I was a teenage shake and vac junkie

Jagga - Modern Day Romance + YouTube Snow

2011-12-22T09:48:00.001-08:00

Here be Jagga, Modern Day Romance

The guy has an amazing voice. This the acoustic version. The rocked up version was used for the Anne Summers ads. *coughs. Very lovely they were too.

Mine was served up with extr snow. Thank you YouTube for that festive touch. You can see the snowflake button in the menu bar. Almost an 'interface delight'.

The Periodic Table of Swearing

2011-12-08T10:02:00.001-08:00

Periodic Table of Swearing from Clay Interactive Ltd on Vimeo.

Genius. NSFW.

Silly question

2011-12-08T05:03:00.001-08:00

I said 5, in the middle, as I didn't really understand what they meant.

How likely is it that I'll spontaneously recommend them to a friend a propos of nothing in particular? Like this...

FRIEND: Hi Steve how are you?

ME: Oh, great thanks. I just bought a photo calendar with bonusprint and they got the order right and delivered it on time so I'm telling everyone I know.

... This is NOT very likely.

How likely is it that if a friend were to mention photo-calendars or gifts for the old folks (which is why I bought the calendar) that I would recommend Bonusprint? Like this ...

FRIEND: Ay! I've got to get something for my mum and dad for Christmas from the kids and I don't know what to get, but maybe one of those photo-calendars that people seem to send nowadays.

ME: Yeah, that's what we did. Bonusprint, online, pretty good calendars and not too expensive.

That's very likely. Well, the response is very likely. I'm not sure about the conversation.

New posts - one a new job, one a new blog

2011-12-07T08:10:00.001-08:00

I have left CMW and taken the role of Head of Digital Strategy at PHD.

It's an absolutely fantastic job at by far the best media agency I have ever had any dealings with. The people are both talented and nice. It's no surprise to me at all that they keep winning agency of the year awards.

I've written my first post on the PHD blog - a cup of tea with PHD - which you can read here and which is all about all the fuss over the use of Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want in the JLP Crimbo ad (see below).

Wish me luck!

see more WTF Pictures and WTF videos by Picture Is Unrelated

YouTube Embed Options Dialogue Box

2011-12-07T03:48:00.001-08:00

The first (published here, at any rate) in a series we shall call "Interface Delight"

There's no shame in being obvious

2011-12-05T01:34:00.001-08:00

I get an email newsletter (yes, there are still some of us who do subscribe to email newsletters) and thought the article Marketing to Mummys sounded interesting. So I clicked off to the site.

I was expecting video. Would you expect video?

But when I got to the site what I saw was this ...

I scanned the article, couldn't really see any content, got distracted by something else and clicked off elsewhere. It's only my curiosity as to why you'd have that icon for a story and it not be video that I went back over my steps.

Next visit I spotted the play arrow.

Beautifully designed, isn't it? The opaque box, the little wheel/circle thing bottom left. However it's not in any way helpful to be so coy. The play arrow fades in and out of view. I suppose that's meant to draw my attention to it. But it failed, because in the blink of an eye I was prepared to give this article to see if it was interesting the arrow was faded out (not that it's so obvious faded in) and that was it - it was gone - possible lost forever.

What to do? Forget the subtlety and SLAP A GREAT BIG PLAY TRIANGLE ON IT! Like everyone else does. That's how people know what to do with it.

Better late than never, Christmas

2011-11-22T07:12:00.001-08:00

This year's JLP Crimbo ad is the best of their acoustic-version-of-cracking-tune-with-highly-emotive-visuals Crimbo campaign things yet.

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

Better even than From Me To You

And obviously better than Your Song

We try not to think about SCOM, which: yes=tune, but no=JLP

A barking idea!

2011-10-11T04:04:00.001-07:00

Not sure how many cares got hired off of this, but lovely idea. Probably cheap too, no, wait, that would have been birdcages.

A blooming buzzing confusion

2011-09-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

On route to France, pitched up at LGW. And then this ...

I guess from O2More - they know what mobile cell I'm in and via partners ping out relevant offers. Location marketing - it's going to be big they say, it's going to be very big I'd say and probably very messy, at least to start with. Brace yourself for a blooming buzzing confusion of offers being pinged here there and everywhere.

Who will help us filter all that? Trustworthy platforms, please form an orderly queue.

When en France ...

2011-09-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to France I was reminded that products and services need customising/tailoring to a local market. Something in digital we could arguably do a lot more of, but it never seems to be part of a brief to think about it - even in situations when it could potentially make quite a bit of difference.

That is steak tartare, with an egg yolk, in the refrigerated aisle, complete with a wee sachet of sauce. The instructions were - carefully remove product and ... I think there was a something about a film stopping the egg from breaking (my French isn't great) ... open the sachet of sauce and mix everything together with a fork. Et voila, c'est pret!

Tres delicious I'm sure, but you'd struggle to sell it in Blighty.

4% of Facebook's users are mobile only

2011-09-08T03:53:00.000-07:00

I found a great blogpost looking at the number of people using Facebook on various mobile devices. The author, Benedict Evans, appears to have sifted through the data and, if I have my maths right, and if Benedict has his right, I get to about 4% of folks who use Facebook only on a mobile device - and therefore do not get access to all the clever Facebooky marketing work we do to try to make brands like us more and spend more with us (come on, it's not just for the lolz).

He doesn't split out the UK from the rest of the world, but my assumption would be that if anything we're less likely to have mobile only users than elsewhere in the world. I'm basing that on the unfounded and un-investigated assumption that data here works out expensive compared to anywhere else, just as most things do.

So, 4% doesn't sound like a lot. It's probably a growing %age though and if Facebook ever make the mobile platform usable it would no doubt grow a lot faster.

It would be great to have some actual hard numbers. I suspect the only way to get to them is to conduct your own research. It's not that expensive to put a question on an omnibus - does anyone want to chip in?

You can follow Mr Evans at @BenedictEvans on Twitter. And indeed I have.

Picture unrelated.

EdgeRank video

2011-09-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

The basics of EdgeRank explained in a not-too-demanding-video. Goes well with a cuppa.

There's an eConsultancy post on it here.

Brace yourself

2011-07-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

Fantastic video from wee girl with big voice and a plastic cup.

Dear ad industry chums: please, please, please, let's NOT do a half-arsed rip-off with a jolly looking housewife and a KFC value bucket. Let's NOT.

Google+

2011-06-29T02:29:00.000-07:00

Google+ is Google's latest attempt to take Facebook's position as the default place online to poke your nose into other people's business and overshare the boring details of your mundane life. Well, that's what I use it for and assume you do too. Once we've all finally decided that Facebook knows too much and all our mates have "left" it**, then Google+ could be, maybe, the place we'll all meet up again.

It's only open to a few chosen ones at the moment, but you can see the official tour here and there's a PC WORLD review of it, by some beta testers, here.

See you on Diaspora.

** Good luck with that leaving business.

Come again?

2011-06-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

I think that this is a real book. It's in the window display in Waterstone's on Torrington Place. I know it's real, really. But there's a part of me that is hoping that it's just the people in the bookshop having a laugh.

Assuming it is real, and it isn't just a clever Waterstone's jape, and assuming that you're looking for a single image that summarises all that's wrong with our world ... here it is: -

The Web Is What You Make It

2011-06-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

You yhave to remember that Google is a brand that has come to dominate our online lives more or less without Google branding - a relatively new thing for them, advertising their products. They've basically got to where they are by having a really great product, and buying up other things they truely believed in which, like You Tube, are also great products.

Their product herritage shows through in these ads. They know their products and if you meet Google people they're proud of them. But they also seem to knnow that most people couldn't care less about the product or the brand. There's a real consumer understanding at the heart of this campaign. They do not sell the functionality - which nobody cares about, they sell the benefit - which people care about a great deal - and they wrap it up in a big emotional idea for further emphasis. Super stuff.

Ever thought of Switzerland for a weekend break?

2011-05-27T02:18:00.001-07:00

Thought not. But maybe this will change your mind. Very much at the finer end of the 'come and visit xxxx' advertising genre.

Though my favourite remains this one.

Fair Tweets

2011-05-23T04:20:00.000-07:00

Super idea from Ben & Jerry's

Fiat treasure hunt and interactive brochure

2011-05-04T03:23:00.000-07:00

Lovely work. Can't imagine huge numbers of cars have been sold off the back of it, but you've got to admire the playfulness and the PR bang for buck could be where the ROI lies.

Self esteem issues?

2011-04-26T05:56:00.001-07:00

Seen in the window of a provincial train station waiting room. Well, it made me laugh

The future of search

2011-04-18T02:56:00.000-07:00

Interesting article from NYT's Bits blog on forthcoming AR development and possible paving of way to interactive search based on physical environment, cutting out the web interface, type query here, middleman.

Linky

Consistency

2011-03-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

Seen here.

Why?

2011-03-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

No really. WHY?

For the love of God. WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYY?

El pollo loco es muy delicioso

2011-03-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

I saw this on the Bueno Entonces Facebook page.

Bueno Entonces is a Spanish language course which is very different to any other I know of and I much admire their strategy and approach.

1) In a very crowded market they have worked out how to differentiate
They teach "language for the street, not for the class" and thereby appeal to all of those folks who don;t want to sit A Level Spanish but do want to be able to speak fluently and normally with Spanish people like themselves - young adults. So the course doesn't shy away from teaching slang - in fact it makes a point of it - and rather than contexts like meeting a business colleague in the airport, we have contexts like picking someone up in a bar.

2) They have gone mobile
The course is available on CD, blar, but you can get it on iPhone, Android and Blackberry as a smartphone course. Works brilliantly.

3) They've picked a horse and stuck with it
They teach the Spanish of Argentina, more specifically, of BA. Other courses try to please everyone by teaching 'general Spanish' which doesn't really exist and which certainly no one actually speaks.

4) They've embraced social media, and are well on their way to becoming a 'social brand'.
The support on the Facebook page is fantastic. Quick, prompt, on the customer's side. Superb. On top of that they're engaging with their (potential) customers brilliantly. Check out the posts and responses to comments. Moreover where people make suggestions to improve the product, they seem to be taking them on board to make the product more like what people want it to be.

5) Generosity breeds loyalty
They give away the first 2 or 3 classes. And then loads more with additional support material, extra tips and suggestions, videos, quizzes .. many might have strayed away from this as giving too much away. But in fact the constant whetting of appetite will drive many with any doubts to go for the free trial (those free trials of which we're all oh so suspicious nowadays) and buying the rest of the classes.

All in all it's a splendid strategy. You've got to wish them !buena suerte! And if you're trying to learn Spanish ... !Che, boludo! get with the programme.

Jog on kitties!

2011-03-07T05:42:00.000-08:00

Superb! Love the campaign. Next time I'm in a convenience store for milk and see Cravendale, I'll think of the kitties with the thumbs and, assuming it's organic and yeo valley or Rachel's isn't cheaper, I'll probably buy it and not feel too bad about it etc etc etc.

Otherwise I'll carry on going to Sainsbury's and buying own brand, because it's cheaper, and because - though the campaign is very entertaining - it's not really given me any reason to choose Cravendale over supermarket own.

Thanks for the smiles though!

Enough happiness

2011-03-03T05:08:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah. Enough already!

The meme that keeps on giving

2011-03-02T08:57:00.001-08:00

Very nicely done.

Photo manipulations

2011-02-07T02:47:00.001-08:00

Excellent photoshopery here. My favourite below.

The Manchester Mix

2011-02-04T03:06:00.001-08:00

The Manchester Mix of HSIN

For someone in particular. You know who you are.

Golden Gaytime and Shito

2011-01-14T01:43:00.000-08:00

On sale in Sainsbuty's Dog Kennel Hill, South East London.

On sale at a roadhouse in Western Australia.

Turns out, not all brands are created equal.

CMW runner up Campaign DM agency of the year for second year running

2010-12-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

As may be specified elsewhere, I'm not too sure, I work for an agency in London CMW and we were Campaign's runner up DM agency of the year 2010.

This is what Campaign said ... Click to read it at a sensible resolution ..

Anyway that's all good and the second year running we've received the accolade and indeed the second year running there's been such a wonderful recognition of the digital work at CMW. So I'm chuffed for the agency and especially as those of us involved in the digital work there.

On top of all that, the Creme Egg app made it to number 5 best branded apps.

This year's JLP Crimbo Cracker

2010-12-13T03:24:00.000-08:00

I actively sought this out - went a searched for it on Google. Looking forward to it I was, and I wasn't disappointed. It's lovely. Still not as good as Frm Me To You but better than SCOM.

Thanks JLP. And Merry Christmas.

2010 video of the year

2010-12-13T03:15:00.000-08:00

I think we're close enough to the end of the year now to declare this my favourite music video of 2010.

It's got stop frame - I love it! It's got a melancholy tune - I love it more!

It's in partnership with Samsung - great marketing, terrible products - oh well nevermind.

Lovely ...

The advertisers guide to life as a chap

2010-10-28T02:45:00.000-07:00

From the nice folks at Dove

Yeah, nice tune, whatever.

My attention was drawn to this ad by the folks at Mother who assert that in this campaign "Dove attempt to tell men they don’t have to be 16 and desperate for sex, a buffed model or a sporting titan to want to smell better."

Does the hero at the end of this spot not fall into the category of 'buffed model'? I truly hope he does. Otherwise I'm running even further off the ugly old git scale than I thought.

Smile you're on Honda Camera

2010-10-27T08:11:00.001-07:00

More marketing shenanigans based on getting people to smile at a CMOS

Mini Countryman - Stockholm

2010-10-21T02:11:00.000-07:00

What a jolly good idea, nicely executed.

When ads become memetic

2010-10-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

You'd be chuffed, wouldn't you? Like properly, properly chuffed.

Russia shoots you to save tigers

2010-10-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

Nice campaign from Leo Burnett in Moscow. Really clever use of AR.

SEO, as easy as 1,2,3,4,5 ... isn't it?

2010-10-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

People keep asking about SEO. I know next to nothing about it, but isn't it roughly this ...

1. Decide what it is you want to be seen as expert in, known for, famous for, turned-to for information on, have a point of view about that's worth listening to

2. Create content about those things

3. Pick out the key words/phrases that people would look for if they were looking for content on those topics and make sure that those words/phrases feature in the content of the pages you've created and in the meta tags of the pages you've made

4. Think about any links you can possibly accommodate to other pages of authority on the topics and try to pursuade other authoratative pages to link to your pages

5. Allow Googlebot some time to find the pages and see the links and decide what they're about and place your pages accordingly in its search ranking

Isn't that it? I know there's some finer detail. I know there are other spiders apart from Google's involved in the enterprise of indexing pages for search. I'm sure there's fine detail around alt tags for images etc etc and well parsed html, the use or non-use of the pipe in the page titles and so on. But basically, I mean strategically, isn't the above all you need to know?

Cool AXA iPhone app press ad

2010-09-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

Tres bon, non?

Greenpeace Facebook Coal Campaign

2010-09-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Superb work. Did I miss something though? Couldn't you linke the video to more stuff using the notataion layer etc to help make it easy for people to take the next step in encouraging Mark and his 500,000,000 friends to use cleaner elkdrizidy.

Use your influence

2010-09-13T01:52:00.000-07:00

Splendid example of the phenomenon which I think is becoming known as a 'You Tube ad' i.e. not a bought ad from You Tube's inventory, but a video created to promote a brand and with the intent of it being seen mostly, or exclusively, on You Tube. What people used to call a 'viral' before they came to their senses.

It's lovely. I watched it all the way through, and I wanted to watch it again. And I might even tell somone else about it - oh look at me, I am telling someone else about it - there you are it _is_ a viral afterall.

Lovely.

All that said, there's no way I'm ever going to spend my money on a Samsung product as I believe them, based on past personal and brief but painful experience, to be a load of rubbish.*

*Not entirely a clever double-bluff ploy to get their marketing folks to send me a new telly.

Poster palava

2010-08-27T03:02:00.000-07:00

I stood on the southbound Northen Line platform at Goodge Street on my way home the other night and was captivated by this poster.

Then I realised that it was two posters.

I spent ages trying to figure it out though. Perhaps it would be a good idea for brands to partner up with each other to produce the most intriguingly mashed-up posters.

Then aqgain, perhaps not.

The quick brown fox

2010-08-23T02:36:00.000-07:00

Apparently, a 27-year-old British woman has broken the world record for typing the fastest text message. She had typed "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human." in 25.94 seconds.

What's wrong with "The quick brown fox, jumps over the lazy dog."?

Didn't make me smile as much as the ice-cream machine, but cute nevertheless

2010-08-23T02:23:00.000-07:00

Good ...

Better ...

This book really exists

2010-08-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't photoshopped this. It's a genuine book you can buy from a bookshop.

It's on the shelf right next to Selling Old Rope for Dummies.

Smells wonderful

2010-08-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

The outlook's bleak for McD's

2010-08-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

Leo Burnett's latest ad for McDonald's has, ostensibly, received a warm consumer reception. According to u-talk marketing it's consumer ad of the week.

It's a nice looking ad that celebrates one of the key aspects of British life - the rubbishness of our weather - and chides us for something we know we all love to do - moan about the rubbishness of British weather.

But where is McDonald's in all of this? Thumbs up for making a lovely bit of attention grabbing telly advertising. But what's it supposed to do for the brand, given that the brand only appears in the last second or so?

I saw the ad yesterday. I thought the ad must be for the weather channel or sky weather or similar. I was interested in it as a piece of creative (entertainment) and that made me interested in knowing whoch brand it was for. But there's no way it was ever going to hold my attention for 60 seconds. And after a few seconds in when I still wasn't being told who the ad was for, I lost interest and my attention shifted to something more important.

I know it harks of make the logo bigger, but people sometimes find their interest captured by an ad and want to know who it's for. We really should be capitalising on that interest. It's really hard to cut through. Such a shame to toss away the branding opportunity when you do.

Man walks across America

2010-07-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

It's a lovely bit of stopframe animation timelapsey doo-dar-er-ey.

It's a "viral" for Levis. Obviously.

The music is Home by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

Newport - the musical

2010-07-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Die Hard battery

2010-07-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Lovely idea.

iAd demo - Nissan Leaf

2010-07-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

Lovely stopframe animation from Blu

2010-07-12T02:29:00.000-07:00

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I'm Lovin' It

2010-06-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

Nice work for McDonalds

Simple, interactive, inclusive, drives footfall and sales of the other stuff people will buy alongside the free items they won and also drives trial of new products.

Reminded me of their entertaining and lovely work with the billboard at Piccadilly Circus, but this newer work is better.

Sussex Safer Roads - nearly 9m views

2010-06-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

The emotion in this ad (and it is an 'ad') is built up beautifully. The slow motion, the music, the expressions on the actors' faces. It's absolutely beautiful. Many of the comments under the vid talk about the music. It's interesting that a low-interest category (like wearing a seat belt (if you're driving in Sussex)) can attract so many views from all over the world (check links out) and it made me think about Robert Heath and all the Low Attention Processing work he's done. You can get people to look by making something beautiful - I wonder what the effects have been in terms of behaviour change - can't wait to see the case study.

What really motivates us?

2010-06-01T08:01:00.001-07:00

Dulwich Ukulele Club | There May Be Glory

2010-05-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Stirring stuff

Dreams come true

2010-05-06T02:36:00.000-07:00

Ask and ye shall receive (see previous post).

Again, found on buzzfeed.

Goodie Hoodie

2010-05-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

I want one of these hoodies ...

Seen on Buzzfeed

M.I.A. Born Free

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's important.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

She's back

2010-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

According to Marketing, she's back to celebrate 30 years of Shake and Vac, and they're making a viral.

What excitement!

Advertising kharma

2010-04-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

The wheel of advertising life spins. And I saw this in marketing's email newsletter.

Blinkin' marvelous.

Let's get philanthropical, with Axe

2010-04-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

Recommending the unrecommendable: why the semantic web can't stop Justin Beiber

2010-04-28T03:40:00.000-07:00

Before we start. Let's be clear on who we're talking about in the following story.
This is me.

This is Justin Beiber.

The two should, normally, absolutely never under any circumstances whatsoever be seen, mentioned or even thought about together ever ever ever under any circumstances what so ever. No. Never.

So why would we7 recommend him to me? Can the semantic web help stop this kind of recommendation atrocity and if not why not and what can we do instead if there's a better solution?

The story begins with me innocently listening to Morrissey. An entirely appropriate persuit for me, Thatcher's child that I am and all that.

I was listening on we7. I love we7. There's a lot of great music on there and it's all free. Well, it's ad supported like Spotify. Unlike Spotify, it's entirely web based and doesn't require you to install a client. BIG thumbs up We7. Thanks very much.

One benefit of a music service like this is that it can provide recommendations to you. Witness the screengrab below.

Notice again, that I'd been watching a Morrissey video embedded from YouTube.

Morrissey.

Let me zoom in on those recommendations.

The Libertines. Landfil indie aren't they? No thanks, but I can see how you got there.

MGMT. Yeah, OK I can see that. It would be all about me streaming music on we7 that's on my iPod, but I do indeed do that quite a lot. (For why, might be the topic of another post).

Jay Sean and The Drums, I've never heard of. Maybe there's something great there waiting for me. I don't know.

Paul Weller - life's a bit short, but again I can see why he's on the list, similarly Mumford & Son and Peter Gabriel.

But wait. Justin Beiber. WTF. Let me rephrase that as Justin Beiber WTFF??!!?

How do you get from Moz, to Justin Beiber?

His PR agency has paid to secure a slot in all recommendations?
Lot of wastage there guys.

There's a secret sect of Moz fans who also enjoy the pre-pubescent candy-pop whining?
Seems unlikely

A lot of Justin Beiber fans have discovered that Moz better lays bare their sense of ennui and Moz's songs say, if I may paraphrase Moz, more to them about their lives.
Again, possible, but seems unlikely.

The recommendations are largely random.
Come on guys, I'm logged in. You know what I listen to all the time. It's not that hard to tag up the music to drive a recommendation engine.

The recommendation engine, just wasn't very well thought through.
All too possible.

The recommendation engine has vagaries in it and unless things are very carefully tagged up and checked by a human, you get errant suggestions like this.
All too possible and highly likely.

How to fix it?

The 'semantic' web might allow things to be tagged up with more meaningful descriptors, but would that help here? I have no idea how Justin ends up in my list. He probably doesn't want to be on my list anymore than I want him there. Possibly (gawd knows how, but possibly) he's on an independent label and therefore as far as the semantics are concerned he's an 'indie act'. Thus his list appearance (I know the other acts are not all indie - just an avenue for the purposes of discussion, keep your hair on). But 'indie means so much more than that.

One of the key problems about the semantic web, which almost no one talks about (nod to Shirky) is that in attaching meaning to a web of things, we all have to agree on what it is exactly that we mean- by . At some point you have to get down to binary precision. Yes or no. It's indie or it's not. Alas, we don't all agree, indeed the language we use has been developed exactly so that meaning can be vague. This allows us to hedge our bets when negotiating all sorts of social situations. See Steven Pinker's TED talk on this. Much more meaning is conveyed by context, than an idea like the semantic web seems to allow for. Further more, meaning is in constant flux, whereas html is not, and meaning is often developed on-the-fly. Meaningful conversation is not just about agreeing which nouns are good for specific objects. It's about how we share concepts. It's not enough to know that a dalmatian is a it's about understanding as a concept with all its vagaries and fuzzy boundaries.

Officially, I declare myself a semantic web sceptic. I'm not sure it'll ever happen (as was envisioned) and if it does I'm not sure it'll be useful.

A dreadful possibility is that the notion of the semantic web will lead to lazy code, lazy user journey planning and unintended consequences? Putting all your eggs in the semantic web basket, you try to achieve with the semantic sledgehammer what could be achieved earler and more elegantly with a bit of thought and using existing tools.

For example, one thing the we7 recommendation engine could include is a simple yes/no, thumbs up/down button beside each recommendation. The system could tag up against that and a) refine future recommendations and b) accelerate learning about that user's tastes. You be learning from what people say they might play as well as learning from what they actually do play.

So let's say I thumbs down Justin. Is he gone forever? Well he could be reintroduced, say, if I find myself listening to Kylie Minogue if that matches to a very strongly weighted tag - lots of people who like Kylie and who are recommended Justin give him a thumbs up, over a threshold that allows the logic:

we know you gave Justin a thumbs down before, but things might have changed, and now you're listening to something so closely related, and which so many people have joined together with Justin conceptually, that we're prepared to risk irritating you and have another go at popping him in front of you

It does take a lot more attention to detail in planning the user experience, for sure. But it'll be a lot more reliable than the semantic web and you could do it, now.

Time lapse and tilt shift

2010-04-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

Two of my favourite things combined to make a lovely video.

All I need now is a take away curry and a crate of ale, and I'm set for the night.

Forrester technographics profile tool

2010-04-21T05:33:00.000-07:00

I never knew this existed. And I'm not sure I care. Useful for those moments when a bar chart is required to make it look like there are actually reliable facts about social media generated somewhere by someone and borrow a bit of authority from a big name to support an argument etc etc.

The presentation explaining the segments is here.

PS: I'm not (quite) as cynical as I sound. Well, not about social media. Research on the other hand .... oh boy!

Errrm, Iceland Express, maybe monitor the old adwords on YouTube, eh?

2010-04-20T02:40:00.000-07:00

Vote Labservative

2010-04-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

Whatever you think of the politics this is a great idea well executed. If only they could get it on TV!!

Nike - make you feel good?

2010-04-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

I saw this 'clip' (is that what you'd call it?) from Nike.

It's a marvellously emotive piece of marketing, even for someone as unsporty as me. As per Robert Heath and all that emotive processing stuff, I think it does make me feel warmer towards Nike in my emotive brain. Trouble is I keep thinking of all those poor sods in China glueing the shoes together when they should be in school because they're only ten. So I'll never buy Nike.

And probably Nike doesn't care. Afterall there's pleanty of ten year olds in the US and the UK and the rest of the developed world with the Nike tick shaved into their hair whose purchasing isn't swayed by anything as abstract as the provenance of what they're spending their pocket money on.

But will there always be that audience? What about if it grows up and does start to care about provenance?

Of course, maybe Nike cleaned up its act long ago and my picture of how the shoes are made is out of whack with the reality. Maybe the act was never that dirty in the first place. Perhaps just some of the marketing work they do should be setting out their provenance stall and, with what's hopefully a good story, genuinely giving us something to feel good about.

The song, by the way, is The Hours, Ali in the Jungle.

More heart warming palindromic hyperbole restoring our faith in our youth and the future

2010-04-06T03:08:00.000-07:00

This time from the publishing world.

You might remember this.

What people really think

2010-03-30T06:32:00.000-07:00

A while back, a close friend announced he'd made a new year's resolution to never again read a free newspaper. The demise of the London Lite and The London Paper will have made that a bit easier for him, but I don't know where he stands in regard to reading the Evening Standard which used to be 35p and is now free.

I understood entirely his motivation. Those freesheets can chip away at your will to live if you're a left leaning liberal sort with some notion of what ought to be important to us as a society (e.g. poverty) vs what we actually seem to be concerned about most of the time (e.g. celebrity).

Alas, those who live by the consumer insight must dye their hands with the ink of the consumer insight. And if it's all about understanding what your fellow punter in the street thinks then the free sheets, the Sun and, I'm afraid, the Daily Mail are among the sources with which one must become aquainted.

So I found this surprisingly unfunny.

Brands are a collection of the experience we have of them

2010-03-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

They're not the Powerpoint Interbrand sold the client, but the actual experiences in the social content they occurred.

Out and about at lunch time and feeling like soup. This is my experience of Eat.

They do so well with other things like the desktop gadget and the weekly soup menus update thingy. Still, I thought it was a bit of a rubbish experience.

Creme Egg AR

2010-03-17T10:21:00.001-07:00

AR availabel off of the Creme Egg site

Something worth talking about

2010-03-16T02:48:00.000-07:00

Stick with this. It's worth a few minutes of your time.

This stunt from Heineken Italy involved over a getting lots of chaps to miss a tremendously important footie game, because either their girlfriend asked them to miss the game so they could both go to a classical music concert, or their boss asked them to go to the (same) concert (I guess in some sort of above and beyond call of duty kind of way).

15 minutes into the gig, a cinema size screen reveals they've all been had and the screen will show the football. Much relief and applause from the victims and accomplices. No one lost an eye!

This got a lot of PR coverage, and generated a lot of buzz online as the case study above reveals.

What does it do for Heinekin? Great awareness / front of mindness generation. It says Heinekin is fun and pally, but also clever and interesting ...

Hot wheels annotation engagement campaign

2010-03-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

Another one of those you tube campaigns where you click to choose a next step in the narrative - using the annotation function, I think.

I guess the cars (Hot Wheels are die-cast toy cars) are aimed at boys under 10. I'm sure they'd love this and spend lots of time with it. If they were allowed to. Maybe a lot of them are ...

That's what Bea said

2010-03-15T09:04:00.001-07:00

WARNING: It's very, very hard to stop!

Creme Egg app top free app

2010-03-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

The iPhone app for this year's Cadbury Creme Egg campaign is top of the free apps in the app store. Some of the comments, though funny, are a wee bit unfair - but only a wee bit. We'll simply make it bigger, better and gooier next time.

Specsavers parody of Lynx ad

2010-03-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Super ad, clear strategy, clear proposition, entertaining, funny, and lots of nice girls. It might even work. I'd love to know.

First, Google, do no evil

2010-03-12T07:21:00.001-08:00

THE BEAST FILE: GOOGLE from Hungry Beast on Vimeo.

Is anything, ever, as simple as it seems?

No.

The banned PaddyPower ad is shameful

2010-03-12T03:09:00.001-08:00

Absolute rubbish.

Bing and decide

2010-03-10T09:01:00.001-08:00

I have no idea what would persuade me to move from my default Google search to Bing. But it isn't this.

Manpacks - it's the bolox

2010-03-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

Hanes have launched Manpacks - the proposition, 'simplify the basics', says it all. You sign up, pay a monthly subscription of a few dollars and they send you new pants/socks/t-shirts once a quarter according to the package you've signed-up for while you never ever have to think about shopping for Bill Grundies ever again and spend more time accordingly in the Rose and Crown - well in fact it's only available in the US - bah humbug!!

American Apparel - if you're listening - please rip off this idea and let me know where I sign!

Cremeegg.co.uk site of the week in NMA

2010-03-04T08:48:00.001-08:00

Ah now that's proper lovely that. Read all about it here.

Yum

2010-02-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

Stop animation, t-shirts, cool designs. What's not to love here?

Frijj - getting a bit stuck

2010-02-10T02:35:00.000-08:00

Frijj is connecting itself to swamp soccer. Thicker, slower, better. All cool so far.

Now come the soccerettes. American style cheerleaders obsessed with mud.

They have a channel, you know. Ish.

Now it's running an AR promotion. You buy a cookie dough Frijj and when you show the bottle to your webcam it releases the soccerette trapped inside.

I imagine this would appeal to teenage boys* so we have the ingredients for a great campaign.

Except:
1) When you go to frijj.co.uk the site turns out to be one huge lump of Flash streaming movie in the middle of the internet and even on my superquick connection it's a juttery. Why so big?
2) It's a great big old lump of Flash, and there's no Flex stylee shenanigans involved, so there's no deep linking to anywhere in the site. Thus I cannot post here (nope) a link to the AR promotion specifically. All I can do is dump you at the homepage and wish you bon voyage. That makes it hard for this thing to spread. OK It's not an insurmountable barrier to telegraphing the campaign. But why not just make it simple?
3) When I started writing this post, the website they're promoting in all the PR, frijjmud.co.uk, wasn't live - it ping'd back an IP address which now goes to what looks like the WAP site and the domain now resolves back to frijj.co.uk
4) I spent 20 mins on frijj.co.uk trying to get the AR to work: not at all on the Mac, very poorly on the PC

All in all, a missed opportunity. A rush job? Last minute changes? Sloppy build?

It's easy to be critical - it's a good idea, but poorly executed.

Finaly:
5) Too much faffing about for too little reward. There's not enough titilation to make it worth passing it on. Hence the numbers on the Facebook pages, YouTube channel etc.

Still, good luck with it!

*NB: Teenage boys refers to a mindset not a chronological age. Teenage boys can be any chronological age between about 9 and about 90.

ZugSTAR - Streaming Augmented Reality by Zugara

2010-02-10T02:12:00.000-08:00

Flash based, therefore browser agnostic, and uses a gesture based UI. Cool stuff. I want to make something forthwith and without further delay.

Old Spice: The man your man could smell like if he didn't small like a lady

2010-02-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

This is a superb effort. In all respects it is marvellous and wonderful. I hope it shifts old spice like there's no tomorrow.

Fetched into my conciousness by the indefatigable and almost as wonderful as this ad @Monza77 who blogs here.

Getting to the bottom of UGC

2010-02-08T02:57:00.000-08:00

UGC, the next big thing or a load of old arse. American Apparel, God bless them, prove that it's both, simultaneously and wonderously. Go to the site and have a poke about their competition to find the world's best bum.

American Apparel are looking for the best bottom in the world. It fits perfectly with the brand.

American Apparel are 'vertically integrated' which means they do the design, own the factories and do the production, and they own the retail stores. They also make their own advertising and much of it is focussed around causing debate - they speak about the brand being 'telegraphed' from one customer to the next. Often controversial, the advertising work, it seems, is loved or loathed. Whilst it tends to show models (often commissioned in store) 'warts and all' - a real people, sort of vibe - they're all very thin and very young. It's a 'youth' brand, but we all know not all teenagers and twentysomethings would slip into a size 8.

Whatever the debate about the marketing tactics, here is a campaign that has oodles of 'brand integrity'. They're known for underpants, and are searching for the best bottom in the world. Fit! They're know for using customers in their ads, and here's your chance to star on teh interwebs with your own posterior posted up for all to rate. Fit! Unsurprisingly it seems to be a huge success. People love to rate things, and what's better than reviewing and rating bottoms?

It turns out to be much harder than you might think to get people to submit UGC. I've tried getting people to post pics of themselves. Nada. With an engaged and enthusiastic fanbase of a 'fun' brand. Nada. Just them, their face, doing somethiing anyone can do and that's completely harmless. Nada. Offering them an incentive. Nada. Perhaps people are less embarrassed to post their bottom than their face? As well as a sense of fun there's an anonymity about posting your bum, and a frisson of risquéness to enjoy.

This campaign talks directly to one aspect of UGC - fame seeking. We all like a bit of praise. Increasingly we all buy into the dream that we can be the next Bee Gees or Pamela Anderson or Brad Pitt. Or the next most famous bottom ever. That said, not many fellas have got their bums in gear for this, yet. And fame seeking is certainly not unique to the girls. Does the campaign need seeding better amonst fashion concious men?

Overall I have some questions about this. I'm not sure who the campaign is aimed at, or how it's meant to spread or get 'telegraph', or if its having the desired effect among the desired people. But one thing is certain, its innovative, brave and remarkable (yes it is - I'm remarking on it right now). And almost no-cost to try out. Brands like this are extremely good at iterating. They're fast to market with both products and ideas. And they're quick to iterate to find the ones that work. It's more than just a fashion thing, it's a lightness of foot that's geared for a 'social media' tempo. I'd love to know how the marketing team is structured, or if it even exists. I'll bet there isn't a 'head of email' sitting next to a 'vice president of shelf wobblers' and across from a 'senior director of online and engagement, EMEA and UK'. I'd love to know.

It's worth reading up about American Apparel on Wikipedia. It's a great brand with a super story and a well defined philosophy.

Having said I'm not sure if its reaching the right people, I'm off at lunchtime to AA to see what they have, not just for me but the kids range looks good too. And the ethics behind the brand mean I would actively like to support them if I can.

Bottoms up!

WARNINTG: Please be aware I had to sit through quite a lot of NSFW pics before the above came up. Have fun, be safe. It's a hostile corporate firewall out there.

Lovliness from circle creative peeps

2010-02-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

Wonderful. See how many ads you can spot. Brought to my attention by the ever insightful, on the ball, entertaining and all round good egg that is @monza77

What's wrong with social media marketing?

2010-01-29T08:15:00.000-08:00

What’s wrong with Social Media Marketing?

‘Social media marketing’ is an oxymoron. Marketing, as we’ve come to understand it, means persuading people to buy our stuff against a competitor’s; it is ‘us and them’ thinking. Social media spaces are about facilitating social connections, building relationships and removing friction from communication and collaboration. Social media is about participation and conversation. Social media is ‘we’ thinking, and presents a golden opportunity for brands to build engagement and commitment with an involved audience; thereby going some way to future proofing themselves. But to succeed requires a shift in mentality from us to we, a commitment to participation, a change in focus from ‘messages’ to ‘conversation’ and forgetting everything we thought we knew about 'marketing’. In social media, marketing, does not work.

Marketing to social media audiences is doomed. A marketing based social media strategy starts in the wrong place and leads to doing the wrong things with the wrong people in the wrong context. It leads to setting the wrong campaign objectives and therefore measuring the wrong outcomes which only serve to obscure where everything went wrong and often leads the conclusion that to correct it requires doing more wrong stuff.

Picture the scene. Post campaign, client and agency consider the interactions that happened: so many followers here, so many fans there, a number of blogposts mentioning the new widget, some videos and a number of images created, and “Oh by the way someone’s written a poem!” There’s a brief “Hurrah!” with a “But so what?” in hot pursuit. There may be a lot of interactions generated, but is that success? What do they mean? The brand’s effort was well intentioned and the budget generous and the agency committed. Nevertheless, more people would probably have been reached by spending the money on a poster campaign and whilst the interactions seem reassuringly deep and meaningful at first, exactly how much deeper and what they mean proves very hard to say. Maybe they’re no deeper and no more meaningful after all, just in a trendier environment.

The villain at the centre of this all too familiar vignette is a failure to properly understand the opportunity offered by social media and to take advantage of it. Our instinctive reaction is to define the objectives as marketing goals, but that’s completely the wrong approach. Better objectives look more like those of a research brief than a marketing brief. For example; to understand what people think of us, what people are saying about what we do and who we are and what we make and how they feel about all of that, within their own social contexts. A good social media objective might be anchored in discovering what can be learnt from the community, what people would like to see more or less of. These objectives are not about propagating a message, but about unravelling a story, listening and joining a conversation, collaboration and discussion. The objectives start to look like they’re properly grounded in a social media strategy when achieving them feeds directly into business engineering, not just the comms plan. In other words the outcomes change not just what a brand will say, but what a company will do.

The shift is this: I’m speaking to them –> I’m listening to them –> we’re talking –> we’re working together.

This is brave. Many companies’ underlying business philosophies are at odds with the pro-social behaviour required to participate in social network contexts. They exist to maximise profits, not to collaborate with the public on refining their corporate values and the stuff they make. It takes quite a bit of standing back to see the big picture before the power of joining up and joining in starts to emerge.

The secret to social media nirvana lies in understanding this: Social media spaces are poor commercial relationship marketing platforms but they are excellent commercial collaboration platforms.

When it emerged that Nestlé was buying milk from a farm owned by Grace Mugabe their Facebook fan page ignited with fans criticising them for their actions. Nestlé says that in reality the choices they have to make are not as clear cut as they are presented in the media. Perhaps those Facebook fans (there’s a surprising number of them) could have been consulted on what was the right thing to do about buying the milk before Nestlé made its decision. They could now be revelling in a tremendous PR success story instead of managing a PR crisis.

The same is true of Pret a Manger and the negative PR it has suffered regarding the Brazilian chicken they import. They could have used social media to spark the debate, been open and frank about the issues are what their strategy is for dealing with them. They could have had that debate among people who care and are, ostensibly, on the brand’s side.

Best Buy took advantage of social media fandom by asking its fans what their favourite vampire themed movies were, and then stocking them for the recent Halloween period. Earlier this year Cadbury Creme Egg polled its fans on what their favourite Creme Egg ad was and then ran it in a specially commissioned TV spot. These actions don’t represent revolution, but they’re the first steps in a long process of building more collaborative customer relationships.

Other brands already go much further. There are well publicised examples like JetBlue and Zappos, but there are many other brands quietly taking advantage of the opportunities social media presents. Southern Railway have a keen station manager posting in lots of south east London local discussion forums, soliciting opinion, working with the public to prioritise work and involving people in some decisions about what happens to their local railway station. But it doesn’t have to be as labour intensive. Consider the use of feedback tools like UserVoice. They provide a simple way for brands to talk to people about how they feel about the brand, the product and the services. These are the people who care enough to want to make the brand, product or service better. These are the people who can help brands navigate public opinion and behavioural trends and build for the future. For instance consider how Dell use their Ideastorm or the impact of Starbucks’ MyStarbucksIdea which are among the best examples of this approach.

All of this isn’t to say that it is not at all productive for brands to be in social media spaces and simply seek to build a fan base by being entertaining or useful. Consider the Burger King Whopper Sacrifice campaign. It’s immensely entertaining to tell a ‘friend’ they’re worth exactly one tenth of a Whopper, but it doesn’t build the kind of long term involvement and commitment to the brand that can be achieved in social media when the real opportunities are identified and taken to build brands collaboratively with an engaged audience of those who care about what the brand stands for and does and want to help make it stronger.

To return to the fictitious post-campaign analysis outlined earlier, it’s possible to build up very large fan bases on social media platforms without any of the connections made being meaningful or helpful for the brand’s future. Often people’s association with brands is simple badge wearing to flesh out their online identities. Those connections are very shallow and the impact of having them is trivial against what can be achieved by really engaging with a handful of committed brand advocates.

Similarly, display advertising can work extremely well in social media spaces, but that’s no more than to say display works well in environments where it a relevant message is creatively presented. And it misses the point. It’s like thinking of Wembly as a place where people go to see ads. That they don’t seek the advertising doesn’t make it ineffective.

Social media spaces are not well suited to ‘marketing’ as we have come to think of it, based in persuasion, story telling and with a broadcast mentality where we talk and an audience listens. It’s possible to generate a lot of very light touch interactions with brands in social media but these connections are trivial and do not build the long term meaningful connections which, at face value, they appear to. Social media is not a one-to-one channel, it’s a many to many platform. So whilst trivial brand connections can be easily severed social media does provide all the tools needed to easily involve people and engage with them to build meaningful co-ownership of brands and build productive partnerships with them. But doing so requires a willingness to listen, to talk with not just to and it requires bravery and a commitment to wanting to be the brand that people want you to be.

In short, what’s wrong with social media marketing is that it distracts us from the real opportunities offered by social media platforms. We should be engaging not in social media marketing, but in social media brand collaboration.

An edited version of this text was published in the Jan 2010 edition of Admap and can be found at www.warc.com

And now for the news

2010-01-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

Stop motion yuminess

2010-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

These two videos combine many of my favourite things and much of what is right and lovely in the world. They promote an arts college - very well.

It's all goo goo goo on Creme Egg

2010-01-25T04:17:00.000-08:00

Contagious wrote nice things about this year's Creme Egg campaign - which is cool and all that. And some it's even factually correct, more or less.

Revolution
In other Goo news, the Twisted campaign 2009 has been nominated as a finalist in the Revolution awards. It's propper hard to get nominated, they say, so I'm propper chuffed.

I'm the planner on these two bad boys - in case any stumbles by and wonder wtf I'm so pleased.

The Teens' Speech

2010-01-15T02:20:00.000-08:00

This is from The Teens' Speech project and is utterly moving.

Carol Ann Duffy, suck on this

2010-01-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

It's all been about poetry this week at work. I've learned that misandry is the parallel of misogyny I've learned that Carol Ann Duffy, though perhaps not a misandrist has a body of work which certainly points that way. And I've learnt that Death Is Smaller Than I Thought.

But more than all of that, I've learned that Morrissey is truely the Poet Laureate.

Lovely

2010-01-13T05:01:00.001-08:00

More ads like this

2009-12-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

Please!!

Lip sync - you just can't match it

2009-12-15T07:32:00.001-08:00

A reminder - for those who clearly need to be reminded - that a) just plain old fashioned copying someone's idea is a bit rubbish and b) if you're going to copy someone's idea and not take it on at all, at least try to do it well.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Sun 4.0

2009-12-11T03:15:00.001-08:00

This is advertising

2009-12-10T08:23:00.000-08:00