Mac in the Produce Aisle

Why Steve Jobs is bigger in Japan than the Hollywood A-list combined.

It’s no secret we’re huge (HUGE) Mac fans. But if there’s one place were fanboy culture is at its most extreme, it has to be Japan.

Case in point: One Japanese Mac fan decided to take both his love of Apple and the term “branding” to literal levels by “tattooing” a crop of Fiji apples with the Apple and iPod logos.

How?

Pretty much the same way sun tattoos work — you slap a sticker before the skin pigments and the shape gets imprinted on it. Because apples get their pigment from sunlight as they ripen, the Apple enthusiast just stickered them a month before the harvest…

… and just waited for nature to run its due course.

Well, it seems like Steve Jobs has out-big-in-Japanned any Hollywood celebrity. Jack Bauer can endorse all the low-cal drinks he wants, but we don’t see his image and likeness on any produce, now do we?

via Gizmodo

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Starving Artist No More

Why da Vinci is rolling in his grave and thinking about peperoni pizza.

Oh, the wonders of Russian art. The great novelists. The great playwrights. The great poets. And, now, the great sausage artists.

That’s right, Russian art is branching out into the edible category with packaged meat art. See some of the great masterpieces reenvisioned with an eye for, well, the stomach.

So much for the starving artist stereotype.

And while nothing about packaged farm animal carcasses screams high culture to us, it does appear to be a thing of the bourgeois — let’s not forget that when the Titanic sank, there were 3,000 tons of ham onboard. (We’ve always wanted to throw something in from our new favorite timesuck, Unnecessary Knowledge.)

via English Russia

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Creative Clockwork

What Flavor Flav, wildlife preservation and Dali have in common.

We love clocks. And we love creative communication that technically falls within the advertising industry, but is actually oh-so-much-more. Today, we look at five supremely creative executions involving clocks.

UNIVERSITY OF GENT: DARE TO THINK

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Brussels
Creative Director: Jan Teulingkx

Brilliantly captures the very point of a liberal arts education: Studying the traditional and universal, then challenging it.

HAMBURG DALI EXHIBITION

Agency: Jung von Matt, Hamburg
Creative Director: Deneke von Weltzien

To bring the great artist to life, Hamburg agency Jung von Matt replaced a number of public clocks with the iconic melted Dali clock for the duration of the exhibition.

WWF: IT’S TIME TO SAVE THEM

Agency: Asatsu Thailand, Bangkok
Art Director: Romerun Chueawongprom

The recognizable WWF logo, reconceived with a new sense of urgency. So simple, but it gets the point across so powerfully

LG TIME MACHINE TV

Agency: Y&R, Dubai
Creative Directors: Shahir Ahmed, Guilherme Rangel

Creative visual translation of the basic product proposition: 24-hour live recording that makes TV run on your own time.

VOLKSWAGEN: CUCKOO CLOCK

Agency: DDB, Berlin
Creative Directors: Bert Peulecke, Amir Kassaei, Stefan Schulte

Knocking down knock-off culture one hum-drum old couple at a time. Winner at the New York Television & Radio Advertising Festival.