Came across an interesting stat with regards Facebook breaking the 400 million user barrier last month. On both sides of the Atlantic a prime driver has been the playing of Sim type games like Farmville. Both US and UK players are manily proffesional women. However the age differences are really telling. Average of 31 here in Britain and +55 in the States
Well so far, apart from the Tories most of the pre-election communications have been rather dull and unremarkable. The Conservatives on the other hand are proving to be such a gift to the spoofers, HERE, and HERE you almost can't wait for their next mind boggling missive. Some of the regional David Cameron supporter groups have taken to Flickr with (unintentionally) hilarious results, really no spoof required.
An interesting view on the current debate about innovation (i.e. there isn't any) A group of writers (Norman Lewis, Nico Macdonald, Alan Patrick, Martyn Perks, Mitchell Sava and James Woudhuysen) have published a paper called: Big Potatoes, A new 14 point Manifesto for Innovation. I really like the insight that the Great Depression saw real innovations from companies that have gone on to be durable brands of the new century; Nestlé, Penguin Books, General Electric and Texas Instruments. But so far the credit crunch has seen almost the opposite level of thinking.
"..The Big Potatoes Manifesto is call to arms: for leadership and risk taking, for accepting failure and unexpected outcomes as the necessary and inevitable path to success, for bold and ambitious experimentation and an end to the instrumentalist short-termism which has institutionalised a culture of limits..." MORE
I feel energised by change. Doing the same as before has never held great appeal, even when you are not quite sure where change is going to take you. What you do know is that its going to be different and maybe involve a bit of work getting things right. Yesterdays launch of the Apple iPad is very much a case in point. The web is teetering on melt down so many people are expressing there opinions as to its potential success or failure. There are some extreme Luddite comments filling the forums, pick any, or start HERE with the Twitter stats. Even if against all the odds it does turn out to be a turkey -this century's Newton. The fact is they tried, Apple have taken a huge step in thinking. It is this ambition for change that I so like. Sure version 2 or 3 of the iPad are going to be way better, and the price will be half its current $800, particularly the school friendly Wi-Fi only $499 version.
Yes I am a Mac fan and I can't wait to use one, But more than any of that what I feel invigorated by is that here are a bunch of people for whom the option of a better Netbook or Kindle was never going to be good enough. Change is good.
Thinking more about the iPad, I actually like best the idea its not finished. This is Apple saying we trained you with the iTouch now play on something bigger. The iPads true place will become clear with version 2+ and the content designed during the coming 12 months. Way to earlier to call time on this type of thinking yet. remember how the games industry greeted the Wiii? rubbish spec? no place in the market? launch games are too simple?
A calm(!) 48 hours in Amsterdam with chums from the TopGear team.
Philip Slade, Amsterdam, Jan2010
seen in Tate Britain
Two ongoing debates have caught my eye at present. The first relates to my last post below. The air brushed David Cameron. Not only is the web now awash with versions of it, but you can now download your own poster builder app HERE. Brand Republic have a good discussion on the subject HERE. Not least becasue the Labour Party appears to have adopted one of them as an official poster HERE - a really new move in UK politics.
Next, the Pepsi; Super Bowl Vs Social networks campaign. Some very good thoughts and ideas about measurement (or lack of it) HERE. Plus quite a few neat asides about brand building with fuzzy logic.
I know I get excited by the smallest things, but the up coming general election in the UK is really going to be something. Not for all the reasons of potential regime change, but the cascade of communications. The very nature of the state of politics in the UK at present means fractural opinions are being considered.
The main parties being so frighten of an original or different view. Even mainstream press are considering the whitterings of the nuttiest blogger as light relief from the blandness of central office party line. I quite warm to Gordan Browns inept PR skills, his advisors attempt to lighten his image are so ham fisted its got to be some kind of massive double bluff, surely he can't really be that way? If David Cameron does become PM at least we should get some decent satire from the left at last. Those of us who remember how good comedy was under the last Conservative government know that really British humour only works when we moan about stuff, as for music, protest and anger songs have only ever worked under the Tories.
Social networks. The lack of American style fund raising will probably mean we won't see the cleverness of the Obama style social network activity. I would be surprised however if we don't see some pretty heavy weight SEO spending. What Obama did with Fox news misinformation so Labour should do with Cameron's media chums, However and its a big however. The modern Labour party is a world away from common sense and logical actions.
Humour
The early rounds of tit for tat ads are shaping up nicely. I do hope we'll see more of this. The ones shown on this page are all from the excellent Beau Bo D'Or
Some how this lost glove summed up my thoughts about the place, I often wander around in here seeking inspiration when I'm stuck on a brief or facing a tough meeting. Its just round the corner from the t7F office. The contents of this great museum appear like mislaid bits of global cultures spread out in a rather grand lost property office.
(I orginally posted a version of this on t7F blog)
Trendwatching.com have tracked how their December 2009 predication briefing for 2010 has been picked up and spread around the world. Following the ripples bended or morphed by global cultural and social conventions. This is a great illustration of the power of good content. I am amazed at how many brand owners still don’t see the opportunity this presents. The letting go of your stuff. Allowing it to be past on, customised and reapplied. More importantly is the creation of content specifically designed to be passed on. Content that has an open end, that demands comment or addition. It is the Lego theory of marketing.
kidbrick@flickr.comClosed worlds are becoming fewer and fewer. Thinking that your new campaign is just a Lego starter set with the customer in charge of a huge box of extra bricks should be the 2010 attitude
Everything aimed via mobile devices needs to have this element built in. The Apple iPhone App store would be nothing without this type of thinking. Toady’s launch of the Nexus One from Google should herald a widening of the idea of endless stories.
In Management Today, Tom Savigar of The Future Laboratory covers a similar area but applied to social media technologies. he labels this ‘Free range’
Everything a brand puts out is just a stage in that products narrative, if it has value users will take it on. The obvious flaw being thin or dull content that sits motionless. Be interesting and your customers will be interested.
There is alot to get excited about in 2010. Leaving aside the forthcoming: iSlate, Winter Olympics, General Election and World Cup. The world of marketing communications is facing so many cool opportunities.
Take booze (if the last two weeks were not enough) iPhone apps are showing the way to a whole new way of communicating the subject. With permission based services, pretty soon most drinkers will be able to be spoken to at point of purchase, whether ontrade or off. I keep banging about augmented reality, the over laying of digital information with real world locations. But this and other developments in location based services will change everything by 2012.
The trick is for brands to offer consumers real value and not rush into AR or Apps just because its new. The Stella Artois bar finder is a good example of a top idea rushed out far too soon. Some where between the richness of content in Diageo's malt matcher crossed with the AR capabilities of William Grants Spirit Shelf would be very neat. Especially if you could add social functionalty like a twitter finder or bar capacity into the mix. The app market changes by the day so all links to itunes/blackberry/Nokia app stores.
What's intriguing is once a consumer starts using the application and agreeing to hear and see what a brand has to say (in exchange for further content) Thats when paper POS really becomes redundant. I reall
y like the Smirnoff backed Time Out guide to London as an example of the early days of this technique.
For the drinks industry with all its legal and social issues. These new channels offer real detailed segmentation. The fact the NHS have a rather neat consumption tracker app is also a sign this channel will be key.
I gave a series of talks about augmented reality just before Christmas. The BBC have just published a neat round up of a few coming innovations in this area. The key point in all this talk of a brave new world of AR tech is that ownership of devices that can handle AR is still very small and wont break the 50% barrier untill well into 2011. The forthcoming iSlate from Apple and GPS enable digital cameras will broaden the base of users away from just phones. That said any brand owner not taking note of these developments is being very foolish.
"...AR is a technology that allows data from the web to be overlaid on a view of the physical world.
Although a relatively small sector at the moment, analyst firm Juniper Research predicts that AR will generate incomes of $732m (£653m) by 2014..." - Jane Wakefield BBC
I still feel that creatively we are only just scratching the surface of what AR can really do. There is a real challenge to agencies and brands alike to fully come to terms with the concept of virtual and real worlds overlaying each other.
Thanks to Glenn Ward. Reminding me of the short cuts that matter.
# = Alt + 3
€ = Alt + 2 (one for Daily Mail readers everywhere)
© = Alt + G
• = Alt + 8
= Alt + Shift + K
p.s. its just started to snow, woooah
Well, according to The Marketing Society, The most available time of week for a meeting is Tuesday at 3pm. Not sure what this tells us other than despite all the changes in online based work practices we are creatures of habit.
Ok so it did take the best part of a month to get going but the Mo has arrived! Pictures HERE.
This really itchy and frankly low rent porn star look is all in the interests of a very good cause, raising funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity. Last year over £14 Million was raised from 173,000 Mo growing men.
Hopefully you will find time to sponsor me as well. Link to my Mo page HERE.
Either way, happy Monday to you all (its just stopped raining)
I have always said that what we do is create waves. If you are too cautious the waves won't be big enough for people to see. Once you start a wave you must be prepared for it to reach something or at the very least rebound. Trouble is so many agencies produce work that hesitates as if afraid to cause a ripple. Steve Henry has written an excellent bit on this subject. He describes the effect on the agency Albion when they let the viral 'Slap Nick Griffen' free across the web. Details HERE.
"...And the agency was threatened with physical violence, which was why the door was locked. Now for me this is EXACTLY what a great agency does. Get stuck into culture, have an opinion, have a great creative idea, and get it out there fast. And make sure to stir it up. Using the wonderful world of social media. I'm getting sick of saying this, but 90% of advertising goes out there and does nothing at all..."
Lots of chat at the moment about the true effect on consumers of normalising social media behaviour.
I have a short bit in my Augmented Reality talk I have been giving, but found this by Dr Norman Lewis, seen on Spiked "...One of the most confusing things about the question of privacy, and what makes it so elusive today, is that it is far from evident how people regard their right to privacy, or how these attitudes translate into day-to-day behaviours.
The concept of privacy, once merely thought of as the right to be left alone, has been transformed as we have become more information-oriented and as digital technologies have come to ensure that almost everyone now has a ‘digital fingerprint’. The question is further complicated by the fact that, in recent decades, the boundary between private and public has become blurred. A new age of disclosure has emerged where reality TV and social networking sites now represent the ‘private’ face of public scrutiny..." (rest HERE)
Could a cut-price iPhone be about to appear? There is a new patent with Steve Jobs name on from Apple that talks of an invention for viewing ads on mobile devices, (seen on Slashdot) where the device locks until the ad has been viewed, it includes a 'process' where by the viewer must verify their presence before continuing normal use, i.e. you can't walk away and make a cup of tea. See full patent HERE*.
I wonder if this is an Apple version of the Blyk concept of free mobiles for teenagers in exchange for taking part in research and viewing ads. Apple have previous with education aimed devices.
If this was linked say to the new Apple netbrowser/tablet/mega iphone that's widely rumoured to appear in 2010 all the more interesting. The app store trend and the beginnings of an Augmented Reality advertising market does mean a rethink for the models of revenue generation across mobile devices. Has Apple jumped the gun by building in such capabilities to its new 2010 products?
** = Found via:Gene Quinn
Patent Attorney & IPWatchdog Founder
This is very good. Subject to change are staging a performance/art event at Battersea Arts Center. Difficult to explain fully but in a nutshell the audience build and maintain paper houses in a cityscape built on the floor of a large theatre space - sort of. Huge fun, not least because I was never quite sure what was happening - not least because you could wander of to the bar at any point. The event has already run in Brighton
Lee Mack and Frank Skinner check the direction of the First Class loungeBBC launched what is probably the laziest bit of programme making I have ever seen. 'Celebrities' race around the world in 80 days in aid of Children in Need. You can just hear the brainstorm now, "...what about the ghost of Micheal Palin mixed with a TopGear challenge and a sub Charlie Boorman travelogue.." What we actually got was Lee Mack and Frank Skinner travelling first class by train and hired mini bus, London to Turkey in Nine days, NINE DAYS!! they didn't even reach their destination on time. You could get a black cab to do it quicker than that! as for the required peril or disasters on route, we got a hotel key put in the wrong way round and a bit of confusion over a tourist visa in Turkey (something a gazillion Brit package holiday makers successfully complete every year) How stupid do the programme makers think the audience have to be to find this entertaining?
The only point of note in the whole show was the rather nice shirts both Lee and Frank wore. The rest was utter tosh of the highest order, even Sky won't have made something this crass.
Final word from the person responsible for green lighting this awful mess.
Jo Ball, BBC Commissioning Editor for Features, BBC One and BBC Two, said: "Around The World In 80 Days is an exciting part of our autumn schedule and we are looking forward to seeing some of TV's best-loved famous faces (BTW that includes Shane Richie) take part in this 21st-century twist on Fogg and Palin's epic voyage."
The twist being we just spend a load on a travel planner, get some second rate celebs to moan about being worn out, sat in first class all day, and heh presto cheapskate TV.
Just a word on these intrepid travellers (re: life changing experience, Frank Skinner) If you must avoid air travel, its still only 3 days by train to Istanbul and at a cost of £350 far better value than last nights nonsense.