Royal Crown

I'm working on a campaign for RC Cola right now, and in researching the brand I stumbled upon this gem of a commercial:

Vancouver still thinks it can host the Olympics

I just came across this article on the CBC's website about a Vancouver couple who are trying to rent out their home for the 2010 Olympics. The story goes on to to say that thousands of people want to rent their houses but are finding no takers. Essentially, Vancouverites are asking for too much money.

I lived in Vancouver for over 4 years, and I have lost count of the amount of people who used to rag on Toronto for it being full of rude, arrogant, greedy people who are always in a hurry. (I should also like to add that a number of these complainers had never actually been to Toronto.)

While I won't argue that some Torontonians are greedy I will say that if we were to host the Olympics, we would not be clamoring to rent out our homes. We would be too busy telling people to stay the fuck out of our city.

"That's a nice thought"

I've been spending the majority of my time thinking over the past week or so, trying to get out of what one of our instructors, Jane, calls "the 10 hour garbage can" for a number of different campaigns.

Normally I just like to pretend that means I can spend 10 hours thinking up very dirty ideas.

One thing that a few of my teachers are really stressing to us is the importance of immersing yourself in culture. I'm hoping that watching Mad Men and looking at a lot of photography websites is good enough.

Speaking of the latter, Tim Barber has relaunched his Haas-recommended website Tiny Vices.

Sometimes it feels like strategizing is akin to plotting

I think it's a sign that I'm headed down the right career path when I am working on creating on an in depth creative work plan for an ad campaign for my class, when only the ad campaign itself was assigned.

Our teachers do tell us to write a strategy anyway, but I'm not sure the expect a 4 pager every time. I find getting into the heads of consumers pretty interesting. I guess all those years of talking to myself are finally going to pay off.

Headphones

I hope one day I get to work on an account for ear bud headphones, if only so I can write this tagline: "Guaranteed to not work as advertised."

This is based on my experiences of buying a pair only to discover that "sound blocking" more often means "excessive letting in of sound."

If only the store had carried my preferred brand in a colour other than teenage pink. (That's a real shade.)

Aging

Another photo from Heist, Belgium. Taken in June of this year.