On the off chance you're winding down friday afternoon with a quick trawl through your feed reader and chance upon this post, a quick reminder that MediaCampLondon is on tomorrow (Saturday) at:
SAE Institute North Road, Islington, London, N7 9DP
2mins from Caledonian Road tube.
from 10am.
Registration is still open at the wiki
and at the time of writing there are still a couple of slots open for sessions.
spotted in barber shop window off Wardour St.
04/07 UPDATE
My eagle eyed brother, Al, (see comments) has spotted this is in fact a take off of a piece by Weegie artist David Shrigley, heres his original below.
Among his other notable credits are; the title sequence for the feature film HALLAM FOE and album cover art for the likes of Malcolm Middleton. 
this is great. don't remember where i found it, if anyone knows (and if are there others like it?) please let me know.
The latest developments in energy drinks move the focus from sports to other energy sapping activities.
Among the myriad of products in the sex-drive boosting drinks market are:
SexDrive (does what it says on the tin), Slumpbuster and...wait for it...Deep Throat.
The one that caught my eye (courtesy of trendhunter) is Billy Boy (see pic).
Each can comes wrapped with an individual condom attached.
The German firm that makes it are actually in the condom business so the drink is an added extra.
With that in mind I was interested to hear behavioural economist Dan Ariely talking about his new book 'Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions' on a recent episode of business book podcast Foreword Thinking. Among the questions asked in the book are; 'Do you know why we sometimes find ourselves excitedly buying things we don’t really need?'
Airley conducted various experiments in the research including some fairly unsavoury research around how sexually aroused male college students decision making processes were altered by their state of arousal.
Note: One handed computer keyboards were integral to the experiment.
According to review site bevnet Billy Boy doesn't actually taste that great but when theres a job to be done taste is the least of considerations...
Content wants to be free, piracy can be a business model. And pop-soul karaoke star Joss Stone agrees.
'Music should be shared. I believe that this is how music turned into like, some crazy business. The only part about music that I dislike is the business that is attached to it. Now, if music is free, then there is no business, there is just music...
...As long as you come to my show, and have a great time listening to the live show it’s totally cool, I don’t mind'
She understands that the tour-to-promote-album music biz model is now flipped on its head and a digital, easily distributed (ie shared) product is now the marketing for the live experience.
And who knows, make a special cd in a nice box with a free tshirt or something and fans may even buy the physical product too.
joss quote via mashable
from rob mosley's blog
This is how you do merchandising:
- catch people's eyes
- demonstrate the product's key feature (its big)
- don't put 'orrible big signs up that scream prices/benefits at people
This excerpt from 'How to Become a Social Media Expert' by CS Penn struck a chord.
'..the measurements that count most to you will likely have nothing to do with friends, followers, betas, or invitations, but with differences and positive changes made, accomplishments logged'
full article here
As some of you may already know, I'm off to pastures new having resigned form my current job a few weeks ago. I've got another 5 weeks or so to go before I embark on a new phase of my career. More details on that a bit nearer the time, but suffice to say I'm very excited about the challenge that awaits.
One of the questions I was asked during the interview process was around this idea of 'how [am I] going to implement [my ideas] in [the new role]?'
The simple answer is 'walk the talk'.
In this business, how can we expect our clients to embrace the changes in how media is produced, distributed, consumed etc if we (in agencies) don't demonstrate this ourselves?
It's kind of what Jaffe calls 'use new marketing to prove new marketing'.
And what better way to walk the talk, than in a pair of shiny gold hand-made brogues from Church's in Piccadilly?
I'm a size 11, by the way, in case they are reading.
I liked this point of purchase iphone app for Carling lager from BMB.
Its a skill based game where players attempt to 'slide' a pint to their mate along the bar by tilting their mobile use the handset’s inbuilt 3 dimentional motion detection. A successful slide wins an iPint, which fills up the screen just like a real pint. You can then ‘drink’ the virtual pint.
hat-tip to @jamiec.
UPDATE:
Sorry it looks like BMB have taken their link down.
There's a mini-meme a-brewing round the Droga5/Net 10 - what is the role of the agency? - ad-google-purchase - conundrum stirred up by Alan Wolk, elaborated on by Cam Beck, amongst others and mentioned here a couple of posts back.
To recap: Droga5 make cool viral and :30 for US mobile operator Net10. Net10 claim in ads that other providers are evil. Cursory googling of Net10 customer reviews reveals Net10 customer service etc to be pretty average at best in the eyes of users.
Many of the comments on Scamp (where the debate started) reckon agency make ads, duff products are nowt to do with us.
Alan says: 'too many agencies can’t even be bothered to use Google to see if the product actually lives up to the brief. Can’t be bothered to realize that for most non packaged-goods items, the consumer pattern is now ad -Google-purchase.'
Semi anonymous commenter bg adds:
'I think one group escapes blame here: brands. [Brands] are just as responsible for the fragmentation of advertising and marketing responsibilities as anyone...'
Mulling this around on the train home while listening to Elvis Costello's classic '89 album 'Spike' a lyrical couplet resonated somewhat.
'One day you're going to have to face
A deep dark truthful mirror
And it's going to tell you things that I still love
you too much to say'
Elvis Costello 'Deep dark truthful mirror'
We recently worked with [Brand X] on a project involving user generated content.
The project ended up being compromised a bit by the reluctance of the client to incorporate some of the (most basic) social elements to the project. The reason for this was; that some students had conducted experiments with [Brand X] product - the results cast a shadow on the integrity of some the the claims about the product.
[Brand X] then had to take a serious look at their product (and into the deep dark truthful mirror)and get it fixed.
Seems to me the same connundrum here.
Brands need to be aware that not only is the adage 'you're brand is not what you say it is, it's what google says it is' ringing true - its also what google potentially says it is once the eager pro-sumers have finished conducting their experiments.
Spotted these Wii tennis stations set up on the concourse at Waterloo this morning - at the start of Wimbledon week.
Part experiential, part 'tryvertising' (i guess it's semi contextual as Wimbledon bound punters will be going via Waterloo).
I hope South West Trains will be providing the Wii demonstrators with free strawberries and cream as a thankyou for keeping irate travellers occupied during the inevitable cancellations and delays.
In this post on Scamp about Net10's 'evil' campaign - featuring firstly that clip of the mobile phone in the microwave and then the full on cartoon tv spots - there was much debate about the whys and wherefores of the ad idea and execution but, for me, it only gets going when commenter Alan Wolk aka tangerinetoad wades in with this nugget.
'I'd like to suggest, as an experiment, that all of you who like this commercial and/or campaign do what the average consumer will do upon seeing it, which is to go over to Google and enter this phrase:
net10 phone service reviews
Then click on the first couple of results. Including the one from Amazon.com
You'll quickly see why the serious problem with these ads, and why, given the online comments about Net10s customer service (or lack thereof) they probably have a net negative effect.'
The response from other comments was along the lines of 'what can the agency do if the product is broken? we just do the advertising?'
This approach to advertising has had it. Finished.
It's basic insight stuff. Anyone can now search for real reviews and get a picture of the reality of the product. The agency should do this first then review the strategy to address real perceptions from real customers (or ex-customers).
This is not brain surgery.
But that might interfere with the making of smartypants ads to win industry back-slapping awards. Which is sadly often the case.
Don't get me wrong, the 'ads' are great - just for the wrong product it would seem.
And thats where it all falls over.
'If you dont like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less'
General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, US Army
Goodbye to a rock'n'roll legend - originator of the Bo Diddley beat, probably more famous due to the likes of The Who's Magic Bus than his own tunes.
According to punky lore, while on tour with the Clash in 79, Bo let his guitar sleep on the bunk in the bus while he kipped in the chair, re-inforcing the legend with Strummer and co.
'I hope this book turns out like Mein Kampf for the Hollyoaks generation'
Ive just read this.
Less an autobiography and more a loosely collated stream of ramblings stitched together and interspersed with prose ‘chapters’
It’s a a whisky, beer and sulphate soaked journey through 30-odd albums, umpteen band members, fighting, prison, ballet, dead popes, voting Tory, and reading the scores on Grandstand.
It’s not the definitive biography – it’s what Smith wants you to know.
Threre’s a lot in common with Dylan’s ‘Chronicles’ though Smith would baulk at that as Dylan is one of the sacred cows who get’s a mauling.
None shall escape the judgement as MES lets rip at everyone from Elton John, John Lennon to Jo Whiley and anyone at all from Brighton – but with a fluency and brutal honesty that persuades you to go along with even the most scathing and unreasonable theories.
To be fair though I drew the line at the idea that the Glitter Band were more influential than the Sex Pistols.
Waterstone's the booksellers have just about got it spot on with this 'What's Your Story' campaign.
To celebrate the National UK Reading Year they are challenging budding writers to compose a short story and submit it to the Wys site.
The best entries are being published in an online gallery and in stores - alongside a collection of specially commisioned stories written by some top authors.
3 winning stories will be published in a postcard book alonside the 'real' authors including Doris Lessing, Michael Rosen, Nick Hornby, Sebastian Faulks, Lauren Child, Tom Stoppard and Irvine Welsh and of course...
JK Rowling, who has supplied an exclusive 800-word, hand-written prequel to the Harry Potter series.
Value, content, participation, community, partnership, branding.
I've been debating with a few twitter buddies whether the likes of Amazon have the same ability to generate that fuzzy feeling around their brand as the likes of Waterstones.
In the book market I will always prefer to shop with Waterstones if I can rather than Amazon. Why? Because of stuff like this. The cold aggregation of the likes of Amazon doesn't tickle me.
OK there's the long tail and the user reviews, the super fast service etc- but I find something more re-assuring about a brand that actually 'cares' about it's product.
Half of the staff are authors.
And actively working for good in the community - Neil Perkin talks about this here - kind of inspired this post.
Plus they are British...
The campaign and microsite was developed by Manchester digital agency Code Computerlove
Just spotted this in E1. The street art/graffiti fraternity self-organising to bring a bit of quality control to the streets? Or maybe it's part of Boris' new broom?
On a recent jaunt to Edinburgh I stayed at the Malmaison by Leith docks.
First off, it's about 15 years since I've been round Leith, what a change.
Back in the day it was a bit of a no-go area but it's now been 'regenerated'- lots of nice bars and restaurants and half a million quid apartments etc.
A couple of things made my stay worth remarking upon.
All Malmaison hotels offer free, gratis broadband in the rooms. So what? I hear you say. Well try getting free web access in any other hotel chain. Unlikely.
In the bathroom theres a wee sign beside all the toiletries - posh body wash, moisturising pads, breath freshner, the lot - saying 'please take these away with you'.
Everyone nabs the bits from the bathroom in hotels anyway, but a nice touch to say 'go ahead'. Power showers too. Theres nothing worse than the dribbly weak showers you often encounter in hotels.
I ordered dinner in my room - posh burger and chips - the chips come in a tall cup thing wrapped in Malmaison greaseproof paper. A little design touch that tickled me.
I also loved the milk jugs at breakfast, it's a tall vase shaped white jug with 'cow' spots printed on it.
I could have stayed at the Holiday Inn accross the road and it would have been perfectly acceptable, but i would not have mentioned it to anyone after.
It's the micro-touches that make an experience worth talking about.
Good enough is no longer good enough, it needs to be better than that.
Here's a tip for you.
Don't let your domain expire, as I have just done.
I received several reminder emails from my hosting service, the latest one last week warned me that it would expire within 25 days.
So today I find that its gone already! Thats well within the 25 days. They don't mess about.
I've paid up and the site will be back within 24 hours, however anyone who attemps to go there during these 24 hours is going to mark me down. Lesson learned.
Belated congratulations to Dan from the way of the web aka @badgergravling on the arrival of baby Oscar the other week. A new recruit for the twitter junior section?
Also I'm due him a link as his technorati rank has crashed since shifting his blog about.
I rave about gohomeproductions all the time here. Maybe there's some sort of affinity as I'm a former Watford resident myself.
Despite recently announcing his retirement from the bootleg business to concentrate on 'proper' tracks he's done a new collection of 11 mash-ups 'Spliced Crispies'.
This time theres videos to go along with them.
My personal favourite is the Ce Ce Penniston/Sex Pistols fusion 'Finally Did you no wrong'. see below.
When I'm having those HEAD>BRICK WALL moments I'm always glad of this nugget from author and historian David Landes...
'In this world the optimists have it, not because they are always right but because they are always positive. Even when wrong, they are positive...and that is the way to achievement'
There been a bit of interest though the recipies are slow in coming through.
Perhaps this diagram in the style of Armano will help to clarify.
heres the link again geekdinner.blogspot.com
For all you Generation Y hopefuls. Take a tip from Sam. The bar has officially been RAISED. Want the money? the status? don't want to pay yer dues? You better be SMARTER than this then. Stuff of legends.
I was looking at my google stats for this blog the other day and noticed that the most read article was none of the advertising/marketing/pop stuff but a recipe for beef braciole (the result of a desperate posting of some content or other during a barren spell).
Anyway, it got me thinking. Like novels, everyone has at least one recipe in them. A signature dish, lets call it. What I hope will happen with 'geek dinner'is that you, the reader of this and no doubt the author of your own blog, will send me the following:
1 - your recipe
2 - the story that goes with it
3 - a brief bio
4 - your linkage
5 - a pic of yourself in the kitchen
send all to geekdinnerblog at gmail dot com
Ive set up the blog over at geekdinner.blogspot.com.
Once we have a decent amount of content (I'm thinking 100-150 recipies) I'd like to do an actual book using lulu or something, sell them and be able to donate the proceeds to a hunger related charity, maybe? I'm open to suggestions from you.
Thanks in advance.
Ive tagged a few candidates
This caught my eye as an interesting nugget of distribution innovation.
Glam metal veterans Motley Crue have regrouped to release their new 'single' - via Xbox's Live platform and Playstation's store - through the game 'Rock Band', the big brother of Friday afternoon office fave 'Guitar Hero'.
According to MTVGames 'Rock Band went on sale last November and now has more than 80 tracks available for download in addition to the 58 tracks in the original game. MTV Games said players have bought more than 6 million downloadable songs for Rock Band.'
Reuters story here.
As well as highlighting the potential of video games as a get out of jail card for the ailing music industry, this is a good example of getting the product where the audience is at.
Apparently during the Crue's heyday in the mid-80s, they were once holed up in a Hollywood hotel on tour - lounging by the pool surrounded by semi-naked bimbos and generally having it large on the JD and narcotics. Word arrived that drug legend Ozzy Osborne had checked into the hotel - much to the excitement of apprentice hellraisers, the Crue.
Ozzy staggered out to the pool, bent down to where a glass of something had been spilled and proceeded to snort a 'line' of ants that had gathered around the spilled beverage.
Motley Crue split up shortly afterwards, no doubt realising they could never reach the dizzy heights of rock'n'roll excess as demonstrated by the true master.
I'm liking these flip-over powder coated steel coathook/hanger things by Swiss designer Nicola Enrico Stäubli.
Another example of soft innovation turning a relatively oridinary product into something worth talking about.
I also love her product description:
'This new type of coat hanger sticks to a conventional towel rail and provides it with an additional task outside the bathroom. Once flipped over it turns into a coat hook. Source of inspiration for the design of this little aide for everyday life was the stick insect. The coloring is borrowed from the tropical flora, the habitat of this giant insect.'
As Seth Godin says:
'Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service'
The Auntie Bessies sausage and mash cone is not for everyone. If it was it would be a bit boring.
The twit-osphere has been literally a-tweet with debate around the recent entry into the conversation, on Twitter, of the Prime Minister's office.
No.10 have a dedicated twitterstream, you can follow by adding @downingstreet to your 'following' list. Full marks to Downing Street for 'following back' most of their followers, and on occasion actually engaging fellow twitters on a one-to-one basis.
It would have been easy for No.10 to simply 'broadcast'.
Interestingly there seem to be a number of closet Tories creeping out of the woodwork on Twitter leading to some heckling and derision of @downingstreet- I have no truck with this and welcome the government dept of spin with open arms. I even put myself on the line defending their right to be present, however my requests for an honorary MBE - for services rendered - where politely declined...
In the absence of anything of my own - of any substance - to share, I'm going to occasionally cross post things I've read of interest.
Advergirl is in my google reader - always quality - and in a recent post she has has recommended Who's your City or How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida - which I shall be checking out.
She summarises '(Florida's) aim is largely to defend the importance of a sense of place vs. the encroaching genericism of globalization. Where you live does matter and is part of who you are.'
This neatly articulates something Ive been mulling around for a while.
Here's an excerpt: 'Finding the right place is as important as - if not more important than - finding the right job or partner because it not only influences those choices but also determines how easy or hard it will be to correct mistakes made along the way. ...The place we choose to live affects every aspect of our being. It can determine the income we earn, the people we meet, the friends we make, the partners we choose, and the options available to our children and families. People are not equally happy everywhere...'
I get the feeling that the US has a number of 'centers' whereas in the UK there are fewer and we tend to be London-centric in regard to 'creative' industries.
Advergirl's synopsis boils it down to five key themes/questions.
1 How do you like the place you're living now?
2 Is it somewhere you really want to be?
3 Does it give you energy? When you walk out onto the street or the country lane, in the morning, does it fill you with inspiration, or stress?
4 Does it allow you to be the person you really want to be? Are you achieving your personal goals?
5 Is it a place you would recommend to your relatives and friends?
I live in the country but work in the city (the rationale was - best of both worlds)so not sure how best to answer, what do we reckon?
Date for your diaries - Saturday 17th May 2008.
Register here - start getting your presentation together now...
Radiohead will be gaining more plaudits for innovation in the music biz for making thir new single/track/whatever available on in 5 component parts for fans to 'remix' themselves. Budding remixers are also encouraged to add their own parts to the soup, so i'll be hoping for some genre crossing ideas and mashups, a bit of c&w, polka or calypso might be fun.
Hip-hoppers, will be familiar with the, albeit unnofficial, jayz construction set from 04 - inspired by Dangermouse's 'Grey Album' (a mash up of JayZ's 'Black Album' and the Beatles 'White Album')
Even further back in time, in 91, Aberdeen' finest The Shamen issued a CD with all the parts of their hit 'Progen'- which was in the Top 10 at the time - for fans to remix.
Also, one of my first records for Bellboy Records - 'Bring it on Down' as the Turnbull AC's in 94, was constructed entirely from parts from a George Clinton sample cd plus a drum loop from The Emotions 'Best of my Love'.
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)
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Just going through todays snaps and i liked this one too.
ESB from 42nd st through the trees and snazzy motor in the foreground.
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.
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
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.
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...
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!
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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!'
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)
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.
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 ;)
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.
this one rarely crops up on Xmas compilations, Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols (aka The Greedy Bastards) from 1979.
See you next year
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..
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
