Beirut into "appalling mayhem" significantly impacted the people who previously may have visited the city.

So although Baghdad and Kabul have suffered similar physical devastation, they had never really been considered glamorous urban vistas in the first place.

'Irritating'

"The level of physical destruction was pretty high," says Mr Seddon. "It did look to people in Britain rather like London after the world war."

But that physical destruction is no longer an issue in Beirut. Since the end of the war, the city has undergone a revitalisation of sorts and is a holiday destination once again. The New York Times named it one of its "44 Places to Visit" in 2009. Nearly two million people followed the advice.

The attempt to return Beirut to its pre-civil war image has been hampered by violent outbreaks in the capital in 2006 and 2008, says Dr Choueiri. But in his experience, the Beirut of today is cleaner and better controlled than people might expect.

"The image itself is shifting," he says. "This Lebanon is different. It's entering a new phase."

Such an outdated expression need to be laid to rest, says Mr Aoun. He uses his certificates to raise awareness of the accuracy of people's perceptions. He also believes there might be a simpler explanation for why we insist on using the phrase - laziness.

"It is basically a cliche and doesn't provide an accurate description of what they're trying to say," he says. "I can understand its use in the 1980s and 1990s, but in this time we can move beyond it."

Of the 30 letters he sent out in the past year, he has received four responses which he calls "generally positive." One British journalist responded: "I realised [it] was offensive towards Beirut, and could indeed be seen to perpetuate a negative image of the city."

Indeed, all Beirut's champions ask is that people stop and think before resorting to the outdated metaphor.

"We know that there are cities that are worse than Beirut," says Dr Choueiri. "[The saying] doesn't do justice to the long peace Lebanon has enjoyed since after 1990."

Plus, he says, it's just downright irritating.

(credit: Elizabeth Diffin, BBC)

Staple art

2010-02-19T17:16:00.005+01:00

French artist Baptiste Debombourg used staples on a blank white wall to create this piece. Check out more of his work here.

Dust art

2010-01-28T12:13:00.004+01:00

British artist Paul Hazelton creates delicate pieces of art from household dust.

Check out more of his work at the Saatchi Gallery.

Here's how the artist describes the inspiration behind his work:

"The dust of everyday life – the unavoidable and necessary by-product of living, engrosses me. Art, also an unavoidable and necessary by-product of living, engrosses me. Art, like dust, is a residue of life and therefore, the making of art is like an extreme act of self-exfoliation. For me, making art is a per-version of life that has many possible diversions. Sometimes these diversions take you somewhere unexpected, sometimes somewhere gross but you have to keep going."

(credit: Saatchi Gallery)

Tiny banner ads attached to flies generate buzz. Too much?

2009-11-08T20:51:00.002+01:00

"A company at a German trade show has attached tiny banner advertisements to flies and set them loose on unsuspecting visitors, in a bizarre yet effective marketing stunt.

The banners, measuring just a few centimetres across, seem to be causing the beleaguered flies a bit of piloting trouble. The weight keeps the flies at a lower altitude and forces them to rest more often, which is a stroke of genius on the part of the marketing creatives: the flies end up at about eye level, and whenever a fly is forced to land and recover, the banner is clearly visible. What's more, the zig-zagging of the fly naturally attracts the attention because of its rapid movement."

(credit: Wired)

Man sues over lack of 'Lynx effect'

2009-11-03T17:59:00.004+01:00

A luckless Indian romeo is suing Lynx after he failed to land a single girlfriend during seven years of using their products.

Vaibhav Bedi, 26, is seeking £26,000 from parent company Unilever for the "depression and psychological damage" caused by the lack of any Lynx effect. Court officials in New Delhi have agreed to order forensic laboratory tests on dozens of his half-used Lynx body washes, shampoos, anti-perspirants and hair gels.

Lynx - marketed as Axe in India - is famous for its saucy ads showing barely clothed women throwing themselves at men. But Bedi says in his court petition: "The company cheated me because in its advertisements, it says women will be attracted to you if you use Axe.

"I used it for seven years but no girl came to me."

When contacted Unilever declined to comment on the case. But India's leading compensation litigator Ram Jethmalani warned: "There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don't attract women.

"In fact some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys. I'd suggest that the company settles this issue out of court."

(credit: Ananova)

Bicycle exhaust that plants flowers

2009-10-31T15:19:00.003+01:00

"The Bloom device is meant to be a subversive and inspirational tool for our concrete jungles. Similar to the tuft of a dandelion as the wind carries the seedling, we propose a way of dispersing seedlings with bubbles and bicycling. Seeds are co-mingled with a bubble mixture and upon pedaling to your destination , you release the floating seeds which land in cracks and crevices throughout the city streets. Over time, the seeds grow into flowers and plants to create a green “fringe” to our sidewalks and streets."

(credit: commutebybike.com)

the toilet cleaner that doesn't smell like one

2009-09-24T16:54:00.004+02:00

The new Ambi Pur campaign from Australia. Funny. But lemon smells like a toilet cleaner to me. Bergamot or vanilla would've made a bigger splash.

(credit: Ohlalamag.com)

Someone dropped their huge pink bunny rabbit!

2009-09-10T14:45:00.005+02:00

"Every once in awhile you come across something so strange and whimsical that it makes you smile, and you feel a little happier knowing it’s out there in the world. Such is the case with this gigantic pink rabbit which took five years to knit by Gelitin, a group of four artists. The rabbit is a unique art installation which awaits visitors in the Italian Alps, close to Cuneo. The designers poetically offer, 'behind a hill, as if knitted by giant grandmothers, lies this vast rabbit, to make you feel as small as a daisy.' Like another famous pink bunny, this Rabbit keeps going and going and going… in size, and its creators assure, “the rabbit will wait for you 20 years from now.”

There's someone in my tea

2009-08-27T11:49:00.004+02:00

These are made by German design company Donkey Products. They come in three sets, each with five bags: RoyalTea, DemocraTea, and StripTea. Would be cool if each of the characters had a unique flavour attached to them. 'Putin' would taste rough and outdoorsy, 'Sarkozy' perhaps a little sharp and bitter...and you'd just put 'Obama' in whenever you felt like a little change.

(credit: Gizmodo)

I'll have a Slow Cow Vodka please.

2009-07-28T11:26:00.007+02:00

"Out to help those looking for a quick relaxation fix, a new drink from Canada offers ‘an acupuncture session’ in every can. An antidote to energy drinks like Red Bull, Slow Cow was developed to help people de-stress.

Under the premise that caffeine-packed drinks tend to increase anxiety, Slow Cow contains theanine, chamomile, valerian, passiflora and other ingredients known for their calming effects. The beverage is meant to increase mental awareness while improving relaxation, without the post-hit dip that caffeine and other stimulants cause.

Slow Cow, whose tongue-in-cheek logo apparently did not amuse Red Bull, might have found a gap in a market saturated with energy drinks of every possible variety. It's not the only beverage to position itself as a relaxation drink, mind you, (Drank is another), but Slow Cow gets our vote for best branding. Seems like a natural fit for spas, hotels, airlines—or anywhere else consumers could use a serving of relaxation."

(credit: Springwise.com)

Perspective creates floating words

2009-07-07T11:38:00.003+02:00

Graphic designer Axel Peemöller painstakingly painted distorted letters on the walls, floors and beams of a Melbourne, Australia parking garage so that when you stand in the right spot, they seem to hover in mid-air. He won several international design awards for this project.

The YouTube Dilemma

2009-06-03T11:17:00.005+02:00

"YouTube provides a steady stream of inspiration to advertising creatives, but it also leaves young directors vulnerable to having ideas stolen and agencies open to accusations of plagiarism. How can both directors and agencies protect themselves?

In 1998, director Mehdi Norowzian sued the Irish advertising agency Arks Ltd for copyright infringement. He claimed Arks had copied a substantial part of his short film, Joy, in its hugely successful Anticipation advert for Guinness which featured a man performing a flamboyant dance as he waited for his pint of the black stuff to settle. Norowzian lost, the case setting a precedent over the legal rights of directors and artists when claiming the artistic content of their work had been 'appropriated' by an agency.

The tense question of plagiarism has become a regular part of advertising life ever since. Accusations from artists and directors crop up periodically in the media, where a discussion on their validity will take place before the subject is usually dropped. The agency in question may be left with a minor stain on its integrity but with no major ill-effects to its client relationship or bank balance. The rise of internet sites such as YouTube has made this issue even more pertinent, however. Suddenly a research tool is available to advertising creatives giving access to millions of films and ideas from all over the world, leaving the makers of these films vulnerable to having their ideas stolen.

Unlike the more established artists and directors, who have an army of colleagues and fans to vociferously defend their creative ideas if they suddenly turn up in a TV ad, the users of YouTube are often young filmmakers, usually unrepresented by production companies, and therefore especially vulnerable. The weapon of choice for young directors in such situations has become the online blog. With the mainstream media unlikely to pick up a story about plagiarism from someone unestablished, the blog comments box has become an effective place to air grievances. A recent example of this occurred on the CR Blog, where the posting of a new Sony Bravia ad, featuring a life-size zoetrope, caused an immediate backlash on behalf of a young director, Mark Simon Hewis, with claims that Fallon, the agency behind the spot, had based the commercial on a short film by Hewis. The situation raised a number of questions, about how young directors can protect themselves against their ideas being stolen, but also about the increasing necessity for ad agencies to find ways to defend themselves against accusations of plagiarism.

In the case of the Sony Bravia ad, the similarities between the film by Hewis and the ad by Fallon are minimal beyond the fact that both rest on the concept of a life-size zoetrope. Hewis' film is a poetic rendition of a man's life story, whereas the Bravia ad sees footballer Kaka showing off his ball skills. Yet Hewis had been approached by RSA, the production company that worked on the ad, with a view to working on an 'up and coming advert opportunity' and was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement on behalf of Fallon which mentioned Sony. When the Sony ad came out, and Hewis had heard nothing more from RSA or Fallon, colleagues leapt to conclusions and to his defence via the CR Blog.

Mark Simon Hewis' film

"I got a sense the Sony ad was maybe influenced by Mark's film," says Katie Daniels, a freelance producer who worked on the film and contacted CR at the time of the blog story on the Bravia spot. "Obviously the idea of a zoetrope is not new, but from the atmosphere I had a sense that they'd watched the film. But it wouldn't be so grating if they hadn't got in touch and then we'd not heard from them again, that was bad etiquette. Directors are creating these films as showpieces for little or no money in the hope they'll get commercial work."

Following the furore on the blog, Fallon explained that the contact had been made with Hewis in relation to a different strand of the project for Sony, and that the production of the Bravia-drome ad was already well underway by the time this occurred. The agency is also categorical in its assertion that it never takes its ideas from outside sources. "We would be doing ourselves a huge disservice if we were found to be deliberately taking an idea from elsewhere," says Fallon partner Chris Willingham. "That's so fundamental to our work, and why clients choose us."

This is not the first time that Fallon has been under fire for allegedly being influenced by the work of others, however. When the agency's Play Doh ad for Sony was released in 2007, the artists Kozyndan complained on numerous blogs, including CR's, about the commercial's similarity to an artwork by the duo which features multi-coloured bunnies hopping through a cityscape. In this instance, Passion Pictures, the production company for the ad, had been in contact with Kozyndan in the past but nothing had come of it. Both Passion Pictures and Fallon firmly deny that the idea was taken from Kozyndan's work.

It's easy to assume here that the advertising agency is always in the wrong. Certainly there are plenty of famous examples where ideas from artists appear to have been directly adapted for ad campaigns, with seemingly little concern for the source of the work. In 2003, Wieden + Kennedy's ad Cog was criticised in the media for its similarity to art film Der Lauf Der Dinge by Fischli & Weiss, and in 1998 artist Gillian Wearing complained about the likeness between her series of photographs which depict people holding hand-written signs, and a VW campaign by BMP DDB. More recently, a John Lewis campaign by Lowe featured shadow sculptures that bore a striking resemblance to artworks by Tim Noble & Sue Webster. At the time, Ed Morris, executive creative director at Lowe, acknowledged that the artists' work was mentioned when discussing the concept of the ad, but that the core idea was already on the table before it came up.

Which brings us to the thorny issue of whether a commercial has only been 'inspired' by another piece of work, consciously or unconsciously, or whether an idea has been deliberately lifted. This is naturally a blurred area, especially as creatives, like the rest of us, are constantly bombarded with imagery. In the continuous quest to come up with new ideas for ads, it is perhaps inevitable that some of this visual input might be unintentionally recycled. This might sound like woolly excuse making, but it is far from unusual. Writing on this issue on Design Observer, graphic designer Michael Bierut recounted how he'd realised that a poster he created in 2005 was remarkably similar to a piece from 1975 by one of his favourite designers, Willi Kunz. For Bierut the replication was made unconsciously, and made him worry. "I don't claim to have a photographic memory, but my mind is stuffed full of graphic design, graphic design done by other people," he wrote. "How can I be sure that any idea that comes out of that same mind is absolutely my own?"

Acknowledgments such as Bierut's are perhaps unlikely to ever be heard from an ad agency, however. And often, of course, advertising is consciously influenced by others' work. In these instances a surprising trend is emerging, where agencies are starting to give credit to their sources. Fans of music videos may have been surprised to see a recent Visa ad from Saatchi & Saatchi, which featured a man on crutches dancing through a city. A very similar performance had been seen recently in a video for dance music act RJD2, by director Joey Garfield, and it would be easy to conclude Saatchis had simply lifted the idea for their ad. This was true, but it turned out that the agency had also picked up the performer and director, along with the idea.

"We do the Saatchi & Saatchi new directors' showcase and trawl the internet looking for interesting stuff to put forward for this," explains creative director Kate Stanners. "We found this piece of work by Joey Garfield and thought it would be amazing for Visa. We wanted Joey to be acknowledged in the showcase for having done the piece of film, but equally we wanted to approach him for Visa. We wouldn't have pursued doing the ad if it wasn't with Joey and Bill [Shannon, the performer in the spot], and it ended up being Joey's first commercial." Stanners acknowledged that it would probably have been easier just to approach Shannon for the ad and work with a more established director, but felt it was important to work with Garfield too.

Another music video that was adapted for advertising purposes recently was Roel Wouters' promo Grip for zZz. Distinctive for its use of trampolines, the video had done the rounds of the industry's media. When he was approached by ad agency Krow Communications to replicate the ad for a Fiat Grande Punto ad, however, Wouters was not keen. At this juncture, an agency might typically have gone off and made their own version anyway, but Krow went out of its way to acknowledge the influence of Wouters' work and paid him a license fee. This then freed them up to replicate the promo without fear, which they did, to a degree that surprised even Wouters. "I never thought they would copy it," he told CR at the time. "But I think it is quite honest, they're not acting as if they've come up with the idea themselves. Making the decision to do such an exact copy is weird but quite strong I think, it gives the feeling of a sincere tribute."

Even those outside of the industry are beginning to see credit given to their work. In the press materials accompanying the release of a recent Aero ad from JWT London (shown top), there was an acknowledgement that the spot had been inspired by a film on YouTube. Both films show a skateboarder plowing through balloons in a skate park. JWT creative director Russell Ramsay recognises that YouTube has changed the research process for agencies. "All these references are instantly accessible now, which they didn't use to be," he says. "There are so many ads that have been influenced by films and by art. But now the influences can be instantly found, whereas they couldn't be in the past…. Part of the skill is matching these ideas to a brand. Advertising does use these things to that end, and always has done."

Despite seeing the similarities between the two films, Ramsay still feels they are essentially different. "We thought of the YouTube film as the recording of an event," he says. "We wanted to get the best skateboarder – if you watch that film, it's not the best performance of it…. We did acknowledge it in the end, but I think we've done enough to it for people to not be that outraged by it. But people have to make up their own minds."

This nod to the YouTube filmmaker from JWT, however grudgingly given, does seem a step in the right direction, although the next logical move, where filmmakers receive renumeration for their ideas, seems unlikely to occur. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, and, as the Norowzian case proved, using the law to prove plagiarism of imagery can be fraught with difficulty, and expensive. Furthermore, despite the good example set by Krow with Wouters, this still doesn't get around the issue of what an agency does if an artist or director says a flat 'no' to having any involvement with the commercial. All too often, the idea still gets made, and there is little that the originator of the idea can do about it. In this sense, we are perhaps no further on than we were ten years ago. However, with the internet providing an easy outlet for filmmakers to complain when they feel their ideas have been pinched, a new wave of consciousness does seem to be beginning to sweep over ad agencies. "I think ad creatives are very conscious of the notion of originality," says Kate Stanners in their defence, "because part of your job is to come up with original ideas. There is a respect for ideas and there is a respect for the originators of ideas."

(credit: Eliza Williams for Creative Review)

A little taste of Dubai...in Paris.

2009-04-20T17:41:00.004+02:00

Dubai café, a tea house/restaurant/lounge in the midst of all that is authentic and beautiful in Paris where you can chill and enjoy the smaller pleasures in life...like fake plastic coconut trees and beautiful vistas of the Burj al Arab. Contact me for the address - whether it's to visit or to avoid it.

Twitter & Facebook screw with our moral compass?

2009-04-14T13:52:00.004+02:00

"Rapid-fire TV news bulletins or updates on Twitter or Facebook could numb our sense of morality and make us indifferent to human suffering, scientists say.

Scientists say updates on networking tools such as Twitter are often to quick for the brain to fully digest.

New findings show that the streams of information provided by social networking sites are too fast for the brain's "moral compass" to process and could harm young people's emotional development.

Before the brain can fully digest the anguish and suffering of a story, it is being bombarded by the next news bulletin or the latest Twitter update, according to a University of Southern California study.

"If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality," said researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.

The report, published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition, studied how volunteers responded to real-life stories chosen to stimulate admiration for virtue or skill, or compassion for physical or social pain.

Brain scans showed humans can process and respond very quickly to signs of physical pain in others, but took longer to show admiration of compassion.

"For some kinds of thought, especially moral decision-making about other people's social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and refection," said Immordio-Yang.

She said the study raises questions about the emotional cost, particularly for young people, of heavy reliance on a torrent of news snippets delivered via TV and online feeds such as Twitter.

She said: "We need to understand how social experience shapes interactions between the body and mind, to produce citizens with a strong moral compass."

USC sociologist Manuel Castells said the study raised more concerns over fast-moving TV than the online environment.

"In a media culture in which violence and suffering becomes an endless show, be it in fiction or in infotainment, indifference to the vision of human suffering gradually sets in."

Research leader Antonio Damasio, director of USC's Brain and Creativity Institute, said the findings stressed the need for slower delivery of the news, and highlighted the importance of slow-burn emotions like admiration.

Damasio cited the example of U.S. President Barack Obama, who says he was inspired by his father, to show how admiration can be key to cultural success.

"We actually separate the good from the bad in great part thanks to the feeling of admiration. It's a deep physiological reaction that's very important to define our humanity."

(credit: CNN)

Lebanese Magazine Lifts Veil on Sex in the Arab World

2009-03-30T13:10:00.002+02:00

From explicit articles about masturbation and homosexuality to columns about "My First Time", Joumana Haddad is out to lift the veil on Arab cultural taboos with a glossy magazine that is already the focus of controversy.

The first quarterly issue of "Jasad" -- "Body" in Arabic -- hit the stands in Lebanon last December. Tongues have wagged ever since about a daring venture into uncharted territory in the largely conservative and Muslim Middle East. "It's true that this is a first in the Arab world," Haddad, 38, a writer and poet, told AFP in an interview.

"I put open handcuffs near the word 'Jasad' on the cover of the magazine to illustrate that I wanted to unlock a taboo. "We need to stop treating our bodies, especially we women, as if they're something to be ashamed of," she added. "We have so many issues to deal with without having the extra weight of needing to cover our bodies."

The December issue of "Jasad", which sold for 10 dollars, includes articles on self-mutilation and cannibalism. The cover story of the March issue focuses on the penis. Other articles deal with battered men and women, transsexuals and the Kama Sutra.

A regular feature is "My First Time", in which a well-known figure talks about his or her first sexual encounter and subsequent sex life. Sexually graphic images -- including reproductions of works by famous artists such as Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso or Francis Bacon -- accompany the articles by authors from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Pseudonyms are not allowed.

Although such a magazine would barely raise an eyebrow in the West, it has drawn the wrath of religious authorities and women's organizations in Lebanon who are calling for its closure on the grounds that it amounts to pornography.

"We are all in favor of modernity... but this magazine, under cover of being cultural, appeals to sexual instincts," said Aman Kabbara Shaarani, head of the Lebanese Council of Women, an umbrella group of several organizations. "Subjects that teach our youngsters how to make love do not fit in with our moral values and civic education." Shaarani said she had written to the highest religious authorities in the country -- both Christian and Muslim -- as well as to cabinet members and the censorship bureau calling for "Jasad" to be banned.

"I will not give up because there needs to be a media watchdog for these sorts of publications," she said. "We are considering taking this before the courts."

For now Lebanese authorities appear content to let publication continue, however. Haddad, who is also culture editor of the well-known Lebanese liberal daily An-Nahar, argues that her publication does not target minors and is sold in a sealed plastic envelope clearly marked for adults only. She said she regularly receives hate mail and her website has been hacked into 15 times and had the words "There is no god but God" in Arabic left on the server. Haddad is not moved by such threats and stands ready to defend herself.

"I'm not afraid of controversy," she said. "I am passionate, I believe in this project and sales have demonstrated there was a need for it." The magazine's first issue -- all 3,000 copies -- sold out within 11 days. Sales of the second issue, printed at 4,000 copies, have so far been brisk, Haddad said.

Outside Lebanon the magazine is sold by subscription only as no bookstore in the Arab world would dare stock it, she said. "The highest number of subscribers, 282 out of some 400, are in Saudi Arabia where the magazine was met with much enthusiasm," said Haddad, who financed the project herself.

So far advertisers have shied away for the most part, fearing a backlash. While Haddad admits that some of the articles and pictures in "Jasad" may be shocking to some, she rejects any notion that the Middle East is not yet ready for such a publication. "Why should we treat the Arab world as a minor?" she said. "People against this project should go back to our own literary heritage which includes 'The Perfumed Garden' and 'Thousand and One Nights'.

(credit: Naharnet.com / AFP)

Study: Experiences make us happier than possessions

2009-02-11T10:34:00.003+01:00

"Even in tough economic times, you may find yourself with a bit of cash to spare. You've been working hard, and you want to treat yourself. Should you spend it on an experience, such as a baseball game or concert, or a material object?

Psychological research suggests that, in the long run, experiences make people happier than possessions.

That's in part because the initial joy of acquiring a new object, such as a new car, fades over time as people become accustomed to seeing it every day, experts said. Experiences, on the other hand, continue to provide happiness through memories long after the event occurred.

Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, presented his findings this week at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting.

The study looked at 154 people enrolled at San Francisco State University, with an average age of about 25. Participants answered questions about a recent purchase -- either material or experiential -- they personally made in the last three months with the intention of making themselves happy.

While most people were generally happy with the purchase regardless of what it was, those who wrote about experiences tended to show a higher satisfaction at the time and after the experience had passed.

The most striking difference was in how participants said others around them reacted to either the purchased object or experience. Experiences led to more happiness in others than purchases did. A sense of relatedness to others -- getting closer to friends and family -- may be one of the reasons why experiences generate more happiness.

"When people spend money on life experiences, whether they also take someone with them or buy an extra ticket or whatever, most of our life experiences involve other individuals," Howell said. People were fulfilling their need for social bonding while having these experiences, he said. Visit CNNhealth.com, your connection for better living

Another reason for increased happiness in experiences, the researchers found, was that people felt a greater sense of vitality or "being alive" during the experience and in reflection, Howell said.

"As nice as your new computer is, it's not going to make you feel alive," he said.

Most psychologists who study the phenomenon say people adapt to a new purchase in six to eight weeks, up to a maximum of three months, Howell said. That means the initial pleasure we get from a new possession generally fades in a matter of months.

Howell's study builds on earlier work by Thomas Gilovich, professor and chairman of the psychology department at Cornell University. Gilovich and colleague Leaf Van Boven's seminal 2003 paper "To do or to have: That is the question" found similar results about possessions bringing less happiness than experiences.

Experts also point out that people are less self-conscious when comparing experiences than they are about possessions. It will probably bother you more that your friend's home theater is better than yours than if your friend saw more sights on her South Seas vacation, Gilovich said.

Experiences form "powerful and important memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world," Gilovich said.

It's not just individuals who should be thinking about investing in experiences when making purchasing choices -- policy makers should also keep this reasoning in mind for their communities, he said.

"If you create municipalities with more parks, bike trails, more hiking trails that make experiences easier, then I think you're going to have a happier population," he said.

With Valentine's Day coming up, does this research mean you should give your honey a nice dinner or weekend getaway rather than a material present, such as a necklace or watch?

The issue of happiness conferred to others has been studied less, so the answer is unclear, experts said.

While Howell would expect this principle of experiences over possessions to still apply, Gilovich agreed that it may, but also points out that the act of giving or receiving an object as a gift is an experience in itself.

"Gifts of material possessions often become keepsakes and have sentimental value that increase with time, instead of diminishing like most material goods," Gilovich said."

(credit: CNN)

Does your DNA determine how many friends you have on Facebook?

2009-01-28T17:40:00.005+01:00

"Always the last one picked for kickball? Never get invites to the hottest parties? Blame Mom and Dad.

That's right, a new study says genes may influence whether or not you're popular. But DNA, or genetic material, shapes more than popularity, according to the research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It may also play a role in the number of friends we have—and whether we're integral or insignificant members of a social group.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, found that genes may be responsible for 46 percent of the variation (or difference) in how popular we are versus other people. Genetics exerts a similar effect on people's varying degrees of connectivity (for example, one person might know many of their friends' pals, but another person may not know any of their friends' other buddies.) And DNA has a significant, but lesser influence, on the difference between where one or another of us is located in a social network.

The scientists based their findings on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill of the influence of health on the social behavior of some 90,000 teens who researchers have been following since 1994. Using information on 552 pairs of twins in the study, the Harvard and U.C. San Diego researchers compared the lists of friends of identical twins with the social circles of same-sex fraternal twins. The networks described by the identical twins resembled one another more than those of the same-sex fraternal twins, suggesting a genetic influence on how people network socially. Twin study designs presume that if identical twins resemble each other more on some trait than fraternal twins do, then genes help explain that trait.

'Your social position in a network is not purely of your own making,' study co-author Nicholas Christakis, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, tells ScientificAmerican.com. 'In a very deep sense, our social life is predestined. It's predestined genetically.

'It's not the only explanation,' he adds. 'But there is a discernible and substantial role of genes in your social network position.'

The study didn’t sort out which genes are enhancing or ruining our social lives. Michigan State University research published last year showed that a mutation in the serotonin receptor gene 5-HT2A was linked to variation in popularity. (Serotonin is a brain chemical that regulates mood, anxiety, depression, sleep and sexuality.) The new study examines the genetics of popularity with a wider lens, examining how much DNA may shape the way we socialize.

There may be evolutionary reasons for the variations in our social connectedness, Christakis says. While it may be advantageous to be in the center of a group when rumors are circulating, he says, you're better off being on its fringes if a disease—not gossip—is spreading. But the study didn’t explore who might benefit from being popular—and who may be lucky to be on the outs.

'We're a social species. We shouldn’t be surprised that some aspects of how we're social depends on genetics,' Christakis says. 'Just like other aspects of your personality of how assertive you are, how risk-averse you are, so does your predilection for having particular kinds of social network architectures' depend on genetics."

(credit: Scientific American)

Image © iStockphoto/Andrew Johnson

Helen Bamber Foundation PSA by JWT Dubai

2009-01-11T23:53:00.005+01:00

Two arresting pieces of work by my ex-partners in crime at JWT Dubai - Nizar & Ash. Great work guys! Check it out...

(credit: Nizar Swailem & Ash Chagla @ JWT Dubai)

Atheist bus campaign goes nationwide

2009-01-06T16:28:00.004+01:00

"A £140,000 advertising campaign aimed at persuading more people to "come out" as atheists was launched today with a plan to broadcast a message doubting God's existence on the sides of buses, the tube and on screens in central London.

Its slogan – "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" – can already be seen on buses in central London. A total of 200 bendy buses in London and 600 buses across England, Scotland and Wales will carry the slogan from today and tomorrow following a fundraising drive which raised more than £140,000.

The money raised will also pay for 1,000 advertisements on London Underground from Monday. Organisers today unveiled a set of quotes from famous writers and thinkers who endorse the atheist message.

The launch, held today near the Albert memorial, featured speeches by Dawkins, author of The God Delusion; Ariane Sherine, creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign; and Hanne Stinson, from the British Humanist Association.

The fundraising drive was prompted by a suggestion from comedy writer Sherine, who received support from the British Humanist Association (BHA) and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins.

Sherine, a television comedy writer, suggested the idea in a Guardian Comment is Free blog last June, saying an atheist bus campaign would provide a reassuring counter-message to religious slogans threatening non-Christians with hell and damnation.

Speaking at the launch , Sherine said the sheer number of donations received had demonstrated the strength of feeling in Britain.

She said: "This is a great day for freedom of speech in Britain and I'm really excited and thrilled that the adverts have been approved and I hope that they will make people smile on their way to work.

"I am very glad that we live in a country where people have the freedom to believe in whatever they want."

There has been overwhelming financial support for the project, which exceeded its funding target less than 24 hours after being launched, raising nearly nine times the amount needed to have its posters on buses.

Around £6,000 was needed to run adverts in London but within two days, individuals and organisations had pledged more than £87,000. More than £135,000 has been pledged so far. Today's event will also reveal the next stages of the campaign.

The theology thinktank Theos welcomed the campaign, saying it was a "great way" to get people thinking about God. "The posters will encourage people to consider the most important question we will ever face in our lives. The slogan itself is a great discussion starter. Telling someone 'there's probably no God' is a bit like telling them they've probably remembered to lock their door. It creates the doubt that they might not have."

The success of the British campaign has inspired atheists in the US to run their own advertising slogans in Washington DC. The American Humanist Association launched a bus advertising campaign last November with the slogan, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake", appearing on the sides, rear and insides of the city's 230 buses."

(credit: Guardian)

Eau de Whopper anyone?

2008-12-17T12:44:00.003+01:00

“A tasty little present for men - Burger King body spray
by Hadley Freeman

Still can't think what to get him for Christmas? Socks don't seem to cut it any more? Fret no longer because Burger King is here to help.

The mass purveyor of grilled meat is offering, for a limited time, something even better than their usual piles of beef patties. This week, American men were given the chance to smell like their favourite meat snack with the launch of Flame, Burger King's contribution to the perfume market.

The company describes Flame as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat".

Astonishingly, this elixir costs a mere $3.99 (£2.65). By contrast, one of its competitors, Chanel No 5, for example, costs more than $80.

Flame, a body spray for men, was launched this week online and in a selection of US stores, the list of which can be found on the perfume's website, which is named, appropriately, firemeetsdesire.com.

There, prospective buyers are greeted with what sounds like a melange of Barry White music and an interactive spray can which does not, disappointingly, emit a ray of French fries but morphs into a photograph of scented candles.

Burger King - or "the King" as the company's website refers to it - is not the only celebrity perfume on the market this Christmas.

Kate Moss, for one, will no doubt be putting up a stern fight with her Velvet Hour scent. But the model will surely struggle against a fragrance that has such a noble history: "The Whopper sandwich is America's favourite burger," the website boasts.

"Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold ... now you can set the mood for whatever you're in the mood for." As long as that mood involves meat, presumably.”

(credit: The Guardian)

A case of East Imitates West...Imitating the East.

2008-12-08T16:25:00.009+01:00

Keffiyeh Brings Colorful Clash to Beirut

The iconic black and white keffiyeh, or Arab headdress, famously donned by late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat has hit the streets of Beirut in a rainbow of colors -- much to the chagrin of older Palestinians.

Stylish youngsters, both men and women, can be seen in the city's chic cafes and restaurants sporting red, blue, pink, brown and purple versions of the keffiyeh.

Western and Arab tourists are also snapping up the hip item. The trend, however, is seen by many here as an insult to a symbol traditionally linked to the Palestinian cause.

"These colors aren't for us... it's nonsense, it's a fashion show," said Salim Ali Kayd, 74, who has been a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon since 1948, when Israel was created.

"The keffiyeh stands for a person's honor and manhood. It was a rite of passage to wear one upon reaching the age of 18," he added explaining the customs of his generation.

Others like him living in the narrow alleyways of the Shatila refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut are also upset that their national symbol has become a fad.

"Yasser Arafat used to wear it for a reason. It means something," said Kalthoum Ghandour, a 45-year-old Palestinian doctor living in Lebanon.

"It was what the revolutionaries wore to conceal their identity," she added. "This is our revolution, our symbol.

"This trend distorts our heritage."

Shops in Beirut's diverse Christian and Muslim neighborhoods are selling the bright-colored items imported from Syria, Thailand and China.

A backlash against the trend has spread to college campuses in Lebanon, where Facebook groups have sprung up called "Palestinian scarf: Understand it or don't bother wearing it!" and "I refuse to let the keffiyeh become a high fashion statement."

This is not the first time the keffiyeh has been co-opted by others. The garment has come in and out of fashion, with youths in the 1960s and 1970s wearing it as a sign of revolt or sympathy with the Palestinian cause. The scarf has also become a signature item for anti-war activists.

While the latest trend may be more accessory and less ideology -- the keffiyeh's powerful symbolism continues to resonate, and not only among Palestinians.

The issue grabbed headlines in recent months when the Dunkin' Donuts chain came under fire for an online ad that featured an American celebrity chef wearing a paisley patterned scarf that some mistook for a keffiyeh.

The ad was pulled after a conservative U.S. commentator complained that it promoted jihad.

The U.S. clothing store Urban Outfitters this year also stopped selling colored versions of the keffiyeh because of controversy.

"They used to wear it around their necks and now they are wearing it around their waists. What's next?," said Haitham, 28, a Palestinian refugee who did not reveal his last name.

Dana, 25, said she recently purchased a blue version of the keffiyeh and maintains that the garment carries no political symbolism.

"I used to wear the white one when I would go to protests in college," she said. "These ones are a pure fashion statement.

Some young Palestinians, however, are proud to see the craze gather steam.

"I have about 10 of them... The keffiyeh belongs to us no matter its color. I am happy they have become popular," said Ahmed el-Hassan, 22.

(credit: AFP)

What ad people forget is that...

2008-12-03T15:59:00.008+01:00

good to keep in mind for your next creative presentation when the client demolishes yet another idea.

(Painting by Harry Simmonds)

Banksy Defends His Guerrilla Graffiti Art

2008-10-29T17:58:00.002+01:00

"Even though artwork by the British graffiti artist Banksy is popular with celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera, some regard the artist's street works to be vandalism, pure and simple. On Oct. 23, the Council of Westminster in London ordered the removal of a 23 ft (7 m) Banksy mural — reportedly his largest work in central London — claiming that it encourages graffiti.

In an exclusive statement to TIME, the mysterious guerrilla prankster has responded to the council's decision. "I don't know what next door is complaining about — their building is so ugly the 'No Trespassing' sign reads like an insult," the statement reads, referring to Royal Mail, a tenant of the building that has sought the mural's removal. In light of several other recent controversies over Banksy's outdoor works, this removal is further indication of the challenges that can arise when a famous artist uses private property as his canvas..."

(credit: TIME)

Woman arrested for killing virtual reality husband...what's next?!

2008-10-24T10:10:00.006+02:00

"A 43-year-old Japanese woman [who] killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.

The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy...

...She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000..."

(credit: CNN)

Snail Mail proves that 'slow' has value

2008-10-05T18:14:00.005+02:00

"How Slow?: In making Real Snail Mail we asked ourselves 'is there a space in our speed obsessed world for a service that takes time?' Overwhelmingly, the answer has been YES! We are now asking ourselves the more interesting question 'how slow?' With emails stacking up at an astounding rate we will soon be bringing more snails into service to cope with demand.

How it works: Our snails are equipped with a miniaturised electronic circuit and antenna, enabling them to be assigned messages. Your message is collected from a despatch centre at one end of their enclosure. Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snail's shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Here more hardware collects your message and forwards it to its final destination."

(credit: RealSnailMail)

Should Ben & Jerry's use breast milk?

2008-09-28T10:19:00.002+02:00

PETA thinks so :) But don't run to your nearest Monoprix or Tesco's yet.

New threat to dairy farmers – ice cream with mother's milk

Animal rights group urges use of human breast milk

By Rachel Shields
Sunday, 28 September 2008

Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's is known for its eccentric flavours – phish food, cookie dough and cherry garcia – but its marketing department would be hard pushed to find any takers for a stomach-churning proposition to make ice cream with human breast milk.

The suggestion comes from an animal rights group which is urging the firm to use milk from nursing mothers instead of cows.

While the idea is enough to provoke shudders of revulsion from your average ice cream lover, dairy farmers reacted angrily to the stunt yesterday, claiming that the group is undermining the dairy industry.

But the animal rights group Peta claims that breast milk would be "better for both consumers and cows", pointing out the nutritional benefits of breast milk and highlighting the animal welfare concerns over dairy farming.

In a letter to Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, it cites the example of chef Hans Locher, who recently announced that he will be serving soups and sauces made from 75 per cent breast milk in his Swiss restaurant. Mr Locher posted adverts in local villages appealing for donors, offering a rate of £3 per 14 ounces (398ml) for their milk.

"Using cows' milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customers' health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer," wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of Peta.

"Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months," wrote Ms Reiman.

While co-founders Mr Cohen and Mr Greenfield are famously environmentally and ethically aware – they established a "Climate Change College" which encourages grass-roots action on climate change, and go by the slogan "Milking happy Cows, Not the Planet" – they baulked at the suggestion. "We applaud [the group's] novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a Ben & Jerry's spokesperson.

And then there is, as Mr Locher found, the problem of supply. As 50 per cent of each 500ml tub of ice cream is made from milk and cream, finding enough human milk to sustain production of Ben & Jerry's would be a challenge.

The suggestion that cows' milk has a detrimental effect on health provoked anger this weekend among dairy farmers, who have been hit by falling prices and the increasing popularity of non-dairy alternatives such as soy milk.

"Dairy foods have been in the diet for thousands of years," said Dr Judith Bryans, director of the Dairy Council. "The reality of chronic diseases is that they are an interaction between genes, the environment and the diet, and these negative stories about dairy are a misrepresentation of science."

(credit: The Independent)

Google's irresistable Chrome?

2008-09-02T10:26:00.003+02:00

Google has finally entered the ring into the browser match through its launch of Chrome today. The announcement was made through a comic book specially drawn up by Scott McCloud (best known for Understanding Comics - which I high recommend). Chrome will be available to download in Beta from the Google blog.

(credit: Google blog)

"Fight Club was the beginning"

2008-08-21T11:20:00.005+02:00

I don't think there's a simple explanation for what pushes people to gather and ruthlessly brawl like something out of MadMax's Thunderdome. But I do like Tyler Durden's insightfully shrewd monologue in Fight Club: "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

In LA, they must be very, very pissed off. And that all comes to boiling point twice a year at a fight club created by the Dog Brothers where combatants from all over meet up to kick, bite, elbow and draw blood from their opponents.

Their credo says it all really:
"No judges, no referees, no trophies. One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day. This means our goal is that no one spends the night in the hospital. Our goal is that everyone leaves with the IQ with which they came."

So if anyone's in the mood for destroying something ''beautiful'' (like a pretty boy's face) you know where to go now.

(credit: Reuters)

In Saudi, a soap opera is seriously shaking things up

2008-08-04T19:33:00.006+02:00

Can a soap opera be so successful that it not only attracts millions of viewers every night, but also double the number of Saudi tourists to Turkey and push jealous husbands to spike the divorce rate? "Noor" is a Turkish soap opera that has taken the Arab world by storm. And in the super conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that storm is magnified.

Read on:

"A Turkish soap opera featuring an independent fashion designer and her amazingly supportive and attractive husband is emptying the streets whenever it's on and has more than doubled the number of Saudis visiting Turkey this summer.

Millions of people -- especially women, apparently -- are tuning in nightly to find out whether the couple will stay together or be torn apart by jealousies and old flames.

But "Noor," the story of a multi-generational, upper-class Turkish family, has also sparked a backlash. The show has become the subject of angry Friday sermons in this strict Islamic kingdom, and the country's chief cleric recently issued a fatwa calling it "decadent" and sinful to watch

"Noor" has had such a deep influence because, unlike American or Mexican soap operas broadcast here, it is about a Muslim family living in a Muslim country. The show is also dubbed in an Arabic dialect, not classical Arabic, which makes it easier to understand and feels more intimate to viewers. And then, there's that husband.

The blue-eyed, blond Muhannad, played by Kivanc Tatlitu, a 24-year-old Turkish actor and model, is tall, handsome, romantic, respectful and treats his wife, Noor -- the title character -- as both a love object and an equal.<

"Saudi women fantasize about what they're lacking," said Amira Kashgari, an assistant linguistics professor at King Abdul Aziz University who writes about social issues for al-Watan newspaper.

"They are almost obsessed with this show because of the way he interacts with and treats his wife."

click here to continue article

(credit: Washington Post)

War on the menu in Beirut - literally

2008-07-01T21:35:00.005+02:00

"At Buns and Guns you can order a 'Kalashnikov' sandwich from a bullet-shaped menu, prepared by chefs in military fatigues with the roar of explosions as background music."

(credit: Reuters)

Dunkin' Donuts and ''hate couture''

2008-06-01T11:11:00.004+02:00

''Dunkin' Donuts and politics go together like … Well, they don't, and that seems to be the problem of late. First, the doughnut franchise served as a hideout for Lebanese Army troops and a CNN correspondent when violence erupted in Beirut last month. Then this week the company found itself smack dab in the center of more political tumult. A recent ad by the doughnut giant was deemed dangerous by a handful of conservative bloggers because of its potential ties to the Arab world. The bloggers went on the attack when they saw spokesgal Rachael Ray wearing what they felt was a kaffiyeh, or Arab headdress, as a neck scarf.''

(credit: Newsweek)

Telescope links London to....New York???

2008-05-22T19:33:00.004+02:00

What do you get when you mix Victorian invention with modern-day technology and an eye for art? Would you believe, an underground telescope allowing Londoners to wave hallow to New Yorkers walking their dogs? As of today, a new contraption called ''the Telectroscope'' is open to the public following ...well, years of digging underneath the Atlantic to connect the two cities? "Spectators who step right up will have a real-time, life-size view across the pond 24 hours a day." Sound incredible? That's because it is, in a way. Read more to get the full story. It's a brilliant mix of art and storytelling. Good fun.

(credit: NYT)

Switching lanes

2008-05-10T23:43:00.007+02:00

You know that split second when you're waiting for an ATM machine or in traffic where you consider switching lanes? As far as decision-making goes, that has to be one of our more irrational processes. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research looks specifically at why we switch lines at the grocery store. They found out that our decision is linked to our tendency to compare ourselves to the unfortunate people in line behind us. As someone who stood in line for close to 5 hours to see the Sistine Chapel, I can definitely relate.

Pangea Day

2008-04-06T13:15:00.002+02:00

Will let the video do the talking. Mark your calendars.

The LadyBag feels with you

2008-03-31T16:55:00.005+02:00

As Carrie says, “I'm thinking balls are to men what purses are to women. It's just a little bag, but we feel naked in public without it” (Sex and the City).

I don't know about it being a 'little bag' but these LadyBags deliver a few things way beyond anything that man's anatomy ever could. The LadyBag is a new concept in purses that not only has emoticons that light up according to your mood, but also reminds you when you've forgotten your cell phone or your keys!

The picture shown above might just be the PMS emoticon. Not sure. Thoughts?

(credit: LadyBag Project)

When rabbits melt...

2008-03-28T11:19:00.003+01:00

...it makes for good art. The music is perfect.

''Total Sale'' during Belgrade riots

2008-02-23T17:17:00.006+01:00

A video of two young women looting during the latest rioting in Belgrade has fast become a hit on YouTube. The women, running amok, go on a free ''shopping spree'' grabbing handbags and Adidas shoes and clothing from the swankiest stores...sometimes in their teeth - all the while filmed by an amateur cameraman. I post this video to highlight what I find to be an intriguing aspect of human behaviour when social order breaks down - people remain brand hungry. Definite potential for a dissertation. hmmm.

(source: Reuters)

An entire apartment in a box

2008-02-12T14:06:00.000+01:00

Inside this box, is an armoire, a desk, a height-adjustable stool, two extra stools, a six-shelf bookcase, and a bed with a mattress! Click here to see more pictures and a video of how this award winning design by Marcel Krings & Sebastian Mühlhäuser works.

(credit: Treehugger.com)

No red roses for Saudi

2008-02-11T23:25:00.000+01:00

A few days ahead of Valentine's Day, the S audi authorities have banned red roses and any other scarlet coloured items from being sold at florists and gift shops across the country . I always thought the whole rose thing was a bit overdone anyway. This could possibly encourage couples to seek out more creative ways of expressing their undying lurve for one another.

Alternatively, you could just buy a dozen white roses and spray-paint them red. ''A'' for effort?

(credit: Reuters)

The Decapitator is back - modding newspapers

2008-02-04T15:26:00.000+01:00

Adidas' Marathon Boost - how cool is this?!

2008-01-22T18:06:00.000+01:00

"The 2007 adidas Auckland Marathon had 11,000 runners determined to reach their impossible. With the finish line 42 kilometres away, they needed more motivation. At the 17 km mark, they got 50 knots of it from a custom built, hurricane fan created by TBWA Whybin Auckland. Exhausted runners opted in to the adiBOOST lane and were pushed from behind by a massive blast of air. Giving them a much-needed second wind to power them through to the finish line."

(credit: TBWA\Whybin Auckland)

IKEA, take me home with you

2008-01-14T15:14:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend, I probably wasn't the biggest fan - considering it took me 4 hours to put together some bed slats I bought. But someone just sent me the link to IKEA's new website on dream kitchens, which is just absolutely incredibly crafted. It really is worth taking a look to see how they brought everything to life - and I'm so not a kitchen person, but my jaw dropped. I thware.

"The Decapitator"

2008-01-10T11:10:00.000+01:00

A street-artist going by 'The Decapitator' is having a field day in London. As his pseudonym suggests, his signature mark involves a guillotine and some gory humour applied to a variety of posters around town - cartoon characters are not spared.

(credit: The Decapitator)

Packing tape art

2008-01-07T21:26:00.000+01:00

I can make a seriously jumbled-up mess with sticky brown packing tape. This artist from Kiev, Ukraine uses that same tape to create some really nice pieces of art. It's only a matter of time before 3M or Scotch make an ad out of this...

Dentists win Lacoste crocodile logo battle

2008-01-05T20:21:00.000+01:00

"Two dentists have won a second legal battle with French fashion giant Lacoste over the right to use a toothy crocodile on the sign outside their surgery, the government trademark body said on Thursday.

Dentists Dr Simon Moore and Dr Tim Rumney said they chose a crocodile for their logo because the reptile is famous for having a mouth full of teeth.

But Lacoste argued that the dentists' sign was too similar to their own emblem, a green crocodile that adorns millions of polo shirts around the world."

(source: Reuters)

Audi R8 Commercial - BBH

2007-12-20T11:33:00.000+01:00

A stunningly beautiful commercial by BBH London for the launch of Audi's R8. A big part of the brief was to make the process of building the car as beautiful as the car itself - something I think these guys have achieved. The soundtrack by Simone White ('the beep beep song') is just goose-bumpy. And I don't think I've read a better end-line in a long time either.

BBH London Recruitment ad

2007-12-17T19:32:00.000+01:00

Farting chipmunks and Lynx chicks - I think that explains why most of us are in this business. This latest recruitment ad from BBH London is just great (if you can get the kid's accent!).

Googling yourself? You're not alone

2007-12-17T11:51:00.000+01:00

"About half of the online adult population has looked up themselves or someone else online, according to a survey released Sunday. A good 36 percent said they have searched the Web for someone with whom they've lost touch, and 9 percent have dug up information on someone they were dating. At the same time, 60 percent said they are not worried about how much information about them is on the Internet."

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

Crack Cocaine from Hershey's?

2007-12-04T10:59:00.001+01:00

Packaging gone wrong? You be the judge.

"Ice Breakers Pacs, which hit the stores this month, are dissolvable pouches in blue or orange that look uncannily like tiny heat-sealed bags of cocaine, crack, heroin or any other powdered drug.

The Pacs, filled with powdered mint and sweetener, are meant to dissolve on the tongue like breath strips.

They're even packaged in a plastic slide-top case similar to the magnetic key cases drug dealers use to hide their wares under cars."

(source: Philly.com)

Falcon Beer - seriously thick

2007-11-28T10:36:00.001+01:00

(credit: Saatchi & Saatchi, Stockholm)

Falcon Beer - seriously cold

2007-11-28T10:10:00.000+01:00

Ahh. I love the tongue-in-cheek humour and the single-mindedness of this ad. I got shivers. brrrr.

(credit: Saatchi & Saatchi, Stockholm)

Dirty Laundry + Water = Wet Dirty Laundry

2007-11-27T17:24:00.001+01:00

At first I thought it was an intriguing visual. I still do actually. But unless I'm missing something in terms of the washing machine's technology, the claim seems a bit off; a washing machine doesn't clean any kind of dirt - a detergent does! hmmm. A toothbrush needs toothpaste, a dishwasher needs tablets, a washing machine needs detergent otherwise it's just water on dirt. And I need a drink...badly.

(credit: Ogilvy Mumbai)

Emma...who exactly are you?

2007-11-20T14:56:00.000+01:00

and so it begins...the hype and the questions: who is Emma and what's this all about?

Apparently I missed out on a lot of other activities building up to the posters. This website has appeared all of a sudden and it's got some more on ''Emma" plus a calendar of what's happened so far. Some teaser campaign seems most likely, but for who? and what? I'm used to getting disappointed when it all ends. Here's hoping the foreplay is worth it all in the end.

http://www.emmajetaime.com/

Emma, he loves you

2007-11-17T23:09:00.000+01:00

Someone named "Paul" plastered these all over the Bastille metro stop in Paris. Art direction's not so bad - you got a bleeding heart and a nice stencil of "Emma''. The copy is simple enough and has a call to action. Media placement's also good, as I'm assuming Emma must live nearby or frequents this area quite often. I'm hoping Paul keeps us updated on whether his little stunt (if it's authentic) gets Emma to come back. In the meantime, good luck and may I suggest a direct mailer?

(Translation: Emma, I love you. Come back!)

Doggy bag?

2007-10-28T14:38:00.000+01:00

A designer bag from Moschino - any takers? I'm personally waiting for the Husky model to come out.

(Moschino store at St Germain des Pres)

Another Sony Bravia commercial

2007-10-12T11:35:00.000+02:00

Not too crazy about the music or the execution - could've definitely been better. And in any case, isn't this idea getting a little worn out by now??

(credit: Y&R Egypt)

Sony Bravia Play-Doh

2007-10-08T13:24:00.000+02:00

Sony Bravia's 3rd spot. This one shot on the streets of NY - with little Play-Doh bunnies running amok. Very cool stop-motion photography.

Ariel Colour - Stained Glass

2007-10-01T15:59:00.001+02:00

This is a bit of a plug, I have to admit, as I have just moved to Saatchi's on the Ariel account. Things are looking bright! I am told these stain glass patterns were actually created by an artist in Warsaw - the cost of each approx. 600Euros! A nice example of where the line between art and advertising is tastefully blurred.

(credit: Saatchi & Saatchi - Warsaw, Poland)

The name of this travel agency is a scream...literally

2007-09-03T19:46:00.000+02:00

(near Lamcy, Dubai)

For a good night's sleep

2007-08-24T22:43:00.000+02:00

I think he looks like he's slept on a bed of nails. But if he says he's relaxed, then who am I to say otherwise.

TSA agents watch suspicious body language

2007-08-16T17:39:00.000+02:00

"New airport agents have been trained to check for bad intentions in travelers' facial expressions...

...At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls ''micro-expressions."

Reading this piece, I was struck by a number of thoughts:

1. How this ties into racial profiling, but that has nothing to do with this blog so forget that.

and

2. Being the ad man that I am, I can't help but see some potential in putting these same systems to work in ad testing. We rely a lot on verbal reactions in research, when in fact it's our nonverbal reactions to commercials that convey our real disgust (say to a typical radio commercial in Dubai) or appreciation (to those Melody Tunes ads for example).

So TSA, where do I sign up?

(credit: Miami Herald)

Melody Tunes - Smack That

2007-08-15T08:37:00.001+02:00

This one is by far my favourite!! Too funny.

Melody Tunes - Candy Shop

2007-08-15T08:32:00.001+02:00

This is 1 of a series of around 5 other commercials done for Melody Tunes in Egypt. If I'm not mistaken, they're the work of Leo Burnett Cairo. Good stuff. Check out the others on youtube.

Miss Understood

2007-07-29T08:01:00.000+02:00

Miss Arab World (center) with 1st runner up Egypt, 2nd Lebanon, 3rd Tunisia and 4th Libya.

Miss Bahrain was crowned Miss Arab World 2007 at this year's contest - the 2nd ever held. With 10,000 entries over the internet, and a participant from Saudi Arabia taking part for the first time (unveiled to boot!), this pageant has finally become mainstream.

(credit: GulfNews)

Talk about the weather, but no politics please

2007-07-14T10:35:00.000+02:00

Taxi cab drivers in Lebanon are the quintessential barometer of the country's social & political atmosphere. No one can escape the "chat", in fact it's an accepted part of the experience and no cab ride - whether 5 minutes or 30 minutes is complete without it. Hence, my surprise at the note this cabbie pasted on his dashboard that reads, "Kindly refrain from talking politics". It's certainly a first, and for this opinionated cabbie it's still an anti-opinion-opinion ... another sign of the times.

Sale? Where?

2007-07-09T20:21:00.000+02:00

Roaming the streets of Beirut in search of the elusive bargains I keep hearing about, but all I could find was this store. A sign of the times I suppose.

Nothing to tempt your little ones here

2007-06-07T17:43:00.000+02:00

Here's a novel concept I spotted at Spinneys this morning as I was getting ready to pay for my cheese croissant and fresh orange juice - a "parent friendly" checkout counter. And sure enough, no chocolates, no Pez, no sugary sweet things on sticks...just Nutri-Grain (ie horse food). "Cool," I thought to myself as I slowly backed up and made a sharp U-turn onto the next counter.

London 2012 Olympics - the logo that's got the world going "WTF!?"

2007-06-05T13:55:00.000+02:00

The London 2012 Olympics logo was unveiled yesterday. The reception has been cold. Or should I say hot? As in seethingly hot.

It left one blogger wondering 'How much of my money did they blow on this pink day-glo pig's abortion of a logo, I wonder?' (the answer is a whopping 400,000 Euros by the way). Click here for more feedback from bloggers around the world. What do you think? Is it too 80s? Does it really look like a couple performing oral (blank)? Are you nauseous just looking at it, or do you just not give a damn? I thought so.

'iGasm' fails to turn Apple on

2007-05-28T07:31:00.000+02:00

A leading adult toy retailer in the UK has released an ipod-compatible vibrator. And as though that weren't enough, they've gone ahead and named it the 'iGasm' - of course, what else could you name it? Here's part of the sales pitch from the retailer's website: "Go at it hard and fast with a pounding drum 'n' bass track or chill with an ambient classic.” It plugs into the iPod's headphone connector and vibrates according to the music playing (Divinyls' ''I touch myself"?) The ensuing ad campaign is almost a carbon copy of Apple's famous silhouette campaign. Apple, obviously, are not too pleased. They've asked the retailer to remove all ads & posters relating to the product. It doesn't look like the product will be discontinued any time soon, but you better hurry while stocks last - retail price, $60. And no, I'm not getting a commission.

It's raining, men!

2007-05-19T12:26:00.000+02:00

And here I was thinking this sort of thing was frowned upon in Abu Dhabi. Apparently they also have an asparagus special.

(thanks Ash for sending the pic!)

Offensive billboard or just pure genius?

2007-05-10T10:45:00.000+02:00

This billboard was the topic of much debate in Chicago a few days ago - it was subsequently torn down; many people found it offensive. The lawyers at the firm in question say they only wanted to stir some debate and they confirm that the results of the short-lived campaign were very positive - with a high number of calls coming in. When you consider the free publicity this firm is receiving (AP, Reuters carried the story and at last count on Google News almost 240 articles have been written and let's not forget radio & TV coverage) I'd say this billboard has certainly served its purpose. My posting on this story makes it 241 articles, so I've done my part as well.

(credit: Washington Post)

Non-Fried Chicken

2007-05-03T18:54:00.000+02:00

Anyone who knows me can tell you I'm a KFC fan - regardless of the heart palpitations that follow a crispy dinner box combo. But driving by Nando's on Sheikh Zayed Rd I couldn't help but smirk at their wicked little jibe at the KFC outlet that recently opened up right next door. KFC, there's not much you can say is there?

Baby, anyone?

2007-04-28T22:41:00.000+02:00

I'm fine with the garage sale, but the baby sale I think is just a little out of line. I'd expect Spinneys to be slightly more selective in the types of activities they allow to be advertised on their bulletins. How much for the bald one sucking his thumb?

Need to finance your nose?

2007-04-18T13:52:00.000+02:00

This campaign for First National Bank is currently running in Lebanon. All I can say really is it's about bloody time.

A black cloud looms over us all

2007-04-16T12:12:00.000+02:00

To quote the creative who sent this to me "I think this ambient is brilliant. Its simple, effective and just wow..."

Thanks Ash.

Feel free to photocopy

2007-04-09T19:29:00.000+02:00

Here's an idea: load up photocopiers with above-average thickness paper that have ads printed on the back. Place the photocopiers on campus and allow students to use the machines for free. And there you have it...great targeting for brands who want to reach students and all done without bribing them with free pizza. This new medium has really taken off in Japan, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it copied (no pun intended) elsewhere.

(credit: Springwise)

One part energy drink, one part aphro

2007-03-13T19:16:00.000+01:00

Picked this up from one of the local supermarkets in town during our regular market visits. I guess it was only a matter of time before energy drinks started branching out into other 'energy' benefit platforms. In this case, we're stepping into aphrodisiac territory - watch out Viagra. Erotic? Exotic? I wonder whether the censors just missed this one...

Men-free tourism island planned

2007-02-23T15:36:00.000+01:00

"Iran plans a female-only island to boost tourism in a northwest province, the Tehran-e Emrouz newspaper on Wednesday quoted a local official as saying.

It will be on the Urumiyeh lake in Western Azerbaijan province, a municipality official identified only as Aghai said.

Under Iran's strict Islamic law, mixing with men in public is forbidden. Strict sex segregation actually protects women rather than restricting their rights, officials argue.

"There will be no men on the Arezou (Wish) island. Public transport, restaurants and other facilities will be staffed only by women," Aghai said.

Parts of Iranian beaches are reserved for women, where they can remove their headscarves and wear swimming costumes. Women have forced their way into the national sports stadium, defying strict sex segregation. There are several parks for women only.

In public women have to cover their body in long loose coats and their hair with headscarves. The chador, literally meaning 'tent', an all-enveloping, usually black cloth is obligatory in some government offices."

(credit: Reuters)

Here, women propose marriage and men can't refuse

2007-02-02T10:33:00.000+01:00

"ORANGO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau (AP) -- He was 14 when the girl entered his grass-covered hut and placed a plate in front of him containing an ancient recipe.

Like all men on this African isle, Carvadju Jose Nananghe knew exactly what it meant. Refusing was not an option. His heart pounding, he lifted the steaming fish to his lips, agreeing in one bite to marry the girl.

"I had no feelings for her," said Nananghe, now 65. "Then when I ate this meal, it was like lightning. I wanted only her."

In this archipelago of 50 islands of pale blue water off the western rim of Africa, it's women, not men, who choose. They make their proposals public by offering their grooms-to-be a dish of distinctively prepared fish, marinated in red palm oil.

It's the equivalent of a man bending on one knee and offering a woman a diamond ring, except that in one of the world's matriarchal cultures, it's women who do the asking, and once they have, men are powerless to say no."

(credit: CNN.com)

my Campaign opinion piece

2007-01-25T10:17:00.000+01:00

Exceptional ads emerge from trivia and experience
CampaignME January 21, 2007

By Hadi Zabad
Senior Planner
JWT Dubai

In Florida, I came across a curious species of fly with a life-span of just one day. They’d float around 5-feet above ground in massive numbers. And while my brief encounter with the mayfly resulted in my having it for breakfast one morning, BBH made a D&AD winner out of the little bugger.

I’d like to believe that had I been handed that same Vodafone brief I may have helped connect the dots between an insect and Vodafone’s thought of making the ‘most of now’. After all, somewhere in my brain the memory of the mayfly and its tragic, though endearing, I-live-for-one-day story is ingrained.

This leads me to my point: how many experiences, factoids, run-ins, memories, and tidbits of information do we have stored somewhere in our psyche that have the potential to be used for great work, and yet never are? Let me ask that question again: would your ad for Vodafone have started with ‘you see a guy...’ or ‘it’s about this mayfly...’? Regardless of whether you’re a creative, suit or planner anyone could have injected that little morsel into a briefing.

Part of the skill needed to create exceptional ads is to present yet another mundane product in an unfamiliar way; to remove a product or brand from a creative rut, and propose an entirely unfamiliar way of thinking about that brand. That means not dwelling on what the competition is doing and who won what, sidestepping the sameness we surround ourselves with and, more importantly, tapping into the potential richness of our individual experiences and knowledge.

The fact that planners are, generally, more freed up means we have the time to soak in tubs of ‘stuff’. And we should take full advantage of that.

I personally relish pouring over weird human trivia (you’re more likely to have nightmares in a cold room), popular psychology (why we’ll never truly be happy), blogs of interesting people across industries (one of the more interesting ones belongs to a call girl in London), YouTube, poetry (where would we be without poetic license?), short films, and comic strips (for a more peculiar perspective on humanity nothing beats strips like The Far Side).

Statistics have enormous potential to inspire as well. Take the following stat for example: last year New York policemen arrested 3,854 innocent people. On the whole, perhaps a little surprising but what can you do with it? DDB Paris made a killer commercial for Cluedo sarcastically suggesting the NYPD might ‘need more practice’. Simple as that.

Truth is, you won’t use your nuggets all the time; most of the time they remain dormant, hidden away in dark corners of gray matter, until one day you get a brief and something clicks in your head. There are no guarantees, but you are better off filling your head with stuff in preparation for that eventuality.

I don’t know why I’m going on about this when Tarsem Singh, the legendary advertising film-maker, said in a few words exactly what this entire opinion piece set out to do: “You don’t pay me for the film I shoot or the awards I’ve won. You pay me for every book I’ve read. My childhood. Every walk I’ve taken, every movie I’ve seen.”

Yellow polka dot burqini

2007-01-17T13:52:00.000+01:00

"In a lycra revolution, a cover-all swimming costume is bringing Muslim women on to Australian beaches as lifeguards, unzipping racial tensions which divided parts of Sydney little over a year ago.

The two-piece "burqini", popular in the Middle East, is proving key to a reshaping surf lifesaving - once a bastion of white Australian culture and still a heartland of the country's sun-bronzed, heroic self-myth.

"I am Australian so I always have the Australian life style, but now with the burqini it just allowed me to participate in it more. We used to always go to the beach, but now that I have the burqini I can actually swim," said Mecca Laalaa, 22..."

(credit: Sydney Morning Herald)

Giant Knife version 1.0

2007-01-15T15:29:00.000+01:00

Wenger have either lost it or they're pure genius. This 2-pound Swiss knife has 85 tools and is 9 inches long. It's got a telescopic pointer, a cigar cutter and a fish scaler. But the best part has to be that they've still included the key ring. Who says the Swiss don't have a sense of humour?

(Credit: Popular Science)

Sri Lanka

2007-01-05T08:25:00.000+01:00

I was in Sri Lanka for New Year's. I spent it at this gorgeous beach down south. Took lots of great pictures but this one, of the Philips 'real flat tv' at the Colombo train station, is my favourite.