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IPA PRESENTATION

Ipa Presentation 001 (May 08)

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SEVENTY SEVEN LAUNCHES NEW BLOGS

A blatant plug, but well worth a read are the new blogs created by James' agency, Seventy Seven.

MediaWatch is about ... the media
Spinning Around tracks new and interesting campaigns
Seventy Seven news is about their campaigns

And very nice they are too. Though I do say so myself.

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ANTI-TESCO AD

Cute ad up and about on YouTube in which Friends of the Earth has a bit of a pop at Tesco with a parody ad...

THE NEXT BIG THINGS

Thought that it might be useful to keep track of possible "next big things" for those who might be interested ...

In geek world, Pownce seems to be soaking up a lot of attention, Twitter continues to grow apace, but Jaiku is making ground amongst committed tech watchers. CyWorld, the SK Telecom owned social network, is planning a UK launch imminently, apparently. BlockSavvy is taking on a bit of a life of its own in the US and could drift over to UK trendsetters.

Other useful bits and bobs include ... BlogPoll, which allows you to run polls; HipCast, which enables making and hosting podcasts; BackNetwork, which I haven't really figured out at all; CollectiveX is a bit the same; SlideShare enables you to make slide shows and embed them into websites or blogs (think PowerPoint YouTube; Vox does blogging and more; JumpCut makes making movies from video clips and photos easy; Revver sort of does the same thing.

Anyone got any other tips for the next big things?

THE NEWS IN PICTURES

An Alan Twigg discovery, this one. 10x10 (http://www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html) takes RSS feeds from Reuters, BBC and others, works out what the lead stories are and then gives them a visual image. So you can have a look at what is dominating the world's headlines hour-by-hour. Above all, it's seriously cute to play with.

THE BREAK UP

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

FACE CARE FOR GEEKS

Loved this ...

THE JOYS OF BLOGGING

With thanks to the IPA strategy blog ... thought that the stuff below would be of interest ...

Last night witnessed a much anticipated showdown. John Lowery proposed the motion that blogging was killing planning and John Grant opposed it.

Being asked to write up the notes from this debate is, for me, rather like asking the bloke in the dock to keep the court record of a trial – a bit of a mindfuck. Anyway I will try, in true planner fashion, to be as objective as possible.

The IPA Strategy Group’s very own Robert Kilroy Silk, Guy Murphy, kicked off proceedings by conducting a pre-stage quant study on the motion to establish a robust benchmark.

A full seven people believed that Blogging was a threat to all that is noble and good about planning, 52 thought not and 16 people hadn’t got a clue either way.

Undaunted by the odds, Lowery laid into the plannersphere with tenacious ferocity.

His accusation was that the version of planning that is being presented online is a gross distortion of reality. This wouldn’t matter, John maintained, if the blogs were not so influential in shaping young planners’ minds. He feared a generation of “blog-shaped planners” would be the result and this was a threat to the very brand of planning itself, its role and the respect that it is accorded.

John reminded us of the apprenticeship that good planners go through that ties them back to the founders of the discipline and their vision for the role that planners should play as truth seekers in a sea of conjecture and uninformed opinion.

However, a tour through the plannersphere had convinced John that blogging planners are deserting their responsibility for truth, their obsession with effectiveness and their pride in the craft skills that the essential trademarks of a good planner.

Lowery then went for the jugular characterising the ‘training’ available online as “a bunch of people who don’t know what they are talking about setting tasks for and judging the efforts of a bunch of people who don’t know what they are talking about”.

“Introspection in, introspection out” as John would say.

This kind of non-rigorous planning has always existed, maintained John, but before web 2.0 it had a limited ability to infect the minds of the wider planning community. Now it was spreading like wildfire.

For John planning blogs in their current form are malignancies that are slowly but surely killing planning.

John summed up by telling us that he hadn’t come to destroy the plannersphere but to cure it with a dose of much needed “human chemotherapy”.

Strong stuff, and a tough act for John Grant to follow.

Grant was bemused, how could we judge a new medium after only year or two? It was far too early to tell what the effect of this new planning activity would have. Sure the picture that Lowery painted was bleak but where was the evidence that planning was in anything other than rude health?

For Grant, Lowery’s entire case suffered from the woolly thinking and lack of hard facts that he was seeking to defend in the discipline.

Moreover, John suggested, if we were to vote in favour of the motion we were to think hard about the signals that we as a discipline, industry and nation were sending out. Blogging, social media and web 2.0 are facts of modern life, how could the IPA, endorse a motion that suggested that it wanted to turn back a tide of technology and behaviour that everyone else in society was embracing with alacrity.

John was also concerned about the way in which the planning elite were using this debate to squash the enthusiasm and energy of young planners, sure some of the stuff young planners were doing online was naïve but it was ever thus, said John recalling the output of his own IPA 2 course in 1989.

And finally, he made the point that judging the state of planning from the plannersphere is like judging the state of the advertising industry by reading Campaign magazine. Both offer a particular version of the business without representing it in its entirety.

If that wasn’t polarised enough, the debate from the floor drove a further wedge between the camps; this wasn’t going to be one of those lacklustre events that ends with everyone in ‘violent agreement’.

Many younger planners voiced the concern that they were looking to the online community for more of the bread and butter stuff that Lowery was talking about and not just the clever stuff and as a result, its absence was frustrating.

Other contributions from the floor pointed out that the blogging debate was a smokescreen for what now appear utterly opposed versions of what good planning is – facts or ideas.

And one interloper from outside the industry drew an analogy between planning and medicine. There were now two traditions that were accepted in medical circles – orthodox and complementary medicine – wasn’t this similar to the two styles of planning in evidence.

While back on the podium, Lowery suggested ways to improve blogging and increase the quality of the contributions, while Grant insisted that it was folly to try and legislate for planning online “you can’t write a broadcasting act to control blogging” Grant sniped.

At the final vote it was a walkover for John Grant who thoroughly defeated the motion 41 votes to 20 with 12 abstaining. However, Lowery’s withering criticism of the plannersphere was so compelling he almost tripled his count in the course of the evening.

And from my point of view? Well of course I think it is fanciful to suggest that blogging is killing planning. It is now an essential part of our toolkit. But Lowery offers us strategists a timely reminder about the need to maintain standards of rigour, proof and certainty in what we do.

ALL ABOUT TRUST

Came across this fella the other day (albeit three months old now). A survey on trust in global brands - and the impact that it can have on businesses. Interesting reading indeed.

ADS vs REALITY

The consumer backlash takes to the internet. Skewering the airbrushed, varnished ads for fast food, a site that presents the ads vs. pictures of the real meal deal. A classic piece of consumerism that is getting plenty of traction on the web and across the blogosphere. See it HERE.

WE ARE LOVING THE WORK ... PLAYBOY

WE ARE LOVING THE WORK ... ANTI-CO2

WE ARE LOVING THE WORK ... GAMBLING SITE

WE ARE LOVING THE WORK ... METRO GYMS

INTERESTING ...

Russell Davies' Interesting2007 is coming along apace. Check out the original post HERE. For other information about the event, you can have a look at the subsequent blogs about it. Hope that all goes well with it ... should be ... well ... interesting.

HAPPY MEMORIES OF EVENTS PAST ...

THESE4WALLS HEADS TO FACEBOOK

At long last, we've made our way into the social networking phenomenon that is Facebook and have set t4w up in there. You can join the Facebook group HERE.

THESE4WALLS CAREER NETWORK NIGHT

Details of our latest event - a Career Network Night - are HERE. Get yourself registered and head along.

GOD BLESS BARRY

LOVELY PIANO LESSONS AD ...

Lovely piece of work ... more than likely an award winner ...

CHE MAGAZINE AMBIENT HIT

More of the sweet campaign for Italian lads' mag, Che with some cracking ambient work ...

PENGUIN CAMPAIGN

Loving the latest work from Penguin, who have now published a handful of their titles with blank covers and have invited people to send in their ideas for the designs ... see the gallery HERE.

NOVEL APPROACH FOR NON-ALCOHOL BEER

Can't imagine that pregnant women were the target for these ads, nor that it is going to do much for male lager drinkers, but it made us smile a lot.

WE HATE IT WHEN OUR FRIENDS BECOME FAMOUS

Morrissey once said that we hate it when our friends become famous. Regardless of whether there was any validity in this comment, an interesting thing occurred ... that we also hate it when our brands become successful.

I once loved EAT - a coffee bar that I could only ever find near the Embankment and on Avery Row. Everyone else like Pret. Or Subway. But for me, EAT was all there was. I liked the food, the latte (organic milk, fairtrade beans), the salads. And I liked that I was the person who brought EAT to my friends. EAT was MY brand, dammit.

Now, I cannot move to EATs. There are three within two minutes of the office. Everyone goes to EAT. And I actually resent the money-men who have taken the brand that I loved - that I discovered - and shared it with everyone.

The thing that was done with effortless ease in the early stores is now in a brand book and employee guideline manual. The design that was under-stated and somehow genuine seems now ubiquitous.

So, how do you take a small, home-grown brand that has developed on its own for years and create a super-brand from it? And how do you keep the principles and practices that were home-grown and genuine complete in a superbrand that is run by manuals?

This, it strikes me, is going to be an increasingly major issue for brands that are growing out of small-scale, often local production and retail bases to become national and international brands.

Two things combine:

1) The continued veneration of local brands creating brands that grow from local, small-scale businesses - Tyrrells, Rachels' Organic, Innocent, Stormhoek wine, The Real Greek, Bombay Bicycle.

2) The internet, and therefore the ease with which brands can quickly and easily find an international audience of enthusiasts.

This is going to make the growth of the global microbrand more possible. But it is also going to make it possible for these brands to expand and become superbrands in their own right. How do we as marketers help to manage this process - keeping the essence of what makes these brands special, while helping them to expand and grow?

Er ... discuss?

HATS OFF ... McJOB McGENIUS

Getting words into the dictionary has long been a staple of the PR industry. Which is why the sweetness of the McDonald's campaign to remove McJob from it was all the sweeter. Nice idea, neatly executed. Got everywhere today.

PURE GENIUS: BUSINESS-BUILDING IDEAS

One of those rare times that you think that marketing might actually build a business, rather than just build a brand. The collaboration between Marmite and Guinness is not just a cracking idea that has got people talking - not to mention cool-hunters beating a path to the nearest Harvey Nicks to get hold of a jar and eBayers trading the stuff in a frenzy - but has likely created a whole new market.

It's pretty rare that a marketing agency comes up with something that really changes a client's business and turns cost into profit-centre - Tango men is the last one that we could remember.

Now, the IPA is rewarding the businesses that have pulled off this most marvellous of feats. See the nascent IPA Strategy Blog for details. Be interesting to see what the ideas are that this competition pulls to the fore.

HATS OFF ... NAOMI CAMPBELL STUNT

Using the walk into community service as a catwalk was an audacious move. But Campbell pulled it off with aplomb - and pocketed £25,000 a day while she was at it.

As much as it may have middle Britain (and America, for that matter),  up in arms, you have to take your hat off to Naomi Campbell and W Magazine, who pulled of a stunt in which the supermodel wore a different outfit for each of her five days of punishment, only to be photographed for a 20 page spread in the fashion bible (as reported by the Daily Telegraph).

The whole thing will have done nothing for the girl's reputation amongst the general public, but you have to say that it goes down as a serious contender for stunt of the year ... It would certainly get our vote.

A&F LAUNCH: STUNTS MAKE THE BROADSHEETS

You might not get it first time out. Why would Abercrombie & Fitch, the US menswear retailer that has just opened its first UK store off Savile Row, stuck a load of semi-naked men in its windows?

They have a male clientele, what is semi-naked men going to do to for them? Shouldn't it be a load of semi-naked women?

What is interesting is that the story was picked up most clearly and in largest scale by the broadsheets - the very titles that the fashion-literate, better-off male is more likely to be reading. The naked men story was picked up in the Independent and The Times amongst others.

For brands that want stunt-based stories that will break out of the tabs and mid-markets, maybe naked men is the answer ...?

DOES H&M'S MADONNA FLOP SIGNAL THE END OF CELEB TIE-UPS?

If you are willing to believe the wave of anti-hype,  you would have to say that the media's love affair with celeb/fashion-label partnerships may well have come to an end.

Following the Madonna at H&M launch, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and The  Sun all weighed-in with negative pieces. Ouch.

THE FUTURE IS VIDEO ...

News from the much-blogged Changing Media Summit ... words from Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger that signal his belief that the world will go increasingly digital and that user generated content will become more important than ever ...

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told this afternoon's Changing Media Summit that it is "impossible to predict on what technology platform journalism will be delivered in five year's time or even a year."

But he predicted that more and more of that content will be provided by the readers themselves – as opposed to journalists.

He said: "We are grappling with this balance of what goes on to the website and what goes in the paper. A great part of that web [content] will be generated by users in time."

Rusbridger, a man who is clearly making the safe bet in this world of change - more digital, more user-involvement? Staggering predictions to be making ... and so unexpected. Hmm ...

More interesting was the Guardian's deputy commercial director Adam Freeman, who announced that the paper's future was more-than likely in video, asserting that the business is first-and-foremost a news organisation and that ...

"today that means giving them 2,000 words on a piece of paper but in the future it will probably be in video. It's about changing our outlook to meet our consumers‚ needs.”

Now that is slightly more interesting - particularly when you look at the Daily Telegraph's dabbling with online business TV, C4 and the BBC's clear commitment to delivering TV on the internet.

The future, it would appear, could well be in internet TV. And if that is the case, watch this space ... given the combatants, the fight in that market is likely to be fierce.

BRILLIANT BUSINESS-BUILDING BRAND IDEAS

The Anya Hindmarch "I am not a plastic bag". Part design brilliance, part simple rules of supply (limited) and demand (healthily stoked by celebrities and great PR), it is a cracking example of a brand-marketing idea that has built a great business proposition. Read more in the Guardian's analysis.

JAMES: MY PERSONAL DNA

Cute thing that I was just playing with, as mentioned on John Grant's blog - always a good read. Have a go, let us know how you turned out ...

THE WORLD IN CHARTS

Thanks to lots of people who all linked to this clip. And then told us about it ...

Download legrandweb.mov

BLOGS WORTH READING

... or James' cunning way of keeping links somewhere. Please do add any useful links to good planning, marketing or advertising blogs. But only good ones, please. Ta.

John Grant's Brand Tarot

Marcus Brown

 Digital Agency

Mark McGuinness' Wishful Thinking

Fallon Trend Report

Influx

Brand Seeks Idea

Planning Outside In

Talent Imitates, Genius Steals

Holy Cow

Russell Davies planning blog

FutureLab

Make marketing history

Brand New

W+K London

AdLiterate

Mark Earls' Herd

PAAB

Where's the Sausage?

CRACKING LYNX/AXE ADS

This is quite simply a wonderful piece of marketing communications. Loving it.

THE TOP UK AD BLOGS

Some kind of official UK advertising blog top ten type thing. Compiled by Scamp. See it HERE too.

Top 10 UK Ad Blogs

			(world
			ranking)
1	Russell Davies		162,185
2	AdScam		384,282
3	FishNChimps		423,089
4	Scamp		537,700
5	Welcome To Optimism		553,748
6	Adliterate		1.21m
7	What If...		1.45m
8	Gwen Yip		2.88m
9	Beeker		2.89m
10	Faris		2.89m

ORANGE AD: YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT

JOHN GRANT PODCAST

Co-founder of St Lukes and now a leading freelance planner, thinker and author, John Grant gave an interview to blog, Life In the Middle. Some cracking thoughts from an altogether nice man. Check the post HERE (links to the 'casts at the bottom of the post).

SIMPLE IDEAS SOMETIMES THE BEST: THINK ABOUT IT ...

Cracking ad for VW's Touareg SUV. Took me a while to get it, but when I did, I got that warm feeling of having cracked a great ad. Lovely stuff lads.

BELGIANS FORCE GOOGLE RETREAT

The nation that refused the Nazi army free passage against impossible odds has taken on an even more unstoppable juggernaut. Today, the Belgian press said no to Google News and has forced the company into retreat by arguing that Google ought to pay them if it wants to copy their content. Google will appeal of course, never a company to let something as trivial as a 15 centuries of legal tradition stand its way, but for now the case raises a question mark over the future of news aggregators generally.

What's interesting about the case is that we're still not sure how to treat the internet. If a company in the real world were to copy newspaper extracts verbatim, for commercial gain, no-one would be surprised when they were shut down by some Apple-style legal aggression. But in the world of the web, it's not so clear cut, even among supposedly grown-up companies. Should Google be allowed to get away with its "act now ask if anyone minds later" approach?

Even if we're agnostic on this point, can Google sustain its current approach? With some media owners pulling their content on YouTube and now Google News, could the search giant some day find itself disadvantaged against search engines with better business relationships and more content available to search?

For now they seem to be getting away with it, but as "traditional media" increasingly sees rivers of advertising cash being diverted online, one of Google's PR challenges is to keep them on-side. When content creators come to the table demanding a bigger slice of the cake, Google's reputation will play a key role in getting the company the best deal and keeping it ahead of its competitors.