Roma Finale 2009

Anyone who has met me (or read my Twitter posts) will know that I am a big football fan and more specifically a Manchester United fan. So today is an exciting and nerve-tingling day as the hours, minutes and seconds tick down to the climax of the Champions League.

As much as I love the football I also love the Champions League hoopla, the whole pomp and pageantry that accompanies a tournament so concerned with image, the very thing that makes it an advertiser's dream. From the opening bars of the "Champions League" (a specially adapted version of George Frideric Handel's "Zadok the Priest") the scene is set for something a little more magical then your average football match and with the final in Rome this year the idea of athletes in their prime living up to the billing of modern day gladiators is enough to whet the appetites of fans and marketeers alike.

One of my favourites adverts at the moment really taps into the fact that most fans of the Champions League love the theme tune (I would bet there are few fans who don't sing the Champiooooonnnnnns bit...) and Heineken have taken that and created some great spots, offering a humorous view of how the average fan can get close to experiencing winning the Champions League.



Alongside the beer adverts there has to be the traditional player sponsors adverts either during the final or in the days before. This year the main ones seem to come from Reebok and Adidas, though I can't imagine Nike (as United's sponsor and having just signed Ronaldo on a new boot deal) will hold back. Reebok have taken a fun, almost Nintendo Wii-esque approach with their Ryan Giggs and Thierry Henry 'mind games' viral:



Whereas Adidas have opted for an approach that is most definitely influenced by the spate of superhero movies released in the last few years. In my opinion football advertising often falls into these two camps, humorous or adrenalin-fuelled superhuman exploits. The humorous approaches often play to the adult fan, a kind of nod and a wink to the fan who doesn't play that much football but loves the game. Whereas the all singing, all dancing adverts cater to the teenagers who dream of making it like their idols, or the romantics enticed by the silky skills and enthralled by the dream of vicarious achievement. The latter adverts also work with the neutrals, those who turn on tonight because it's a final, because it features "that Portuguese one and the Argentinian" who will inevitably be let down when the first tackle takes the ball away from Ronaldo or Messi and sees them ushered out of the game. I am not embarrassed to admit that I am a romantic fan, as I would guess most people who go to the grounds on match days are. I love the game, the crowd, the chanting, the build up, the nerves and I love seeing great players play well, whoever they play for. So I am definitely a fan of the Adidas advert below:



I was lucky enough to be in Moscow last year for the final and I have great memories of that game despite the relentless, torrential rain. It is for this reason that I mention the Champions League Festival, the 5 day build up 'experiential task' awarded to Iris Experience to occupy fans of both teams in the run up to this season's final. For all the negative comments about the sponsorship and product placement rife in the modern game to a wet, bored, poor fan in rainy Moscow the Champions League Festival and all its branded merchandise was a godsend. A masterstroke of simple planning it gave a focus to the hours before the 9:45pm kick off and occupied the thousands of people milling around with young player tournaments, all star games, celebrity interviews and the chance to be photographed with the trophy. I am not sure if Iris organised it last year, but I hope they do a great job this year to ensure the fans are occupied in safe areas of Rome.

Finally to end on a less commercial note tonight's game will see the launch of a public awareness campaign by UK Charity Malaria No More. The charity has been chosen as the recipient organisation of the Sky Red Button Campaign, so viewers will be able to press the red button and access information about the charity (and donate) during Sky Sports 1's coverage of the final. David Beckham fronts this campaign and I think it's a great use of an available technology to try and capitalise on the interest generated by the celebrity lead PSA by offering an immediate and easy way to donate.

Enjoy the game and let's hope the best team win :-)

P.s for anyone wanting to enjoy the game online later the UEFA official website has a live stream available.

Extra information:
Unclear on the credits for the adverts posted, I will add them as I track them down!

Independent 25th May

Just a quick post of today's image in the Independent. For all of the eagle-eyed indy readers you'll have noticed I was credited with a G rather then a J for my name, but it was still me! I always have fun drawing riots and placards so I was pleased the art director went with the riot outside the window idea.




I'm helping my cousin with his GCSE revision today so it's all mathematical formulas and scientific concerns for me at the moment, but it's nice to be able to use my visualisation skills to help explain volumes and global warming!

Reaction to Jemillo.com

So the website has been live for a few days and I've had some very positive responses, which is always nice. A few people have mentioned that it takes a little time for the images to load, I'm going to try and tweak that to make it faster but I guess that's the downside of large images for now.

I'll also do my best to add more information about each image for those who would like more click through options. My original intention was to keep things as simple as possible, but I'm happy to give each image a description/bit of background.

I feel a little pressure to say something exciting on each post, so today I'll link to an article I saw in today's creativematch mailer about Tango. Now I don't normally take much of an interest in packaging, or fizzy drinks, but this was of interest to me as I took part in a two day idea generation session for Britvic just over a year ago and it was there that the ideas behind this campaign first came to life. So it was pleasing to see that the campaign has stayed pretty true to the themes we identified as being integral to the Tango brand last summer. The adverts are pretty funny too and can be seen on the save tango website

Finally if you received a promotional mailer from me today, welcome to the site!

Independent 19th May

I don't intend to post my Independent illustrations every week, but the one that appeared in yesterday's edition is below.



The brief I received focused on the idea of how to restore dignity to Parliament, so I produced some roughs around the theme of picking yourself up, dusting yourself down and trying to continue but as seen through the building itself. This was the idea chosen by the art director and after a few hours of drawing, generating and apply texture the gate was finished. Tricky things gates, but fun to do!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words..

but who is this 'they'?

Well in this case it is Mercedes Benz, and more specifically BBDO Düsseldorf (full credits below)




I haven't seen this advert in 'real life' but was lucky enough to happen across a link to it last week and have since spent many minutes of my life passing the link on. I happen to think it's a lovely execution of a simple visualisation of what the new brake system does. I would love it if the car did indeed see the road in a kind-of Knight Rider fashion, but I think that is probably unlikely. Then again I can't say I know that much about cars or the technology housed within them so maybe it's not that far from the truth!

Watch out for the slightly haunting end as the logo flashes!

Client: Mercedes-Benz Nederland B.V.:
Agency: BBDO Düsseldorf
Production Company: SEHSUCHT GmbH
Director: SEHSUCHT | Mate Steinforth
Animation: SEHSUCHT | Tom Abel, Lasse Claussen, Hannes Geiger, Christian
Heyde, Mate Steinforth
Producer: SEHSUCHT | Felix Martens, Karsten Müller
Music Composition: Thomas Kisser

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I shall begin...

If we see the past two posts as the warm up acts then this is when the show begins. Except in this case I have no pyrotechnics or gyrating dancers on offer, just a few words to introduce myself and set the ball rolling on my first foray into the blogosphere.

As you've probably guessed by now I'm an illustrator and I also do a few other creative-type things. I'll do my best to keep this blog about that but I might also throw in wider popular culture references if the mood takes me.

Essentially this blog is a place for me to show bits of work that might not sit comfortably with the feel of the main website or to quickly upload things when I don't have time to update the site properly. It will also house links to things that I have seen or heard and find interesting, I don't expect these to resonate with every (any?) one but they might give you a better idea of the type of things that inform my daily life. Finally I'll be using the blog to document the period from June 13th to July 13th when I will be swapping my UK base for a New York one and spending a month living in Brooklyn, NYC. Hopefully that should keep it interesting for at least a short while.

So I guess that's it. I hope you (whoever you may be) enjoy reading my posts and I hope you'll comment (constructively) should something need it.

Cheers,
Jem

MP's Expenses

Illustration for The Independent dealing with the current debate over MP's Expenses, published on 11th May.

The new Jemillo.com is here!

Welcome to the new Jemillo blog...months (and one injured wrist) later than anticipated the new site is up and running. Hopefully everything is working properly, but if you should have any difficulties please let me know and I will endeavour to fix it quickly.