Creative insights and music

Today I was remembered of the idea that all creative endeavours, like music and advertising, are ideally created with help of some remarkable insight. Quite obvious, I know. But sometimes it is good to find a new route to an old insight.

I was listening to a song by White Lies on Spotify (honestly I have to look up the title, it was a first timer:  Bigger than us) and I turned on TuneWiki. I am capable of listening to a song for months without really noticing the lyrics – the perks of not being an English native I presume – so tune wiki is an amazing invention for me :)

Anyway, I was looking at the lyrics – did I mention I was ironing shirts at the same time? take that multitasking – and I was particularly struck by this part:

You took the tunnel route home.
You’d never taken that way with me before.
Did you feel a need for change?

What I like about this is that it’s relatively simple, no display heavy emotions (yet). I’m struck by the fact that the writer of the song chose to write this down. It’s terribly familiar. It is something that occurs to almost everyone, whether in the driving seat or the seat next to it. Why do we change things? Why is there for some a need to do things differently?

I could of course write a piece about endorphin levels that rise when you have a new experience, new connections made in the brain, et cetera. But that is not of interest to me here, not now at least. Since advertising is all about changing people’s ways, changing their visions and paradoxically creating new traditions, it is interesting to see what drives people.

It is these isights that cannot only drive songs, but also function as fundamental ideas for ads.

 

 

Propaganda and advertising

The last few months I have been participating in a course called “Propaganda in Renaissance Scotland”. Although my main focus lies on 20th century advertising, I decided to make a little sidestep into the early modern history of the United Kingdom. It’s hard exploring Scotland’s history without touching upon some royal families in England, so I thought I’d just cover everything.  

Jenny Geddes threw a stool at the dean of St Giles Cathedral, invoking multiple riots across the Scottish nation.

I thought it would be particularly intriguing, since ‘propaganda’, in my not so humble opinion, is nothing but a clever combination of ideology, politics and advertising. In the course of analysing these works of propaganda, one main problem emerged constantly: the question who the target audience is and how they can be reached. In the light of this question, I set out to discover whether there was something present in society like a public sphere or public opinion, something the distribution of propaganda did suggest. One could argue that only certain groups in society did matter, so that the (relevant) public sphere was limited to them. Others claim that even the masses were significant spectators, since their approval or disapproval could lead to civil unrest and riots. Note that, back then the issues propaganda addressed were the ones close to the heart, touching upon religious and humanist beliefs and loyalty. People generally showed an intense feeling of attachment to these themes. I intend to look for similarities between these feelings and opinions, and the relationship people nowadays form with brands. People have strong opinions about certain brands, they form intimate relationships with them, and occasionally they show loyalty (try for instance to visit an Apple store the night before the release of the next big thing). However, releasing propaganda, in a similar manner as releasing a work of advertising, is an act of propaganda in itself. I am not solely speaking of printed material. Even events like royal processions, plays and even protests can be understood as expressions of propaganda. The audience then, is less precise, more diffuse, and somewhat difficult to steer around.  

Marriage of James VI and Elizabeth Stuart

D&AD New Blood Festival

For the last few days I joined Paul and Yme’s creative team at the D&AD New Blood Festival. We’ve worked on a couple of briefs, by Adam&Eve DDB, Human After All and Wieden+Kennedy. I loved working with them, and we had a lot of fun with the briefs. (And secretly I’m very proud of us!)
And.. I won a lovely tee :)

All and all, the festival was an amazing introduction to the advertising industry to me.

Bees & Wasps part 2

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While surfing around on the adweek website today, I suddenly found myself watching a bees promotion campaign!

Greenbees. Honestly, it took me a while to connect it with Greenpeace, but hey, I’m a foreigner (can I still play that card? ;) )

Anyway, just by the time that I started to get really angry with all the bees and wasps flying around in my bathroom – this morning I was “attacked” by a lost wasp that was looking for the exit – I remembered their necessity. So fly away, little bugs!

Greenbees Advertisement

 

 

Serial Advertising

hbo

Series have become the new films. They create a sense of community and loyalty that lasts longer than one movie in a theatre. It’s ongoing process of bounding and joy.The same is true for advertising. Nowadays a large part of advertising is the creation of mini-series that take about three minutes each ad have a distinctive narrative. Sometimes the promoted brand isn’t even very present in the ad. It is presented as a sponsor, similar to sponsors presented in the credit lines of a
movie.

Of course, serial advertising is of all times, but nowadays it seems that truly effective advertising needs this sequence in order to successfully go viral.Personaly, I love em. These mini-series are enjoyable to watch, usually unpredictable, and not only devoted to sell you something. It is clear that behind the scenes there was a creative team enjoying themselves. Sometimes, thanks to new technology, they even allow the viewer to participate in the ad.

I have presented a few of my favourites down here.

Vans – How to do everything in the world (very funny)

Tipp ex – A hunter shoots a bear (audience participation)

Old Spice – Proposal (indirect audience participation)

HBO Go – Awkward Family Viewing (awkward in a good way)

EDIT: Budgiecat’s singing lessons (yes I am a sucker for animal vids :) )

 

 

Great love

Just a non-autobiographical question that came up during my daily visit to the supermarket:

would you want to meet the love of your life when you would know that he or she would never love you?

Phew there are a lot of ‘would’s in that sentence. I guess it basically comes down to the well-known ‘ignorance is bliss’ paradigm – but let’s not ruin the fun here – or the ‘the experience of love overcomes its practicalities’.

I’m not sure. I assume that knowing there is indeed great love gives hope. But, simultaneously, it also inspires great loneliness. What would you choose? Think about it.

Wasps are a bad investment, or are they?

 

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Scary bugger

 

Nowadays environmentalists have introduced a new topic we should care about: bees and pollination. Apparently, everyone quotes Einstein in this respect, mankind would cease to exist when the bee would be extinct. So no bees, no people. (My Dutch nephew has founded a charity for bees, please make some clicks: Bee Protection! )

What used to be a fun fact has now become an actual concern. Due to the use of pesticides, bees are finding it hard to live long and well enough to successfully enter enough flowers causing cross-pollination (a.k.a. reproduction for plants). So, no bees, no plants, no food, no people. Simple as that.

I do have, however, one small objection to the bee-craze. What about wasps?

Wasps aren’t usually very popular. As a matter a fact, lots of people (women) run away screaming when a wasp comes near them.
Yes, we all know that wasps can sting multiple times and can get really angry. Plus, they look kinda scary.

But, bumblebees can also sting multiple times! Yet they have the advantage that they look like a tiny cuddly bear.
(In all honesty, my norwegian forrest cat actually looks a lot like a bumblebee!)

Wasps do contribute to cross-pollination as well. Their body also has hairs, though difficult to see, in which they keep the pollen. The one downside is though, that they do not store their nectar and make honey. So, wasps are a bad investment in the short run. However, in the long run wasps also contribute to our food supply, so it might be not such a bad investment after all. Especially when the bees are decreasing in numbers.

So spread the love and put some flowers in your garden, on your rooftop or perhaps in those little buckets you can hang beneath your window!

 

Wasp Pollination

A wasp covered in pollen

 

 

Gendered consumption

The great silence is finally over. Essays are handed in, my mind freed from all those deliberations about gendered consumption and the production of culture and propaganda during the Scottish renaissance.n

Since the first two are actually quite relevant to this blog I’ll give you a quick overview of the general thoughts. Note that I haven’t received any grades yet, so quality is not guaranteed ;) I’ll devote this post to the essay on gendered consumption (in consideration of the amount of words). The production of culture will be addressed in another blog post. Hurrah!

Gendered consumption. This essay circled around the question whether the male consumer was ‘hidden’ from history by historians. I’m speaking about the 1880s till the 1960s here. This statement probably needs some context.
Gender historians have had a tendency to divide society in the modern-industrial period in two spheres: work (=masculine) and domestic (=feminine). These realms were, honoring Marxist tradition, categorized as production versus consumption respectively. Women shopped and consumed, men produced.
However, in his article Mark Swiencick shows that when analysing sales records it appears that men’s purchase value was much higher than that of women. Remarkably, he did not add naturally high-value purchases as houses and cars. Apparently, men spent more than women in the ordinary categories as toiletries and clothing. Moreover, if we would interpret the consumption of services (going to a bar, gentleman’s club, sports event or even red light district) as regular consumption, men’s share in consumption would be even higher.
If this data is admissible, how has this image of the female producer come into being? I argue that it is partially a matter of vocabulary. Men buy ‘expenditures’ and ‘toiletries’ whereas women buy ‘beauty products’ and other seemingly trivial shopping stuff.
Additionally, I try to link the expanding attention towards the male consumer during the twentieth century with the technological and methodological advancements in audience rationalisation. Since this is the topic of my other essay, I will stop now and let interested parties read along if they want to ;)