We live in your world

I don't mind the 'Barbara from Bankworld' campaign for ANZ. The scripts are well-written, the performances are spot-on and the end result is pretty funny. And full marks to the client for having the self-awareness to approve ideas like these.

However, I worry a little that it's the right campaign for the wrong client. Or a cute advertising idea with a hollow centre.

The sector is extremely competitive, with any product or service advantage quickly matched and neutralised. The end result is, with a few odd exceptions like the excellent ANZ iPhone app, it's pretty much a level playing field.

ANZ has pretty much the same products, the same service levels and branches in the same sorts of places as the other Big Three. So while Barbara captures the zeitgeist of anti-bank frustration, I wonder what long-term value there is for the brand. We might well laugh at Genevieve Morris' excellent character, but it may not be quite so funny when encountering a real-life Barbara at an ANZ call centre or in a branch.

And as anyone who's ever tried to cancel a credit card or arrange a small business loan will tell, there are plenty of them.

However while in the Collins Street last week, I flipped open my laptop in a cafe to find the following notfication on my screen.



With little fanfare or self-aggrandaisement, ANZ provided free wi-fi in this small CBD cafe. So that people could check their emails, read the news or even do their banking without any hassle.

The tagline to the Barbara campaign is 'We live in your world'. I reckon this is a far more persuasive expression of that brand idea.

Human Pacman

This is like totally two weeks old already...

Technology is really cool. If you don't believe me, listen to Louis CK.



But sometimes there is a tendency to get overexcited about the technology itself, rather than what the technology enables you to do.

A brand isn't cool just because it has a facebook page or tweets. A twelve year old can do both those things. Probably better than you.

What's cool about technology is not what it is, but what it does. What it enables you to do.

And when the convergence of an idea and technology is at it's very best, you don't even notice the technology at all. It just becomes a part of the storytelling process.

The new film by Chris Milk for Canadian band Arcade Fire is a co-production with Google, using the the bits of wizardry at the pointiest bit of the pointy end of their arsenal. Which is pointy to the power of ten.



But funnily enough, once you're in, you forget all about the wizardry and just get lost in the moment.



Try it for yourself here.

Phlegm

A hundred hours of painting compressed into a ten minute video. Artist Phlegm (good name) describes himself as someone who 'makes comic books and sprays paint on walls.' You can find more Phlegm at http://phlegmcomics.com/

Sliding

This has actualy been sitting in my 'Drafts' tray for a few weeks...apologies



It doesn't look subversive.

It's a slide from Sam Davy, former Global Creative Director for Apple, at last week's State Of Design. It represents Apple's attitude towards marketing and advertsing.

'Help your customers get the most our of their product.'

It cedes control of the brand entirely to the people who use it.

It passes ownership, to them.

It says 'You know what to do. You decide what to do with our products, and we'll help you do that. Whatever that is.'

It's about ownership, not sales.

It assumes that people are to be around for longer than the ringing of the till.

Actually, it is pretty subversive.

Seen in Dan Murphy's, Frankston

Seen in The Age

I just love this, I do.

And I don't even like duck.

Cooking Dinner Vol. I from William Hereford on Vimeo.

The 100% Project launches

The 100% Project was offically launched last week by Federal Minister for the Status Of Women, Tanya Plibersek.

The Project, headed by Frances Feenstra (pictured below), seeks maximise 100% of Australia's leadership talent, female and male, equally contributing to Australia's social and economic future.



Able & Baker have been very proud to help out with brand strategy and identity.



You can find out more, here.

Fishing for birds.

I saw this poster at the train station near the Able & Baker office.
We're in a rather fashionable part of town. Lots of pubs, clubs and music venues.
The walls around the station are plastered with fantastic posters for festivals, DJs and semi-obscure touring bands. In some places, posters are placed over posters over posters. A dozen deep.
In amongst all this uber-hippery, in the last place you'd expect, there's this quaint, traditional and rather daggy poster for a wedding photographer.
In a wedding magazine, it'd be lost.
But amongst all the cutting edge graphics around it, it absolutely stands out.
In the 1800s, the American writer Washington Irving stayed at the splendid Alhambra Palace in Spain. Perched high on a hill, overlooking the town of Grenada, the Alhambra was circled by birds that had learned to drift above the range of hunters' guns on the plains below.
Irving observed boys from the town standing on the walls of the palace, throwing fishing nets and capturing the birds below from the unexpected angle.
In advertising, there is usually a 'right' way to do things.
A right way to photograph a car, make a burger look enticing, show a family moment.
Because it's the right way, everyone does it that way. And it instantly becomes invisible.
The wedding photographer is fishing for birds. It's not a bad theory, is it?

New Blu

Proof once again that imagination and sweat beat money and FX. Every time.

BIG BAG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Small is the New Big?

A few years ago, the big agency Able & Baker were then working for pitched for a government advertising project.
The aim was to persuade Australians about to travel overseas to check the safety or otherwise of the countries they were about to visit on a government website.
The prospective client was asking for, and expecting, a big television campaign.
What our agency came up with was a very simple, very inexpensive idea.
Since nearly all overseas travel was now booked or confirmed by email and e-ticket, the idea was to develop a bit of software that slipped inside your booking process.
This bit of software would recognise your destination and provide a direct link on your e-ticket or booking confirmation, just next to the departure time, to the latest safety information about that destination.
For example if we was flying to Mogadishu, the little bit of copy that would read; 'We hope you enjoy your time in Mogadishu, Able & Baker. But just to be on the safe side, check the safety and security conditions in Mogadishu before you fly. Just click here.'
And that was it. The whole pitch. No ads, no big budgets, just a simple little idea that would have cost a few thousand dollars and delivered new traffic to the website by the planeload.
Of course, it never happened. The agency lost the pitch, a television campaign was duly commissioned and nobody I know has ever gone to the government website.
In business, as in life probably, there is a tendency to assume that a big problem requires a big solution. The corollory of this is a desire for proportionality: that big inputs should incite a proportionally big response.
Of course, in reality this is rarely the case. Little ideas can have an influence way beyond their ambition (such as Justin Bieber's mum posting a video of him on YouTube), while big ideas can disappear without a trace.
In Victoria, the government has spent over a billion dollars and five years on the myki ticketing system whose end purpose is, without a trace of irony, to 'save money'. When for a fraction of that cost, you could put conductors on every train which would have the added bonus of making travellers feel more secure.
Here's a terrific TED talk by British adman Rory Sutherland on the subject.