Digital Connections

Thinking ....

I haven't blogged in ages, and I'm struggling to find time ... but I will.

In the meantime, have a watch of this ....

 

Lionel Messi: He didn't have the hand of god, just his feet.

Fantastic example of simple and strong ad copy by DDP Paris,

..brought to attention by the chaps at Ads Of The World.

Advertising Agency: DDB Paris, France
Copywriter: Olivier Lefebvre

Creative Director: Alexandre Hervé
Art Director: Benjamin Marchal
Illustrator: Monsieur Barbe
Published: December 2009

Happy Birthday Ceefax

35 years ago, on the 23th September 1974 - Ceefax was launched on BBC.

Both my parents worked at BBC Newcastle, so I have a certain soft spot for BBC related stuff.

My childhood obsession for football results and league tables could only be served by hours of gazing at Ceefax. There's the old joke that, "This game would be more exciting on Ceefax", and as a Newcastle fan in the late seventies early eighties this is a pretty accurate representation on the state of affairs at St James'.

However I wasn't alone, up and down the country armchair fans would sit down on a Saturday afternoon, punch in "316" for live scores and just watch the numbers increase as the goals went in. Convergence was alive and well, by using the "mix" button a viewer could watch Grandstand at the same time.

Of course Ceefax was the start of Britain’s journey into Interactive Television, and in many ways the most successful, with 22m browsing 600 pages at one point. Wow that’s an advertisers dream!

Ceefax truly came into its own when breaking news. Live TV was somewhat of a novelty back in the 70's and Ceefax was a bridge between the event taking place and actually being reported on TV and radio news. Plus Ceefax would only report pure hard cold "brute facts".

Skysports News recently dragged on Richard Dunne's transfer from Manchester City to Aston Villa for close to 48 hours, with plenty of footage of footballers and agents driving cars in and out of leisure centres. Ceefax would have reported the Dunne transfer beautifully in 20 Characters

"R Dunne ManC - Villa"        

Brilliant job done, that even puts Twitter's 140 characters to shame.

Rather sadly we'll soon be deprived of Ceefax and its simplistic brilliance, as part of the analogue television signal, CEEFAX will finish with the "Digital Switchover in 2012.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday Ceefax!

Happy Birthday Samuel Morse: A Classic Logo from Google

I always try to keep an eye out for Google's daily logos, although admit to finding recent efforts somewhat disappointing.

Today's (27/4/09) however was a stroke of genius... creative, simple and very clever.

A return to form indeed!