AdBeats | 2008 | Episode 3: DooDaaa feat. Ralph Steadman

Miami Beach is a nice place.

A place where everything is bigger and shinier.

It's a wonderful setting for an advertising award show.

And the last place you'd expect to run into Ralph Steadman - the legendary illustrator/artist/author and the longtime collaborator/friend of Gonzo aka Hunter S Thompson.

In this episode - we talk to Ralph and find out what he thinks about advertising.


Peep it herrre:

Tracklisting:

1. air vs lilly allen - all i need is a smile
2. 4hero - beat 8
3. The Cool Kids - Pump Up The Volume (Flosstradamus Remix)
4. Notorious BIG - Party and Bullshit (Ratatat Remix)
5. Jazz & Milk Breaks - Snob
6. Kraak + Smaak - Squeeze Me
7. Jazz & Milk Breaks Vol 2 - Shamma Lama Ding Dong
8. Jazz & Milk Breaks _ Jazzhole
9. Golden Bug - Rocket City
10. Midfield General - Disco Sirens
11. Lismore - More
12. Headmen - Catch Me If you Can (Bag Raiders Remix)
13. Gonzales - Working Together (Boyz Noise Remix)
14. Cut Copy - Lights And Music (Boyz Noise Remix)
15. The Presets - This Boy is in Love (Lifelike Remix)
16. Purple Crush - Shopping on the Dancefloor (Mike Genius Rmx)
17. WSGM - You Should Be Someone Else (Moulinex Remix)

Once upon a Superhero Power, there was Fusion Man

For more on Fusion Man, click here

Photo courtesy of MSN UK

How this shirt will save the world

Before royal blue was back in style, I picked up this t-shirt at a Roots in 2004. I was catching a one-way flight to London, England and needed something comfortable to wear on the plane. The shirt was never long enough for me. Even in the change room I kept on tugging it down, hoping it would grow. But I did the irrational shopper-thing and the in-denial of being a tall-girl thing and bought it anyways.

Three days later I found myself at the airport's Bureau de Change trying to juggle my wallet, my bags, and the tugging of the shirt. In the reflection of the stainless steel walls of the Bureau, I noticed a guy smiling at my apparent struggle. We ended up going for a drink in the airport bar, a drink in the airport Tim's, and a four hour walk around the airport's interior, exchanging tales and woes and hopes for our travels. By the time we had to walk to our gates, he had already convinced me to catch a flight once I landed in London to go see him in Amsterdam. His gate was to the right. Mine was to the left. It was an airport romance tragedy. The fork had been reached and we had to say good-bye.

I will always remember this shirt for this story. I'll remember walking down the hallway to my gate tugging at the silly thing and being filled with a world of disappointment. I had the boy's email grasped in my hand, and any movie I'd ever seen was replaying in my mind telling me to turn around and run after him. Every step I took I was adjusting my tee, debating whether to turn back or to let him go. But by being distracted with trying to stretch it out I had failed to see that the hallway to my gate was shaped in a half-circle formation. And that the hallway to his gate had been shaped in a half-circle formation. And that when I finally reached my gate and tugged one last time at my Roots' navy blue tee, the boy was once again in front of me. All along during the shirt tugs and the airport bar drinks and the email grasps, his gate had been right next to mine.

The fork in the road turned out to be a gigantic spoon.

Despite trying to feed you an Aesop Fable, there is a point to this story. If you ever saw my shirt hanging on a rack at the ole Value V, you'd probably notice the toothpaste stains, the faded colours, and the strange wave formation of the hem from all that tugging. But I wonder if you'd pay an extra $3.50 more if you knew the tale behind the t-shirt, and keep it for much longer. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, anyone?

This is the premise behind Australian shirt store Re-Shirt. Their website poses one startling question: "Do products last longer if you know their history?" Re-Shirt invites anyone who has a shirt to sell to post it on their website along with the story about why that shirt is memorable to them. Then the purchaser of the "Re-Shirt" [ha! ho! clever Trevor] is invited to post their continuing story of their experiences with their new shirt. Consumer recycling at its finest.

By preserving the 10,000 liters of water it takes to produce a new cotton tee, the shirt off your back may one day save the world. Or help someone to meet one of the Great Loves of their life, like mine did.

For more on Re-Shirt's philosophy, click here

A shmoke and a joke at Portfolio Night 6

I always dig a bit of strategic placing. I like how my supermarche houses the eggs next to the bacon and the cheese to develop thoughts of delicious omelette perfection. I dig how the milk follows the egg shelves, and leads one down the path of bread. The great land of Margarinus and Orangus Juicus is not far off. I'm a consumer. I've got no shame when it comes to product placement. I like my eggs and soldiers, and I like them in the same spot to remind me of just how good they are when purchased together.

So when I went out for a shmoke and a joke at ihaveanidea's Portfolio Night 6 in Toronto, I couldn't help but give a little high-five in my head to the kids at Taxi 2. Not only was there a fabulously interactive ad spot for Mini firmly in my eyeline [and a pretty amusing one at that], but it was strategically placed right outside of the entrance to the Rivoli, which housed this year's Portfolio Night 6 - an evening between Toronto's top creative directors, the young & hopefuls, and the young & hopefuls' portfolios o' dreams.

The ad for Mini is placed upon Toronto's triple slot garbage bins. For those of you who have never graced the T-Dot, our garbage bins are no simple means of disposal. Each silver bin, cylindrical in shape, has three compartments for the following categories: one for newspapers and magazines [to put in your transfers from the streetcar], one for cans and bottles [to put in the pop can that was chucked at your head on the streetcar], and one for litter only [to put in your snotty kleenex from when you cried after having at pop can chucked at your head on the streetcar].

Now, advertising on the city's bins is no new thing, nor are displays of art or graffiti. The following photo [in its original form at http://torontoist.com/2007/10/trashy.php] displays photographic work part of Magneta Foundation's Flash Forward exhibit from fall 2007, where twenty garbage bins across the financial district were given a temporary makeover by displaying the work of emerging photographers from North America and the UK.


What Taxi 2 has done with their Mini ad campaign is to not only take advantage of the small-scale billboard space that the bins provide, but to incorporate the existing functions of the original bins into their design. First gold star!



They have been able to link the copy seamlessly in with the function of the object to create an amusing advert raging with referential metaphors! Second gold star!



AND... they placed their advert RIGHT before the entrance to Portfolio Night 6 - a spot in the eyeline of Toronto's top creatives and future creative superstars. Third gold star!


Whether this placement was purposeful or omelette-by-chance, it couldn't have been in a better spot. Many creatives spent last night losing their voices trying to encourage the young guns to start incorporating more interactive and 'stunting' spots into their portfolio books. Although print ads full of puns are still in demand, the CDs want to see more of a consumer-engaging quality to the work. This is the stuff they're begging for! Right outside the doors.

I just hope the young & hopefuls were paying attention to example A on their smoke breaks. I also hope that no one owning a SUV, Sedan or Minivan take the ads literally, because car keys are just like bad eggs...

Once gone, but never forgotten.


Photos courtesy of Me.
For more on Portfolio Night click here