The new Macbook

What's in a name? The iPad mocking begins...

Are there too many men in Apple's marketing department?

That's what droves of women on Twitter and other social media sites are wondering as they consider the name of Steve Jobs' new lust object, the iPad. The name sits uncomfortably close to those cheesy commercials promoting the light and breezy features of feminine hygiene products.

The mocking goes along the lines of: Yes, the iPad is small, lightweight and slim. But can you swim with it?

And right now iTampon, Apple, iPhone, and Steve Jobs are all trending topics on Twitter but iPad isn't. Go figure Apple marketing department...

Mac in a Book: BookBook Got You Covered

The BookBook is a hardback leather carrying case for your MacBook or MacBook Pro.

"Zip it closed and your baby is nestled between two tough, rigid leather hardback covers for a solid level of impact absorbing protection. The rigid spine serves as crush protection for an additional line of defense."

In addition to the sleek and sturdy design Twelve South boasts that the "BookBook is the perfect disguise," providing "superior security" by masking your laptop as a "vintage piece of literature"

Though it might provide the extra security for your laptop it also might tempt the crooked bibliophile; for many a piece of "vintage literature" has more value than laptop.

I could see it now. Someone leaves their BookBook covered Mac on the table at the library. A book thief sees it, swipes it and is utterly disappointed when they get home, open it, an find they have been duped.

Thanks to Avishay for the pointer.

What Type Are You?

Always wondered what typeface you are? Now Pentagram can help give you an answer...

This site was originally set up as a Christmas message from Pentagram, but those clever folk at Creative Review have realised that the password works for anyone, so decided to share it with us.

Visit the site here, and simply type in your name and the password 'character' and off you go. A psychiatrist figure will then ask you a number of questions about your personality before diagnosing you with a typeface. A short film about your type will then play.

I was diagnosed as 'Letrees Ornees', below, a decorative typeface... Lovely!

Lady Gaga's getting creative for Polaroid

Polaroid are hiring 23 year old Lady Gaga as creative director.

Her role will take her behind the scenes of the 70-year-old company, which retired its analogue camera last year, where she will design and invent speciality projects.

According to Polaroid’s product pipeline, those projects will aim to deliver an easy-to-use or access digital experience, designed for instant fun and gratification…. Hhhmm

She said: "The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation - blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era. Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it - finally, have a real job."

Latest Work: Valentine's branding for Marks & Spencer

Latest project is now live: Valentine's Day branding and landing pages for www.marksandspencer.com.

See the live designs here.

The most irritating ads of 2009: is being irritating a successful marketing strat­egy?

They may grab our attention and then worm their way into our subconscious, but some commercials are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

While 2009 may have been a tough 12 months for the Advertising industry, it was a vintage year for irritating ads.

The end of Kerry Katona's contract with Iceland did remove one regular fixture from the annual list, but a host of other brands has joined the fray. The morbidly obese opera singer of the Gocompare ad propelled the brand into the top spot of this year's annoying ads.

It was closely followed by Cash4Gold - a company that has become one of the beneficiaries of the recession by encourag­ing impecunious consumers to trade in their trinkets for hard cash.



As ever, many of the brands that top the list relish their most-irritating status. Nicholas Hall, head of marketing at Gocompare.com, says that, because the campaign is ‘not vanilla' it has significantly boosted the price-comparison site's profile. According to Go­com­pare's own consumer research, there has been a 200% increase in awareness of the brand since the activ­ity started in August.

One of the oldest truisms about market­ing posits that the bigger the brand, the harder the fall. Those that have the biggest budgets and shout the loudest also run the greatest risk of offending consum­ers. However, while McDonald's, Gillette and T-Mobile all make an appearance on this year's list, smaller brands are punch­ing above their weight when it comes to annoying consumers. Of particular note is the fact that three of the top 10 most-irritating ads were produced in-house by relatively new brands - Confused.com and Webuyanycar.com as well as Gocompare.com.

The question remains whether being irritating is a successful marketing strat­egy in itself. Proponents of this approach suggest that, like any strong response, irrit­ation equates to aware­ness - the ultimate aim of all ad campaigns. However, Simon White, joint man­aging director of ad agency Grey London, points out that brands that have been accused of irritating consumers in the past - such as Cillit Bang and Radion - achieved a short-term spike in sales, but struggled to maintain this performance in the long term.

This view is echoed by Richard Hunt­ington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. He says that while these irritating ads are clearly memorable, whether they can form part of a sustainable commun­ication strategy remains to be seen. Put simply, once a brand has done its best to irritate consumers it is difficult to see where the creative approach goes next.

Given the sharp rise in complaints to the Advertising Stan­dards Authority, it could be argued that consumers are less tolerant of brands on the whole. Not so, according to Huntington. ‘People have become less tolerant of interruption but this is more to do with the entertainment on-demand culture,' he says.

Yet, there has been a shift in advertising strategies during the down­turn and many brands top­ping the list appear to have attended the Alan Sugar school of marketing; by asking their agen­cies to ‘work harder' to help them stand out from the crowd they are effect­ively causing brand­ing overkill, often through the medium of the jingle.

Andy Nairn, executive planning direct­or of ad agency MCBD, believes that it is not enough for ads simply to raise aware­ness if they are not well-liked. ‘Most peop­le have an awareness of Josef Fritzl, but it doesn't mean they want to spend time with him,' he says.

Nairn points to the success of brands such as Hovis that have fostered a genuin­ely emotional connection to consumers rather than focusing on direct response. ‘The standard of advert­ising has dropped as marketers increasingly believe they are working hard through excessive brand awareness,' he adds.

The last word goes to Gocompare.com's Hall, who clearly believes it is better to be on the list than forgotten about. ‘I'd say that the campaign has performed exactly as we'd have hoped so far, and, I'm sure, better than many of those campaigns that weren't memorable enough to make it into the list,' he says. ‘However, as much as you'd like to, you can't please all the people all of the time.' Whether his brand's activity pleases any of the people any of the time remains a moot point.

From brandrepublic

Badly placed advertisements

The result of placing advertisements on billboards, websites and newspapers in unintentionally the wrong place...








Credit: theprodesigner.com

JBW 2010

For the 6th successive year, Cinnamon Creative has created the complete branding programme for London’s largest literary festival – JBW – including the 64pp programme, signage, posters and nationwide advertising.


The new programme launches online tomorrow, 7th January. To book for sessions for the capital's most exciting 'literary extravaganza', visit www.jewishbookweek.com

Obsessive iPhone disorder?

Do you eat, breathe and sleep your iPhone?

This may be taking your obsession to the extreme.

Thanks for this, Avishay! Not that you have OiD of course...