New Year Predictions

Some predictions based on some knowledge, and a bit of wine

1. After a lot of nasty price and offer ads this xmas and new year, we'll move into a advertising and communications style that celebrates how long things will last. 'Smart investments' will be suggested in things that are built to last not built to burn. We'll see lots of extended warranties and new services that look like they 'save' you money on the surface (but will be disguised insurance policies)
   
2. Just seen '100 books' on the nintendo ds. And of course there's the amazon kindle and the sony reader out there too. They're still living in the world of neeks at the moment, but i reckon 2009 will see the growth of illegal book sharing. Have book publishers learnt from the harsh reality the music and film industries faced...?
   
3. It will be a year of consolidation and mergers in agency-land. There really are just too many agencies, meaning that each one has quite a lot of average people running around doing average work. Particularly in 'digital' where there's a LOT of average people pulling the wool over the eyes of senior agency staff who wouldn't recognise a digital opportunity if it sat there at breakfast.
   
4. Sadly, CSR, green credentials and ethics will take a back seat in communications. It will be interesting to see which organisations and brands pull support for these programmes - this will be an eye-opener for who was serious and who was green-washing.
   
5. Related to point 4, i think there's a massive opportunity for organisations to 'go local', and more importantly for some local organisations to thrive if they get it right. large companies can go local / personal by using digital to understand customers and potential customers. local organisations can't compete on the buying power and scale of multi-nationals, but they can win on trust and customer knowledge / service.
6. Also related to point 4, some of the good ideas for new forms of business organisation that were born out of sustainable thinking are equally valid for a wary economy - renting, sharing, repairing.
7. I might be biased, given where i'm now working, but i honestly think that we'll see new types of sales promotion that connect sales with genuine and relevant customer needs. Digital means that a sales promotion doesn't have to be one size fits all any more, the customer can have more control on what's interesting to them, and organisations and brands that capture this with genuine insight and genuine ideas will benefit from promiscious customers who can see past the false econony of a quick price reduction.
8. There was an interesting article in Q the other month that suggested that music tends to predict the economy. I'm hoping that more songs like Elbow's 'One day like this' show new optimism that will filter up into the economy in 2009. Sadly, i reckon we're in line for some depressing smiths-style numbers. But i'm loving the return to the 80s synth lines from Keane and the Killers latest albums.

And now to more wine...

For Emma. Xmas 2008

Click here for details...

[whilst this is on my blog, this is actually just for Emma. Others passing by, hope you're not disappointed!]

Happy holidays

Sorry, been far too quiet for a bit. It's been a blistering start to my new role at iris. Meeting lots of lovely people, getting involved with loads of new clients and some great ideas and opportunities for 2009.

So, I plan to think of a few predictions for 2009, and hope to be much more active next year.

But have a good xmas and new year!

The voices in my head

So yesterday, after 18 action-packed months, I left Proximity London.

(I'm joining iris in a group head of planning role.)

But I thought I'd do a top five personal achievements at proximity for my own records. Yes, a bit narcissistic, but that'll be blogging in general.... And there's nowhere else to put it.

1. Delivering digital strategies for RNLI and Harveys for 2009 (let's hope they're implemented), and winning a place on Shell's global digital roster

2. Seeing Harveys become a genuine challenger brand to DFS following the sponsorship of coronation street. It shows how a simple strategy, good advertising and a passionate client and agency teams can really make things happen. I think the most satisfying was seeing new work across multiple channels - TV, Print, Leaflets, Website, Email, Mobile, In store.....

3. Working with DDB and Mediacom on VW annual planning. The BTL agency wouldn't normally have had that level of involvement, so we (proximity) were very pleased. Some lovely campaigns for VW: Scirocco, Golf v6 (to come), Tiguan, Touran, Passat CC too.

4. Mentoring or helping or working with some great people who I know will do well - james hidden, james hough, jamie chadwick, kirtsy higgins, abi fletcher, mat spencer, jo dann, andy ford, emma bushnell, charlie h-s, nicole mackintosh, andrew waddell, matt tanter, scott hendry, anna booth, megan randell, emma slade, tessa clements.

5. Actually using semiotics, ethnographic research and discourse analysis sensibly and practically for some work! Simon W - the original map of possible positive charge inputs seems to be working....


Thanks to amanda phillips, mark hancock and kevin allen who took a bit of gamble letting me in the building in the first place. Thanks proximity and good luck in the future.

Stratstock

Last night I had the honour of speaking at 'Statstock: - how the other half plan'. This was an IPA Strategy Group event that brought together 9 planners to speak about what its like to plan from the perspective of their discipline.

The brief was to 'to help younger planners broaden their view of what strategy and planning can mean in very different types of agencies and consultancies'.

So I was speaking from the world of direct marketing. Which was bloody difficult as we had Max Wright from Rapier speaking about an integrated approach, Martin Bailie from Glue (digital), Sam Noble from iris (sales promotion). So as you can imagine, there was the potential for a lot of overlap... It was also made more difficult as we were speaking at the same time in a big room at the Mary Ward House with booming acoustics....

(Oh yeah, and there was no audio visual equipment either, so flip charts, pens and actual conversation were required)

The reality for me is that planning is planning is planning when you're looking for the 'grand strategy' (thanks to Stephen King's theory of planners here). It's about understanding people, motivations, moods, potential connections and how brands can be inciteful in linking these together in a useful and valuable way.

But planning is necessarily more discipline focused when you're 'advert tweaking' - i.e helping craft the execution (including the measurement / evaluation).

So for DM I tried to focus on the new and interesting things that i've been involved in that lead to more effective direct marketing: semiotics, discourse analysis and ethnography. (In retrospect, I tried to throw too much in to my 10 minutes!)

For me, the way that differerent speakers approached their chat was just as instructive on the shades of planning as their content:

• boards vs. live pen scribbling vs. just talking
• conversation vs. polemic (i didn't realise we were competing for which discipline was best...)
• facts and case studies vs. thoughts, ideas and suggestions
• looking back vs. looking forward
  

I didn't get to see all the other speakers, but overall feedback was that it was a interesting night, people felt that they had value for money and some ideas to take away. (as well as some top tips. which reminds me. this guy has scanned in all of the first pack of IPA strategy group fast strategy top tips. wow - check it out here)

The ipa girls were filming, so hopefully we'll see some good edits on the ipa website soon.

FREE music downloads

Whilst i've not been blogging, I have been spending time writing and producing new pieces of music.

Over on Clueless Chimp there's 5 new tracks to download for FREE! (right click on the link, save target as. Then click on the file from explorer to launch into itunes)

My good friend David Nicholls and I have been jamming away, and Hey Now Sister is the product of that. To be honest, it needs a remastering, but you get the idea.

I was in a band called 'Amber Waves' with David at university. Or was it 'The Amber Waves'? We argued a lot over the definitive article. In fact we argued a lot about a lot back then. We're older and wiser now, safe in the knowledge that we'll never be on the front cover of Melody Maker or Select, and we won't be performing live on Top of the Pops.

We do have some vague plans for some live events in 2009 though.

Planning to get talked about

It's see something that:

a) uses direct mail effectively - interesting stuff was sent to a number of young video bloggers

a) uses social media effectively - they were encouraged to open their mail on their vblogs.

c) has a bigger and wider social meaning - they were asked to produce content that flies in the face of the media stereotypes of young people as knife-holding hoodies and shows the youth of Britain as a more caring, involved and socially active group of people.

d) has a real world social element of people doing things together- the bloggers were invited to the RNLI head quarters in Poole to see what they do and meet young people who are contravening the youth stereotypes by volunteering as crew or as lifeguards. The bloggers blogged about this too.


so from less than 20 mail-packs to over a quarter of million views, responses, texts, emails showing that the previously silent majority of british youth are now prepared to speak out.

watch out for the next phase. 'Broken Britain' ((c) The Sun, 2008) is going to be fixed.....

Check out all the mystery package videos and responses on You Tube.

A genuinely positive action from an organisation that is trying to connect people using the most cultural relevant means available.

Been a bit lost....

Hello. Is there anybody out there?

Apologies for the radio silence.

It's been a hectic, mad, contradictory, progressive, sad, exciting, new and 'same old' for the last few months.

The next few months promise more of the same, but I hope to blog about it a bit more.

We heart loyalty

(photo thanks to hummingbird heart on flickr)

When there's a sign of an economic downturn, many brands start to think about the old adage that it's more profitable to look after and grow value from current customers rather than to try and get new ones. I suspect this is because they're worried about losing customers to competitors who slash their prices in tough times.

Of course, trying to start 'loyalty' initiatives now is just too late.

For me, genuine loyalty comes down to one simple statement:

'Staying with something for the long-term even though there may be more attractive options available right now'.

So this means sticking with something even through 'bad times'.

Is this really possible? Will people really give a s**t about brands over the long-term? Can 'loyalty marketing really work?

The trouble is that most people discount the future. They are easily and irrationally attracted to offers. Tell someone you'll give them £10 now or £100 in a year, and most will take the £10. Tell them somethings free, and they'll overlook something much better that costs them only a nominal value. (Read the brilliant book 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely for more insight into this sort of human behaviour)

The other day, my parents booked a flight to the US, just so they had enough miles to maintain their American Airlines Platinum status. So I guess it can work.

But from this is a clue. Loyalty is more likely to come from experience over and above the norm (in this case not from privilege not points).

So what does that mean for brand wanting to get somewhere close to loyalty from customers?

• Offering just a future discount based on behaviour will fail. If you're going to use discounts, do it on initial purchases to try and build a habit. (let's not pretend it's loyalty, and rename it inertia marketing??!)
  
• Do something special on the first purchase, not the 100th
  
• Look for ways to create prestige and recognition rather than discounting the brand
• Change the way the brand behaves with people who are interested. I've said it before, but for me the best 'loyalty schemes' are those that crowd-source and ask for opinions that will be acted on. P&G Tremor, Nokia, BMW, and Lego are all good examples.
• If you use points and prizes, then make sure you link it to a data and insight strategy that allows you to understand people better and test different propositions, offers and ideas with them.
• If you're online - make registering have no barriers to entry so you can immediately start to buld up a picture of what people are looking at and buying (and link into a data & insight strategy as above). This means something special on the first purchase (or even browse) not the 100th. Oh, I've said that already.
• And have a bloody good product or service. (quite important that one)
  

The Dream Machine

Probably the silliest thing to do right now is to open a record shop. A shift to downloads and even the big boys are struggling.

But John and Elaine have gone and done just that in East Dulwich (which was missing some musical-like shopping opportunities). Hurrah!

They're running the shop as an open community collective - encouraging anyone and everyone to come on, get involved, help out and generally spark off a music community. I spent a good few hours today, pricing up records and trying to put together shelves for them (badly, I must add).

Who knows if they're mad or inspired. But if enough people get involved, there's a fighting chance that the Dream Machine (sister store in Texas) can survive and thrive.

I'm going to be helping them out, trying to think of new and cool ways to spark off some word of mouth, get people involved, and hopefully enable lots of local music-loving folk get their fix.

Launch part is tomorrow at the Constitutional Hall in East Dulwich. Here's the details on the East Dulwich Forum

Juis Suis Animal and Martin Carr (of Boo Radleys fame) are playing. Come on down - it's only £6.

And here's the party in the shop last night... probably be another one tomorrow night!

Agent Orange

It seems the link wasn't working on my last post, so here we are embedded.  If you haven't read the previous post, this is a sabotaged version of the Orange 'I am' TV ad.  With changed dialogue and music....  

Creepily telling us that mobile phone operators are collecting lots of data and spying on us.  

Happy days.

I am .... disturbed

New brand campaign from Orange from Fallon.

I think there's a really good central thought here - something to do with mobiles connecting and enabling your life - past, present and future.  Certainly a brave attempt to position Orange as more important than a particular tariff or offer on a new phone.

But I find it a bit dark and a tiny bit creepy.  

It might be the music (slightly melancholy piano number, that reminds me of a cross between Four Tet and Boards of Canada).  

Or perhaps it's the way people fade in and out like a dream / nightmare.

Maybe it's the way no-one seems to smile properly.  (Even the 'encouraging' teacher, has an evil glint in her eyes).

It actually makes me feel that David Lynch might have been involved, and the narrator / viewer is actually a psychopathic serial killer living in a distopian world.

Good to see that it's spawned some rip-offs already. Check out this reworked version:  'Agent Orange'.

Suddenly the original doesn't seem quite so disturbing.

I drink, you drink, we drink

31st May. Boris stops people drinking on public transport in London. So no surprises that there's a big party - centred on the circle line. Lots of drunken behaviour, vomiting and a number of arrests in this alcohol fuelled flash mob.

For me, echoes of the Paris Commune and the student uprisings of the 1960s. People trying to lay claim on a public space and redefine what different boundaries stand for. In this case, we're seeing a protest / class struggle / dispute over both physical and social boundaries, with the resistance coming in a playful manner (reminiscent of the Situationist International).

A few years ago, we would have marvelled how this was organised through social networks and mobile phones. (But though those of us who went to raves in the 80s/90s know that you don't need digital technology to organise some unlicensed fun.)

Interestingly, (if you follow Mark Earls and his Herd theory) this circle line party wasn't some centrally-controlled and organised event. There weren't some 'key influencers' who told everyone else what to do.

It actually came about from many different groups and people debating about the change in the law and thinking it would be a good idea to commemorate the occasion in the best way we know - a massive piss up. And the circle line pub crawl has been a student favourite for generations.

So the perfect conditions for an idea to be spread / imitated through people's behaviour:

* lots of different groups all with similar beliefs
* a highly dispersed network, with many 'weak links' that allowed these different groups to hear about what others were planning
* and yes, I suppose, the technology to make it easy for these weak links to be connected and for the idea to be spread
* an incredibly visible action that is easy to imitate

Lots of people drank far too much, and I'm sure there were many sore heads the next day. But I wonder how much more people drank because they got caught up in the occasion? Many would have gone with the intention of drinking as much as possible. And there were enough of these to get a critical mass of people behaving in one way. Through imitation and subconsiously wanting to fit in, many more will have changed their behaviour away from what they rationally would have intended.

It's like a night after work. You go out with no intention of staying out too long. If there are one or two people wanting to carry on, that's not enough to make you stay. No matter how influential they are. But if there are a few more, and the night is more interesting / entertaining that you expected, you stay out. When you see someone who's not normally out having a few, it makes you feel better about staying out yourself.

So I was particularly interested to read this month's Brand Strategy, where Pamela Bower-Nye, global marketing director for attitudes to alcohol at Diageo talks about their responsible drinking strategy.

She talks about the need to move away from lecturing about responsible drinking to talking about 'choices'. Reading what she says, the focus of Diageo's campaign is on making the consequences of irresponsible drinking personal - being excluded by their social peers for being an embarrassment. (Making people think about personal consequences is also the strategy behind Leo Burnett's drink and drive ad campaign).

However, I think for these campaigns to work, its not enough to give people a message when they're sitting in their living rooms - no matter how personal / relevant / engaging the message might seem.

It requires brand action alongside brand message. This means doing something at the moment of choice - i.e. at a night out - something that actually changes people's behaviour at that moment, so that others imitate.

Is there a future in loyalty?

(photo thanks to atomicshed on flickr)

I'm working on a pitch just now where one of the questions is 'what is the future of loyalty programmes?'

When I started in this industry loyalty schemes were new and exciting and would save the world from bad advertising. Now they're increasingly commoditised and people now expect rewards on initial purchases in the form of cash-backs on sites such as ipoints or quidco. So where's all the loyalty gone?

So here's my quick and dirty predictions. Would love to hear other people's thoughts!

• Consolidation into a few large points schemes where people can see the benefit from buying products and services across multiple sectors
• Move from points into cash-back for these larger schemes (especially online aggregator schemes)
• Successful loyalty schemes will be those that are aligned to a holistic customer data strategy that enables brands to understand and connect more with people at a personal level
• Branded loyalty schemes will evolve to focus on enhanced experience of the brand’s product or service rather than discounted points converted into unrelated goods

Is ROI killing innovation?

Brent Hoberman (of lastminute.com fame) did the opening address at the Future of Digital Marketing 2008 conference today in London.

Presenting without PowerPoint, he took us on a lightening-fast and enlightening trek through his experiences, ideas and other random digital-related thoughts.

(It was a shame that the rest of the day couldn't live up to such a great opening... some of the presentations would have more appropriate at a 'past & current of digital marketing 2004' conference)

Brent knows he's been successful, but he wasn't arrogant enough to suggest he's an innovation genius. When talking about his newest innovation - mydeco.com - he was humble enough to suggest that there's still lots of learning to do. Some things that currently look like winning elements might not take off, and other simple ideas might end up being the killer app. Successful innovation comes from setting off lots of initiatives and ideas - not necessarily one 'big' idea.

So one thing Brent said really struck home - he questioned whether ROI can kill innovation. He wasn't saying that as marketers we shouldn't worry whether things are working or not - of course we should care about this. No, he was suggesting that the obsession with 'ROI' and 'certainty' will stop good and new ideas from happening.

How can you do something different and innovative if you need proof that it will work?

At worst this would mean only ever copying what you or your competitors have already done.

At best, proof can be 'found' by looking in different categories and piecing together 'evidence' from case studies that are similar to the strategy / idea that you're suggesting.

But history is written by the victorious. There are few case histories that demonstrate what hasn't worked. (Brand Failures by Matt Haig is the only real example I can think of). Looking within these 'case studies of success' from a source like the IPA Effectiveness Awards will quickly confuse you with success coming from apparently contradictory strategies for two different brands in the same category....

For me it comes down to the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.

Measurement and ROI analysis can only ever help you be more efficient. Spend your money again in places where it worked and take your marketing dollars out of stuff that doesn't. Good worthy stuff that we should all do. (Although I would argue that a red, amber, green model for 'should we do it again?' would simplify this process and prevent us having to wade through graph after graph of data analysis)

Improved effectiveness will only come from innovation. Doing something different to the category, different to the norm and providing some genuine value to the people you want to buy your product or service. Yes, measurement and ROI analysis can be one of the inputs into the innovation and ideation process, but 'proof' can never be found to justify something genuinely new.

So it worries me that whilst 2007 saw many agencies and businesses invest in innovation departments, job titles and descriptions, the current 2008 climate is seeing our friend ROI turning up to every party, with his close friends 'guaranteed' & 'proof' tagging along.

It's a party with lots of conflicting and loud voices. I just hope everyone can get along and innovation isn't ushered out the back door for being too unreliable...

Balloonacy

I loved the Orange Unlimited and never ending website that Poke created for them to help advertise their unlimited texts campaign. It was a simple but clever idea, beautifully executed, and certainly took up a number of hours of my time.

I think perhaps it was a bit of a decadent use of marketing funds, but I would imagine the 'engagement' box was well ticked with very long dwell times. (Though I'd like to see that stats on how it did in social media)

Well, I think they've surpassed themselves on the 'wish I'd done that' stakes. They've only gone and created a brand new concept:

The digital nomad.

The world's first internet balloon race. Choose a balloon animal (corresponding to one of their four 'segment' tariffs - camel, dolphin, racoon or canary, which are now being launched on pay as you go). Give it a name and a purpose and wait for the race to start. (22nd June)

So what happens?

You guide your balloon across the web - visiting different web sites and collecting points for its travels. There's some interaction as you get your mates to support you and give you a boost. And in Sonic the Hedgehog style, different websites have different power ups that earn you more points / distance. Each animal has different characteristics (temperament and speed) - though it's not clear how these will play out in the game.

A widget for your web site / favourite social networking site will give you updates and allow your friends to see how you're doing.

You can even submit your webpage / social media page for inclusion in the great web journey. So not only do you compete and interact - you get to help set the course as well.

The balloon that goes the furthest wins some big prizes. (Ibiza trip, reflecting the age group they're targeting). And there are daily prize draws for good performers. But with something as involving and potentially entertaining like this, it's not just the competing for the big prize that matters - it's the ability to get stats & feedback to compare with your mates for social kudos. (As well as look at the stats for numbers of visits to your web pages).

In fact, if I could make one suggestion to Poke, it would be to include the ability to set up mini-leagues with my mates so its easy for this group banter (perhaps using the social media widgets)

So it looks like a blast, and certainly deserves to have success in terms of likeability, WOM, and engagement. It also gives Orange a whole bunch of emails and data to play with for future nurture / prospecting and conversion.

I guess my only challenge to Poke is to keep the interest levels up in the lead up and during the actual race. They've sensibly restricted the fun to 7 days, and are now generating as much buzz as possible in the anticipation of the event. But having signed up today, I've only received a perfectly pleasant email. I want more!

Whether this will work in terms of PAYG sales, who knows. And in fact, I'm actually not a fan of Orange's overall strategy of taking their segmentation into full customer-facing marketing, but that's another post.

But great to see something brave, new and interesting.

(Thanks to Pete Petrella for pointing this out - a brilliant digital creative chap)

So was difficult worth doing?

So they did it.

3 minutes of tense times on C4, particularly as they struggled with the 'N'. And a nice moment, when we see 'hello mum' written in crude pen on the gloves of one of the sky divers. (Rather bad shot of the car though, but we'll forgive them that as it was live.)

2.2 M watched the live ad (Guardian). There was an increase from 2M to 2.2M when the ad was shown according to unofficial overnights. So a minimum of 200K actively engaged?

I managed to miss the 'live' event, but I guess that's not the point. It's about planning to be to be talked about too.

And is it working?

Well 52K hits on You Tube in 4 days. Who knows how many hits Honda have on their site.

Blog Pulse doesn't show a massive increase, but we'll see in the next few days.

Over on Creative Review, the comments are slightly flat.

Personally, I think in the world of PVRs, making appointment to view advertising is a good idea, and I admire W&K / Honda for their bravery. But it's interesting that the ad is linked to the Accord rather than just being a Honda brand piece. Yes, there's a shot of the car on the ground, but let's be honest, the product has nothing to do with the ad and vice versa. For me Cog was stronger as the product was intrinsically vital to the ad's success.

But they've got a long way to go to meet the 1M+ who watched cog on You Tube. It's going to take a lot for the live ad to go viral.

Will the ad make a long-term effective impact on people outside of the advertising community...?

Britain's Got Talent?

I might be wrong, but I reckon that CHI were inspired by Britain's Got Talent when developing their ad for drench water....

Drench Ad?



(you want to look at about 1 min in for the best bit...)

Britain's Got Talent?




Thanks to Simon Law for helping me spot that possible link...

Trade on Trust

About a year ago, at my last agency, I pitched (unsuccessfully) for Royal Mail communications planning. The big idea that we had (thanks to Simon and Graeme) was for RM to transform their SME database into an active and living online community where other people (businesses or consumers) could rate and review SMEs. Rather than a static listing with just the address and web page, SMEs would be humanised.

(...the people behind the numbers, you might say!!!).

We called it 'Trade on Trust'.

It was a big idea, and perhaps too much of a stretch for Royal Mail at the time. But given recent experience with builders, trust is so important in choosing your hired help.

We needed some builders. We went on the East Dulwich Forum. There were quite a few recommendations, but 'Tom & Jay', stood out a mile for their glowing reports. We phoned them, got them in and got a quote. They were about 30% more expensive, and of course, we had to wait 8 weeks more to get them in. The rational brain said that they couldn't possibly be that much better. But then the emotion kicked in. This is the house we want to stay in for years, we really want it to be perfect.

And of course, the emotions won, and we're now living in a tip as Tom and Jay (& Dirk) are at work. As with any building project, the costs already seem to be spiralling.... 'No, that wasn't quoted for.' ... 'actually this would look a lot better with a new wood flooring...'. Hmmm.

And yet, even though I rationally know that we might be being overpriced, the thought of getting another builder / carpenter etc. in for these additional jobs, seems like a bit too much effort. (Which I'm sure is what Tom & Jerry, sorry Jay, are expecting.) But if this was a scam, surely the East Dulwich Forum would have some luke-warm reviews?

I've always suspected that the only reviews written are those that are either really positive or those that are really negative. And who wants to say on a review that they think they might have been ripped off? Particularly when they look at their finished masterpiece and they're filled with emotional pride. (And I have to admit that T&J are doing an excellent job).

Perhaps we have artifically inflated reviews akin to the Hawthorne Effect?

So how can people like me get a 'real' sense of who to trust for projects like this?

Can businesses really 'trade on trust'?

I am sure that there is still an opportunity waiting to be grabbed by a business that has both national scale and local relevance. (Royal Mail / Post Office, Yell, Thomson, Trinity Mirror, BBC, ITV, Job Centre Plus....) But to make it a success, this online resource /portal would need to have a pretty complex recommendation algorithm. Not just an 'average'. An algorithm that measures recency, importance, semantics, context, validity & volatility.

So maybe we'll have to leave it to Google then.

The curse of the planner's advert

As a planner, I spend far too much time deconstructing other companies' communications.

It does annoy friends and family who aren't really that interested in 'advertising', but it keeps me amused.

Who's this for? What's the insight?
What's the proposition? What's the creative idea?
Do I think it will work?

I guess I'm trying to see 'behind the execution' to get a glimpse of another planner's work.

It should be possible to understand and guess at all of this in a well crafted piece of communication.

Some will probably argue against me, but the planning work shouldn't be glaringly obvious in the final communication. (Unless it's a very simple rational offer / message where less creative ideation is needed). The creative development phase should take the planning insight and proposition and transform it into something that connects with people on a number of emotional levels.

And certainly you shouldn't see the planner's work poking out in a car ad.... that pinnacle of artistic endeavour. The most rewarding representation of the TV creatives' art. Subtly playing on the emotions and the senses. Bringing in the compelling rational thinking to help you justify your extortionate spending. Creating ultimate desirability for a hunk of metal on wheels.

So OMG to Kia with this ad for the Cee'd. So bad I had to write about it.

I can see the brief now....

Our target audience are really indifferent about our cars and they just have no desire to buy them. We really need to change their minds with a TV ad.

Watch it. It's appalling.



I know that a good planner's proposition should be good enough to run as a billboard, but this????

Shame. Because in searching for that Kia ad on You Tube, I came across this one for the Sportage 4x4, which is great. If you've got nothing interesting to say about your product, at least make an ad that makes me laugh.

Jealousy?

I've been a bit lucky!

Ages ago I was asked to go and speak at a marketing conference in Moscow.

About three weeks ago I noticed that the date was 22nd and that I would be in Moscow on the night of the Champions League final.

And last week I managed to get hold of tickets for the game.

No one likes a show off. But not sure that I really care right now.

Woo hoo!

(I just hope that the Russians stay up all night drinking vodka tomorrow night so that they're not too bothered to hear about the challenges of CRM in FMCG!)

Fast Strategy

Tomorrow (28th April) is the IPA Strategy's conference: 'Fast Strategy'.

I'm pleased to say that by being part of the IPA Strategy Group, I've had a small part to play in helping get this show off the ground.

It promises to be a lot of fun. We've got three teams (leaders are Mark Earls, Phil Georgiadis and Johnny Hornby). They're taking a COI brief in the morning, to come back with their strategies in the afternoon. In the meantime, the conference attendees can listen to some thoughts and ideas from the great and the good of ad-land, with TBWA, Wiedens, Grand Union, the Times, Naked, and Leo Burnetts all doing a turn.

At £150 a pop, it's actually pretty good value for a day of good speakers. But I know I've not found it easy signing this off (yes even group members have to pay... the IPA aren't going to miss out on any possible income!).

So I hope the attendance is good, the speakers are great and people enjoy the fun and frivolities.

My money's on Mark E's team to crack the COI brief... not sure if anyone's actually running a book though???

What this space for a (not so impartial) review.

The seedy side of Manchester

(Photo credit, holdsy from flickr)

Some might say that every side of Manchester is seedy.

(and no that wasn't supposed to be an oasis reference...).

Anyway, a bunch of geo-anarchists under the group name of 'guerilla geography' have an interesting plan to create a multi-media map of manchester.... they're inviting people to give information about any 'naughty' event that took place in the town-where-it-always-rains. The information will be put on a map and produced as conceptual art for next year.

So if you've ever been in Manchester and had a rock n' roll star moment.... (!)

Electric Dreams (Book Review)

History isn't always written by the winners.




Usually, books with a historical theme have a habit of being quite dull.

Often these books are revisionist texts drawing on multiple references to build a single argument: references the author agrees with and references that they feel they can shoot down.

Or alternatively, the author tries to cover every possible aspect, view and detail that the reader gets bogged down in tedium. (See Peter Ackroyd's books on London and the Thames for a good example of detail obsession)

This book didn't look too promising at first glance:

* it is about 'computers' - I really didn't want to read about the development of fortran and cobal
* it is about computers in 'American' culture - I'm generally very sceptical of American-focused stuff
* there didn't appear to be too many pictures

But I loved this book.

Computers represent the ultimate dialectic of capitalism. They represent power and control, yet they also represent liberation and grass roots activism. Individualism and collectivism. Technology allows for the concentration of the means of production in the hand of the few (think of the use of computers in the City), yet also allows people to connect and share ideas that undermine the very fabric of capitalism. (think terrorist operations and the dispersed yet effective organisation of anti-capitalist action).

This book is wonderful, not only in that it got me thinking about a whole host of dialectic observations (!), but primarily because of how it considers its topic:

It's a cultural reading. Rather than reviewing academic texts or considering primary and secondary sources of consumer research, the author looks at how 'cultural texts' are produced within and without the system. He considers the way in which these texts demonstrate how computers affect and are affected in American culture

What does that mean in English?!!

Well Ted Friedman (the author) has a look at a bunch of letters, films, magazines, games, TV programmes, adverts, websites to see how computers and stories / mythologies surrounding computers' roles are represented.

So we get a look at the films 'the Desk Set', '2001', 'Matrix'. We look at Wired & the Wall Street Journal. We look at Apple's 1984 ad and IBM communications. We look at cyberpunk literature (eg. William Gibson and Kurt Vonneget. We look at Civilisation and Sim City as 'God' games. We look at flash mobs and blogs.

It's a very diverse and informative read, picking up and picking apart multiple threads. (Although it can be a little heavy going in places). Moreover, it takes a potentially turgid topic and litters it with interest.

What's particularly refreshing, is he tries to consider diametrically opposite views (i.e. technology as a good thing vs. technology as a bad thing). And by considering texts produced at a point in time (historical materialism), he avoid too much revisionist thinking.

It reminded me of Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins (another very excellent book). Jenkins also looks at culture to consider changes in the world of media and entertainment. (His texts being The Matrix, American Idol, Star Wars, and Harry Potter amongst others)

Actually, check out Jenkins' blog if you have a spare few hours (pithy, he is not)

But anyway, back to Electric Dreams...

There is no central argument per se, although Friedman is certainly of the view that technology is a great liberator rather than something that should be suppressed and controlled. He is in the optimism camp, where all possible worlds should be dreamed and imagined and can be fulfilled by technology. The language he uses gives him away as someone who has been trained in Marxist ideology and one who believes in a lot of it.

But hell, this blog isn't called commune for nothing...

Glass is half empty productions

In an ad break yesterday:

1. Dairy Milk 'Trucks' ad: 90 seconds of averageness
2. National Lottery ad: 20 seconds of pure joy

Fallon 0
AMV 1

(though AMV must be gutted about the repitch)

Sausages (Book Review)

Unless your product or service is actually useful in some way to somebody, you're wasting your time and money with loads of marketing guff...





David Taylor has written quite a few books about brand marketing - brand gym and brand vision to name a couple.

Those other two books are worthy guides to brand marketing, full of bullet points, ten-point guides and other stuff that you can copy into presentations.

But 'never mind the sizzle...' is a much nicer read. It's told as fiction - a story of a guy from sales on a year placement in marketing at a flailing UK company who make sausages.

Bob (our hero) discovers the marketing team developing a product extension (pizzas with sausage on top), wasting time and money with an expensive ad agency. Brand diamonds, meaningless focus groups, media stunts, celebrities, over-the-top ad shoots and a ridiculous tag-line prevail....

But Bob sees the value in their core brand, reigniting it with solid research, genuine insight, and connecting to real people. Oh, and he gets a great job done by a hungry small design agency with no fat expense account.

It's an obvious story where Bob saves the day, the marketing director loses the plot and the ad agency drown in champagne at their soho members club.

But entertaining and strangely instructive nonetheless.

And to be honest, it's a valuable reminder to all of us in ad-land to take a step back on what we're doing and think about how absurd it all is. And that we really are meant to providing a service to people...

Rather sadly, I give you two recent examples....

• My girlfriend works at an agency who have a large mobile phone handset company as a client. She was in a focus group the other day where people asked after about 1/2 hour -
  'can you actually use it as a phone?'

• I sat in a meeting last week where we (yes, I'm complicit in this one), honestly recommended 'getting cool people to create art that symbolises the product'.
  

So heed the warning, ad agency folk. If clients read this book, watch out.

Gage's Library

People who know me know that I read a lot of books. Amazon Prime is made for me, and not a week goes past without the aesthetic beauty of the brown cardboard box landing on my desk at work.

I promised Jo at work that I would write some reviews and overviews on my blog. Most people don't have the time to read some of the crap that I do. And let's be honest, most books can be easily summarised:

The Long Tail - fewer numbers of people like stuff that's less popular, but the web means that even the least popular things can be matched up to the weirdos that like them.

The Tipping Point - a few people influence loads of others. Get them and you're made. The web makes this easier.

Wisdom of Crowds - lots of average people together are better than individual experts. The web makes this easier.

Herd - people do stuff instinctively and there's no 'maven' or 'leader' required.

Blink - your first thoughts and ideas are usually right.

Purple Cow - unless your product or service is different, you're buggered.

Brand Innovation Manifesto - unless your product or service is different (in one of xx helpful types defined by John), you're buggered.

Green Marketing Manifesto - unless your product or service green and normal (in one of xx helpful types defined by John), you're buggered.

The Black Swan - there's no point predicting anything. Ever. Other than unpredictability. (400 pages down to one line there, now that's being succinct)


This saves time and hopefully means more people can spraff on like planners in meetings...

(remember to cross your legs, put your fingers into a steeple, and close your eyes whilst musing....)

Odd hobbies?

Marketing Direct are running a piece about people in the industry with unusual hobbies - so our PR agency suggested I submitted a piece. It seems that writing some music at home is unusual in the direct marketing industry. I wonder what a normal hobby is for people who read Marketing Direct?

Appreciating new things...

I was putting together a nice film on the sorts of things that people take time out to appreciate in life. 'Personal Appreciation' being a comms platform that we're working towards for a client brief.

We filmed a bunch of people around the agency chatting away about their passions... including Mr. Hancock and his love of vox amps.....

I was kind of inspired after editing the film (& maybe hearing Mark go on about getting particular sounds), so thought I'd write a new piece to go with it. Bit of a change of direction - got loads of orchestral sounds... violin, cello, trombone, brass section, timpani. Had quite a lot of fun remembering my cadences and key signatures from studying music structure and composition.

I couldn't stay completely with the classical style. Notice that I sneaked in a classic dub bassline in there. Soundclash is sooo easy...

As usual, the finished piece is uploaded on the website here.

Ealing Comedy

I'm carefully packing up all the music equipment for the the big move. Obviously I couldn't do this quickly and efficiently. Instead I felt the need to write some more stuff...

So hop it over to the website and have a listen to two new tracks.

They should run in the browser. (Right click, save target as to bring into your lovely itunes!)

1. Last and Final Willow - named as the last and final song written in Willow Road.
2. Three Come Along - named after my perpetual waiting for the E3 bus. Never again, I hope!

Email me on gagey501@googlemail.com with any comments, thoughts and ideas.

I hope I can remember how to plug everything together in the new house!!!

WH Smith in 'great experience' shock

The other day I was at Paddington station and needed to buy a card. (yep for valentines!)

So I picked up a card in Smiths and went to the queue. It was ten people long and I had 5 minutes to get to my train. Decision time - do I stay or do i go?

Just as I was about to leave I heard one of the four cashiers yelling:

'come on, come on. keep it up. these people have trains to catch. keep it moving, keep it moving'.

And all of the other cashiers were smiling, and I was rapidly moving towards the front of the queue. They were even tossing bags of change to each other to deal with the inconsiderate commuters who had obviously just got a twenty out at the station.

Amazing.

I was reminded of the the old training video from video arts 'Fish' which was designed to show people that even the most mundance jobs could be good if you injected a bit of fun, energy and team spirit.

SOLD!

I know it's been quiet in the Commune. But I've been carrying on the path to petit-bourgeousisedom and bought a house in East Dulwich. It's been a 7-month ordeal that culminated in lots of hassle and pain in the last two weeks to exchange.

Soon, I will contributing to the East Dulwich Forum, throwing my hands up in annoyance as another 'high street' brand moves in. Although I'd better watch out... they say that the first sign of an area losing its character is when the advertising folk move in. It'll be accountants next.

Everyone's got some horror stories to tell about buying and selling property. The annoying estate agents. The painfully slow way in which solicitors work to a different theory of time to anyone else. The unhelpful banks and mortgage providers.

Don't want to boast, but I reckon I've got all the stories covered.

Foxtons: were evil, then actually started to be quite good (when the sale was going through)
Lloyds TSB: brilliant service and genuinely looked for solutions.
Ealing Council: as inefficient as ever
ICE Save (high interest instant saving account): Very unhelpful and inefficient w*nkers

The Greenwashing Index

More green themed stuff from me. (Guess what sort of thing I'm working on!)

Go to this site and have your adverts scored against the greenwashing index.

Picture courtesy of flickr and actually from a great cartoonist who I've now discovered, Tom Fishburne. His site is here.

Hopefully Helping Greenpeace

Greenpeace UK have asked today for music for their videos and films. (check it out here).

So I've donated a track: Somnambulism. (it's on my website on the jukebox on this page, it's track 7 and is spelt incorrectly!)

Not sure if they'll use it or not, but it's great that brands are opening up for UGC that isn't just videos! (and one in which I might actually provide something more than mediocre!)

Literally Greenwashing

Once again proving that no space is sacred from communications, Naga DDB Malaysia have painted this onto the pool tiles:




'Don’t let this be our future. Save our rainforest, stop global warming.'

Not sure what the call to action is, but at least there's no danger of this green message being washed away.... (!)

(Courtesy of Osocio for that one. Great social advertising blog and site, by the way)

Analogue Heaven

I bought a new set of toys just before Christmas.

Arturia's pack of soft-synths of some classics: Moog Modular, Minimoog, Prophet, CS-80, ARP 2600, and Jupiter 8.

Obviously, I'd love to have the originals of these wonderful instruments, but I don't have the money. Or more importantly, I don't have the space.

Anyway, I've been fairly productive, having written two new tracks, which you can download here. (Left click on it to hear it in your browser. Right click, save target as to download the mp3)

The first one, Switching You On is a more dancey number, and to be honest could do with a new mix and some better production. But you can hear lots of analogue burbles going on. Nice.

I've spent a bit more time on the production of the second one: Transmission Out. There's a bit of moog and some ARP in there. But I'm particularly happy to have found an amazing Fender Rhodes sound.

2008 promises to be full of music I hope!

New year, new habits

As John Grant (Green Marketing Manifesto) would say, things really work when normal stuff is green. (Greennormal)

I needed to get rid of some rubbish. Too big for my car to take to the dump, so I went looking on Google for someone to come and collect it.

And found this wonderful company 'Eco Junk' based in Camden.

Wonderful people. They come and pick it up and then go and recycle it all. They even use LPG trucks and they're carbon negative.

And for less money than the price of skip hire.

Genuis.

And normal.