Music videos have always been a source of cutting-edge creativity and have often been where some of the world’s finest Directors have cut their teeth and built their reputations. And the latest music video from Canadian band Arcade Fire continues this tradition thanks to their music video done in collaboration with Director Chris Silk and Google.

Basically, they have created a music video for the song The Wilderness Downtown that allows the viewer to have a place of their choice featured in the video. To create this personalised music video experience, the video uses Google Maps and has been created in collaboration with Google who have used the project to demonstrate the capabilities of the modern web.

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The great thing about a Bank Holiday weekend is that it gives me a chance to catch up on the exhibitions or interesting places that I have on a list to visit. One of these places is often my home town of Bradford as that’s where the fantastic National Media Museum resides, which is a place you can always rely on to have some interesting and thought-provoking exhibits.

Recently, various news sites highlighted a report conducted by Ofcom (The Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) which stated that Consumers are spending almost half (45 per cent) of their waking hours watching TV, using their mobiles and other communications devices. You can read the full report here.

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Small is beautiful. Following on from Julian’s theme of little ideas that can be hugely impactful, one of my favourite street artists, the anonymous Slinkachu, fits neatly into this category.

His on-going microscopic street art project, ‘Little People in the City’, is utterly charming in terms of minimal representation of the human condition. Basically, he custom-designs miniature models from train sets and makes them over with modelling clay hoods etc, plus a few props. After putting them in their own real life scenario, interacting with subjects from Big Ben to bird poo, he then leaves his painted creations to fend for themselves in big bad cities. Poor little people. But not before documenting snapshot evidence of their short-lived existence; i.e. until the street-sweeper swish them away. There’s loads of photos on his website and in book, which is delightful. In fact, it was the most interesting artifact I found in the St Ives Tate Gallery at first visit.

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The great thing about city breaks is wandering around taking in the different cultures, the history and the amazing architecture (in between shopping of course).

There are some fascinating buildings around the world that have been built with great care and consideration by talented tradesman and have lasted the test of time and Mother Nature but are starting to show their age.

German artist Jan Vormann has spent the last three years traveling the world fixing some of these crumbling walls and monuments. Instead of bricks and mortar, though, he’s used Lego!

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So imagine this. You’ve been tasked by a major TV Network to promote an animated series with a guerrilla marketing campaign. Your idea is a winner, and involves you sending some electronic devices (that resemble a character from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force) to several major cities so that some hired help can place them in places that have a high footfall.

Then you wake up on the morning of day one of your campaign to hear that a member of the public has spotted one of your devices and thought it weird enough to report it to the police. The police then call the bomb squad asking for help in identifying a device. They then shut down part of a major highway and the public transportation system while they disable what they think is a bomb with a smaller explosive filled with water.

It gets worse!

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I love billboards. It’s the huge format that captivates me. They’re like giant canvasses placed in the city or at the side of a busy road that scream ‘look at me!’ but only for a few seconds otherwise you may walk into a lamppost or drive into the back of someone else’s car.

Over the years I’ve seen some stunning billboards that have had me turning green with envy. The best ones are those that have words and pictures that work together in such a clever way that they catch the viewer’s attention, communicate quickly, and stay with them for a few miles down the road… and ultimately stick in the back of their mind for a lot longer.

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Here at Red C towers it’s safe to say there are plenty of cake lovers. Now that’s not saying we have lots of fat people here… no it’s just that we appreciate a good bit of cake with a cuppa now and then. Out of all the cakes we love here one type goes down better than most… and that’s the lovely cupcake.

So we were really chuffed to bits when one of our regular freelancers went into business for herself making cupcakes. Top freelance designer, Sarah Wilson, has applied all the wonderful skills she used to show when designing things for print and for the web and applied those same talents to making the most scrummy cupcakes we’ve ever got our gobs round!

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As we all know, in any relationship, it’s the small things that matter. Yet what many people don’t realise is that it’s not only in our personal relationships that small things can have a big effect… they can also have a similar result in the relationships marketers, brands and companies have with their customers or business partners.

And why do small things matter? Well, as anyone who has ever bought a girl flowers knows; something small but effective can have a kind of result that is absolutely out of proportion to the cost.

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We’ve all got a cupboard or a drawer that we fill with random bits of junk or those items that you never throw away, just on the off chance that one day you might need them.  I was sifting through my very own cupboard of this type last weekend when I came across my old A-Level Media Studies ring binder amongst old toaster instructions and dead batteries.  The temptation was too great so I took a gander.  I was quite impressed.  I was quite the academic.

Anyway, whilst sifting through the binder I came across a project entitled “My favourite advertising campaign”.  The campaign I had chosen was the United Colours of Benetton.  Within the report I had showcased some on my favourite ads and to be honest with you, I was blown away all over again.

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A few years ago at Red C we had some fabulous TV scripts that sadly never went into full production. Despite never seeing the light of day, the animation tests that were done for the adverts always made everyone here smile with how incredibly cute and well-executed they were. The guys behind the animation tests were a couple of fellas named Tom & Rory and their colleagues at Once Were Farmers… and thanks to the great experience we had with working with them, we knew that one day it would happen again.

Fast forward a few years and the opportunity to engage the fabulous skills of Once Were Farmers came by when we decided to try some new thinking on our latest Marisota DRTV Advert. The script was simple and charming and required something memorable and cute… so who better to get our Production Company, The Gate, to hire than Tom, Rory and the guys at Once Were Farmers.

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