The Crab Speaks...Again

oMg I lOoK fAtFaT iN tHiS pIc~!!! aDd Me iN fReNsTeR pLzZzZzZz...~

hi it's me again, the crab in ccplusj.

sorry that you haven't seen me around for a long time. it's been a difficult month for me, having to hunt for my own food everyday. but god has been gracious, he's provided me with yummy pellets which fall mysteriously from the sky twice daily.

there're some other fish in the tank, but they swim much faster than me. i thought of taking swimming lessons from them, but they keep avoiding me. maybe they're anti-social. or maybe because sometimes my crab friend tears their heads off and eats them. so unrefined.

sometimes those silly humans will grab a fish, whack its head against the table, and throw the dazed fish back in my face. then they stare with stupid smiles on their faces. i mean, what am i supposed to do? give the fish cpr?

they seem very busy these days. but i don't see any food on their tables. in fact, i never see them eating, apart from something called 'kofi'. my partner says they're rearing us to eat when we grow older. i think he's crazy. how are the humans going to eat us if they only eat kofi? anyway, i don't think crabs taste good. the humans always refer to bad things as 'a piece of crab'.

see, i'm learning a lot here.

anyway, something sad happened few weeks back. one of the other crabs crawled out of the tank when we were sleeping, and wandered off. he never came back.

last i heard, the humans found him, all dried up under the sipi-you. (a sipi-you is a machine humans use to work. something like a keyboard, but bigger.)

they wrapped him up in a tissue paper and just threw him into the dustbin, along with their A4 papers and nescafe 3 in 1s. no funeral service. no black clothes. no crying. some of them even joked.

that night, i think i cried for the first time. not really from sadness, rather insecurity. i started wondering about that other crab. what happens after you die? what do you see? how do you feel? where do you go?

i wish i knew. then i could laugh at the face of death, like humans. how nice to be a human, confident and certain of everything. sigh...

i think i'm thinking too much. till next time, the crab has spoken!

Trafik (france interactive agency)

Hey Team. Check out the URL below.

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/trafik/

while u guys wait for the video...i make a short introduction on what it is all about first. It is an interactive agency that located in France, they called themselves as a group of "artist of programming", want to know why? (spend me dinner, i tell you...KAM GUAI FEI...)

The video is about how they using mac Xcode to build the illuminated canvas box shown at the contemporary art center.

this is their website. www.lavitrinedetrafik.fr

Can advertising save lives?

The annual Cannes Advertising Award is on again. All the eyes of the adverting world are on this event now, it's exactly like the Oscar of advertising.

As an advertising man myself, i always hold the believe that what we are doing is no big deal. We are not saving lifes nor curing cancer, so what's the big deal for helping some big fat business to sell more shampoo? So many would think that those advertising awards are just self-indulging events of the industry.

But the outdoor category grand prix winner of this year really made a difference.



It's a billboard in a rural area in South Africa. As what the copy of the billboard promised, on top of the billboard are 2 solar power generator that really provide electricity to power a primary school's kitchen in the community. Play the video see it for yourself.

So now who says advertising can't be saving lifes?

Cannes Advertising Festival

Check out the 2007 winners from all around the world here ---> http://www.canneslionslive.com/

Our copywriter went for a photo shoot.

I know its kinda hard to believe, but yes he did.

Interesthing Sharing 15/7/07

KILLING SPREE~! (If you play Dota, that is. Otherwise...)

THREE IN A ROW~!

For a third straight week, The Mok wins Interesthing Sharing! History is about to be re-written.

*Co-win only lah!*

Okay, WHATEVER! I'm still interesting as heck. =p

This time around, it's something agency job-seekers will find really inspiring. Question: what do you do when you're young, loaded with talent and bursting to work for Microsoft programming?

Call them every 5 minutes for an interview?

Load their photocopiers with your resume?

Hack their site to auto-display your credentials?

Check out what this guy did.

95% Award Winner in Progress judging

On Tuesday night, me, Joescher and Mok were invited to attend the 95% latest batch of Award Winner in Progress students' final judging night. We had the chance to view the works before judges judging and to pick works that we thought were best 3 among those works.

There's a few things i noticed that i think worth mentioning here.

First, when we were required to look through a whole room full of hanging ads, we tend to skip those long copy ad. Visuals speaks louder than words. Compare ads that only takes less than 3 seconds for people to get it, and ads that take 3 minutes to read, i believe visual ads were definitely more effective in capturing attention. And that also explained why works that did well in award shows were mostly visuals ads.

I also noticed that most of us picked different works for our favourite, there not really any obvious winner. And when the judges announce the winners, none of my favourite works were selected. This reminds me that there's really no right or wrong in advertising. Everyone would have their own preference.

How often we waste time arguing whether the logo should be 90% smaller, or should we use Pantone 2747 blue instead of Pantone 2757 blue? That really doesn't matter. Have you seen your mom looking at an ad and says if the body copy is 1 point larger, i would buy the product? Or have you seen your dad looking at an ad and says if they use a darker blue for the logo then i will visit the website?

All this really doesn't matter. After all, no one really cares.

Just like the works on display for judging, some people will like some work, some might hate the same piece of work.

Unless your work is really spectacularly great. I believe not much people will disagree that the Adidas Vertical Football was a great idea, or not much people would really hate the Guinness noitulovE tvc.

Do expect people to disagree with you, or even hate your work if you are working in advertising. No point defending that using navy blue instead of sky blue is the right choice. After all, both of us could be wrong.

Instead, spend time on the big idea and the strategy will be more worthwhile.

That's just my personal viewpoint from the judging event. Joescher and Mok might realised different thing that they want to share here.

Interesthing Sharing 30th May 07

This is a co-winning, after so long, I finally get to win again.

Let's see what Kuala Lumpur is like in the eyes of a foreigner tourist.





It's pages from a foreigner tourist's travel journal. It's interesting to look in a foreigner' point of view on things that we see everyday.

This reminds me that i used to have this idea of what if one day i pretend that i am a tourist who visits Kuala Lumpur for the first time. I could stay in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for 3 days 2 nights, take public transport and visit tourist attractions, hunt for interesting places in the city... What an experience it could be?

Many people would snap photographs when they are on a tour to foreign places. But other people who visit the same place could snap a same photograph as well, so it wouldn't be the best way to keep memories of your own unique experience. Why not try doing these travel journel instead.

You could look at the full Kuala Lumpur journal here . There's also journal of Barcelona, Tokyo and Bangkok.

Interesthing Sharing 30th May '07

...And he scores!

Once again, The Mok proves his amazing interesting-ness by winning Interesthing Sharing. Okay, co-winning. But a win is a win lah...

This week's sharing comes from the magical land of Youtube.

Let the video description speak for itself:

I thought "wouldn't it be a good idea if there was a band that, instead of playing instruments, just repeatedly spoke the title of their instrument to the tune of the song" then I thought "No it'd be terrible and they'd get nowhere" So I tried it.

Stupid? Lame? Sheer genius? Have it your way.

Eventually this minute-and-half video became one of Youtube's most-viewed videos ever, snaring close to 2 million hits. Over 6000 people commented on it, and over 13,000 thousand favourited it. Last I checked, there've been at least 6 parodies/video replies of it.

But hmm..it makes me wonder.

Imagine this was an ad campaign. The creative team, God bless their sweaty palms, are about to present this idea to a room full of men in suits.

"See, it'll be really cool. Instead of singing lyrics, they'll sing the names of their instruments. And their voices will sound like the instruments."

"Hmmm..."

"Nobody's tried this before. It'll be impossible to miss!"

"It's kind of...strange."

"I didn't get anything from that."

"Yeah, what will the consumer benefit from hearing the instruments' names?"

"It's creative...but does it sell my product?"

"Why instruments? We're not selling instruments."

"Maybe we can have them sing the features of the product."

"Don't forget our website."

"Will people be able to hear it clearly if it's sung? Wouldn't saying it better?"

And so the story goes. Before you know it, the ad becomes another plain-Jane-vanilla-shake. Pot-bellied businessmen will huddle around it and admire the clarity of the message, only to wonder months later why nobody else remembered it.

When money and jobs are on the line, people become fearful. When fear creeps in, creativity curls up and die.

As you watch the following video, feel free to comment. You may find it funny. Scary. Idiotic. Interesting. Weird. Ugly. Artistic. Annoying. Addictive. Hateful. Lovely. Just remember you felt something.

Ladies and gentlemen...'The Incredible Mouth Band'.