brandflakesforbreakfast

katie sent me porn.

2008-05-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

Just when you think you know someone. Intern Katie sent me this naked image. It's an ad for PS3. (Full version probably wouldn't be considered safe by your uber conservative IT department.)

Two comments:

1. It's insane that an ad like this would never be safe in the U.S., but we're allowed to show killing, dismemberment, and other murderlicious imagery.

2. I don't get it. It's meant to appeal to men, to promote a Playboy PS3 game. But are men who are interested in Playboy also interested in nearly naked man pics? I don't think so.

Thanks, Katie. I think.

microsoft brings fun to the conference room.

2008-05-16T07:09:00.001-04:00

On his last CEO Summit, Bill Gates debuted the touch wall. Basically, it's Microsoft Surface, installed vertically. Your conference room dreams of this. Your living room dreams of this. Retail stores dream of this.

Finally, something cool from Microsoft, that you really want. But can't afford.

shoes as art

2008-05-16T06:54:00.001-04:00

Designer Marloes ten Bhömer has realized shoes in a whole new way. Part art, part experiment, soon her shoes will be open to the public, for sale. Your wife is going to love those blocky clunky clunks, for her anniversary.

where we are today.

2008-05-15T08:15:00.002-04:00

The 21st Century = Mass Innovation. I couldn't say anything more profound or more appropriate than what is said in this video. So just watch it, already.

Found on View from the Bottom.

what's hot on twitter

2008-05-15T07:44:00.001-04:00

Now that Business Week has officially proclaimed that Twitter is ok to explore, people will be jumping on the Twitter train like crazy.

Want a cool snapshot of what they're all talking about? Check out TwitBuzz. See what people are talking about now, in the last 24 hours, the last 7 days, the last 30 days, and since the the history of man.

train tunnels: the only place people will watch speed racer?

2008-05-15T07:32:00.002-04:00

The tunnel between Hollywood and Universal features a special show for it's train passengers. An ad for Speed Racer, played over 360 individual LED frames. The movement of the train animates the piece.

NYC had a similar piece a while ago, but it didn't include LED panels.

The bigger whoop-de-do: People are riding trains in Los Angeles?? Like, actually using public transportation? Do they have valet parking at the train stations?

mobile phones more important than wallets

2008-05-15T07:27:00.001-04:00

More than one-third of workers would choose their mobile phone over their wallet, keys, laptop or digital music player. Thankfully, pants and shoes are still important.

the electric company. awesome returns to tv?

2008-05-14T08:07:00.001-04:00

The pinnacle of groovy kids tv is coming back for a new generation. They're shooting new episodes of the Electric Company in NYC. The show is slated to return to PBS in January of 2009.

For those not familiar, the original Electric Company was a seventies fest of visual glory laid upon kids who were glued to PBS TV, back in the days of 13 channels. (Oh, the horror.)

Thankfully, the new show will feature an online component, since today's kids only marginally pay attention to the 600 channels on their magic box.

liberty city versus new york city

2008-05-14T07:49:00.003-04:00

Mathew Johnston has put together an awesome collection of images that compare Liberty City (from Grand Theft Auto IV, for you older people), to real images from New York City. Pretty cool.

stuff in the cracks of the walls

2008-05-14T07:41:00.000-04:00

Check out the work of Jan Vormann. Really interesting work that explores human interaction and our environments. Cool. From Hip.Young.Thing.

when employees become talent

2008-05-14T07:34:00.001-04:00

Poorly produced national sales meeting videos are the new black. And this gem from the Home Depot kicks ass. From MTLB.

art museums: not all are stuffy.

2008-05-13T07:08:00.003-04:00

Check out this cool series of print ads for The Power Plant, a contemporary art museum.

what happens if your parents meet in the voice studio

2008-05-13T07:02:00.001-04:00

Here's what life might be like if your parents were professional voice artists. From AdFreak.

how much is that moustache?

2008-05-13T06:36:00.000-04:00

Casey tells us about Moustache May. The internationally known month of moustache. If you don't sport the stache, you can buy your way in. By giving money, in honor of Casey's awesome stache. He's raising money for his local Humane Society shelter.

Donate $20, and he'll send you a pic of him and his stache, doing whatever you say. I'm game. What she we have him pose with?

what you could learn from a couple rocket scientists

2008-05-12T08:30:00.001-04:00

Last week, a few of us from Plaid had the distinct pleasure of meeting a couple of the original engineers/developers for Segway. As a part of their worldwide brand team, we were entertained with some of the most glorious background on Segway. Doug Field, Scott Waters and Michael Taylor presented background on the device, with details on it's history, development, and shared some of the overall R&D philosophy at Segway.

We could all learn a lot from Segway. Their development team is an inspiration to creative people anywhere. I wish their presentations were bottled up for sharing with the world. These were some of the most inspiring, passionate, and intelligent people that I've enjoyed meeting. Here's a couple of awesomely sweet nuggets from my notes at the brand summit:

They celebrate what they call "Frog Kissing Days." These are days where engineers attempt to produce wildly creative devices and ideas that are beyond anything they'd normally attempt. Development without rules. When complete, they celebrate the grandest failures. Kissing frogs. That's a holiday that should be celebrated every month, at every agency.

How do you know that you've created something grand? When your solution creates 50 additional problems. That's what Doug had to say about creation and invention.

The technology adoption curve applies to branding. They detailed some history on great technological advances and explained the technology adoption curve (detailed here), which details how humans accept and use new technological advancements. It turns out that the typical adoption of brand new advances usually takes 15 - 20 years before they're accepted by society. Pretty amazing when you look through history and place items on the curve. This is an important consideration for branders who are dealing with technology - so as to best understand where your audience is in the curve, and what messaging they'll be open to.

Thanks to Michael, Doug and Scott for hanging with a bunch of creative types, and allowing a few people that couldn't even complete a basic math equation, bask in their intelligence.

meet the next big agency

2008-05-12T08:14:00.003-04:00

This weekend, I attended the CT Innovation Expo, a pretty cool program that the state sponsors for high school students. The event took place at the CT Convention Center, and featured some of the brightest students from across the state. Lots of future coder geeks, gaming geeks, engineers and....creatives.

It was pretty cool to meet the crew from Woodland Regional High School, who have created their own high school ad agency. Called AMP, they provide agency services for any school event.

You probably remember the handmade, lame-o flyers that your friends made for the high school dance. AMP creates, prints, and distributes cool flyers. They'll create MySpace pages. And they'll get the word out, for the events they promote.

What an awesome idea. For the event planners that hire them (who better to target teens, than TEENS?), and for the students. These future creative superstars are getting a real-deal look at what it's like to work with a client, while building their pre-college portfolios.

Kids weren't this smart, when I was in high school. Nice job.

what do people think of...

2008-05-12T08:01:00.001-04:00

Want to see what people think of brand logos, in a web2.0-licious way? Check out
brand tags. Enter your immediate thoughts as you're presented with the logo. Then, view the results in a wonderful tag cloud.

Here's what people think of Burger King. This will make for some great slides in a future presentation.

twitter as a sales tool

2008-05-12T07:38:00.002-04:00

Looking for another example of how Twitter can be used to increase sales?

Woot now tweets their specials, as they're happening. How could you improve your customer's experience, using Twitter? Learned of Woottweets from the tweetmaster, Scott Monty. Via Twitter. (Duh.)

how to create a mission statement

2008-05-12T07:30:00.002-04:00

Working on a company mission statement, or brand mantra? Try fitting into a single Tweet. What a grand idea, from Jared Goralnick, on Twitter.

Since Twitter only allows 140 characters, it forces the writer to weigh every word. Like a producer weighs every second of a 30 second spot. More importantly, a 140 or less brand mantra is more likely to be read by your audience. So much more than those 3 paragraphs that the marketing committee drafted as a group, and then legal edited after the CEO added a couple of lines...awesome advice.

this week at Plaid

2008-05-10T08:01:00.002-04:00

Here's what happened this week, at the world's most sweet-as-chocolate-frosting design and branding firm:

Rob, Sara and I enjoyed a really long drive to New Hampshire. The only state with a slogan that you might consider wearing on a t-shirt. Admit it - "Live Free or Die" just rocks. We participated in a worldwide brand summit for Segway. This is a really good idea, for any brand. Pulling together all of the players from across the globe, to learn, discuss, share and brainstorm. Always a pleasure to share the room with other creative and marketing people. And this time - we even met the product engineers/designers for Segway. (More on that, soon.)

Plaid pre-tour shirts arrived. We'll be sharing pics and details over on the Plaid tour blog, momentarily. We also launched the Plaid tour dashboard, PlaidNation. Still very much a work in progress, but if you take a peek, you'll get an idea of some of our plans for this summer's tour.

I was profiled in a regional business paper, the Fairfield County Business Journal. Somehow they saw fit to include me in their series "Profits and Passions", featuring entrepeneurs, and their passions outside of the office. You can learn all about my infatuation with pop culture. And sneakers.

Lots of props coming into the office, for a couple of photo/video shoots. Everyone's really having fun with the night-stick. RJ can actually twirl it around in his hands, without hitting himself in the head. (Can't say the same for other Plaid-workers.)

Steph got a new, cool haircut. And then bought a surfboard. Maybe not in that exact order. Something really fun and crazy happening, over in Steph-land.

We welcomed a new intern, David, who we'll formally introduce on BrandFlakes, next week. Safe to say there's a whole lot of sh*t-work just waiting for his attention.

We welcomed a couple of new clients to the Plaid roster this week - and we can't wait to show you what we're working on. Lots of fun stuff, in the works.

Have a great weekend, and say hi to your mommy.

meet sara.

2008-05-09T09:03:00.001-04:00

Sara has now taken a pledge, and devoted her life to Plaid. She's the newest member of the Plaidalicious team, and makes the greatest agency in all of the land just a little bit sweeter.

Sara's got a really cool background. She's lived in Orlando, Miami, NYC, San Francisco, and now finds herself stuck in New England, with the rest of us. What better way to pass the time, than a career at Plaid.

Sara has joined us in the role of "Producer", even though we don't believe in titles around here. Her job role is to keep everyone happy. By making sure clients get what they need. And creatives have what they need. And that everything makes Plaid money.

Random things you probably didn't already know about Sara:

+ She likes the Gun Club and The Replacements
+ She survived a lightning strike
+ She's almost ten feet tall
+ Her sister is a model

Send Sara a big howdy at Sara (AT) thinkplaid (dot) com, or follow her on Twitter.

Welcome, Sara!!!

"they don’t use social media in my industry"

2008-05-09T07:44:00.000-04:00

I've heard that line countless times, as people read the hype, and don't realize how intertwined social media already is in our internet experience.

Think you work in a low tech industry that can't benefit? Like maybe fishing lures? Duct Tape Marketing has a great interview/case study for you. John Jantsch interviews Jason Brown, the founder of Brown Lures. Brown now has WAITING LISTS for his product.

Social media. Enjoyed everywhere, by everyone. Even fishermen dudes.

hot to be a superstar

2008-05-09T07:39:00.003-04:00

Advergirl has a sweet series of posts all about improving your career in the advertising industry. Most would apply to any industry - so pass them along to your friends.

Start at Advice for Newbies, or Advertising agency interview tips, or explore around on your own. And you don't have to be a girl to get in on the learning. Seriously great advice for any knowledge workers: man, woman, or elf.

My fave: Be as valuable your fifth year as your first year.

uniqlo t-shirt promo rocks. again.

2008-05-09T07:29:00.002-04:00

Uniqlo, the greatest store in all of the land, has produced yet another awesome interactive piece to promote their new line of t-shirts. Users can sample "beats" made from clips of Uniqlo models, and put them together in a way that it creates an original loop.

The result is a never-ending loop, created by users. While listening/watching, you can vote on favorite loops - which then pushes more popular loops further forward in the "song".

This is amazing work on so many levels. Time to go t-shirt shopping.

mmmm. meatwater.

2008-05-09T07:19:00.001-04:00

Brooklyn based designer/photographer Till Krautkramer has invented the most delicious and refreshing beverage ever: MeatWater.

MeatWater comes in all of your favorite flavors, including Beef Stroganof, Beef Jerky, Texas BBQ, and my favorite - Dirty Hot Dog. The same juice that powers the most awesome NYC hot dog carts. Mmmm. Get some. Pure parody fun. Found on Gothamist.