Advance

GAVIN’S PIECE

08/02 2010 // aaron

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Senior AD Gavin is always rooting around for inspiration in Copenhagen’s many antique emporia. A year or so ago he had a spectacular find – a bound catalogue of fabric samples from a 19th Century French  textile merchant.

Something about the samples kept playing in Gavin’s mind and late last year he started thinking about ways of using them more creatively. An idea for a piece of artwork took root and last week it was realised.

Each page of samples has been individually framed and a digitised representation of a human stomach has been etched over the glass. The result is strikingly beautiful and, once we’ve found a wall big enough, we’ll hopefully be hanging it here in the agency.

Gavin’s also submitted the untitled piece for consideration at the prestigious Spring Exhibition at Charlottenborg Fonden and he’ll be hearing soon if it’s been accepted. My pictures don’t really do the piece justice but here’s a couple:

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AND THE AWARD FOR LONG SERVICE GOES TO . . .

01/02 2010 // aaron

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Advance has long been known for the loyalty of our staff. People seem to like it here. Once they arrive, they tend to stay for a while.

Today four of our people celebrated some special anniversaries. Henrik (horizontal) has been here 3 years, Martin (left) is celebrating 13 years with us, and Lasse (right) is a year ahead on 14.

But outstripping them all with 26 proud years of loyal service is Alex (centre). Such long careers at a single place are pretty unheard of in the advertising industry and we’re proud to buck the trend.

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LEGO HERO FACTORY

26/01 2010 // aaron

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Here’s our trailer for LEGO’s upcoming Hero Factory, a brand new epic universe. LEGO Hero Factory will launch in the summer with Advance handling the communication package:

Tags: hero factory, lego, lego hero factory

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FUTUREMAN SPEAKS

21/01 2010 // aaron

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Einstein said he never wasted time thinking about the future, knowing that it would arrive soon enough regardless. That said, I decided to tie our creative director to a chair, placed a crystal ball in front of him and asked him to give me his expectations for the year ahead.

I’ve divided Morten’s thoughts into three rough subject areas. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Either/or

I don’t think we’re at a point yet where we can say the economy has rebounded enough to say that we’re approaching a ‘return to normal’ – whatever that was – and that’s resulted in a kind of ‘wait and see’ limbo.

That’s leading to two types of behaviour from clients: the play it safe and the bold. The ‘play it safe’ crowd are sticking to what they know media-wise and strategy-wise while the bold are striking out, embracing new tools and taking risks.

Both consumer behavior and the media landscape are undergoing such dramatic change these days that the potential for making an  impact with unconventional approaches is bigger that ever. A lot of brave clients are embracing that change. Needless to say, those are the ones we’re more interested in working with!

Transparency

Although still something of a buzzword, more and more clients are nevertheless waking up to the fact that the internet is making them transparent whether they like it or not. Most of the sensible ones are embracing it and trying to turn it into an advantage. We feel well-placed to help clients realise that thanks to our offering.

We believe the best brands are completely coherent – in other words, they always deliver what they promise. If you stick to the truth, you only have to remember one story.

Technology/media

This is where agencies can win or lose. As advertising people, we can’t afford to take our eyes off the use and effect of technology. Not so much in terms of how we push messages in different channels, but in the application of different technologies to augment a brand experience. There’s so many more ways to reach and engage with consumers, but that doesn’t make relevance and utility any less important.

Clients are finding this space hard to pin down and are still  demanding to know the answer to the question of how to get the most out of their money. We need to be able to demonstrate effectiveness and I expect we’ll see more methodologies emerging in the next year.

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TRUCK-DRIVING MEN (AND WOMEN)

15/01 2010 // aaron

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Last year, together with our friends at Radius, we won a tough five-way pitch for ITD, the trade association of the road transport sector in Denmark. The association’s most pressing need was to improve the image of its members and so we immediately started work on a campaign to challenge the various misconceptions and negative stereotypes of the general public.

The central creative element of the campaign is a music video TVC that will launch in late Spring. Because we want to show Danes that lorry drivers are regular people doing vital work in keeping Denmark running, everyone in the video will be an actual driver.

Late last year we launched a recruitment site where we informed ITD members what the campaign was about and gave details on how to apply to appear in the final film. The response was overwhelming, with several thousand signing up.

Since then we’ve been on the road, holding casting sessions and generating lots of good PR:

Markedsføring has the story

TV2 gave us coverage

As did TV2 South

DR’s P4 were on the scene

And DR Update

And last but not least, we featured on Køge TV:

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CRYOSHELL UPDATE

11/01 2010 // aaron

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We recently shot the video for Cryoshell’s Creeping in my Soul, the title track of their current EP. Inspired by the film The Others, it was a spooky shoot out at an old country house here in Denmark. There’s a couple of shots below, and a few more here.

The band have been making great progress on the album and they’re on schedule for a release at the end of this month. Stay tuned for more updates.

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SQUARES AND RECTANGLES

04/01 2010 // aaron

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A cursory examination of our whiteboards tells you that advertising is, at its core, little more than the artful arrangement of squares and rectangles:

Happy 2010 everybody. We’re back at work and raring to go.

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