Trends Magazine

We’re often asked to do barter deals with some of our suppliers. Obviously budgets are small, but sometimes you can do some cool work. This spot for Trends Magazine had to be dead simple – some people have said too simple, but I think it works well and it will get noticed.

The print ad was shot by Tommy Morris and the TV spot was digitally done by Modelcraft.

Excuse the low res of the TVC.

Magic Energy Drink

Although these three spots turned out ok, they were never meant to see the light of day. Originally, the scripts were a safe backup for our ‘big, really cool, Cannes Gold idea’. But the advertising gods were not looking down on us that day and the spot was canceled at the last minute.

Anyway, our backups were produced by Commercials in Istanbul, Directed by Olaf van Gerwen and Art Directed by Diya Ajit. The titles were done by Greg Meeks from Flic, South Africa and the music and sound design were done by MassiveMusic, Amsterdam. I think they turned out really nicely and they’ll do the job. Shooting in Istanbul was a great experience. The crew and production were great, but they fell a little short in their post. Maybe our crap budget had something to do with it.

Self Promo

Ok, ok… the visual is not that fresh, but it’s still edible. Personally I only remember seeing the logo used for a Mac repair shop where the bite in the apple had been replaced. So I did think this was a little different, besides, we were desperately in need of a Designer at the time and the ad had to go out. The Medium we used was online and the ad was posted on adsoftheworld.com. Within days, I had over 300 respondents and a couple of e-mails saying that we had copied some IBM ad – which I have to say, never ran either. In the end, the ad has worked and we managed to do an ad for Tonic without a Tonic logo – something that will help me the next time a client wants to make his logo bigger.

DP World Print

Again, this idea had Pete and I scratching our heads on whether to shoot and retouch or just use the power of the PC to render the image. After some discussion, we decided to render the image so that we could have more control over the results. The ad speaks for itself and communicates exactly what DP World does. Client happy. Vince happy.

Floating in a sea of stills

I was afraid of this brief when it first landed on our desk, but after meeting the client, I can honestly say that they have been a pleasure to work with. We developed an interesting TV spot for them. Shot on location in Dubai, Amsterdam and Antwerp, the spot was directed by Stillking’s Wolfberg and the post was done in Prague.

The film is made up completely of stills. We shot more than 50,000 images using three photographers. Ok, we only ended up using a fraction of that, but the results are pretty interesting. We also treated the spot with a random blur that made the ships and containers look like little toys. All in all, it was an incredibly enjoyable trip and I’m very happy with the results.

Hooked on Tetris

After a lot of hard work and a lot of pitches, I finally have the time to update the blog. We’ve been busy on a few projects, one of them being Bafco. Our second campaign for this client has been a learning curve for both Pete and I. We had a great idea for, but it was a little tricky to execute it properly. Finally we decided to put our faith in computer generated illustrations. Many factors contributed to this decision like having the leeway to move things around, change colours etc. The results are great and I think the idea comes through strongly.

Something different for the Pharmaceutical Catagory

Often advertising done for this category is crap and boring showing happy children and mothers. The idea for "Scary Vegtables" came directly from my four-year old daughter. When I asked her why she didn't want to eat her veggies, she said they were scary and there you have it - straight from the err... her mouth. A big thanks also goes out to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals for beleiving in the idea.

The campaign was shot by Tommy Morris here in Dubai. We had a scary potato, but we burried it literally and it's now a healthy potato bush growing in my garden.

Nando's "Ramadan Kareem"

I was asked by Campaign Middle East to write an article on advertising during Ramadan. I criticized the lack of creativity when it comes to this Holy Month and I had to back up my words with action. We came up with this idea in the first week of Ramadan last year and after just seven days the spot was sold, produced and running in countries around the Middle East and South Africa. I've never turned a TV ad around so quickly and thanks to the team at Nando's and Filworks, we were able to make it happen before the end of Ramadan.

We also launched the ad virally and the spot created so much interest, that I was receiving calls from Europe, the States as well as from countries around the Middle East. People started posting the ads on their blogs, on YouTube and other advertising websites. Heated debates were born and at the end of the day, the feedback was incredibly positive.

The spot was directed by Peter Walker and myself and apart from appearing on the Shots reel and on Luerzer’s Archive, it went on to win a Gold at the 2007 Epica Awards.

Sony Quotes

Here's another Sony campaign, this time for surround sound headphones. The concept was easy enough to produce, but maybe a little harder to get. For those of you that are scratching your heads right now, the idea is simple - we chose characters that don't usually speak and had them tell us clearly what they thought about Sony's new headphones. The sound quality is so good, you can actually understand what they're saying. Hey, maybe it would have been better as a TV ad.

Become The Beat

Satisfied with the "Kick" spot, Sony briefed us with two more commercials for the African markets. One of the products was for a Hi-Fi. It was quite a technical spot to produce, but in the end we were pleasantly surprised. This spot was extremely well received by the target market.

The spot was produced by Velocity South Africa and was directed by a talented young director named Jeana Theron.

Suicidal Office Furniture

What a client. They came to us and said, "go forth and create". That's exactly what we did. They had a very small media budget so the ads had to be impactful. We decided to kill off a few pieces of office furniture and leave behind a few suicide notes.

This campaign was shot by Clive Stewart in some of the most dodgiest office buildings in Johannesburg. We had some laughs.

Mmm

Between jobs I try and get a little pro-active and this is where Wonderbra comes in. Playing on the fact that all magazine that come into the UAE are censored with a black marker, we thought that this device would work great on a print ad. The ad was shot in our old office and I think Pete had a great time art directing this one.

Wonderbra "Censored" has done very well for us in terms of PR and awards. It has been showcased on Luerzer's Archive and many other websites and advertising Blogs around the world. It recently won a Gold at the 2006 Epica Awards in Europe and it was also a finalist at the inaugural World Press Awards.

I like the fact that this is an ad that could only have come from this region.

A kick-ass TVC for Sony

After proving ourselves in print, Sony allowed us to pitch for a Wega TVC that was to run in Africa and the Middle East during the Soccer World Cup. This was the first time that I was presenting a TV concept to Sony. I presented one idea to them and got very little response. I thought we had lost the pitch. Two weeks later they said yes.

Shot in South Africa, the Sony "Kick" spot was directed by Adrean De Sa Garces of Velocity. The spot has appeared on Shots and has won top spot on Shoot online and Boards. It also went on to win a Bronze at the 2007 Epica Awards.

One for the Judges

I felt the need to follow up the Sony "Paperclip" with two ads that I thought would do well. Unfortunately the whole world decided to do "Thin TV" type ads and these two became part of the mix. At least they both made it into Luerzers Archive.

Sony "MicroVault"

This neat little campaign done for Sony allowed us to be the first Middle East agency to be recognised in the prestigious D&AD Annual in London. It also picked up a finalist at The One Show and won the Grand Prix at the Middle East Campaign Awards. Unfortunately the judges at Cannes decided it was not even worth a finalist. Hey you win some and you don't. It's still one of my favourite campaigns and it's definitely one for the books.

It's amazing what you can do for $100 000

Our first major shoot came for Dubai Sports City. Pete and I spent close on three weeks in Amsterdam, Berlin and Edinburgh. Halfway through the shoot I landed up in a hospital in Berlin with some serious medical problems. After an operation, I returned to Amsterdam to oversee the retouching.

The campaign was beautifully shot by Dutch photographer Olaf Veltman and can be seen in Lürzer's Archive 200 Best Advertising Photographers 2006.

Sony "Paperclip"

We were on a roll, but we needed a bigger client and we targeted Sony. The idea was born long before Tonic ever existed. It’s an idea, my previous Art Director and good friend, Jamie Mietz and I had come up with while walking in one of the home electronic shops in Dubai. I did the ads up and after our first meeting with Sony, we sold them the concepts. It was the start of a great relationship.

In 2005, Sony “Paperclip” went on to win the Middle East’s first Gold at the One Show and the Region’s first Gold Lion at Cannes. It was also listed as the 28th best print ad of 2005 in the Gunn Report. Here’s to proactive work!

Our first real client

To this day, I still don’t know what made Quatermile hire us, but they did. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better client. Apart from tuning and pimping up sports cars, they sold a Swedish Super car called the Koenigsegg. It was at the time and still is, the fastest street legal car in the world. They were a great client until the owner tragically passed away in a car accident only 8 months after we signed them. The business changed owners and they haven’t been the same since. Almost three years later, we regained the koenigsegg account on a global level. Here are some of the ads I did for Quatermile.

The first two I art directed myself. shortly after that, I convinced Peter Walker to join Tonic and the first ad we worked on together was Koenigsegg.

The Early Days

When we started Tonic Communications in Dubai in August 2004, it wasn’t easy getting our first clients. Our passion was clear, but they wanted to see work. Apart from the work I had done before for other agencies, we had nothing else to show. I started doing up some of the ideas I had in my bottom draw and before we knew it, we had enough good ads to land our first client.

One of the first clients we approached was Gulfa. The Tonic philosophy must have gone way over their heads because they never called us back.

I had wanted to do up the Gyma Spices ads for a long time. I waited too long. Just after I had shot the ads, I saw the Tabasco ad at Cannes. Bugger.