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Stupid question, but have you ever felt like doing more with your life, whether that's getting knee deep in a ridiculous experience, starting a career, coming up with an idea, selling a product, changing the way things are done, changing the way you do things, teaching someone something they don't know, learning something new or finding someone you can truly be happy with?

Well, I hope this post might inspire you to achieve these things and spark the fire cracker of awesome that I believe is beneath each and every one of our asses. In order to make this slightly easier though, I've included 6 videos :)

So let me break it down into 6 main points that I think barbarically summarise human evolution:

 

1. Learn

No one wants to know about that thing you could've done that one time but never actually did. People want to learn and feel inspired by your experience, history and perspective, why, because you're awesome and I sure as hell don't have the experience, knowledge and perspective you do...hell, the Queen herself aint got shit on you.

Learning new things is pretty damn important, it's all about the appreciation of your unique outlook on the world which helps lead to progress. Progression is what allows us to explore new career paths, become a master in our field, find fun people to hang out with, open ourselves up to new business opportunities or simply surprise people with the random crap we know.

Now I'm not talking about university learning here, I'm talking about the simple things that can have an incredible impact on your life, like Steve Jobs taking a calligraphy course after he dropped out of varsity...that calligraphy course was fundamental in creating the seamless type fonts we see on Macs and PC today, you can find out more in the next section when we get to that video.

Never become complacent, explore the things you enjoy and maybe, just maybe, they might become the things you love doing for the rest of your life....figuratively and metaphorically speaking ;)

The video below by Matt Cutts is all about trying something new for the next 30 days and I for one am gonna jump on this like a hillbilly at a ho down:

 

2. Love

Now before you roll those eyeballs and say "here we go, another God damn hippy", let me clarify that "love" means various things to different people. For me, it's the passionate appreciation and willingness to connect with someone/something, and then allowing yourself to feel inspired by that connection in a positive way. Pretty deep, but let me explain...

Loving what you do is quite obviously an important thing, unfortunately all my life I've been told "son, you walk down the street and ask the first person you meet whether they're doing what they love or not. 9/10 times you'll find someone who hates their job". Fair enough, but I see two problems here - people who are working to live, and people who haven't explored their hobbies. You love art, how many business opportunities are there for you? Become a painter and live on scraps until you hopefully become a success, cut off your ear and die? Doesn't sound glamorous at all does it?

But the problem here isn't the financial gain, it's that people are conditioned to believe that their interests and hobbies are merely just that...fun things to do when you're not at work selling cars for example.

There is absolutely no reason you can't be successful doing something you love, I'm not saying it's easy (if it were everyone would be doing it), but it's the people who spot the opportunities and are open to doing new things simply because they love it, who might turn into the car salesman who runs the next version of the Vauxhall art car boot fair, the car salesman who actually creates the world's most expensive BMW paint brush to promote the brand, decides to sponsor the dirty car art project, uses the idea of invisibility art to sell his product in a shopping mall etc...

The Steve Jobs video below is simply inspiring, lots of great quotes and stories, but the one that stood out for me was: "But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love."

 

3. Innovate

Innovation, probably my favourite stage of the lot thanks to the crazy Mo'fo's at 21 tanks, can be described as bringing something new to an environment which ultimately leads to changing the way things are done. Really, it's the physical proof of man’s evolution.

If we're comfortable with someone in a relationship, isn't it easier to get along and just do the things that matter instead of wasting energy on being a version 2 of yourself? You'd explore, challenge, fight, learn and eventually fall in love. Why wouldn't this be true for work?

Once we've fought to find something we enjoy, we learn as much as we can about it, to the point that we start noticing opportunities to the problems we might face and proactively try to improve it. It's that idea of "contribution" to an industry or individual that makes us feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in life. We're doing it because there's a need, and we have an interest.

The video below is a great example of innovation, and more importantly, it shows how one man in Malawi called William Kamkwamba had an interest to learn about engineering so he could help the people he loved...not because he wanted to make a fortune, but because he saw a need, had an interest in engineering and took it upon himself to peruse his passion in the hopes of adding some value to the way things were done:

 

 

4. Fail

Failure is the lack of success, success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose...key word purpose. Purpose is the reason we do what we do and it's sure as hell the reason we hit the ground so hard when we fail, because no one likes to want something and then have it taken away...it sucks.

You're gonna fail, you're gonna fall flat on your ass at some point and regret a decision, but it's having those future ideals and the passion for your field that will get you back up on your feet with a cool scar to show all the chicks...because chicks dig scars.

I have no better way to summarise this section than to quote Conan O'Brien from the video you're about to watch below: "It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique"

 

5. Teach

The video below raises a really interesting question: "Do schools kill creativity?"

Now although this section is about how we can take our passion, knowledge and cool innovation stories about our experience and impart that knowledge to new starters or partners, it's also about how we can help raise the next generation of ass-kicking babies. How can we help enable people to find what they're passionate about and give them the opportunity to peruse that dream.

In the video Sir Ken Robinson speaks about Gillian Lynne who's a big deal in the world of choreography, responsible for such productions as Cats and Phantom of the opera. It's absolutely amazing to hear her story which puts Ken Robinsons quote below into perfect context:

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to transforming education is not to standardize it, but to personalize it, to build an environment people want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions." 

 

6. Leave a legacy

We make our way through life meeting people, doing incredible things, learning new skills and the like, but have you ever sat back and wondered if there was anything in particular that you'd like to change or leave behind? Maybe not, I certainly don't know who I'm going to be years from now. Kids, my own company a dog named Triffis...no clue, but what I do know is that one day these people might be able to benefit from my years on this earth, and although times change I'm pretty confident that these 6 basic principles will remain the same in some way. 

Sarah Kay is a spoken word poet, and a great example for why I find the idea of leaving a legacy so fascinating. She dedicates her first poem in the video to her non-existent daughter, lessons in life she hopes to hand down to her when she finally arrives. Sarah Kay started off with an "interest" in spoken word poetry, and besides her fear for public speaking and age, decided to get involved and started going to grown-up events when she was still in school. She realised that she didn't have to follow the way these people were writing their poetry and started doing it the way she felt worked best. That allowed her to leave a memorable impression on so many people, change the way people thought about "how" they should write their poetry and brought the idea of spoken word poetry to a much wider audience. She will be remembered, and her daughetr will hear her poem one day, and she will leave a legacy because she simply loved what she did and she did it to the best of her ability.

 

Summary:

In the last week I've become pretty obsessed with advertising and marketing campaigns...in fact, what actually happened, is that I had a shot of advertising-heroin when I went to the Cannes Lions festival in France last week thanks to the work I get to do for Nokia.

Cannes didn't inspire me to achieve something that seemed glamorous or unobtainable, it showed me that I'm already doing something that I love and find fascinating on a daily basis.

For someone who's been in this industry for almost three years, I'd like to think that knowing who and what David Ogilvy was all about would be a standard, but the way I see it, three years isn't a very long time...and I'm not here to feed you rubbish, so I'll be honest...I knew the agency, but I never knew the man.

Last week was the 100th birthday celebration of the late David Ogilvy, I looked into who he was when I got back to London yesterday and came across the awesome video you see below (via AdWeek) Watch and then read on...

After seeing this video, I realised just why it is I love my work...

Advertising encompasses a variety of disciplines, finely crafted together to bring great ideas to the surface and well executed campaigns to the consumer.

• We appreciate, study and atempt to predict human behaviour.
• We interact with, respond to and approch new people every day
• And finally, we take art, film, philosophy, mathematics, music, geaography, history, language and a variety of other ingredients to use in the marketing mix of awesome! 

We have an immense potential to learn and teach...how we choose to do those things is what will differentiate us in the end.

Just some of the "many" quotes from Ogilvy that will surely stay with me throughout my career: 

"If you can't advertise yourself, what hope have you of being able to advertise anything else?" David Ogilvy

 

"Be more ambitious, don’t bunt. Aim out of the park. Compete with the immortals" David Ogilvy

 

"Try and inject into every commercial you make, a touch of singularity..." David Ogilvy

 

"It's the lack of ambition which cripples most people and makes them so pedestrian in the advertising creative business" David Ogilvy

 

"Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating. You can't bore people into buying your product, you can only interest them in buying it." David Ogilvy

 

 

So after traveling the amazing maze of advertising at Cannes Lions, I stumbled across a few ideas that really got my attention. Below are just some of the awesome stories, and I hope these provide you with a little inspiration…

 

1. Surprise Cat walk

Advertiser/Client: The Salvation army secondhand shop

I loved this simply because it's an idea anyone could have thought of, simple, to the point and it adds a sentiment of fun to the people strutting their stuff down the catwalk

 

2. Decode Jay-Z with Bing

Advertiser/Client: Bing/Jay-Z

Now this campaign won itself a Gold Lion at Cannes this year. It's awesome, based on the fact that it tries to integrate various traditions of marketing, from billboards to online videos, the campaign itself was well thought out and brilliantly executed. Google may have been your big brother pushing dirt in your face Bing, but somewhere along the line you learnt some Krav Maga and are starting to kick ass ;)

 

4. Tesco subway virtual store

Advertiser/Client: Tesco

I great idea in the South Korean which saw virtual shopping aisles pop up in subways. The reason why this works are plentiful - It could be the fact that Tesco went to the consumer instead of waiting for them to step in the store, it could be that the execution is pretty strange and unique making it a little more interesting to pay attention to or it could be the fact that staff, training and production costs come down due to the fact that online ordering lowers your overheads...either way, I thought it was pretty sweet. 

 

5. Track tape, Hot wheels

Advertiser/Client: Mattel

Right, so I may be saving the best for last. Anyone can see why this is awesome, but what makes it unique in my opinion is perfectly captured in this quote from the video: "We decided that the best way to achieve this, was not a campaign, but a product" 

 

Honestly...for a man to get excited about buying a spaghetti spoon, you know something's up.

Fred & friends is a website so awesome I can honestly say that if there isn't an item in there you don't want to buy...you have a problem with your awesome bone...that's the one between your bottom distal phalanx and your skull.

The reason I loved browsing the site is that I have the excitment levels of a drunk monkey! And now I'm a monkey who has incredible crap to fill his tree up with. On a serious note...you kinda need to appreciate the fact that every one of these simple items was innovated in a fun way (more on that after the awesome pics)

 

THE BEST

 

THE REST

 

In my humble opinion...fun and adding value to something people use regularly, is the frontier of business and society as a whole. It's the one way you can truly reach people and have them sell your product for you if needs be. I also love the fact that each one of these products is based on a pretty common household item, and they innovated what was there and created something people can appreciate.

I'm not trying to say that these guys are inventors themselves, I'm just saying that a fresh approach to a simple problem can sometimes lead to greater things. You need to find the inspiration before you make the change...whether that's positive or negative, which a smart mo'fo once told me:

"Innovation is changing the things you hate, because you hate them, and know you can make them better!" Rich...! Mulholland

It's simple...

I've become obsessed with Ted talks...I've seen everything from a 22 year old poet who brought a crowd of people to their feet, to a sexy sounding South American who talks about monkeys who solve conflict by having sex all day...it's been interesting.

So today I settle down to watch the latest in these delicious eye-ball treats for my odious journey home on the tube. My choice: "Handspring Puppet Company: The genius puppetry behind War Horse"

Then I realise...I'd actually love to see that oddly incredible puppet thing walk the stage in real life...so off I go to Google, only to crash as I realise the poster below is the actual play in which the horse performs...

Why strange? Well besides the fact that the play is now over, my eyes must have glanced over that poster around 100 times since I first recalled seeing it 3/4 months ago. I could actually remember the times I saw your annoying horse eye peering at me while I ignore everyone on the escalator. For all intents and purposes, you may as well have shown me this:

What marketers and the knobs who put the War horse poster together need to learn, is that perceptions will always influence a persons idea of what you're trying to sell.

You put a giant horse on a picture with a cool name, I'm going to assume it's something boring...or horse racing. If I'm a fan of horse racing, I'd most likely prefer a pint and football to an educated experience at the theatre...so who are you targeting? The educated few who know the production and wonder why bookies have defaced their precious master piece? Even better...would you find these educated few in a tube station?

If you have a story as awesome to tell as the one in the TED video, why in Charlie Sheen's name did you not use it to sell your brand? And yes...it's a brand. Tomorrow someone could easily reply to my post with a "But we sold out every day for 3 months you shit!" that's great Sparky, but if you didn't advertise like a knob you'd have spent 1/4 of the costs next time round. So basically - go save a family in Africa or produce another dumb ass poster.

 

I'll make your job real easy...

There! Done in Powerpoint in under 5min...now pay me £20,000+ you idiots.

 

Between bloody walls in German nightclubs, zombie stationary and interactive horror movies, 13th Street is by far one of my favourite sources for inspiration in the world of marketing & advertising.

13th Street is a tv channel specialising in action, suspense and horror...which means we're off to a pretty good start already :)

Their use of experiential and Guerrilla marketing has truly made using these "buzz" words plausible. So below are a couple examples from 13th Street I could find and a short description of what they're all about. I can only hope there's more to find and more to come, as the level of awesomeness here would probably have W+K pissing on the street corner if they knew what kind of budgets these guys were working with.

 

1. "Blood bath" room installation

13th street wanted to promote the channel to their key audience in Germany, whilst sticking to the themes of the channel and obviously doing something that people would remeber. That's why in the video below you can see what the agency, Jung von Matt, did to drive that nail in the head...

 

2. "Last call" interactive horror

To keep this short and to the point, the challenge here was that the audience should experience horror as never before. The idea, the first interactive horror movie in theaters.

 

3. 13th Street "Stationary of Horror"

Not a lot of explanation needed here, the pics below are what you'll see if you ever get a fax/proposal from 13th Street in Germany. This is their corporate stationary and something I'm sure any employee or potential client will surely never forget.

 

 

4. 13th Street print ads

So moving away from Germany, another country who has a dedicated 13th Street channel is Spain. The wicked print ads you see below, playfully mock the stereotypical furniture/home ads you usually see every day. I'd love to see the billboard jackers pin these up all over a home store sometime ;)

I really love finding cool shit like this online, simply because inspiration is all we need to innovate. Once you have a desire to do something, improve on something or completely change something that inspires you (or pisses you off)...you have the two key ingredients: PASSION & MOTIVATION

Anyways, props to JVM, the agency behind each of these great ideas, glad to see that even though I can't speak your language, you guys are still showing me your awesomeness in videos and pictures. 13th Street FTW!

Let me start this off by saying that these ads are NOT the actual voice of actor Morgan Freeman, they are the works of American comedian/actor Josh Robert Thompson who's got some pretty funny Holywood impressions up his sleeve (see video below this picture), and secondly...they're still pretty awesome :)

A few months back B.J. Lawsonand his "Lawson for congress" campaign raised quite a stir when the fools used a Morgan Freeman sounding voice in one of their ads...not stupid...but publicly announcing that it WAS Morgan Freeman when it clearly wasn't is when they screwed the pooch.

On a lighter note, the below ads have recently been released by insurance company Morethan, and even though they're treading the fine line between brilliance and Morgan Freeman's prison boot up their ass...I kinda dig it, and the fact that they stuck to the Shawshank Redemption theme makes them all the more brilliant in my opinion.

Well, we'll wait and see the reactions...little bit of bitching happening already from what I can see. You can also check the making of video at the end of this post...any initial thought are more than welcome, just don't even think about ripping off Shawshank Redemption as one of the greatest movies of all time ;) 

 

Making of:

 

Pete Markey, marketing director of More Th>n, says "We want to build the brand – More Th>n is now 10-years old. Insurance is a serious business, and although we want to continue to show intelligent humour [in our ads], we don’t want to be silly."

 

BMW have created one seriously wicked cinema advertising campaign...one that takes you back to the good old days when you'd stare at the sun and close your eyes to see how long the image would stay burned on the backdrop of your eyelids!

The vid below shows how they went about using this same concept (without burning your retina) to offer a pretty cool experience to the viewers in the cinema.

No logo was used in the ad at all, and the ad itself featuring Ruben Xaus happens to be pretty awesome, which makes the whole thing work a lot better.

Via @katieb86

So tearing through the online jungle today, I stumbled across a website I had long forgotten...

The website was MySpace, a place where I used to love hanging out before Facebook drove up in their corvette and pissed on the party. The reason I'm bringing up this long forgotten soul is that I recently read about the beta testing site they were going to launch, a re-branding if you will. Anyway, the re-branding aint bad...but what I really love are how they've actually interacted with their logo and made the empty gap beside "my" do something awesome!

If this deer was still alive, it'd be the talk of the town...

If father Christmas had a shotgun hole in the bottom of his sled...

If a custom bowling-ball-making Gypsy had a fun slide...

And finally...the only valentine present Moby Dick ever got...

Maybe I'm just amused by really stupid shit, which I am, but if you're keen to check it out for yourself just head over to the site and scroll your mouse over the logo on the top: http://www.myspace.com/

So some of you may know about the Marketing campaign Cell C launched a while back. Huge marketing spend and corporate rebranding that gained a lot of traction within the blogging community back in South Africa.

Basically, most people think it's a load of shit and that Trevor Noah, the comedian who became the new "CEO - Customer experience officer" of the company, was a bit of a tool. You can see the original ad here below:

Anyway, as the story goes, Nando's has taken quite a crack at Cell C and released this awesome spoof of Trevor Noah's original TV commercial...have a look for yourself:

The brilliant battle began with the above ad, but where it gets awesome is when Cell C responded to Nando's spoof...

According to MyBroadband, Cell C responded to Nando’s copycat campaign by sending both the Nandos CEO and Nandos Marketing Director speed sticks (their HSPA+ USB dongles with data included), adding that they hope that Nandos will launch a ‘fastest chicken’ meal in future.

A quote from Cell C's "actual" CEO, Lars P Reichelt read, “Nando’s campaign gave us a real chuckle, we love the ads and it’s great to know that our initial campaign is inspiring creativity in other companies,” commented Reichelt.  “I trust that the Nando’s executives will enjoy their new super-fast internet connection and that they will consider adding 'Speedchicken' to their menu."

Brilliant...can't wait to see what Nando's has up their sleeve. I love when companies can have a laugh and show a bit of their human side...it's like watching two buddies have a go at one another, now we wait to see who gets the last laugh ;)

UPDATE:

It seems that bloggers in SA are now receiving these awesome packages with both Cell C and Nando's branding! Have they partnered up, is one taking the piss out of the other...not sure, but we'll be sure to keep an eye on @nicharry who posted the below pic earlier today: