Tarmac Apples

Not so long back last year when I was in California and running down to Huntington Beach as much as possible, I could tell the bike I was using was a superior machine despite not knowing an awful lot about bikes. It definintely needed some oil and I wanted to adjust the handlebars and the gears seemed like they need some recalibration but in any case it had been collecting dust for a few years (I think since I first saw it in Bangkok around year 2000) and so I was over the moon to be given the responsibility of breathing an honourable and useful life back into her.

The only problem was I was living in Beijing and had never shipped a bike before. I took the bike to Jax who had already impressed me with that inordinately high level of service that is found nowhere else in the world but California (I love you for that, really I do), and let them take the bike apart and pack it into a box, not knowing what the deal would be with the airline.

As luck would have it, because I was flying China Air and it was the Olympics coming up, they had this deal to ship it for 25 Bucks. That's a deal right? So I made it back to Beijing knowing I'd need to ship it to Bangkok which I subsequently did, although that did cost me excess baggage of a few thousand Baht. The point is that I've known this bike for some years, seen it in various states of assembly, finally used it in California and shipped it back to Asia (where she first made an appearance we believe) and dragged it around in a large box, by hand, till it reached its destination. Not an easy task but well worth it. I recently took it to Probike on Sarasin who blew me away by reassembling the bike, changing the cables, changing the handlebar grips, giving it a service and ....erm cleaning it; all for the amazing price of about 12 Euros. Not bad given they are the only approved Klein dealership in Thailand and could have charged whatever they wanted. I'll be going back to spend some more dollars.

Anyway, I was excited to be picking up the Klein and rushed over to pick it up before the shop closed taking a little movie of the motorbike journey there. The N95 flipped the screen horizontal to vertical so I just played around with it to compensate. Hope it doesn't make you dizzy (John)

So here I am in a city where I've heard Mercedes Benz owners say that if they take out a motorbike, it's best just to keep on driving as they're like flies. Or most memorably one Benz owner who got out of his car and assaulted the motorbike owner with his own helmet for denting his car. Such is the swagger of privilege in this city. Read here for more.

But the point of the post thus far, is really to say how happy I am to be able to run around doing small journeys on a bike that is incredible to ride upon even though I've conceded that Sukhumvit Road (The main artery in Krung Thep) is the first I've ever used in any city around the world that scares me a bit too much - random shit happens that I. So during weekdays I've taken to boarding the skytrain with the Rascal (As the bike is named) to skip out on the bits that are too hectic. The passengers aren't too happy with this during rush hour, and I really don't know how the MRT allow it but I figure I might as well get around the city in the best way possible while it lasts.

However last week my luck was out and forgetting how powerful the gears are on this incredibly light bike I accelerated from standing still position on Soi 8 into Sukhumvit Road, only to spin out of control. The rear tire had too much power and the surface of the road was too slippery and waxy in the burning heat. I hit the tarmac hard and on my back which of course pissed me off in so much that I had hurt myself but my immediate concern was for the MacBook Air I had in my rucksack (and later I pulled out my Canon Rebel too).

I was really pleased to see that the Apple Air had survived my weight crasing down on it and even though I know you're not supposed to do things like that, and that it could all start acting strange from now on I just thought I'd take the opportunity to say that once more Apple have given me a brand blow job. This incredibly thin computer survived me and while it's processing power is not really enough (no computer ever really is for me though) I just think I ought to give a shout out for Apple for saving me the cost of buying a new one. Which is what I'll be doing for sure should this piece of kit finally succumb to the punishment I invariably dish out to the rucksack of electronics I'm often carrying to capture or work within a mobile life.

Here's what I just discovered I did while taking off the plastic cover it usually sits in. Pretty amazing eh? I mean I'm over six feet tall!

So I see that we now know Steve Jobs is finally revealing the full extent of his illness and that the share value of Apple is dropping as we don't know who will take the helm. I'm pretty sure that nobody can fill his boots but I do think we've been lucky enough to have someone who was driven enough and passionate enough about his business to make a meaningful impact on our lives (sic). I mean that as someone who finally realised how good the products and service are, just a little too late in the game. What a B word.

AnD aS IF yb ChAos

Stunning work by Marcus who now has started his own business with Patrick. Germany has easily got some of the best people in the business down there in Munich.

Brands in Social Media

This morning I was added on Twitter by millercoors. My first thought, because it helps me clarify how brands should behave in social media was, what would that mean if I was on the program with Alcoholics Anonymous?

It's a good question because I didn't invite Miller Coors and I think any alcohol brand that wants to engage in social media should think about this. The broadcast model also tries to play as fair as possible by not advertising at certain times and avoiding the use of young and sexy people in their communications. Miller Coors didn't do any of this, they added me because they thought I was an interesting person..... So they say.

In any case, given that no attempt at dialogue was made, my first tweet was as follows:

To which Miller Coors (or Tyler as I later learned) responded with the tweet at the bottom of this screenshot.

I thought the idea of being dragged around by a beer wasn't funny and I made that clear. But Miller Coors, or Tyler made a Tweet that he deleted pretty quickly. Fortunately I have a Tweetdeck screen grab for you. Here it is.

Now I don't know if Tyler really is the social media representative for Miller Coors but I think it goes without saying that for a person who had been on Twitter for all of five minutes that it might have been a good idea to learn the rules of engagement. Particularly this post over here that I wrote a few months back and which contributed towards Gavin's best practices in social media.

I'll leave it to you to work out what the implications of all this are, but I do like to learn from experiences, and so this is what mattered most once Miller Coors had really stepped over the line.

You can read my full responses over here in sequential order but I think the most important point to understand is that Tyler has deleted his account. Now all I need to know is did Miller Coors hire him or was he pretending to be a beer all on his own? Can anyone help?

Not Quite Obama

To celebrate the first Black President, I played with his iconic poster.

This is pretty neat (For someone without a TV in their home)

Expect more of this for TV events in the future. The Scandinavians have been doing it for years with SMS but it flows nicely (or frictionless) via internet. Link over here.

Are Economist Front Covers Better Than The Ads?

The Economist Covers (light version - 30 Slides)

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Yes is the answer

The Beginning

I don't know where the end is but if you asked me to guess I'd say somewhere around 850. I'll try and find a way to come back to this in a years time because all I've been doing is inhaling economics blogs and it's what goes unsaid that is most startling. I'm still very optimistic about the opportunity to rewire our global economy if we can find a leader who has the strength to coral the others into accepting what is clearly a logical imperative.

Over to you "Young Mr Obama" as the God of Junk Mail refers to him.

Via Rich

Funny Old World

Sometimes people ask me to post stuff and I'm a bit snookered because it's not very good. Sounds condescending but I've kind of taken the creative classes to task for not being very creative over here.

I do also love taking time out to talk to artistic people in my own time, but for simple reasons. I like to know what they're into. If it's new I start to think new. Which is good.

In any case I was somewhat happy when I found out that Andrew Spurgeon of JWT made this because I liked it from the git go and of course I like it more now I know who made it. It works doesn't it?

2009: The Definitive Year

Define it or it will define you.

Part II

Rob Campbell who is unquestionably Asia's best planner brought my attention in the comments of my last post to the presentation he did at the PSFK Trends Conference in Singapore. On rereading it, I think it deserves reposting here. Rob and I share many values so there's a lot of information osmosis that goes on, which is my smart arse way of saying I nick all his ideas and don't look to shabby as a result of it. In any case I think what makes the presentation important is that unlike my reputation for struggling to conceal any impatience with the gravy train called 20th century advertising business, Rob and the Cynic gang actually play at a very senior level in the industry and across many interesting dimensions. Their latest mission impossible because they like meaty challenges is Sunshine with M&C Saatchi, and you mark my words. M&C are on the ascendant as a result.

If there are any client side people reading this, the crucial point is that Rob is one of the handful of very senior and highly accomplished ad men in the business who is saying what he thinks and believes publicly; as the presentation reveals candidly.

Most senior advertising people I know only admit it's a gravy train privately. Three in the last two weeks. That's just here in Thailand although they aren't necessarily based here.

So here it is below and I think it conveys one more time that our business is possibly on the verge of the most exciting reincarnation since the introducton of television and if your agency aren't talking about the business in this way, if they aren't grabbing you by the lapels and trying to explain that there are new ways of solving old problems, the question you may need to ask if them is why?

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Calling All Graphic Designers

I've been getting restless with my blog design for some months now. It's always been a bit of a sandbox, meaning I like to experiment with new stuff, and I intend to add new widgets as and when I think they could be interesting. There's a kind of colour code. The background is black, the type is greyish and I use a bit of green to highlight some bits and pieces but that only really matters when I play with the colour palette on the widgets. But I'm bored of the look now and was intending to give it a facelift.

However it strikes me that there are much better designers out there than I, and I'd like to give you the chance to redesign it. The deal is that in return for making this blog look ship shape, maybe even tasteful, you (the designer) get to have your creds on it day in and day out and a link to your website. I'm not expecting an avalanch of people to get in touch, but if there's only one, then we probably need to have have some to and fro about details, in case say the widgets need new colours, but if there's a few of you interested in having a crack at it, then it's a straight forward pitch.

Does that sound fair?

If not the comments are always a good place to chip in on how we could do it. Now that I've put my neck out, I expect a resounding silence to ensue and a few hours of tinkering with Blogger templates on my own. I'd be well chuffed if someone could inject some style and substance into the design. The best idea I've seen recently is Peggy's blog which doesn't even have a title. I like that mininimal approach, plus I don't think anyone else has done it. Anyway, there are no restrictions. Everything can go if it's for the right reason. It would also be a pretty good showcase for the winners talents.

That's all I can guarantee.

More Black Swan

Y'all know my appreciation for Taleb's interpretation of the world. There's nothing new here for me but it might be of interest to those who haven't come across him yet.

Via Smashing Telly

Think Tank

You've all revealed a huge weakness for bias and voted my Post Party Sweet Spot as post of the month over at Neil's. I think that and the the chance to display the badge along with the noble company from previous months is pretty much the highest honour I'd could hope to garner off the net. Peer recognition is lovely, warm and generous. I'm very grateful to  all of you who voted, really I am.

I think Neil is doing an outstanding job making sure we pay attention to what's out there.

I guess the Milky Bars are on me.

LEAVE ME ALONE

You may have noticed the new panel I'm sporting on the side of this blog called Google Friend Connect. Well that's there because I've been "Whitelisted" by Google who think I'm a big enough social meeja kahuna to invite me on board.

Yeah, check me out! *throws meaningless gang signs*

So if I haven't spammed the life out of you yet by joining Plaxo (who've allied with Google) and Google Friend Connect, don't feel shy to click on something over there, and join in because it's not like you actually have to really like me loads and loads to be my fwend.

I'm particularly interested in the open social platform as it develops and hey you get to come along for the ride too. Carrying our own social network data around has to be the future for some sort of transactional value relationships with the world of commerce and brands. It's pretty radical but will make a lot of sense when giving permission for interruptive or distractive marketing communications as the quid pro quo for utility or content.

Well something like that anyway, but the reason for this post is also to see if I've managed to get the Disqus comment system finally integrated. The last attempt was a template and commenting form disaster. And now that even Craig, Peggy and Eaon are Disqus'd up I feel I'm on the back foot for my geek creds.

I'd be most appreciative if one or two of you could attempt a comment but don't try too hard as I've probably buggered it up and will have to reinstall that scary .xml file now lurking on my desktop to get back to normal.

In the meantime here's a picture of Sam who has joined forces with Eaon at Geronimo which is where he's going to kick ass in the marketing communications industry. Yesterday on Skype, I made him swear on the baby Jesus and U.S. Supreme court justices not to release a certain "sensitive" file I've graciously shared with him but I have given him permission to show you the screen if you're ever around. Word is bond Sam!

On a more sober note, thanks all of you for the positive response to yesterday's post. I'll respond more fully but I'm really pleased that I can kind of throw that stuff out there and not be cut down in flames. The motivation for writing it was to hopefully encourage the idea of a back up plan. If that has worked then I'm a happy camper :)

The soil will be much richer for the ashes.....

ULTIMATE GREEN SHOPPER

Take a good look around you. The operating system you’re using, the age of your computer, the furnishings, the cell phone you’re using, the clothes you’re wearing, even the watch strapped to your wrist or the cup of “four bucks” frappe/latte/cino number you’ve ordered in the coffee shop. Soak in all the little details of 21st century living and try and hold that image, because quite frankly I don’t think things are ever going to be the same again you see, because the ultimate green shopper is an oxymoron. The ultimate green shopper doesn't shop. That's the sick end of marketing.

We’ll probably never have as much new stuff around us as we are looking at now. It’s easy to become conditioned by new stuff, even easier to be dissatisfied with it all, wanting ever newer and more complex gadgets.

The financial meltdown that I first talked about over here hasn’t even really properly kicked off. As I understand it from the huge amount of reading I’ve been doing, it took four whole years for the depression to reach it’s full depth. I doubt if this one will take so long but let’s assume it’s three times as fast for the sake of arbitrary guessing because that is after all what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to guess what and when. I think I’ll get the times more wrong than the what.

My first attempts at trying to visualise the near future ended up with a sort of feeling that the developed world such as the United States and the E.U. would take more of a hit than the developing world, and that stands to reason doesn’t it? The lower the per capita GDP, the less the potential fall in the standard of living.

The bigger they are the harder they fall so to speak.

But having spent some time looking at the China figures, there’s a whole world of pain there too, that takes on a different dimension because of the sheer scale of the numbers. 20 million migrant workers already back on the farms and changing the demographics probably forever. It really is a hell of a mess whatever way we cut the figures.

The nasty pill to swallow is the potential for the food chain to break down. We’ve already seen an institution like Woolworths hit the floor and yet that’s just a taste of where it’s heading. Woolworths was always like the sick puppy on the edge of the pack that failed to make money in the good times when money was abundant, and thus is first to go as money liquidity tightens. Who is next? National Express coaches? Debenhams? 3 mobile phone network? Which business entity (which brand) has been running on vapours during the good years? Those are the people who are likely to bow out first. But it’s worse than that isn’t it? Because if someone who moves or distributes food about takes a hit from liquidity problems then that’s the end of very specific foodstuffs in our supermarkets. Some are talking about the need for growing local food again; turning gardens into allotments - which is ironic given the sweet spot thing I talked about and how local foods are the least carbon intensive. So who is the weakest supermarket in the UK these days? Is it Safeway? Does Safeway even still exist? It’s been some years since I looked at UK supermarkets but the point is still the same. Who is the weakest in the pack? Local food folks. Read or listen to Rushkoff or Paterson if it’s a smarter mind than mine you seek.

Anyway there is the worst of it, those links are some of the really smart people out there (Rushkoff is my new Daddy!) who are capable of making the meta leap over the information that I would take an age to digest and the suggestion that they conclude upon is the likelihood of a loss of confidence in traditional paper money, and a potential return of local currencies (barter is always good too, barter is very good). They also suggest the end of retail or put another way the end of abundance.

I think that seems a fair suggestion to make.

I always had a few problems with the ‘free’ economy, and that was mainly because it could only be accessed by the wealthy participants. It’s not really FREE is it if only we can access it and a vast amount of people in the world who live on a dollar a day have no access to it at all? That’s not free, that’s called privileged isn’t it? I am, and so are you if you’re reading this. We're privileged and don't you forget it.

I guess the 'free economy' or model is starting to look a bit like irrational exuberance when all is said and done. Nothing is for free isn't it? Not even if those transistors that are infinitely able to make themselves faster or smaller. The point is you can’t eat transistors. Just a thought folks. Try living off Moore’s law if you’re hungry.

So if we’re moving from the age of abundance to an age of scarcity what impact does that have on marketing communications? Well given the paucity of marketing communications on Red Square in Moscow during the 80’s, or on Tiananmen Square in Beijing today (out of courtesy) or across the entire length of North Korea I’d say that in an age of scarcity not abundance the need for marketing communications is drastically reduced. I don’t know how much is left. I do know that whatever is left will be fought for, and highly competitive. It will probably be damm good too. I just don’t know how much of the pie is left after the party is over and all that is left is an almost immeasurable canyon of debt. For that is all there is left it seems. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan will be OK. They did well out of the last great depression didn’t they?

As far as I can figure out the only ‘rewire our economies’ ideas that those at the Treasury and at the Fed are capable of coming up with work along the lines of consumption will get us out of this mess. Can you believe that? Do you really believe that?

This is gross intellectual fraud isn’t it? Didn’t excess consumption put us in this mess in the first place? I keep going back to a comment I read on Naked Capitalism; that the soil will be much richer for the ashes and yet it seems that the stateside Wall Street and Whitehouse folk are hell bent on denial that we’re even on fire, all the while fueling the flames with more and more borrowed money to put off the impending collapse of the financial system. Yet isn’t that the logical conclusion. Shouldn’t the system collapse before new shoots of growth emerge? The soil will be much richer for the ashes.....remember that.

Probably a lot of you are thinking this is unnecessarily gloomy, yet I’m not unhappy. I’m more optimistic about the future than at any other time in my life, in a perverse kind of way.

I know that all those with businesses and mortgages or negative equity in property or worthless shares or credit card bills up to their eyeballs will be very reluctant to read a post of this nature, and truthfully I’m no seer or a prophet. But what I am able to do that most it seems are really really reluctant to engage with, is play with the notion that things really aren’t good at all this time and to take those arguments to the logical conclusion. Most it seems would prefer not to ‘go there’. I’m able to, for reasons of planning, foresight and an ounce of luck.

I think we just saw the end of the renaissance that began in the middle ages. I think it finally is coming to an end. I think we have a new renaissance around the corner and just like the last we’re also emerging from the drudgery of a black death or plague that has inflicted and is yet to inflict more misery everywhere. A selfish age at the end wasn’t it?

I don’t think advertising is that important to me at the moment. I want to see the carnage before I go into how socialist media is likely to be part of the solution. We’re all in it together after all.

Clay Parker Jones

The Interwebs

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If it all seems a bit complicated for you then it's 20th century marketing that has probably messed you up. This is a sweet but precise presentation from Clay Parker Jones

Copy Loey!!

Reminds me of this award winning ad a bit. (The above is Coca-cola's Minute Maid) on the subway at Silom Station in Bangkok.

More over here.

Daily Mugshot

Daily Mugshot

SALE SALE SALE

I went to Gaysorn Plaza, a luxury shopping mall in Bangkok today before having a wonderful lunch with Tim who generously gave me some time and thoughts on a simulacra post that I want to write at some point - he's massively brainy like that. Tim is a writer who also does restaurant reviews when not contributing to The Guardian, The Bangkok Post, writing a book or blogging over here, and it was toptastic to have a humungus steak and a charmingly insolent bottle of red which for professional reasons I was largely forced to polish off on my own.

I was struck how empty Gaysorn Plaza was. The luxury brands are commencing a world of pain over the next five to ten years and I think it's safe to say that the awful moniker of masstige brands may finally be buried along with all the other marketing hubris we inflated ourselves on in the bubbled up economy.

I was however delighted to see a few early birds taking a flyer and doing 40% discount sales which is unheard of in the run up to Christmas (widely celebrated in this Buddhist country - not the day - the festive season) but even more pleased to see that one brand has taken an interesting approach to the way that they advertise a sale.

Good recessionary thinking. Think up not down.

Mea Culpa

This post is over a year late but reading Scamp's blog has prompted me to get on and do the right thing. You may remember (if there’s any of you left) that I was doing some groups around the UK last summer in 2007 that I wrote about here. It was on my birthday and I remember it well, not because it was 'my day' which matters little to me given how much I’ve just generally celebrated life, but because a few of you called me in Edinburgh to wish me happy birthday and I realised that my blogging friends were just as important if not more important than the ones I’d met in a different order of media. We certainly stay in touch much more frequently. Maybe email decimated the urge to keep contact and blogging added some context to communication. That's another post. A good one too.

In any case many of you asked what work I was doing and who for. I don’t mind sharing because it’s time to wind the clock back a little and go over what for me ended up being a kind of conflict of interest. Tell the client the truth or just the agency and let the agency handle it. The former is always more costly both personally and professional, and is yet the right thing to do.

My first recommendation when seeing the brief was that NCH (formerly National Children’s Homes) were blowing a lot of money on a name change that would not be a return on investment - and that’s what I told the agency I was employed by. But it’s a little more complex than that as I discovered more each day. Unlike Barnardos who have a much higher profile, NCH are a fantastically interesting charity that work very closely with government to provide more than just homes to children; opportunities to reenter education, learn skills they need to find work as well as all the other headline grabbing work that childrens charities do, including fostering. NCH felt that the 'Homes' in their abbreviation was misleading as that was not what they really did and this prompted the name change. When dealing with government funds it’s important that the bureaucrats have a clear idea what the millions upon millions of pounds are for but that was a technical issue which I gave some recommendations on.

The difficulty of the problem was that when I turned up to present my findings to the charity I tried to convey to them that the research methodology was inappropriate for young delinquents. I was working from a discussion guide and stimulus material that was not of my own making but as I was passed the baton only the night before flying to Glasgow I had little choice but to run with it and frankly I was also presenting pro bono because I had missed one of the flights to Scotland and felt guilty about losing charity money.

In any case the findings were still fascinating and I really loved discovering the complexity of charitable issues when collaborating with government as well as learning that practically all the cool ‘head down’ get on with it people were strongly anti brand. They felt that consumerism drove a lot of the dissatisfaction that the neglected kids and their families felt with their lives.

However they all loved taking the kids to McDonalds which is a real treat for deprived children in Scotland. So there’s the context for contradiction. There’s always a context. Everything is contextual.

So I made the mistake of being blunt about my findings. One of the groups was with tagged offenders in the rougher parts of Glasgow where opportunities are slim and role models few and far between. I remember doing the group so well because the young lads were some of the trickiest people I’ve had to coax some meaning out of. They were sullen and moody but really this masked their insecurity at having some fella from London tip up and embrace their world much more quickly than they could mine. In difficult situations I like to invite the respondents to ask me any questions they like, so that I can dispel any fears they may have of looking silly when replying or just to make them more comfortable. Try as hard as I could, I couldn’t get anything out of the lads apart from one who as the leader, seemed obliged to say something. The truth was that they were emotionally immature and intellectually starved so asking them about the brand dimensions of car or financial services brands that advertised on the telly was a waste of time. I got the good stuff out of them on McDonalds and Nike and Carling Beer or Football clubs as brands but nothing that really contributed to NCH’s needs.

When presenting to the Board of NCH I made the fatal mistake of describing the boys in the Glasgow group as ‘not the sharpest tools in the box’. What I was trying to say was that it was pointless asking them for their opinions (based on similar findings from a group of girls in the hills of former coal mining communities in Wales). I was suggesting they pay attention to what and how they researched. In short how not to waste valuable money.

The committee went nuts on me and as I was there trying to tell them the work was not necessarily right, the methodology wasn’t right and that there was a huge potential to attach so much narrative and meaning around NCH (They drip with history and intersting complexity) that positioned the charity appropriately - in my view.

In any case I took offense that one overly politically correct member of the committee was losing sight of the wood for the trees and I wrapped up my presentation promptly and left it to the agency to take over the the disappointing findings I had conveyed.

I gave it a lot of thought over the next months. I thought to myself “what an idiot” that guy was for losing sight of what it was all about, over the use of what I thought was politically correct language. I think he wanted me to use ‘intellectually deprived” or something instead of the unsharp tool metaphor.

However it suddenly occurred to me one day that my own sister had taught me the power of unkind words. My sister has walking difficulties from birth, and not so long back, she called to tell me that her condition was Celebral Palsy. I had always grown up with my sister and swhat I thought was some strange condition that disabled her from walking properly, which we always thought was just some variant of spastic disability; which is a general word for a problem between the brain and muscle control. However, listening to my sister I realised that there was a proper name for it. But why did she want to give it a name now, so much later in life, surely it didn’t change anything, it sounded like there was no way it would have ever helped giving it a different name?

Well I was wrong wasn’t I. Because when she called me up all those years later, and explained to me the condition that she had, I realised all those years of with her condition referred to as spastic had been deeply painful and the name change of The Spastic Society to SCOPE (something I argued had lost it resonance) was in fact very appropriate. Sometimes hard hitting can be a little too hard hitting.

To deprived people and actually people in general, words can be very hurtful, so in a flash it dawned on me that the whole politically correct movement, while sometimes tedious, is based on the power of words. Particularly how hurtful they can be and I although I have already apologised fully to that lovely little agency in Soho called Baby Creative, particularly Lawrence Sassoon, who is a really top bloke, I want to do it publicly and draw attention to their client who now go by the name of Action For Children, which is a much more appropriate name for a children’s charity that does huge amounts with a less advertising budget than the Barnardo’s. I believe Barnardo's fund raising model is to spend more to raise more.

I should also apologise to my sister for being so thick.

Because we can

This makes perfect sense to me. Anyone confused leave a note in the comments and I'll give you a run down. It's by The Glue Society for the Vodka - 42 Below Zero

Via Craid Davis' new blog All Care No Responsibility

Social Causes

It's interesting isn't it that social causes like political movements appear to have more traction in social media than plain selling (i.e Not what's in it for me, What's in it for us?) James pitched in here about social value as more important than brand value though they could be the same thing sometimes in the future, and I wrote back here and here and God knows elsewhere, that this is the time for brand's to live with real values. It's not important whether they're left or right with their politics or their social causes, but whether they have a standpoint at all. The days of placing wealth creation at the centre of the wealth creation model seem to be diminishing when I see great creative ideas like this don't you think?

Couple that with a tweet I picked(nicked) off Faris early this Sunday morning, which single handedly redefines the academic definition of marketing, and I think we might see a valuable role for brands in social media. Only thing is they need to have some values and a standpoint in the first place. Not many yet are there? But surely it's only a matter of time before a global FMCG brand becomes the first to really stand behind say a powerful idea like 'campaign for real beauty' across all it's products and not just be cynical about one while pushing another message with others.

C'mon what are you waiting for? It's a mini depression and you all look and sell the same things. Stand for something.

Hat Tip to Mark Earls for spotting this even if we're having a wee squabble over the potential for neuro-ideas over at the deviant's place. You will have to go visit Marks to see the idea anyway as the object embedding is not working with Blogger.

The Post Party Sweet Spot

Here's a post I've had brewing in my head for a while now. I've never stopped trying to reconcile selling more stuff (my work) in a world of finite resources. I believe that even if climate change is not happening because of the way we use carbon fuels and behave like it's a disposable society (ironic that isn't it?) that it's our moral responsibility to take care of this planet in a way which shows future generations that we tried to hand over the best torch possible.

I believe one day in the vast future we will look back at planet Earth, maybe from distant solar systems and see it as the genesis of something beautiful. If it's in good shape it might be reminiscent of a garden of Eden. Of course the religous references will get some people's backs up, but I have my own system of belief that belongs to no one else because it's mine and I'm quite convinced that without some belief there would be an equal amount of problems. This doesn't make me any less of a hypocrite as I'm a human and all too fallible.

I think John Grant went a long way to reconciling the notions of making money (or value) and treating the planet as if it's resources are meagre instead of full. It's not and, our evolutionary (yes I think evolution makes sense) programming doesn't allow us to instinctively take care of relatively slow moving events. We'll only know if we've fucked up when we've fucked and by then it's too late. So change our lives and do one right thing. Be frugal.

I'll share something about John and I. We never really get it on in real life, and because I think he's a genius, a bit of a hero, and also a brilliant communicator when given centre stage, I don't want people to confuse that with kissing ass. John and I had the same girlfriend in the late nineties. Not at the same time. I after him, and truthfully I only realised it when I started reading his blog nearly ten years later. I've never been one to follow industry stars because it's only advertising and not nearly as important as saving someone's life with a defibrillator which is far more useful when push comes to shove - It is however what I love doing. This may or may not be the reason why John and I are not best mates, but I know deep down as do many others that his book The Green Marketing Manifesto is one of the most important books in our business if for instance, working on a tobacco account is something you would find offensive. Aren't rising sea levels and climate change affecting the poorest on this planet much more offensive than auto-exposure to lung cancer?

My hopes for a 'rewiring of our economies' which is something I've been talking about for quite a while was never strong. I know that everything changes and everything stays the same so I couldn't see how we could slow down our economies and population growth to take the time to find solutions for not choking on our own growth. I spent long days talking about it in the US with my political mentor and he finally came round to my way of thinking that we need 'managed population decline' to really find ways of keeping this incredible thing called life continuing for millenia before we jettison ourselves off this planet, find somewhere else and let it grow fallow for a long time while observing it from distant galaxies as the birth of something quite special.

And then along comes something I've felt in my gut for about 5 to 10 years that we are facing a massive financial implosion. Nothing brainy or clever but simply put the idea of making money out of losses (shorting on a stock market) seems to me as stupid as having a bookmakers where betting on losers is the point. It's dumb and we were hoodwinked by the financial markets into believing it was a valid financial mechanism. Unless of course you were the creatives on this remarkable piece of prescience that I loved so much and tried to bring your attention to back in March.

Anyway, we've hit the sweet spot. It looks like we've had a hell of a party, there's cake and booze everywhere but now it's time to clean up and we can build a better world because of it. Yes we can do marketing in new ways while managing decline and add value and creativity to peoples lives with big thoughts such as more ideas less stuff. Isn't that what the internet is? Isn't sharing our lives more important that acquisition of more stuff. Shouldn't we compare ourselves by what we do, how we act and what we believe in rather than the bullshit marketing methodology that has been outed for what it really is so very recently; fear marketing of "if you don't wash your hair with our shampoo, you wont be as pretty as the other succesful girls in the office" or in this case, baby straps? Yes it took mothers to rebel and say fuck you to shitty advertising. I love this business and I am very optimistic about the future. We've hit a remarkable sweet spot. A big problem that needs sorting out with slower economies, enter stage right a mini global depression, the tools to fix it, as social media is nothing short of a revolution, and the kind of leadership that only tips up once every eighty years or so that has the mandate to really change things. Yes we can. Oy!

Now it's over to the economists. Why don't you do something useful for once and rewire our economies based on what we have and not on what we want. Because as we now know, we want it all. Including redemption.

Shan Zhai - Off Brand

Via Kaiser Kuo

More from the Wall Street Journal over here

Meaning Management - Grant McCracken

I had one of those 'oh shit' moments about planning recently. I follow Crispin Porter reasonably closely, more because of the cultural framework of the United States that their work illuminates than the brilliance of their creative. I get the feeling Crispin understand the macro task more than most and that gives me a kick. I like it that their work annoys people and yet they still get hired. I believe they play a broader and more intelligent game than just the commercials that the industry obsesses about.

Big Bucking Chicken was very memorable. A mate I grew up with in Southampton, and I would endlessly goof around saying 'bucking hell, for bucks sake, buck me' the list goes on and it's nice when an ad agency can deal the obscenity card with charm.

Getting back to my epiphany, I've followed the run up to, and execution of the long awaited Microsoft work by Crispin because I had strong views on how to solve the Microsoft communication challenge which sounds arrogant (and is) but there are some basic denial dimensions when it comes to Microsoft that nobody discusses openly and yet they are the issues, that if addressed can shift the brand to where it needs to be. Embracing the truth is a brilliant start. It's also the most challenging isn't it?

So when the Seinfeld and Gates work came out, contrary to the widespread chorus of derision I was up for it. It may not be as brilliant as we perhaps expected, but a quick deconstruction ticked off a few valuable boxes and then I subsequently wrote about it here just as the follow up work came out which was much stronger in my view. Whatever anyone says, it got talked about an awful lot. More than say an incredible brand like Nokia who have failed to deliver an ad that resonates.

The first endorsement I came across the Seinfeld and Gate's work, that added to my own thoughts was from Grant McCracken's blog Cultureby. It's often a challenging blog. It can be uphill to grasp some of his conceptual conclusions. His posting is prolific, and can seem daunting when there is a backlog of RSS feeds to catch up with, but they are best digested distraction free with time to go over the points that at first glance can seem either cryptically elusive or elliptically bloody simple. Maybe they're the same thing sometimes.

In any case, because I've been dropping by his blog for some time I'm quite fond of Grant's writing, it's the strength of conviction, spectrum of creative writing styles and unequivocal impatience with mediocrity - the man does not suffer fools at all. Like it or not Grant has an ace way of demolishing even his own academic peers. I'm sure this must be quite incendiary for the colleagues it's aimed at, but it pleases me no end that making chums is not the point of his Blog.

So anyway, Grant identified that many people were confused by the MS work. What was the point? And this is where Grant sort of says his plain stuff that has much more depth then is easily captured. He wrote: "The microsoft spot has a clear task: to rebuild the the Microsoft brand. It is using Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates and a particular situation to perform an act of "meaning manufacture"

That's the first pointer at a really important reframing of the quality end of planning. "Meaning manufacture" As if the fundamentals of signifier and signified can be remanufactured, hammered into shape, retooled for fresh purposes or stripped bare, skim the head gasket, grind the valves and rebore the cylinders to achieve new tasks or maybe it's time to deliver on tougher and evolved performance expectations.

He goes on in the Microsoft post to say "We can say it is good meaning manufacture. We can say it's bad meaning manufacture, But we can't be mystified a) that this ad exists, b) what it means to do, or c) what it has to do with "selling computers"

I agree, how can anyone not grasp what is being done. Sure the inexplicable is present in the narrative, but isn't that de rigeur for any self respecting piece of communication to leave gaps for the individual to fill in, or if struggling, to enjoy amusement through absurdity. Who cares? Most of it is as it is. But then the killer words emerged for me.

Grant writes "Microsoft is utterly out of touch with contemporary culture, and Bill Gates is, as someone once said of Dick Cavett, "spectacularly gentile" which is to say, utterly out of touch with contemporary culture. The Aquatic Life was a world too far. Some day. Perhaps someday this will be the 'sufficient act of meaning management.

This is where Grant serves up a bit of intellectual corporal punishment. I've had to look up Dick Cavett. My mobile is not playing fair and it seems from the clumps I caught that he's an inner circle Television celebrity from the golden era of American TV. I'm not sure how an Emmy Winner can be spectacularly gentile; I'm genuinely confused but if I were looking for an off the cuff comparison could the same thing be said about Mrs Palin? Ostensibly an executive fishwife with a nose for plain talking that fits sweet in a barren nature reserve with puffy fingered politicians in denial of Russia's proximity and the whole country of Canada before the U.S. really starts?

I could go on. Grant refers to "The Aquatic life" too. I'm stumped for the time being and so is the concise search engine results on my phone.

I'll get back to the point I want to make. It occurred to me that at the most cerebral end of advertising planning our job is 'meaning management'. I looked back into the archives and saw that there were many references to this reframing of the planning function and realised that it had slowly but surely seeped into my brain. So there it is. In my opinion we're either flogging stuff or working at a higher level and it's called Meaning Management' and Grant McCracken owns it. I wrote to him a quick mail to explain that I think it's ironic it took an anthropologist to explain my job to me and I hope you are as enthused by the term as I am when looking at tasks that fit the bill.