abs.olutely

In 2009, Minnesota based ad agency, mono, worked with the Soho furniture store Blu Dot to get 130 million media impressions without spending a single dollar on media space. Very fun idea.

Watch their case video here: http://www.mono-1.com/work/blu-dot/

 

<p>Blu Dot Real Good Experiment from Real Good Experiment on Vimeo.</p>

How crazy that any average Joe can make a commercial and have it broadcast on a number of different stations and reach thousands if not millions of people. Anyone can do it. What's stopping me? Nothing. I feel some inspiration coming on. After watching this clip and seeing Morgan Spurlock's The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, I feel like doing something amazing is so in reach. I just have to have enough initiative to actually do something.

Well I'm gonna. You just wait.

From: Lubars, David
To: New York BBDOers
Subject: No Monkey Business

Gang,

As many of you know, BBDO recently agreed to take “The Great Ape Pledge” and will no longer use monkeys/apes/baboons/chimps in films. This is because in order to train great apes, they have to be taken from their mothers shortly after birth, causing irreparable psychological harm to both. Further, the training is violent and their lives end up being bad. It’s plain wrong.

A great place to educate advertisers and agencies about the harm done to these animals is when a concept is first being born, at the script phase. So we’ve installed an auto correct program on all BBDO NY computers. Any time words like “monkey” or “ape” or “chimpanzee” are typed, the rest of a sentence appears automatically:

“…who was taken from his mother when only weeks old to act in front of the camera. During his training, the ape will be kicked, punched, and beaten to perform what you are just about to write. Don’t let it happen.

We’re hopeful that other agencies will follow our lead and install a similar auto correct program on their computers. In the meantime, this is a brilliant example of digital creativity at work. Congratulations to Toygar and his team.

To learn more, watch the video…then spread the word.

Thanks,

David

P.S. Abby Young is the greatest intern in all the histories of interns. No monkey buisness coming from her.

<br />Via: Medical Billing And Coding

The rumor is true, ladies and gents, I am a college graduate.

Apologies for the myspace/bathroom mirror pic, but I decided to attend the University Commencement last minute and got dressed in the ladies' room 5 minutes before it started. 

My sweet friends Rosie and Laur came to my graduation are were so great to me. I have felt so incredibly blessed this last little while to have such amazing friends that are so supportive and that just take care of me. Kace and Ann came over Saturday night and brought me a goodie bag full of treats, easter socks, and the nicest cards in the world to say congrats and good luck in New York. Laur gave me the cutest necklace with "i'll carry your heart" engraved on it. And wouldn't you know it, I just cried and cried saying goodbye to these lovely gals. I know I'll only be gone for 2 months in New York and will see them again soon, but it was an overwhelming feeling of newness and change. This is a new chapter of my life and it will never be like it was. But I am excited to take on this adventure and see what life has in store for me.

I was cleaning out some closets at work {Stephen Hales Creative} today and found some embossed circles of card stock with our company's logo. There were hundreds of them in some box just collecting dust. It seemed like such a waste to have all of these branding pieces in a closet I didn't even know existed until today. So I started experimenting.

A hair accessory? A coaster? A belt?

Nah. I sat at my desk and stared into the face of that man. Sheesh, he seems stressed. Wonder what he's thinking about...

Aha! I just thought of fun office game to help get our creative juices flowing.

So far, I'm the only one that's filled in the blanks. Hopefully we get a couple of more one-liners and a few laughs on Monday.

P.S. I did real work today too. Don't think I just played all day. But that's the beautiful thing about being in advertising; taking breaks for creativity is A-Ok.

 

GESTALT: a physical, psychological or symbolic configuration of pattern so unified as a whole that its properties are greater than the sum of its parts. The principles organize perpetual features into units for perception.

 

Assignment: Create a logo for a real or fictitious company that uses a Gestalt principle.

Company: My imaginary record label company, named after yours truly and word-played off of one of the Beatles' best albums. 

Gestalt Principle: Closure...the tendency to see an entire figure even though the picture is incomplete, based primarily on viewer's past experiences.

Thoughts: So maybe it looks like I made this in Microsoft Paint, but like I said, I'm no art director. I put a lot of work into this little guy and I'm proud of it.