LDV starts up their annual brand popularity poll again (it sounds far simpler than it really is though. It does take a while to complete, but keep in mind that there is a 'none' and 'other' option and you'll breeze through in about 18 min 25 seconds and win me something (please time accordingly). EDIT: forgot about that one indeed, after filling in the questionnaire you can compare your results with some of belgian's finest blogging minds, and this one...
First of: this might not interest you if you're not living working in (or very near to) Belgium.
Other than that, BrandPalace is a rather nifty initiative by ACC and Febelmag. To my knowledge we don't have a lot of 'brand-centered' training courses in Belgium, so this might be a good place to start. Extra selling point: Walter is involved, I think he's running their blog as well.
I spent the past weekend in London, and a good part of that weekend travelling around on the undergroun. CBS Outdoor is rightly defending the heavy presence of billboards around the tube, citing research that claims about 9 in 10 people like the ads. I can see why because they're usually of higher standards than what we normally have in the streets around here, or maybe it's just the sheer abundance that ups you chances of meeting anything worthwile.
Anyhow, they seem to have come up with some new technology there as well: rows of small billboardlike screens next to the automatic stairs, fully capable of displaying moving imagery. I was not impressed... instead I was baffled by the silent view of inane people dancing to silent music in a silent subway station in a silent 3 or 5 second ad, whereafter T-Mobile claimed that 'Life's for sharing', all in silence... Give me back my witty words, my funny posters, and even the occasional idiotic Musical hyperbole (I successfully avoided visiting one again)!
Deeply underwhelmed by their latest attempt to tempt me I came to work this morning, only to find a link in my inbox (from the Frankfurt-London colleagues) to the real thing: a gigantic flashmob dancing to, get this, music you can hear, in a subway station (Liverpool street to be precise):
Brilliant!
So don't go screwing it up by trying to reuse it in a different media format which is not suited at all. I doubt that if I would feel any different if I were to see the moving imagery (did I say there's no sound?) again after seeing this film.
How many euros, pounds or dollars must you throw away before you realise that you don't need to do the same bloody thing in every media touchpoint you have. I love the whole flashmob/dance/film thing, and it makes a great tv or online ad if you've got the time, and I love the witty posters you used to have in the subway. But don't go mixing them up... I don't mind that they're two different things, I don't mind if the fonts are not the same, I don't mind if you portray different people on the sub compared to your telly ads. I like brands that get their message across in the most suitable way, and that depends on what you use to talk to me at what time.
For the final time (wishful thinking, I know...): consistency and coherence should be found in a strategic idea around your brand, not in executional similarity.
You never know, I might come up with something regular like this... but don't get your hopes up.
Anyway, here's some stuff I really liked and/or found intriguing for the past few weeks.
First up is the Virgin Atlantic film which is a good example of how you can use the past as a relevant way to portray themselves today. I had a discussion on the importance of 'brand anniversaries' recently and my general comment was 'don't bother'. In general people only use it as a pretext for a pretty mundane promotional idea or giveaway. But if it adds to your expertise and vision, go right ahead. I really like the way they portray themselves as a beacon of style in an otherwise catastrophic decade, Franky's excluded, obviously...
Second is the trailer for Objectified, a new film by Gary Hustwit, who already turned a typeface into something interesting (and not just for art directors). The role of design in marketing is growing evermore, up to the point where it's sometimes becoming hard to distinguish one from the other. And I've had quite a few interesting discussions with designers and people in r&d during the past few months. In general these start with a direct confrontation between the product and the consumer perspective but I often find it a lot easier to find a common ground here than I would with, for example, a sales director. Which probably says something about the way people do business today...
Finally there's this magnificent film about the importance of advertising awards by Maggot Operations, I'm guessing they have a quite a few David Lynch fans around:
Piers Fawkes asked me to mention the next PSFK conference in the UK, and for good reason: the lineup looks fantastic. I'd be on the lookout for Nicolas Roope, the Penguinpeople, the BBC (the title 'vision development executive' rings a bit hollow but in the case of the BBC that should be worthwile) and especially Cameron Leslie from Fabric.
I won't be going myself because it looks like I'll be here, lucky I've already got some first hand experience of Fabric then... But seriously: go there if you can, it promises to be a lot more inspiring than the usual big name conferences everyone goes to, and there's bound to be an interesting audience as well.
For a moment I contemplated turning this into a Burger King only blog, that would make my life easier and lower expectations from recurring visitors. But that seems a bit too lazy though...
Far from making any promise, I am looking for a way to breathe some life into this blog again for 2009, but to start of the year here's Whopper Sacrifice.
As usual they seem to be spot on again: This might be the year people suddenly realise they run out of real friends because they're too busy throwing virtual sheep at people they befriended to up their status in whatever social network you can think of. The phenomenon is installed, now let's try and turn the quality up to 11 (but then it's still the interweb, so 7 might have to do) by trimming the contact pool. They're probably doing Facebook a service with actions like these, so who's next?
I'm still very sorry there is no Burger King nearby, otherwise this would have been quite an easy decision...
I'm wondering what they'll think of next: first they deprive americans
of their favourite burger, now they supply it to people who don't even
grasp the burger-concept.
The film is here, and I'm pretty impressed at how 'respectful' it turned out to be. It's something completely different than Freakout, and judging by the amount of footage they have they could have cut it in a completely different way. It's nice to see how the crew reacted surprised and humbled by some of the events and interactions taking place.
As far as marketing success goes, I really think this will go a long way to gain them more credit outside of the US. Where Freakout reminded US citizens how good the Whopper actually was, this is more of statement about the general curiosity and the openness of the brand towards other cultures. Then again, it makes me feel like ordering a whopper, but there's still no Burger King to be found here...
OhboyOhboyOhboy... Looks like another corker from Burger King coming our way. Check out Burger King's Whopper Virgins page and tremble with anticipation.
As a sane person and a reasonable lighthearted foodie, every fibre in my body should protest against this insane export of one of the USA's worst habits. But then I'm secretly a Whopper fan myself, and I'm hoping the film will be so great I'll throw away all my petty conscience issues in 5 days, 5 hours and 45 minutes.
Referring to my last post: Burger King is another typical example of a brand that's built a heritage which allows them all kinds of nifty things in other media, and make it just as clean as they want to make it. And naturally, people enter the conversation when you do stuff like this. Let's see how many YouTube spoofs this baby garners...
Dave Cushman from FasterFuture interviewed Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody) on brands and branding a way back. I had the film stocked in my YouTube favourites and finally got around to look at it. During the interview Clay argues that brands often act too clean, which inhibits people from taking them and doing interesting stuff with them.
I think the idea is true for a lot of web stuff. But even then: getting people to play around with your brand on the web probably won't happen if you're not already attracting them on another platform. And looks and fascination play a bigger role there.
The whole idea of the web changing markets into conversations is too often used as an excuse to come up with something shoddy and hope people will make something of it. But if you look at the brands that really make it onto the web, you'll notice that it often means they did their homework really well. It kind of reminds me of the comment I wrote in response to this article (see bottom of linked page or below):
The problem is that you need to have a story first. And those tend to
be monologues to start with. Nike can start conversations because they
have established a story and a dramatic tension within their brand
(empowering people to perform better than they normally do, to
challenge themselves). If that story wasn't there in the first place,
noone would even bother to get involved.
The story about Tiger being 'that good' is one that has some mileage in
it as well, so that makes it suitable for an EA rebuttal. without the
EA lifelike connotation (which they exploit in may of their sports
titles), this conversation would not make any sense. Fun, sure, but
nothing added to the brand.
I'm seeing far too many brands out there who start inane online
initiatives to get consumers involved without having the slightest
notion of what they are or what they should be in the first place.
Resulting in desperate pleas for attention or irrelevant bandwagon
jumping that only serves the clutter the online advertising realm is
starting to suffer from.
So please, before you start the conversation, ask yourself why people
would want to talk to you. And it really doesn't matter if you're
'digital' or not to start with...
I'm sure Clays plea is not one for lazy marketing, but there are a lot of people out there who really take this as an excuse to start portraying themselves as branding experts. Thinking a brand through and spending some time getting it right is the only thing stopping us from being swamped with ill thought out work on every web page we visit before you can say 'user generated craphola'.
Upon first inspection, this set of graphic novels seemed to have arrived intact.
Sadly, the corner of the top comic (Fables) was not taken into consideration when packing my order. And by the look of things, it happened when packing it together with my bill (unless they have a standard creasing policy, but that would be the first time I noticed it). I still wonder how they manage to do this so regularly...
A while ago I placed my first order with The Spiceshop online (if you're into cooking you could do worse than have a look, they've got some fabulous fresh spice mixes). It took about 5 days for my order to arrive, and this was included:
While I don't really have an immediate use for British change (I have a pot full and forget it every time I travel to London) it really made me look up and appreciate the effort they put in to deal with every order personally.
The site really does give you the impression that you're still dealing with the shop owner and this small message confirmed that feeling. Sure, it could use more images and an easier way of finding products, but that would probably be superfluous for anyone who's in the market for online ordering of spices.
The small store is still alive, and it's future lies on the web, I'm kind of hoping that their webstore becomes a great success, but still just small enough to keep this level of intimacy that is seldomly provided by major online retail brands.
Just keeping score, I didn't take a picture this time. It was an order that's been split up in 4 though, and the first shipment were 2 cds so I would have been surprised if this was somehow mangled in transport. Next shipments will be comics, books and cds though, let's see how that goes. Splitting orders like this does help the scores/ratios and lowers the risk of stuff damaging other stuff...
It's been a long while since we entered our pieces, up to the extent that I had to dig up my piece in my archives to remember what I wrote about. But here it is!
The Age of Conversation is actually Drew and Gavin who are crazy enough to ask a bunch of unpredictable bloggers/thinkers/planners/ranters/... to cooperate and write a chapter for a book. The theme of which is 'why don't they get it'. And what's even more bizarre, it's the second time they've done it.
As you can probably understand, this takes a while, and after a couple of cringeworthy moments (I found myself in the middle of the atlantic on a Google map for a while), they were finally able to pull it all together and put it up for sale.
So get over there and buy it, not only might it make for interesting reading (see the author list below), but if all goes well it stops children dying somewhere too. Gogogo!
The lack of posts lately is entirely due to the fact that, despite what newspapers might be telling you, some of us still have more than enough work to do. Fortunately my work includes the discovery of some fantastic ideas once in a while.
First off, an idea I wished I' thought of in the context of our UGent campaign. As we're working on the campaign for next year we are once again confronted with the difficulty of the 'dare to think' proposition. Briefing people to come up with something that makes people think, without overtly making political statements is still hard. But then there's the Think Again project by The Atlantic. Which is basically doing the same thing but just packages it very very neatly. The whole site is pretty engaging and the dark documentary style really fits the bill.
Second: it's too bad I recently invested in a few Ikea pieces and cobble them together to form this, when Red Bull is developing it's own DJ Table which looks fantastic. Kudos to Cocoonbranding, and don't miss the 'bull-confirming' detail on the underside (a tad too macho probably, but then it does fit with the brand). I really love the record sleeve spaces cum laptop cooling stand, but I can imagine the whole thing being quite bulky if it's high enough to save your back. I'd like to find a picture of it filled with equipment to get a better idea (if anyone can point me in the right direction, feel free).
Finally there was this clever YouTube page for the new Wario game on the Wii. As ever, god is in the details and I love how the links remain clickable even after the page is completely destroyed.
I still think it's one of the most iconic spots ever created. Just seems a lot of effort and trouble to get this message across, so I'm kind of wondering who is behind it. Looking at the comments on YouTube, the political message seems to be losing to the collective memory we have of the original spot and it's impact. Which should tell you something about the level of involvement, one week before the election.
I avoided writing about the American elections for a long while. Mainly because I don't live in the US but, more importantly, because I don't really get the enormous branding debate that everyone wants to tack on to the candidates (ratio vs emo, capturing an audience vs a communication territory,...).
Which doesn't mean that the analysis isn't bringing anything worthwhile to branding and communication territory, but it still feels really fabricated. Having worked for a political party myself for the past years, I never got the impression that we were making much of a difference. And I don't want to insinuate that we were the only ones to bring that expertise either...
Lots of people in politics seem innate marketeers, but they tend to suppress that instinct in favour of politics in general, party guidelines, political mandates, other people, press influence, short term election results,... I think the latest crisis we're going through is a pretty good illustration (take your pick: the flanders vs wallonia debate or the financial breakdown... guess what I think is the most important).
If there's anything marketing needs to be more today it's genuine, and all the party-guided blather couldn't be more fake if it wore fake glasses, a bobble hat and a mustache. Which is why I find stuff like this much more interesting. It's kind of hard to figure out who funds what initiative in the US but I am led to believe that this in an independent effort (even though the Jewish Council for Education and Research funds it, but don't they support the other camp in general?).
Kudos to Droga5 for producing something that is clearly orchestrated but looks more full of life than all the Obama-girls and other bandwagonjumpers on YouTube combined.
New spot for Centraal Beheer, a different twist than the classic films but it probably works just the same. You could say that it doesn't convey the right message (as in: you get in trouble, we'll help you out) but that really doesn't matter. It reeks of creative team's wet dreams though, but that shouldn't be a bad thing...
Not literally, but this fantastic presentation is probably the bast case I ever heard for the Cadbury beast. And as it stands, the case is probably helped by it's absence, as every discussion about the intellectual meaning of the gorilla immediately demeans the idea and it's impact.
In short: Stop talking about emotion in advertising and start putting some in there...
Paul argues that the 'message-model' we currently use to develop communication ideas should is faulty. First of all because experiments have taught us that people almost never make decisions based on rational equations. Sure, we may use a lot of post-rationalization, and we can come up with explanations about our behaviour towards brands but the real dealclencher is often some kind of 'instinct' or gut feel.
Things like these probably feature heavily in every agency's presentation these days (I have the 'emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions' slide ;-) but how come we have such a hard time letting go when it comes to really changing the way we look at and develop advertising ideas? Feldwicks answer (but get your lazy butt over there because there is so much more to read):
Let me start with the first question. I think it appeals because it
fits a general cultural myth in our society of rational man, that we
make better decisions as a result of conscious thought. Now
interestingly that turns out frequently not to be the case, but it's
something that we rather like to believe.
It also fits very well into rational organisations where order,
analysis and control are always assumed to be the best ways of getting
things done. It makes it easy for us to have a process for creating ads
which resembles the division of labour on a production line. So we have
the strategy, and then we have the idea and then we have the execution
and so on. And I think we also like it because it positions the ad
business as a bunch of honest salesmen. Rosser Reeves liked to boast
that 'there are no hidden persuaders, advertising works openly in the
bare and pittiless sunlight.' And in fact this image of the adman as
the salesman tells us a lot about where the message myth originated
from.
He then goes on to use the theories of Paul Watzlawick to formulate a potential answer. There's a great idea in there about the difference between analogue and digital here (digital being more explicit and clear, not the digital 'do you want to be my friend I'll send you a sheep' kind we know right now).
During the worst days when I started out as a planner I sometimes felt that it was all kind of a scam and that our contribution to advertising didn't reall matter in the end: it was just the guy who stole the best jokes and who could tell them with the most charm who won. Whether the joke was irrelevant or really told something about the brand did not really matter.
In hindsight that might not have been that far from the truth, apart from the fact that it is not that negative and uncontrollable. As soon as you drop the 'what does this have to say' line and you start talking about 'what do people need to feel or think about as a result of our actions' you get another discussion.
But then it's never that easy, because we always feel the need to substantiate any emotion we put in our ideas, and you're back to square one. And we are all convinced it needed to be single minded and direct as well, which doesn't really help the case.
All the more important the preliminary analysis becomes: what is the real problem we are trying to solve here? What emotions and associations already exist for this brand, and how might they be changed or turned in a more favourable way?
And again: this proves that a solitary planner cannot come up with the goods, you need a strong creative reflection to create the necessary feedback loops to make this process work. Not whiny 'just tell me what we need to say' teams but people who think about the effect they have on their audience and the way they can steer this through various channels.
And one of the best things about the article: monkeys are funny and make for effective advertising.
Bill Willingham: Fables: Legends in Exile (Vertigo) How would snow white cope in the real world? And what would the wolf be like? Answers in here. I'm a bit too late to discover this and am having a hard time finding the second bundle, if anyone can help me out let me know.
Francis Preve: The Remixer's Bible: Build Better Beats Fancy me building better beats ;-) This is quite good actually, I'd be better of polishing up on some of the basics but this has got some really cool tips and tweaks.
Crispin Porter: Hoopla Probably one of the hottest shops around, so I was kind of curious. An intense experience for a book...
Beyond The Wizards Sleeve: Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Ark 1 Erol Alkan and Richard Norris on a psychedelic trip with Kraut- and Postrock influences all over. Great stuff but a tad harder to find, check out the Rough Trade webstore if you're interested.
Various Artists: Ed Rec Vol.3 Pedro Winter and the boys from the Ed Banger label are still very much alive. Some purists might try and tell you otherwise but they've still got it. Not for the neurotics among us though.
Hollywood Mon Amour: Hollywood Mon Amour I'd never take this out on the basis of the tracklist, but the female vocals and the attention to detail to every last song on here makes it into something truly fantastic.
Boys Noize: Bugged Out Presents Suck My Deck: Mixed By Boys Noize Excellent overview of some of the hottest stuff from the past years (with some rare, reworked classics dropped in for good measure). If you want to get a taste of what a dirty dancefloor can offer today, this is a fantastic place to start...
Carl Craig: Sessions Still going strong after so many years, and this (rare) compilation makes it that much clearer. And 'throw' will get you every time...
Alter Ego: Why Not ?! Funhouse techno redefined. Completely bonkers and all the better for it.
Daft Punk: Alive 2007 If you had not noticed, I love this album... this is Daft Punk at their best. Harder, faster, better than a normal album, and the crowd noise just makes it better
