For those of you who weren't aware of it, I used to work at a lovely agency by the name of Seventy Seven PR, which I once upon a very long time ago helped to found.
Well, I've left it and have started up Hope&Glory, a new consumer brand agency.
So far, it all seems to be going pretty well. We have a lovely ID (thanks to Vic Salmon at Moustache) and a cracking website (thanks to Steve). We have a Twitter feed if you want to stay in touch with what I am up to on a daily basis.
And we have some lovely new clients - HAM Homewares, School of Comedy, D&AD and three others that I am not aloud to talk about just yet (we'll wait to sign some contracts before we jump up and down and get excited about those - at least publically).
So it's all going pretty well.
If you would like to know more about it, do have a read of this post, which we wrote as an opening statement of intent, such as there is one. And do please feel free to get in touch if you'd like to chat about what I'm up to and if I might be able to help.
Okay, Okay, Starbucks may be ahead of the game in mass-market marketing technology.
Berg and Dentsu are at the cutting edge of what's next. You can pretty much guarantee that what they've created in the film below through play will become the new normal over the next short while.
There were two things that I happened to pay attention to over the last week or so.
One was this article by one Mr Mark Borkowski on Huffington Post. If I'm honest, I think that he was pretty poorly subbed when it came to the headline (or it was just one that doesn't quite get to the point of the article).
The bit that really caught me was this ...
The modern audience is not so much looking for a challenge to established values as a development of better ones to fix broken brand Britain. Instead of prioritising contextless 'creativity' and 'taboo-busting', brands should focus on launching committed, consistent campaigns which use new ideas and new media for their potential to unify communities and open dialogue, not for their shock value. To build a relationship with the consumer, brands must first build relationships between consumers.
The other thing that floated my way was the latest DC Shoe Co Gymkhana film, featuring one Ken Block.
I watched it (well a bit of it, it's nine minutes long. NINE minutes).
Then I felt a trifle queasy. I kinda thought that the expense of this (and its length only served to compound the feeling) was way out of kilter with what it's promoting - some very nice skate shoes.
It made me think that the sums of money that a US shoe company could've been spent on something just a little bit more ... worthwhile maybe?
And then I stopped myself again and wondered what that something might be.
If, as Mark says, the modern (particularly youth) consumer needs something to kick against, but the modern age of politics has an irresistable centrifugal force which pulls everything to a middle ground leaving little if anything to fight back towards.
So it is that creativity (and the brands that associate with it) has always centred itself around a form rebellion - think Benetton, Diesel, the Sex Pistols. But there is nothing any more to rebel against - prevailing liberal culture maintaining that everything should be hugged much in the way of the average hoodie.
... which means, according to Mark's diagnosis that things like Ken's driving extravaganza are the marketing campaign of yesteryear (and it does feel inappropriate, old hat, profligate even).
The campaigns of the future are those that put something back. That unite cultures rather than seek to counter them. That bring people together rather than seek to divide and "differentiate" their advocates.
But is any of this really new?
Sort of.
But it got me to thinking that what we should be doing is looking to where this kind of thing is already happening (and it is happening not at the fringes, but in the marketing departments of the world's biggest marketing organisations).
Where ...?
Well, these were, in my humble, the best examples of this approach in action ...
1. Pepsi Refresh
The big daddy of them all ... Pepsi is sinking all its marketing cash into making things generally better around the place.
2. VW Fun Theory
Spending marketing money to solve social ills by bringing some a) fun and b) VW thinking to bear on how they can be overcome ... culminating in a competition to crowd source a great idea, which was then put into action and became the "Speed Camera Lottery" ...
3.Dulux Walls
In Brazil, Dulux created this spot. And, alright, it's an ad. But it's an ad with a strong idea at its heart - the refreshing of a community (in this case a favela street) by uniting its residents to come together and give it a make-over in paint ...
4. Sony Open Planet Ideas
Sony wanted to showcase all their technology and innovation. So they crowdsourced ideas from the public and from experts worldwide. Those ideas took Sony technology and applied them to projects (inventions, gadgets, projects) that had an environmental benefit. Year one, and it seems to be working ...
5.orange Rockcorps
Okay, Okay, so it's not quite as "socially responsible" as some of the other pieces of work. But the idea of "Give time, Get a ticket" is a bang-on example of brands spending at least some of their marketing money on doing something that it genuinely worthwhile, while at the same time involving folks in the game along the way.
So there you have it.
Five campaigns from around the world (ish) that are doing already what Mark - and for the record, I'd share his perspective on where things might go - predicts will become mainstream and might well point to the future of marketing for brands that really want to make an impression on a consumer looking for a cause ... even if they are no longer rebelling against anything ...
Thought that this was fascinating ... Lego's latest new project, Life of Geroge.
It takes real world stuff and blends it with an iPhone app to create a wholly new game experience - that works as both a one player game or a two player challenge that sort of takes the role of boardgame.
But that's not what is interesting ... it's the fact that Lego has taken its core product and has used a smart piece of app building to take their whole business into a new direction with a new dimension. It's created a game that is pretty adult, so it also appeals to a whole new audience in a new way.
Building apps that have some bearing or relationship to things that happen in the real world isn't new. Building a new business line around that idea (to the best of my knowledge), is ...
First it was Hovis, then Virgin. Now John Lewis, BA and even bloody Kleenex have joined the fray with their efforts.
We seem to be heading on a nostagia trip ... Brands portraying solidity, heritage values, a certain dependability. While at the same time, trying to show how their pasts mean that your in safe hands now and for the future.
Maybe it's the recession. Maybe it's a belief that we're all flocking back to brands that we know, love and trust. Maybe it's the fact that there is so much research flying about saying that we love dependability and equate that with "value" in these straitened times.
But, in BA's case at least, I'd have liked to have seen something a bit more contemporary. Perhaps with a bit more heart-string pulling (cf. John Lewis), a trifle less "stiff upper lip" (cf. Virgin's 25 years ad below), certainly something that looked that forwards rather than simply back.
The idea of focussing on the staff is a lovely one.
When it comes down to it, this is a service-based industry and, at least in theory, BA should have the upper-hand all-round (albeit they've lost their gloss to the Middle East carriers and Virgin).
But for my money, I'd really like to have seen more made of those staff.
Who knows, perhaps there's more to come. But right now, it's all leaving me a bit flat. Not enough made either of the experience and the WIIFM? or the people who are going to deliver that feeling and make me flip my booking ...
When I first saw the Heineken idea - the Occasionally Perfect Billboard - I thought that it sounded like a really interesting piece of work. Intriguing, as all the best social/experiential should be.
Then I saw the first execution.
For those who haven't, Heineken have taken over a billboard in a parking lot in NYC. They stuck a billboard up for a few days proclaiming the legend that "This Billboard is Occasionally Perfect". Then, to make that the case, they whacked up a stage and had an impromptu session in the street.
So far, so Beatles on the Apple building from 1969.
As it goes, the whole thing did alright. Around 1.1 million YouTube views is no mean feat.
But, do you know what, I left the whole experience thinking that the concept - that of owning a bloody great big branded stage on which you as a brand could put on amazing things for a period of time (on an occasional basis) was far more interesting than the reality.
As it was, there was a band playing a public gig. Neat. But not earth shattering.
What WOULD have been interesting is if, a couple of weeks after that first piece of work, there had been another happening at the same place - just on an occasional basis, you see - and had that been a more interesting thing to watch, I'd have been impressed.
As it was, I ended up a bit "meh".
Then, to find that the same thing was rolled out to Chicago. Well, it all looked a wee bit less inspired really. And the fact that YouTube film number two has had (as things stand) around 1,100 views suggests that a lot of other people felt the same way.
Great concept - own a branded "public" space, put on amazing events in a pop-up style, do it time and again through a year, make the whole thing famous. It's just the execution was a bit lacking.
Shame, really and it feels a bit like an ad agency creating what should be an experiential idea but turning it into something that lacks for ... well ... experience.
Clips below for those who have not the foggiest idea what I'm talking about ...
There's a post I've been meaning to write about Monocle and Mr. Porter. Mostly because (as I have been musing, they are an interesting example of the way that media and retail are merging - tho from different ends of that spectrum). But I haven't had time. So that will have to wait.
What has made me think, is watching a couple of fashion films (if you're interested in such things, check out Vogue Art Director, Jamie Perlman's TEST magazine, which houses, shoots, celebrates, curates such things).
However, in this case Lanvin and Prada ... Which just go to show that, rather than simply showing your collection to a bunch of editors and buyers (still the most important people in fashion), you also have a shot at sharing your vision and collection with a global audience.
As soon as you realise that, as well as being in the fashion game, you're in the entertainment game and that there is a world of media out there that is yours, all yours ...
Came across the most recent Ballantine's (premium global blended whisky brand, for those who don't know ... a surprising number don't) work.
Their Leave an Impression campaign sort of got me thinking.
Generally, whisky sticks to its knitting.
From time to time, you come across something a bit different. Like The MacAllan mucking about with Rankin shots. But generally, whiskies stick to what they know - heritage, established legends, taste profiles, that sort of thing.
Which is why this Ballantine's work stood out a country mile.
Featuring a Facebook-based live tattoo session (which ended up with a QR code that triggered an iPhone to play a video that became part of an animated tattoo in effect. And then a live graffiti session which was filmed and then animated, again in front of a global Facebook audience.
That got me to thinking that Ballantine's have done an interesting thing.
They haven't worried about upsetting their core consumer base (male, well-off ish, generally fairly traditional, generally 40+) by doing something edgy.
Instead, they've done something so edgy that it's enormously unlikely that this constituency is going to see the campaign.
They've designed something that a new audience of trendsetting, sharing hipsters are going to like - and probably share around the place and they've gone hell for leather (rather than wimping out and doing something a bit half-hearted to appeal to that crowd).
I have to say, it's an impressive piece of work for a brand that might otherwise have spent so long about not alienating one audience in a quest to reach another that they ended up doing nothing ... as is too often the way with established businesses (and brand managers who worry about commercial impact and can't quite take the risk).
It's also a good example, in my book, of folk taking advantage of the internet to reach one audience while they will no doubt continue to plug away in GQ and Esquire with cocktail recipes and seasonal "stuff". They've taken a segmentation and designed content for an audience, in a channel, with some bespoke appeal - precisely because they know that their core are unlikely to pay it any attention.
Interesting stuff. There's lessons there, so there are ...
Normally I hate Parkour ... tired, hackneyed way of getting people talking about a brand. I think that, by and large, even the shittest agencies around have stopped using the stuff to shill their client's product.
All of that said, this kind of worked for me. The Tempest Free Running Academy has created a viral spot (and viral it has gone - 3 million views and counting) to promote its Parkour Gym.
Cute.
Suppose that, as ever with such things, a smart or different take on even the most over-done of creative thoughts can still get people talking and engaging.