Silence of the fish

Every year since 1993 Haaretz newspaper holds it's competition for the best creative print ads "The Golden Fish". This competition is basically heaven on earth for creative people. Of course it's meant for the best of the best, crem de la cream of the advertising world, a place for them to show off their best of the best work, but do they. Now for the past few years there has been a growing group of ad agencies who decided that the competition in its current form is not good and maybe not even an objective one. It's probably OK that the same agencies always win, if they had the best creative that is. But the real issue here is that the creative work itself, (not all of it of course) is getting worst as the years go by. You know what, not worst but defiantly predictable. But as a Creative Director by profession and a Creative Director by heart, I think the audience deserves more.

Creative of the week

Green power

An Israeli web site decided to go the extra mile in order to do it's part in the global Earth Hour. Thursday morning after two weeks of preparations Arc Interactive in collaboration with the Tel-Aviv municipality launched a web site for 12 Earth Hours. The site was operated by people peddling bikes, making it the world's first site operated Solely by human energy. The bikers themselves where recruited through Facebook and Ynet, and the entire "journey" was broadcast live on the site. record shows a whopping 100,000 views for that day alone. So when all of us turned our lights off for one hour, Arc interactive turned their legs on.

Hear'say

Picture yourself an average day. You finished everything and you go to sleep with the thought that tomorrow you have to be at work on time (because your usually not) because there is a lot for you to do and you have to stay focused. An hour into your deep sleep your youngest daughter decides this is the right time to wake up. Now there is no real reason for her waking up, it's not for a glass of water or anything else equally as important. It's just to wake up and go back to sleep (once you are there of course). Now it's late and all is quiet, until... once you step out of the bedroom. Our psychopet (psychopath & pet, all rights reserved to Maya Farber) starts it's insane miyao, a non stop one tone repetitive miyao that doesn't stop. Then when you get "rid" of this one, the other one starts gluing itself to your legs while you walk, purring so loud it actually sounds like there is a carpentry next door. After twice or more times waking up, you find yourself in the kitchen garbing a drink and then you hear the dog on the floor next to you licking itself with a sound that resembles a monkey chewing on a soft banana.
Now picture this on a daily basis, for four years...
well that's what I do, picturing this that is, because it's all hear'say, I never wake up.

Creative of the week

St. Purim

Mr. Angus Cohen a Jewish Irishman was so happy to learn that this year St. Patrick's day and Purim fall only a day apart. Now Angus loves to drink alcohol on any occasion but when someone actually tells him he has to drink, well this is truly sublime. It's true, an Irishman doesn't really need a reason to party an drink let alone in St. Patrick's Day... FYI, the first Saint Patrick's Festival by the way was held on 17 March 1996. In 1997, it became a three-day event, and by 2000 it was a four-day event. By 2006, the festival was five days long. So as you see, new as these celebrations are they are getting longer with time. But, with all due respect to St. Patrick, Purim even has a verse that actually "pushes" you to drink until you drop, add to that the fact that in Purim you have to dress up but not only in green and our Jewish friend becomes a very happy Irishman.
So next time you go to a Purim party or sit in an Iris bar drinking lager, raise your glass for Angus, because he is probably too drunk to do it himself.

Destruction, connecting people

Destruction by any form is the concept of damage to an object, system, or being. The amazing thing though is the fact that only in the face of destruction we seem to rise to a different level of consciousness in which we are all friendly, supportive and helpful. Why is it then, that only in the worst possible cases we are able to act, well human. Two days ago we all came out of our homes, offices, cars and stood for 5 minutes for Gilad Shalit, every minute for every year he has been locked up. For those 5 minutes there was no religion, no curses, no cars beeping no nothing. But at minute 6, everything went back to normal. So I guess we need to find a formula that will help us start acting like human beings.
Or, start creating more disasters.

Creative of the week

Help Japan

In a nutshell

Earlier today I was standing in line at the connivance store. A young woman walked in and stood next to me in the same position as if to pay (without standing in line of course), "what do you need", the sells man asked, "Just cigarettes" she replayed. The all thing took maybe 2 minutes, but in these two minutes there were no excuse me, no thank you, no do you mind (from both of them). Obviously I didn't really care due to the fact that we are use to this kind of "shit", and lets face it, it is shit. This is just one "shit" in one particular day, but these "incidents" happen on a daily bases. At the doctor's clinic it's "just a question", at the supermarket it's: "just two things I am really in a hurry", on the road: "I made a mistake can I just over take you (after overtaking a line of 20 cars)" or the best one like today the: you are so see through that I don't even have to give you the time of day. Today I've had an epiphany. The time it takes to an average Israeli driver to start driving from the time the light changes into orange (not even green) is Israel in a nutshell. There are of course numerous theories to why that is, but me... I have to plead ignorance on this one.

International women's day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp4t5NYzVM&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8xgF0JtVg&feature=player_embedded

A new creative I thought about

Ad-ucation

Who is educating the next generation of advertisers and is there even a need for educating them? I say, they either have it or they never will? Learning and expending your knowledge of course even in advertising is important but all the education in the world won't do any good if you just don't have it. By now you must be thinking : "What the hell is he on about". Well it's just that I came across a few months old TV ad that made me smile in a way that only certain people can make you smile. You know, the ones who think differently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ljPurYlMkU

Creative of the week