Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
'disposable' phones?
Bic - the makers of disposable pens and razors - and Orange France have introduced a disposable mobile phone.
hat-tip to brand dna
When we say 'disposable' I'm supposing that means 'use it and chuck it away'.
Not strictly true here as the phones can be topped up after the initial 'free' 60mins have been used.
With these phones Bic have kinda got it right as a brand extension but they have got it way wrong if they are not 100% recyclable.
Or maybe we don't actually care as it seems that only 3% of mobile phones are recycled anyway.
thought for monday - here's to the ladies...
'It is my fact-based conviction that women's increasing power - with their leadership skills and purchasing power - is the strongest and most dynamic force at work in the [American] economy today....even bigger than the internet.'
Tom Peters, Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age(2003)
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
have tivo and amazon unearthed the holy grail of interactive tv?
There's been umpteen retail models developed around interactive tv over the years, none of them have paid off to any great degree as far as I can remember.
And I should know, I've crashed and burned with quite a few.
TiVO may just have cracked it though with the just announced extension of their partnership with Amazon.
For a wee while, TiVo users have been able to download movies and tv shows via Amazon’s digital on demand video store. Now that experiment has been extend to include other products.
'Product purchase' as the new feature is known - available on Tuesdays initially - links to products guests are plugging on the likes of Oprah and David Letterman.
If the viewer chooses to buy something during a show, TiVo records the rest of the programme so the viewer can pick up where they left off (as you would expect) - but here's the nifty bit. TiVo users are also able to save their items in their Amazon account basket and finish up later.
Taking the web and TV and weaving together their strengths?
The real holy grail however will come when the product purchase feature rolls out during ads (assuming they are not being skipped) and where shows feature product placement.
NY Times article here. Thanks to my old chum Brian at TiVO NY who alerted us.
Monday, July 07, 2008
special k summer challenge
Amid the kerfuffle around the Heinz NY deli style mayo ad I must say this one for the Special K Summer challenge is potentially far more 'dangerous'.
- To recap, there has been an outcry from certain reactionary quarters over the Heinz ad which features a 'family' at breakfast. The place of 'mother' is taken by a big NY deli style chef character who prepares the family's sandwiches. The dad gives the 'mum' a kiss at the end of the ad. Heinz pulled the ad temporarily after complaints from conservatives that the ad promotes homosexuality -
No outcry, however, over this Kelloggs ad which features a woman hiding herself to avoid being photographed on holiday, as she is embarrassed to be pictured in a red swimsuit.
The problem with this scenario, as you will see, is - she is not fat. Not even chubby. In fact, by all accounts she's pretty fit.
According to eating disorders information site Disordered Eating the number of people receiving treatment for anorexia or bulimia in the UK is around 90,000, while many more people have eating disorders undiagnosed, in particular those with bulimia nervosa.
This kind of thing does not help.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
mediacamplondon
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.
Friday, July 04, 2008
catch the pidgeon
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. 
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
life instructions
this is great. don't remember where i found it, if anyone knows (and if are there others like it?) please let me know.
billy boy and predictably irrational
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...
Thursday, June 26, 2008
joss stone - new marketing guru
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
how to do merchandising
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
thought for the day
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
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
You talk the talk. Do you walk the walk?
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.
carling 'barslide'
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.
Monday, June 23, 2008
variations on a meme
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.
Wii tennis at Waterloo station
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.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Is there any point to great 'advertising' if the product is flawed/suspect/crap?
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.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
thought for the day
'If you dont like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less'
General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, US Army
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