Here are 40 pretty funny adverts and here are 45 more (with some double ups).
Here are some of my favourites.
Category: Communication
Adoration: 6 great ads
The Idea Killers
Here’s a cool little series of ads. Nothing kills good ideas quicker than some of these things.
Idea sent by email
Client thinks he/she is creative
Legal department recommendations
Here’s the Flickr set.
How to annoy your designer
One day everybody will read The Oatmeal and I won’t be compelled to keep linking to their comics.
Until that day comes here’s the frustration that designers feel on any projects – it’s not amplified when you’re the middle man between designer and those wishing to have input – but I can relate.
Here are some of the many highlights.
Has John Piper ruined Twitter?
John Piper ruined Twitter.
This blogger thinks so. He blames Piper for the rise in cringeworthy Christian status updates – particularly on Twitter.
I like the cut of his jib. Piper can get away with it. If you’re following Piper you expect to encounter the real, passionate man that he is. If you’re not that man (or woman) don’t pretend to be.
But then I lost all my normal “friends” on Twitter.
They all turned into little John Pipers. I used to see real tweets from people. Some would talk about their latest blog posts or posts they found interesting. Others would talk about their recent studies in Scripture or what books they were reading. Many of them were fun and humorous.
Now many of them are just pretentious and therefore obnoxious.
Once the nature and style of Piper’s 140 characters or less were released, people started to mimic him. Gone are the “fruitless” tweets about how their toddlers did something cute or about the interesting things that happen day-to-day. It has been replaced with numerous (and annoying) pithy statements and faux-holiness. How do I know these are “faux?” Because most of you changed over-night. While it takes a lifetime to be sanctified, it only took your Twitter accounts 24 hours.
Amen brother.
But I’ll balance this critique of all the wannabe Pipers with a critique from Piper that made me think a little… When Abraham Piper (John Piper’s son) asked what he should say to a room full of Christian bloggers his father replied:
Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.
Now. I started this out as a clever blog – being a Christ-exalting blog hasn’t really been my “intention”. Maybe it should be. Though then it would lose its place as an outlet for my cleverness.
John Piper ruined my blog.
Life is like a box of chocolates
Below is a complaint letter I just sent to Cadbury. Lets hope something comes of it.
Name of Product: Favourites
Weight of product: 600gm
Best before date and batch number: 12/07/10 N 01:50
Where did you purchase this product: Gift
Subject for your Email: Favourites box comes without favourite chocolatesDear Cadbury Chocolatiers,
I am a long term fan of your product. I consider myself a chocolate aficionado and believe that Cadbury’s quality is unmatched on the supermarket shelves – and indeed is on par with the expensive stuff you can only buy at fancy chocolate shops.
A box of Cadbury’s Favourites is one of my favourite gifts. It’s much better than one of those Whitman’s Samplers or other generic chocolate box.
Cadbury’s Favourites are a yardstick for quality.
But you might notice I checked “complaint” when submitting this feedback. And I have a complaint, just a small one (though not about the reduced size of the chocolates in your Favourites selection – but I did notice the Cherry Ripe squares seem to have lost a centimetre or two… no doubt a casualty of the Global Financial Crisis).
Nay, my complaint is more serious. We recently received a 600gm box of Favourites as a gift. Which was terrific and very thoughtful. My wife is a teacher and you’d be surprised how many students think miscellaneous craft will suffice as a material reward for her year of service. It won’t.
I opened this box of Favourites – as is my due (I do, afterall, contribute to the report writing process and offer general moral support throughout the year), I opened the box and lo and behold there were none of my absolute favourite to be found. “A mistake,” thought I. An issue with distribution in the box due to density… perhaps. But no. I am now at the bottom of this 600gm box of Favourites – and to my dismay have only managed to unearth two Turkish Delight chocolates. That’s two. You can count them on less than a hand. A captured English Archer could still count them (the French historically chopped the fingers off archers captured during conflicts with England). Two. How can a product call itself “Favourites” while offering such lip service to the notion. Well, lip service is a misnomer – I certainly didn’t feel served. I know my wife didn’t eat them – she doesn’t like them. And it seems unlikely (though they are of value) that anybody has broken into our relatively secure home just to steal those chocolates from the box.
I was most disappointed Cadbury. I believe you can do better. Perhaps the balance of chocolate in these boxes needs to shift from the boring “Dairy Milk” squares (which I assume are designed to cater for the lowest denominator of chocolate consumption) to the fun stuff – like the Moros, the Picnics, Cherry Ripes, and of course my beloved Turkish Delights.
You are no doubt sick of hackneyed Forrest Gump references in these feedback forms – but the problem I have with this particular box is that I know exactly what chocolates I’m not going to get from the box. And they’re my favourites.
Sincerely,
Nathan Campbell
How the Internet was made
If I asked you which was older – YouTube or Facebook what would you answer?
I would have said YouTube. Hands down.
I just read this Six Revisions “History of the Internet” article. I find it hard to believe that YouTube launched in 2005. 2005 was my last year of uni. It doesn’t seem that long ago.
Facebook was launched for college students in America in 2004.
Hacking Wordle
This is cool.
Everybody’s favourite word cloud generator – wordle.net – has a secret. If you want phrases to come up as phrases you can simply insert a tilda (~) into the mix.
From here.
Atheist ad fail
Whoops.
See those cute un-indoctrinated kids…
Turns out they’re Christians. And worse. Evangelicals…
Murdoch v Google
Rupert Murdoch is boldly going where no media baron has gone before – bravely stepping outside Google’s search results and thumbing his nose at the internet establishment – and he’s taking his media establishment with him… all the way to Microsoft’s Bing.
I’ve been sharing a few links via google reader on this matter (and on that note – does anybody want to see a return to the daily links posts?). Most “new media” experts agree – Murdoch is a wily dinosaur.
I think there’s a method to this supposed madness. Murdoch’s empire provides a fair whack of content to the Internet – giving Bing exclusive access may give a boost to Microsoft’s bid to enter the search arena. It’s a bold move. But it’s fraught with danger. Murdoch is facing a decline in circulation many people are attributing to the Internet – and he’s decided to tackle that by removing himself from the picture. Quite literally. For most casual internet browsers.
He’s in a quandary. News Ltd relies on advertising dollars to produce content, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Murdoch to pay for traffic to come to his site via google adwords so that they might click on his ads. The internet gives the distributor all the power, not the content producer – but it’s pretty much the same story anywhere in the media business. Distribution is where all the profit is.
What will be interesting will be looking back on this decision in six months and seeing if the lesser availability of News Ltd work online (it’ll still be there – you just won’t find it via google) will have any impact on circulation. Will people pay to read the hard copy of the paper rather than breaking habits to use Bing? Will the status quo bias prevent people changing their online habits?
Much vaunted internet marketing guru Seth Godin has suggested that Murdoch’s approach to the new age of media is back to front. He says:
“You don’t charge the search engines to send people to articles on your site, you pay them.”
I’m not sure – Rupert Murdoch hasn’t got where he has by paying other people – this is fundamentally a battle of ideologies between the new “free content to everybody” consumer/marketer and the old school monopoly/conglomerate approach.
People don’t want to pay for news anyway – while I read the papers every day (in tangible form) I wouldn’t choose to pay for them personally when I can find stuff online for free. Striking a commercial and exclusive deal with a search engine seems to be a pretty sound rearguard action from Murdoch.
From a PR perspective I reckon Murdoch’s tabloid rags are going to go the way of the magazine – an interchangeable blend of advertorial, advertising and paid comment/editorial. Product placement is the marketer’s dream. I’d much rather pay money to bring a journalist to Townsville on a tour than spend the same amount on a clearly labeled advertisement.
If I were Murdoch I’d be trading on my established credibility/brand and pushing products on unwitting customers via editorial. But I’m not a greedy media baron. So I’ll stick to pushing stupid products via my blog and not receiving a commission at all – or encouraging you to buy a shirt…
The Gervais Principle
Office culture is best understood through the lens of popular culture. That’s why Office Space and Dilbert are so popular.
The Office is another one of those seminal “texts”* on office life.
A blogger named Venkatesh Rao has combed through the Office and diluted from it a new “principle” to supersede the Dilbert Principle when it comes to our understanding of office life.
He breaks office employees down into three categories – the sociopath, the clueless, and the loser.
Below is an extended quote from his first post. He followed it up with a second. Check them out.
The Gervais Principle is this:
Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.
The Gervais principle differs from the Peter Principle, which it superficially resembles. The Peter Principle states that all people are promoted to the level of their incompetence. It is based on the assumption that future promotions are based on past performance. The Peter Principle is wrong for the simple reason that executives aren’t that stupid, and because there isn’t that much room in an upward-narrowing pyramid. They know what it takes for a promotion candidate to perform at the “to” level. So if they are promoting people beyond their competence anyway, under conditions of opportunity scarcity, there must be a good reason.
Scott Adams, seeing a different flaw in the Peter Principle, proposed the Dilbert Principle: that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to middle management to limit the damage they can do. This again is untrue. The Gervais principle predicts the exact opposite: that the most competent ones will be promoted to middle management. Michael Scott was a star salesman before he become a clueless middle manager. The least competent employees (but not all of them — only certain enlightened incompetents) will be promoted not to middle management, but fast-tracked through to senior management. To the sociopath level.
And in case you are wondering, the unenlightened under-performers get fired.
*Because thanks to my arts degree (or QUT equivalent) I know that everything is a “text”…
How heavy is the internet?
This heavy apparently…
Here’s how that conclusion was reached…
“To reach this figure, they added together public data on the weight of every computer, server and connecting cable. To this they added 6,075,000kg of iPhones, and over 6,800,000kg of Blackberries. Finally, they added the weight of 287,524 viruses and 85 billion+ webpages.”
Via Slashdot.
On stupid guilt inducing status updates
Dear Christian Facebookers,
If you feel the need to inspire your Christian brothers and sisters to guilt please do so in a fitting and clever manner.
Do not post gut wrenching hallmark inspired guilt trips in your status and encourage other people to do the same.
If you post this:
“is a follower of Christ and proud to say it!! Let’s see how many people on FB aren’t afraid to show their love for God! Repost this as your status. Each time you see this on someone’s status, say a quick prayer for that person!! Lets get God back in this country like He should be!!! If you agree post this in your status update. Just copy and paste.”
I won’t unfriend you. But I will block your statuses from appearing in my news feed, and I will think a little less of you.
Even if it’s just because you used so many exclamation marks.
Mikey has good rules for Facebook Status Updates. Obey them.
UPDATE: There were several instances of this in my feed – this was not directed at anyone in particular – unless you were the culprit who instigated this practice to begin with…
Things that make me grumpy!
I have a pet hate. I hate a particular sub-species of grammar nazi. Well, a couple of sub-species actually.*
I hate it when I write perfectly parsed, syntaxed and phrased quotes to be included in a third party’s media release and they come back changed.
I especially hate it when that change includes the addition of an exclamation mark, or a change of spelling (program v programme) because your style guide is stuck in the mother country.
You may think you’re a better writer than me, you may be a better writer than me – but don’t ask for my help and then bastardise my quotes with awful punctuation.
If you do this I will laugh at you when nobody comes to your press conference – even though you waste almost an hour of my CEO’s time.
That is all.
*I also have a mild disdain for the Grammar SS, those Grammar Nazis who run around pulling people up with a public rebuke for a grammatical error. If it’s an issue for you at least have the courtesy to raise a mistake in private rather than trumpeting your grammatical superiority via a snarky comment. It may be that the mistake is an innocent typo.
“Spiritual” Style
Someone has decided that someone at the Associated Press has decided that when Christians talk about the Holy Spirit’s guidance they actually mean something else.
That’s the only conclusion I can draw from this AP story about Catholics and celibacy.
Here’s the offending (or offensive) paragraph…
“Apparently seeking to squash any speculation that Rome had been courting the disaffected Anglicans, the Vatican said the “Holy Spirit” inspired Anglicans to “petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion” individually and as a group.”
Actually, the “journalist” has gone a “little nuts” with the “quotation marks” as though every “noun”, “adjective” or “clause” that is a little “complex” needs “punctuating”…
Here’s the post that raised the conspiracy theory. I think it more likely that the journo was providing quotes from the document he cited in the first paragraph.