Shake it up baby now

So I have been MIA a bit recently. There are 2 reasons for this:

1. I like Auckland, I like the nightlife. I also like to boogie. Haven't been home much to actually write anything for a while.

2. Nothing has really deserved writing about recently.

Considering the above, I am now going to do a bit of a round up of everything that doesn't deserve a post all to itself.

Mini.

Initially, I liked the Mini Soho campaign. Now, I was basing this solely on the giant billboard and I will stick to that, I LOVED the massive billboard. Unfortunately I think that the rest of their campaign they tried to be too clever and it just didn't gel for me.

For a start, I saw very few of the actual ads (I know that a 3D cinema ad is cool kids - but if the only movie you can play it in is Shrek, is it really worth it?) and I am totally going to admit it, the online ad which you had to enter you IQ, wouldn't let me in. Not because I necessarily have a low IQ (I probably do), but because I do not know (or care) what my IQ is enough to find out, let alone what may be high or low. Hows about we make it relevant?

If you want to read all about what they did do for this campaign, read last months AdMedia. I think.

Then, once the Soho campaign was over we get this:

Yawn. Is anyone else bored? I'm pretty bored. Mini bores me. Sorry. The one with the dog is worse.

Also, balloons for the Ponsonby Street Fair... whatever? Ugh. Why don't you try harder?

Orcon.

Then there was the Orcon banners which everyone talked about. You can read about them here.Honestly - the cover that these damn banners got, I don't understand. So it's a multi-video banner which was shot specifically for the banner. Cool. I mean, it's novel, but I don't think its the be all and end all to save online advertising.

TVNZ

There was a rant here about TVNZ which I think may be better not to share. Let's just go with I think TVNZ are jumping the shark.

OK - there is a lot of negativity in there - sorry kids. I just think that there is a lot of uninspiring work out there at the moment. Nothing has made me step back and go WOW for ages (except of course the amazing work my agency does, but this blog is not about self importance. Much).

It is a shame.

iPad

To end on a positive note however - I had my first play on an iPad the other day and the Herald app. Freaking aye - now that is cool. Really impressed with what the crew at APN have put together for that, and I think there is a really nice balance of advertising in there too. Not too often, but often enough.

The Yellow Page ad - that WAS uber impressive. Very cool ad. You kinda have to see it to understand (if someone wants to screen shot it for me and email it though, please do and I will upload the pics).

EDIT: Ask and you shall receive - the lovely Donna from APN Digital just sent through screen shots for me.

She's all very happy:

But turn the iPad sideways and... Opps!

I think it's great.

But if you have read my blog before, you will know where this is going.

I would like Yellow's advertising better if they would FIX THEIR FREAKING PRODUCT.

I will admit, it is slightly better than it was 6 or so months back, but if I search for Save Mart I still get a butcher.

That is all. Hopefully something amazing comes creeping out of the woodwork and I can write about how inspired I am again.

Note - I wrote this post a month ago in late August and there hasn't been much happening in the meantime, so you guys get an old post. Stink. Sorry about that.

Ikea - Herding Cats

AMAZING and beautiful ad for Ikea made by Mother London who released 100 cats (and we're not talking professional cats here, just family and friends favourite felines) in the Wembley Ikea store.

I haven't seen such a lovely commercial in ages.

Incase you care, the following commercial for EDS is my other favourite cat commercial:

A Few Of My Favourite Things

In one ad.

Street Art, Guerilla Advertising, Banksy.

Epic.

Exit Through The Gift Shop was one of the MANY films I didn't get to see at the Film Festival. I am so so glad that it is up for general release. Check out the trailer below:

Have you been to The Wilderness Down

For a long time I have bitched and moaned about how websites or certain online advertising does not work in Chrome. Being such a Google child I have used Chrome for quite some time and am not a fan of other browsers. Now, as a reward (I feel) Google have started Chrome Experiments which run ONLY on Chrome. As a part of Chrome Experiments there is The Wilderness Down which involves none other than one of my favourite bands (whose new album The Suburbs is awesome) Arcade Fire.

So, you enter your hometown and then it kindly asks you to close down other applications as it takes a bit of processing space apparently.

Now, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I can't explain it in full to you, but it is like taking a multi-window journey into your hometown in a way that you probably thought wasn't possible.

I'm not going to lie, it is not 100% and some of the graphics are a bit naff, but overall it is a beautiful concept set to amazing music.

Where you even get the opportunity to interact and contribute yourself:

Visually stimulating and incredibly engaging - I can only encourage you to click on the link above to take part yourself.

If you don't have Chrome, download it here first.

Ladies, gentlemen, lend me your smarts!

I have a favour to ask of anyone who can answer the following for me.

I have a friend who is on their way back to our fair shores and they are trying to weigh up the freelance/salary options with their wide & varied skill set. (I'm not going to lie - I've worked for this person and they are fabulous, in management and in practice.)

Who can tell me the going hourly rate for following:

• Brand and Marketing planning
• Optiminsation strategies
• Ecommerce marketplace planning
• Adwords and social media management

So, I can understand if you don't want to comment on any of this, but if you have this kind of information and would like to share it with me, please PLEASE email me on monica.wales@gmail.com I'll be your best friend.

WTF ASB?

OK. So I get it, you guys lost the account and Droga are going to take over real soon (they haven't already right?) but what the f**k is this about?

Is there an entire campaign that I have missed. What relevance does this dog have? Or staring? Surely if you wanted to talk about animals that stare you would use an owl? Right? (It's the animal which springs to my mind when you talk about staring.)

All this does, is make me doubt ASB's ability to take itself and it's business seriously. Come on people - financial institution. That's not the client to be pulling your kooky shit with.

It's the first of the month

And you know what that means...

NEW BILLBOARD DAY!

What really gets me though is walking home at about 5am this morning I saw the skin at K Rd & Ponsonby being taken down and a new one going up. For a geek like me, this was exciting - nothing to do with the vodka & sodas which had been consumed earlier in the evening.

The poor installer didn't know what was going on, crazy girl taking photos of him, but I'm sure he will get over it.

It was such a quick process. Dude goes up in the cherry picker:

A quick pull and down it comes:
And up goes the new skin.
Bing, bang, BOOM. Done. I was impressed how quick the whole process was and felt little sorry for the poor guys who were missioning around putting up our skins for us at that time of the morning.

Talking about billboards, not so fussed on the new ones for The Mentalist. Some of the type is way too small. Hard to read.

I almost like the one they have on Richmond Road which says something along the lines of 'You live in Grey Lynn because you know its better than Remuera'. Almost.