My naive dabble at Scrabble (on line)

I love Scrabble. I have loved it from my distant student days right up until I moved in with my partner 25 years ago, who hates it. My original Scrabble box paints a very lonely and dusty sight at the bottom of our least accessible drawers.

So how refreshing it was when my 23 year old daughter mentioned that you can now play Scrabble on line, in fact even using my iPhone. I felt a "new era" moment come on.

She even offered me a game there and then, and in no time at all we were playing on line. Everything was going my way to begin with, with my experience making the difference, as I was winning quite easily. In fact I was feeling a little guilty.

However, words like "Qi", "Seabutt", "Jas" started appearing in her vocabulary and in no time at all she was getting humungous scores of 40 plus. However much as I objected, her answer was to remind me that the (on line) game allowed it so therefore it permissible. Now I was losing virtually every game.

I mentioned this outcome to a friend of mine at the weekend and his precise words to me were "Are you completely stupid?"

He then informed that there is an abundance of websites available where you literally put all your letters in and it will automatically configure every word that can be made out of them (Scrabble legal or not!).

Whether or not my daughter has used this to her advantage or not, it still reminds me how on line games are easy enough to be taken advantage of.

Whose Hair?

I love wondering around bookshops and looking at the new releases.

One caught my eye this weekend, Whose Hair?

This fun book contains hand drawn illustrations of well known celebrity hairstyles - I was extremely surprised by how many I could recognise and it had me looking through for ages. The attention to detail in the illustrations is exquisite and it has pride of place on my bookshelf.

Can you guess who's hair this belongs too? You'll have to buy the book for the answers!

Whose Hair? is by Christina Christoforou and published by Laurence King Publishing. ISBN: 978 1 85669 715 6

The greatest love story of the 20th century

The coverage of Liz Taylor's death this week inevitably brought to mind Richard Burton as well.
I adored the way Richard Burton spoke (listen to him reading the wonderful writing of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood and tell me your spine doesn't tingle - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuPO2Kvqlms).

But he wrote like a dream too. How about this on his meeting the future Mrs Burton aka Liz Taylor at a pool party. At first stunned by her "apocalyptic breasts" he goes on "She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much."
"... so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud."
"... the most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen."
"... her body was a true miracle of construction and the work of an engineer of genius. It needed nothing, except itself. It was true art, I thought, executed in terms of itself. It was smitten by its own passion. I used to think things like that."

I can just hear his wonderful, dark chocolate voice now speaking these words and it melts my heart.

Richard and Liz - the first true celebrity couple, they fell passionately in love on the set of Anthony and Cleopatra (you can see it in every scene) and went on to marry, divorce and marry again. But they were so much more than a vacuous celebrity couple - they truly had talent with screen and stage presence in spades. Watch Liz Taylor in 'Cat on a hot tin roof' made in 1958 with Paul Newman and you'll see what I mean - she simply steams.

Richard Burton died too young - one of that set of hell-raising, rip-roaring actors of the period along with Oliver Reed, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris - too much booze, too many fags, too much everything.

What a couple, what lives. To quote Richard Burton himself "just too bloody much."

It's great when you get into it...

For me, Nike will always be synonymous with running - from Bill Bowerman and waffle sole technology to the present date, it's all about getting a pair of trainers on and just going for it.
I love their advertising as there is always a demonstration of their insight into the runners world, the pain, the glory, the loneliness...
Having recently started to try and get fit, I've found myself noticing more ads directed at health and wellbeing - and I have to say most just don't hit the mark, but I think that's because they are ill targeted, or just don't hold that personal engagement.
Forget football, forget tennis and rugby. Nike = running, and if I'm ever feeling in need of a shove to get back to the treadmill or the road, I just need to look at some of the fantastic ads that are being run around the world. (Proof that a good ad works in any language as it demonstrates a universally accepted insight)

Hoorah for Red Nose Day

Following on from Charlotte's earlier email about how fantastically Red Nose Day had been marketed this year I wanted to comment on how brilliant (and inspiring) I thought the actual telephon/TV event night itself was. I settled down on the sofa and was in fits of laughter one minute punctuated with horrible heart wrenching sorrow the next when the stories of those less fortunate were shown. It was real emotional rollercoaster and I was gripped all the way through. Well done to all the bods involved that managed to put on a truely entertaining show whilst also drawing attention to the suffering in the world that many of us don't spend as much time as we should thinking (and doing) something about - such a poignant message was delivered in an incredibly effective and impactful way.
And as for Fake That - what a hoot!

Is this van livery taking the p***?

Yes, it's true!!

As I was being driven back from a meeting by a female colleague, we happened to see this extraordinary van chugging along the middle lane of the M25. My female colleague coughed and slightly swerved when she was alerted to it, and I giggled at the sight of 3 muscular men in front of 3 brightly coloured latrines.

More surreal was that the driver was about 60, who was sporting an old cap on and smoking.

Mixed messages or what!!

I was so mesmerized by the cheek of it, I had to explore further, and upon my return I immediately went on the website. Guess what? The most beautiful hand made Italian toilet and bathroom environments.

So yes, offensive, but brave and thought provoking (and functional).

The power of marketing

Wow re red nose day, what a juggernaut of a marketing effort. You can’t move for Red Noses. It’s one hell of a campaign. They’ve used every available media space, from facebook to twitter, hooked up with a ton of prominent retailers, TK MAXX and Sainsbury’s to name but two, got every brit celeb from B to Z involved, got the schools motivated and that’s before the spectacle of the actual day itself. It’s a phenomenal effort in a time where giving apathy could have been (and probably is) at an all time low, which is why I am sure they have pulled out all the stops this year.

Why, I’ve been pondering, is the Red Nose Day brand so powerful? Why are people so willing to give of their time and money to this particular cause? It’s because it does absolutely everything right:

It is single minded
It’s got a brilliantly simple icon in the red nose
It’s got plenty of the right sort of celebrity endorsement
It works the media mix like a dream
It appeals to a massively diverse demographic by tapping in to a universal love of humour, a human trait that is as relevant for a 7 years old in Bognor as it is a 77 year old in Berwick.
It makes it ridiculously easy to give (want to round up your bill at Sainsbury’s to the nearest pound? Of course you do)
It gives something back (you have fun too).

In short it’s quite brilliant. I expect this year will surpass all others and I really hope it does.

PS Re my previous blog post maybe The Big Society needs to take a leaf out of the Red Nose school of marketing?

Tsunami's devastation

My heart goes out to all the people of Japan at the moment, the true horror of the earthquake and the tsunami seems to be getting worse everyday. To see images of villages and towns just wiped out in minutes is devastating.

The tiny ray of hope when the Japanese military found a 60 year old man on his roof 9 miles out to sea and that this morning two people were found alive in rubble is just humbling.

I truly hope that every person effected can slowly start to build their lives again in what will surely be the biggest test of their lives. The humanitarian effort to even start to sort through the aftermath is just huge, donating money just doesn't seem to be a gesture big enough in this instance.

And to all those that have tragically lost their lives - rest in peace.

We nose a thing or two about advertising... so we're auctioning an ad for Red Nose Day

This year Red Nose Woodies are auctioning an ad for Red Nose Day.

As well as doing a few silly things for RND this year we've decided to donate something really close to our hearts and which we hold very dear, our life blood in fact - our creativity.

So dig deep and email rednosewoodies@woodreed.com with your bid by 5.00pm on Friday 25th March 2011.

The highest bidder will get their own ad designed and produced by our wonderful creative team for use either in print or online with the full value of the winning bid going to Red Nose Day.

And you can visit our RND fundraising page at http://bit.ly/ezd3wa to make a donation if you'd like to support us anyway.

Thanks for your support.

Full t&cs at http://www.woodreed.com/wood-chips/news/

большой (BIG)

Who said BMW
advertising wasn't
big in Russia!

Could you imagine
something this size
being done in
the UK...

...it would certainly
turn a few heads!

The power of speech

I'm not going to jump on the already crowded bandwagon and tell you what a brilliant film "The King's Speech" is, but to tell you what you what I got out of it.

Putting aside the already applauded acting and superb casting, for me there were also some other hidden gems that really made the film even more compelling and interesting. The history that surrounded Edward VIII's abdication, his relationship and ridiculous infatuation with Wallace Simpson, the facts surrounding with George VI's stammer, the fact he was born left handed but was moulded into being right handed, the way his very dictatorial parents treated him so badly, the beautiful relationship he had with his two very different daughters and the fact he was so uncomfortable being a monarch.

But one part of film really caught my imagination and affected me strongly. It was when George VI was looking at footage of Hitler in full flow, a frenzied speech, laced with aggressive passion, with unbelievable frightening physical motion. You can see now how he changed a nation (for all the wrong reasons).

Yet against this we have George VI trying to deliberate on a speech to the nation less than 5 minutes long. So humble, so comforting, so re-assuring, so British. Yet just as powerful.

Grrrrrr ammar

I fear I have turned a little ranty of late, perhaps it’s the weather. This week it’s grammar, or rather the lack of it

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no language luddite. I have nothing against the evolution of language, txt speak is gr8. However, what drives me up the wall is the seemingly never ending inability of the majority of the inhabitants of the English speaking world to use correct grammar. Facebook is a veritable hall of grammar shame. I yell in an unseemly manner each time I see a ‘there’ for a ‘their’ or a ‘your’ for a ‘you’re’ from people who frankly should know better.

But somehow much worse and far more irritating is the sloppy use of grammar from businesses. My very own road, St James Road, is a prime example. Our road sign reads like a bad GCSE English paper. It’s like they’ve hedged their bets with a veritable smorgasbord of grammatical errors. At one end it says “St James’ Road”, the other end “St James Road”. In the middle and with the ‘s painted (tip ex’d?) out is “St James’s Road”. Oh Council…really?

And while we are on the subject of the possessive apostrophe. Honestly how hard is it to remember that you only use one if the thing you are talking about belongs to someone you are referring to? Bar in London Bridge - it’s not “Mojito’s 2 for 1 on a Thursday”. Or how’s this for a winner, bad grammar mixed with unintended irony “Professional sign’s and lettering” anyone? Er, no thanks.

2012 = ZION.....?

The London 2012 Olympic Logo has hit the headlines again. Iran have complained that the logo spells out Zion - a biblical term widely recognised to refer to the city of Jerusalem. It has not gone down well in the Muslim world and is now seen as a racist logo.

They are now threatening to boycott the games - why though are they complaining almost 4 years after the logo was released I ask? They may have had more gravitas back in 2008 when the first bout of reviews/complaints/moans about the design were very current. Did no one spot this then?

Faux Pas - yes they happen in the marketing and design world - but should they happen? The one that springs to mind is the Pepsi Cola slogan 'Come alive with the Pepsi Cola generation,' when translated literally into Taiwanese it means, 'Pepsi Cola will bring your ancestors back from the dead.'

Moral of the story.... testing, testing and more testing.....