Clik here to view.
Bear, Hare and John Lewis
Every year John Lewis outdoes itself with its Christmas advertising. Past tear jerkers are below, but this one is particularly great, thanks to a Lily Allen cover of an old Keane song and Disney...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Simple answers for common social media questions
No matter how many years we are into the post-social world, every new platform (pinterest, snapchat etc) brings with it a raft of new questions, based on niche use-cases hungrily reported on by a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Think Different
For an industry that prides itself on divergent thinking, we too often follow our preconceived notions of what is “true”. We’re not the only ones. Gladwell talks about this for a whole book in David...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The power of the post-launch
So much of our time is spent focusing on launching a campaign or on shipping a product. There’s a feeling that that moment is the zenith, the peak that we should we working towards and when its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Books I Read – 2013
2013 was the year that I rediscovered my joy of reading. A lot of it is due to Apple – first the iPad and now the iPhone encouraged me to to try and buy a tonne of books to read through the iBooks app....
View ArticleClik here to view.
2014 Predictions
Forward looking statements often take the form of predicting the present – taking what we see as happening now and projecting it into a greater and wider trend – so please take these comments, provided...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Charles Dance’s Sochi poem made my spine tingle
The best Sochi 2014 promo spot I’ve seen yet…clearly C4′s “meet the superhumans” has inspired Aunty to up its game: Here’s the spot: Here’s the poem: I am the dreadful menace. The one whose will is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radar 10am One Thing: Dogecoin
The following is this week’s 10am One Thing that I wrote for the DDB blog. This week’s One Thing feels like a best of of all the previous One Things: A meme. A hub of internet activity and activism. A...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Ongoing Transparency Trend
A couple of weeks back, I had a brief email chat with Susan Krashinsky at The Globe and Mail about transparency in general for her piece on the QSR industry. Here’s what we talked about: We’ve seen...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Macklemore builds his story
At Tribal we’ve been talking a lot about our mission and vision this year. We’ve landed on a certain way that we believe brands should behave and, for me, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis fit right into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thinking Different, Again
A while back, I wrote about the high school football coach who never punts, who always goes for it on fourth down and who always onside-kicks. He had looked at the game in a different way and was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Parody videos: imitation is the highest form of flattery
You may have seen the video where 20 strangers kiss for the first time. You may have seen the “first hand-jobs” video. You may have seen the 20 unattractive brits kiss for the first time. You may...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radar 10am One Thing: April Fool’s!
The following is this week’s 10am One Thing that I wrote for the DDB blog. Tuesday was April Fool’s Day or, as those of us who are immersed in digital culture call it, the worst day on the Internet....
View ArticleClik here to view.
If this is the future of social media…
If social media becomes bad photoshop with tenuous copywriting (aka “real time marketing”) and brands talking to other brands, I quit. Private Eye on 'brand banter' on Twitter: the future of digital...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Music trends in advertising
Young female singers covering songs by older white men…and advertising agencies using them to make a strong emotional connection with “mom”. Lilly Allen covers Keane’s “somewhere only we know” for John...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I bet he drinks Carling Black Label
We were talking about this ad at the office today – an oldie and a goodie from the UK. Its amazing to see the power of a great execution of a powerful brand idea, with evocative music. I remember...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Life imitating art
Well, politics imitating art. Kevin Spacey did it first Julia Louis-Dreyfus did it again Will Kerry Washington do it next year?
View ArticleClik here to view.
World Cup 2014 – Best of the Best Ads
I love the World Cup. The best players in the world, the roar of the Three Lions, the heartache of England losing on penalties. The ads which can cross over into popular culture. Nike shows a journey...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Everyday Football Fouls and Flops
Footballers diving and feigning injury has been done before: but not as well as this, from Fourgrounds Films of Canada, via NPR: If we all reacted to contact in our everyday situations like football...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is Social Media Over-rated? Is Digital Marketing Out-dated? Is Integration...
Lots of people forwarded me this video (for obvious reasons) and there was plenty of discussion about its merits within the agency. As a result, after watching it a few times, I wrote the following POV...
View Article