Drive safe. Please.

It's that time of the year again - the holiday spirit is running high. Christmas. New Year's Eve. And, sadly, a time when there's a spike in the number of deaths due to rash, negligent and worst of all - drunken driving. The police and the government can take as many measures they can to try and keep a tab on the silly bunch who put their lives on the line for a few thrills. But at the end of the day, it's all down to how responsible we are.

Life in 1080p

The HD phenomenon is taking over the world. Technically speaking, the first HD systems were developed as far back as the 1930s, and it kept evolving rapidly over the years. The HDTV we speak of today was developed in the 2000s, but like all other inventions now, it keeps getting better and better.

I know it's only Rock 'n' Roll, but I like it!

Rock 'n' Roll is probably the best thing that has happened to mankind. The dwindling number of bands today playing good old Rock 'n' Roll is sad to see, with most bands and even listeners switching to metal and electronically produced sounds.  Drums and guitars are being replaced by synthesizers, turntables and loop machines (and whatever else it is that DJs use).

Big Bubbles, No Troubles.

Playing with words is a major aspect of advertising, and if done well, it can have tremendous effect on the target audience. Combine fun with words and some great artwork, and you have ads that really bring a smile to your face. This series of ads for Wrigley's popular chewing gum Hubba Bubba created by Gitam BBDO in Israel, does just that.

Feel-good buzz.

With every passing day, I realise the importance of coffee in my life. Apart from the fact that I'm a South Indian and I probably have filter coffee coursing through my veins, I love (and need!) my coffee. And when one is living the life where the hands on the clock don't divide days and nights (like this), you really REALLY need your caffeine kick.

Custom coolness

The spaces people occupy can speak volumes about them and what they are like. Some prefer spartan simplicity, with no frills. Some like to pull out all the stops and go with lavish fixtures and loud upholstery. It's all a matter of personal choice. But the fact remains unchanged - your space can be as unique as you.

And currently in the process of setting up my room in a new house, I could relate to this ad almost instantly! Executed quite brilliantly by Brazilian ad agency Fórmula Comunicação, this series is for a company called Formaplas, which creates entirely customised living spaces.

I need more space!

It's a common refrain, especially among us - the kids of the wired generation. No - I'm not talking about relationships. It's far more serious than that. We're talking hard disk space here, and believe me - it's a serious issue!

Gone are the days when the entire hard disk space on a computer was in the range of 1 to 5 Gigabytes. Our own home computer, no more than 10 years ago was a Pentium Cyrix with a whopping TWO Gigabytes of hard disk space. TWO! We now have song collections that waltz past the 300 GB mark with ease. Movie collections that run into Terabytes. And other data that could run into many, many more Terabytes.

Might is Write

A country without freedom of press is a country without a voice. A country where the people have no say. Where they are under the tyrannical thumb, unable to express opinion.

The heartening thing is, there are a few in our largely self-obsessed world who believe that journalists and members of the media should have the freedom to express themselves. Through television, newspapers, magazines, radio or any other means of communication with the masses. 

Caffeine is King

It's been a crazy few weeks! Work, moving home, more work, settling in, lots more work - the usual.

Most mornings are a challenge, waking up and getting out of the house and to work on time. What does help are the two cups of coffee we get at work everyday. Sure, a couple of cups before work (and maybe a couple more during the day) would be far more helpful, but my point is - coffee helps me get through the day.

Really awesome, typography can be!

Typography is one of the most interesting aspects of advertising. It's fascinating to sit and watch letters take shape and be placed just-so as Art Directors and Designers work their magic. It often does a great job of giving an ad its own voice and feel. One could even go so far as to say that it can (though I may be very, very wrong) even substitute copy in some cases.

Here's a great

Once you pop...

Pringles potato crisps have long been a favourite in our household. We didn't exactly grow up on it, but suffice to say we used to go bonkers when Papa brought the usual bunch of Pringles home from the ship. Since its release in 1968, this massively addictive, uniquely shaped snack has become a global favourite. Pringles are

Dessert. There's always room for some!

No matter how gluttonous I have been at lunch or dinner, the meal really does seem incomplete without something sweet to top things off. It could be a piece of chocolate (okay, okay, some pieceS of chocolate), or ice cream or..well..pretty much anything sweet!

This lot of ads

Duplicity

Ever so often, we see two (or more) ads that look extremely similar. It could be the copy, the artwork, or even the basic idea/concept behind it. While records can clearly confirm which one was the original and which one the copy, there doesn't seem to be any way of preventing these. I guess it comes down to the magic that is human diversity. Two completely unrelated people at opposite ends of the globe could hit upon the same idea without even knowing the other has even though of the same thing, much less created an ad with the idea!

Here are a couple of examples

With great moustache comes great responsibility!

Back in 1999, a group of Australian men started the "Movember" movement. It was simple enough - grow your moustache during the month of November in support of charity (hence the name: Moustache + November = Movember!). Movember involves fundraiser events to raise awareness about men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and depression, the monetary proceeds of which go towards societies and foundations undertaking cancer research.

This is a quirky little public-interest campaign

Have a break, Have a brillliant ad

Direct Marketing (DM) is a fascinating form of advertising. Not only does it include some really awesome ideas, they almost always include tangible elements you can see and feel. This helps create a lasting impression on minds - which is exactly what it's supposed to do.

Here's a fantastic example

HIJKLM&Ms

Today's first offering is a simple one. M&Ms launched customized printing for the candies in The Netherlands. I'm not sure the idea for this ad

Pathfinder

Revisiting the theme of flags, here's a lovely campaign to advertise Fiat's updated maps on their Global Positioning Systems.

This series

Shady business

Ray-Ban has long been considered the last word when it comes to high-end eyewear. Founded in 1937 by Bausch & Lomb, they were made famous by the pilots of the United States Army Air Corps, leading to their now-famous nickname - "Aviators".

The original Ray-Bans were made of gold-plated metal and had green-tinted lenses made from mineral glass, which helped block out infrared and ultraviolet rays. Over the years, the need for diversity arose and since 1952, Ray-Ban began manufacturing the "Wayfarers". This breakaway from the standard metal sunglasses turned out to be hugely popular. Over the years, this popularity has risen and declined, but the Wayfarer has never gone out of style.

Marmighty delicious!

For the uninitiated, Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing. Its distinctive flavour is quite difficult to describe with a single word, but it has bits of salty, savoury, and a hint of Umami. I can think of plenty people who hate the taste of Marmite, but I'm pretty crazy about it! My ajja (grandfather) has been eating it spread on toast and khari biscuit for years, and I must have acquired a taste for it somewhere along the way. Produced as Marmite in the UK, it is also sold as Vegemite in Australia and Cenovis in Switzerland with minor variations in the flavour. You can read more about Marmite here.

Here are two brilliant campaigns for Marmite, done by DDB (London), building on the love-it-or-hate-it reaction when you taste it.

Small is beautiful

This ad here for the Volkswagen Polo is one of the best I've ever seen. A series of mini-size, but extremely tough crosswords appeared every Tuesday in the newspaper to dramatize the 'Small but Tough' positioning of the Polo.

Never tyre

I'm not a fan of Formula One, but with all the hype and discussion about the recently-concluded racing season

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

The stereotypical male is one who has no issues with bathing once in two (or in some severe cases, three) days, wearing the same socks for a week, eating cold leftovers, sleeping on the floor/couch or just generally not giving a second thought to things that most others would consider important or do differently. I can't entirely disagree, because other than the bathing thing, I have done/still do most of those things!

The Best of Bread!

My brother sent me a link to the music video of OK Go's song 'Last Leaf' which combines stop-motion animation with some rather fantastic toast-art. (My only brush with food-art was when I used a jigsaw to carve a mini-maze in a biscuit back in school. It didn't go too well.)

I recently found these ads for an Irish bakery called 'Pat the Baker'. It uses toast-art to depict

Born to Ride

When one says "motorbike", the names that pop into one's mind rarely exclude Harley Davidson. They have been manufacturing some of the most iconic bikes since the company's inception in 1903. Bikers and collectors can pick from a variety of components and options to have completely customized (albeit prohibitively expensive!) bikes built to satiate their desire for a mile-gobbling monster, or the Pièce de Résistance of their collection.

Here is a campaign

Ads that you really want to eat. Really.

There are few things in this world that are better than bacon. And it is a well established fact that bacon makes everything better. Seriously. Combine that with succulent beef patties and some cheese slices and hey presto! Love at first bite!

This is a clever little campaign

Simplicity in search

I am admittedly a fanboy of all things Google. Their repertoire of innovations is utterly impressive and never ceases to fascinate. While bigger offerings such as the formidable Android Market hog the limelight, smaller and actually far more important little ones go unnoticed. Case in point, the intuitive intelligent search feature (which I don't believe has a formal, technical name). Not that

DIY brilliance

An interesting feature of IKEA products, is that they are flat-packed. That lets you transport them easily and then assemble them without a fuss. Founded in 1943 by a 17-year-old Swede, the name IKEA is an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (Ingvar Kamprad being the founder's name, Elmtaryd the farm where he grew up, and Agunnaryd his home parish). There are a hundred different things that make IKEA a unique brand - be it the design of their stores, or their interestingly named products. Read about them here and discover more here.

This is an ad campaign

The Sound of Silence

Bose has long been touted as one of the best brands for speakers and sound solutions. Thought the system was invented for airplane and helicopter pilots back in the 1950s, the person who actually applied the principle to standard-use earphones and headphones was Dr. Amar Bose (founder of the Bose Corporation) in 1986. He began working on the concept in 1978 on board an aeroplane because he was so dissatisfied with the quality of the headphones provided on-board and the constant noise from the engine cutting through. The name has now attained almost-legendary status and is famed for their high-end products. This campaign

Innovation = fun?

Hell yeah! Created by DDB Stockholm and watched by the world on Facebook and other social networking sites, not many people know this Black Pencil winning campaign was for Volkswagen Sweden.

As written in the D&AD 2010: "Volkswagen asked us to create a campaign that would generate interest around Blue Motion Technologies, a series of cars and innovations that help reduce environmental impact without compromising on performance or the joy of driving. Our insight was that VW could make it easier to choose an eco car by making them more fun to drive. Our solution was a focusing on the thinking behind the cars - that the easiest way to change human behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We called this The Fun Theory."

Here

One for the road

Volkswagen is one of my favourite automakers. I have to say, I'm not a car nut but purely from the point-of-view of a person who ought to be reading Cars for Dummies, they make some really lovely cars. Fellow German automakers BMW, Mercedes Benz and Porsche also churn out some serious mean machines, but VW has been the only one to put out cars truly affordable to the masses.

What is most fascinating about all these autos is the German engineering that goes into them. There are endless rows of dials and buttons and indicators that can leave slightly less-experienced drivers fumbling, but each function

Stayin' Alive

Drunk driving is a very serious issue and the topic has been done to death (no pun intended) by agencies the world over. Brazilian agency Loducca and MTV teamed up to great effect to

Live Forever

As the line in AC/DC's hit 'Rock 'n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution' said - Rock 'n' Roll ain't gonna die! Created by the agency Three Drunk Monkeys

Man's best friend (outside of a dog!)

English art-critic and essayist Walter Pater famously said "Books are a refuge, a sort of cloistral refuge, from the vulgarities of the actual world". That saying is summed up beautifully in this campaign. The best part - no copy. Even though I'm a copywriter, I love ads that

It's all gone green!

I'm a big fan of animated movies, and I'm not ashamed to say it. My brother and I grew up on a staple of Disney movies and were also lucky enough to enjoy the classic bunch of cartoons of the 90's, including Secret Squirrel, Snagglepuss, Atom Ant, Space Ghost and the original Johnny Bravo, among others.

In recent times, offerings from the stables of Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks have held our attention for hours on end. One of my personal favourites, is the Shrek franchise. Now four installments old, I have to say I've thoroughly enjoyed every movie, and though I'm dead against pointless sequels, I really wouldn't mind seeing a fifth.

This is a great campaign

Attention, global-warming skeptics!

This was an ad created by Toronto-based agency Zig, on the occasion of World Earth Day earlier this year.

Happiness is a cupcake

That's true. I swear. And that statement is based on personal experience - my brother Dj and my favourite cousin Amrita are two of the best bakers ever. Their creations far surpass the commercial stuff we were almost forced to buy all these years for lack of a better option. Amrita runs a wonderful

A slice of heaven

Pizza is one of my favourite foods. There, I said it. I love eating, and pretty much anything tasty goes, but pizza is way up there among the favourites.

This ad

Incredible India

I'm proud to be an Indian, and advertising just gave me another huge reason! I've always known us Indians are creative and good at pretty much anything we do, but we're particularly kickass when it comes to advertising and art. Here are a couple of beautiful campaigns

Saucy Stuff!

I'm a big fan of sauces. I can't bear the thought of eating a non-Indian meal without sauce. Seriously. If it's burgers, there's got to be ketchup. If it's pizza, there has to be Tabasco. I'm the sort of guy who throws Worcestershire Sauce into scrambled eggs (which, by the way, tasted divine!) and can eat barbecue sauce with anything. Here's a collection of ads

Edible Advertising

Most advertisements involving food look good enough to eat. Well that's the point, isn't it? Create something with lovely pictures of some great looking food to get your taste buds tingling and make you want to go over and eat at that restaurant. This campaign

Wordplay

Invented by architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938, Scrabble has become one of the world's most popular games. It has since been adapted into various languages, with the distribution of letters on tiles depending on the frequency with which they appear in the language. One can now find Scrabble sets in Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian, Malaysian, Slovak, Turkish and Welsh - to name just a few!

Here are some

Numero Uno

Advertising really is a fascinating industry. After spending two years in a corporate job where I had to wear trousers to work and do the same thing everyday, this is more than just a breath of fresh air! They weren't lying when they said work CAN be fun.

This blog is a collection of interesting ads from around the world - ones that made me chuckle, or sit up and take notice, or just say "shit, seriously!?".