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Don’t Create An Ad, Create A World

2012-02-08T19:03:00.001+02:00

This article was first published at IHaveAnIdea where we provide content.

I was fortunate enough to be in New York a couple of weeks ago for a DDB global chinwag. We talked about advertising and DDB’s philosophy towards advertising, which the network has in spades thanks to its founder Bill Bernbach. He revolutionised the industry, he taught us that advertising was about insight, originality and engagement. Everything he said back then is still powerful and true today. One of my favourite Bill Bernbach quotes reads:

“The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realms of imagination and ideas.”

He’s right. You will never find the answer in the brief. Planning will not tell you how to write an ad. You’ll get the facts, an insight, some research – but the rest is up to you, the creative. Always has been, and will be for a while yet.

One of the themes we keep coming back to in this ‘post-digital’, ‘neo-brand-network,’ ‘always-on’ age is, “what does an idea look like? How do you judge an idea?” Bill Bernbach talks about imagination and ideas. Creatives know how to use their imagination, they know how to come up with ideas – but what’s an idea? Do we still need Big Ideas, and if we do, what is a Big Idea? I’m not going to pretend to have the answer, but I can hopefully shed some light on the discussion that took place in New York and takes place in agencies all over world, every day.

Let’s try a bit of philosophy ourselves. What is a Big Idea not? It’s not a TV script. It’s not a key visual. It’s not an iPhone app. It’s not a QR code. It’s not a Facebook app. It’s not a tactic. I could go on…

A Big Idea is a thought that keeps giving. A Big Idea is a world you can occupy and keep drawing on. Let’s jump out of advertising for a moment into the realm of the novel. I don’t know if you’ve read Fatherland by Robert Harris. It’s essentially a gumshoe thriller with a twist: what if WWII had ended with a truce rather than an allied victory? What if Hitler was still alive in 1964? What if the regime had covered up the Holocaust? When Robert Harris had this idea he said he couldn’t sleep because of the possibilities that flowed from this construct. The idea kept giving enough for him to write a novel that sold 3 million copies.

Movies create worlds that the studios can draw on film after film. It used to be all about ‘High Concept’, now it’s about the world – which is why Harry Potter was such a gift. (It has, unfortunately, also led to Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers and the Star Wars prequels.)

The Big Idea gives creatives a world they can occupy. They can almost physically enter it and see the possibilities surrounding them, like the Robert Harris novel. What’s more, once the client has bought your Big Idea and entered into your world, they are with you for a while. There’s no shopping around the back alleys for tactics from any old tin-pot agency, they are your client for as long as you can keep mining your world. And the awards cabinet should also benefit – being able to go back to a well thought-out rounded strategy that keeps giving is never a bad thing.

DDB Amsterdam won endless awards and built the strongest insurance brand in the Netherlands with their world “A for Apeldoorn” – an everyday Dutch town, where unlikely and surprising mishaps happened to its residents. Every ad ended with the name of the insurance company and the line, ‘Just Call Us.’ Whatever happened, the insurance company was only a call away, and whatever happened, creatives could come up with idea after idea within this world.

‘The most interesting man in the world’ by Euro RSCG even has the thought in the title. It’s the Chuck Norris Internet meme taken to a classy place and it’s a world that the creatives and consumers online all enjoy playing inside.

A Big Idea is not a line, but it can be a line, ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat” (created in 1957 at JWT, made impotent in 2004 by Nestle when they changed it to ‘Make the most of your break’, and now changed back) shows the power of a Big Idea wrapped in a line. But it’s still a world – the world of stress and the need for breaks. Which creative wouldn’t still love to be let loose on that line? …Oh, the ads you could create, the apps you could come up with – it’s a fun world we all want to immerse ourselves in.

W+K have created a world for Old Spice. There isn’t a consistent line that holds it together in the eyes of the consumer – but I bet you any money they have the brand idea written down and stuck on the wall. But these days the consumer is more surprised, more intrigued and more likely to share the work when the work isn’t landing a heavy line every time. Instead they are invited into a world, into a surreal and modern place where men are on horses and bears are in sidecars. The Big Idea doesn’t have to wear its heart and its message on its sleeve – as long as the clients understand it, the creatives can work with it, and the work is consistently great.

The acid test is always Nike+. How does it fit into this theory? Simple, Nike+ opens up the world of running. It still uses the Bernbach powers of persuasion to bring you in – it promises you that if you enter this world you will get more out of running, run more often, be fitter etc. It may be a product, a service and advertising bundled together – but it’s a world the creative can play in, the client can understand and the consumer enjoys being a part of.

A final case for creating worlds, not ads, is that it will change your agency. It will break down the walls between traditional and digital; an app will be as much a part of the world as a TVC. And your clients will keep coming back for more.

It’s a theory you can stick in your David Ogilvy pipe and smoke. We all love Big Ideas, we like to be a part of new worlds and these worlds have the power to unite and ignite.

But I’ll let Bill Bernbach bring me back down to earth:

“Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.”

Written by Chris Baylis, ECD, Tribal DDB Amsterdam.

Tags: amsterdam Comments: 0
‹ BACK TO NEWS...

via tribalddb.com

NIKE+ FUELBAND - COUNTS

2012-02-01T10:51:00.001+02:00

How the hell do Nike do it again and again! Fresh! Nike rocks!

Japanese Band Finds a New Way to Make Money: By Selling Parts of Its Video

2012-01-25T13:22:00.001+02:00

The Japanese band androp has released a new video for their catchy single "World.Words.Lights." with an interesting commerce component to help them make benjamins in this new digital era. The ten high-tech toys dancing in the video are being auctioned off on ebay. #1/10, the androp WWL rocker, is currently up for bidding at a price of $5,000. Get your checkbook ready. Agency: Party.

via thedenveregotist.com

‪POSTER RELIEF WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT

2012-01-20T14:14:00.001+02:00

I love this because this poster campaign creates an entirely new and novel experience using one of the oldest techniques available - not flying high tech technology involved here - just the age old scratch away system. Watch and enjoy

TALK ABOUT NEW BUSINESS MODELS

2012-01-20T14:07:00.001+02:00

via brinx.it

Brinx is a new URL shortening service that lets you brand your links for only 0.99$ a month. A small price to pay to ad existing face value to your brand. What a simple and wonderful idea.
http://brinx.it/?firstlook

Lay's Vending Machine in Argentina - YouTube

2011-11-17T10:18:00.001+02:00

I love the idea of creating a fantastic muchies machine that has one purpose only - prove to consumers beyond the shadow of a doubt Lays is nothing but fresh potatoes, a little oil and salt. Nice!

HARRY POTTER TECHNOLOGY HITS MUSEUMS

2011-11-07T11:56:00.001+02:00

Truth is I love the campaigns created for museums in the last decade. from Tate Tracks to the museum of London's Street Museum, I think they add to the visitors experience and help bring the pieces of art closer to the visitor - enabling a more intimate viewing experience. The campaign developed for Warsaw Sukiennice "Secrets Behind Paintings" is no exception. Borrowing from the Harry Potter popular culture icons of animated talking paintings - the museum brings the story behind each painting to life. Wish they would make this a travelling exhibit. I'd definitely go.

Holiday Serendipty

2011-11-07T11:30:00.001+02:00

via vimeo.com

the concept introduced by Virgin airlines is simple.
log in your port of departure and date of departure and return.
Choose the weather you would like and discover 24 hours in advance where you are flying to. Now that makes for new discoveries!

The Useful Banner Ad

2011-10-23T00:35:00.001+02:00

IF YOU ONLY READ ONE THING THIS WEEK THIS SHOULD BE IT: Google #Firestarters 3: Building A New Agency OS « BBH Labs

2011-10-02T01:59:00.000+02:00

Google #Firestarters 3: Building A New Agency OS

30th September 11

Posted by Mel Exon

Posted in transformational change

4 comments

For the third event in the Google #Firestarters series its curator extraordinaire, Neil Perkin, chose to tackle the issues of “legacy structures, processes and thinking” head-on with the question: “what might the operating system for the agency of the future look like?“.

It’s a hairy, humbling monster of a question, not least because talk of new agency structures and ways of working so often teeters precariously on the edge of empty buzzword bingo (check out Tim Malbon’s post last year on Agile as a cargo cult).

On Tuesday night, Martin Bailie, James Caig and I were given 20 minutes to share a response. I attempted to avoid painting a picture of an agency built of silicon, and instead set out to describe something rather more prosaic. These days, perhaps more than ever, agencies are almost ALL about culture; their operating system a set of programs designed to encourage creativity and responsive behaviour, not codify inflexible structures and processes. Get the culture right and the rest follows. So the question becomes: what sort of agency culture do you want to create or be a part of? And what about all the contextual stuff we perhaps need to consider first?

A simple take on the impact of technology

We’ve known for years that the opportunities to buy mass attention are shrinking by the day, just as the opportunities to earn and measure attention become ever more enticingly available. If today Google’s Panda algorithm places ever more pressure on businesses to boost the signal not increase the noise and Facebook’s EdgeRank reduces the visibility of brands that send users to sleep, imagine what this will be like in future. At its simplest, it adds up to the same thing: ALL marketing – not just the rare handful of brands that regularly win awards – needs to be *genuinely* useful or entertaining. If not, marketing will become that thing that marketers and agencies fear the most: unseen and unheard.

If we can just wake up to this fact, this is a show-stoppingly great moment in time for our industry. There simply isn’t room for me-too, clutter-up-your-life, half-baked ideas, or one way messages dumped on the web dressed up to look “interactive”. However, there is lots of room for marketing done with skill and purpose, that people want to share, remix and make their own.

I’m calling this Marketing Singularity – an absurd title, which I’ll explain it in a second. For now, I just want to restate how it feels that we’re at a tipping point in our industry’s life cycle. If we can just set ourselves straight, it’s going to be epic. Let me explain why and how…

Is the pace of change exponential or logarithmic?

Let’s start with a question that’s at the root of why we’re having this conversation in the first place: the oft-discussed pace of change. Jeremy pointed me to a speech made earlier this month by Ben Hammersley, who spoke with provocative eloquence about an incumbent generation of leaders losing ground on a ‘Internet era’ revolution racing away from them. Around the same time, Matt Edgar wrote a spirited rebuttal to the common assumption that the pace of change is accelerating.. It feels important to decide where you sit on this debate, because if the pace of change is exponential, then it follows we need to have systems in place that encourage us to plan a lot further ahead – or react more nimbly – than we have currently. Or perhaps that isn’t the point. The pace of change may or may not be accelerating, but the pace of life is de facto faster than it was, say, five years ago. And whilst Matt questions whether technology’s exponential rate of change actually impacts on our lives to the same degree, I find that a peculiar assumption. Technology doesn’t sit on the sidelines of our lives these days: it’s embedded, root and branch. What’s more, the technology companies themselves regard speed as a competitive advantage (“Better products, faster” – Larry Page, Google shareholders’ meeting, 2011). Last week’s avalanche of tech news (again) is a case in point.

Marketing Singularity?

In fact you could argue we’re approaching Marketing Singularity: the point at which marketing is forced to become exponentially better, until it is so useful or entertaining it ceases to be a separate, stand-alone, one-way message and instead becomes indistinguishable from the product or service it promotes.

It might be content, it might be a framework or a game that invites participation; or even participation that gets displayed as a game. Platforms are brand operating systems, campaigns are applications. As Ben pointed out earlier this year, these are not binary.

Marketing as a profit centre, not a cost

Taking this to its logical conclusion, shouldn’t we aim to create marketing products and services that are so good, people are prepared to pay for them? Even if this approach isn’t what’s required (perhaps a Freemium model is the way to begin), I like the responsibility it places upon our shoulders: make marketing valuable to people. Looking further out, we may look back on the days we spent millions of dollars just paying for the privilege to reach people as a little odd. Brands like Audi and Red Bull are early experimenters in the guise of brands as committed media owners / publishers.

The kind of agency OS this demands

A few programs for starters:

Reductive thinking everywhere

At Labs, we admire the ruthless economy, flex and energy of a great start up as much as the next person. Kickstarter and Instagram are two of the better known examples of Minimum Viable Product thinking. For any agency worth their salt, the fundamental principles of MVP should not feel new. Great brand strategy and creative have *always* been about the art of sacrifice. The task now is to apply that mindset throughout agency departments: reduce to MVP, then listen (data) and pivot as required. This becomes all the more important when we look at shifts in business stability: from long periods of stability and short periods of disruption, to the reverse. This is a model for marketing too – let’s get comfortable with an environment that needs to flex and morph.

Silicon vs carbon

As Rishad Tobaccowala said a few days ago, ‘the world may be digital, but people are analog.” Any agency OS needs to be built around people, not technology.

‘Big is a collection of smalls’

People habitually join agencies like BBH from colleges and smaller agencies because they want to do something at SCALE. Accordingly, the very last thing we need to do is shy away from growth. Instead, the best agencies are increasingly breaking into nimbler, cross-functional teams, often with hybrid skills and collaborative in mindset. As Nigel Bogle puts it, ‘big is a collection of smalls’. Teams with autonomy, but access to shared services.

Whilst we should cast for the client or task in question (don’t take the team structure I sketched too literally), it’s worth drawing attention to the ‘broker’ role. If you’re interested in non-traditional media partnerships and thinking, you need a deal maker in your team.

Networked, versus in a network

We cannot do everything ourselves. With every layer of complexity, comes a deeper requirement to nurture and build strong external partnerships. Labs is a product of its network, plain and simple.

Foster Renaissance (wo)men

We’ve said this before, but we’re living through a Renaissance period. To be successful, we need fearless people who want to collaborate and learn from other industries. Deal makers, entrepreneurs, makers.. The people who never hold back from making the thing they dream of, just because the tools don’t exist today. Because they know they’ll exist tomorrow.

Make real things

You don’t need a 3D printer to make stuff or experience the benefits of making a proto-type of your idea. Making an early version of something – even if it’s rubbish (many years ago, I remember taking a mockup of a Boddingtons Tetra pak to a client meeting, to sell the idea of ‘Fresh Cream’. They hated it) – teaches you stuff you don’t find out if you stay in theory mode. So go buy a soldering iron and make something… There’s also a non-too-subtle shift going on between experiences that live entirely online (potentially interesting) and those that straddle the real world too (potentially fascinating). Check out Russell Davies’ piece for Campaign and the brilliant Marc Owens’ Avatar Machine if you want to read more.

Stay curious

Adopting and encouraging a culture of constant learning sounds exhausting, but it may well be the only way to stay sane. Learn to code, get comfortable in the wild, stay open, stay curious – I’m enjoying playing with my Weavr thanks to @zeroinfluencer – create your own here. A phrase used often at BBH and which turned up on our login screens this summer is perhaps an apt way to close: “Do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you.”

via bbh-labs.com

KISS - KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID

2011-10-01T23:29:00.001+03:00

What I love about this campaign is that it is so intrinsic to our behavior online. So what's it about - well basically your everyday charity brief - "we need money - please help us get some".

But what these guys did about it was smart. People in the online world like in the offline world use a lot of swear words. It's built into our 21st century DNA - swearing I mean.

It used to be our parents would set up a swear jar; and every four letter word cost us dearly. That is unless we didn't mind getting rid of our weekly allowance in under 12 minutes...

Well these guys figured why not set up a public money jar - and make good use of the swear$.

The website they set up http://charityswearbox.com is really quite straightforward programming....the idea on the other hand is just smart. Take a look.

<p>Charity SWEAR BOX from Fueled on Vimeo.</p>

Virgin is incubating a "Culture of Play"

2011-10-01T22:31:00.001+03:00

This kinda goes back to my previous post about "incubating a culture of play".

Today in the digital and social media age, many of the best advertising ideas are not ads. Take Apple, Google and even Pepsi. Their breakthrough approach to marketing is not only changing the future of advertising, it’s changing our culture.

On September 10th, Kyocera, via Mother New York, created the Echo Temple, an interactive music experience for the Virgin Mobile Freefest, a one-day music festival in Columbia, Maryland, attended by over 50,000 people and featuring Cee Lo, Patti Smith, TV on the Radio, Deadmau5 and the Black Keys.

The interactive sound installation allowed users to play virtual musical instruments by moving their bodies in front of motion-tracking cameras. The Echo Temple included six monolithic speaker towers with motion tracking cameras encircling a central tower including subwoofers. Participants standing in front of the monoliths were able to manipulate a different melodic instrument’s volume, pitch or unique audio effect by moving their body and waving fans branded with special symbols. The central tower produced the core of the mix: drums, bass, drones and the main harmonic progressions, and had architectural bamboo that could be tapped to trigger percussive sounds within the mix.

As you would expect, this became a social media phenomenon on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Talk about engaging consumers.

As I constantly preach to my agency colleagues and clients, we’re in the ideas business, not the advertising business. Well done, Mother.

Reblogged from fueltheculture

Incubating a Culture of Play

2011-10-01T22:09:00.001+03:00

So many nuggets here. Minimum viable product, experimenting, beta thinking, culture tapping, behavior over medium. No, digital does not equal repeat media. It's a must watch...

http://www.onlineschools.org/state-of-the-internet/soti.html

The State of the Internet Live

2011-09-26T07:58:00.001+03:00

By OnlineSchools.org

Innocent Drinks #TweetAndEat campaign - The Social Business Feed

2011-09-25T20:58:00.001+03:00

via michaelbatistich.com

Seems like this was just waiting to happen...Groupon meets Twitter. there is really very little to say except: smart! Via http://michaelbatistich.com

100 Bullet Points from #CannesLions 2011

2011-07-25T15:00:00.001+03:00

Amazing @jessedee!

Energizing Posters

2011-07-24T12:51:00.001+03:00

Vitamin Water bus-stop ad lets devices juice-up before the commute

By Joe Pollicino posted Jul 17th 2011 3:27AM

Battery running low during the rush-hour commute? Glacéau's Vitamin Water Energy Bus Shelter by Crispin Porter & Bogusky wants to help you get charged while you're waiting to board. The new billboards feature a bottle of the vitamin / caffeine-packing drink, sporting a triple-USB port, which you can plug your devices into for some extra juice. Apparently, you'll be seeing these if your daily public-transit hustle takes you through the fine cities of Boston, New York, Chicago or Los Angeles -- we'd imagine owners of HTC's Thunderbolt will find them very useful.

via engadget.com

On Creativity...

2011-07-03T10:07:00.001+03:00

Titanium work was being done long before new technology and social media. Take The Macy’s Day Parade created in 1924. A brilliant brand-building creative idea. Not an ad but a piece of creative that is still building a brand today. Let’s commandeer the start of the biggest shopping month of the year with the ultimate shopper, Santa Claus, showing up on our doorstep in Herald Square. Now, that's an act.

I worry that if we created The Macy’s Day Parade today, we would do it for one year and then ask, “What will we do next year?” Because repeating an idea certainly doesn’t seem very creative. Not to mention, it has very little chance of being awarded twice. However, if you are trying to build a brand with this idea, you might be inclined to keep investing in it.

It is ironic to me that we are in a business that frequently creates campaigns to encourage recycling and conservation. Yet, we are the first to throw away ideas because they’ve been done before or because we’ve grown tired of them. Interestingly, Malcolm Gladwell’s "better-to-be-number-three-than-number-one" seminar nodded to this very thing. Watch what number one does and then do it better. Perhaps that is why we shouldn’t be in the business of creativity. Because that demands that we start over. I would suggest we are in the business of building brands through creativity. We will make slightly different choices if Cannes awards brand building through creativity versus creativity in a vacuum. Brilliant brand building creates equity, and equity has huge value.

via fastcompany.com

This is an excerpt of an article published in Fast Company by Susan Credle CCO at Leo Burnett USA...I loved Malcom Gladwell's lecture at Cannes and believe Susan's commentary is insightful.
To put it in a nutshell, Yes - it is about innovation. No- it is not about wiping the slate clean and restarting from zero but building on an idea and getting better at remixing - ideas, trends, insights. Building off existing concept and remixing them into an innovative point of view that creates that moment when you say "I never thought about it that way". Just a thought.
For a the full article follow this link http://www.fastcompany.com/1763405/does-the-ad-industry-really-need-a-festiva...

Coca Cola "Liquid & Linked"

2011-06-29T11:56:00.001+03:00

Wendy Clark discusses "Liquid and Linked" approach to cross-media marketing at the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York.
Watch live streaming video from adage at livestream.com

via thecoca-colacompany.com

The strategic vision and thinking behind the Coca Cola Brand marketing.
A must read.

To Hell with ads, Spark a movement

2011-06-29T11:24:00.001+03:00

Here is the great presentation deliverd by @hklefevre on behalf of Strawberry Frog at their Cannes Lions Workshop 2011. About tapping into pop culture and communities and sparking a movement rather than a campaign.

100+ Beautiful Slides from Cannes Lions 2011

2011-06-29T11:19:00.001+03:00

Carrying on his great series of presos this is probably the most comprehensive round you will get on the most brilliant lectures presented at the Cannes Lions 2011 festival.
Always great reading @Jessedee.

12 Trends from Cannes 2011

2011-06-29T11:16:00.001+03:00

I just got back from Cannes and here is a good digital round up of trends hitting our industry. Take a look.

Music Industry Spins New Business Models

2011-06-06T13:48:00.001+03:00

'THE FUTURE IS MEDIEVAL' WITH THE KAISER CHIEFS

We’re finally able to talk about this. It’s been shrouded in secrecy within the agency for over a year now.
Wieden + Kennedy London have teamed up with The Kaiser Chiefs, B-Unique and and Fiction Records (a division of Universal Music UK) to create a whole new way of releasing an album.

Everybody gets their own bespoke album that they are then allowed to sell on.

Fans can pick 10 songs out of 20, design their artwork and download their album.
We give them their own web page, banner ads for their blog, posters and social media tools to advertise their album. For every album they sell they get a pound.
If you don’t want to make your own album then you can browse and listen to other people’s and just pick one of them.

The plan was hatched by our creative Oli Beale and lead singer Ricky Wilson in a fish & chip shop, while on holiday in Cornwall together. The conversation snowballed into a bigger and bigger idea and we’ve had a full-scale team working on this here for months now.

Nothing like this has ever been done before. The financial model has required fundamental changes to the way royalty payments work that couldn’t have been done without the might of Universal Music UK behind it.
It’s been an incredibly exciting meeting of minds. We’ve learnt a lot of things:
1.    Never show a band a Powerpoint deck. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I’M LOOKING AT HERE!”
2.    Look after the hardcore fans of bands.
3.    Use the band as creative directors. They are brilliant.
4.    Being a band manager is an insane job that doesn’t allow for sleep. Respect.
5.    Record labels and Ad Agencies are very different places but full of very similar people. I think we all learnt loads from each other.
Who knows what stories this will throw up in the next few weeks?
Will somebody make a fortune selling an album?
Will other bands make their own versions of the album?
Which tracks will emerge as the favourites?

Pop back soon to find out.

Make one yourself here: Take a look here: http://www.kaiserchiefs.com/

via wklondon.typepad.com

The Butterfly Effect

2011-06-01T19:35:00.001+03:00

I read an article today saying that my old bosses are retiring, well to be exact, it said they were taking a step back, to make way for a new and younger generation of creative managers. I am happy and sad as well.

Happy that my friends are being given a chance to move up, prove themselves, face new challenges and grow from them. Happy the agency feels the need to grow, change and morph into something new and hopefully more powerful.

Sad I guess, because although I left the agency some 7 months ago, in more ways than one, I still consider it home. I had the privilege of working closely with at least two of the agency's partners, but I am happy to say I learnt something different from all three. If I can call myself a professional today, it's because they gave me the opportunity to grow, nurtured my curiosity and fed me with ever more difficult challenges.

I recently read somewhere that when caterpillars morph into a butterfly, at the cocoon stage - if you were to open the cocoon - there is nothing but goo. I guess it takes a lot of energy to create real, pervasive change and create something truly beautiful. Something that can generate a butterfly effect. For those of you not familiar with the concept, the theory goes that something as delicate as the flapping of a butterfly's wings can cause a tremendous ripple effect on the other side of the world.

I know this may sound like rambling to some of you, but I had to get this of my chest. So to my friends and former bosses, I wis 'Bon vent' (french for may the wind always be in your back).

Sent from Eva Hasson's iPad

The Tweeting Fridge on Vimeo

2011-06-01T13:04:00.003+03:00

via vimeo.com

The Tweeting Fridge on Vimeo

2011-06-01T13:04:00.001+03:00

via vimeo.com

See the full gallery on Posterous

The Creative Brief by Tom Fishburne

2011-06-01T12:54:00.001+03:00

via tomfishburne.com

Following text from Tom Fishburne about the creative brief which will make a lot of sense to anyone in advertising.

"Creative briefs may be brief, but often they aren’t very creative.

Rupal Parekh wrote an AdAge article on poor creative briefs last week: “Marketers, Quit Blaming Your Agency — It’s Your Brief at Fault”. It includes this illustrative quote from Casey Jones:

“If you rated the industry on a scale from one to 10, with one being a horrifying piece of direction and 10 being optimal, I would say that companies are currently somewhere between a two or three. The norm is partial, incomplete and sometimes no brief at all. A phone call or a text message comes across to the agency, and the agency is trying to read the client’s mind and they go off and start executing. Agencies go off and do stuff and then the marketer comes back and says ‘That’s not what I wanted’”

I’ve worked on both sides of the client/agency table, but learned the real power of a well-written creative brief from Eric Ryan at method. As an ex-agency planner, Eric understood that a quality creative brief unlocks quality talent at an agency. He put as much energy into a creative brief to an agency as he would to a creative pitch to method’s biggest customers. With so little marketing spend, the quality of the creative had to carry the weight.

Instead of a brief, write a manifesto. Instead of a brand promise, convey your brand purpose. Instead of bullet points, tell a story.

A creative brief should not just inform. It should inspire."

I believe the brief has indeed, over the last few years, been neglected and is in many cases , written in a very stereotypical way – one that leaves little to the imagination. It's become about ticking cases and filling in blank spaces, rather than inspiring creatives and the agency at large to do great work. Funnily enough, a friend of mine sent me the Skittles brand book. I think some of it was very inspiring:

Reblogged from: litmanlive.me

The Museum of Me

2011-06-01T12:50:00.001+03:00

Although we've seen the Facebook stream experience before, this is a beautifully realized experience by Intel. Give it a shot: http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm

Think small

2011-05-17T13:06:00.001+03:00

A must read by Gareth Kay. It's about agile, iteration, baby steps, doing, making, bridging gaps, being useful and entertaining, and thinking SMALL...sooooooooooo worth reading. Enjoy.

Coca-Cola Highway Cinema

2011-05-12T10:26:00.000+03:00

These guys really know how to spread a little happiness.
To liven up people's hour long stay in traffic, Coke set up a giant cinema screen over the Bogota's busiest streets, and in true cinematic experience fashion while ushers distributed new Mini coke bottles and other snacks, drivers were prompted to tune in to a special radio station and enjoy the movie.
Great entertainment if you ask me. Take a look

Kinect Fitting Room on Vimeo

2011-05-12T10:14:00.000+03:00

via vimeo.com

I just love what a little hacking can accomplish. This technology is actually Kinect based and for anyone who really hates shopping, this is probably a really great and effortless shopping solution. Would love to know when this tech goes mainsteram.

Prius Records is Coming

2011-03-29T10:01:00.001+02:00

Real time advertising is coming. On March 30 & 31 Prius will be holding a two day live event to break 200 world records. Definitely a space worth watching. www.Toyotapriusprojects.com

Eva Hasson

Ogilvy notes on the new retail experience

2011-03-18T12:46:00.001+02:00

tumblr_li3m01PJu71qgm1xxo1_1280.jpg 1200×776 pixels

(Sent from Flipboard)

Sent from Eva Hasson's iPad

Lynx has angels falling from the sky

2011-03-16T12:39:00.001+02:00

via digitalbuzzblog.com

I love the interaction with the brand: cheeky, surreal and fun.

Honda Jazz: Interactive TV Ad / iPhone App

2011-02-03T12:29:00.001+02:00

Honda Jazz: Interactive TV Ad / iPhone App
Wed, Feb 2, 2011
(5 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
4 Comments

X
Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed or my daily buzz emails for updates!
Here is something seriously cool. Honda has just unveiled an interactive TV campaign called “This Unpredictable Life” to launch the new Honda Jazz, and with that, an iPhone app that allows you to literally grab content from the ad as it plays.
The campaign was created by W+K London and uses whats called “screen hopping” that works by having sound from the TV ad recgonised by the iPhone App, so when pre defined sound waves are read, the app knows to display the same character that was on screen at that moment, essentially giving you the ability to interact with the TV ad in real time.
Screen hopping takes this a little further though, once you’ve got the character, you can interact separately with each one away from the TV ad, by doing things like singing into the iPhone to make characters dance. Give it a crack. Download this app and then watch the TV ad here.

via digitalbuzzblog.com

Trends 2011 - Backchanneling

2011-01-24T21:10:00.001+02:00

via bafta.orange.co.uk

The Orange Bafta Flickometer is just the latest in a number of backchannel campaigns.What started with the Grammy Awards and Weareallfans website, continued with the The MTV VMA Twitter Tracker and The Hills series and the entry of GoogleTV &co. is bound to develop into something that is going to become really powerful.
via bafta.orange.co.uk

Trends 2011 - Internet of things

2011-01-24T20:21:00.001+02:00

via vimeo.com

Call it the internet of things, online and offline colliding...I don't care. There have been some pretty cool campaigns this year using collision between the real world and online world beginning with the Nike Livestrong Chalkbot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNg-rQR6z84 and on with local initiatives like the Coca Cola Real Life Like machine based on RFID technology http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkz15wAc6Ew.
My bet is this trend is just gonna get stronger. Look out for new applications.

Trends 2011 - Random acts of goodness pay off big for brands

2011-01-24T19:52:00.001+02:00

via thefeed.orange.co.uk

orange have come up with a plan to help you cheer up your mates and gbeat winter gloom. Send a winter warmer to a friend - tweet #WinterWarmer with your friend’s name or Twitter name. They’ll ask you for their address and race over to your mate with a van full of hot chocolates and scarves.
So if you're in the UK - give it a shot.

2011 Agency Predictions | Forrester Blogs

2011-01-24T17:54:00.001+02:00

Over the past couple of years we’ve seen some dramatic shifts in the agency landscape. In what Forrester has dubbed as “The Great Race For Relevancy”, virtually every type of agency is now competing with each other like never before. Social media has become the great land grab and all just about all agencies are claiming to be “digital” in some ways. We don’t expect the agency landscape to shake out and make sense in 2011. In fact, we expect more dramatic shifts. Here are some agency predictions for this year:

Agencies continue to hire and develop talent outside of their heritage. In 2010 some interactive agencies like Razorfish and EVB began hiring“earned media specialists” while some PR agencies like Waggener Edstrom and The Horn Group built out interactive creative services. Meanwhile, some agencies with traditional creative heritages like Weiden + Kennedy, were pioneers in developing content that is truly agnostic to digital and traditional channels while also interactive (see Nike and P&G’s Old Spice). Expect to see these trends become mainstream in 2011.

Media planning and buying agencies begin to broaden their horizons. While other agencies have been making fundamental changes to adapt to the ever changing digital environment, media planning & buying agencies are still very much focused on paid media (and are still compensated on volume of spend). While some have been successful integrating online and offline media teams, 2011 will open the window for dramatic change. These agencies will begin to take advantage of new digital media tools (e.g. DSPs, RTBs, exchanges, etc.), the growth of connected TV’s, and analytics platforms to move beyond just planning and buying advertising to expanding communication planning services that make them key strategic advisors to their clients. Look for agencies like Starcom Mediavest (with help from the Publicis Vivaki group) to pioneer this space, while those agencies that fail to evolve will become less relevant.

Agencies mature with social media. Certainly the great majority of marketers have a long way to go in figuring out how to integrate social media into the organization. But overall we’re seeing marketers mature in this space and their agencies are maturing as well. While many different types of agencies are still battling for the overall strategy, many are now falling into place in their core skill sets: PR agencies tend to manage word-of-mouth and crises, interactive agencies tend to build strategy and applications, traditional creative and media agencies leverage social to compliment campaigns, etc. Expect this trend to continue as marketers continue to mature.

Mobile (along with tablets) becomes the next big land grab. With the massive growth of smart phones and tablets and the continued focus on emerging markets like India that have high penetration of mobile ownership, agencies are already fighting for mobile work. With their technology know-how, interactive agencies are in the best position to help marketers navigate The Splinternet but considering the opportunity in this space you can expect all agencies to have some form of mobile expertise in 2011 and beyond.

A whole new crop of specialists appear…again. Technology is moving so fast that new shiny objects are being created almost every day. 2010 was the year of social media boutiques like Big Fuel, Ant’s Eye View, and Powered (recently acquired by the Dachis Group). New types of agencies (or non-agencies) are constantly popping up. 2011 will spawn new types of agencies in the emerging space. Consider Breakfast, an agency consisting of what you might consider inventors that focuses on futuristic experiences or Zugara, a firm that specializes in augmented reality. And many of these agencies will be scooped up by the big holding companies looking to fill out their skill sets. (Speaking of acquisitions, let’s not forget that some big digital agencies like AKQA, Rosetta, and IMC2 are still independent and will become increasingly attractive to the holding companies looking to expand their digital portfolios in a highly competitive environment).

Everyone continues to (pretty much) fail at analytics. Analytics positions are hot at agencies right now. Every type of agency is trying to improve their capabilities. But the truth is marketers themselves are still very much fragmented in their approach and, until that is sorted out, the great majority of agencies will be stuck managing the data in their corner of the world. Expect improvement, especially with real time metrics, but agencies will continue to struggle to tell the full story through analytics in 2011.

Technology innovation becomes the new creative. Agencies are often hired based on their ability to generate “ideas” (though I would argue it is only one of many reasons they’re hired). This won’t change moving forward, but the way those ideas are manifested is changing dramatically. And while you don’t need to be an engineer to come up with ideas in the digital age, it helps dramatically when the agency has the ability to understand what can and cannot be built. That’s why agencies like SapientNitro are succeeding in expanding their business model – because they can balance the head in the clouds ideas with the feet on the ground know how.

So what does this mean to you as an interactive marketer? Well first you can expect more agency confusion as it will continue to be difficult to determine which agencies excel at the many different digital services. However, it also opens doors to working with new types of agencies. For instance, interactive marketers have always been more comfortable with building and buying media (i.e. owned and paid), and if your interactive agency isn’t up to speed with earned media, then you have the opportunity to work more closely with the PR agency to learn new skills. To succeed in this environment you should commit to your agency relationships (i.e. don’t hire them to be strategic and then treat them like vendors or vice versa), set clear roles with the agencies, and constantly evaluate your agency performance and knowledge.

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See more posts for Interactive Marketing Professionals

via blogs.forrester.com

Just went throught the Ad Age A list and thought that the agencies listed on it were telling to this article and how spot on it is.

Your Life is a Transmedia Experience

2011-01-23T10:28:00.001+02:00

via griffinfarley.typepad.com

This is probably one of the best transmedia presentations I have come accross in a long time. Well worth the read - via Propagation Planning

Trends for 2011 - Backchanneling Orange Bafta Flickometer

2011-01-23T10:05:00.001+02:00

via bafta.orange.co.uk

How storytelling can enhance digital projects

2011-01-18T21:42:00.001+02:00

10 business models that rocked 2010 | Board of Innovation

2011-01-11T09:24:00.001+02:00

via boardofinnovation.com

Coming up with new Business Models is a challenge, one that requires reframing the question and looking at things from a new angle. This year some remarkable new models that have emerged - Groupon that you no doubt have all heard of (with an army of copycats sprouting up all over the world) and my personal favorite 'Pay with a tweet' - a kind of forced viral where if you want to access the proposed digital concept, all you need do is tell you friends about it. Enough said. Take a look at the preso here by @nickdemey

256 Ways to love a music clip

2011-01-04T10:39:00.001+02:00

This is a new music video clip from an Israeli Artist called Yoni Bloch.

The clip filmed in 24 hours, is an interactive experience that allows you at certain crossroads of the song to choose the pathway you will follow. You can choose the protagonist to follow throughout the clip, the music style you prefer to hear the song in (acoustic vs. rock), the solo you prefer to listen to (guitar vs drums vs voice vs keyboards). All in all, there are 256 different ways of listening to this song and viewing this clip. An experience that will keep the viewer coming back for a fresh experience over and over again.

Well enough said - have a look and take a shot at at it:

Most Contagious 2010

2010-12-12T00:36:00.001+02:00

Why planners and creatives should become best friends

2010-12-11T10:21:00.001+02:00

When the Mad Men Model No Longer Works

2010-12-05T21:42:00.001+02:00

I love reading Edward Boches posts. Somehow they always manage to spin a new light and fresh perspective on things. This presentation is no different and puts forth the thesis that the 'Mad Men Model' of doing things has long past.

In fact we are living through times that are more challenging than ever making working in our industry not only fun but interesting as well. We have gone from the "Bernbach model" of doing things to the "T shaped" model. From one where size dictates success, to one where agility and nimbleness are key.

To put it in Clay Shirky's words 'we are living through the disorientation that comes from including 2 billion new participants in a landscape previously operated by a small group of professionals": a reality in which consumers can bend multi billion dollar companies to their will but also contribute, participate and influence.

We're talking about a new reality where brands need to create and evolve around communities, create experiences that do not impose themselves onto the consumer but rather invite them in while building on people's interests and passions while allowing them and enabling them to play an active role in evolving the experience even further through collaboration.

Sadly, many people in our business still do not fully grasp the scope of this change transferring old traditional models from the real world sphere to the digital one. But our world has changed forever. Irrevocably....and our business had better take note :
'If you don't like change, you will like irrelevance even less'.

3D Palm Top Theater (2010) - W+K thingy

2010-11-17T07:58:00.001+02:00

via wkthingy.posterous.com

Fun changes the way we behave

2010-11-13T20:24:00.001+02:00

via edcotton.posterous.com

Remember the VW Fun Theory campaign? Well it operated under the presumption that fun could incentivize us to change our behavior for the better. Seems like they were right - here is the winning idea put in action. Enjoy

You Don't have to change, ....survival isn't mandatory

2010-11-12T10:33:00.001+02:00

via charlesfrith.com

This is a short video of Tim Malbon from Made by Many explaining at the IPA how the agency has adopted agile, real time processes to turn out work for their clients. There are lots of little nuggets in here, but what especially struck me was the agency's work processes - the outright definition that the agency does not create online banners but platforms for its clients. A process that means involving the client in the actual development, sketching and brainstorming process. Physically having in the room, contributing to the process which is no less interesting. A process that is iterative and resembles a jazz jamming session rather than an orchestrated music piece. A process that leans on quick sketches of the process and a visualization of it as a journey. I am probably rambling...so guess you'd just better watch the video to get what I am talking about.

IF YOU ONLY READ TWO ARTICLES THIS WEEK, THESE SHOULD BE THEM

2010-11-10T19:45:00.001+02:00

So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?

16th October 09

Posted by Ben Malbon

Posted in Brands, social media, transformational change

40 comments

(Jointly authored with Greg Andersen, our MD in BBH New York)

The imminent publication of Forrester’s new report on the challenges facing clients – “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age” is a welcome turning of the spotlight toward client organizations. Without question agencies of all sizes, shapes and persuasions need to get their collective acts together and transform into leaner, more agile, more creative, & more technology- and data-fuelled businesses. The best in the business are no doubt all plotting how they can come out of this recession leaner, meaner, quicker, better.

But that’s kind of pointless unless clients adapt too.

We’ve not got hold of the report yet; we’re looking forward to getting stuck in, and are intrigued by the ‘new 4 Ps’ presented in the report: permission, proximity, perception, participation (AdAge covered some more of the detail in this piece from last week). But the idea of adaptive brand marketing is something we’ve been kicking around for a while at BBH.

We believe marketing communications are already being forced to become increasingly agile; particularly for more youth-oriented brands. In such a fast paced and dynamic media environment, relevance is increasingly determined in the moment. Recency matters. Audience and attention are fleeting. Fame spikes … even for the famous. For brands to achieve and maintain fame in this context, it’s our view that communications for certain types of brands must make a dramatic shift from highly polished epic launches to a continuous and diverse stream of messaging and content designed to ride hyper-current cultural trends, consumer attitudes and competitive maneuvering. The performance of this diverse activity continuously monitored and optimized like a portfolio of stocks … kill the under-performers and reinvest in the ones showing returns. However, this ‘continuous beta’ mentality is a big leap from 18-month planning cycles and dogmatic, rigid testing protocols, despite its more real-time and real-world feedback.

Just as this is culturally challenging for many agencies, so it will prove for marketing organizations. As marketing becomes more technology-powered, with learning more real-time, it will be critical to identify who is responsible for leading within marketing organizations … and more importantly, who is empowered to make decisions on the fly. Committee decision making and hierarchical organizational structures, for all their perceived benefits, won’t hold up to the strain of an accelerated process.

So in advance of the full report, here are some of our starters for ten (or seven, actually) on how client structures, skill sets and approaches might adapt to deliver ‘adaptive branding’. We’re learning as we’re going, and as usual we’d value your input, opinions, builds or disagreements.

We’d particularly like to hear about clients that are exploring new ways of engaging agencies, and new forms of leaner, faster, more iterative & curatorial process. Again, there’s much we can learn from these pioneers.

1. Consumer intelligence at the center

We wholeheartedly agree with Forrester’s points around a more prominent role for research. We all have an increasing number of highly sophisticated, real-time and granular measurement tools at our disposal, especially in interactive environments. Adopting an agile approach to using this data becomes more significant; if one can measure everything, one must decide what really matters to avoid drowning or becoming paralyzed. Less, but better measurement, enabling more responsive data-powered marketing, should be the ambition (what Tim @ Made By Many called ‘Agile Measurement‘). These observations suggest an elevated role for the insight & research functions that can quickly distribute and integrate learning in real time.

2. Marketing as a catalyst for change within the broader company

This points to a potentially larger opportunity. It’s not just the marketing organization that needs to reorient itself given the now normal digital age, but the company itself should consider how it reorients itself around its marketing organization. In most progressive companies, it is the marketing function that has most quickly and deeply engaged with the new interactive toolkit. This expertise can play a role well beyond the traditional confines of marketing communications. For example, a proper understanding of social media tools and the proper employment of resulting insights could impact everything from new product/service innovation to customer service to crisis management.

What some, such as Dachis, are calling ‘social business design‘ is a significant opportunity in which marketing teams could play a leading role in driving efficiencies and creating new models internally. Marketing as a revenue source and a genuine competitive advantage, not just a cost. If marketers want a seat back at the big boys’ table, this is one potential way of getting it.

3. The networked organization

The structural definitions of, and relationships between, agencies and marketing organizations must change if companies are to ensure access to the very highest quality and leading-edge partners delivering at speed. With the emergence of what Forrester call “the federated organization” (we prefer ‘networked’) Global brand leaders and directors need to be able to cast elite teams of people (talent that spans several departments, companies or geographies) to get best results and avoid capacity bottlenecks.

This places special emphasis on an evolved role for ‘lead agency’ partners, both providing the conventionally critical services around quality control and coordination, but also performing a new casting director role for marketing directors; knowing whom to bring into a project, and when, and then managing that engagement. Further, client organizations must foster a culture of generosity and collaboration both within their organizations and across multi-agency teams to get the most out of them. Just as dogs and owners look alike, so do clients and the culture of their agency roster (but let’s stop right there with that analogy).

4. Brand leaders as curators

Without question, global brand leaders do need to become more responsible for evolving marketing assets and them adapting to local markets (in many cases this is already happening, for example with some of the Unilever brands with whom BBH works). However, we believe this evolved role needs to go well beyond adaptation and coordination. We envisage an increasing role for both client and agency organizations as not just creators of content, but as curators as well. In a world awash in content, time can be saved by smart curation and the hacking of existing properties. Not everything needs to be conceived of, crafted and produced from the ground up every time. This is particularly important as brands move beyond the development of the traditional ‘campaign’ and start evolving more ongoing platforms that need growing, managing, sustaining and refreshing.

5. Reframing investment timelines

With campaigns evolving into programs and platforms, the annual planning & budgeting framework currently used to allocate monies needs revamping. This is clearly challenging, but if some marketing activity is designed to build long-term enduring platforms and other marketing is to be more opportunistic, then it seems sensible to begin to think about marketing investment in a parallel fashion. We agree that a more active and fluid approach to marketing investment is the correct approach, but this places even greater emphasis on agile and, as much as possible, live measurement.

6. To fail is to learn

We think client organizations need to find new comfort in failure and place increased value in learning as long as both happen for real, and in close to real time. Embracing more of a continuous beta mentality means getting communications into market more quickly and less expensively … with early real learning as the result. This beta learning can help redirect the program while it’s still being developed instead of after its finished. A marketer can spend 10 months of theoretical testing in artificial environments and a highly polished, highly researched program still has a chance of failure, or in many cases creates no real impact one way or another. What good is the post-program audit? The budget is gone and the market has moved on.

7. The time is now

Historically, recessions have proven to be crucibles of change. The current recession is already turning out to be rather more of a complete reset for the industry than a temporary dip in revenues. Structurally, the smartest agencies and agency groups have been quietly plotting not only their future size, but also rebuilding their capabilities, simplifying their processes and gently retooling their skillsets. The smartest marketing organizations must ensure they are doing the same.

So who’s doing this well?

No doubt the Forrester report will be full of strong cases of where this is already happening. We look forward to that.

But we’re after your examples of clients re-inventing process, resourcing models, cultures in the pursuit of better work, produced more efficiently. Whilst it’s perhaps easier to highlight examples of where this *isn’t* happening, let’s try and stay focused on things we can learn from.

Let us know.

Reblogged from: http://bbh-labs.com/so-what-exactly-might-adaptive-brand-marketing-be

The Real-Time Brand

Published at November 10, 2010 in Uncategorized. Tags: No Tags.

Brand communication to the masses used to be an expensive proposition. It involved painstakingly producing assets, buying media, and long leads times.

Campaigns will always be with us, but now most brands have their own media channels as well, many with millions of opt-in subscribers. We can access all those people at a touch of a button.

This is an amazing, and unprecedented thing. But with that power comes changed expectations. Social is an immediate, and human medium. The expectation is a conversation, which means immediate reaction, real-time discourse, and timely topic starters. It means being of the moment.

Gatorade has a created a dedicated control center where they can listen to their audience, see trends and conversation spikes, and respond in real-time.

It might seem like PR, but it works. Comcast’s pioneering twitter customer service uses a custom Radian6 setup, allowing them to respond within minutes to customer gripes or questions.

McLaren have automated their real-time communication. The F1 constructor live streams data to the website during F1 races and tests, including live stats and real-time commentary between the car and the pit.

BakerTweet allows Albion Bakery to send out immediate updates to fans when their breads are fresh out of the oven, just by a flick of a switch.

The real-time extension of Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign delivered on-the-fly episodic content, scripting, producing and distributing 87 short videos in 11 hours, all in response to live commentary on Twitter.

Cultural relevance and relevance to the consumer’s needs is increasingly defined in minutes and days, not weeks or months. Increasingly brands need to be participating in 24/7, 365 conversation, and campaigns themselves need to become more agile and responsive. This is giving birth to the “real-time brand”, which is a fundamentally different way of thinking about and delivering marketing conversations.

Here’s a few initial guidelines for the Real-Time Brand:

Create your listening post
The internet is filled with millions if not billions of conversations daily. You need a way of honing in on what is most relevant in order to be able to meaningfully participate. Technology solutions such as Radian6 and Visible Technologies are a good place to start.
Find your voice
Be ready to react in the moment with your brand’s POV. This includes ensuring the people who are charged with manning the listening posts and social presence are able to and authorized to respond in real time, and can do so in a voice that represents the brand.
Shift from campaigns to content streams
Real-time brands have a steady stream of original content humming out on their social channels. Start by creating a conversational calendar and leave room for experimentation. The cost of creative failure is much lower, so try things, weed out the weak performers and amplify the rest.
Treat campaigns as living things
Rather than fire and forget, ensure your campaign budget allows for responses and reactivity, and leave room for your audience to get involved with them.
Automate to reduce information latency
As McLaren’s live commentary stream and BakerTweet show, real-time communication from brands doesn’t always need to come from people. Relevant and true real-time messaging can also come from connected products or automated triggers, cutting the information latency down to next to nil.
Invest
The resources required to support an ongoing conversation should be allocated separately to the traditional campaign budget, as the depth and on-going support required is a completely different model. Best Buy have tried empowering their entire workforce (to mixed results), while Dell’s success is built around a dedicated 45 person team. This isn’t somebody’s part time job, it’s a whole new way of bringing the brand to life.
Also worth considering is taking a page out of Red Bull’s book. They have inverted the traditional media model, investing as much as 90% in execution vs 10% in media. They produce great events and content, and then leverage earned media and PR get it in front of millions of people.

The shift we’re seeing is just beginning, even if it’s fast becoming an imperative. If you have any other principles or great examples of the real-time brand I’d love to hear them in the comments.

Reblogged from: http://geoffnorthcott.com/blog/2010/11/the-real-time-brand/

Media surfaces: Incidental Media on Vimeo

2010-11-04T18:51:00.001+02:00

via vimeo.com

Love this

St. John Ambulance

2010-11-04T09:58:00.001+02:00

Chilling to the core.

(R)evolution of a Worker

2010-11-03T06:46:00.001+02:00

via michaelbatistich.com

This is what the future is made of and it's happening now.
Reblogged from the Social Business Feed

Digital Blogista - SERVING UP A SMÖRGÅSBORD OF DIGITAL BITS & BYTES

2010-10-29T20:16:00.001+02:00

via digitalblogista.posterous.com

This is a talk, Faith Popcorn - the world's best known trendspotter gave a short while ago at a conference called "Idea City". While I came upon it serendipitously, some of the issues she spoke about in her talk really hit home.

I think the most important one was the fact that with attention being scarce and the consumer being in control, brands can no longer bank on capturing eyeballs or forcing consumers' attention. They have to grow into the lives of the consumers - kind of like a grassroots movement.

Culture has become the new media. Culture is no longer about just going to museums and dining at fine restaurants. Culture is what people are passionate about. So if you want to get a message out there, you have to weave it into the culture. The new future of marketing is going 'inculture'.

The talk is 17 minutes long - but time so well spent. If you have a moment...watch listen and learn. It's worth it.

IKEA - Slide that door!

2010-10-23T08:13:00.001+02:00

via vanksen.com

I love the idea that passersby actually have to interact with the billboards and the actual product (closets with sliding doors by Ikea) to get the full message. The message goes something like "Ikea has a solution for every situation). Smart, playful and effective.

Absolutely Stunning Sound Sculptures for Canon

2010-10-12T00:03:00.001+02:00

via vimeo.com

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=df7rw7vz_338cz6ngnd6

THE CREATIVE INTERNET

2010-10-11T18:59:00.001+02:00

Every year, the guys at Google Creative Labs put out this really great compilation of some of the world's most creaive and innovative ideas. It covers art, advertising, mapping, infographics and the internet of things just to name a few and is definitely worth a browse.

Give it a spin...

THE SHARING ECONOMY

2010-10-07T00:47:00.001+02:00

via shareable.net

This s a must read report.
Report courtesy of Latitude Research and Shareable Magazine.

Presentations from Planningness 2010 - how ta really make something by Made by Many

2010-10-02T13:40:00.001+02:00

via litmanlive.co.uk

Presentations from Planningness 2010 - How to make Apps

2010-10-02T13:39:00.001+02:00

via litmanlive.co.uk

Presentations from Planningness 2010 - Propagation Planning

2010-10-02T13:38:00.001+02:00

via litmanlive.co.uk

Thumbs up to Mark Lewis and the wonderful team of speakers he lined up for this year's Planningness conference! Hope I'll be able to make next year's conference. By the looks of it - this is going to grow exponentially.

IKEA | Unbox the Bannar | 1/3

2010-10-01T17:29:00.001+02:00

via showcaselink.de

Just love great banner ads - Lia Shortlist

Nokia Push Project: Sensors Track Board Tricks

2010-09-30T18:25:00.001+02:00

via posterous.freshpeel.com

Could this change the way we compete in the olympics?
Grading competitors for great stunts vs coming first?
Interesting and thought provoking...
via - Chris' Freshly Peeled

Remix Culture - The very best do it

2010-09-18T12:20:00.001+02:00

via nothalfwaythere.posterous.com

via everythingisa remix.com

Experimenting Trends - Nokia N8 Hacks

2010-09-16T22:21:00.001+02:00

Wiedens hacks up Nokia N8

Advertising, Digital

Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 16 September 2010, 11:22 Permalink Comments (1)

For the launch campaign for the Nokia N8 phone, Wieden + Kennedy has created a suite of films documenting various 'hacks' using Nokia technology, including a hamster-wheel-powered phone charger and Dot, a film featuring a 9mm main character

The theme of the campaign is to showcase 'a number of real-life examples of innovative hacks and modifications folks have devised using Nokia tech,' Wiedens say. These are featured in the launch ad:

So, we have Dot, a stop motion film by Aardman directors Sumo Science, shot on the N8 phone. It features a miniature world shot using the CellScope, a Nokia device with a microscope attachment.

And here's the film on the hamster-powered phone charger, a device invented by Peter Ash in 2005

And here's the story behind Ji-Dong Yim's N82 powered robots

And the skateboarding game

The campaign carries the strapline "It's not the technology. It's what you do with it" which no doubt is meant to be 'empowering' for Nokia customers, encouraging them to be creative and help Nokia get some of its mojo back, the manufacturer having lost ground to Apple and Blackberry in the smartphone stakes.

One quibble though, if it's "not about the technology' then why do I need a Nokia phone to do it? Maybe this is a sly dig at Apple's 'walled garden' approach, but it does rather suggest that, if you have the technical smarts, you can have fun with any old phone, not just a brand new Nokia N8.

via creativereview.co.uk

UNIQLO TWEET FOR TREATS

2010-09-07T22:59:00.001+03:00

via uniqlo.com

Uniqlo have launched a new campaign "Lucky Counter'.
For the launch of their new UK store they are asking people to tweet about any item on their page - the more people tweet, the more the prices goes down and the more people will get treats on September 9th.
If you ask me, this campaign rocks, big time!

The tippexperience: Subservient Chicken goes to YouTube

2010-09-05T07:56:00.001+03:00

OK so it's the upgraded version of the 'Subservient chicken' but I still think taking this to YouTube is a smart evolution of an existing concept and a definite 'pass-this on' to your friends for a couple of minutes of fooling around. Check it out!

Laughing and Making your own music

2010-09-01T02:45:00.001+03:00

The song goes "girls just wanna have fun', truth is people just wanna have fun. It's a basic need, it's healthy, it's a way of socializing, laughing together... it goes to the fact that as we grow older - we laugh less. We seem to have forgotten how to do that and spend a lot more time on 'serious things'. Babies laugh a lot and apparently a baby's laughter is one of the most addictive (and probably) contagious sounds there is. The effect laughter produces is medically documented: it makes you inhale and absorb greater quantities of oxygen giving you that feeling of 'perfect high-on-life'.

I'm probably ranting but my point is this:
any brand (and this is a non branded experience) that can provide people with this much fun and entertainment is worth spending time with. Just a thought

Blending dogital experiences with real life

2010-09-01T02:06:00.001+03:00

Love this futuristic look at how digital will probably continue blending with real life... looks like our future is bound to be layered with AR. Interesting.

Old Spice's Textbook Campaign

2010-08-05T12:01:00.001+03:00

via adweek.blogs.com

Last night W&K released their official case study vid. To be honest, a few months back, I liked the campaign but didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary - let alone "Grand Prix" Cannes material.

The brand's 'Response Campaign' changed my mind.
In a never heard of feat of brilliance, the brand decided to capitalize on the buzz and conversation the campaign had generated on the web and launched a three day blitz that started with a direct appeal from 'The man on a horse' to twitterers to send him questions to which he would respond with a personal YouTube video.

The genius of the team of copywriters, 'digitalistas' & co.was that they did not necessarily pick web-celebs to launch the campaign. Instead they chose people like you and me, with limited followings but a great affinity to the brand - people who had already blogged about the campaign a few times or twitter commented.

Within three days they sent over 188 tweets. That’s almost 4 tweets an hour non-stop for 50 hours. And here’s the stunning thing. Of those 188 tweets, 178 included a You Tube link with a video response to someone who had interacted with the brand in those two days. The replies included a marriage proposal, a Gillette promo, a get well message to Kevin Rose and much much more.

And after three days that drove the internet into a frenzy 'The guy on a horse' said thank and goodbye. OldSpice had managed in a matter of days to grab hold of 75% of all conversations in the category (half of them from women), score a 1.4 billion campaign impressions with a total of 40 million video views after the first week and a sales increase of 107% in the last month!

So why do I love this campaign so much? Because besides the mind blowing numbers this campaign has achieved, it is a textbook example of so many things we have been speaking about over the last year or so - from creating 'Spreadable Media' and moving a brand from mass culture to pop culture by creating social currency right down to 'Agile Marketing' and 'Propagation Planning'.

Wow guys! You really nailed it!

For a complete review of the campaign timeline and break-down of campaign stages I suggest you go here: http://www.alwaysozmatt.com/old-spice-a-case-study-0

Making real change in day to day agency life. Presentation by @uberblond of @BBHNewYork Love the idea of Gettin Voltron - The Social Business Feed

2010-07-26T18:37:00.001+03:00

via michaelbatistich.com

Primo New Zealand - choose your experience

2010-07-25T12:56:00.001+03:00

I really don't want to spoil the fun so all I am gonna say is you've got to watch both videos.

Calvin Klein's QR Billboard

2010-07-25T12:46:00.001+03:00

This past weekend, Calvin Klein Jeans replaced three of its billboards — two in downtown New York and one on Sunset Boulevard in LA — not with another racy montage of scantily clad models, but with a bright red QR code under the words “Get It Uncensored.”

Passersby can use their smartphones to snap a picture, which will pull up an exclusive, 40-second commercial featuring models Lara Stone, “A.J.,” Sid Ellisdon, Grayson Vaughan and Eric Anderson. After the spot plays, viewers can then share the code with their Facebook and Twitter networks. The billboard marks the official premiere of Calvin Klein Jeans’s Fall 2010 advertising campaign. Previous campaigns have debuted on more traditional venues, the company explained, such as broadcast and dedicated online sites.

QR codes are increasingly appearing in advertisements as a way to increase engagement with consumers. Although already common in Japan (where they were originally invented), they do not appear in many advertisements — much less take up an entire billboard. Most U.S. citizens still do not own smartphones, and even those that do don’t necessarily know what a QR code is or have the necessary scanning software to read it.

The billboards are clearly a test run for Calvin Klein Jeans, given that they will be up for only a little more than a week. If the videos get enough views, however, we can expect similar billboards in the future — both from Calvin Klein Jeans and from other brands. It’s often difficult to measure engagement with billboards, and QR codes help advertisers better measure their impact.

What do you think of the billboard? Have you ever scanned a QR code in an advertisement?

Eva Hasson| Trendspotting Director
13, Rozanis St. Tel Aviv, 69018 Israel.
T: +972-3-7468000 | F: +972-3-7468001 | C: +972-544-666283

blog : www.yr.co.il/blog

Cannes 2008

Winner of 5 Lions: 1 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze, 16 Shortlists

Cannes 2009

Winner of 4 Lions: 1 Silver, 3 Bronze, 11 Shortlists

Awarded 2^nd Media Agency of the Year

Cannes 2010

Winner of 4 Lions: 1 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze, 10 Shortlists

Levi's Goes Mechanical With Houston Street Billboard

2010-07-25T12:35:00.001+03:00

via adrants.com

I t would seem Levi's is testing a new mechanical billboard in New York. Adrants reader Floyd Hayes sent us this video of the board which he guesses will ultimately spell out "We're All in This Together."

It's an interesting execution. Nothing stunningly new but if the mechanics end up spelling out different phrases with the same mechanical wheels, that would be kinda cool. Video after the jump.

Cannes 2010 Winners for Press/Cyber/Design

2010-07-18T10:15:00.001+03:00

<div><div style="width:420px;text-align:left;">Open publication - Free publishing - More cannes lions</div></div>

Cannes 2010 Winners for Promo/PR/Direct

2010-07-18T10:13:00.001+03:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More cannes lions

Cannes 2010 Winners Film/Titanium/Film Craft

2010-07-18T10:01:00.001+03:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More cannes lions

Cannes Winners Radio/Outdoor/Media

2010-07-18T09:59:00.001+03:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More cannes lions

Old Spice - @Everyone - signing off

2010-07-15T12:47:00.001+03:00

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via adland.tv

@iaintait and his W&K team hope you get some well deserved rest after a truly awesome campaign!
I was on a horse!

Old Spice - @Everyone - signing off internet friends.

2010-07-15T11:42:00.001+03:00

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via adland.tv

@iantaint and his crew have got style!
I'm on a horse.

Cannes Lions Initiative "Unlocking The Power of Mobile"

2010-07-14T10:40:00.001+03:00

FROM CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE:
The mobile phone is set to overtake the computer as the most common device to access the internet.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, Bader cited new research from the Interpublic Group network, which surveyed 8,000 active smartphone users in the UK, the US, Sweden, China, India and South Korea.

He went on to say that when given the choice between having only mobile internet and having only computer-based internet, one third of consumers currently opted for mobile internet, noting this rose to nearly half among the most technically advanced users, whom he termed "innovators".

There were differences from market to market – in India for example, where internet access is limited, nearly half (49%) said they would choose mobile – but underlying trends were said to be "striking".

Mobile was identified as being used more in-home than out-of-home, with 60% of smartphone usage now taking place at home.

Bader said this highlighted just how much the mobile market had developed since its inception, when the main reason for owning a mobile used to be about making or accepting calls.

He said: "The truth is that laptops might become extinct inside the home fairly soon."

The number one activity for mobile internet was social communications (27%), followed closely by email (26%).

The agency has now released the survey called 'Unlocking the power of mobile’, which also demonstrated that mobile internet was not only about the youth and business consumer.

Smartphone users were said to be well spread across all age groups around the world, and were considered to be always on.

Across both weekdays and weekends, 30% of all smartphone users were said to start their day with mobile internet and 45% end their day with it.

Aegis Media Start in a Different Place

2010-07-14T09:54:00.001+03:00

Here's one more presentation from Cannes: Aegis Media "Start In A Different Place"

Too often the default solution to a communications challenge is to start with an ad. Yet when looking at the brands that have garnered the most attention and respect in the last decade, it becomes clear that many of them have started in a different place.

Malcolm Hunter looks at those brands that have successfully started in a different place, identifies the different types of places that are now available, and suggests a process for finding them

Old Spice ‘On A Horse’ Guy Replies to Tweets On Youtube

2010-07-13T21:42:00.001+03:00

via socialfresh.com

The Old Spice "I'm on a horse" campaign just got smokin' hot: Answering tweets with wacky vids on YouTube.

Many of my friends have adopted the "I;m a a horse" motto...to describe a wide range of situaions and while I liked the commercial, it didn't go much further than that.

Now I think it's brilliant. The commercial which started out as very likeable has just become very remarkable and very sharable. Old Spice with the help of W&K have turned a very “sharable” campaign and made it “social.”

They are now tweeting in the voice of the commercials and with the actor from the commercial as the avatar. This is great integration.

And to take it a step further, they are now shooting personalized Youtube responses to messages on Twitter. Check it out and tweet something to @OldSpice.

My friend shot a message out on Twitter the other day about how he loved the new Old Spice commercials. and it was pretty cool when he got a reply message on Twitter in character from the @OldSpice account.

Doing a commercial style Youtube reply? That takes things to a whole other level. THIS is remarkable stuff.

Live Twitter, YouTube and Facebook-Based Murals

2010-07-12T00:06:00.001+03:00

Live Twitter, YouTube and Facebook-Based Murals

via posterous.freshpeel.com

Real time tourism campaign - love it

Social media as an instrument of change

2010-07-11T12:38:00.001+03:00

Google Reader (1000+)

2010-07-11T08:23:00.001+03:00

YouTube Video Editor
from (title unknown) by rubbishcorp®

YouTube has finally introduced an on-site editor.

It’s not Final Cut yet, but it works.

Google Reader (1000+)

2010-07-11T08:17:00.001+03:00

YouTubePlay
from (title unknown) by rubbishcorp®
Popout

YouTube Play is a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum to unearth and showcase the very best creative video from around the world. To have your work considered, simply post it on YouTube, and then submit it at youtube.com/play. A jury will decide which works will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel – here.

Google Chrome FastBall

2010-07-11T08:12:00.001+03:00

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Google Chrome FastBall

A race across the internet…

To showcase how well the new Chrome native Flash support runs, Google has created a Flash-based game that sits on top of YouTube. It’s called Chrome Fastball and it’s a combination of YouTube video and a task-based activities that you have to complete as quickly as possible.

If you go here, you can have a pop – it’s fun.

via rubbishcorp.com

Slurp

2010-07-10T22:10:00.001+03:00

This is a mind blowing gadgets: it's called slurp and as it suggests it basically "sucks up" the information and reinjects it into other digital devices...wonder how this will affect the future.