July 08, 2009
May 15, 2009
April 09, 2009
April 07, 2009
March 31, 2009
Data, beautiful data (ii)
Back in August I wrote about how computers, as they get more and more sophisticated, are capable of making seemingly dull data more and more beautiful. Here's another nice example: 24 hours worth of geotagged photos (64,410 photos to be exact) from last Monday - March 23rd.
In this case the data was brought to life by the talented Rev Dan Catt.
Best watched full screen in HD - click on bottom right of video.
Brand owners hold reams and reams of dull consumer data. By re-purposing this data with a bit of imagination, they can create interesting and engaging stuff - even helpful stuff. I'm certain we're going to see more of this in future.
I'm also sure the idea above will appear on our TV screens as an ad for someone like Nokia in a few months time...
March 24, 2009
Shackleton and Twitter
For those of us that can't quite decide whether or not Twitter is - in the most part - an inane vanity project, I just read in polar explorer, Ben Saunder's blog that Shackleton had similar thoughts about an entry into his first Antarctic diary, 107 years ago:
"I turned in about 1am. What a ridiculous thing it must seem to other people to read a diary where such a statement as 'I turned in at 1am' appears as if they were interested in the time another fellow mortal at the other end of the world went to bed… Those sort of items are the penalties that one's friends must pay when struggling to gain a little real information in these reams of paper.
- E.H. Shackleton, diary, 14 July 1902A refreshing reminder that though means and technologies change - we are asking the same questions now as we were 100 years ago.
March 17, 2009
January 28, 2009
Twittery goodness
Stephen Fry has 80,000 followers and growing on Twitter. He loves it - posting tweets of his humorously eccentric existence all day long. I recommend you join the tribe.Anyway, just a few moments ago I noticed that someone had asked him to post his sponsorship link (to raise money for his poorly son). Mr Fry promptly did this with the simple comment 'you might consider sponsoring this fellow' and with a click, this sponsorship message went out to over 80,000 people (with Stephen Fry's endorsement). What a nice chap. I've decided I'm going to sponsor James Morely-Smith myself and watch how this lovely tale of human kindness and digital possibilities plays out.
January 20, 2009
The entertainment business (2)
This is a great piece of communication:
- It's entertaining
- It's full of life (living way beyond its original channel).
- With over 760,000 views on You Tube alone (in first 6 days) along with the evidence of all the punters reaching for their phones and taking pictures and films in the 'ad' itself - it's effortlessly triggering the exact response the brand is shouting from the rooftops: Life is for sharing.
So in this particular case, any attacks of - "I've seen large dance troupes do acts in public spaces before" - aren't going to fly. It's a great idea and it works. Just a shame about the nasty pink branding and annoying little T-mobile noise at the end.
November 18, 2008
The new IP
The Ad industry is bursting with brilliant creative and
commercially strategic minds. But this brilliance is most often only applied
to, or just under, the glossy veneer of businesses when it should be at the
centre.
Our industry also suffers from being in relationship,
rather than partnership, with our clients. The word 'relationship' covers a multitude of
sins whereas partnerships are necessarily built on mutual respect – at their
heart are shared agenda and belief underpinned by shared risk and reward. Sadly, the reality of our industry is that partnerships are killed by fees and award ceremonies.
As a result of this partnership scarcity, the creation of
brilliant new products and services with brilliant simple ideas at their core
will only ever exist at the periphery of today's Ad Agencies. A rare and recent example is McCann Erickson's Widget for UPS, but this is an exception. The bottom
line is that IP simply can’t prosper at the periphery; it has to be
at the centre. And that's because it's not a new discipline, it's a
new mindset. A mindset that must challenge a Client’s expectation of unlimited
ideas for monthly fees regardless of whether they are for posters, business
changing widgets or the next killer format for ITV.
There are only a few companies that have fully embraced
this notion – Anomaly and Erasmus are two that come to mind. But the industry is skeptical, everyone asks the same question - "how can they survive without fees
when equity is a long game?" The answer probably lies within a hybrid of
the two, but regardless of the exact answer, it is clear that the existing fee based
model is in trouble and the only way out is by becoming cleverer with
Intellectual Property.
Cleverer doesn’t have to mean building walls – on the contrary, I believe that today’s
spirit of collaboration, twinned with increasingly pressured client budgets could lead to the emergence of The New IP – Intellectual Partnerships -
joint ventures between Agencies and Clients with absolute shared risk and
reward. It's the only way everyone can win, and it might just trigger some of
the best new products and services we've seen in years.
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