Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas!!

It's Snow Joke

I am currently extremely angry at Manchester Airport, and pretty angry with Easyjet after a horrible Friday of battling the snow.

We arrived at Manchester Airport to pick up my brother on his way back from Germany. The plane was due at 10.30pm, and was shown as running ok.

We braved the car through the still falling snow to get there for twenty to eleven. Except on the way my dad phoned and said its' landing had been delayed until 23.54.

So we got to the airport and sat down to wait. The airport was cold, even with scarf and gloves it was freezing.

At twenty past twelve we checked the information board and it still said Due 23.54... Well clearly not!

At half twelve, the woman next to us waiting for the same flight tells us its landed in Luton. I search the whole terminal to find someone to ask, but there is NO-ONE apart from security, plus the Easyjet desk is closed.

I then used my phone to check Easyjet for a help number, only to find that their helpline for this kind of thing is only open until 8pm... what aload of fucking good that is.

The Manchester Airport display still said Due 23.54...

We then tried the Luton Airport site which confirmed the plane had arrived there. My dad then rang Luton Airport who told us a coach would bring them to Manchester. Which is fair enough.

We left at around 1.15am, at which time the display STILL said Due 23.54. How bloody hard is it to update one line on your display?? It's not like a Boeing 737 is something you can miss. It's had to book a landing slot, and if Luton knows it's landed surely you should know! How come a quick internet search can tell me more information than the airport that is supposed to be keeping us informed??

Most companies wouldn't dare to treat customers with that level of service. Just because you are an airport does not mean you are abdicated of responsibility for our experience and information.

Oh and to round things off, we were charged £12 for parking. TWELVE POUNDS, largely because the airport was apparently incapable of relaying one short piece of information.

2010 - The Questions

After being tagged by Rob C, here are my answers to his questions on 2010..:

1/ Best single thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.
Being part of a decent TV ad where I was sole planner.

2/ Most shameful thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.
Embarrassing lots of colleagues with the Agency Xmas Party video.

3/ Ad industry scandal or scoundrel of the year.
A tie between the 'Missing Planner' scandal and the grumpy genius scoundrel that is George Parker.

4/ Your overall rating for 2010 out of 10. [1 = shit / 10 = showoff]
7 - Mostly good but fewer exciting opportunities than last year.

5/ What do you think will be the most overhyped advertising related subject of 2011?
Gamification will probably start filtering through to agencies that don't understand gaming, and we will end up collecting XP and coins on everything.


I tag these questions to:

David
Gemma T
Adam and Dan
James
Ben

Dress Code Warning System

In response to Gemma T's comments about the pitfalls of client dress codes, I think the industry should adopt an early warning system that advises agencies of expected dress codes prior to first meetings (usually pitch or tissue meetings).

If every client includes the number we need never again face the difficult choice of whether to over or under dress. Thanks to Gemma for guidance on the female version of the code.

Review of the Year - Part 2 - Awards!

Not quite the Cannes Lions... but it's been a great year in many senses for advertising, lots of exciting and engaging campaigns worthy of merit. Here are The Ad Pit Awards 2010!

Best Campaign

Nike - Write the Future - Talk about catching the moment and running with it. A brilliant, if sadly prophetic piece of work. Making big superstar spokespeople utterly relevant and endearing instead of shoe-horned.

Runners Up: E4 Flashmob (Utterly brilliant), John Lewis - Always a Woman, Nike Grid, Old Spice, Skoda - Meaner stuff, Match - Music shop

Best Surprise

Ikea - Kitchen at Parties - Jona Lewie brought back to popular culture and a magnificent use of music to demonstrate product.

Runner Up: Gillette - Federer video

Most Improved Advertising

Virgin Media - Speedy Gonzales - Welcome back Speedy. This is how to use existing characters to sell a product. Hits the nail right on the head in a way that manages to sell whilst still being funny.

Worst Advert

Go Compare - Opera Twat - Somehow, somehow they made this even worse than last year. A campaign surviving solely on media budget, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not engaging, it's not entertaining, it makes me want to have nothing to do with the brand in a way I haven't felt since Jamster.

Runner Up: Argos - Xmas (Nice ad, now why not wait til Christmas to show it?)

Most Disappointing Work

Cadbury's Dairy Milk - Charmer - Product product product nice soundtrack product product product product product. Not what we expected from one of the most engaging campaigns of recent years.

Agency of the Year

Wieden + Kennedy - Nike write the future, Nike Grid, Old Spice Man... I think there could only be one winner this year. Some agencies have made great work, but this year W+K have been consistently outstanding.

A Note for Myspace

When spending a shitload of money to redesign and revamp your site, change your identity and refocus your business model; you really need to pay attention to how people use it.

The old myspace site was slow, cluttered, full of conflicting navigation, full of irritating ads. The new myspace site is slow, cluttered, full of conflicting navigation, full of irritating videos and ads.

They have clearly learnt nothing at News Corp. Even at its worst, Facebook lets you see everything you want in one go, at minimal fuss. Myspace wants you to drag and search around before you find anything.

It's not like they didn't ask. I did the longest questionnaire in history a few months back describing everything that was wrong, and what we got was the same site but looking a little nicer.

Focusing on music is a smart move for myspace, sadly they seem to have got everything else wrong.

Review of 2010 - Part One - Music

There have been some brilliant albums released this year, perhaps a surprising number of disappointing ones too. But here are my picks for albums and tracks of the year:

Albums:

The Drums - The Drums

Maybe deserving of plaudits simply for not being drowned in the hype and expectation surrounding it. More so though for being irresistibly catchy and writing the best song about surfing since the Beach Boys.

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - The Golden Year

Perhaps (sadly) more likely to be remembered for the tragic death of their lead singer than their actual music, this album was a totally unexpected surprise. Some amazing songs and a brilliant sound that feels retro but without feeling dated or cliche'd.

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

Great album. Really great album. Punctuated with two of the best metal tracks of this century. When Chi Cheng finally wakes up from his coma, I can't wait to see him play this stuff with the band again.

Wavves - King of the Beach

Noisy surf punk genius.

Tracks:

The Drums - Me and the Moon

Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - The Key

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

Mark Ronson - The Bike Song

Hurts - Silver Lining

One More Thing:

I still for the life of me cannot understand how on earth a band as dull as the XX have managed to become so popular. It's about as exciting as a wholemeal cucumber sandwich with margarine. I understand the potential of things being simple and minimal, but please let's not have minimal equating to deathly boring.

La Fashion. La Wha?

Personally I class myself as someone who is very interested in style, but very uninterested in fashion (if that makes sense). I'm more bothered about how things look than who makes them, though obviously I have brands I like.

This week though, I have found a lot to endear me to a brand I had previously never really paid any attention to. Hermes.

First I found this wonderful finger skating video (via Spinning Around). It ticks all the client boxes of showing off the product, but it's fun and engaging to watch, and shot brilliantly. If you want to see how to make engaging content instead of ads, it's the best work I've seen in a while.


Secondly, I followed the link to the Hermes website; and was met with a cheeseboard of images. I started playing around and realised each one is a little story or idea that comes to life when you zoom in. Including a lovely tale of a womans diary and her Hermes scarf.

The whole site is full of fun, interesting, engaging and thoughtful content. It's sufficiently well thought out that you almost want to see them all to make sure you don't miss out on something good.

This is attitude and style over fashion. but by doing it it makes me notice the fashion element more. Excellent.

Service Please... Service?

I've been to GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) a few times, I've usually enjoyed it. Food that is nice for a not unreasonable price.

However last time I visited I had a number of issues with the service that spoilt the meal a bit, and made me decide to email their customer service.

That was over two weeks ago. I have yet to receive any response whatsoever from GBK. My email was polite and constructive, yet I haven't even received an auto "someone will get back to you within xxx days" message.

Is it any wonder people now use Facebook as a base for their complaints and comments if companies are this useless as responding to emails and other queries.

So as they appear to not be bothered about speaking to me, here are my issues with my last GBK meal:

• Woman seating us seemed to completely ignore my wife, not bothering to explain the menu even though it was her who hadn't been before
• The food took almost 50 minutes to arrive. I'm not impatient but other people who came in after us were being served before us
• The original server gave us the wrong table number
• When the food was brought out, the guy had to bring it over to us from a different table after realising the number was wrong, but he appeared to have no concern whatsoever for our experience. A simple 'oh sorry about that' would have been fine, but he seemed to have a bit of an attitude
• The cheese sauce we ordered was pretty much a solid lump

So we definitely won't be going to that GBK again, and with customer service like I've had so far (I.e.: None) It's likely I won't be going to any other one either.

Shit Hitting Fan - My Thoughts

The past few days have been completely bizarre in the world of planning. A series of allegations and stories have emerged that have created a storm in the plannersphere, and in particular, have led to lots of calls for one particular person to be punished and turned into some kind of lynching figure.

I'll make it clear that I only slightly know both main parties, and I don't know which allegations are true and which are not.

The problem I have is that in a scenario like this it is impossible to know what are the truths and what are lies. Clearly the person in question has done a number of things that he should not be proud of, and possibly some that he could get into serious trouble for.

However, we must be wary of creating a mob attitude until we know the full truth. We don't know the reasons, the coincidences, the personal opinions and vendettas that could change things for each side of the argument.

He may very well be guilty of all of these things, but he equally could be innocent of many of them. I just hope we can all be as understanding and considered about this as we would be if it were a piece of insight or information that we were using for a client. We would* never try and sell in baseless conclusions to clients, let's not do the same here. Let the people with the evidence and the people with the talking to do solve this, and we can all discuss it then.

The last thing we need is for mud slinging, in-fighting, side taking and bitching to take this difficult situation and create a long term problem between people in our field.

*I hope!

Does Internet Browsing Still Exist?

I've been thinking about this a bit recently. Does anyone still use the internet for browsing?

I talked about it a while ago, but have noticed the topic going around a bit recently.



I cannot remember the last time I browsed the internet. I go on for Facebook, for twitter, for news and so on. I never randomly explore, I just type it into google or Wikipedia and go. The curation and filtering gives me most of the stuff I would want to see anyway...

Perhaps it's a little strange we still call our internet software Browsers, or that we refer to browsing the web, which is now the last refuge of the bored user. What we do now is watch channels, or check our social content lists.



I think my analogy from two years ago still seems to ring true:



You remember having 4/5 tv channels, you always found something to watch. Then multi channel tv came along, and it was a realm of choice, every possible subject and whim catered for through the wonders of satellite technology.


There is infinite knowledge and content out there for us to explore. Accessing it has never been easier.

Then we got settled, then we chose favourites, then we flicked... we flicked some more... then we never stopped flicking. Our standards became so high that suddenly that half interesting documentary or obscure Indian film became wastage instead of the only thing on. We said 'there's nothing on!' even though there clearly was lots of things on.

Yet the more there is too see, the more fussy we get.


Well that's what is happening to the net. Facebook, twitter, blip, blogger, your news site... thats it. You are done. No time left to random surf, and even then you do it on wikipedia.

We use our filters to flick for us. The cloud searches en-mass, and we get everything handed to us, which just makes us more fussy. I used to read for hours about random topics because it was amazing to see so much detail. But when you can learn anything, what do you choose? Too much choice is no choice at all.


You could say the only browsing we do is flicking channels...

Comments on Modern Communications...

"The advertising ... this year had been produced in a year of economic recession. It is my experience that, in times like these, both the quantity and quality of advertising is diminished."

"All magazines must learn that good design does pay"

"It's very fashionable to knock the work we earn our living at, but it's always amazing to me that [campaigns] ever end up as good as they do"

"I think we all know production values have got better as good ideas have got scarce"

"Considering the commities that scripts seem to go through and the number of odds and sods who put in their destructive, and genereally ignorant, two pennysworth, it's a miracle that [good work] ever [gets] through"

All from the D&AD Annual ... 1976

A step in the right direction

There are many brands that feel cold and alien. Look particularly at some of the financial and banking brands, multi-billion dollar institutions yet they have no connection or relevance to the vast majority of people. There are plenty of business and management brands that fall into the same trap.

If you wish to see an example of how to instantly humanise and improve the perception of your brand, look no further than the 10000 women project being run by Goldman Sachs.

A five year project providing business education and guidance to 10000 female entrepreneurs who otherwise would not be able to access that kind of training. It feels like a warm and genuine piece of community work from a brand that has usually felt blank to me.

Not only that, but I take away from the video a better sense of what Goldman Sachs feels like as a company; as well a strong perception of accessibility and friendliness. The opposite of how I pictured the brand not ten minutes ago.

"No country will ever achieve its' full potential if half of its' talent pool is stymied or under-represented" - Too right.

10000 Women

(found at BrandKarma)

Hurry Up 'Arry

I'm by no means a Spurs supporter (Hammer by birth, United by home) but I totally agree with Harry Redknapps decision to stop giving interviews if he is charged with misconduct following the weekend's bizarre goal.

Firstly I think it was a goal, the ref didn't blow the whistle therefore no foul had been given. Presuming a foul was every bit as presumptuous as Nani had been in grabbing the ball.

However, and this is the big issue for me. What is the point in having interviews when the managers are unable to speak their minds? I'm not saying they should be able to abuse referees, but to not be allowed to criticise them is ludicrous. I don't want robots after a game, I want to see managers talking honestly about the game and the performance of all involved. How would we feel if managers were no longer allowed to criticise players?

There is a lot of talk about respecting the game and respecting the ref, yet it always feels as if the refs have no respect for the teams or supporters. (Obviously they do, but we never get to see it) They are immune from criticism and never have to justify their decisions. By locking them away as untouchable it just drives the resentment felt by supporters.

We understand that everyone has bad days, players, managers, referees alike. There would be so much more respect for the refs if they just came out for 5 minutes and explained their decisions. We would even understand fully if they came out and admitted their mistakes, we don't expect them to be perfect, but when a bad decision costs a team 3 points or a place in the next round of a cup; a simple apology might go a long way towards healing the wounds.

Great Gazoos!

When I first saw the T-Mobile Welcome Home ad I asked the question that seems to be reverberating around adland. Has flash mobbing and crowd participation jumped the shark?

Certainly anyone who watched the E4 sting from last week would find it hard to argue that the 'slick polished performer' singing and dancing style of flash-mobbing that T-Mobile originated in ad terms has gone beyond parody, that piece of work killed stone dead any credibility a brand could have in doing that kind of ad.

However, I'm glad to say that the new T-Mobile ad has managed to avoid jumping the shark. It may be getting ready to jump, but this ad had enough in it, and was sufficiently thought out that it still felt quite original (In UK terms, SNCF did very similar things in France), and kept me engaged. There was a nice choice of tracks and it felt much less cheesy and contrived than I would have expected for a 3 minute (Yes, THREE minutes!) ad in this kind of campaign. The performers felt more natural and less overtly polished, like real people getting together instead of a clearly hand picked group of dancers.

I think the big question for T-Mobile is where to go now. By time the next campaign comes around, will it be too late to flash mob? Happily though, I think their strategy has the potential to keep moving and evolving, there are plenty of ways to share in life without 200 people descending on an airport/train station/shopping centre/bus stop/cafe/public toilet (delete as appropriate).

A little help!

Hi folks,

If you get a moment, I would be very grateful if you could help me win a Hotmail competition by clicking the link below and voting for my idea (by clicking Like).

Hotmail Comp - The Sortinator

Thanks!!

Rob

The Sugar Dilemma

We all watch the Apprentice and see this mocked up Alan Sugar in a big tower (studio) with clever (stupid) business people (idiots) trying to win an important (ish) job with the mogul.

But I was thinking the other day, just how big and powerful is Alan Sugar?

He has a reputation for being the kind of no nonsense, no emotion salesperson that most agencies would hate to work with. He comes across as someone who puts features, name and price at the centre of the communications universe and has no time for anything even vaguely intangible or creative.

Which got me thinking. How many really successful Amstrad or Sugar backed products can you think of? (Amstrad computers was huge, but based on buying out and renaming Sinclair just as they started to decline) How many lasting brands has he built?

Amstrad computers sold ok, he sold them by mail order only and no-one really cared. His internet phones sold ok. Everything he does is adequate and makes profit; but nothing is ever truly successful.

It says it all that (as our Head of Planning Steve said) his biggest cultural impact on the country is as the 'boss' on a TV show. No product or brand he has produced has ever had a real impact. With some better agency thinking and creative, he could have been so much more.

You can say that he is successful, and yes he is. But he is just a wheeler dealer, a Del Boy made good. I can't help thinking that had he a better understanding of branding and how to sell using communication, he could have been a Branson.

Note: My aunt's shop is on tonights show. I shall cringe but also be kind of proud!

Arriba Arriba! ...........................

Disclosure: My brother worked on this ad, but that is in no way any reason for the below post.

I love the old Warner Brothers cartoons, they are briliant examples of when cartoons were treated with respect instead of being mass farmed out to Asia while all aspects of creativity are slowly chisled out.

That said, they were also good at creating characters; and the new Virgin Media ad is a great example of how to take an existing character and make it relevant to a brand strategy (as opposed to just shoehorning in a famous character for creative). If you want to suggest fast broadband, then who better than the fastest mouse in all of Mexico?

I also love the use of the anti-ad; the acknowledgement that Speedy is whoring himself out for the advertising industry. The writing is mainly setting up the story but leaves room for a couple of good sight gags and a magnificent cheese pun.

Speedy is on Facebook too, bringing an already vibrant character to life even more. If they get the writing right of course... but they have so far.

My only real criticisms are really more about the cartooning industry in general than this ad, so I'll leave that for another post.

This is great work by DDB. The campaign and strategy have the potential to run and run until they make Speedy Gonzales look like Regular Gonzales (as my brother would say).

E4 Says What We Are All Thinking...

Flashmobs are officially done it seems. In one swoop E4 just ripped the living daylights out of the kind of overly rehearsed model filled pose-a-thon flash mob that no one really likes anymore.

This video is just brilliant. The cheesy track from Black Eyed Peas, the pouting posing models doing dance moves that only a professional dancer would ever do. The second piece of music is spot on. The craziness that ensues feels spontanious and is funny. The balloon pop is the funniest thing I've watched all year.

Best of all, from a strategy point of view it feels perfectly like E4. Slightly edgy, slightly cooler than the mass market, but not likely to offend anyone in its reach.

An Open Letter to Argos and Their Media Agency

Dear Argos/Agency/Media Agency,

I should point out straight away that I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of Argos' communications over the past year or so. This year's campaign is no different, and interesting piece of creative positioned well so that it is very visible and prominent.

I have one complaint however. It is not Christmas, it is the middle of sodding October.

While I appreciate the need to produce advertising and run it in the build up to Christmas (working as I do on retail clients), I worry that you are wasting money on simply annoying people when you could instead be saving that budget for an appropriate time when the work would raise a smile.

Now to be fair, you may have such a large media budget that it doesn't matter if you start your Christmas 2011 advertising on pancake day; but that doesn't mean you should.

Likewise, you may be facing competitors pushing their Christmas advertising further forward each year until you have to start promoting in summer. But why not at the very least create some work that references the fact it is early, and make that a point of humour; making your competitors look silly for getting in so ridiculously early.

I'm by no means a Scrooge, by no means a killjoy. I love the fun and happy atmosphere created by Christmas and the spirit of the season. My issue is that this IS NOT the season, this is early autumn, this is early even to have Halloween parties.

In the meeting where the media schedule is discussed, when it was said "And our Christmas campaign this year will start in the second week of October", a full 10 weeks before Christmas, and well over 70 days... how did no one say "Isn't that a bit early?". If in a media review it was suggested that we start promoting a summer sale in the middle of March, that might be considered a bit weird. Or perhaps we should start the early promotion of Christmas 2013 next August.

Two years in a row the first Christmas advertising I have seen has been for Argos, and contrary to what some people might think that is not a good thing. It just makes me want to avoid your stores and ignore your advertising for the next month, precisely the time I actually start looking for Christmas bargains and start deciding where to shop.

What I'm trying to say is: Please stop spoiling your interesting creative work by running it at a completely innapropriate time. I'd like to be able to react to your work based on it's merits, not the fact that I am aghast at seeing Christmas work already.

I hope next year we can meet properly at a reasonable time, try say a few days after Bonfire night at the very very earliest.

Regards and Merry Xmas

Rob "Cringle" Mortimer

Let there be music!

Just a note to say that I have finally started my old music blog again. I'll be posting tracks every day or two that I think are interesting, new, or forgotten. If you wish to comment that would be awesome.

FireFlower Music Blog

Why Agencies Need to Be Able to Act Quickly

All that needs saying here is Oakley shades and Chilean miners. For the cost of 35 pairs of shades, Oakley got worldwide press coverage and 35 sets of product placement on the biggest story in the world over the past week.

If that doesn't tell you the ability to let your agencies act fast is important, nothing will. Whoever signed off those shades deserves a promotion.

New Gap Logo < New Coke < New Twitter

Unusually I have found two different events that led me to directly reference the New Coke debacle in this past week.

The first is the New Gap Logo mania. They introduced a shitty new logo, causing untold amount of comment and complaining on the web. They then asked for user suggestions, creating even more comment. Now they have agreed to go back to the old logo...

Yet it feels rather like something Coca Cola were accused of with New Coke, that they did the whole thing deliberately to draw attention to their existing design and product. New Coke caused huge spikes in Coca Cola sales once the original product* was back on shelves. Most people I know say it was all a stunt, and the speed of new logo withdrawl seems to bear out it was pre-planned!

Second is New Twitter. Which is completely hopeless on IE7, utterly hopeless. Even when it works on Firefox, it seems slow, weirdly designed from a user interface point of view, and much weaker than both the old site and Twitter Gadget.

*Except it wasn't the original product. It used cheaper and now suspect health-wise HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) instead of the old Cane Sugar. One widely believed rumour is that the New Coke was just an excuse to hide the change.

A Certain Ratio

Reading a great presentation by Griffin Farley yesterday, there was a little line that talked about the importance of Production values in the digital age. It strikes me as amazing that I haven't seen more written about this, and thought it was worth adding my comments to:

Production VS. Media (Draft 1!!)

Traditionally advertising weight has always been largely about media spend. A simple equation usually worked, the more people see your ad the more likely they are to remember the product and buy it/respond.

More spend = more exposure.

Except now, the power of sharing means production values are infinitely more important than ever before. Not necessarily that bigger means better, but the production has to fit in with the idea. Where there isn't budget, production should look unique or be stylised to create maximum effect, just like old cartoons used angles and styles to get round the lack of money for drawing and animating.

E.g.: Old Spice's Online Responses were low budget individually compared to the ads, but were right for the idea; whereas the actual ads were bigger budget to suit the ideas.

The production quality and relevance now plays a HUGE part in whether something gets shared or not... to the extent where the priority between media and production budget should really be shifting; where production and creative quality actually change the media schedule.

Think about it. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply in 1999, and ran it on a media budget of £500k; you got £500k of media. If you spent £50k to make an ad cheaply now, and £500k on media, you might get £500k of media plus a couple of £100k of online sharing media value. But if you made that ad with a £150k budget, great director and soundtrack, you still get your £400k media exposure, but are far more likely to get thousands or even millions of pounds of media value through online sharing and conversation.

Look at W+K with Honda, they made big budget ads but reduced media spend; end result was huge online viewing, sharing and publicity.

It won't work for everyone, online can be notoriously fickle. But in principle it seems to make sense to me.

I think this problem has been one of the main issues for some clients and agencies in adapting to the online world, often described as being a change from broadcast to interactive funnelling or any one of twenty different models; if you have always worked in an industry where spend + creative were key, and production was just part of getting the creative across...

Something like this:

Media Size Squared + Creative Quality + Production Quality = Resonance*

*Cultural impact, how much it is remembered, talked about, etc

(Huge Spend + Crap Ad + No Budget = Bludgeoned to submission ::: E.g.: Allied Carpet Sale!)

(Low Spend + Great Ad + Great Budget = Known only to D+AD Judges ::: E.g.: Lego Kipper)

... Then it's no wonder you have trouble adapting to the newer ways of doing things. People always talk about how sharing and creative has changed, but less so about media, and very rarely about production values. What we have now is I think closer to this:

Creative Quality + Production Quality = Initial Resonance

Initial resonance x Sharing + Paid Media Size = Total Media Size / Total Resonance

I may try and simplify those, but at the moment it's what I have!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject...

Blunt Contentious Statement No1

The internet has been around for more than a decade, it is not New Media* anymore.

*This is not a critique of New Media Age! That refers to a time period...

Fly High baby!

It's always nice to be able to look at the work you do as an agency and be happy about the idea of sharing it with other people.

This week we launched a new Facebook game for bmibaby, called Give Us a Break. People create a plane with up to 5 friends and then answer questions each day to try and get the best score.

I think it's a great little game, and it seems to be doing well so far. Let me know what you think if you have a look!

Give Us a Break, Baby

The Product Dilemma

BERRAND Values

Rob Campbell in his early days
(Blogosphere in-joke)

As an avid follower of a variety of different genres of music, I've been a regular reader of Kerrang for about 10 years. It's always been a reasonable barometer of what is interesting and exciting in the world of rock, metal and alternative music, but with a good sense of history, remembering the greats of the past and how they influence the present.

The thing that struck me this weekend though, is how inconsistent the values of Kerrang appear to be when moved into other media, and how balancing mass appeal with loyalty to your core values is a tricky thing.

On the way 'Dahn Sowf', we drove through Brimingham, and we tuned into Kerrang Radio to see if would play decent music during the day (as opposed to the trite enforced retro blandness of most local radio).

What I heard confused the hell out of me. I listened for about 8 songs, which included The Kooks, The Police, Blur and Coldplay. Fucking Coldplay. On Kerrang.

Never in a million years would Kerrang even consider writing about Coldplay (unless they have taken an unexpected death metal turn on the next album). Yet here it was being played out attached to the Kerrang brand. One of the trailers then said 'we don't play the same pop as everyone else, we play rock'. Not on this listen you didn't.

I'm not expecting them to go all out: "You're listening to the Kerrang morning show, coming up we have Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, and Cradle of Filth." But under any appropriation of the Kerrang brand the stuff they were playing just does not fit.

The Kerrang TV channel has always been somewhere in the middle. Playing decent stuff in the early hours, but suffering from an obsession for soft rock at all other times. I used to switch off because there was only so many Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Foo Fighters and sodding Nickleback tracks I could take.

It's a brand that in print has always felt like it had a solid set of values and yet in TV and radio it always feels like it is compromising those values in the name of a bigger audience. I wish Kerrang TV and radio would decide what they are, and either change their content or change their branding.

Will Social Media Save Television?

Another day is here, so there must be another 20 press releases on the importance of social media and the decline of traditional media.

Personally I am in both media camps. I am a big believer in the need for two way communication, in the power that social sites have when used in a strategic and well thought out way by a brand that understands its' own values and voice. I also think though, it is extremely naive and alarmist to talk about TV / Radio / Print as dying media.

If we want to see a sign of how well TV is doing, just look at social media. Look at the trending topics on Twitter at almost any point of any day, most of the top ten will be related to the programmes that are on TV at that very minute...

For example: Saturday evening, twitter is full of X Factor chat. Talking about the judges, the contestants, the good moments. During the world cup I watched most games alongside a twitter feed, I was tweeting as I watched the last England qualifying match.

How could this save TV? Well let's think about it for a minute...

TV is not interactive, the internet is; one reason why people keep expecting TV to decline, you can't get involved with it.

Except with mobile internet now a widespread commodity, you can. Every minute of every day, people are talking about the shows that are on our TV screens. TV has become indirectly conversational, indirectly interactive.

That flexibility in programming is available through online (you can view things whenever you want!!), but also through Sky Plus. Besides, what twitter has done is add lots of value in watching programmes at their allotted time. By watching on the dot you can partake in the discussion, react to events and news with others who are enjoying it. The Web 3.0 equivalent of the family sitting round Doctor Who. This is particularly the case with sporting events and contests where the result is full of contentious issues.

In essence, twitter and social sites are actually contributing to an increased relevance for TV. Adding value to an existing medium through a new medium. Funny how people often miss that.

So will Twitter save TV? No. Nothing is ever that simple. Funny how people often miss that too.

I Don't Speak Italian

I love Alfa Romeo cars. I don't drive and I still want a Brera, or an 8C, or even a MiTo. So I am a little disappointed to see the latest ad leave me scratching my head when behind it there is clearly lots of potential.

The new ad for the Giulietta, just what in the name of Fiat does "I am such stuff that dreams are made on" mean?! Well, I can guess what it means, but it just does not read properly. It feels like bad translation done at a bargain price.

The Giuletta is one stunning looking car, and Uma Thurman isn't bad either; but the line is SO clunky and SO distracting that you miss the rest of the ad in the confusion.

I like the other line. Frankly "Without heart we would be mere machines" is a perfect encapsulation of what Alfa Romeo is and stands for. You buy an Alfa because of the way it looks and feels, not for any rational product benefit, except... it follows an ad talking about rational features... *sigh*.

WHACK. Ohhh. It's Shakespeare. Yep, after a day or two when you realise the line comes from the overrated* Bard, it helps. The ad makes more sense, it stops feeling like a bad translation. Yet I wonder just how many people will get the reference... though I imagine Alfa buyers would be most likely to, so maybe it's fine.

Personally though. Alfa could run a 90 second ad showing their MD counting his money as long as they continue to look and feel the way they do. Be. You. Tiful.

Giulietta Ad

*Don't get me started on this...

I Don't Speak French

I know it's a couple of weeks old now (hey, I've been busy!) but the new Renault Megane campaign is easily the best thing the brand has done since the days of Papa and Nicole.

The TV ad sets up the scenario, and the full video and site that await online are excellent.

It draws you in, taking elements of Borat and fusing it with both boring English culture and our perceptions of French culture. A funny, engaging, story that you can get absorbed in for the entire 12 minutes. The casting is perfect, the setting is perfect, the setups are well done at all times: "Menton has lots of seafood restaurants, Gisburn has one fish van, and only on Thursdays."

Let's face it, in an age where we are lucky to get a minute of someone's time. To get 12 is asking a lot, but this ad will get it from many people. It was so good I put it on for most of our agency at a creative showcase; they loved it.

You Are Only As Good As Your Client...

It's an old topic, but one I was asked to write about by a blog follower... so here goes!

You Are Only As Good As Your Client...

One of the key problems with advertising is that the reasons your brands hire marketing managers are not always the same as the reasons we would. Take that money vs creativity conflict that account folk have and ramp it up even more...

It doesn't matter who you are, be you Juan Cabral, Dave Trott, or Pete Smith the DM copywriter; if a client doesn't buy it, it doesn't get made. Good clients will get good work, bad clients will get bad.

Having great account people and planners can help you cheat this limitation. Using their knowledge of client business, customers, communications and the market; they can help sell in strategies, briefs and work that weaker staff could not. Most clients are more than good enough to get great work if you sell it correctly.

Sadly though, there are a small number of clients that just grind creativity to a halt. I have heard stories of all of these from various agencies and friends, though happily I have yet to experience them:

• You spend months in creative development working to an agreed brief, making amends and adjustments. It is finally ready, a perfect fit to the brief; and they decide to go with a safe dull sales heavy idea instead


• The client struggles to make any decisions, so nothing ever gets made


• You create a brilliant, groundbreaking new idea, and the client sits on it so long someone else gets there first


• You go to make a great ad, but the client insists on changing every line and every shot til all the original idea has gone


• Plus the good old - client refuses to have a brief with any hope of creativity

A good personal example of the twists in a client relationship for me was working on a TV and press campaign for a growing brand. The client would go through every detail with a microscope, justifying every word of copy and every mm of layout. It was difficult to sell in work, and a long long process to get the final work. But we were able to make really good work because he fundamentally understood creativity, branding, the use of white space, where to sell and where not to, etc. He turned out to be a very good client.

You only have to look at most great campaigns to see how having a good client is vital. Would a bad aftershave client have spent a big budget making videos to talk to people on twitter and you tube? Would a bad insurance client have bought a campaign about a rich mongoose breating your customers?

Then look at some bad campaigns from good agencies over the years. What are the odds that they did better but couldn't sell it in... A bad client is like a flat tire. It doesn't matter how big your engine is, how good your suspension, how beautiful the body work... you ain't going nowhere.

I guess the thing to remember is that like every industry, there are good people, and there are bad. We should take time to appreciate the good and try and help the bad!

Good Work Headlines...

Here's a round up of the exciting pieces of work I have seen this week:

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Gillette in Good Work Shocker!

It's been a while, a very long while. But finally I get to say something nice about a Gillette piece of work!

Of course it's fake, but it says far more about both the brand and the use of sporting stars as spokespeople than any amount of sales driven tv work. Please please look at how interested people are in this video and realise that the work of the last few years is easy to let go, you've found a good path now, don't lose it.




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Give it Some Soul Kia

This is crazy work. It makes no sense whatsoever untill the endline hits you smack bang in the head. Hard to know if its the right strategy for this type of car, but the execution nails it.



via http://t4w.blogs.com/spinningaround/

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Big Up to Carlton

Their best work since the famous Big Ad. This long but nicely made piece hits bang on those slightly dodgy moments that men all know about. Plus the endline is one of my favourites of all time.



via http://realmenwritelongcopy.blogspot.com/

Is This Crowdsourcing??

Lots of talk going on today about the new 'crowdsourced' Peperami ad for Unilever. It's the usual stuff for the brand, decent if not amazing, but for me the biggest news is how it was created.

Unilever keep stating it was 'crowdsourced' to save on paying the retainer costs of an ad agency, an idea put out to the general public, and the best ad was made and will be shown.

Except.

The character, the campaign idea and the strapline already existed. Created for by a paid, retained ad agency team and tried and tested over a long period of time. The only part of this ad that was actually put out to the public was the script for this execution.

Now let's add to this the fact that the winning team was a pair of ad execs shall we? Open up the general public to submit their ideas, and in the end the best one came from two ad folk... hardly suggests a response worth publicising does it? It ends up looking like a piece of tight budget cutting instead of a real attempt to let people take control of your brand.

[Update - As Charles mentions in the comments, it's definitely a case of a PR brief . However the fact it was won by an ad team using an agencies' campaign idea makes me think the PR isn't actually that great.]

Why did they (seemingly) not look at finding a smaller agency that could offer a lower cost without losing the planning and creative skill sets from the brand? How about one of the many talented non-London agencies, with no Central London rent costs? It annoys me that none of this appears to have been considered, an apparrent case of 'Big London agency or nothing', even when they are openly trying to reduce costs.

I suspect it's for the same reasons that the ad wasn't truly crowdsourced... it would have needed risk taking to change the campaign. But smaller/cheaper/non-london agencies (Like the one I work in) would love to work on a brand like Peperami; we would all work like crazy to make great work and would be much much lower risk than real crowdsourcing of a new campaign.

I have nothing against the idea of crowdsourcing, and absolutely nothing against Unilever or Peperami, I just want accuracy. If we are going to talk about crowdsourcing, can we not do so when we really just mean 'hiring freelancers' please.

Random Advertising Lessons No.1

Getting into advertising is bloody hard work. Having spoken to lots of placement students this year, I stressed to them the need to be active and dedicated towards finding an opportunity.

This led me to thinking about random advertising lessons, and where I learnt them. This first one was from watching Nigel Mansell in Formula 1.

Sadly it wasn't a lesson in the artistry of moustache care, but that cliche of all cliche's... Never Give Up.

My first overiding memory of Formula 1 was the last race of the 1986 season, when he needed to finish third to win the World Championship. He was in third until about three quarters of the way through the race, his tyre exploded spectacularly and he finished runner up; probably saving his own life with some incredible car control. Mansell always seemed to suffer from horrific luck, I remember him running out of fuel on the last lap of a race.

He was a fast and fearless driver who won races but could never quite manage to win the title. But he kept on racing, never gave up, and kept on driving at his very best (see this clip, one of the greatest overtakes ever, and the first overtake in this one) until 1992, when he finally achieved the championship title in style, winning the first five races and dominating the season.

I learnt a valuable lesson from watching F1, if you keep at it, if you put the effort in, it will pay off in the end.

See also: Johnny Herbert winning his first ever victory at the British GP after nearly losing his legs in a huge crash.

SupNorth II nears

It's nearly time for SupNorth II. The usual informal gathering of advertising, marketing, design, digital, PR (etc) peeps for a beverage or two.

This time it will be on Friday 20th August, at The Northern Pub, Tib St, Manchester. Officially starting at 7pm though some of us may arrive before then.

For more info view the event on Facebook: SupNorth II

Fur Goodness Sake

My main worry about the Compare the Meerkat ads was how they would manage to keep the idea going without it becoming annoying. The GoCompare ad lasted 1 viewing, but as of yet the meerkat is still working. (Though people saying 'simples' is a little worn...)

A big part of that for me is the clear care that goes into them, the way that the online takes the TV ad and rounds it into a fully formed world. Take the latest ad:

It's not hilarious, but it keeps the story going nicely. The real star of the show is online, where the ad series is available as a pastiche movie poster, where there are fake reviews and cinema aping visuals. (Meermax... genius)

However my favourite bit is the reference to Aleksandr's papa having to take a second job comparing Muskrats. I searched for Comparethemuskrat.com, and guess what... it's up as a really cheesy porn-esque site, with a warning about 'uncensored muskrats', cheesy porn style music and a 'all muskrats appearing are of legal age' disclaimer.

Just brilliant. If only all ads had this much care put into them.

Cutting it Fine

Long time readers will know I quite often post about shaving; as it's a subject that is close to my chin, and also the marketing work tends to be pretty poor (on average).

I thought it might be worth posting about the arguments going on today about King of Shaves' new online video. Brand Republic is host to some vivid discussion about it, and the overall consesus is not good. an opinion I share.

However, the brand has been doing something positive; and that is responding and engaging in a negative debate rather than hiding away. Whether it is actually Will King or some other employee I don't know, but it is a positive move; and much more like the brand I would like to see King of Shaves be than the Loadedesque chaufeminism of the video.

They went onto Brand Republic and replied and tackled comments of sexism, and then when I talked about it on twitter they got in touch, discussed the issues I had, and then offered me a free trial of the product. We agreed to disagree but they listened, responded and made a point of noting my comments. I still think it was a shit ad, but if this is an indication of the way they treat customers and handle social commentary; they have the potential of a brand that could start to do much much better.

I Bastardi di Frode

Oh dear Ferrari. I think you should know that in doing what you just did, you not only severely damaged the image and reputation of Scuderia Ferrari F1; but you also dented the shiny bodywork of the master brand.

I've watched Formula1 every year since I can remember, from the days of Nigel Mansell and Ayton Senna through the dull years of Ferrari-Schumacher dominance to the exciting open season we have now. Yet I struggle to think of an incident that has made me feel so down on a competing brand. (They told Massa to let Alonso overtake him and win the race despite Massa overtaking him and holding the lead for 3/4 of the race)

Even last year when Renault were found guilty of cheating, it was clear that a few people took the decisions and they were punished accordingly. Even when Ferrari did the same thing to Rubens Barrichello in 2002, that wasn't as bad (it was still legal to do it for a start).

The difference here is that we know it isn't allowed anymore. We know that it may go on across the pit lane but it shouldn't. To see the biggest name in F1 so blatantly and coldly breaking the rules was just mind numbingly angering for fans.

Yes you want to win the championships, but the whole point of winning is to boost the brand; if you do it by cheating and damaging the brand, then what is the point?

Given this came a year to the day that Felipe Massa was nearly killed in his Ferrari, after which he made a brave and hard fought effort to get back into racing and work for the team; to deny him that symbolic first recovery victory was heartless. For a brand that is so much about soul and passion to be so cold and cruel in this way is staggering.

Ferrari need to learn a lesson quickly. To do this again would be to strike a huge huge blow against the master brand. I got through the boredom and arrogance of the Schumacher years, but this has really hurt the way I look at Ferrari and their cars.

Pic from www.moonbattery.com

User Generated Outcomes

The Adam and Jane series of ads for BT have been an unusual one. They have always felt a little cliched, an attempt to shoehorn modern day lives into the Gold Blend formula of the 80s. Yet thanks to the writing and casting they have always come across with a warmth that makes them work. (They wouldn't have ran this long if they weren't connecting right!)

Always a great case study for the unspectacular, I also enjoy seeing a creative idea being allowed to develop and grow like this. They won't win any Gold Lions but the audience has time to become attached to the idea and the characters.

With the campaign coming to a close, the public have been roped in to vote for what they want to happen at the end. A pointless excercise in many respects, as I can hardly see "They all get run over by a Virgin Media lorry" winning, it will of course be happy schmaltzy ending or faux-meaningful seperation. But maybe that's okay, when a campaign has connected with people in this way; it's better to end on a cliche than leave everyone wondering 'what the hell just happened?!' - See Renault Clio and Nicole).

It will be interesting to see how many people vote and what comes out as the winning choice, but I won't expect a surprise.




Oh and My Family is still shite.

Thanks Eric

I moved to Manchester about 18 months ago, and realised pretty quickly I needed to pick a side: Red or Blue.

I chose red (I didn't want to follow the new Chelsea, I prefer Stone Roses to Oasis, I like the club's history and positive style), though I wouldn't claim to be a true fan like the guy sat on the next desk.

However even when I lived down south (where the percentage of Utd fans was higher...) I knew that the best thing about United in recent times was Eric Cantona. A legend of the Premier League, and the kind of player that everyone can appreciate.

See, I'm about to cancel my Sky Sports subscription, I just don't watch it enough. But seeing the collar flinging legend promoting Sky's Sports coverage very nearly changed my mind.

To some extent the execution doesn't matter, it's Cantona, the definition of personality branding. Just seeing him talking about Premier League and HD makes me want to buy an HDTV and sit there watching Stoke vs Everton.

I think there is a lesson here. Most of the time you can't rely on celebrities and their personalities to sell and make your brand look good without a solid idea behind it. Just occasionally though, you can. (See also Thierry Henry and Renault).

Create like a man

I'll make no bones about it, the Old Spice video work online over the past day or two has been nothing short of staggering. The kind of quick, witty dialogue that defines the very best of what we can do as agencies online. The very definition of viral content. Well done W+K.

I do worry though that some agencies will take the wrong message from it; and start trying to imitate the style or end up bombarding people with bad content.

Here's my view on what Old Spice did right:

1. Get the tone of voice perfected, then perfect it some more

2. Be personal. Talk to individuals as well as the mass audience

3. Have a client with creative understanding that is prepared to let the agency develop 1+2

4. Have a damn good creative idea in the first place

5. If you get lots of contacts, make lots of replies

6. Go where people are, don't force them to come to you

7. Don't over complicate

8. Don't outstay your welcome

Oops... APSOTW extra credit

Just realised I didn't include my email address on the page for this.
If you had a go at it please email me at rob@ this website ad-pit.co.uk

I'll keep accepting entries (presuming there are more than one of you!) til the end of Wednesday given the lack of email!

A Request!

Hello folks, my lovely wife is doing the Cancer Research Race for Life this weekend and is looking for sponsors.

It's a 5km run and she is doing it in memory of our friend Russ who sadly died from cancer in January aged just 27.

If you would like to sponsor her for this great cause please visit her Race for Life page here.

Thanks those of you who have sponsored her already :)

Rob

Good Day to You Sir

I was worried that the new ad for Fosters by Adam and Eve would be yet another retread over the worn Australian cliche's, surviving on stereotype alone. Not that Fosters have been overly guilty of it, but in general Aussie stereotypes are one dimensional and obvious.

Happily this ad is a nicely written piece of work with a warmth you might not expect from Fosters. It's still funny though, and shows a nicer positive side to Australian thinking, rather than the old XXXX style negativity/selfishness.

As for the tagline and idea I'm not totally sure, using a well known phrase in that way offers a lot of potential for the brand but maybe risks getting old fast. The execution links well though, the idea of calling in some Aussie positivity feels really nice and spot on for the brand.

Watch the new Fosters ad at Campaign here.

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How to Understand Planners - No1

We planners are an unusual bunch, so with tongue slightly in cheek I thought it was time to start explaining some more about us to the creative and account types out there. A Haynes manual may or may not follow...

How to Understand Planners - No.1 (in a series of some)

"Planners are Basically Kids"

You know that phase kids go through when they never stop asking questions?

"Why is that thing Red? ... Why? ... But why? ... Whay's that? Where from? Why? Why?..."

Yeah, that's us; and we won't change. We always want to know something about everything and everything about something. The best planners never lose that hunger to find out more and more things about a client's product, brand, market, competitors, customers, etc. Some of us actually enjoy reading up on entirely random topics and random viewpoints to give ourselves a wider view of the world. A good planner can find something interesting in even the most boring of topics.

We often tend to have the kid like habit of remembering completely random and trivial bits of information that nobody else could find any use for, and then finding a way to make them relevant to something we are working on.

We also like to draw things despite not having developed (in most cases) the ability to draw. Hence we usually end up drawing charts, graphs or tables that we can then fill with the random information we piled up from asking endless questions.

That said, like kids we love creativity; the fun of making something and exploring things other people create is there within us. Most planners I know love things like music, design, art, architecture, fashion and so on. We can be bluntly objective sometimes, but I assure you that just because we don't copywrite or art direct does not mean we don't get it.

England in the World Cup 2010 - A Planning Review

Anyone who watched the England v Germany game today will have seen a terrible result. One that should rightly shake the nation into sorting out it's football team. We have been in trouble for a long time, and it's clear that our good qualifying performance was just papering over the cracks.

Why Fabio Capello Got It All Wrong - A Planning Guide

1. Failure of Research

Fabio clearly missed some major issues during his research. He saw the players in their league games, he had friendlies to test them out; and yet he seemed to blatantly miss the key points of the debrief. In fact, it has to be questioned whether his methodology was right, because even though he got some good debrief pointers (Gerrard is wasted on the wing. Heskey doesn't score. Crouch is a legend. Joe Cole might actually make us do something) Etc... he seemed to believe they weren't the key issues.

Even when the debrief was presented to him, he clearly wanted to take the bad client road and ignore it through stubborness. Which brings us on to point two.

2. There Is NO One Rule Fits All

His policy of only telling the team who is playing as they get on the coach is clearly not working, you could see that there was no togetherness in the play, no real confidence in themselves. Fabio made the mistake of thinking that what works over a season in club football could work in the World Cup. From a planning point of view, he failed to heed the warnings, and ignored the valuable insights at his disposal to the difference between club and national games.

Perhaps worst of all, he seemed to show a lack of market understanding in placing players in positions where they weren't strong, seeing the warning signs and still letting the competition take the dominant ground. He took initial campaign success and saw that as a sign that the team could take on the market leaders without any new strategies.

3. Understanding the Customer

In doing the above, Fabio managed to completely alienate the team's best customers. He got some good initial results, but when the team started to flag he failed to turn it around. Though the customer doesn't always know what they want, there were more than enough opportunities for Fabio to test and try out the tactics that loyal customers were calling for.

The team exhibited all the features that put customers off, that damage both the England and the Fabio brand significantly; and he could not fix them or rebrand successfully.

If England were a brand, they would be holding a pitch.
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APSOTW Extra Credit - World Cup Assignment

Hi folks, I've been a bit slack with my posting this week; and thought it was time for some updates. I'd like to start with a special APSOTW competition in honour of the world cup.

Now normally Northern Planner or Rob Campbell take care of these, but as this is a topic I felt strongly about I have taken the reigns temporarily...

Background:

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest single sporting event in the world. Watched by billions of people around the world, it brings nations together in a unique way.

The beautiful game becomes the obsession of entire nations, everyone wants their country to win the ultimate prize in football.

But you already knew that...

The brief is this:

The rights to produce and sell the Official FIFA World Cup 2010 ball are expensive (around $350m I believe), with the event providing a huge opportunity for publicity and communication from sports brands.

However, Adidas have had to spend two weeks defending their World Cup ball (The Jabulani) against loud and widespread criticism from players, manager and the media.

The ball is being blamed for everything from the initial lack of goals, poor performances, lack of goals from free kicks, lack of player control, lack of pass accuracy and loss of shot accuracy.

Given the significance of the event and Jabulani product for Adidas; how should they react to the professional and public criticism?

Rules:

As this is an extra credit assignment I won't make it too strenuous...

1. You have 2 sides of A4 for your answer. You can use these in whatever way you wish. You can scan them / email them / post them, whichever is easiest for you!
2. You should consider both the professional and public criticism.
3. Closing date is July 11th (7.30pm GMT) - Kick off for the World Cup Final
4. Judges: Graeme Douglas - (Planning Director on Nike!), Rob Campbell, Moi, others may follow...
5. Have fun!

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