Goof Button

Want to forget about the dreariness outside for a bit? Then take a butchers at GoofButton. It's a haven for weird and wonderful, slightly sinister but colourful Dali-esque images with equally bizarre titles, bit like the one above entitled 'refrigerator flesh'.
Err, anyway, we were stunned by the sheer volume of work on there. There's bucket loads of collages, sketches and really quite disturbing images, and you can buy some of them too.

Get scrolling here.

The Centre For Common Fucking Sense In Marketing

Advertising and marketing is filled with lots and lots of very smart, talented people, people who have good instincts and common sense. So why is it then that the bullshit-talkers and the purveyors of nonsense are in the ascendancy?

The answer is simple.
The bullshitters have the charts.

You know the scenario. You're in a meeting, you know full-well that something is going to work/isn't going to work/is true/isn't true, but someone will turn up with a deck of charts to prove themselves right and you wrong. And there you have it. The people with charts always win. The end. Even if it flies in the face of what is clearly common fucking sense. This is because everyone is shit scared of getting it wrong, or rather shit scared of being blamed for getting it wrong. So everyone hangs onto anything that looks like it proves something. Then they can blame that later if it all goes tits-up.

Over here in smug Sell! Towers we created our own little bubble, where common sense rules, and powerpoint is outlawed. However, we know that this isn't the case for everybody. So in an attempt to help redress the balance, we are fighting fire with with fire. We are creating a body of charts to illustrate common sense. We're sorry it has come to this. But here we are. Here. Anyway, now the smart people of advertising and marketing can fight the bullshitters and nonsense-talkers with their own charts. A chart-off, if you will. Published under the banner of The Centre For Common Fucking Sense In Marketing, or CoFSim for short (a stupid, nonsense-y name to confuse the bullshitters).

So here we present the first. Poliakov's Pyramid Of Engagement. A simple, yet convincing-looking chart to prove what our common-sense tells us. That people are more likely to spend time engaging with something that they're very interested in. Ergo, if you are marketing a product that isn't in the top interest zone, you better have a rip-snorting, son-of-a-bitch of an idea (or a big prize) if you want anyone to interact any further than a cursory glance. So now you can turn up at that meeting to discuss the lame user-generated-content campaign idea for the new scouring-pad client, armed with suitably complicated-looking ammunition to back-up your argument that everyone is taking crazy-pills if they think anyone is going to take-part.

**Oh you liked that did you? You can read more of this kind of thing by clicking here: More Sell! Sell! on Advertising

Sweetheart Promo By Ben Reed

This is a different approach to animating or illustrating the words to a song. Created by Director Ben Reed, the entire thing is made out of second hand books, which gives it that interesting look and feel. It's the official video for the Wave Pictures EP 'Sweetheart'.

Yes, I Wrote The Brian Letter

Brian's Open Letter To All Of Advertising And Marketing seems to have developed a life of its own over the last few days. Earlier I counted more than twelve pages of google links to different places that have posted it. It's heartening to see that so many people related to it. But as it spread further afield, people started to ask "Is this even a real letter from a member of the public?". The answer is, obviously (I thought), no.

The letter was based on conversations I've had with mates of mine who aren't in the business, in fact Brian is based on one of them. It's simply a bit of fun at the expense of those poor deluded people in the ad and marketing business who seem to think that members of the public have nothing better to do than wait for the next lame marketing scheme. Now, obviously there are those rare occasions when something catches the imagination of the public, or is interesting enough to work. But mostly, it seems like marketers and advertising agencies mistakenly imagine that Joe public is waiting with bated breath to spend their valuable time participating in some half-arsed scheme for relatively low-interest products. They are not.

So there you have it.

Read more Sell! Sell! On Advertising Here

BBC Dimensions

I'm a bit of nerd for statty things, and history, and maps. So this interesting project by BERG for the BBC hits a real sweet spot for me. It's clever idea to quantify events from history and current affairs by enabling the user to compare the key places and events to familiar surroundings. It does this by overlaying the information over google maps, in any place that you choose. So, for example, you could plot out Neil Armstrong's exact moonwalk from the Apollo 11 moon landing on your street, or compare the size of the gulf oil disaster area to your town. Simple, clever, and a real smart use of technology to bring history to life. Find the BBC Dimensions prototype site here.

Meet Marcel. A Shell.

This is a lovely, lovely, lovely animated short film. Great writing and performance. The dog thing... well, you'll see. Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp, written by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp. Marcel voiced (untreated & unenhanced) by Jenny Slate. DeanFleischerCamp.com

Madder Red

Here's the latest in a string of bizarrio videos from Yeasayer, this time featuring a cameo from Kristen Bell with her flashy pearly whites and nice LA tan, and a blob monster thing. It's a little bit disturbing but in a good, odd way. So wrong it's right? You decide.
Best watched after lunch. Enjoy!