Jumping on the social media brand wagon?

Every brand under the sun seems to be having a stab at social media and doing a good job of integrating it with above the line actvity. Which is a great sign in my opinion. However, it does feel like some are forcing it a touch. I think brands, clients and agencies are under so much pressure to be doing something different they fail to really think about what they want to achieve. It's almost like the sole objective is to simply do social media and prove we're doing integration.

The two brands I've noticed this week are Hellman's and Lambrini. Which are nicely produced sites and probably cost a fair few quid - although the guys on the Hellman's site look like failed cocktail barmen to me! Now I don't really like to slag things off if I don't know the objectives, so I do tend to keep an open mind on campaigns like these. For example, you could argue that the equity of a brand would be enhanced even if you're simply seen to be doing something innovative and involving? Perhaps it's irrelevant whether or not people are actually involved and following the communication through? If the objective is to create branded entertainment I guess it does the job.

Lee posted this about the new Stella Artois site a couple of weeks ago and I think I agree with him - there is a hell of a lot of brands out there creating web junk. Don't get me wrong I think the Stella Artois site is actually quite good if you give it a chance. But as Lee said, why bother? Do people really have the time or inclination to film themselves squeezing mayo out of a tube, or learning a Lambrini dance, filming it and uploading it to a site. I'd love to see the web stats for these kind of sites, but as I said, perhaps that's not the objective. I'm struggling to see how these campaigns are cost effective and produce any kind of results. To be honest, there is more people probably blogging about these campaigns than actually responding to the communication.

The door to The Communications Room is open

I’ve been toying with the idea of inviting people to share this blog for a while. I had the rather stupid idea of a name for an agency after watching The Good Shepherd where the opening sequence starts with the CIA’s communications room.

It’s not that I’m a massive fan of the CIA, anything but, I just liked the concept of a bunch of clever people with different skills sitting in a room observing stuff, solving conflicts and making the world a better place. So I bought the URL and thought perhaps one day? Well that day isn’t quite here yet, but I thought it might make a nice blog in the meantime.

I’m a bit on the nervous side opening up this blog after all the effort getting it up and running, but I think it could be very interesting if I can find the right people. There’s a lot of planning, creative and media blogs out there, but not many that have a range of perspectives in one place. Therefore I’m looking for 3 or 4 people to start with. It’s open to anyone, although I’m thinking a creative, an account person, a media person and a technologist initially.

If you’re interested in contributing drop me an email with a short biog.

A campaign for communications love

Why does everything in our industry have to be so black or white? You’re a planner, a creative, a media or an account person? You’re an ad agency, digital agency, media agency, PR or a communications agency? The future is bright? We're all going to die? Blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring.

I posted this yesterday in response to this and there seems to be loads of other posts recently such as this, this and this which the comments go on to argue who is essentially the best in 'advertising'. But I'm starting to get fed up with how insular, petty and finger pointing everything is getting - in the blogosphere at least. We all seem to be very good at talking about who has the right to do what and who deserves to be the most loved in the industry. Ahhh, helllloooo (insert camp hand gesture). What does the client want? Do they really give a rat's ass whether or not a creative, planner, account man or even a programmer came up with the bloody idea? If that is indeed what they think they buy from an agency anyway?

I'm worried that clients will just get sick of all the agency bollocks, inflated costs and go and bring it in house or hire consultants, creative communications thinkers or creative generalists, whatever you want to call them. Why shouldn't they if it's cheaper, quicker and arguably just as good? At least in their opinion, and to be honest that is what really matters? What's going to be left? All the thinking and even the doing will be done in house and agencies will be mere facilitators. You can see signs of it happening now. Don't quote me, but i'm sure Channel 4, ITV and Innocent have all brought disciplines in house if I recall. I've also just finished working on a pitch with a communications consultant that the client has hired to work with the agencies. He's been a nice guy, but it's a bit too prescriptive. The final outcome is essentially his idea - which has turned out OK, but not as good as it could have been if all disciplines could have collaborated and this isn't just my view.

I'm not suggesting that people like Russell and John would ever work with agencies in this way, but you can see it happening elsewhere. Why deal with the agency self appreciation society when you can work on your own interesting projects directly with brands? It's getting a bit, if you want something done, go and do it yourself. Do we really want to lose the best people to clients, irrespective of the discipline, because they can't get the job done? Is this really the world we want to live in? Then you find jobs like this going!

Again I'm probably being naive, drawing on my own short experiences and stating the obvious, but shouldn't we work in a way that allows us to simply get the job done and in my opinion enjoy doing it? I'm being petulant, but what do clients want/expect from agencies nowadays? Perhaps we should ask these questions rather than debating who deserves the crown of creative genius?

I've got a PR problem

Don’t get me wrong, I'm fond of PR and I have a lot of respect for people in the industry - I have to. Other than the fact that my other half works in it; it's also where I started my career. I would go as far as saying PR is a good place to start if you want to be a planner - although probably not something that will stand out on your CV to a prospective employer.

There are several reasons why it's good. You develop an eye for a story, you hone your writing skills, you do you own research, you have to come up with your own strategy without the help of a planning department, you're under pressure to come up with your own ideas without the help of a creative, you have to do you own media plans and you also have to actually role your sleeves up and implement all of this. Lee has written a good post on this before but I think it goes further than just being a good journalist.

So why do I have an issue with PR? (I'm excluding public affairs, CSR and lobbying from this as they're completely different disciplines in my opinion) It's essentially the reason why I got frustrated and moved in to planning. Out of all the marketing disciplines people in PR, more often than not, tend to be the ones with the least knowledge of brand strategy and are way behind others in terms of innovation.

Although this isn’t a great yardstick for measuring how innovative a profession is, you will be hard pressed to find many PR blogs out there that talk about anything other than how the Interweb is affecting the industry. No shit Sherlock!

Many proposals I see regarding the use of online are pretty staid. So despite the rhetoric I don’t believe that PR is the best discipline to manage your brand online just yet. Many, but not all are just using the same rules as they adhere to offline. They’ll tell me that any brand worth its salt should be on Myspace with no explanation as to how they would use it or why it’s even relevant. They will treat bloggers exactly the same as they would treat journalists, people just waiting to hear about a products wonderful new features and competitive price point. They will claim to be able to create buzz and influence opinion directly in forums with obviously no experience, as they are unfamiliar with the terms ‘advertising scum’ and ‘flaming’.

I get bored of the same tired old tactics, that are just that - a bunch of tactics, wheeled out for every client with no real strategy supporting them. You normally get a celebrity (that you will have no chance of actually using or they only have a very tenuous link to the brand). There will probably be a survey, a competition and maybe even an event thrown in. It’s not the tactics being used as such that annoys me, it’s more the thought that goes into the ideas. I very rarely see the same creative and strategic thinking that you get from people in other disciplines.

Some PR professionals are also great at using a number of power word and phrases that obviously proves they get it. My favourites being:

“We’re an agency that gets results”. Phew, good job we didn’t use that agency that doesn’t get results.

“As an agency we pride ourselves on effectiveness”. You mean you have a press cuttings service.

“We know how to manage your brand online”. Then how come when I asked if you use Instant Messenger did you say is that a good courier service? (This didn’t happen, but I thought it made this long rant a bit funnier).

“Here are our key messages….” No, they are the brand’s key messages, you’re just reading them back to me.

Then there are the same objectives on absolutely every proposal with no expansion as to what this means for the communications:

1. To raise awareness
2. To change perception
3. To deliver ROI

Of what, why and how? Ohhh, refer to the strategy you say. I’m sorry all I can see is a load of tactics and for your information, I don’t think Mr Motivator is a good idea. I’m sure he hasn’t been on TV for at least 15 years.

I do genuinely think PR has a major role to play in a brand’s communications mix and I’m not suggesting everyone in PR is incompetent, I just think the ones I’ve personally experienced recently are giving it a bad name.

I don’t think PR will ever have the position at the head of the table unless they can think more strategically and ensure it isn’t separate, second, or even non-existent to the idea they propose. They must understand how to use emerging media and not just that it’s out there. And finally I would like to see better, smarter, more involving ideas. Perhaps the pressure from clients to get column inches rather than a share of people’s conversations stops them from doing all of this, I don’t know? One thing is for sure, it is about having more than a little black book full of journo’s numbers.

To Facebook or not to Facebook?

I finally joined Facebook after months of deliberation. After all it is my job to be up to speed on things like this. The basis for my resistance centred around comments such as: I don't have enough time for another form of social media, it's only for the kids and it's only for sados who don't have friends in the real world. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised on all counts. Although some things I did find strange.

When I first joined it immediately worried me that anyone who seeked out my profile at this very minute would think I was short of mates since I last met them. Therefore you have to frantically add friends and even steal others who you can tenuously claim as your own. Once you have a healthy list, ideally larger than an ex-girlfriend's, the amount of time required on Facebook reduces.

Whilst there are loads of people I would like to get back in contact with, there are a few who I would quite happily keep as a distant memory. I had a bad experience with Friends Reunited when I stupidly left my mobile number on it. The result of which was a number of random phone calls from people I vaguely remember going to school with, let alone talking to. One of which was from a guy who told me he was up on a manslaughter charge. Fancy a pint? Did I bollocks! They were horribly awkward conversations I didn't want to repeat.

I also didn't and still don't understand ex-girlfriend protocol. Is it OK to 'poke' your ex-girlfriends and see if they bite? I'm worried that my current girlfriend, who isn't on Facebook will take it the wrong way if I tell her I have been poking Amy on my lunch break, even though I haven't actually seen her since we did PE in our pants together.

Whilst it is great to upload photos from nights out and have conversations with your mates, the thing I like about Facebook is that it's like having a fight with a midget and keeping him, or her, I must remain PC, at arms length. It allows you to keep in 'just enough touch' with people you won't phone every week, but would like to know how they are doing from time to time. There are 100s of other neat little features that to be honest make up a fantastic social network. Thumbs up to Facebook. Thumbs down however to the 'Don't tell my mum I'm in advertising, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel' group. You can only join it if you work in London apparently. I don't want to be your friend anyway, I've got other friends now so nerggghhh.

Ground up thinking # 3

“Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity”

Cristian Nevell Bovee

This is England - looking from the inside out

Image courtesy of PYMCA

I'm off to see Shane Meadows' latest film, This is England, at the weekend. If you are unfamiliar with the writer and directors previous work he's responsible for Dead Man's Shoes, Once upon a time in the Midlands and 24/7. This is England is a movie about the British skinhead movement in the 80s. Loosely auto biographical, the movie is based on the life of a troubled, working class boy from the Midlands who seeks refuge with a group of 'Skins'.

The movie touches on a number of interesting areas such as youth culture, Ska, social marginalisation, identity, racism and politics. Now I was born in 1980, so I don't really recall much of this movement, apart from the occasional menacing looking types, a couple of which happened to be my babysitter and her boyfriend. However, only since the movie has come out have I bothered to look into it in more detail - I like The Specials and a bit of Madness but that's it really. I'm fascinated with how it all started and evolved over time but I've mostly been surprised with how my original, mostly negative perceptions have been formed by the minority that turned it into the racist movement that my generation at least see it as.

Newsnight recently discussed this film and Mark Kermode made a cracking point when debating with Sunday Times columnist Peter Whittle. In response to the pompous and out of touch, Whittle, Kermode stated that people always tend to look at cultures from the outside and fail to truly understand them. As much as we hate to admit it, I think the majority of us working in communications continue to do this, merely scratching the surface of what's out there. Even those of us in research do it with tired methodologies . I think this is why I'm becoming more and more interested in ethnography. It might not go down well with a positivist but I think I'm finding my work more interesting.

The full Newsnight - This is England debate

The importance of objectives

Guy Murphy has a really interesting post on objectives over at the IPA Strategy Group’s blog. I personally find poor and restrictive objectives really frustrating. You end up spending too much time in ‘strategy’ meetings going round in circles, but more importantly it stops you from creating great work.

The way an objective is formed, presented and articulated can have such a major influence on the direction of a strategy. I agree with Guy, people should give it more attention. I’m always surprised by how often people fail to make a distinction between the different types of objective you may see in a brief such as campaign objectives, project objectives, business objectives, marketing objectives and communications objectives.

I love the analogy Guy has given: “If the objective set by Dick Fosbury in the high jump was to complete a perfectly executed Western Roll we would not have heard of him. A Western Roll is an interim measure of success. Instead, he set himself the objective of ‘jumping as high as possible’. Enter the Fosbury Flop. Not only did getting the objective right achieve a better result, it released creativity and freedom into the strategy”.

Working on a brief without a good objective is like playing football when you are a kid. Every time the ball gets kicked in a different direction everyone on the pitch runs after it with no purpose, other than to get the ball. You might win you might not. Only once you have decided on a match-winning objective can you play the beautiful game and not just win, but also win in style.

You can read Guy Murphy’s full post here.

Impressive, most impressive

This post is an amalgamation of a number of things I’ve been thinking about recently. Mainly based on books such as Herd, Convergence Culture, The Perfect Pitch, Brand Innovation Manifesto and The Economics of Attention, as well as other thoughts such as marketing enthusiasm and interestingness. My feeble attempt of simplifying all of this is to describe it as impressiveness. This is a scale if you like. All brands should honestly ask themselves how much do we actually impress people?

Brands impressing people might seem like a simple concept but few do it. Why? Impressing people isn’t as easy as it used to be. If Darth Vader was a planner he might of said brands today can’t just be impressive; they need to be most impressive.



Here is a list of the things brands should think about in order to impress people

1.Ask yourself objectively, how much does your brand impress you? Stop treating people like they’re dumb. If you aren’t impressed by your brand then your customers will feel the same. Don’t be so complacent. Competitors, new entrants and even new business models are waiting in the wings to take your place.

2. Just be yourself. You’re human, your customers are human and the people your customers talk to are human. Get back in touch with what it is to be human or super social apes. What makes people angry? What makes them happy? What do they find interesting? What do they care about? What do they talk about? How do they interact with other people?

3. Don’t always hide behind research. If you can’t find a big problem then make one. Challenge conventions and define new markets. Create a new meaning in your sector, be a leader and have the confidence to be intuitive.

4. Be more than just an image, have substance and style. What does your brand believe in? What is your brand enthusiastic about? Do things that prove it? You don’t need big budgets to be impressive. So watch you back

5. To be consistent, is to be the same, the same as everyone else. Consistency might make people feel safe, but it doesn’t impress. Mix it up from time to time. Be complex, be random and be unexpected. God forbid, be immeasurable. Don’t tie yourself down to one way of doing things. The only thing it does is hold you back and makes you vulnerable. Before you know it a challenger brand will be impressing your customers and all because you wanted to be ‘consistent and on message’.

6.Make things happen, be fluid and be light on your feet. Find your entrepreneurial spirit? Step out from behind the comfort of your processes and your media and research budgets. Find out what is it that you need to do to impress people and go out and do it.

7. There’s a world out there, of media that is. Don’t just sit there worrying about the ‘future of the media landscape’ - change it or make it work for your brand. Do what enhances your brand, not what everyone else is doing. People are impressed when brands do things differently.

8.Use the media available to you to construct and tell a story – make it work harder. Create a more fulfilling experience. Experiment with media and occasionally trust your brand in the hands of others, even your customers. You never know, they might do a better job than your agency. That will save you a few quid and impress your boss.

9.Let go. People will talk about your brand and there is nothing you can do about. Just embrace it and encourage participation. If you have done number four properly then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Should you? People will be impressed by brands with nothing to hide.

Oh no, the brand police won’t like this

Every year E4 gives people the chance to go mad with its logo in its ESTINGS competition. In association with Creative Review, this competition is attracting some of the best young talent. The lucky winner will see their work commissioned and turned into series of indents for the channel. In E4’s own words they are giving people ‘the opportunity to weird us out with your crazed imaginations’. You can view previous entrants efforts here, here and here. Branded content at its best I'll think you'll agree.


I love Channel 4 in general, not just E4 and cult programmes like Shameless and Skins. In my opinion it is one of the most interesting media brands of the moment. It’s approach to creativity, media and programming is way ahead of the others. Until recently Channel 4 worked with Naked and has also developed its own commnications agency 4Creative. I think the thing I love about the brand is its confidence and fluidity. It has the ability to evolve quickly and the nerve not to be 'consistent and on brand' all the time.

Web 2.0 or whatever

All I seem to hear from people around the agency is web 2.0 this web 2.0 that. I like the cool things you can do on the net and how it is EVOLVING the way we communicate, but the term web 2.0 should be banished from our marketing vocabulary for ever. It's good to have another point of view on this. This is a great post that has two interesting views on the subject.

Victims of our own ‘herd’ mentality?

I’ve just started reading Mark Earl’s new book Herd. I’m only a few chapters in at the moment but it seems fascinating so far. What initially struck me is the fact that our industry is a victim of its own herd mentality, with a new, unconfirmed one trying to break out. Let me explain.

There are three things that are really getting me thinking at the moment – interestingness, marketing enthusiasm and transmedia planning. All of which are imaginatively simple but not that easy to articulate to other people, particularly if starting your own agency isn’t on your CV. The thing I love about blogging is that you can get your hands on new observations from smart people without having to wait for their book to come out.

However, I do sometimes feel a bit isolated, these approaches can be hard to diffuse until it reaches the world of print. As a young planner peddling this stuff around the agency and talking to clients about it, I find that some don’t get it, some think it’s a fad or more often than not I get a response along the lines of; ‘That’s fascinating…but lets do it the usual way instead, maybe next time’. This is then followed by a pat on the head and probably some mumblings about me being bright, enthusiastic but not having much ‘commercial awareness’.

Commercial awareness is obviously important, but I think they mix this up with not conforming to agency processes, conventions and culture, or the herd. It frustrates me that agencies and clients have constructed their own realities to such an extent that they are stopping themselves from progressing and as a result being more successful.

We all seem to have lost touch with the concept of human nature and that is why I believe these approaches are hard for people to adopt. By focusing on human nature, which is sometimes hard to understand and most of all hard to measure, they make things seem simpler. As complex people, who like to make things even more complicated, we hate anything that might be too easy for us to comprehend.

I was in Dublin over New Year and there is a quote on the monument of Oscar Wilde that really stood out: “Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple and the simple thing is the right thing”. My aim for the next few weeks is to be a thorn in the side of our existing Herd mentality and try and sow the seeds of a new one. Not exactly sure what that is yet, but I do know it’s different, or at least more human.

Community culture

How timely, just as I start my blog, worrying about whether the world needs another planner with an opinion, Russell Davies feels the heat of an 'expert’. In ‘community’ lingo, he got flamed.

Although Russell doesn’t reference the culprit, you can find the blog here. I saw it posted a couple of months ago, whilst on Brandrepublic.com. For those that haven’t been on the forum it’s really bizarre. It’s like a breeding ground for jumped up advertising know it alls, so if I was Russell I wouldn’t take it to heart. Take a look; it will make you smile at least.

It’s not the specific personal attack, but the community culture thing that fascinates me. The way that they mutate over time and develop distinctive personalities. It amazes me how they can connect and influence people that would never otherwise meet, and I don’t just mean by location.

Take the Russell example. A successful, award-winning planner is upset by the comments of someone who is probably fresh out of University and has that nothing worthwhile to say. As a result he stops posting for a bit. Then think of the knock on effect. I don’t know the exact number but I’d imagine a lot of people not only view Russell’s blog everyday but also reference it and use it as a source of inspiration.

I always use forums and blogs as a starting point to get a general view of the brand and audience I’m working with. The views are often so polarised and exaggerated, but that’s the point. People aren’t held back by what other people might think and this can at least point you in a good direction. If you look harder enough you can find some gems although you do have to wade through a lot of crap. In the past it has been invaluable, particularly when working in gaming, football and even higher education. I wouldn’t base an entire idea on the evidence gained in a forum, but it’s an interesting starting point for any planner.