Privyet Comrade!

So I've been to St. Petersburg in the last week and been very impressed with how much the USSR loved the old 6 sheet and obviously had some good copywriters. Some classics:

'Vodka is your enemy. Your passbook is your friend';

or 'Let's have the proletarian parks of culture and rest';

or my personal favourite:

'Smoking is expensive and dangerous for health and work'. (Who needs Nick O Teen?)

And now I'm incredibly aware of a bit of an onslaught of Russian Iconography and sloganeering in some recent advertising ideas.

Pizza Hut came out recently with their 'Seize Your Lunchtime' campaign. (I won't call it an idea ... lazy, lazy planning with no real insight, I'm afraid)

And probably more in tune with a call for a popularist uprising is Ask with their Information Revolution / Anti Google campaign. Greg has commented on this elsewhere, and I agree with his views that the execution could have been less corporate, especially on the website.

However, (unlike Pizza Hut) this feels like an idea that might actually be connected with a genuine insight - that some people have concerns about the ubiquity of Google, have a desire to be different, and are looking for an 'underground' movement to be part of. I'm looking forward to seeing if the campaign is working and how it will develop.

The challenge for Ask is that (as I've commented before elsewhere) the Internet is as close to the proles seizing the means of production anyway, and Google are at the forefront of giving the power to the people already.

My worry is that Ask will see a spike in traffic, but with a lack of genuinely different & innovative new products, those defectors will rapidly go back to the not-too-evil-ones.

The truth is out there?

Just watched an hour or so of Al Gore's current tv (229 on the Sky+ EPG.)

1. Video documentary of Pakistani and Indian people coming together as friends and family - pleading for their national governments to stop their nuclear ams race
2. Demonstration of ecologically-sound bicycle networks in East London
3. An project from teenagers in the UK to stamp out Marijuana growth and use amongst their peers
4. A video diary of an Iranian teenager visiting the wonders of America for the first time

Ah, the democracy of user generated content....

Rubbish designs

Rubbish. Every UK household produces over 1 tonne of it annually. And the stuff in our rubbish bins could power 5,000 hours of television every year. (does Audi TV have that much content?)

Ethical consumerism seems to be all the rage at the moment. Blogging ahoy after Channel 4's attack on Global Warming.... Gordon Brown has started getting the tube, and UK political parties square up to a 'green-off'. (I'm sure their intentions are genuine, and not a ruse to reel in the floating voter. Not that I'm cynical or anything...)

Enough about politics, let's talk design!

Enlightened sections of the design industry are considering and incorporating social and environment externalities into sustainable design solutions. They're thinking: 'What is the true 'cost' from cradle to cradle?' (In other words the energy and resources used and the social impact to make something, distribute and sell it, use it - and recycle it to make something new.)

Today I went to the [re]design exhibition at the Bluebird Cafe in London. This exhibition shows work from 17 innovative British designers who are bringing sustainability into contemporary design. Chairs made of old plastic and supermarket cardboard, a bench made from old Euro bins, trainers made from old rubber and clothes, blinds made from old signs (my favourite), lamps made from old bottles. All made using sustainable processes.

A really fascinating piece was a bench made of old supermarket cardboard packaging from a chap called Jason Ifkahar. It seems he actually has an arrangement with Sainsbury's to use their waste in his designs, and they're looking for ways in which production levels could be increased.

Now, I haven't heard Sainsbury's talking about this - but this seems to be really positive CSR from an organisation doing something proactive, innovative and actually quite cool.

(Rather than green-washing a tired loyalty scheme, like some other supermarkets we could mention)

Herd Abstinence

With the public smoking ban in force in July, over 2M people are going to try and give up smoking today for national no smoking day

Current stats say that about 85K people normally quit on this day each year, so this represents a massive increase in people who are going to try.

Stats for Ireland, seem to show a decrease in respiratory illness and some evidence for decreased cigarette sales.

But there is little evidence of the Government planning for a decrease in tax revenue from tobacco sales over the next few years. (but if anyone knows differently, please correct me!)

So top-down legislation is what was required all along? Or is the timing perfect that legislation has met a powerful group or herd mentality to quit? Or will people will find clever little work arounds (like your favourite pub becoming members only, or possible installing one of these)

Will we actually become a healthier nation?

I won't hold my breath. I'm off to rehab, thank you very much.

This Blog is not taking place

It seems that the spectacle of this blog is already much more important than the reality of it....

People have been talking about it for a while. I've been talking about it for, oh, nearly a year.

And now, as it goes through a difficult birth (and premature - thanks Doug), it's already undergone a few christenings, changes of clothes and is having a pre-school identity crisis - defined by the spectacle of what others think it ought to be, before it has uttered it's first few words to become a reality.

So why these mixed metaphors? Well, I read with great sadness at the passing away of one my heroes last week - Jean Baudrillard. Controversial in his writing, he is perhaps most infamously known for his writings on the first Gulf War (it won't take place, it is not taking place, it did not take place) and essays on the twin towers 9/11, where he described the horrors as 'a fusion of history, symbolism and dark fantasy - the mother of all events'.

I'm not going to deconstruct his arguments, primarily as they have been examined beforehand by excellent scholars more qualified than I. However it seems strange to me that I picked up the 'Gulf War did not take place' only a few weeks ago, and he then goes and dies.

I had decided to re-read this book, not because of a particular interest in the Gulf War, but because recent thought on brands (e.g. Grant's view on brands as molecules of real, authentic ideas) seemingly goes against Baudrillard's central thought that the spectacle (i.e. people's perceptions, influenced by media commentary) is becoming more important than the reality (i.e. what is really going on).

[Ok - Baudrillard's argument on the Gulf War, was that it was entirely constructed through the media for the purposes of both the West and Sadaam; the 'war' was won before it started and did not involve proper conflict - so how could it be called a war?; and it took place mainly on CNN rather than in the Gulf]

So, in our 21st century, Internet-dominant, convergent world, Baudrillard is surely wrong. We are no longer at the mercy of what the behemoth media companies want to tell us about the world as spectacle. We can check out real-time live feeds and blogs for the 'reality' - as we have seen in blogs from the front line for the Iraqi 'war'.

But as Henry Jenkins has succinctly argued, our culture is necessarily an interplay between the large media players and those who wish to participate. And listening to Al Gore on the radio this morning, Current TV, (for all of it's 'democratic' intentions of participatory culture and user generated content), has a 'review panel' of people who decide what is interesting / acceptable for popular consumption. Democratic??

However, surely the best measure of what is interesting / acceptable / influential / authoritative on the Internet and in the blogosphere is the number of links / downloads and views. In other words, popularity.

Does popularity mean reality and truth???!

I think it is dangerous to be swept away by the fantasy that the democratization of the Internet has opened up reality for everyone and swept spectacle under the carpet.

The spectacle has pulled off its greatest trick (again) by convincing the world that it doesn't exist.

I hope Jean is smiling.