Element404

I was reading an article Scamps blog the other day about the new Diet Coke ad with Duffy in it and it lead me to thinking about why brands use celebrities to endorse their products. Simples; people like to like what celebrities like, its a way of  living a little bit of their celebrity life. The trouble is that this only really works when ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Brand’ go well together, this should be easy to get right but people so often get it wrong. I think the question has to be, what is a celebrity going to bring to the party? If the answer is not that much then perhaps you should just save your bucks and use someone unknown.

Let me compare two ads that are on T.V at the moment; both are big brands, both use celebrities and both have catchy tunes but only one works.   

The trouble with this ad for Diet Coke is that Duffy has sod all to bring to the brand, she’s not that cool. Why use her at all, surely we would find it easier to identify with members of the public. Ok so some people probably like Duffy but the problem is that no-one wants to be Duffy. What people want is to be like David Beckham, which brings me on to the second ad, for Adidas origonals.

The celebrity house party does just as much for the celebs street cred as it does for the brand, in this sense it works perfectly. Instead of thinking ‘if i drink diet coke people might think I’m like Duffy’ you think ‘if i wear Adidas Superstars maybe I’ll get invited to a house party like that one and get a chance to nail Katie Perry’.

Is this the first step in a terminator 4 ARG? I suspect so; the static banners that lead to the skynet research website are fairly non descript and have images of the sort of robots we have seen before on the gadget show but once you get the website it all starts to get a little bit more sinister. The music for the site has the iconic drum beats from the films and female voice over is suitably hollow claiming Skynet wants to help humans ‘be all they can be’. The Questionnaire to register for more information gives more clues as to the nature of what is to come; you have been warned. 

Is there  a point when I should stop thinking about brands and just leave the art alone, perhaps but not now. This breath taking video by Chassaing Xavier entitled SCINTILLATION has colour like no other written all over it. The film is made using a mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques combining over 35,000 photographs. 

I’ve always enjoyed a play on scale, the tilt shift creator creator alows you to minaturise your world. 

this is Jodhpur, ‘the blue city’ from my recent trip to india, now the minature blue city.

The actual technique involves tilting the lens in front of the camera to produce a very limited field of view and works with the moving image, is nice. 

Now I’m interested in materials, by which i mean the way things are made. BMW have been at the forefront of automobile innovation for years and their design development devision (GINA) have been coming up with some pretty slick stuff, like this fabric covered car that changes its shape. The fabric is polyurethane-coated Lycra which covers an aluminium frame that morphs both aesthetically and functionally at the touch of a button. The video explains it all: 

Oh, and this?……… A chrome Bugatti; I know, I’m a bad man. 

This has to be one of the most beautiful concepts i’ve seen in a while, the Unfinished Swan is a game in which you splatter paint over a blank world to give it depth and to find your way. As you fire your paint balls at blank walls all of a sudden new passageways appear and clues are uncovered. So simple and it looks awesome.

Interactivity on YouTube has finally grown up with a new version of Street Fighter. Made to promote the plastic toys I presume, pretty nifty although not that playable. I like the idea of interacting with videos and its nice to see something other than card tricks, I hope to have a go at a project myself some day. A proper crime thriller would be cool, or as part of an ARG.

I came across this a few months ago, its a wicked brainstorming tool from Getty images. Mash up pictures, video and music to get your creative jusices flowing. My favorite part is that you can alter the results based on moods and feelings as opposed to the normal keyword technique, i’ve wondered about this sort of thing for a long time and had considered using a similar method on a social network that i’ve been dreaming up. 

A bit out of date now, but seeing as my blog is a newby and i’ve been saving this stuff up for ages its going up. During the Obama campaign there were loads of great ads either direct from his administration or from various supporters.

Here are two of my favorites; first the truly ridiculous ’Barack Obama is your new bicycle’ for many (including me) this was the first we’d heard of Obama at least a year before the election, and it introduced him into our world in the most delightful, soft and sincere way. ‘Barack Obama called just to hear your voice’ and I believe he would you know, if he knew who i was and he had my number and i’d be happy to take the call. 

http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/

The second is a redux of the classic ‘Wassssuupppp’ ad from Budweiser back in the day but this time its ‘Wassssuupppp;……… yeah, America is fucked!’ but we already knew that didn’t we. ;p

Speaking of simple and effective; this audi ad hits the nail squarely on the head. One of those rare occasions that taking a pop at the competition works; beautifully.