The Staufenberger Repository

Lean Mean Pixel Machine

Afore the Christmas break our friends at Lean Mean Fighting Machine invited us to an evening they were putting on to publicise some work they'd done for Samsung.

The Photographic Adventures of Nick Turpin is the big title of a tidy little site they'd put together to promote the Pixon camera phone. Visitors to the site clicked on the most interesting aspect of each new photo and thereby determined street photographer Turpin's next subject as he hopped around the globe.

I confess I went along for a chat and some free festive champagne expecting the photography to be, well, OK. I should stress that this is in no way a comment on Mr Turpin's abilities - I'd not heard of him before - nor on those of the Lean Mean team who, as we all know, were voted Interactive Agency of The Year at Cannes last summer.

But how often is content created on behalf of brands actually any good? Not often, and that's not because it's done by a bunch of hacks. It's because creating content that clicks with an audience is really hard. If it wasn't, every film, every novel, every pop song would be a blockbuster.

So I wasn't expecting the earth to move. But I was really pleasantly surprised at just how good much of the exhibition was. Here are a few highlights.

Some of these shots seem so right that I wonder if they weren't staged. But I don't really care. They're good, aren't they?

As a Tribute to Men and Women who Design

All that talk of Eames and mid 20th century design reminded me of another great film, American Look (1958). Produced by Jam Handy Organization for General Motors, the film is a paean to form, emphasising the importance of style . The film is packed full of designs from the likes of Eero Sarineen, Mies van de Rohe, Eames and Harry Bertoia. But it isn't until you get to the last third of the film that it becomes obvious that it's real purpose was to sell the new Chevrolet Impala with it's exceedingly long tail fins. Today it would probably be called branded content and be given a TV channel all to itself.

Interestingly, many of the products and concepts (such as the open plan office) presented in this film are just as relevant today, yet the Chevy Impala looks so dated. In fact the Chevy shared none of the design ethos of the products it's placed alongside in this film. The designers of the other products were heavily influenced by European modernism (or Bauhaus) where form followed function, they exercised restraint and used a minimum of decoration. The Chevy, on the other hand, was covered in superfluous chrome, which no doubt created drag and reduced fuel efficiency. They were designed to give customers the impression of technological progress rather than delivery real advancement in automobile engineering.

However, American Look is a must see Populuxe film.   

The Music Biz

A post last week, mentioned PPL in relation to the music business.  This reminded of a presentation I saw earlier this year at a BCMA event. 

The presentation was given by Alexander Ross at Wiggin, a law firm that specialises in media law.  He presented a chart that illustrated the flow of rights in the music business. If you've ever ventured into this world before you'll know what a minefield it is dealing with record labels, artists, publishers, managers and the bloke that happed to be making the tea the day the song was recorded. This diagram should help you get an idea of how they all piece together and impress colleagues with your music business know how. 

Of course if you do actually venture down this road with a client we'd recommend you speak to a friendly lawyer. 

Content is King 1

Proof that TV - or any other branded - content isn't necessarily the answer: Minipops, the furore-inducing C4 TV show. And there's still plenty of bad TV out there...