Zodomatica

Had a great, jam-packed day at Northern Voice today. The opening keynote by Stewart Butterfield was very engaging and I had a bit of Sunshine Coast pride to learn he spent his early years in Lund on the Sunshine Coast.

I also enjoyed Chris Heuer’s session on “Death of Advertising” which Ruth Seeley covered better than I could at this late & tired hour. The most memorable thing for me was discovering Blentec’s Will It Blend campaign. It’s mainly videos of their CEO in a “lab” testing their blender’s ability to make “smoothies” out of iPods, lightsticks, and so on. Apparently since this campaign launched their blender sales have gone through the roof and they even get paid to do blender demos as entertainment at events.

On the one hand I want to cheer them on – way to go! Leverage new media creatively! Make it work for you!

On the other, I was so sad to see the toxic waste-filled innards of the iPod mulched and fuming into the atmosphere for the purpose of selling more stuff.

This is at the root of my discomfort around so much branding and advertising: the despair I feel for our overtaxed planet and our underfed souls… some of us at times spending and spending to fill an emptiness that traditional advertising has worked so cleverly to enlarge.

So I guess I have to give Blentec kudos for this campaign; regardless of my conflicted feelings they have created something remarkable.

**OK, so it’s not really sordid, but that sounds catchy doesn’t it?