ERROL FLANAGAN

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Nike World Cup ball installation

http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/july/nikes-giant-world-cup-balls-up

Saw this on Creative Review’s CR Blog. I haven’t heard of any other interesting World Cup experiences from the official sponsors.

Nice that the 5000 football’s that make the sculpture will be given to local schools after the tournament is finished.

A great example of an innovative, big gesture piece of brand behaviour, starting as a pop-up, one-off cultural content experience, and then having a part two recycled life as a touchstone for the brand and its point of view on Football, spread out across the Football street culture of South Africa.

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Battle of Branchage Archtectural Projection Mapping

<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/7146136">Battle of Branchage</a> from seeper on Vimeo.</p>

Battle of Branchage Architectural Projection Mapping from 2009. Saw some good projections in Sydney last week as part of the Vivid festival.

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VW Slide in Berlin subway station

More fun from VW. This time in a Berlin subway station. Just as refreshing as the Swedish piano on the stairs at thefuntheory.com

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Nigel Marsh at TEDxSydney - bigger from smaller

Nigel Marsh talks of how work/life balance is achievable. Bigger results from attending to the smaller things that seem insignificant but are actually special.

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iPad

Just played with an iPad at the new apple store in bondi junction. Very cool machine, nice store.

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Nike Harajuku Tokyo Flagship Store/ powerful Brand Experience

'The whole thing is like a piece of equipment in a playground, or a big toy. To play with that idea, not as a store, but as a place for experiencing space, and a time, where people get excited and can return to a childlike state. That's what I wanted to express.' says Masamichi Katayama, architect of the flagship store.

A great example of a powerful Brand Experience where an intention to be provocative and take a branded content approach to everything, i.e. everything communicates, can turn a retail experience into something to talk about whilst selling product at the same time. And then of course every product bought there becomes itself another start point for an enthusiastic brand story, and the wave goes on, and the brand enigma builds.

Like other great things (people, places, ideas, products, brands, businesses), it seems brands like Nike set themselves apart from the normal by living (thinking and doing) the Jerry Garcia quote, 'You don't want to be known as the best of the best, you want to be known as the only one who does what you do.'

Interesting too that this film was sponsored by Nike but shown on and made by coolhunting.com's usual film team.

Light and Space, Olafur Eliasson at TED - in between thinking and doing is experience

Some great uses of light, water and space in these experiments from a TED talk in July 09 - very interesting how moving water gives a measure of distance, and especially like the idea that what's between thinking and doing is experience.

More invention again - Six drummers, one apartment

Swedish genius.

Say less to involve more

More from Stefan Sagmeister.

Here he makes a great point on a theory on abstraction while talking about an Yves Klein Blue field painting, all in the context of design that's made him happy.

His observation is that, 'if you abstract an image you merely open as much room for the unrepresentable, and therefore are able to involve the viewer more'. Less information brings more involvement and engagement.

As usual, some great ideas and design insights that can be applied to brands and the persuasion business of marketing.

Genius graphic design

A brilliant collection of playful and inspiring inventiveness - mostly with a client attached. A timeless and enduring truth that comes through for me here is that inspiring people is the main thing to achieve to makes something stand out.

Rice field as media by Greenpeace

I saw this in mX, a free evening commuter paper a few weeks ago. 

It's a Greenpeace ad made by growing different coloured rice plants in a rice field in Thailand.

When I got off the train it struck me how inventive this idea was in comparison to most of the outdoor ads I saw in the station. It brought home a couple of points very clearly - that strong innovation was vital to stand out in the blur, and that the competitive set for ads in every market can include the best from the rest of the world.

Empty building as media

This is a great use of an empty building. Brands could do this. Pick a disused office block or other kind of building, pick a theme, commission some artists - pop-up art for the people.

Visual art

From Coolhunting.com - Leo Villareal creating light experiences. He says in the film that he tries to find the essences of things, the rules that govern things a lot of which involves setting the initial conditions and letting things happen within a certain framework. 

and Jason Young using curling stones, flame throwers and paint on polished aluminium.

Education shift happens - more from XPLANE

This is an old one from 2006/7 so viewing it now means you just know these numbers have only got bigger.

Reminds me of a Chinese proverb; 'If you are thinking of one year's time, plant a seed. If you are thinking ten years time, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years time, educate the people.'

New Did You Know? from Xplane - convergence and how the internet is changing our lives

via PSFK.

Culture stuff - the great Gibson Les Paul

I was listening to community radio here in Sydney 2SER 107.3FM, running programmes on Les Paul, inventor of two phenomenal things that changed music forever - the Gibson Les Paul solid body electric guitar and also multitrack recording. All fascinating and good to hear early recordings of twiddly Bert Weedon-esque 50's twanginess by Les Paul, the talented multitracking guitarist. 

The Les Paul goldtop is a big icon in the guitar world - that and the starburst finishes are timeless standards - from Paul Kossoff in Free, to Jimmy Page and later to Thin Lizzy and Pete Townsend and many others. For me though, the quintessential Les Paul experience turns up on the genius debut album by Boston. 

'More Than A Feeling' is the complete crowd pleaser - but 'Hitch A Ride' has the brilliant soundtrack of great things to come feel. Download 06 Hitch A Ride - Fabulous how a technological revolution in instruments of human expression in one decade, can move people generations later in ways the inventor could probably never have imagined.

Semiotics for brand faith

This is a revisited post from some time back.

I've added to it a bit in this relook at my old blogsite at www.errolflanagan.com

It's a post about the power of semiotics and how they are useful to brands that want to create a resonant and believable position with consumers through a well managed, considered behaviour that has an eye for detail.

Like most markets, in the beer world semiotics are essential. Pour it into a glass and the pale yellow fizzy liquid bubbles and becomes anonymous. In its bottle though it's a work of dedication, the product of an artisan's love made real in form of a robust homespun humility and natural industry to be savoured and considered.

Semiotics is to do with deciphering the symbols for meaning. So all the obvious stuff is there to connote authenticity and people who care. Scrolling text, earthy solid colours and bottle weight and shape - this beer is clearly something you have to properly hold suggesting weight and substance to the product - it's not to be taken lightly. It's all very obvious but it works. All very natural and solid - kegs, sketchily illustration style, big caps for no-nonsense, and scripted name of brand for family owned. 

Does it make a difference? Yes, as obvious as the brand behaviour might be, it works to convey a tone for the brand - implying a character and personality. The bottle makes an impression the product can't. It's not just packaging but the managing of subtle messages choreographed in the design of graphics and form.  The object as media is a big opportunity because everything is media. Often overlooked in communications is the power of semiotics to help people decode culture, and for brands to create culture. Semiotics in the right hands helps us understand what the stuff around us means, or what it is trying to mean, in the way it is, and the way it does what it does.

While getting the semiotics right can help a brand standout, the most important use of it is in making sure the total brand behaviour rings true.

Mies van der Rohe said, 'God is in the details'. Semiotics helps out the fakes and more deeply appreciate the complexities and subtleties of brands that are powerful and real.

$8bn gets clean water millennium target for the planet now

If this is true and feasible it's fantastic. 

Surely the world's water companies would be interested in doing something about making clean water available to everyone? - What a legacy - 2009, met the millennium target and stopped half the people on the planet getting sick and dying from drinking dirty water. 

It will cost $8bn according to Michael Pritchard. 

Please pass this or the TED link on to a water company near you, maybe they'll decide to get together and do something about it, here's hoping, wouldn't it be great if they did? 

Thank you Michael Pritchard for figuring this out, and thanks to TED, and you if you send this on, for sharing it with the world.