Happy New Year everyone. Sorry for the stony silence. It’s nothing personal. Lol’s been de-toxing in Mexico and I’ve been head down in post.
Anyway, here goes it, the first blog of 2012…
Last night I popped down to Senate House to see BMB’s latest ad for the new bank Virgin Money projected around the courtyard.
The ad showcases Virgin’s other businesses such as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Galactic and ends with the line “40 years of better. Now in a bank.”
Sadly I missed Richard Branson who launched the event by flinging a champagne bottle at the building, which appeared to shatter as the projection began.
Here’s the film from the event.
The 3D effects were very impressive, particularly the rocket flying towards the audience and the runway flipping down, all the while the music creating a fantastic gotham city-esque atmosphere.
Being down there last night brought back fond memories from our time at Glue when Lol and I dipped our toes into the projection mapping whirligig, for the Toyota Auris Hybrid. From experience, we can really appreciate the enormous amount of time and painstaking detail that goes into making it seem 3D. So well done to the BMB projection mapping Virgins.
Rather more sensibly, BMB did their projection mapping stunt in winter, whereas we did ours in september and had to wait until about 11 o clock before it got dark and we could actually kick things off. Although saying that, at least it wasn’t quite so chilly.
LORELEI MATHIAS 
Ben,
It never worked that way at any of the agencies I was in.
We started with a business problem, then worked out what advertising could best do to solve it, then worked out where the advertising would work best.
Some clients didn’t have enough money for TV anyway.
A commercial with an OTS of 1 or 2 wasn’t going to do much.
So we might suggest a longer running poster campaign, possibly localised.
But It’s true the guys who work in media treat ads much more as a commodity.
That’s why they tend to buy space before they know the idea.
Just according to the target audience.
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Thanks for the reply Dave, and I agree about the idea defining the media, it reminds me of the joke we learned early on in college:
How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?
– Does it have to be a light bulb?
But the main thing that’s changed in the industry is clients are smarter,
they got smart about the 15% and they got smart about bringing expertise in to their own companies.
It gives agencies less control, but a good relationship with the client should mean it’s better all round, more trust and collaboration.
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Ben,
I agree clients have got smarter as far as the numbers go.
But if it was just about numbers we wouldn’t need people.
We could use computers.
And all computers would give you the same answers.
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Thanks Dave,
I agree but we’ll always need people to use the computers.
And there’s one thing that agencies and clients are never short of – opinions.
Even the answer from a computer won’t get away from those.
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