Monday, March 23, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Rich Media Love Cocktails
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who came down to our very intimate soiree on thursday night. It was so good getting that many creative minds in the same room. Especially as it was completely undiluted! We will definitely be doing it again soon so I hope we will see you all again at the next Rich Media Love event!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Advertising Love
I hear so many people talk to me about how evil advertising is and how they despise it. However I have a very different view on this. I percieve advertising as the only art form that finds you rather than you having to search for it. It has enriched my life by bringing so much new and exciting music into it. The best adverts are like mini films that make me think and spur on my own creativity. Advertising can be the patron for new up and coming artists, funding them and their other projects in the way the gentry would fund the old masters so they could create the masterpieces we so highly revere hundreds of years later. Advertising fills my head with amazing imagery, sounds and ideas and is the training ground for great creative minds, photographers and directors like David LaChapelle and Ridley Scott (he made hundreds of adverts before moving into films and said he would never have learnt half the things he did without this time and money to hone his skill). So for all the terrible adverts you might see just remember the great ones that enrich our lives and often are far more beautifully crafted and ingenious than the television programmes or articles that they surround.
Happy Birthday to Baron Otto Von Harmes
Just wanted to say happy birthday to a very close collaborator of mine. I hope you have a good one and you get enough time to play those games and wiff a bit of waff, after a good pink mist obviously but hopefully you won't be needing that tonight of all nights!
Happy birthday mate!
Much cheapness
I often find myself thinking about advertising in my spare time, I must have mental deficiencies I'm sure. Something I often ponder relates to the cheapness of advertising, let me expand on that before all the media buyers out there have a coronary.
I was watching an advertising campaign on tv for a company that sells sofas and the quality of all aspects of their advert was shockingly bad (filming, acting, sound, cameras etc....). I started getting angry with the level of awfulness as I have worked making tv and film and also know how much it costs to buy the space the advert would appear in. The cost of making the advert look and feel acceptable is a fraction of the cost of the space so why would they do it? I then started to think about all those brands that intentionally set out to make themselves look cheap so as not to scare any customers away at the prospect of high prices, using primary colours - gaudy and aesthetically unpleasing - and how they know exactly what they are doing when appealing to their target market (I know this very well as I designed and developed a few of them myself!). To cut a long story short this advert and brand has kept springing back into my head all the time over the christmas period and into January and I have been thinking of this advert in depth for weeks now (creating more memories linked between myself and this brand).
Ultimately I have started to question now whether this is the best advertising campaign I have ever seen as no matter how beautiful, subversive, exciting or entrancing a good advert can be none of them have ever lead me to think in such detail and depth about them as this advert has managed to!
I was watching an advertising campaign on tv for a company that sells sofas and the quality of all aspects of their advert was shockingly bad (filming, acting, sound, cameras etc....). I started getting angry with the level of awfulness as I have worked making tv and film and also know how much it costs to buy the space the advert would appear in. The cost of making the advert look and feel acceptable is a fraction of the cost of the space so why would they do it? I then started to think about all those brands that intentionally set out to make themselves look cheap so as not to scare any customers away at the prospect of high prices, using primary colours - gaudy and aesthetically unpleasing - and how they know exactly what they are doing when appealing to their target market (I know this very well as I designed and developed a few of them myself!). To cut a long story short this advert and brand has kept springing back into my head all the time over the christmas period and into January and I have been thinking of this advert in depth for weeks now (creating more memories linked between myself and this brand).
Ultimately I have started to question now whether this is the best advertising campaign I have ever seen as no matter how beautiful, subversive, exciting or entrancing a good advert can be none of them have ever lead me to think in such detail and depth about them as this advert has managed to!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Widgets - Room To Let
Flat shares. Everyone's done them. A hotbed of social interaction and Gastroentiritis; some people will have fond memories, some not.
Few people will have been in the unenviable position of 'auditioning' for the one room in a London flat larger than a shoebox but cheaper than a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Those that have will understand the import placed on just a few minutes with the owners of said room-to-let: candidates must show themselves to be sociable and trustworthy. More importantly, they need to prove that they'll be around long enough to pay the gas bill so as to avoid a nasty eviction notice. And the possibility of the owner's 'friends' coming round to 'do your knees in'.
Widget ads. Everyone's doing them. A hotbed of social interaction and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; some people will have fond memories, most not.
Where widgets differ from flat shares is that they are in the enviable position of auditioning for the small real estate available on users' social network sites. Why is this enviable? OK so there's competition, but this is the perfect platform for getting users to truly engage with your campaign and, ultimately, your brand. The problem is, no one's taking this opportunity to anywhere near its full potential. Widget ads should be considered in a similar way to how you would approach a flat-share audition - the widget must make the owners of the real estate need to let it in their lives and maybe even introduce it to a few friends. To do so, it's imperative that the widget covers three major factors of consideration - namely incentive, interactivity and longevity.
Incentive - consider that your widget represents your brand. Simple enough. Now, understand that the social networking site represents the user's brand and that the user will have their own brand guidelines to which they will vehemently adhere. Not so simple. It's up to you to make sure your brand is going to fit with the user's. If what you're selling isn't going to immediately engage with users in a social network context then, well, you might want to reconsider widget advertising entirely. But if you really want to get down with The Kids then the least you can do to better your chances is to offer them a bung in exchange for the box-room. Let them download content exclusive to widget users. Promise to keep them updated with new releases. Give them that reason to let you in.
Interactivity - No one's going to let their spare room to the sort of person who timidly uses the 'Self Checkout' at Tesco in the small hours of the morning so as to avoid human interaction. And if your widget is just as reticent to engage with people then users will reciprocate this antipathy. Remember that you're targeting
the // (SlashSlash) generation who want to use the Internet as the interactive medium it is. DO approach users with open arms: command them to talk to you; embrace you; tickle you. DON'T approach prospective flat mates in the same way. People scare easy.
Longevity - You wouldn't apply for a flat share on a short-term lease so why do the same for widget users? Just as you'll need to prove that you'll be in the flat long enough to share bills, cleaning and cheese you'll need to prove to users that they'll need you on their social network site for years to come. Longevity ties-in nicely with incentive - promise them The Earth in ten installments (not including the Gaza Strip) and, as long as you deliver, they'll be yours forever. Or at least until they complete the collection. Use dynamic updating in your widget and they'll be telling their grandchildren about it. Who wouldn't offer their spare room to the person who can tell them the latest on the FTSE 100 whilst keeping them up to date on weather patterns over Grimsby and train times to Ormskirk? Exactly...
One last important thing to consider: the widget that will appear on users' social network sites is, quite simply, a whole new ad tag. This means that the widget content can be completely different to the ad that drove the users to accept it! Use this to your advantage! DON'T just stick a share panel on the back of every ad - it won't take users long to become savvy to the idea that they'll be sharing just another advert to their social network site and the widget will soon go the way of the pop-ups. So don't spoil it for everyone else.
If you can deliver all of these things then you will have a truly viral campaign. And if that doesn't work, at least you'll have a roof over your head and new flatmates to console you.
Few people will have been in the unenviable position of 'auditioning' for the one room in a London flat larger than a shoebox but cheaper than a pair of Manolo Blahniks. Those that have will understand the import placed on just a few minutes with the owners of said room-to-let: candidates must show themselves to be sociable and trustworthy. More importantly, they need to prove that they'll be around long enough to pay the gas bill so as to avoid a nasty eviction notice. And the possibility of the owner's 'friends' coming round to 'do your knees in'.
Widget ads. Everyone's doing them. A hotbed of social interaction and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; some people will have fond memories, most not.
Where widgets differ from flat shares is that they are in the enviable position of auditioning for the small real estate available on users' social network sites. Why is this enviable? OK so there's competition, but this is the perfect platform for getting users to truly engage with your campaign and, ultimately, your brand. The problem is, no one's taking this opportunity to anywhere near its full potential. Widget ads should be considered in a similar way to how you would approach a flat-share audition - the widget must make the owners of the real estate need to let it in their lives and maybe even introduce it to a few friends. To do so, it's imperative that the widget covers three major factors of consideration - namely incentive, interactivity and longevity.
Incentive - consider that your widget represents your brand. Simple enough. Now, understand that the social networking site represents the user's brand and that the user will have their own brand guidelines to which they will vehemently adhere. Not so simple. It's up to you to make sure your brand is going to fit with the user's. If what you're selling isn't going to immediately engage with users in a social network context then, well, you might want to reconsider widget advertising entirely. But if you really want to get down with The Kids then the least you can do to better your chances is to offer them a bung in exchange for the box-room. Let them download content exclusive to widget users. Promise to keep them updated with new releases. Give them that reason to let you in.
Interactivity - No one's going to let their spare room to the sort of person who timidly uses the 'Self Checkout' at Tesco in the small hours of the morning so as to avoid human interaction. And if your widget is just as reticent to engage with people then users will reciprocate this antipathy. Remember that you're targeting
the // (SlashSlash) generation who want to use the Internet as the interactive medium it is. DO approach users with open arms: command them to talk to you; embrace you; tickle you. DON'T approach prospective flat mates in the same way. People scare easy.
Longevity - You wouldn't apply for a flat share on a short-term lease so why do the same for widget users? Just as you'll need to prove that you'll be in the flat long enough to share bills, cleaning and cheese you'll need to prove to users that they'll need you on their social network site for years to come. Longevity ties-in nicely with incentive - promise them The Earth in ten installments (not including the Gaza Strip) and, as long as you deliver, they'll be yours forever. Or at least until they complete the collection. Use dynamic updating in your widget and they'll be telling their grandchildren about it. Who wouldn't offer their spare room to the person who can tell them the latest on the FTSE 100 whilst keeping them up to date on weather patterns over Grimsby and train times to Ormskirk? Exactly...
One last important thing to consider: the widget that will appear on users' social network sites is, quite simply, a whole new ad tag. This means that the widget content can be completely different to the ad that drove the users to accept it! Use this to your advantage! DON'T just stick a share panel on the back of every ad - it won't take users long to become savvy to the idea that they'll be sharing just another advert to their social network site and the widget will soon go the way of the pop-ups. So don't spoil it for everyone else.
If you can deliver all of these things then you will have a truly viral campaign. And if that doesn't work, at least you'll have a roof over your head and new flatmates to console you.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
"The Tale of Despereaux" Game
The guys at Framestore have just finished working on a new feature film "The Tale of Despereaux" and cleverly got some of the rendering and lighting specialists in their office to render and light a flash game they had worked on for the film. I thought I would share this with everyone as it is one of the most aesthetically beautiful flash games I have ever seen but equally importantly it is highly addictive - you have been warned!
"The Tale of Despereaux" Game
"The Tale of Despereaux" Game
Friday, December 12, 2008
A Personal Rant On Rich Media
I was with a client the other day giving a talk and at the end they asked me to put down a small section of what I was discussing into written form so that they could send it to their clients to help them understand some of the ideas surrounding the developments of Rich Media advertising. I then decided to be lazy and just copy and paste it all into a blog, so here is some of it.....
Rich Media should be viewed in a completely different manner to standard media, It should be thought of as either its own self contained microsite or, even more efficiently, be taken as a modular extension of the overall site. The user should feel that once they move from the advertising to the site that they have not moved somewhere completely different but have just evolved from the advert into the site with a smooth gradual movement. In the best cases a clickthrough itself should become virtually redundant but always available.
In many cases Rich media should be viewed in the mindset that it is a replacement for the clickthrough to the site. Everything that can be done in the site should be done in the advert to build up the relationship and also get the user to invest a little time in the advert as then they will not want to feel that this time has been wasted. Once time has been invested then the likelihood of the user continuing and advancing this investment means they won't drop off in the same manner and also their experience will be fuller. In fact if the Rich Media campaign has been executed successfully then the user should realistically never need to actually clickthrough to the site as there will be nothing more there for them than there was in the advert, unless they are interested in a different sector of the business. However they will ultimately want to do it due to the previous time invested. The only restrictions on this coming from the sites end and from cost (creatives can usually be as large as is wanted but it will usually just cost slightly more I have seen creatives in the past that of 30, 60 and 100 megs!). This then leads onto changes in spend being proportioned more effectively and where niche/micro targeting becomes increasingly important and effective.
Ultimately the advertising can be based around the site itself so campaigns are planned to relate back to certain areas of a site depending on what sector the advertising is for. Therefore the advertising campaigns should be planned on a much longer term and in conjunction with the overall marketing direction of the brand. The site, the print, the tv and the online all being developed simultaneously so that they all work together as one faction and are planned to develop over a far longer period of time.
If you couple this outlook with the new technological developments that are arising in terms of the way adverts are built and viewed (Dynamic adverts, contextually targeted, geo-targeted, fully updatedable content, bespoke widget placements) then planning and buying space will change dramatically too as adverts begin to become ad tags that the content can be updated on within the space of a few minutes and are malleable to the requirements of the client. Space could be bought far in advance and then re-sold if not required for a larger amount on ad exchanges.
Rich Media needs to be approached with the mentality that the clickthrough itself should not be the ultimate result of the campaign. A far more important metric is to look into the interaction with the advertising. To relate this to the difference between Standard and Rich Media I would equate Standard to the sort of advertising that Alan Sugar likes (Picture of product, cheap price in big font, buy now!) and Rich Advertising like a Guiness Advertising Campaign (Subversive, fully branded, working on long term passive memories rather than instant memories which fade far faster). The Sugar manner only works for the user who just wants to click through and buy something, there will be no brand relationship built, no feeling of being a part of a community, no way to create and develop the overall ethos of a brand. Therefore this works well for cheap, mass produced, throw away items but for big brands who are creating some sort of lifestyle this approach is far wider spread but does in no way target the people you actually want and in no way creates brand loyalty in the way that Rich media advertising will.
Online campaigns seem to be looked at as cannon fodder, throw enough mud at the wall and it sticks. This I think is due to the old mentality bleeding over from Print and TV where there was little or no targeting so they way to get the best results was directly proportional to how much time and space was purchased. Online advertising is the first place you can make sure no money is wasted on people who are not your customers and the spend can be applied more effectively so that you give the right people the right experience. It is also possible to use the online campaigns as a precursor to every other part of the advertising as you can get real market research from the online results to make sure you are placing your advertising perfectly for the customer base. This can save huge amounts of the spend and make sure it is used in the most effective manner. This is also true in far precise manners with the overall online campaign that will result from this as within a day of it being live (you can tell what is working and why) and then dynamically change the other creatives in the campaign to optimise every aspect of them.
On the point of interactions in a Rich media creative lots of users are fearful of interacting as they feel the creative will just try and take them through to a site as soon as they click any part of it. Therefore they just don't click as they are busy and don't want to wait for a whole new site to load in, which is why drop off rates are so high on all online media. I personally believe that a good solution to this would be to have all interactivity set out to work on the right click button so the user feels safe to play and interact with content as much as they want without clicking through. Then once they have been persuaded by the advert they then have the freedom to move onto the site to add more value to their relationship with the brand. This however will be a much more long term plan as it will take users quite a long time for this to work its way into the collective consciousness and become the norm.
Rich Media should be viewed in a completely different manner to standard media, It should be thought of as either its own self contained microsite or, even more efficiently, be taken as a modular extension of the overall site. The user should feel that once they move from the advertising to the site that they have not moved somewhere completely different but have just evolved from the advert into the site with a smooth gradual movement. In the best cases a clickthrough itself should become virtually redundant but always available.
In many cases Rich media should be viewed in the mindset that it is a replacement for the clickthrough to the site. Everything that can be done in the site should be done in the advert to build up the relationship and also get the user to invest a little time in the advert as then they will not want to feel that this time has been wasted. Once time has been invested then the likelihood of the user continuing and advancing this investment means they won't drop off in the same manner and also their experience will be fuller. In fact if the Rich Media campaign has been executed successfully then the user should realistically never need to actually clickthrough to the site as there will be nothing more there for them than there was in the advert, unless they are interested in a different sector of the business. However they will ultimately want to do it due to the previous time invested. The only restrictions on this coming from the sites end and from cost (creatives can usually be as large as is wanted but it will usually just cost slightly more I have seen creatives in the past that of 30, 60 and 100 megs!). This then leads onto changes in spend being proportioned more effectively and where niche/micro targeting becomes increasingly important and effective.
Ultimately the advertising can be based around the site itself so campaigns are planned to relate back to certain areas of a site depending on what sector the advertising is for. Therefore the advertising campaigns should be planned on a much longer term and in conjunction with the overall marketing direction of the brand. The site, the print, the tv and the online all being developed simultaneously so that they all work together as one faction and are planned to develop over a far longer period of time.
If you couple this outlook with the new technological developments that are arising in terms of the way adverts are built and viewed (Dynamic adverts, contextually targeted, geo-targeted, fully updatedable content, bespoke widget placements) then planning and buying space will change dramatically too as adverts begin to become ad tags that the content can be updated on within the space of a few minutes and are malleable to the requirements of the client. Space could be bought far in advance and then re-sold if not required for a larger amount on ad exchanges.
Rich Media needs to be approached with the mentality that the clickthrough itself should not be the ultimate result of the campaign. A far more important metric is to look into the interaction with the advertising. To relate this to the difference between Standard and Rich Media I would equate Standard to the sort of advertising that Alan Sugar likes (Picture of product, cheap price in big font, buy now!) and Rich Advertising like a Guiness Advertising Campaign (Subversive, fully branded, working on long term passive memories rather than instant memories which fade far faster). The Sugar manner only works for the user who just wants to click through and buy something, there will be no brand relationship built, no feeling of being a part of a community, no way to create and develop the overall ethos of a brand. Therefore this works well for cheap, mass produced, throw away items but for big brands who are creating some sort of lifestyle this approach is far wider spread but does in no way target the people you actually want and in no way creates brand loyalty in the way that Rich media advertising will.
Online campaigns seem to be looked at as cannon fodder, throw enough mud at the wall and it sticks. This I think is due to the old mentality bleeding over from Print and TV where there was little or no targeting so they way to get the best results was directly proportional to how much time and space was purchased. Online advertising is the first place you can make sure no money is wasted on people who are not your customers and the spend can be applied more effectively so that you give the right people the right experience. It is also possible to use the online campaigns as a precursor to every other part of the advertising as you can get real market research from the online results to make sure you are placing your advertising perfectly for the customer base. This can save huge amounts of the spend and make sure it is used in the most effective manner. This is also true in far precise manners with the overall online campaign that will result from this as within a day of it being live (you can tell what is working and why) and then dynamically change the other creatives in the campaign to optimise every aspect of them.
On the point of interactions in a Rich media creative lots of users are fearful of interacting as they feel the creative will just try and take them through to a site as soon as they click any part of it. Therefore they just don't click as they are busy and don't want to wait for a whole new site to load in, which is why drop off rates are so high on all online media. I personally believe that a good solution to this would be to have all interactivity set out to work on the right click button so the user feels safe to play and interact with content as much as they want without clicking through. Then once they have been persuaded by the advert they then have the freedom to move onto the site to add more value to their relationship with the brand. This however will be a much more long term plan as it will take users quite a long time for this to work its way into the collective consciousness and become the norm.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Dynamic Ads Follow Up - Rob's Geeky Discoveries Blog
In a follow up to one of my previous blogs about Dynamic Ads being the future of Rich Media Advertising I found this blog talking about one of the precursor platforms to this type of technology. This was a Content Management System created by Doubleclick and Glue to allow the Sun to update RSS feeds into their creatives. Rob explains it far better than me so have a read of his blog and it should help to explain the evolution of Dynamic Ads!
Rob's Geeky Discoveries Blog - Sun Content Update CMS
Rob's Geeky Discoveries Blog - Sun Content Update CMS
Monday, December 1, 2008
emotional advertising
a good ad has the ability to make you feel something, either empathy or sympathy, happy or sad, intrigued or maybe even repulsed.
a recent example that i have seen was the video ads for the charity barnardo's. while they obviously have technical merits being beautifully shot videos which work really well on tv and online in full-screen, their impact is purely down to their message that you have the power to break the cycle, to really listen to what children are saying and to affect the outcome of their lives.
after watching the ads i felt drained, sad, angry and a frustrated. drained because watching the ads takes an emotional commitment, sad due to the number of lives which are doubtless affected by the mal-treatment of the kids, angry that more wasn't being done to break the cycle and frustrated that the only thing that i can do is to click and donate but when the campaign ends that will be the measure of its success.
the last ad that made me cry was one for kleenex in which a little kid runs around the town to bring some tissues to his grandmother who was cutting an onion, was this a great ad? probably not but it hit me at the right time and i always remember it when i buy tissues. every man and his dog tries to be funny in his ad, maybe the true measure of creativity should be - how many people will cry.
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