Nike vs. Asics

Most of you will remember the marvelous Nike Freestyle commercials by Wieden+Kennedy (here, here and here). Football, basketball, skateboards, bouncing balls, beats, Ronaldinho...brilliant. Yesterday I came across this. Football, basketball, skateboards, bouncing balls, beats...no Ronaldinho. What seems to be some kind of homage is the new commercial for Asics. So I thought if Asics can take up an old Nike idea and add volleyball, cricket, frisbee, jogging, bmx, tennis, some Eastern European architecture and a ghetto blaster, I could take both and mash them up. And here is the result:

Ponces With Macs.

A while ago Ian Tait of crackunit.com started a flickr group about that topic. Actually it is called "Computers behind blogs" and you get there by clicking the blue coloured link. It's really interesting to see the blogplace (sorry can't call it workplace) of all those people visiting his blog. Seems like nearly everyone of them is using a Mac and owning one or more Moleskines. Obviously Ian is right when calling us a bunch of ponces.

By the way, here is my picture:

Dear Mr. Contemporary Art Gallery Owner.

Hire this young man! His name is Alex and he used to be one of our account managers. He will leave our happy family to become what I think he always wanted to be: a contemporary art gallery person. I will miss him a lot but it's the right thing. You just need to have a look at his desk. Where other account people store magazines like "Modern Accounting", "Sales Figures of the Week" or maybe "Ad Age" he stores "Art Magazine", "Monopol", "Art Investor" and books like "Collecting Contemporary" or "Live Through This" by Jeffrey Deitch. Get it? When he stood next to creative directors in meetings the client or Miami Ad students would think he was the creative person. So whether you are in New York, London, Zurich or Berlin: for God's sake hire him!

Everything you'll ever need to sell Maple Syrup.

Finally we got our feedback for the Maple Syrup Assignment and it took Russell a lot of work to go through over 50 entries. None the less he somehow managed to give feedback to every submission what is brilliant. To give you a quick reminder, here are my five propositions:

Makes Mondays Sundays.
Tops everything.
Made in Trees.
Make up the wake up.
The only thing Canada is famous for.

And here is Russell's feedback:
‘Made In Trees’ isn’t especially original or motivating but it’s very boldly, nicely and simply stated so it ends up being quite powerful. More of a tagline than an idea, but it’s connotations are interesting. ‘Tops everything’ is actually a good strategy, one that not many people have thought about – let’s get out of pancakes and point out that you can use maple syrup on all sorts of stuff. Good one.

But as Russell suggested it's not only his feedback we should learn from but all the other entries and ideas. And it is more than interesting to read the propositions of my 50 classmates. Here they are. Read them all. It's worth it.

Everybody c'mon.

Down on my knees at D&AD via mail because of some people without backbone. But then Ugly Duckling saved my mood. If you want to know more about them visit their website. By the way the song is from their debut "Freshmode".

You are a copywriter?

Kolle Rebbe is currently looking for copywriters. If you somehow speak German fluently (native or not) and you love ideas then give them a call. Dial +49 40 3254230 and ask for Cissy.

Blogging killed the Planning Star?

There is a really interesting post on the blog of Richard Huntington, Planning Director of United London. It's all about the question if blogging is killing planning. It's not a quick read but it's worth the time and you find it here. Afterwards you might be interested in the results of a poll Simon Veksner did. You find them here.

10 Stupid Ways To Wear Your Mesh Cap.

Nina and me were at the office day and night during the last 5 days. And between all those work there's always some minutes for cutting a goofy film from snapshots I took in the restroom.

Nina, again.

That's Nina (my partner) drinking coffee at the airport while "supervising" some ad-stuff for Google. On the picture she's smiling, but right now she's freaking out while doing an annual report for an international bank. On her own. By the way next week she will be in Stockholm over her birthday. I will miss her. It's always a bit boring in the office without her.

My new clock.

Everytime at habitat I was begging to be allowed to buy this clock. But my girlfriend repeated the sentence "No, it's ugly" like some sort of mantra. Guess how big my smile was, when she gave it to me as christmas present. Yesterday I put it on the wall of the kitchen and well, I am satisfied with my work.

New Sk8 Hi.

Say "Hi!" to my new pair of Sk8 Hi. Bought them yesterday...erm...today at 1:50 am on eBay from someone in the US. Hopefully they arrive here well. But until then they are the first pair of my digital sneaker locker. When there is enough time all my sneaker will be posted here.

Aah, the joy of being home.

One of the best things when being home is that there are things that you probably won't find in one of those stereotype and superstylish ad-people-household. These things that are just great and somehow remind you of your childhood. One of those things I used while staying at the apartement of my grandparents: The egg cutter made in GDR.

Everyone who has a deep and loving relationship to sandwiches with egg (like I have) knows the wonderful thing this little thing can do. Perfectly cutting your egg into thin little slices of the same size. No knife, no bloody fingers...the tip of human inventiveness.

Step 1.

Step 2.

Aaah, brilliant.

A town called "Home", part 2.

As I suggested a few weeks ago I returned to my hometown over Christmas and took another set of pictures. This time I wanted to show the beautiful and nice sights of Cottbus, but while rushing through the city I discovered that I really love the old, shabby and ugly bits that communism left there. It feels like a last breathe and memorial of those times that are, thank god, gone.


















If someone somehow wants to know something about the town I was born in, feel free to visit the web's home of Cottbus.