Fight For Kisses

It's almost shameful that I wasn't aware of this ad until last week when my non-advertising boyfriend showed me this ad shown to him in a presentation on branding at work. (I'm maintaining it's because it's a french brand—I think). It's a four year old ad that's brilliant—with a great follow through component as well. Check it out:



I'm not a big fan of the video game-like graphics for the animation, but it makes sense with the online game conclusion. It's a testament to the ad that it's still running and relevant over four years after it's inception. It's also a testament that as a girl who's razor brand knowledge stopped at Gillette, that I now know and remember Wilkinson as a brand.

Maybe it's because the ad strikes the a true note—even for someone without kids. I played this ad for a friend with a 3-year-old son. She kept laughing and saying, "It's so true though!"

The online game is pretty fun too—you can fight with such devilish weapons as pillows and teddy bears. It definitely had my non-gaming boyfriend playing it for some time. Check it out at Wilkinson's website!

The Guardian's Three Little Pigs Mini Movie Ad—Does it Work?

This is a tad delayed, but I recently watched some of the popular ads from the Cannes Film Festival and this one struck a cord. It was entertaining, original and made it's point well. It falls into what you would probably classify as a mini-movie ad in that's it's a few minutes long—but well worth it!



What do you think? When this type of advert started coming out a number of years ago, I was a little skeptical that they'd fly since most commercials are not entertaining enough to hold a viewer's attention for that long. The few that I'd seen didn't fall into that category—few commercials do. This one, however, I wanted to watch a few times—not unlike the famous IKEA Lamp commercial (watch it if you haven't before).

Addicted to 'Liking'

Have you ever had the urge to 'like' something not on Facebook? A tweet? An email?

'Liking' something has become such an ingrained part of social media and our lives that I find myself looking for a 'like' button constantly. These are usually cases where the content made me smile or seemed well put together and I just want to express kudos to the author. Commenting or replying with a 'Nice job!' seems unnecessary and adding too much clutter to the author's inbox or feed.

Case in point, my boss wrote a thoughtful email to the creative department thanking us for getting our timesheets done in a timely manner and the empathy involved in doing so. It was a nice email. I wanted to 'like' it yet not clutter his inbox—but alas, there's no 'like' button in email!

Prior to the Facebook 'like' button I would have smiled and moved on, but now I want to show some appreciation for each time I read a nice email or tweet without making digital clutter doing it.

Lucky for me, my boss turned his empathy email into a blog post which was then shared on Facebook, so I got to 'like' it after all. Twice.

Have you found yourself addicted to 'liking'?

Beyond Cute Kittens: Pinterest's Best Uses

Pinterest has been around a couple of years now, but it's just been in the last few months that Pinterest has really started to explode on the social media market. At the same time, I think it's getting a bit of a bad reputation—not too dissimilar from the original criticisms of Twitter. The same nay-sayers who complained that no one wants to read a tweet about what they ate for lunch are missing the mark now on Pinterest when they complain that no one wants to see them pin photos of cute kittens.

I probably should have written this post last summer, a few months after I started using Pinterest. Like many social media options, it took a little while to get used to it and figure out how and whether or not it was worth investing my precious time in. (And precious my time is! As you can see from my sad, pathetic lack of posting recently...) I must say that in the end Pinterest won me over big time and a friend's recent post got me inspired to write about it.

Pinterest's first major use for me was as a collaborative design board for a few other art directors at the agency and myself as we brainstormed a facelift for the interior of our offices. Our lobby was screaming for a makeover. However, getting even a few people on the same page was difficult—add in that we were sharing visual ideas with each other whenever we had a spare moment between other projects and you got disorganized mess of emails with jpg attachments no one could ever locate later when needed. Pinterest offered us the perfect platform to start collecting all our finds and visual brainstorms. It also offered us a centralized place to send our interior designer to share our vision for the space.

Since that first use for Pinterest, my faith in it as a platform grew and it is now my primary bookmarking platform. For someone who mostly wants to bookmark visual things or ideas, it's perfect. And no, I don't find it at all important to bookmark a cute kitten with a quote under it. It's just clutter. Pinterest is full of those types of pins, but it's also full of actually useful pins.  I think Pinterest can be quite a game changer if the wide variety of uses it offers really start to catch on. Here are the best uses I've found for Pinterest:

Online Recipe File All your recipes in one place, accessible with one click and organized by photo and easy to access from my phone = a working woman's recipe heaven.

Visual Inspiration Database I've used it countless times when I'm stuck on a design problem. I keep boards for typography design, infographic design and illustrators that I like so they're easy to access if I want to hire them for a future project.

Brainstorming Tool Multiple people can pin to a board if you invite them. They can comment, like and tag others. It allows for tons of collaboration around visual ideas in a simple way that all stays in one place. We've used it in particular for brainstorming ideas for events.

Shopping Tool Pinterest's built in price snipe makes for easy price comparisons and the click through allows for quick and easy purchasing. If you shop online and especially if you’re shopping for something based mostly on look and price (like a couch), it’s fantastic. It's not too far off from Amazon's universal wish list idea.

Reference Tool One of the most popular ways to use Pinterest is as reference, mostly for household tips, tricks and organization (most Pinterest users are female). There's a fair amount of DIY and craft ideas, it just depends on what your interests are.

As you can see, Pinterest can offer uses far beyond cute or funny photos. Its organization and sharing structure offer many different ways to share and brainstorm visually. I never would have guessed that I was in need of a service like Pinterest, but now that its here, I think I'd have trouble going without it. And that is the marking of a future internet success.