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.
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