Integrated/Digital: Benzac AC 5

Yes, that's Desmond and the Tutus in drag. We did that to them. They've been invested by zits and have been turned into 5 bands just as irritating. Luckily, teenagers could get them (and their own skin) back to normal with our online game. Check it out at www.stopzits.co.za or www.facebook.com/benzacSA. The songs are kinda funny. Oh yes.

Check out the link on 10and5.com

Illustration: Absa Sponsorship TVC

So, KEITH ROSE, yes, KEITH ROSE, tracked me down because of my Kopanya illustrations and wanted me to do a mural for a TV ad he was directing. Wah! Many late nights and blurred vision on this one. It's the soccer mural (a digital illustration popped in during post). The second TV ad which focuses on the mural will be up as soon as it's flighted :)

Pitch won: Browns The Diamond Store

 This is the work we did for the Browns Southern Cross pendant. We wanted to do something a little more interesting than a model posing with the jewellery so we used metaphor and positioned the pendant as the hero to lead a couple through whatever troubles may come.

Pitch won: New Nelson Mandela banknotes

This is a pitch we won. It's been quite a journey but here's some of the TV flighting so far. Big shout out to Am I Collective who executed this for us. Great job guys!

Tweets like the following make me happy :)

Tee Design for Food and Trees

This was a design I did for Food and Tree's Arbor Day event broadcast live on 702 Talk Radio. The amount of time I had to do this made my sphincter shrink but I think it came out quite well, especially seeing as there was a two-colour limit. The option they went for is below.

 

A learning from Design Indaba.

"Don't ask a designer to design a bridge. Rather ask him how to get across the water."

I would be a very happy chappie if the ad industry took this approach. Goodness.

TVC: Castle Lite "Sweaty"

Who wouldn't love being flown to Cape Town to shoot a yeti? Too much fun.

Integrated campaign: Absa L'Atelier Art Competition

To quote one of the guys at work and his response to this campaign: "When do you get a chance to Tim Burton the fuck out off a campaign?" Hee hee. So far it's placed in Creative Circle's Ad of the Month 2012 for Print, Radio and Experiential.

The print:

The radio spots:

The videos:

TVC: Lemon & Nada launch TV

These are some nutty spots we did for a new product launching in South Africa: Minute Maid Lemon & Nada. They're tasty. Try one. The voice-over guy is Bryan van Niekerk. He is most awesome and VO artists often don't get the credit they deserve. So... well done, Bryan.

An activation I'd really like to go to

When coming up with proactive ideas for Artline while at Hunts, my art director and I had a thought: Instead of telling people how great the product is, let's show them. We decided to target the artistic community as these are opinion leaders, would be the most frequent users of the product and are just cool.

We wanted to create an event. When you walked in, it would be all white... We would provide the markers and let the masses loose. Obviously there would also have been bands from the scene and free alcohol, because who doesn't like free alcohol. The cross-branding opportunities and "legs" were be endless.

A real 3D cinema ad - where viewers are a part of it.

Client loved this idea and wanted to launch it nation-wide. Once we started exploring costs though, it became too expensive for the budget at the time... Sigh.

It was part of the "Whatever it takes" campaign for the Standard Bank Proteas sponsorship with the idea being: Let's do whatever it takes to get behind the boys.

We would make the viewers become part of the ad themselves in the cinema by using projections on the side walls. We would create a Mexican wave that would go across the screen and across the audience. The ad would end on our line reveal. Fun.

Client loves. The budget doesn't.

Having left Hunts, I'm not sure if they're producing this but they were in the middle of the good fight. Here's the presentation:

The cinema is a notorious place for couples and their public displays of
affection. This Valentine’s day we want to exploit this quirky fact of life to
raise awareness for City Lodge.

Imagine the scene: you’re sitting with your popcorn waiting for the movie
to start. A couple walk in giggling loudly, the girl draping her arms around
her boyfriend. They have seats right in the middle – right next to you.
They have to shuffle by people, disturbing everyone. They stand in front
of the screen and block the view. They finally sit down... And start
kissing. You feel rather awkward. Their kissing becomes rowdy as they
loudly grope and claw at each other. By now, you’re not the only one
feeling awkward. The whole cinema is.

And this is when the following ad pops on screen...

LOERIES BRONZE WINNER: Golden Cloud "Edible poster" POS

This was too much fun. An in-store activation that literally had mommies and babies blocking the aisles with their trollies. It was a poster you could eat. A poster made from the product we were trying to sell - the Golden Cloud Cookie Mix. I based the copy on the way the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street speaks. We held activations with schools in the area of the store (the Spar in Douglasdale if my memory serves) to get them excited and drive traffic in-store. Apparently, the results in terms of sales were phenomenal (I will post them as soon as I have them - changing agencies can impair one's ability to get result info).

This won a Bronze Loerie in COMMUNICATION DESIGN: BRAND IDENTITY & COLLATERAL DESIGN - POSTERS & BILLBOARDS in the 2011 Loerie Awards.

So I've started Something Little...

Yes, obsessed with doodling and making stuff, I've started a new brand called "Something Little." It's jewellery based on my doodles. Below is an example.

 

It's in two stores at the moment - one in Bloemfontein and the other in Melville - and has appeared in several blogs and the Voila magazine. Yay! Now, if only I had more time to focus on it...

Threadless T-shirt design: Your thoughts are not your own

 

Please vote for me! *Big puppy eyes* 

http://www.threadless.com/submission/331392/Your_thoughts_are_not_your_own

This is inspired by a chat I had with a good friend of mine. We were remarking on all the influences that shape our thoughts and how our own thoughts are perhaps not entirely our own. It's scary. Ooh... Shudder.

My song performed by Fonda (or a guy from Fonda)

We're doing an ad for a product that's about to launch. We proposed this song for the ad. I wrote it. The guy from Fonda performed it (super cool!). It wasn't approved but I still think it's an awesome song. Be careful, it's catchy.

Young Lions 2011

I don't know why the organisers thought they would make this competition run from Wed to Fri. That we're not actually working full-time and pulling crazy hours already? That we really do just surf the net and pick our noses all day? That Redbull needed to pick up their sales? So, that said, this was the quickest brainstorm ever and, as always, Miss Natalie le Roux made it look super pretty.

The TBWA No Coffee Project (run internationally)

My team and several others from the other branches of TBWA across the world were briefed to come up with ideas to raise funds for a TBWA CSI initiative called Room 13 and their scholarship fund. Our idea and one other team's were chosen as the winners to be activated (yippee). We said that in order to raise funds for those who live on so little, we'll sacrifice something the ad industry can't live without - coffee. So, for one day, every employee in every TBWA branch across the world will give up their coffee and the money that would have been spent goes straight into the fund. Boo ya. Saving the world, one cup at a time.

Check out the Facebook Fanpage or I sometimes do this to see the response: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tbwa+no+coffee Cheeky site, no? I like it.

First week at Jupiter and I was shipped off to Uganda. Yes, UGANDA.

Four days in and I hopped on a plane to work on a pitch with a Ugandan team for one of their clients. What an experience. It's difficult to describe a place like Uganda. It was surreal. Being the first African country that I've visited (other than Mozambique and I was so close to the S.A. border it doesn't count), it opened my eyes. We, in South Africa, do not live in Africa. To put it in perspective: driving towards the capital city Kampala, we passed UN camps, set up because of the genocides happening in the rural areas. A hotel has a resident flock of vultures. Why? Because it used to be used as a "prison" except no one ever received parole or freedom. The ever-present giant Maribou storks (which have a striking resemblance to pterodactyls when flying) circle the city in tornado-like towers along with crows and hawks.

Beyond the obvious, it also taught me a lot about advertising in different cultures: Assume nothing. You have to go in with a clean slate; no paradigms or frames-of-references or whatever it is they teach in the marketing class at college. Whatever you think you know, you don't. There may be some universal truths when it comes to people, but how these are expressed in each culture is different. The importance of the truths in one's life, is different. I, honestly, do not know how people can do advertising for a market they have never had a direct experience with.

Tracey out.

P.S. I apologise for the unedited pics - I don't have access to the awesomeness of Adobe at the moment.

Farewell Hunts, thanks for all the fish.

Yep, New Year and a new job (ok, I've been here a month already). It's true. The baby bird has left the nest - she is spreading her wings and all that cliched jazz. I'm now working at The Jupiter Drawing Room. Hello.