The Communications Room

Buggers like this creep up on you whilst you are working at home!

Sometimes it is the little things that can make a big difference. So in the spirit of this and just doing stuff, I am going to blog for the rest of the year about all the simple things the brands I enjoy could do to improve my experience. Here’s entry number one.

We all know that artists make their money touring these days. According to Billboard, Madonna was the top earner in 2008 with $242,176,466. Not too shabby considering her album was only the 50th best seller. It’s not just because of digital downloads either (where Madonna was still only ranked 14th) people are generally getting off their backsides to see more live music, more often. However I digress, a simple idea requires simple blog post.

I was in my nearest high street music retailer buying the new Kaiser Chiefs album and when I got home I opened the case to find their touring dates. Awesome,, online I went and booked the tickets to see them in the flesh. A missed opportunity for the retailer I thought and perhaps a way to slow the migration of people to Internets.

So my simple idea is thus. Why don’t retailers sell tickets directly at the point of purchase and give away the album for free in return? I can just pick up the ‘Kaiser Chiefs Live’ CD + tickets package off the shelf, pay and save myself the time and pain of having to go online. Perhaps retailers also do a deal where they have a set amount of tickets assigned just for those people who actually don’t use the web and use their real world stores.

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When budgets are cut during tough times it’s always a bit disappointing. You can’t do exactly what you’d like, but in my opinion – it sorts out the men from the boys. What frustrates me even more however, is that smaller budgets breeds laziness. In meetings with other agencies over the last month I’ve heard people complaining about only having a couple of mill to spend. Yeah, it’s not the biggest but I’m pretty sure if you gave that to an entrepreneur they would wet their pants and make it work as hard as humanly possible.

According to the people in said meeting, you have to go for ‘maximum reach with such a tiny budget’ and ‘not get too cutesy as consumers won’t understand and miss the call to action’. Whilst I don’t think this is reflective of most agency attitudes these days, it does worry me that people are reacting this way as times get tougher. Agencies have a responsibility during this period to prove their worth and substantiate why they exist in the first place, not just save energy because we aren’t getting paid what we were. As society gets, err, well, more social. If we aren’t careful advertising spend could become an operating cost to clients who appoint community managers, conversation designers, or even Twitter Salesman to market its business. Case in example is Dell who has reportedly made $1m from Twitter alone to date.

Perhaps it’s not laziness, maybe it’s size? Complacency? Even a form of survival panic. Whatever it is I feel we need to push clients to become more relevant and more distinctive and not waste what budget you do have on buying as many eyeballs as possible and hoping a supposed ‘USP’ sticks. Come on people, a bit of optimism and hard work will get you through.

If so, I found one down Crown Street at the weekend. You might have previously known it as the ‘Puf N Stuff’ Clearence store. Contact details for Justin & Victor below.

Iain of Crackunit posted about this nice little touch to the shopping experience by the convenience store Co-op. Whether this collects valid, useable information is beside the point, at least I feel like they are trying to make me happy. Here’s his post.

Japan undoubtedly thinks of everyone. Even those people who are travelling with dwarfs and would like them to watch you do your business. Is this post too wrong?

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I have been to some rough places in my 28 years. Rio’s Favelas, La Paz’s San Pedro prison, watched kick boxing in Bangkok, stood next to the infamous Ultras of River Plate during a BA derby and Sompting Village cricket ‘ground’, which can get nasty are up there among my faves. But when I got to Sydney I was in for a nasty shock. Basically I moved into my apartment with a roof top terrace and as I was admiring the view of the harbour bridge, I was horrified to find that someone had thrown a per of shoes over the power lines. Yes, I know scary as, I need to move I hear you say! As I walked around I saw more and more of these intimidating objects and after many sleepless nights I asked someone yocal what the hell it was all about. Apparently this is how the gangs in Sydney mark their territory.

I´ve seen some strange stuff whilst I have been away but this is up there with the best of them. Whilst walking along the plush streets of Palermo in BA I stumbled across this.

To add to my confusion towards Argentinian motorists I was baffled by all the half full bottles of water on car roofs. I wasn´t very good at science but I´m pretty sure it wasn´t attracting the blistering heat away from the car to be stored magicallly inside the bottle. Then I thought it was perhaps just an old wives tale, but as it turns out it is a sign to say the car is for sale. I don´t know how you are supposed to contact them. May be they put a message in it! Not sure what is wrong with the good old single minded proposition, for sale, along with contact details.

The Jane-O-Meter has been fairly quiet recently until it registered this new Bradford and Bingley ad. It would seem that there has been an error in the casting.

The Jane-O-Meter said: ‘Oh my god she is annoying. I’m sorry I can’t stand her irritating little face, turn it over’. I’m sure it’s nothing personal, but here’s a more expansive critique.

Sorry if this generates even more information overload for planners, but I think it’s worthwhile.

iTunes have just launched, iTunes U, ‘the campus that never sleeps’. You may have noticed it on your iTunes interface already? It’s basically 100s of free lectures from some top Universities in the US. I haven’t had the chance to have a good rummage, but there are a couple in there I’ve spotted that look interesting. Particuarly lectures from MIT’s comparative media studies course. Which features the fantastic Henry Jenkins.

You can read The Guardian’s article here.