Like so many I've banded the phrase web 2.0 about in meetings with a slightly hazy idea as to a definitive meaning.
Steve Rubel has attempted a very simple one here, and the following comments posted kinda nailed it for me so web 2.0 is "Sites that derive there value and growth from the actions of there users" or to put it another way, a decent pub.
So rather than clogging up message boards with convoluted technical dictates, just remember; web 2.0 = The Bread & Roses.
Just re-read yesterdays post, bloody dull, sorry about that. I guess the key message was that: the best festivals are chaotic, noisy, messy and filled with the air of unpredictability. Where as most brands despite what they'd like to project to there audiences are not any of the former.
The added disappointment is the general lack of creative innovation coming from the marketing agencies that are responsible for seamlessly blending brand / festival / audience.
For the moment I won't list best / worst. However this year I have noticed some grand work, with fab ideas coming from the following agencies: Iris, RPM, Cake.
Neil Boorman wrote a piece in this weeks Time Out (page 123) about the nature of corporate sponsors and there behaviour having matured over recent years. (he also plugged his brand burning event, which i'll skip but Russell Davis does that proud here) Neil is right most festivals this year were pretty full on 'brand experiences' BUT they had (on the whole) cleaner loos/better security and managed capacity compared to five years ago. A few other thoughts.
Most brands still do little to really imbed there values with the audience they have spent so much money attracting. The exception is Innocents Fruitstock where every detail reinforced the attitude of the brand. -Including leaving 'thankyou' tags on peoples bikes.
Southern Comfort had pretty much the same event presence as previous years (Big Chill/Bestival) but ran with some great new ads and promotions in the run up.
Carlings Reading/Leeds events caught the mood of the year with out any technology or branding gimmicks, For them an added bonus was Muse playing out of there skins at Reading, causing a mini stamped the following week to ebay for the bootlegs. Compared with the ham-fisted V festival Virgin brand antics, I imagine the Carling boys are feeling pretty smug.
Ben & Jerry's had a second go at there Sundae event, which with a £5 ticket price was always going to be oversubscribed. They did host an extra day to cover demand, but value is a precious thing and with such cheap tickets most punters had had enough mellowness and were heading for the bright lights of Clapham High Street long before the end.
Alfonso Cuaron's new film Children of men starring Clive Owen has some great typography in the publicity. BUT who ever laid the ads out only works in landscape format. The DPS is great, looks new and has the feel of an 'event' movie. The single page portrait however is a mess of type. To much information trying to say to many different things. Plus the dark tint at the bottom means you lose the futurist feel of the DPS. In fact the portrait ad reminds me more of historical conflict like Enemy at the Gates.
Since the upgrading of print technologies for broadsheets there has been a steady improvement in the use of colour in ads. I am quite taken by the subtle use of full colour bleeds. These two appeared in yesterdays Observer. both really stood out, not by being shouty but simply disrupting there host environments enough to catch the eye. An added bonus is readable body copy on both.
I am working from two different new offices this week, An intriguing view of contrasting attitudes to ways of cultivating creative thought. Russell Davies rather excellent blog covered similar thoughts recently. I feel every creative task could do with a slightly different environment so therefore any designed space will compromise. (That said I am going to spend a day in a Scottish field with a herd of cows next week, hopefully to resolve a number of rather specific creative challenges. ) Recent experience does prove that when agency directors spend large amounts of time with floor plans its a sure sign territory and not new ideas really matter. This weeks experience has made me consider a top ten of all the places I've worked, which I'll post soon, If I can really be arsed I'll put any pics I can find to prove a point about some of the grimiest places produce the best work, while the anodyne wide open spaces of a new build hi-tech curtail some of the wilder flights of fancy. Might also be something to do with the atmosphere created by in-house catering versus the pub over the road. The former producing lovely food at a subsidised rate, but the latter encourages more robust creative critique.
Been a rather big year for music festivals and there sponsors. I am supposed to be writing a bit on the future value of such activity . But this picture amused me no end. The Ben & Jerrys ice cream festival on Clapham Common. Does not matter how high the fence those Mr Whippy chimes are going to pull the punters.
I may be really late coming to this blog, but Seat Guru is fab. Just what bored salesman should have done all along rather than surf cheap porn in the departure lounge. If blogs are about opening up information for all to use this is a great example, now if you can overlay the events from Air Babylon (location of dead body storage & Air crew high jinks) you really would fly informed.
So Blogs may be the home of the over ego'd and under employed but they do present most brands with the dilemma of 'should they shouldn't they' With so many comments about the postive nature of digtal feedback. Do you go subtle and just seed a workers/company forum that becomes public by stealth or do you take out ads proclaiming your brand at the for front of web 2.0 with its new interactive feed back/up load/rate my CEO features. I suspect most brands are bumbling slowly into some kind of understanding that consumers enjoy the freedom and anonymous nature of online feedback. Rather than just a 'design-your-own' short term promotional campaign. Great article on both here. It is far to easy to list bad corporate blogs so instead a bunch that are all trying in there own way to shift brands along.
An unfinished brand? Honda. In this case the incomplete story is the appeal. I really enjoy there bravery. Most automotive marques shout at you with an arrogant confidence that there brand is just fine. Everythings sorted and within this years model line-up is a car designed just for your needs. The work that appears in the UK for Honda comes from a different angle, more a questioning approach about the process of design and function. Not some twaddle about parking sensors shot against a winding mountain road . This is truly amazing as it was not to many years ago when all the brand wanted to talk about (rather sheepishly) was reliability and safety. Neither bad things but not subjects that were ever going to make me consider the brand was aimed at anyone else other than an uncle from Bournemouth. Honda make just about anything with an engine, which does make them fab engineers with a slightly shaky reputation for visual aesthetics. In Japan and the US there are models that do counter the grey plastic reputation of 1980's Honda's. More here. I rather like this inconsistent global approach it even extends to there web presence. Later when I have more time I'll expand with more examples of fluid/solid brands.