While I’m waiting on some footage to render, I thought I’d upload a recent video that I did with my good friend, artist Bruno Zabaglio.  Bruno has decided to add video and film to his credentials as an artist.  Based on his concept of missed connections in everyday life, the video, shot in HD, is meant to be played in a perpetual loop.  A special thanks goes to the many kind friends who put miles on their shoes in retakes and enabled us to shoot everything in a day so that we could edit over the weekend.

Bruno and I co-directed and edited the piece, side by side and over the net, working in a truly collaborative fashion that allowed for a quick and successful turn around time.  In fact, the preproduction process took longer than the entire production and post production processes combined (shocking how preproduction makes a world of difference, huh?).  We had a lot of fun and I’m sure that there will be much more from Bruno in the near future.  As we say in the biz, ’stay tuned’.

Tropicana got into a little trouble with it’s packaging redesign recently. I spotted this little gem in an Advertising Age article. It seems everyone hates the design. Well, not everyone, of course. The man in charge of the redesign, Peter Arnell, CEO of Omnicom’s Arnell Group is shown below giving one of the most pretentious defenses of poor design that I’ve seen in quite a while. Follow along with me as we examine his company’s design rationale:

‘Started on a journey’? Are you kidding me? Weren’t you supposed to be doing a package redesign? Its not a journey, its a job. Oh, and if by ‘new & refreshed energy’ you mean ‘faded & bland’, then I guess I’m with you so far, Petester. OK, play the next bite:

Emotionally it was difficult for everyone to grasp? Emotionally? Don’t you mean ‘aesthetically’? OK, at this point, Arnell not only looks a little like Freud, but he’s starting to sound like him as well. This is a cute way of patronizing the consumer while at the same time treating them like children who have been told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. It wasn’t emotionally difficult to grasp anything at all, pal. Your design sucked. End of story.

He also says that he’s fascinated that there was always a picture of an orange on the outside of the carton and not of the product ‘called the juice’. Gee thanks for the clarification Pete. I always thought ‘the product’ was a carton full of rinds, straws and leaves.  You mean to tell me there’s actually juice in there? I’ll be damned. Amazing. Now I am fascinated. Let’s continue:

So this ’strong drive’ to bring the ‘big messaging’ to the front of the box meant replacing an iconic image of an orange, with bold type that says ‘100% Orange’? Ah brilliant. But wait, isn’t there already a brand that packages it’s products this way… I think its called ‘generic’ if I’m not mistaken. Oh and as far as wanting to take the orange and put it somewhere? At this point in your presentation, I couldn’t agree with you more, pal. Play on:

Out of the entire redesign, what this guy really loves is the cap. One would suspect after suffering through his hard sell, that he came up with this particular concept all by himself. Isn’t it wonderful that those who are stricken with arthritis will now have the joy of not only cursing the pharmaceutical bottlers, but Tropicana as well? Hey Pete, if I wanted to squeeze something to get juice… I’d buy a damned orange! But wait, there’s more:

Ah were back in the land of Freud and the emotional, and he reveals that really, its all about the damned faux orange cap. Seriously, with any luck, this guy will by hawking Obama Inaugural plates by the end of the year. You can almost hear his ridiculous analogy start to snap like the cheap elastic on a fat man’s Fruit of the Looms. Really, who does he think he’s kidding? You mean to tell me that for no extra charge, when I open this new carton, I’m going to feel squeezed? Hugged? Even loved? And speaking of love, could this guy stutter any more on his way to the word ‘love’ during his final pitch? I don’t think he was buying what he was selling toward the end. Thankfully, neither did Pepsico, the parent company of Tropicana. They’ve opted to return to the original package design… though they did keep the precious little cap.

I hate Burger King.  I’m not referring to the food mind you, I haven’t eaten there in over 20 years, so I wouldn’t know what is supposedly so ‘king’ about their ‘burgers’.  What I do know is that their advertising over the past 5 to 10 years has been an insipid collection of poor ideas ranging from the utterly pointless to feckless attempts at being weird for the sake of being weird.  I don’t support companies that have poor advertising.  Why encourage them?

Imagine my delight when I saw SNL’s spoof of Burger King’s latest inept attempt at a TV ad campaign, the “Burger King Whopper Virgin” ads.  In my humble opinion, SNL is painting Renoir versions of Burger King’s childish finger paintings.  Brought to you by Creativity Online.  Enjoy.

If you’re confused by the myriad of social networking tools and how it all works, you’ve got to check this guy out. Its the most basic and clear-cut explanation I’ve ever seen. Click here and see for yourself.

Cincinnati has a new blog for local and regional artists. The appropriately named, ‘Cincinnati Artists Blog’ was created by one of the busiest people in my sphere of friends, Bruno Zabaglio. Bruno is currently inviting artists to contribute their works, opinion and thoughts through either writing or comment. Take a moment to check it out and read my first submission. Don’t forget to bookmark the site. From what I gather, it will be constantly evolving.