Interesting Amsterdam

Just got my ticket for Interesting Amsterdam !!

So all you guys and gals wanting to see some random but interesting stuff, go on over to pinkair, and book yourself a ticket..

month of may

So here in Holland the month of May is the month we remember the Second World War, the liberation of Holland and the loss of so much life.

So in memory of those passed away, those who survided and those who chose to fight; some chilling, uplifting and spot on quotes to give us (wannabe) planners that much sought after insight in to humans, and perspective on this thing of ours.


* We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

* "Nietzsche's words, 'He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.'"

* "When we are no longer able to change a situation—just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves"

* "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

* "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."

* "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

* "Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary

* "We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

Viktor Frankl

the utopia of better advertising

A lot of people have talked and are still talking about the end of image advertising, because it's bad, not working, run it's course, etc. It's all about 2.0, utility etc...but the fact is, it is not, nor will it be, because advertising has got a built in factor that prevents it from growing, gaining absolute quality improvement; humans.

Right now people are kinda falling in the same trap as in the ' 20, during the time of Claude Hopkins. We think that advertsing can somehow be scientied, just because it has more technical tools at it's disposal. People seem to believe that unless you provide a tool within the advertising, you are doing rubbish. We think this we such a zeal that we forget that it's just the hope we have manifested in herd talk. Bit like the neo cons, thinking that they will create a democracy and that oil will go down to $20,- a barrell and all will be peaches and cream, anyways...

The underliying mechanics of advertising prevent this because they are flawed in the sense that they are emotion driven. We look for insight into human beings and we tend to focus on communicating some value/bond between product and and customer. This basic fact allows for inversion of progress. If empowering women works (Dove) let's do it, if degrading them (lynx/Axe) works, let's do that.

No absolute progress is possible, because in order to feel like we are moving we will go in any direction, even backwards.


So why am I writing this? Because I just today talked with an agency who did no advertising, but " created solutions on a business and emotional end" and the talk got 'round to Gorilla ads and the usual bitching began. It was shite, waste of money etc.... They make fucking horrible websites and are gonna piss all over fellows comrades who at least entertained?

Advertising is about communicating something, right now and here. Something that makes a connection so that you will move from a to b.

Method acting looked more realistic and great then the old style stage type acting (and searched for character from an inside point of view/ kinda like the when planning came along), but it's still acting..nobody was any more a doctor then the actors 200 years before the method.


The future of advertising is already here and has been here since it's invention. Sure we will get better at using tools at hand. But it's role will not grow nor will it's quality be better 10 year from now.

That type of change will be driven by industrials, by people who build absolute stuff, who deal with the binary. Fields where once you go forward, you can not go back, because new reality denies regression. 1+1 is 2. It will never go back to being 1. Once you have an cure for something, there is no gain in talking 'bout the opposite.

Call me crazy, but perhaps that's the really brilliant part in Cabral and Fallons thinking; they know their limits and play their part of court jester with great applaud.