Ending the week with Jagermeister

It's been a fine week here at Open and we're proud to announce we've been chosen to work with the Jagermeister brand in the UK. It's both the world's 9th largest selling spirit brand aswell as the world's 9th fastest growing spirit brand!

We're all very excited about helping this growth continue and perhaps enjoy the odd one or two Jagerbombs along the way.

Open poster

Here's the first glimpse of a forthcoming poster for Open. As you can see it's all about our belief in New and it shows that new ideas can come from anywhere as they spill out into the world! It's a collage and pen doodle piece, created without the assistance of a Mac - Lo-Tech is the new school!

Consumer vs Self!

Isn't it interesting, the nature of extremes?!

Normal is boring as we all know, but we accept normal things more easily. So in turn extremes are now promoted more readily as a defining characteristic of something we accept, which then makes extremes normal. Following this?

So here we are, all normal and happy by our extremes. But creating this polarized world means fractures for the common ground as our opinions become naturally divided: Fast convenient life vs. slow natural living, buy local produce vs. world flavours, travel to experience new cultures vs. don't increase your carbon footprint, read books to embrace literature vs. don't print, enjoy good food vs. strive for size zero ... you get the gist.

As an illustration of this world of contradictions think about drinking water. At the sametime New York City is advertising the benefits of drinking tap water to its residents, the fashion media is encouraging its readers to wash their hair in Tasmanian Natural Rain Water (So pure its never touched the ground!).

The interesting thing about these extremes is that they're not split by generation gaps, or affluence, or social persuasion, but they can all exist within the individual. But don't things feel out of sync? In some ways there seems a natural balance of things that will play out as we realise our 'normal' lives can't meet all our expectations, or will we simply come to accept our contradictions as the norm?

Either way, global culture has a way of fluxing through states of harmony and conflict, the challenge is recognizing the difference between the two.

Wall scribbles

Push me, Pull you.

Does culture create trends, or do trends create culture?

Not an essay subject I promise. Just wanted to put the thought out there.

When I attended the last Trendwatching.com seminar I observed the couple of hundred brand managers & marketeers avidly scribbling notes about the different cleverly named trends being described as potentially something that may be big culturally around the globe.

So a thought dawned. If these folks didn't magnify these small trends through massive media spends would they actually become mass consumer culture anyway?

Whilst it's an easy win to ride on the back of something that has started with opinion formers and scale it up, it's always better to originate.

Braver, riskier sure, but originating something new and bringing it to the world has so much more credibility and scope than becoming a virtual sponsor for it.

So rather than looking at what can be capitalized on what's already out there, the focus should be on genuinely originating cultural innovations.

Okay, it does sound like an essay subject. Discuss.

Paper weights

I've decided to stop going to the gym!

Instead I've simply taken to buying more visual reference books. I can manage about a 100 reps between the book store and the office, then I need a bit of a sit down.

This latest edition to my fitness regime is the beautiful Illusive. It features some of Open's favs like Andrew Rae's work and it's well worth a peak if you can lift it!

Or if you're too lazy to walk it home, I'm sure Amazon will pop a copy on your doorstep.

Talking Shop

Imagine the scenario... Your dinner party host has just set out their signature salmon mousse and the pleasant Teacher you've just met next to you says "So what is it you do for a living?".

You try by starting with a fumbled "Well I work in the area of brand communication". "Oh you work in an Ad agency?" comes the polite response. "Not exactly, it's broader than that, like experiences and ambient and er viral". "Viral you say, what's that?". Erm... er, well it's not just viral actually, it's more experential, ambient, buzz, er... Brand Engagement?!". A vacant look meets yours... "Yeah I work in an Ad agency".

"Oh right, what do you do there?". !

I feel desperately sorry for a client looking for an agency these days. Ad agencies promise to be experts in everything and no one else really knows how the hell to badge themselves.

Edward Bernays founded the term Public Relations in the 1920's something which still makes clear sense to everyone today - good work Eddie. More recently Ty Montague (JWT New York - Co-President Chief Creative Officer) said that new marketing practices are coming out of small agencies that as yet do not have a satisfactory name for what they do. In Campaign last week Carl Johnson of Anomaly said no one in their right mind would open an Ad Agency now, instead referring to their practice of developing intellectual property for brands.

So now there are specialisms within disciplines within services - Confused, you should be!

Add to this the job titles from agency to agency that seem to be made up from meeting to meeting; then not only do you not know what the agency does, you'll have even less an idea about what jobs the folks in agency actually do?

Here at Open, things are a little more simplified - we do ideas!

If you've any questions, please contact our Snr Creative Inspirations Innovator on the office number. Thanks