Russell Davies

Toy Of The Month - November 2005

This is Opera Dude from Tokyo Plastic. You'll probably recognise him (her?) from one of their award winning flash animations. You can buy him here.

slime mold

I've posted about this a bit before, but I came across this CD in a drawer so I thought I'd share the whole thing.

When I was at Wieden + Kennedy there was a very cool, sporadic thing called the Slime Mold prize (US spelling). Anyone could submit proposals for something creative they wanted to do and some of them would be picked and funded. Jeff Selis got his first book paid for this way. My proposal was a little less commercially savvy but they did it anyway. I've put it all up here as my little tribute to what a great place it was to work. Don't feel you have to listen to any of it.

I don't think it works entirely, just as a set of music, but, as an audio representation of a group culture, it was a pretty decent experiment.

I got funding to send everyone in the company a blank tape, with instructions to record anything they wanted on it - music, talking, sounds, dumbness. I got all the tapes back and tried to make some bits of music that represented what it felt like to be at w+k. Kinda. All the music was built with a sampler and keyboard from the stuff people sent in - with some of the ads mxed in there too. Then I sent everyone a CD of the finished product.

The masterful Todd Waterbury then designed a lovely package for it, with a little booklet of credits and the brilliant idea of putting the original bits of tape inside the CD case.

The final songs are all below. I'm still quite pleased with most of them but some are a little dated - I was going through a bit of a big beat phase.

Listening back I realise how influenced it is by Microsoft, I was the planner on it at the time. There are Windows sounds all over it.

1. welcome to wieden+kennedy 5.3MB

Including: John Shaw swearing and talking about Kay's Bar, Becca Van Dyke saying 'an exercise in sound', Trish Adams singing 'You Are My Sunshine' and the Windows Start-Up sound used as a keyboard.

2. the odor of decaying morale 1.1MB

Including: Knox Duncan talking about giggling at Charles De Gaulle airport just before getting on a red-eye

3. thats so funny 4.7MB

Including: 'the work comes first' - god, we used to talk about that a lot, kim lilly (now kim curry) swearing and being sarcastic, voicemail feedback from a microsoft client.

4. fresh 4.3MB

Including: lots of paging, some ESPN out-takes and demo sounds from a Coke 'audio logo' they never bought.

5. when the fans go crazy 4.2MB

Including: majestic guitar work submitted by Alex Dobson, and lots of bits of 'found' audio stuff that people used to send around as email, you'll probably recognise them

6. definitely 3.1MB

Including: just lots of stuff assembled from Cedric Gairard's record collection

7. lying on the beach playing in the water 6MB

Including: David Nottoli recorded on vacation, Italian avant-garde opera recorded by Whitney Lowe

8. an amazing number of jennifers 5.3MB

Including: Jed Alger looking at the phone list and Steve Skibba's guitar

9. walking down the halls 3.6MB

Including: Bill Davenport talking and leaving me bad guitar on my voicemail, Dutch TV

10. eat that egg fast 1.9MB

Including: Joe Shands telling me a disturbing story

11. hands in your pockets, pockets in your pants 6.8MB

Including: lots of banging sounds recorded by David Kennedy in his barn, and some excerpts of interviews with his aged relatives

12. boogers 4.7MB

Including: Bob and Susan Moore singing to their kid, the Kokes kids

13. significant acid 5.1MB

Including: Evelyn Monroe Neil recalling a highlight of Oregon musical culture

14. unconcerned but not indifferent 2.4MB

This is a little story recorded for me by Steve Sandoz, who made more effort for me than anyone else in the company, which was typical. Steve died a few years back which makes this track sound horribly maudlin, which isn't a fair reflection of what a joyous bloke he was, but I thought I should leave it in. I hope it reminds people what a splendid guy Steve was. He recorded most of the odd, random, interesting sounds scattered through this CD.

15. a little dutch song 3.7MB

Including: a bunch of stuff from the Amsterdam office and Jae Goodman singing in the shower

16. do i know you? 5.2MB

Including: Jim Riswold being charming, more Steve Skibba guitar made way more funky than he'd wish, more Windows sounds

17. il gatto blu 2.2MB

Including: Italian football fans recorded by Jon Matthews

18. you do not know me 3.6MB

Including: lots of stuff from Dan & Dave's Hall Of Fame video and a poem by Will Nash

19. organised, illegal surgery 7.9MB

Including: random stuff, Bing Crosby and guitar from Steve Sandoz

(This one is only this big because it's got loads of silence in it. I wouldn't feel the need to download the whole thing, it's not worth it.)

I still have some CDs knocking around, if there are any w+k folk out there who'd like another one, just let me know.

going deaf for a fortnight

Pete Ashton is doing a brilliant project called Going Deaf For A Fortnight. He's going out to a small gig venue in Birmingham every night for two weeks, seeing bands, and he's blogging about what he finds. The first entry is here.

What an excellent idea. I need to do something like this - get myself out of the theoretical world of brands and consumers and all that nonsense and engage with the real world a bit. We all should do something like this.

sweets of the month - november 2005

I love these Sport Beans. The best products are always collisions of the unexpected - here it's energy drinks and sweeties. And I also love how seriously they take this, the Sport Beans FAQ addresses the question: how should Sport Beans jelly beans be used?"

now this is what I call advertising

Here's a site with some of the best bits of communications ever - Public Information Films produced by the British Central Office of Information. Coughs and Sneezes is a personal favourite of mine. This sneezey man is perfectly cast.

A great find by ilike.

backing shyly into the limelight

Those of you who've never clicked on any of those 'my other sites' link on the right might be astonished and dismayed to know I don't spend my whole life writing about planning or my family. I also spend an inordinate amount of time writing about, and being in, cafes. So much so, that one of my blogs (egg bacon chips and beans) has recently been transformed into a book and published by Harper Collins. And now you, gentle reader, can buy a copy from Amazon, by clicking here. The picture above is the book being read by Pete Ashton. His review is here. He seems to like it.

Hurrah.

And by scrolling down the page a little you can even get an egg bacon chips and beans t-shirt. Well worth 18 of your earth pounds.

Beanz Meanz Boodlez

OK. Here's the first assignment. If you don't know what I'm talking about read the previous post.

I've just made this up. Any resemblence to existing brands or problems is entirely co-incidental. Apologies if it's a little UK-centric, but that's where I live. And it's a category close to my heart.

If those goes well we'll be somewhere-else-centric next time.

Dorothy Boodle is a 53-year old cookery teacher and mother of three. She's spent the last 20 years working on a recipe for beans to rival Heinz beans - assisted by her children and the kids at the school where she teaches. She's now perfected that recipe. Indepedent taste tests rate her beans the same as Heinz - for some people a little better. Her's have a slightly tangier taste. They have a bit less sugar and are generally slightly healthier. They're also a little browner - not that vibrant orange Heinz colour. They can be manufactured for the same cost.

She raised enough money through friends and family to get the beans off the ground and now they've also got backing from an eccentric millionaire - they want to launch the beans into national distribution. The major supermarkets are ready to stock her beans if they see her come to market in a serious way. (They're quite keen to challenge Heinz's complete dominance of the baked beans market. They're not making many inroads with their own-label products and think Dorothy might destabilize Heinz in a good way.)

The Boodles have come to you for advice on how to launch and support their beans. They're asking questions like - How should they position themselves versus Heinz? How should they spend their 5 million pound marketing budget for the first year? What should the product be called?

What should you tell them?

Write me an answer in a Word or Powerpoint document in less than 1,000 words and 2MB.

Don't Ask Me

Please don't ask a lot of clarifying questions. I've just made this up, I don't have any answers. If you don't know something, make up your own answer and spell out your assumptions in your document. If you must ask a question please do it via the comments on this post so everyone can see - I'll answer in the same place. I'm not going to get into any email debates about this.

Don't Go Mad

This is just an excercise for fun and practise. Don't spend hours conducting interviews with people about beans. Don't phone Heinz and ask them what they think. I'm hoping to stretch your thinking/imagination/writing skills - not your research skills. If this takes you more than a few hours you're taking too long. Don't try so hard. Write less. Relax.

Embrace Failure

There's no right answer. I have no answer in my head that you've got to guess. I'm going to be looking for imagination, common sense and persuasiveness. So think big, or very small. Think wherever you like in relation to 'the box' - but since this isn't the real world and you're not messing with anyone's real money this seems like a good opportunity to have some fun.

Email me your answer before November 15th - russell at russelldavies.com. I'll start posting answers and thoughts after that. If you want to remain anonymous let me know.

Does that all make sense? Sound like fun?

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