maybe the world breaks on purpose

"Maybe the world breaks on purpose, so we can have work to do. People think there aren't frontiers anymore. They can't see how frontiers are all around us."

Another beautifully done piece from the Go Forth campaign.

pretty sure they work with advertising

outside the box from joseph Pelling on Vimeo.

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go forth

Just came across these absolutely amazing spots created by Wieden+Kennedy for Levi's. The audio of both of them are actual recordings of Walt Whitman's "O Pioneers!" and "America". It portrays America in a way I hadn't seen any brand do before. It's classic, rebel, young, old, diverse and blue eyed, all at once. Beautifully done.

"Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistol? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers!

We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, Pioneers! O pioneers"

"America
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love..."

pop nihilism

"One such campaign, 'Whopper Sacrifice' – in which Facebook users were rewarded a free Whopper for deleting ten friends from their account, has been the most precise incidence of 'pop nihilism' to date. The underlying premise of the campaign was that the majority of one’s relationships are expendable, the Whopper serving as a material excuse to manifest this belief. The Whopper’s presence in the campaign was purely symbolic. The true appeal of the sacrifice was not the faux-nourishment of a hamburger, but for participants to relish in the misanthropic destruction of the social contract.

These campaigns are intentionally polemic – eliciting disgust in many, while others feel compelled to come to their defense. CP+B have torn a page right out of Ballyhoo in the sense that they aren’t selling hamburgers, they are selling the spectacle of advertising’s demise. Agencies who take this route and profit from its fleeting popularity will go down in history as advertising’s robber barons, those who cashed in on the medium’s social capital before it went bankrupt – signifying the moment advertising realized its own mortality and began to eat itself.

from Pop Nihilism: Advertising Eats Itself

sustainable advertising

And that's why I insist on saying that billboards belong in a distant past.

perfection

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this one made me smile

Two nicely executed pieces designed for Cuttie Cut, a kids hair salon in Canada. [via]

Advertising Agency: Y&R, Toronto, Canada
Creative Director: David Houghton
Art Director: Zachary Muir-Vavrina
Copywriter: Sussana Forieri
Photographer: Jeremy Kohm

killing us softly

"Jean Kilbourne's pioneering work helped develop and popularize the study of gender representation in advertising. Her award-winning Killing us Softly films have influenced millions of college and high school students across two generations and on an international scale. In this important new film, Kilbourne reviews if and how the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years."

the 'broken window' theory + environment management

New Scientist has an excellent article about some research at the University of Groningen that empirically proves the 'broken window' theory.

"People become more disobedient in environments plagued by litter and graffiti, research has shown. They can be tempted to trespass, drop litter, and even steal money if they perceive from their environment that it's OK to break rules (...)

The researchers conclude that one type of antisocial behaviour leads to others, because people's sense of social obligation to others is eroded. 'When people think they can get away with it because other people already have, they do,' says Keizer."

Gareth Kay, head of planning at Boston's Modernista!, adds some great insight to the subject and discusses how the results of the research could uncover the new role of communications and advertising in the public space, as tools for managing the environment.

"So, perhaps we should think about communications as being more about environment management, creating an environment where people are more likely to behave in a favorable way. About seeding the right environment where behavior is more likely to take hold. Which puts us squarely back in the culture business..."

happy period

Goes hand in hand with this old post :

Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing?

word

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absolutely G-E-N-I-U-S

Get it?