Never get out of the boat

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

larry flynt and anthony weiner

Some sections of the blogosphere (I won't name and shame) marvelled at the opportunist stunt pulled by Larry Flynt - 'entertainment' entrepreneur - in offering the stupid ex-US Congressman Anthony Weiner a 'job' following his resignation,

'After having learned of your sudden and compelled resignation from your Congressional post, I would like to make you an offer of employment at Flynt Management Group, LLC in our internet group. As a Congressman, you are known for your intensity and perseverance. I believe that this attitude, combined with your service in the House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce, will make you a valuable asset to this corporation.'

Ha ha.

Despite amassing what amounts to tons of 'free' media in both the tabloids and other media that should know better, I'm compelled to say, it's in the nature of Flynt's grubby, manipulative, exploitative and dumb business that means the very best he can hope for is spin-off attention from gimmicky publicity stunts.

It may work in practice but doesn't work in theory.

File under 90% is shit.

cannes the cannes #winningwithintegrity

As you all know, I don't get too bothered about award shows, but having said that, if you're in it you might as well win it.

And to win it with a project that has complete integrity and authenticity is even better.

This is why I'm particularly pleased to have been part of this situation we created for NAB in Australia, which has earned the recognition of our peers and snaffled the Grand Prix for PR at the Cannes Advertising festival.

Integrity? Authenticity? I hear you ask.

This is why it won.

Know which side of the bed you are lying on.
Decide what you are FOR and AGAINST.
Stand for something your customers care about.
Find out who's IN and who's OUT.
Have a philosophy first, strategy follows naturally.
Have a mission not simply a proposition
Use each piece of media to do what it does best.
Make media slippy not sticky.
Be informal, entertaining but still serious.
Agitate.
Create situations.
Pick a fight with someone.

There's our Exec CD Ant with the statue last night, with a shout out to the creative teams.

Bring the noise.

Friday, June 17, 2011

filter bubble?

As the proliferation of online content continues to grow and human attention reaches full-up, Google, Facebook et al are tailoring services to try pre-filter content for their users in the interest of relevance and preference.

Are their intentions honorable? We hope so.

But Eli Pariser , a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and author of a new book The Filter Bubble, argues that we've simply swapped one set of gatekeepers for another.
In the pre-internet age we took what we were given by broadcasters and publishers.
Then the web came along and opened everything up.

But now things like Google's social search, the 'important' tab in gmail, Facebook EdgeRank are the new gatekeepers. Sorting content and providing us with what they think we want.
Eli thinks that we are in danger of being trapped in a 'filter bubble' limiting the chance of discovering new information and points of view.

Worth a look, if you've not seen it.

smells like award-show spirit

Have a look at the Old Spice twitter page.
In 2011 there's been a total of around 30 or so tweets since January 1.
Basically communication pretty much ceased at the end of November, when the mainstream campaign wound up, with only sporadic updates - principally self-pimpage - between January and May.

There's 125,000 followers on there they could have been activating, but didn't bother.

Funnily enough 'engagement' started again in the last five or six weeks - @oldspice started to reply to fans again after an elongated hiatus.

Quel surprise.
Could it be that award shows are coming around again?

I've no problem with Old Spice cleaning up in Advertising categories, it has great writing, great humour and was perfectly executed as a campaign.

But i'm not buying any 'best-use-of-social-media'.

There's also 1.5 million fans on the Facebook page, loads of likes and comments from fans - I dug around for ten minutes or so and failed to find one single repy or response from Old Spice guy.

Fantastic advertising campaign? - Absolutely.
Best use of social? - Nope.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

eaon's law of marketing inequality

Following yesterday's post on Participation Inequality and Sturgeon's Revelation here's the new law.
Eaon's Law of Marketing Inequality.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

participation inequality and sturgeon's revelation

After many years of batting back attacks on the science fiction genre from critics who asserted that ninety percent of Science Fiction was crap, the American science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon concluded that;

To say 90% of science fiction is crap is meaningless, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

In other words, we must judge all other culture by the same yardstick.
It must therefore be argued that 90% of all film, literature, products, marketing, advertising etc is crap.

This insight became known as Sturgeon’s Revelation.

According to Google, more 'content' is posted online in each day, today, than was created in the entire history of the internet pre-2003.

Yet upwards of 90% will, of course, be crap.
That's a lot of crap.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

segmentation

What's the most important thing?
Deciding what's important.

With regard to segmentation in any marketing effort the first and most important step is the one most frequently left out.

Your first segmentation is not by demographic or even psychographic.

It's working out those who are likely to be receptive versus those who are not.

This doesn't completely fix the conundrum around '50% of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which 50%' but it's a start.

Friday, June 10, 2011

systems with soul

This is a great presentation by Andy Whitlock from Poke in London.

In a nutshell he argues that simply broadcasting in social networks is akin to releasing Zombies.

Ideas need to have life and connectedness to have meaning.
He calls this systems with soul.

DEAD or ALIVE

View more presentations from Andy Whitlock

if the kids are united #connectedness

Every business is a hub surrounded by it's network of customers, partners, suppliers, employees and fans/followers.

That's a given.

There's massive value to be got by connecting those people with each other.
That's another given, however it's one that I'd been finding hard to get across on some occasions.

Until the penny dropped with this equation, the juxtaposition these two laws, and the serendipitous moment of clarity that was revealed unto me when itunes on shuffle threw up Jimmy Pursey and the boys circa 1978.

The two laws.

Metcalfe's Law was the law of the networked age.
If I have a telephone, a connecting device, it offers me no value until there are other telephones to connect to.
As each new telephone is added to the network the value of the network to me grows.
Think of this like an email list. I can communicate on a one-to-one basis with all the members of the list.
This is quite good but limited.

Reed's Law is the law of the connected age.
If I'm connected to David and also to Mark then thats good (in a network age sense), however if all 3 of us are connected to each other then the value of that connection is exponentially greater.

In fact the more that each node in a network is directly connected to another node, the more valuable the ENTIRE network is to everyone in it.

In simple terms this is why something like Twitter, that is open, is infinitely more valuable as a communication platform than either the Television, the telephone network or an email list.

Because of it's inherent shared value properties.

They say it must have been a strong wind on the day that the sound of Bow Bells wafted down to Hersham in Surrey, but that wind imbued wisdom on the young James Pursey esquire as he scribbled the lyrics to If The Kids are United on the back of a packet of Embassy.

'Just take a look around you
What do you see
Kids with feelings like you and me
Understand him, he'll understand you
For you are him, and he is you'

Connectedness has been the great disruptor.
Connectedness has changed everything.

If the kids are united then we'll never be divided.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

bertrand russell said...

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it.

If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

Testament to the current fascination with the reputed new dawn of TV advertising, and also why nobody ever got fired for putting a :30 in Masterchef...

coherence trumps consistency

Breaking news suggests that Rovio are set to publish an egg recipe cookbook as part of the evergrowing Angry Birds franchise.

And why not.

Angry Birds is now a bona fide brand with a bona fide story.
Finding the brand story is the hard part, and they have cracked it. So to speak.

Coherence trumps consistency.
Once you have the story nailed it can go anywhere.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

it's up to you

Statement of the day.
Pretty self explanatory.

I guess it's a variation on the famous Henry Ford nugget,
'Whatever you think you can or cannot do. You're right.'

I found this one on I [love] marketing, via bud caddell. Thanks.

Friday, June 03, 2011

do little monsters prefer itunes?

So Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' album debuted at Number 1 in the US and sold 1.1 million units in it's first week of release.

Born This Way also set a one-week record for digital sales.

Around 660,000 of the sales were for the digital format, it's now the eighth best-selling US digital album of all time.

Illuminati puppet discussions aside ;) - what's curious is; that although 440,000 units were sold via Amazon's 99cents promotion the remaining 222,000 digital units were sold elsewhere.
Principally via iTunes - at $11.99 a pop.

It says something about the simplicity and integrity of the seamless iTunes-to-iPod/iPhone experience versus the clunky Amazon music experience that a huge chunk of Little Monsters would still rather pay the full whack.

keep taking the tablets

To be fair I'm not sure what an 'insight' is versus an observation.
Is an insight even a thing? Or is insight an attribute or skill one has the ability to use.

A bit like 'digital'. Digital is often described as a thing, a noun when of course 'digital' is an adjective.
One can have a digital watch, for instance. Adjective-noun

Although paradoxically one cannot have a digital strategy. But that's another discussion.

Back to insight/observation and a recent chart of the week, this one from Nielsen, and some interesting numbers around the usage of connected devices (ie devices other than PCs or laptops).

No surprises in that Tablet devices skew heavily towards being the second screen with TV and also likely as e-reader type usage in bed.
E-readers index heavily on in-bed usage also.
The smartphone though re-inforces it's credentials as the universal device with it's usage pretty evenly distributed accross all activities.
Each device has a big chunk around 'other', I'm curious about what those other activities might actually be.

One insight/observation might be that technologies change but people don't change that much.

We like to read in bed.
Watching TV is better as a shared experience.
Travel time and hanging around waiting for things is less boring with something to do.
Connected-ness is a basic human need.

These devices are our personal media spaces.
For marketers who want to be in someone's personal media space?
Play + Social + Utility is a good place to start.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

don't allow

The Intel Australia 'Museum of Me' Facebook app may even be the greatest Facebook application in the world but I will never find out.

*click* - [Don't Allow]

Like many Facebook apps they fail to tell prospective users what is going to happen if they join in.

They tell me they will access and use my information, my location, my friends information, my photos and movies and they will post on my wall.

Why and to what end, that I do not know.

If you want permission to access my stuff I need to know what's in it for me.

app of the week: social listing

This is the first in a sporadic series of app of the week. It might not be every week but we'll see how it goes.

This weeks featured app comes to you with a bittersweet tinge as it's very similar to something I'd been scribbling in the back of my notebook, but I've missed the boat. Snooze you lose I suppose .

Social Listing is location-based mobile app that connect local buyers and sellers.
Available for both iPhone and Android Social Listing aims to reinvent local 'classified' ads by helping their users to sell anything, socially, locally and in realtime from their mobile device.

To sell something simply take a photo of the item for sale, fix your price, write a description and post it.
It will pop up in the stream of other Social Listing users, with the option to post out to Facebook and Twitter.

To buy something you contact a seller within the app and arrange to meet.

The app is light on features, pretty simple and looks like it does what it says on the tin.
I've fired it up, there's no users in the Melbourne area at the moment, so I guess that makes me an early adopter.

My bargain $2 facemask pollution defence thing (what are those things actually called?) is the only item for sale in town.

In the spirit of nail it and scale it there's probably a number of enhancements.
There's no categorisation for a start.

Einstein said 'Things should be a simple as possible, but no simpler'.
Social Listing falls slightly on the side of simpler at the moment, but has potential.

As a platform it works for other kinds of classifieds too. Dating and Jobs immediately spring to mind.
Of course, Jason Fried of 37 Signals famously recommended software developers should 'think like a drug dealer'.
Social Listing could be handy if one actually is a drug dealer.

One to keep an eye on.

do we even know the problem we are trying to solve?

In many respects certain principles of marketing remain the same as on day 1.
Finding which touch points have most influence in a buyer journey, and working out how you can interact with a buyer at those points.

The internet has been the big disruptor, throwing up a myriad of touchpoints that never existed in the pre-connected age, and also throwing up a whole conundrum around how to affect those touchpoints when many of them are outwith the control of a brand or advertiser.

Even now the vast majority of marketing spend goes towards generating awareness, getting into that initial consideration set and then tipping sales at the business end through promotions or point of sale activities.

This is in spite of the known fact that the majority of influence happens in other parts of a journey.

Those touch points directly influenced by independent reviews, word of mouth and ergo customer advocacy being cases in point.

These are the things people find as they poke about online doing research and evaluation.

The following questions are three that are worth asking yourself at the outset of any marketing program.

What should we be doing to better affect the WHOLE of a buyers decision journey?

Which touchpoints will be most influential in fixing the problem we want to solve?

Do we even know the problem(s) we are trying to solve?

With that in mind listen to Instagram's Kevin Systrom as he talks about how it's not generating solutions to problems which is the hard, but finding the right problem to solve in the first place. That's probably a big factor in how Instagram have won out in the vast sea of mobile photo applications.

'If you delight people, even just a little bit, with a simple solution, it turns out it goes very far'

Finders fee and thanks to Neil Perkin

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

me watch, me wallet, me spectacles, me testicles

CRM has always been about how companies 'engage' and sell to you, not how you engage with them.

They collect the data - some you know about, some you don't - and use that data to put together programmes and offers that they think you might like.

Done well it's personal, relevant and expected but even in extreme permission marketing circumstances it's still almost always been a seller driven mechanism.

Yes, I'm simplifying but...

What if you want to advertise what you’re after?

What if you can access all of your purchase history, in detail and use your own data to invite vendors to pitch you with relevant offers based on your actual wants and needs at any given point.

What if you can tell them what you're willing to pay and back that up with other data you are willing to share- about your relationships, your movements, other stuff going on in your life that might make you a valuable customer.

The VRM mantra has been 'everyone is making money off consumer data except the consumer'.

It's early days but Google Wallet could be the next major shift in the transference of power.

They say...

'In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times—from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards.

Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.

Google Wallet has been designed for an open commerce ecosystem. It will eventually hold many if not all of the cards you keep in your leather wallet today. And because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will be able to do more than a regular wallet ever could, like storing thousands of payment cards and Google Offers but without the bulk. Eventually your loyalty cards, gift cards, receipts, boarding passes, tickets, even your keys will be seamlessly synced to your Google Wallet. And every offer and loyalty point will be redeemed automatically with a single tap via NFC.'

In Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media (2008), Tomi T Ahonen compiled the then '7 Unique Benefits of [Mobile].

1. The first personal mass media channel

2. Permanently carried

3. Always on

4. Has a built-in payment mechanism

5. Available at point of creative impulse.

6. Near-perfect audience data

7. Captures social context of media consumption

In 2008 point 4 indicated that certain purchases, of digital inventory principally, were possible as part of your plan - plus full blown mCommerce albiet still a bit of a twinkle.

In 2011 people are now in control of nearly all their experience in terms of how and when they decide to interact with or notice messaging.

Almost the only thing left to take back is the 'control' of one's own data.

Perhaps the Personal Data Vault might be an 8th Unique Benefit?

Monday, May 30, 2011

shiny objects part 346

According to The Australian this morning, department store Myer trying their luck (sic) with a social media presence on Facebook and twitter

' [Myer] has a team of 20 working on a digital strategy that began less than three years ago and now encompasses TV, internet and social media, integrated with print.

...the strategy is to enhance the in-store experience, not just driving sales into online. We need to provide information and inspiration to drive them back into the store.'

Which is just as well.
If you've ever tried to actually BUY ANYTHING from their website you'll know what I'm talking about.

this is actually happening

The problem I have with talk of 'the future of advertising' or the future of anything is that very context of the future.

The future gives people an excuse to not do anything right now.

The future is coming later, somewhere down the line.

I love this quote from Pete Townshend, he reputedly said this after stumbling into an early Sex Pistols show at the same time as he was personally grappling with The Who's relevance in the 1977 landscape.

'When you see the Sex Pistols you realise that THIS IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.'

Pete wasn't witnessing any future of rock'n'roll, he was witnessing what was happening right now.
The Who were only just over 10 years old but their chops were developed in a different era.
They still had something to say but would have to adapt to the new environment.

With the immediacy of mobile and social, with the tsunami if data and information, with the expansion of digital technologies into every area of communications we are not witnessing any future of advertising/marketing.

This is actually happening. And it's inevitable.

If advertising still has something to say then it needs to adapt to the new environment.

Friday, May 27, 2011

how do you like them apples?

I'm paraphrasing Winston Churchill in reference to the bad news for lazy marketers that Facebook recently issued.

Among the notes is one to the effect that [brands] must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.

This is good news for me, in my parallel role of Chief Prevention Officer, as it's one less gimmicky tactic that I have to chase round and try to stop.

'Gentlemen, we have run out of Like buttons.
Now we shall have to THINK'

Thanks to @iboy for the prompt

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

a day in the life of the digital innovation director

08:00 Arrive in the office, catch up on any arguments left over from previous day via email

09:00 Daily stand-up argument with Producers

09:15 A couple of ad hoc arguments with various Account teams

10:30 Specific project related arguments for the rest of the morning

12:30 Email based arguments [various] plus half an hour or so arguing on various blogs
and twitter

13:00 Lunch argument with client

14:30 Couple of hours spare to argue with myself over some strategy documents

15:45 Cheeky 15mins following up on the morning's Twitter arguments

16:00 Back to arguing with myself and accepting/declining argument requests

16:30 General philosophical arguments with Creative Teams

17.30 Catch up argument on progress with the days work

18:00 Use commute time to prepare argument material for following day

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

post for bob dylan

Bobby's alright, he's a natural born poet, he's just outta sight.

Happy 70th birthday.

spam and bre.ad

Not sure I'm buying into bre.ad despite it being flavour of the week.
In essence it's URL shortner that doubles as 'promotional tool'.

The premise seems to be that when you clicks on a bre.ad shortened link that someone has shared you are first taken to a promotional page called a 'Toast' (ie an ad) before you get to the piece of content being shared.

The Toast is created by the person who originally shortened the link.

Bre.ad founder Alan Chan says:
'People have causes they want to promote, whether it’s their company or a charity they fervently support, so he wanted to find a simple and novel way for them to display their passion.'

Although they've pitched it as 'promote a cause' you kinda know where it will end up.

Is it like pre-rolls for tweets or just pop-up ads by another name?

The bre.ad blog's Toast of the Week kinda tells it's own story.

And just wait til those 'influencers' get their hands on it.

[wtf, I've requested an invite anyway]

market research conundrum

Ever present and yet so far away; so close at hand and yet so elusive; so familiar and yet so poorly understood.

'O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!

Self knowledge.

'It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

On the upside we are, however, quite good at noticing what other people are doing, have done and predicting what they might be doing in the future.

Reliable self-knowledge would be much more useful as a market research tool, unfortunately we're just not that evolved yet. We'll just have to work with what we've got.

*This post sponsored by The Serious Burns Unit.

Monday, May 23, 2011

newman street W1

As a football obsessed youngster I devoured Shoot Magazine every week.

It was a step up from comics, a serious football mag full of stats and stories, interviews with players and weekly columns from the likes of Kevin Keegan, George Best and Bobby Moore.

The first section I scanned for was a regular feature, Focus On...
Each week a player answered ten or so questions which gave the reader a bit of an insight into what made them tick.

One of the questions was always 'who has been the biggest influence on your career?'
Of course I imagined myself as the star player and myself answering those questions.
I imagined answering 'Bill Shankly' or 'Brian Clough'.

As it goes I never made it beyond the odd appearance for the school X1 but the question still remains.

'Who has been the biggest influence on your career?'

He'll probably laugh at this but that question takes me back to early 2005, a basement bar across the road from FCB's offices in Newman Street W1 and a conversation I had with Mark Brown, Strategy Director with the then fledgling interactive advertising agency Weapon7.

After several years in web and interactive product development and marketing and with a head full of Cluetrain and Seth I fancied my chances at having a pop at the advertising business.

Weapon7 worked out of a corridor in FCB's building in Newman Street. There were the three partners plus 2 employees, I was hopeful of being person number 6.

FCB were in the doldrums a bit at the time (I think they are out of them now, happily) and so had let certain areas of their building to boutique agencies to try and raise the energy levels in the building.

As I wandered around those corridors the line from Dexy's 'Come on Eileen' would play in my head...

'These people round here wear beaten down eyes, sunk in smoke dried faces they're so resigned to what their fate is..

Mark said to me 'See those guys in there? They have had it. We are going to completely revolutionise the world of advertising. Are you in?'.

I never bothered to ask 'how?' or 'what?'
I was sold immediately.

The years have passed and jobs have changed but the mission continues to this day...

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

chunky chuggers

Some of you may know that back in the day I was a club dj of some noteriety.
Broadly of a classic Balearic flavour.
My forte was in the area of what we used to call the 'chunky chugger'.

I was trying to explain the chunky chugger concept to some youngsters the other day.
They were struggling to 'get it'.

The easiest way to explain is to post here my top 3 Balearic chunky chuggers.

These are all from circa '90/91 and in the 106-112bpm realm for optimum chunk.

Jesus Loves You - Bow Down Mister (The Grid Remix)

The Mock Turtles - Can You Dig It (Yeah) (Steve Proctor Remix)

The Mad Jacks - Feel The Hit (Justin Robertson Spice Mix)

Never get out of the boat? Absolutely goddam right. Unless you were going all the way.

repeat business vs loyalty

Just a note on the group buying thing. In Australia we've got Scoopon, Spreets, Cudo, Groupon, Living Social and numerous others.

These sites are great for us punters looking to pick up a bargain or two. No doubt.
And if your company can sustain it, being part of those deals great for repeat business.

But let's not confuse repeat business with loyalty.

Deal-hunters, opportunists and coupon cutter-outers can be a short-term fix but it doesn't play out in the long run.

Constantly being on-sale or in promotion literally cheapens a brand.
Like these carpet warehouses or furniture stores.
Only a mug would ever buy a full-price sofa.

I'd rather go to Ikea. Where the price is the price. End of story.

Apple products are the same price wherever you shop. If you're not going to get a better price at Discount Electronics Inc then you might as well shop in the Apple Store.
The value-add there is the fantastic retail experience.

Repeat buyers will keep buying until a better deal comes along.
Loyalty is when your customer will turn down a better 'deal' to keep buying from you.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

four hashtags you rarely see coming out of social media conference twitterstreams

Just sayin'...

Thanks for the reminder @umairh

twelevision on your tech life

Thanks to Trever Long from the Your Tech Life video podcast outta Sydney for his nice review of Twelevision.

Monday, May 16, 2011

by-products

Here's a great clip of The Angy Birds story, as told by Rovio CEO Niklas Hed and the game's designer, Jaako Iisalo.

Angry Birds is reasonably unique - yes, it's approaching Thomas proportions but one of the first entertainment phenomena to have began as a mobile application and worked outwards rather than coming at mobile as an extension from a.n.other media eg a film.

Niklas explains how Angry Birds emerged from a side project to design 10 small games specifically for the iPhone platform an see what happened, to experiment and light a few small fires.

The story?

'The game itself doesn't explain the story that much...the pigs are coming they steal the eggs, then they are gone...this leaves space for imagination...this is why people are building their own world around it'

It also plays nicely to the by-products notion.

Angry Birds was developed as an in-house project by the fledgling Rovio in the down-time between client work, iterated and refined over time.

'You have to have passion to make great things, but you must be naive too'

Getting excited and making things. Always a good bet.

planner survey 2011

Every year Heather from Strawberry Frog in the 'Dam conducts the Planner Survey, taking the temperature from plannerville globally.

The survey takes anything from 10-20 mins depending on how much you want to extrapolate.

Though I'm not strictly a planner - I've got one foot in strategy, one foot in creative and my arse in technology, I just about qualify.

For the results to be meaningful it's a case of 'the more the merrier' so If you feel inclined then join in.

Here’s the link to the survey: http://sgiz.mobi/s3/The-Planner-Survey-2011

And the link to sign-up for the results: http://bit.ly/kEYC67

Thursday, May 12, 2011

moby's destroyed

We're liking what Moby has done with the launch of his new album Destroyed.

The playback is streamed via Soundcloud through the Destroyed website, and illustrated by photos taken by Moby on tour placed in an interactive map of the world thingy.

Also fans can add their own photos to the map via Instagram and using a #destroyed twitter hashtag.

He says:
'I don’t sleep very well when i travel. and as a result, i tend to be awake in cities when everyone else is asleep. that’s where this album, and the pictures that accompany it come from. it was primarily written late at night in cities when i felt like i was the only person awake (or alive), a soundtrack for empty cities at 2 a.m, at least that’s how i hear it. the pictures were taken on tour while i was writing the album'.

He's also employed a versioning tactic to the product.
There's a big hardback photo book with CD and digital versions of the tracks.
CD digipack with a smaller book of photos.
or
The heavyweight vinyl souvenir edition that also includes a poster and the CD and digital versions.

It's not the scale of a Nine Inch Nails job, but still does the trick.
Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy = Business model.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

press pause play

Here's a sneak peek of 'Press Pause Play', a film by Swedish (?) directors David Dworsky & Victor Köhler.

The film documents the 'digital' revolution of the last decade as described by many of it's key voices - many that have inspired and influenced the thoughts expressed in these humble pages over the last few years - including Seth Godin (in the clip), Bill Drummond and David Weinberger plus other interesting, and perhaps less immediately obvious choices like Hank Shocklee, of Public Enemy fame and Moby.

Press Pause Play asks:

'..does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity?'

Get the full scoop at presspauseplay.com

Monday, May 09, 2011

can we decommoditise the advertising agency?

Aside from being a decent all-rounder on the art front Pablo Picasso had a few good hats and an extensive repertoire in one-liners.

'The paintings are not important, who the artist is, that is what matters'.

In other words, superficial differentiation on simply an outputs level is a sure fire way to commodotise oneself.

Stood on a packed South Yarra station the other evening I looked around at the millions of dollars of 'value' the surrounding billboards were supposedly delivering for the advertisers.

Close on half a million sets of eyeballs must ebb and flow through that station every day.

The problem is, none of them were looking at the billboards, they were all tweeting, reading email or playing Angry Birds on their mobiles.

This is the challenge facing the 'advertising' industry, for sure.

There is no there, there.

Thinking in terms of WHAT and HOW the agency produces 'advertising' is the road to commoditisation, at best, irrelevance at worst.

This narrow 'WHAT' perspective was the downfall of the music business model that we have just seen crash, and it will be the downfall of advertising agencies who fail to recognise they are in the communications business not the advertising business.

The real question is not WHAT? or HOW?, it's WHY?

Asking WHY? gives different answers.

Can we decommoditise the advertising agency?
Yes we can. But it's not by making 'better' ads.
That's 'a faster horse'.

forget about SEO

A fantastic post from Dan Thornton this fine Monday morning.

Double points for Dan for using the classic Peter Guralnick tome 'Searching for Robert Johnson' as his springboard.

Excerpt:

'SEO, targeting social media etc are all extremely useful, but they boost interest [when you have] great content and writing....[forget about] SEO and marketing when you first start writing something. If not, you’ll spend hours or days in fear as you build up the worries about putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. And when you finally do, it’s likely to appear faked when you’re shoehorning in keywords and sticking on an irrelevant linkbait headline.'

Read the full post at Way of The Web.

Thursday, May 05, 2011

don't lose your dreams

For some reason Pete Wylie and the various Wah! incarnations have been on heavy rotation on the Boat iPod in recent weeks.

Probably connected to the truth that PW is a long standing battler against the forces for mediocrity and for the power of positivity.

Synchronicity further compounded by the discovery via soundtracking that @topfife has an uncle that was long time Wylie/Wah! drummer.

Perhaps one of the Mighty Pete's lesser know anthems is 'Don't Lose Your Dreams' from which this couplet is extracted.

'...when people criticise your schemes, your wild extremes, don't you ever lose your dreams'.

You're on, Pete.

Or as my old friends at Unfrozenmind (whatever happened to them?) put it.

'Your dream is a collect call from the future. You pay the price either way whether you choose to ignore it, or follow its call.'

the ebook reinvented?

Not only is Push Pop Press's ebook version of Al Gore's 'Our Choice' a fantastic piece of design, experience and application of technology but it's also probably disrupted bourgeois parlour gaming for good.

'...it's a book'
'...it's a film'
'...its a mobile app'
'...it's a website'

It's all of the above, and more in one self contained unit.
Charades can never be the same again.

Defying categorisation, testament to convergence theory (new media does not replace old media, it transforms it) and also that mobile is fast becoming everything.

Friday, April 29, 2011

star player #gamelayer

I worked on in-running betting/gaming applications for live TV sport many years ago. The notion was probably ahead of it's time and the technology to support it simply didn't exist.

It does now.

Full marks to AKQA and their Heineken Star Player app, they've turned on the game layer and connectedness to full effect using the second screen for Champions League football.

We've dissed Heineken in the past on these pages, but they are spot on this time.

via contagious mag

passion and potential

Ken Robinson on Passion from The School of Life on Vimeo.

'...what a jolly bad show, if all you ever do is business you don't like'

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

the girl chewing gum

I remember this film from art school days many years ago.
I thought about it again just a few weeks ago, then lo and behold it turns up.

Synchronicity or something.

Thanks to crying all the way to the chip shop (via it's nice that)

See also johnsmithfilms

piddling about in the bathwater

'You can't have opinions unless you form opinions..'

Thursday, April 21, 2011

some stovies are made with sausages

You probably need to be Scottish to really get this.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

radiohead #thankyoueconomy

Again I have to say, I wish I was a Radiohead fan.

Here's the message that fans have been sent with a link to a free digital download of two tracks that appeared in the limited edition vinyl pressing that the band issued in support of Independent Record Shop Day earlier this month.

Note: 'This is not part of a new loyalty points scheme, a Radiohead clubcard or even an air miles redeemable reward type thing...
It is just a big old-fashioned thank you.'

big willy style #theproductisthemarketing

The Boat's favourite micro-brewery, BrewDog (of Tactical Nuclear Penguin and Punk IPA repute)are back with a special limited-edition beer to mark the forthcoming royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29th.

The beer, Royal Virility Performance contains aphrodisiacs Viagra, chocolate and Horny Goat Weed.

James Watt co-founder of BrewDog says:
“With this beer we want to take the wheels off the royal wedding bandwagon being jumped on by dozens of breweries; The Royal Virility Performance is the perfect antidote to all the hype. A beer should be brewed with a purpose, not just because some toffs are getting married.”

The craft ale will cost £10 per bottle, with all proceeds going to the charity for young homeless, Centrepoint, and will only be available to buy from the BrewDog.com website on the day of the wedding.

'Arise, Prince Willy'.

Friday, April 15, 2011

eat the blame #reframing

The story goes that some stuff happened one day which delayed the preparation of a dinner being hosted for a Soto Zen master, Fukai, and his followers.

Ina hurry the chef went to out to the vegetable garden with his knife and quickly cut some green vegetables, chopped them together and made some soup.

What he failed to notice was that he had accidentally chopped a part of a snake into the vegetables and ergo into the soup.

Anyway, the guests ate up the soup, and enjoyed it.

But when Fukai, the master found the snake's head in his bowl, he summoned the chef.

'What the **** is this?' he demanded, holding up the head of the snake.

'Oh, thank you, master,' replied the cook, taking the snakes head and eating it quickly.

Another perspective on eating one's own dogfood.

chromaroma #gamelayer

Even the most mundane of tasks or experiences becomes more interesting with the addition of a game layer.

In this case it's the London Transport Oyster card that's the key.

'Chromaroma takes your travel data and makes it into a game where every journey counts in a competition for the city.'

A bit like Foursquare on steroids.

I also like the philosophy of creators Mudlark;
'...building ways to create entertaining games from the data we create and leave behind without noticing.'

Data-Wombles.

In Melbourne we have the Myki travel pass.
There's actually little reason for daily commuters to purchase a Myki over a regular season ticket. In fact it's more useful for occasional travellers.
Over to you Metlink.

HT and finders fee to our man Mark Gretton.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

sheep impact

Everyone has a story that they tell over a few beers. Everyone has at least one tale that gets a little taller each time it's told.

And chances are, if they're in that story, then every time they tell it, they become a bigger hero.

We asked Carlton Dry fans to tell us their tall stories, and promised to make a film out of one of them, with the role of 'you' played by Steven Seagal.

Here it is. Sheep Impact.
Starring Steven Seagal as Paul Wieland from New South Wales.

official royal wedding souvenir

Your official Never Get Out Of The Boat Royal Wedding Souvenir portrait.

You're welcome.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

converse: desire

The latest installment in the Converse 'create culture so you don't have to pay to interrupt it' branded content strategy.

'Desire' is the track, featuring Graham Coxon of Blur, Paloma Faith and ex-The Coral guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones.

It rocks.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

mechanics

In an unrelated incident I mentioned the other day, on Charlie's blog I think, that I do not need to understand the inner workings and mechanics of the car in order to drive it.
I put in the key, turn it and step on the pedal.
It works.

To the same token we don't need to understand the inner workings of the internet to know that it works.
It just does.

Not even Eric Schmidt understands it, as illustrated by this much quoted quote.
But if it's simply experiments in anarchy that's still good enough for me.

Monday, April 11, 2011

the devil will find work for idle hands

Among the exhibits at Old Melbourne Gaol, home of the Ned Kelly Story and one of Melbourne's prime tourist attractions, is a pair of leather gloves.
These items are akin to a sort of 'flat' boxing glove.
These gloves were applied to prisoners to keep them out of mischief during those long solitary hours in their cell.

Interestingly this exhibit is on loan from the Sheriff's office.
Presumably the Sheriff has now mastered the art of self-control or the pressure of increased administration duties has had an impact on his leisure time.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

agile storytelling: salman rushdie

The key words in this nugget from 'controversial' (ie interesting) novelist Salman Rushdie being retell, rethink, deconstruct and change.

'Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.'

And in the context of agile planning...(thanks again @madebymany)

- Collaboration & conversation over strategy decks & documentation
- Seeking simplicity of purpose over 'sacred' consumer insights
- Test hypotheses over long-winded research & deduction
- Respond to change over following a plan

Of course, being agile has to include the possibility of failure.

In the course of eating his own dogfood legend has it that the hapless Salman thought it was a good idea to charge money from his then-wife Padma Lakshmi for proofing one of her screenplays.

Needless to say she very soon arranged for herself to be the ex-Mrs Rushdie.

Them's the breaks. Test and learn...

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

twelevision tech support notice: daylight saving borkage

Some of you may have noticed a slight borked-ness in the Twelevision programme guide data feed over the weekend.

This is because the Twelevision robots got confused by the clocks changing for daylight saving in some Australian states.

It’s hardly surprising the robots got confused, it’s hard enough for humans to understand.

Some states change some states don’t.

The upshot is, if you downloaded the app between Thursday and Saturday last week then your programme guide data will probably be out of sync.

The simple way to fix this is to re-install the app.

Firstly, delete the app from your ipad.

Hold your finger on the icon for the Twelevision application until the icon begins to shake or wiggle.

Tap the "X" in the upper left hand corner of the icon.

When prompted, touch Delete.

Next delete the app from your Library.

To do this, start iTunes and under the Library category click on the Apps section.

You will now be at a screen that shows all of the apps installed in the iTunes library and on your computer's hard drive.

Select the Twelevision app icon and hit delete.

Then go back to App store and download and reinstall Twelevision onto your ipad.

Job done.

The next release of Twelevision will have this problem fixed so you won’t ever have to do this again when the clocks change.

Sorry about that.

Friday, April 01, 2011

gary vaynerchuck

If you've got an hour or so then here's Gary Vaynerchuck's keynote from the RE/MAX Convention in Las Vegas. Gary's talk is a slice of the content from his new book 'The Thank You Economy'.

If you've only got 57 seconds then try this on for size.

'...if you don’t care, no one will'

qr code tv

Another interesting use for second screen alongside TV. This time an insurance ad from Belgium for Axa Home insurance using QR technology to add the interactivity/immersion.

Having said that, QR codes could be potentially headed for the trough of disillusionment. Google have quietly phased out support for QR Codes from the Google Places service, replacing them with, invisible, near-field communication (NFC) chips.

HT to 2Dcode.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

brand experience is sum total of all interactions @FLYAIRNZ

If you've ever sat through the growling weirdness of John Travolta's, frankly disturbing, safety video on Qantas flights then this disruptive take on the onboard safety video from Air New Zealand will raise even more of a smile.

Great work.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

twelevision update

An exciting moment today, we got approval from Apple on the ipad version of the Twelevision app.

In all likelyhood it will be in the store for download in the next few days.

It's been a big team effort from a number of people but special personal props to Tommy McCubbin and Chris Kerr. Linchpins.

'Don't associate with bad friends,
Don't associate with the low,
Associate with admirable friends,
Associate with the best.'
- The Dhammapada

eat your own dogfood

German petfood people Granata using Foursquare check-ins to billboards as a sampling mechanic for dogs and their owners.
Woof.

via PSFK and TommyMac.

faith

'People don’t want more information. They are up to their eyeballs in information.
They want faith — faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell…
Once people make your story their story, you have tapped into the powerful force of faith.'

—Annette Simmons
Author, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and
Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling

In a curious case of synchronicity I said the first line of this quotation in a talk I gave recently about branding and advertising. It wasn't planned, it just popped into my head as i was talking.

Afterwards I wrote it down, it seemed like a good one.
One I would use again.
I thought i'd made it up. Turns out I hadn't.

Annette Simmons coined it some time ago.

I noted to a colleague 'I wish I'd said that'

He replied 'You will..'

Monday, March 28, 2011

soundtracking

If we agree that Facebook is fast becoming the new clutter then it's not surprising to see more and more take up of almost single-purpose niche social networking tools, as has been an emerging trend in recent times.

The scene goes small, kinda thing.

The one I'm liking at the moment is Soundtracking.

Yes, it's another check-in style tool, you check-in with the music you are listening to or experiencing.

With features that allow you to:
- check-in to the tune playing on your ipod/iphone
- identify and find the music you are hearing with search and auto-ID if it's playing somewhere ambiently
- tag your soundtrack at a location
- integration with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

As I write this i'm #soundtracking 'Coma Girl' by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

a really useful engine

In his new tome Poke The Box, Seth Godin includes some more riffs on what he describes as the forces for mediocrity, a recurrent theme if you are familiar with the last few books.

By way of a recap...
'Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths... whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over.'

In Poke The Box Seth points out that it is often quite easy to rally the toops or get a task-force together to fix things that are clearly broken.

What's not so easy is to get people to fix things that are mediocre.

Because mediocre things are basically ok, functional, and there's nothing fundamentally obviously broken it's easy to let them go.

But obviously it's a massive missed opportunity to settle for ok.

And this applies to any business or endeavour big or small.

Here's a real-life example.

Last weekend they had a Family Festival near where we live, down the bay, south-east of Melbourne.

It was pretty good overall, I'm not complaining.

Bands played, food stalls, wine, salsa dancing, you know the drill.
It took over the whole park area by the beach. The sun was out, a nice close to the summer.

For the kids there were a number of fairground type rides, one of which was a little steam train ride in the style of Thomas the Tank Engine.

On around my 4th circuit (my wee boy is Thomas daft so it was a big draw) I started thinking about the experience. I couldn't help it, sorry.

The engine part of the train was vaguely Thomas-like. It was tatty, but blue with the number 1 on the side. Enough to be basically recognisable.

It pulled four basic carriages which the kids sat on, and did several rounds of a circular track.

There was a bored looking fella 'driving' wearing jeans and a jacket with his official festival worker pass.

If he could be arsed he rang the bell occasionally.

For the 2-3 year olds this was probable an acceptable experience.

How much better it would have been though if the bored driver had looked interested.
If he had worn an engineers uniform. A hat.
If he had rung the bell and shouted 'all aboard'?

If the ticket guy had been dressed like the Fat Controller?

A few props from Sodor Island?

How about a lick of paint on the engine, and a proper Thomas style face (It had a vague face dribbled on in paint that must have taken 2 minutes).

The parents were all happy enough to pay $4 a pop for the kids to go on it but I guarantee not one person went away from the Festival saying what a great ride the Thomas train was.

Not one parent will be calling them up to book the train ride for their own kids party.

(They had no business cards, leaflet or even a sign with their website address anyway, so it's moot)

A massive missed opportunity. All that attention but doing nothing with it.

There's a difference between the notion of minimum viable product and just mediocre.
MVP strips away the unnecessary, the superfluous stuff that doesn't add any value.

Mediocre looks for the minimum you can get away with.

Better to be a really useful engine.

Friday, March 18, 2011

book club: Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment

From time to time I meet students, first jobbers and the like looking to make their way into the advertising world.

Why they come to me me for career advice is probably questionable, bearing in mind my chequered history but if there's anything I can impart of value it's along the lines of 'look at what i did, NOW DON'T DO THAT'.

Thankfully, I now have a get out of jail card to hand, in the form of Guy Kawasaki's new book Enchantment.

If you are familiar with Guy's previous works, Art of The Start and Reality Check in particular, then the concepts are broadly similar.

In typical GK self depreciation style he once remarked that he had written 9 business books, or perhaps written one business book nine times...

Enchantment is a kind of Greatest Hits, if you like.
But with exclusive bonus tracks and remixes.

Obviously Guy's key area of experience and expertise is in the Silicon Valley tech thing but Enchantment is the rare case of a 'business' book that's relevant for just about any person in any business anywhere.

In a nutshell the book is structured around ten or so key take-aways, each with a chapter, essential nuggets for anyone who wants to influence others, win them over and get them to buy in to an idea or project.

Likability, trustworthiness, having a cause, how to overcome resistance, enchanting your boss, enchanting your employees and, of course, the obilgatory practical application of social technologies to achieve those goals, are among them.

I was fortunate enough to receive a draft copy of the original manuscript a few months back to hack and return. Suffice to say there was very little I would have changed. I made the sum total of one edit and returned it.

It must have been a good edit though as he left it in...

There's no bull-shitake in the text, it's highly readable and entertaining, infused with Guy's own personality and wit, and peppered with other real-life examples of Enchantment in practice from other guest contributors.

In essence it's simply a tome of uncommon sense. One gets an experience of almost remembering things that have been buried away in the back of your mind that are brought back to the surface as the pages turn.

A must-read.

Thanks Guy.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

in search of the lost tweet

In musicianly quarters the search for the lost chord is the mythological, and often narcotic-fuelled mystic mission into the rock'n'roll void in search of the trancendental moment of infinite oneness between man/woman and instrument.

In fact, one of the first known recordings of any music was the song 'The Lost Chord' by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) - composed in 1877 - and recorded in 1888 for Thomas Edison in order that he could demonstrate his invention, the Phonograph (nowadays known as an ipod).

Sullivan himself was invited to one of these early playbacks and was reported to have remarked:

'I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the result of this evening's experiments: astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much *hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. But all the same I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.'

*Not only a great composor but also a great visionary, predicting there the emergence of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber many years hence.

A long winded introduction to Greplin, a personal search engine that will index your personal streams (gmail, facebook, twitter, linkedin etc) and allow you to search for long forgotten nuggets from your own social canon.

So the lost tweet from 2007 is lost no more.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost [tweet] divine,
Which came from the soul of the [twitter],
And entered into mine.

adapted from The Lost Chord, Arthur Sullivan 1877