Spending Black Friday in Los Angeles has given me a few things to post about. One of them is this gem from the Los Angeles Times op-ed page today. Its' a visual take on conspicuous consumption by British graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook. You could call it the family tree of Black Friday's doppelganger, Buy Nothing Day.
A couple weeks ago at Iconosphere I met a handful of interesting planners. One was Rye Clifton who works at The Martin Agency. Coincidentally, when checking out Junior Planner I Am, I stumbled on a link to an orphaned blog Rye used to maintain, and I gave him a hard time for not keeping it going.
I especially think he should after he passed on this mashup he made. It brings Dove and its corporate brother Axe together in ironic harmony.
My two cents are (as I mentioned in a comment the PureThinking post and which I will lazily paste here) is that I fear we're all at risk of a little naivete around the overall Real
Beauty campaign. At the end of the day it was a brilliant, brave
marketing strategy and idea. I think if you view it as marketing it
doesn't seem duplicitous at all that they would take different
approaches for different brands. It wasn't a Unilever campaign, but a
Dove campaign. The problem - not a bad problem to have - is that the
public has attached a Dove halo to Unilever rather than an Axe halo.
The Axe work resonated at a brand not a societal level so we could keep
it in a box called brand marketing. The double edge of Dove's success
is that it's made Unilever seem like a corporation that truly cares
more than it does.
The New Yorker's covers are often gems. Usually they touch on the essence of the city in ways even a non-resident can relate to. But sometimes they strike a broader chord and this is one of those cases.
By intersecting two debacles: the Senator Larry Craig
bathroom scandal, and Iranian President Ahmadinejad's statement that there are no gays in Iran (wrong!), they attained simple brilliance. Well done.
I've never read a pop political autobiography. It seems like a good idea I guess. Get to know a candidate in their own words, in a depth that you can't get from news soundbites. But I guess I don't have enough depth of curiosity to get me through 384 pages of it. Apparently doing so requires a good dose of Red Bull, as it did for at least one reader of Barack Obama's book that I saw in a bar recently over lunch time.
I believe in planners as catalysts for creative innovation; in drawing insight from unusual sources; in never being cynical; and above all, I believe that simple is smart.
The opinions, observations and nonsense published here are purely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Margaret Mark: The Hero and the Outlaw
The leading book on using archetypes in brand strategy, this blends motivational theory into the mix in a very readable way. It also segues nicely into storytelling.
Phil Dusenberry: One Great Insight Is Worth a Thousand Good Ideas
Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind
I saw Daniel Pink speak at Future Trends a year ago. Compelling speaker and a reluctant creative; a left-brain telling a right-brain story.
Cheri Huber: How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything
This handwritten self-help workbook asks the simplest of questions, meant to reveal your inner priorities and motivations. Excellent as a spark for creating consumer workbooks.
Adam Morgan: The Pirate Inside
As a follow-up to Eating the Big Fish this is a solid handbook for anyone advocating a challenger position in their organization.
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics
This is a comic book about comic books, but it completely goes to school on visual communications. A good aid for demistifying layouts and visual ideas.
Wendy Gordon: Good Thinking
This well known British researcher gives a grounding for planners on how to think about qualitative research.
