NOKIA N900 - (Speed Is King)

This works on so many levels. Via Joshua Spear who still calls them virals (duh)

Update: Original video deleted.

China Central Television Building (CCTV)

I took a taxi ride out to the new CCTV building over the Christmas break. They have recently connected the two main pillars in a feat of engineering that can only be truly appreciated by standing under it, walking around it and hopefully the next time I go by sneaking into it.

Architecture for me is a love affair and I've been folllowing the Dutch mastermind for the CCTV building in Beijing for a while now. His name is Rem Koolhaas and this latest project is truly the only building since the the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which I've felt has challenged and then extended my appreciation and meaning of the building form. I was close to trembling while standing under that huge overhang - but maybe that was the hangover too. Its all steel and feels like a Airbus A340 is suspended over your head. Here are the pictures from my N95 mobile phone camera that really don't do it justice.

It appears to defy general gravitational and architectural balance guidelines. I'd really like to hear what Owen Hatherley of Nasty Brutalist and Short thinks of this design. I feel that this qualifies in some respects as as good example of brutalist with other design nods and dimensions that I'd love to hear Owen's erudite (and quality socialist I might add) views.

The shot below is really pushing the zoom feature on the N95 to the max. The slightest movement shows up on the final shot but I think it starts to give a feel for all the safety netting suspended underneath the overhang as it was conjoined recently.

I couldn't help but look at all the lovely media space waiting to be made beautiful. Or at least let Beijing use it as a graffiti space. Its huge and rusting at the moment.

It needs to be walked around to appreciate all its angles.


If you look really hard. You can see the construction workers walking on a little horizontal section at the point where the sky meets the upper part of the joining section. Or put another way the other side of where the sun's glare is.


Just seeing this building means I have no choice now but to buy a decent camera. Any suggestions very much welcome. You might be able to see what I'm trying to capture. Expect more Beijing architecture. There are some amazing pieces around the city for the Olympics.

Branded Utility

One of the reasons why I like the folk at Anomaly in New York, Piers at PSFK and Zeus Jones in Minneapolis is because of their understanding of where our business is heading. Way too many advertising people are in a state of delusion when it comes to the overall efficacy of the marketing communications that we do. I'd argue that a lot of the wallpaper we paste up conveys a given amount of trust because there's an implicit cost factor when viewing paid up media space. Something along the lines of "If you can purchase that media space and come up with some reasonable production values, then you must be a reasonably reliable brand". That's it folks. We buy trust most of the time.

Most wallpaper is reassuring. If you're not convinced then live in a room stripped of it for a while.

So on Friday after a quintessentially self indulgent and non engaging advertising awards ceremony that almost defined how sclerotic our business has become, I came across a terrific quote on Dino's de.licio.us bookmarks for Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad as saying

"Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking."

I'd be inclined to agree. However there is a momentum in the beginning of this third millennium for marketing as doing. The digital era seems to be ushering in a breed of young folk who have no time for crafted messaging and are intolerant of not getting the information they need in the quickest way possible. I've never seen anything like it before. It only takes a browser to crash a few times and the digital savvy young folk of today delete the free software as if its a cancerous tumour. What happens when Wikipedia or Google's new idea Knol start to do product evaluation? The kids who are mostly digital natives, only want the information and that is a trend that those of us who grew up in the propaganda age (frequency and penetration) of marketing communications need to think long and hard about. The middle path is marketing as doing and there are some great ideas that have been put forward by the folk I mentioned at the beginning, in posts over here, here and here. That doesn't mean I'm anti advertising. It means I'm against bad advertising and for good information delivered cleanly and with the minimum of fuss.

I got thinking about this because I just happened to pass a blood giving bus close to the Xidan shopping area above, and I thought how smart the location was and doing this with a mobile blood donor unit. Somewhere to lie down for 10 minutes and give blood without really interrupting the day, I wanted to donate myself but the nurses didn't speak English. Then I got thinking if Nokia was a brand that could get involved in branded utility activity like this, given that its not too far removed from the traveling roadshows around the rural and semi urban areas that are often done in the mobile phone category over here. You know, communicating a need and helping encourage trial and action.

Later on at Wangfujing I saw them once more. So I thought about it again. I mulled over the notion of 'Connecting People' and it occurred to me that there probably isn't any greater connection than the one being done in the bus above. Probably that's an idea that is too visceral for most people's taste but the notion that the way a brand speaks is the only thing that matters, is the gravy train thinking of 20th century marketing and it's coming to an end as we see people controlling the information they want and continued digital emancipation taking place. I'm guessing the half a billion or so people whose first internet experience will be via the mobile phone will be equally intolerant of dishonest attempts to be interesting as I find people like Sam, Charlie and Adam now are.

I'm sure this makes me seem like I'm taking myself way too seriously and I probably am, so in the interests of not disappearing up my own bottom, here's a couple of pics from last nights clubbing action. First off is Puff Charlie keeping it real for y'all in the White Rabbit China town Lucky Street hood. Stayin' tuff all through the night and standing ma ground outside.

I know Sam can do a much better Ali G than I can but he's not here so that will have to make do. It was looking well mean down in the basement of the club. White riot everywhere and even the bitches were packing heat.

I ask you what has clubbing come to? Seriously though it wasn't a bad night but a less hipper crowd than I was hoping for. The music was better than the previous Friday, and we even slipped out for some of those ace kebabs that the folk from the far Western provinces of China rustle up in the Sanlitun area. They are easily the tastiest meat things on a stick I've ever eaten. I also noticed some stuff about the affluent local Chinese that was worth hanging around for. The Beijing crowd are very much different from the Shanghai lot and I don't think it's reflected in the way advertising is created for them.

Chasing Chip

China's cities are tiered according to their size and development and yesterday we headed out to a tier 4 city called Ba Zhou, and then even further afield into the rural economy to get a feel for what it means when a household mobile phone purchase requires a few months or more of saving. I've really been looking forward to this part of our work because as I've pointed out before it doesn't take too much effort to win over the cosmopolitan elite with bells and whistles but the solid working people from the rust belts and further afield work hard for their money and it takes considerably more respect and sensitivity, not to say thinking, in order to understand more fully the contexts of their lives. The pampered classes like you and I are a pushover in this respect. First off I was struck by the polythene sheeting for the windows of one household above. It was pretty chilly but warm tea was served and we were treated as welcome guests with apples and oranges and even cigarettes left by a clean ashtray.

Cooking is done with a coal fired oven and I got thinking of Graham and his Pheasant plucking which took 45 minutes over here, and how much more work it woud take to cook the thing, not to mention the cleaning and maintenance. I regret now that I didn't get a shot of the steaming dumplings under the lid of this one. Its not quite the same as taking a phone call over the new Smeg Oven while peeling off the cling film wrap from some Sainsbury's pork chops is it?

Yes it's a huge living room compared to many city dwellers but all I could think of was how much harder it would be to heat up with those polythene windows. Good for the kids to crawl about in the summer though. On the right is one of those huge posters depicting a non existant idylic rural scene such as smoky waterfalls, that are so popular right across Asia.

There are two types of coal used in these parts and this is the lumpy stuff that gets broken down to feed the oven. Behind me is the local coal dealers stock pile.

Which is purchased by the households and then kept in dryer conditions because gas mark 5 to get the frozen pizzas nice and crispy isn't so easy to achieve when dealing with damp fuel.

Then there are the coal briquettes which are used for the relatively primative central heating. They are more efficient in terms of quality and the size that allows them to burn stronger but also for longer. I was particularly excited by the winter cabbages being stored here because when I heard about the whole 'stocking 200 heads of cabbage' for winter in Chinese households I couldn't quite imagine how it worked but in the cold of winter its practically a fridge outside and so they are maintained. I'm also rather fond of cabbage in soups, as well as buttered with some creamy mustard. Out here though its pretty much a staple food.

I couldn't help but imagine that this scene hasn't changed since the the middle of the century and further back really. It wouldn't take too much to knock out a Hovis inspired Ad for those phones evoking the romance of a bygone era would it? Point being its far from gone yet.

This Gentleman was the happiest and simplest guy I've met in ages. Only recently married his house was decked out with all new mod cons including the winter bed behind him which is harder than the summer bed because of a thinner mattress to allow the heat from the oven outside to permeate through. When oil reaches three hundred dollars a barrel maybe we'll all be a bit more frugal with how we use energy with ideas like this. It was also interesting figuring out why he'd switched from three consecutive international mobile phone brands to his intention to buy a local brand next. Initially his reasoning was that all technology is the same so why pay a premium but with some thoughtful probing it turned out his new wife was now in charge of the purse strings. Fair play to him I thought. Women make for great houshold finance directors, although I'd be inclined to communicate that those local brands are in fact a false economy.

One more oven shot from the Gentleman above, you can tell I like them can't you? I got the feeling that this one would be less frequently used to begin with, as he and his new wife took communal meals with his parents who live close by after building him his new home. I forget the Chinese word for this style of living. I like the way that relationships are maintained through meals though. They don't share the living space together but food helps to keep a sense of familial involvment doesn't it?

And here is their equivalent of a 7-eleven convenience store for those last minute veggie purchases maybe forgotten to be picked up at the local weekly market shop. There were quite prominent mobile phone operator tariff communications in that establishment too.

Those ovens do require feeding with some decent kindle to get that coal going, and this 53 year old woman seemed to be making reasonably light work of the load needed for her household. All in all it was a fascinating day but I got the feeling that I'd like to have done a couple of nights braving the winter chill and getting into the routines of their lives to really understand what it means to sell a liberating and democratising piece of technology such as a mobile phone to these folks.

The true origins of hip hop

I wrote about hip hop over here with an excellent Google video on the origins of hip hop but it seems I got a few facts wrong.

Nokia N95

I'm road testing the Nokia N95 which means I get to take a load of pictures and videos so here's a sample of the what I've been up to. (Update: Few format probs to sort out here)

First I went to Oulu in Finland 200 Kilometres south of the Artic Circle.


But it wasn't snowing so it looked like this really

and this

The we paid a visit to the Nokia Future Labs where they get to play with lots of cool shit like M does in the Bond films.

And I was so loving this dog that I forgot what the connection with mobile phones was, but it must have been good right?

And a phone that can sort the shopping out for the fridge can't be all that bad a replacement for shopping lists can it?

But with so many toys around the joint there's a serious charging job to do.



And of course you need some kick ass remotes as well.


Not to mention some heavy duty mobile command telescopic spying devices


The engineers enjoy a certain genre of postcard. I couldn't figure out the name though.



And of course testing those phones means they have as many chargers as we get lumbered with


But it's OK for them because after all that 'where's my charger' action the Finns take their saunas quite seriously (it's a religion I overheard), and they are all over the work place, like here on the third floor


and here on the fourth floor in case you need to relax on the way up the stairs ;)

But they are into the coolest stuff


Which is ace by me because those software scientists and Nokia guys are developing the killer app to end all killer apps for people like me who are learning to speak Chinese but will probably never be able to read it well. A phone that can translate Chinese text on the go. Awesome!

There was loads of other stuff too that I can't talk about, because if I did I'd have to kill you or send over one of my Ninja guys to take care of things if you spilled the beans. You know how it is. More on that review later because I've got a whole lot more to say on the N95 and it aint gonna win me brownie points.

Disco Diva - Finnish Dance Moves

Finnish nightclub dancing emerged during the Boney M debate and this morning, in an attempt to get some energy into a NOKIA conference/induction thingy I'm attending, I was summoned up front to do some Finnish Disco dancing. 

It's too coincidental not to blog so here it is. Stuff like this just cracks me up.

GOODBYEMOTO

Ben Ward

A couple of nights ago I met up with the Creativistan gang at The Commercial Tavern. It was good to catch up with London's young creative talent and get an idea for people who I may one day be working with. If you are looking for a creative break in advertising you should really make an effort to meet Wal who organises these things because he's got a bright future ahead of him and is a social hub for young creative talent. One small criticism aimed squarely at the British creative wannabes of adland is that none of you were present on this night and frankly were conspicuous by your absence. I met Germans, Scandinavians, French, Baltic States, Italians, Russians and more, all speaking spot-on English but no Brits; which tells me something about our ability to broaden the creative gene pool. I've said it before that homogenous advertising agency cultures produce homogeneous work. I think there were three planners there, that I knew of which confirms something about 3rd Millenium Planners too. We're a much more social bunch than the old guard because there really is no better social research than socialising.

And on that subject of research, I met a young man outside The Commercial Tavern who worked as global research for insights with Nokia. I've been rattling on a bit lately how Nokia have their shit together because of their ability to embrace social sciences into the corporation and putting people over profits as the objective which of course is a more profitable long term strategy as I wrote about over here and which you can watch a related online video over here.

Anyway we got talking about Motorola who are clearly having a hard time of things over in Chicago. Knocked off their number two spot by Samsung for market share and having just posted their second quarterly loss I guess the iPhone is starting to look like a corporation killer. I hear the CEO is on his way out too, no doubt with one of those Platinum Parachutes that the American corporation magnificently rewards failure at the highest level.

I started to recall when the Motorola Razr arrived because it was a huge hit in Asia - absolutely massive and unprecedented. The first one I saw belonged to my German boss while we were running around The Philippines, Indonesia, Malayasia and Thailand. I was fascinated how he had developed an automatic reflex to keep the screen clean of smudges, flicking the screen open, wiping, check and closing; a case of techno design-lust I guess.

Nobody could deny that for style it was a killer phone and for a time it was THE must-have accessory. But what struck me later when I got talking to Jens about the product, provided me with a valuable insight. He told me that the camera was rubbish, the interface so difficult to use that he didn't bother to learn all the functions, and that the only reason for purchasing it was style. Style of course is great but style over substance is a long term problem. Pretty much like putting money before people I guess. So 100 million phones later the Razr has been gang raped into submission by the relentless demand for volume sales and profits by Motorola and is now less of a supermodel and more of a crack whore thrown into a mobile tariff plan for free. I believe even the chavs are reluctant to be seen with them these days. Ironic really if the Razr phone is responsible for Motorola slashing their corporate wrists.

Update: I first saw the RAZR in Penang, Malaysia where Motorola have a plant manufacturing wireless radio products. It was just after the Tsunami which clipped the island I was on so that was around January 2005.

Timo Veikkola - Nokia

Kjirstin

I went to PSFK's conference yesterday in London. It was billed as a morning of trends and ideas, and an afternoon of new marketing. The whole day was hugely enjoyable and I'm not just saying that because PSFK put me up at the Metropolitan and paid for those Cannes tickets I was moaning about. I made some notes of the thoughts and ideas that made sense to me or even didn't make sense but somehow needed to be taken down. Here they are.

The first speaker was Timo Veikkola (picture by lynetter) who is a future specialist at Nokia (what a great job), and seems to have a similarly exciting position as Jan Chipchase. Timo is one of those social science types that the Scandinavian countries excel at integrating into big business much more sympathetically than many U.S. corporations. His goal is to make communications as natural as possible while picking up on future trends to integrate into Nokia products and usability. Timo pointed out that there is no other stimulant like travel and I'd fully agree with him there. Anything else is just Disneyland really. Timo is currently planning for the year 2010, and reminded us of the question "can the human mind master what the human mind has made?" (Zygmnunt Bauman). For a Clinton Kid like me, the last 6 years have been quite depressing and Timo underlined how war is thematic for this decade despite the number of casualities at this moment in time. He talked how these visuals of the oxymoron 'war on terror' have started to seep into culture and may also explain why there is a considerable counter movement for the honest, fun and simple.

Many years ago I was in Vietnam and noticed that despite all the efforts of the mighty U.S. military machine it was Coca-Cola that had really won the war. One slide by Timo of a car covered in Arabic text reminded me that if we look at the population growth demographics for Islamic countries it shouldn't be too long before, along with India and China we should in the future begin to see more Arabic text creeping into our culture. I always find text fascinating and have even etched a few Khmer and Siamese tattoos on my body. I can think of nothing more exciting than nipping up to the Turk, Sri Lankan, Kurdish and Tamil supermarkets where I'm living and looking at 'foreign stuff'. Somehow Coconut Milk from Southern India is much more romantic and kosher than something packaged by one of the supermarkets. I am also quite frankly bored with all the web 2.0 cuddly logos sprouting, although I do realise that style is more important and useful than identity in this overloaded logo world.

Timo talked about how protest and political statement will likely be more present in design of the future and this was reinforced later by the sustainable design panel. I can certainly see a future where homogeneous brands, products and services are more likely to differentiate themselves by what they stand for - their values as it were. Timo also described that we seem to be living in almost biblical Revelations-like times with famine, pestilence, disease and floods from things like SARS, Hurricanes and Tsunamis, he then talked about the move from a celebrity culture to a knowledge culture which simply can't come soon enough for me.

Many moons ago on a hardcore right wing political chat channel that I liked to sharpen my teeth on I was arguing (or rather being shouted down) about the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of driving SUV's in a world with rapidly diminishing oil and young Americans and British people dying for it while serving in the armed forces in Iraq which everyone knows (except the oil addicts) was invaded for its oil reserves and the Green Zone that will administer it. The one weapon that unsettled the frothy mouthed right-wing-nuts in the debate (95% of the channel) was the question, would Jesus drive an SUV? The unholy alliance between the Neo-Conservatives and the Christian fundamentalists is always unsettled by this simple question and mark my words for the future of sustainable consumption, religion and culture will be huge factors in the war of ideas. Ask yourself if Jesus would purchase an SUV, because it looks to me from the picture above that Mohamed wouldn't have minded a Big Mac. That is every reason for being optimistic about the future...... which according to Arthur C Clarke is going to be 'utterly fantastic'.