Soon though.
Homeless Copywriter
I really admire Geoff Vreekan.
Geoff, like many, was laid off by his agency last year during the fiscal tightening most agencies faced.
He also knew that creative professional under 40 hardly, if at all give to charities. Though they do like sitting around an complaining. So rather than do up a spiffy portfolio in an expensive hand crafted case he put his effort and time to work on behalf of Covenant House. He made a campaign for those who could never afford an agency to help them out; street kids.
It was a honour for Geoff to take the stage and launch Homeless Copywriter at Interesting Vancouver. I admire anyone who will stand up in front of 150 people to talk into a loud microphone about losing their job and then present new creative publicly for the first time. It's hard enough presenting to a few clients, let alone 150 potential critics. Bravo good sir.
Geoff is hosting a launch party this Thursday. I'll be there.
Introducing Sprize by The Gap
The Gap quietly launched something very interesting here in Vancouver. Something called Sprize. The mechanics of it are pretty straightforward. Apparently this is only in Vancouver at the moment.
This really is exceptional. Just the latest creative sales promotion tactic by the folks at Gap Inc. for their various brands. But Sprize is certainly the smartest.
Shopping has always been as much a psychological game as the utilitarian pursuit of buying clothes to protect our soft human skin from the elements. High streets are a consumer chess game where retailers try to get you to buy today something that likely will be marked down tomorrow. The Gap has become notorious for "wait till it goes on sale."
With Sprize The Gap is essentially calling their own bluff, saying that they know that your know that the starting retail price is just the first offer. And you negotiate with time by coming back tomorrow to see if it's marked down, or buying it today and 14 days later come back for a price adjustment.
With a Sprize account you almost look forward to paying full price to see how much money you "win" in your account. So now, not only does Gap encourage a sale in the present, you'll be coming back in to spend your winnings. Smart, smart, smart.
Pair this with their renewed efforts to elevate the fit and quality of clothing designs plus a badly needed re-invigoration of their retail environment. But realistically, those improvements are just moves to chase the more nimble brands that have been eating their lunch - Zara, H&M, American Apparel and Urban Outfitters amongst others. Sprize is a genuinely differentiating move in an increasingly commoditized category.
Going beyond a fresh coat of paint and slogan shows this old dog still has some tricks up its sleeve. Go on you.
IV 09: Ticket Protocol & Attendees Note
Ticket protocol is pretty simple, though the print is a little buried on Eventbright. Simply print out the email confirming your ticket purchase. If you've long deleted the email just bring some ID and we'll cross you off the master list.
Below is the schedule:
6:00PM - Doors open / Cash bar open
7:00 - Opening remarks (7PM SHARP / doors and checkin close)
7:05 - First Round speakers
8:00 - Intermission, snacks and drink refills
8:30 - Second Round speakers
9:30 - Closing Remarks
9:31 - Venue transforms to a pub for chats / bar remains open
Come early and enjoy the cocktail hour and avoid the last minute check in rush.
As noted we're trying food this year. Though we will have some tasty treats and surprises please avoid getting too ravenous in advance. We will have some hors d'euvers at the beginning and other treats throughout the evening. As most of the ticket revenue goes to renting the room please get some sustenance before you come if you have a hollow leg.
Also, the bartenders and your fellow attendees would appreciate if you could bring cash to keep the line moving quickly, though cards are accepted if you prefer.
We've got a small block of remaining tickets. Note, we're not planning on accepting payment at the door unless specially arranged in advance. So tell your interested friends to go pick em up online while they can - http://interestingvancouver2009.eventbrite.com/
Best,
Brett
Event: Interesting Vancouver 2009
Date: Friday, October 23, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM (PT)
Location:
Vancouver Rowing Club
450 Stanley Park Drive
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada
For more information click here: Interesting Vancouver 2009
Interesting?
A cross post from over on the Interesting Vancouver blog. More great speakers will be profiled over there in the coming days.
As is tradition with Interesting Vancouver folks want labels of exactly what it is. Which makes sense as Vancouver is growing quite the burgeoning conference culture. Interesting Vancouver is not as radical as an un-conference, it's kind of like TED before it became corporate, it's a bit of a salon open to everyone, it's fast moving like Pecha Kucha though without the salesmanship and part university classroom like those classes with that one or two incredibly interesting professor we all had.
Better yet, Kevin of Foodists.ca (whose profile will be up tomorrow) offers a nice take on what to expect to help any fence sitters:
"Those of us who attended last year were treated to one of the most refreshing and inspiring gatherings that you could hope to experience. This was ultimately due to the fact that the evening was not centered around any particular industry, nor was it trying to get us to upgrade anything, jump on bandwagons or subscribe to hidden agendas... [s]ound interesting? Well, you will have to see for yourself. After the buzz of last year’s event I suspect that tickets will be going fast so get them while you can. And we’ll see you on the 23rd!"
C-Store Reborn
Living on the West Coast is great. But one thing I love about going to the older, longer settled parts of the planet is intimate shops meant for everyday and just in time need fulfillment. Out West, a place only recently starting to get tight and build up, is the land of the destination shop. The supermarket. Even the super-super market.
Now that cities like Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Diego are embracing their relatively young heritage districts and embracing their rough coats while making them realistic residential neighbourhoods the accompanying services are coming with them. But in new forms. Honest real texture, patina and sense of natural place. No drywall or exposed HVAC interiors here.
In Seattle over the weekend in Ballard, a once thriving fishing haunt home to legions of Norwegian fishermen, came across this great Bodega (as they say in New York) beside one of my favorite hang outs King's Hardware (part of the brilliant Ace Hotel / Rudy's Barber empire.)
It wasn't fancy, just a basic space that let the brands speak for themselves. Certainly more refined than your 7-11's selection. Micro-beers, so old they are ironic cool brands and rolling papers for "tobacco."There is something about the honesty of a place like this, trying to be true to the past while not being drunk on nostalgia and grabbing firmly but couthly on the tastes of the presence. Bravo Ballard Bodega.
Brown paper sacs. Left wall features food, the right sundries including emergency underwear and school supplies actually designed for the office or a service profession.
Real world social networking / crowdsourcing:
Review: Baked In
I was given the
opportunity to take an advanced read of the soon to be released book Baked In
by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor.
As these are two people actively challenging and reworking the definition of
advertising the book arrived in a FedEx box stuffed with fresh Colorado air and
anticipation.
The subtitle of Baked In
is Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves. If you’re looking for prescriptive quick
fixes, impressive empirical analysis of past success or nifty new buzzwords it’s
probably not the book for you.
However, if you’re feeling an inkling there might be a better way to do what you do or you burn with a sense there is opportunity in today’s madness that you’re frothing (maybe not from the mouth though…) to get a hold of then you’ll love this book.
The book is essentially
comprised of two interwoven parts, one part an argument why there is an opportunity/need
for different ways to approach business. Secondly, a set of 28
exercises called recipes for how to go about rethinking marketing and product development. PSFK has a great breakdown of the book as does James on the Adhack blog whose overviews I'll avoid rehashing and discuss what most intrigued me.
My humble opinion is that this
is one of the most important books you will read this year. Over time it might prove up there with Paul Arden's books as mandatory for anyone wishing to stand out and create "weaponized creativity" in the world of business. I'm certainly biased being a person drawn to
highly creative and innovative ideas along with the environments they breed in but this is one of those rare business books that makes the chaotic pursuit of transformative creativity an approachable and logical pursuit.
What really impressed me
about the book is the ongoing discussion of mindsets and behaviors in companies
to enable great ideas. Not so much gripes or a well worn dismissal of the old methods such as focus groups and the division between marketing and product development, rather a way forward to strip away the preconceived notions embedded in a corporation that get in the way of human beings working more closely with other human beings to create more interesting and innovative products. In particular narrowing the distance between the people who buy what a company makes and the people who make what people buy.
What I also liked, which
may frustrate some people, is that the book doesn’t tell you exactly what to do. What it does do is give you principles
and exercises to go about rethinking your business and products paired with
approaches to implement the thinking. The world of business has become such a wonderfully complex and fast
moving ecosystem that cookie cutter strategies or tactics give cookie cutter
results whose incremental benefits are diminishing over time. Products need to be and can be
intertwined with all the wonderful details and complexity of everyday
life. While old or “traditional”
ways of doing business or marketing will persist and have their place in
certain cultures there is opportunity to think and create in more profound and powerful
ways. This book is like a mental workout program that fires up your brain to train itself to work in ways enabling such transformative innovation.
To develop transformative change you need a different way to go about doing what you do. It also helps to have a broad frame of reference and experience when going about it. Plus a willingness to receive ideas and inputs from the most obscure and uniformed places including an open mind to experiment how ideas are made. Baked In is choked full of good applied examples including just a few from the usual suspects (Apple & Nike) though they aren’t the usual cases. But again, the cases are not positioned as a model for exactly what you should do but an example of the recipes in applied practice. A point best summed up in this quote:
"There is no formulaic way to do this: the key is simply taking a more holistic, inclusive approach that doesn't exclude potential input - especially that of your customer."
One other thought that really
struck me while reading the book is how a lot of people still, including those working exclusively in “digital,” really don’t get just how big of a deal it
is. Not in the sense of websites,
display ads and apps but as the fundamental rewiring of our world. Even in the most traditional of companies
you will be hard pressed not to find anything that comes out their doors
without some 00’s and 11’s being involved. The very notion of the digital and non-digital world
is rather absurd and limiting. Just
as the line between product and marketing is limiting.
The book itself lives the world they advocate. Hashtags pepper throughout and
the recipes are posted on the Baked In Wiki for anyone’s addition and revision. But the single thing that got me most
excited is how tangibly we are seeing humanity potentially return to brands and
products. Both because we can get
and process more raw and insightful information, secondly because people are
generally pretty savvy consumers and therefore appreciative of great products
tuned for them. Change is constant
and it certainly is exciting change around us.
Foursquare King for a Week
Like any curious eight year old, when something gets popular I like to play with it, poke holes in it and see how it works.
Foursquare launched in Vancouver a few weeks ago. So I wanted to be king of Vancouver for a week, not by a little bit mind you, but by a mile. See what happens a long the way and get to know this area that's really intriguing.
Foursquare bills itself as a social game. There are some rules or at least some inconsistent social codes depending on what circles you travel in. Like any good hacker (which I'm not but pretended to be) I wanted to see what happens if I dominated Vancouver for a week.
I checked in every single place I was in, walked by or drove past. Easy enough.
Outcome:
1. Victory - My score of 2088 was 5 times greater than runner up Hayley Z. at 405. Take that Vancouver.
2. Indifference - For a game, Foursquare isn't very competitive. Only the last day, maybe at that, some anyone noticeably attempt to aggressively move up the leaderboard.
3. Reward - No recognition or even designation of "Mayor" for the week. Seems odd not to reward with some sort of badge as other achievements are.
4. Redundancy - As Vancouver didn't have a pre-loaded database the only venues were those uploaded by players in Vancouver. A great crowdsource initiative but seemed everyone who added places all hangs out at the same type of place. Quite the eco-chamber.
5. Irony - Business tended to be great independent restaurants/businesses or mass market brands. Not a bad thing, just a curious observation.
6. Couponing - This big news last week was business could offer coupons, such as free beer for being mayor. I'm all for driving traffic but beyond a bit of awareness Foursquare needs more to build brands.
At this stage it seems as those playing Foursquare are doing so to say they are playing Foursquare. The competitive framework needs to be beefed up with rewards and consequences. Obviously it's early days for the tool, will be interesting to see how they evolve. For the owners, undoubtedly there is a viable business model in there. There are lots of small businesses keen to find better ways to market that the backs of fume squelching buses. For business owners whether this will be an other addition to their marketing mix or a dramatic model shift is to be determined.
But in terms of a broader social movement it will be interesting to see what functionality or partnerships emerge. Branded scavenger hunts of sorts or GPS enabled fictional (or non-fiction) narratives are easy to envision and demand a premium price. If someone like Zagat or Micheline Guides looked at their business as more than books and stickers on restaurant doors it would have been a brilliant extension of their business models.
As smart phones and next generation cars with smart navigation systems replace our current rolling stock over the next decade will be great to see what new applications and products come to market. For marketing departments and ad agencies (traditional, digital, social, whatever...) it means either stepping up their game and being able to build a rigorous case for R&D budgets, not just marketing budgets, or slide a little further down the chain of innovation.
Adhack Live - The Baked In Edition
Over the past year James Sherrett has kindly asked me, for some reason, to do a couple live webcast discussions called Adhack Live.
We are doing another one this Thursday which started as a discussion around the implications crowdsourcing has on the marketing universe. We've since amped up the chat to incorporate the soon to be released book Baked In by Crispin Porter + Bogusky big shots Alex Bogusky and John Winsor, executive director of strategy and innovation.
In a nutshell, Baked In looks at how to eliminate silos between the various disciplines of business, enabled by technology, to give birth to more collaborative and innovative approaches to marketing and product design resulting in products that market themselves.
John kindly gave us an advanced look at the book and we invite you to participate in the discussion by watching live Thursday 9:00AM PST. More importantly, submit your questions, thoughts, or rants in advance over on Adhack or down below in the old comments.
More on the book on the Baked In blog/wiki or secure an Amazon pre-order to be the first in your cube farm to apply the "recipes."
Early Bird Tickets - Interesting Vancouver
This is a cross post from over at the Interesting Vancouver 2009 site/blog.
Only a few days left for the first batch of Interesting Vancouver tickets.
Some really good speakers putting up their hands. New to the speaker's list is a mechanical engineer, a chololatier, lessons on how to smell, a member of the David Suzuki Foundation, salmon breeding expert and more.
For a bit of interestingness today, MTV's global research tool Sticky posted on a talk from the recent Interesting London on what children 6-8 find interesting.
Interesting Children
View more presentations from AsiSharabi.
Noticed: Noticings
There is an interesting tension of living in a big city, surrounded by people, yet easily falling into a same old same old routine. While maps and way finding were a major initial land grab in the digital urban layer the game play and inter-personal layer is now emerging. Evolved ways of exploring and appreciating your immediate urban environment.
In North America Four Square is getting a lot of buzz but I really like Noticings in London. Where Four Square seems on the verge of becoming a new coupon tactic Noticings is more a introspective and philosophical approach to viewing your city. Slowing down and appreciating what's great about.
This whole notion of the blurring of lines between digital and real worlds is absurd. They are on into the same. These new properties like a Four Square or Noticings are interesting mostly for the differing backgounds of their creators. One comes from a technology background another design. Both are intimately shaped by their mindsets and craft. Both are equally great because of it.
How our behaviors will evolve because of this will be interesting. On one end an echo chamber like affect reinforcing within a network the same old, same old. On the other hand encouraging greater exploration and travel across urban boundaries both perceived, imagined and geographical.
I love it when a brand can relevantly invest such a property that can be leveraged into an experiential or retail product. Sadly, sometimes these things seem so desperate for a business model the old slap on some ads and coupons approach quickly devalues deeper value and meaning. The last thing brands need new technology for is to erode pricing power by offering coupons. New technology is relevant and meaningful when it adds value to a brand/product, makes you want it more, use it more, love it more or evangelize it more.
Or something like that. Time to go play some games...
Media to Love
One of the best parts of working in the "agency" world is you get to look at the whole world of media opportunistically. An integrated swarming mass of interestingness. You are unbiasedly drawn to areas of innovation and effectiveness, regardless who brings them to you, while intertwining it with something old but effective hopefully trying to use an old medium in new ways. There are some amazing things going on right now.
Below, in no particular order is a list of things that really caught my eye. With a bit of bias to stuff happening in my backyard. They may not be the latest and greatest but each used technology in new ways an a meaningful scale and is being used by normal people outside the marketing or tech world (sorry FourSquare.),
Twelp Force
Just as you prefer a human over a phone tree, online it's nice to connect with a human rather than be directed to a FAQ page. LOVE this one.
Monocle
Firslty, it's a magazine, that's a fashion brand, that's a podcast, that's a FT column that's a retail shop. Seamless multi-media integration. Extraordinary clean and throughout design values. Plus a club like feel between editorial recommendations and relevant advertisers.
The Guardian
Firstly, most newspapers remain operationally profitable. Secondly, they have been risk taking digitally for years. The Guardian has been brilliantly of late for many well talked about reasons, and their editor acknowledges the last thing they should be is a newspaper.
The Peak
Radio, no matter the efficiencies of mono-content by a leviathan owner, is ultimately a local medium. This Vancouver rock station is serving as an music incubator taking 20 unsigned upcoming bands to develop, foster and launch. The creation of music is the trans-media content.
Politico
Another transmedia media entity, what's not to love about these. Politico was founder by former Washington DC heaveyweights. It's timely, informed and fair in it reportage. Real fair, not Fox fair. A window into the insiders world of politics accessible to anyone that uses whatever medium is best for telling a given story.
Fiat Eco Drive
This is a branded utility, social content, product design, and baked in marketing device at its finest. Gorgeous.
Six Beers of Seperation
A simple premise - find your dream in 6 beers - well told through good storyline and strong production values.
Vancouver Sun - SCAN Sports Page
Developed by our local daily and crowd source news innovator Now Public, sports buzz incorporates real time online activity with sprots coverage.
Kindle
Proves digital screens don't have to be garish and can be readible for hours by taking cues from 100's of years of experience from paper. When this goes poster size with real time feed, outdoor advertising might regain some dignity.
Lululemon
A yoga brand with deep community roots building deep loyalty throughout North America. While the little advertising they do is rather hokey, passionate ambassadors and knowledgeable loyal staff who live the yoga lifestyle are it's marketing. The design lab / retail store finally brings the retail experience up to what a brand this meaningful deserves.
Gap - Born To Fit
Need to rebrand. Start with the product. Jump feet in to the social world by using Facebook as your platform for a campaign site, or whatever we want to call a microsite this week.
Newspaper Club
Like radio's benefit of being local, newspaper's benefit is that it's well printed on newsprint. Horrendously cheap, portable, designable and loved.
AdHack
Crowdsourced advertising really excites me. Not so much as a way to develop more scripts for TV ads but to attract people from diverse backgrounds to come up with a completely different way of advertising we've never imagined or model to manage the tremendous complexity of the trans-media world.
Canned Japan
During a recent trip to Japan I was obsessed with the culture of vending machines. At a simplistic level the packaging and economics were fascinating. At a deeper level vending machines say a lot about the Japanese psyche.
I made a book called Canned Japan about vending culture and many of the 100+ different beverages tried. Some people are buying it, so it seems to be interesting to someone other than me. You can check it out over here, and I'm working on partnering with a publisher on a more in depth (and better photographed) follow up version.
Been thinking about the reasons why someone like me would publish this book. As independent and crowd source projects proliferate understanding motivations will be insightful and valuable. At a surface level it was wanting a sense of accomplishment for following through with an idea. It also was a chance to learn a bit more about how one actually makes and publishes a book, as completing a book has always been a goal. Though it's not much, the profit part is nice. But undoubtedly credibility is a higher payoff given my profession. Though I hate the cover typography, validation for a successful creative endeavor is a motivator - naturally with a bit of fear but not fear to begin no reward to end. Sense of belonging, if everybody else is self publishing I don't want to be left out. A sense of individuality, not everybody is actually doing it so it's quite rare to have completed this.
There are probably more. The number of motivations off the top of my head is rather interesting and challenges the reductive "single though" approach to much business thinking.
Or something like that.
Interesting London 2009
The third installment of Interesting in London, UK takes place this Saturday the 12th.
For those curious as the the provenance of Interesting Vancouver, the London edition is the original founded by Mr. Interesting himself Russell Davies. (Sorry couldn't think of a more interesting name than Mr. Interesting.)
If you happen to be in London this weekend, though the 350 seats have long been sold out, something might pop up on the ticket wiki.
Otherwise, come visit us at Interesting Vancouver next month.
Interesting Vancovuer 09 Tickets
Now that summer's over, time for new distractions.
Interesting Vancouver 2009 tickets are available as of today over here.
Full details on the affair over at interestingvancouver.com
We sold out last year. To avoid disappointment get in on the first batch of tickets at $25.
A second batch will be available in October to ensure the less hyper connected don't miss out on the fun, though at a slight premium for $30.
Apart from a few small tweaks the one big change from last year is instead of your ticket including your first drink, we'll provide food. Probably not a king's feast, but something to keep the grumbles at bay.
Otherwise, same deal as last year. Everybody pays, left over funds go to charity, and you can eagerly expect the unexpected.
We have some exciting speakers lined up already. Even more excitingly we're looking forward to whom else steps up to speak. Shoot me an email if interested or wish to nominate someone you think to be interesting. There will be 15 total speakers, speaking for either 3 or 10 minutes.
Feel free to use the tags #IV09 or #interestingvancovuer09 if you kindly wish to spread the word.
Interesting Vancouver 09 - The Plan
Thanks to those dropping by for a chat. This is the official playbook - last year on the left, this year on the right.
We officially launch tonight.
Stop Making TV Ads
Most will agree that most TV ads aren't all that great. They can easily be formulaic, strategically unoriginal, broadly targeted and info crammed solution to a laundry list of "messages/objectives."
A small amount are original, well focused, deeply insightful and stunningly executed.
However, both cost about the same to make. A lot. Not just in production hard costs but more from the massive teams building the execution.
Though each type of ad costs the same most who do the former, aren't willing or culturally wired to do the later. We can all name brands in each camp. And it's flippant to claim the former don't work, they do, just those who believe in the latter camp do so because it drives higher return.
User generated film contests are fascinating because they demonstrate how deeply rooted the conventions of TV advertising are. Every day non-advertising people hold a pretty good toolbox of the tricks of the trade. Check out this Amazon UGF contest. The tangible prize is just $10,000 (plus some pride of course.) All five short listed ads are smart, relevant pretty darn well executed given the reward. Impressively so I'd say.
If you are a brand doing the type of ads in the big category, why not crowd source it. You will get work that is equal to what you have already, but at a small fraction of the cost.
But crowd source not to save money, but to liberate budget to do all the great things you wish you could do, but can't afford. Or aren't willing to take a chance on for fear of moving away from what "works."
Take that $750,000, or more, to make a cool data concept, build the best app ever, publish a book, pitch MTV on a realty show, host an art gallery, collaborate with another brand to build a new product or hire 5 people (not interns) to create and cultivate community focused social content. Whatever is right for your brand.
The ultimate questions is "are we looking at budgets creatively enough?'
In a world of infinite possibilities how can we make our finite resources work better?
As agency people, we shouldn't be ashamed of recommending crowdsourcing when it liberates budget and time to do something better.
I don't know their exact logic but am fascinated by CPB and Brammo crowdsourcing logo design. Some designers are crying foul. It's degrading the value of design. I disagree.
For a modest company, with a clearly articulated brief, would that $100,000 in agency fees be better spent somewhere else. Logo's are the end of the line of a designer's value. Great design thinking takes place long before the logo is done - that's a graphic expression of the thinking. If it was my company I'd do the same. Provided we had a clear vision and architecture for what the brand needs to stand for and do (where a good designer's real value lies.)
Especially remembering one of the greatest, most recognized, logos of all time cost $35.
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