Paul the octopus makes his prediction.....

The wait is literally over. It may have taken Paul the octopus an hour to decide, but the great eight-legged sage of our times has picked Germany to beat Argentina. Given his extra long deliberation, however, expect the quarter final to go to penalties.

And word in the aquarium is that Advertising Age have just signed him to predict next year's Cannes lion winners. Clearly a step up from Bob Garfield.

World Cup topical ad of the now.

Someone had to do it. But kudos to Specsavers for getting it done. Interestingly, they don't have an advertising agency. All their creative, which is prolific and rather clever, is done in house. So extra kudos.


(Sharing credit to adfreak.com)

Adidas having the last laugh?

That spectacular three minute "Write the future" Nike commercial can now be confined to the ash heap of history. Okay it will come back strongly during next year's advertising award circuit, but today Cristiano Ronaldo, its last surviving protagonist, meekly went the way of the others. Their future has been wrote.

The heroes in Adidas's vastly inferior campaign, on the other hand, are flying high. David Villa, aka "The Blaze" is the joint top scorer, while "The Spark", better known as Lionel Messi is arguably the player of the tournament so far. They go head to head in one of the commercials and will probably do the same for real in the semi-finals.

All is not lost for Nike though. A new spot in the campaign featuring Robinho has just started airing. And while he hasn't exactly set the World Cup alight, his Brazil are ominously starting to look like the last team that will be left standing.

The "Make it Happen" Challenge.

Let's play a special World Cup edition of "Make it Happen", the crowd-sourcing challenge to see if my big ideas can come to fruition thanks to the rich community of creatives, writers, artists, designers, inventors, scientists, architects, pharmacologists, techies, provocateurs, ethicists, military contractors, etc.

MIH Brief 011

OBJECTIVE:

Create the "Unofficial"story behind England's inglorious failure at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Another World Cup passes by for the hapless "Three Lions". It's now 44 years since they brought home the cup. This campaign, though, may be the most dismal yet. They didn't start off on the right foot, actually it was more like two left feet and it ended in total capitulation against ze dreaded Germans.

The inquest has already begun. And over the next few weeks speculation as to what went orribly wrong for the so called "Golden Generation" is bound to grow to a fever pitch. Players may talk, WAGS may talk, even the kit manager may talk, but in truth we will never really know what went down.

So let's take advantage of the English public's insatiable desire to know more and pro-actively create an "embellished" version of events, either through a movie, or documentary or even a book. Why not have more fun at the England team's expense.

THOUGHT STARTERS:

  -  A Guy Ritchie inspired movie, "The Inside Job" could be the answer. When the mafia kidnap Fabio Capello's family he has no option but to meet their demands and make sure England get knocked out of the World Cup. Steve Coogan stars as Fabio Capello, a desperate manager faced with the task of making sure England lose without raising any suspicions. Of course given that England usually do lose, how hard could it really be.
  -  Perhaps a farce, rather than a thriller is more appropriate. Roberto Benigni could turn Fabio Capello into the "Inspector Clouseau" of football mangers in the mindless comedy, "Down and Out of Africa." It would be filled with old and predictable gags like Fabio slipping on a banana peel; Fabio sitting on a whoopee cushion; Fabio being chased by a Rhino; Fabio playing 4-4-2.
  -  A juicy behind the scenes expose from an anonymous WAG might be the answer. "Lion on the Prowl" is the unauthorized documentary of how an "uncontrollable" John Terry seduced all the wives and girlfriends of the England team players, thereby creating tension and disunity in the camp. For example, Wayne Rooney catches Terry in bed with his wife. And when she blames his "lack of performance in bed" for her adultery, an affected Rooney takes his lack performance to the field.
 

MANDATORIES:

  -  David Beckham must be included.
  -  It must end with Harry Redknapp confidently predicting that England will definitely win the next World Cup.

Good luck and make it happen, people!

World Cup fashion highlight of the now.

This one is for all the ladies and dedicated followers of fashion. Here we have Brazilian coach Dunga in a rather snazzy coat. Part trench, part military it's almost as stylish as a Robinho step-over.

Word is that it was designed by his fashion designer daughter. So kudos to pa Dunga for giving his daughter some free advertising.

Brain-teaser Monday.

Unscramble this provocative poster. (Hint: It's for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

Criticism Vitae.

Very funny. Very clever. Kudos to Kent Woodyard for "A Literary Critic Reviews My Resume."

World Cup schill of the now.

Yahoo sports writer Martin Rogers speculates the financial worth of Landon Donavon's injury time goal against Algeria. “It only took a couple of seconds, but it changed Donovan’s life forever,” he quotes a sports economist. He might as well be quoting from Nike's "Write the future" campaign.

Indeed, one has to wonder if Martin hasn't been sponsored by Nike to provide the editorial content part of their campaign. Maybe not, but his post does leave a putrid after taste if you're a big believer in the purity of sports. To breakdown a classically thrilling World Cup moment into its financial implication seems incredibly cynical coming from a so-called sports writer.

Perhaps Mr. Rogers will be shocked to learn that the joyous eruption of celebration from American fans from Bloemfontein to Boston when Donavon scored had absolutely nothing to do with the potential millions that may come his way.

No doubt as we speak he's calculating the millions of euros in revenue lost by the members of the French and Italian soccer teams.

Requiem for Cannavaro.

There won't be any song and dance extravaganzas in Fabio Cannavaro's future. Perhaps a nice death march to accompany his return to Italy.

Stupid gets the Grand Prix.

In light of Diesel's "Be Stupid" campaign getting the Grand Prix nod in the outdoor category at Cannes, I thought it prudent to revisit the campaign.

I'm actually pleased it won, a feeling I would never have imagined experiencing when it first appeared months ago. Back then I thought it was an inane, frivolous piece of work open to the obvious charge, "Of course you have to be stupid to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of jeans!"

So why the change of heart? What I've come to realize in the time since the campaign debuted is that the folks at Anomaly/NY and Diesel were far-sighted to enough to see that "stupid" has cultural resonance like never before. And so they cheekily made a virtue out of it.

For starters, they understood that stupid is the antidote to smart. And smarty hasn't been doing too well lately. Take the two major crisis of the last couple of years, the financial meltdown and the oil spill in the gulf.

The financial crisis in large part was a direct result of smart people getting way ahead of the game. Left to their own devices they conceived complex products that only a few could understand. In other words, smart unregulated leads to very bad things.

Conversely, the mess in the gulf, so far, hasn't been solved despite the smartest minds working on it. It's become so desperate that advertising agencies and actors are grasping for straws. Smart can't solve everything.

And it doesn't stop there. Cars may be smart but most still have negative impacts on the environment. Phones may be smarter, but they haven't made our lives easier. Rather they deluge us with excess information that distracts and interrupts. Bombs may be smarter but we're no closer to finding a smarter peace.

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