The Future of Publishing

With all this talk of pay per view news sites coming from places like Camp Murdoch, you can clearly see an industry in turmoil about exactly how to transform audience numbers into cash. It strikes us, that actually the revolution will come from hardware. Hardware that replicates and enhances the reading experience to a point where people are willing to pay for it. Apple almost certainly has this kind of device in the pipeline, with a tablet that makes the Amazon Kindle look like something from WW2. This hardware will just the vehicle for publishers to start to generate profits again, which will in turn entice advertisers...

Here's an interesting video mock up from Bonnier and design heavyweights Berg in London on just how exciting it could be to view content in tablet form. Content that people would be willing to pay for. Mr Murdoch you have a lot to learn from these guys...


Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Top 10 UK Adverts of 00s

Never an easy task, but the Guardian Newspaper in the UK has taken it upon itself to list some of the best TV ads of the last decade... here

Not sure who should get it, but this series certainly come close...

Augmented Awesomeness

Courtesy of friend and co-conspirator Luke at 190 Design in Brussels, here's a really great piece on augmented reality in real life application... amazing stuff... And certainly has a massive future in advertising...

Independiente gets bigger...

Hi everyone,

Very sorry we haven't updated for a while but it's been a crazy busy November, that has led to some great new work coming through the Independiente doors. With our move into Iphone and Facebook application development we've seen massive interest from London. We're now in contract discussions for a London and New York devoted app that will span platforms of Facebook and iPhone as well as online (more news when we're allowed to release it).

We're now in conversation with 2 large scale investment houses as to the possibilities of developing application marketing concepts for their companies across Europe.

We're currently in pitch phase on a Facebook application for a well-known UK brand that if it gets the greenlight will be a huge adventure, and promises to go global due to its interactivity and entertainment value.

We're also in contract discussions to launch a new food and drinks product in Hungary, working on brand creation right through to national advertising... More news when it launches.

Apologies for not releasing more info, but as soon as we can we'll drop more detailed information...

New Guinness Slogan and postioning airing tonight in UK

Moto Guzzi 8 Cylinder

Always trying to resist turning this blog into a homage to Moto Guzzi but sometimes it's difficult... Check out Moto Guzzi 8 Cylinder (yes, you read it right) from 1955... Far too mechanically complex to ever race, it just broke down too much... But beautiful to look at, a feat of engineering, and most of all it creates a noise that makes the hairs on the back of your neck tingle...

BA loses. Time to stick to brand principles

News today that British Airways has again lost cash in their first half results, a whole £292 million pounds of loss. Strikes us that it all once again comes down to customer service and more importantly sticking to brand credentials that made you so successful in the first place. There was a time in the not so distant past that flying BA was a pleasurable experience, one that, dare I say it, actually made the whole process of flying just a little more bearable. Yet with the advent of the low cost carriers such as EasyJet and RyanAir, carriers such as BA began a terrible race to the bottom in order to compete on every level. Now while many passengers on BA may have saved £30 on a short haul flight, they lost all the benefits in the process. A drop in quality on every level, on areas such as food, staff, timings etc is HUGE. From a brand perspective, people began to question why they were bothering, the brand became slowly tainted, losing travellers again and again. Why pay more for the same rubbish you get on RyanAir...

Crap, low rent flights, with overpriced food, plastered with advertising, where you get charged for looking in the wrong direction are the domain of RyanAir et al. They have no interest in service and strangely travellers don't care, because it's cheap bus travel with wings. The brand has never represented anything else, so therefore people aren't disappointed...

There is nothing worse for a consumer than a brand that makes a promise and never keeps it... BA made a promise that their quality would remain high, while their costs were reduced - clearly a promise that could never be kept. The result is their in a terrible limbo between trying to keep up with RyanAir and trying to remain the once great airline they were. But if they focus on this race for the bottom, then RyanAir are always going to win.

Focus on quality, keep the customer happy, stick to your core brand principles, I think we'd all be amazed by how many people come back. Let RyanAir run the cattlesheds...

Twitter Makes Money / Sense for first time

It's been a long time coming, but yesterday Twitter announced that they will be partnering with Google and Bing to provide real time "tweet" results on Google and Bing search results. Many have speculated that this had to happen, as Twitter provides one thing that these two giants don't have: live search. Over the past year it's become clear that search engines, while extremely useful, struggled to provide instant information on events throughout the world...

Now it seems they've realised. And as a result Twitter is finally making some kind of money... Interesting times... More indepth analysis on the Guardian UK Tech section...

Spike Jonze / Pharcyde Classic Music Video

Backwards and awesome from a while back...

Superfreakonomics

Sure many of you came across the brilliant book from a couple of years ago, Freakonomics, written and created by a journalist Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt - a book that eloquently explains some of life's mysteries through economic theory. Seems in the following months they will be releasing the sequel "Superfreakonomics" which should be cracking read. In the meantime, I have since found that they have a blog on the NY Times that looks really interesting... CHECK it...

And on the subject of lager...

One of the greatest beer adverts out of the UK in a while...

Sport Penguin Viral

Not a lot needs to be said here, apart from, digging the flick near the end... Brilliant...

Friday Afternoon Tunes

Nuff said...

British Music - Praise the lord for Manchester

In a sea of X-Factor, Pop Idol it's sometimes hard to answer the question "why is British music so good?" nowadays... But then, a man who is old enough to know better, returns with everything that makes us proud of British musical style... dynamism, attitude, arrogance and overall a sonic awareness that leaves us speechless. God Bless Ian Brown, a man who's been in the business long enough to understand that real quality always shines through...

Is US advertising regulation out to lunch?

In the ongoing debate about climate change there have been many winners and losers, but what could always be said is that with debate, comes an admittance of the problem. Over the past two years the climate change conversation has come to the top of the pile, whether it be admitting the problem or denying it, at least people are talking about it.

So it is with a heavy heart I came across the C02 is Green campaign just recently launched in the US. A campaign launched by a former oil baron who, it seems, believes that C02 is actually GOOD for the environment and that we should pollute as much as possible, even going far as to say that it encourages plant growth.



I guess we should celebrate free speech, everyone should have their say, but this seems far past the mark in terms of factual truth or even beliefs. C02 is a pollutant, it is harmful to humans, and it certainly does not encourage plant growth. Now whether C02 is contributing to climate change is up for debate, but the previous points made are scientific fact.

Now here is the rub: why has the C02 is Green campaign been allowed to broadcast this information on national television in the US. It is simply misinformation and it should be punished... No? Surely that is why we have regulation... Gone are the days of cigarette companies being allowed to advertise that their wares are good for your health. So how its okay to state it for C02?

Exit Microsoft Marketing Hell

And as if by magic, one person improves that God awful Microsoft "advert" with some inventive use of the "beep" noise.

Watch and weep, this is brilliantly simple...

Enter Microsoft Marketing Hell

Just when you thought it was safe to go back online after the rather strange answer to Apple with the I AM A PC campaign, things just got much darker and terrifying. This is NOT a spoof.

Flat Crap - Ikea switches to Verdana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Masters of minimal design, Ikea has made a rather interesting switch recently. As their 2009 catalogue appeared with its usual array of oddly named tables and dubiously constructed wardrobes, it was something else that caught the eye of UK readers... Ikea has switched from good old Futura, to the rather frighteningly bad Verdana font for it's printed material.

For those who don't know, or can't be bothered to read more, choosing Verdana for print is worse than having no font at all. At best it's a screen font, at worst it's an ugly monstrosity that is best left in the offices of Microsoft where it was invented...

To get a feel for just how awful and odd it is check this out: verdana

Maybe next they can redesign their logo in Comic Sans... :(

We Fear Change

Is it me, or have the recent tiny changes made on the Google homepage freaked you out? They've squared the dialogue buttons, and made the text bigger... It's not a lot, but everytime I land on it at the moment, it feels odd. It's such an internet staple, and has changed so little, that any small change makes you feel uncomfortable... I thought I'd hit a hoax site the first time I saw it...

Very Special Film that caught my eye

Something very amazing about this film by NY filmmaker Will Hoffman... Even nicer becuase it hasn't been hijacked to make advertising yet...

El Ganso Online Shop Launched

Independiente is proud to announce the launch of the El Ganso e-commerce facility at shop.elganso.com

The site, a bespoke build for our client, features a feature stacked package of facilities including a fully customisable back end admin facility with image resizing, currency management and adaptable and scalable options as the shop grows bigger.

With so many shop options out there, both us and our clients felt that a bespoke solution provided a simple, easy to use option rather than a "one size fits all" facility you find so often on the web which confuses users with needless options and annoys staff with extra info to complete with uploading content.

Independiente manages and creates all of El Ganso's online facilities. For more info on El Ganso click here

For more details on the site, feel free to drop a mail to alex@helloindependiente.com

Expose the fakery

This one has to be labelled under "why didn't I think of that?" section. Website www.thisbagisfake.com is entirely devote to helping you expose those who wear the less than original bag copies on streets all over the world. Simply print off the handy activist kit, standy and then act when you spot the dummy... Simple and genius...

To download your kit click here

Bad Grannies

Loads to choose from when browsing the site of Pollak Menace, London based Independiente co-conspirators, but these "Bad Grannies" are a personal favourite. Just the thought of seeing one wandering through town makes us chuckle.

Check out their work both commercial and art at www.pollakmenace.com

For info on work that's for sale, let us know and we'll hook you up...

Vintage Motorcycles

Barnabas, Independiente graphic designer and jazz officianado came across these beautiful things online... even if you don't care about old bikes, they're pretty amazing looking things... Top one being a BMW, still don't have an identification on the burgundy monster...

KLF - For Sale

Something of an oddity this one. Was browsing through eBay and came across a rather knackered looking old Triumph motorbike. Innocently clicking the link, I discovered that it is actually Jimmy Cauty's old bike, 1/2 of mental acid house/stadium house/general madness pioneers, KLF. For more on KLF, read this, it's a potted history of their existence including dropping dead sheep on stages at award shows, burning £1,000,000 of their record deal advance, along with other weirdness...

The description of the bike says it all really:

"Historic motorcycle used by the KLF to go to meetings circa 1987-1991. jimmy cauty purchased this bike in 1976,crashed it 8 times, seized the engine twice, and badly maintained it over 3 decades, has been rotting in his garage for 15 years and is totally unroadworthy." On further inspection, you find this is not the only historical KLF item. Back in the days, KLF were predisposed to building some pretty heavyweight soundsystems, many of them built to military spec, under the name of Advanced Acoustic Armaments (see website). So now, on ebay, for reasons only known to Messrs Drummond and Cauty, you buy one of these soundsystems on ebay here. A bit of UK music history at a knock down price.

Ecseri Art for the blind

A trip to one of the best markets in Budapest can reveal lots of great stuff. It's famous for the antiques, great 60s furniture and other oddities... but nothing can prepare you for when you walk round a corner to be presented with this. An airbrushed picture of various US "celebrities" posing with their appropriate drinks or food. What on earth the artist was thinking I have no idea... Snapped for your amusement...

A word to the wise

Courtesy of tee-totaller and all-round moral beacon, Jeremy at Tezla Shoes, this video highlights only too realistically the dangers dabbling with "da 'erbal"... The voice over is particularly sweet, with it's petrifying tale of how one clean living man threw it all away to stay with the "in"crowd...

People Power - this is glorious!

Guys, in a band, flying United Airlines, travelling with their guitars. The airline assure him that it's safe, then the band see the luggage guys chucking the guitars into the plane.

Airline breaks guitar, refuses to compensate, band writes a song about it then gets 4,000,000 hits on youtube.

This is very satisfying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

A victory against lazy PR

Great story here about how supermarket giant Asda in the UK launched the "cheapest" bike in the UK earlier this week - flat pack version that you have to put together yourself. Much to the annoyance of the PR honeys who launched it, it turned out that the ad agency who created the TV advert, er, accidentally fitted the front forks the wrong way for the shoot. Which basically, if used in that way, would turn it into cheapest deathtrap in the UK.

Crap product + Crap advertising + Crap PR = terrible PR nightmare... :)

check the link for the full story...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/23/asda-flat-pack-bicycle-dangerous

Flying MacBook Pro

God knows what it's for, presumably a French postal service... But man does it look great!

Watch the video at:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=adf_1245828170

Dig it.

Porno Placement Issues

Stumbled across this at Budapest Airport a few weeks ago... I had to double take it at first. The sheer frightening incompetence of placing these two shelves together is mind-blowing...

Graveyard of Ambition...

Loving this. A place where great ideas go to die...

http://killedideas.com/

Old Wrigleys promo hoarding

God knows where it's from, how old it is, or why it was there, but this hoarding outside some old cafe in Lake Balaton, Hungary caught my attention. Nicely faded in the sun. Sweet, authentic looking, without even knowing it...

Bread and Butter Berlin

An interesting trip to Berlin last week, to see our founding client, El Ganso's stand at the biggest European clothing trade fair in Europe. A huge event, with many of the best streetwear brands in attendance, with many of the big names on fully closed stands to stop spying eyes checking out the next years trends... The whole show was held in Berlin Templehof, a disused airport in the centre of town, incredible place, great setting.

Always interesting to see how big multi-national brands present themselves a

t these events. With some, despite the economic downturn, seemingly willing to lavish

hundreds of thousands of euros promoting themselves on stands that resembled small towns. Scotch & Soda a great example of this, with a two floor stand, complete with full bar facilities downstairs. Whether this kind of investment pays off when smaller brands like Fred Perry went for much more sedate, is anyone's guess.

Free stuff everywhere, t-shirts and bags galore, along with enough pin badges to sink a battleship. Two points deducted from Bjorn Borg for handing out a badge to me which snapped and cut my wife's arm open in 3 days. Saying that, I didn't get bombarded with the kind of printed material I had expected to receive, but people must have to cut back somewhere... Presumably printers were having a lean year, while badge makers are holidaying in Barbados.

Anyway, there's a few pics from the show (brands didn't like you taking pics on their stands), plus some El Ganso clothes shots...

Welcome to the house of Independiente

Thanks for checking out the the new Independiente blog... Over the coming weeks and months, we'll try to keep it up to date with all that we think is worth talking about.

Coming up: Bread & Butter Berlin review and up in a few days