No man can serve two masters

We are all monkeys

Brilliant example of the power of a committed minority. Thanks @herdmeister

Amazing tilt-shift video effect

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Rob wants to give you a high five

My mate Ben on Primrose Hill

Photo published on the Telegraph website

Ryanair is a great brand, discuss

I had a fantastic chat the other week with an ex-client of mine and the boys from we are social about whether or not Ryanair was a brilliant brand. Everyone said they are arseholes, and to be honest I do not disagree one bit. Instead, and perhaps controversially, I feel that being an arsehole is a fundamental part of their incredibly successful brand personality.

Everything they do or say is set up to give across the impression that they will do anything they can to save money. From the fact that they have the cheapest aircraft interiors, tackiest colours, the seats don't recline and they charge for luggage. Famously, if there is any problem with the flight, all the airline staff have been reported to disappear, leaving the abandoned passengers to work out what to do next.

In Dublin airport, they actually have a poster from a legal firm near the Ryanair desk explaining what your rights are, and giving you a number to call for more information and legal advice, presumably because there are so many customers who would have cause to use such a service.

All of these things make you think "these are some people who really care about how they can save a few quid".

Their brand attributes I guess could be summarised as canny, smart, cheap, money grubbing

This is an incredibly successful business model. Ryanair is one of the only airlines that actually turns a profit. I think the key to it is that people by and large are not introspective. They don't think that they will avail themselves of a five pound sandwich, or need to bring more than one piece of hand luggage. They laugh at the other chumps who fall foul of these rules, but they are smart, they won't be sucked in.

Yesterday they pulled a blinder. On the day they posted their first quarterly loss in recent memory, they made an announcement that they intended to charge £30 for any duty free that is not put inside the single item of hand baggage. This sent the Guardian readers in apoplexy. It was a good idea as it deflected attention from the business performance, and played again the familiar cheapness script.

Remember we ought to be, mentally at least, giving ourselves piles if we're trying to sell preparation H, and the readers of the Guardian are unlikely to be the heartland demographic that Michael O'Leary is trying to attract

Corporate identity
This logo looks like it cost about £750 to put together. I am sure that is exactly the effect they are after. Also, if you look on Google images, you can see that the logo itself changes about once a fortnight. They are too cheap to even have any guidelines made up. If ever they get a new temp in to put the next ad campaign, they just do what they feel.

Customer experience: This is like the inside of a big dirty bus. I would not be surprised if there was chewing gum on the underside of every one of these seats. There is no way anyone is going to nick or crease one of their safety cards either:

For Chrissakes they even have calendar girls

Website: this screams at me that this is the airline equivalent of PoundStretcher. Every fibre of its being says cheapness, and this is very clever.

Michael O'Leary himself even plays his part. He is not a stupid man by any means and his japesterish tactics and unapologetic style ties in with the whole brand framework.

I would be curious to know if they had any help with any of this work or if they really did do it all themselves. I doubt any agency would includes something like this on its portfolio, but in my opinion you cannot deny it is successful. I wonder who worked on it because looking this cheap probably costs a lot of money.

The door to hell is in Turkmenistan

Thirty five years ago scientists uncovered a massive cave filled with p flammable poisonous gas. So they did what any right thinking scientist would do and set fire to it. Today it still burns. Now that is cool.

Via slightlywarped.com and stumbleupon

Also - this video on Youtube

DHL web tracking ads on vans

Copy below reads:

The 'mobile' on-ground communication makes clever use of a large silhouette of a computer cursor installed on a fleet of DHL's runner vans, which shuttles around the Beijing's Central Business District to announce DHLs 24-7 online tracking attribute.

This simple stunt / live activity had effectively resulted in an apparent drop in parcel enquiry recorded by the DHL phone tracking system while online tracking click counters surged.

with thanks to I believe in advertising

Ikea in Japan: interior decorating a train

Via pinktentacle

The cow-whisperer

Classic quote - "we want sheep to speak English, we want cows to speak English, we want goats to speak English, rather than us learning to speak cow, sheep and goat". Well, yes when you put it that way, I suppose we do.

From the press release:

We demonstrate autonomous management of free-ranging livestock by manipulating individual as well as group behavior using intelligent sensor and actuator boxes without producing any noticeable signs of stress to the animals. Whereas herding is the classical method of animal control, wire fences are used today in most developed countries. Although wire fencing is effective for animal control, it is costly to build and maintain and does not foster flexible management, which is a key for spatially and temporally dynamic plants and animals. Autonomous animal management presents two challenges: first, algorithms must be developed for calculating desired trajectories for the animal’s movement that satisfy both plant as well as animal ecology. Second, hardware is required that is robust, reliable and safe for the animals to wear for extended periods without human intervention.

This video depicts preliminary research into autonomous gathering of cows by melding electronics with animal behavior to accomplish control of cattle using a group of four mature crossbred beef cows on the Jornada Experimental Range (JER) operated by the US Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service (ARS-JER).  

Genius

The big freeze, Grand Central, NY

207 'agents' freeze in place for five minutes at the appointed time at Grand Central Station New York City. www.improveverywhere.com