TBWA\PAPERwww.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

Report by Helen Davies Planner, TBWA\Manchester

When Woolworths first opened in New York in 1879, it was founded on a clear idea – the Victorian equivalent of the £1 shop, selling everything from stationery to dish cloths for just five cents.

In its 99 years of existence, millions of UK consumers ‘popped into Woolies’ for e lectr ics , haberdashery, entertainment, stationery and clothes amongst other everyday essentials. Regarded with affection, its perceptible lack of direction lent

it a certain old-fashioned charm. In January, the final 200 stores closed leaving 27,000 people unemployed and £385 million’s worth of debt. It wasn’t alone: last year in the UK, 54 retail chains, employing 74,539 people, went into administration.

Undoubtedly, times are hard for the retailers, the ‘middle men’ of the economy, who not only have to stock and sell the products we want to purchase, but also have to persuade us to buy from them rather than anyone else.

And herein lies the key to Woolworths’ demise. It

was a ‘traditional’ retailer, concerned with the day-to-day running. Failing to use its retail experience and identity to innovate were key factors in its downfall. Year after year, the amount of products Woolworths’ sold appeared to grow, with no clear indication of what role the brand occupied in consumers’ lives.

Whilst other retailers were busy carving out a role for themselves and developing an offer around this, Woolworths barely changed. IKEA democratised design,

Waterstone’s encouraged us to think of reading in a new light, Ebay created an online marketplace and Sainsbury’s championed new experiences - each one of them appropriating a piece of the cultural landscape. Consumers flocked to the brands that had a story to tell and Woolworths was not one of them.

The recession has acted as a great leveller and retailers that promise to emerge intact or stronger are using the classic retail principles of innovation and operational response to in-

troduce new products and pro-motions that reflect changing consumer behaviours and add value. A strong brand idea gal-vanises the business and gives consumers confidence in what it can deliver, both of which are essential in current times.

I passed by Woolworths last week, surprised to find myself saddened that the familiar store front had indeed disappeared. In its place was a retailer with a pretty clear idea of what it stands for… a pound shop…bit-ter irony for Woolworths and a lesson in retailing for us all.

Taking the campaign to the road: Original Source to sponsor Mountain Mayhem.RACING SPIRITS

RANKIN LIVE!

Have you got a look that defines our time? On the quest to document the style of Britons in 2009, the world famous photographer Rankin, is after participants for his live and interactive exhibition concept, which will be hosted at London’s Truman Brewery in August. The lucky 1,000 selected from the open-call will be invited to attend the event, where through the use of cutting-edge technology, Rankin will shoot and instantly print each personal portrait to be hung at the museum-scale event. Each portrait will cost £50 and all profits will go to Oxfam. Rankin is seeking people aged 13 and over, with a distinctive style, sense of British eccentricity and enthusiasm – the only stipulation is to dress to impress! To take part, submit a photo of yourself with an explanation of your look to rankinlive@rankin.co.uk

NOW THENNew fashion label by

Liam Gallagher.Intrigued by the news that Liam Gallagher has designed a clothing range with classics including a nice jumper, smart shoes, trench coat and not disappointingly, a parka too, Pretty Green apparently encapsulates the style and swagger of the Oasis frontman. Talking on the strictly ‘limited edition’ collection, here is what Liam has to say, “I’m not into any skinny look. Them pointy shoes, I’m not into them, you know, those shoes that come at you like a fucking snooker cue … you should have a licence for them bastards.”

Pretty Green members will be invited to an exclusive online

pre-sell before the official launch in June.

Think like a brand, act like a retailer… Survival strategies for the downturn

Running (or in this case, you could say riding) with the notion of marketers stepping into consumers’ lives and taking a more intimate moment with them, Original Source is to be the new title sponsor for the world’s biggest 24-hour mountain bike endurance event, Mountain Mayhem. A three-year sponsorship that launches in June, the now-named Original Source Mountain Mayhem, will target the brand’s core audience of “those who love intense experiences.”

Employing the knack of engaging with the audience using relevant, memorable, interactive and emotional experiences instead of taking a traditional advertising route, the idea is that if one person has a positive moment with a brand, then they will go and tell some more.

From Innocent Drinks’ Fruitstock music festival and its new Village Fete event to the Canderel Style Cafe where shoppers enjoy beauty treatments while eating fruit and yoghurt sprinkled with the low-calorie sweetener: like many companies Original Source knows it can no longer rely on interrupting our lives with advertising.

“Expect surprises, excitement and one of the best

Mountain Mayhems to date”

Celebrating its twelfth year, the upcoming Original Source

Mountain Mayhem event is set to be the biggest to date with 2,500 competitors, which is made up from 450 teams and 150 soloists all being watched by 15,000 spectators and supporters.

Held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle Deer Park in the heart of the Malvern Hills, the nine-mile course is designed to be testing and rewarding for all levels of bikers, from plucky have-a-go riders through to Olympians.

“As one of the UK’s most exciting 24-hour endurance races, outsold year after year, it’s the place to be for extreme sports enthusiasts who crave action and adrenalin,” says CEO of TBWA\Manchester, Fergus McCallum.

“As Original Source’s key audience, it gives Original Source and TBWA\Manchester the opportunity to create the ultimate brand experience for

all attendees, be they riders or spectators.”

Talking about the sponsorship, Nigel Wolstenholme, Senior Brand Manager at Original Source, commented, “This is the perfect fit for Original Source. We’re getting the brand involved in what its users naturally love to do. It also makes sense for Original Source washing products to have a presence at one of the muddiest and most intense events in the UK.”

The sponsorship, negotiated by Central Focus, will see the creation of the ultimate Original Source experience. TBWA\Manchester and MEC Access Manchester will be responsible for Original Source’s entire presence at the festival-style event that aims to appeal to both riders and non-riders, on and off the track. Activity will be supported by a full PR campaign headed up by TBWA\ sister agency, Staniforth.

Patrick Adams, of Pacific Edge Events, owners and organisers of Mountain Mayhem said, “Given the type of brand that Original Source is, it’s not only a great match for Mountain Mayhem, but also opens up a realm of exciting possibilities for what we do this year.”

The event will take place in June 2009, with a limited number of applications available. www.osmountainmayhem.co.uk

RETAIL VALUES

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www.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

CreditsEditor Claire Binghamclaire@clairebingham.com

Managing Editor Dani Briersdani.briers@tbwamanchester.co.uk

PR and Events Manager Liz Dewhurstliz.dewhurst@tbwamanchester.co.uk

Art Director Daniel Bickertondaniel.bickerton@tbwamanchester.co.uk

Editorial AssistantKate Nicolikate.nicoli@tbwamanchester.co.uk

With thanks to: Martin Raymond, The Future Laboratory, Martin Parr and all forum contributors.

TBWA\Manchester is part of TBWA\Worldwide. TBWA\ is one of the fastest-growing networks in the Top-Ten, and has been named by ADWEEK as Global Agency Network of the Year 2008.

TBWA\Worldwide is part of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC)(www.omnicomgroup.com), a leading global marketing and corporate communications company.

TBWA\PAPER is made possible by the generous contribution in time and resources of account handlers, writers, designers, photographers and printers. Printing and colour reproduction by E-GRAPHICS.

All paper used in the production of this newspaper is from 100% recycled sources.

‘Lotus’ by Zaha Hadid Architects

TBWA\PAPER

WORKS WHERE IT HURTS

SSL International launches new campaign for Tiger Balm to target extreme sport enthusiasts

Considered a necessity by many, the iconic Tiger Balm brand is on a mission to express its unique attributes and origins with a new TV and online campaign.

Launched early 2009, the campaign developed by TBWA\Manchester’s creatives, Adam Richardson and Becci Tyrrell, unveiled three sets of 15” and 5” TV idents, sponsoring extreme sport programmes on SKY. A revamped website, also produced by the TBWA\Manchester team, was launched to coincide with the campaign.

Explaining the concept behind the new campaign, Katy Oliver, OTC Brand Manager at SSL International says, “Whilst pushing its uses and the awareness of the brand, we also wanted to highlight the brand’s unique eastern origins and its authentic ingredients. This is the start of an exciting new era.”

Capturing the adrenalin, concentration, exertion and over-exertion of people pushing their physical abilities to the limit in various extreme sport scenarios, the TV idents run with the line - ‘Works where it hurts’ – and unveil the brand’s appreciation of the lengths that sport enthusiasts will go to. It

also aims to familiarise those unacquainted with the ache and pain relieving qualities of the Tiger Balm red and white varieties, reassuring them that Tiger Balm will be there on the strenuous journey to help take the grrrrr out of pain.

The website takes visitors through the brand’s origins, its ingredients and their benefits, how the brand is now used by millions in nearly 100 countries and its pledge to endangered tigers.

“We are confident that this exciting new campaign will draw consumers attentions to the uniqueness of the brand and they will stay loyal because it really does work where it hurts,” continues Katy. “The campaign pushes awareness of Tiger Balm’s capabilities and draws on its eastern heritage, whilst maintaining its appeal to the modern world.”

Fergus McCallum, CEO at TBWA\Manchester, adds: “Tiger Balm understands the mindset of this unique audience. The brand doesn’t just present itself as a problem cure, but rather as a way of life that allows people who want to live life to the full to do what they love most.”

The TV campaign is due to run for nine months, with the idents sponsoring Wild Spirits and Sports Unlimited, both on Sky Sports Extreme.

Premiered in the UK during April to sell-out screenings, the new Gary Hustwit film, Objectified, delves into the world of industrial design, exploring the relationships people have with manufactured objects, and by extension, the people who design them. Through in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. Taking the topic from the film and to the floor, here are some fellow Objectifiers’ thoughts…

“Sustainability isn’t just sort of a glamorous process of using recycled materials to design something that may or may not be the colour green. It’s about redesigning every single aspect of a company’s process, from

sourcing materials to designing, to production, to shipping, and then eventually designing a way for those products to be disposed of responsibly. That’s a mammoth task, so it’s no wonder that designers and manufacturers are finding it so difficult.” Alice Rawsthorn.

“Probably the thing that irks me the most [in car design] is when I see this repetition of the known, because it shows people have comfort zones that are too tight to themselves and they’re really afraid to walk out of those. And then somebody comes up with a new idea, and then everybody follows that because their comfort zone has been expanded. The work that we’ve done in the last ten years has been about expanding those comfort zones.” Chris Bangle.

“Nowadays the term

‘interaction design’ mainly refers to software or the screen, intangible components. But the way I think about it, designing hardware, things that we can touch, solid objects, is all interaction design. People tend to think of interaction design for mobile phones as talking and pushing buttons, but I think of having the phone in your pocket, or having it in your hands while talking, as interaction design, since it’s a part of the communication. Touching an object without thinking means that your fingers are interacting with something.” Naoto Fukasawa.

“Bad design is where the customer thinks it’s their fault that something doesn’t work. So if you can’t make your GPS device work in your car — I mean, there should be a

riot because they’re so poorly designed! Instead, the user thinks, ‘Oh, I’m not very smart, I can’t make this GPS thing work.’ People should demand more from the things they own, they need to demand that things work.” David Kelly, IDEO.

“If the average shelf life of a high-tech object is less than 11 months, why on Earth does anything have to be built to be permanent? It should be all 100% disposable. You know, I think my laptop should be made of cardboard, or my mobile phone could be a piece of cardboard, or it could just be made out of something like sugarcane or bioplastic.” Karim Rashid.

“I wish people would be more critical of design, and of designers, who are responsible for designing some pretty nasty stuff.” Marc Newson.

Leading the way in a new generation of online music, Spotify is a music streaming programme, which allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with virtually no buffering delay. Created by two Swedish entrepreneurs, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, the hugely popular site is now opened up to the whole of the UK and here are the reasons why we like it:

1. Rather than buying music, users can fill playlists with songs of their choosing or create “collaborative” playlists which have their own web address and so can be passed around and added to by others.

2. Because it works over the internet, whereas iTunes is specific to one computer, when you create a playlist on your

work computer your computer at home will pick it up too.

3. The difference from listening to tracks on YouTube is it has instant high quality streaming so when you fast forward to the next track, there’s no waiting time.

4. It makes instantly listening to music easier than downloading it illegally. Although you can’t keep the tracks you hear, there are no restrictions on how many times you can listen to one track, so there is less incentive to download anyway.

5. What we really love is when you search on an artist, it lists all the tracks ever recorded by them in chronological order along with a list of compilations where the tracks appear, so you can learn about new artists too.

CONTACTS

OBJECTIFIEDWhat we’re watching

5 reasons to love SPOTIFY

www.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

Report by Martin RaymondDirector, The Future Laboratory

At this very moment, the economy, the environment, science and technology, and the global balance of power are undergoing massive shifts. At the Future Laboratory, we have called it cataclysmic change, a shift so radical we now have to think the unthinkable as a matter of course. In a world where everything is changing, businesses that can’t or won’t change are set to wither and die, according to cataclysmic change experts such as Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

And he’s not alone. Adam Gordon, author of Future Savvy cannot deny the momentum either: “Obama’s election, the cracking of the human genome project, the end of fossil fuels … the list goes on. There are a whole range of indicators around us today that point to the sudden, massive change ahead.”

The point these key thinkers are making is that cataclysmic change is going to occur as the result of economic, environmental, societal, biological, political and scientific stresses because they are happening simultaneously and they’re happening now, Taleb says,

“Globalisation creates interlocking fragility, while

reducing volatility and giving the appearance

of stability.”

He explains that when a company cancels its Christmas order in the USA, this could well lead to the factory going bust in China, in turn leading to a host of repercussions that would ensue locally from such an event.

The message we need to embrace: it’s this interconnectivity that means that change spreads fast. It is important to understand your position in the global network; to understand it, map it, pace it, and to at least be able to envisage the consequences of even the smallest and most seemingly inconsequential decision.

Change happens, but we tend to resist it until it is too late to reverse its impact. Climate change doesn’t just affect the weather, it is a catalyst for the systematic breakdown of globalisation, economy, politics and society, says Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilisation. According to the Global Carbon Project, the quantity of carbon dioxide emissions has grown four times faster since 2000 than during the 90s. Oil and gas demand will exceed supply within the next seven years.

In science and technology, there is evidence of exponential growth. Processing speed and

memory power are more than doubling every two years. “There are more scientists alive today than at any point in our history,” says Juan Enriquez, CEO of life sciences research and investment firm Biotechonomy and founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project.

“It’s no wonder discoveries are happening at an accelerated rate.”

Despite the racing progress emerging from the science labs, it has taken a global financial crisis to get people to look up and listen to change ambassadors such as Taleb, Homer-Dixon, Enriquez and Ismail. Why? Because it’s easier to just look down and keep doing what you’ve always done.

Over the past five years, Spencer Stuart has documented the innovation strategies of 25 organisations in multiple industries and countries. Researchers found that companies are an incubator for staff who simply replicate those above them rather than innovating. “Rising stars realise that to be promoted, they need to mirror incumbent leaders,” Cohn, Katzenbach and Vlak wrote. “Even when stellar external talent comes in, it is frequently drawn into the same anti-innovation culture that has been squelching internal talent.”

Collectively, what the above forces are showing us is that we are going to a new place and we will have to manage the change using the tools we have long since been suspicious of: imagination, creativity, dreaming, storytelling, fantasy. “We don’t want to be in denial and try to take things back to the way they were,” Homer-Dixon warns, “because that world has gone.” For a certain period, we will consume the backlog of products that have been produced. But once that global inventory has dried up, it will be time to start producing once more.

So what does this mean to the world of tomorrow, and the brands, services and ideas we will need to find there? For one, if we carry on the way we have been, businesses will go bust. Luckily, the art of the CEO is being redefined: a more lateral approach to business savvy is already being adopted in management programmes that are increasingly looking to design and Dreamtelligence skills and processes to come up with innovative solutions to business problems.

Cultivating a new breed of designer, too, is at the heart of Bruce Mau’s Institute Without Boundaries in Toronto. Its aim is to produce a new breed of designer who is, in the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, a ‘synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist’. Graduates of these institutions

will be the freethinking CEOs of tomorrow. “It’s an obvious move,” Wired UK editor David Rowan tells us, “Look at Jonathan Ive [senior vice president of industrial design at Apple, and father of the iPod and iPhone.] It’s that kind of thinking that has delivered consistent success for Apple.”

In a world that is constantly changing, the brand needs to play chameleon as well, says Michael Johnson, Design Week columnist and founder of design firm Johnson Banks.

“The next generation of consumers who have been

surrounded by all this change will expect their brands to keep up, too.”

“A lot of brands’ philosophy is not to mess with it, but in this new world you have to adapt, change and morph when required,” he says. Johnson mentions More Than insurance, which changes its design and tone every two years. The secret, he says, is to keep your eye on the brand at all times.

Brands such as Russian Standard (vodka) are also vanguards of this new approach. Founder Roustam Tariko is all about rejuvenating his brand. “When I have a success on my hands, I won’t be complacent,” he says.

“Instead, I’ll go ahead and recreate it. That’s the

exciting bit.”

In other words, if a brand isn’t broke, fix it any way – but fix it better: nothing is perfect, not even perfection. And in the world of cataclysmic change nothing will ever be perfect because change requires flexibility and impermanence at its heart.

So, just as Yamaha switched from pianos to motorbikes in the 80s, and Nokia from forestry to telecommunications, brands today need to have the same loose attachment to core product. Our command: leap, don’t creep. In the world of cataclysmic change, small incremental changes are not sufficient. Brands need to engage in wild-skies thinking that allows them to accelerate exponentially from today. Incremental change is backward change. Change tomorrow must be revolutionary, not evolutionary. He who hesitates isn’t just lost in other words, but left behind by changes that only the most open, future faced and predictive mechanisms can predict.

The Future Laboratory is one of Europe’s foremost consumer research, insight and brand strategy networks. For further details on their brand strategy innovation programmes contact martin@thefuturelaboratory.com

BP’s Wild Bean Café to provide coffee that not only tastes good but is also good for the cause.

Incorporating sustainability into their thinking, BP’s food-on-the-go offer, Wild Bean Café now only sells ethically produced and environmentally sustainable coffee. Introduced in April 2009, the additional appeal is that whilst upping their green credentials, Wild Bean Café has managed to keep the cost of the coffee in check, too. As the world slides into recession and consumers cut their spending, Wild Bean Café realise that investing in green is not going to appeal if it puts customers’ bank balances in the red.

Richard Harding, BP’s UK Convenience Retail Director, said: “Ethical sourcing is becoming more of a necessity for retailers and customers, and something we take very seriously.

“Customers are looking at large companies like us to take the lead, and we are going a step further by offering 100% sustainable coffee beans, introduced to Wild Bean Café at no extra cost to our customers.”

Creating an in-store and forecourt campaign to make consumers aware of the 100% sustainable coffee and its benefits, whilst highlighting there is no compromise on taste to the consumer, TBWA\Manchester aims to push the awareness of the new initiative at Wild Bean Café, whilst ensuring that all areas of sustainability are addressed: economically through setting a ‘fair’ price, environmentally through controlled agrochemical use and socially through investing in farming communities.

The new coffee will carry the UTZ Certified symbol, which ensures compulsory compliance on social, environmental and economic practices. A worldwide certification programme that sets the standard for responsible coffee production and sourcing, it also allows customers to trace the coffee back to the farm it originated from.

Fergus McCallum, CEO at TBWA\Manchester adds: “As environmental, social and economic responsibility becomes more of a necessity rather than a luxury, the new campaign for the launch clearly shows that BP are

giving consumers the option to make an ethical choice at little or no extra cost or inconvenience to themselves.”

So latte or cappuccino, the coffee purchased at Wild Bean Cafe is not only going to help the people who hand picked the beans and give a bit more protection to the places where it’s grown, but with BP customers adopting the ethical alternative, the move is due to make environmentalism mainstream. We say let’s raise our cups to that!

www.wildbeancafe.co.ukBECAUSE THE FUTURE HAPPENS

Interview by Claire BinghamEditor, TBWA\PAPER

“Brilliant” went the cries of the editorial team on spying the fabulous shots of Manchester taken by Magnum photographer, Martin Parr, as part of his recent British Cities Project commission for The Guardian. With his Parrworld exhibition finally showing in the UK at the BALTIC in October, we talk to the former Manchester Poly student about his photography, his ongoing projects and where he’s heading next…

What was the British Cities Project about? This was a project documenting cities for the Guardian last year. Manchester was the first one. Half of what I do involves travelling to produce work for my own archives, of which this is an example.

Where are you travelling to this year?Delhi as it happens, tomorrow. I’m on the last part of my current project on luxury and I wanted to include some Indian wedding parties and portraits of their new rich. I’m also timing it for Valentine’s weekend to catch all of the amazing cakes. They go into it there in a big way.

What are your priorities? To document the world and exhibit it. I’m fascinated with the world

we live in and its eccentricities. For all of my different projects, they each have an agenda. What with the current downturn, the agenda of the luxury project has shifted slightly and become more of an epitaph. Not that the rich have disappeared but it’s less brash and showy than before.

How does your approach differ between commercial work and personal?It doesn’t really. The first job is to know the assignment and fulfil it the best you can, but the client often says, “do it your own way”, anyway.

Is there anyone you would like to photograph but haven’t had occasion to yet?I don’t really photograph famous people and tend to avoid them. They are much more difficult to photograph than ordinary people. They’re too self-conscious. I prefer to go up to people on the street and just let it happen.

What would you say is your greatest challenge?Getting everything done I would like to do! I receive a lot of offers, all of which are interesting, but I have to balance my domestic life with my assignments and personal projects.

With the nation becoming so design savvy, do you think there’s a risk we may all become too tasteful?In the 1990’s TV series ‘Signs of the Times’ we documented arguments on domestic interior

decoration taste. But really, I don’t mind what happens, I’m just interested in documenting whatever does. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

Is there anything you are campaigning to save?There’s a constant evolution in the country about small shops disappearing and the high street becoming more homogenised and cosmopolitan. With the Guardian British Cities Project one of the things I looked for was the ‘big people’ and how they’re changing the face of the city. But one of the factors that may happen with the recession is that the individual shop owner is revived. The thing is they will never disappear altogether, but it is increasingly fragile.

What are you currently collecting? Obama paraphernalia: from shoes through to soap dishes, which will ultimately be added to the Parrworld show. Nothing like posters. The more trivial the items, the happier I am.

When you’re in Manchester, where do you like to head?Behind Piccadilly, to the Northern Quarter, and I always go for a curry on Wilmslow Road, too.

What are you looking forward to this year?Going back to Scotland in the summer to complete my Highland Games project and Parrworld finally coming to the UK…. That’ll do.

BREWING UP A BETTER DEAL

THE EYES OFMARTIN PARR

MARTIN PARRNew Brighton, 1985With the prospect of a hot summer ahead of us, we thought this iconic Martin Parr shot perfectly encapsulated the stoic mentality of the Brits. In the face of the all-around gloom, we’re taking the optimistic stance

and praying for some sun.

In the quest to dodge the omnipotent gloom, we ask our creative emissaries what there is to look forward to in the year ahead.

www.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

GOOD TIDINGSFINE STATE OF AFFAIRS

The book launch for Green Design by

Marcus Fairs

DESIGN STORIES

Celebrating the launch of his latest book, Green Design, at the beautiful Boffi showroom in Brompton Cross, design journalist Marcus Fairs, demonstrated just how to host a brilliant bash. With a little talk by Tom Dixon (who wrote the foreword) and tunes from Andy Spence from New Young Pony Club (and all sponsored by suitably design savvy Bombay Sapphire), the book was strikingly brought to life with SeeTouch, a multi-touch control surface by Seeper that allows live projections of the book’s pages to be manipulated in realtime. We liked.

Always one with a keen eye on the latest design thing, the former launch editor of Icon Magazine and current editor of the online design site, dezeen.com, Marcus says, “For me, the book was an opportunity to give an overview of the design community’s growing interest in green issues. Sustainability, both environmental and social, has

recently emerged as probably the main talking point in all design disciplines, from architecture to car design to furniture, so the book was a chance to chart this explosion of interest. But I also felt it was most important that the book wasn’t seen as a cheerleader for green design - it doesn’t bang the drum for sustainability nor suggest that designers can change the world (at least not right away.)

“Rather, it takes a realistic look at the efforts designers are making to address issues including climate change, pollution, waste management, habitat destruction, human labour exploitation, and so on. The basic thrust of the book is that the design industry is at the very start of its long journey towards ensuring that the products we consume are as benign as possible in terms of their impact on both natural and human resources.”

www.dezeen.com

To coincide with the launch of the ghd limited edition Radiance collaboration with San Francisco beauty brand, Benefit Cosmetics, ghd have produced a series of Sartorialist-style video clips, showcasing the chicest looking ladies around the UK.

Hitting the streets of Manchester and London, the video reports by TBWA\PAPER’s editor, Claire Bingham and art director, Daniel Bickerton, aim to capture and analyse style-defining women, with the first two clips, focusing on the idea of radiance – what it is, who has it and how to achieve it.

Accessible from the ghd fan page on Facebook and also

through ghdhair.com, the idea behind the video gallery is to encourage more interaction amongst ghd fans and get more visitors to the website.

Gary Robinson, Head of Digital at ghd, comments, “We know that ghd fans like to talk about ghd so we want to give them interesting content to fuel the discussions. By providing them with exclusive content about the latest styles and fashion, it not only offers them inspiration for their own looks but the opportunity to share their own ideas, videos and photos too.

“The clips will cover such a range of looks and so many

individual tastes but the one thing that all styles will have in common is an aura of radiance” says Robinson.

Fergus McCallum, CEO of TBWA\Manchester says, “Street Style on Facebook is a great way of making ghd more accessible and interactive to the brand’s users. The fan page is just one of the official places that ghd is working on this year, where fans across the globe can be inspired and share their own content.”

Robinson adds, “It’s a great way of alerting ghd users to the official fan page so that they can be sure they are getting the most up to date, official content.”

PRESENTING STREET STYLE

Taking on board the idea of buying less but better, the good getting ‘gooder’ and the shoddy shipping out: whatever camp you sit in regarding the economy, there’s no doubt about it, these are interesting times ahead. Looking on the bright side of the financial downturn, we’re keen to know what, if anything, can come good. In these recession rotten times, we ask, ‘what’s so great about 2009?’

RANKINPhotographer“Wow 2009! Strangely for me 2009 is a big year. I have a lot happening this year and am really excited about it. So here’s my vision:

The world hasn’t stopped turning; the clocks are still ticking. The Earth continues to revolve around a Sun that has no concept of money, of economy, or recession. Our grandparents faced annihilation by men so narrow in their view of the world they killed millions of innocent people. Yet all we see and hear is doom and gloom and “woe

is me”. So I say stop fucking moaning and let’s get on with it.How is that! Not quite Auden, but I guess I’m just a snapper!”

PATRICK BURGOYNEEditor, Creative Review“There will be some positives to come out of all this mess, even if it may not feel like it right now. One thing that recessions do is to speed up changes or processes that were already underway.

Many people will have been thinking about striking out on their own – the collapse of their current employer or a wave of redundancies will provide the impetus needed to make that happen (we saw this particularly during the last recession when a lot of what became major names started up.)

But what marks this recession out for anyone involved in communications is that it comes on top of major structural changes driven by digital. So, for example, a lot of magazines that didn’t make sense in print anymore have taken the plunge to go web only. Something similar will happen in newspapers and, possibly TV. The speed of change across the whole media landscape will increase dramatically, largely, I hope, for the better because the

changes are driven by what users want rather than what companies are comfortable doing.

And all this change will create huge opportunities for designers and agencies - those that are still around anyway...”

WAYNE HEMINGWAYDesigner“We welcome the recession here. Not for being unemployed, that’s sad, but there are a number of areas where it can be positive.

Number one is that it’s completely put a hole in the housing bubble. The greed and stupidity of the Buy To Let business model the developers and investors have been following is totally bust. These unsuitable apartments will become slums of the future. What it means is the industry will get going again, but only by delivering a product that people will want to buy. People are going to live in homes, rather than just treat them as a financial investment, which in turn will improve our towns and cities.

Another good thing is what’s coming out through the magazine audits. The circulation of lads’ mags are down; mags about doing up your home and flogging it are down too. What’s up is The Economist and more

serious magazines. Celebrity shit is on a big downer and it shows that people are dropping the stuff that’s unnecessary. I think it will be the case that people will start using their brains again. In times like this you have to have your wits about you.

We started Red or Dead in a recession and for the creative industry it throws up all sorts of opportunities. For example, there’s a real need for cheap ways of starting a business so for the Super Contemporary exhibition at The Design Museum in June we’re designing kiosks for creative start-ups that can be placed in town centres. For business start-ups at home we’re also launching a new range of home offices called Shedquarters that you can install in your garden. They use traditional shed materials, but they don’t look anything like a garden shed, let’s put it that way. It will also help with the thrift aesthetic, where we will see less waste and more reusing, in this case making more of your home.

Hopefully we’ll get rid of a lot of the crap we don’t need. Woolworths proved that we didn’t need it, because we didn’t go there. The hole will get filled with things that people do need to

buy. It’s a shame for the people that got made unemployed but you can’t run a shop where the highlight is selling pick ‘n’ mix.”

ANDREW TUCKEditor, Monocle

“What will be good about 2009? Plenty. People will reinvest in the local, in their neighbourhoods. They’ll want to find good owner-run stores on their high streets and they will be loyal to the shopkeeper or restaurant owner who remembers their name. That’s one of the reasons it will also be an important year for fledgling entrepreneurs: suddenly that office space or shop is available at a price that makes

sense. Everyone will gain from companies raising standards: the property developer who will get through the next few years will be the one who invests in quality, makes something to be lived in not ‘flipped’ for profit after weeks. Craft will come to the fore - something we have been championing since our launch at Monocle. In fashion things made to last will sell (whether that’s a great pair of Incotex trousers or a set of Porter luggage). Service will improve: in the airline industry carriers such as Lufthansa or ANA that care about how their customers are treated will win through. We’ll take time for culture. Countries will wonder why they ever thought they could live off just providing financial services and will take new pride in people who make things – it’s a process we saw first hand when we did our recent survey of Iceland. It may be a tough year if you work in a car plant (although, even here, 2009 will be the year when designing cars that people really want - smaller, electric – will be top of the agenda), but for many this will also be the moment they finally do something they care about.”Andrew Tuck is editor of Monocle magazine, also visit monocle.com

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www.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

NEW WAVE ARTPart floating home, part gallery-at-sea, the unconventional design

of ‘Guilty’ couldn’t be further from the conventional notion of what a yacht should be. With a cutting edge design that’s wowed

the yachting, design and art worlds, this Superyacht takes nautical chic to a whole new level. Fundamentally, it’s a home.

Report by Claire BinghamEditor, TBWA\PAPER

With its spectacular Jeff Koons external artwork and graphic sculptural form, you could say Guilty is a 35m, three-tier floating style statement.

Commissioned in October 2005 by one of the most prolific art collectors, Dakis Joannou, 68, whose collection of art has been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and at the auction house, Christie’s, Guilty is crammed full of site-specific art installations by the likes of Anish Kapoor and David Shrigley. Sarah Morris’s Guilty (1996), which inspired the yacht’s name, takes pride of place in one of the four bedrooms.

Born out of a desire to not only exhibit works, but to live with them too, the boat is an example of how artwork shifts beyond decoration, to be fully integrated within the design. And it doesn’t get much more integrated than with the exterior artwork created by Jeff Koons.

A long-time friend of Joannou, Koons was shown the boat drawings by the owner and he suggested a camouflage approach. Inspired by the Razzle Dazzle WW1 camouflage pattern invented by British marine artist and naval officer Norman Wilkinson and the iconic prints of Roy Lichtenstein, the pattern is unlike anything witnessed in the yachting fraternity before.

Contrasting with the graphic architecture of the boat with its overlapping blocks of squared, sharp lines, the aim of the artwork was to transform the shape, and to create unexpected perspectives of the boat from different angles, distances and reflection in the water. Whether the artwork of the exterior entirely floats your boat or not, there’s no denying it’s truly unique.

As a major patron of the arts and founder of the Deste Foundation, the Athens-based Centre for Contemporary Art, it is only natural that art should play such a dominant part of the exterior and interior design. Investigating the relations between contemporary art and design, this may be a seafaring vessel, but it also happens to be a work of art.

Inspiring the nation to use plant pots, windowsills and allotments to

provide fresh vegetables and salad for our plates.

Call it the Jamie or Hugh factor, but an increasing number of Brits want to bring a bit of the Good Life into their homes and the phenomenon is extending to flat-dwellers in the city. Witnessing a renewed desire for connectivity between city life and the country, seed sales are outstripping previous years with an escalating demand for allotments and an increased popularity of kitchen gardens.

Figures from the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents more than 2,500 garden centres and businesses, reveal a craving among Britons to grow their own, even in the most tiny, unprepossesing spaces.

A trend referred to as ‘urban homesteading’, we’re living in an age the total opposite of the Margaret Thatcher mantra, that, “Home is where you went to when you had nowhere else to go.”

Winning the Westland Horticulture’s Unwins Seeds account following a pitch against two other undisclosed agencies, the brief for TBWA\Manchester was about how to make the most of the ‘grow your own’ trend, whilst enabling the client to

charge a premium and become leaders within the category.

Re-positioning the brand through insight into what unites all gardeners, TBWA\Manchester recognised that the human emotion of nurture was key, due to the large amount of time - both physical and emotional - that people invest in their gardens and growing things. Add in the external market factors that are converging at the same time (credit crunch, grow your own, stay and improve etc,) TBWA\Manchester arrived at the ‘Joy of Growing’. It ignites the passion that both gardeners and would-be gardeners have, it touches on the emotional reward that people get as a result, it has a sense of enthusiasm - and it makes it sound fun!

Commencing by redesigning the core Unwins packaging range to reflect this new-found modernity and enthusiasm, creating a standard range of seeds and a premium range called ‘Gro-sure’, TBWA\Manchester will continue on all aspects of the Unwins brand communications, alongside currently retained Westland brands, Resolva and Syngenta.

Describing her music as “do wop indie, whilst travelling on a rocket, all the way up into the deepest part of outer space,” rising musical star V V Brown eloquently mashes up indie, soul, and pop, with her catchy and addictive pop.

Performing live with her band at the Hippodrome for the recent Ashish show during London Fashion Week and the support act for The Ting Tings tour in March, she is tipped as the name to know for 2009.

A GOOD LIFE FOR ALL AS ‘GROW YOUR OWN’ BOOMS

ONE TO WATCHV V BROWN

www.tbwamanchester.co.uk ISSUE • 2

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THE JOY OF PESSIMISM

Report by Matt CookCopywriter, TBWA\Manchester

Let’s face it, the pursuit of happiness in both love and work is a road paved with disappointment. The writer-philosopher Alain de Botton, however, sees no paradox in his current sermons on pessimism, in which he’s encouraging people to live happier lives by learning to be pessimistic, rather than aspiring to values based on cruel and unrealistically high hopes.

His argument is surely fuelled by the fact that we are undoubtedly living in pessimistic times, that is to say many people have begun to see the world in a somewhat ‘dimmer’ light. Alain, one assumes, must consider this no bad thing.

Pessimism does seem to be infecting us on a cultural scale, a self-defence mechanism that presumably kicks in the moment you hear the words ‘Credit Crunch’ for the 5,000th time. Does this mean we are all going to drift into joyless existences, hopelessly depressed and in a permanent fog of disparity? Well, it rather depends on your definition.

On the one hand, pessimism can be defined as a tendency to see only the negative or worst aspects of all things and to expect only bad

or unpleasant things to happen. To be fair, it is understandable that anyone who has had their pension wiped out in the blink of an eye will see the glass of hope as being decidedly half empty. But what about everybody else? Surely some of us are lucky?

There is a second interpretation of pessimism. This is the belief that ‘all things become evil, or that evil outweighs good in life’ and stems largely from German philosopher Schopenhauer’s cheery notion that we actually live in the ‘worst possible’ world. This is because reason and logic will always lose out to fundamental drives of desire for sex and food etc. So it doesn’t matter who you are; the glass - it turns out - is mostly empty.

But before you slump into a terminal decline, here’s the enriching part: now you can stop worrying. Will things turn out alright in the end? No. Bad things will definitely happen in a greater number than good and there’s nothing to be done about it. So relax. Put down that copy of Schopenhauer. Have a beer. Get laid. Stick on the Alain de Botton podcast. If you don’t, you’ll wish you did.

In conclusion, pessimism does not equal miserablism. So cheer the hell up.

WHO ARE YOU CHAMPIONING RIGHT NOW? I like Airship, Everything Everything, and Delphic. KEY ITEMS AROUND YOU? Coffee, headphones, pen, paper.WHAT DO YOU FEAR? Failure.WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO? The Manchester International Festival.

HOMEWHERE DO YOU LIVE? West Didsbury, Manchester.PETS? I don’t eat meat. People think you make that lifestyle choice because you love animals, but actually I don’t. MOST TREASURED POSSESSION? A big bunch of letters from my mum to me (she died in 1985).STYLE PREFERENCE? People give me clothes and I put them on.FAVOURITE GADGET? I’d have been happy in a cave with some chalk to write on the walls and a drum to bang on. I’m not sure all the gadgets invented since have made humanity any happier. Apart from espresso machines.STEREO EQUIPMENT? Two turntables in the cellar and a ghetto blaster in the kitchen, if there are any burglars reading this.FAVOURITE DRINK? Champagne. I’m a champagne socialist.STAYING IN FOR? Football is the only thing on TV worth watching, the rest is a waste of time.LISTENING TO? My daughter singing happily to herself in the other room.

CLOTHES JEANS? Diesel.

TRAINERS? I have the world’s worst trainer collection. WATCH? I can’t wear a watch and DJ at the same time, so I used to take my watch off and leave it next to the decks. And then forget it. I reckon when they excavate the Hacienda after the next ice age they’ll find half a dozen of my watches in the ruins.FAVOURITE DESIGNER? Matthew Williamson. I’ve met him a couple of times. Lovely looking fella.LAST THING YOU BOUGHT? A couple of Jackie Kay novels. I’m interviewing her on July 14th during the Festival and I don’t want any gaps in my knowledge.

PHILOSOPHYBEST PIECE OF ADVICE? I was hesitating outside a door once, and someone said, “Just knock and go right in.” WHO ARE YOUR HEROES? Samuel Beckett, Sylvia Plath, Frederich Engels and David Bowie.WHAT NATIONALITY WOULD YOU BE? French. I’d like to be a pretty 23 year-old French lesbian with a good command of two or three languages and a career in modelling/journalism. To be exact.FAVOURITE EXPRESSION? For f*ck’s sake!YOUR MOST MARKED CHARACTERISTIC? I’m tall and in arguments I’m always right.WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG, WHAT DID YOU DREAM OF? Being a writer.HOW DO YOU WISH TO BE REMEMBERED? The tall DJ who was always right.

DJ, broadcaster and writer Dave Haslam, who started spinning records in Manchester’s Hacienda through the late 80s, has gone on to international acclaim. Behind the groundbreaking biography, ‘Manchester England’, Haslam is curating a series of gigs and talks at Manchester International Festival’s new Pavilion Theatre, designed to showcase the best of the city: True Faith – A Celebration of Manchester-Made Talent. Here, he discloses the things that matter most…

INSPIRATIONSFAVOURITE DISCOVERY? I’m starting to rediscover stuff. I’ve just bought the punk band The Prefects only album. The songs are 30 years old, but they sound ace.FAVOURITE HOTEL? I once stayed in a hotel in Lima and accidentally took a lift to

the basement to be greeted by a lovely lady in hot pants who said she could make me very happy. That’s not a thing the Malmaison has ever offered me sadly.INSPIRED BY? Manchester’s creative community. FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD? Paris. FAVOURITE MUSIC VENUE? The Hacienda: great nights DJing, lots of friends.IDEAL PLAYLIST? Joy Division.

WORKDEFINING MOMENT? In 1990, four years after I’d started DJing, in a limo, in Detroit with DJ Graeme Park and we just looked at each other and burst out laughing. It was like, “Who’d have thought it would have come to this?!”

Learning to expect the worst for an enriched

and contented life.

C o n s u p p l i q u o d comnendes, a temore ci poterfex sena, este dis, nonessulatem diis vid auc terei facrecus suliciam

pubi eora? Ses ficessolum ex me publinclabus post? Asdam numum publis publicatuis ommod morte conscie ndamquam

factatast? quonvo, no. Rei taturnu condius pulesi se ces non Etrei pos ete idem, quidien vitus cendentiore, utemus et C.

M. Serferra publiu cae, untur. Fora? ia ta, facerum se ignondum adeatus, quit, ur, scienatum, uror pris ommorum cienaturniu

se ductoru mentem men vium egina, for in vitum tam acremo et qui facto tea ompos pos huceripicae it? Opimus, Catum rebem

nium auctemquo intem opublis hocum fuem, untem prae converi demqua consula defectusul ut quast audertum is am. Batus

THE FINAL WORDBy Fergus McCallum, CEO, TBWA\Manchester

MY STUFF