Never get out of the boat

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

will blog for food...

To the Coach and Horses in Soho yesterday for a bloggers brunch co-hosted by Chinwag and the Dept of Trade and Investment.
Uk Trade and investment is a government organisation that helps British businesses to develop in overseas markets through various resources and services.

This year they are looking at helping the 'creative' industries ie arts, music, film and the digital media industry.
Full info can be found at www.uktradeinvest.co.uk

By way of an introduction a number of bloggers, podcaster and digital media types were invited for a meet and greet. Presumably the assembled members of the chattering (or twittering) classes were selected as being likely to blab their findings.

No man blogs for free though, and the dti did their chances of a favourable review no harm whatsoever by the inclusion on the buffet menu of...

Fish Finger Sandwiches. Genius.

Thinking of unlikely sandwich combos, I'm reminded of back in the day (in what seems like a previous life) when I was a club dj, after my regular Sunday night gig I would head over to the taxi queue via the all-night baker where a sandwich of a scotch pie between 2 rowies (google it) would be devoured in the cab home. Health city.

Any good sandwich stories out there? (this is drivel - Editor's voice)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

more on the future of advertising and marketing

Following that last post, in some sort of karmic alignment I stumbled across this excellent presentation - of some considerable panache - by a chap called Paul Isakson. On further digging he's got a pretty impressive blog too, which I will no doubt be dipping into for further nuggets.

| View | Upload your own

Twittering at the back of the class…

I was caught twittering at the back of the class last week at Chinwag's ‘Tomorrow’s Ad Formats’ session.

I suppose I thought it was acceptable after following the entertaining commentary on the Ad Age digital advertising conference by David Armano and Steve Rubel last week.
For me, Twitter is starting to develop and find it’s place this year.
One of it’s interesting uses is as a back channel to events which enables other users to follow events remotely.

I did, however, find the bulk of the content at this particular Chinwag a bit flat and shared the odd tweet to that effect with a couple of other attendees.
I’d hoped to get the usual insight and inspiration that comes out of those sessions but the debate seemed centred around the various forms of interruption based traditional digital advertising - and the merits of this banner vs that pre-roll - rather than new ways for brands to actually engage and involve their customers.

By engage I guess I’m referring to the idea of collaborative marketing, conversation, dialogue, partnership etc rather shouting at people who are not interested.

Wikipedia says: ‘Rather than looking at consumers as passive receivers of messages, engagement marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and creation of marketing.”

I’m also often prone to wheeling out a slightly older nugget to illustrate this point

Confucious: ‘Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I might remember but involve me and I’ll understand’

Steven from our place, who was on the panel, fought a valiant battle
(I almost typed ‘shone like a Beacon’) to bring the conversation round to this notion of engagement being key however despite a few gratuitous cluetrain references from some of the others it didn’t fly.

I overheard this stat recently:
The number is flaky, I can’t exactly remember but it went something like…

‘…our research found 25% of users found pre-roll ads less annoying than mid-roll’

Yes he really did say, less annoying!

Friday, March 14, 2008

President Idol

On my brief sojourn stateside i experienced some of the President Idol mania up close.
Interesting that it almost seems a foregone conclusion that the Democratic nominee is going to win the overall contest - I was in NY when the Spitzer story broke which was fun, too.

For us in the UK its hard to work out exactly what the candidates stand for. Hat-tip then to Harry who has a alerted me to this post from Daily Kos - the author has painstakingly gone through the Senate records to identify which bills each candidate has introduced and sponsored to try and shed some light on what our US cousins are actually voting for, aside from the popularity contest. The post has over 650 comments when I last looked.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Purple cow spotted at Denver International Airport

Following on from the horse sculpture story below I enjoyed my brief encounter with Denver Airport.

As well as the mad tent exterior, internally it's been designed with the user in mind. The gates are all in a straight line A,B and C zones connected by a train. It's vrtually impossible to get lost.

And a couple of soft innovations made the - lets face it, normally pretty stressful - experience of airports a bit more pleasant.

The public address system on the gate connecting train was crystal clear perfect sound
and every announcement is spoken by a local celebrity tv babe (can't remember her name but I was told) and introduced by little musical motifs. Boogie-woogie piano for the doors closing announce, twangy guitar for the next stop announce and so on.

Some bright spark has thought, what can we do to add an extra bit of polish to this experience to make it just that bit better? - it's that extra 1% that makes it talkaboutable. Customer service as the new branding or something.

usa tour update 2

This pic was taken out the back of Echostar's building in Englewood nr Denver.
That's only the Rocky mountains in the background.

Denver nugget: Theres a sculpture of a big blue horse outside Denver airport, just been up a couple of weeks. The geezer that sculpted it was actually killed by the sculpture as he was making it - it fell over on top of him. The work was finished off by his son.

Monday, March 10, 2008

usa tour update 1.5

Just going through todays snaps and i liked this one too.
ESB from 42nd st through the trees and snazzy motor in the foreground.

usa tour update

Arrived in New York last night. I must commend Virgin Atlantic, fantastic service even in cattle class - on demand movies and all that. I watched Brick Lane and about half of Control, the Ian Curtis biopic.

It was a beautiful day today so I walked down to the east village looking for the CBGB's shop, found it but it was closed, and had my ritual NY breakfast of Eggs Benedict at Virage on 2nd beside St Marks while contemplating tattoo shops on 8th St.
Couldn't find my favourite hat shop, maybe it's gone?

I was half-supposed to try and catch an old mate who I haven't seen for 10 years or so at Shelter, an 'after-hours' that starts at 10am a bit further downtown. I took the view that going to a club at that time of the morning was just too dangerous at my age so gave it a miss and took the healthy option. A long walk up 5th Ave to the Guggenheim - promptly about turning when I got to the door due to the queue - and instead took in Central Park for a couple of hours then window shopping.

Meetings in NY tomorrow then flying out to Denver Tuesday morning.

Snapped the pond in Central Park below.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

8 things you might not know about me...

Following a trail from Thayer via Chris Hambly (who tagged me) by way of Dan Hon (who I don't know , but apparently started it), heres 8 random snippets about me.

The idea here is you reveal 8 random things about yourself then tag 8 other bods who reciprocate with there own revelations.
It's in the spirit of 'getting to know you' I suppose.

1. I'm a passionate supporter of Aberdeen FC. Once feared throughout Europe (80's) now feared throughout Aberdeenshire.

2. Before getting into this advertising mularkey I was in the music biz. I was a club DJ of some note in the late 80's early 90's in the Balearic Beats stylee before moving into techno/house. I co-founded a couple of labels (Hook/Bellboy) and released a number of 12" disco biscuits. My biggest hit was 'Pricks' in '94 which was a club smasheroonie across Europe and was licenced to labels in Germany, Belgium and Italy.

3. I'm a disciple of the works of Seth Godin. Psst don't tell anyone, but most of the stuff I spout about in meetings etc comes from him originally.

4. I've recently started practising the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin. It's not religion, its more like a life philosophy and science hybrid. It works.

5. When I'm cooking I use every pan in the house.

6. I'm a phoney Italian-American. I wear vests and a cross on a chain, brown shoes with a dark suit - the full monty. When we go on holiday it's usually Italy. I was even thinking of sticking an o on the end of my name to sound more Italian. What you gonna do? Ive got the dark complexion anyway (though that's the Welsh in me)

7. At the weekends you'll never catch me as we spend most of the time out with our boots on up the hills or in the woods. Weekends are unplugged.

8. I'm obsessed with music - all kinds - though especially 60's/70's soul/funk, vintage reggae and ska (all the stuff SoulJazz re-issue) and everything from the punky times 76-79 plus everything Paul Weller has done. To be fair, I am a mod deep down.

There you go.

Now it's over to you...(some I know, some I'd like to know a bit better)

Neil Perkin
Harry Bishop
James Cherkoff
Will Humphrey
DYKC
Chris Penn
Jamie C
John Dodds

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Madmen

After the end of the Sopranos we have been without a weekend TV ritual in my house.
We've been catching up with 'House' but following the first episode in the UK of 'Madmen' at the weekend I'm hooked.

Set in early 60s Madison Avenue in the glamorous, chain-smoking, sexist (everything-ist, to be fair) heyday of advertising, the story follows damaged Creative Director Dan Draper and 'new girl'Peggy Olsen who is looking to break into the male dominated adland.

The way it blends in snippets of history/Americana/advertising folklore gives the plot extra resonance - Lucky Strike 'It’s toasted' and 'plink plink fizz' to name but two in episode 1.

Theres a temptation to have a snidey laugh - 'look how backward people were' - but I'm sure that theres those in contemporary adland who would happily roll back to those heady days. In fact it's more curious to note how little some things have changed in 50 years!

Personally I look back and think, at least Adland knew how to dress themselves back in '61. Not a blue flannel shirt and chinos in sight. Sharp suits and haircuts for the boys, taffeta, high heels and hairspray for the girls.

As an aside: interestingly ,the US final episode - it finished back in October - ran with no ad breaks.

I've found the torrent, so thats me sorted for tv for the next few weeks anyway.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

a revolution is not a bed of roses...

As Fidel Castro steps down - the old fella has led Cuba since the revolution in 1959 - I'm reminded of an excellent rock'n'roll story.

Welsh prole rockers, the Manic Street Preachers planned an album launch in Cuba a few years back, at the National Stadium or something. In true Manics style they invited Mr Castro to attend.
Record company bods asked the aging President if he would like earplugs for the show as the Manic's might be a bit loud.

'Are they louder than WAR?' asked Fidel...

Friday, February 15, 2008

Dons held by little known German minnows...

Little Bayern Munich, from the tiny principality of Germany, defied the odds last night by holding the mighty Aberdeen to a 2-2 draw at Pittodrie in the UEFA Cup. Bayern, currently stuggling at the top of the Bundesliga, who have narrowly managed to scrape into the top 5 of the richest football clubs in the world, were only able to field 11 full internationals for the fixture, while only a fraction of the squad have tasted success as World Cup winners or semi-finalists . The plucky Germans, who have a mere 4 Champions League wins in their history grabbed a fortunate draw as a result of a highly debatable 2nd half penalty.
The Dons will look to finish the job properly at the tiny 69,000 capacity Allianz Arena in Munich in the second leg, despite the lack of atmosphere. Come on you reds!

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

schfifty-five

At the moment this is filed under WTF?
Anyone who can shed any light please do.
can't get it out of my head though.

via mitch

THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS THE BOPPIN’ HEADS

In their own words...

'A seven – pointed Celtfolkcountrypunk Death Star. Armed to the teeth with tunes to bring a tap to your foot, a tear to your eye, and a bop to your heid'

This is a shameless plug for my brother, Al's, band.

They have just finished recording their self-produced, self-financed debut LP (does anyone still say LP? - it fits with their homespun and unashamedly organic - though not retro - styling) chock full of the aforementioned countrypunkfolk stompers and tearjerkers.

Live, they are a knockout too, the set often features unlikely cowpunk covers of things like Ace of Spades.

"The sheep are still dancing.......which makes them harder to catch, but no worries was a crackin' night!"
Artair Donald - Tiree Times

As a taster debut 'single'- Gotta make that Train/Green Field - is available on itunes, napster, msn and the usual download sites.

You can hear a few of the songs and see some clips at their site theboppinheads.com

Here's the thing. I'm trying to convince Al of the benefits of making a couple of songs available for podcast producers via things like the podsafe music network.
As I'm not a podcast producer meself (yet! - be afraid) I'd appreciate any rationale from anyone out there that might swing it.

The pic here is my - rejected! - album cover design.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

play it sam

Full marks and big congratulations to my buddy Sam who has secured himself a position with TBWA in Dubai.

No teaboy duties and the long, weary crawl up the corporate ladder for our Sam. He goes in straight from Uni as a fully fledged Planner.

Dubai's gain is most certainly the UK's loss.

A lesson I learned from Sam that's stuck with me was as follows.
When describing his disruptive Saatchi baiting antics (much documented elsewhere, so I'll not go into it here again) at a conference we both attended he said:

'When my cv lands on someone's desk, I want them to already know who I am'.

Too bad a UK agency hasn't had the gumption to grab a raw talent.

Best of luck , mate.

value creation agent

Ive been asked a few times recently
'What is it you do?'- ie what is your status?
Now Ive had various 'careers' and job titles through time and traditionally that's what's defined the answer to that question, however on reflection that's not really satisfactory. Where does that leave me if I'm a plumber from 9-5 and a stripper at night?

I quote from the scriptures...
And it is written:

'Keep your silly ways or throw them out the window
The wisdom of your ways, I've been there and I know
Lots of other ways, what a jolly bad show
If all you ever do is business you don't like'
Ian Dury - Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll (1977)

In the interests of creating some value here, this is an excercise in the bleedin' obvious (so obvious it's all too easy to forget).

Something I've come to realise is that;
as human beings 'status' is defined by a combination of the things we think, say and do.

This works for companies, teams or whatever as well, in case you were wondering when the marketing bit is coming in. Ive heard this described as 'inside-out branding'

By first setting a goal (not to be confused with status) - in a digital ad agency for example; give our clients quality, innovation, support and knowledge to help grow their brand and business, or something like that. What do we want to achieve? Stand for something, create value.

Meeting that goal will, more than likely, put you up there in the NMA respected agencies list (that's yer status)

How do you do that? Wisdom and action. That's the cheese and ham in the sandwich.
It's also the difficult bit.
Wisdom = Figure out what to do
Action = and then do it.

Simple - but not easy. What's easy is to bail out if starts getting too hard.

'What is it you do?' - be a value creation agent.

Hat tips to Jason Jarrett and Edward Canfor-Dumas

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

unm2pnm

I'm about to receive a copy of Joseph Jaffe's latest book Join the Conversation.

Joseph has invited 150 bloggers/podcasters to review the book as part of a 'use new marketing to prove new marketing' initiative. Full details of the initiative can be found on his excellent Jaffe Juice.

I've been regularly reading Jaffe Juice and listening to Joseph's podcast for the last couple of years and both helped significantly open my eyes to the new marketing thinking. In fact, I doubt i'd be writing this blog without some of that influence (readers voice: so now we know who to blame...)

I'm also pleased to note he appears to be using the unm2pnm logo I whizzed up.

Once I've read and reviewed the book I'm going to purchase a copy for myself then offer up the free one I got for someone else. Any one who who would like the spare copy drop your name in the comments and i'll stick them in the old tombola and draw a recipient.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

DIY? from post-punk to myspace and back again

In his article Rise Of The DIY Superstar James Cherkoff notes how a young relative described her favourite music to him:

They're all MySpace bands, no one listens to (the Top 40) anymore’.

I commented on his post that the underground has always found alternative distribution channels. The MySpace phenomenon is the logical progression from the DIY ethic that spawned fanzines (Xerox self publishing), the indie distribution networks (Rough Trade, The Cartel, CWNN etc) of the post-punk period and the Acid House explosion of the late 80’s.

He describes the bands that are harnessing digital channels to create their audience - without relying on record companies - as DIY Superstars.

A DIY story…

APB formed in 1979 in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. Their punk/funk hybrid sound combining Bootsy Collins, NY no-wavers ESG and UK post-punkers like the Gang of Four.

Their second single for Aberdeen based Oily Records -‘Shoot You Down’ (1981) found it’s way over the Atlantic to NYC's underground dance clubs - Danceteria, Berlin, the Mudd Club – via London Blitz dj Rusty Egan and heavy rotation on college radio.

The band became a phenomenon in the NY/NJ areas eventually signing with the home of hip-hop electro, Sleeping Bag Records, notching up a No. 1 on the Billboard dance chart with ‘What Kind of Girl’. Bizarrely they could hardly get arrested in the UK during this time despite being legends on the Lower East side and eventually split.
And , yes, that is JB in the pic.

Fast forward to 2006, ‘Something to believe in' – a sort of greatest hits, original copies of which had been changing hands on ebay for ridiculous sums – has been re-released on itunes as the band’s MySpace community swells to 15k plus.

They followed that up with some live dates in NY/NJ and a full set of new songs released as ‘Three’ earlier this year.
I also hear that there’s a remix project in the pipeline for some of the classic early singles.

In a year where the biggest stories in the mainstream media have been the reunions of the likes of Led Zep (hooray!) The Police (boo!) here’s a band that got back together in 2007, used the power of the web to re-unite their audience and added the link to the chain which connects the post-punk DIY ethic to the web2.0 update.

APB on MySpace
Young American Recordings

the greatest punk band that never was...?

What a band this could have been. The Looters: Cook and Jones from the Pistols, Paul Simonon from the Clash with Ray Winstone (!) on vocals.

From the long lost 1982 movie Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains

In the Long Tail of everything there's not much that we can't get our hands on, so this must be due for DVD release please?

Friday, January 11, 2008

A new Agency Model?

Thanks to Neil Perkin from the excellent Only Dead Fish for bringing this presentation by Albion to our attention. Much chatter about new agency models in the past year or so. These guys have a pretty decent stab at articulating.

| View | Upload your own

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The matter in hand.

Props to Jamie C who has alerted us to this anti drink driving initiative from Saatchi & Saatchi in Frankfurt.

The Piss-Screen.

In these driving games - placed in the urinals of bars, clubs - players control the cars using their pee via pressure-sensitive inlay set within urinals. A social utility if I'm not mistaken.

It's unconfirmed whether Wii technology is involved.

Made me remember a bar back in Aberdeen in the early 90's. Behind plexi glass urinals were mini tv screens with footage of Glasgow Rangers footballers on constant rotation. Thus encouraging you to drink more just to have the (possibly - and slightly worryingly - homo-erotic) pleasure of pissing on Mark Hateleys face.
Sadly no pic available.

Whopper freakout Ghetto versions

In case you missed the long form 'viral' where Burger King kid on that the Whopper is being discontinued. Quite funny when they start substituting Wendy burgers and big Mac's for Whoppers.

But even better fun to be had with the 'remixed' Ghetto versions.
'The world is comin' to an end...you gonna fuck us all up!'

Saturday, January 05, 2008

all you need is cash (or 'is advertising a 4 letter word?')

Considering the current grim state of the establishment music biz it comes as no surprise that the holy grail - the Beatles catalogue - is now available for use in ads.

Yes we have no bananas?
In a statement, Sony/ATV - which owns the rights to 259 Lennon and McCartney songs - have said they will allow performances of the aforementioned songs (providing they are by artists other than the fabs) to be used in...wait for it....BRAND PARTNERSHIPS.

The first of these (ahem) 'partnerships' is set to be with P&G in the US for their 'Luvs' nappies - All You Need is Luvs (geddit)

Friday, January 04, 2008

blurb - self publishing, books on demand

I've not been surprised that e-books have not really taken off big style (yet...).
There's something tangible about a physical book that the digital equivalent doesn't satisfy. A bit like 12" LP's.

Dare I say it, it may even be a social object.

With stylish self-publishing service, Blurb, you can print your portfolio, wedding album or novel, i suppose, in various formats.

hat-tip to threeminds.

most contagious 2007

In the flurry of year-end round-ups Contagious magazine have gone beyond the call of duty and have pulled together a nice round up of the best of the best in digital campaigns and bits and bobs of last year.

One for your virtual coffee table.
Download mostcontagious2007.pdf

Our Orange interactive tv work gets noted, albeit a bit too briefly ;)

Monday, December 31, 2007

hogmanay

On the last day of the year I'm indulging in two ancient Scottish traditions.

Number 1: cleaning the house from top to bottom, it's seen as bad luck to go into the new year with last years dirt. Personally I'm of the opinion that it's bad luck to be superstitious but I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry.

Number 2: Later on we will no doubt partake of the traditional Scottish new year ritual of having a wee dram, singing a few verses of 'Loch Lomond' and getting misty eyed and nostalgic for the mythical 'Gods own country' and a time and place we have never been.
Add to this the surreal aspect of acting out these rituals in the heartland of the sworn enemy - leafy Hampshire.

have a good one whatever you're up to.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

a merry jingle

this one rarely crops up on Xmas compilations, Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols (aka The Greedy Bastards) from 1979.

See you next year

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Dem Phones

This is really good, courtesy of Lean Mean Fighting Machine.

Lol-inator

Thanks to Lloyd for spotting this bit of a giggle.
This blog makes a lot more sense when plugged in here.
Literally minutes of fun to be had.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

i want one of these...

Can't think what to send me for Christmas?
Vox have brought out these nifty little pocket size headphone guitar amps, the amPlug. In 3 flavours, Classic Rock, Metal, and for traditionalists (like me) the classic AC30. You can also plug in your ipod and jam along. Back in the day - in my first band - all four of us used to plug into one AC30 and make some racket.
Anyway these little fellas are about 30 nicker a pop. Just add Rickenbacker and it's perfect for the axeman or axewoman in your life. More info over here.
Disclosure: Vox are not a client but it would be great if they were..

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Sky does a 'facebook' with a moody bit of privacy invasion.

Spotted by those eagle eyes at the Project VRM Group: some small print on the end of a flyer insert in the most recent issue of the Sky subscribers customer magazine.

"Information held by the Sky group about you may also be shared with other companies outside the group, including for sales, marketing and market research purposes by such companies, unless you indicate that you wish to be excluded from such uses by contacting us on 08702 40 40 40"

That means your complete viewing and interacting history I'm guessing?
Ok you can opt-out - but only by calling the 0870 number.

when email marketing goes wrong pt2

Call me old fashioned, but when someone addresses me directly by my surname they are either my schoolteacher (and that was a long time ago) or they are just spoiling for a fight...

Friday, December 07, 2007

comments...

Heres the thing. Theres a few readers here - theres 40-odd in the facebook group, plus I know that about a hundred that come here on and off via blog-friends, twitter and facebook. Not exactly A-list numbers but a few none the less. I get the odd comment in this space but now the majority of comments are coming via email, facebook mail or DM tweets rather than on the blog. Its great to get feedback in any form but it does get a bit lonely round here with no actual comments, and makes it look a bit like I'm talking to myself, which is not actually the case. I'm pondering...

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

the key to reserva - scorcese spoofs hitchcock for freixenet

Excellent spoof sees Martin Scorsese make real an 'unreleased' Hitchcock script, it’s actually an online film created for Freixenet champagne.

found it at threeminds.

they say
'It shows that short form content distributed digitally can be a legitimate art form where both the craft of creating excellent entertainment and the business of building a brand can come together seamlessly'

its about 10 mins but worth it. watch here You can add your comments too.

webby 5's

I was fortunate enough to be invited to launch of nominations for the 12th annual Webby Awards hosted by Poke London at the ICA last night. As well as the mingling and quaffing of Russian beer Poke had invited a selection of pioneering web types to present.

As if to confirm that none shall escape the Attention Crash the presenters could use just five images and five sentences in five minutes. (Influenced by last years award ceremony where winners were limited to acceptance speeches of only five words. One of the funniest examples was some fella who's speech went 'thanks mom...whoever you are')

Some pulled it off better than others, Matt Hanson from aswarmofangels on his co-creation movie project and the Webbys own David-Michel Davies (if only for reminding us of all your base - cue much dewey eyed-ness) got full marks.

Didn't stay for the debauchery sesh after the talks, couldn't handle that on a school night, but did get a chance to briefly chat to Flash guru Niqui Merret and similarly Brighton based designers Ribot.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

new media douchebags

from makemarketinghistory via zeroinfluencer

conversation marketing in action

Had to laugh at this card I saw.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Brijole

Had a week off and been doing some cooking.
Here's my take on an Italian/American classic dish.
Famously featured in that great episode of Everybody loves Raymond where Deborah and Marie compete over who's was the best. Its also cropped up in a couple of Soprano's episodes (I'm now mid-way through Season 4 by the way)
The correct name for the dish is Braciole howver its been Americanised into Brijole over time. Go on, do it and get fat as a rat.

ps...
Purists would say do it all on the hob, however this douchebag chef is happy to stick it in the oven.

Beef Braciole/Brijole

Serve with your favourite pasta or gnocci with a rocket and parmesan salad.

1 lb beef / 8 steaks approximately 1/4 inch thick
8 slices of prosciutto
1 packet pine nuts
Big pile of grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
8 garlic cloves, chopped
Bunch of fresh flat parsley, chopped
Olive oil
3/4 cans imported Italian tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato puree
2 bay leaves
Bunch of fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine
2 celery sticks, chopped chopped fine
Red wine
flour spread on a plate for dredging
salt & pepper to taste
Serves 4.

1.Pound steaks with a meat pounder until 1/4 inch thick. Season with salt & pepper. Lay a slice of prosciutto on each one and sprinkle evenly with with the crushed pine nuts, cheese, garlic and parsley. Roll up the slices and tie with kitchen string or fix with a cocktail stick..

2.Heat a good glug of the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Dredge the braciole in flour shaking off any excess, then place in the pan. Cook until browned on all sides then remove and place in a baking dish.

3.Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring until tender but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add a couple of glasses of red wine and cook until most of liquid evaporates, about 2 minutes. Pass the tomatoes, with their juices through a seive into the pan. Half fill one of the tomato cans with water and add to pan. Add tomato puree, turn heat to low and cook at a simmer for about 10mins.
Add the sauce to the baking dish with the braciole, mix in the basil, place in a low ish oven (about 120-150) and bake for 2 hours (or until the beef is tender and crumbly).
Top with mozzerella with 20 mins to go if you like,
Serve with the pasta or gnocci and salad.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Mighty Boosh on Brick Lane

Wandered down Brick Lane for a legendary Salt Beef bagel just now, and I passed this shopfront, taken over by the Mighty Boosh to promote series 3 which starts on BBC3 this week. It's bluetooth thingy sends a clip from the new show to your phone.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

obsessive compulsive disorder of sorts

I am compelled to purchase The soaraway Sun at least once a week, just to get my blood boiling by whatever the latest spiteful, racist, ignorant bile is being spewed forth by their 'star' columnist John 'Gaunty' Gaunt. I can't help myself, I have to read it.

For almost the same reason, I am likewise a compelled to seek out the ad industry rag Campaign each week just to rile myself with their self-regarding, complacent bollocks.

I'm glad I'm not the only one...

Friday, November 09, 2007

'Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters'

Something about Facebook's social ads thing doesn't smell quite right to me.

Yes, a referral or recommendation from a trusted source/friend is worth a million ads, but the key word in there is trust. Its got to be genuine to have any meaning.

So I add myself as a 'fan' of a particular brand and give them permission to market to my friends on facebook via my updates in the news feed. i don't see much revolutionary thinking in this, it's the same old intrusive model except now the individual is the advertising channel.

Trusted sources? Listen, its probably the 3 strikes rule if you start spamming me.
After all, for me anyway, a decent percentage of my 'friends' on facebook are fairly vague acquaintances whom I've connected with via this blog, their blogs, twitter or met at social or business events etc. I can just about tolerate the majority of zombie bites or sheep being thrown but I 'll draw the line at flogging stuff.
And to think, we all had a good laugh at get paid to twitter.

Its not the same as genuine referral because it's the advertiser controlling,
we trust our friends precisely because they do not spam us like this (and if they start they won't be 'friends' for too much longer methinks)

For a start, the early adopters where this is initially targeted at
will more than likely utilise the blocking mechanism ie opting out of social ads.

How will these brands sign up fans anyway? banners? ads? bribery?

Here's an idea. What if brands spent more time trying to make their products, services and (yikes) even their ADVERTISING so good and so cool that people genuinely want to rave about them?

And for Facebook theres the trust question too. Beware the fickle users of social platforms...

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.

Don't normally mix up work with this journal, just to keep things seperate but this project has been taking up most of my time for the last couple of weeks , hence not much blog action round here.

It's an interactive tv ad - viewers can txt numbers shown in the 'never ending' journey - for various freebies and offers from Orange - if they are inclined.

There's also secret stuff hidden in the interactive, have a play if you have Sky digital tv at home and see if you can figure it out.

All the models and animation are handmade and shot, by the way, in classic Tony Hart style (thats a ref for oldies who remember early 80s kids tv).

Friday, October 26, 2007

mediacamp

It’s now Thursday so its taken me nearly a week to get it together to report on MediaCampBucks last weekend. Around 60 bods gatherered to debate Second Life, podcasting, creative commons, the future of tv and general geekery with an educational bent.

I hosted a discussion on interactive tv advertising, au naturellement. So often viewed as the poor relation of new media, I think I helped open a few eyes - to it’s possibilities as a word-of-mouth platform, conversation and permission asset tool - judging by some of the feedback I got afterwards.

Of course it was not long before the conversation turned to the possibility of ‘TV as an open content platform’. bringing more diverse programming to your tv ,with the majority not coming from the traditional broadcasters (spelling doom cable and satellite providers and paydirt for technology and telco IPTV?).

Like BT Vision (ahem).

To be fair I’m not convinced that TV is going to be dead anytime soon. What we are seeing is an increased number of options/screens where we choose to watch TV, that’s online, timeshifted regular tv, mobile devices, Xbox etc - although anyone who’s tried to use the BBCi player or Joost etc will know that’s its far from the finished article, so there’s lots of fun ahead.

The existing Cable and satellite providers have a head start as they already provide the infrastructure to get the tv and broadband into the home. Lets forget about the Long tail for a second, at the end of the day viewers will take the road that’s easiest. TV is a mass medium, for most of us dicking about with umpteen stbs and streaming in from here and there is just too much hassle for the 2 hours of tv a day we want.

If they can figure out how to get the following to the viewers, the cable and satellite providers will be laughing:

1- the content we want, when we want it (ie on demand)
2- the ability to time shift the schedule (for all) – live events, 24hr news etc
3- the ability to Search and pull content from wherever it is?
4- the ability to share and recommend?

That would do for me. Who’s going to pay? If it’s a top notch service, I will pay a subscription and advertisers will pay to get their messages into the correct living rooms based on some sort of behavioural tracking or something. And it’s all interactive.

It’s channel brands that have the most to worry about, in a time shifted, on demand environment who cares who’s bringing you ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’. Is it Paramount or Channel4? Not bothered, just get me it.

Enough about tv, and like the fella once said, I never make predictions, particularly about the future.

Highlight of the day for me, and a few others I think, was Sam Ismail’s presentation on how he and fellow adlad, Anton, took liberties with Saatchi & Saatchi with a couple audacious attention grabbing scams.

I wont go into the detail, The the stories are here and here.

Suffice to say they got themselves noticed by not being afraid to ruffle the feathers of the establishment.

Sam’s presentation was themed around job hunting for grads looking to break into advertising but ended up being about using new media as a personal branding tool. He summed up by saying the ultimate goal was; when his cv landed on the desk of the hiring person in the ad agency – they would already know who he was. Word.

I don’t think he’s going to have too many problems getting hired when the time comes.

Finally, thanks to organiser and Second Life guru, Chris Hambly for pulling the day together, and some linkage for Jason Jarrett, ‘veteran’ of podcasting and the man with the golden tonsils. I often listen to his abuddhistpodcast on my way home on the train. To be fair I have no idea what he’s on about half the time but he has a fantastic calming talking voice – It was nice to meet at last. Likewise Twitter buddy and Social media guru, Lloyd Davis.

Some new connections too, Brett Porter from the musicians collaborative thingy oomix and Melinda Seckington aka miss geeky , who is reporting on various similar days across Europe.

Another interesting guy who I never got a chance to catch up with properly was Microsoft tech blogger , Steve Lamb. Maybe he’ll see this.

Thats it, I need to get off to the creative geeks meet up tonight in Soho.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

ok now i'm really confused

Thanks to talent imitates genius steals for alerting me to this one.

Jerry Seinfeld, of legendary Seinfeld fame, has a new movie coming out that he conceptualised, co-wrote and stars in. It's about a bee. It's called Bee Movie [like B movie - see what he did there?]

He has also created a number of behind the scenes comic vignettes in a neat spin on the trailer, which are being aired on NBC. According to TIME:

Though the shorts are designed to promote the film on the Internet, NBC acquired the rights to air them during commercial breaks in an effort to encourage viewers to watch the neighboring advertisements.

So, there are now content breaks in the ad breaks to get you to watch the ads, but the content is itself a commercial message, except the broadcaster paid the advertiser to run them.

Post quoted in full, heres the link to see the clip.

the car as digital distribution channel/device?

Stumbled on this article. from the brandsbandsfans site.
Nokia and Apple both moving in on the auto industry as another digital distribution channel and Nissan leading the way with experimentation.

excerpt...
“Everything is digital, so we had to find a way to reconnect to this generation,” says Mixim creator Francois Bancon. Nissan’s latest concept car, Mixim, models itself on a gamer’s experience of driving, complete with an xbox-styled steering wheel. The Nissan Pino offers buyers drag and drop pimping of the car’s interior. Choice is the new driver here.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

more rabbit than sainsbury's

Here's my tuppenceworth on the Sony rabbits.
I've only done 3 rabbits in the pic (red, green and blue), this saves time because all tv pictures are made up of those 3 colours anyway ;)

You can't argue it's not a pretty decent execution and full marks to the animators, art directors and cinematoraphy etc. The main debate Ive been reading about is around wether the idea was ripped off, but I'm not really bothered about that.

I think it was either Bob Dylan or Neil Young who nce said, something like,
'My only talent as a songwriter is the ability to open up a valve in my head to let the songs flow in from outside'. ie all the songs/ideas are out there floating about, someone just has to be a channel for them.

That's coming from a proper artist. As 'creatives' in advertising/marketing or whatever thats what we do. Hijack cultural phenomena and refashion into branded messaging etc. If we are being really clever we manage to make these communications (broadly)
a - relevant
b - authentic
c - useful
d - facilitate a dialogue

Unfortunately the rabbits thing does none of the above.
It's straight outta the old school of Pavlovian 'conditioned response' branding.
Instill an association between stimuli so that encountering one will bring the other to mind. That model is getting pretty tired now.
All that a 30: with budget of a small Hollywood movie tells me is that the product must be over-priced if they can afford to spend that much on spray and pray.

I'm not in the market for a new tv and no amount of shouting at me is going to change that. In fact, it's annoying me.
And even I were shopping, I'll get a recommendation from my geeky mate or go online and see what people who know about this stuff are saying.
That's where 'advertising' need to be too, in there - listening and contributing.

Old ad habits die hard though, a bit like trying to maintain a decent crack habit.
After one hit all you can think about is the next one. And , of course, the subsequent hits is never the same as the first so you need to up the dose each time.
Very expensive and not really sustainable (inevitably ending in death, but maybe that's too much drama)

I'm an interactive guy, what do you want me to say?

But heres something that anyone who's ever managed a team, done any teaching or been in a position where they are trying to influence behaviour will know. It's the first rule of engagement.

'Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I'll understand'
- Confucius

While we're on about dangerous narcotics, how much funnier would it have been if Nokia's music sponsorship participation programme thingy Rock Up and Play had featured Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse in some way?

note: can't believe i've managed to quote Chas'n'Dave and Ivan Pavlov in the same article.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Facebook group

Theres now a facebook group for this blog.
Feel free to join if you like and meet/share etc with other readers
and, of course, pimp your own stuff.
See you over there.

Close, but no cigar...

Spent a day at Ad:tech last week and had a stroll round the exhibition area. Chatted to a few of the stalls, mostly iptv/web tv people, stuff like that.
Many business cards exchanged as you would imagine. Anyway, now the follow up emails start to trickle in. Most get binned straight away as they are bog standard sales-ey type things. One caught my eye though.

Subject: Great to meet you at ad:tech last week.

Hmm, the personal touch. I'm liking it so far...

then doink!

The opening line is...

Dear Sir/Madam...

delete.

You nearly got me thinking this was a personal and relevant follow up.
You've got my business card and my email address but you can't take the extra 5 seconds to simply address me by name in the mail? So near yet so far.

I wish i could finish this post with the ultimate irony and tell you the guilty party was an email marketing firm, sadly it was not.

I'm not going to name and shame either.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Caetano Veloso

The music business is going through rapid changes as we all know.
In the past bands/artists would record an album then go on tour to promote it - sales would follow.

Of course now it's turned on its head and new records are more like the promo tools for the live experience - see the recent free Prince album ahead of his extended residency at the Millenium Dome (still can't get my head round calling it the O2) and just this week Radiohead's announcement that fans will be able to purchase their new album for whatever price they deem appropriate. Further musings on this and the trust economy by Mitch Joel over here.

With that in mind, delivering in the live setting is more important than ever. That makes it especially disappointing when things dont live up to expectations and artists lose sight of what their audience wants from them.

One of my colleagues, Esther Duran, is an afficionado of the bossa nova and a devotee of Caetano Veloso, one of the most important figures in contemporary Brazilian music. His works are considered masterpieces. Caetano says, "I make my records as a painter would paint his canvas".
He made a rare appearance in London, at the Barbican Arts Centre, the other night. Here is Esther's review.

"I really like Caetano Veloso and his seductive voice and guitar playing. I like him so much that I bought a ticket for his Barbican concert three months ago. Last night was the final night, the count down arrived to an end, Caetano’s performance at the Barbican was already with me!

Little did I know Caetano wasn’t playing the Bossa Nova and Samba that I knew him for, instead he was performing a crap rock and roll with pseudo-ska derivations…something very unusual for Caetano.

Is he in his middle age crisis? If so, he should have bought a Porsche convertible instead of wasting my money (40 pounds per ticket) and my time (2 hours of flashing lights and non-sense electric guitar)

Caetano please, come back to your senses and play the music that everyone knows you for. Leave the rock and roll and pseudo-ska for younger people and please, Caetano don’t be six years without releasing an album and reappear to the public with that pile of shit."

It stikes me that poor Caetano has messed up with a redundant mass marketing approach.
By compromising his sound to try and appeal to a wider mass audience he's only gone and pissed-off and alienated the audience he already had. Ergo trying to appeal to everyone and you end up appealing to no-one. Not only that, a fair chunk of the audience were newbies who had been coaxed along by their friends 'in-the-know' to witness 'the master'. Now he's also made his hardcore fans look like divvies into the bargain. Theres a lesson here.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

the road to domestos

To paraphrase CJ from Reggie Perrin 'I didn't get where I am today by not writing pretentious biogs and generally blowing my own trumpet at the drop of a hat to whoever happens to be wandering by'
Heres the article about my self what I wrote for Sam and Will's adgrads blog, just giving some background as to how i got from A to B on the murky dark underbelly fringes of advertising. For some reason they reckon this might be interesting to graduates looking for their first jobs.

FLASH!

It's 1992 and I'm in the back office of the record shop in Aberdeen that I manage.

I'm clutching a brown cardboard envelope containing an Italian white label 12" record that's been mailed to me by one of the specialist importer/distributers I buy from. The note attached tells me they are hopeful of doing some business with this record and what did i think? It will be available as an import in about 3 weeks.

On the blank white label the words Glam - Hell's Party are scribbled in black marker.

I dump the record onto the turntable and drop the needle on. Its a full on Euro house/disco stomper that samples Curtis Mayfield from 'If theres a Hell Below..'

On first listen, I'm thinking that I could probably shift about 20-25 of these on import before any UK release and decide to give it a whirl at one of my dj engagements at the weekend.

Over the next few weeks I play it at every gig and everywhere it drops the roof goes off. It's a monster tune. When the labelled copies are finally available I end up selling over 250 12" on import over the following couple of months before it's picked up by Sony in the UK, remixed and released for a stab at the charts.

The Sony rep calls me to sell in his new releases and offers it as a 1 in 3 deal (ie buy 3 get one free) expecting a big order. I buy 6. Ive already sold 250 on import so I'm done with it, now it's time for HMV or whatever to takeover.

A 'Tipping Point' in action before anyone had properly coined those phrases.

Recap...

The distributer gave me one of the few white labels knowing my history of being able to sell decent numbers of Italian imports. I'm also a reasonably well-known dj in Scotland. An influencer [sic] in my niche.

I play the record at the clubs I'm booked at (the small ones that are full of the clued-up kids on the scene in their towns) - the cool kids love it and want it. When it's available they are the first to have it and play it at there own parties. The idea spreads. The specialist shops sell shed loads on import.

Sony cool detectors pick up the record for mass market - its in all the chains and hits the top 40.

It's hit the early and late majority.

It was round about this time I realised that I was destined for marketing because, without any formal training or anything, I just intuitively understood a bit of this stuff.

FLASH!

It's now 2007.

I'm working with Weapon7, a specialist digital advertising agency in London, using basically the same principles to develop digital marketing campaigns for global brands. It's come full circle again as traditional mass advertising is looking like it's not as as effective as it was in the pre-digital age, with word of mouth - this time accelerated by networked connectivity on an unprecedented scale. An evolved (fuzzy) role (geek marketer? T-shaped creative? Job 2.0? – delete as appropriate) with an evolved agency.

I quit the music industry around ’96 after helping launch a group of indie labels. We released about 15 records a month for 3 or 4 years. No big hits but being in the Long Tail kept us ticking over – we could sell about 2,000 of any release so it made sense to release loads rather than look for one big hit.

I then picked up my crayons again (I had hardly drawn anything since leaving Art School in 89 with a fine art degree) and spent a year or so learning how to work a mac on the job at the local newspaper setting ads.

Next stop was a small design and comms agency based in Aberdeen where we worked with the oil companies on everything from brochures, intranets and safety videos. The big lesson there was – never say no to a job. If we didn’t know how to do it we’d just go and figure it out. Try, fail and learn.

Decamping to London in 2000 I had the idea that interactive tv was going to be the next big thing, post dot com crash. After about 18 months at Sky I realised that probably wasn’t my smartest move (fail and learn, again) and then became Creative Director with Littlewoods Gaming, an old fashioned company looking to launch its gambling products into the 21st century and a market dominated by young pretenders like 888.com.

Around this time, I had my next epiphany when I was given a copy of Seth Godin’s Purple Cow. It seemed like everything I had been thinking but unable to articulate properly was encapsulated in those pages.

‘Pouring off every page like it was written in my soul’ as Bobby D would say – that’s maybe a bit dramatic but you get where I’m coming from, however naive that sounds now.

My advice for grads making their first tentative steps into industry?

Well, if you are clever enough to be reading this blog and participating in these conversations you don’t need much from me. You already realise the power of community and dialogue in modern marketing. You are smarter than the average bear already.

Your potential employers and clients are desperate for new thinking, fresh approaches and innovation that’s going to keep their products/services and marketing relevant – beyond 30 second spots, no matter how smarty pants (I’m thinking drumming gorillas here…)

Be fuzzy, poke your nose in where its not wanted, challenge the status quo, don’t ask permission for anything and be prepared to fail and learn.

That’s about it.

Packing Up The Big Top from Modern Marketing

Another great article from James Cherkoff on his Modern Marketing page, musing on a wisdom of crowds theme.

When people want to know about something they go online and see what everyone else thinks. They don't rush to the corporate website to check out what gems the guys in marketing have come up with. Or to see if the new jingle is going to pique their aspirations. They jump in the bazaar. Trip Advisor. Amazon. Blogs....These days the problem isn't a lack of helpful opinion or market intelligence.

Read the comments as well as there's some great stuff in there.

Monday, September 24, 2007

mind the gap

A wee while back we were playing the Beatles 'Love' mash-up (sort of) album in the office. Much debate ensuing over the merits of the remix experiment, who might have done it better etc etc. One of our designers (i'll not mention her name so as not to completely destroy her credibility) pipes up...

'Who is this we are listening to?'

Hard to belive that someone can get to her mid twenties and have never come across the Beatles but there you go. It happened.

So, where are the gaps in your culturals? Which phenomenons have completely passed you by, much to the amusement and/or derision from your workmates/friends?
I've started plugging one of my gaps this weekend.

The Sopranos.

Somehow, despite devouring Goodfellas, the Godfathers, Casino etc and every thing Scorcese so much as farted I completely missed the Sopranos.

So to HMV where the boxsets are on £25 special offer, season 1 purchased and this weekend spent glued to the box catching up. Basically looking to do a season every two weeks so by about November-ish I'll be there, and can then rejoin the rest of the human race.

What's this got to do with anything? nowt really, but just to note the fatblogging has taken a knock as we felt compelled to stuff ourselves with meatballs and spaghetti all weekend for some reason. I'm 6lbs heavier now than when I started the diet.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

the revolution will be televised?

Heard Alex Cameron from Digital TX giving it the big one last night at Chinwags TV on the Web thing. I’ve been a bit of a fan since his glorious, if slightly flawed, Hendrix inspired rant at BT Vision’s iptv-lite last year.

Difficult times for network tv for a while, of course.

So heres the thing as I understand it.
Old style network tv existed mainly through advertiser funding. Digital and cable exploded as the first wave of fragmentation, advertisers don’t get the eyeballs they need for the critical mass so ad spending gets similarly fragmented. Less revenue means less new programming gets commissioned/made/bought and we get cheaply produced reality shows etc. More viewers switch off, advertisers get twitchy, programming gets worse etc etc – downward spiral.
Next wave of fragmentation, web delivered content, extends the long tail even further, mass media advertising becomes even less effective, media spending diverts even more to digital and interactive, more viewers desert tv.
In fact the tv content gets so poor that consumers end up making ther own instead.

What now?

In the Q&A Project Kangaroo was mentioned. As far as I can glean this is an idea around consolidation of all the media players and on-demand services. from the major UK broadcasters. The BBC is working with ITV, Channel 4 and the service will be built on the same P2P basis as the iPlayer, and later as a digital TV service. Can’t get my head round this working against the Long Tail distribution though? Dunno.

At the end of the day, we the viewers want great content, movies, live sport etc, same as ever, but don’t necessarily want to pay for it. Whether the broadcasters like it or not this is the model going forward so that’s what needs to be figured out.

But who is going to pay for it? The advertiser funded model is not really sustainable is it?

One heckler correctly noted that the future may be in a return to a sponsorship model from the old days of soaps (I’d forgotten that The name soap opera stems from the original serials broadcast on radio that had washing powder brands as sponsors)

Maybe, but perhaps a more evolved sponsorship model where the brand as sponsor is integral to the content. Theres a movie precedent of course with product placement – FedEx famously supplied all the transportation facilities for production of the movie Cast Away in which they were heavily featured (although no dirty cash changed hands)
I keep coming back to Where are the Jones’s partnership idea. Production co and community co-created, corporate sponsored (Ford) and Long tail distributed. (Though I’m not 100% sure the sponsor is integral to the content, keep me right here Dave!)
Brands as providers kind of thing.

As an aside, what does stuff like X Factor and those awful Lloyd-Webber find a star things mean? It's a kind of stealth product placement. The ’entertainment’ is the deconstructed production process of the one hit wonder fodder or whatever.
Although this has being around since The Monkees – but at least they had a few good tunes.

UPDATE
more perspective on the Chinwag Web TV take-over
Fiona Blamey
Rags Rupta
Broadstuff

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Electric Business

I spent Monday evening having a conversation with a group of small creative business owners - from the Surrey/Hampshire area - in Guildford.

Many thanks to Kate from the Farnham Electric Business Club for asking me to fill in.

I was asked to give a short presentation and kick off a discussion and braindump to see if we could collectively come up with some ideas and tactics around the theme of 'Know your Product'.
In retrospect I think I tried to squeeze a bit too much content into the presentation as I had to whizz through to allow enough time for the dialogue piece, and despite leaving my notes in the cab I just about managed to wing it.

My presentation was loosely themed around the value of conversation and connection strategies for small businesses with low or no budget for marketing.
I started off with a sort of case study of a piece of work we did at Weapon7 for the launch of Xbox360 which went viral via the Xbox fan forums. Using a fraction of the media budget it created a disproportionate buzz compared the more expensive media and showed how getting the early adopters and influencers talking can accelerate the spread of an idea.

I introduced gapingvoid's Stormhoek blogger outreach from 2005 and neatly segued in the launch of the Blue Monster label (how cool to be featuring it on day of launch) to demonstrate the influence of social media and show the value of unlikely partnerships, and followed that up with a look at Go Home Productions - how garden shed remixer's cgc ends up on MTV and remixes for David Bowie.

The homework for the group was to connect to me, join the conversation, start experimenting with new tools/tactics outside of traditional marketing and look into the kind of innovations that can develop the talkability of their product or service.

I also promised some recommended reading to get some thinking going, I'm going to list a couple of things here for those who have done the homework and looked me up.

BOOK - Seth Godin's Purple Cow , when I first read this about 3 years ago all sorts of lightbulbs started going off in my head.

PODCAST - to get enthused about all things new media you could do worse than Six Pixels

BLOG - Any of the links on my sidebar will lead you off to many more links.

And in the spirit of link-love heres the people who left me their cards at the end.

Claire Harrison, Fine Artist
Designer, Nick Cannons
Another designer, Andrew Cross
The Boiler Room, Guildford music and arts venue.

Whats the pic all about? On my way to work I usually buy a coffee off Mr Coffee, a van parked on the courtyard ouside new Spitalfields market. Despite having Starbucks, Costa and numerous other established coffee chains around them, Mr Coffee has a long line every morning. Instead of the usual boring loyalty stamp cards you get a free pair of pants with every 20 coffee's. Or if you just ask they will give you a pair anyway.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Look out kid, You're gonna get hit

As a Dylan freak, I'm loving this.
Send your own Subteranean Homesick Blues message.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

too much monkey business

"We've created a branded space in which Cadbury's can be generous in bringing joy,"

Yep, the Cadbury's ad with the gorilla doing Phil Collins.
You can't argue that it's a pretty funny and entertaining piece of content, decently executed. A bit of random Youtube-esque silly-ness in fact.

Yes, it's gone viral and theres a lot of debate about it

but did it need the massive tv budget to do that...?
and is it more about the clever dicks behind it than the brand...?

It's here

Quechup spam

sorry if i've spammed you with that Quechup thing. I got an invite from a trusted source and signed up to see what it was, then the b'stards hi-jacked my address book and spammed everyone. apologies again.

Go Home Productions retrospective

Arguably one of the finest exponents of the art of mash-up/bootleg/bastard pop - Go Home Productions - has released a 20 track retrospective 'cd' compiliation this week. "This Was Pop (2002-2007)" A 5 year bootleg retrospective.
GHP has delivered some of the most celebrated examples of the mash-up genre over the last few years including the Madonna/SexPistols fusion 'Ray of Gob' and 'Rapture Riders', the Blondie/Doors hybrid.

The mash-up phenomenon exploded around 2001/2 as bedroom mixers, enabled by the democratisation of music production allowed by software such as Acid, Ableton and later garageband fused acapella tracks with the instrumental tracks of other records to create new 'remixes’. 'Stroke of Genius' was probably the biggest of the time and that spawned an MTV slot with the video mash-ups to compliment the tracks and Mash-up club nights like ‘Bastard’.

GHP’s retrospective is a pretty decent introduction if anyone’s missed out.

GHP is also a pretty interesting case study in a couple of the basic ideas of the new marketing.

I'm thinking about, the power of free, permission and the product is the marketing.
By giving away the tracks for free via his website and mash-up community blogs like GYBO and Boomselection (early example of the long tail of distribution..?) GHP has build a fanbase and mailing list, with permission to contact the list when there’s new tracks uploaded.
With this comes reputation and with that comes dj bookings, ‘legit’ remix work etc.
From fiddling in the shed to official remixes for Bob Dylan and David Bowie is quite a ride.

Of course, it helps that his work is shit-hot. As an art form that is by nature ‘user-generated’ there are thousands of wannabe mash-up artists making pretty average at best, shoddy at worst mixes, but GHP’s ‘Purple Cow’ is the vast musical knowledge from years of fandom which allows him to introduce the little extra elements into his tracks that the less detail focussed would miss. In ‘Rock in Black’ - the Queen and AC-DC blend – the little addition of Freddie’s ‘..get on your bikes and ride’ line is that knowing final piece of polishing that gives it the extra 5% .

Anyway, the tracks are here.