Brett Macfarlane

Adman in Techland: 8 Points of Perspective

Earlier this year I started a start-up.  Two of them actually.

One is a technically driven strategy platform working under the code name Plannr born from some work I did with Facebook last year. 

The other is a publishing idea.

Earlier this summer I made the decision to focus 100% on the publishing concept, partly because it was closer to being revenue positive and also because I loved it a bit more. 

I also love Plannr, and it may be restarted, but what I love most about it at the moment is what I learned from it.

For six months I was based in the Google start up campus around Old Street in London, met as many people as possible and immersed myself in as many things as possible.  A dramatic change after a decade in highly creative, innovative and potent advertising agencies. 

There is a very different lifeblood in the world of entrepreneurs, of course a high degree of motivation but also self-responsibility.  There are hundreds of people in London and most any city around the world today investing their personal money and time in making something happen.  There is a real pressure you see in people’s eyes when they know they need to make it work, not just move on to another client or meeting if things don’t pan out. 

It gives a swiftness of movement and forces entrepreneurs to confront the full scale of what it takes to make an idea happen and worry about their weaknesses.  Entrepreneurship is a team game and there is no such thing as “not my problem” or being “too busy”.  Consequently it attracts the most strong willed and optimistic people out there.  It is awesome. 

The past couple months I've returned to adland doing some consulting work on integrated concept development and execution for both tiny boutiques and mega-big agencies.  So I thought I’d jot down a few points of perspective gained over the past year.  I ended up with 8.

 

Ideas are easy

There are thousands, maybe millions of ideas floating about.  Some good, some less good.  As Ferran Adria, the most creative chef in the world, said to me “ideas aren’t the problem, doing them is.”  At a time when any idea is possible in infinite ways, how you execute is the most important thing to worry about.  In truth, ideas are small, doing them is the big thing.  Doing them is what matters, the only thing that matters, and doing them brilliantly is bloody hard.

 

Ideas aren’t stealable

There is a notion ideas are something to protect, as they can be stolen.  Very early a good friend advised “nobody can make your idea your way.”  In practice the more people you show it to the more you stretch and strengthen the possibility of the idea.  This doesn’t mean to take every comment on board, but every comment helps form an independent view of what one should or shouldn’t do.  Also, people love having a coffee if the subject is talking about an idea that might be famous one day.

 

Ideas are fragile

As the owner of an idea you spend a lot of time with your idea.  The idea becomes incredibly familiar, which is good.  It also becomes easy to continually evolve and morph what the idea is.  At times this is vitally important, at other times one much watch it isn’t out of boredom or undisciplined.  The idea must always link back to the core problem you are solving, not a technique or something shiny.  This understanding is typically at the core of great ad agencies.

 

Ideas bloat

Often people confuse an idea with features.  For example Facebook’s product is connecting people, it does this through a number of features such as your wall, mail, messaging, photos, etc.  Speaking with Jay Bergman of start-up golden child Hailo, he explained his greatest challenge is feature creep.  Especially at the beginning.  Every feature adds an exponential degree of complexity and resource demands, build an idea that has the potential to grow (conceptually and technically) but be desperately brutal with what features you start with.  Bloat kills.  The husks of overbuilt and complicated unsold “digital” ideas litter agency graveyards of servers and filing cabinets. 

 

Ideas aren’t digital

Real people don’t give the slightest moment of consideration to the word ‘digital’.  It is a meaningless hollow shell of a term used by people too lazy to be specific about what they actually mean.  People care about ideas, they care about what it does and how it makes life better.  Everything uses digital technology today, it’s life, not a specialty.  Any agency requiring any job role with digital at the front is failing themselves.  Have technical experts who execute but ideas and strategy mustn’t be confined by the artificial silo of “digital”.  Rarely did I hear the word digital on the campus, people speak in ideas and tasks not vagities.

 

Ideas are small

Smart start-ups are obsessed not with the 1 billion potential users, but the question of who will be the first 10.  Then the next 100.  Companies are built by recruiting one customer/user at a time starting from zero.  This forces real discipline in who you are going to engage, how you will reach them and why they will care – product development questions as much as marketing, more so really.

 

Ideas are technical

I’ve previously spent a lot of time with a hand in the Vancouver tech community and I find the Vancouver and London scenes total opposites.  Vancouver is full of technical ability but lacks ambition in its ideas.  Vancouverites are generally content with millions, London universally wants billions.  London is full of ambition and big provocative ideas but lacks desperately technical ability.  Most ad agencies also struggle to balance either the creative ambition or technical excellence.  Most creative agencies are all ambition without technical excellence.  Most self-declared “digital” agencies are all technical ability with little creative ambition.  There is a middle ground a few dance in, and is in my opinion the holy ground for the next generation of companies and brands people will genuinely care about. 

 

Ideas repel ads

Part of getting advice is giving advice.  The most frequent counsel I give to fellow start-ups is to use anything but advertising as your business model.  Too many too early look to ads as a magical tap of money.  It is lazy and the idea thus devalues to simply be a hook to deliver ads.  Sure like Google or Facebook you can make crazy  money if that’s your thing but for users the presence of ads dramatically changes the context of the experience.   Frequently it brings negative value, detracts from user experience and associates your brand with the same banal advertising content already plastered across the internet.  However, if the presence of ads adds value to the user, for example Kiip, that’s good.

Critics, the Opinionated and Proofers Wanted

I've written a book titled Everyday Paris.

It is a cultural briefing on how to "do Paris as Parisians do."

I seek a few more people to give it a read and help me understand what is and isn't working before formally sharing with agents & publishers.

Why did I write Everyday Paris?

I've been a Francophile long before transferring in 2010 to one of Europe's top creative ad agencies - DDB Paris.  

Cultural observation has always been an obsession of mine and living in Paris is an “observaholic’s” nirvana.  It was a hobby and compulsion to endlessly share things I noticed or thought interesting as a sort of guerrilla ethnography, which people seem to quite like.

What compelled me to actually follow through with the idea for this book was a discerning friend advising a leading global luxury brand borrowed a passage of mine (without my knowledge) discussing Brie cheeses.  One evening he decided to read it out in Versailles Palace's Hall of Mirrors.  

Frighteningly, the occasion was a grand dinner marking UNESCO naming French gastronomy an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, packing together 650 of the good, great and Michelin starred of French gastronomy in rightful self-congratulation.

Surprisingly, rather than laugh, they applauded.  

So I've since written a cultural briefing that can be read on a plane or train to Paris.  It fits between your typical laundry list guide book/website/magazine and a breezy but individualistic expat novel.

Why does the world need this book?

There is a generation seeking to be informed and mindful travelers who have no shortage of tips and lists but struggle to break through the sterile bubble of passive check-list tourism to become authentic participants in the city and experience how its inhabitants live any given day. 

In other words, they seek to become temporary Parisians, and thus when in Paris wish to "do Paris as Parisians do."

Interested?

If you are interested in reading the manuscript before it is proves to be the next great publishing empire, or a glorious failure, send me an email or Tweet.

Contact me by Sunday March 10 ideally as my ambition is to have input by April 1-ish. 

If not you, please forward to someone you think might be interested.

Reward:

I can't offer much other than being part of the journey.  I did much the same for Alex Bogusky and John Windsor when they published Baked In, which was rather interesting.

If you are in the UK I will hook you up with some wine.  If elsewhere I'll arrange some suitable consideration/inspiration.  Of course once published you will brush with glory and get some special rewards if and when it takes off.

TED Vancouver. Why not us?

TED is moving to my hometown Vancouver in 2014.  That is pretty cool, but why Vancouver?

One of my favorite memories of the first Interesting Vancouver was meeting the artist David Young when planning the event.  He had recently moved to Vancouver from the US and remains absolutely convinced Vancouver today has the right ingredients to become the world's next great creative hub.

As a born and raised self-loathing Vancouverite it seemed equally ridiculous and addictive this provocation of his.

"Why not us?" he challenged me.  

In his Interesting Vancouver 2008 talk he dissects the great cities and creative eras of human history to build his argument why the present generation's Vancouver is potentially the next great creative culture. 

I fully agree with David and part of my reverse migration to Europe is to experience and study more closely how other cultures - be they local, national, regional or global - operate with success, mediocrity or failure.

Having left Vancouver, I increasingly identify the reasons why Vancouver already is one of the planet's leading thinking hubs of the moment.

1. Hard Natural Resources - wealth of the land is helpful.  Traditionally hard natural resources timber, minerals, agriculture and fishing have provided the wealth of the region and a financial backbone of a community. 

2.Soft Natural Resources - have created new opportunity and financial resource - such as near perfect natural light conditions to create the largest film production centre outside L.A. and NY. Technical knowledge from logging built one of the most technically advanced rigging expertise centers for big budget action films (eg. the X-men films) or early computer pioneers driven by an economy that only knows technical progress (and a bit of local sci-fi rebel rousing from William Gibson types.)  These are soft resources developed in one area that then jump laterally to areas like video games with EA who develops most of their sporting titles in Vancouver.

3. Collaborative - while a big city it is not so big that individual business sectors never cross over.  Each sector has a handful of players (take advertising where there are maybe 5 meaningful agencies today) such that they naturally cross paths with many other areas.  Likewise, two large but excellent universities and the top notch Emily Carr art school who have departments but never the entrenched silos of old world institutions.

4. Curiosity - Vancouverites tend to be more introverted than elsewhere but certainly are curious types seeking stimulus from all sources.  It is one of the world's few genuinely multi-cultural cities.  Many great cities like London or Paris are international but their government and self-image remains caucasian male with barely a handful of exceptions despite the factual demographics and thriving ethnic  communities.  A strong world life balance mantra of work hard play hard also keeps people fired up and full of interests fueling curiosity.

5. Pioneer spirit - over 90% of the population moved within at most two generation to the region in pursuit of a better life.  It is hard wired to think that however something is done today it can be done better tomorrow - change is always better than not changing. A few quick examples being Greenpeace for the environmental movement, Lululemon for modern sportswear and Vancouverism to embrace a new model of mixed use urban planning transforming downtown over two decades.

David, who attended TED before the Chris Anderson buyout and subsequent commercialization noted that Interesting Vancouver felt very much like the free exchange of the early TEDs.

TED has become something completely different, and very bloody good at what it is.  But why bring it to Vancouver?  

Why not?

Now, is there still room for Interesting Vancouver?  Or course, they are brothers of the same mother after all, just growing up to be very distinct people contributing each in their own way to the world.

Obama Not So Lucky This Time

Another edition of the reality show the globe can't stop watching has concluded.

Obama stays on as commander in chief.

As the campaign teams scramble for new jobs, livery is removed from jets and attention returns to the plodding task of governing many have noted this US presidential election felt a little flat versus 2008. 

Yet, record sums of money were invested in advertising.  Social media went from novelty to mastery.  Rhetoric from both sides flew constantly.

Nonetheless, the great emotional drive, the uplift of a generation and mobilization of the indifferent didn't arrive.

Why not?  They did all the right things.

Hundreds of pieces of creative were produced, maybe thousands, millions even if you count every banner and placard made by supporters.

What if in 2008 Obama simply got lucky?

Lucky that a street artist made a rogue poster.  Allegedly stealing an image and giving it his artistic flair.

A poster that turned a politician into an unusually iconic figure, for a politician.

A poster that said what many wanted to feel.

A poster people at first discovered, rather than were broadcast.

A poster whose tone meshed with the personality of the leader.

A poster cool enough for a non-fanatic to put up in his office, dorm, storefront or car back window.

A poster perfectly designed for the digital age, appearing on Facebook feeds, twitter icons and the first generation of iPhone back when only Amercans and Canadian's like me had them.

A poster that Obama was lucky an artist woke up one day and decided to make.

-----

What if the reason this election fell a bit flat is simply neither candidate was lucky enough to have that rare creative expression that taps the moment, its people and its mood unexpectedly and inexplicably.  

They probably tried, maybe too hard, too many hands, too many opinions.  Maybe.

There certainly were some very interesting pieces of creative and design, that met the brief and achieve the objective.  

We can only speculate the 2008 outcome if Shepard Fairey's Hope poster wasn't created.  But, the debate over why this election fell flat does leave one clear conclusion - in this world of near infinite knowledge and un-consumable volumes of information people still want to feel moved.

2000 Push Up Challenge

There has been an awesome challenge around the agency lately.  You know, the type of thing the pre-professional blogging world would have loved - the minutia of life.

The 2000 Push Up Challenge

It was a pretty big deal, we even discussed making an app to adjudicate and make sure nobody cheated. 

Or better yet - a head mounted RFID system integrated with a GoPro camera to enable a real time gamified rewards system synergized with the open API for our Nike Fuelbands.  But the APIs not really available yet.

Instead, I just made a logo.  Using the immensely powerful graphic design platform everyone is talking about: PowerPoint.

Rules are easy - over two weeks complete 2000 push ups.

Do them when you want, at your pace.

Averages out to 143 per day.

It's a lot more than you think.

I finished yesterday. 

Others are doing it today. 

Pretty sure this will become the next big thing.

 

Oh America, You're Still Here

As the world jelously salivates over the swift riches of 'newly' minted Facebook millionaires  this week goverments and pundits equally initiate the deafeatist toned debate of why wheir nation doesn't generate companies who generate such grand wealth so quickly.

At the same time is a great series by Jonathan Meades delving into the deep cultural influence of America on France.  A deep cultural influence of minimal recognition and even derision.  In Fance, as depicted by image above snapped at the museum of technical arts, America is treated as a contained silo rather than pervasive incons and constructs.

On Monday, the world's advertising professionals will dissect Super Bowl advertising.  From big idea films, executional excess to integration with the latest trends, theories and technology.

America holds an exceptional outward cultural force.  One few acknowledge and seems perceptually diminished at a time of more deft footed foreign policy.

Cuturally, America remains by far the planet's greatest force.  Yet, fascinatingly, so few nations can shed their nationalistic pathways and mentalities to learn or at least take on the attitude of necessary calculated risk acceptance inbred in America's "ever forward at all cost" mentality.

There are some great ads playing out tonight online and on TV. Worth a moment to think less about the tools they use or celebrity they hired and more about the mentality that enabled the best stuff. 

Obsessing & Making

 

Teen targeted creative is tough.  Always has been.  Less to do with short attention spans or some hackneyed assumption like that.  More because of how obsessive teens get about something they like and satisfyingly fueling that obsession.

Many times on teen work to frame the creative/strategy with clients or internal teams we'd first talk about just how obsessive you get about stuff when you are young - when you're not sure about yourself and figuring out your place in the world.  That hat, that car, the dance, a new track, the skate deck, Walkman/Diskman/iPod, the game that weekend or whatever else that consumed every non studying moment of your life.  Total bloody obsession.

Thinking whether something was obsessible helped make better work rather than something superficially, ahem, "cool."

As people get older they forget what it was like to be so obsessed about thing.  We forget the feeling, in your gut, front of the brain, of obsessing.  Reading and re-reading the magazine, replaying the song, logging into some form of email.  Over and over again.

As a child I obsessed about making stuff - specifically drawing comic strips or clay superhero figurines.  However, I never had the tools to do it well.  I had a great upbringing but it just wasn't in the family culture (engineers, lawyers, etc) to buy specialized art supplies.    But still, I obsessed,and tried, badly, to draw comics and attempt figures of Flash.  It just never worked out.

I worry with so many lame and formulaic "social engagement" campaigns and the lazyness of BuddyMedia type tactical tool we are turning away from so much potential never before available.

I love that kids, and everyone else, today can obsess and get so deep into their obsessions to actually make stuff with a possibility to make it great because there are so many tools at finger tips.  I love that.

This Coke Zero Make It Possible thing seems kind of cool in that regard.  It's not another lazy be in our commercial as an idea because there actual is no idea.  It is an outlet for obsession with dance or music.  I like that.  A lot.

Truth, Lies and Rioting

Walking through London streets this week a plywood magnate must cautiously smile.  Though certainly not with pleasure. Jogging the 6 miles from Fitzrovia to our temporary home in Chiswick Tuesday, the night after wide-spread violence, streets were vacant but for police officers and crews boarding up shops with fresh plywood. 

From the small independent shops who form social fabric to the corporate behemoth Universal records who form culture - scale and ownership structures didn't matter for rioters looking to steal and destroy.  Up went the defensive plywood on shops big and small.

The pundits, academics and politicians are promptly stating grand theories and reasoning while jockeying for air time and headlines.  Sensational videos aside, the stories from average people in the wrong place at the wrong time are compelling for the insightful balance of terror and calm.  Mixed with the odd voice of reason from surprising places, such as Russell Brand in The Guardian, enlighten the truth and complexity behind what the riots are symptomatic of.

As with most things increasingly are these days, the causes and fixes are too complex for a snappy headline, overly crafted slogan or simplistic reductionistic PowerPoint slide.    And while theories are of necessity one must recognise we are in an age of learning new social behaviours.  Hundreds of kids filmed knowingly by CCTV camera, hovering police helicopters, roving news helicopters and their friend's Facebook Feeds partake in criminal behaviour leaving a trail of unprecedented evidence.

While every nation has its ills, England in all truth is on a relative basis a comfortable place to live.  As the rioters wearing 100£ trainers transmitted photos and plans to each other on their smart phones the layers of cognitive dissonance stack high.

  It is a great time to park theorisation of the events and observe evolving behaviours at a broader level. 

• When friend's iPhone photos become evidence in court leading to a conviction does it induce more law abiding behaviour or make image capturing events socially unacceptable? 
• Does the public shaming of 'thieves' on the front pages form a more effective deterrence and form of justice or an enticement for fame? 
• As social media becomes an easy pariah for governments to attack, what ways of communication will inevitably fill the void if restrictions are put in place?
• Does the mix of class and race rioting shoulder to shoulder (and today line up one after another in courts) reinfice and tear apart multi-cultural unity?

Brands, who love to talk about how much they are loved must wonder what they have done. Are the really loved?  Is it love if someone goes to the extent of breaking the law to get their hands on a product for free or the greatest disrespect when one will go to great length to not part with their own money in exchange for it?

Well, it will take a while to figure it all out.

 

Tragedy of a Brand's Perceived Ideal

It has become fashionable to "fail fast," "let go of control,"  "embrace failure" or whatever aphorism you like.  But to most it is just fashionable to say but not so much practice this philosphy in practice.  Not because they are cowards but they don't really understand to what end failure is required in a world where being wrong or off 0.03% is punished mercilessly by the markets.

Recently, Conan, a wonderful recent failure, said this at Dartmouth's graduation:

"It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. ... Whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality."

Each individual on a brand has a perceived ideal of what it should be.  Usually this is based in some way on what it is.  A few may have a vision of what it could be or might be.  

This vision of what it could be will be at odds with the former group entrenched in what it should be.  Unless, they are open to something original and better.  However, inherently that means something they think is wrong or at best is not right enough.  That is okay, if they are okay with crushing their personal ideal.  If they are not, expect more of the same. The same results if they are lucky.  Diminishing results more likely.  The tragedy of becoming one's percevied ideal.

Everything Has Always Communicated

It is an old adage that everythign commmunicates, whether you intend to or not.

But, in many ways this has become limited as everything changes so much and so frequently.  Or at least we perceive it to.

Consequently, things that last become mundane and of low communication value, in case something changes tomorrow.

But, if something is designed to last, even just a few years, it can be used in helpful and elegant ways.  Even something like a plate can be informative, suggestive and environmentally responsible by avoiding the need of another surface to need to be bought, printed and handed out.

Sadly, the above was just a "retro" design, yet enduring in its asthetic intrigue and a whistful sense of longing for it to be usable today.  But, in a time where everyone is falling over themselves to be just in time, there is something confident and remarkable about being timeless. 

Time Implosion

The world has been going fast and faster and fastest for a while now.

Accross time and geography.

The internet for the past 40 years has exacerbated this.  Tangible and especially heightening our impression of everything accelerating.

We have now acheived real time essentially.  Get information instantly.  Transmit and complete tasks instantly. Manufacture new products faster than trends can support them.

The next leap will be some form of reshaping time and space.  Till then we have essentially acheived 'peak now.'

Till the our scientists get cracking and figure it out, we should celebrate the acheivement of nowness, and move past the acheivement of instanst life.

It is a good time to think about long term implications of instnantaneous everything.  I love this Google film emotively highlighting a life of instantaneousness.  Figure out how it can do things better, not just differently. 

Just as globalization economically is delivering diminishing returns and returning to tighter geographical and cultural roots is paying greater returns (eg. McDonalds localizing menus in no-markets) how will we deal with peak now when it comes to consumer content and interacting with people we know and entities like brands, governments and associations.

This is bigger than a regectionist group like Slow movements (though they are certainly symptomatic) but a slow reframing of how we deal with information.  As news cycles are essentially hours if not minutes down from days or weeks not too long ago how will we seek meaning over information.  Meaningful comprehension of complex situations.  Rich storytelling that compels when you already 'know.'

Right, well time to head to a terrace and figure it out.

Old internet and new possibility

 Date of creation of important "new" digital things changing today's game:

2007 - iPhone

2006 - Twitter

2004 - Facebook

2001 - X-Box

1995 - Amazon.com

1993 - Mosaic browser and mainstream launch of World Wide Web and brand websites

1982 - Bloomberg Terminal

1970's  - TCP/IP (protocol that connects computers allowing them to "talk" to each other)

1962 - ARPANET, precursor to "internet" first existed conceptually in an academic paper

 

It is often amazing to step back and look at how old many of the "new" things in marketing and communications are now.  Yet, there is an attitude we still are figuring them out.  That they are "new media" and just give it a fling and see what happens.  Failures are okay.

It is a bit of a lazy attitude. 

By reverse logic it is like saying we are still figuring out TV given the fact failures still make it to air. 

Failures under the guise of newness are not okay.  Risk taking on account of what is possible, certainly is okay.

We are at a new point of maturity where we are familiar, generally, with all the new tools and channels.  However, we are just as susseptible to the amazing.  Maybe increasingly more so as "average", "hackney" and "mediocre" invade more and more parts of our lives.  Attack us from more and more angles.

Interestingly, 1962 the year the first inclings of the internet was being formed was also the year Think Small, first hit magazines.  The ad that many link to the initiation of the Creative Revolution.  A war still being faught every day on every front in every medium.

Just interesting to think that the first steps of the creative revolution took place the first days of a global telecommunications network.  They really are brothers in arms.

Strategy to Get to a Strategy

Am working on a creative brief at the moment.  Enjoying the usual grappling with all the questions and tensions needed for any brief.  Not a big deal except for the fact it will be the only brief I am a part of this year.  Still an adjustment from working on many briefs in a year, some by me some helping others get to a great one. 

Being the one, the singular brief of the year, is scary.  Induces giving much thought around how to make it the best damn possible brief to ensure the creative output is naturally as awesome as possible.  Another adjustment is not being the planner, so not officially in charge of the "strategy," but certainly not any less responsible for it.

When preparing a brief we often make a lot of decisions that dramatically affect the outcome of the brief.  Partly what goes into the brief, but how we get to what goes into the brief and why.  Decisions, outside the normal brief or agency "process" that lead to just another brief or an exceptional legendary brief.  Decisions, often seeming so routine that while focused on what goes into the brief we lose sight of why, by who, and when. 

The why, who and when are ultimately core strategic decisions, about how you get to a good strategy, or brief, or the thing that makes clear and inspiring what needs to be done which may or may not be written in a standard agency template form.

While the endless pursuit of smarter insights is an essential obsession and necessity, increasingly a successful brief is layered with solid thinking around an architecture surrounding the heart of insight.

An architecture that deeply and rigorously understands the context of the media (ways in which people will touch, see or feel whatever it is we make) and the cross interactions within that media infrastructure (aka. culture.)

However, what is desperately of concern that gets little consideration often is what we prepare around the core architecture of the brief and how people get to, contribute to and work with the brief. 

Specifically:

1. Who is going to get the brief when if first comes through the door from client?

2. Who will work on contributing to getting to a great brief and when?

3.  Who will then get briefed to solve the brief and who will help blow out the solution to the brief? When will the later happen, and why?

A lot of "who"s. 

Essentially a strategy for how you will get to a great strategy.  And a strategy for how that strategy will lead to a great outcome.

A lot of strategy, yes, I know it's not cool to use that word any more.  But really it just means a well thought out plan for how you will get to a great solution.

When a who is identified it is too easy to avoid asking why.  Because every agency has an increasing number of "Director of Something or the Other" it is an easy trait to throw these folks at everything without clarity of why.  You need them, but why and when?

Especially important as the disciplines of our little marketing world recouple, often bringing different agencies together.

It is a great problem of our time, what is the right strategy to get to a great strategy that can lead to a great solution to a business problem.

Right, time to get on with it.

Links of articles my mom mailed me / an idea I might get around to making

 

My mom sends me links.  Okay, not not by email or some internet tool like Delicious, but articles cut out of her analog newspaper and mailed to me in France.

It is not a new behavior, growing up she would hand me the paper and tell me to read it.  When I wnt off to university the good folks at US Postal Service passed the articles on to me.  Then, back it he same city but my own residence she would build them up and every time we met a small package of clippings was always passed on.

Tools of delivery changed but behavior has never wavered.

Now, despite my never ended steam of news and articles there are few I love and devour more eagerly than my inter-family diplomatic pouch that arrives every fortnight thanks to France Poste.

I don't want her to stop. I love the effort and things that my mom sends only because she think I might like it.  So pure.  Not because she wants to be a influencer or show people how cool she is by what she likes.  Just a sincere sharing of what she thought I might appreciate.  So motherly.  So sincere.

Articles these days tend to be about:

- Recommendation of places in Paris or London (place I spend a lot of time)

- Articles on the advertising world of Canada

-Things about friends of mine or people I grew up with

- An interesting bit about the business of sport (side interest of mine)

- Tips on raising plants (we are a family of people who seemingly growing things)

So, I thought it would be nice for me to share these pure, un-tampered links with the world.  It is a neat idea.  I might get around to making it.  Till then the articles are safely kep in a small envelope.

Me & Skiing

Skiing has been a big part of my life.

It was the first sport I every did properly, at two years old.  Then became progressively a regular activity, a consumption, an obsession, and then ultimately led to an education and my first profession which later put me into my current profession.

My relationship with skiing has never really entered my mind until recently.  It would be what you call a passion.  Though for a lot of more recent time been hidden. I have not always loved it, at times hated it, but it has always been what I do and the circumstances around me enabled me to do so.  Nonetheless, it has greatly shaped me and I am increasingly grateful for this fact.

This year, for the first time in my life, I went on a ski vacation.  Two weeks dedicated to skiing.  Sure I have skied over 200 days in single years, skied in every month of the year and travelled to places without a competitive or professional objective to just ski, freely.  But this was different, a real ski vacation with no obligation, two weeks in the mountains when the mountains are no longer close.  Skiing  for the joy of it, the challenge and the ancillary activities were the focus.

Breaking out of the routine of the sport and thinking about its significance, to me, personally, has been really valuable over the past couple weeks.  There is something physically about being in the mountains that rejuvenates.  There is something mental that puts pieces in order.

In many ways how I ski now, and probably always was, an allegory for life.  I no longer do any of the skiing I used to, that be running race courses, but still enjoy freeskiing the groomed runs.  However, I am drawn more and more to the investment of hiking off to an untouched peak or couloir.  Not so much to conquor but more for the process of analysing where to go, and the journey to get there with the perpetual risk analysis of the cliffs, cornices and glaciers underfoot. The reward is the all consuming journey down the pitch spotted from afar, executing the planned turns but reacting to the snow and slide conditions that change with every turn.

I came to the mountains to think and have come away with a clear embracing of a need to pursue challenge and pursue risk, but smart risk, it as much of what I do every day as possible.  It is easy to lose in the day to day professional world where the cult of rationalization removes risk, therefore the reward.  Ultimately, when we perform a sport we are hoping to channel a sense of greatness, accomplishing something new or overcoming a fear (be it risk of falling, injury or embarrassment.)  This is a healthy drive.  A drive I see and hear from many skiers, regardless their ability from first timer to top ranked in the world.

It has been a great trip.  Personally, accomplished a lifelong obsession of skiing the Chamonix Valley and in particlar the legendary Vallee Blanch. 

It was also a visit to the past, catching old team mates, athletes I onced coached and many good current friends at a Skier-X World Cup in Les Contamines.  Gave them hugs and hi-fives, while today I see how they are doing at the X-Games in Aspen - if they win, clearly the boost of my precense made the difference.  Clearly.

It has been good, very good couple weeks.  Something in spirit to continue for the year.  Skiing is who I am, what I do, and everytime I go a reminder of what I want to be.  That is good.  Nothing too deep and philisophical, just fun and fulfilling.  Nothing more.

Anyways, back to regular blogging about advertising soon enough.

 

In defense of social media, no, actually, in defence of any media that doesn't suck

You have probably Noticed a lot of articles of late looking at different stages of "digital" things and how people jumped on board expecting a panacea.  Currently the "participation" model is under heavy review.  The baby is mid toss out with the bath water.

An article today from Tim Malbon is particularily well argued. Arturate.  True, and something to hold up in the mirror.

But, and this is a big but, are we not missing the bigger point?  Not because they are wrong.  The smart folks writting these articles, no, they are very right.  They need to be read.

But, are we not debating ultimately, regardless of the medium, what is great versus crap?  Are we not finding that the "participation" world, like every other world, is based on being insightful, interesting and truely in touch with the consumer?  Just doing it doesn't really do it.

It is cool now to talk about Old Spice and the 48 hour thing they did.  But, it is rarely discussed why they did what many other brands could have done, but didn't.  Like when the first mile was run under 4 minutes, quickly many others could too in subsequent weeks, despite so many for so long being so close for many years with the potential but never pushing into the perceived dangerous terrain.

I am, embarred to say, on extended vacation in the alps, but just read this amazing speach by a lead researcer at Bell Labs presented in 1986.  Found it from the blog of Jelly Helm.

The speach is powerful and direct, it ultimatley looks into what makes great first class, versus good or prolific researchers.

Read it, put the word advertiser instead of researcher throughout and it will hopefully inspire you to think harder about how to make what we do better, more compelling and effective.  Regardless what medium.

We must ask ourselves if we are at peak medium range of selection - are we at the point now where deciding what medium we choose is increasingly less important than what we do with any one medium we do chose?

Is the medium is no longer the message, what you do with a medium is your greatness?

Or something like that. Back to vacation...

 

 

Embracing the year, decade and greatness ahead

An old colleague and now friend is in town.  Chatting with him and his fiance, a planner, on Rue de Bretagne last night we wove around the world of new agencies and the year ahead.  He is an Art Director of the rare breed who has done TV to product development to building his own online shop to making really smart social media siloed concepts.  A rare trans-media creative. 

He spent some time in an agency at home in UK after return from the freedom of West Coast creativity and like I was amazed at how stiffing and old school much of the agency world is in Europe.  It is not that it is bad, not at all, shops are turning out great stuff.  They are just having a hard time finding ways to do what we know works to predicable measures, in new ways with disproportionately successful measures, not to mention new things that never existed before.  So he is currently working out of a pub in a UK city other than London starting an agency based on what he has done not a well crafted pitch document.

In the past year a lot of folks went out to start their own shop.  Some famous, many less so. Sure some are riding on hot air and really just salesmanship, others now realizing how much of their success was a result of a great big agency machinery behind them and others are just quietly doing their thing.  But all of them deserve credit for giving it a shot. 

The volume of people giving it a shot is also indicative of a need to rethink, really rethink, not just rethink in the same way as everyone else using the same small pool of pundits, advisers and marketing celebs.  The brave honorable soldiers giving it a shot are doing the rethink in many cases, not talking, but doing.

If the last decade has one legacy it is unfulfilled promises.  TV didn't die but it didn't get much better - then again maybe we never needed it to be better.  Social media took a lot of time but few are doing it well.  Using a lazy term like 'digital' delivered confusion because it means so many things to so many people.  The big dumb agencies provided in some cases not to be so dumb always but certainly big.  The EU, Wall Street (except for Goldman Sachs) and even Mr. Hope himself have all in some eyes been big unfilfilled promises.  We spend a lot of time talking about what was said was going to happen versus what actually happened.  Lots and lots of talking.

What is clear is change is easy to talk about but hard to do.  The future is always for the brave, and the brave befall more frequently than others to Darwinian fate.  But we desperately need them.  We must celebrate and help them.

In our world, a few things we can do may be the following to help them, and help ourselves:

1. Outlaw the terms digital, below the line, above the line, integration and any other term so generic and frequently used its has lost its meaning.

2. Know what you are really good at, and be honest about what you are not so good at - then find someone who is good at it.

3. Collaboration, as always, is necessary as more and more people are needed to do what needs to be done. 

4. Greatness still comes from one or two talented minds, still, identify them, respect them, don't always coddle them but nurture them.

5. Embrace complexity, which means working with and in parallel to other agencies.  No longer rely on the crutch of the client as intermediary between agencies - grow up, play nice and make something greater together than could have been done on your own.

6. More does not mean better: know the line when teams get so big you spend more time managing yourselves than solving a problem.

7. Be passionate before you are precious.  Everyone is replaceable and the games of old have little tolerance.

8. If you can't actually do what you say, or know how to get someone else who can, or are not given access to them, leave.

Probably some other things too, but that's a start.  Oh, and always replace the printer paper when it is running low and never be too proud to get someone a coffee, we are all going to need it this year.

Social Implications

Lift sounds interesting.  Sure some great speaks and likely many neat tech ideas and insights into why they work or why we need them. 

But what really excites is this line in description of its purpose:

"to explore the social implications of new technologies."

To explore the social implications of X is a good way of looking at what we do and how we could do it better.  It implies an unknown, some discovery and removes the limitations of things like "media" or "channels."

Rather than burrowing down a mine shaft and asking "does this TV ad work" or is this an effective mobile application" ultimately we need to simply explore the social implications of an idea.

- Did you share it?

- Did it make me laugh?

- Did it remind me of someone who I will now call, visit, email or Friend

- Did it give me something to talk about in the car share tomorrow so Tom the blabbermouth doesn't take all the attention and I can be respected as a entertaining compatriate."

- Did it change the way I see the world, better or worse?

- Did it change the way I see myself, better or worse?  Stronger or weaker?  Inspired or detered?

I like how Lift is focused on the social implications of technology.  When you dig into it, implications of one things have cascading implications on other things.  Social implication of a new application will themselves have social implications on another "thing" it replaces or improves. 

Technology often looks at itself within its own buble or technolgoy or at the expense of all things non-technological. Nice to open itself up, and allow us to be arm chair socialogists.

Right, now back to making things.

Faces of Versailles

Went to Versailles last Friday, took the wife for the first time for the wife, third for me. 

Amidst the throngs of people getting off a bus to quicky fulfil their lifetime dream of taking pictures around France, I always enjoy places like Versailles.  Not for all the history and facts, I forget them quickly.  For the notions born by people that form constructs we take for granted today. 

Things like John Locke's treaties on property that gave us the very idea of property - something we never think of as an idea, just part of our social order. Or in the summer outside St. Andrews drove through the home of Adam Smith - he had a fair bit to do with the whole capitalism thing.  Versailles is a great testament to many of the constructs that form civil government today.  Plus the great displays of what a great ego can construct. 

This time, I was really intrigued by the faces.  Probably because there is a Murakami exhibit at the moment, which subtled encouraged me to look at things I don't normally, at Versailles or anywhere else.

This about sums it up.  Spawns some thoughts about context, and one of the many unanswerable debates in advertising of the importance of aligned context.  No alignment here, but it abo ut sums up how well we have progressed and matured over the past handful of hundreds of years.

Then I saw this guy, his official purpose is a little nob that hold a piece of strign keeping the elaborate curtains for blocking light.  My favorite face and quality candidate as the originator of Movember.

There were many other faces.  Talk about statue clutter.  This was my final select because nobody was paying attention to it.  Following the hall of mirrors and the King's "workbench" just off it was a little ante-room.  This chap stood with dignity, wearing ony a marble cape and a nice beard.

Right then.  So that was last Friday.  Back to advertising...

La Greve!

 

The French, like any nation, are better at some things than others.  When it comes to strikes, they are the best.

I come from the home of apathy, Douglas Couplands Generation-X was actually writen about the mood of Vancouver during my formative years and Superbad was actually based on the neighbourhood I grew up in written by a couple guys around my grade at the time but at a rival high-school. 

Living in Paris, what I love is that people eagerly, regularily and loudly take to the streets.  Each morning Le Parisien publishes a map of Paris where that day's "Manifestations" will be taking place.  Yes, a newspaper, it's old school but it seems digital networks are somewhat but not primary in organization.  Both for personal security and France is still pretty slow on the digital bandwagon.  Plus, the French have an amazing cloud of knowledge perpeturally shared, a topic for another day, that for centuries has quickly and efficiently spread information around the city.

This year was a bumper crop of protests, as world news outlets did a great job over-reporting.  While huge in scale, they represented the great parts of every protest, even just the annual march of the chemists union, including kids and grandmothers all wearing smart casual clothing.

What is best is the organization and livelry. 

Lots of little Zeplins.  La CGT is usually one of the best turned out.  However, the socialists give them a run for their money:

Overall, superb art direction and must be a boon to the design industry.

One Sunday 3 million took to the streets  A complete cross section from the well dressed beurocrats the he hardy miners.  All, well fueled by the little support vehicles provided by various syndicates offering wine and sandwiches.

At a time, thanks to democritized information, we know about all the world's issues and problems like never before if often seems we worry a lot about the news about the news, but it is hard to tell if anything is happening.  The is something so wonderful about the purity of people taking to the street for their own interest.  Especially when it is an issue, like the retirement age change from 60 to 62 that is inevitable.

Now, of course it is not all peaceful and party.  There is a strong relationship between the police and the protestors.  One can tell instantly the nature of a protest based on the level of poplice (municiple to national to military) and the level of protection plus whether they smoking around the doorways of the route, or in full formation.

Fortunately we can alalyze from our window before deciding whether to go out or have another coffee.

At a time we spend so much time worrying and analyzing all the new ways we do stuff, it is very cool as an outsider seeing something that just works.  Doesn't actually need an tinkering and an app wouldn't make it better.  Even if that thing that works, is not working.

 

Manual Ways of Working

What we do is sure getting complicated. We are all plugged in digitally and supplement with physical tools.

The portability and natural mental refinery of a streamlined Moleskine has failed to keep up with a day's complexity. Much like the giant room sized war maps in WWII I am upgrading to some bigger workday real estate.

For now the branded agency note pad nicked from our London office and the dwindling supply down to one from our Chicago office. Soon to be replaced by a Rhodia A4 for road trips.

I love digital but nothing beats the always on-ed-ness of pen and paper.

Advertising's Last Two Jobs

 

My Grandfather was an engineer.

Part of the transportation system.  He built bridges.  Big ones, really big ones, and lots of small ones.  Connected people who for generates lived apart divided by the land and water.Helped out when other people's bridges fell down to understand why.  Where the math and logic failed. Understood what it took for the math and logic to work logiclly for the people who used them.

He was just an engineer.  Built things that helped vehicles and people move around.  Pretty simple.

Going chaotically from a global masterbrand strategy meeting, to a TV film production meeting to a social media architecture session it becomes clear our industry is pretty simple. Despite all the silly titles, hierarchy, hype and pomposity, we all do one of two things.

There are engineers.  The people who make the ways for ideas to get around.

There are the designers - the people who create and design the ideas that get around via the engineering.

The good ones are creative in their problem solving.  The bad ones steal, repeat, are fearful and work within the system we know.  True to engineers or designers.

Seems like we are all deciding whether we are engineers or designers, too many trying to do both or ignoring the existence of the other.  Designers trying to engineer.  Engineers trying to design.  Some do spectacularly, most face spectacular failure.

Pick a side, and then it all seems to make a lot more sense.  Then shake the hand of the other side and go off and make something spectacular.

City Fingerprints

Nothing like the audio fingerprint of a city on a rainy day to give it your own personal sense of relationship and identity.  Today, the first good really day of consistent unending rain we've experienced in Paris.

In addition to rain, the first bites of fall are subtly drifting into the fresh morning air.  Bites of crispness accentuated by the residual hot summer air preserved in the Paris Metro.

Reminded me of my favorite sensual city finger print - the special frigid sea air of a fall Seattle day.  Brought to mind one of my favorite photographs - above - taken in Belltown in downtown Seattle, on film, last fall in what turned out to be a final time to see many good friends.

The west coast life is full of ritual brought by external forces, essentially the weather.  But not much other ritual, though certainly many trying to take root.  A draw for me to live in Europe is to experience genuine ritual driven by culture, dating back to time before the idea of culture really existed.  Whether its the liberation of Paris being celebrated this week or obscure harvest festivals in small towns or reigning of a new freeman of a city, it all makes people be who they are.

It seems, whether a society, family group or even a nascent technology, once it gets past its self aware existence and on with what it is, forgotten or taken for granted really, is when it becomes culture.  It is interesting coming from a place with so little local ritual and myth (both the religious and non-religious kind) to see just how important it is.  Elements that bond people and a group.  Elements void in a cookie cutter mid-west suburb connected only by a stop sign that prevents t-bone collisions - possibly the only potential for direct human contact in a gated community.

Whether we recognize it or not, we need our rituals. Though for a new society the race to have some or the need to round the corners through public consultation and reviews by tourism commissions ensures a lack of meaning. 

Which is why I envious of those who can enjoy one of Vancouver's newest and most untainted and genuine rituals.

But, it will be made up with attendance in the coming weeks to many editions of Europe's finest rituals - Premiere League Football.

The Campaign For Propper Blogging

When did blogging get so serious, polished and professional?

Who is to blame is not important, a celebration of proper blogging is.

We blog because we are human, have thoughts and have the right to share them without obligation to make a point or sell something.

Blogging, arguably at its best, is like spitting off a bridge to see what happens. Why we are compelled to do it, is not important.

Here, on this collaborative site we celebrate proper blogging. 

Blog away friends, blog away.

Meeting About Meetings

Creativity thrives in healthy chaos, with a few parameters, also known as meetings. No meetings, you have anarchy. But meetings, well they won't solve everything, but will help you fight anarchy. But a little healthy chaos can be boosted by a little anarchy between meetings. Afterall, even the League of Anarchist has to meet and agree on when they will march for anarchy. No meetings and the movement for anarchy succumbs to anarchy. Maybe. Anyway, back to my meeting about meetings.

Mountains / Leadville 100 / Gravity

I often wonder if everybody feels that sense of gravity, a pull towards something, but for different things.  A natural gut sensation.

I often wonder about this between bouts of wondering if people feel anything any more to begin with.  Whether we have over rehearsed and fed back through culture the moments of life we are supposed to feel and do.

Many brands aim to create a sense of gravity or "own" an emotion.  Absurd.

Many smart brands align, probably more by chance than planning, with people's sense of gravity for something.  Maybe it is as simple as wanting to feel like a good parent by keeping a clean how or as exciting as feeling part of a liberated generation able to express themselves all night thanks to fuel from Red Bull.

Many smart media also, though just as likely through chance than planning, align with a human's gravity.  A gravity not to miss out on a shared cultural experience (such as 80% of Canadians watching the Gold Medal hockey game) or a gravity to feel your life answers the eternal questions such as 'why do we exist?'  To update our Facebook status naturally.

You look at Leadville and the participants who are just average Joes or the make up of an elite champion and they share an internal drive.  A drive with many external expressions but at the end of the day, that internal gravity, one the fanciest focus groups and brain scanning technology has yet to decipher, is what drives us to do and be what we are.

Not Now

Soon though.

Just Because

Just because it's old doesn't mean it sucks.

Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better.

Just because it worked before doesn't mean it will work again.

Just because it worked for someone else doesn't mean it will work for you.

Just because it didn't work for someone else doesn't mean it can't work for you.

whirly birds

Helicopters are an integral part of life where I live.  Possibly more so than anywhere else I've been.  Though Vancouver is an Olympic city, world center for film, visual effects, video game design and technology start ups, our frontier roots aren't far behind us.  Massive rugged mountains and a fjords are all around us.

This was top of mind today, spent North of Whistler in a small ex-logging town called Pemberton.  Also home to one of Canada's best golf courses.  As we golfed helicopters of all breed looped through the valley to control damage from heavy thundershowers last night.  Some carrying buckets of water, others fire retardant and others teams of rap-attack ground fire fighters.  At time four and five helo were in the air coming and going from base making long treks into the deep deep wilderness.

It got me thinking how much a part of life in this part of the world is enabled by helicopters.  Originally for logging and mineral exploration, still a major activity.  Though unlike states such as Oregon or Montana we are somewhat ashamed of our logging heritage.  Maybe that's just being Canadian and ashamed of everything, or the fact the extensive and at times violent anti-logging protests shaped much of the 80's.

As resort towns were being built the mega Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion heavy lift hauled massive lift towers up the quickly growing ski hills. Then as winter arrived the sounds of avalanche bombs echoing down the valley as dawn rose indicated a good powder day ahead.  Ask an avid skier or snowboarder whether they prefer an A-Star or the Bell, and they know you're going heli-skiing.  Though the A-Star is more nimble, my long legs prefer the Bell, but either one will do.  Here's one in actino:

Though recreational uses are nice and resource exploration is a major part of our economy, right or wrong, the use for fire fighting is always vexing.  Fire is a natural part of forest life, and every year a forest doesn't burn the more fuel builds up on the ground.  Thus, when it does burn, it burns hotter and more destructively.  Rather than just the brush burning swiftly and the bark getting a good singe with the tree carrying on living, the fires now consume everything.  Violently at that.

Making a tangential leap to the current economic climate it's an interesting exercise to think whether there are any situations where we're trying to save something by throwing money at it, only for it to burn hotter and more destructively down the line.  Might be a car company, insurance operation and maybe a over leverage media group or two in that camp.  You can decide for yourself.

Monday's Should Feel Like Friday's

In a past life during the fast 90's my fiance worked with Lucas Kane at MountainZone.com, an action sports media company and the first to live stream many sporting events around the world including Everest summits and big wave surf championships. 

Lucas irrationally followed his love for photography and became an irrationally good one.  His blog features images he only shoots with his camera phone is a current fav.  In particular the weekly series Monday Should Feel Like Friday.  I like that.  I like it a lot.  Above is this week's edition.

State of the Nation

 

Hello again.  Been a while friends.  Good to be back after a nice hiatus of holidays, friends, family, snow, outdoorsmanship, food and cheer.

I’m not big on New Years  resolutions but do take stock periodically - concurrently looking backwards and forwards.  So this is a self indulgent State of the My Nation.

Last year was a very good year.  Professionally and personally.  It featured an engagement, first marathon, hosting Interesting Vancouver, getting published professionally, bringing a couple of Canada’s most loved & successful campaigns to market (Midas & Milk) and relaunching a speaker series at DDB that attracted the likes of Bob Scarpelli, Terry McBride and Max Lenderman amongst others.

Most excitingly though is 2008 felt like the world of marketing and advertising started to get its act together again.  Folks got back to big thinking rather than getting all spastic over how a Facebook page will purportedly render every other form of advertising obsolete.  Personally this was encouraging and satisfying.  Frankly, there were a couple tough years there where it seemed anything we did, be it TV spots, banner ads, websites or whatever, someone out there were lined up telling us how wrong and stupid us agency and marketing folks are.  And to be fair there are a lot of bad agency folks and corporate environment that breed mediocre marketing schlock.  But many of the most talented, intelligent, imaginative and savvy minds in business today are found in the truly creative agencies. 

For these folks it’s great to see respect return to creativity and imagination, in all media, over tactics, gimmicks and empty rhetoric.  It's great to realize that great craftsmanship and creative minds have not been replaced by poorly conceived and executed consumer content.  But well reasoned and imaginative consumers can participate meaningfully in brands like never before.  Meanwhile, closed minded and heavy-handed corporate antics aren’t rewarded as they once were.  And every year more and more viable business models of vastly different natures prove their durability.

Our world, whether you run a business, or develop campaigns for an organization has never been more complex.  It has never been harder.  Made even more so by the current economic climate.  But that is what makes it such a challenge and so much fun.

So while there are some resolutions of sort in the back of my mind (be funnier, tell better stories, talk less, and run a half marathon under 1 hour 23 minutes) attitude, focus and excitement trump all of them.  2009 is going to be a tough year, but boy it’s going to be a good one.

Power of Words

The politically correct movement often gets a bad rap for tearing away any legacy meaning, offensive or not, in words to ensure the smallest special interest groups are not offended.  Even when it is at a great expense and amount of reprogramming for the general public.

Right or wrong at the root of it is the fact that words, mere words, are immensely powerful.  Not just for their intended meaning or latin roots, but the bundle of meaning they adopt over time.  Meaning that can be completely different in different parts of the world, or even neighbourhoods.  Meaning that can evolve within a particular geography over time naturally or intendedly. 

To be honest I've never really given that much thought to the politically correct movement.  It's not that I disagree, it's jsut that as a white male in good health I've never felt a part of it.  Though have been affected by it and asked to changed my verbiage by it. This incredibly candid post by Charles Frith got me thinking about this fact.  Good for you sir in sharing this experience.

Ran

Said it.  One year, 60+ sweaty Sundays, 6 pairs of Nikes over 1,500 miles - did it.

New new media

In the early 90's there was a genre of music called alternative.  At the time it encompassed what you might call cutting edge music that didn't appeal to the mass market.  It wasn't a "sound" but a section of the record store for bands that didn't belong on the top 40 wall.  Bands from Sound Garden to 10,000 Maniacs lived together.

Then grunge blew up.  And with it so did the genre alternative.  Alternative became associated exclusively to the grunge sound.  Now 10 to 15 years later if someone says alternative you think Nirvana, Sound Garden, Meat Puppets and the like.  Some will even apply it to all hard but not quite metal rock.  It's become narrow, defined and no longer the bundle of variety and goodness it once was.  For some it's even a stigma.  Imaging trying to pitch an 'alternative' act today.

The media we often call "new" or emerging media kind of falls into a similar parallel. At one point it was this collection of assorted activities from guerrilla street level initiatives to eDM, banner ads and other digital treats.  Much of what we call new media is by now nearly, if not more than, a decade old.  And some things folks call social media new media to give the category a boost, even though it's really an evolution of digital media and has existing in other forms for many years.  Study your MacLuanism if you disagree.  It's starting to become common practice that all media, when it's good can be social.  And all media, when it's bad, can be anti social.  But I digress.

Maybe it's time new media rebranded itself.  Is new media now a vision of the past?  The advertising equivalent of modernism? 

It may not be but the term 'new' itself is problematic because inherently new means untested, risky and uncertain. Plus it perpetuates the expectation of what was called 'new' media years ago but is really just now another fairly traditional way of marketing. But it still goes under this label of new as though it is fresh and straight out of R&D. Or at least it does if you manage a multi million or billion dollar ad budget.  Is "new" becoming a stigma?  Ask a CFO if he wants to buy any new or emerging investment vehicles today. No thanks.

Meanwhile the old stuff proclaimed dead has mutated and evolved quite nicely and the consumption levels are proving very resilient.   At least the media who evolve are.  So they have become quite new unto themselves.

The rub is that there is still a huge amount of potential in these things we call new media.  And in particular the new new media.  But momentum is starting to wane.  Either the recalibration of marketing budgets of major brands have already shifted and reached perceived diminished marginal return on new media as the CMO of a multinational brand told me last week or we are so locked in the past's version of what new media means and does the future potential is unfathomable or deemed 'risky' as we move into a business climate that may elevate aversion to risk.

Much of this is speculation, but maybe there is something to the thought of rebranding new media and finding a better term for old media.  Fortunately we rarely hear above the line and below the line anymore.

So what if instead we call it  Media Classic and Media Contemporary. Or static media for those who haven't evolved and dynamic media for those who have.  Maybe classic and contemporary is just the palatable blend for brands with large media mix and reach to help them try some of the new new stuff to better compliment old reliable.  Just a thought.

Noticed: Excess Culture

Guess we've finally hit a culture glut.

Globally global

Just a thought, if you run a global brand, shouldn't the first media priority be how to maximize your investment in the one and only truly global media network - the world wide web?  Not how does each country maximize as part of their overall plan - which they should - but how do I multi billion dollar a year marketer create singular ideas or repositories of compelling content that anyone in almost every country can touch and engage in.  If I was engaged in the same media and material that someone in India does, that makes my Coke experience feel really big.  Really really big.  I like what they as a company have done with the Coke Side of Life, and the localizations are great, but wouldn't that be an awesome brief - develop an idea around the Coke Side of Life that unites the world.  Doesn't talk about uniting the world, or teaching us to sing, but is a single idea that me on my computer in Canada that soemone on their 3g phone in Idea can enjoy.   

Just a thought...

Power Website

After yesterday's post you'll be pleased to learn of the matching Tony Blair website to the stationary (well, kind of matching but not as classy.)   Technically it is much more than just a website, but "The Office of Tony Blair."  Today's question is, are eponymous websites the digital equivalent power tie?

And, can you refer to oneself as "The Office of..." if not a one time world leader or rich?

Referring to this as The Office of Brett Macfarlane doesn't quite have the same oomph as Tony's.

Random Question of the Day

Did Tony Blair's recently commissioned stationary win a 2008 Wallpaper Design Award because the design is inherently notable, or is it the fact it gets signed by Tony Blair that makes it notable.

Gone but not forgotten

Hi.  Remember me?  Yeah, I know, it's been a while.

Anyways, I've been on a bit of break from life.  Not really a vacation, no I didn't get fired and I'm not in a mental institution.  I'm just on a what I'm calling a mini-sabbatical.  Basically three weeks to recharge, refresh and straighten things out after a heck of a year in advertising.

I'm just over one third of may way through the mini-sab and so far so good.  What does one do on a mini-sab.  Well, here's what I've been up to:

• Sleeping: (on average 10 hours a night)
• Reading: the daily papers, a book on engineering in England, I Just Want My Pants Back and The Sound of No Hands Clapping.
• Watching films - American Gangster and Darjeeling Limited the best thus far.
• Playing Zelda for DS
• Playing old school Guitar Hero - aka a real guitar.
• Skiing
• Getting my back tuned up.
• Watching and attending sporting events including Monday Night Football in Seattle and BC Lions playoff football in Vancouver and a bunch on the boob tube including Scotland and England's bitter loses in Euro qualifying

Anyways, there may be the odd posting over the next couple weeks, but more likely not than so as I have a number of matters loosely posted on my mini-sab docket such as:

• Take a ferry day trip.
• Complete the outline to my rookie novel.
• Fire up the barbie and grill some brats for the epic Packers - Cowboys super match this Thursday

So thats it for now.  Send me an email if you're up for a coffee or cocktail over the next couple weeks.

Caio...

Impliments of successful Sunday

Following your morning jog the following five items are guaranteed to result in a successful Sunday.  No matter how you measure success:

1. Fresh brewed coffee (shown: a hand roasted freshly ground Guatamalan bean in an insulated French press)
2. Favorite mug (shown: a Paul Smith mug acquired at Heathrow this past March.)
3. One recent periodical, preferably with wordy editorial.
4. Oversized & overstuffed arm chair.  Muted colour so as not to over excite.
5. Coffee table to place one's feet when your rear is installed in said arm chair.

Enjoy.

Sloppy

Since pledging to finally stop thinking about running a marathon and actually do it, Sundays have become about two things, coffee (not new) and running (new.)

It was all well and good the past couple months when weather was generally pleasant, but this weekend brought the first bit of west coast weather.    And so out in the rain I went.  It was sloppy.  Very very sloppy.

But, 7.31 miles later it was all worth it as my good friend Lance congratulated on my longest run since permanently installing the Nike+ chip in my foot.

Thanks Lance, hope to see you again Tuesday.

Now for some coffee and to send the soil samples off to the lab...

200

This is my 200th post (201 technically.)  Far more than ever imagined when I first started this endeavor and a natural point of self reflection - a sort of mid-life blog crisis if you will. About once a month I ask myself, why do I bother this chore on a regular basis.  Do I really think people out there care about what I think?  But then I realized, this was always intended as a selfish exercise.  I don't care what others think.  This blog is really for me.  It's not an opportunity for me to spout off profound statements on advertising and branding.  Speak in foreign tongues of self important business-speak.  It something I enjoy doing, and that other people are interested is just a bonus.  A self indulgent and flattering bonus at that, but still just a bonus.

So why truly do I bother with this endeavor?  Well:

1. This is my digital scrapbook.  When I have a thought or find something interesting digital I can store it here.
2. It is a way to familiarize with blogging and web vernacular.
3. It is a forum to practice writing and thinking.
4. It is a way to share things with friends and colleagues.
5. And, most importantly I am really interested in account planning (something I get to half practice day in and out) and blogging gave me a way to be part of the dialog of the Plannershere rather than just a spectator.  And to generally understand the vernacular of web 2.0 speak.

So there it is.  Nothing about earning big money through Google adsense or self branding or somehow fiscally/professionally benefiting.  I'm just interested in stuff and thought this a good way to collect those interesting things. 

The great thing about blogs is you can make them to be whatever you want and like any other form of content its important to evolve.  Therefore I've set out 3 goals for the next year.

1. I've always wanted to write a book.  Therefore I will use the blog to start beta testing some concepts.
2. In order to continue practice writing, pick a newsworthy event and editorialize along the way.  Lets work on my journalistic/observational writing skills.
3. Most everything that needs to be said in the plannershere has been said, therefore get out of it spend more time reading books than blogs.  Complete and post about at least one book a month that is not advertising theory related (memories are acceptable.)

So there we go, we'll give it a shot and see where we end up.  On with it then...

Just wondering

Just wonder, has it ever really been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that consumers really want to "see themselves" in the advertising.  And by showing imagery of people "like them" they will be more loyal.  Or in the case of a brand that wants to acquire a new demographic of customer that by showing that type of customer, all of a sudden that customer will know the brand is for them?

Somehow, I think not.

new year's resolutions

Simplicity

Brevity

Frankness

Boxing Day Line Frenzy Indicator

In Canada we have this phenomenon that is the shopping bonanza of Boxing Day .  Across the country stores slash their prices, people actually line up at the mall and according to the folks at Visa $1.8 billion Canadian loonies are dropped by consumers.  So, anyone into retails in undoubtedly into Boxing Day.  It's our Black Friday.

Here in Vancouver we have stand alone stores for a lot of major brands - H&M is about the only one missing.  And, walking around today it was very clear what brands were hot and what not based on the line up outside. 

Most stores marked down goods around 50%.  Give or take 10%.  So essentially everyone had the same offer, but judging by the line ups 50% as some stores is much more valuable than 50% at others.  Of all the stores three stood out for massive line up out front and around the corner (literally.)  They were FCUK, Coach and Adidas Originals.

So it occurred to me, that instead of the typical static brand health measures (recall, likability, intent to purchase) which we add another one that shows how much people really care about the brand itself.  I'll call it the BDLFI (the Boxing Day Line Frenzy Indicator.)  The theory being, when all stores have the same promotions, which ones are people buying from because of the brand and not because of the discount.  The premise being, a black sweater from Banana Republic and FCUK is generally the same, but people will go to greater lengths to score a discounted one from FCUK over Banana Republic, even though the price is about equal.

To keep it simple the indicator is based on a five point system:

1. Like any other day.
2. Bit of a crowd with minor hoarding.
3. Full store - doors still open for customers to come and go as they please.
4. Small line up - 10 or 20 people waiting
5. Pandemonium - line up around the corner - has frenzied appearance of hot night club in SOHO NY.

If I was in charge of a brand I know I'd do whatever I could to ensure I had a 5 on Boxing Day.  As that would mean people also love you the other 364 days too.

catch up

In between eating, drinking and winterspots the holidays are a great time to catch up on the blogoshere and fill your brain with ideas to come back January 2 refreshed and mentally loaded.  I'll be diving into my list of things I've wanted to post about but haven't got around to.  I'll also dive into the list created in the past week of posts I wrote but were erased by Internet Explorer crashing the exact moment I clicked on save.  Yes, wonderful.  But I'm switching back to Firefox so hopefully my brilliance or lack there of can be shared with all again. 

And, it's good to see that thanks to Russell and Paul there will be fresh posts to keep the cobwebs from forming in our brains over the holidays.

Hopefully we'll also see some results from the latest Account Planning School of the Web assignment.