Real Media

As I've been running on vapours and not always had access to a computer, I've been blogging with paper and pen sometimes in much the same way as I started to write my first post over here, on a flight from New Delhi to Mumbai in 2006.

There's lots of mistakes and chunks missing if you can see at all, but just in case anyone wanted to see how appalling my handwriting is I thought I'd post them anyway. I'll try and get them typed up later this week and really there's a self referential (ooh so po mo) element to this because the longer of the two posts is about Understanding Media from a paper (analogue) to electronic spectrum; or if we include this post it's starting off electronically. You may note that I used the back of the police report for my stolen goods to write this (so some good came out of it) as well as the EMERGENCY number for the British Embassy that the police gave me and which didn't work. Meaning I had to sleep in the police waiting room for the night before borrowing precisely Two dollars to catch the ferry home the next day.

Communication Efficacy

Developing your own planning style

View more presentations from adliterate.

My planning mentor would have just distilled that title down to 'Efficacy', which is the what we planners do. But in any case Richard Huntington of Saatchi & Saatchi has put a presentation up that he did at the IPA called "Developing your own style" which is the school of planning that I learned at HHCL & Partners where Richard and I both worked, nearly a decade ago. Richard also includes some words from Guy Murphy the Global Planning Director for JWT and one of the reasons why I joined JWT and would fear them in any big pitch. Guy is easily the best multinational network planner I've had the luxury of spending time with when I worked for JWT in London before heading out to Beijing.


Often it's not what Guy says. It's what he doesn't say that commands most respect and is to my mind genius clever from the perspective of garruolous planners like myself. Less is more and all that.


Anyway enough of my waffle. Take a couple of minutes to see how powerful the right combination of words can be from some of the best in the business. And as someone who has lived and worked in more countries than most as a planner I think I can seperate the politically savvy but creatively mediocre beasts from the best in class cats.

And Love

My career is dotted with ads I ideas I couldn't coax through the system. There was the "Freedom" idea for Coca-cola or "We Miss You" for Post Tsunami Thailand and yet when I see work like this, I feel that I'm not the only one to roll this way. Levi's suddenly become relevant again. 

I'm reminded that I recently read that Americans often insist on having their Jeans Made in the USA (complete with label), and that the luxury end of the market is paradoxically robust. This just makes sense as the United States is the home of Denim (Well you get what I mean). Great work from Levi's here. Via Influx Insights

UPDATE: The director for this movie is Cary Fukunaga and the words are by Walt Whitman who you may remember from back here. The more I see this film the more I love it.