Pollution Is Bad.

I was visiting my very Republican parents this weekend. Now I love them dearly, but sometimes their Glen Beck comes out and I have to squash it before it explodes and covers us all in stupid. The topic of global warming came up and how it's an obvious left wing conspiracy to create bigger government and enslave the middle class under draconian taxes. The next hour and a half was spent talking in circles—it was really frustrating.

So today I found this little video by none other than Alex Bogusky from Crispin Porter+Bogusky. I'll admit I have a bit of a creative department man crush on the guy but who doesn't? Alex, in true CP+B fashion, cuts through the crap filters and hits a universal truth both sides of the global warming debate can agree on—pollution is bad. The video is definitely worth checking out.

Dyson Knows how to Multiply Fun.

Ok, maybe it's because I just un-boxed my new Dyson DC24 ball vacuum last night (it's like owning a piece of functional industrial art), but I love Dyson products. They are so cool. Here's how far my Dyson-phila goes. A local megaplex theater has Dyson Airblades in some of their bathrooms. When I'm there, I make it a point to go to those bathrooms, doesn't matter if they are on the opposite end of the theater, the Airblade bathrooms are my jam. )How can you pass up a super high-speed jet of air to dry your hands?)

I came across this little video nugget and it put a large cyclone technology inspired smile on my face. I really want an Air Multiplier, I just don't have $500 to spend on a fan with no blades. This video is pretty awesome though. It's exactly what I would do if I owned hundreds of Air Multipliers (someday).

I Dare You not to Feel

Saw this spot from Pedigree this weekend and I must say I'm impressed. It's really well shot (especially the opening shot of the first dog), well written, well scored, and well made. I like everything about this spot. My favorite line from the piece, "If they were human, we'd call them wise." That's a powerful statement and holds a big emotional impact.

Spots about abandoned or abused pets are usually armed with a heavy guilt message. Pedigree does an excellent job of avoiding the guilt and letting the animals speak for themselves. I was certainly impacted by the look in these dog's eyes. I'm impressed Pedigree.

AT&T Spot that's Actually Good.

These have been around for awhile, but I'm still loving them. Really fun idea, a nightly news anchor who only reads "late breaking" news from people's facebook and Twitter accounts. Awesome. You can tell they had fun with these. The actor is really good, too. Notice his hand motions when he points to the device or presses in his ear piece—a real student of news anchor mannerisms.

This is a good example of a big, simple idea. There are a ton of these and they could produce a ton more. It's too bad that such a good idea is being used on a "why should I care" product. AT&T needs to drop the "Rethink" crap and go with something simple and awesome like these spots.




This one makes me laugh every time.




"The search is on for cute boots." Oh, man that is funny stuff.




This one could have been tightened up a bit. Still good though.

I Can't Feel My Legs.

Maybe it's the fatalistic whine of the violins. Or the roar of the timpani. Or the blank determination of this toy soldier with no legs. But this spot just tugs at the heart strings.

Well done spot for the Cartoon Network. I especially appreciate the posture the dying toy soldier takes after fulfilling his last act in plastic life (hitting the power button to turn on Cartoon Network). Paradoxically, that's where the ad kinda falls apart for me. If Cartoon Network has been "saving toys since 1993," why does this toy die in front of the television? Just an observation. Still love it.

It's all About Your Swagger.

Okay, by now I'm sure you've seen the Swagger Wagon rap video. It's already reached 1.3 million views. It's hilarious. You have to love the slow mow jello mold booty dance. We all know mini vans are the uncool reality that many of us will face one day. So it's nice to see brands acknowledging that "Okay, mini vans may not be very cool, but we can still have fun."

People either think this video is hilarious (like me) or the stupidest thing they've seen since Ke$sha's tic toc. So hats off to you Sienna family, your hipster ways have inspired me to face my mini van future with pride.

Headline Writing Thought Process

Okay, gotta slam out something cool, not witty, but zingy. Not too zingy though.

What about...no that's not right.

Oh, Oh this could wor...nope that's an American Express line.

Hmm...wonder what's happening on Facebook? No, stay focused.

Product benefits, grab some benefits and features that'll help.

I wonder what "optimized functionality" means?

(Fifteen minutes pass)

BAM! Now that's a headline.

(The next day the headline dies.)

YEESSSSS!!!! (Arm pump for emphasis)

The Denver Egotist is one of my favorite Web destinations. The site is full of hot chunks of bodaciousness. Well the Egotist just went and did me a solid and expanded its network to include Salt Lake City.

I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Man, I wish we had something like the Denver Egotist here in Salt Lake." Apparently, the Egotist heard me and was all like, "Yo, Josh—here's a bit of radicalness for you to have. Peace broseph."

So by the end of April, the SLC Egotist will go live. The Egotist cometh. And there was much rejoicing.

Little Cars + Big Action = Totally Awesome

Car commercial cliches are legion. Driving on a deserted freeway, drifting through strategically placed puddles, playing cat and mouse with a chase car. Too many to enumerate in his humble blog. Well the fine folks at TBWA Toronto decided to have some fun with car commercial cliches—just on a smaller scale.

They used RC cars to shoot this spot for Nissan. It's radical. I watched it back to back four times and found something fun and interesting every time. This spot hits all the right notes—it's fun, interesting, and conveys the brand message in a super creative way. This spot tells you that the Nissan Sentra SE-R is small, affordable, and most importantly—fun. Hats off to TBWA Toronto for pushing car cliches into a more palatable form.




Here's the making of:

Stop Motion Awesomeness

So wow. That's all I have to say about this nugget of awesome. Stop motion photography has fascinated me since I was a kid. Can't really explain why, but it has. And skateboarding has been a monumental influence on my life for over 15 years now. So when those two worlds meet, it's like being shot in the brain with a pure bolt from the happiness laser.

This guy took a collection of old skateboard magazines (I have a stack waist high myself) and cut out sequence shots—then animated them using stop motion. Brilliant. Freaking brilliant.

Skateboardanimation from Tilles Singer on Vimeo.

Invest in Story

Video games are an emerging story telling vehicle. And let's not kid ourselves, they provide a good platform to tell a compelling story. But video games have to live a duplicitous life. They're first and foremost games and need to be enjoyable as such. Now, they have the added pressure of presenting an original and interesting story. It's not enough to just save the princess and jump on some mushrooms along the way anymore.

To illustrate my point, here's a promo for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, an upcoming game from Ubisoft. It's awesome by the way. I've never played the previous game and had no plans to. After watching this, my curiosity is engaged. The story is front and center—there's zero game play footage. That seems like a big risk for a video game to take. It looks like games are trying to grow up a bit and not just by upping the mature nature of their content.

Game developers are redefining their industry. They're not just interested in pixels and user interfaces—it seems they are more interested in user involvement and engagement. And what better way to get humans invested in your product then to get them invested in your story?

The Return of Wow

I've noticed a trend lately. The return of wow. And it's not a bad thing. I really enjoy both of these spots. The George Takei spot for Sharp is just plain hilarious. George Takei's voice is amazing by the way—why hasn't he been doing Jeff Bridges amounts of voice over work? The first time I saw this I laughed until my stomach hurt.

Now the second one is controversial. Lots of people are hating on the Staples wow guy. The argument is that he's too over the top. Well, duh. That's the punchline. Staples has prices so low it will blow your mind. Thus, the 10,000 volt head jerking "Wow! That's a low price!" I think it's awesome. And I'm not just saying that because my sister agency in New York created it. So enjoy the current zeitgeist of wow.

Everyday Gold

It must be my lucky day. First, I decided to wear a green shirt to work today only to discover it's St. Patrick's day. Then I begin my morning routine and check out Ads of the World and come across this beauty of an idea.

(I couldn't get the video from Ads of the World to embed, but this one is from JWT, Atlanta. You get the basic idea. Hit the link at the top for the Ads of the World page. That video is much better.)

JWT, South Africa launched the effort last summer and had a lot of success with it, as evidenced by the video. The thinking behind this effort is what really gets me boiling. I've seen piles of old stock photo books just gathering dust in my office for years, never giving them much attention. "That's just a pile of old useless books" I'd say. Someone came across those same stacks of unused paper and saw opportunity. That is finding a pile of lead and turning it to gold. That is inspirational.

An Inspirational Series

Okay, Okay—I've been away for a long time. Life is like that some times. You're just going along all smooth and steady and then a rogue wave pins your rudder starboard and you just spin in circles for awhile. I've been feeling guilty about not posting so I decided to share one of my favorite campaigns from Unicef.

These popped up on Ads of the World a long time ago and I was moved by the message. This is clear, concise messaging at its best. Click on the images to see a bigger picture and read them. The copy will break your heart.

I think it's important to remember that ads can do more than just make us laugh. I'm loving W+K's Oldspice work right now, super stuff—really. But sometimes ads can land a sucker punch to your heart and these do that extremely well. Hope they inspire you like they did me.

In the Simplest of Terms

Lots of people are talking about the Google Super Bowl ad. And what's one more sounding brass in the orchestra? Here's my take on this ad. I loved it. I thought it was genius and simple and effective and all around awesome. Google is a monument to simplicity. And this commercial holds a mirror to the Google philosophy of less is more.

The story telling is what makes my hair stand on end. Google gives the audience a simple love story told through a Google search box. A soft piano back track builds as the story progresses, but never overwhelms the emotional impact of the words being typed. The audience is given just enough information and allowed to fill in the blanks with their imagination. Thus projecting their own emotions and experiences into this story. A beautiful thing. (Side note: When he begins to spell the Louver as the Loove. That made me smile).

This ad cut through the clutter like a scalpel. I was still thinking about it when the Saints intercepted Manning in the fourth quarter. I thought about it again when my wife was making fun of me for having hot wing sauce all over my face. And two days later I'm still thinking about this ad. That's the power of a story. That's why I don't tell people I write advertisements—I tell stories that happen to have a product as the protagonist.

The Big Dream

Ext. Miniature Forest—Day
Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha toy bursts through a miniature treeline being pushed by a boy and his friend. It comes skidding to a stop as the boy slides the turret over 90 degrees preparing to fire.

Super (VO)
Prepare for the fight of your life with Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha.

Boy 1
Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha ready to fire.

Boy 2
Roger that. You are cleared hot.

Ext. Miniature Forest—Day
The tank fires it's projectile and smashes through an enemy enclosure. The boys celebrate with high fives and fist pumps.

Boy 1
Direct hit!

Boy 2
Alright!

Super (VO)
Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha comes with real combat sounds and firing cannon. Feel the land tremble with heavy-duty real rubber tank treads. With the Action Force Rolling Thunder Attack Tank Alpha, fun keeps on roll'n.

Remember that scene in the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks is playing in his office with a bunch of toys? As a kid, I dreamed that my job would be cool like that. And it is, for the most part. But how cool would it be to write toy commercials?

I'm sure those involved in producing toy commercials are still caught up in the minutia of the details. Casting, managing the talent, finding a location, setting up, taking down. But you can't tell me that crews don't have fun making these things. Here are a few fun commercials for your viewing pleasure.

(These actors are better than the cast of G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. By far.)

Dino Power!

You can't get much more bad ass than riding a dinosaur mounted with lazers! I used to play with Dino-Riders all the time. My friend had the entire set and we would rain destruction upon our faux-Jurassic landscapes. Such an awesome rediscovery.



Doing commercials for toys in the late 80s would have been off the chain cool (more to come on this). Feast your eyes upon these celluloid jewels.

Lamezilla

I look forward to the Winter X-Games. And this year was definitely worth watching. But some times the sponsors of the games can be a little off key. Take this Jeep commercial. Jeep and snowboarding seems like a logical combination. More so than Taco Bell and its sure to give you diarrhea five dollar box. But this Jeep commercial is anything but logical.

First off, who drives their Jeep to the top of a snow covered 14,000 foot mountain with the top off and the windows down? And when this mystery Eskimo Jeep driver gets to the top, he sends it off a cliff to shred some wicked pow. So how does he intend to get back to the top? Or does every Jeep driver own two Wranglers to substitute for a chairlift?

My final issue with this commercial is Jeep's new tag line. "i live. i ride. i am. Jeep." So lame I want to vomit out of my tear ducts. The lowercase "i" prefix needs to be retired. Unless your name is Apple, don't use it. The tag line doesn't even make sense. It's just a bunch of wanna-be self-actualization nonsense. Totally lame.

This commercial makes Jeep look disconnected from its audience at best and like an idiot at least.

Show and Tell—But More Show than Tell

Product demonstration spots are generally reserved for the Oxi-clean crowd. With a loud coke-addicted (sorry Billy) pitchman doing his best Glen Beck impression. Although some companies (Apple being the only one off the top of my head) have pulled of decent product demos.

Craftsman tools isn't usually a company associated with popular interest. I mean, a hammer is a hammer after all. But I have to admit Craftsman's new demonstration ads are pretty entertaining. They play the man card pretty heavily, but when your product is power tools you can throw down the testosterone royal flush. Here are two spots for your enjoyment. (P.S. It's my secret dream to find an old abandoned warehouse somewhere and turn it into a mans play house. It's the simple things in life.)

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Write like this Guy.

I spend a lot of time gushing about things and stuff on this blog. Commercials, technology, the paradoxical notion of ideas. But yesterday I found some true inspiration. It's an article written for Outside Magazine about freezing to death.

I've never heard of the author, never read anything from him before or since—to my knowledge. But he is a true master of the language. He hooks you with a story and you are reeled to the surface having learned about the physiology of freezing to death.

We talk a lot about telling stories in advertising. And I make a real effort to be a story teller and not just a literate huckster. This author knows how to tell stories and communicate complex information while doing it. That's tough stuff.

Click the link and prepare to have your mind blown.

Cumulus Computing

I bought a laptop from my office recently. It's an old G4 Powerbook, and I love it. But it didn't come loaded with a word processor and I have lost my Microsoft suite for Mac. Not having a word processor was a real problem, I am a writer by profession. So I weighed my options. Buying another Microsoft suite for Mac didn't sit well, and pirating a copy didn't seem like a good idea either. What was I to do?

Reading through Digg one morning I came across an article about updates to Google Docs. I had heard of Google Docs but never looked into it. I read further. Then the thunder bolt hit me. I can use Google Docs' word processor for free, and from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. It was a big moment for me.

People talk about cloud computing all the time. I hadn't taken the time to really look into the possibilities of the service. Google Docs, Flickr, Vimeo, and even Facebook (to some extent) are all part of my personal cloud. Now I float my information and heavy media in the cloud instead of on my hard drive.

Having maxed out and burned up a hard drive or two in my days, I can appreciate the need for more digital elbow room. Computing from the cloud changes a lot of things for me. I'm not constantly transferring information between USB drives, or storing things on my iPod. My email inbox was a graveyard of old versions and single word subject lines. "Stuff." "Project." "Mine." I'm still sorting through pages of unopened email I sent to myself.

The cloud has set me and my stuff free. Now I don't need to worry so much about the size of my hard drive. I can start focusing on the size of my imagination. Cloud computing is definitely filed under "cool stuff."

The Right Type

Kinetic type isn't new. But for some reason I really enjoy it. Don't know why. I just do. And even though I really don't care for this Ford commercial (I think Dennis Leary trying to be a tough guy is ridiculous), the type treatment is pretty cool.



Here are some other examples of kinetic type that I think are awesome. They're all type interpretations of sci-fi movies quotes. Enjoy.

A Clown that's Actually Funny

I really dislike Walmart. I mean really. The last time I went into a Walmart (over two years ago), I walked out. But this commercial for Walmart is hilarious. It aired last night while I was watching the Vikings and Saints play (poor, poor Brett Favre). For your viewing pleasure, I present Clown:

A Glossy Future

Taking a break for the holidays was refreshing. Spending time with the people and things you love and nothing else can really charge your inspiration batteries. For my first post of the new decade—I'm looking to the future.

People have been saying that print is dead for years. I'm not ready to chisel the epitaph just yet. The video below was produced by Bonnier Corp—a major producer and distributor of magazines and other printed media. The good people at Bonnier want to know what the magazine of the future will look like. Apparently the magazine of the future looks suspiciously like a tablet PC.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Every now and then videos pop up with some industrial designer describing the thin form factor and intuitive gesture navigation of the future of print media. I've seen a newspaper tablet that you fold back and forth to simulate turning pages. A projector that creates a virtual screen between your hands when held out in front of you. And I've seen several of these tablet PC jobs now.

The idea is no doubt cool. And if this tablet was available to the consumer, the gizmo-geek in me wouldn't be able to resist. But there is something that all these digital-print devices skip entirely. Tactile sensation. A magazine made of paper and ink is tangible. Turning a page isn't just a visual experience. You feel the paper between your fingers as you turn the page. That's something a digital-print device like this can't simulate.

Designers are ignoring the real connection people feel to objects (which is ironic). The argument is that digital devices can bring so much more to the reading experience and I don't disagree with that. What I question is if that equates to value being added to the reading experience.

This may be the future of print media, and if it is I'm sure I'll adapt. But I'll miss the ink and page experience. I'll miss the texture of reading. And I'm willing to wager that many people will share my longing for reality. The future doesn't have to be all gloss and gesture does it?