Creative ideas lost in the business of it all
Circa 2006 I was involved in putting on an art exhibition. The date coincided with the Grey Lynn Festival, an annual fair celebrating the suburb where the exhibition would be held. I suggested we promote our event by handing out bottled water with custom labels to the festival goers. They would be grateful on a sunny November day for the free refreshment and would carry our advertisement throughout the day. When 7pm arrived they would have the address of the event still with them, and hopefully attend.
The idea was well received by the business student organising the event. He called up Waiwera Water and they quoted 60c a bottle for custom labeling, but they had just released a new Sarah Ulmer water and they were selling that at a discounted rate of 35c a bottle.
The business student purchased hundreds of Sarah Ulmar water bottles and we handed them out at Grey Lynn Festival with printed fliers about the exhibition. People threw out the fliers without even reading them. When 7pm came the festival goers had water bottles promoting a New Zealand cyclist and we had no one at the event.
This wasted idea is how I feel about the whole of advertising at the moment. Creative Directors aren’t looking for young people to teach, they are looking for someone to do flash or layouts or write pages of bs for client websites while still being paid a “creative” salary.
How do I get a job where ideas actually matter?
Don’t get caught with the lights on
Magazine publishers association
Supermarket bot for Google Wave!
This is my idea to use Wave to make my life easier. A Wave bot which detects food names from your conversation and suggests recipes based on this. If a supermarket chain built this they could deliver the missing ingredients to your house!
I think a few more improvements could be made, such as the bot highlight the words which it thinks are food names. So you can unhighlight things if you don’t want that in your recipe.
If any developers or supermarket chains want to get involved in making this happen let me know. Feedback would also be greatly appreciated * simile face*
Mini Cooper Cabrio
SMP: The new Mini Cooper Cabrio is a fun car for young professional males.
[Editors note: Really? I thought Mini Cooper was a girl's brand.]
Solution: Go Karting cars are fun because they are so small. Upgrade the classic game Mario Kart so the Cabrio is the “karts” players drive. Send out free copies to online game reviewers and anyone with a Nintendo!
NB: This brief ran in Creative as a competition for Mini Cooper print ads. This solution was not entered (as it is not print) and therefore has no association to Mario Kart, Nintendo or Mini Cooper. Although those companies are more than welcome to use it if my name goes on the award.
