Made in Leith – Dock

Last week was National Poetry Week.

(Verily,  it was).

This seemed like as good a reason as any to have another look at the beautiful poetry that is the Irn Bru “If…” ad.

All the recent political party conferences got me thinking of this ad we did for Bailie Nicol Jarvie a few years back.

Some things never change.

Give a Liver for Steve Jobs?

Organ Donation is a campaign close to our hearts here at Leith and Tangible.  (Tangible’s Grand Prix winning paper from the 2011 Scottish Marketing Society Effectiveness Awards is well worth a squizz).

So, amid all the current outpouring of respect for Steve Jobs, we couldn’t help thinking that it would be nice if everyone with a Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad or other Apple gadget might consider signing up as an organ donor in their country.

(Given Apple have sold over 250 million iOS devices, that would be a pretty awesome legacy, wouldn’t it?)

Steve Jobs had a complicated relationship with organ donation.  He received a liver transplant from a person in their 20s who died in a car accident.  But he was fully aware that his wealth played a huge part in securing the transplant (he could afford to register in other U.S. states as well as his own).  Following his successful transplant, he spoke openly about this, and how he wanted to improve access to donor organs for everyone, regardless of how rich or poor they were.  He was instrumental in creating a register of living kidney donors and changing the driving license arrangements in California so people were asked if they wanted to sign up to the organ donor register.

On the busy day of Apple’s earnings call in 2010, Steve Jobs took time out to write an email reply to a young man who wrote to thank him for his efforts to promote organ donation, followong the dealth of his girlfriend.  Steve Jobs ended his email with the words “Life is fragile”.

So, why not get on your Mac, your iPad or your iPhone now and Google how to register as an organ donor in your country?

If you’re in the UK, you can do it here.

And if you’d like to hear Steve Jobs talking about organ donation in his own words – here you go.

May 4th is celebrated around the world as Star Wars day.  The original film premiered on may 25th 1977, but the pun value of May the 4th (“May the 4th be with you” – geddit?) has proved irresistible to legions of fans over the decades.

In celebration of this great day, we bring you 8 of the classiest design interpretations of the Star Wars films, all courtesy of the wonderful art print website society6.com Let us know your favourite…

1. Star Wars (Jerod Gibson)

2. Dark Lord (Liam Brazier)

3. Star Wars Epidode V (Jerod Gibson)

4. Empire (Scott Erickson)

5. Rocking At At (Yanmos)

6. I fell in love in Tattooine (David)

7. Death Star Karaoke (Matt Humphrey)

And my personal favourite…

8. Vader Got Tired of Black (Bianca Green)

Eagle-eyed Gillian (@gilliana83) spotted this poptastic ad for MTV in Brazil.

Unlike many other stop-motion ideas, these are not drawings on paper but drawings on balloons. The balloons were set onto a 200 meter long rail and to achieve a moving picture effect, 10 balloons had to be popped per second, which are 600 balloons per minute.

Let us know if you can identify all the musicians featured.

(First spotted at creativecriminals.com)

I was somewhat alarmed to open the office fridge and discover this.

Our esteemed Head of Design, Alan, seemingly rendered into a soft, grey, meaty paste and stored in an air-tight jar.

A fair and due punishment for recklessly using Comic Sans, I wondered?

Fortunately not.   It turned out to be nothing quite as gruesome; just one of the many delicacies clever Alan produced on his weekend cookery course at the River Cottage.  Jolly delicious paté it was too.

(But as the mastermind behind such lovely packaging design as the Devilishh pudding range, I’d suggest an overhaul of his paté labelling is urgently required).

At the recent IPA ‘Question Time’ debate in Edinburgh – (where our own Gerry Farrell was a lively panelist) there was a question about whether “Ogilvy on Advertising” remained a useful read for ad folk today.

There was widespread agreement that David Ogilvy’s oft-quoted assertion that “the consumer is not a moron.  She is your wife”  is an idea every advertising whippersnapper would do well to remember.

Talking about “target audiences” and “consumers” can easily de-humanise people.  A big part of the planner’s job is help everyone in the agency to appreciate why people may think and behave they way they do – even if those thoughts and feelings can seem inconvenient, illogical or infuriating when we have briefs to crack and targets to hit.

Anyway – this all popped into my head when I was reading a consumer segmentation piece today.  The image the agency (who shall remain nameless) had chosen to illustrate over 45s was this:

Over 45s!

Part of me wants to believe this was probably an in-joke between the agency and client at the time.  But I fear it was not.

Apart from suggesting some very lazy and misguided picture searching, you’ve got to think it’s a spectacularly bad move when it’s not without the realm of all possibility that the agency would be presenting this to a colleague or client in their mid 40s at some point.

Loud tut tuts from me, I’m afraid.

Snapped on a quick lunchtime stroll today -  I was tickled by the contrast between the message on this billboard (“There are places that nurture the soul”) and the decidedly grim location it was in (corner of a scrapyard on Salamander Street).

Wonderfully clever media strategy – or mere accident?

Because we all need something lovely to watch on a Monday.  (I rather like the idea of a wooden phone too).

Did you know that by three years old, a child’s brain will be three quarters of its adult size? Spooky but true.

Leith’s ‘Play Talk Read’ campaign for the Scottish Government has been all about encouraging parents to interact as much as possible with their little ones because of the massive brain boost this has been shown to have. We had some fantastic tracking research results on the effects of the campaign this week – which is exactly the kind of thing that puts a spring in a planner’s step.

Maybe that’s why this brilliant YouTube film caught my eye. It shows twin baby boys chatting by the fridge – in some style! Proof, if ever it were needed, that babies get ridiculous amounts of stimulation and enjoyment from conversation, long before we can all understand each other.  If only all babies had a pint sized partner in crime to discuss life with, as these two do, instead of just us boring old adults…