LIFE MOVES PRETTY FAST...

GUINNESS - Is there anything to talk about?

I enjoyed this BBH Labs post that Pats tweeted to me yesterday - "if you want a conversation say something interesting."

Then I watched the new Guinness ad online and was struck by the fact that the only thing that I could really say about it was "I wonder how much money they spent on that?"

It's beautiful, but feels very 1980s and a bit out of touch.

About 30,000 views on YouTube so maybe it wasn't just me who wasn't that interested by the ad.

Going Loco with Southern Railways

This just makes me smile.

When the "more bums on seats" pitch brief came into the agency, we were looking to find a different way of approaching this creatively. We didn't want to do a category job for all trains it had to be Southern specific, we also didn't want to do the job of the South Coast tourist board and simply talk about the great destinations that Southern trains go to.

The insight for the brief was sparked off after reading Alain De Boton's The Art of Travel - we wanted to try and work out WHY people feel the need to travel. It's a great read BTW.

Southern trips are all quiet short-haul, in essence great day trips. I'm not sure about you, but often my Saturdays are fairly routine - I can predict with worrying certainty that I will go to the local farmers market, drop off clothes at the dry cleaners, go to the gym, phone my folks and generally potter locally. We briefed creative teams to BREAK THE APATHY OF SATURDAY.

Which was the springboard for Loco Toledo.  Loco is a wrestler from a small town in

Mexico

, where there are very few trains, and having recently arrived in

England

, is overjoyed to find that there are hundreds of trains going everywhere.

We are also developing the character through social spaces online, such as Facebook ,  with the hope of a wider roll-out next year. If you travel on Southern you may well see Loco around on your travels.

And don't forget to check out the Southern website for some brilliant online only ticket offers and thought starters for easy places to explore.

Guardian's Word of Mouth/Influencer Study

I have been meaning to blog about this event and WOM UK for a while now. I went along to their Espresso Briefing with  David Brain from Edelman, I am not sure that you could have had a better "espresso" companion than David (incidentally his blog is well worth reading) The research, although obviously wrapped into a sales tool for The Guardian, was interesting.

The Guardian's Word of Mouth Database

View more documents from WOM UK.

The research into the component factors of  influencers struck me as very smart - WEAK TIES, relationships and networks outside close family and friends - people who connect out loosely with multiple networks allow messages to "leap" out of closed circles, BRIDGING CAPITAL, an ability to make information contextualised and relevant to others, - people who build and connect together seemingly random bits of information and make something new and interesting out of them and STATUS BARGAIN, a willingness to listen and modify their own opinions, making them more trustworthy - people who ask questions and engage as much as they broadcast out their own opinions.

WOM seem to have a jam-packed event diary for the rest of the year. The next one is a work in progress case study presentation from Mat Morrison at PR agency Porter Novelli. There is a little gang of us going to that one, so let me know if you're attending.

Also if you have any thoughts on whether it's worth becoming a WOM UK member I'd love to hear them.

We're looking for a new Planner

Sadly Emily one of our senior Planners is leaving these drizzly shores and heading back home to Australia. Obviously we're happy (and maybe just a little bit jealous) but it does mean that we are actively recuiting for a new Planner to take her place.

A bit of background -at VCCP we aim to hire what we call T-Shaped Planners, Planners with a broad comms overview and interest but with a deep centre of gravity. That centre of gravity could be PR, it could be Media etc. In Emily's case her centre of gravity was Digital having joined us from AKQA. However the reason that she joined was that she wanted to expand on of a pure Digital focus into a more T-Shared one. She hadn't had Brand Planning experience till she came to work for us but is now as happy on pure Brand projects, as Digital ones as Integrated ones. Most of the work that Planners do here tends to be Integrated, that's what our clients are looking for and that's creatively where we get most excited.

The clients that you'd be working on are Very.co.uk, the new Social Shopping site that used to be LittlewoodsDirect.co.uk and o2. You'd also be working on pure-play Digital briefs when they come in and get very involved with pitching and new business.

• At least 5 years working experience
• Confident client facing at both junior and senior levels
• Genuine passion for Digital, innovation and technology
• Proven experience working on Digital and Social solutions
• Ability to think strategically and broader in terms of solving Brand issues/proven Brand planning experience (and desire to move more into this area)
• Baking skills useful (regular agency Bake Offs and weekly Planners Teas part of role)

Please send me an email: AmeliaT@VCCP.com and Michael Lee who is our Head of Planning MichaelL@VCCP.com

Ideally we are looking for someone to start in at the start of next month, though there is obviously flexibility for the right person.

IPAsocial - Technology Changes, People Don't

I've posted before about the IPA Social initiative. Each of us involved has written up thoughts on what we think are 10 of the defining principles of this participative space. Thanks to the brilliant Hugh McLeod I choose this one:

When the Wikipedia entry for Social Media contains in its opening paragraph the phrase,"social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information", I think that we've got a problem on our hands.

So much time, energy and attention seems to have been spent thinking and talking about Social Media tools and technologies that in my opinion many have missed the point. Without people none of that means anything. Maybe a little more time thinking about the fundamentals of human needs and behaviour and a little less time trying to second guess what the new Facebook/Twitter/YouTube is the more interesting the end results will be for all of us?

By nature human beings are relational creature. We need each other. We co-operate, we fight, we find ourselves through our relationships with others. The ancient Greeks had a punishment that was considered more painful than death - banishment. By removing a man from his network of friends and family you were in essence condemning a man to certain death and an extended one at that.

In 1934 Abraham Maslow wrote a paper called A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow codified his research on the five essential human needs in his his now famous Hierarchy of Needs (much be-loved by Planners the world over) The basic most fundamental human need that lies at the foundation of all of us he argued is Physiological (breathing, sleep, food, sex etc), then Safety (personal, financial, health), next Social (friendship, intimacy, family), then Esteem (self-esteem, self-respect, belonging) and finally at the top of the hierarchy came Self-Actualization.

It's the two middle levels which are the most important to our discussion on Social Media. For what is the behaviour demonstrated on Social Media platforms such as blogs, Flickr, YouTube and Flickr but "Belonging/Social needs" and "Esteem needs".

"Belonging/Social needs" in as much as digital technology platforms allows connections and enables people with like-minded passions to come together, be it a passion for gaming and the ARG that attract people from all around the world to play (incidentally Prof Monica Whitty has written extensively on the romances that blossomed in the alternate reality worlds, many of which have ended in real-world weddings and families), or more disturbing passions such as Armin Meiwes's who found a "well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed" through the website The Cannibal Cafe. Social Media is merely the platform for connecting and sharing, in essence finding your place in order to belong.

But perhaps more interestingly is the way in which people gain self-esteem and self-respect through Social Media channels. Also known as the esteem need, Esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel valued and accepted, often that is in a professional sphere but it equally could come from the sharing of a hobby or skill online. It is through the comments and links of others that individuals online gain authority and influence in the social space and thereby increase their own levels of esteem.

The need is belonging.

The behaviour is social.

The out-take is esteem.

The fundamentals of human nature remain constant.

.....................

Thoughts? Additions? Examples? Ideas?

All gratefully received.

Background to the project and all other 9 Principles housed here at IPA Social.

DIFFERENT ADVERTISING APPROACH: o2 Sim Rugby Online campaign

It's a tricky creative brief.

Talking about free sims doesn't seem to be the biggest creative opportunity on the surface. But then again people said that about the car insurance comparison market and that turned out ok for us...

We talk about three key planning questions at VCCP:

1. Why would I talk about this idea?
2. How can I get involved in this idea?
3. What keeps the conversation going?

This is how the "pass on the free sim" brief was brought to life: Sim Rugby

The boys here had a lot of fun making the website for SimRugby looks as Web 1.0 as possible. There are a lot of terrible touches that only a true geek would appreciate - the ComicSans typeface, the shading. I think that it became an odd kind of labour of love.

You have to try different approaches to categories which seem low interest or low involvement. Otherwise there's nothing for people to talk about, nothing for them to participate in and nothing that keeps the conversation going.

More than happy if you can help and pass this on (just like your free sim - sorry couldn't resist it!!)

THE WIRE: How The Guardian will make money out of its UGC community

If you know me in real life or have read this blog or my tweets for a while you will know that I am an enormous fan of the HBO show The Wire. It's fair to say that it could be classified as an addiction.

It's a show that requires proper attention, in fact it demands proper attention. This isn't bubble gum telly, as David Simon one of the creators said on the BBC in 2008, he's not writing The Wire for the average viewer... "fuck the average viewer." This isn't a TV show that you can dip in and out of, in fact this isn't even a show that you can really watch on TV. The only way is to download it all or buy or borrow the DVD box set (you'll find that Wire addicts are more than happy to spread their addiction and share) I think that I would have found it impossible to watch one episode and wait a week for the next episode.

Rather like an addiction I think that The Wire makes you into a bit of a bore - in a way that if you're in it then it's brilliant, if you're not then it's awful. What I mean by that once you get seriously addicted you just need to lay your hands on anything else vaguely related than might help quench your hunger.

From show The Wire I moved onto reading Homicide and The Corner (two of the books that The Wire is based on), then got into the the early seasons of the TV show Homicide and now I spending a lot of time reading books by Richard Price (Clockers probably being on my Desert Island Books list,  Lush Life is well worth a read too) and George Pelecanos (maybe start with Hell To Pay). I just needed more and more of the backstory of The Wire to get Wired (so to speak)

Throughout all of this the Guardian Wire community was my quasi-support group. Every week it would take and dissect an episode. They were, still are in fact, essential reading for anyone interested in delving deeper into the whole Wire experience. I can't recommend them highly enough. Earlier this week I got an email from Steve Busfield at The Guardian. He curates The Wire blog community on The Guardian's Comment Is Free space:

Hello

I have some exciting developments about the Guardian's Wire blog to talk to you about. This Christmas, we're going to be publishing a book of the best of our online coverage of the Wire. This includes blog posts, interviews and reviews, as well as many of the comments left by guardian.co.uk users. Because you contributed to a comment thread on one or more of our Wire blog posts, your comments may be included in this collection.

This kind of use is covered by our terms and conditions (http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html), but I just wanted to let you know personally, as I hope you'll be as excited as we are that this content will now be available in book form.

Thanks again for your participation in the blog, and now the book, too. The blog will, of course, continue.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder+series/the-wire-re-up

Steve

The discussion is here at Comment Is Free about what to call the book.

I just think that this is a brilliant initiative.

For all the talk about the monetization of UGC and whether advertising can ever deliver an ROI, The Guardian have just turned this on its head and decided to make a product out of UGC and bring in revenue that way.

It's something that I will either buy for myself, or ask for as an xmas present, and its also a book that I will buy for a number of fellow Wire addicts. I really hope that it does well. When I know more details about publication dates etc I will of course post them here.

BLACKBERRY: How to turn the blinking red light off...

Yesterday I was shown how to turn off the blinking red light on my blackberry. And it has changed my life in less then 24 hours...

I'm not sure about you (maybe you don't have a blackberry for work but in my opinion iPhones just aren't enough of solid work-horse for me!) but blackberries are both a curse and a blessing in equal-ish measures. I love the flexibility that they offer but its the blinking red light that drives me crazy. I literally cannot stop myself from checking my emails day or night, weekday or weekend, holiday or workday. It drives me crazy but I cannot help myself.

Nicola showed me how to de-activate the light and I tweeted about it straightaway. Judging from the amount of tweets and DMs that I got it's something that bugs the hell out of a lot of other people too.

So this is how you do it:

1. Go to your RingTone Profile setting (the one where you change what kind of ring/vibrate that you want)
2. Scroll down and click on Advanced
3. Click into your Ringtone Profile
4. Click on "Level 1 Messages"
5. Click on "Repeat Notification" and change it from "LED Flashing" to "none"
6. (Make sure that you do it for what is called "In Holster" and "Out of Holster")
7. Relax!

Let's end the tyranny of the blinking red light one Blackberry at a time!

SOCIAL MEDIA - The IPA step up

Back in January I wrote a post about a rather dire event that the IPA put on. This was what they said it would be: "There’s a revolution in the air that’s transforming society. It’s social networking and it’s empowering the consumer. Agencies must get to grips with this changing marketplace over the next decade or they could face growth of only 1.2% per year by 2016. This is according to the second future of advertising report to be published by the IPA and the Future Foundation. To find out more come along to the next 44 Club where all will be revealed."

Trouble was, it wasn't like that at all.

It was confused. It was old-fashioned in its approach and most bizarrely given that Social Media is a conversation, there was no conversation. The Social Media report cost a lot of money, nothing was shared online and there was no platform or space for dialogue and discussion.

Others in Adland felt the same way as I did. Then the influential Neville Hobson wrote about the situation. And we all sort of sat back waiting to see what the IPA would do. 

To their enormous credit, the IPA contacted each and every person who had blogged or tweeted about the IPA Social Media event and asked them to help them move the conversation on and make it more useful and relevant.  So that's what's been happening over the last few months. It stared out as a big group, which people rapidly discovered meant a lot of talking but not a lot of practical action and useful deliverables. Then it turned into a smaller group: myself; Mark; Neil; Le'Nise; Katy; Jamie; Asi; John, Graeme and a long-distance late addition Faris ( if I was starting an agency tomorrow these guys would be the very first people that I would call!) - all brilliantly chaired by Nigel from the IPA. 

The IPA moved from their traditional role of Expert Authority to a new role of Intelligent (Intelligence?) Facilitator. And they have been brilliant, given this small group the freedom to create and develop what we hope will be useful and provocative thinking in the area of Social Media.

We've defined 10 Social Principles which we are launching online on 23rd September and there's a remarkably cheap seminar (20 for IPA members, 40 for non-members) on Tuesday 6th October. Click here for info and tickets. The site and the seminar have been created to be social experiences, not conferences. So come along expecting to talk, ask questions and answer questions yourself. There are no Social Media experts, there are just people getting their hands dirty and experimenting in this space. There are learnings, there are approaches and there are intelligent questions. 

The Twitter hashtag is #IPAsocial for you to see the discussions to date.

I'll post when the IPAsocial site goes live and hope to see some of you at the 6th.

This is not going to become an Alpha Mummy blog

But given that this is a space where I can write about stuff that interests and excites me and that I would like to share, it does feel right that I mention that in 6 months time there might be some baby-related posts sneaking into the blog....

It's incredibly exciting, very scary and despite having photographic and physical evidence it doesn't quite feel real.

I am talking at various things over the next few months (IPA Social, Media 140, Battle of Big Thinking) and I'd rather say here publically "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant."

Innocent Smoothies are recruiting

I think that it sounds a fascinating new role. In the words of Richard, one of the 3 founders:

"I'm looking for a person to come in house to innocent as our media and communications expert.  It is a role that is both wide and deep - it encompasses both being manager of our existing 'house media' channels ie managing our in-house PR resource, our digital platforms and team and our healthcare professional communications, and also being the person working with our media agency and brand managers to determine the best use of our media money - working out what we should be spending on what and how, covering everything from emerging media to old school telly and everything in between."

It's a big job that I think will need a big character.

Rather than simply giving an HR email address, Richard has asked that people get in touch with him directly:

Richard@innocentdrinks.co.uk

Good luck!

Compare The Meerkat - RESULTS

There have been quite a few article on the success and business results of CompareTheMeerkat.com, so I thought that it might be good to pull some topline results together and share them as it's a good business case study.

Though of course, he's now at 556, 677 fans on Facebook and 25, 120 on Twitter

If you want more stats, the best place is the Admap article on "How a meerkat became a social media hero...".  The article talks about the VCCP planning methodology which aims to help encourage participatory creative ideas. The second phase Unlimited Creativity essentially asks 3 questions:
Why should I talk/blog/tweet about this idea?
How can I get involved in this idea?
What keeps the conversation going?

It's also interesting to see the effect that this campaign has had on their price comparison competitors: according to Hitwise rival MoneySupermarket.com's traffic fell shed 25.2 per cent, Confused.com dropped 5 per cent and GoCompare.com fell 31.8 per cent.

All competitors have put their advertising up for pitch since Aleksandr's arrival.

I hope that this helps demonstrate the process and some of the business results behind a much loved creative campaign.

Simples.

o2's magic new ad

I think it's a neat way of bringing this proposition to life. The story behind the ad is quite interesting - the magician in the ad is a Londoner called Brendan Patricks. He was trained by street magician Dynamo. 

It's magic not CGI.

And the free Load and Go pre-paid debit card is a pretty compelling product if you're on o2. I'm considering getting one as a way of budgeting and kurbing my handbag addiction...

Battle of Big Thinking, help needed!

The invitation to "battle" came through a while back and I said yes.

John emailed me about this while I was on holiday and starting putting the fear of god into me.  It's much more hard-core than I had realised. You "battle" head to head with experts in your chosen field, the audience votes, losers are eliminated and then finally the Biggest Thinker is chosen. In front of a paying audience of your peers.

I am absolutely petrified.

I did the IPA Fast Strategy conference this year as I knew it was a team thing. This is a whole other kettle of fish.

I have never been to a Battle of Big Thinking before.

Can anyone help me (and John!) and give us some thoughts on what seems to engage, inspire and provoke people at other Battles of Big Thinking. And also what hasn't worked in the past. I would be eternally grateful.

The only way that I am keeping myself calm is the fact that John and I now call it:

The Skirmish of Half-Formed Musings

Seriously though, it's an interesting diverse line up of folk from client side and agencies of all shapes and sizes. It looks set to be a fascinating day

Write ups of past sessions have always been incredibly positive

You can get tickets from Celia.Miranda@Haymarket.com 0208 267 4919

Does Digital matter anymore??

There is a good debate going on at Digi-Cynic about the future (or not) of pure-play digital agencies.

Jerome who authors the blog has spent quality time in Glue, BBH in London and is  now a Digital Planner W+K Amsterdam so if anyone has a opinion worth engaging with on the subject then it's Jerome. Have a read.

He lists the winners of the 2009 Cannes Cyber Lions:

BBH New York
DENTSU Tokyo
OGILVY & MATHER Düsseldorf
GOODBY SILVERSTEIN & PARTNERS
BOONDOGGLE
BRIDGE WORLDWIDE
BBH London
CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY
DRAFTFCB KOBZA Vienna
PUBLICIS MOJO
DROGA5 New York

A list without many pure-play digital agencies.

It was a similar story at the NMA Effectiveness Awards earlier this month when VCCP won the two most high profile awards, Best Use of Web and Best Use of Social Media for CompareTheMeerkat.com. Given that VCCP is not a pure-play digital agency, we were pretty proud of that. The judges commented that they were impressed with the way that a compelling narrative had been created and extended across multiple, connected digital platforms and the way that characters were developed digitally. VCCP is not a Digital agency, but it seems to "do" Digital pretty well.

The term "Digital" always seemed to be a bit odd really. If you have a Digital Planner, then surely you should have an Analogue Planner? Likewise if there are Digital Agencies than shouldn't there also be Analogue Agencies (but what kind of fool would want to work in an Analogue Agency??) One of the first things that we did when Buster and I started at VCCP Digital in 2007 was to get rid of VCCP Digital. Our logic was that CP+B didn't have CP+B Digital, there was no Anomaly Digital nor a Goodbys Digital. What we wanted to do was digitalize all of VCCP rather than develop a separate stand-alone proposition. We didn't feel that we needed the word Digital in the agency name. It was about digital deliverables not digital descriptors.

However my title did have the word "Digital" in it (Head of Digital Strategy), but I always had a problem with it as a lot of the work that I was doing wasn't actually Digital. I crafted strategies and ideas that were participative, interactive and spreadable, but I'm not sure that I would have said that they were were Digital. That's why I am so happy that I'm now Head of Strategy & Innovation instead of Head of Digital Strategy. A minor tweak, but important. It seems a better description of what I do and what I am trying to do.  Digital is important, but its not the most interesting bit of the job. 

As Clay Shirky says ‘Communication tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.’ Maybe we're coming into the decade when Digital becomes technologically boring as the work becomes socially more interesting. I hope so.