History of Communications

History of communication from DesignTV on Vimeo

This is a really great ad created by DesignTV that gives the viewer a perspective on all the strides that have been made in communication. I especially appreciate the pacing of commercial. By speeding the introduction of each subsequent piece of technology it subliminally reinforces the final idea that you need the client company Carphone Warehouse to help you with your communication needs.

via - In My Atmosphere

Black Sheep - The Choice is Yours '08 (Obama Mix)

No matter how people feel you have to admit that Obama has inspired the country (if not the world) in an amazing way. Here is yet another example of this election affecting popular culture.

The Barack Obama Infomercial

Really great way of reminding people of the best theme of most great political campaigns.

make the campaign about the people not about the candidate.

My Thoughts on The Negro Don Draper

I've been a fan of Mad Men since i first heard about the idea of the show and until mid way through the first season thought Don Draper was a black man passing for a white man in the advertising industry similar to "Diary of an Ex-Colored Man". It was later revealed to my disappointment that his dark (no pun intended) secret was he was the son of a prostitute. An article in the Atlantic made me feel better since it appears like I was not the only one who felt that way.

So Mad Men is over, and short of the NFL, there really is no other reason for me to have a TV. I got rid of mine last spring, and I actually considered buying a new one just to see the new season. But then I discovered Mad Men was on Itunes. You should know that there are only two shows that have ever made me cry--Justice League and Mad Men. Sound insane? You obviously have never watched Justice League.

read the rest after the Link - The Negro Donald Draper

I have to also agree on the fact that Justice League was possibly the best cartoon drama ever written!

Superman Goes To Gotham

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Obama Budweiser Part 2

So here is an update on the WASSSUP 08 commercial which has been making the rounds on the internet

Who's behind the "Wassup 2008" Obama ad? Not Budweiser.
by: Burt Helm

This morning when I blogged about the “Wassup 2008” Obama video, two questions sprung to my mind. First, who paid for this thing? The production values are very high – one person from Budweiser’s ad agency, DDB, estimated it could have cost as much as $750,000 (she also said DDB had nothing to do with the video). Second, how could Budweiser possibly be cool with such a clearly partisan advertisement?

After some digging, I found out. First, it cost way less than $750k. Second, Budweiser had no clue it was happening until after the video hit YouTube on Friday.

The man with the answers? Charles Stone III, the director of the original “Wassup” commercial and the movie Drumline (and the guy who answers the phone in the first frame of the video). He decided to make it about two weeks ago, he told me, with a crew of about 50 volunteers (all professionals working pro bono). They put it together in 9 days.

It was all possible, Stone says, because Budweiser never owned the rights to the idea. He’d originally made it as a short film independent of the brand, and Budweiser had only leased the rights, paying a mere $37,000 for five years of use. Back then, people gave him a hard time about the low price. Now Stone, a diehard Obama supporter, says it’s more than paid off. “That I’m able to use an idea distributed by a huge company, who made a lot of money off it, so that now when I put out what I want to say, it’s recognizable, and it sparks -- that’s worth $1 million to me.”

It came together after emailing with friends about ways they could make a video supporting Obama. Once they’d settled on the concept, he got on the phone with the original cast (all friends of his, who are now actors living in New York, Philadelphia, and LA), and called up his Director of Photography from Drumline, Shane Hurlbut, who brought in his crew. He also signed up Gerard Cantor and Maurice Marible, from commercial production house Believe Media, who co-produced. They shot over two days. The war-torn Iraq setting is actually a preexisting set in Santa Clarita, CA.

After they finished, they uploaded it to YouTube with distribution company 60Frames, set up a website, wassup08.com, and sent links to everyone they knew. As of writing this, it’s been viewed almost 1.8 million times, and picked up across the blogosphere, including on BoingBoing, Daily Kos, and Huffington Post. The final price tag? About $6500 out of his own pocket, Stone says.

via - Business Week

to sum the story up basically a freelance creative person who had an original idea, sold it to a huge corporation for at best a questionable price, is now reaping the rewards of his creativity in two important ways?

He can support his favorite candidate for president in a widely and instantly recognizable way using his original idea AND most likely reap a huge financial reward for his original idea in the near future. Since this remix has given his original idea a higher level of cultural importance than any beer commercial ever could.

What we have here people, is a bona fide media miracle.

The Secret To World Peace

This explanation is pretty valid in a lot of ways. Bear with me as I try to explain why at 3 am.

To over complicate what Penn says here is a redux using the often qouted "Game Theory". You do not have to like someone but Game Theory states that working with someone to a mutually beneficial goal is the only logical (and proper) course when placed in a situation where risk/reward is based on the success over an obstacle.

This is why the concept of segregation was such a poison to America. Since America is a capitalist country we are suppose to always try to accomplish a goal in the most cost efficient method possible. Segregation separated and denigrated the African American workforce based on arbitrary reasons.

Ironically Booker T. Washington often preached a early for of this mind state by using the example of the hand and the fingers and while mostly being separate would have to come together in order to accomplish any substantial goals.

Now America finds itself once again separated. However, unlike segregation America finds itself separated from most of the world due to our current policies. We as a country must rejoin the world and face our collective problems together.

Marketing New York City

Here is a real interesting video of New York City's collaborative efforts of marketing itself through coordinating projects with local businesses and artist.

Basic Vocab - Come Get With It

Heard this song on Entourage and thought I would share it with whoever reads this blog.

Obama Budweiser

This is a great example of Advertising breaking into popular culture and reverberating years later. Kudos to the creators for updating a great campaign and making it relevent to whats going on today.

50 Best Muhammed Ali quotes

1- Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

2- Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.

3- I am the greatest; I said that even before I knew I was.

4- A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

5- I'll beat him so bad he'll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.

6- If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.

7- Its not bragging if you can back it up.

8- Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.

9- Superman don't need no seat belt.

10- When you are as great as I am it is hard to be humble.


11- A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.

12- Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

13- At home I am a nice guy: but I don't want the world to know. Humble people, I've found, don't get very far.

14- Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

15- Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

16- Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.

17- Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.

18- He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

19- I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.

20- I figure I'll be champ for about ten years and then I'll let my brother take over - like the Kennedys down in Washington.

21- I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

22- I hated every minute of training, but I said, ''Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.''

23- I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin' hell, but as long as they ain't free, I ain't free.

24- I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.

25- I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

26- I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

27- I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round.

28- I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.

29- I'm the most recognized and loved man that ever lived cuz there weren't no satellites when Jesus and Moses were around, so people far away in the villages didn't know about them.

30- If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

31- It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe.

32- It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.

33- Its just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

34- It's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.

35 -It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

36- Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don't let yourself believe it will happen to you.

37- My toughest fight was with my first wife.

38- My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.

39- No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.

40- Old age is just a record of one's whole life.

41- Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

42- Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

43- The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

44- The man who has no imagination has no wings.

45- The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.

46- There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

47- There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.

48- To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.

49- Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

50- When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

Kanye West - Good Morning

I remember listening to this song the day I graduated from college. I then went on that stage, waved at the crowd and received my empty degree case (my actual degree came in the mail 6 weeks later). Sweet, Sweet memories.

Mona Lisa ala Paintball

The Guys on Mythbusters do it again!

Common - Universal Mind Control

Political Campaign Ad with some Meat in it.

The Debate Is On.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown

Reasonable Doubt Documentary

Spoken Word

By Saatchi & Saatchi/London and production firm Shilo/Hanharan. Music by Human.

via - AdGabber

Have to say this is a great commercial which tap's into the same sphere of influence that Nike continues to grab with their Ads. Great Imagery, Great use of sound and words, Great inspirational story. Add that up you get a Great Ad.

Homer Votes For Obama