I have linked to the “Where the Hell is Matt?” dancing videos before, but I was delighted to see one of them featured on one of my favourite sites, APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day).
This is their comment:
Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth Credit: Matt Harding & Melissa Nixon
Explanation: What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious — few people are able to watch the above video without smiling.
This is a hilarious music video for a song called Toe Jam by the band British Port Authority that includes Fatboy Slim and David Byrne. The song itself is catchy and clever, but the video is awesome. There are about a dozen attractive people in a 70s setting, who remove all their clothes and dance around. Their naughty bits are covered by those black rectangular censor strips. Wait for about a minute into the piece to see the neat stuff they do with those black bars…
BTW, this does have something to do with marketing – this video will go hugely viral and bring attention to a song that would never get radio airplay.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I dispute that the customer is ALWAYS right, and gave a specific example of designers and advertising agencies having to bow to foolish (i.e. wrong) client input. To read that scathingly witty and insightful post, click here. Notice that I cite Razor Creative as an example of a smart design firm.
Then, this weekend, we went camping on Prince Edward Island with our favourite camping pals, the MacDonalds. Dave, the dad, used to run an advertising firm, and we were talking about how it is incredibly frustrating to have to ruin good design by including “minor adjustments” from the client. I told him about a video that I had seen recently that parodies this process. It is very funny because it is so true. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure it would be as funny for someone that hasn’t been through this — they would think it’s too ridiculous to be real. But believe me, this happens every day in corporate culture:
And in an interesting coincidence, after I told Dave about the video and promised to send him a link, Rich Gould, one of the principals of the aforementioned Razor Creative, posted that same video on his blog yesterday, so it wasn’t difficult for me to find for Dave this morning.
As a completely unrelated aside, Dave had the quote of the weekend: we were beset by the worst mosquito infestation I have EVER seen, all weekend; and also got hit with a crazy-heavy monsoon from Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning. I’m talking bouncin’ off the ground rainfall and bugs so thick I killed 6 with one hand-slap to my leg. Now, normally, when it’s pouring rain, the bugs go away and hide, but not this weekend. They were just as bad even when the rain was heaviest. So picture Dave, with his rain poncho giving him a vaguely biblical appearance, gazing up into the heavens, water dripping off him, bugs circling his head, saying, “can’t we at least have our plagues one at a time?!?!”
This photo was taken during one of the brief respites – when God was taunting us by making us believe it was over. Notice the orange Off! can on the table. It was the good stuff – not allowed on kids under 12. It was supposed to last 5 hours – we were reapplying it about every 20 minutes.
brooXmark - Marketing Consultancy by Stephen Brooks 
