We’ve always been a fan of crazy architecture and schemes. This is however probably the oddest we have come across yet.
This multicoloured monstrosity is a representation of a scheme by the appropriately named Whim Architects from the Netherlands – to collect all the plastic floating around in the sea and turn it into an island. An island the size of Hawaii.
So it’s a little terrifying that there is enough plastic in the sea to do this in the first place. That aside, we love the execution. The idea would be to have beaches, housing made from recycled plastic, farms fertilised with human waste, seaweed grown for biofuels, and power harvested from the sun and sea. Essentially, you take a whole pile of waste and turn it into a green, self-sufficient community.
The plan is to float this thing somewhere between San Fransisco and the current Hawaii – precisely the middle of nowhere. We reckon it should be towed around for people to jump on as their real island chains (The Maldives, etc) sink under the waves.
Just a small departure from our usual design-ish posts today, but we really had to put something up about this – the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.
What this is, as far as we can tell, is the London authorities asking the public how they would combat climate change. People post up their suggestions, and people vote for their favourites. Now this is all very well and good; democracy is a lovely concept and we like being asked for our opinions. But you do wonder exactly why we are being asked.
Copenhagen succeeded in nothing more than confusing large numbers of people. The inaction also fuelled climate change sceptics and the whole IT saga out in East Anglia made a lot of people lose faith in the scientists. Consequently, you’ve now got a lot of people who really don’t believe that much can be done about the state of the environment, and even more who don’t really care.
Now it seems like the London authorities also fall into that bracket. They should, of all people, have access to expert information and opinion, pressure groups and activists lobbying for change and presenting plans for a greener future and – in a nutshell – green options coming out of their ears. It appears that either isn’t happening (unlikely, the green wing are a vociferous lot) or more likely they don’t get it or don’t care.
So much as we love the sentiment of being asked for our opinions, climate change is an expert, scientific issue. And if those with access to the experts and scientists aren’t putting forward a proposal, it’s time to worry. Much as’ National Vegetarian Day’ and ‘Force companies to turn their lights off at night!’ (two of the most popular people’s proposals at the moment) are excellent ideas, they aren’t going to save the planet.
That’s a job for the politicians, and it seems like they may have given up.
Baby have long been proud of our work award-winning work with Action for Children. Well, it appears Barnardo’s are fans too, if their latest work is anything to go by. After all, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…
We say this because of their latest advert which aired today. The ad focuses on a girl who has managed to escape her horrific situation and rebuild her life, all thanks to Barnardo’s. The ad communicates the transformation of a child’s life, told in their own words. No bruised children crying in doorways or living on the streets in insect-ridden boxes, just a straightforward story of a child’s life.
This is of course what Action for Children are all about, and we would therefore like to congratulate Barnardo’s in coming around to our way of thinking. This ad is, of course, a long way from their usual “blood, sweat and cockroaches” style, and represents a real change in thinking. It appears that, instead of bludgeoning people into feeling guilty enough to cough up, BBH have actually decided to try and communicate some hope, telling people about the work that the charity achieves – exactly as Action for Children have been for the past twelve months, with their position of being there for ‘as long as it takes’.
So finally the audience is to be granted some intelligence, or at least enough to watch an ad and make a decision, rather than being emotionally bullied. We reckon this represents a small but significant victory for the audience.
And, of course, there’s a small victory for Baby Creative in leading the way for one of ad world’s bigger players. We’d like to say well done to BBH for their excellent work. Just remember we had it first.
Want to see what we mean? Take a look at the ads below…
Whenever we read a news story saying that so many government millions have been spent on one thing, and so many billions on another, we switch off. You see, any amount of money above a couple of million just sounds like “a lot”. We hear that a new transport plan is costing £50million, and we’ve no idea whether that is extortion, or the bargain of the century. So it’s quite nice to see it all laid out in one place.
Then you actually look at the details. The Beijing Olympics cost nearly as much as feeding every child in the world for a year. Combine the US Annual Defence budget and the profits of the pharamceutical industry and you could feed and educate every child in the world for 5 years and convert the entire world to renewable energy. Then there’s the Iraq war.
We’re not saying it’s that simple, but suddenly, when it’s all in perspective, it’s a bit scary.
The more we think about sales, the more we get frustrated by how complicated some people seem determined to take it. You see, there’s so much concern about product differentiation, unique selling points and market optimisation that quite often sales types forget they’re selling a real product. To real people.
So why oh why do marketing professionals make a virtue of complicating things? Well we think it’s just because they’re a bit silly. Because, after all, simple sells. Come through and see what we mean…
Ah relationships. Can’t live with them; can’t live without them.
It may come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that in Baby’s never-ending search for learning the truth about sales, we’ve learnt that selling is much like a good relationship.
We reckon that Milton Friedman here (and all his economics pals) don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. We also reckon that if we were in charge of the economy, Woolworths wouldn’t have folded.
We love this ad, but it worries us. Selling is so often associated with lying (or at least being careless with the truth) that something this gritty or indeed truthful seems slightly out of place. Come through to the sales section of our think tank to tell us what you think about it…
We all love stories. Don’t we? Even now Baby can remember a time when it was knee high to a grasshopper and was told stories before bed time by grandparents. Stories pull you in, they take you on a journey, they involve you emotionally. So it’s funny isn’t it, that advertising these days doesn’t seem to use stories to help sales…
Interested? Come on through to our Think Tank to read more…
The amount of rubbish that gets talked about marketing is very good for one thing – to try and bamboozle clients. It’s a very effective strategy, and it goes something like this: Confuse and invoice, confuse and invoice, confuse and invoice, get fired, move on to the next client and… confuse and invoice…
Like we say, it’s very effective, so hats off to all you marketing gurus out there, your business model is sound. However, we’re really not into that. We like stuff that’s simple, effective and measurable. So we’ve put our planet sized brains together to work out what clients really want from a comms agency, and no, it’s not a capuccino machine in reception. They just want sales.
“Hurray!” we say. Because luckily for clients that’s what we want too. They’re what get us dribbling and gurgling with excitement. So we’re dedicating this new section of our think tank to all things…
