young man in a hurry

Test post for Client review purpose

Digital, dinosaurs and dollars

Lets be honest from the outset. Online advertising in the traditional sense of the term, e.g. display advertising, is in the most part fairly dry, fairly average and goes largely unnoticed. Its stuck at the side or top of a page and is seen mostly as a nuisance by people who have gone to a website to read an article/play a game/watch a video. However, its does serve a purpose, bankrolling the most efficient business development since Henry Ford thought it was a good idea for people to stand in a line and do one thing and one thing only. It (the internet) is still only 15 years old, and ten of those years have been spent being processed by a 56k connection. Its safe to say its in its infancy, and we're all figuring out what to do with it and how we can make it better.

Back to online advertising... As the biggest growth form of advertising in the UK it is coming under increased scrutiny, particularly by those people who work for forms of advertising that are stagnating (e.g. outdoor, press). Scrutiny is a good thing of course, the absence of it will invariably lead to complacency and crapness. However scrutiny requires  coherency, certainly not what can be said for a post I read here.  In this post a disgruntled above the line creative wangs on about how unimpressive some digital creative work that recently picked up a silver pencil. The crux of 'Scamps' issue appears to be this - you play with the ad (childish), it does what it says (predictable) and it doesn't have a deep cultural relevancy (stupid).

Furthermore he continues to say that the fact that  Nike's St. Wayne didn't win any awards, supposed childish, predictable and stupid work is getting lauded whereas 'artistic' advertising is getting ignored. There are two issues at stake here - one with how digital advertising is made, and by that I mean the budgets assigned to them and the timings in which they're made. The second is the artistic and cultural relevancy ascribed to advertising (all mediums).

Firstly, the production process. Digital advertisings budget is minute when compared to ATL, particularly in terms of media. And as creative budgets are a reflection of media spend, inevitably they are a lot less than ATL. As a result shoots have to be done on a shoestring, concepting time is shortened and research an expensive luxury. Therefore, it is inevitable the the raw aesthetics of the ads are not going to match those which have had ten times the budget.

Secondly, perception of advertising. There seems to be a belief held that advertising genuinely contributes to the cultural composition of our country. It does not. It is a means to an end. That end is selling products/brands. Yes, brand awareness is also a factor but if you strip it away, people want their brand to be recognized because they want to sell more. Not for the fuck o it. Therefore, the argument should not be is that a creatively innovative ad. It should be 'does that ad work?'. The two go hand in hand, however pivoting any critique around the former whilst neglecting the latter borders on the ridiculous. The point should be -  when will an online campaign win an IPA Effectiveness paper? Not until we address the imbalance in budget and time spent on digital when compared to above the line.

Is blogging killing planning?

Went to the IPA strategy group debate last night, where the point of contention was - blogging is killing planning, as it promotes ideas without substance, rather than emphasising the value of quantitative and qualitative analysis. In short - standards are slipping, blogging is to blame.

For the motion was John Lowery, who gave a very impressive argument, well thought through, expertly and eruditely presented. Against the motion was John Grant, who had the best arguments, but no coherent way of presenting them, and his initial presentation was short on actual points. He chose instead to go for a negative line of attack, emphasising what it would mean if the audience voted against the motion. "What would it say about us?" he proclaimed. "Who gives a shit" was my muttered reply.

The debate opened up to the floor, with some good points made by some seemingly big game players, and one terrible point made by an Account Director from Delaney, who embodied why people with flair and nous think account men are pricks. I am an Account Man, I felt ashamed. Discussion continued and the key points that came out, which ultimately I think provide a good case for why blogging isn't killing planning were as follows,

• Blogging is a new comms medium, we don't understand its impact on individuals/groups.
• Blogging is throw away in its very nature, it is not a professional journal, more the brain farts of the people who write them.
• By having planners blogging and promoting their trade, more people will be interested in planning/have a forum to discuss thoughts with other planners/learn methods and rigours required to be a planner.

John Lowery's argument, whilst brilliant in its formulation, seemed to be based around a single brief posted on a single blog, by a single person (who remained nameless). Whilst Rob tells me that an good argument only needs one killer fact, and I agree, it seems a little drastic to call in to question your entire profession because of it.

The danger of John Lowery's argument is that if a blog is seen as the professional embodiment of its writer, that everything thats posted on it represents a mission statement, a golden idea, then no one would ever blog. He said that people should blog less, so the quality is better. This is a ridiculous contention, as it misunderstands the medium. It is spontaneous and by that nature sometimes poorly thought through. If a blogger treated his posts like an academic treated his journal entries, thought would be restricted to a few ideas, discussion would be muted and a canon of 'correct thinking' would be produced. Blogging represents a chance for everyone to say something and contribute to whatever they please. It is not press, it is not a bound training manual, it is not a paperback produced by the OUP. To assess it as it were, misses the point.

More than words

www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

No more, no less. This was hard. Very hard. But we're there. After almost 12 months. It all seems very strange, someone will come to this tomorrow, and will spend 2 minutes on the site, leave and not think twice. 12 months to create that user experience. Madness. I'm going for a drink,  and my Romeo Y Julieta.

It could all be so much better. But at this stage that doesn't really matter.

Information revolution

Ask have launched a new campaign, information revolution, which you may have seen on the tube, on the tele or the web in the last couple of weeks. Ask (formerly they of butler as brand icon) are now positioning themselves as some sort of subversive missionary, acting with the consumers best interest at heart, to crush Google and free us from some sort of digital slavery.

The tube ads are intriguing enough, I did wander what it was, but dismissed it as some sort of faddish left wing movement who would probably campaign against the trains running on time. The TV ads are a bit more transparent, insomuch as they have 'Ask' flashed up on a board at the end. They are still nonsensical in their use of imagery - what are those people doing? Are they stealing? If so, could they please put things back where they found them?

The website (as they have the unique power to do) conveys a little more clearly what Ask are trying to achieve. By encouraging people to think about search, they are attempting (most probably in vein) to make people see search as an activity in its own right, rather than a property of one organisation (aka Google). If people viewed search as a pick and choose activity, they are more likely to go to another search site (aka ask). Whilst this is potentially interesting ground, and could open a wide debate about why we use the internet the way we do, it is in no way followed through in anything they go on to say. They get a range of known anti-establishment figures (John Bird, Peaches Geldof) to say how they have provided choice and how choice is the bedrock of democracy. All good and well to a point, but how is this going to make me not go to Google? I go through them because they're simple, they usually get the right results, and they've got loads of other cool stuff as well - earth and maps to name the more well known products of their R&D department.

Ask, rather than focusing on what is wrong with their market, should focus on what is right/wrong with them. Google did very well in positioning themselves as a brand with the interests of people at their core. They want to organise information so everyone can find everything with a greater degree of ease. Ask have no such proposition, only a negative response to a world they have failed to influence. And they fact they do it all through a campaign that looks like the bastard offspring of a  trotskyite loner, is all the more embarrassing.

Entertainment - the new FMCG?

We're living in an age of constant entertainment. Not in the sense that we all feel constantly entertained; there are no more amusing drunks to laugh at the way to work now than there was 10 years ago. It's the fact that we can access entertainment in various sizes at any time, means that we have the ability, should we have the propensity, to be entertained at any point. The music video and the Walkman were all early manifestations of this. Now we can listen to tunes from any device at any time; watch videos on our PC, mobile, psp, TV; read books online or offline - the short, medium or long version depending if we're looking for instant knowledge or a more gluttonous satisfaction. The channels we can get this plethora of pintsize pleasure prompting portions from is quite narrow. We buy them from online stores, either accessed via the web or our mobile. But why can't I get them in queue at Sainsburys? Makes sense, I don't want a twix for kick-off. And whats more impulse as a buy than a cd or dvd. Surely the shorter versions would be even more susceptible to impulse purchase. About to pay for week's shopping, why not buy the latest 'indie bundle'? You could even brand the packages up, from value to organic, endorsed/selected by someone you vaguely trust to have semi-decent taste.

In March's issue of Wired, they have an article about how pint-size entertainment is fast arriving. How everything is now designed to be understood a matter of minutes. We can now consume so much, so quickly, that we can sample an almost excessive amount of genres/cultures every week. We are not restricted to one visit to HMV, Amazon put a stop to that. Put we're past Amazon now. We're not restricted to one portal, one shopping basket. The natural endgame for this would be any form of entertainment available wherever you are. Its good and well to say you'll be able to get it through your mobile. But people will always want to indulge in the act of shopping, and retailers should be satisfying our need for bite size entertainment more readily, rather than confining themselves to the top ten albums available at 15 quid a shot.

Oh, and this doesn't mean we're seeing the end of longer content - quite the opposite according to wired. Read the bite size version, or the full-length number, depending on your mood.

Viva la radio

It has often been said that the internet will spark an revival in radio, people mostly cite digital versions from old media players - e.g. BBC 6.  However, the web is full of people who have zero loyalty to these brands, particularly when it comes to radio. Therefore, there exists a potential for new radio brands to capture our imagination, and over time, loyalty.

Currently leading the way for me is Viva radio.  As recommended by the musical paragon,  Bast.

Breakthrough ideas for 2007

Travelled up to Edinburgh at the weekend to see my brother. And in all honesty was looking forward to the train journey as much as the visit itself. Phone off. Stare out of the window. I thought about buying a trash novel to read, purely to disengage brain. Instead I bought the Harvard Business Review, purely on the basis of it counting their 'Breakthrough ideas for 2007'. They had 20 in total, which were of varying interest. Below is a quick summary of the ones that caught my attention...

1. "The accidental influentials" - Duncan J. Watts
Argues that society is not made up of 'influencers', people who shape culture/pass on ideas to others, and that any notion of 'influencers' being at the core of one's marketing strategy is flawed. Instead, people are accidentally influential, insomuch as for an idea to spread rather than a few thought leaders shaping opinion, what is required is groups of easily influenced people in contact with other easily influenced people. The notion of influencers creates a bottleneck when the people they come into contact with are not easily influenced, Watts argues.

2. Harry Potter marketing - Dalsace, Damay and Dubois.
Introduces the idea that brands should not be age focused, i.e. define themselves as being a 18-34 brand, as that inevitably means they have to reposition themselves depending on the tastes/influences of 18-34 year olds at any given time. Instead brands should 'grow up' with their target audience, evolving and ageing alongside those to whom the brand was launched. Struck me as being a good idea for social networking sites, which will inevitably be seen as the property of an age group at a point in time, rather than a consistent representation of an age group throughout time.

3. Algorithms in the attic - Michael Shrage
Lots of ancient maths equations could make loads of dollar due to computers increased ability to use them properly. E.g. Google founded on an 18th century algorithm to classify nodes. Lots of money for mathmos if they bother to sift through the annals of their subjects history.

4. The emerging hotbed of User-Centred- Innovation - Eric Von Hippel
Innovation is vital for economic growth. Users are now at the centre of innovation rather than companies. Therefore governments should support user innovation, and encourage business to use it well. Denmark taking the lead.

5. Living with continuous partial attention - Linda Stone
People not really concentrating on anything as constantly looking for updates/new opportunities and don't want to miss anything. Different from multitasking. Results from massive bandwidth of technology and people trying to mimic computer updates. Good excuse if your not paying attention to someone.

6. Innovation and Growth - Size matters - Ap Dijksterhuis
Bigger companies are more innovative (on an aggregated per capita basis) than smaller ones. However to sustain they need to innovate faster as they grow bigger to sustain momentum. Plus resources required to service larger workforce is not 1:1 relationship with growth, more like 1:0.8, whereas innovation is a 1:1.2 ratio.

7. What sells when father knows best - Phillip Longman
Daunting thought that patriarchy will reestablish itself as those of a conservative judaeo-christian disposition are more likely to breed more than liberal types. Explanation of why religion more of a public issue now than 30 years ago. Basically, more social conservative are being nurtured than social liberals.

8. Business in the nanocosm - Rashi Glazer
One day we'll all have portable machines that builds stuff, e.g. plates, tables, bags. Bit science fiction since people find it hard to believe that books won't exist on paper in a few years, but interesting nonetheless.

9. Act globally, think locally - Yoko Ishikura
Business should think about local impact of actions and then scale globally. Similar to actor-network theory, I think. Good stuff, but hardly a breakthrough idea.

10. The best networks are worknets - Christopher Meyer
When approaching a problem you need to design a 'worknet' which involves five steps as follows,
1. Define the work - What is the purpose?
2. Identify the talent - Who am I talking with?
3. Engineer exchanges - Ensure balance between emotional, informational and economic returns.
4. Design the experience - Create environment that supports exchanges, virtual or real.
5. Assemble the technology - use leading edge stuff, but not for its own sake.

I thought this was seriously good. And would advise anyone interested in strategy to find a copy and read in full.

11. The folly of accountablism - David Weinberger
Accountability has gone wrong, has become a belief system and serves to bureaucratise, and give people false beliefs they can control life through adhering to specific set of rules. Essentially adding layer upon layer of process and sign off is wasteful and creates more damage to an organisation in the long run. Should be substituted with realism and trust.

Hope that was useful. If it was buy HBR every now and then, although it is £15.95, but it does contain good shit. Particularly if you don't use academic thought in your job (which is everyone bar people who work for think tanks).

Indie rant

Banter with Liam today about music. Music chat with no reference to breaks or pingers, excellent. Anyway it started with assertion that "Take me out" by Franz Ferdinand was the pivotal record of the 21 st century so far, in so much as it showed the UK that the UK can make great music again, and then an outpouring of bands happened, some good, mostly shit, but a lot better than what occurred in the previous 5/6 years. Why was there this barren period? The answer is the albums released in 1997 by the biggest bands in Britain at the time, and what they told of their ambition and direction. The end result was a fragmented scene.

The following albums were released,

Be Here Now - Oasis
Blur - Blur
Ok Computer - Radiohead
Urban Hymns - The Verve

The previous 5 years had seen the first three of these bands smash the scene both critically and commerically (the great escape aside). These albums told of where the bands were going. Oasis were going to make the same record every two-three years, with varying degrees of coke involved. Blur didn't care if anyone liked there stuff, they just wanted to try new things and Radiohead were not a moaning bunch of students, they actually thought about what they put out, and again weren't afraid to fail. Urban Hymns was the album Oasis should have made. It was massive and better than people give it credit for. But its ascendance above Be Here Now, essentially ended Britpop and the homogeney that had presided since 1993/4. Bands like the Bluetones couldnt get a deal, and Shine albums ceased to be produced.

These four albums essentially killed off a lot of bands by uncreating the scene that the bands had created, whether purposefully or not. As a result there was no angle for guitar start ups to get signed easily, record companies did not see these type of bands as commercially interesting, and good music stopped being distributed widely.

The new  proliferation of guitar bands , which started late 2003, early 2004, was made possible by an equally small number of bands, and arguably by just one album (The Strokes - Is this it) and one song (Franz Ferdinand - Take me out).

My god, ive turned in to Nick Hornby.