Still Here..

I didn't beat the security guard in, sadly.

Phew.

It's been a few weeks now. So I thought I should write a short missive, before I bugger off to soup/Match of the Day 2.

I have been a busy boy, with quite a few accounts on the go, an inability to remember names/learning how to filter out unnecessary stats (the last bit is taking quite a long time), and just generally worrying that I seem to spend quite a lot of time thinking about things, rather than on the phone, like my account team.

Revisiting the old master.

Still, all's going well. I'm getting to grips with Outlook/meetings and suchlike. I'm also slightly in awe of the account team I sit with, and reminded why I was so rubbish at account handling.

Indeed, I'm learning how to work in a team again, what with all of the different personalities and behaviours. Working as a freelancer really doesn't teach you that, as nice as it is. Of course, those same people can also give you work to do, which is sometimes a bit of a bugger, but ah well...it's a learning process, and I'm trying to get to grips with working on multiple accounts with different priorities.

It's all a bit mind bending, jumping from one strategic problem to the neck. But I'm learning. The next thing will be briefing folk. I'm sure it'll all be good...

All of that said, I wish the Piccadilly line wasn't such a bastard. Bloody tourists. Heh.

Branding the Branding Industry...

I've got an Adidas one on my left buttock. Picture via MLeak. Usual rules, etc.

Or 'why Get Smashed should be a reminder to have fun'.

You'd have thought, with all of the branding we do for clients, and how we state that keeping their identity and touch points is so important, we'd be a little better at taking our own advice.

With the endless pontification and navel gazing on the internet, I fear it's gotten worse. I mean, yesterday's shit storm about the new Cadbury's ad is case in point. The amount of people being terrified about the implications of their jobs, whether the planning function is defunct - is absolutely astounding.

I view it as a bit of a special case, as I've said before - a one off; it works because of the context, the media spend (very very clever), the fact that Cadbury's is like oxygen to chocolate lovers, and that it's undisputably number one in its marketplace.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Honestly, I don't think I know another industry that's so bloody frightened of its own shadow. We make ads, we try and make people buy things/do good/influence behaviour. Nothing more. We sometimes act as if we believe we're Clarkson, Piers Morgan and Adolf Hitler rolled into one, and we're very very sorry about everything we've done, past present and future.

Just stop it, please. Because, if you don't, things like this press conference will start to impinge, and we'll be left with a throughly sterile and boring industry, clamped down by the powers that be.

And, in a worst case scenario, this self-loathing seems to descend to everything; older members of staff wishing they were still in the 80's or 90's, junior staff with no real opinions of their own, fighting to please people at the expense of their own mental state/health.

I think a large part of the problem stems from the fear of being seen as an empty, pointless industry - and God knows, whenever cameras are rolling, it usually appears so. Raymond Chandler's words resound: "Chess is a elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency".

Why can't we celebrate the nonsense, and focus on what we're good at - helping to build businesses, brands and institutions. None of this self-reflective, ultimately destructive bollocks.

Never mind the brand bollocks, here's experiential marketing...

Not sure what he'd have made of this. Not a lot, probably.

Now, I'm not a very big Sex Pistols fan (sorry Marcus), to be honest. A bit before my time - and I think they're one of those bands you have to have either been alive during their ascendency, or have some tie to their music, and I have neither (that said, I love the Clash).

But I thought it'd be useful to discuss what made them such a good band in light of what the ad community finds itself in at the moment - what would appear to be the battle between conventional branding and experience.

The Sex Pistols, as I've said above, to me, are all about the raw, visceral experience, something which is magnified by actually being there. Now, there are other forms of music (yes, some of the Clash's stuff), which don't really require the 'being there' experience.

And I think the same is true of advertising.

Let's have a look at the current ad du jour, that of Cadbury's Dairy Milk:



And there have been a few comments already from respective ad bloggers.

First of all, let's consider this in light of what we know already. Cadbury's DM is the first choice in consumers' minds. Market leading, yada yada. So, just how much conventional planning does there need to be for something like this? People get their entertainment experience, and it makes people laugh.

Look at one of the youtube comments: "I think it's just a fun advert, nice and simple - Just like dairy milk! :P"

And let's consider it in light of when the media was sold - during Big Brother, ultimately the best example of throw away entertainment today. So it fits its target audience, who just want to be entertained; no sort of intellectual posturing will work here.

What is potentially troubling to those who don't like the ad, it would seem, is that there's no obvious connnection between the product and the ad. The worry is that it won't do anything for Cadbury's sales, but get people talking about the gorilla drumming. I'd love to see the recall stats for this ad. But does any of this matter for Cadbury, who are number one anyway?

Let me tie this post together. Bluntly, I think there's a bit of a dichotomy between conventional brand planning and the more fast and loose experiential work at the moment. Additionally, I think both are beginning to inform on each other - the Cadbury's ad is an experience, pure and simple, and more and more experiential work is adopting more brand cues - look at some of the work Iris have done for Sony Ericsson (most notably 'Gig in the Sky' and 'Night Tennis').

Unlike a lot of the people in the threads posted earlier, I'm not worried about planning's role in all of this - surely, its role was to advise how best to reach the target audience for Cadbury's DM (I'm guessing 15-30 year olds, but I could be wrong) and what would maximise salesamongst this age group. Now, I'd love to see what the sales figures are like afterwards, just to see if planning/advertising is changing beyond just meeting business expectations, as Marcus proposes here.

Brands, it would seem, have the greatest success when they latch onto a zeitgeist, or create one themselves. Both experential marketing and 'normal' branding can do this - but it may lead to the conventional lines of what planning is changing. And it perhaps asks a bigger question - does this matter?

Are we getting into 'Ads for Ads sake' territory here?

I don't think so, but one thing's for sure - the devices we are using to inform our audiences are blurring the techniques that underly it all.

Generation Why?

The picture is from Lerema (usual policy applies; I'll take it down if you wish)

Imagine you are a marketeer.

You know that your audience is creating more of those strange videos online; you know about MySpace, but that's all fine, because Rupert Murdoch has bought it out for a large amount of money, and is going to conventionally market to them.

If you are particularly savvy, you know that that isn't going to last. They'll move on, and virtual tumbleweeds will inhabit that space.

User generated content may get passe'; after all, as a lot of abandoned blogs prove, people can't keep on being creative and innovative. It's why most blogs are simply link-fests with few original thoughts (including this post, inspired by Adnostic's post on the subject).

So how do you tap into this new generation's revenue stream? Well, firstly, you can accept that the pace of change is coming faster and faster than ever. Trends are found out not only via social networking sites, but by a mixture of the generations that have gone before them. Converse, for example, may have been originally regarded as a Gen X'er brand, but it's coming back in a big way.

To make you realise just how this new generation is changing - they don't regard Michael Jordan as the face of Nike, or maybe even basketball. Oasis, to them, weren't the biggest band in the world, ever.

And this is a generation which is much larger than the 17mill X'ers that made up the last wave. If anything, this picture paints a grim one for those who rely on mass-market trends. Those who will succeed will be those who spark a mass trend, and, I believe, those who are niche brands to begin with.

I'm not saying 'down with Levi, Nike & Coke'. That just won't happen. However, those niche brands which may never have had the spotlight may find their '15 minutes of fame' more forthcoming in this new media landscape.

Yet, I think those brands which try and court Gen Y with freebies and help them make their own content do the other Generations a disservice; I just don't think (in that respect), Y is that much different than other Gens. Y, like X and all of those before them, like smart ads which don't treat them like mugs/acknowledge their message - this last point is perhaps the most important; being self-aware to this generation is the key.

So why all the fear over Y? Branding (to our fictional marketing manager) has become more of a tightrope - but it's also never been more exciting.

Respect your audience and their love for the next cool thing, and you'll be fine. Trying too hard is death; but then, it always has been - it's just this time around, the next Generation has the power to sink your business in one nochalent 'huh'.