NFLondon

This has been in the news for some time, and as the NFL has already staged on game over here in the UK, it probably should come as no great suprise that the organisation are seriously considering exporting the game to our shores in more permanent capacity. I can see nothing wrong in one sporting organisation wanting to ply their trade for a game or two in a foreign country, as it has multiple benefits for the clubs, the players (financially and, as I naively hope, socially in that they come across new experiences and fans), and the fans themselves who don't normally get to see these games in the flesh.

If you were to read further related articles, you may have come across speculation that the Super Bowl of all things could be held in this country. I have watched two Super Bowl games on TV before and thoroughly enjoyed them. I do quite like American Football and other US mainstream sports as does Luke, but our sports of choice are 'proper' football and the rest of the British mainstream sports. I couldn't imagine watching my beloved Charlton playing the F.A. Cup final in Dallas, not just because I don't think it won't happen (it will I tell you!), but because I'd expect it to be at Wembley or at least within a train ride to the ground as I'd see it as a discourtesy to all the fans - some of who put vast amounts of their lives into their clubs - to deny most of them the chance to watch what could be a once in a lifetime event.

I think that the whole situation would be very different if the proposals in place were for exhibition matches, in which case the whole financial incentive for the clubs is seen as beneficial as well to the fans back at home, and of course it must be nice to see people across the World flying your colours as well. However when it comes to something important, ie the league/title etc, I reckon that the reception that would receive in this country would be very different and completely hostile. Can you imagine a Liverpool/Utd derby for 3 points in the Premiership outside of Old Trafford or Anfield? Well, for United I can seeing as most of their fans are from Kent or Croydon or abroad, but you get my point. I'd be interested to hear the opinions of resident fans of the NFL to see if is simply my overreacting or whether they'd share my concerns. As it is still just speculation at the minute however, I shall now rest my keyboard til further announcement. In the meantime, watch this - the second one is pure reflex genius

Football Hero

This is a really fun idea.

Promoting Kasabian and their new album and also Umbro's Tailored by England strategy.

Has Google just killed SatNav?

3:47 is my favourite bit, although the iPhone positioned itself as the ultimate handheld device, the utilitarian features of Android phones and the like, and also the growing market for cross-platform applications, are surely going to outway future offerings from Apple? More to the point of this post, I think the video is pretty self explanatory. Wilf iPhone rant over.

Thoughts From Greenroom

This week we went to Greenroom as part of the d&ad digital workshops and it was an interesting experience.

The brief was for Rowntree's Randoms and the ideas shown by the group showed an improvement in our eyes. So much so that so of the ideas lead us to think about a few things, thus the reason for this post.

Firstly, there was a nice idea about digital screens. It got us thinking about the use of screens for content generation. After all, billboards have normally been used to display messages, not in the creation of them. It’s something that could be very useful for user-generated campaigns, which mostly seem to rely on the user going to a site or filming it on their camera for uploading. Instead you could buy space around the city so that users could partake in the experience during their daily routine. All you’d need is a camera in the board and enabling it to showcase the footage when active. This thought links with this footage that’s been doing the rounds.

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

ARG’s are very nice and can turn out to be amazing campaigns (We created one for our final major project, to help the Science museum attract more adult visitors.) What you should remember is that they need to tap into the culture of those you are targeting if you want them to be a success. In most cases, this means they only work for fanboys of films, music, etc. There is every chance that you could create an ARG for a something with less value, yet it would have to be the most amazing story and pr stunt ever.

Lastly, someone asked a question about keeping up with technology and if it mattered to the CD. He replied with a rather nice answer that we cannot remember but in our head we’d sum it up by saying, It doesn’t matter what technology you are using, what matters is that you are tapping into the culture in the right way.

Speechbreaker

Speechbreaker went live on Friday and its awesome. Interesting to see how this will affect the views of younger voters who might enjoy it as much as we have. Well done by those at Lean Mean.

Increasing The Peace

Having been on placement at Lean Mean last week, we missed the first workshop of the D&AD digital workshops. So last night’s workshop at Digitas was our first chance to meet the rest of the workshops gang and everyone we had a chance to talk with seemed rather decent. Its also clear that as a group, there are many people from different backgrounds which produced some ideas that we’d never have considered, making it a really interesting first session for us.

The crew at Digitas were really welcoming and had a lot to say about the ideas on show. A particular highlight was the fact that a fair few creatives attended, as well as planners and other members of the agency, which made for some well-rounded feedback. There was a lot of talk about social media and providing platforms for communication, something that we identified with after watching the video below a few days ago. Its nice to feel like this thinking is spreading and we hope to learn from it, particularly the idea that although media has become all fragmented, TV still provides an event and digital of any kind can help to connect this event in an interactive form.

5D Conference : New Television Pt 4 - Kevin Slavin from Dave Blass on Vimeo.

Video via Gareth

Overall, it was another helpful and interesting workshop and thanks go to Maurice over at Digitas for the drinks as well.

New York Reminder

Saw this and it made us think of New York this summer, and how nice it was to experience it all.

Found via AndyKinsella

Forwards

Last week ended well and this week has begun with us tasked with attempting to crack some awesome briefs.

And it feels like we're learning, which makes a change.

We've come a long way...

Chevy vs Chevy

This lovely, violent demonstration of how far safety has progressed in cars definitely hits home, and shows us how much 50 years can make a difference. Although it may not seem like a huge difference in that your car is royally buggered in both instances, I'd prefer my legs not to be pinned to my chest like a Ryanair flight, as is the case with the original. The leg room provided post-crash by the modern car looks a lot more inviting...enjoy!

Placement With 'The Fighters'

This week we started our first placement.
It's been good so far and we're excited to be given a chance to learn from an awesome group of people.

Crazy Stats

Small Thought

Issues with iTunes made us think about how we listen to music these days. Apart from iTunes, we personally use Spotify, Deezer and The Hype Machine (The last being a personal favourite.)

So Hype Machine in particular has its own online feed of songs, which randomly generates new tracks that seem to relate to the popularity of each track in musical blog land. Which to us is awesome, as most of the people that write music blogs are the people that go to tiny gigs that you can't be bothered to attend. Then you get to sift through all their hard work for little musical nuggets, making you feel like your down with all the new music and before all the commercial hype and blah. Anyway, we digress.

Our point is that Spotify or preferably the Hype machine should broadcast on a digital frequency (If they do not already.) Thus allowing you to listen to the random stream of music whilst in your car or on your snazzy new iPod with it's in-built radio. Wouldn't that be ace, then the blogs would really get a following and build an even larger community. This might already exist, but if it doesn't then maybe we should make it happen. Any thoughts on this, let us know.

Dangerous Graffiti

Graffiti by Agents of Change, secrets by MI6, all natural cola by Red Bull - creativematch

Can't help but think that in the 'real' world, these guys would have been blown out of the water within seconds. Still, the effects are pretty cool, especially with the light being drawn and being fixed, as opposed to being viewable only through a frame.


A few years ago the guys at GRL did their own 'Ghetto Matrix', using a number of cameras, interspersing stop motion with real time to nice effect. We thought that this was a pretty good attempt at bringing light drawing into reality, something which Red Bull took to the next level.

To Be In School Right Now

President Obama gave a speech to the school children across the USA, to those of all ages who are about to start the next year of their life in education. He did an excellent job. You can read the whole speech here, but below is a small section for inspiration:

"But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country."


A great speech. As for the kids, how wonderful it must be to know that others believe you can face the challenges ahead of you.

Magical TV

Not the biggest fans of most ads on TV, especially the Poo at Paul's low point. Although, we are massive fans of most of the 4creative ads and a personal favourite is below. It shows that there is still some great Tv work, even if some people say the UK is at a creative low.