KINGS of music videos!

If you have read my blog, you should know by now that I'd love this kind of stuff

For the past month or so I have been filling out graduate scheme applications which means I have been fidgeting, tossing and turning, asking friends and family weird things, scribbling stuff, staring at the flashing cursor on a blank Word document for hours, drinking lots of tea on my many breaks, and generally hate myself at times but then sometimes I realise how great I can be. From the adgrads blog, I found a role for a marketing company in the midst of all the schemes and fellowships. They too had some tricky think-outside-of-the-box-but-keep-it-relevant questions. Here are several of my answers to the more creative questions:  1.      You are the owner of a broken computer. Persuade us that we want it. (Max 100 words) I don’t know what to do with my broken computer but I cannot let it go. I bought it from a friend 2 years ago who worked at the News of the World. Unknown to him, it has the most unbelievable undisclosed information on th...

A kid eats Petit Filous and successfully sees off bullies with threatening behaviour of his own. Girl sees this, admires him and grasps at his 'muscley' arm with devotion. I'm not a feminist, nor am I so up-tight that I can't see the light humour taken from a serious subject like bullying, but I saw this and it gave me a bad feeling. Kids are so impressionable and if one saw this would he/she think it was acceptable to respond to bad behaviour with more bad behaviour? Would a little kid think something like this would work in real life? I understand the yoghurt provides calcium to make your child grow stronger but surely having the child pick up a lorry would have been more to the point, less of a bad influence, and just as realistic?

And then, for the first time in 15 years, I bought Heinz tomato soup.

I received this brief several weeks ago and thought I'd give it a little shot. I watched all Axe commercials and saw all the scenarios were based around the fact that, if you wear this smell, women will show signs of mental instability and behaviour that would warrant immediate institution. Apparently this is what guys love though, which bodes well for me. The brief was based around obsession, so I thought of things that women are generally go crazy over, ie. fashion, diets, bad boys, babies (none of which I can relate to). I thought of replacing those obsessions with the 'Axe effect'. Example 1: Shoe sale - no women to be seen  Example 2: Pop star concert - no women to be seen The captions next to the Axe bottle are blank. I was thinking of something like ' Where are the women? ', implying that they have all flocked to the men wearing Axe. Alternatively, there could be no Axe bottle, just these situations with no clue to the product, with only...

In the spirit of being pro-active and productive during these harsh times of unemployment, I have joined Single Creatives. Here: http://singlecreatives.com/

Months ago I saw McCann Ericksson in new York were offering a 3 month internship to whoever wrote the best story about this push pin The media requirements were obscurely specific (11 photos, 743 words or less, mp3 of 3 min 39 secs etc) If you won the internship, you'd also have the pin sent to you. I thought WHY NOT? Let's do this. I wanted to tell a story, but not a direct 'this is what happened' story, but one you could interpret for yourself. Something that would give you a general idea of this pin's life. I ordered a box of these pins from the US as I wanted it to be the exact same one. I went around London and took a bunch of touristy photos with the pins such as... I made them into postcards and addressed them to the pin at McCann NYC and wrote messages on the back from the pin's 'friends' and 'family', saying they missed him and hoped to see him soon. They'd all come together to make him little postcards wi...

I saw this ad in the cinema and never would have thought it was for Levi's jeans. I found the cinematography mesmerising and the words inspirational. It was more effective on the big screen but none the less, still moving. This is a great campaign that Levi's are taking global by "beefing up their human capital"and re-branding themselves. They're supporting non-profit organisations and pioneers, working with water.org to deliver sanitation and clean water to people living in poverty. It's about working together to make our lives better for ourselves, taking control of our future. 

My hobby is editing and I have always cut my own videos since I bought my first video camera. By the end of my University course, there was pressure on me to decide what to do with my life, and editing, something I enjoyed and had a talent for, seemed to fit the bill. I worked a lot in TV and post production so that I could eventually become an editor for TV and film. To cut a long story short, (no pun intended), I realised somewhere along the way that editing is not something I want to do as a career, but should remain a hobby. This video is something I did for fun in 2008 as an experiment. Hopefully you have all seen the original film Annie and enjoy my twisted version.

Spotted this ad on holiday for Mcdonald's and their new 'We Do Happy' campaign, which is designed to 're-ignite parents' love for Mcdonald's and remind them of the joy and fun they experienced as a child'.  I am a big fan of interactive installations and like this a lot. And look at those smiles... it worked like a charm.

Two sites I have ashamedly only just discovered and need to share immediately. How in the hell have I only just found this? Fantastic website called www.postsecret.com  whereby people anonymously send in their secrets on a postcard. I was amazed, not only at the secrets which are, at times, frightening and disturbing, but at how creatively these people have displayed these secrets. Here are some of my favourites: I have actually submitted my own. I'd love to show it, however I'm afraid I'll have to remain anonymous as it's quite the secret. The other website is  www.foundmagazine.com  which is where people send in things they have found in bizarre places. Very very funny!

You know when you have the music TV channel on in the background, and suddenly something will come on to make you all silent mid-conversation and be hypnotised for 4 minutes?

Should I be ashamed that I did a 98 mile round trip (120 if you count getting lost) for this dress? It's pretty much my dream dress though... I wonder how many miles a woman would be willing to physically travel to get that dream outfit ? Would be interesting to see who has traveled the farthest for that special dress/accessory/shoe or even wedding dress. I bet there are some amusing and crazy stories out there showing just how far a woman will go to look good. This could even be a campaign idea for a clothing retailer, fashion brand or most likely better placed in a bespoke dressmaker/tailor company.  "You don't need to travel the world for your dream outfit, we have it for you right here."

On the 13th July I attended the pitches of a 'competition for young creatives' at PlatformLive, backed by NESTA. There were 4 teams, consisting of 2 young people (between 16-21) and each team had support and guidance by a major ad company. The companies involved were BBH, TBWA, Grey and McCann and Erickson. The teams were given a genuine client brief by aids charity (Red). They were asked to come up with a campaign and plan that could play out across multiple channels to create awareness. I chose to go very last minute, not just for the promise of canopies and refreshments, but it would give me the chance to see the ideas of a younger, more media savvy generation. A lot of teenagers are massively entrepreneurial; having their own blogs, websites or video channels, and they all know which social networks they can market themselves on successfully. Could they do this for a charity based on the most serious worldwide disease? I wanted to see how they pitch; would they be ab...

I have been coming across a load of websites lately that focus very much on everyone's past, sharing memories on forums and recreating them. One in particular, a beautiful blog that shows pictures of a picture from the past in the present. Confused? www.dearphotograph.com Here is my own version 'Dear Photograph, Before life got in the way, we were inseparable' There can be so many stories behind a photo that it's hard to not feel nostalgic, and I think it can be an overwhelming feeling that people want to share with others, wether they know them or not. We all love to get out the baby photos and tell old stories about ourselves, but it's the type of self involvement that no one minds because they can relate to it. We all have a past and look back on when our lives were simpler, when we were naive and oblivious to what life had in store for us. Here is another website where a photographer, Irina Werning, has recreated people's baby photo...

During my time at JWT, I managed to spend time with a couple of creatives, mainly Rob Welsh. For practice, he gave me the product Persil, and the tag-line 'Whiteness and Brightness'. After two weeks of me churning out all these tricky ideas and complicated solutions that ultimately needed to be explained, he advised me to keep it simple. Whilst the client would like their ad to be 100% explained, the audience actually prefer ads that do 70% explaining and make you work out the rest for yourself. That, and 'research a product thoroughly, then forget about it', are the best pieces of advice I have received so far. ANYWAY, here was my final idea for it that I made with stolen photos. Soon I will be taking my own photos and making it look more professional, but this is the gist.

The effect of 3 new blue Skittles.  Potential ad campaign? How blue can you get your tongue?

Recently, TBWA had a recruitment programme called Young Bloods, giving all aspiring creatives a chance at a job. All you had to do was fill in a simple application and bring it in on the 7th July, along with anything else that would 'make you stand out'. I found out about this on the 5th, giving me around 36 hours to put something together and prepare. The brief said that what you bring could be anything, from a poem, a video, or something geeky. Being a self confessed 'geek', loving maps, puzzles and anything where you can learning whilst playing, I came up with the following: Here was the box: Inside this box was contents page, along with 5 handmade games The games were all do to with myself and TBWA. This way, they could learn about me as a person, see the way I think, get involved with the things that I find enjoyable and also see how much I have learnt about them and the company's history. Here is a simple spot the difference of a photo of...