ThoughtSpurs

My colleagues at HB Media (with whom I created Idealog magazine - the biggest business magazine in New Zealand)have just launched their next publication. It is called Inspire and I look forward to seeing Issue one. Frankly I don't have much hope for it being much more than a brochure. Hopefully that won't be taken wrongly. It is, after all a contract publishing job. The critical function of the editor will be demoted to sub-editorial function - grammar and spelling. But it looks perdy - if the site is anything to go by. The challenge for publishers (as they become the new advertising agencies - YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST) will be how to develop the same critical disciplines that the best advertising agencies have - the strategic communication planning function. Being able to construct a magazine is a waste of trees and ink (and every other resource associated with the creation, production, distribution and disposal of magazines) if it doesn't connect and effect sales. The tal...

Why does anyone in their right mind want to go on a reality TV show? I once had an employee who was doing very well in her job and was great fun to have around. Aside from that she put her romance languages degree to good use and taught me Italian after work. Actually that is overstating the case. She gave me lessons. What I learned you could paint on the head of a pin with a wide brush. However, Ally wanted to work in television. Advertising wasn't ringing her bell. So, naturally enough, she applied to appear on the second of the big reality TV shows to hit New Zealand's screens. The first was the seminal Pop Stars which vomited the execrable True Bliss on the screen and spawned Pop Stars UK and, by means of the long and winding road the phenomenon that is American Idol (and all of its international karaoke cousins). Ally was to appear on the first series of Treasure Island. As befits a television star she changed her second name from Foskett to Fox. And so it was that she l...

Yesterday I attended a small seminar at Massey University School of Design for students working on a master's degree this year. It was conducted by Mark Geard, a lecturer from Massey University in Wellington. His thesis was an enquiry into organic forms in typography. He discussed the background to the work and then showed us the font he developed as 'artifact' to explore his hypothesis. I immediately felt a great liking for it - which supported his argument that some design moves us. I know, it's a typeface, but what rings my bell might reasonably be expected to be different to you. I could see an immediate application for it. I am about to redevelop my site WellSpring , which I have been operating since 2002 (a resource for people interested in wellness and personal growth), which has become a little shabby looking over time. It needs to be tidied up, refocused and given some new energy and direction - possibly a digitally distributed magazine version. So - work to b...

You have to visit the very talented Karen Rubado's photoblog - DarkPx . She isn't a professional photographer but has a fantastic eye - sees things in a fresh way. I like that.

The news that asthma may have been over-diagnosed and asthma medication correspondingly over prescribed in New Zealand should come as no surprise. What is surprising is that the conditioned response to asthma like symptoms (mild-to-moderate asthma symptoms are, in fact similar to those of a cold) has been to dispense medicine and dispense with the possibility that more benign and less costly therapies might be more useful – at least as the first line of care. Many people with respiratory conditions-including asthma have found that breath management techniques such as Buteyko can dramatically reduce the need for inhaler medicines (both preventers and relievers) but this option is all too rarely explored. There is an anaemic culture in contemporary medicine that is driven by factors like the demand for immediate gratification by the patient (‘fix me now’), pressure on general practitioners to satisfy patients as ‘clients’ and pharmaceutical companies whose concern for the bottom line an...

I love architecture. Perhaps if I was more numerate I would have studied the craft. Or maybe it will be a second life career (by that I mean that here in my real life)? I came across this fascinating idea on the MocoLoco site. It is a home with a very small footprint. The cylindrical pod in the centre houses the utility areas and the sleeping area. As a working concept I like it a lot. it would be a sensational bach (if you're not a kiwi a quick lesson: a bach (pronounced batch) is a holiday house, traditionally simple, though thesedays becoming gentrified - if you ever feel the need to visit this country and would like to stay in a bach try my friend Simon Morgan's website bookabach ). The cool thing is that the concept has got me wondering about how it could function on a slightly larger and more practical scale for families. Lovely documentary on TV1 tonight Here to stay, fronted by Jackie Clarke. Felt my Scottish ethnicity and culture acknowledged for the first time ever (...

Ricky Gervais has a way of giving topics a surprising new spin - and this is no exception: I have been thinking about the recent noises by the New Zealand Maori Party regarding their 'customary rights' to New Zealand's fresh water supply. I find it odd that, in a supposedly secular country, one segment of the population is given the lever of exaggerated supernaturalism to exert economic pressure of the majority of New Zealanders. Taking the risk of being considered a bigot (I'm not, I believe strongly in equal opportunities for all and my daughter is of partly maori descent) I'd like to see the end of cockamamy, divisive claims to resources. Likewise observing the concept of the 'crown' is antiquated, vile and based on supernatural beliefs (why do you accept that the children of Charles Windsor and Diana Spencer are 'superior' to yours or mine by birth ?). Eliminate fealty to the English monarchy and the Treaty of Waitangi will be voided - which expl...

I spoke at the AUT Breakfast Club yesterday morning. Remind me never to agree to early morning functions again. My topic was ‘Why the creative economy is the sustainable economy’ I’d had a technology meltdown. The hard drive on my desktop machine blew up. I lost a ton of material (including the original plans and designs for Idealog) – and my speech. I was speechless. So Thursday night was a late one and Friday morning an early one. I thought these kinds of gigs were behind me. Nonetheless the session went well and I enjoyed myself. I have made a note never to present from a written speech again. It seems curiously pointless. If you know the material well enough to write it, surely you know it well enough to work from a few notes. That way it is easier to engage the audience with a more genuine sense of personality. When I began teaching at Massey I would go for two and half hours based on 5 bullet points. It was exhausting but fun. I didn’t realise until I complained to a colleague ab...

I rather like this ad for Levis. It marries tradition with an unselfconscious contemporary feel. I guess jeans have been around as long there have been young people who want to take them off. If you know what the music is...?

Great presentation for anyone even remotely interested in brands. I like the slideshare concept too.

Since I attended Kevin Roberts' media presentation of his book Lovemarks I have felt admiration for his chutzpah and disquiet about aspects of the Lovemarks brandstory that I still feel today. What prompts this post is a video on the Advertising Age website where Mr Roberts fesses up to what everyone in the advertising business has known all along . Lovemarks was the credentials pitch for his agency that you bought from Amazon.com. I don't have any issue with that - David Ogilvy's books preceded Roberts by a long chalk. I remember reading a conversation with Ogilvy where it was put to him that Ogilvy on Advertising , with its recipes and rules, gave the secrets away. Ogilvy, the shrewd Scot replied 'Do you really think they will do it for themselves?" - or words to that effect. Of course Ogilvy was right. Client's don't want to do their own advertising creative - but I wonder how many ad presentations have come a cropper because the client would ask a que...

For those of you who imagined that you would have a personal robot by now (never mind that, what happened to the flying car you promised me!?)-check out the range available at LockWasher Design Concrete proof that the Internet can be a big waste of time (if you want it to be). Personally I find it stimulating and can rationalise the time wasting with the argument that I get paid to be creative. Creativity s about joining new things together in interesting new ways; therefore interesting new things introduced into the mix and joined in interesting new ways is excellent use of time. People who keep their noses pressed to the grindstone without coming up for oxygen end up depleted and with flat spaces where their noses used to be. Footnote: Watching Norbit will come to no good

This guy has gone to a lot of trouble. He deserves your attention. I visited with my friend Geoff Peacock today. Geoff bought my business in the mid-nineties and was a paragon of direct marketing before cashing up to become a property developer. He wanted to show me the home in Parnell that he has virtually finished building. Geoff does his own labouring. I respect that and his pride in the finished job. When you invest of yourself and not simply plough cash into a project it shows. We talked in the sun for two hours and agreed to play a game of golf. Don't get me wrong-I'm not a golf guy, but I like his company. His partner Sarah is the managing director of Healtheries. Geoff proudly recounts his role as 'house husband', not just building it, but taking care of all of the support roles and loving it. He's a hunting, fishing outdoorsman and I'm keen to introduce him to my mate Mark Hindmarsh - whose idea of fun is sitting in the wet and cold and waiting for a fl...

I just took an online test - similar to the infamous Myers-Briggs test so much loved by HR departments. The result is as follows: ESTP - "Promoter". Action! When present, things begin to happen. Fiercely competitive. Entrepreneur. Often uses shock effect to get attention. Negotiator par excellence. 4.3% of total population. Take the Jung Personality Test yourself These tests fascinate me. I have a client who is a change management consultant . He offers a similar proprietary tool - which he has used on me - I find it interesting how such insights can be so uncannily accurate. Or are they? Is the effect something like a horoscope? If it suits and is favourable then it is acceptable if not, it is refuted. The only time in my working life I have been through a formal pre-employment process was at Lion Nathan. They are much admired for their HR policies. But it was charade. I flunked the rigorous mathematical tests. So I promised not to prepare their annual reports. As...

I just watched this ad on TV. "Where the bloody hell are you?". It interests me how Australia presents itself to the world - any country for that matter. My thesis is about nation branding. While I appreciate the clarity of positioning for a mass market and the commercial does a very good job of it, it also reinforces stereotypes and cliches. Along the way it commits the sin of omission - real cultural diversity is ignored as is a sense of reality. In a way it is a mirror image of the 100% Pure New Zealand campaign - and almost every other nation brand advertising campaign. Having worked on the Australian Tourism account it also interests me that the strategy for the campaign before this one was based on the premise that Australia had become a bromide - too well known to the extent that visitors felt they had done everything that there was on offer; the theme imposed by Canberra was ' See Australia in a new light ' Maybe after a while you can't fight the narrativ...

I have removed the Amazon boxes from the footer of my posts. They weren't working and get in the way of the communication. I am happy to recommend products that I have used or read - word of mouth is a powerful tool, but maybe commercialism can just be too tacky when it is so 'in your face'. I guess, being data, they slowed down the connection too. This afternoon the Melbourne Grand Prix kicked off the 07 season. It will be interesting to see if Ferrari can have a better year and whether it will seem different without Michael Schumacher? The point I was going to make is that, in F1, the theory goes that if a part doesn't break - it's too heavy. In the pursuit of speed weight is shed. In design the same is true. It is not a matter of how much you can put into a design (or communication) that matters - it is how much you can take away in the interests of making your point.

So,…now you know. (found during a randomised trawl via Stumbledupon.com ).

It is Sunday. the weather is very, very gloomy. Winter is on its way (or at least summer is in retreat). I have just installed a plug in to my Firefox browser called Stumble (a recommendation by Philip Slade , a member of my Ziki community in the UK). You choose the topics that interest you. When you click the Stumble button in the browser toolbar it randomly goes to a page that might be of interest. Users vote on the site's via a sort of 'love it or shove it' tool. I have had a few go's and only come up with one dull (though beautifully executed page). So far this has been my favourite: Concert sauvage dans le métro ! Uploaded by lapapsprod One other tool I have been playing with is the Web TV utility called Joost which is in Beta. You can watch MTV shows, some National Geographic, the car show 5th Gear and a bunch of other stuff I have yet to figure out. Who knows what it is doing to my bandwidth consumption. I think you can sign up as a Beta tester (though if you n...

I have just started a Wiki (well a few really). Who'd have thought? I have a feeling that creating collaborative tools is going to have an enormous impact on the way we do business (or even simply explore ideas). I love the idea that 'none of us is as smart as all of us'. So the first is here. KiwiBrands . I have only put up one page. If you are interested in becoming a contributor or editor - contact me. I was supposed to be going to a master's seminar about writing research proposals this morning, but I have so much work to do this weekend that I'm skipping it. And I want to make time to check out Red Square - the free space for performance at the Auckland 07 festival. I have always wanted to go to the Speigeltent (see picture above), assumed it would always be packed out, but hey...if you don't go, you don't know. Listened (again) to an interview between the planners Jon ( Perfect Pitch ) Steel and Russell Davies. I heard something that I had missed bef...

This week there was some discussion about the Dove campaign in my advertising class at Massey University. It surprised me that the message aroused indifference amongst most of the young women in my class. The campaign has, by all accounts been a great success for the brand. But 'The campaign for real beauty' is not without its critics. One of the most interesting points of view is that the message has simply been created with the sole purpose of creating profits for the parent company, rather than expressing an authentic point of view. To support the argument S late, the online magazine, points out: Dove's appeal to righteous sisterhood is just another flavor of marketing. And it's not particularly grounded in reality. Are we meant to believe that Unilever, the company that makes Dove, is a force for good? How to reconcile this notion with the ads for another Unilever product, Axe (Lynx in NZ) body spray, in which nearly every woman shown is a skinny, fashion-model-gor...

Tom Peters might rub some people up the wrong way, but that is ok. He's a brand and great brands have the people who love them and the people who don't (or worse). Great brands have great stories. Great stories have protagonists and antagonists. I like to think of The Lord of the Rings as an example. If Frodo and Sam had jumped on the Number 10 bus to Mt Doom, chucked the ring into the abyss, then headed for home in a taxi (feeling that their efforts deserved a small reward), then it wouldn't be much of a story. Great stories have someone who wants something and someone else who wants to stop them from accomplishing it - another day in the Dilbert office. But anyway, I was flipping through a PowerPoint presentation of Mr Peters' when I came across this remark: A single day can have as much legacy as a lifetime. In fact it had better be the case! Why? Because the day stretching out before me...filled (at the moment) with limitless opportunities...is all I have! Does that...

Following from my previous post... A certain Samurai had a reputation for impatient and hot-headed behaviour. A Zen master, well known for his exceptional cooking, decided the warrior needed to be taught a lesson before he became any more dangerous. He invited the samurai to dinner. The samurai arrived at the appointed time. The Zen master told him to make himself comfortable while he finished preparing the food. A long time passed. The samurai waited impatiently. After a while he called out: "Zen Master, have you forgotten me?" The Zen master came out of the kitchen. "I am very sorry" he said "Dinner is taking longer to prepare than I had thought. He went back to the kitchen. A long time passed. The samurai st growing hungrier by the minute. At last he called out, a little softer this time:"Zen Master, please - when will dinner be served?" The Zen master came out of his kitchen. "I'm sorry. There has been a further delay. It won't be muc...

Differentiating between an idea and its execution can be tough. Explaining the difference can he harder still. I find it interesting to listen to students selling ideas for ads. Universally they will say - "this is my idea" then proceed to explain what is on the page, where things will go and how they will look. At the heart of an idea is some kind of insight. It is the moment of truth for a brand. In some cases the product has a clear point of difference. In most it doesn't. The insight come from some understanding of how the user feels about the product or how they relate to it. What it all means. For kids in their early twenties it is hard to empathise with the entire spectrum of human feelings. Some are more empathetic than others. Empathy is the single characteristic that marks out a great advertising creative. Some might argue that craft skills such as design and art direction or copywriting are the most valuable assets. Those things can be taught and emulated, but ...

When there is no limit to the amount of space available - why not fill it? I was reading Russell Davies column in Campaign magazine. Well, not in Campaign but on his blog . In it he discusses the differences between writing copy for a blog and for print. He raises many interesting points. It strikes me that the most significant difference is the lack of inhibition there is when writing a blog. When I write my column for Idealog it is constrained to 500 words. If there were fewer my editor would probably ask me for more. Or ask someone else. Without the copy the page would be empty. Too many words and there wouldn't be enough room. Interestingly, in part, these are design issues. The content affects the presentation of the magazine. In a blog design is irrelevant. Content is the only thing that matters - even more true if you are reading an RSS feed. Blog sites like Blogger, WordPress and Vox offer free, simple templates that can be used in minutes. It doesn't seem to matter tha...

I am speaking at the AUT alumni Breakfast Club next Friday . My topic is "Why the Creative Economy is the sustainable economy". Am I right? I hope you can come along to find out.

A perfect example of interestingness. ( via AceJet170 )

Ugly Betty has been popular with some viewers. Me, well, I watched the pilot but it's not for me. The UK's Channel 4 promo is entertaining ( via BrandDNA ) and reminds me of the weirdly watchable speed painting on YouTube. Station idents and promos are big business, if they were sold at commercial rates they would be worth tens of millions of dollars. The channel branding business has facsinated me since working with Bill Peake, who was my business partner in BrandWorld. Bill had previously worked as Asia/Pacific sales director for the UK firm Lambie-Nairn who pioneered the art of the channel ident. LN were led by the visionary designer Martin Lambie-Nairn (a winner of the prestigeous D&AD President's award). I remember watching some of Bill's tapes for some of the European channels such as Arte and being hypnotised by the quality and invention of the imagery. One of the most striking features was the sound design. All of the elements would combine beautifully to c...

The 'anti-smacking bill' introduced by Green MP Sue Bradford raises a number of issues (quite separate about the rights of parents to discipline their children and the rights of children to be safe from harm). The parliament is split on the matter. It will be voted on in the house based on the conscience of each member. The Maori Party are keeping their powder dry, refusing to commit and waiting to see what political advantage they can extract from either side. If the question is genuinely a question of moral conscience then, surely, the Maori party must already know their position. Likewise Sue Bradford has said that she will withdraw the proposed legislation if there is any amendment to her bill that would specify what 'reasonable' force is. This is petty hubris. I beleive that, once legislation has passed its first reading in the house it should no longer be the prerogative of the bill's original author - instead it is subject to the democratic process. Naughty ...

On Saturday I intended to go along to the Pasifika Festival. Instead I took my daughter along to a friends house where she swam in the pool and I made this moleskin doodle. Some things are simply existential. This is one of them. Taking pleasure in simple things is an end in itself. I've copied out an open letter by Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, after he was invited to address a UNESCO delegation (spotted in Adbusters magazine). After the revelation that Al Gore has a gigantic carbon footprint I thought the idea of trying to live in such a way that the message becomes a true message; not just a call for action, but action itself. was especially salient. "Only collective awakening can help solve the difficult problems in our world like war and global warming...I will propose that UNESCO oranise a global no car day - a day when people refrain from using their cars, except in emergencies...UNESCO can promote this day around the world and use it as a means to educate and inspire ...

Interesting to see David Skilling (former Treasury economist) on Television this morning saying exactly what I have said in Idealog repeatedly and in this blog . New Zealand firms need to detach themselves from the opinion that manufacturing products in New Zealand as a matter of some patriotic duty is a good thing. The manufucaturing sector has shrunk over the years and yet unemployment figures are consistently at their lowest since we had one of the most robust economies in the developed world. Manufacturing workers have been absorbed into service economies. He rightly points out that where our energy needs to go is design and marketing. Seems obvious. Worked for Dyson. On another topic I found this cartoon describing web 2.0 Reasonably describes how baffling it can be at times.

Forget the Sunday Star Times. Watch this. Discuss.

Bob Dylan sings Suess . A slightly surreal singing sensation. Ok, enough with the alliteration already. I found this artifact on the Rocketboom site (which I liked, but find the novelty is wearing off...it can be a little too self conscious and errs on the cheesy side). I like Bob Dylan. I didn't always like Bob Dylan. But he kind of grows on you. The video by Martin Scorcese No Direction Home was the turning point. (Apparently Scorcese never met Dylan - spot of trivia there for you). In one of those convergent moments I also read a terrific article in the New Yorker about Dylan. Interesting quote: The discrepancy between Dylan the interview subject and Dylan the musician is not an artifact of celebrity. It seems to have been part of the deal from the start. On most subjects that normal people talk about, Dylan seems either not to have views or to have views indistinguishable from everyone else. The Suess site is kid of cool in a pointless (or point unknown) way. If you're a f...

More. I won't apologise. Is there any way of stopping Julie Christie from licensing this (Fortune show) crap in New Zealand? Jeff Archer makes an appearance in the clip. The Wikipedia has this to to say about 'Lord'Archer (ex con) On 17 September 2005 Archer was appearing at an event in Manchester for the tenth birthday of Kirsty Howard to raise money for the Francis House Children's Hospice. Someone shouted out "Monica". Archer looked up and had a bucket of cold porridge thrown over him. The culprit fled. Bring back the guillotine for any pompous twat who imagines for one nano-second they are above you.

I taught a class in advertising at Massey University today. I showed the Apple 1984 commercial (amongst loads of others). What shocked me was that the classic Ridley Scott directed commercial had no impact on my students. They don't know what 1984 is, or what it meant in the context of, well, 1984. The reason is that every single one of them was born after 1984. They don't read. (Does that make them illiterate?) So now 'big brother' means: reality TV show. I despair.

As it's my blog I'll do what I want. And if that means filling it with video clips, well...so be it. Here are a couple of episodes of Charlie Brooker's Sideswipe that are so much better than anything you'll see on television in New Zealand tonight. I feel like filling the entry up with loads more but I'll respect your bandwidth and suggest you simply follow the trail back to You Choob, put your feet up and laugh yourself silly. If I have to play favourites I'd have to say his take on the Dragon's Den is 'up there'. You know...there.

One minute you're on top, the next forgotten. Yesterday Guy Browning was the man of the match, today it's Charlie Brooker . He's also a columnist for the Guardian and seems to have a show on the BBC. I think he's the modern day Clive James (TV critic). Here's his take on Jamie Oliver: And men in advertising: Watching 'Breakfast' on TVONE (weathergirl bringing you the weather live from the boatshow) I wonder where the cutting satire is in New Zealand life. Or maybe every 'breakfast' broadcast in the world is puerile at best and banal at worst.

I have a new literary hero. Though given that my last one was Jeremy Clarkson I'm not sure how much weight this one will carry with you. Guy Browning is a columnist for the Guardian (a newspaper in the UK ((which is a little country to the west of Norway)). I took his book out of the library - a completely random choice - a book chosen by its cover. I hope I have paraphrased his column enough to qualify for 'fair use'. Guy Browning offers 20 top tips for surviving life in the workplace 1 Never offer to make coffee 2 Ignore all emails 3 Get yourself noticed Getting ahead in business means getting noticed, but working hard makes you almost invisible. Therefore it's a lot better to work hard at getting yourself noticed. What senior management likes more than anything else is junior managers who show signs of initiative and volunteer to do things. Most of the reason for this is that the more junior managers volunteer to do, the less senior managers will have to do themselve...

I'm feeling a little retro. Paul Arden was a creative director for Saatchi & Saatchi in the 70s and 80s. He has written a small book that I recommend to my advertising students. It's not how good you are. It's how good you want to be. Presentation tips from Paul Arden "When we go to see a lecture, we generally go to see the speaker not to hear what they have to say. We know what they have to say. That's why we go see them. How many speeches have you heard? How many of them can you remember? Words, words, words. In a song, we remember firstly the melody and then we learn the words. Instead of giving people the benefit of your wit and wisdom (words), try painting them a picture. The more strikingly visual your presentation is, the more people will remember it. And more importantly, they will remember you." Paul Arden

I thought that I had posted this before, but I can't find it on the blog. It is an excellent presentation about 'Interestingness'. Well worth watching if you have an interest in brands and communication. There is a book that would make an excellent companion - A Smile in the Mind

Mike Hutcheson is one of the cleverest people I've ever met. He calls himself a serial start-up guy and with good reason, having been at least one of the driving forces behind ad agencies and creative businesses like Colenso, Hutcheson Knowles Marinkovich and his current gig The Lighthouse Ideas company . Hutch is an author, speaker and affable genius who has quite a way with words. I received an email notification that his recently launched personal web site had a new blog entry . So, being neighbourly, I went for a visit. It was an amusing piece on why movies are better than opera. Not to much of a stretch to argue and less for most people to accept. A couple of things about Hutch's blog: first, it doesn't seem to use blogging software but some kind of php source code - a content management system of some sort which makes it look very much like the content on the essay pages and secondly; I left a comment which remains unpublished which made me think about the etiquette o...

Shostakovich, based on another drawing that took my fancy. I guess you could call it a derivative work...which is a timely reminder that, if you haven't already viewed it, you should watch the Lawrence Lessig FREE CULTURE presentation . Which might or might not be a free association.

I watched the Dragon's Den on TV tonight. I was intrigued by the yoga product for kids called YogaBugs. The idea was good; the numbers were sound; the Dragons lined up to make offers to the slick, media friendly women behind the idea. In the end the offers were turned down. The investors wanted 30% of the equity when 15% had been offered. 295,000.00 Euro was on the table. That is 570,051 NZ dollars. When the women left I couldn't help but feel they never really wanted the money. The business was in good shape, cash flow was positive, there was market interest in the product and the timing was right. The women were very well schooled on presentation techniques. Their 15 minutes of fame were crucial (in my opinion) to getting what they wanted - and it wasn't investment from the panel of Dragons. I guess the show rates quite well in the UK. It has come back for another season and is licensed around the world - we've seen the Australian and New Zealand versions. If you clic...

I think it is important that some things are discussed. If they aren't discussed then at least thought about. If not thought about then known. This is one of them.

A friend gave me a Moleskin brand sketchbook at Christmas. I've been doodling little portraits in it (working from random images in newspapers and magazines, rather than keen observation...). This picture is from a portrait of Emily Barclay the young actress who played in In My Father's Den - one of the best films I have ever seen.

A project I worked on has just gone live - Simply You . Developed strategy and briefed designers in January, so a pretty good effort in a short time frame. There were some interesting twists in the process but working with clients is never linear, or exactly what you might expect in the beginning. I worked with Paula Ryan on developing the Simply You brand back in 1996. Since then she has created a successful publishing venture - a fashion magazine and a 'living' mgazine that are as luxe as you'll find anywhere in the world. Paula has also created a fashion range that, by all accounts, is doing very well. She is a legend.

I once owned a business called Milk Moustache. (Branded Communications since quarter past two). It was 1991 and I had left my job as creative director at Young & Rubicam in a huff and decided to do my own thing for a while. I needed a business bank account so I needed a business entity. The only name that I ever considered was Milk Moustache. It had no significance, other than conjuring up a feeling of warmth and comfort - or maybe innocence. The internet did not exist so it was not motivated by the 'startup' craze of mad business names developed to create memorable a URL (RedCactus, BlueTuna etc). I was able to conjure up some business, my former client, Allied Liquor Merchants gave me a premium, boutique beer project, the Foundation for the Blind wanted help to promote Braille Day. There were others but 91 was so long a go I forget. It was a fun time. Metro magazine named me Auckland's 'Hot' Creative Director in their 10th anniversay review of what was 'ho...

Ok, expression of interest to begin with. I love Frank Gehry's buildings. Who would have thought that an architect would have fans? Most of the architects I have met, with one notable exception, have been essentially dull people. The technicalities of their profession seem to overwhelm them and drain their character.Some make up for it with mad, Philip Johnson glasses (pictured) and turtlenecks. But enough! This is about the movie I saw this afternoon in the smallest cinema I have ever been in (other than an airline seat). The picture was called Sketches of Frank Gehry . It was the work of Sidney Pollack, actor turned director. He is a personal friend of his subject. The film is shot on DV - so I suppose it's not a film at all. But that is petty. I was surprised by Gehry. He came across as an affable elderly man. I found it hard to believe such iconoclastic work as his could emerge without a certain level of scrappiness. Perhaps his stature in the global culture means he is re...

I once read about a military man who said that planning was absolutely essential, but once on the battlefield you should throw your plan away. That might sound absurd, especially if you are the sort of person who prefers things to be completely premeditated. The problem with premeditation is that it murders spontaneity. My son plays cricket for his school on Saturdays, he is a useful opening batsman and routinely takes his share of scalps when bowling. This morning I dropped him off at the field (I have to admit that I can't watch cricket,… 'mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun') and decided to return home by a different route, past the beach at Takapuna. The scene was idyllic; perfectly calm, sun sparkling on the water, people promenading along the sand. All in all a reminder of how lucky I am to live in Auckland. Which is not to say I don't like London, Paris and New York - they are wonderful places for different reasons. But this is a kind of paradise and...

It is Friday night. A thrilling one in front of the telly. Found an amusing little site - Savage Chickens Like I said. A quiet night in.

When the internet arrived I was gobsmacked. It seemed to me to be what we had all been waiting for. Like the guy in Fight Club said "it was on the tip of everybody's tongue and now it had a name". I bought into the idea that the internet changes everything. So smitten was I that I sold my stake in BrandWorld, the business I started in 1996 with William Peake and Greig Buckley, Bill ended up with ownership of the business and the Family Health Diary product I created became a multi-million dollar success - the biggest advertising brand on New Zealand TV. I may have backed the wrong horse in the short term but I am convinced that the end game will belong to the web and TV reliant advertising services will become as irrelevant as the products promoted. Relevance will be the key. It has made Google a mammoth brand in very short order - I think it launched in 1998 - and has become so ingrained in our culture that the proper noun has become a verb. Have you googled someone or s...

Peta have a radical view of the world. Or so it seems now. Perhaps one day they will be the establishment. Stranger things have happened. I was interested in this communication because it unequivically makes its point, but also engages in a user-friendly way. The traditions of shock and horror - blood splattering and confrontation wear thin over time. The audience becomes immunised from response, desensitised to the message. The same is as true for driver safety campaigns as it is for public health issues like AIDS/HIV. Before you watch, I warn you that this video contains full frontal nudity. It's your choice to watch or not. Watch more PETA videos at PETATV.com . Perhaps to get your message across you need to lay yourself bare. Though I am not sure I am ready for Al Gore's revelations and I wonder whether it is any worse exploiting vulnerable young women than it is to feed and clothe populations with animal products. It's hard making moral choices, ...isn't it. P.S. I...