Whatever you’re making, make it way better than it has to be.
/On his blog advertising guru Luke Sullivan shares an excerpt from the 4th edition of “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This
Whatever you’re making, make it way better than it has to be.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe the operative element is subliminal; not subliminal advertising the way Vance Packard complained about in his conspiracy book The Hidden Persuaders. No, the operative element we’re talking about here is subliminal quality. The very word sublime helps explain my point. “Limen” is Latin for threshold. Below the threshold of awareness. We’re talking about baking quality so far into a thing that people who look at it perceive this quality subconsciously. They know they’re looking at something of quality before they’re even conscious of it because when a thing is made way better than it has to be its quality comes off of it in waves.
What a fantastic concept: subliminal quality.
This extra effort is how all of life’s pursuits are turned into art; yes, even advertising. An old man from Bali once patiently explained to an anthropologist studying his culture: “We have no ‘art.’ We do everything as well as possible.”
via heywhipple.com
Agency IP, are we there yet? - Cat: Creativity and Technology
/Taking a cue from Google's "20% rule" under which employees focus a fifth of their time, or one day per week, on side projects as a way to take full advantage of their staff's skills, many agencies are learning that in the new advertising and marketing economy, it's a shame to let all the talent and creativity they command to be directed solely toward creating for the client.
At last week's Creativity and Technology conference, Ad Age's Kunur Patel sat down with Chris Vance, Managing Director of Zag, BBH's IP subsidiary; Ed Brojerdi, Chief Creative Officer at kbs+p and their own IP group, Spies & Assassins; and Michael Lebowitz, CEO of Big Spaceship, to discuss the different models their agencies have adopted for channeling that energy into generating their own intellectual property, and with it, new revenue sources, operating models, and a portfolio of innovative work to expand their expertise and client offerings.