D'you feel lucky?

Due to an early start meeting I had an overnight in the Midlands yesterday. This would normally mean a soulless room in a local travellodge. However once in a while you do come up trumps. Witness the borderline tasteful bridal suite I found myself in. Not sure if it was the four poster or sunken whirl pool bath that really did for me. -the stock policy of the hotel bar deserves a mention in itself -great malt selection but wines (and beers)  from the 1990's.

 

Close but no cigar

Philip Slade NOT winning an award.This is me moments before learning we did not win at the Revolution Awards. Never mind, he says with a big shrug, It was a great evening. Which ended in something of a blur, but no broken limbs this time, which must rate a success.

We lost out to a very pretty bit of work from Honda. The Ideas Playground. Amplified Journeys.hk will live to fight another day, still very much in Beta 1.0, we have some cracking improvements for version 1.5. plus a whole host of bolt on options coming.

Paying for ideas? or a seamless extension to a clients marketing department?

New agency types like www.creativeorchestra.org and www.anomalynyc.com are trying the paying for ideas route. Is this the way to break out of the current cycle of bogus pitches and constant 'cost reviews'?
Clients have been shedding staff from marketing departments at a rapid rate. Now more than ever you have brands that need complete support. A great idea poorly carried through will do as much damage as shallow thinking wrapped up in gorgeous execution.
We are in an amazing year for opportunities, media costs have never been lower, clients have never been more open to 'plan B' thinking. It might not be like the '70s golden age of advertising buoyed up by tobacco money. But I do see it as a golden age of communications. Clever smart messaging that reassures consumers they are making the right brand choice.

Better late than never

I have on many occasions expressed my dismay at the state of the labour Partys commuincations. It would appear that at last they are considering a fresh approach. I really hope some one at Labour HQ is brave enough to take (and act on) the advice given.

"...Thomas Gensemer masterminded Barack Obama's groundbreaking and astonishingly successful online presidential campaign. Could he help Gordon Brown at the next election? He thinks so, as he tells Stephen Moss and Sarah Phillips of The Guardian.."

Video of interview HERE

"...He is critical of the way British parties are currently approaching new media. "They have focused too much on gimmicks and what they can sell to the press," he says. "Now Labour MPs are using Twitter, but the political capital that went into getting a couple of MPs to Twitter probably wasn't worth it. Prescott's petition on the bankers has 15,000 signatures, but what are they asking people to do? You could have asked for different things that would create a greater sense of engagement. None of this is a technology challenge; it's an organisational challenge, being willing to communicate with people....."

Commuincation challenge, Research says our customers can't tell our cheaper product from our far more expensive version.

What to do? cloak everything in lush secondary packaging? talk about limited editions or celeb endorsements? mmm Starbucks would appear to be about to make a virture out of the fact, their $1 dollar coffee tastes the same as the $4 version mmm, this is going to be interesting.

Starbucks brews instant coffee for cash strapped customers

byStaff, Brand Republic 13-Feb-09, 09:00

NEW YORK - Starbucks, which built its business on selling $4 cups of coffee, is to offer customers instant or soluble coffee for less than $1, which it claims tastes as good as the real thing.

The Seattle-based retail coffee giant will begin selling an instant variety of coffee, called Starbucks Via, next month at selected stores.

"...Howard Schultz said that people being served the coffee could not tell the difference between instant and fresh brewed...." 

Now I drink a ton of coffee, am also very picky about where and what i order, so I find this at the very least an  intriguing challenge! hats off to Starbucks for giving it a go, especially for flying in the face of conventional brand planning.

Linkedin new apps

While Twitter appears to have gone from mainstream to overblown in a little over 30 days, Linkedin marches on with more and more add-ons & apps. Maybe its the lack of guilt, Which Facebook always carried with it.

New Google add-on Latitude is really cool and looks like it links with all the right platforms, love the privacy statements that you can set fictitious locations (Google suggests 'Victoria Falls' -WTF??) so your love ones needn't know all your movements 24/7. Neat! fantastic location based software that you use to tell people where you are not, genius.


Well at least someone was working yesterday

Just seen this in Eventmagazine.co.uk. A fab bit of work from media agency Curb. While the rest of us took part in the all  London Skive, The chaps at Curb did this for Extreme TV,  -snow tagging. A very neat idea fitting brand and enviroment perfectly.

More from curb HERE (as seen in trend spotter Springwise)

The President has a new web site

It was only a matter of time, But Presdient Obama has re-launched the Whitehouse.gov site. Obama's team dominated the whole sphere of social networks pre-polling day. Now he looks set to reinvent Government online. Watching David Cameron's Conservative.com playing catch-up is vaguely amusing, if it were not so sad seeing the Labour party blowing it (online and most other places).

I really really hope at the next UK election all parties allow the best of British digital planners and designers to actually do there jobs, but I do fear that all three of the main parties will pull a McCain - lip service web site, with a flat transitions to other digital channels. Good overview HERE from Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester research.

Virals -alive and kicking

Well its been around for a week or so, but the new Durex viral still makes me laugh. The sound track is excellent and the third dog's ears a moment of script inspiration. Plus the whole thing is a product demo (including 'ribbed' moment) Aimed at the US market, maybe that country really is changing. The spot was made by Superfad in New York who in the traditions of Pixar have made some amusing 'outtakes' from the shoot