December 10, 2009
3 Comments
[The "Cube Grenade" that Kula Partners commissioned me to draw for them. You can download it here and print it out etc.]
Social Marketing Whizz, Carman Pirie and his colleagues just launched a new company, Kula Partners.
As the idea behind their company was partially inspired by my writings on Kula and Social Objects, they commissioned me to design a special Cube Grenade for them, which I gladly did.
I’m very happy with how the piece turned out. It illustrates nicely a point I’ve been harping on for a while now- “People Matter, Objects Don’t”- i.e. what makes a product or brand interesting is not thing itself, but the human conversations that happen around it.
Congrats to Kula Partners on their launch, and Big Thanks for being such great clients! Rock on.
[Yeah, I'm still taking on new commissions like this one. Feel free to ping me if you're interested etc. Thanks.]
[About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Hire Hugh. Buy Hugh’s Art. Cartoon Archive.]
October 2, 2009
7 Comments
[Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
Back on 24 September, I wrote about how Shit Creek Consulting had hired me to draw the above “Cube Grenade” for them.
As a cartoon, it works. As a piece of advertising, it works. As a piece of communication, it works. As a Cube Grenade, it works. As a social object, it works. As a conversation starter, it REALLY works. I was happy; so was the client.
Like a lot of bloggers with an advertising background, I have spent a lot of time over the years asking the question, “What is the future of advertising?”
Sure, in the last decade there’s been a lot of speculation about how Web 2.0 is going to change EVERYTHING in the industry- everything from putting mainstream agencies out of business, to Google ruling the world with an iron fist. But in spite of all the talk out there, a definitive answer has always remained somewhat elusive.
I think I may have FINALLY had a major breakthrough:
These last few weeks, while I have been VERY busy working on some new Cube Grenade business, it occurs to me that the Cube Grenade concept somehow manages to get both my backgrounds in cartooning and advertising working seamlessly together.
The Cube Grenades aren’t really designed to “sell”, like traditional advertising. They’re designed to hit a nerve and start conversations. Maybe that will help lead to sales down the road, but it’s not the primary purpose. Its primary purpose takes a more indirect, perhaps more disruptive path.
So what is the future of advertising? Well, I don’t know what yours is, but mine is The Cube Grenade. If that’s what you want, you come to me. If you want something different, go elsewhere.
Some people will get this, some people won’t, but that’s probably a good thing. Rock on.
[If you think the Cube Grenade idea could help your business, as always, feel free to e-mail me, Thanks.]
[Backstory: About Hugh. E-mail Hugh. Work with Hugh. Twitter. Cartoon Archive. Newsletter. Book. Interview One. Interview Two. EVIL PLANS. Limited Edition Prints. Essential Reading: “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ‘Cube Grenades’ But Were Afraid To Ask.”]
May 30, 2009
2 Comments
[Signing the agenciaclick cube grenade a couple of weeks ago...]
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking with various advertising and PR folk about the Cube Grenade idea. Here are some notes:
1. In terms of the advertising and PR industries, the Cube Grenade is basically conceived as a relatively cheap and effective Social Object to articulate the Purpose-Idea of a brand or company.
2. If the agency has an idea they REALLY want to sell to their client, they might have better luck if they first articulate the idea via a Cube Grenade designed by me, rather than the traditional “agency pitch” model. The agency’s idea is somehow articulated as a commissioned print, the print is given out as a gift, to people within the relevant constituency. The print hangs on a wall, other people see it, and if the idea is any good then people will start talking about it. That conversation will lead to other conversations. If the idea is any good, other ideas [and opportunities] will be spawned from it.
3. The Cube Grenade is not a glorified advertising poster. I’m not primarily interested in why people should buy the client’s product per se. I’m far more interested in the human dynamic, the collective human drive that makes the client’s people want to get up in the morning and go to work. That is where THE REAL VALUE is created.
4. Because the Cube Grenade is given as a gift- an act of love, as it were- AND NOT A DELIVERABLE WANTING TO BE SOLD, it will break through the cultural barriers of the client company a lot more cheaply and quickly than your standard “Big Advertising Idea”. The game here is not about “Selling An Ad”, the point is to make the client more alive, more human, more aware of their own human potential. Again, this is where is where THE REAL VALUE for the client-agency relationship is created.
5. Whether the Cube Grenade “works” or not in the end, both agency and client will find out if the thought behind it works A LOT sooner and inexpensively than executing your average ad campaign. Like all communication, the idea needs to RISK FAILURE if it’s ever to be any good. “Fail cheap, fail often”, as the great venture capitalist, Esther Dyson likes to say.
6. As I’ve said before to the ad agencies: “Guys, you are NOT selling messages anymore. You are selling Social Objects. The work that you create will affect the Cube Grenades and Social Objects, that your clients and their customers use to interact with each other.” This is why I’m talking to advertising folk. At the end of the day, we’re both in the same business.
7. To get more background reading, please visit my Cube Grenade archive here. You might also want to check out “The Hughtrain” to get a better understanding of where my ideas are coming from.
8. As always, if this idea is of any interest to you, please feel free to contact me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Or if you know someone in the advertising industry, please send them along to this page [Here's the link]. Thanks!
May 25, 2009
3 Comments
["Dinosaur" Cube Grenade for sale at the gapingvoid gallery.]
I’m currently accepting new commissions for “Cube Grenades”. Please read on for some Cube Grenade case studies, or for more background theory, read the Cube Grenade archives. Thanks! gapingvoid@gmail.com.
‘Cube Grenades’, I believe, is where my art works the best- small Social Objects that you “throw” in there in order to cause some damage– to start a conversation, to cause disruption, to spread an idea etc. And I want to work with clients to make more of them.
1. CASE STUDY: SHIT CREEK CONSULTING
The groovy cats over at Shit Creek Consulting commissioned me to design them their own “Cube Grenade”. After looking at the half-dozen or so ideas I presented to them, they chose the one above. I believe they’re looking to use it for their business cards, for example.
Shit Creek are a Microsoft Gold Partner. It seems a big part of their business is coming in and cleaning up the mess left behind by the large tech consultancies [I’m not naming any names]. So that’s the idea I ran with.
The name of their company implies they have a lot of attitude. They wanted a cartoon that conveyed this. Easy. It was a fantastic commission and I’m very happy with the cartoon they chose.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
2. CASE STUDY: KULA MARKETING
[The “Cube Grenade” that Kula Partners commissioned me to draw for them. You can download it here and print it out etc.]
In December, 2009 Social Marketing Whizz, Carman Pirie and his colleagues launched a new company, Kula Partners.
As the idea behind their company was partially inspired by my writings on Kula and Social Objects, they commissioned me to design a special Cube Grenade for them, which I gladly did.
I’m very happy with how the piece turned out. It illustrates nicely a point I’ve been harping on for a while now– “People Matter, Objects Don’t”- i.e. what makes a product or brand interesting is not the thing itself, but the human conversations that happen around it.
Congrats to Kula Partners on their launch, and Big Thanks for being such great clients! Rock on.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
3. CASE STUDY: THE MONSTER IN YOUR HEAD
Jerry Colonna used to be a Venture Capitalist. He was EXTREMELY successful as a partner with Fred Wilson at Flatiron Partners. Before that, he was an investment banker on Wall Street.
Then he decided he wanted out of the business. He had made his money, he now wanted to give back. He wanted to teach.
After teaching business classes at CUNY in New York for a little while, he set himself up as a business coach. A damn good one.
“A bit like being a shrink,” he told me, “but more business-focused.”
A big part of his modus operandi is not telling people what to do with teir businesses, but trying to get them over their fears of acheiving that which they MUST do, if they want to become the people they one day hope to be.
“The issues my clients fear the most tend not to be the actual stuff out there- competition, cashflow, marketing,” he says, “but the worst-case imaginary scenarios. ‘The Monster Inside Their Heads’, as it were. So a central tenet to what I do is helping them to get over The Monster.”
So he commissioned me to draw a Monster-themed “Cube Grenade”, as a signed, fine-art print to give away as presents to his best customers and allies. something to keep on the office wall as a constant reminder.
I was glad to do it. I’ve always got my fair share of Monsters, myself. Rock on.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
4. CASE STUDY: AGENCIACLICK
In early 2009 I was hired by a Brazilian ad agency, agenciaclick to create a privately commissioned edition of the Cube Grenade above.
As with my other clients, they didn’t want these prints just for themselves; they wanted to give these out to their clients, as conversation starters.
“All brands are open brands? Huh? What does that mean? Do you agree with it? Why? What does “open” actually mean? What does “brand” actually mean…?” You get the picture. The same idea that made The Blue Monster so successful. Again, it wasn’t about the message, the object. It was all about the social.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
5. CASE STUDY: STORMHOEK
This is a design I did for Stormhoek, a small wine brand in South Africa, that I’ve been working for, off and on for five years.
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
6. “ART AND THE REAL WORLD”
[Originally posted on this blog, October, 2009]
[“Portfolio Number One”, hanging in a collector’s office in Germany.]
I’ve been playing around with this line a lot recently: “Art For The Real World”.
I’m interested in how art affects what some people call “The Real World”- the workplace, the world of work, the world of business. That’s what the Cube Grenade idea is all about.
My advertising buddy, Vinny Warren, grew up in a Roman Catholic household in Ireland. He was telling me that his parents would always have a few religious icons hanging on the wall somewhere. Pictures of Saints, Mary & Baby Jesus, that kind of thing.
Why? Says Vinny, “To remind us who we are.”
Art that reminds you who you are. Exactly. What applies in Catholic households also applies in places of business. Shared Meaning. Exactly. Social Objects. Exactly.
I don’t think any of this is rocket science…
[The Cube Grenade archive is here...]
[Update:] John left a good comment:
I think surrounding ourselves with icons, art, books and such to remind ourselves of who we are, where we have been and where we hope to go is essential to keeping our hearts alive. It is too easy to lose our way. My office is full of these things.
March 25, 2009
10 Comments
["Open Brands". Commissioned by Agencia Click, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I’m delighted to announce my first privately commissioned gapingvoid print.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited down to Brazil by Agencia Click to do a bit of public speaking and some consultancy work for them. While I was at it, they also commissioned me to design a print for them, something that articulated their “Open Branding” idea. So I designed the drawing above, which goes into production next week.
The black lines represent “The World”, as it were. The red lines represent “The Brand”. In “Open Branding”, the brand is “Everywhere”, not “Controlled” or “Isolated” somewhere specific.
I took their idea, filtered it through my own visual language to create a third thing, an image that captures the “Purpose-Idea”.
I did pretty much the same thing with Microsoft and The Blue Monster…
I love this kind of work. It allows me to do my drawing thing, while still getting my brain out of the studio and out into the real world. Not to mention, I get to visit Brazil! Heh.
Thanks to Abel and Jeff for making it happen. Rock on.
[NB: If you're in the market to commission a limited edition print, feel free to email me at gapingvoid@gmail.com. Thanks.]
