And thats the way the cookie crumbles.

Picture from IRM.

I'm just about to finish a 2 year education within advertisement and marketing. I graduate in December and I started the course in early 2006. The picture above is the Swedish "media cookie". We had a "one shot" lecture with a man who told us that internet wouldn't grow much more. I'm glad to see him proven wrong even before I graduate. The prediction for next year according to IRM, the institution for advertisement and media statistics; Whopping 15.1% during 2008.

And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Have I got your attention now?

Mona Shaw, a 75-year-old granny in Virginia, got so fed up waiting for Comcast to change her phone service that she smashed up a few items in her local Comcast office with a hammer, all the while shouting, "Have I got your attention now?!"



Over a million people have seen the movie of the Comcast Technician, sleeping on her coach, that Mona posted on Youtube. Its good to know that the whole bad service issue is not just a Swedish thing.

Source - Church of the customer

Gone dry?

Looking for inspiration?
Visit design you trust.

Or the Behance Network Gallery.

Use electricity wisely.

Some simply beautiful ads, gathered by fubiz.net

Clean the streets.
Safety glass.
The yellow line.
Mini-toys.

The last lecture you'll ever make. Brought to you by Disney.

The Disney-owned publisher Hyperion has paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Randy Pausch called "The Last Lecture", co-authored by Randy Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Zaslow.

If you have missed "The last lecture", a lecture held by terminal ill professor Randy Pausch, a short version can be found here.


Related links:
Randy's homepage - At the university Carnegie Mellon.
Info on Randy and the last lecture. - According to Wikipedia.

Do like Hitler, take the kids.

We had lectures held by Fredrik from Miami.se in my advertisement and marketing class. One of his lectures was on the topic, "Do like Hitler, take the kids" pointing on the effects of exposure to brands at a young age.
Although Sweden have no way near the problem with commercials aimed directly towards kids, what Susan Gregory Thomas brings up in her book "buy, buy baby" is an issue. When do we stop being advertisers and cross over to "doing a Hitler?"

Stolen images.

Though I spite the thought of someone taking pictures and republish them on their page, without credits. Foundphotos is my link of the day.

The way we communicate

imagesourse "found in moms basement"

We all communicate very differently and we all have different opinions on what makes a good communicator. American psychologist Bruce Christopher gives us an entry point to the subject:

Great communicators are people who change their approach based upon the person they are talking too.

Does this sounds like a reasonable thing to you? Is it something we can agree on? If so, keep on reading.

We have applied this within advertisement. We spend a lot of time and money on sorting people into target groups and even more money on understanding those target groups. We differentiate people based on gender, age, race, location, weight... The list grows long pretty quickly.

We choose to communicate with these target groups saying different things, and approach them in different media. We pretty much have it down.
Does this makes us good communicators?
No.
Why?

Men and women communicate differently. The list of research on the fact grows longer by the hour and we still don't differentiate the way we communicate. We say different things, in different media, but we don't actively differentiate how we say it.
This is an exiting time we have ahead of us. The last ten years have given us so much new research on how men and women communicate. Now its up to us to use that information to make us better communicators.


Related links:
The power of the purse A book by Fara Warner.
Rethink pink - Marketing to women portal
Marketing to women online - A blog by Holly Buchanan.
Wonderbranding - A blog by Michele Miller

Why Sweden needs a black friday.

Why should Sweden embrace the black Friday?
1. The christmas holiday season needs a kickstart, it has an end, it needs a beginning.
2. Traditionally, we start decorating on the first sunday in december, retailers put up their decorations up to a month before that. By the time its Christmas, the Christmas spirit already has come and gone.
3. This time of season in Sweden sucks. Its rainy, cold, dark and miserably. I don't know about you, but if I could make some nice shopping trips for bargain prices, then at least I would start buying Christmas gifts again.

Related links:
Here's a link to some info on what the black Friday is.

You meet the nicest people on a Honda.

It said so in a paper, so it must be true!
Found in mom's basement is my link tip of the day.

Wee!

NORWEGIAN companies have frequently been criticised over the years for their uninformed use of the English language among top executives and employees, which is widely viewed as being bad for attracting international business to the country.
-Upstream

The latest proof of that is the new name given to the Statoil employee magazine. The name?
Its sounds like "Wee" but spells like "We" and smells like poop.

Pink gets me high as a kite

Pink gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right
-Aerosmith

Well, lets see when I find the right shade of pink or for how long I can stand having pink in the blog. Pink is a hot topic though. Or rather, magenta is. T-mobile is defending their use of magenta (CMYK 0,100,0,0) And I'm all for defending your brand, your copyrights and everything that goes with it but I hope desperately that this one doesn't stick. Its ok to defend a pattern, but just one colour? That is just too general for my taste. besides, it's a good way of upsetting people who work with graphics :p

Getting started every morning

I love coffee. Good strong coffee with milk. It's kinda sad that we don't even have a Starbucks in Gothenburg, I miss it desperately. Its probably the strongest argument for working in London.
Though, all the people I spoke to in London recommended that I'd go to "Nero" instead of Starbucks. Cause "Nero is not a big bad corporation" "Its a struggling family business!"
Yeah right! There's Neros all over that town, I guess the struggling family business is a nicely laid out storytelling stunt.
Anyhow. Starting the day of with something creative is always nice. Cunning has the perfect task for a morning creative spurt. Make them a logo.
So when I have the time to, I make one.

Admumble!

I read adrants every now and then. Its a great site with a name that kinda...sticks. I wish I had the time and stamina to keep up a site like that. But I don't have the energy to rant all the time. I more kinda...mumble.
It's a very Swedish thing to do!
So, if you made it here, welcome to my ad mumbles. :)