Now my Orange payments are funding someone's musical road trip.

Oh good. Now some bloke is going round the country having a very nice time at my expense. Great.

I mean, supporting young bands: yes. All for that. But the whole thing is overlaid with this 'I am...' yuck, and the ongoing, 'Look at us, we're just achingly hip and funky and cool and nothing to do with mobile phones at all' branding. They're consistent, anyway.

Sorry. Come November and the end of my interminable Orange contract (assuming my phone lasts that long), I can stop grinding my teeth about them on here.

EA Sports: on the ball

This is just the way it's going, isn't it? EA Sports see a YouTube video by some guy who thought he'd spotted a glitch in their Tiger Woods golf game, and they make an ad in response. With Tiger. And put it up on YouTube. And Neatorama picks it up, and it pops up on my RSS from Neatorama, and I pass it on to you.



Consumers driving advertising. (I'm tempted to say 'calling the shots', but that would be cheesy, wouldn't it?) Brands in a direct dialogue with their fans. Free media for what were once TV ads.

We're through the looking glass here, people.

Brilliant and simple

Via Billboardom, these brilliant posters for Google Video. Thank heavens for very simple, very brilliant, completely engaging ideas like this. Rather than telling you things are wonderful, like the aforementioned VW ad, this simply allows you to make things wonderful for yourself. And soak up the brand in the process, of course. This is the way it should be.

Maybe things are getting better

There's considerable gloom about the environmental situation, of course, but people like this give one equally considerable hope. Great design can be green (and vice versa). An inspiring few minutes.