NORTHERN PLANNER

David Hasslehof’s ‘Night Rocker’.

Apparently it helped bring down the Berlin wall.

"Leaving things up to the consumers’ imagination is something you never want to do.Customers are dangerous, and if you let them decide how they want to be satisfied, you’re going to have a terrible time living up to their dreams. It’s better if you can control the promise and delivery"

Sergio Zyman, Head of Marketing, Coca Cola

" Let go of the fallacy that your brand belongs to you. It belongs to the market"

Alex Wipperfurth

"Why choose? Work together, give everybody input""

Northern Planner

Pitching next week against some big network agencies. I don’t suppose I’ve any right to be amongst such company. Perhaps I should work on being slick, cool, charming and urbane? Nah, I’ll just be myself.

This is by taylorkoa22 on flickr. A joy.

I learned today that 80% of head lice are now immune to common treatments. In a classic case of Darwinism, just like the failing effectiveness of antibiotics, repeated use of the same methods has allowed them to evolve a resistance.

Useful analogy for why you should avoid attempting to bludgeon consumers instead of earning their attention.

By the way, you can still solve the lice problem with the painstaking effort of combing them out.

Here’s a fantastic collection of photographs created using X-ray. Beautiful and not a little bit haunting.

Over at Brand New Gareth Kay has found a New Zealand agency called The Department of Doing, one of the best names I’ve ever heard.I love the fact that their philosophy is about actually getting on with it and making things happen, as opposed to the usual agency ‘ideas’ mantra. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, espescially in the light of choice, but even one great idea is useless if it never sees the never see the light of day. Thank god foraccount handlers.

If you want a short, sharp relevant critique of today’s advertising, take a look at The ad – pit. It’s honest, genuine and totally without ego, everything that Campaign’s Private View isn’t (he dares to give DFS an OK review). Even better, he’s Northern.

They’ve painted frescoes on train station ceilings. It doesn’t feel like interruption, since they’ve worked so hard to get your attention. Does it reinforce ‘Impossible is Nothing’ though?

BT has commissioned itsfuturology department to predict some of the advances that will soon change the world. They may look fanciful, but the experts are adamant they’ll happen. One that stood out was a team of robots beating the england football team by 2051. Here’s a selection from the 2011 predictions:

Tooth regeneration

Return to the high street for personal service

Insect like robots for crop pollination

Chips in packaging to control cooking

Kitchen rage caused by gadgets

Full voice interaction with PC

DNA storage service

Robot gardeners

Computer enhanced dreaming