French design agency advertises job for someone who is "if possible not Jewish"

Via BBC

The BBC posted this screencap of a Graphic-Jobs.com job ad from a French design agency that included the line "Si possible pas juif(ve)" ("If possible not Jewish").

Yeah. It was soon removed.

NSL Studio says it must have been hacked and that the company "distances itself totally from all racist or anti-Semitic acts or statements".  Graphic-Jobs.com distanced itself, stating "we strongly condemn the nature of the content published by the agency NSL Studio."

 The damage is done, however. Racial discrimination is illegal in France, and SOS Racisme is apparently taking legal action.

Joke, troll or genuine hate, it's a sad comment in a country already rife with religious and ethnic violence.

The least appetizing cookbook title ever #FdAdFriday

The BBC explains:

"Cooking With Poo is written by Bangkok chef Saiyuud Diwong whose nickname is Poo - which is Thai for 'crab. 

She runs a cookery school for locals and tourists in the city's largest slum, alongside the charitable organisation that published the book."

Well, that's a relief.

Saiyuud Diwong's book won this year's Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year.

Ziggy Street

It's certainly one of my favourite album covers.  Shot by photographer Brian Ward in January 1972 photographer Brian Ward outside a fur distribution company called "K. West" at 23 Heddon Street, London. According to The Ziggy Stardust Companion, the entire shoot was done in black and white, then colourized in those saturated tones. (You can see some outtakes here.)

"To be played at maximum volume."

The side street has apparently changed quite a bit in 40 years. But just this week, the Crown Estate mounted a "Blue Plaque" at the site to commemorate its historical significance.

Unveiled by the dude from Spandau Ballet. Remember them?

Now that David Bowie is seemingly retired, I hope this kind of thing doesn't make him feel too old.

But then again, he's the one who said we only had five years...

Thanks to Mark B for the tip.

Mother Nature resists automotive sponsorship — with a vengeance

Mark sent me a sad story of PR gone horribly wrong.

In Germany, Mini Deutschland paid the Institute for Meteorology at the Free University in Berlin the standard €199 "Adopt-a-Vortex" fee to have in incoming cold front named "Cooper". The agency, Sassenbach, had said they wanted a wind- and weather-proof idea" to promote the soft top Mini Roadster. 

I assume this was supposed to be ironic. But the real (and very sad) irony began when Cooper started killing people:

Also note unfortunate Expedia headline.

BBC reports:

"In a statement, the carmaker said it could not influence exactly when names for weather fronts would be used, or what a weather system would do. 

It said it deeply regretted that the weather front had taken on 'catastrophic proportions' and claimed so many lives."

In other news, Mother Nature hates cars.

The wonderful world of David Attenborough

BBC Nature Presenter and documentary legend David Attenborough is one of my personal heroes. My nature-loving son's too. So it was sad to hear that the aged voice of nature will probably not make another show.

The BBC paid tribute to one of its legends with this compilation of breathtaking footage from some of his shows to that voice giving us a spoken-word rendition of jazz standard "What a Wonderful World":



Mr. Attenborough just recently wound up his last series, Frozen Planet. You may know it from this amazing video that is making the viral rounds:



What a wonderful world. And it's all the more wonderful when described by someone who loves it so much.

If You Want Brand Over-Extension (You've Got It)

Highway to Hell Cabernet Sauvignon, Hells Bells Sauvignon Blanc and You Shook Me All Night Long Muscat. Seriously?

Oh, God...

BBC reports that AC/DC is launching its own range of Australian wines, to be sold in Woolworths stores across the country starting Thursday.

It's been a long time since Bon Scott drank himself to death in the back of a car. In the 21st century, AC/DC is a brand as the aging rockers continue to perform heavily-merchandised world tours. So from a business perspective, the wines are just one more way to appeal to the band's base of settled-down baby boomers and gen-Xers. But is it just a touch too much?

The AC/DC brand won't be hurt, in the long run, because it has so much established power. But it's still disappointing to see such a cynical move into the middlebrow.

(Plus, where's the "Whole Lotta Rosé"?)

Is your phone even worth stealing?

This funny bit from BBC's Jazzie Show gives a great reason to hold on to your old model: muggers hate them.

A fishy tribute?

Something fishy is going on here.

This hilarious spot for Britain's John West Tuna:



Is a note-for-note parody of this famous sequence from BBC's Nature's Great Events:



A tribute? Perhaps. But if you're going to channel the great Sir David Attenborough, you'd better respect nature.

According to John West's site, they do:

At John West, we recognise our responsibility to protect the environment. That’s why we are committed to sourcing tuna from sustainable fish stocks. Our reputable suppliers comply with our strict guidelines and ensure the fishing methods used to catch our tuna abide by international standards.

John West only sources its tuna from fishing vessels that have been certified Dolphin Friendly by the Earth Island Institute. We use the Purse Seine fishing method to catch tuna for our canned products and have full traceability of the fish used. Our tuna products are labelled in accordance with the Australian and New Zealand Foods Standards Code.

We use Skipjack for more than 90% of our tuna products, with the remaining products using Tongal. We do not use Yellowfin, Bigeye or Southern Blue Fin. All of our tuna is sourced from the Indian and Western and Central Pacific oceans.

We also work with independent organisations and suppliers to raise awareness of our sustainability protocol. John West encourages responsible fishing practices globally and is supportive of initiatives that encourage sound management of tuna resources now and into the future.

Good. You don't want to piss Sir David off.

The man has powerful friends.

Too close for comfort?

As anyone in the business can tell you, advertising is pretty conservative in nature. Sure, we wear jeans to work and have the vintage action figures arranged on our desks in obscene tableaux, but we're not in the business of exposing our clients to great risks. For that reason, advertising seldom leads popular culture, but rather reflects it. Because, like Hollywood (which is also now driven by investors and focus groups) the ad industry usually wants ideas that it knows will work.

This pressure to deal in known quantities doesn't just lead to advertising cliches. As agencies mine our increasingly recycled pop culture for cool memes, it can also lead to some rather troubling infringements of creative rights.

Just last night, I caught a Microsoft ad on TV that looked a lot like a commoncraft video, with simple paper cutouts manipulated by on-screen hands, deadpan voiceover delivery, and all.

I can't for the life of me find this ad online, but here's what I can only assume was the "inspiration":



We worked with commoncraft to do a social PSA for one of our government clients last year, so it's possible Lee was involved in this. But I doubt it.

You see, copycatting in advertising happens all the time. Just last week, Cundari Group in Toronto were accused of ripping off U.S. pop artist Thomas Allen in an ad for a Vancouver bookstore. The evidence below comes via Agency Spy:



The artist was so mad at what he calls the "theft" of his trademark cutout style, he decided to put the case forward to the court of social media, starting with his blog:

"I contacted a friend who is a well-known and highly respected figure in the world of design. Since this wasn’t a real campaign, he advised me not to waste any more time pursuing it. Instead (since Cundari’s chosen to walk on the wrong side of a very fine line), he suggested that I publicly shame them because 'they should know better'."

Another, perhaps less severe, form of copycatting I've noticed lately is HSBC's ad featuring the Chinese man fishing with trained birds:



Which, with the exception of the oddly out-of-place Canadian dude, is a pretty clean lift from the cormorant fisherman scene in BBC's Wild China.

So, what is inspiration and what is theft? In his correspondence with Thomas Allen, Cundari SVP CD Andy Manson retorted:

"Inspiration can come from anywhere. We were inspired by your technique just as you were inspired by the artists who painted the original pulp novel covers. So nobody is stealing anything from anybody. Think of all the executions that Andy Warhol’s lithograph technique has inspired. Or that celebrates Shepard Fairey’s style. Or Peter Beard’s. Or Barbara Kruger’s. Or Robert Indiana’s. The list goes on and on. Advertising routinely reflects the society around it and, as a result, what is popular.
Nobody was trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes."

What do you think?

The genius box

In a news release that shocked nobody, The Nielsen Co. reported that young children are watching more TV now than in any year since 1995. This includes DVDs and PVRed shows. Thirty-two hours a week, on average.

Now, I don't pretend to be the world's greatest parent. Like everyone else, I'm making it up as I go along. We have certain things we are careful about: nutrition (mostly homemade food, organic when it counts), physical safety, streetsmarts, exercise, athletic skills, socialization. But on other things, we are more like our parents. And TV is one of them.

At Four years, 11 months, and change, Ladman loves to watch television. I don't think he's up to 32 hours a week, but he does love to tune in when he gets up in the morning, and right after school. I did the same, when I was a kid, so it doesn't seem that harmful to me. Hell, I work in advertising. I'm cynical that way.

What's different with my son is his viewing habits. When I was a kid, I loved nature and science documentaries. So did my wife. And so, naturally, does he. But while we had to wait for our weekly dose of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, he gets his shows on demand, recorded on PVR, or purchased on DVD. Over and over again.

Some favourites have been the whole BBC Walking With Dinosaurs franchise, as well as the many nature shows produced and/or narrated by David Attenborough (Blue Planet, Life in Cold Blood, Planet Earth). Recently, he has started to gravitate towards nature adventurers like the Crocodile Hunter (we don't tell him how that one ended), Snakemaster, Nigel Marven,Jules Sylvester, and Rob Bredl.



One that I'm not entirely sure of is "Bite Me" with Dr. Mike Leahy. This guy's a masochistic virologist who allows himself to get bitten, stung, envenomated and parasitized by some of the world's creepiest crawlies. Considering Ladman managed to get stung by a jellyfish and bitten by a garter snake this summer, I'm not sure this is a great influence.

But what I'm getting at here is that TV is like anything. It's the content that matters. My son exercises, socializes, gets read to, plays imaginative games (with rubber snakes or live bugs, of course!)... but he also enjoys his shows. And, as a result of watching guys with PhDs and nature nuts run around in khakis, he has a picked up a surprisingly rich scientific vocabulary for a kid his age.

The downside is that the TV shows on National Geographic and other channels are full of commercials, so we get constant advice from the boy as to which brand of yogurt or paper towels we should be buying. He's a sucker for ads. Karma's a bitch.

The thing that really amazed me happened just last night. He insisted on taking a small plastic baggie with him into the bath. (He loves playing with water.) He kept filling it up, and squeezing the water out, over and over again, until he turned to me and said "Dad! Look! This is how my heart works!"

You win this one, television.

Survival of the hippest

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing anyone's faith, but I really feel bad for people who won't accept the theory of evolution. Not only is it the best tool we have for understanding human nature; you can also apply Darwin, Wallace & Co.'s thinking to almost any human endeavour.

My four-year-old son already understands the basic idea of evolving. That's because we're both huge fans of BBC's "Walking with..." series of shows on prehistoric life: Walking With Dinosaurs, Walking With Prehistoric Beasts, Walking With Monsters, and Walking With Cavemen. Cool shows, and even the 10-year-old CG animation holds up pretty well on high def TVs.

My son's love of these shows is part of his love affair with all things natural. But I'm also happy about what it's instilling in him for his adult life in any kind of business venture. It is helping him understand what "survival of the fittest" really means.

To many people, "the fittest" conjures up visions of the schoolyard bully, an unthinking brute who pushes aside all the girly men to impress the female folk. But that's not what it means at all. Evolution is all about flexibility, adaptation, and exploiting the opportunities of chance disaster.

There are two examples from the BBC series that give a more accurate object lesson in dealing with change:


Rise of the Mammals — Mammals have been dominating the world for more than 50,000,000 years, but it has not always been so. Prior to the great extinction event of 65,000,000 years ago, they were tiny creatures living at the fringes of the dinosaurs' world. The dinos in general were bigger, meaner, and way more successful at exploiting the relatively stable climates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. But when the world was hurled into a nuclear winter by a cosmic collision, they didn't survive. Nothing big did. Only the smallest, most adaptable species survived. Among them were our furry ancestors, opportunistic living fossils like crocodiles, and the tiny, warm-blooded, feathered dinosaurs we now call birds.

Might did not make right, and the mammals outpaced even the remaining dinosaurs by adapting to, and dominating, almost every ecosystem in the planet. The mammals' penchant for adapting to change in novel ways is what lead to us. But there's another stop along the way.

Hominidmania — Over two million years ago, our ancestors were not the only hominids (humanoid apes) on the planet. Several different species rose and fell as the climate continued to change. Among them was Australopithecus boisei, a gorillalike brute that ate roots and lived in harems. They had a pretty easy life, browsing the available vegetation, but they were overspecialized. When the vegetation changed, they were outcompeted by other apemen with more curious natures and omnivorous appetites, such as our forebears.

In the current economy, large and traditional businesses can seem like dinosaurs, while the agile upstarts and shrewd early adopters may yet get through the fallout to grow into a new generation of leaders. Overspecialized and inflexible companies may find their food source dries up, while those with imagination and courage might just find new ways to survive.

The "fittest" are those most suited to adapt through, and take advantage of, change. Evolution may happen through random chance, but "intelligently designed" organizations can still learn from nature's lessons in hindsight.

My advice of the day? Executives should spend more time watching dinosaur movies.