Bloc here we come

Voila, voila, voila, voila, voila, tres bien, voila, voila, voila, voila, voila

Raymond Blanc, eat your heart out. And a very happy birthday Ma. 

Bringing old skills back

Slightly biblical setup to Trott's blog. Not that I'm complaining. It seems  in his 'The Advertising Arms Race' never has a wiser word been said. In short, when developing weapons during the second world war there were two ways of doing things. The old and the new. The new way led to staggering leaps in human capability. The old and obsolete technology- forgotten, ignored- bubbled quietly away without anyone's notice. And then came the Cuba missile crisis. Potentially the most fatal conflict mankind has faced. Two enemies vying for a way to wipe out each's own enemy and in the process themselves, not forgetting the rest of us with it. Now in such a colossal conflict fought over a victory that is something hard to comprehend (in winning you kill you enemy but also yourself) you'd think there'd have to be some super smart winning strategy. But in reality the winner, well, turned out to be the old. The idea with killer capabilities. It would seem whilst new stuff is often better, improved, exciting and opens doors, there's always a place for the old stuff, and for it to do it better.  It all sounds a bit like a 'lesson learned'. But read his full account, he tells it well...

THE ADVERTISING ARMS RACE, Dave Trott

At the end of World war Two, Germany was dropping guided missiles on London at will.
First they had the V1.
Basically a flying bomb with a crude jet engine attached.
A very simple design.
But the next development was light years ahead: the V2.
This was the world’s first space ship.
They fired it 50 miles straight up, out of earth’s atmosphere.
When it reached its peak, it turned and dived on London.
The first thing anyone knew about it was when it exploded.
All of the R&D for both weapons took place at Peenemunde.
When It became obvious Germany was losing the war, the scientists had to make a decision.
They could stay at Peenemunde and be captured by the Russians.
They wouldn’t be killed, they were too valuable.
But they’d have to work for the USSR.
Or they could escape to the west, and be captured by the Americans.
And work for the USA.
All the old school V1 scientists escaped to work for the Americans.
Nearly all the more advanced V2 scientists stayed, to work for the Russians.
Fast-forward 10 years.
Now it’s the Cold War between the USSR and the USA.
Each side threatening the other with nuclear weapons.
The advanced German scientists (now working for the Russians) had developed their V2 into a genuine space ship.
In 1957 the entire USA was petrified because the Russians put the world’s first-ever satellite into orbit: Sputnik.
It’s hard to grasp the significance now.
But in those days it was like someone having military control of another dimension.
Suddenly all strategic thinking was geared around the premise that whoever controlled space would win any war.
For decades, that was all anyone could see.
Meanwhile.
The German old school V1 scientists had been quietly working away in America, on their obsolete design.
No one cared about them, so they were just left alone.
Without much of a budget, they’d developed a superior guidance system.
They’d developed better engines and technology.
And one day, they unveiled the cruise missile.
No one had ever seen anything like it.
It was exactly the opposite of everything all the world’s sophisticated rocket scientists were working on.
It could fly so low radar couldn’t detect it.
It would fly slowly so there was hardly any noise.
It didn’t have to sit in a massive silo with a large crew to guard it.
It was so simple it could be launched from anywhere: plane, a lorry, a boat.
It could even be launched from a submarine underwater, and find it’s way precisely to any target.
And you could make literally hundreds for the cost of a single ICBM.
Suddenly the whole game changed.
Everyone had been looking the wrong way.
Everyone had been spending more and more money in the race to have the biggest and best ICBM technology.
To build huge missiles that flew higher and faster then the other side.
Because of the spending on the arms race, on having bigger and better and faster and more powerful missiles than America, the USSR went bust.
They had no money left.
The Soviet Union broke up.
The ICBMs led up a blind ally.
You couldn’t use them without the other side using theirs.
Which would have meant the end of the world.
So the ICBMs were, in effect, useless.
But it wasn’t that way with cruise missiles.
They were smaller and cheaper.
You could use them just to take out a particular house if you wanted.
They cost next-to-nothing so you could use as many as you wanted.
They could carry conventional or nuclear warheads.
They weren’t part of the arms race.
And the world shifted 180 degrees.
Suddenly something that all the ‘experts’ had ignored came and bit them in the arse.
The old fashioned thinking that they pooh-poohed.
The obsolete technology that they called dinosaur thinking.
Suddenly all the people that blindly followed the ‘experts’ were stuffed.
Something everyone had written off wasn’t really dead after all.
Can you see any parallels with our business?
Everyone blindly involved in race for new technology that will solve everything.
Everyone saying that whatever came before that technology is just dinosaur thinking.
Everyone convinced that there’s only one answer for every situation.
Everything that went before is obsolete and can safely be ignored.

Any of that ring any bells?

Which brings me onto this. What a superb skill. Something most people would overlook. But nevertheless, where used correctly it creates the most spectacular of effects.

And then some Rory Sutherland. (On a bit of an adland binge). He has a lot of interesting things to say about the value of value added, by, wait for it, ADVERTISING! (see ma, I ain't sold my soul to the devil just yet...) Plus he's a funny man with some great knowledge of the world (or else damn fine researchers).

Digital downer

Whilst I'm railing about technology, found this vid a while ago. Quite funny, the possibility of a future full of digital. Palatable? Hmmm, seems not so. Particularly like the analogy that the more technological you are the more of that latent OCD potential everyone has becomes less dormant more virulent Plus I think it's funny how seriously pissed he gets when people dirty up his place.

L'età del fuoco - The age of fire from mauro calvone on Vimeo.

Whilst you're at it...

Waiting for other things to happen? Don't lay idle! Grab a pen and make something with those lines, arrrr yeah!

And I shall call him Sashimi pony.

The eeeeephone, it really can do anything! (Actually, can it? Does it grate cheese?)

Well this certainly put a smile on my face. Don't disagree with what Glue/ Mobile Inc have to say about it. Certainly is a testament to the power of the app. Lets not forget though it's pretty redundant stuff without some smarts when it comes to how you decide to use it. I say humans, WINNER! technology merely the helper. But maybe I'm biased, what with my semi analogue obsession.

Ah yeah

Something that really should perk me up.

Thursday night in, and the inner Grace Jones comes out

Last night I spent a very amusing evening in some very good company. 

This nice little GIF only tells a very small portion of the evening's story. 

For further pics see Casey's blog. CLICK HERE, CLICK HERE, CLICK HERE.

Behind the scenes of the jangle, jangle GIF

Wish I'd ironed me fuckin tee.

All in a days work you know

Some simple tomfoolery from lunch. 

Although I say simple, it started as a three shot one indoor, but we had to perfect down the pub.

We don't drop the ball like...

Things I learned today

How to use photoshop! Whoop, whoop! One Jen Do 20-11 tat down, two to go.

Oh and the fact that Dunhill do this mega biotronic wallet. It bleeps your mobile if it's separated from you (within reason of course). No more phantom muggings! Got to get me one. Fucking cool.

Not quite what I was thinking

But maybe better. Was looking for interactive poster ideas and came across this. 

There's me looking for something digital, loads of mechanics, something that involved downloads/ uploads, touch screen, light activated, sound emitting... Then you realise real simple ideas are a lot more effective and often cleverer.

yummy sun

Sunny day and something nice to listen to compliment it. Not so far off Mr Blake, that man's become quite popular of late...

How To Dress Well - Ready For The World by futuresoundstemporary

Prease! no coat, prease!

So here's my somewhat sketchy show of pics for two and a bit Parisian days. 

Saucisson fingers over a champagne moment on Eurostar there and the life changing discovery of salted peanuts and peanut M&Ms making for one of the best snacks I've tried.

Hazy days walking, what felt like the entireity of Paris north of the Seine. Staggering from Bastille, up through Marias to Canal Saint Martin. 

Then to Monmartre to rediscover Diablo (what I once thought was a long lost companion from many a French family holiday and potentially a figment of my imagination).

Making the acquaintance of a Japanese lady from fudge magazine who heckled us for pictures: 'Prease, no coat, not coat, prease, it Spring feature, warm, no coat'. 


Bourg Tibourg, the name says it all, I'm not sure I need say more, but in essence a very funny night.


Then out to Bellville to grunge bars where things happen in toilets, men dress as women, no one would expect you not to be French and a vodka tonic is a free pour to a measure of the bartender's choosing leaving room for just a splash of tonic- if only it were like that here. And then photography got foggy. Just one more stop before the night gets started.

Down Oberkampf to disco bar, then to Charbon where we met Andre who should be Andre 3,000. 

Then to Noveau Casino where we walked in on a familiar sound and did a lot of dancing.
Salem, "Trapdoor" by selftitledmag

Sunday, more walking taking in most of the sights from the film Before Sunset. Before I sat rather tramp like on Pont Neuf to recover from one heavy night with only four hours sleep.

Then back down to earth with a clunk yesterday.

This is why I don't do digital

You end up with a picture about as accurate/ reliable as you might get with analogue, but it's not half as fun. 

So my record of a weekend in Paris, on the whole, is a semi-focused one.

But maybe I'm not giving my crappy Samsung digital any credit. Maybe it's more advanced than it's years. Maybe it can capture your actual feelings. (And I don't mean in that gay way that Makerteers might talk about 'capturing emotions'). Maybe, in pictoral form, it boxes off your state of being in that moment. In which case, SPOT ON SAMSUNG!

Nope, I'm kidding myself. Digital, you let me down.

And one day...

...I'm going to write like this.

R&D

Not much cracking off today. Defo a day for R&D. 

Spent some time perusing my 'go-to' sites for inspiration, adforum being one of them, and came across this for IKEA.

They're trying to push some kitchen appliances. They came up with a recipe book, an app and a giveaway. Nothing exceptional you might think, but just check out the photography for the recipe book. (There's something overwhelmingly therapeutic about having things laid out almost flat-pack-like, in fact, I wonder if that was part of their intention).

And then the rest. Whilst an app seems nothing striking, infact you're probably sat there thinking 'bet it's just a smartphone version of the book' but it's not. Even that's smarter (and cuter) than the average bear. Here, take a look at the rest of it you can see it all here. Some yummy thinking.

Thanks to Emma for finding me a real live meat popsicle

WHOOP!

Toursim of a different kind