Timezoneone Blog

A big thank you goes out the Ronald McDonald House for putting on a great bowling night enjoyed by all.

The team from TimeZoneOne didn’t embarass themselves and put on a sterling effort, finishing 4th (or 5th, maybe 6th) out of 14 teams. “Marky” Mark Cornellison led his funky bunch to “best dressed team” glory, by organising the design and printing of the team t-shirts, as for his bowling, he demonstrated a fine shank, consistently bowling everything to the right. Unluckiest bowler of the night goes to Rose, who picked up 9 pins four times in a row, 1 shy of a strike each time, Nigel “Secret Weapon” Foley stepped in for Rose and while he demonstrated no style at all he was effective.

Much was expected of TZ1 northern hemisphere connection and while Rob picked up a strike with his first bowl of the night it all went down hill from there. Matt saved his best till last, fortunately by that time everyone had lowered there expectations of Matt’s prowess with the ball, so we were impressed that he managed to get out of the gutter - YES, Matt was the only one to pick up a double gutter ball on the night for TZ1. Lisa broke a nail but solidered on and put in a solid performance. Finally team star Tim tried to keep the team together, picking up 7 strikes for the night but in the end even he threw down a couple of gutterballs as well.

 A round up of the scores are as follows:

Mark “a little to the right” Cornellison :  95 and 110
Rose “9 Pins” Carson / Nigel ” Secret Weapon” Foley: 79 and 99
Lisa “Lucky Strike” Lye: 91 and 77
Matt “Double Gutterball” Herivel: 99 and 100
Rob “First Strike” MacDonald: 102 and 80
Tim “High Scores both times” Chapman: 136 and 131

Finally here is one of teams more inglorious moments (not really us, we at least bowled along the ground).

Tim.

Summer time is about to hit New Zealand, hopefully bringing with it lots of sunshine, warm weather, lazy Sunday afternoons, and ice-creams.

Seeing all my blogs this week have had the common theme of advertising, I thought I would share this great home-grown TV advertisement that came out a couple of years ago giving everyone the perfect guide to summer time etiquette. Enjoy!

Also here it is a little further tidbit on my blog from earlier in the week, subliminal messaging  (sense of humour required to watch this one)…

Tim.

I couldn’t think of anything worthy to say today so here is an amusing video to pass the time…

 Tim.

TimeZoneOne is awesome! TimeZoneOne is awesome! TimeZoneOne is awesome! TimeZoneOne is awesome! Not very subtle but true.

While some brands like to advertise themselves the above way others prefer a different tact… subliminal messaging. Whether you believe or not there is small minority out there who think we are being brain washed to buy certain products based on advertisers tapping into the subconscious, of course these are the same people who say the moon landings were faked, that Bigfoot is real, and that JFK is living the high life in Colombia, having said that below is an example brought to you by the believers (TZ1 neither endorses or discredits this argument)…

“Subliminal messaging in advertising usually takes the form of optical illusions. A book called The Secret Sales Pitch - An Overview of Subliminal Advertising argues that optical illusions have been embedded in mass media in order to secretly manipulate consumers since the 1950s. These subliminal messages are extremely provocative, and involve nightmarish monsters as well as many forms of erotica. In addition, pictures with subliminal meanings understood only by your unconscious have secretly aroused your innermost fears and fantasies. 

Most subliminal advertising concentrates on one thing… SEX, look at the following set of images as an example…”

Is that the guy’s leg behind Mr Snooker player or his… use your imagination.

What is he holding in his hand, look… then look again.

Do those ice cubes really spell out sex?

While these ones are a touchrude, there is also the down right funny (click to embiggen the image)

Looking at these its easy to say there may be nothing there, yet maybe there is - Benson and Hedges (example 2) were accused in the 70’s of advertising porn rather than product, or maybe subliminal messaging just attracts people with filthy minds, or maybe there are just a bunch of bored ad execs and designers out there looking to have some fun. At the end of the day there is no strong argument for or against subliminal messaging, it is really down to what you choose to believe.

To end off, a less subtle form of subliminal advertising is the product placement that happens in movies - from gratuitous close ups of Iron Man’s Omega Watch to the less obvious placement of Ford Expedition Cars in the Dark Knight (apparently the Joker’s Henchmen drive them). Here is a humourous look at how shameless advertising in movies can be…

Tim.

In keeping with my sporting theme week I would like to remind everyone of this fanatstic TVC.  Oh wouldn’t we love for this to be reality….

Folksey

Recently a TimeZoneOne mate sent us a link of a very entertaining and informative Aussie Advertising show on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

It is definitely a must see for all of us advertising geeks.

the gruen transfer

Cheerio from Gruen “Foxy”

Here’s a great example of internet television production and distribution. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a 43-minute tragicomic musical produced exclusively for Internet distribution. It stars Neil Patrick “doogie howser” Harris and tells the story of Dr. Horrible (Billy), an aspiring supervillain, Captain Hammer, his nemesis, and Penny, their mutual love interest.

The movie was written by writer/director Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack Whedon (a television writer) and Jed Whedon (a composer), and Jed’s fiancée, actress Maurissa Tancharoen. The writing team penned the musical during the WGA writers’ strike. The idea was to create something small and inexpensive, yet professionally done, in a way that would circumvent the issues that were being protested during the strike.

The results were ground breaking with 200,000 hits on the site in the first hour…so much activity that the server crashed! You can enjoy Dr Horrible’s sing-along blog at http://www.drhorrible.com/

Dr. Nigel  

Yup, you can ban just about anything…

It’s the law: No Sagging Pants in Chicago suburb

or you’ll get one of these.

Matt

Today I prepare my first TimeZoneOne blog. On the same day in ‘69 Neil Armstrong hopped out of the Eagle landing craft and became the first man to set foot on the moon. That was a bit cooler than blog writing.Cooler still is Virgin Galactic ’s attempts to get us all up there (well, low orbit anyway), and this bold thinking is apparently being embraced by New Zealanders. According to Carolyn Wincer (head of astronaut sales for Virgin Galactic) ‘Along with the Republic of Ireland, we (New Zealand) have the highest proportion of Virgin Galactic astronauts per head of population in the world’ . Nice.

Bring on the TZ1 staff outing to low orbit…

Matt ‘Space Pom’ Herivel

Last week Richard and I went to Cal Berkeley University in San Francisco. We spent two days with members of the Athletic Department and our client, Stadium Capital, discussing an upcoming and very exciting project. Cal’s sports teams are known as the Golden Bears and they have a long history of excellence in all sports, including that sport dear to all Kiwi hearts - rugby. The Cal rugby team are regular national champions and get crowds of over 3000 to games. At the Olympics keep an eye out for Cal swimmer Natalie Coughlin. At the 2004 Olympics she won two gold medals, two silver medals, and a bronze. Our trip to Cal was very valuable, enlightening and enjoyable. Thanks to Dave and his Cal team, and to Dave from Stadium Capital, for hosting us and showing us around. Special thanks to Craig Morton for taking us on a tour of the stunning football stadium.

Tatts