Don't put a sock in a toaster

Following on from last night's remarks about presentation I stumbled across this clip from Eddie Izzard delivering a monologue based on St Paul's letter to the Corinthians as told in the Christian bible. Aside from the fact that I find it very funny I feel I have to remark on the comedian himself.

What a curious bloke. He stalks the stage in shiny rubber trousers with (what looks like) a satin pea coat in red. His shoes look like they have four inch Cuban heels. He has dangly ear rings, plucked eyebrows and wears more lipstick than Liza Minelli. Unlike Barry Humphreys in drag as Dame Edna Everage Izzard doesn't resort to a comic falsetto.

I think the nett effect is that Eddie Izzard's costume and stage persona is so odd that anything he says, by contrast, seems perfectly normal. By disrupting the bubble of safe expectation he is able make anything seem reasonable.

Why am I telling you this?

I think advertising often works the same way. There is a truism in creative circles that if you have a twisted headline then opt for a straight picture. And vice versa. If your picture is mad then play it straight with the words.

How many times have you seen something so straight that it's not interesting and so fails to break through your consciousness; or so challenging and clever that you simply pull down the shutters.

We like the new but most of us prefer to keep one foot in the 'knew' - like monkeys we know that it is better to have the next branch firmly in hand before letting go of the last.

Comments

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog