Author Archives: duncombe

Why Metrics Are Killing Creativity in Advertising

By duncombe | Published: March 8, 2010
“Thing is, you cannot truly quantify creativity. And in ever-increasing fashion, our clients’ (and our own) rote dependence on the dusty world of metrics is exactly why creativity is going to hell. When marketing decisions are based on numbers, we lose completely the desire to “waste” time being creative. And heaven forbid we ever again [...]
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Sublime Accidents

By duncombe | Published: February 25, 2010
A public service ad for a seatbelt campaign in the UK, gone viral with lots of press too. Nice tension between beauty and horror. But if I didn’t before, will I wear a seatbelt now? Or does this serve the function of reinforcement? Or merely an e-mail forward as banal statement of concern? Hard to [...]
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A promise not satisfied

By duncombe | Published: January 4, 2010
“Aesthetic art promises a political accomplishment that it cannot satisfy, and thrives on that ambiguity. That is why those who want to isolate it from politics are somewhat beside the point. It is also why those who want to fulfill its political promise are condemned to a certain melancholy.” Jacques Ranciere, “The Aesthetic Revolution and its [...]
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Bottle Bank Arcade

By duncombe | Published: November 10, 2009
OK, it’s essentially an off-beat ad campaign by Volkswagon, but it does say something about modeling social behavior through fun. Bottle Bank Video
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Test Marketing Michael Moore

By duncombe | Published: September 23, 2009
NY Times article (9/20/09) on Michael Moore and how he tests the effect of his movies: < blockquote>“Although I’m trying to say things I want to say politically, I primarily want to make an entertaining movie,” he said. “If the art of the movie doesn’t work, the politics won’t get through.” To make sure the politics do get [...]
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Where’s Conservative Art? Crunchy Con

By duncombe | Published: September 2, 2009
Asking our question (kind of) from the other side of the aisle. See especially the comments section. Where’s Conservative Art?
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Politcal Communications Strategy

By duncombe | Published: July 30, 2009
Interesting blog piece from the Huffington Post from a political communications strategist about How To Win: Ill Communication: President Obama’s Misguided Health Care Strategy, by Ben Wyskida
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Politics of Surrealism

By duncombe | Published: July 13, 2009
Some interesting tidbits from The Politics of Surrealism by Helena Lewis (NY: Paragon House, 1988) “[Surrealism] tried to link together two revolutions: that of the mind, by liberating the unconscious, and the social and economic revolution of the masses. The Surrealists always maintained that one of the most important ways to undermine capitalism is to destroy [...]
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Power needs culture

By duncombe | Published: May 18, 2009
from Terry Eagleton’s new book: Reason, Faith and Revolution (Yale: 2009) p. 150 “Culture is what beds power down, interweaving it with our lived experience and thus tightening its grip upon us. An authority which fails to do this will loom up as too abstract and aloof, and thus fail to secure its citizens’ unqualified allegiance. [...]
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Gihan Perera: Internal Efficacy

By duncombe | Published: March 23, 2009
Gihan Perera: Grounding our Inner Leadership Spirit & Sustainability Profile “In so much of my political work, the benchmark of that was external. It was intellectual, and I mentally related it to my impact on objective conditions. However, so much of what I felt about my larger purpose was so non-related to those benchmarks. What was important [...]
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