KISS !!!

the best ads are the ones that follows the KISS rule... Keep It Simple and Sweet !!!

Advertising Agency: King Stockholm, Sweden
Creative Director: Frank Hollingworth
Art Directors: Helena Redman, Alexander Elers, Daniel Söderstedt
Copywriters: Hedvig Hagwall Bruckner, Pontus Ekström
Photographer: Petrus Olsson

The Fun Gun!

After checking the best advertisements of 2007. I felt almost similar emotions as Calvin. Substitute genius with genius, homeworks with targets and maths with adverts. you would definitely understand my point ( :) )

I am a misunderstood genius

Calvin: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius.


Hobbes: What's misunderstood about you?


Calvin: Nobody thinks I'm a genius.


Last-minute Panic


Calvin : You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.


Hobbes : What mood is that?


Calvin : Last-minute panic.


On maths and only maths- Thus spoke Calvin

I'm not going to do my maths homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here's a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him?

If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts." "I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths."

"I prefer to savour the mystery."

The Best of 07'

Long before, even when I had nothing to do with advertising as a profession and passion, I have been awed by the creative spell that this idea business blankets on the audience and herds them into and out of the market place......

I have been subject to many a questions in the last ten years even since I have had something to do with advertising, as my bread and butter, for the soul and the body, as to why is it that ad makers and advertisers are seen as 'not for the conscious but for the unconscious mind, who is subject to the hypnotic spell' ......

I have been accused by many as being part of a dirty tribe who is parasitic and does nothing but feeds on the organisms of noncommercial culture - the culture's past and present, ideology and myths, politics and customs, art and architecture, literature and music, and even its religions . . . . For example, women are commodified to sell everything from cars to colognes . . . . Advertising thus pimps its products.......

Strong words indeed but let us have critics galore, they always had been and are going to be.. but the fact is simple....contrary to what self-appointed protectors of the consumer so loudly proclaim, advertising does not cause people to buy bad products. Nothing will put a bad product out of business faster than a good advertising campaign. Advertising causes people to try a product once, but poor quality eliminates any possibility of a repeat purpose and that is true and time tested.....
The year 2007 was unique for Indian advertising business....

Agencies didnt hide their urge to merge and many became one.. consolidation is finally happening... Bates and its cousin, David for instance making it Bates David enterprise... Second agencies ,atleast in India, were finally told that they werent meant to be just cute cousins of the main agency and will have to survive or merge....

Digital acquisitions galore and as usual people played the typical ad like musical chair...the top creative faces hip hopped last year like grass hoppers... some even came back to where they left to leave again.....(well ! the year to last wasnt better either..) No one lasted in his seat for too long. Grey Worldwide, Publicis Ambience, McCann-Erickson and Rediffusion DY&R lost some of its senior people, while O&M remained almost unperturbed, and Lowe washed its dirty linen in public....

Ownerships seem changing with Saatchi&Saatchi bought 20% stake from its Indian holders while, IPG went all out getting the remaining 51% of Lintas ( for a huge 100 Million dollars) and 40% of FCB and many more...and fewer awards came in with the hit rate at Cannes dropping to just 1.2 % ( creative arrogance or is it the dearth of talents?)....

Media equations are changing with the world cup coming in as a cropper, and all the moneys committed hoping against hope that the men in blue will perform, and when they failed to, the admakers, media planners, media houses and buyers went sulky and with explantions, more than the team and its managers and advertisers decided ( well!!) to stay away from cricket, and treat it like a pariah....Radio, making a come back,,,, FM growing at 20% and mobile at 40 % .... and lots more...

Bekar ads were churned out making the industry look stupid, dumb and senseless about the clients money, creatives talked to themselves or the competetors creatives (using the clients money of course) and not to the buyer, formulae and cliche shamelessly lay exposed, the industry so very audaciously indulged in self pat , and bestowed awards on itself with a comical grace that is very own to us and us only.... but good ads kept coming and they stole hearts... many to say and many to write literature about but my pick from the whole 365 days that bypassed us would be the ones which Ogilvy & Mather made for Vodafone..

Ogilvy had become a makeover specialist with Axis bank, Vodafone and the latest Canara bank ads... Vodafone stole my heart inspite of their fading out the pug, for the simple and yet stupendous creatives that they made for the Vodafone brand and its allied services like alerts et al....There are many others, but here we go.. what we feel as the best of 07.....


and now this....



and this..its getting better....

It happens only in advertising !!!!

Well the new year is here and here are some happenings which they say and I got in the net, which makes our dear industry unique and special... it happens everywhere ,everytime, no matter whether it is 2007 or 2008... just keeps happening....in advertising... no matter what , with all the ifs and buts, and butts, it is still the best industry to be in.. aint it folks???


Yeah, We don't like the orange color. Can't we just fade red into the yellow?"
(Client to art director)

"Adapt concept to billboard, 40 feet by 60 feet. For presentation, please make actual-sized mock-up"
( young Account exe to visualiser)

"Overall, it's a great ad. But I don't like the headline, and I don't like the layout" - "What do you like? The border?" - "Well...yes"
(Conversation between Client and Agency)

"How did you change the TV channel on the brochure cover?"
(Client, referring to Photoshop work performed on a stock photo)

"Can we hear it before you record it?"
(Client, to agency creative team working on a radio spot)

"I need the background to be transparent. I have some transparencies that you can scan so you can have a transparent layer in Photoshop."
(Agency Boss offering help to bewildered designer)

"Don't worry, this project is really just a graphic design exercise, it doesn't require any real thinking or anything"
(Agency, Account Executive to Designer)

"Logo needs to be bigger on the front page, so it can be seen across a room if in a brochure stand"
( client, to Designer about brochure revisions)

"How can I put the link on my desktop when you know I only have a laptop?"
(IT Client to Agency)

"The client has given us FINAL approval, but asked if we could change one small thing."
( acc exe to Art Director)

"I will contact the artist, what is his name?" - "Vincent Van Gogh" - "Ok, I will call him and get his approval."
( Account Executive to Art Director on being told that ´Sunflowers´ cannot be used in the layout because of copyright issues)

"I really like it, but can you make the type a darker white so it shows up more?""
(Client, to Art Director)

"I'll fax our logo over right now and you can use that in the ad."
(Client in email response to designer's request for a camera-ready logo)

"We're not going to do a brief because the project was already briefed past week."
( Account Executive after an Art Director who had to take care of a project instead of his ill colleague)

"Could you possibly give us a design for the business card that's more like the one our CEO designed in PowerPoint?"
( Marketing Director to Designer)

"I like take 1 and 3"
(Client on hearing same v/o played 4 times)

"Please call me in an hour… but I will not answer because I am in a meeting"
(Client Service Director to Client)

"So the TV ad is going to be a cartoon?"
(Client, when reviewing storyboards)

"Can you add a drop shadow or bevel to the logo?"
(Client to Designer)

"We like the red/burgundy color of the logo - but can you make it a different shade of burgundy?"
(Client to Designer)

"It just hangs there like a useless tit."
( Account Executive commenting on font choice)

"I don't think that's the colour of synergy"
( Senior Strategy VP to designer)

"Please shoot me a JPEG of that font"
(Client asking designer for fonts for his computer)

"What does the Red Cross logo look like?"
(Client to designer for health services logo)

"We need to send the client a .jpg of the image as soon as possible." - "Sure. Do you think the .jpg will fit in this size envelope?"
( Intern to another intern, who was holding up an actual 6x9 envelope)

"I'm going home, we're presenting the campaign tomorrow. Have you started with the pieces yet? Let me take a quick look, I just want to see the logos."
( Account Executive to art director)

"Make it wild but conservative!"
( Account Executive, to Art Director)

"We need your help. According to what I understood from the client, we have to put subtitles on the radio spots. Is that doable?"
( Account Axe to producer)

"I'll send you the changes in a few minutes, but start mounting in order to save time."
(brand manager to acc exe)

What are those lines on the side? Take them out, they don't look right."
(Client to acc exe looking at crop marks)

"I don't get this estimate. You wrote 4-color printing and I want more colors. With only 4 we'll get nowhere."
(brand Manager to acc exe)

"I call you because I'm watching the ads with the client and I've just realized I don't understand them either."
( Account Executive, calling in the middle of a presentation)