Ads I'm not sure about: Hotmail The New Busy

Ok I don't love this campaign, but it's interesting and has made me think so I'll share. It's more 'Ads I love to think about' really. I'm not actually sure if I like it. I think it's clever... or is it just really annoying and arrogant?

You've probably seen the adverts, they're all over the place; in the tube, in the paper...

From http://www.litmanlive.co.uk/blog/2010/04/the-new-busy-is-not-like-the-old-busy/

From http://el-nicol.com/?p=95

So the concept is 'The New Busy....' and then some slogan boasting about how they can do loads of stuff while still being ridiculously busy. And not stressing at all, and seeming to have an amazing cool life, while working 12 hours a day, and so on. Which clearly doesn't exist. Is it aspirational? I'm sure most of us wish we had a full diary while not having any kind of stress/pressure on us at all.

I'm not entirely sure why Hotmail are advertising, and why this applies to them. I've had a hotmail account since I was 13, and still do, and most people probably do too, but generally have a 'real address' as well. I don't give my hotmail out in a professional basis. Hotmail is not professional. It screams 13 year old girl. And probably always will. They can add all these 'useful' functions like calendars that synchronise with your cat and so forth; but I'm pretty sure 'The New Busy' has an iphone or a blackberry and does all their organising on there. Not on a free, web based, advertising plagued, email service. They just don't.

Plus, wasn't hotmail, MSN Hotmail, and then Windows Live Hotmail? What is it now? Just Hotmail again? It's like when they changed MSN messenger to Live Messenger. We kids still called it msn. You know, back in the day, before myspace or facebook. 'You going on msn after school?' 'Yeah! LOL!!!! :p (Y)' etc etc. Stop messing with the brand names. We don't care.

Some of the slogans are quite good. Some are just weird. Some are just a bit scary:

Crazy eyes? Shut up! It's not my fault I have to get up at 5.45am every day so am generally exhausted mon-fri! Jeez. Don't be mean. I work hard. I'm just not superhuman like this 'New Busy' seems to be. I'd love to be 'New Busy'! It sounds like have some kind of major career focus yet still do the student-stamp-on-the-hand-where-did-we-go-last-night thing:

I miss that! Waking up with stamps on your hands. And face. But I didn't zing out of bed, do some pilates, get the train to work and create something amazing before 11am. No. I texted my friends incoherent words, then found some kind of bacon-type substance. And I did not check my emails. Or schedule my day.

What I don't like about it, is it echoes this pressure in our modern lives to be awesome 2.0. It's crazy. And I'm not immune to it; I do play 'Fill the diary':

And I usually fail. I do 'see things others miss', generally. But that just comes from my general observation powers. And I do wish I had time to exercise, and time to illustrate as well as my full time graphic design job, and I wish I had time to go to cool bars every night, and travel whereever I want on a whim, and time to chill out and not feel guilty. But I don't. I try to do all these things - and I'm just tired.

So I hate The New Busy, with all their smugness and superhuman time keeping skills. I'm pretty sure they don't have hotmail to thank for it though. Actually, do they even exist?

This campaign just makes me feel bad. And guilty for not being The New Busy. And wishing that I was. And knowing that if I was, I would probably be awesome 2.0. But I'm not. I'm just tired.

You can play around with this silly interactive thing if you want. It's not that silly I suppose, it's kind of interesting.

The most interesting part of this campaign for me though is they managed to get an experiential element in there. OF COURSE. The New Busy is allll about the experiential. They practically demand it, from their skinny lattes to their brainstorming sessions:

 'Blue Screen Lagoon' at various places, including Canary Wharf. Well of course, bankers are the The New Busy. Basically, you could go along and pretend you were doing crazy awesome things like tight-rope walking. 'All from the comfort of a blue (or even green) screen - oh, that's so New Busy.' What?? That doesn't even make sense!. I hate you, New Busy. It was happening yesterday (28th May) and guess what - I couldn't check it out. Why? Because I was busy. WORKING. Yeah, take that New Busy.

New Busy would probably tell me to shut up and get him a skinny latte.

'Frivolity Fields' - 'The New busy likes nothing more than extreme knitting, circus tricks, sideways guitar....' Ugh. It sounds sickeningly awesome and pointless. If I was New Busy I wouldn't have a 9-5.30 job. Nope. I'd be freelance and could saunter over and do some extreme knitting. See, New Busy just makes me feel bad.

Props to Madmedia though, they came up with it, and it did look good: http://themindtonic.blogspot.com/2010/05/madmedia-are-new-busy.html


If I was New Busy, I would've been one of the marketeers coming up with these crazy ideas. Extreme knitting sounds exactly the kind of thing my busy mouth would have said. But alas, new graduates really aren't New Busy. We're just trying to have some kind of career.

Ads I love: Wrigleys Extra 'Banish Smelly Followers'

Now. This isn't a clever viral marketing campaign, or guerilla gardening, or anything of that jazz. This is a plain, straight-up TV advert. And generally, most of them are bad. Not this one. It made me laugh and go 'aw' and feel fuzzy all at the same time. Possibly just a girly reaction, but my dad also immensely liked it too. And he complains about adverts more than I do.

Banish Smelly Follow..
Watch the ad...

Watch it. Why do I love it? Cute characters. Nothing gets me more than cute, slightly helpless characters. It's why I also love the Orange adverts.

And that it also works, at telling you what the product is (or reminding you of it) with none of that cliched icicles/arctic wind/cool fresh breath/breathing on a mirror stuff that most adverts of similar brands come up with it. It's just a visual representation of bad breath. In a cute way.

What's the song in it? If anyone knows, say so. It's nice.

I also love the bit at the end where the lil ickle onion gets stuck in the lift door. I hope he doesn't get squashted >.<

Alright, enough. I've made my point. It's fun and happy. The way ads should be!

Ads I love: Marmite 'That May Be Too Far' Campaign

I'm starting a new post subtitle - Ads I love. There are many. Considering I want to work in advertising and I'm quite adept at thinking up concepts (apparently), and I have tonnes of opinions about advertising, I don't actually post enough about it. I think it's because I have too many thoughts on the subject and don't know where to begin.

Well I'm beginning on a brand that everyone knows and you either love it or you hate it - The new Marmite ads of course.




I've been seeing these everyday on my way through Euston station and they make me smile, and think as well - which is a good thing. What I love about these ads is Marmite's willingness to embrace the knowledge that many people hate them, and using it to their advantage. I'm sure a lot of people would think 'A Marmite cereal bar is a bit too far' so they have hit the love it/hate it discussion head on, with spoof products that marmite lovers may buy, and marmite haters would subsequently hate them for loving it. Nice.

Brands that are brave (ish) with their advertising like this make me feel better about the state of the advertising sector. Apparently they even put up versions of these posters without the strap line, and marmite lovers were actually asking where they could get these products from. They make me think when I look at them as well because they are representing advertising stereotypes and taking a satirical view on them - how much do these adverts look like the real thing? How many times have adverts like these been plastered in front of our faces? Especially the perfume one... Gucci anyone? I like that these adverts are saying, 'Well we may as well make these products, there are people like you who will buy them with advertising like this'. Which is true.

The ads are from the ever-successful DDB, executing them with a confidence and hitting the target audience head on. Even if you hate the taste of Marmite (like I do), you can't help but love the brand. It's a British icon but it hasn't kept itself in the dark ages; especially with a fresh and fun campaign like this. Keep it coming.

Found the pictures via the blog of Sell! Sell!, which is a great Shoreditch based creative agency I've just recently discovered. Here is their website. From reading the stuff on their blog, they seem pretty cool though and I'd love to have a chance to work with them in the future.

Immersion 2010: Session 5

Last week we had a really good session actually. It was called 'Nuts and Bolts' and was focused on the specifics of being self-employed/starting a business. Talking about the differences between Sole Traders, Partners, Limited Companies (which I learned in Business Studies GCSE but it's always nice to have a reminder) and making us think about ourselves as a business and we would probably be. I'm definitely of the Sole Trader/Freelancer kind, backed up by being a normal employee for the foreseeable future. Being a normal is good for the bank balance but bad for my lifestyle, I think.

So we had Magnus Long from Viable London back in talking about his route to where he is now, and how some of it he spent as an employee and then taking the decision to form a partnership, then a limited company, and the pros and cons of each.

He said a really nice quote - "It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb, instead of halfway up one you don't." Which I quite like.

He also told us about Hidden Art, which I'd never heard about but seems really interesting and useful maybe in the future.

"Hidden Art helps designer-makers and designers transform their passion into products.

We do this through promoting and supporting members to place their products both nationally and internationally through international trade fairs, the Hidden Art E-Shop, global press coverage, Hidden Art Awards and our annual pre-Christmas Open Studios event." It's about £50 a year; I think probably more useful to product designers and designer-makers, that is, people with physical things to sell. I don't really have any of that yet.

We then were given a talk by Be Kaylor-Blake from Futureheads Recruitment, who gave us advice on job hunting through recruitment agencies, what to do, what to expect, that kind of thing. I'd always thought recruitment agencies were a really good idea but according to Be, the process in London/Uk as a whole is quite bad - and other people had bad experiences too. Which was interesting to know, I had assumed they were a good route to go down but maybe not. She said it only worked if there was a good relationship between you and the agency, you had a strong relationship with someone in the team and that it was a two way street, you had to work on it.

Lastly there was Catherin Gregg, who was really nice and has a great company called Make:Good, who "are an architecture and design company working to make public buildings and spaces more friendly and enjoyable places to be. More than this; we empower the very people who use these spaces to be at the heart of delivering the transformations." She had good advice as well, simple but valuable things like, you need to offer things that people actually want, and to have a distinction between yourself and your work. It's ok to sleep! I know I have guilt over being tired a lot and thinking 'but I must work 16 hour days to make it' and actually... no you don't. Chill. Sleep. Sleep is nice. Mmm.

In the evening, we had a panel session with Sue Odell, who does casting, styling, production, and is a general whirlwind of energy and amazingness - the stories she had! And also Gail Gallie, who works in marketing/strategy, and again had a really interesting background and seems to have done amazing stuff.

Sue Odell has shot the images for so many ads that I like -

That toblerone one is great.

She's had such an interesting life - and the one thing that came through clearest is she never set out to be any of the titles she puts on her career - she started out as a graphic designer, then kind of fell into casting by working with Lord Snowdon and other amazing photographers, then through that fell into styling, and so forth - she never set out saying 'I want to be a stylist', she just did what she enjoyed every day, always grabbed new opportunities, got a bit lucky, and so has had a really exciting and varied career. She also admitted to being a complete control freak and never relinquishing control over her projects - hence why she still runs around like a mad woman when she cuould employ 'people' to do what she does.

Gail Gallie was equally interesting - she was behind the labour 1997 campaign, (which proved to be successful), and then moved on to become the head of marketing and events at Radio 1. Which must have been such a great job! She was also behind setting up the Electric Proms too, which was a brilliant idea. I think she ended up moving on to be the head of marketing and events for over a third of the BBC in the end. Crazy stuff.

She then moved on to working on the development and fundraising at the Roundhouse in Camden (if you've never been there, it's a really great venue, lots of nice exposed brick and glass stairways etc). From there I think she worked more freelance and now runs her own campaigns agency, GallieGodfrey as a partnership. That's one varied career.

To read about all the Immersion sessions so far, click here.

Banner featured on the homepage of Red Lemon Club!

Red Lemon Club is a nice little website giving loads of good advice on Online Self Promotion for Creatives. If you're a freelancer then the site is a must to check out - some really useful hints and tips on there.

I entered a competition to get free advertising on the site for a month - it was one of those 'Retweet to win' competitions on twiiter, always good - and I actually won! So my humble little banner...

...With a link to my website is now up on the homepage for the next month!

I can be a bit jammy sometimes, me ^.^

D&AD New Blood 09 - Roundup part three - Advice Lectures, London loving and plans plans plans

I went back into London on the thursday to attend the D&AD Training and Advice sessions, which were organised to coincide with New Blood and the people who exhibited.

It was a really useful day, held at Notting Hill's Coronet Theatre (which is this cute indie old-stye cinema, pretty sweet) and I attended 4 of the talks that were held there.

The first one was called 'How did they do it?' and that was a good one, it was 2 students, Ross Taylor and Alex... someone(argh cant remember his last name) who had graduated last year and had managed to successfully get jobs, and basically what they did to end up where they are now. Some really useful tips, things like keeping in contact with your contacts, don't be afraid to move on, win as many awards as you can, things like that.

Then there was a talk on 'How to make your mark', making your portfolio as good as it can be, by Paul Brazier of AMV.BBDO, who is going to be the next President of D&AD. Lots of useful things to take away there. The next talk I went to was called 'How to be Successful' (which is amusing, surely it can't be as easy as that) and that was by Steve Henry, who used to be the Creative Director at TBWA but left to take time off from the industry - he spoke a lot about how advertising works and how a lot of it gets watered down so much through the creative process that very rarely do you get an amazing advert - basically telling us as 'new blood' what we can do to make an impact in this changing industry, especially as 'ant- consumerism' and the recession takes hold, advertising is changing as people are realising that buying stuff doesn't make them happy. Loads to think about, it's a subject that I'm really interested it - how can advertising survive if people are starting to not buy things all the time, can advertising actually encourage people to buy less but buy better? Quality over quantity, no more of 'you need this now, loads of it, buy this now!' to something with a bit more austerity. I don't really know the answer yet.

And the last talk was all about Setting up a new business/how to survive as a freelancer - some of these things I knew already but it was refreshing to hear it from actual freelancers, and interesting to hear that going freelance straight from uni isn't always the best idea - get into the industry and learn from real life, get some contacts first before you go out on your own. Makes sense.



It was another beautiful day in London so I took a wander over to the Southbank - here are some pics taken off the Embankment bridge. I just walked down from here on my own to the Tate Modern, not really with an aim in mind, just taking it all in and realising how much I miss London. I used to come here every 2 weeks or so back before Uni, going to gigs and galleries, and now I'm lucky if I go 2 or 3 times a year. So being back in London so much these past 2 weeks has been great, and even though the tube is still as packed and nightmarish as usual, I love it. I know that place so well and it's made me realise that I definitely want to live there. After not being accepted into either of the MA's that I wanted to do in London, I thought I'd leave it for a bit, but these past 4 days at New Blood has really made me rethink everything - I want to do placements in London, working at studios, working freelance, doing all these things, and I know it's a cliche but you really have to be in London for these things. I love that city, the energy, even the horrible impatient Londoners and the mentalist cyclists. I felt myself slipping back into the Londoner mentality so easily almost straight away - (stupid tourists, can't even work the tube, it's bloody colour coded for god's sake, it's not hard) I caught myself thinking. How bad is that? :P

But I'm a bit torn because I planned to live with my best friend in Wolves for a year, and I have a job in Wolves, and so many friends up there, and not so many in London and at home, and all this stuff. But maybe it's time to just do something for myself. I never do that.

So I think I need a Plan of Action. Start contacting studios etc, keep illustrating, keep applying for placements, don't rush anything or make any rash decisions and hopefully by Christmas I'll be well on my way to where I want to be. Wherever that is.

First off, I need a Mac. Badly. Where can I get a reconditioned one? I am poor.

Previous posts about New Blood 09.