The best fucking sites I´ve ever seen

 What the fuck should I make for dinner?

This site offers you these fucking great inspirations:

And you can always click "I don´t fucking like that." for the next idea.

And this one below is a real help for the so-called "social media gurus", inspired in the one you just saw:

What the fuck is my social media "strategy"?

When you click "I've already fucking used this one" it offers you another great strategy with these awesome cliché engaging words. And the best is yet to come: when you click on "about", it explains how to create these perfect social media strategies on your own, just by mixing and matching words of these two columns:

These people just amaze me.

Sex and the (Amsterdam) City 2

As every girl on Earth certainly knows already, this week is the global debut of Sex and the City 2 - and here in Amsterdam you can feel it on the streets.

Yesterday I spent all day outdoors and wherever I looked I could see at least one beauuuutiful Mercedez-Benz driven by the most handsome men. 

Apart from that, at one point I actually stumbled upon two camels. I didn't have my camera in hands by then, but I took it as fast as I could and walked after the camels so that I could post a picture here. Unfortunately they were already going home...

Here are two pictures from the film that link to these marketing stunts, which I loved by the way (of course I would) :)

Take the frickin’ insight off the frickin’ pedestal

This is for all people who work in Advertising. I totally agree with this post and that's why I'm pasting it exactly as it was written by the author - Heidi Hackemer, planning director at BBH NY. Enjoy :)

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(Posted on May 6th, 2010 at 2:16 am by @uberblond on her blog)

the traditional brief should die.

traditional way: planners go off into their magic black box of thought and perception, ponder the philosophies of society and our world, and then emerge triumphant with the golden insight and magical one true thing. and i get the allure of that, both from the planner feeling like a hero and the creative having the assurance of the safety buoy of a brief. but as i do more immersive brand planning that’s geared for today’s realities, digital and not (which is different than being a “digital strategist”), my role is radically changing.

this is the system that i’ve worked out and through with pelle and calle sjoenell (@pellesjoenell and @callesjonell – yes they’re brothers; no they can’t agree on how to Americanize their swedish last name), first on Axe and now on Google.

i don’t give my creatives the one brilliant insight anymore nor do i give them an incredibly clever one true thing these days. I do give them three things: 1) a one pager of the story of the situation and problem we have to solve (incredibly crafted by the way – not a sloppy re-iteration of the client brief) 2) a center of a brief that is often a rather dry message that our target needs to walk away with (ie: “Axe Shampoo makes your hair twice as shiny as the leading competitor”). 3) a page worth of multiple insights that tie to our target and the way they might interact with this product/context.

the philosophy is this: i don’t presume to know the one bullet way in to solving the problem. I have my hunches, but I also think I work with a pretty smart group of people that can look at it in ways that I won’t think of.

so we pressure test insights through the group and through creative/strategic exploration (often in the form of a workshop , which by the way can be incredibly effective, more on that another day). as long as the insight isn’t false or irrelevant to the situation at hand, and if it leads to a viable solution, then its fair game. my job in this process is to provide fuel, represent the target and the business situation, corral thought and counter-balance creative whim that may whim to far into the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” zone (without destroying creative souls).

it’s more work. it’s more collaboration. and it means that i gotta trust my team and they trust me. but it works for us and seems more realistic.

what makes this difficult – i’ve had to give up what planners usually consider their (internal and external intellectual) weapon. no longer do i hold THE answer; rather I contribute to a series of smaller, iterative answers. no longer can I be assured that when all is said and done, i’ll be able to point to that magic middle of the brief and say “that was me”, because it won’t be. the ego has to drop. that vulnerable planner goo in me gets exposed.

but i believe in it. i’d encourage you to give it a shot (and ping me with questions if you need to).
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8 ways to kill an idea

Puma's clever little bag

I love when I stumble upon ideas I wish I have had. It usually happens with the most simple ones - these small shifts that don't seem that significant at the time but can cause change in a huge scale when you think of them in long term basis.

This is one of those ideas.

Haute Couture + Kandinsky in Den Haag (2)

I promised to write more about the Gemeentemuseum in Den Haag and to post some pictures, so here I am.

So the museum has 3 floors: 

The basement had an exhibition called "Wonder Kamers", which means "Rooms of Wonders". There are several rooms and closed doors between them, and before opening the door you can only see the colour of the room on the other side - not its content. So you'll be surprised each time you go from one room to the other, not knowing whats awaiting you. It's a very cool exhibition, everything really interactive and experimental and covers all the themes showing on the other floors of the museum (fashion, design, art, music, etc). As the rooms were really dark I wasn't able to take pictures - because using flash was not permitted. It is a trendy and young environment, worth one visit if you like this kind of things. You'll find more information (with pictures) here. 

On the ground floor I found some interesting things:

Georges Vantongerloo: a Belgian Painter / Esculptor / Designer / Architect / Theorist that makes such simple yet perfect things. His history is fascinating and his work reflects that. I had never heard of him before seeing this exhibition, but then I started to look for more information and found out he was really relevant though art historists say he didn't get all the attention he deserved for his work. 

Besides Vantongerloo, there are others artists that work with colours and geometric shapes on the ground floor. Really interesting.

I happened to find an exhibition about Tupperware as well, which I loved! Totally related to what I'm  professionally interested in. It was about how Tupperware emerged, the context by then, the appeal fof this product to the 40's/50's/60's housewives, how they were sold and advertised, etc, etc. There was even a 50's kitchen there to give the idea of how things really worked for women at that time.

First floor - this is the must-see floor, in my opinion:

Kandinsky and Der Blaue Reiter: this exhibition is sooo beautiful! So colourful, full of life... from the time Kandinsky and other great artists formed a group (Der Blaue Reiter) to start doing something different with their painting. Their purpose was opposing to what was being done by others and start painting from sensations and feelings, and not from reality. Just BEAUTIFUL. Pictures here:

And last, the Voici Paris! exhibition, showing the history of haute couture and its role through the decades, starting in the mid-1860's. Their collection include great creations from all major Maisons (Dior, Givenchy, Chanel,...) and a great sample of the couture work that's being done here in The Netherlands. This exhibition is mesmerizing, you can spend one whole day just there, admiring all those amazing gowns - some of them having an average of 800 hours of handcraftmanship on. It's pure art.

Here are some pictures, not of my favourite gowns though. I had to choose the clearer ones, because most of the pictures are just too bad, as the place was too dark - shame.

Armani Privé

Dior by John Galliano

Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld

And voilà! Today I was reading the Couture Suplement of the Italian Vogue (March edition) and found an article about this exhibition! So I guess it's really unmissable :)

Trendy Tilda

I love the idea of using Tilda Swinton as a model for fashion brands as she's really exotic, intriguing and interesting with her alien-like look. Besides that she has her own style, her own fashion identity which happens to be really elegant. I usually love her looks on the red-carpet, though most of the times she gets the worst reviews from the gossip press - but what do they know about elegance and good design, anyway. 

I find her androginy very fashionable and I really see her in campaigns for groundbreaking fashion designers, like Martin Margiela for example (and I know he doesn't advertise but I think Tilda could easily be his muse if he did). 

But why this ad for Pringle of Scotland? I get the brand is a classic as they make knitwear since 1815 (so it's a REAL classic) and they want to make it look trendier, but why this paranoid/terrified look on her face? It just doesn't fit. I'm not talking about the whole campaign, which I find beautiful, but this ad just doesn't look right.

And Then There Was Salsa

Frito Lay Dips cool ad - even though that's Flamenco, not Salsa.

“And Then There Was Salsa” from Frito Lay Dips on Vimeo.

The Social Landscape

Here's CMO's Guide to Social Media, which advises on how best to leverage each of the major networks. For those who work in communication, it's a must-print chart (download PDF here).