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.