Robin of Shoreditch: The 100 Brands Project

Robinhooding Subway, or how to make those doing well do good.

Despite the recession, the global economy is a massive force of commerce, shuffling billions of dollars around its ecosystem of goods and services. By comparison, the nonprofit sector — and humanitarian aid in particular — is microscopic. So what if could take a fraction of that fat commmercial mega-budget and allocate it to underfunded good causes? That’s what Robin of Shoreditch, a group of anonymous creative outlaws, is doing with The 100 Brands Project — an effort to take from the rich and give to the poor, or in this case, to the people of Haiti.

It’s a simple, brilliant idea — the team, composed of various ad industry creatives, do what they do best: They offer each company on BrandZ’s 100 brands index a creative idea that could help their business and, in return, they ask for 1/10000000 — that’s one ten-millionth — of the value of that brand as a fee, 100% of which goes to relief efforts in Haiti.

Every Monday morning, the crew released a new idea for one of these A-list brands, including FedEx, Nike and American Express. They then send the brand an actual invoice and hope for the best.

Why go anonymous?

The truth is we’d rather keep our identities secret so not to compromise our ‘normal life’ jobs at various advertising and marketing agencies. We’re creating ideas for the top 100 brands and some of these bring us into conflict with the brands we work on day-in, day-out through our jobs.” ~ “Little John”

None of the 12 companies approached so far have actually paid up, but we think this is a brilliantly innovative take on “corporate social responsibility” and any brand that embraces its incredible potential — to do good but also, perhaps cynically, to generate some solid buzz — would be deserving of an epic hat tip.

You can follow the project’s progress on the team’s blog and keep an eye on Vimeo channel for fresh videos every Monday.

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Google Chrome Speed Tests

What a keytar, an electrocuted boat and an Idaho potato have to do with how fast you surf.

For their latest release of Chrome, which purports to be the fastest browser around, the good folks at Google and BBH decided to test just how fast “fast” was. So they pitted Chrome’s 2700 frames per second against the speeds of more familiar things, things people would expect to be fast — a bullet, a potato, sound waves, lighting.

To test that, the team constructed a series of what closely resembles Rube Goldberg machines, each setting off a series of simultaneous reactions triggering both Chrome and the object it’s being benchmarked against. The results — and the effort that went into them — are beyond impressive.

The potato gun test took 51 takes to get the equipment and the rendering working precisely right — 51 new potatoes, reloads and clean graters. There was a moment when the whole team went quiet as the Tesla Coil was removed from the box for the first time; no one was quite sure exactly what we’d bitten off with that one, and — even with ear defenders — the sound of the Coil as it made it’s first 4.2m volt arcs was extraordinary. For a few seconds no one said a word, then we got to work and set up the experiment. ” ~ Ben Malbon, BBH

What makes the effort interesting, beyond the pure stunt value, is that it demonstrates two increasingly important things: In “measuring” something from computer science through physics, mechanical engineering and photography, the effort epitomizes the fertile cross-pollination of displines; it also illustrates the need for creating a new language for the data age and translating these parameters of digital culture into terms more relevant to and thus comprehensible by humans — something we’ve also seen in the flourishing field of data visualization, which translates alienating, incomprehensible algorithms and numbers into visual representations that humanize the information and make it more digestible.

As recent Chrome converts, we can attest to the browser’s speediness and commend the creative team for contextualizing it so brilliantly. But we must point out that when it comes to your web-browsing experience, browser speed is still a negligible factor compared to actual internet speed — and, we’re sorry to say, using Chrome’s speed-potato on Verizon “high speed internet” is like pouring mashed potatoes through a cocktail straw.

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The Century of the Self

How smoking became cool, or why politicians want your brain for breakfast.

The BBC is known for its shrewd, insightful documentaries and cultural explorations on anything from the life of birds to how art made the world. But one stands out as perhaps the most ambitious, comprehensive and provocative of the bunch.

Written and produced by legendary British documentarian Adam Curtis in 2002, The Century of the Self offers an utterly fascinating four-part probe into the depths of consumerism and democracy. Though it focuses primarily on how those in power have used Freud’s theories to manipulate public opinion and perception, the series delves into the richest and most profound layers of 20th century culture, from the hidden mechanisms of advertising to the civil rights movement to the inner workings of political belief systems — all whilst managing to avoid the trap of conspiracy-theorism with incredible elegance and dexterity.

Mixed throughout the documentary footage are exclusive interviews with cultural influencers, ranging from Edward Bernays, the mastermind of modern Public Relations, to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, by way of Philip Gould and Freud’s infamous daughter, Anna.

The Century of the Self reminds us of Naomi Klein’s No Logo in its relentless investigation of the crafting of consumer culture, with all its whims and whimsy, only layered on top of the complex political, psychological and sociocultural forces that shaped it.

The series consists of four parts — The Happiness Machine, The Engineering of Consent, There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed, and Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering — each an hour long but well-worth the time and thought. UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Hugh Lilly, here’s the series in its entirety from a more recent YouTube upload, since Google Video seems to have taken some of the links down.

And though Google has kindly made all the parts available to stream for free, we suggest you do your personal collection and cultural savvy a favor, and grab a copy of the DVD — settling for flimsy footage and pixelated politicians is no way to take a stance against consumerism.

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