Youth
Speaks is a San Francisco-based non-profit aimed at
introducing teenagers to poetry, spoken word performance and
creative writing. That mission comes through loud and clear in
a new series of spots in which a microphone scans four young
people and tries to find their voices. When it finds one -- in
the kids' hearts, their guts or their minds -- static gives
way to full blown pronouncements in the form of slam poetry.
While not a Goodby, Silverstein project, the spare campaign
was created by Goodby creatives Stephen Goldblatt and Dave
Laden, with Laden directing.
Researchers at Baylor College have
discovered why more people prefer Coke over Pepsi. It's the branding.
As London's Independent reports, "The researchers
found that the Coke label stimulated a huge increase in
activity in parts of the brain associated with cultural
knowledge, memory and self-image -- so much that the
scientists could use brain scans to predict which soft drink
an individual was likely to prefer."
Thankfully this inside information will forever remain
locked in the ivory tower of pure research. "We are not trying
to figure out how to market something better," one of the
researchers explains. "We want to be able to better understand
how brains work so that we can cure more neurological
disorders." Uh huh.
