Proper Chrimbo Selecta

Oh Christmas, that time of year when ad agencies can knock it out of the park and show us all just how ninja they really are. So here’s a round-up of some really nice Christmas work that I've seen hanging about.

Honda Naughty and Nice List

Honda’s NaughtyOrNice-a-tron, is a Facebook application that scans your Facebook page for all your actions made within the last year. The results of its scan will then determine whether you’re going to be on Santa’s naughty or nice list this Christmas season. The app analyses the user's Facebook activity, including status updates, comments and likes, focusing on language usage and key behaviors, to determine if he or she has been naughty or nice.

The Santa Brand Book

Created by Quiteroom, these brand guidelines detail how to remain on brand while communicating the essence of Santa. Details include such gems as this –

Our brand essence is like a sack on a sleigh of belief. At the emotional heart of our brand sack is profit. Profit is foundationed in deceit, which is emulsifiedin tricks. Tricks are quasi-authenticated through illusion, and further end-gamed via magic. Enveloping this magic is the belief of our customers. The sack then hangs within a metaspace of gullibility.

Mother London : Lappi Leaks

Following Julian Assange’s suit - Mother London have released some scandalous revelations straight from the reindeer’s mouth on their twitter page. Found under the #LappiLeaks hash tag, highlight's include Donor's ongoing fight with Ketamine addiction, Tiger Wood's expulsion from Santa's Good List until he starts “banging chicks and winning cups again” and that the 2009 Santa's Apprentice winner lost his job after the exposure of his reindeer porn ring. Follow LappiLeaks here.

The Monster Holiday Harmonizer : BBDO New York

Created for their client Monster, BBDO New York's Holiday Harmonizer let's you send Christmas greetings in an odd, auto-tuned, harmonized computer voice. You can write a simple email, type a message and make the Harmonizer sing, or go all out and record your very own song / message and listen to it back in all it's harmonized glory. Try it out here.

Moleskine Mini Planner

Must buy new diary for new year.

MINI PLANNERS from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

Virtual Christmas

This will be my first Christmas away from home so I'll be skyping home on the 25th. Won't be as hella cool as this though...

Virtual Holiday Dinner from virtual holidaydinner on Vimeo.

What the fuck...

Through more aspirational than inspirational, this little page has served on many occasions as a useful resource for food ideas.

And since acquiring my newest job post, marketing, social media person mawhatsit, this one was even more invaluable.

Now by means of the same general idea, Albion London has used this formula for its Christmas card...

Have to say I fucking like it.

Publicis Past and Present

Now that I've climbed out of my self obsessed pit of blurgh, I'm going to shine the light on some of my old work mates at Publicis. Firstly, to my old art director Stina who is currently making the magic happen in Hyper Island, here's her first piece of animation.

Secondly, there’s a big holla going out to the boys who occupied the seat in front of my old desk. Darragh Carey and Ciaran McCarthy are the minds behind this lovely ad for the new terminal at Dublin Airport. Considering Ireland's barely afloat in a sea of debt and the most draconian budget Ireland has ever seen was launched today, it's a timely little spot aptly made when our national pride couldn't be any lower.

Living the dream...

So I’ve been absent for a while.

Mainly because the thought that perhaps this little experiment wasn’t proving as successful as I had initially hoped was making itself quite at home in my head. After hemorrhaging most of my money away, I was left to subside on a fiscal trickle. Surviving on a diet of rice and barbecue sauce, my pitiful existence chased away any motivation I had for blogging or anything else other than a few half assed job applications on craigslist. It was then that The Haircut happened. The Haircut was at least turning point in my Canadian life because it allowed me to make rent. This was not because, as it does in every crappy chick flick you’ve ever seen, the removal of heroine’s hair results in a drastic life change which in turn results in the removal of the heroine’s clothes by Matthew Maconahay. The Haircut transpired because of an ad I saw on craigslist where a hairdresser was looking for a hair model and was willing to pay generously. Thanks to the miracle of photoshop and an old photo, I was golden. Doing little to mask her disappointment when I arrived, Hairbutcher proceeded to punish me with The Haircut for my visual trickery. My long brown locks were dispersed with, replaced instead with a kind of a short crop thing. The colour is indescribable; Hairbutcher mentioned something about it being golden like barley. You could, I suppose, liken it to the kind of barley that has been farmed fresh from the seared soils of Chernobyl because I doubt this colour has ever appeared anywhere in nature.

Rent paid, there was also the issue of eating. A trifle in the grand scheme of things, however, I had a feeling my parents would be awfully disappointed if I met by end via starvation. It was because of this that the next thing that plunged me into a further a depression occurred. I became a full time employee at Tim Horton’s. I can’t possible describe the horror of those two Tim weeks. I was subjected to ridicule and battery. The ridicule was mainly at the hands of my flatmates and the battery was in the form of a slap administered by my manager for eating glace out of doughnut dipper. Tim Horton’s employs, for the most part, non native English speakers so it was assumed that my grasp on the language was limited. Because customers frequently confused my ineptitude and general apathy towards the whole operation for someone who couldn’t string a sentence together, every order came with its own set of charades. My lack of job satisfaction manifested itself in a number of different ways, firstly I tried to make up for the fact that I was treated and paid so poorly by eating as many donuts as possible. This backfired as the only time when getting fatter serves as any sort of revenge tactic is when you use your newly acquired lard to sit on someone. The second and ultimately more enjoyable thing I did was write swear words on the donuts in glace. Thankfully, as important a skill as icing pastries with profanities is, I was offered another job, one where I didn’t have ask to go to toilet. Thus ended my dance with poverty (for the time being at least) and marked the beginning of some actual morsel of a life in Canada. Best of all, now I can actually afford a portfolio case. So enter round two of meeting CDs, here’s hoping I end up at the correct agency this time....

Happy 70th Birthday John Lennon

The Google Doodle

The So Coal Network

I went to see The Social Network last night. It is an insightful, wonderfully scripted film, whose underlying message seems to say that if these guys just got laid once in a while we may not have gotten digital innovations such as facebook and napster.

The film has also succeeded in shinning a spotlight into the life of facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who has retorted by giving 100 million to Newark schools. Which really was a nice gesture that will certainly change the lives of 100s of deprived children (even if it reeks of PR stunt.) Greenpeace have also used this film as an opportunity to inspire change with this viral video that aims to persuade Zuckerberg to switch facebook from using coal burning energy to wind energy.

35 Films

Nice simple graphics and a whole world of fun trying to figure out these 35 film references.

35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

TIFF

Tonight the internationally renowned TIFF drew to a close. Lasting for eleven days this year, between 300-400 films were screened at approximately 37 screens in downtown Toronto venues. The highlights apparently were Made in Dagenham, Black Swan and The Kings Speech. Apparently. With both financial and time constants upon me, I sadly made it to none of these. I did however, courtesy of my flatmate get tickets to the Ken Loach, Micheal Moore talk. The conversation quickly turned to war with the two directors backing the idea of Canada offering asylum to U.S. soldiers who have fled there to avoid service in Iraq or Afghanistan. They compared today’s situation with the Vietnam war, when thousands of draft dodgers fled to Canada.
“This country was so generous to those of my generation who did not want to kill Vietnamese,” Moore said. “It is absolutely shameful how Canada has behaved toward those who have resisted this war. It’s not the Canada that we used to know"

Word on the street is, a Canadian film festival just isn't a festival without a contentious debate between two left wing film makers.

When Herzog rescued Phoenix

This low tech animation piece matches perfectly the manner in which Herzog tells this yarn.

Stupidity

Stupid is being on time for your meeting with a creative director only to realise you're in the wrong agency.

True story folks.

Music to use Google Maps by

One of the things Toronto is best known for is its vibrant music scene. Great music such as Lights, Broken Social Scene and Cowboy Junkies, to name but a few all originated here, and over the past few weeks I've been getting my music on. And speaking of music, there's been some nice stuff happening of recent in digital land on the music front. Like this music video from Lissie, which demonstrates nicely how an artist can use a music video to really capture the imagination of the audience. Basically using Google maps to determine your current location, the weather in the video changes, so if it is raining outside your window then it will be raining in the music video.

Have a listen here

Chris Milk's latest interactive, data-driven film using HTML5 video, audio and Google maps is something I'd been meaning to check out for a while. The film itself is a wonderful canvas for Arcade Fire's "We used to Wait" Stunning, emotive and beautiful, The Wilderness Downtown is great example of an engaging viral campaign.

Oh and incidentally if you're abroad in a foreign country where you barely know anyone, it's like self harm.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

I eventually went to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World last night. It was one of those things that was kinda mandatory considering that it was completely set right here in Toronto. It was, I have to say, in Canadian speak, awesome ay. I awarded it super, special bonus points for showing so many of our new hood's haunts such as Lee's Palace, Honest Ed's, not to mention the ubiquitous Pizza Pizza opposite it

Best of all my friend Noel Donnellon's Dublin based company Voodoo Dog did some of the animation for Scott Pilgrim.

Check out the bits they did here.

http://www.voodoodog.com/work/film/title-sequences

I have found a home

Which means that this is the last weekend at the hostel I've called home for the past month. Having met some awesome people and made some great friends, I'm bidding a fond farewell to the hostel Canadiana.

Not, however before making my mark.

Looky who made it up on the hostel's blog.

The Johnny Cash Project

I received this email a few weeks ago notifying me that my submission to the Johnny Cash project had been successful. So this little doodle here that I scrapped together on a sick day from work will now feature as a screen in the final video for “Aint No Grave”

The project was a great example of crowd sourcing that really worked. To celebrate the release of Mr.Cash's much anticipated posthumous album, director Chris Milk invited the public to contribute to one of the music videos by painting over a chosen frame.

Check out the final and most awesome video here

Toronto So Far

Having been here a month, I have decided to compile a list of things I love about Toronto and things that could do with changing...

Lovin'

The Homeless

If the homeless are any kind of gage of a nations people, it's an indication that Torontatians are a creative bunch. Instead of your usual 'spare change please' I have encountered such solicitations as "Do you know where I could get a chainsaw and a hooker, I'm feeling hungry" or a sign that said "I bet you a buck you'll read this sign." Another favorite was "Smile if you masturbate and spare change if you enjoy it" and whilst walking down Queen a few days back I came across two homeless men that had fashioned a pirate ship out of cardboard complete with their own makeshift pirate costumes.

Safety

Often described as New York run by the Swiss, Toronto can be, at times, a little beige, the upside of this however is it feels incredibly safe. At night public transport such as buses and street cars will stop anywhere that a woman requests on their route. So being of the female variety and someone who likes keeping movement to the minimal, this is a nifty public transport feature I adore.

Kensington Market

A distinctive multicultural neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, Kensington Market retains its charm and wonderful diversity through its eclectic mix of vintage clothing stores, Latin American grocers,fresh produce, great cafes and watering holes. Progressive and laid back, its independent and liberal spirit is echoed in its colourful inhabitants, street festivals and aromatic smells. In other words, as places go, me likey.

Twizzelers

Delicious strings of liquoricey goodness.

Wonderland

Canada's Wonderland is wondrous place. With amusements as far as the eye can see, it's also home to the Behemoth, a hypercoaster that reaches speeds of 124km and has a 75 degree drop of 230 feet. Pure white knuckle stuff.

Lay of the land

Unlike the labyrinth of Dublin's streets that I am accustomed to, Toronto is a proverbial walk in the park, or an easily negotiable walk in the city as the case actually is. Based on the Greek plan or grid plan, with its long straight streets and block system, it's almost impossible to get lost. Which coming from someone who has the sense of direction of half blind troglodyte with vertigo is most excellent.

Seasons

In Ireland the year consists of one long, rainy, grey season, occasionally it gets a little warmer and occasionally it gets a little colder but for the most part it remains one constant greige season of drear. Over here there is a distinct change, at the moment you can almost smell the autumnal breeze as it wheedles its way through Toronto, sending a blitz of leaves scattering in its wake.

Loathin'

Pickles

(Or Gerkins to the folks back home) are awful here. As a massive pickle fan I was initially delighted at the pickle saturation levels over here. They're everywhere and in everything but that's no good when they are just plain weird. They're all slightly sweet, squashy and made of gross.

Tax

Oh is that the price? Excellent! why I just have that exact right amount of cash in my pocket. The same amount as it says on the price tag, which anyone would assume would be the actual price. No, it’s not. Oh there’s another extra charge, a magical charge that seems to be impossible to second guess.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the tipping.

Heritage Napsters.

The funds have run low. So while I arrange my portfolio, try and develop at least the appearance of grace, wit and pose before I start grovelling in agency doorways, I need to get a stop gap job. One of these was a city site seeing tour job, which unfortunately did only last as long as our introductory tour.

I digress.

Point of this little story is not to demonstrate my irresolution but instead to share what I learned from my little tour. And that is, Toronto is kinda utterly devoid of heritage. “And if you look to your left you can see our second oldest bank and to the right you’ll see some road works” In fact, according to this tour, all hell broke lose when someone tried to replace an old tacky sign on a top of sky scrapper in the city, which wasn't even that old to begin with. Good news was, through protests and petitions the sign was saved, which does make you think, if the Irish could have summoned an ounce of the tenacity and passion these folks had for a crappy ole sign, maybe Tara could have been saved.

LCBO

The only way to purchase alcohol in Toronto is through something called the LCBO or its low life cousin The Beer Store. Government controlled, the LCBO makes buying booze quite expensive, and drinking out even more so because bars and restaurants must purchase directly from it rather than going wholesale. All and all I am finding this a financial speed bump to one of my favorite hobbies - inebriation.

A throw back to the anachronistic, prohibition era, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario or LCBO has evolved into an into quite the little cash pig for the Canadian Federal and Ontario Provincial governments. The astonishing thing I find, is not the government control and excess but the acceptance by the people of Ontario of these regulations that are apparently sacrificing local wineries and breweries.

No one jay walks

What's with that? Don't Torontatians know you can shave good couple of seconds off your destination arrival time (and perhaps part of your lower spine if you're unlucky) by simply having a good auld jay walk.

Seasons

Also in the hate section. Apparently in winter it can reach temperatures of minus 20 degrees.

Enough said.

Hello Canada.

Too much fun was had over the past two weeks (hence my absence) and now unfortunately the job hunt must begin.

The Room

As Friday is my last day, the powers that be within my agency have decided that there will be a lunch time viewing of The Room.

A modern masterpiece and cult classic, it features such amazing dialogue and truly polished performances as this

50 year anniversary of Doc Martins

I was considering buying a pair of Doc Martins for my travels. My consideration has been cemented into absolution because of this.

Irish Media History in 7 mins

Despite now being four years old, this spot, which takes us through the last 20 years of our media history, is still an interesting watch. Scripted and preformed by a past employer of mine, Luke Clancy (ahem... clang!), it demonstrates in an concise manner how we became the media.

"Back in 1986 they used to say ' the medium is the message' these days the media is us"

Brilliant

The Lizard Brain

I found a link to this on our internal agency website.

Seth Godin's presentation above on "the lizard brain" is quite brilliant. The lizard brain refers to the Amygdala, a primitive section of our brain that controls our survival instincts. It's the little voice that tell us to stop before we embarrass ourselves; to refrain from challenging the status quo. Godin argues that being creative is easy, "shipping" or quieting the lizard brain long enough to actually produce an end product is the true genius of creativity.

His presentation is timed to the burning out of a candle, so it won't take to much time out of your day.

Does the audience bite back ?

Here David Mitchell makes an extremely valid point about how our televisual experience is being constantly dumbed down. Considering we live in an age where information has never been closer, why are the people who make the decisions desperately trying to turn their audience into a troupe of troglodyte civil servants? David makes his point his relation to children’s programming but it’s just as applicable to advertising.

The argument that not knowing a reference will make a viewer automatically switch off buys very much into the idea that we are all passive viewers and what we view has an enormous effect upon us. The influence that media has over its audience is something that has fascinated me for a while. Without boring myself and anyone who happens to stumble upon this little blog into absolute oblivion, much of audience theory, quite simply, concentrates on whether the audience is passive or active. In the example of advertising, is it that the ad does something to us? Or do we do something with the ad?

Advertising Kills.

First it controls your mind. Then it controls your body.



This scene from David Croneberg's Videodrome sums up nicely the fear of the influence that media could potentially have upon us. Made in 1983, around the time when VHS was soaring in popularity, TV standards were relaxed and the term video nasty was being knocked around like an exchange kid called a Cornelius on his first day of school; the world thought that these media messages could be injected into our minds like a giant hypodermic needle of bad juju.

However, suppose the world has some reason for thinking like this.

When things like this happened...

And this...

Advertising Cures.

Integration, involvement and a literate audience means that in the past few years creating a successful advertising campaign often relies heavily on audiences actively responding. The more we as audiences and consumers are becoming dabblers in journalism, videography and social commentary, the more avenues are open for conversations both personally and commercially.

One example is this year's integrated Canne Grand Prix winner Livestrong.

Or this fantastic campaign, again involved, integrated and altruistic.

So to surmise this little Saturday afternoon ramble, referencing good, more needed. Saying that people will switch off because they don't understand compares people to inactive coach potatoes that will try and inject videos into the stomaches. Previously this hypodermic notion was understandable due to an audience that was widely media illiterate and the effect that propaganda has previously caused upon an entire nation. However, the digital revolution has proved that audiences aren't passive and instead can use their media consumption to reach others and impact change.

Flights booked. Notices handed.

I am jack’s inflamed tear duct.

After giving notice several days ago word has spread that I am leaving. In a matter of weeks my posterior will longer grace my uncomfortable swivel chair, bound instead for an equally uncomfortable Canadian one. Fingers and toes crossed that is. Having never been in a job where I’ve quite liked the people and work so much I am all covered in smidgens of sadness. I am also all covered in dollops of doubt, as the unemployed vultures that I graduated with circle, waiting to swoop in and take my job, I can't help but wonder am I making a very stupid mistake.

I once worked on a campaign for a gambling company where the strategy was based around the idea that fortune favours the brave. If it does I sincerely hope it has a little favour left for the stupid so that I’ll shortly be rolling in it.

If Diesel‘s most recent outdoor and Canne Grand Prix winning campaign is to be believed stupidity is to be encouraged.

Which I am totally down with.

The New Cadbury' s Flake Spot

Below is the latest television spot from Cadbury's Flake. Having had to shelve the original million quid ad, which witnessed the seduction of a glamorous woman by a Beelzebub type character, due to research deeming it too raunchy, Fallon created this beautifully shot, beautiful chick in a beautiful dress ad. Which is really all it is. Of course being of the female variety and a dedicated follower of fashion (ish) I couldn't but admire the intricate ebbing folds in this Antony Price flock.

Except it was a beautiful dress that had already been on someone else's beautiful back which had been beautifully art directed in almost the exact same fashion.

Four years ago Kate Moss swirled and twirled in an identical manner in Alexander McQueen's renowned hologram image.

The spot was devised by l'enfant terrible and Baillie Walsh, who coincidently enough directed the Flake advertisement.

So it seems just like Lindsay Lohan, the debate on creativity in the age of youtube, is doomed to keep raising its uglyass head again and again. The question being can you call you a creative when you're actually not being that creative? Perhaps mother bird would be more suitable as a career title when there is so much regurgitation involved. It seems as though it's a pandemic that has infected those at the top of their career ladder and those on the first rung. A perfect example being this entry for the Cannes Junior Lions competition.

Remind you of anything?

So, and this is something as a junior I am going to try and keep as my mantra.

Turn the off the computer and pick up a sharpey because browsing our imagination is the best reference point we have.

So you have got to let me know

Several legends have arisen as to what Mick Jones meant when he sung should I stay or should I go in 1981. Was it his rocky relationship with singer Ellen Foley or perhaps the constant squabbles that would lead to Jones being out on his ear just two years later? Whatever the intended meaning was is not so much the issue here, what matters is that Jones' London twang has been twirling around my brain for months. Risk leaving a difficult to-come-by copywriting job I love, in which I may never be made permanent at, to travel and possibly get a better one in Canada. Or spend a year ODing on maple syrup and practicing my plate stacking skills, only to come back to find yet another vulture sitting at my desk. After more changes of heart than a world renowned transplant surgeon,the decision has been made...

Canada here I come. Ahem... eh.