livingbrands

We open on the beach of a desert island...

2009-11-06T16:46:17+00:00

…was always the joke made about agencies presenting TV ideas back in the day.

The modern equivalent seems to be "we have an integrated idea where we invite people to star in our next ad/write our next ad/(re)develop our product/some other (vaguely pointless) exercise (delete as appropriate)".

Now before the comment floodgates open, don't get me wrong: I'm a fully signed up member of the people-centric social/digital world. And I always want ideas that can be lived out everywhere. My problem isn't with digital and/or integration, it's with bad ideas (in whatever media) and knee jerk pursuit of the latest 'in' thing without any consideration of whether it is the right 'thing' to do in the first place.

Because if I hear another lame and lazy "let's get the consumer to do it for us" idea (or the suggestion that ideas which don't have this quality are somehow doomed to failure simply for bein 'old fashioned') I think I'll scream.

Let's face it, for every Walker's Do Us A Flavour there are 99 ideas (maybe 999) that people couldn't give a stuff about (which applies to conventional advertising as well, natch).

Take the Oxo Factor, which came up in a recent meeting as an example of a great comms idea - be the star of our next ad (yawn…wake me up when it's over).

Now I could be doing Oxo and its agency a huge disservice (happy to be told I'm wrong), but I had never heard of this idea (so much for PR). And as far as I could tell from the website, only about 40 people had been bothered entered. And we were already being asked to vote on the winner from a final 5 shortlist (all pretty poor)

And that's the problem with most of these ideas: integrated they may be, but often people just can't be arsed (only 1000 entries for the high profile Peperami brief, most from art colleges probably). So you end up chucking your money away on a bad idea simply because it ticks all the right 'cool and now' boxes on the comms check list.

But at the end of the day life's just too short for most of us, and if you can't answer 'what's in it for me' we just won't bother (Walkers' Do Us A Flavour worked because huge sums of money were on offer).

Personally, I would rather have an idea, of whatever format/media (old school or new school), that effectively met client objectives, than slavishly trot out the latest new thing as the only possible answer, even if the idea itself is clearly pants and/or the approach isn't right for the audience/brand (cos, shock horror, not everyone spends their day on Twitter and Facebook).

Case in point: Richmond Sausages - a good old fashioned TV commercial (and not even the most 'creative' idea you will have seen on the box recently) which has generated amongst the highest ROI OHAL have ever measured in the food sector, helping drive sales over the £100m mark.

Because it was on brand and connected with its audience.

And not an iPhone app, Facebook group or UCG 'opportunity' in sight ;o)

Up Your Viva...with horses!

2009-11-02T08:37:49+00:00

I will do a proper mop up on the social media impact of Up Your Viva (interesting mainly because it has just happened rather being something planned...which I guess is how it should be - over 200k fans now, on what was a punter-started page).

In the meantime, I give you an emerging sub-genre on Youtube which is making me chuckle: Up Your Viva...with horses (wonder why that is!)

10 things we didn't know before the 43rd week of 2009

2009-11-02T08:27:21+00:00

The city of Bath, in Somerset, was referred to as "The Bath" until the 19th Century.
Bears don't like honey, and aren't even very keen on berries and nuts.
Scouts can deliver post.
Barbara Windsor was the second actress to play Peggy Mitchell in Eastenders.
Tattoos can be done with a person's ashes.
The average American spends $66.45 (£40) on Halloween.
When a shark pup is born its liver makes up 20% of its body mass.
The world's oldest dog is 20.
The secret to a happy marriage for men is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger.
A man has been sent to jail for driving the motorised chair while drunk.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 42nd week of 2009

2009-10-25T09:45:09+00:00

Humpback whales' mating rituals can be deadly.
Galaxies that are 10.2 billion light-years away can be seen through telescopes.
Wine gums have the names of alcoholic drinks on them.
People spent £37m on cup cakes in the UK last year.
The spread of cupcake shops has been used to map urban gentrification in the US.
Bagged salad is photographed 4,000 times a second.
The most available time of week for a meeting is Tuesday at 3pm.
GPS locates the Prime Meridian 100m to the east of Greenwich Observatory.
Sales of Asterix books number 325 million.
The first watches appeared shortly after 1500 in Germany.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Up Your Viva!

2009-10-23T08:36:57+01:00

We've been working with MTV on the rebrand of TMF, their Freeview offering.

The new station, Viva, is out next week, and our work broke earlier this week.

The brief: get Viva noticed, and establish a clear personality for the station which resonates with its 16-35 year old audience, so that they'll check it out in what is a cluttered market.

And if you can, use the strangest looking bloke in advertising (actually, that was our idea)...

Showing the power of polarisation, we're creating waves and even getting some trending action on Twitter already despite a low spend.

UP YOUR VIVA!!

Deletion isn't permanent

2009-10-22T08:46:47+01:00

A while ago I wrote something online that I came to regret. It was meant as a silly, off the cuff comment…but one I hadn't expected to be seen in certain quarters. It was.

Apologies and deletions later, we have moved on.

And that is probably a typical strategy to a life lived on line - chuck it out there; delete later if necessary.

But is this actually a wise approach? Particularly when you read something that suggests deletion is no defence (probably in multiple senses of the word).

The article in question (in The Independent a few weeks ago) highlights the memory capacity of the net, and it's ability to never forget…despite our best efforts otherwise.

The experience of one person covered in the article dramatises this truth powerfully…

"In 2006, on his way to pick up a friend from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, [Feldmar - a well-respected Canadian psychotherapist] tried to cross the US/Canadian border, as he had done over 100 times before. This time, however, a border guard queried an internet search engine for “Feldmar”. Out popped an article Feldmar had written for an interdisciplinary journal in 2001, in which he mentioned that he had taken LSD in the 1960s. Feldmar was held for four hours, fingerprinted and, after signing a statement that he had taken drugs almost four decades ago, was barred from further entry into the United States."

So maybe it really is a case of publish and be damned, because it seems there is no going back.

Or maybe we simply need to start thinking just that little bit more careful before we hit those publish and upload buttons…even if that does take away some of the fun!

Things you most regret putting online - suggestions anyone?

(Thanks to Kester Brewin for the original link)

10 things we didn't know before the 41st week of 2009

2009-10-18T15:18:14+01:00

Earth's warmest year was 1998
Morecambe and Wise nearly split up, before they had even got on television.
Sailors in Tudor times had man bags.
Some spiders are vegetarian.
Each person has 1.5kg of probiotic bacteria in their digestive system, on average.
The placebo effect is real.
Boyzone sold more singles than Take That in the 1990s.
Culled rabbits are used to heat homes in Sweden.
William Pitt's dying words were about House of Commons catering.
Jeremy Clarkson's father was friends with the Monty Python team.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 40th week of 2009

2009-10-11T20:18:58+01:00

Male life expectancy in the UK goes up by about three months every year.
Fidel Castro stopped smoking cigars in 1985.
In the early days of barcodes there was a plan for round ones.
In the UK, 26 million addresses get post.
Japan has a theme park where children pretend to be fast food workers.
Only two serving US presidents won the Nobel peace prize before Barack Obama - Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.
The flash on David Bowie's Aladdin Sane album cover was inspired by the logo from a rice cooker.
Wild animals in zoos in Gaza have to be smuggled in tunnels under the border.
There was a royal blood disorder.
Low-quality females prefer low-quality males. In the world of zebra finches at least.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Say no to stuff

2009-10-07T13:24:31+01:00

In Monday's Guardian, Charlie Brooker (as is his way) had a pop at 'stuff': "There's too much stuff. We live in a stuff-a-lanche. It's time for a cultural diet".

As he says at one point...

"Every day we humans gleefully churn out yet more books and films and TV shows and videogames and websites and magazine articles and blog posts and emails and text messages, all of it hanging around, competing for attention. Without leaving my seat I can access virtually any piece of music ever recorded, download any film ever made, order any book ever written. And the end result is that I hardly experience any of it. It's too much. I've had it with choice. It makes my head spin."

So have a read. And maybe it is time we said 'no more' to the stuff-a-lanche.

Don't call your son James

2009-10-07T13:06:55+01:00

My son's school has done one of those 'snapshot' studies that can be of vague cultural interest: a breakdown of first names amongst the 1300 or so pupils (remembering that it's an all boys (state) grammar school in the South East). For the sake of brevity, I've drawn a line at 5 incidences...

66 x James
55 x Thomas
44 x Alexander
41 x Matthew
36 x Daniel
33 x Benjamin
33 x William
28 x Oliver
25 x Joshua
24 x Jack
23 x Samuel
22 x Christopher
22 x Joseph
19 x Edward
19 x Jonathan
17 x George
16 x Michael
15 x Nicholas
13 x Henry
13 x Robert
13 x Timothy
12 x Harry
11 x Adam
11 x Dominic
11 x Luke
10 x Andrew
10 x David
10 x Elliot
9 x Charles
9 x Mohammed
9 x Richard
8 x Cameron
8 x Jamie
8 x Lewis
8 x Sebastian
8 x Zachary
7 x Callum
7 x Jacob
7 x John
7 x Jordan
7 x Marcus
7 x Max
7 x Peter
6 x Ali
6 x Connor
6 x Simon
5 x Alastair
5 x Frederick
5 x Harrison
5 x Jake
5 x Mark
5 x Owen
5 x Ryan
5 x Tom

Changing behaviour

2009-10-06T09:47:32+01:00

How great is this: give people something engaging to do and they’ll change their behaviour accordingly...

(Thanks to Charles for the spot)

10 things we didn't know before the 39th week of 2009

2009-10-04T15:05:48+01:00

The UK produces 8% of the world's scientific papers, the third most behind the US and China.
Ken Livingstone was twice rejected for a cameo in EastEnders.
Colin Powell speaks Yiddish.
Tesco sells two sewing machines every minute.
Homes are 4C warmer, on average, than they were 50 years ago.
Turtles can swim 900km (559 miles) in a month.
Coffins can be made out of banana leaves. Keith Floyd was buried in one.
Michael Jackson had tattooed eyebrows and lips.
The most common names for swingers are Paul and Catherine.
There are about 100 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Living by the Golden Rule

2009-10-01T09:03:51+01:00

Much as there is truth in the claim that guns don't kill, people do, they same can be said of the many ills that are laid at the door of both religion (and rational atheism).

It's people who are the problem...whether misguided or pursuing their own ends 'in the name of...'

Which is maybe why all major religions have at their heart a common Golden Rule that no humanist could disagree with; a rule for life that recognises our intrinsic selfishness (whatever we might like to think of ourselves) and inability to do the right thing whatever our good intentions…

Hinduism: 'never do to others what would pain you' (Panchatantra 3.140)
Buddhism: 'hurt not others with that which hurts yourself' (Udana 5.18)
Zoroastrianism: 'do not to others what is not well for oneself' (Shayast-na-shaysat 13.29)
Jainism: 'one who neglects existence disregards their own existance' (Mahavira)
Confucianism: 'do not impose on others what you do not yourself desire' (Analects 12.2)
Taoism: 'regard your neighbour's loss or gain as your own loss or gain' (Tai Shang Kan Ying Pien)
Baha'l: 'desire not for anyone the thing you would not for yourself' (Baha'Ullah 66)
Judaism: 'what is hateful to you do not do to your neighbour' (Talmud, Shabbat, 31a)
Christianity: 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' (Matthew 7.12)
Islam: 'do unto all people as you would they should do to you' (Mishkat-el-Masabih)
Sikhism: 'treat others as you would be treated yourself' (Adi Granth)

So whether spiritual or rational in outlook, and in whatever we might be doing, how do we so embed the Golden Rule in our beliefs and behaviour that it overcomes our natural inclination to care only about our own needs?

Well that ended up all a bit 'thought for the day' ;o)

Waitrose can't cook

2009-09-30T09:06:19+01:00

Apologies for the quality of the photo, but there was a sea of commuters breaking around me. But I see this everyday on my way home, and it has started to annoy me.

The objective of this new Waitrose campaign is clearly to promote their new, good value Essentials range, without undermining the brands foodie credentials. Fair enough.

But you don't need to be a Masterchef contestant to realise there's a flaw...

If you can't make it out thru the blur, that's the essential ingredients for a chilli con carne - mince, tomatoes, chilli beans and rice.

Now I know that (strickly speaking) onions and (duh) chillis/chilli powder may not be in the Essentials range, but come on guys!

Pepsi to cease advertising

2009-09-29T09:01:35+01:00

This made me laugh. And also reflect on some of the points made, and wonder whether there was a better world out there if we just looked at things differently. All that was required for complete verisimilitude (word of the day!) was some comment about social media being the future ;o)

PepsiCo sent shockwaves through the carbonated beverage industry Monday when the multibillion dollar corporation announced that it would cease all advertising of its popular soda product, effective immediately.

"We know it's good, and everyone's pretty happy with the overall taste, so why spend all our time worrying about what other people think?" PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi told reporters during a press conference at the company's corporate headquarters. "Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don't like it, then they don't like it."

Added Nooyi, "That's not really any of our business anyway." According to Nooyi, top PepsiCo brass held a series of meetings over the past several months before unanimously agreeing Monday that they all enjoyed Pepsi, and that the company's century-old history of massive, high-budget ad campaigns, cross-promotional tie-ins, merchandising, and Super Bowl halftime extravaganzas had been "a big mistake."

Executives then released a statement to shareholders declaring that PepsiCo is now "what it should have been all along: a company that just makes soda, and doesn't get caught up in trying to make everyone like it."

In response to a question about whether the elimination of Pepsi's marketing and advertising divisions would hurt the company's ability to compete with rival soda manufacturer Coca-Cola, Nooyi expressed no concern.

"Vying for the greatest market share shouldn't be a soft drink company's be-all and end-all," said Nooyi, who added that if she's happy at the end of the day, that's what really matters. "After all, it's not like this is some kind of Cola War or anything."

"Look, Coca-Cola is a terrific product," Nooyi continued. "Millions of people choose it over Pepsi every day. Are those people wrong? Of course not. Concepts like 'right' and 'wrong' shouldn't even apply. It's a soft drink."

Nooyi told reporters the company's $1.3 billion annual advertising budget would be put into Pepsi's savings account, spread among various charitable organizations, and divvied up into generous bonuses for the company's minimum-wage factory employees.

Claiming that "taste is subjective," Nooyi further stated that those who hadn't already heard of Pepsi were unlikely to begin drinking it now, and that the company was perfectly content to rely on word of mouth to sell its product.

"You can't taste an ad, anyway," Nooyi said. "People are going to make up their own minds regardless of whether we spend millions trying to inform them that Taylor Swift drinks Pepsi. I mean, seriously, does it really matter if Taylor Swift drinks Pepsi? She's just a human being like everybody else."

Concluding the press conference, Nooyi stated that she wasn't even sure why she was talking about any of this in the first place, asked the assembled reporters whether they didn't have better uses for their time, and suggested that everybody just go home, hug their loving spouses, and play—really, truly play—with their children before life passes them by.

"Hey, there's a slogan for you," Nooyi said. "Spend more time with your families."

From the Onion, obviously.

10 things we didn't know before the 38th week of 2009

2009-09-27T18:14:12+01:00

Banana skins can take two years to biodegrade.
The longest speech at the United Nations lasted almost eight hours.
Brazil always speaks first at the UN General Assembly, according to long-standing protocol, and is followed by the host country.
Jay-Z has Barack Obama's mobile phone number.
Swine flu gel can get you drunk.
British heroin comes from Hampshire.
Gambon, star of the Harry Potter films, has never read any of the books.
The only woman ever in the French Foreign Legion is British.
Ceefax was created by accident.
Fifteen of IKEA'S Billy bookcases are made every minute.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Some Campaign fame for my outsourcing post

2009-09-25T14:25:37+01:00

I added my POV to the Peperami outsourcing debate recently, and it's been picked up by Campaign this week. Which is nice.

10 things we didn't know before the 37th week of 2009

2009-09-20T14:29:19+01:00

The Da Vinci Code and Dan Brown's three previous books are the UK's top four bestselling adult paperback novels of all time.
If you buy an item worth more than £100 with a credit card and it breaks because of a fault, the credit card provider is liable.
In Freemasonry, there is a death ritual in which a mock murder is performed.
A typical human has enough body fat to sustain about 40 marathons.
Tyrannosaurus Rex developed from a near-identical but much smaller predecessor.
Sportswear firms Adidas and Puma have had a 60-year feud.
Monkeys suffer colour blindness.
Pregnancy may help athletes to be more flexible.
All British industrial action ballots must be by post, except for workers at sea.
Vera Lynn had three songs in the first ever Top 12 in 1952, when Britain first introduced official sales charts.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Peperami, outsourcing and IP

2009-09-18T10:44:38+01:00

(Fontplaydotcom)

Just come across some interesting comments from Simon Law on the implications of Unilever outsourcing creative development of new Peperami advertising...

"This is one of those 'interesting' concept ideas, right up to the point where it becomes the home for the latest Peperami brief and The Guardian writes an article about how Unilever are ditching their ad agency to see what comes out of crowdsourcing creative ideas. At which point, it becomes a very real alternative to having an ad agency… well, depending on the outcome. And it will be fascinating to see what comes out of it.

At the same time, it’s sad – because Still Price Lintas (that merged into Lowe) was the agency that invented the Peperami character and now any creative can write a story around it. Without them getting a penny. And, the reality is, the difficult bit was inventing it in the first place. So, is it OK that we still don’t own any future revenue streams off the ideas we generate? A problem that has been around a long time with little resolution. But, as we enter a world where content and characters are the value, could agencies be giving too much away for little reward?"

The debate about outsourcing is well catered for on both sides. But I thought Simon's second point touched on a possibly more interesting question: the old chestnut of IP.

There has always been a slight disgruntlement in agencies over givingn ideas away for free, in perpetuity. But this was always a case of swings and roundabouts on the income front, when we were the only game in town - you lost your idea, but gained someone else's in return.

But if outsourcing becomes established that model falls apart.

Which looks bleak if you're an agency...unless we look at this as an opportunity to renegotiate things in our favour.

In the past, there was always mutual agreement between client and agency to not get to bogged down in IP, because of the 'swings and roundabouts' argument.

But like vandals down the park, Unilever's Peperami decision has broken the roundabout and pulled down the swings. And maybe (naively) one of the results of this will be that agencies find it easier to argue for some kind of IP related payment for initial idea generation in future: an on-going royalty payment or hefty buy out perhaps.

After all, a boy in his bedroom in Boise Idaho may be able to write a passable (and obviously cheap) script to an existing campaign idea, but most clients will still need to work with a proper agency to develop and nurture that idea in the first place.

Because it is only an on-going relationship which provides an agency with the requisite market, brand and consumer understanding to develop an idea that actually delivers. And from the other side of the fence, it's that same relationship that allows a client to access the holistic skills and knowledge agencies can provide...and which some 'bloke on the internet' (tm) lacks.

So if outsourcing becomes established as a cost effective way to work with a well established campaign idea (and I can see the advantages...and it's a game we can still play), maybe now is the time for agencies to start revisiting remuneration of the initial idea development that makes this outsourcing possible.

Or to put it another way: no more giving stuff away for free.

Post of the month (vote Jon!)

2009-09-16T09:03:48+01:00

I have the honour of again being nominated in Neil Perkin's Post of the Month, with a little 'dark night of the soul' piece I wrote on the nature of the work we do (which seems to have stirred up some interesting debate).

I'm in very good company, so read them all.

But vote me, obviously…because you know it makes sense.

Music piracy, the old fashioned way

2009-09-15T17:38:03+01:00

From back in the day: the Dead Kennedys show the new kids how to stick it to the man...

(Thanks to Rock Sellout)

10 things we didn't know before the 36th week of 2009

2009-09-13T08:51:48+01:00

Married couples used to always sleep apart.
Criminal trials in Japan have a 99% conviction rate.
The world's oldest circle of church bells is in Ipswich.
Both parties file for divorce in only one in 300 cases, on average.
Peter Andre's surname is actually Andrea.
The subject with the most GCSE passes this year was chemistry.
Everyone once used the left-hand side of the road.
There are so few redheads in Mexico that they often greet each other in the street.
Silvio Berlusconi is the same height as Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Posh" tea company Twinings is owned by Associated British Foods, which also own budget clothes chain Primark.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Give people what they want to feel

2009-09-11T08:40:05+01:00

Some views on creative development from Pixar's Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo and Wall.E…

"I am a firm believer that you can't take it literally when audiences tell you what they want. Our job as storytellers is to know what the audience wants before they do. So an audience member will typically tell you 'well what I want is…' and they are just going to use examples of what they've seen before. You can't take that at face value. What they are really saying is 'I want to feel as great as I did the last time I had a good time at a film, but in a new way. But I don't know what that new way is, so I'm just going to give examples of old ways'"

So it's not about giving people what they have seen before, and so can easily articulate…even if they did really like it. It's about letting them feel the way they have felt before (when it was good)…which could actually look very different in execution…and probably should, as novelty adds and sameness detracts from a positive 'feel'.

Which has particular implications for 'research', I guess, as this 'feel' only really happens in the execution and in real life context.

4 lessons from art in action

2009-09-09T08:35:43+01:00

Came across this film recently of artist Chris Rubino doing his stuff (sorry can't remember who first posted it), and found it rather inspiring...

I know we are all creative in different ways, but I'm always very envious of people with more artistic talents. Particularly as when you watch them in action, they make it look sall o easy. 'I could do that' easy in fact.

Which made me think: 'why don't I?'.

And parking the artistic ability that I (think I) lack, watching Chris at work suggested 4 lessons to me that we can maybe apply to our many different 'creative' activities.

Firstly, have a VISION of what you want to achieve…even if that vision is only partially formed, maybe even nebulous, at the outset, it will coalesce through the act of doing.

Secondly, have CONFIDENCE in your ability to deliver something of worth at the end of the day…which isn't to say it will always be easy (it won't), just that you need the self belief you'll get there in the end (even if that means starting again).

Thirdly, you have to ACT, to take that first step…even if you aren't completely clear where the path is going. Because if you don't you have nothing.

Finally, you have to be happy to go with the FLOW, to make a mess, to have 'dripping paint', rather than have everything overly planned and precisely executed…because whatever you do, it doesn't have to be 'perfect', it just has to be interesting, different, of yourself. And that is perfection.

Which I think is a good way to look at life.

The making of Create Not Hate

2009-09-08T16:43:58+01:00

A little film-ette of our original Create Not Hate project that resulted in the film 'A Mother's Tear'...

7 principles of zen design aesthetics

2009-09-07T14:41:06+01:00

(Hobo)

A list of priciples to challenge how we go about doing 'stuff', based on zen design aesthetics (thanks to Presentation Zen)...

Kanso (簡素) Simplicity or elimination of clutter. Things are expressed in a plain, simple, natural manner. Reminds us to think not in terms of decoration but in terms of clarity, a kind of clarity that may be achieved through omission or exclusion of the non-essential.
Fukinsei (不均整) Asymmetry or irregularity. The idea of controlling balance in a composition via irregularity and asymmetry is a central tenet of the Zen aesthetic. The enso ("Zen circle") in brush painting, for example, is often drawn as an incomplete circle, symbolizing the imperfection that is part of existence. In graphic design too asymmetrical balance is a dynamic, beautiful thing. Try looking for (or creating) beauty in balanced asymmetry. Nature itself is full of beauty and harmonious relationships that are asymmetrical yet balanced. This is a dynamic beauty that attracts and engages.
Shibui/Shibumi (渋味) Beautiful by being understated, or by being precisely what it was meant to be and not elaborated upon. Direct and simple way, without being flashy. Elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. The term is sometimes used today to describe something cool but beautifully minimalist, including technology and some consumer products. (Shibui literally means bitter tasting).
Shizen (自然) Naturalness. Absence of pretense or artificiality, full creative intent unforced. Ironically, the spontaneous nature of the Japanese garden that the viewer perceives is not accidental. This is a reminder that design is not an accident, even when we are trying to create a natural-feeling environment. It is not a raw nature as such but one with more purpose and intention.
Yugen (幽玄) Profundity or suggestion rather than revelation. A Japanese garden, for example, can be said to be a collection of subtleties and symbolic elements. Photographers and designers can surely think of many ways to visually imply more by not showing the whole, that is, showing more by showing less.
Datsuzoku (脱俗) Freedom from habit or formula. Escape from daily routine or the ordinary. Unworldly. Transcending the conventional. This principles describes the feeling of surprise and a bit of amazement when one realizes they can have freedom from the conventional. Professor Tierney says that the Japanese garden itself, "...made with the raw materials of nature and its success in revealing the essence of natural things to us is an ultimate surprise. Many surprises await at almost every turn in a Japanese Garden."
Seijaku (静寂)Tranquility or an energized calm (quite), stillness, solitude. This is related to the feeling you may have when in a Japanese garden. The opposite feeling to one expressed by seijaku would be noise and disturbance. How might we bring a feeling of "active calm" and stillness to ephemeral designs outside the Zen arts?

Sound like good rules to apply to your next PowerPoint pres, TV commercial or website, as much as your zen garden!!

10 things we didn't know before the 35th week of 2009

2009-09-05T14:00:14+01:00

The village of Cambourne, in Cambridgeshire, has a higher birth rate than India and China.
Block capitals are used to signify formality.
Only half of seven-year-olds with an August birthday reach expected educational level.
WalMart is the biggest employer in the world
It is not against the law to be naked in public in the UK.
Michael Aspel was a wartime evacuee.
Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA.
Britain's oldest original computer, the Harwell, first ran in 1951.
The crease under your buttocks is called the gluteal fold.
Nasa gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries following lunar missions in the 1970s.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 34th week of 2009

2009-08-31T17:08:42+01:00

iPhones are not yet sold in China.
Margaret Thatcher suffered one parliamentary defeat as prime minister - on Sunday trading laws.
English holidaymakers drink an average of eight alcoholic drinks a day.
The UK population grew more in 2008 than at any time since 1962.
And Germany's population is shrinking.
West Ham's stadium is really called the Boleyn Ground, not Upton Park.
The smell of cut grass makes people happy.
A pint glass lasts an average of only three months.
An Englishman sailed to the "New World" only two years after the first European is thought to have landed in Newfoundland.
Men in China cannot marry until aged 22.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

Cash4gold: why do we allow this kind of thing

2009-08-26T12:57:13+01:00

My turn for Adwatch today. As usual, it has been inexplicably sub-edited in places, making it read worse as far as I can see.

And I wan't very nice, which always gets our new biz director in a bit of a fluster.

The print version is here (click to see big)...

And this is what I wrote originally...

An Adwatch review in August is like the summer TV schedule: not much on.

Maybe that’s why Cash4gold stood out, its arrival in the UK making a big impact (a cool 44% awareness, matching that of long term, heavy weight advertiser, B&Q) as they look to become the UK’s biggest direct response advertiser.

Cash4gold launched in the US, where it has some 800,000 customers, just 2 years ago. And the UK is mirroring the US template (quite literally in fact): the same stock shots, sales man’s patter and customer testimonials, with the talking heads simply reshot using Brits. Beyond this, there is really little to say creatively. They are what they are: “a dinosaur of a DRTV ad” according to one DM insider.

So a couple of broader questions raised by Cash4gold’s arrival, and its chosen style of advertising, are maybe more interesting to consider.

Clearly there is a belief that activity of this kind works. But it ‘works’ in the same way that clicks on line work: it’s all down to measurability. And no matter how minimal the response, advocates see this as preferable to the less tangible (even if actually more significant) impact of other forms of communication. But then, as John Banham said when Chair of the CBI: “We are in danger of valuing most highly those things we can measure most accurately, which means we are often precisely wrong rather than approximately right”.

And even if Cash4gold is working, who does it work for exactly?

Which raises a second question: is this kind of activity ‘right’ in the first place. A rhetorical question, obviously: in a free market democracy, Cash4gold are legally allowed to trade and advertise…and individuals to make use of their service. But, subjectively, should the marketing community endorse activity of this kind?

Maybe I’m being unfairly judgemental. For all I know, Cash4gold’s motives are as pure as their bullion, a credible and much appreciated service. Or they could be preying cynically on the disadvantaged at a time of financial hardship, looking to make a quick buck from the misfortune of others. They have arrived on these shores in the depths of recession after all. I can’t say, because I don’t know the facts.

But either way, I’m not sure this low rent approach to advertising helps their case, regardless of how much they genuinely want to help or how ‘effective’ at lead generation it might be.

What you do vs. what you say

2009-08-26T09:11:20+01:00

Great film from Mobile Youth on the difference between earned and paid for media - what you do vs. what you say...