More Ice Cubes

Reprinted, courtesy of cartoonist extraordinaire, Leroy Brown.

Leroy Brown Draws Ice Cubes

Leroy Brown is a cartoonist who draws a regular strip called Ice Cubes. Ice Cubes is an ongoing story about life inside Alaska's arctic circle for a motley crew including Nooky, Freeze, Peckinpaw and EggMan. I like it a lot - it's quirky, clever, even vulnerable(!) It's also magnificently drawn - besides that, I love when Leroy lets the reader peek in at his process, by occasionally posting his influences, and even his rough sketches. Reminds me of early Peanuts. Check it out and subscribe to the shenanigans at www.icecubescomic.com

2010: The Launch of SMARTER-THINK©

Allow me a shameless plug to announce the launch of SMARTER-THINK©, a series of courses to energize and guide professionals to think more laterally. Designed to be flexible enough to respond to the needs of students through to veteran professionals, SMARTER-THINK courses aim to sharpen creative thinking skills via the introduction of processes and methodology to improve creative output within a corporate environment. Get in touch at maramarich@yahoo.com if you feel you need to improve your creative efficiency, recharge your synaptic batteries or simply to think smarter.
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International Award-Winning MTV Veteran Launches SMARTER-THINK©.

SMARTER-THINK© is an idea that is way overdue. Led by Mara Marich, an internationally awarded Creative Director with over 20 years of experience in developing ideas for some of the world's most renowned brands at acclaimed ad agencies, television networks and dotcoms on four continents.

Offering Creative Courses, Workshops, Coaching & Consulting, primarily aimed at those in creative advertising & marketing careers, and also open to others who want to see what they are capable of once the right side of their brain has been stimulated and energized.

The focus of each course is on creative thinking techniques, lateral thinking, idea generation methods, brainstorming guidance, focusing individual creative energy and managing the creative energy of those around you.

Each course is designed to be flexible to ensure the content fits individual or group needs.

All levels are catered for.

* NEO-THINK©: Courses for those just starting out in a creative advertising career. Courses, workshops and coaching to help better guide the individual to where they want to go and where they should go.

* MASTER-THINK©: For experienced creative advertising professionals. Courses, workshops and coaching to help you make changes, boost your creative output, or re-focus your skills in this evolving industry.

* CLIENT-THINK©: Client side workshops. Offering direction to better understand creative concepts, teach idea generation methods, and manage advertising agencies and other third party creative suppliers and contractors.

* LIGHTNING-THINK©: Idea Storming Sessions. Brainstorming sessions where a team learns scientific methodology and processes to think of new and fresh ways to generate stronger, better ideas for present and future projects.

Now taking reservations for Courses, Workshops and Coaching on site and remote, beginning January 2010.

You As A Barcode

My buddy Paul Bernasconi says I look good in stripes, so I thought I would push the envelope a bit and recreate myself as a barcode. You can do it too. Click here

Kulture, kourtesy of Kulture.com

Kulture.com is an international meeting space of creative minds engaging in non-commercial collaborations. To be invited to be part of the Kulture club, beg Geoffrey Gifford.

An Adventurer Gone

Just read sad news of the passing of my first boss in the advertising business, Wayne Maule. Wayne was my Award School mentor and teacher at J.Walter Thompson. An inspired thinker whose passion for the visual arts was infectious, he plucked me from class and gave me a job as junior copywriter. Wayne transitioned from art director to creative director to award-winning commercial director, working globally. What a wonderful teacher, always carrying glossy photography books, bookmarking page upon page to reveal to me the details within the most beautiful images. Tragically taken in a motorcycle accident in Thailand last week, too early. (Photo: Michael Lynch's Campaign Brief)

Happy (Recycled) Halloween

The nose and eyebrow of this year's jack-o-lantern, courtesy of the internal hard drive of my old laptop.

What Is An Ad?

It's really hard to define what an ad is these days. For the last couple of weeks, I've been writing and producing 'video virals' for Overstock - an awesome client, by the way.

Two comedic skits shot on location in NYC will run all over the net. Will they ever run on TV? For advertisers aiming at Gen Y these days, TV does not seem to be as high a priority as it was once.

Q: Who needs a TV spot to actually run on TV?

Marketers are realizing that over 50% of US homes now use some form of DVR to skip TV spots.

For Gen Y, they can go to alternate media - especially social networking sites.

More economical, more efficient, solid reach and most importantly, measurable.

Not to mention the fact that advertisers are thrilled to be saving on the hefty media dollars that TV channels charge for ad time.

A larger question: Since ad dollars fuel the networks, could this be the end of TV as we know it?

Stay tuned to this site - I'll post the spots once we've finished cutting. They're rebellious and renegade - featuring big names like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Spike Lee.

Books falling from the sky

I just heard a story about an airdrop of children's books to a remote community in Canada's Far North. 50-odd Cree children received 7,000 books after a military airplane dropped them via parachute in massive crates on to the frozen ice of Hudson Bay. Not only is it a poor and isolated part of othe world, but literacy is quite low - a fact that's isn't helped by the lack of books in the school library. Apparently some of the kids started tearing open the boxes as they landed on the ice and reading the books on the spot.

The Magic Red Pencil

"Anyone can write - that's the easy part. The hard part is the re-writing." So said Bill Bernbach, guru to advertising copywriters worldwide.

I abhor reading most writing, simply because most writing is so poorly written.

How many times do I wish I could simply delete badly written words with a red pencil, replacing them with something more clear, more precise, more informative, more convincing - hell, just plain more enjoyable for the reader to read.

That's where the dreaded red pencil comes in. More than writing, I actually enjoy the multiple drafts, the re-writing, the deletions and additions, the polishing - the actual excitement of carving into words, deciding if a comma is better than a dash, finding and substituting one single word to replace a phrase, after multiple explorations of possible replacements. Since I write at a computer now, I don't use a real red pencil anymore. It's an imagined one, but it's just as real to me.

Writing and re-writing words until a better form is reached makes your brain fit and healthy.

Note that the fictitious red pencil, representing perfection, must be kept razor sharp to maintain effectiveness.

Laboring alone every day creating documented thought is a proven method of training the mind to be precise and concise.

So go ahead, write something - now read it, is it good? Now go rewrite it to make it better.

Smiling is now Verboten in Parts of The U.S.

File this news story under 'Interesting Times'.

Four American states have now adopted a 'no-smiles' policy for driver's licenses. "Neutral facial expressions" are required at departments of motor vehicles offices in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia. That means you can't smile, or you can smile just a little teeny weeny bit.

The serious poses are urged by DMVs which have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that have already been shot. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity.

But there's a wrinkle in the technology: a person's grin. Face-recognition software can fail to match two photos of the same person if facial expressions differ in each photo, says Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Takeo Kanade. (Wonder how he is connected to the programming and design of this D grade software?)

Dull expressions make the comparison process more accurate. Arkansas, Indiana and Nevada allow slight smiles. "You just can't grin really large," said an Arkansas driver services chief.

31 states do computerized matching of driver's license photos. Most say their software matches faces regardless of expressions. "People can smile here in Pennsylvania," said a state Transportation Department representative.

Yay for Pennsylvania! A happy state of mind.

Me in the Mirror

Those of you who have worked with me, know that I am strictly a behind the scenes operator. Every now and then though, a shot of me on set will sneak through. Witness this shot of the edgiest host in late night tv giggling at me - visible in the mirror - as he preps for an interview with Socratic

Theft: The Most Sincere Form of Flattery

Very interesting: Princeton TV posters have been disappearing from plain view! Fans of Princeton TV and George Washington have been taking off with our recent posters that have been posted around campus and around town. And unfortunately, the good people at Princeton TV have to go out and keep replacing them. Tell you what - if you want a poster, shoot me an email and for a limited time period, we'll organize to send you one, how about that?

To see the poster design, scroll down to the post below.

Princeton TV: The Revolution Will Be Televised

Hot off the press: this is the launch poster for the new Princeton TV branding campaign featuring George Washington, the father of the nation AND a one-time resident of Princeton. This has been an inspirational project to work on for me in terms of concept and design. Many thanks must go to client, George McCollough at Princeton TV, more in this series soon. Stay tuned.
Credits: Concept/ design: Mara Marich w/ Sharyn Murray

Click here to go to the Princeton TV blog!

Ah, Denny's AllNighter at the Starland Ballroom, it's always a pleasure.

Top secret stuff going on at the world famous Starland Ballroom in Sayreville this week. Lotsa logistics for Denny's AllNighter Series. Airing in May nationwide to over 30 million homes.

In Fuzed!

Working with Coca Cola's Fuze via JS this week shooting in sub zero Hoboken.

From Sci Fi to Syfy

Direct from the Aquarium TV newsroom: Why the monkey did NBC's Sci Fi Channel change its name to Syfy? Well, they say they want to break out of the sci-fi mold and expand into broader content like fantasy and "imagine-based entertainment." Okay, seems logical, right? Like everyone else, they're going for more eyeballs. Sounds like the strategic play made by Time Warner when they changed Court TV to TRU TV last year. But then branding and brand name protection come into the picture. From the corporate press release, Dave Howe, Syfy CEO, adds, tellingly, "We're going to have upwards of 50 Sci Fi Channels in various territories and yet you cannot trademark 'Sci Fi' anywhere in the world," He admits that a new logo design would not resolve the situation, stating "We needed a brand name that was own-able, portable and extendable." Translation: What's the point of having a brand name if you cannot own it and therefore enforce ownership rights? Syfy seems the obvious solution.

Retro TV: The Monkees do Kelloggs

What The **** is a BAKUGAN?

Q: What is a 'Bakugan'?
A: An itsy bitsy toy ball

The name Bakugan comes from the Japanese words “baku,” meaning “to explode,” and “gan,” meaning “sphere.” Bakugan Battle Brawlers is a game played with these little balls that involves rolling an individual Bakugan across a magnetic trading card, the balls then snap open due to magnetic attraction to tiny pieces of metal embedded inside the Bakugan ball.

Toys "R" Us says they are “one of the genuine hits of the spring toy season, for sure”. “They sell out the minute they hit the store shelves.” How did this piece of plastic madness become such a huge success? Simple: it's called a grass-roots marketing strategy that took the product straight to the consumer - typically a 5 to 7 year old boy.

The marketer, Spin Master, took a van on tour across the country to summer camps, after they figured out two things: the game was not easily explained in a 30-second TV spot, and the Bakugan did not look as cool on TV as they did in the real world. Oh, and let's not forget they also introduced a Bakugan TV show on Cartoon Network. Same strategy as Hasbro, who used a tv show (not to mention a movie and a comic book) to push Transformers toy sales sky high.

Replacing short tv spots with long form content is just one of the mighty morphin' ways the ad business is evolving. (Photo of Bakugan fan ©2009 Aquarium Creative Agency Corp.)

Warren's Berkshire Buys Big Bling Bling

Tough times for Tiffany.You may be familiar with the high end jewellery company branded with the little blue boxes. I know it as one of the advertising accounts I worked on my first year in NYC. A much harder piece of business to work on than you would think. I always wondered why the ad agency refused to pitch concepts I came up with based on the glamorous Audrey Hepburn movie, originally brought to life in the novel 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' by Truman Capote.

Until someone whispered in my ear that the creative director on the biz had it in for Truman ever since he wrote 'In Cold Blood' based on the true story about the murder of a rural Kansas family. Turned out the CD was originally from Kansas and the murdered family were her neighbors. I never found out if this was true -

But I digress - - -

Berkshire Hathaway Investments, owned by Warren Buffett, gazillionaire, has just invested US$250 million in Tiffany to keep it afloat. Diamonds may be forever but in this economy, cash is king.

Yep, it's Princeton TV time again - - -

Every year Princeton TV decides to punish itself by broadcasting a live event from their studios for 30 hours straight, non-stop. They call it the Princeton TV Megathon. It's a massive effort involving hundreds of performers and crew rotating in and out in multiple shifts. This year I'm taking on the role of Senior Media Advisor for the gig. To find out more, go to the Megathon blog at www.PrincetonTVmegathon.blogspot.com

Studio with the quietest neighbors in town

Bored working in traditional audio facilities? Try this place in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Located above the first working funeral home in Louisville, The Funeral Home recording studio boasts high ceilings and doorways, ancient wallpaper and the likeness of another world and time. It's said to be an oddly cozy place to make a recording. The rooms and hallways are deep in nostalgia and sound. Yep, it's an unconventional space yet highly functional. Striving for a more organic approach and feel than more traditional recording spaces, the funeral home provides a highly comforting and relaxed environment to create and enjoy the process of making music. ps they are hard core analog gear heads. To make a booking, go to their myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/thefuneralhomestudio

Brad Pitt's House in New Orleans

I just went to visit Brad Pitt's house in New Orleans the other day. He's been helping to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward, which was badly flooded during Hurricane Katrina. So far he's supervised building of 5 houses to replace the thousands of homes that were destroyed, here's the first.

New Jazzy Burn's Release: Live in St Julien!

The original Original Funstas, Jazzy Burn's, have just released a new track, produced in a restored 200 year old silk factory turned loft in a village in central France. Can you smell the Gauloises wafting through the atmos as the boys rip it up? Dig yourself some Jazzy by clicking here to listen to 'Jazzy Rags'!

www.myspace.com

This review comes from Jazzy's MySpace:

"Jazzy cooks up the kind of seasoned audio gumbo that is delicious.
The result of much experimentation and toil, Jazzy's flavors meld together into a simmering fusion.
Do you detect a honky tonk salty sprinkling of Jelly Roll Morton's echo?
The layering of tight old school Kraftwerk-inspired techno?
A folding through of Keith Jarrett's subtle romantic streak?
What about the zesty hard beats from 80's New York, blended with a generous dollop of vibes via Herbie Hancock's Headhunters?
Wait a minute - is that a pinch of Zawinul-influenced exotic spice?
Maybe there are even a few master's hints in the pot gleaned from the old school electronica chef, Milton Babbit.
One thing is for sure. Jazzy Burn's has been cooking for quite some time, working to create The "New" Groove.
You could spend a long time trying to isolate all the ingredients to Jazzy's secret recipe.
Or you could just dig in. Go ahead and savor the juice - bon appetit!"

Ah-ah-ah-chooo!!! Bless you Kleenex!

Just in time for the flu season, I'm working with Kimberly Clark, the people who make Kleenex facial tissue, through JWT NYC, on a short documentary delving into the lives of American women. Did you know that in the US, the popularity of Kleenex has led to the product being used to refer to any facial tissue, regardless of the actual brand? Dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, and Oxford, include Kleenex as a valid word. Now that's something to sneeze at.

Move over Conan. We heart Jake Sasseville

There is zero doubt that Jake Sasseville is the next Conan O'Brien, but better. Jake is smarter, funnier and has a cooler hairstyle than the Cone. A savvy 22 year old, Jake is breaking every rule ever written and taking over the US late night TV scene, city by city. It's a pleasure advising Jake, he gets it first time, every time.

Reebok vs. the Universe

Can you say MAMMOTH? Aquarium has collaborated with Ministry of Culture to produce a documentary for Reebok, shot in New York, Dallas, San Diego and Chicago. What do young men think about America, their lives, their sense of style and yes, even their personal politics? Well I can tell you one thing that I found very surprising, they're not big on Obama! Shock, horror! That's not what the CNN polls are saying. These are strange times, people.

The 50th Summer of Alvin Ailey Dance

Alvin Ailey is a unique dance troupe, focusing on modern twists of classical pieces. Headquartered in New York's Hell's Kitchen, the illustrious organization came up with an unusual assignment. How do we get straight guys excited enough about dance to shell out for tickets to one of the 50th Anniversary performances? A fantastic assignment for outdoor media now running through Fall all over the city that never sleeps.

Astronaut as Rockstar

It's interesting to trace the evolution in art direction and layout as it relates to NASA's official photos of mission astronauts. When you review the images that document the last 40 years of space exploration, you can see how the image of the astronaut has undergone a makeover from geek to rockstar. A lot more thought has gone into the later photos, and this is probably an acknowledgement by NASA that branding counts. Notice the props in the first two shots. First it was a sports bench, then a tipsy model Saturn 5 and a borrowed coffee table. NASA got it together for the Apollo 11 photo with a classic triangular composition that would make a Renaissance painter proud. The latest photo of the space shuttle crew is so glossy and polished, it could be a double page spread from Rolling Stone. Kudos to the NASA image team. That's one giant leap for brand kind.

Smithy, Emily Kngwarreye and me

Recently got together to talk shop with Grahame Smith, a veteran art director I worked with at The Campaign Palace. Photographed posing in front of a piece by one of my favorite artists, Emily Kngwarreye. She makes Jackson Pollock looks like a rank amateur.

The Fedex Arrow

The reason the Fedex logo is such a classic is that someone thought really hard about how to convey the essence of their brand. Did you ever stop to notice the arrow within the logo between the letter 'E' and the letter 'x'? It clearly indicates forward motion. Once you've seen it, you never forget it. Designer, Lindon Leader, 1994.

Thankyou, Trixie

A nice press story on Aquarium by journalist Trixie Baskerville, reprinted here with permission. Click here to read it.
maramarich.wordpress.com

Come on, be funny.

Writing comedy is a very specific task. Not everyone can write funny. Because funny is subjective. And funny relies greatly on context and performance.

Then there's pacing and editing.

Most of the flyover people I know enjoy shows like The Office, King of the Hill and Seinfeld. Those writers are not only funny, they're funny on a consistent basis, to boot. It's hard work being funny every day.

I've written a lot of comedy scripts for clients, performed by professional standup comedians right through to rank amateurs.

Though the standup guys 'get' funny faster, the amateur performers can bring their own personal brand of funny to the set in an unexpected and often hilarious way.

To guarantee you get the kind of funny you want, I'd highly recommend you have your writer on set to coach the talent. Just to make sure they 'get' the funny parts as they were intended.

Being funny is serious business.

So serious that I had to ask Comedy Central Creative Director, Tracy Grandstaff, what she thinks.

Here's some of what she said: "Some people are funny on paper, while others suck on paper, but kill on stage. Lots of funny writers are terrible comics, because they lack the timing. The one truth about comedy is that what’s funny to one person won’t be funny to another. Example? Sarah Silverman. She is one of the most polarizing comics out there – people either love her or hate her. But she knows herself, knows her limits, knows her audience, and knows that deconstructing comedy is a comedy killer. What’s funny about someone explaining why something’s funny? Nothing. There’s nothing funny about over-explaining a joke. If you have to deconstruct or explain your comedy, you’re probably not very funny. I’ve already said too much. That is all. Burp."

Andy Warhol: Mr PackRat

A man who could not bear to throw anything out, Andy Warhol was a bower bird, collecting literally tons of ephemera he thought might be useful to him as art stimuli at a later date. For more on the 631 boxes of stuff that Andy stuffed into his storage space, go to the essay I've just finished on the subject at www.culturenow.com (Contents of Andy Warhol's Time Capsule 44. Founding Collection, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. With thanks to The Andy Warhol Musuem.)

New Review: Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Read all about it at www.culturenow.com

Buy more stuff. Just make sure it's good stuff

Everyone's been asking for it, so here it is. Aquarium Creative Agency has just entered into an agreement with Vostok6 to shoot and license original still photos and digital video of Manhattan, for both advertising and editorial purposes.

Listen, you can always go to Getty and Corbis and they're fine and dandy. In fact I've used them in the past too.

Problem is that if you want an exclusive on a stock shot, you can pay a motza. And if you get a non-exclusive, well then you're going to see your shot in a lot of other places. Everyone uses Getty and Corbis. Once I even sourced a bunch of Getty stock video footage for a client, cut it into a tv spot, and saw the same footage used in a different tv spot on TV for a direct competitor - the same weekend! YEEE-OOUCH!!

So here's an alternative: if you have a need for truly original photographs or digital video of all things Manhattan, shoot me an email at maramarich@yahoo.com, and I'll hook you up, no worries. Commissions also accepted.

Unsung hero: Preston Blair

I always knew this guy's work - I just didn't know his name.

Thanks to Beau Tardy for the enlightening education on Preston Blair, animator extraordinaire.

Preston Blair (1918–1994) was an American animator who began his animation career in the early 30s at Universal under Walter Lantz.

Remember Woody Woodpecker and Beanie and Cecil? Well, that's Walter Lantz.

Blair later moved over to Charles Mintz's Screen Gems studio, and in the late 1930s, to the Disney studio. At Disney, Blair animated cartoon short subjects, Mickey Mouse scenes in The Sorcerer's Apprentice section of Fantasia, and the hippo-alligator dance in Fantasia's "Dance of the Hours" sequence.

I love that sequence - wayyyyy trippy!!! Especially when you think how long ago it was created.

Blair left Disney after the 1941 Disney animator's strike, and was hired to work for Tex Avery at MGM, where he animated the sexy female character in Red Hot Riding Hood called "Red".

Tex Avery is another one of those genius animators. Bruce Slorach from Deuce turned me on to Tex Avery. Bruce worships Tex, and you can see Tex's influence in Bruce's textile graphics which he created with Sara Thorn - if you get around, you may have seen their work on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Anyway, to continue Preston's story, after WWII, Blair teamed with Avery animator Michael Lah to direct several Barney Bear cartoons. You can source these at Youtube.

Blair continued his career in animation into the 1960s, working on The Flintstones at Hanna-Barbera.

He is most known though, as an author of animation instructional books - Blair would write many seminal animation how-to's over 40 years, ending with 1994's Cartoon Animation, a fat comprehensive bible which compiles most of the content from all his books.

I gained a lot of respect for animation while working with Fred Seibert, former Hanna Barbera and now Frederator chief, because it's a 100% bona fide magical medium. Now you can see a lot of these gorgeous samples of wizardry at BOOM!, which is pretty much the only tv I watch consistently these days.

I always say to my students - if you want to know the future, you've got to study the past. So go get yourself some Preston Blair religion pronto!

The Movie Before the Movie

"My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it." Saul Bass on film titles.

You (as a poseable action figure)

Ever wonder what you would look like as a super hero or hero-ette?

For a lousy $700, the folks at Highly Flammable Toys will hand sculpt an original 6 inch poseable action hero version of you, your loved one or significant other worth 7 Benjamins - hey, they'll even throw in customized action figure packaging.

Just feed the sculptors biographical and lifestyle info as well as photo reference that will allow them to create an exact replica.

Yes, this really is the gift for the man, woman or child who has everything. Or the boss you really need to impress, now that bonus season is drawing near.

Sex Pistols vs the anti-corporation

Malcolm McLaren, alleged brains behind The Sex Pistols, says artists want to be businessmen and businessmen want to be artists. Is this the new punk?

Sorry, no Coldplay today

Client: "Hi Mara, listen we really like that Coldplay song where they go 'woo-hoo, ohhh-ohhh' (this is the client singing badly). Coldplay, you know the singer is married to Gwyneth Paltrow? He's tall and skinny and British, kind of funny teeth? We want you to use that song for the brand image video piece - I play it all the time in the car."

Me: " Yes, I know the song you mean - it's called 'Clocks' from the album 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'. It won the Grammy Award in 2004 for the record of the year.

If you have your heart set on using that particular piece of music, we have to contact Coldplay's publishing company and request permission, and if they do in fact grant permission, they will to want to be paid for it. This process will take time. Your deadline is in three days, and it is unlikely the label and the copyright holder will move this fast. Be prepared for them to refuse, artists can be fussy and mercurial, they do not always grant permission. They may choose not to endorse your product by association, difficult as it may be to believe. Oh, in the event they agree, they are going to want a major chunk of change for their trouble."

Client: "But I've already told everyone that's what we are doing - it's really cool.......isn't it?"

Me: "Tell you what - I will see if the copyright owners agree to this and how much they would charge, but I would propose a backup plan. Let's think about 2-3 alternates. I bet we can find something with the same energy we can get quickly that is within your budget - or we can have a composer produce something original just for you. What do you think?"

Client: "You mean, Gwyneth Paltrow's husband will write something for me?"

Me: "It won't be Coldplay - it will be better than Coldplay. It will be fresher and newer and therefore better than the Coldplay "Woo-hoo" song. The Coldplay "Woo-hoo" song is getting played at weddings. The "Woo-hoo" song is embedded in video games played around the world, it's a ringtone - did you know that? There is even a guy on Youtube who plays the "Woo-Hoo" song on the piano accordian. Actually, come to think of it, this version is pretty good in a quirky kind of way......but not for your brand.

Your brand's song should belong to you - I think Coldplay's "Woo-hoo" song might be a bit overused."

Client: "You're saying I can't have Coldplay?"

Me: "Let me tell you a secret - - (whispering) the Coldplay "Woo-hoo" song is over."

Client: "Woo-hoo is over?"

Me: "Yes, over."

Client: "Really?"

Me: "Trust me on this one."


And trust me, there are a million pieces of music that exist and songs that are yet to be written, better than that Coldplay song, that is now so overplayed - the sweet little pop song that was once pretty and new, is now an ear worm.

Really. Trust your creative people, that's why you hired them.

Poster alert: Designers Republic vs Dizzy the Cat

Available in limited quantities for an even more limited time period: Dizzy the Cat poster designed and executed by Beau Tardy and Mara Marich from Aquarium Creative Agency, in collaboration with The Designers Republic, Sheffield design mavens of the techno era. (Look 'em up, Nimrod.) This poster was good enough to win the Gold award from the Broadcast Design Association, so it's certainly good enough for you! Comes with secret hidden messages. Email maramarich@yahoo.com to get yours.

Dizzy wins a TELLY

This campaign for MTV has just won Dizzy Worldwide a Telly Award for Best Use of Animation. The gorgeous girls are named Alpha and Beta. The inventors behind them are my husband and creative collaborator, Beau Tardy and myself. Find out more at www.beautardy.com

New season clackers

Here's a nice juxta-combo for you design junkies. Let's see if it translates at the shoe box office.

Manolo Blahnik makes excruciatingly high heels that the chicks in Sex and the City claim to run around wearing on the streets of New York. (The fact that this is even technically possible is a big fat myth by the way, but an entirely different subject.)

Marrimekko, a Finnish design firm, have been making amazing pop splash fabrics for over 50 years.

Put them together and you get a new season of very expensive fashion fetish hysteria. According to Blahnik, “the two just happened to fall perfectly into place — as bizarre as that combination may sound.”

It takes just 21 years to enter the mass mindset

"Rabbit" originally created as a small modern art sculpture by world-renowned artist Jeff Koons in 1986, has been interpreted as a balloon by Macy's for their 2007 Thanksgiving Day parade. The bunny now measures 53 feet tall, is 26 feet wide, and is filled with 4,650 cubic feet of helium. This excellent photo by Librado Romero for the NY Times today shows just how amazing it is. What's even more amazing is that it took over 20 years for Macy's to cotton on to such a brilliant idea. More art for the people please.

A brand new pair of roller skates

Say hello to the Gotham Roller Derby Girls. Would some bigtime corporate lifestyle brand (you know who you are!) sponsor these lovely ladies?

Day of the Dead Lives!

These excellent photos come from someone near and dear to me. Vavine T. and I worked together at Dizzy Worldwide, Asia Pacific. Originally from Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, and now based on the west coast, Vav really went to town for a Day of the Dead event on November 2 in LA. Her photo highlights some amazing theatrical makeup by the artist, Robin Black, repped by Montage Agency in LA. Its black and white palette is simple, yet edgy and bold, and shows the transformative magic that a creative mind can produce. Tim Burton, eat your heart out.

Cali is burning. Pass the wasabi.

It's just been announced that the ritzy sushi eatery - Nobu of Malibu - is catering for the hardest working fire fighters west of the Rockies.

What's on the menu? Seared asahi tuna, smoked eel, and of course, flaming mai tais.

What's this got to do with smart branding? EVERYTHING.

It's called free publicity and it's being reported all over the media. Kudos to Nobu's pr crew for fanning the flames of publicity. (Photo, thanks to NASA. Info, thanks to the west coast's TimTam.)

Go ahead - take a shot at the Target bullseye.

The top Target logo was designed in 1968 when Target first opened in St Paul, Minnesota. The bottom version, released internationally in 2006, is the latest variation.

What started as a homespun and friendly regional brand, has morphed into a streamlined jetset icon.

Which logo do you like better?

Literary yob busted in the Alice

Stephen King just got busted in Alice Springs, in remote Central Australia, autographing his own novels in a local bookshop. Mistaken as a yobbo (Aussie-speak for thug) he was chased down by the owner across the street while perusing a tomato stand. When said owner realized she was talking to one of the world's best selling novelists, she suddenly got all gooey and reportedly gushed "...if I'd known you were coming, I'd have baked you a cake."

Fans are more important than experts

There is a well known aspect both of business and human psychology that I witness time and time again.

When you create something successful, everyone wants to take the credit.

When you produce a failure, no one wants to know you.

Take the original Antz Pantz TV, spot, recently voted the most popular TV advertisement in Australia for the last 25 years. (Youtube it if you want to take a look.)

I concepted and wrote Antz Pantz in early 1989, a response for a client that manufactures socks and underwear.

At the time I was working for Australia's highest ranking advertising agency, The Campaign Palace.

Holeproof had to sell more women's panties every year and someone had registered the name "Antz Pantz" - but no one knew what to do with it.

A male team at The Campaign Palace had pitched a concept and script to Holeproof but the idea was knocked back.

From memory, it was a jingle-based rhyming 30 second spot that started with "...the girls in France have ants in their pants...the girls in Spain have ants on the brain...". Something like that, you get the idea.

The storyboard showed girls wearing Antz Pantz undies with a background of the flags of various countries.

Nothing to write home about.

It was a tough gig though. The product was very conservative - plain cotton bikini briefs, in black, white, and pale blue and pale pink options for the really wild chicks, with a little tiny satin bow just below the belly button. Not exactly Victoria's Secret.

Frustrated, the account service guys threw the creative brief my way.

Since I both wore and purchased women's undies, I thought at least I had gender on my side. The trick was to make women buy Antz Pantz undies both to please themselves and please the men who might see them in undies.

But how do you make unsexy undies, sexy?

The answer was simple: Don't talk about the product.

Instead, create a brand image based on a gorgeous girl in an exotic location, then add humor and that magic element, CONTROVERSY.

I wrote a bunch of different scripts and read them out to my art director, then my boss, one after the other.

When I presented the last script about the spiny anteater who eats a bunch of ants after they have crawled across a sexy girl's crotch, my boss shot me one of those very rare looks that tell you that you are going to keep your job for a while longer.

He made me read it out again - then again, making only one amendment.

The reason I remember is that I still have that script with his handwritten change.

It was a section of the script where the girl tells the anteater to attack the ants on her crotch with the line, "Sick 'em Rex."

He changed the name of the anteater.

I had called him 'Ralph' and my boss wanted to change it to 'Rex'.

The Ralph name was based on the Jackie Gleason character from The Honeymooners, Ralph Cramden.

My parents used to watch The Honeymooners when I was a really young kid and sometimes I would sneak into the living room late at might and watch it with them.

I used to think it was really funny when the Art Carney character would say "hey, Ralphie boy". My parents would laugh really hard at Art Carney when he would say this.

I had no idea why they were so highly amused, other than because Ralph must be a funny name, and that's why I used it.

I was ok with my boss's request though, since usually you get a lot more changes when you come up with an idea in a professional environment. I ended up winning a gold AWARD pencil and wrote my career for the next 25 years on that one spot. But I still think "Sick 'em Ralph" sounds better than "Sick 'em, Rex".



I am often asked where I actually got the idea for the Antz Pantz concept.

Strangely enough, this question arises more at parties, family bbqs and dinners, than as part of any actual professional discourse.

The answer is really, it's just one of those things I know how to do.

But I do clearly remember the influence that lead to the anteater twist.

During the eighties, I had seen a music video by The Clash on a local pop show called Rage. The song was called 'Rock the Casbah'.

It showed The Clash in some oil fiefdom desert location, with singer Joe Strummer screeching his Irish punk boy guts out, while jet fighters flew overhead. It had a great beat, it was raw energy.

i remember thinking that this was just incredible and couldn't get any better when out of the blue, an armadillo crossed the screen. When I saw that armadillo. I thought it was pure genius.

What a crazy surrealist gesture - it was beautiful. It made no logical sense but it was just like that moment when you go to MOMA and see a Jasper Johns piece for the first time and it just catches your breath with its juxtapositions.

I vowed to myself to somehow sneak a similar reference into the next TV spot I worked on.

Then the Antz Pantz opportunity came along.

Because armadilloes do not exist in Australia, I simply substituted a small Australian native creature called a spiny anteater, into the script.

And the rest as they say, is pop culture history.


Many people besides me have taken credit for coming up with the Antz Pantz concept and script over the years.

Some of them were not in the same room, street or even city when the idea was invented.

So I wanted to give a special shout-out to a guy called Duncan McLeod - who I don't even know.

He has his own advertising fansite. You'll find it at http://www.duncans.tv/2006/antz-pantz

Duncan's only agenda is to trace the history of his favorite advertising.

Somehow he managed to dig up the facts about who did what, as it connects to the original Antz Pantz campaign.

Thankyou, Duncan MacLeod.


(One thing, Duncan - the ad was created during my stint at The Campaign Palace Melbourne, not Sydney.)

Antz Pantz

Trenton makes, the world takes

This sign comes from the former industrial town of Trenton, halfway between Philly and NYC. The town's tag line was penned in 1911, proving that a great slogan can survive many, many years, surpassing the industries it was promoting at the time as well as the bridge it was affixed to. Trenton is still the capital of New Jersey, but its factories are now all shuttered.

A new word: Geo-blocking

Witness the invention of a new word: Geo-blocking. Geo-blocking is a system that blocks the transmission of internet tv channels to certain parts of the world. It is designed to protect copyright owners of video content whose goal is to maximize revenue, via the license of broadcast rights for the internet on a country-by-country basis, as well as via advertising, pay-per-view and subscription video on demand. (Photograph of gamma rays hitting planet Earth, courtesy of NASA.)

The shock of the old

Robert Rauschenberg's been called a lot of things, including a painter of the history of the 20th century. He picks up the vibes of the culture, just like Max, below.

Arrow up or arrow down?

I always thought it was strange that the arrow on the Sunoco logo pointed down instead of up. A negative gesture instead of a postive one. Or is it just me?

My Charley Harper story

The interior designer Todd Oldham has just compiled a long overdue glossy coffee table book about the American wildlife illustrator, Charley Harper. At the same time Vogue Italia has written a glowing review of Harper's work. Both efforts bring yuppie hipness to a homespun folksy look that has long been popular in rural America. Ironically Charley Harper died just a month ago in Ohio after a lifetime of consistent toil fused with a certain whimsy. I never met Charley Harper, but I did meet his framer. Three years ago an old couple were transitioning to a retirement village and selling some items at a local garage sale. The husband had been a framer of note in his earlier years. Included amongst the objects for sale was a framed screen print of a pair of robins. There was something about it. A purchase was made.

Pri's fast food foto

Q: What's better than a print ad that includes all the traditional elements - a photo, a headline, body copy and logo?
A: An ad that breaks the mould by reducing the elements from four to two.

This may be the only time a former advertising copywriter tells you that headline and body copy are sometimes irrelevent to building a brand image. This photo comes from photographer Priyanka Dargan, but it could certainly work as the centerpiece of an international ad campaign for McDonalds. Nice perspective.

Process, courtesy of Jasper Johns

Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that.
Jasper Johns

It's a bird! It's a plane! (...well actually, yes, it is a bird, made out of cornflakes box.)

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Advertising influences art

The work of Michael Ray Charles, originally from Louisiana, is heavily influenced by old circus promotional illustrations. Just another example of advertising messages affecting the modern day artist.

Art influences advertising

Poster for French politician Segolene Royal, who lost the presidential election this year, juxtaposed against a poster from the 1980's by pop artist, Barbara Kruger.

Mike's magic

This is a great photo taken in 1979, from Jersey City. Photographer Michael Fedor lensed this shot, relying on instinct and aesthetics. It lay lost in his attic for 22 years. After September 11, 2001, Mike ventured back to his archive and rediscovered this breathtaking moment, wondering how it actually happened. It's magic, Mike.

To find out more about Michael Fedor, just go to www.MichaelFedor.com