Sports Are Pushing Limits Of What Once Was Xtreme

How disappointing can grand-daddy's summer be when one cyclist (and his team) after another has to leave the climax of the sportive year. Or sportsmen are getting weaker or expectations are augmenting, but in one way or another athletes seem dependant on chemical support to survive the “Tour de France”.

Let’s face it; sports-equipment is outperforming previous versions, stricter training and nutrition schemes are applied and athletes are being trained by proficient coaches since child ages, how the hell is it possible that they need droggi to be successful? It all is our fault, isn’t it? The ‘consumer’ is demanding too much and the puppets are just dancing the dance, or so it seems. Well then, I hope we got to a turning-point where athletes start realizing that a clean sport is appreciated by the vast majority.

So far for cyclism, where success is mainly based on power and endurance. Nonetheless, recently a drug-bomb was thrown in the golf scene by Gary Player. Indeed, grass-mowing sporters like Tiger Woods seem to be taking hormones, steroids and creatin to achieve more then they’re worth. Digging somewhat deeper, it appears that those substances relax the golf-players and calm down their nerves resulting in a better swing. Well let’s put things into perspective; it’s business, not sports anymore, so why not optimizing your resources?

But…so far for traditional sports. The wow comes from an alternative sport: skateboarding. As grown-up sports are taking it to a next level, so are 'young' sports. Have a look, and perhaps a guess, who knows where this is ending. [Sensitive people should be warned]

Belgian Candidate For Prime Minister Sings Wrong National Anthem

Now most political leaders wait until they are elected and entitled to get all ridiculous (Sarkozy, Bush …), but not the Belgian upcoming Prime Minister.

Although Yves Leterme excused himself for possibly offending some Belgian citizens, the movie in which he (1) makes a mobile phone-call in church, (2) fails to answer why they celebrate the country’s national day the 21^st of July and (3) mistakenly sings the French national anthem is creating quite some commotion. Unfortunately and on top of that he had already made himself quite unpopular by calling the French half of the country “intellectually incapable” of learning the other language, i.e. Dutch. However, 'unpopular' is not the correct word because in the end he got elected (by the Dutch).

So ok, he blew it once, maybe twice, well maybe a couple of times. But don’t we all have our bad days once in a while? It’s about how we make up for them and apparently it pays to dress charming:

Green Is The New Green

Since some time now I'm convinced that there's a lot of green ($) to make with green, and this trend seems to be taking some giant steps lately.

E.g. look at Al Gore’s popular movie “An Inconvenient Truth", the upcoming alternative resource constructions, the political debates on nuclear energy etc... However, are we becoming naturally conscious of our Mother's cry for help or are companies just 'abusing' that niche position to create and enlarge a new market?

In line with the previous post, following ad did win a golden lion at Cannes Lions 2007 (in the category corporate image). It will move you, it will send a thrill down your spine and make your skin tremble, it will wow you… but at that moment just think; was this affinity genuinely present in my mindset before I saw this ad or are they just creating a new need for me? And maybe you can answer the last question in the first paragraph.

'Simply' The Best

Welcome to ‘The-Wow-Of-The-Week’ blog! Hoping to find interesting facts and some time every week, it will be my attempt to post the most striking stories and events that happen to pass my eyeballs. With any luck they’ll wow you too.

To start off in an ironical way, this first wow symbolizes how visual minimalism and simplicity are in fact very powerful elements in television advertising nowadays, especially when accompanied with strong copy. Check out the following ad after putting on your sound.



Unfortunately this McDonald’s commercial did not win any price at the Cannes Lions 2007 (the equivalent of the Oscars for the advertising sector), and most of the honor went to more traditional submissions with lots of graphical effects and even 3D game simulations (e.g. Coca-Cola and Burger King). However, in a world where consumers are drowning in the media clutter and A(DH)Dvertisements are blind flashing our observation capabilities, this kind of “less is more” stuff really wows out.