I had the chance to sit in on a lunchtime session this week with our Creative Director – Russell to walk through some very successful campaigns like Lynx, Old Spice and the Compare the Market to name a few. One of the key points that Russell made was to be in a mindset to push the everyday boundaries we have on creative work.

So with all this in mind I couldn’t help looking at each of the campaigns shown which made me realise how much colour is used to influence how we live every part of our lives. Throughout history, colour has expressed and represented status, religion, origin, feelings and much much more. To be able to afford clothing or other possessions in certain colours meant you were wealthier than most, as some ingredients to produce specific colours were not available everywhere.

These days we see more colour in commercial and residential architecture, interior design, art and installations, events, retail and hospitality.We also see more colour in products — from aircraft to fashion to everyday items — and in many of the advertising and communications.

Perhaps it was the recessionary economy that enticed designers to use more colour, and attracted the rest of us to it. Whatever the underlying reasons, we see more colour and we love it.

The bloggerati have well and truly taken over the various fashion weeks around the globe, front rows filled with social networkers tweeting to their faceless fans. So how does an old-school fashion magazine stand out?

French Grazia magazine tackled the challenge recently at Paris Fashion Week with pug dog balloons. Of course!! Why not?? A simple, old-school talking-point stunt that certainly got their girls noticed. We're guessing they're referencing the chi-chi practice of carrying a lap-dog to such events. We're not sure why - but does this matter?

The game of marketing has changed fundamentally. Taking out uninspiring, run-of-the-mill print and TV ads doesn’t fly any more. Marketing a brand effectively requires exceptional ideas and concepts that are entertaining and unusual enough to capture the imaginations of today’s cynical, ad-wary consumers. Our advice is to go beyond the traditional media to capture your audience in other platforms as well – offline brand experiences that DEMAND consumer attention. 

Brave, new, exciting, entertaining offline experiences are talked about, blogged about and spread through social media. This is viral marketing at its best and most effective. If the idea is good, nothing can stop its spread. We spend all of our waking hours evaluating and creating such ideas. We see more innovation and ideas and concepts each day than we ever thought possible and the ideas we've created have achieved incredible attention. 

A new generation of 3D mobile phones that don't require special glasses, could go on sale by the end of this year.   Japanese electronics manufacturer Sharp unveiled a new three-inch liquid crystal display screen that played 3D animations over the weekend.  The company also showed off a touch-panel screen that could flick from one 3D photo to another and a display connected to a camcorder that showed video it was taking in 3D.  The new technology is expected to be incorporated into mobile phones, electronic dictionaries and digital cameras in Japan from as early as September.

It comes as manufacturers look for the next 3D market following the success of movies such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.  The Sharp screen shows 3D images to a user up to 12 inches away without such glasses.  They achieve this using parallax to display different images to each eye to give the illusion of three dimensions while retaining image clarity. 

The future of 3D mobile phones TBC...

It is being reported that embedded advertising will soon be launched by Apple, these iAds should appear on the iPhone and iPad soon after iPhone OS 4.0 launches.These ads will only show when you are using apps. Apple are apparently thinking about showing an advert every three minutes when using apps.

It is thought that most of the advertising space will be purchased by developers to advertise their apps, iAd subscribers will pay different rates for iPad and iPhone iAd space.

With the App Store already doing so well I wonder whether this will infact have a detrimental affect on the App Store, I must say I hate having advertising forced upon me on TV etc, therefore I am sure there will be plenty of Apple fans out there who are put off by the addition of iAds.

Will you be annoyed to see iAds on your Apple iPad / iPhone?