[ paul isakson ]

Opportunity Is Everywhere

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"Don't look for the next opportunity. The one you have in hand is the opportunity."
Paul Arden, It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be.

Where most people see a dirty wall (or more likely, don't even notice the wall at all), Paul "Moose" Curtis sees an opportunity to make something better. He sees an opportunity to create art that takes something dingy and turns it into something delightful.

Green Works, or somebody working with them, noticed the reverse graffiti movement and saw an opportunity to bring this great idea forward, along with highlighting some people behind it, by creating the Reverse Graffiti Project.

As a planner, it is part of our job to find opportunity where others see none. For our creatives. For our clients. For our account handlers. For ourselves. For the people we're hoping to connect to our clients' brands.

Always look for opportunity. Always inspire.

Passion + Listening = A Great Brand

Chris Brogan shared this video as an example of how great branded content doesn't come across as an ad and in doing so, it stands a much better chance of getting passed along from one to many. I absolutely agree with him but that's not why I'm posting the video here. Nor is it because of my appreciation for street art and great street artists. The reason I'm sharing it is because of what gets said around 2:43 into the video.

The guys behind Montana actually paint, so they have an inherent feel for what makes great spray paint when it comes to writing graffiti. Not only that, but they also get out and talk to street artists to really understand what they need. Then they go back and develop those things. The entire video shows how Montana has specially formulated their paints and developed a variety of caps so that street artists can create better work.

This is what great brands do. They have passion for what they make and that passion helps them start out with a pretty good product to begin with. Then, they go out and spend time listening to people who use their products and find ways to make them better.

Great brands always consider themselves to be in beta - even if they don't use that term. They're always looking for ways to improve and be more meaningful to the people who use them. In return, this makes the people who use them even more passionate about them. In my book, that's never a bad thing.

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Side note: Chris also has a good post on thinking about your blog's design. It made me see the real answer to the question I had been asking myself with regard to my recent banner refresh - "Does my blog look fat with this header?" Thus the change to trim it down a bit. Next up is thinning out the sidebars a bit. Have a bit too much going on over there.

BLU | MUTO

Found this animation from BLU just now and thought it was worth sharing here vs. just on my Tumblr.

Enjoy.

via

Beringer Vineyards TV Inspired by Paper Sculptures

In looking up more info on Daft Punk's Electroma film, I found this spot directed by Oliver "Twist" Gondry. Seeing the incorporation of paper sculptures immediately caught my attention, having covered them before.

There's a making of video here where they talk about their inspiration, working with Su Blackwell, and how it all came together.

Overall I think it does a nice job of communicating what the team at Hal Riney intended and captures your attention because it's interesting - it isn't what you would expect to see from a winery. It's definitely one that passes my new test of, "Would I pause the DVR and rewind it to see this?"

It's also another great example of art inspiring advertising. Nice work Adam and Rich.

It's Funny How Things Align Sometimes

Yesterday I shared the little blurb I wrote that appeared in The Next Issue which talked about the amount of content out there and how easily it is now to link one thing to another.

Today, Faris posted on a blatant case of this.

And just now, I went to the YouTubes to see what was on the home page and came across this video:

Which reminded me of another video, that funnily enough, I remembered seeing on TIGS quite some time ago:

Now, certainly art inspires advertising and sometimes vice versa, and these aren't nearly as bad as the case Faris is citing, but it does all make for a fun little coincidence now doesn't it.

Interesting New Justice Video

DVNO by Justice. Directed by SO-ME.

I've started over on my music blog (hoping this one sticks), so I'm trying to post all music related things over there instead of here in order to keep this a little more focused. I've also started a Tumblr stream for random things I find interesting in some shape or another but didn't think belonged on here. Anyway...

Thought this was interesting from a creative inspiration perspective (just like their D.A.N.C.E. video), so it's getting posted over here too. After all, part of the planner's job is to help inspire the creative team, no?

Listening to the Obvious

Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar have collaborated on a new project - I Want You To Want Me - which is now on display at MoMA as part of their Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit.

The details on what it is and how it works are on Jonathan's site, as well as within the IWYTWM site. Also interesting to view is the process of how the project came together.

Now, this is certainly a very interesting endeavor, as is much of the work from these two gentlemen, but that's not why I wanted to discuss it here. (But please do go read about it and if you can, go see it.)

As the volume on the "brands should be doing things, not saying things" song gets turned up louder and louder, we need to start moving from talking about doing, to actually doing, doing.

People are sharing more and more information publicly about who they are, who they want to be, how they want to be seen, how they want to be communicated with (not to), what they want, who they want to be with, etc., etc.

Whenever I look at some of the past work Jonathan has done, or see something new that does something similar - taking bits and bytes of shared information and making them more useful or interesting - I am reminded of this.

Opportunity is all around us to start helping our clients do things that are more useful to the people who use their products and services. People are sending out public signals every single day about their lives and giving us insight into how we could help them. Are you listening? Because they're telling us what they want. Sometimes yelling. Sometimes whispering. But always telling.

The brands that capitalize on this and are first to meet the evolving needs of people in ways that are relevant to their products and services are going to rise to the top. Brands that continue to think they know what people want and operate in isolated secrecy, well, their ivory towers are going to begin to lose a bit of their shine rather quickly.

In other words, tomorrow belongs to the brands that help people become the heroes of their own stories by listening to what people want and then giving them the things they need to accomplish their goals.

It's time to listen and do more than think and talk. Well, still think, but applied to listening and doing. Not talking. Which I'll stop doing now. Thanks for listening.

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Related note (2/26): NY Times review of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit here.

Grand Central Freezes

This has come up a bit in meetings lately as well as being passed around via email, so I'm sure you've seen it, but if not, here you go. Another great execution by Improve Everywhere. Some personal past favorites of theirs include Slo-Mo Home Depot and Best Gig Ever.

What Search Engine do Street Artists Use?

Go ahead. Give it a try.

Found

JASON THiELKE @ Limited Addiction (Denver, CO)

Got a late jump on this one, but all that means is you missed the opening reception last night. If you're in Denver or are going to be any time between now and February ninth, get over to Limited Addiction Gallery and check out the latest work from Jason Thielke.

Hope the reception went well, Jason. Sorry for not getting this up on Friday when you got it to me.

Side note to relate this back to brands and such...

A couple of lines that jumped out at me from Jason's about page:

"The physical environment in which we live is designed and built. However, it is incomplete until the people for whom it was designed interact with it."

Take that same text and think about it in regard to brands and the communications we create for them. Interesting.