When is it right to experiment?

Would you let this man do it? Picture via jbcurio, usual rules apply.

As the last post on anti-social brands alluded to, my position on what brands should and shouldn't do is very much rooted in their history.

Ignoring history is, I think, a problem of the communications industry; it gives what's gone before a short shrift, always trying the newest and most exciting thing, which it claims is going to be the new and revolutionary approach to branding/thinking/marketing/life. This is perhaps unsurprising; agencies are founded and built on their thoughts and approaches - to always be seen to take the lead, so they can 'add value'.

Though it's a bit GCSE Business Studies, what's the damage of doing this? What benefits do you lose when you discard previous thinking? Recently, there's been a raft of new campaigns that fly in the face of the past 10/20 years of advertising. If all you're trying to do with your brand is ensure it's able to be 'remixed', I think you ignore an important point, that brands are founded on points of view - either superior product, or a thought about the world/marketplace they operate in.

That's not to say i'd try to stop brands from innovating, or from agencies from pitching the latest in content, but I would try to stop the relentless need for change that seems to have blighted the marketplace in the last ten years or so. Maybe it's got something to do with the speed of technological change, or the length of time Marketing Directors have in their job, or that agencies have become increasingly like magpies - only interested in the next shiny thing.

In fact, it's a funny thing. In a time where planners are obsessed with the psychology of loss aversion (the fear of losing something, a feeling that's so strong, people go out of their way to avoid having things taken away) it's surprising that we don't apply this thinking to marketing or advertising. Why aren't we more worried about brands trying to do away with our expertise? Agencies like being seen as cutting edge when they suggest it. But why don't they do away with this need? Why don't they man up, and point out the economic danger of playing with the brand, both for the client and the agency.

I think this is also wrapped up in the 'wisdom of crowds' (which, i'd suggest, is used improperly a lot of the time). Often, the masses have a confused opinion when aggregrated - as Jeremy Bullmore highlights. With that in mind, what hope have they of creating a coherent campaign? I'd rather one or two informed people's strong opinion shining through the work, and that opinion disseminated to their respective agency/client sides, so there's a sense that the brand's position doesn't get confused.

Wanting to be the rainmaker in your agency or industry is all well and good, but it's not always the right thing to do. Knowing when experimentation should happen, or how conversation can enable experiments - that's the mark of a top quality comms person.

I'm thinking of brands like Walkers, who took a commonly held truism (that their consumers all would like a specialised version of their products), asked the masses, and then aggregated it themselves. They didn't just blindly turn the brand's point of view and communications over to consumers. That would have flown in the face of their years of building a brand and product that is too good to share.

And, most importantly, I don't think most people can be bothered with it. I'm in complete agreement with Tom Ewing here. Walkers worked because people wanted to get involved, and there was a commonly held thought that people could come up with good flavours.

Participating in conversations about your brand, whether they are about politics, economics or culture is surely a good thing. I worry that the magpie within a lot of comms folk leads to people to getting involved in situations which aren't right for their brand/s.

Anti Social Brands...

Lolcat goodness, via msmail. Usual rules apply.

I'll be honest, I didn't go to IPASocial, despite the ferocious twittering around it. So i'm going to caveat these remarks with that.

I didn't go despite the fact a lot of my friends were speaking. While I like socialising with them, I can be sociable just as easily in the pub, as well as debating the finer points of online and offline behaviour (I'd also forgotten when it was on).

Plus, as Sam rightly pointed out, for an event about social behaviour, it was unusual with its differing charges for members and non members (which I usually don't mind, but it seemed to be against the principles of the evening; especially rule 2 - a social agenda, not a business agenda).

I'll be interested to see whether it goes, and what happens when a brand adopts some of those principles directly from the event; that'd make a case study i'd love to find out more about.

With all of that said, I think there's a point it might all be missing; that being 'social' isn't for every company or brand.

I don't give a stuff what most brands think about things - do I care that my bank thinks about the world differently, or cares that all of its customers are bright, shiny snowflakes? No. I don't. I care that it's able to manage my money, not rip me off, and not go bust any time soon. And, to be honest, i'm more interested in giving to a bank which cares about what I think it should be good at.

In fact, I somewhat admire this close minded stance for brands who offer an emotional or physical experience which is like no other brand's. Making a virtue of sticking to what you know, and what you're good at still creates loyalists.

And it can even live on 'social' networks. Look at Tower Bridge, or Henry Winter (the Telegraph's tip top football writer). People know about them, and them not being social or responding isn't really an issue.

I think getting too wedded to social brand behaviour is bloody dangerous, especially as 10% of twitter users generate most of the content. Yes, we're inherently social creatures, but to our friends and family. Not necessarily to brands.

Brands - I don't want to be your friend, I just want you to do your job, and do it better than your competition. In fact, I rather like it when that's all you focus on. Be useful to me and i'll like you. Don't get hung up on being social for the sake of it.

I hate to use the 'brands like people' thing here, but it's true to some extent; some brands are the life and soul of the party. Some are the socially awkward introverts who have other interests than being loquacious. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The Great Integration Myth...?

How it should be?

You hear a lot of chat about the importance of being integrated. About how, when all the bits are working together, communication seems to be a lot better. Reading the IPA DataBank backs this up too - when there are 3 or 4 channels, client money tends to work an awful lot harder.

So really, using a myriad of channels isn't in question. However, what that doesn't tend to address is the overlap. It's tricky, because most agencies believe they can do just as well as the others at brand building, at social media (because, let's be honest, isn't all media social in some way?) and at generating 'buzz'.

And who should lead? The ad agency? The PR agency? The digital agency? Media? Should it be divvied up by the activity the client wants to perform, or should people work together and decide who gets the lion's share of the budget?

The problem comes when one agency is clearly the generator of the idea and strategy, and yet, executionally, won't get monetised for making it. What value an idea, and so on - it seems to me why a lot of bright brand consultancies don't last that long, because billing for an idea is like nailing jelly to a wall. It just won't stick.

It gets even more complicated when there's one holding company, with each agency having its own bottom line. And it got me thinking - why don't clients make it quite clear about what channel/s they want to use, and pay for an overall 'organising' agency - the agency which is going to provide the strategic glue to hold it together?

Without this payment, you just get a boatload of activities which either don't correspond, or don't work as hard as they should, as agencies are fighting for their own slice of the pie. And it tends to be woefully short termist. If it were me, I'd reserve 20/30% of the budget to adapt the thinking as the campaign goes on, to be spent refining after the work has been responded to by your audience. That part of the budget would be left as money for the strategic partner to assign to a channel as the campaign continues on; after six months, say.

This thought isn't perfect, I admit. But it's clear that the one stop shop is yet to wholly bear fruit (although there are examples out there - VCCP's integration of digital/search/PR and ATL work has worked well for several clients, it'd seem), and this 'come up with an idea' approach by some clients leads to a bunfight a lot of the time.

Thoughts, gang?

Why I Play Golf...

The great man, Bobby Jones. Better than Tiger. Honest.

It's the evening of the final major of the year, the USPGA (the red headed stepchild of other majors), and i'm about to settle in and see whether Tiger can win another to close in on Mr Nicklaus.

And, I thought - amidst all the nonsense I wang on about brands, I thought I'd write a piece about just why I like the sport so much.

And God knows, I do. I've played ever since I was 14, when I watched my father get into it around the time of his 50th birthday. That was 11 years ago, and my interest has waxed and waned depending on how well I was playing. But I still return to it. And now, based in London, I feel the need to play more than ever. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

I've always been moderately competent at sport (or cheerfully mediocre). I've got reasonable hand eye co-ordination, and can usually be relied upon to give someone a game of football, tennis or badminton. But as time goes on, I find all of them lacking a certain something when I play. I mean, I love to watch football in any form, along with tennis - some of the things the pros can do really fascinates me. To watch, football is still my favourite, just because when it's played with any degree of skill, there's a lot more artistry to it than any other sport. The likes of cricket and rugby can be exciting, but there's not the constancy of football.

Now, when it comes to playing, it's got to be golf. I still remember going down to the driving range with my first club (a slightly too small 7 iron, as it turned out), and thwacking balls. It was in no way as intuitive as tennis, where I was able to return without really thinking about it. When it came to golf, you really had to think about your grip, your setup and concentrate on making good contact. And so, with a mixture of tops, thins, slices and hooks and, now and then, missing the ball, I worked my way through 90 balls.

God, that was bloody frustrating. But it was also exhilarating; when I saw my little yellow ball (range balls are frequently scrubbier/yellower/not as good as normal course balls) flying to the 100 yard marker, I felt a sense of achievement I just didn't get outside of scoring a goal in football - and even then, it wasn't quite the same; who knew if you'd do anything like as well with your next swing?

And, looking around, you saw a mixture of ages, sexes and athletic abilities doing exactly the same thing. People who would quite obviously have been bloody fantastic at the usual sports were bloody AWFUL at golf. And this was interesting to me. A chance to be good at a sport which was as much played between the ears as anything else.

So I embarked on a series of lessons. Lessons which taught me how to hit the ball with some degree of competency, and finally prepared me to hit the course with my little half set.

And, as you'd expect, round a proper 18 hole course, with my first go - I worked up a cricket score. I remember most of the shots in that 110. And you'd have been forgiven for thinking I should have thought about giving up; but no - one of the truly wonderful things about golf is that no matter HOW badly you play, there's always one shot to give you hope for next time, to make you think you should be able to play like that all the time. For me, it was a 5 wood to within 10 foot on a par 3, which I parred. I was hooked.

Golf allowed me to meet up with various people, to play lots of different courses - way before advertising was amazed about 'communities', I was part of an online golf messageboard (yes, sad bastard, I know), and met some of the guys and played with them.

As I got better, I became more competitive, but it wasn't with a person. It was me versus the course. Golf is the only sport where one moment can entirely unravel your day; where a duff iron shot can cost you nine shots on a Par 4, where your carefully planned round can fall apart.

And, of course, my patience with it came and went. I have quit, vowing never to play again, several times. I swear, I mentally beat myself up. But I keep coming back. Why?

Well, it's not just the one perfect shot. When i'm out on a golf course, I feel more at peace than anywhere else. I love the countryside, and walking around, soaking up the beautiful scenery whilst playing with some degree of skill, and just talking to my playing partners. More often than not, it's my father, and we swear and moan our way round, as well as chatting about how well things have gone.

Crucially, I think I love it because of the imagination involved. Every shot is completely different. The skills required to hit a 7 iron off a good lie are completely different to hitting a low, hooking chip and run from behind a tree. You have to be able to think and plot your way round. What's the wind doing? How does the lie look? What would make the most sense - should you play out sideways or go for it?

It's why so many of the top players have such complex pre-shot routines. You have to be able to imagine these things coming off, in a way you really don't for tennis or badminton, or rugby and football - it's too quick. Whereas in golf, you have time to assess your lie, to think about all the things that could go wrong in your swing (and believe me, there are a lot), and be put off by things around you.

I also (and this is the middle class Englishman in me) love the etiquette inherent in the game. There's so much respect. You don't stand in your opponent's line of sight, you rake bunkers, you replace your divots/holes in the ground after you've played. You praise good shots. You don't make noise when other people are playing. You attend the flag/pull it out for your playing partners. You show respect for the course and for others. No other sport has such levels of respect, and I'll include cricket in this. It's not so much a part of the fabric of the game, right through to the highest level. In no other sport can you call a penalty on yourself, and the pros do.

Then there's the 19th hole (or pub, to the uninitiated), where your round is endlessly replayed and talked about. Which will, I'll be honest, bore any non golfers - along with watching golf on tv - which, if you've never played, is about as enjoyable as watching grass grow.

Yes, there's a lot wrong with the sport - the sexism at certain clubs, the exorbitant price of playing, the slightly over the top dress code (though any sport which insists on a collared shirt being worn is frankly doing the world a favour - no-one wants to see 40+ year old men in football shirts) and the snobbishness. But that's getting better, in my experience.

The sheer pleasure of walking 18 holes, of all the little dramas that come and go in the course of one hole (never mind 18), the camaraderie, the continual thought process of each shot, and the beauty of wandering around beautiful countryside is why I play.

Anyway. I'll get back to seeing if Tiger can hold off Paddy. Let's see.

Responsibility & Job Titles..

Ah...it's all clear. Via T.Young, usual rules apply.

In the hubbub of a summery Friday, two seemingly unconnected things happened. One was this post from Ben, which sparked a lot of anonymous anti-planner chat in the comments. Which is fine. I despair at some of the planning, and some of the briefs i've seen(not mine, obviously - they're always excellent...*cough*) in the time i've been a planner. Some of the worst are those which lift too directly from the client brief, and don't have any hint of a lateral thought, or any kind of springboard. But I digress.

The second was something which happened at my work. I don't tend to write about work, partly because it's pretty standard stuff if you've worked in an ad agency before - making ads/not enough Don Draper esque antics - and partly because detailing the inner workings of an agency often makes said agency look a bit farcical (unless you're W&K, whose blog is excellent). Anyway. We have a brief in the agency which involves writing an awful lot of football orientated headlines. The sort of brief which is a bit like the Economist, in that anyone with a vague knowledge of the topic could write lines for.

And that's what we did. We opened it up, whilst assigning a team to work on it. And you know what? It all went swimmingly. The creative team in question didn't mind us opening it up to other people, and we had a cracking collection of lines to go back with. What was telling was that they were prepared to admit they didn't know it all about the subject, and didn't get defensive when yours truly, a dastardly planner critiqued stuff. It helps that my English degree background (and slightly obsessive football fan nature) means I can have a reasonable stab at what'd work and what wouldn't in this case. I'm not saying it'd work all the time, but in this case, it was the best solution when we didn't have a creative director to hand, and an impending deadline.

And yet, I'm sure a lot of folks reading this have worked in places where people get needlessly defensive if their job feels like it's being done by other people, or 'assisted'. The sort of jobsworthiness that leads to planners getting pissed off if account handlers come up with a better proposition than them, or creatives being able to present ideas better than the account team.

There are many things I can't do. I can't really code HTML at all, create CSS, draw, present without going umm or swearing to break the tension, use photoshop (but i'd like to learn) or write blog posts without using too many ellipses. But there's a host of stuff I'd like to think i'm not bad at - and for this to be shelved because of my job title is frankly, fucking ludicrous.

I mean, why would you want to adhere so religiously to your job title? I may not be the world's best presenter, but for me to put this down to me being a slightly bumbling planner and not attempt to learn how to do it better is a nonsense. To me, it just makes you close your mind, and, in my opinion, ultimately stops you from getting better at your job.

Outside influences are hugely, hugely important to how you think about things. They shouldn't take over - obviously, a well trained copywriter is a much, much better judge of creative work than yours truly - but when your other talents are allowed to come to light now and then, it allows you another perspective, and that surely helps. Think about your favourite musicians, and how they are influenced by other artists/groups. They don't say they haven't had influences, do they?

I think those guys who want to close their minds should watch this video from Google, specifically the piece about Hippos in organisations and how they damage product development and innovation. (NB: A hippo is the highest paid person's opinion, able to kill ideas quickly):



Some of the best people I know are multi-talented ad folk, who've been creatives, planners and account handlers when required. Strategy isn't a department. (Yes, I know that's hugely glib, but it's very true).

Whingers who just want to have their own corner in their agency somewhere, who will take their ball in and not let anyone play with it aren't long for this business. And that can't happen too quickly.

We ALL work in PR.

Looks like a flume, but isn't. Guess. Photo via Whatsername?

It's a little bit of a black hole, isn't it? This being on the internet malarky, creating a digital footprint with every tweet. God knows where it all goes.

I was a touch worried to find out (don't worry, I haven't been googling myself that much...honest) from Priyanka that if you type in my name into google, it begins to auto complete. Fuck me. I'm one of them proper internet people (or tremendous nerds - in fact, almost certainly the latter).

Something, in truth, I never really thought about when I first got into blogging, or writing nonsense on the internet. I wrote to amuse myself. And it got me to thinking. Has this sort of attitude changed?

With the tremendous takeup of twitter by celebrities, do people now primarily use the web as a source of fame, rather than writing to express their opinion? And if so, at what cost? Has 'honesty' been bastardised?

I've always been acutely aware of just what I write online. I don't write anything that I wouldn't say in real life (yes, even taking the piss out of social media, or ranting about how badly put together most organisations seem to be). And I wonder, as people grow up with the technology to say whatever they want, whenever they want to - whether it'll begin to have more negative aspects.

Kids who've never thought about censorship will continue to be positively encouraged to tell brands what they think. With this power, do you honestly think it'll make things better in real life? I don't. I think it'll lead to a lot of people who speak first and ask questions later.

Surely, some of the benefits of being online - being able to enforce change, to speak your mind and improve things - will persist. But I do worry about the other side of things. Is it a job for parents? Part of me shudders at that; no-one had to teach me how to 'be' online. But then, I didn't get online properly until I was about 14 or so, I didn't blog until I was 21.

I'm not suggesting anything so drastic as a code of conduct. That seems like bollocks to me, tremendous overkill.

But, as the title of the post aludes, we are all in PR. All of us have a measure of responsibility of ensuring our online image corresponds to the real thing. I'm not suggesting naming your kids some unique name to ensure you can get the URL (God, that'd be cringey, wouldn't it?), but taking care when you're online is undoubtedly a Very Good Thing.

And this includes those older folk in the communications business. I get hacked off when I get told how to think about twitter by a supposed communications 'guru' who has 34 tweets to his name. Or worse, one with 20,000 followers, who hires people to tweet for him (which he does constantly) - that's not communications, that's the equivalent to pushing 5 yellow pages through the internet's post box daily.

Maybe it comes down to some form of web manners. Which shouldn't mean a stuffy, fastidious code - but more behaviour centred around basic politeness or thoughtfulness.

And to even THINK about this sort of thing boggles my mind. Alongside people needing media training (which is one of the ultimate examples of money for old rope), it's staggering to think people don't interact with media as an everyday thing.

I'm sure the passive massive are out there, but i'm sure their number is dwindling, what with ever increasing opportunities to interact - either to post product reviews or participate in their interests.

And, to me, it's somewhat comforting to know the individuals, not the organisations behind certain things. I like knowing who i'm dealing with, not some faceless agency or business. I can have a relationship with a person. I'm not quite so sure I'd ever value a PR or ad bod's paid opinion in the same way.

In short, it seems honesty's a bit of a two way street online. I'm interested in how it helps (or hurts) people. Especially those who have always had the tools to express it.

Funny old thing, nostalgia...

What a cheeky chappy. Not as good a frontman as Liam, but still.

Like a lot of people, last weekend, I was at Glastonbury. Yes, I'm sure you're sick to the back teeth of hearing about it. Hell, I am, and I was there.

There's a point to this post, rather than shamelessly sticking it to those who weren't there. Chiefly, this; it was the first time in my life that a band (that I can actually remember, and know most of their music) that formed a major part of a musical movement, were reformed. I remember both incarnations.

It's not like the Smashing Pumpkins reforming. In truth, I was too young to properly remember the early Pumpkins - i'd have been about 6 when they first started making music.

No, Blur reforming and headlining on the Sunday was an odd experience for me. I was always more of an Oasis fan (they have two cracking albums, whereas, in my eyes, Blur have none, though they are a great singles band), and in all honesty, was keen to see Blur, but just as excited to have seen the Dead Weather earlier in the weekend, as well as Neil Young (who was the unquestioned highlight of the weekend for me).

And, looking back as the week went on, I failed to understand just what it was that led to such a mass outpouring of nostalgia for Blur. I mean, they've only not been recording for 6 years. Add to that Damon Albarn's faux emotion at Glastonbury; I thought it smacked of a cash in.

I could fully understand the Neil Young fans cheering wildly when he played stuff from Harvest. I mean, imagine finally seeing your hero at Glasto (he'd never played there in his 40+ year career) playing songs from his most successful album. Absolutely brilliant.

But then, I thought about it some more. Do I think that because I wasn't around then? Do my incredibly rose-tinted notions about the 60's and 70's entirely colour my beliefs about Neil Young?

I reckon they do. I lived through Britpop, and to me, Blur were a good band. But then, so were the Bluetones and Supergrass, and they weren't still headlining (though not having split up probably has a large part to do with it) Glastonbury. They also weren't seen to have begun the movement, as Blur were.

But my memories remain - Britpop, for me, doesn't really feature Blur. It's all about Oasis, about Definitely Maybe, about playing and watching football, about What's The Story and knowing all the words to do, about discovering the Stone Roses after, about knowing the day it died (somewhere between Urban Hymns and the Spice Girls, in truth). I dislike what's been seem to be a reframing of a musical movement that I was a part of. Hell, I base getting old on whether people I talk to can remember What's The Story. If they were born late 80s or early 90s, they probably don't, and fuck me, does that make me feel like i'm getting old.

Interestingly though (especially given the ranty nature of the previous post), when you look at the etymology of the word nostalgia, it comes from the combination of two Greek words (nostos a return home and algios pain). It's not necessarily a particularly positive thing.

Listening to Blur DID bring on feelings of nostalgia for me - for what i've just outlined. And (God, I KNEW a smattering of Godin-like tendencies would creep in...sorry) it also made me think about the heavy reliance a lot of brands have on nostalgia.

Why would you willingly induce nostalgia if it can provoke such sadness? I know sadness can sell, but God, it's not a long term position. Memories get fuzzy, worn and replaced (I'm sure in ten or twenty years time, I'll believe Blur were one of the better Britpop bands). So then can the point of certain brands, unless they keep providing me with new experiences to show how they fit into my life now.

Blur stopped being relevant to me after 1997. And so did a lot of brands.

Reason to believe?

Tastes like piss, or so i'm told. Picture from PreciousKitty, usual rules apply.

I'm beginning to think that if any organisation gets to a certain size, it has to invent jobs for the boys. That is, those people who don't really have 'proper' jobs, save producing the rather lovely vintage above.

I'm talking about brewing up a healthy bottle or two of jargon. Needless, pointless, bollocks talk. It'd seem that those who work in communications have come down with a particularly large measure of it. Words and phrases which really mean nothing.

Let's look at that old favourite, 'Reason to believe', or RTB for short. RTB? I mean, come on. It's phrase you'd never even contemplate if you thought about it. It implies that there is one universal reason why people buy a particular product/service or brand. If it's a value brand, the RTB MUST be price. That's horseshit. Sometimes it's because people, shockingly, prefer the taste or convenience.

RTB is a terrible word as well, because it assumes oh so much. It's a lazy shorthand for people who can't be fucked to research things properly, or realise that circumstances and attitudes may have changed. It's a monolithic expression, which should be consigned to the 1950s.

Another wonderful term is 'social media'. I've already ranted about this earlier, so i'll leave it alone, if only to say one thing - all media is social. Yes, even press. It's such a wide ranging term as to be utterly useless.

Let's have a look at another term which needs to be consigned to the dustbin. This one's one of Sam and Eaon's least favourite terms. Yep, it's a 'viral'.

For something to be viral, it has to be spread around. To call something a viral and assume it's going to spread is hugely naive. Until it does, what you want, dear agency or client, is a short film that you hope people will watch. Mostly, these aren't pieces of branded film. Nope, they're things like Keyboard Cat (click the first video, it is a JOY).

Let's have one from Cluetrain (much as I agree with lots of it), shall we? Yes, the prosumer. Like any frankenword (an unholy combination between two words which really shouldn't ever be brought together), it deserves to beaten like the red headed stepchild it is.

Dissecting it (as the wikipedia article does), prosumer could have multiple meanings. However, the one most commonly arrived on by comms folk is to suggest that it's a proactive consumer, who can now self publish, and will change the world. Have these people done any groups with people (you know, those people who you sell, yes SELL stuff to) in the last six months? Or ever been in the pub and talked to their mates?

I'd bet most people who don't live in the comms industry bubble aren't fucked when it comes to self publishing, much less behave like prosumers. Your average punter may take matters into his or her own hands now and then, but that doesn't mean they can operate as a separate segment. People are motivated by their own ends, and more often than not, that has the square root of fuck all to do with publishing stuff on the internet.

Judge people by how they have behaved, but to assume people will become or are prosumers because of past behaviour is a fucking nonsense. Research only tells you what's gone before, after all - people are motivated by a variety of things; by their own situation, by the environment around them - and God knows, most are passive. It's why telly ads won't die off, or the printed word.

There's one underlying theme with all of these words. They are damned assumptive. Lazy shorthand for not putting the hours in. Using them means you can easily dismiss certain options, or suggest things because they ARE the RTB for our prosumers, who are engaged by social media, especially virals (!)

Nonsense. If you work in communications, and pride yourself on the ability to be able to speak directly to your audience (I don't have a problem with the term target audience, but that's another post), why the fuck would you use words like that? If you can't communicate internally or to your clients, what hope do you have of communicating to punters?

The next post will be less ranty. Promise. It may even be about Glastonbury, though i'm sure you're all bored of that by now.

Shapes and Organisation..

That said, the tastiest shape is pear shaped. Via Kaptain Kobold. Usual rules apply.

Hello there.

I've been doing some more dangerous bits and pieces. Yep, i've been thinking again. Mind you, with recent events, I've had a little bit more time to.

One of the topics which keeps cropping up is organisational structure (yes, I go to really, really boring dinner parties in my spare time). Is it better to be a triangle? A circle? A rhombus? A diamond? After a while, it all seems to become as redundant as Terry Venables' famous Christmas tree formation.

You use what suits your organisation, surely? If the founders are still there, and still have a stake, it'll naturally be like a triangle, with a lot of capable wingmen who have to cede to the overall bosses.

However, if you're set up as a co-operative, or something a la John Lewis, you can try and be a circle. Everyone has a stake, and everyone needs to keep things turning. And this works great in the good times; when everyone sees what the end point is, and has a palpable sense of reward and duty.

And given that digital agencies seem to favour a far more freeform and flexible approach (usually practiced by smaller shops, in my limited experience), which leads to favour quicker, more shared meetings with genuine shared agendas to get stuff made, it should perhaps be no surprise that the wider communications industry isn't sure about just what shape'll help it embrace the next ten years.

I think more traditionally minded agencies can learn something from the likes of PR and Digital shops - two models which mean you simply can't have much waste.

PR, with its more legally minded ways of billing, is interesting. Project billings with allotted hours mean you really can't have much time spent dicking around. But it also leads to the assumption that those amount of hours will solve that particular problem - and hell, it can be solved in twenty minutes or a month, if it's a creative problem, and there needs to be some way of recognising this.

Digital, with the amount of technologists and developers involved, also needs very strict timelines and demands a lack of wasted time. There are more, shorter meetings. Not endless hours of umming and aahing over the problem, which can usually be defined quickly.

And traditional creative agencies, where there are lots of meetings which are devoted to strategy, contact reports, tissues and brainstormings, where the clarity of idea is paramount, and there's an unwritten assumption that the organisation should be agreed and then executed. There doesn't tend to be the flexibility to amend it as it goes. TV doesn't tend to lend itself to this.

And what now happens when these three organisations merge together, when you really can't afford to to try and fit in a bastard hybrid, nor have separate bottom lines? (It strikes me as madness, which leads to infighting and politics).

I think that it comes down to how you regard strategy and ideas. Is one fairly fixed, and the other flexible? Are they both? Should one dictate the other?

Personally, I don't believe either is static, nor one leads the other by the hand. Agencies need to get less precious about the 'right' strategy, and allow ideas to shape it as you go. In my experience, the most effective work is based on an original strategy that has the flexibility to be amended as you go.

I'm a fan of having a solid base; a base of web monitoring/real time search/qual research, which feeds into the amount of hours you bill, the amount of strategic and creative time. A certain level of this will be fixed into the overall fee. 'Digital' will be at the heart, though the definition will become increasingly unnecessary.

I'd like to see research feed a LOT more into how agencies bill; if the communications agency is going to be seen as the lead partner and an agent of change, then clients have to accept that they'll bill for different research, research which is more attitudinally focused.

How they react to this will surely have implications on what the agency's shape looks like - if they accept it, then project fees will lead to something like a chinese fingertrap; rigid with research, yet loose with how strategy and ideas are developed and fed in.

If they don't, the agency will have to make allowances, and develop their own research more generally across their client base, at a cost to them. Project by project fees will drive the agency, much like Digital and PR. The shape would be a bit more circular, and I can easily forsee a mixture of the two approaches, depending on client.

What do you think? This is very much a work in progress.

Less Haste, More Speed..

Not me; I drive like a little old lady. Photo via Lazyousuf. Usual rules apply.

Hello.

I've been to rather a lot of talks in the last week or so, so I thought I should write about all three of them, and the overriding thought that's been left with me. It's about not dicking about with things and, rather, doing them speedily.

Speed has been on the mind of the planning community for a little while - most notably the 'Fast Strategy' conference last year which I went to. I think if I learned anything that day, it was that really good strategy can take a long time to get to, but given enough pressure and a (lack of) time, you can get to a good place. It's how pitches are won, and also - why so few clients have the confidence to go with a pitch strategy.

And, thoughts turned to how to sell quicker strategies. Not hasty, ill-formed strategies - the kind of which are hypothesis which haven't been tested, but instead - well founded thoughts which are arrived at quickly using client data, the t'terwebs and tested against current punters. Often, these come from outside the category.

So it was with some interest I wandered along to meet possibly the father (in my eyes) of Fast Strategy, Mr Adam Morgan. His book, Eating The Big Fish, has been a staple for planners in the last ten years or so.

And he spoke on Tuesday about how he was, frankly, a tad pissed off. A little bit cross about how folk (marketeers, planners, communications bods) misinterpreted his theory about challenger brands. Most people, he proposed, view challenger brands as a David vs Goliath story. You're always the little guy, picking on the big brand, or the big issue. And, frankly, he thought it was toss - there was far more depth to the theory than that.

There's probably not enough space for me to go into a massively detailed look at how he sliced it (13 times, which I, in all honesty, thought was stretching it a little far). I liked the idea of a brand being the people's champion (any excuse to use The Rock in a presentation is something we should all get behind) - to fight for a cause which the public believed in, though the danger is that it becomes a little po-faced and obvious going forward; I wouldn't see it as a long term strategy if the brand hadn't done in the beginning. I also thought the idea of a brand as a visionary was interesting - taking a position which is well above that of a category, and never returning to it. The brand is in the category because it believes it sees further than the rest. Could potentially become very arrogant, but it's still interesting. The next generation was another good one - working in a category you know has to change, and you're the first, trying to get it to realise that things have moved on.

There were ten more, but they were all variations on a theme. Essentially, be provocative, but pick just what it is you're going to be provocative about. What *really* interested me, which wasn't talked about, was how you arrive at that challenger position. How do you pick a fight in the first place? Which is the right one? Do people properly quantify it?

My theory behind all of this was a reasonably simple one. I think people like the theory of challenger brands because it's bloody quick (usually) to find what you want to fight against. What's tricky is not being hasty when you're refining it. What IS it about the company/belief/you're going against? Sure, you want to pick a fight, but have you really considered just why you want to challenge it?

Great strategy is born when the challenge is well nuanced, and shaped to be the right one. Getting there will take some degree of time, unless it's so overwhelmingly obvious everyone has decided to do it.

Anyway, the second talk I went to was another IPA sponsored one, but this time, was by the IPA Strategy Group, who had put on a talk about those cheeky 'game changers', who have flipped how we see comms. Or rather, as I took from it (again, broken record) - how to do innovative things quickly.

We had Dan Hon from Six to Start (the name of which I later discovered is from board games...funny) talk about the project the guys have done with Penguin, Tim Malbon from Made by Many talk about MBM's internal processes, and how successful they've been, and finally Giles Andrews from Zopa, who talked about how it came into being.

And again, the same old horse chestnut kept resonating. Be bloody rigorous with your thinking, but don't be precious about it - that way leads to rigid corporations and hasty, and ill-advised decisions. These companies are doing well because they've worked in a genuinely collaborative way - check out the slideshare presos from the first two.

I did stop and wonder just how hard it'd be to implement some of the processes at work. I wondered whether it'd only work with quite small companies; the more people you get, the more emphasis there is on haste, the more messages fail to get disseminated, and the processes begin to break down.

But then, thinking along those lines, what would happen if you set a limit on the number of permanent staff on board, and kept the processes the same, getting your freelance staff/exterior companies to work to it? I think it'd potentially be very compelling.

It ties in a little with the final talk I went to this week, 'What can Google see?'. In short, don't worry if you missed this. I hadn't read the book, but the talk was spoiled by the amount of people who turned up who were either conspiracy nuts, or didn't really know what Google had done in the last few years - what programs they'd developed.

What was interesting was the topic of the 'numerati', which was term used to describe all of the mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists who have a access to the digital footprints we leave online. I wanted to know more about these people, rather than the pat explanation of what search terms people look at, and the idea of very basic market segmentation they can do, which was what the talk focused on.

Imagine, if you will, a flexible, but tight process (think Chinese Fingertrap agency), which is run by a combination of creative agency people, and the numerati. That'd be really interesting; staffing it partly with freelance people who buy into the principles of the agency, and full timers who have the ability to work flexibly yet tight when the need dictates. There'd have to be a cap on the amount of people who worked there, to ensure the agency kept its principles and the quality didn't slip.

This would go along with Tim's thought about the first, small strategy, which could be overruled in an environment where you have to rigorous and speedy.

Anyway...those were the three talks. Some randomness; let me know what you think.

Global Shouldn't Mean Good Enough...

It's a cheeky globe. Look at it there.

Hello hello. Not written anything for a little while, but I thought I should.

Working for a very big network agency with quite a lot of worldwide business, I come across all sorts of brands every day, ones i've never heard of, and may never work on ever again, due to some of the obscure markets we work in.

This has some tremendous benefits - you get to work with and observe consumers of nationalities you don't know a great deal about, and deal with markets you really don't know anything about. So it's a great learning experience.

That said, it's also hugely daunting; who am I to say or judge what housewives in Russia will look for in a deodorant or a bleach? And you do begin to realise that no-one really knows much about certain markets and segments - it's amazing really, but there's a damn good reason why they're called emerging markets.

One thing that working here HAS taught me, having worked on the odd global campaign or two...is just how much harder it is to sell really good work globally. Sure, you can sell 'nice' or 'good enough' work. But that's not why I got into the business, and surely not what most people wanted to either; nor work on clients where all you do is adapt, adapt, adapt the work.

And it makes you appreciate things - like just how good an idea has to be to work across each market, and how very good the whole network has to be to get each networked agency (because, God knows, sometimes the biggest problem is making the decision about which agency does what) singing from the same hymn sheet.

No, I wanted to write this post to talk about how, because there is such a fight, and because there are so many more people the work has to be sold to (unlike nice, straightforward domestic work, which basically has a Marketing Director and his or her wishes) - 'good enough' is presented as the right way a lot of the time.

And i'm tired of 'global' being used as an excuse for the work being crap. So that difficult Portugese client won't buy the work? So craft something which'll appeal to him or her. Don't just sit back and let the final hurdle bugger all of the work. Frankly, i'm tired of lowest common denominator work selling.

I'm chuffed that thinking like 'When a baby is born, so is a mother', 'Dirt is good' and 'The world's local bank' survive. But these are too much in the minority. And if advertising's becoming more worldwide, there's never been more of a need to stop thinking of global as another swearword (next to 'client') and as a reason why the work didn't sell. The work didn't sell because the agency didn't do enough.

Attitude Not Audience...

'Tank man' standing up for what he believed in.

I am in the midst of trying to gather information and write an APG paper for work I helped plan in the last year or so. We've got what I think is an interesting angle on the business problem, and how we tried to treat the audience, which is good. It's something which i've tried to do across all of my briefs and any business problem I have looked at in the last year or so.

So, I thought to help better flesh out what I mean, I might as well blog some of the general thinking in my mind before it's submitted. I'm sure a lot of it will seem as obvious to a lot of people, but I wanted to note it down.

After cocking a squint at JWT's Planning Begins at 40, a celebration/look to the future of the discipline (watch the videos, they're good), I was struck by just how many folk called for a fusion between old school data collection - quant, qual and all of the above - and new school, digitally led, adaptable, creatively and intuitively led thinking.

Rather like this word document on what's next for planning, provided by the APG (I think Russell wrote it, but I'm not sure, it's not attributed), it all seemed to call for planning to be more adaptive, to help clients not be so short termist and to not get stuck in the sheet music approach to planning and strategy that many practice - to tick boxes and make things fit at all costs.

And, I'd suggest there's still a problem between the more formulaic approaches of the old (which seem to lead certain clients easily to box ticking) and the new style (which still can't adequately be quantified, or obviously led back to ROI).

I have been told in the past to not get too focused on target audience, for that way leads to generic ads (ads about togetherness for main shopper mums, anyone?). However, what if we went one step further?

In a world where target audience definitions can't really be trusted, regardless of what segmentation data tells you - because things are moving too fast on and offline with the changeable economy, the digitisation of content and the exorable rise and rise of opinion being able to destroy brands and new product launches (witness Stephen Fry and the Blackberry debacle - I'm not sure i've met anyone who owns an iPhone, for example, who wasn't aware of this before they chose it), is it wise to rely on it in any way shape or form?

Yes, your client will tell you (or the media agency's crafted TGI, in my experience) that buyers are ABC1's who live in the South East, are University educated and are 'heavy users' of the internet. But then, next month Hitwise will tell you that your supposed technologically savvy audience are outstripped by a far older demographic than you thought, who upload more and interact more with the brand's channel.

So don't stop at the target audience. Build on it.

I'm suggesting we remove the target audience box, and replace it instead with attitude:

What attitude are we trying to convey?

It's NOT tone of voice, though that is important to the work. Witness APG papers like the Coke Side of Life from 2007 - which worked hard to work to discover an attitude, used research on and offline to establish where that attitude is shared, and targeted those people. It's a long term, targeted approach. Far better to use sniper bullets than tommy gun fire in this instance.

Interestingly, at the planning event, Jon Steel quoted an something that Stephen King said about "the end being a certain state of mind in the potential buyer". I'm suggesting we move straight to the state of mind - we tie ourselves to not just a point of view (which is static), but a attitude, which is fluid, and able to adapt and have a point of view about various news/economic/consumer responses.

I'm hypothesising, but what if, say, Blackberry's attitude was one of convenience - allying itself with those people who wanted the easiest access to email, and didn't want the inconvenience of a battery poor phone, nor the latest bells and whistles? Their PR strategy writes itself from this, and they could have batted off Stephen Fry's assertations - his attitude would never ever have allied with this.

I think it's capable of marrying old and new styles of planning. You have to undertake research to help discover who buys into this attitude, finding out your audience (which may change over time) - but you don't arrive at it, necessarily, from a static process of researching ads. You do hard yards with the consumer, segment, look at historic data and pay a lot more attention to discovering just what attitude the majority of consumers would like your brand to have. It should be the definitive approach to the communication, and work should flow from it. Circumstances may change, but attitudes don't easily.

Crucially, it's not a short termist approach; it doesn't just latch on to what's cool and trendy this week, month or year. I think prevailing brand attitudes are best arrived at through detailed ethanography, from the company itself or a combination of the two - this leads to a fluid, culture centric approach in both cases.

And you could perhaps use the 'attitude' approach when performing NPD - it lends itself to more purposeful thinking than just a straight segmentation, for who knows how they'll react to a new product and a new environment? Importantly, it can bear in mind the cultural mindset, but doesn't kow-tow to it in the same way just using a target audience might.

I'm aware this thinking could come across as a little woolly, but by using something like NPS, by factoring out things like price increases, and using prevailing attitudes that don't tend to change regardless of context, you'd have a way of quantifying just what the work's done. I like to use year on year market share as a first step to answering whether the activity has worked and qualifying its effectiveness.

Anyway, that was my random twaddle for the day. Let me know what you think.

Interests vs Professions..

If I was around in the 70s...photo via angatuba-legionaire, usual rules apply.

I read a very interesting quote t'other day, and I may misquote hideously here - it was concerned with journalism, and went something like this:

"Journalists are going to have to get used to the idea that their professions have become interests".

And it reminded me of the conversation Richard and I once had about whether advertising was a profession or a trade. I was won round to his thinking that it was, in fact, a trade (for numerous reasons - have a gander at his post).

To be honest, thinking of yourself as working in a trade gets people to focus on selling stuff, and not to act like rambunctious, conceited advertising wankers (the world doesn't need any more thanks).

It also got me thinking about job satisfaction, and how lots of people I seem to know, some three years into their career (given that the first year is usually scrabbling to get in or making your mind up) seem to get along when they can monetise their interests, being careful not to make it become soulless - to do things so much for money that the joy comes out of it.

Would you become better at your job if you regarded your work as a collection of interests? It would certainly mean that planners had greater levels of empathy with people, and they'd certainly get on better career-wise.

I like to think of myself as having a professional attitude, rather than being a professional myself, who has had to learn specific, set down things - like the names of organs/what they do when studying medicine or case histories for law.

You'd have thought that acting like a professional, but viewing what you do as a series of professional 'interests' would have the best of both worlds - you'd take great care in seeing what you do to the bitter end, and turn up on time, and do all the good things that being involved with a profession has - and you wouldn't turn into some achingly twattish person who is a massive jobsworth and who cares about the wrong things.

And flip that - assume you are in a profession but it's not a collection of interests (or something that has any interest to you personally). You're dehumanised. You stop viewing your job as something which impacts on real people - regardless of what it is, and become some faceless automaton. You don't stick up for your colleagues because you want to shinny up the ladder, and you don't care who you bugger over on your way to the top.

Acting professionally means you care, and having a collection of interests - rather than just one, which could destroy your versatility/love of it all - means you like the links between things. Both useful career skills, never mind just for planning.

If the web has given us the tools to determine that history is written by the writers and not the winners now, and that there are many tools for determining the plots and subplots of us personally and professionally, why can't we be the sum of our interests, even at work? If nothing else, it'd get us all to think more laterally, and to not be petty, small minded people who are only defined by our jobs.

So nice one journalism, I think.

Twitter Presentation, Take 2..

Look at the birdies!

Let's try this again. Below is a presentation which I tried to post earlier, to help educate the agency on twitter...here y'are:

An Introduction to Twitter

View more presentations from leftywill.

It may be useful. Let me know what you lot think of it...

Delayed NESTA Thoughts..

Where the silliness went down. Via TravelEden, usual rules apply.

This is something of an apology. I went to see Mark, James and Johnnie for a morning at NESTA, and promised i'd write it up. This was a month and a half ago, and my half written notes have been sitting on my desktop, squinting at me with all of the intensity a word document can.

Annnnyway, here they are. Better late than never.

Mark Earls (writer of Herd, ex Ogilvy planning chief), Johnnie Moore (performance artist, creative trainer and facilitator) and James Cherkoff (ex PR man, management consultant, London’s modern marketer) providing a mini conference/lecture on influence.

Or at least, that’s what it was billed as. In reality, it was a really free form event, where we did a series of group exercises. Now, this might sound bloody terrifying, but don’t worry – I’m as much of a sceptic as the next man, and though I actually quite *like* talking in public, I’m not much of one for ‘performing’. Especially not when Sammy, Sarah, Amanda and lots of other people who i've forgotten about were there.

But given Johnnie’s excellent demonstrations, we were all able to get involved (even the more concerned amongst us), and learn about how different people approach tasks.

To give you a couple of examples – the first was a hierarchical, evolutionary chain, which (scarily for a bleary eyed Monday morning) involved some mental arithmetic, starting as an egg, evolving to a bird and finally a human. You could only interact with people on your level, and when you met, you had to both hold your hands up and add, really quickly. Those who got it right evolved, those who didn’t, devolved.

I loved just how people made their own rules up as they drew (it seemed to me that women in particular chose to evolve when that happened, which is interesting in itself).

What was also interesting was those people who held up the same number of fingers (or no fingers) in order to ‘win’, despite the fact there were no real parameters – it just goes to show you that people will always have that competitive spirit regardless of the situation.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t really follow the rules myself – deciding to have a count off with anyone who was around. This meant, coupled with my (decidedly ropey) mathematical ability, I climbed the ladder, but got busted down to egg status pretty quickly.

Another one of the amusing activities we were asked to do was to partner with someone of about the same height, then grab their elbows with our hands at the side, and to quote – ‘lift them off the ground’.

Now, apparently we were a very advanced group; people very quickly got the notion that you had to jump up and down, rather than wrestle them to the ground. A few clients and agencies were namechecked; apparently more than a few tried to fight each other. Heh.

There was one more exercise, where people were put in a line, and told to mimic the person behind them's action. It was frankly STAGGERING to see how much it changed by the end, and how only the very vivid action (in this case, an arse slap, which amused us all - very Carry On) got through unscathed. It led me to think about ad agencies and actions (which is possibly the closest i've ever come to channeling Seth Godin) and behaviours which we should present to the client.

Thanks to all of the guys for putting it on, and to NESTA. It was fascinating. I'd go to another event (but maybe I'd write up what I thought straight away).

Herdmeister Wants Your Briefs..

Arty briefs. Via brittnybadger. Usual rules apply.

Hello there.

This is the blogging equivalent of a retweet, but hell, I think this is quite important.

It's do with Planning For Good - check the wiki out here.

Anyway, I'll let Mark take over now:

This is an urgent request to planning & strategy folk (responses needed by monday night)

Can you help us help the Ideas Foundation? [http://www.ideasfoundation.org.uk/]

It's a UK charity that is committed to championing creativity in young people

"We broker projects between industry and education. We spot & develop young people’s creativity.
We pilot creative education projects and champion transferable skills within the creative industries and beyond.

We provide effective work experience, internship and apprenticeship opportunities. We signpost further & higher education routes to creative employment and enterprise.
And having done all that, we encourage our creativity scholars to stay in touch and get involved"

So here's the shout out to Planning for Good types - do you have a social policy brief that you've written that these kids can do work from?

Maybe the client didn't buy it? Maybe the suits or the CD didn't like it? Or your boss? Or you?

So what are we after?

A brief to target a youth audience on a social policy area

It could be in areas such as smoking cessation, sexual health, knife or gun crime, drug or alchohol abuse, bullying, internet safety etc.

We'd just like your old briefs.

Or, if you really want to write a new one, please feel free to do so but just make sure you include the usual information (the problem defined, the audience, etc) and try to ground it in reality and evidence...

Thanks very much in advance on behalf of the Ideas Foundation - we promise to keep you in touch with what folk send in and what they do with them

Pls send your briefs to me at markearls [at] hotmail [dot] com by Monday night.

Adidas or Nike?

I've never owned a pair. Lovely though. Via davesneakers. Usual rules apply.

Which side are you on?

Words to live by, via the Dropkick Murphys.

Nike v Adidas is kind of like this. Sure, there are pretenders. Your Reebok, K-Swiss, Converse or New Balance.

But none come close to the main rivalry. I've had friends who were so strongly Nike it hurt. I think for Seb, it'd be like i'd slapped his face if I told him Adidas were better. I think the same applies to Age.

Both of these guys are about my age (*coughs* older), with vaguely similar interests and within the same professional world. But I completely and utterly disagree with them as to who is the 'better' brand.

I love Adidas. Always have, and recently, it's turned into a bit of an obsession (my new ones, sniped off ebay are here). I love the professionalism, the styling, the sports heritage (they are strong supporters of football, tennis and golf, the three sports I most enjoy watching and playing).

Nike, for me, denotes basketball, running (no thanks) and a different culture all together. Those of you who have met me will realise i'm about as far from being 'street' (or 'urban' or whatever the kids call it) as it's possible to be - I even helped organise a tweed meetup last Friday.

And it's strange, no about of communication will really change how I think. I love the new Nike 5 a side work W&K have made:



Well done Doug and co (also, check out the Rooney nutmeg on youtube, it's genius). The work manages to capture just what I love about football, and about how it can be so social, yet so competitive, even for the bigger players. I love the old Parklife spots for Nike as well, and the 'Eric 1966' print work:

Despite these being wonderful spots, I still love Adidas more. I admire Nike, but I buy Adidas. I trust that the Germanic precision applied to my trainers will mean even someone of my limited talent will be able to kick a ball like Muller or Beckenbauer (or at least, give me a fighting chance). Plus Stevie G wears them, so it's good enough for me.

Adidas have just launched a new website too, which amalgamates all of their content in one place. I like the football spots, and the little interactive Liverpool bit I fooled around with. I think, in its way, it communicates WHY people like football, though I do wonder about uniting the originals content (which, like Nike's hip hop allegiances - features artists who love/have customised Adidas).

To be honest with you, when it comes to how i'd use the site - I don't care about the originals/hip hop bit. It's nice, but i'm more interested in the sport. I'm sure others will be, and Adidas do well when they use their 'straight' trainers and embed them in popular culture, though I'm sure Run DMC helped a lot. Heh.

Perhaps what i'm trying to say is that I view Adidas as professional, with a real history. Nike seems to me to have that for running, but not for football. Now, it got me thinking - what would cause me to switch to Nike? What would they have to do, or how could Adidas strengthen the bond?

I'm not a fully paid up believer in Gladwell esque Mavens, but I do think both brands could do a lot worse than using their trainer heritage (and 'something from nothing' mentality, if you check out their histories - do, it's worth a read) to help others realise their goals. Not just big sportstars, and not just 'fashionable' sportspeople or celebs (though those are naturally, important).

Again, though I think defining a brand in one word is largely bollocks, for me - if Adidas is all about professionalism, and Nike is all about perseverence, what does it mean? Well, if Adidas values professionals, why doesn't it do more in this area? I like the fact they sponsor Garcia and Goosen, two of the more expressive and thoughtful golfers on the circuit - and that the footballers they get into bed with tend to be the more Germanic, sparing variety. Could they not run initatives off their new site in some way?

You could see how it could apply for Nike as well, and something like Run London came closest to putting this perseverence into practice. Amateurs may never be pros, but they can damn well train and try like them. What happened after? Did they capture the stories of people north and south of the river? How has it changed their lives?

In short - I prefer Adidas to Nike, and like what both brands have recently communicated to me. But to both - deepen the relationship. I love 5-a-side, but i'm not sure i'd sign up for the Nike event (i'd get blown away), nor order a customised football shirt for Adidas, much as I had fun shooting at Pepe Reina.

How about you? Which side are you on? Why?

Red Instead of Brown Noses..

I can do both faces. Via osde-info. Usual rules apply.

I don't usually big up my work, but we're going to be doing something a little bit silly for Red Nose Day tomorrow.

Go here and have a look from 10am. It will be silly, and you may even get to see me making a tit of myself (nothing different there then).

Clue: It involves balls and endurance keepy ups. I'll impress you all with my sporting prowess..

Smartphones and the INQ...

The iNQ phone from 3. Via 3bilder. Usual rules apply.

Much like Amelia's launch of O2's Cocoon, 3 have decided to help launch their new phone with some thoughts from the general blogging public.

One of those people happened to be me, and i've been bloody lax at writing a review at it - real life has a nasty habit of getting in the way at times.

Anyway, here 'tis, with a few caveats:

1) I don't usually review stuff on this blog. I'm opinionated enough in real life to power several thousand zeppelins, and criticising/appraising extra stuff on the blog isn't usually what I like to do.

2) I am in the market for a smart phone - hence my reviewing of this little electronic fellow. Before this, I had thought about a Blackberry 8900, as I liked using the email/t'terweb on it. No iphone for me - emailing looks like a chore, despite the apps on it.

3) Obviously, I wasn't paid for this, and I have to return it.

Right then, onwards...

My usual phone is a Sony Ericsson K800i - a silver one with a good camera on it. It's replaced Nokia in my eyes as the go to phone for ease of use. How I use it is principally for ringing people, texting and taking photos. I don't really use the web, as I find it a bit clunky (and also damned expensive).

Crucially, i'm on 3 mobile at the moment. I like their pricing plan, and (despite what other people have told me) really think their customer service is very good - when my phone was nicked, they were able to tell me what to do, and have always been honest when I've asked them about billing and what to do to configure my price plan.

So, this phone had the potential to be a bloody useful. And the Guardian's tech person liked it, so I had a thought that it might be decent.

In a sentence: I won't be getting it, but I can imagine other people will love it to bits.

First of all - it's a slide phone. I have the fear about slides, about them fucking up and breaking. I also dislike flip phones for the same reason. On the plus side, it is very very light, and easy to carry around; given the amount of technology powering it, it weighs less than my Sony.

Secondly, and crucially - it's bloody fiddly. I like blackberries because I can use the web/write emails easily with them. No, it might be a bit of a chore to upload photos from there to facebook, but it's not really what I use a phone for. Maybe the odd status update, which - for me, even with my bony digits, took a long long time.

The good points:

• It's all your social life in one place - it has Facebook, Skype, MSM, a straight to google link. I can see if you have more patience with the keys/typing than me, then you'd really get on with it.
• It's bloody good at syncing everything together; you can run multiple apps and it'll cleverly remember what you've been up to. So it can act as a proper electronic diary.
• The packaging/help - special props must go out to whomever designed the little help cards which come with the phone; they're great.
  

But yet - it's not for me. I want a simple (ish) phone that can write email, access the web, take photos, text and make calls. The web isn't the most important thing, by any stretch. And I did discover one thing about smart phones - the keyboard needs to be big enough for me to be able to type with my thumbs.

I'd give it a 6.5/10. Or, a 8/8.5 if you use a phone primarily for sociable bits and pieces and require less work functionality. 3's claim that it's the world's first social mobile probably isn't that far off the mark.

Thanks to the guys at 3 for letting me try it. A little request for you - pleeease get the Blackberry 8900 on your network; I think it's going to be my next phone.