ideavault

Abandoned ghost town of Ideavault

2009-01-31T15:22:00.002-05:00

Just a wee note to those who end up here that the party has moved on from Ideavault. Am using different web ways to archive and share ideas. The frontier has pushed forward. Do contact me through linked-in you'd like to get in touch for any reason. Bye for now. Adam

On storytelling

2008-03-30T10:52:00.002-04:00

Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but ‘once upon a time’ will last forever.
Philip Pullman

challenger brand quote

2006-11-24T13:54:00.000-05:00

"We would have to invent a new category, and exercise the ultimate right of the last born. To be first in what you decide to be, rather than last in what others have decided for you. Everyone knows the name of the first man to fly the Atlantic, no-one remembers the second guy (Bert Hinkler). However, they do remember the name of Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly the Atlantic. What Amelia had succeeded in doing was inventing a new category."

Charles Vallance (Orange IPA paper) via Lee McEwan

Planning = Generosity?

2006-10-17T11:48:00.000-04:00

"It is amazing how much you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit"
Harry Truman, US President (1945-53)

Q. Should planners be content to be the cheery midwives to brand ideas and let creative teams bask in the flashbulbs ? (Russell Davies School) ? Or can planners take active pride in their intellectual offsprings (Richard Huntington school) without isolating the creative team relationships needed to spin them into gold?

Negative emotions

2006-10-16T16:07:00.000-04:00

Peel your average brand onion and you'll find tears of joy. Brands traits tend to be described in seventeen shades of positive: Upbeat. Cheery. Optimistic. And becuase nuance is so easily overlooked (so the theory goes) best not make any bones about it : Up for anything. Glass half full.

Truth is the the negative emotions are perhaps the richest. Think of the most memorable film you ever saw, chances are it wasn't simply happy ever after. And with so many happy-clappy brands around could yours find a bit of original traction by admitting a darker side? Impossible ? Not really, how about the 'No mercy' Weedol campaign or the digust driven underside of Marmite's 'You either love it or hate it' proposition. (Just don't do a Strand...)

Planning = collaboration

2006-10-16T12:40:00.000-04:00

Planners are almost always the third most important people in any agency, which means we have to know how to collaborate.

Russell Davies

Research talks

2006-10-08T20:12:00.000-04:00

A growing vault of communication research podcasts can be found here.

(Loved the forthright crystal-ballisms of Ian Pearson, BT Futurologist)

Metrics get results

2006-10-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

Here are 12 Steps to use metrics to get to the heart of your business, in a Ready, Aim Fire approach:

Ready

1. Democratize – standardize the data and give open access to the data or reports to the masses.
2. Focus – what are the killer metrics / levers in the business? Does everyone know what these key metrics are?
3. Own – give people ownership for key metrics. Someone who pulls together the team to drive the metric, educate, evangelize, report.
4. Partner – put goals in performance plans of cross-functional partners.

Aim

5. Define – Define your metrics in ways people can understand. Use industry standards. Describe definitions in laymen’s terms, and educate the masses.
6. Report – Create an easy to read, regularly updated, consistent report that is distributed widely.
7. Co-habitate – Merge your analytics with standard business reporting. Where are the eyes on the business? Put your metrics there. Put them at the top. Don’t reinvent reports and channels.
8. Visualize – Show some meaning behind the numbers. Connect emotionally, create internal buzz and sound bytes.

Fire

9. Causate – Show the connections of what causes what: Y=f(x). This is a Six sigma methodology. Do A/B testing and pilots to show what moves these metrics people are now paying attention to.
10. Extrapolate – Show what if scenarios. If we do this, this lever changes, makes this customer or P&L impact. Then extrapolate to larger number (a quarter of a year of impact) to get a lot of attention.
11. Compete – Create internal competitions to improve metrics. Inspire people with stretch goals with a “Results Rabbit” for people to go after.
12. Share – Present results of business impact related to web metrics. Show the impact to the business.
Via here

self help for brands

2006-10-06T18:34:00.000-04:00

"I always tell prospective clients about the chinks in our armor. I have noticed that when an antique dealer draws my attention to flaws in a piece of furniture, he wins my confidence."
David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963)

Don't Be Afraid to Show Shortcomings
1. What are you insecure about?
2. Who do you try to hide it from?
3. What's the cost of hiding it? stress? strained relationships?
4. Practice being more open about your daily struggles - perhaps starting small
5. In the process you'll give others the permission to do the same - unlocking energy all around you.

From FastCompany

The Perfect Brief Mark III

2006-10-05T23:10:00.000-04:00

What community do you want to engage with / create?

What do you want people to say about your brand?

Why should they say anything at all?

Very Seth Godin. Via RD

beyond the proposition

2006-10-04T09:29:00.000-04:00

Another creative brief contender, one that thinks beyond the autocratic proposition :

1. What is the problem we're trying to solve? (ie role of communications)
2. Who is this among?
3. Where is the best start point to solve this? (a replacement to the proposition - more about an approach than the usual what should the advertising say)
4. How can we make this interesting? (or why should people care) - more about trying to give some social ammunition/cultural influence
5. Any sacred cows? (the real mandatories)

Beyond media neutrality

2006-10-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

TV used to be king - every other brand touchpoint told the TV story in their own way.
Then we had media neutrality - again one message across all touchpoints - but this time the idea was not (necessarily) born on TV.
Now we're (Grant, Davies) talking about embracing complexity and multi-messaging across the different touchpoints to build to a rich gestalt of brand meaning, albeit orientatied around the same strategic core.

Faris wonders about the media planning implications here

Cars as Fashion

2006-10-03T20:54:00.000-04:00

John Grant on Cars.

If they are a public statement about your individual identity, do we have any brands to choose from? (That goes for beer brands too)

THE creative brief

2006-10-03T20:17:00.000-04:00

Russell D is calling for the good and the great to share their ideas of the perfect creative brief here.

The TBWA 'disruption' version is overtly trying to force the planner to dump the cliches in the search for a new approach but i wonder whether section 1 is a bit of a flabby to really define the issue ? (From the comments section) :

1. Tell me the problem / opportunity / background.
2. How do people conventionally try to address /communicate the issue?
3. What's the consumer / industry insight that would drive us to think differently?
4. So, what is the Disruptive thought which will help to solve the issue?
5. Support / truth?
6. Who are we trying to persuade with this thought?
7. What's the tone?
8. Suggested channels to reach them?
9. Sacred cows?

4 customer expectations

2006-09-29T13:22:00.000-04:00

1. Accuarcy
2. Availabilty
3. Partnership
4. Advice

How does your brand measure up?

Check out his cans

2006-09-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

A gallery of food related design from yesteryear, here

What is interesting?

2006-09-26T11:55:00.000-04:00

(depth+nuance)x(humility+honesty) = interesting

Gareth Kay via here

Postmodern marketing

2006-09-25T20:17:00.000-04:00

"Marketers know about consumers, consumers know about marketers, marketers know consumers know about marketers, and consumers know marketers know consumers know about marketers."

Stephen Brown, University of Ulster

charm to disarm

2006-09-23T21:11:00.000-04:00

charming japanese smokers on etiquette, find
the set here

beyond the blank page

2006-09-05T21:49:00.000-04:00

got writers blog?
got some advice for you, here

Another Earmark

2006-08-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

Posterlist seems a thirfty source of white-wall-worthy posters.

Just earmarking for the future really. (ps. origin of the word earmarking - disfiguring cattle to prove ownership - found here which is also a great source for other language based curiosities, like contranyms...)

Cake for the brain

2006-08-27T22:08:00.000-04:00

Just parking this radio four treat, the Vilayanur S Ramachandran Reith lecture.

Some delicious cake for the brain.

Forget about it

2006-08-23T13:40:00.000-04:00

Back when advertising folk all looked like Cary Grant, James Webb Young penned a short classic: 'A Technique for Producing Ideas'. Download it here.

In a nutshell then,

Step 1: Leave no stone unturned : Do all the homework on your current brief and - on an ongoing basis - browse the world for general, random 'interseting' stuff.

Step 2: The Mental Digestive Process. Chew on what you've learnt.

Step 3: Now drop it completely. Have a bath. Do something else.

Step 4: Eueka, the idea appears.

Step 5: Share the idea. Work it. Develop it.

The Window Test

2006-08-22T11:37:00.000-04:00

Is your target definition too vague? If you shouted it from the rooftops across a crowded street would everyone look up? or would you have spoken to just the chosen few?

"Women who watch soaps on TV"

"Women who regularly watch several 'reality' TV soaps"

"Women who feel that they know their favourite soap stars almost as intimately as their closest friends"

marketing 2.0 by Grant

2006-08-19T12:21:00.000-04:00

Marketing 2.0 is…

A shift from competitive positioning in a hierarchical world (of demographics, status and image) by using consistent (brand essence) messaging

…to cooperative, life-enhancing marketing: engaging a networked world of freer but more connected individuals by using a molecule of coherent, fascinating and useful ideas.

The main forms of marketing 2.0 strategy (that replace ‘messaging’) are as follows:

1. personalisation: eg Nike iD, Top Shop advisors, first direct service

2. co-creation; eg Wikipedia, Lego Factory, Amazon reviews

3. cascades and crazes; eg iPod, Gmail invites, YouTube

4. social connections; Friends Reunited, MySpace, Facebook

5. community and clans; inNYC card, Starbucks ‘perk up your life’, Red Bull

6. causes and values: Dove, Toyota Prius, Amex Red

7. crowd and awe experiences: Selfridges Vegas Supernova, O2 Wireless festival, Nike Run London

8. concept innovation & customer education: Flora Activ, Budweiser Day Fresh, Nike Free

9. brand JVs: Nike/iPod, Levis/iPod, U2/iPod…

10. Folksy grassrootsiness: Innocent, Google ‘lucky’ button, from ‘reality’ TV to YouTube

John Grant

See this related post (McCracken) about relevant artisan trends
Tags - planning, trends

www chart toppers

2006-08-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

What's the toppermost of the poppermost in cyber space? Chart rundowns here

tags- trends, web 2.0

Tipping Point Visualized

2006-08-17T20:19:00.000-04:00

The Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen help fuel the growth of the Social Media Network (shown behind). Each type of individual possesses a complimentary quality that when combined, creates an infectious momentum which spreads rapidly.

From wikipedia:

* Connectors: Those with wide social circles. They are the "hubs" of the human social network and responsible for the small world phenomenon.

* Mavens are knowledgeable people. While most consumers wouldn't know if a product were priced above the market rate by, say, 10 percent, mavens would. Bloggers who detect false claims in the media could also be considered mavens.

* Salesmen are charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills. They exert "soft" influence rather than forceful power. Their source of influence may be the tendency of others, subconsciously, to imitate them rather than techniques of conscious persuasion.

Note: based off Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point

via here

tags - planning

what do we mean by 'consumer mindset'?

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Anais Nin

Tags - planning

Progress on two wheels

2006-08-16T22:18:00.000-04:00

The Penny Farthing - 1870

The Safety Bicycle, 1885

The Locust, 2006

Tags - lovely things

Free open source mac software

2006-08-16T21:16:00.000-04:00

Exactly what it says on the tin, here

Tags : free stuff

Bob Deutsch's cognitive anthropology

2006-07-30T11:14:00.000-04:00

Dr bob deutsch @ 2006 AAAA conference

People - never consumers

What is this person's 'self story' ? How do they see/structure me, others & the world themselves? How do they see 'others'? How do they divide the world when it comes to other people? (Harley Davidson - other people thwart me) What is their e(montionally based) logic?

A brand helps me become more of myself, to maximise myself. Great brands are loyal to people's stories :

"Brand is not name recognition, brand is not even positive attributes. Brand is something very specific that the consumer produces. The advertiser doesn't and can't and shouldn't. Brand is this: Brand is when a person creates -- the word I like to use is designs -- a metonymic link between their own self-story and the story of a product, such that to be loyal to the product is a misnomer. It's loyalty to the self."

How do they structure time? "subjective time" What are their rhythms? (how are they segmenting time, the occasion, today, this week, lifetime) Note where/when 'change' is happening...(Could you get repondents to 'draw' this freehand ?)

Yellow Brick Road - How can your brand make someone's 'self story' journey, easier or better. Note change the direction but uniquely compliment it.

What's the cultural moment of today's world - too fast, too complicated, too competitive...

Tags - planning, research

$10 Macro Photo Studio

2006-07-22T16:37:00.000-04:00

Cardboard box, white tissue paper and some good old fashioned ingenuity is about all you need to create your own studio for 'close ups'

Find out how here

Tags : Free stuff, presentations

Learn to Excel

2006-07-20T22:08:00.000-04:00

Guilty. I always avoided the math-y subjects at school, once i had the choice. Net : Very limited MS Excel Skills.

This tutorial series should help me cope better.

tags: free stuff, planning

Ace Slide Vault

2006-07-20T10:45:00.000-04:00

Amazing, burgeoning flickr set of plannerly presentation slides shared with the great and the good.

The sharing philosophy of web 2.0 makes for great kharma.

Thank you Lynetter

Tags : Planning, Presentations

7 things Russell Learnt @ W&K

2006-07-19T23:08:00.000-04:00

1. Hire advertising people, you get advertising
2.The key to creative genius; work harder
3. You can't divorce the medium from the message
4. Do good work, the money will follow
5. Hold everyone/client to the same standard
6. You can tell from the work if people enjoyed making it
7.Brands that influence culture sell more

Full article here
Dan Wieden's philosophy in his own words here

Tags : Careers

How customers think

2006-07-19T14:30:00.000-04:00

haven't read this book...yet...which connects the latest development in 'mind' science to the practise of marketing.

The book exposes 6 common fallacies:

FALACY 1: Consumers Think in a Well-Reasoned or Rational, Linear Way
FALACY 2: Consumers Can Readily Explain Their Thinking and Behavior
FALACY 3: Consumers Minds, Brains, Bodies and Surrounding Culture and Society Can Be Adequately Studies Independently of One Another
FALACY 4: Consumers Memories Accurately Represent Their Experiences
FALACY 5: Consumers Think in Words
FALACY 6: Consumers Can be “Injected” with Company Messages and Will Interpret These Messages as Marketers Intend

Must save the pennies and get this is in...

Revolution in Learning

2006-07-18T12:10:00.001-04:00

Web 2.0 nexus = change in how we learn = collaborative, multifaceated and non-linear.
Learn more form this lecture

(Screen shot from World of Warcraft ARG)

negotiation skills

2006-07-12T09:22:00.000-04:00

Learn how to agree.

Don't take up 'positions' but work out what the underlying 'interests' are on either side and be creative with the options that might satisfy both parties. "I want a pay rise," might be motivated by a need for extra budget towards renovating, a desire that could be met by your employer through say, a zero interest loan or the freedom to freelance.

Based on Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In

it's a menaissance

2006-07-11T07:59:00.000-04:00

men are reinventing themselves. A bit of new-man self-awareness, altogether more butch than the metrosexual....

working well with others

2006-07-11T07:31:00.000-04:00

Top tips on how to work best with creatives
and account management.

Thanks to Northern Planner.

brain wave on advertising

2006-07-10T13:57:00.000-04:00

this post from Leland Maschmeyer outlines how neuroscience offers us insight into how we watch tv - yes, it does back up what you hope it does, keep it emotional, keep it simple...

A way to not forget

2006-06-22T19:07:00.000-04:00

schedule text messages to yourself - or message anyone
through this simple site

Movie Clip Vault

2006-06-22T18:06:00.000-04:00

A useful archive of famous film scenes can be found here

Via Here

Top 10 tips for Guerilla Marketing

2006-06-21T19:17:00.000-04:00

Find them here.

Must remember this

2006-06-17T20:25:00.000-04:00

Here's a site dedicated to memory training.

Lest ye forget.

Tags : career

7 habits of highly effective people

2006-06-17T13:24:00.000-04:00

Here's a 5 page summary of Steven Covey's classic guide to being better at what you do.

Click on the habits below for a more detailed take on each one:

Conclusion

Tags : Book, career

on the value of viral

2006-06-17T12:22:00.000-04:00

A simple chart that helps us understand not only does viral content have to be of a ridiculously high standard but it should be engednering a deeper relationship with your audience. The value of brilliant 'flash-in-the-pans' is limited.

Via Planningonsubversion

Art of the Start

2006-06-17T10:07:00.000-04:00

Guy Kawasaki's 10 rules for entrepreneurs from this lecture

1. Aim to create meaning not money.
Money is the byproduct of doing one of these 3 things:
a) perpetuate good things b) end a bad thing c) make someone's life better

2. Jump to the next curve. Swim upstream. Change the rules of the game.
Barnes and Noble was the new standard, then came Amazon =10x improvement.

3. Don't Worry. Be Crappy.
The revolution will likely be shaky. Don't wait for the perfect world, prototype. Ship then test.

4. Churn Baby Churn.
A revolution is not a single event, it's a process. you need to constantly improve. As an entrepreneur you have to have a thick skin to negativity which makes it all the harder to listen for constructive criticism and constantly better your initiatives.

5. Polarise People.
Create something people either love or hate.

6. Niche yourself.
Offer something only you can (or will) that people are willing to pay for.

7. Make Mantra.
Not a complex mission statement created on a 2 day offsite boondoggle (see here for Dilbert parody generator). 3 or 4 words only please. AKA brand essence.

8. The 10/20/30 Rule.
10 slides.
2o mins. (in 60 min presentation, 20 mins should be presentation, 40 Q&A)
3o point font.

9. First make evangelists not sales.
create a cause. You know the drill.

10. Let a hundred flowers blossom.
Do things right and your ventures will take off in directions you never thought of - let them take on their own life. Apple never openly targetted DTP, but that was its lifeblood.

Thoughtless Acts

2006-06-14T21:58:00.000-04:00

This book made me realise that there is no such thing are no bad users, only bad design. If you don't know how to program your video recorder then it's the designers fault not yours (unless you are my mum, god bless)

Design flaws (and therefore future oppertunities) are brought to bear in our small improvisations we have with the world, teasing out the gap between intended purpose and actual use, i.e. when we start finding coping mechanisms or modifying something becuase it just doesn't suit are needs well enough. Like any genuine insights these small improvs may be obvious but often overlooked. Developing an eye for them helps you become a better designer or, arguably, brand planner.

Thoughtless Acts is a book by another IDEO bod that outlines this technique. The website shares the thinking and invites contributors to upload their own images of 'small improvs' they have found in the world that expose design flaws or the way design coerces us to behave.

Share the wealth

2006-06-14T21:36:00.000-04:00

Web 2.0 allows us to share things better:
Self-service > enable sharing. We all have needs to share stuff. Power drills are used for 10 minutes during their lifetime; cars are used for a few minutes a day; the result is huge inefficiencies in consumption. "The notion of sharing material resources is just exploding," particularly in Europe. People are designing sharing systems for space, equipment, time, services.

Via IFTF

Books Books Books

2006-06-13T17:04:00.000-04:00

Manybooks.net converts copyright-free Project Gutenberg titles into useful formats for reading on Palm devics, iPods, and ebook readers.

Worth a rummage.

Font Vault

2006-06-13T12:41:00.000-04:00

Some great free fonts here.
That's right, i said free.
Such a lovely word.

deliberate mistakes

2006-06-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

"Deliberate Mistakes" is a Harvard Business School theory starts with the hypothesis that too many successful companies are assuming too much about what makes them successful.

Testing is all about validating a new theory, this is about using testing to challenge our closest held beliefs - if we can do that in a cost effective way. Small risk for a big gain.

The theory advocates that low-cost "mistakes" should be routinely and consciously made to deliberately 'fuck with the formula' to see whether dogma is clouding the path to even greater sucess.

Via this podcast

80s music vault

2006-06-13T12:16:00.000-04:00

Here's a genius vault of poptastic 80s music videos. Three words. Take On Me.

Thank god for people with too much time on their hands who persuade us to waste some of ours!

Via Plannerliness

for extra value see also Pitchfork's top 100 vids

stick with carrot

2006-06-09T22:22:00.000-04:00

This post outlines some advice for pursing 'fear' based social campaigning, e.g. anti-smoking, drink drive.

Thinking about Charles Tilly's 'Why?', i think the key is to stop people defaulting to the convention 'it'll never happen to me' and so close the conversation an intrusive 'fear' based ad might open up. Key to keeping the conversation going is an easy next step that someone can take on the journey to fully changing their behaviour. Follow your stick with some carrot.

10 Faces of Innovation

2006-06-09T17:12:00.000-04:00

More Ideo thinking. This time about how to get beyond the nay-saying of the devil's advocate and consider the different personas/roles it takes to inspire, generate great ideas and execute them.

It reminds me of De Bono's 6 hats a bit (the devil's advocate being mr Black Hat, well, sort-of)

Anyway, here are those 10 faces of innovation:
(last 3 are most planner-ish, but of course, this is about being comfortable with role switching)

Hear author Tom Kelley talk these through here.

The Organizing Personas

1. The Hurdler is a tireless problem-solver who gets a charge out of tackling something that's never been done before with the smarts to sidestep any red tape or negativity.

2. The Collaborator is the rare person who truly values the team and is inspired to get the best out of them,

3. The Director, what a collaborator becomes when they are at the top of their game.

The Building Personas

4. The Experience Architect is that person relentlessly focused on creating remarkable individual experiences. This person facilitates positive encounters with your organization through products, services, digital interactions, spaces, or events. Whether an architect or a sushi chef, the Experience Architect maps out how to turn something ordinary into something distinctive—even delightful—every chance they get.

5. The Set Designer is focused on how to best manage the workspace to foster a creative culture.

6. The Storyteller captures our imagination with compelling narratives of initiative, hard work, and innovation.

7. The Caregiver guides the client through the process to provide them with a comfortable, human-centered experience.

The Learning Personas

8. The Anthropologist, observe how people interact ion the real world.

9. The Experimenter. A calculated risk-taker, a prototyper and arch collaboprator and poker-around-er.

10. The Cross-Pollinator draws associations and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts to break new ground.

IDEO approaches

2006-06-09T14:44:00.000-04:00

Watching Ideo CEO Tim Brown's presentation of IDEO's design approach (here) threw up some interesting approaches to problem solving

- Analagous situations : When working on how to improve a hospital emergency room operations, Ideo spent time with a grand prix pit-stop crew to see how their team dealt with frequent emergency situations.

- Insights come from extreme users, lovers and haters, age of users, experience of product etc.

- Do something. Build-to-think. This elevates quick and dirty prototyping over big. Average project at Ideo goes through more than 100 prototypes. Don't need to be physical - but must be tangible.

-Use story-telling to develop, express and sell ideas through large organizations. Nike always produce a ripomatic ad when they design a new shoe to sell it to the rest of organization. The story needs to be there from the start. Ideo once built a 'stragetic expreince' for Motorola execs so they could 'live' the changes they were suggesting.

-Ideawall/Project Rooms - Visually recording scraps of inspiration allows them evolve as they are shared with collaborators and built up through layers of contribution. Can a blog serve this function, i think so.

Brands as Enablers

2006-06-09T09:35:00.000-04:00

Director of Strategy at AKQA, Craig Walmsley on how web 2.0 is changing the demands on brands:

"It is not the planner’s fault that the answer “we should say X” is now the wrong one – they have not yet realized that the question has changed from “what should we say?” to “what should we do?” or, more importantly, “what should we let customers do?” This is the real question for Brands. Digital allows brands to be relevant enablers – letting customers do things in a way that makes sense for the Brand and to the customer. "

Read the full article here

Why are good ideas a good idea?

2006-06-08T21:23:00.000-04:00

Insightful piece from Richard Huntington on the value of using great ideas to build brand meaning (versus sloppy old puns or whatever)

Here

The Laws of Nike

2006-06-08T16:51:00.000-04:00

Nike Principles (1978)

1. Our business is change
2. We’re on offense. All the time.
3. Perfect results count – not a perfect process
Break the rules; fight the law
4. This is as much about battle as about business
5. Assume nothing.
Make sure people keep their promises.
Push yourself; push others.
Stretch the possible.
Expect success – always.
6. Live off the land.
7. The job isn’t done until the job is done.
8. DANGERS:
Bureaucracy
Personal Ambition
Energy takers vs. Energy givers
Knowing our weaknesses
Don’t get too many things on the platter
9. It won’t be pretty.
10. If we do the right things, we’ll make money damn near automatic.

via brandtarot

PS> Here's Scott Bedbury's version

Read the signs

2006-06-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

Here's an intro to Semiotics, the study of culturals signs. Semiotics provides a way of uncovering the codes of communication embedded within a brand, its competitors, its product sector and the wider world of culture in which they exist. It gives you a detailed picture of the symbolic architecture of the brand and its environment - offering new insights and ideas for the brand's future. It's desk research, looking at the brand's communication (historical and current) as well as those of its competitors.

How brands become Icons

2006-06-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create "identity myths" that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change.

Holt warns that icons can't be built through conventional branding strategies, which focus on benefits, brand personalities, and emotional relationships. Instead, he calls for a deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty--and outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles. They're channels for expressing desire and relieving anxiety, a comforting myth if you like (accountants who drive harleys, emasculated men buying into the Bud story etc., people who buy apple through fear of technology)

More here

beware the focus group

2006-06-04T19:45:00.000-04:00

A complimentary piece to WHY (see below)

Malcolm Gladwell's audio lecture, Human Nature, explores why we can't trust people's opinions -- because we don't have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke's market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller's Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.

Focus group researchers take note...

WHY?

2006-06-04T18:32:00.000-04:00

Why do we do what we do? Tilly sees reasoning as fundamentally social; we give reasons to justify decisions TO OTHER PEOPLE; thus, who those other people are and what our relationship is to them is the driver of the kind of reasoning we provide. In other words, what kind of explanation you'll give for your behaviour or attidue is not simply a case of 'the type of perosn you are' so much as who you are giving the explanation to and in what situation, i.e. what role you are playing (mom, boss, customer, lover, driving instructor) Reason-giving, Tilly says, reflects, establishes, repairs, and negotiates relationships.

conventions - conventionally accepted explanations. becuase i'm of a higher social status than you and i don't need to justify myself. Moms scolding kids. “Don’t be a tattletale”. i'm always messy! becuase i want to end the conversation, 'i wanna break up, it's not you, it's me.' Que sera, sera. Accidents happen. God's will.

stories - they circumscribe time and space, limit the number of actors and actions, situate all causes “in the consciousness of the actors,” and elevate the personal over the institutional. I can't quit smoking becuase my relationship with Sue is too stressful right now" (via Gladwell, Marriages thrive on stories. They die on conventions.)

codes - Then there are codes, which are high-level conventions, formulas that invoke sometimes recondite procedural rules and categories. The firm law of the Land. Only Elite members may board now. You are being turned down for the loan you applied for becuase of our strict credit checks.

technical accounts - Expert testimony. It's established that I know more than you about this subject, so i've got credability, so i'll demonstrate it with recourse to words you don't know or concepts beyond your current understanding.

Hear Gladwell talk about these in his diatribe that upholds unplanned creatity is not a poor cousin to its planned counterpart, but holds equal importance to us in both art and commerce.

that's bollywood!

2006-06-04T18:23:00.000-04:00

Here's, a kitschy generator that let's you create your own subtitled Bollywood clip.

Sharpening your Axe

2006-06-04T11:02:00.000-04:00

Wise men say, only fools rush in...

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Abe Lincoln

Streamwriting

2006-06-04T10:25:00.000-04:00

Streamwriting is simply writing nonstop what is in your mind, unedited until your conscious mind gets out of the way and allows your superconscious to do the talking.

Word your problem using specific language and make the wanted outcome sound fun, exciting or pleasant. For instance, a question like "How can I earn an extra $1000 this month and enjoy the process?" would be better than "Make a $1000."

Then, beneath your question start writing everything that pops into your head. Write related and unrelated thoughts that come to your mind. Keep your pen on paper and do not stop writing to think or get back on track. Your brain knows the problem, so you don't need to consciously think about it. You need your conscious out of the way.

When you run out of ideas, keep writing anyway. Write "I am stuck" or "I can't think of anything to write." Don't worry your conscious will likely get bored and let the ideas flow. Or you will change the subject to your goal or another side road that leads to the breakthrough. Just relax and keep writing.

Via here

offbeat records

2006-06-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

Quirky, charming and downright cringeworthy recordings from the vaults.

365 project here

standout fav, Sister Gertrude Morgan, James Brown meets The Book of Revelations

runner up
ad agency creative freakout
(via RD)

Research resource

2006-06-02T23:25:00.000-04:00

A wiki-based, best-of research techniques, including a smattering of IDEO cards....

Find it here

new media ecosystem?

2006-05-31T21:34:00.000-04:00

This article by, John Naughton, foresees the end of traditional broadcasting and the rise of a new media ecology. Sounds like a horribly pretentious idea, but it's really an interesting analogy : His idea is that new media innovations destabalise and cause shifts and swings within a constantly shifting landscape - much like the ebb and flow of the natural world. Sounds more involved than it is - which is a basic guide to how the internet is changing the way we consume content.

great resource for presentations

2006-05-19T15:00:00.000-04:00

Explore the www according to The Generator Blog to discover many, many different generators that allow you to customise an image or sign with your own text.

Update : More here (record, cassette etc)

Via Russell Davies,

SIRC articles

2006-05-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

Sirc is an independent, non-profit organization that tracks social trends in the UK. As such they're amassing a valuable, free to access library of articled on a variety of ethnographic and sociological topics.

Many of their reports have been comissioned by brands with the proviso that they are allowed into the public domain. Some examples :

Happy Homes - what makes a good home?

The Noughties - The decade of diversity

Evolution, Alienation and Gossip - the role of mobile telecommunications in the 21st century.

The Smell Report
The psychology and anthropology of scent

Mirror, Mirror...
A summary of research findings on body image

Too many options...

2006-05-18T14:28:00.000-04:00

Great new book, the Paradox of Choice. It considers the 'analysis paralysis' of our developed economy with its plethora of brand choice and social possibility.

"Everyone agrees that having choice is better than not having choice. It seems evident that if choice is good, then more choice is better. The paradox is that this "obvious" truth isn't true. It turns out that a point can be reached where, with more choice, people are worse off.

People can't ignore options - they have to pay attention to them. If they make a choice, is there another choice would have been better? There's more effort put into making decisions, and less in enjoying them. What's nagging is the possibility that, if they had chosen differently, they could have gotten something better."

The effect on today's youth, the so-called quarter life crisis, the panic and procratination surrounding 'settling down' is specifically considered in this article from the UK's Social Issues research centre called 'Lifeshopping'.

bed genius

2006-05-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

A great space saving idea in theory, wonder what it's like in practise...

Too pricey by half at the suggested hundreds of dollars price tag (see here)

IKEA, you know what to do...

Brand You II

2006-05-11T18:57:00.000-04:00

Managing your career as you would any brand is a classic no-brainer for anyone working in strategy. But it's often never as simple as that. After all, it's harder to get perspective when you're so close to something. But no excuses - physician heal thyself.

Catherine Kaputa's list of top 10 career strategies are startling unoriginal but still offer relevance when viewed through the prism of your own situation. Well, at least, it got me thinking.

1. Be the First
2. Be the Leader
3. Take the Anti-leader Position
4. Own an Attribute
5. Use a Magic Ingredient or Invent a New Process
6. Be the Expert
7. Be Preferred
8. Set a High Price
9. Use Your Special Heritage
10. Own a Cause

Read more in this interview, here

The price is right

2006-05-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Russell Davies (the very nice man who's doing for planning what Patrick Moore did for stargazing) for the tip off about Tim Harford's book, The Undercover Economist.

Having digested this engaging extract on the nuts and bolts of price sensitivity I think i'll wait until the price drops and its published in paperback ...

Click here for Tim's advice on why less is more when it comes to giving presentations which will appeal to buddists and slackers alike.

Wooden LED Clock

2006-05-10T12:49:00.000-04:00

Wonder whether this lovely wooden clockalarm tells you the year by the number of rings in the grain...

Just good enough, just isn't good enough

2006-05-10T11:56:00.001-04:00

Competence, an ugly word. Like "satisfactory", it has a smug air about it that masks a lack of ambition or potential. It's a Jobsworth word. Good and safe. This Seth Godin article reinforces the simple idea that competence - be it at the individual or a company level - is the enemy of average-defying greatness:

"Competent people are quite proud of the status and success that they get out of being competent. They like being competent. They guard their competence, and they work hard to maintain it. Bob Dylan, on the other hand, is an incompetent musician. From year to year, from concert to concert, there's just no way to be sure that he'll deliver exactly what you're expecting. Sometimes, he blows the world away with his insight, his energy, and his performance. Other times, he's just so-so."

Bring on the Small Giants

2006-05-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

"Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. How maverick companies have passed up the growth treadmill—and focused on greatness instead."

Shockingly enough, some companies are only in it for the money. They hope to grow big and profitable to be sold, rather like fattening a calf for the market. The company is the means to a financial end. Some companies purposely stay small and concentrate on maintaining their 'mojo,' the magical, somewhat ephemeral quality that often defines them : their Soul. The company an end in itself, meaningful employment for its workers or simply just being the best. The by products of great reputation and handsome profit seems to follows.

BB's suggests their are 7 tenents at the core of small but great businesses (my headings)

1. Know what you want & develop a meaningful brand positioning
"First, I could see that, unlike most entrepreneurs, their founders and leaders had recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they would create."

2. Going your own way means constnatly making the tougher decision "Second, the leaders had overcome the enormous pressures on successful companies to take paths they had not chosen and did not necessarily want to follow."

3. Be a living part of your community. No, really...
"Third, each company had an extraordinarily intimate relationship with the local city, town, or county in which it did business -- a relationship that went well beyond the usual concept of `giving back.'"

4. Make sure business is always personal.
"Fourth, they cultivated exceptionally intimate relationships with customers and suppliers, based on personal contact, one-on-one interaction, and mutual commitment to delivering on promises."

5. If business is personal, your workplace should reflect that.
"Fifth, the companies also had what struck me as unusually intimate workplaces."

6. There is no magic 'fits all' company structure.
"Sixth, I was impressed by the variety of corporate structures and modes of governance that these companies had come up with."

7. Real enthusiasm for what you do should fire your ambition over more practical considerations.
"Finally, I noticed the passion that the leaders brought to what the company did. They loved the subject matter, whether it be music, safety lighting, food, special effects, constant torque hinges, beer, records storage, construction, dining, or fashion."

Time for Gehry

2006-05-07T20:14:00.000-04:00

Not quite the postmodern fantasy it might have been, Gehry's watch design for Fossil, elegantly talks time the way we all do, rather than the way all watches seem to.

invisible bookshelf

2006-05-06T11:50:00.000-04:00

find it here

FLICKR fun

2006-05-05T11:35:00.000-04:00

Iain Tait's blog has bought me this gem of a FLIKR interface.

Great for exploring visual associations and sparking off fresh ways of looking.

Look, See, Here

First idea time capsule

2006-05-04T20:59:00.000-04:00

First thoughts are precious.

Out of the mouths of babes. Fresh eyes and all that.

Even if your initial inclinations are just poorly formed hints at where you think the brief is taking you, blink, and scribble it down. Channel those early brainwaves into a envelope and then limber up and embrace the big think. (Mail it to yourself if you like.)

Should you later find yourself later wallowing in plannerly procrastination or overcooking the thinking, those first sparks may guide you back to earth. Perhaps think of that envelope as a time-capsule. Open it up once the campaign is in the can and see how far those virgin thoughts traveled.

Cover Version?

2006-05-04T20:42:00.000-04:00

Cover versions, mash-ups, reinterpretations, remixes, reimaginations, reincarnations. The essence of creativity is taking two existing units of meaning and pushing them together like tectonic plates to push up new matter from what lies beneath.

Great cover versions involve a singer/band taking on an unexpected song, often outside their regular category to give the known a fresh perspective. In the clash between 2 famous entities magic can happen.

What if you brand 'did' an unlikely, but fantastically genius cover version. Which song would it be and why? Perhaps this is a way of gettig past the usual category dogma and onto pastures new.

For inspiration, check out this article of the top 50 cover versions of all time. Here's a choice observation from the write-up of The Flying Lizards electro revisiting of the rock'n'roll classic, 'Money (that's what I want)' : "Deborah Evans speaks the lyrics deadpan, in the style of an upper-class English dominatrix. Key moment: The way Evans sounds as if she's going to come to your house, whip in hand, and retrieve the cash personally.'

Maslow's Hierarchy

2006-05-04T16:29:00.000-04:00

In our very developed modern society it's obvious that brands can be meaningful at all levels in M's famous pyramid.

(See also post below for list of related basic human drivers.)

Basic Instincts

2006-05-04T16:24:00.000-04:00

Basic Human Drives from adliterate.com

1. Sex/romance
2. Acquisition/saving
3 Bonding/connecting
4. Learn/curiosity
5. Eat
6. Defence/fight or flight
7. Nest
8. Vengence
9. Status
10. Power
11. Loyalty
12. Order and organisation
13. Independence
14. Acceptance
15. Altruism
16. Physical activity

Very Maslow, see next post...

Brand "You"

2006-05-04T15:34:00.000-04:00

Seems a bit old hat now to talk about employees as individual brands vying for attention in the work-market-place.

Still Tom Peter's advice on actively managing your profile to standout from the crowd is as relevant as ever. Find it here.

Mirror neurons

2006-05-04T14:11:00.000-04:00

A recently discovered system in the brain may help explain why we humans can get so worked up watching other people.

Mirror neurons seem to play a key role in how we relate to each other : the mechanics of empathy. The basic theory is that the brain cannot easily tell the difference between something actually happening to you and the percieving the same action happen to someonelse. It explains why we cry at sad films, how we learn and how we got such a leg up the evolutionary ladder amongst other things...

Watch a PBS film about Mirror Neurons here

Reinventing the brand

2006-05-04T10:07:00.000-04:00

Click here for Scott Bedbury's Ad Age Article, 'Rethinking Every Rule of Reinvention'

The unfocus group

2006-04-29T16:26:00.000-04:00

Read about the idea of an unfocus group in an interesting article about the design company IDEO and their 'METHODCARDS'. The thought is that early on in a project in a new category you assemble a motley crew of experts and evangelists to give you ways of thinking about it rather than gather a group of likeminded people as you traditionally might.

curry at breakfast?

2006-04-29T16:15:00.000-04:00

It's good to talk. But when to talk depends on what the issue is and what their mindset is = 'behavioural media planning' .

You've just eaten breakfast and your partners says, "wanna go for a curry tonight?" and you cannot even begin to stomach thinking about spicy food, even though, when the time's right, there's nothing better.

Comapre unsolicited sales calls versus Google classified ads - uninsightful, intrusive and untimely versus on demand, welcomed and tailored.

how to plan creativity

2006-04-29T15:45:00.000-04:00

from Creativity at Work: A Leadership Guide

The modern research about creativity is enormous. Social scientists from a variety of disciplines have been writing about the subject for more than fifty years. What does this research tell us? One of the richest veins provides a long list of factors that enable creativity within the workplace. They can be grouped into the ten categories discussed below.

Enablers of Creativity

Intellectual Diversity. The workforce contains an adequate mix of people from different occupations, interests, skills, backgrounds, experiences and personalities.
Vibrant, Wide-reaching Interaction. Expansive channels of communication expose people to new influences.
Employee Engagement. People’s personal and professional interests are aligned and complementary systems of reward and recognition are in place.
A Sphere of Autonomy. Well-understood boundaries separate necessary controls from the latitude required for a person to seize the initiative.
A Safe Space and Trust. The environment is such that people feel free to express themselves openly and authentically without fear.
Intellectual Growth Opportunities. Active investments are made to develop the knowledge and skills of the workforce.
Supportive Managers. Empathetic managers act as catalysts and role models.
Discretionary Time and Energy. Opportunities are provided to pause and reflect on work and to think of new ideas.
Organizational Supports. Access to appropriate funding, technology, expertise and other aids is provided.
Organizational Dynamism. In a changing environment, people are encouraged to continually look for ways to improve.

Godin on Mother's Day

2006-04-29T12:27:00.000-04:00

What makes a great brand story ? Mother's Day.

Viral, Creates positive culture, answers a need for givers and receivers alike. Seth Godin Says So.

FLIKR spella

2006-04-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

A simply lovely tool to spell anything you want out of tagged photos from FLICKR here

Soothsayers of the world, unite

2006-04-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

Grant McCracken:

"Trend watching: 10 rules

Trend watching is a pressing business. And we now have an increasingly crowded marketplace of suppliers.

In these early days, there are many models and extravagantly different standards. Here are some of the rules with which we can separate the sheep from the goats....

the pleasure of finding things out

2006-04-29T09:47:00.000-04:00

Excellent short 40 min documentary interview with Dr. RP Feynman- one of the greatest physicist of our times. Would that he had not wasted his life with Nobel prizes and reinventing how we see the universe, he would have made a great planner (or creative generalist)

A few choice items from his CV :

In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, he gives advice on the best way to pick up a girl in a hostess bar and drew artwork for a massage parlor. He used a nude/topless bar as an office away from the office, making sketches or writing physics equations on paper placemats.

Feynman was requested to serve on the presidential Rogers Commission which investigated the Challenger disaster of 1986. - and he worked out why of course.

He was a mean bongo player, notorious practical joker, and decipherer of Mayan hieroglyphics

ZAG

2006-04-27T09:26:00.000-04:00

BBH have expanded their ideas empire in some interesting ways over the years. Music has a special place in the BBH canon (think Levis) something, 2003's LEAP music venture confirmed.

ZAG is the agency's new limb that will focus on product development. have always wondered whether agencies would extend further into the creation of new brands, but new products? Perhaps Zag will be housed in a massive garden shed and be popluated with dads and uncles pottering around with wire, a glass of port and a transistor radio.

Seizing the Channels

2006-04-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

Consumers are taking over media channels that were previously one-way dictates from big business or government.

Check at this hyperthetical competition : "what image you like to see on a US stamp?"

The subversive ones are the best, of course.

(Canada Post already allows you to personalise your stamps, see here.)

Second Life

2006-04-23T11:49:00.000-04:00

What is Second Life?

Simply mindblowing VR. Where will all this go? The On demand life lived out in a virtual world. The interactions between first and second life are astonishing.

Take money,

A virtual world with a virtual currency that has a legitimate value to the $US - "In 2006, there's a good chance $100 million USD dollars worth of transactions will flow through the virtual world of Second Life." See here

Beyond physicality as we know it: SL is uniting the like-minded or bodied that cannot easily exisit in our world - wheelchair users from around the globe connect in their own community ( and enjoy able body life if desired in their private uptopias)

Subversive Knitting

2006-04-23T10:49:00.000-04:00

Knitting has become subversive, "in". Clandestine clickers creating knitting boutiques on the fringes of boho 'hoods. Toronto is the epicentre of drop stitch cool, see here

Now guerilla Knitting is transforming public space with disruptive yarn, ironically tagging objects to make a rather twee kind of graffiti (see here and pic)

Perhaps it's the circle of cool turning. ("Circle of Cool Theory" is Eddie Izzard's axis for plotting cool things to uncool things, the idea being it is not linear but circular and the line between 'unfathomably unhip' and 'so trendy it hurts' is miniscule. Just think how 70s geek chic went from bad to good in one fickle revolution from not to hot)

Part of the nexus of 21st century knitting must be a nostalgic backlash against the irrepressible rise of technology, an individualistic want to create beyond cooker-cutter manufacturing that extends to identity-making.

Anyhoo, subversive knitting reminds me of this great Gondry video: