Three of my favourite things, found via Amnesia Blog (Where I work)
This is why technologists do matter and why a tech head should be sat lovingly in the creative process.
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Context and a world of perfect media harmony
I can’t stress enough how important understanding context is when it comes to communications. In fact, I don’t think there is a more helpful word in the marketing dictionary of wank. Agency silos, land grabbing and out of date marketing department structures have a huge part to play in this, so without going into too much of an obvious rant here, there are two things that don’t allow us to see context.
Sorry, kind of a rant already, but the first one is opposites – the age old human behaviour (and marketing sensationalism) that requires you to fall on one side of the fence or the other. You can’t possibly believe in the power of influencers and mass media. And we all know that one media has to be dying in order for another to flourish.
The second is our inability to be human focused. Let’s be honest we all think we are, but stuff gets in the way of actually observing things through the eyes of actual normal people that buy our products. Things like numbers, brand tracking studies, media plans, focus groups and important meetings all contribute, as well as it feeling just all too simple.
However I came across this great post over at Plannerliness highlighting Ray-Ban as a classic example of this. Everything is happening in isolation without much consideration to other stuff that is going on around it. The result is below.
A lovely looking, well presented brand site
That is probably found via a line of text on Google surrounded by a lot that is probably unhelpful
It really shouldn’t be that hard to get your social media come, digital PR, come PR agency to strategically ensure that all search results on that first page are from positive and trusted sources. It wouldn’t be hard for a creative copy writer to work with the search agency to develop some good Keyword ads that are contextual, even if people don’t click on them.
It wouldn’t be that hard for an above the line agency to come up with a TV campaign that is more participatory and spills out in to Youtube, Flickr, Facebook etc. You get the drift, but it highlights how media, despite being fragmented, is more dependent on each other than ever before. I think Faris phrased it well somewhere as media now being additive not repetitive.
Posted in Communications, Strategy
The art of selling without selling is to have a side project
Some interesting things have been happening that I’ve only really properly noticed since I returned home to recession hit England for a holiday – and that’s loads of my friends seem to have a side project that they didn’t have when I left 2 years ago.
Now I don’t know if it’s the recession, as they always seem to give people a nudge to do something, or technology making things easier. It might even be something cultural, relating to consumer excess and wanting something more fulfilling in their lives than a nice car and money in their pockets to spend on over priced beer.
First of all there are the side business projects that are financially driven, but firmly rooted in something they love. Some examples include a Longboard equipment company, international surfing holidays, fashion and record labels to name but a few.
Then there are the non-financially driven people who have started bands, grown vegetables in allotments, become obsessed with a new sport or simply gone back to something they loved doing when they were younger such as painting.
Undoubtedly this is rubbing off on brands as they begin to understand they also need a side project to capture people’s imagination and engage them. Red Bull has always been great at this and Cadbury’s was one of the first to get this with its Glass and a Half Full Productions strategy. Now we have Coke’s Happiness Factory and a mission to make the world happy, but probably my favourite side project at the moment has to be VW’s Fun Theory. We have all probably seen the piano video but there is a series developing over at thefuntheory.com.
Good stuff. The art of selling without selling is to have a side project.
Posted in Communications, culture, Strategy
Posted in Uncategorized
Make the impossible possible
To be honest you could reframe this title as making difficult things happen. Increasingly I’m of the opinion that we should start with the product and treat communications as an extension and not just a bolt on.
This of course requires people to do things that they either don’t want to do, or just think it will be too much of a headache to achieve. The first headache is product people speaking to marketing people and the second headache which is really more of a migraine, is agencies working and planning together.
There is a heap of high profile examples such as Nike + and Fiat Eco Drive but I’m starting to see it happen regularly now, most recently Comparethemeerkat.com and Smithsdousaflavour.com.au. Both probably had a point in the process that required a real commitment to making these happen but thankfully made them happen.
Posted in Communications
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