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What do you do when someone asks you to sign a non disclosure agreement and then asks you to spend the coming year planning, creating, implementing and launching a new Swedish bank?

Say yes of course!

This is where the story of the freshly launched brand Marginalen Bank starts. Together with recidivist Caroline Karlström I found myself 50% giggling like a child about the fact that we had secured the coolest and most complex project I’ve ever worked with while feeling 50% scared to death about the fact that this was that big ass project where you either succeed or you end up in a grave. Well, we [click to continue…]

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Oh how I’d love to be in the room when the Creative Directors Daniel Frericks and Götz Ulmer pitch their idea to a 140 year old watch brand. This is a business where people stick by the rules. Big ass photography where the product is the hero. All ads look more or less the same.

Creative, simplicity and original. Good on you – Jung von Matt!

Great, fantastic, wonderful and different. Brave – IWC

Thanks Advertolog for making me find it.

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This wonderful piece made for The Red Cross and found on FFFFound definetely make me go wow. I’ve seen it before but then today it passed by my eyes when image browsing. To me this is a great idea executed in the smartest way. Wonderful thinking when it comes to integrating the logo inside the actual ad instead of the classical signage. Definitely makes me tick.

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Tap’d water is this new tapped water on bottle from New York. It’s basically water straight from the tap, poured into a wonderfully designed bottle and sold on the streets in NY. The people behind this product must be marketing geniuses. Read this statement taken from their website:

“New Yorkers are known for having great taste, and our water is no exception. It’s the stuff of legends (or at least urban legends.) In taste tests against fancy glacial, spring and exotic waters, NYC tap water wins hands down. We’re proud of the source of our water and will help all New Yorkers be proud to drink their own water. Not only will we spare the Arctic glaciers, we’ll help create local jobs and support New York businesses and infrastructure.”

On top of advertising like above Tap’d has got a manifesto that clearly communicates their point of view. Here’s a short piece from it: 

“Year after year, bottled water companies have told us that their water was somehow healthier or better for us than our own water. They spent billions of dollars on marketing to make us believe that we needed exotic water, in sleek packaging, from far away Arctic glaciers, tropical islands, and European volcanoes. We fell for the fancy marketing gimmicks, too, and the brands we drank started to become status symbols. But we’re New Yorkers and are ready for an honest change.  It’s time for a better way of thinking, er, drinking:  A Tap’dNY Manifesto for the new age.”

Well, if that isn’t a clear positioning. It’s a school example of how you pick an enemy, make sure your weapons are loaded and then give’em all you got. Well, Tap’d is not far from winning me over. But…there’s always a but…

In Sweden people have been arguing if it’s smart to drink water on the bottle since our water basically is cleaner than the stuff we get from different brands. However, here in Sweden the different brands tell us their water is tapped from 100 year old wells. It’s good for you, it makes you stronger, it’s cleaner etc etc etc. 

Why the hell do we need to go and buy a bottle of ordinary non-carbonated water that has been transported by trucks all over Sweden and Europe when the water we can drink on the toilette is probably as clean, as good and in a lot of cases tastes better. So, now it seems I’m almost agreeing on the point Tap’d is trying to make.

My standpoint: If Tap’d are bragging how they’ve tapped the water of New York. Why the hell do they need to tap it? You still need a factory, plastic bottles, warehouse, trucks to ship it (through the traffic jams of NY) and take care of the waste. Do you really care about the New Yorkers or do you care about the New Yorkers money? 

Well, your great communication platform, your packaging and advertising almost had me.

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It’s sunday evening. I wanna sleep. And this nice ad from IKEA Canada finally makes me shut down and get to bed. But before I do I gotta share the piece with you as it proves interactivity is always appreciated even thought it might not be digital.

The idea “So comfortable, you’ll need shorter bedtime stories” has been executed as a nice double page spread where you get your own copy of an super short version of classical bed time stories like for example The Tortoise and the Hare. The ad hits me straight where it should do, in my heart. On top of that I’m thinking – If I would have seen this ad I’d saved the little book for my kids. It’s a very nice ad made by Toronto based agency Zig and I found it on the Skinny blog.

So anyway, where was I…..eh…zzz..zzz..zz……..zz…….z (in this case it means it’s a good piece)

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S potted this ad on Adsoftheworld. Liked the simplicity of it. A nice little storyteller. 

There’s been a lot of buzz in Sweden about DDB but personally I haven’t really understood why. But when I spotted this one it makes more sense.

Among others, Art Directors Viktor Arve, Ted Harry Mellström, Simon Higby and another 7 team members created this piece. Can someone please explain why you need 10 people to produce this one. Hope the client didn’t have to pay.

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I spent yesterday looking through tons of ads, some good and some bad when I was doing my job in the jury for Guldeken, a local advertising competition in the south of sweden.

However, the best print ad wasn’t to be found among the contenders. That one was sitting on the desktop of fellow jury member Patrik Spång, CD at Jerlov in Gothenburg.

Of course it was easy to find on AdsOfTheWorld.

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Absolut Vodka, one of Swedens premium export brand has provided the world with consistent advertising since first exported in 1979. The last couple of years the brand has been seen luring around with different experiments in what seems to be a search for new strategy in it’s advertising. 

Now for the first time (if you don’t count events and editorials) Absolut has left their strategy of having the profile of the bottle centered in the middle of the ad as the hero it should be. Instead they have turned to a more traditional set up with bottle in the right corner. Of course change might be needed but not towards traditional. The ads them self I have nothing to say about, their as good as any…but their position as market leader and NOT follower is definetely broken with these executions.

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This is a sad day for me…it’s the day when Absolut stopped innovating and started following.

The stuff is put together by TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, USA, Art Directors: Rob Smiley, Pam Fujimoto and Photographer: Vincent Dixon.

Shame on you guys…I hope it works.

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