Om de nieuwe Nike-loopschoen aan te kondigen, toont de brave man dat er ook dingen zijn die béter uit de blender komen als dat ze erin gaan. De ideale mix van de oerdegelijke schoenen van toen, mét de high-tech snufjes van vandaag.

People who know me, or know my Facebook profile, are aware of my huge fondness, love and admiration for the work of Mark Rothko. Nothing, therefore, annoys me more than when people say: “Hey, I could have done this”. First of all because it’s not true, and second, hey, then why didn’t you?

Behind this misconception is the idea that because something is simple, it must therefore be simple to make. Which, as we all know when we think about it, is completely untrue, and in fact, just the reverse. It takes craftsmanship and tough choices to make something simple.

So why then am I writing about modern art and the virtue of simplicity? Because, since today, our new website is online, and simplicity was a topic in a recent discussion about the design of it …

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Soms zijn clichés te mooi om ze te laten liggen. Zo zijn West-Vlamingen het prototype van de hardwerkende Vlamingen, of zo profileren ze zich toch graag. Tot op de radio, tegenwoordig.

westvlaanderen.mp3

Zelf van West-Vlaamse oorsprong zijnde kan ik dat enkel toejuichen. Maar waarom stoppen bij hard werken? Waarom niet een radiospotje over onze andere kwaliteiten? Onze talenknobbel bijvoorbeeld … Hilarisch!

Twee mediamerken die een graantje proberen mee te pikken van de commotie rond de in zijn cabine dansende truckchauffeur.

De ene doet het subtiel, slim, snel en to-the-point, want relevant.

De andere … probeert gewoon een graantje mee te pikken.

On the ever interesting blog of Zeus Jones, the blogger is on to some theory of sorts about how in the future, all products will be reduced to … information. That’s right, there would be ever less industrially made products, and they would be replaced by objects people would produce themselves, at home, with the help of technology and good how-to information.

Does this sound futuristic? Possibly, but 3D printers exist and are getting cheaper every day. So instead of printing out a picture of, let’s say, a vase, in the future you’ll be able to print out the actual vase. So, in this model, you’d pay for the information about the vase (i.e. the print order), but we all know that in this Internet age informationis de facto free. Therefore, I will be able - at least conceptually speaking - to make any product ever designed, at home, free, at no cost except the materials.

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Funny game, developed by SuitSupply. Simple enough to make me want to play it all the time, funny enough to keep it interesting.

The underlying idea seems to be that suits give you power, makes you a superman. Which, as psychology research shows, seems to be true: people tend more often to obey people if they wear a suit, regardless of whether they are actually an authority or not - it seems a suit automatically transfers authority.

Which is possibly why a suit allows you to do stuff like this (at least in the minds of the creatives from StLukes)

Remember the Congressional hearings where the CEO’s of the Big Three Detroit Carmakers were grilled by American congressmen, amongst others because they came to Washington asking for bailout money, and they came by private jets? If not, here are the images …

Now, we may all chuckle when seeing this, if only out of misery. But over at the Cessna Headquarters, we can safely assume they didn’t chuckle. Overnight, a private business jet became the ultimate symbol of everything that is wrong with American capitalism. And that came on top of the economic crisis, to which this category is very closely linked.

So Cessna decided to react.
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The human brain is wired to listen to stories. We are suckers for real stories we can follow from beginning to end, up till the point where our brain fills in the gaps, just to have a complete storyline. Not surprising, therefore, that storytelling as an ancient art, is very hot among advertising agencies (be sure, by the way, to check out our new website in a couple of days, to find our own stories of GERMAINE).

As Chuck Porter for Crispin Porter Bogusky told a Cannes-audience last July: “Storytelling is an old art form. It’s like telling jokes. Some people can tell jokes. Other can’t.”. But if it’s well done, it works. And it has just been scientifically proven, by a neuromarketing study analyzing this year’s SuperBowl commercials, showing that the best scoring commercials are those that provide, well yes, a story.