January 11, 2009 at 3:33 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Advertising, Beer philosophy, Brand, social networks
When I grew up I wanted to live in a warehouse like the one in the building society ad and do creative stuff in the urban jungle. But this turned out to be a myth. Nobody could ever afford to live like that for long.
Later on I wanted to move to country and live in a village where everyone knew each other and there was no crime or pollution and my children would be safe. Where are we now? Is the internet killing society? Or rebuilding it?
To a certain extent social networking sites are replacing the Gossip around the village pump. And it is the overheard which sites like facebook bring to life. Even the quieter types who aren’t posting endless party and holiday pictures can experience the working of the social fabric. There is a renewed possibility for ‘bumping into people that you haven’t seen for ages’.
There is a strong connection between online campaigns and PR. Life does still go on in the real world, that’s where we live. Whether we like it or not.
The pre-eminence of Creative Awards in the industry will be replaced in importance by Campaigns that are talked about. Fame. PR among a much wider audience.
January 1, 2009 at 1:13 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Beer philosophy, History repeating, Advertising, Brand
But in the meantime we had the pay the rent. We designed and programmed touch screen interfaces for digital information kiosk prototypes.
We discovered Information architecture [5 people, 5 black markers, one very big bit of paper, lots of arrows]. We discovered clients [never knew what they wanted, didn't understand what we were talking about]. We discovered breakdowns in communication.
We discovered the internet. Or at least we had Demon accounts, a 14.4 modem that looked like a Stylophone,
and a lot a patience.
January 1, 2009 at 11:11 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Advertising, Architecture, Brand
When I started out in digital in 1992 I had no intention of getting into advertising or direct marketing or PR. I’d just left St Martins in the middle of a recession with a Graphic Design Degree nobody wanted.
But I had a mad friend from college who was into what he called hypertext. We weren’t novelists or rock stars or movie stars but we wanted to create a new 4 dimensional Art form.
A multilayered novel, a multimedia happening, or a wetware experience.
December 6, 2008 at 7:18 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Advertising, Beer philosophy, Brand
The big questions facing digital agencies now is “when you inherit the kingdom will you drop the ball”.
Yes, we will the finally get the chance to call the shots, own the marketing budgets, and deliver the kind of brand and tactical campaigns that we’ve been planning for 10 years.
The old millennium is dead. When internet connections were mind numbingly slow, software buggy, and TV advertising still eating all the cake.
We’ve been making big plans all right, but will what we make be more interesting just because we have larger production budgets?
Will our ideas be big enough to fill the void left by the implosion of the ad-funded-TV-content model?
The public still love great TV ads. It doesn’t make them buy stuff necessarily but it creates a warm feeling inside.
So, when the lunatics take over the asylum…
Will they turn into the same self indulgent and extravagant self promoters whose thunder they have stolen?
Or will they use their natural ingenuity to create campaigns that capture the imagination and the confidence of the buying public and make brand owners happy?
January 17, 2008 at 10:54 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: Advertising, Brand, social networks
The only surprising thing about Mattel and Hasbro’s complaint to Facebook about the wonderful Scrabulous application, which blatantly ‘passes off’ as their trademarked product Scrabble, is how long it’s taken for them to get round to it. I can’t believe they hadn’t noticed.
I can’t believe they hadn’t noticed the uplift in their sales of actual board games this Christmas as addicts sought to feed their addiction whilst enduring extended festivities with obscure internet free relations. Personally I own a couple of English Spears/Mattel sets, a fairly battered American [not branded Hasbro!] set with wooden tiles and racks, a Travel Set, a Pocket Set [some the tiles are missing] and a barely used Deluxe Set with built-in turntable, nasty metallic effect playing surface [old people can’t see it for the reflections].
If I owned a classic Board game, popular with Bookish maiden aunts, and I wanted to market it to a fresh generation of affluent middle class consumers, I suppose I might get some trendy young Web Dudes to create a Web 2.0 community where User Generated Content and member-get-member recommendations drove word of mouth excitement. It might be expensive to start the ball rolling and seed the initial idea, and then to engineer the software to withstand the surge in traffic, but a couple of million should cover it.
But hey I’m too busy trying to beat Tiffany and Anna to the triple word score. It’s your turn on Scrabulous!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7191264.stm
