Heineken refreshes the parts other media can't reach

T-Mobile's Dance and Meerkat have fed a growing misconception in the advertising world recently... that any social idea devised by a brand ideally needs a few million quid in media money to kickstart it.
Heineken's Know The Signs campaign (Disclaimer - Ruby did it!)- part of their global responsible drinking strategy - shows that decent content will still fly without the help of our old media chums.

The old tenets of social media still ring true - in this case, give people a laugh, and the ability and desire to share that laugh with others.
Of course to guarantee success, it's always wise to back up any content with a top-grade seeding strategy, as we did. But that alone won't get you 2.5m. views in 48hrs...
One of the dangers of this brave new marketing world is that, in our rush to do the next big thing, we forget about getting better at doing the things we've done before. Forget being social, isn't one of humans' principle skills the ability to learn and adapt?

We don't just create the art, but the hunger to see it

Dave Trott has posted yet another great piece on his blog.



This reminded me of the much-discussed Streisand effect.This example demonstrates how almost anything becomes interesting and gets discussed when a conversational value has been attributed to it - intentionally or otherwise.
It's less about the content and more about the hype, just as with Dave Trott's examples.


When creating online content (in whatever guise) Ad agencies' role is a tough one. Creating something worth looking at isn't enough. As with great art, often the best work is only appreciated by a minority of experts (digital bloggers and agencies normally). If we want to create famous work, we need to create the appetite to see it - and to be seen to appreciate it.
That's of course where influencers, blogger outreach and seeding all have a huge role to play.

To many this will seem obvious - we've got used to it now. But it's still worth bearing in mind how much harder our job has become... or perhaps this is just the way it should always have been. To be genuinely socially relevant, we've got mix the dirty world of PR with the purist world of creativity. And have the vastly different skillsets to accommodate this change.

8 reasons why Banner Concerts rocks

Axion's Banner Concerts is a campaign I'd love to have been involved in - and their Cyber Lion shows that I'm not exactly unearthing a hidden gem.
http://www.bornoncloud9.be/oneshow2009/axion/the-banner-concerts-innovation/
But regardeless, here are 8 lessons that we could all learn from the campaign:

1. Simplicity. Music auditions have been around forever. Just make it contemporary and fit for a digital age.
2. It gives a much needed boost to a flagging format. Online display is struggling - mainly down to it being in danger of becoming the modern day equivalent of the pizza flyer. Network media buys have resulted in a low creativity / high volume (impressions) approach that MBNA's credit card acquisition dept would be proud of. Video works, and music online works. Result - ads that you want to look at.
3. Heroing the humble banner. More than just creating nice ads, this campaign actually heroes the placement... nice idea. It's not often that the message and the medium are so intertwined... this gives the campaign the quirkiness of, say, the 'noses printed on coffee cups' ambient approach.
4. It's inclusive but not to the detriment of the campaign content. Anyone can sign up and join, but there's a natural quality filter - you've got to have a band and / or a musical ability. So you get a decent amount of engaging content, not tons and tons of crap.
5. Good structure. The campaign's (not totally original) longlist/shortlist format maintains interest, and crucially increases interest and buzz as the campaign goes on. Unlike many other campaigns whose success decreases with time.
6. It's a genuine integrated campaign with digital at the heart. Yes, online can be the lead media for a large scale campaign. But, without the support of push media techniques, it'd be highly likely to fail (hence the beauty of concerts in a banner). Quite rightly, no modern client would ever just pray that their £500k 'viral' would just 'go viral' with a bit of seeding chucked in.
7. It's a long term bet. Their audience is too young to be worth much to them now... but in 10 years.... Rare to see that much far-sightedness in this day and age. Even when there have never been better channels through which to reach niche audiences effectively.
8. It's done by a Financial Services brand. Well done them for giving something back. And who cares about whether the campaign's in line with their central brand strategy (it might be, I don't know). Their customers of the future frankly don't give an ISA about whatever brand promise they might currently have. The point is the brand just gets out there, joins the conversation on its audience's terms.

Herd Instinct at a festival

I finally got around to reading Mark Earls' book, Herd - a fascinating look at how humans are, above all, influenced by our primordial herding instinct.
This video from Seth's blog is a perfect visual demonstration of the theory:


The classic festival nutter is sooned joined by another dancer - just another nutter.
But when a 3rd comes along, they're now a socially accceptable bunch of groovers. Everyone wants a piece - they want to bask in the coolness that they now know the first 3 had, but without inherent risk attached.
Now if a flashmob could happen organically that would be interesting... but the instigator would probably get arrested in Liverpool St. station before critical mass was reached

Ryanair deserves every lack of success

Ryanair have just posted half year losses of nearly £150m.
Ryanair always seemed like an example of an anti-brand - rejecting every contemporary branding maxim in favour of an approach driven purely by price (on the surface) and destinations.
The customer experience with them is abysmal. From the moment you get to their website, you're inundated with desperate sales / profit-driving tactics. Fair enough, given their business model, but it becomes a game of Cat and Mouse... You vs. Them... You hate them by the end of it, and you're still a month away from getting on their plane.
And then the game of Cat and Mouse continues - excess baggage, drinks on the plane, check-in - all conspiring to prise more money out of you.
Somehow you forget the hatred the next summer just enough to consider them again.... until now.
It seems their model is struggling for longevity... there are only some many dupes who'll be treated like this for so long...
I find it massively reassuring that there really is more to a brand's success than a few product features - ie being cheap and flying to places no-one else does.
Eventually, being underhand and self-centred rather than customer-orientated and transparent, will backfire. And people's credit-crunch-driven holiday cutbacks have only catalysed the process.
The one trick pony needs to adapt.

Microsoft Natal

Microsoft have taken the E3 conference by storm with this launch.
It truly takes the concept of interactivity to a whole new level for 2 colossal reasons:
No technological barriers - even my mum could use it, without some new-fangled piece of hardware getting in the way.
Genuine intuition - responding to all human actions, including emotional responses, banishes the invisible divide between man and machine. It works on our level, we don't need to adapt to its level.
oh, and finally all those "it's a bit Minority Report" comments actually ring true....
Incredible

Swine Flu

One day the COI will be doing campaigns like this, but until then we'll have to keep relying on creative young people out there....

Blog Naming

Would (even) more people blog if they could think of a decent name?
Can people spell it? Will the name affect search rankings? Does it reflect my content? Does it poorly reflect on the author? Does anyone care? So many questions to answer before you even start writing....
blog names, and specifically marketing and branding blogs, fall into various camps.
The narcissistic: all about the fame - Russell Davies, Seth's blog, Greg Verdino etc.
The pseudonym: an aura of mystique - Scamp
The pragmatic: verging on dull, but gets the point across: Digital examples, adliterate
The opinionated: A positioning - Digicynic, The Ad contrarian, I believe in ads
The abstract: harmless / pretentious - Talent imitates, genius steals...
Ideally, I'd go for opinionated - set out my stall and stick by it... but instead I opted for pragmatic... for now. Safe and reassuringly open. Not great for a brief, but not a bad start for a blog.