Planning x Production...

Sort of like this man. The one on the right.

Come next March, and I'll have been a planner for six years. And, given that, I thought it was worth thinking about the job, and what's changed, and what's stayed the same. There are certain craft skills (the ability to synthesise lots of information, to have a regimented focus on effectiveness and be something of a creative inspirer) that will never,  ever leave the discipline, that's for sure. Whether I've been a planner in an ad agency, a PR shop or a marketing agency, those skills have stayed with me.

What fascinates me is how much the discipline has changed over the last few years. I think that this is partly down to the change in production methods. Not having served a long account handling apprenticeship, the more practical parts of the comms business interest me, given that I didn't ever believe it played to my strengths - or, indeed, what a planner has been expected to do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to jack planning in and become a producer any time soon (I honestly don't have the wherewithal to supply the right materials or do a lot of the day to day that producers do, I'm sure). But I do think there are some useful lessons that the best producers know instinctively, and ones that apply pretty firmly to planning.

Think about it; we live in a world where a lot of big-budget, assembly line ads and animatics are created year on year and are directly competing against community funded/created piece/s of work. Both of these can now fall under the remit of ad/comms agencies, and both require very different methods of production - and different strategic approaches to what planning's been expected to provide.

Now more than ever, creating strategy for ads needs to ensure that the work has a culturally relevant point of view, given a lack (generally) of a fixed audience. For the initial creation, it's all about the core planning skills, of looking at all of the data with a hypothesis, and testing it. However, once that's been done, planning needs to have a sense about what's resonating in culture, and having a think about what you can build or supplement the ads with in order to make it happen. The last point just didn't happen six years ago, not to the same degree. You could rely on mass media spend and product parity, as well as an interesting purpose and positioning within broader culture.

Where planning's really changed is at the point where theory stops, and getting shit done starts. The most exciting work I'm involved with rarely relies solely on a positioning - planning doesn't stop there.  Not in a media landscape where people who actually give enough of a shit to contribute to something are as likely to set up a Kickstarter to solve it themselves as they are to get involved with your new UGC focused campaign or watch your ad.

I think the answer to a lot of modern comms problems can be found in something far more simple, and possibly far more traditional than most think. Bluntly, I believe that partnerships are the future of planning.

Imagine, for the moment, that you are a yellow fat manufacturer. Historically, beyond the odd promotion and the shiny telly ad, you've not got a particularly radical approach. You can't outspend the competition, and you can't make any kind of product claim that's sufficiently interesting to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Now, the task of the modern planner, once the traditional due diligence has been done, is to be aware of how the brand might partner, profit share or generally behave in an entrepreneurial manner in order to change perceptions of it. No brand is an island, after all - planning's always known that theoretically, but given the transparent and changeable marketplace, more real world partnerships need to be brokered in order to strengthen the level of competitive intelligence and attract new buyers and users. Our theoretical yellow fat brand cannot do it on its own.

You only have to look at the bunny boiler efforts of most brands 'engaging' on social media. No, I don't want to be your friend, butter brand. You're relevant to me because I either historically trust you, believe your claims, or because you were on special offer. You don't offer more than that in real life.

It's at this point that I'd like to share an example with you. Some years ago, when social media was still relatively shiny and new, I remember having a chat with an old boss about this. She told me about Harvey Goldsmith. For those of you who don't know and can't be bothered to click on the link, he's a concert/gig promoter, the man who, with Bob Geldof, put on Live Aid. He also, with Geldof, got musicians together for the Christmas charity track, 'Do they know it's Christmas?'.

He's still active at putting on gigs, and organising/bringing people together - he was the man who helped bring Cirque Du Soleil to the UK. He's a remarkable man; someone who not only recognises an opportunity but is able to bring it to life.

I think he's a brilliant example for modern planning/planners. Without partnering and persuading the right people, he could never have put on the events and created the brands and events he did. It would have been very easy for the thought to be had but nothing to happen.

Given the changes in digital participation and the availability of web tools, It's not like modern planning can't help bring people together or make something happen online. Take Kickstarter. If a business or a brand believed passionately in something, and could find a way of explaining it, they could easily find additional funding to make something new.

And, at its most basic level, planners shouldn't be worried about picking up the phone and talking to other brands and businesses that could strengthen the brands they work on, moving beyond random, short-term partnerships that pop up when there's some spare media money. Partnerships should be about the long-term;  whether it's the ability to build something, host something, or even just share data capabilities - it should be mutually beneficial.

It's a fallacy to assume that the brand you work on will be able to bring your brand positioning to life on its own, however correct it is - every brand has limits in the minds of the consumer - and this is as true for social media as it is for ads. If the product's crap or the positioning just doesn't work, a quick google search will destroy whatever saliency you've built up.

Focusing on partnerships means, of course, planners being more cavalier and entrepreneurial than historically planning would have been expected to be, and this will require a change in the way planners approach the process - but I believe that partnering provides a way for brand initiatives to live on beyond a straight campaign lifecycle.

After all, vast amounts of 'content' created by most brands is utter nonsense, and over-stretches what the brand is/can legitimately do. If planners are truly aware of the options available to the brand they work on, it can only strengthen the creative work, and this means acting more like a realistic, switched on producer.

Better Problems...

One problem looks like the right one...

I'm a bit of a stickler for the basics. In fact, I'm constantly worried that I've forgotten what's gone before me; whether it's reminding myself that Gossage knew it all some 40/50 years ago, or wanting to brush up on my effectiveness chops (I still feel guilty that I'm yet to turn my hand to writing a fully fledged IPA paper, in truth), I try to keep the basics in mind all of the time when I'm working at my day job.

I wonder, what with all the spurious data and emerging technology (that no-one, client or agency has any idea of quite what it'll do to their business, short of musing over the odd Mary Meeker chart), whether we're missing the point somewhat.

One of the nice things that shows like Mad Men (or even biopics about old admen) do is to emphasise the necessity of solving a proper problem. Allow me to caveat that somewhat; it's not about 'raising awareness', or even, sometimes about pure selling (just look at the fallacy of the Stella Grand Prix winning paper, where it was assumed you could discount and continue to charge a price premium - which ultimately undid the brand's sales). No, it's about understanding the current context for the brand and business fully in order to induce long term sales.

Because of the apparent need to service a wealth of channels, I don't think we spend enough time truly questioning and working with our clients to define just what the problem is. We rush in to thinking about placing messaging in these channels without determining what the strategic base for this might be. Whilst the best work comes from an agency solving an problem the client didn't know it had, or by using new technology to talk in a deeper, more involving way, it often seems like educated guesswork.

I think it'd be a great deal more beneficial (and less of a waste of resources - than pouring your money into  a Facebook status shuffling exercise, or spunking a wodge of cash on an unnecessary rebrand) if more time was allowed to question and refine the problem at the start of the process.

This might sound like wishful thinking, but I honestly don't think it's outlandish. Actually being told how the business makes money from a particular product or service (rather than an agency assumption) or finding out what shareholders are expecting would help a great deal when refining the problem. It would save lots and lots of agency guesswork that ultimately doesn't help the client.

Part of this, of course, is down to Marketing departments not always being able to infiltrate the upper echelons of the boardroom, but if the problem to be solved looks fully at the brand and business context, any comms created will help to get marketers back into the collective consciousness of the broader business.

And, hopefully this process will help stop diktats to agencies. They, no matter how good the work in the short term, always end up weakening the relationship (and therefore, the business) in the long term; assumptions begin to be made, whether it's that 'the client will do the research' or 'the agency will help bring my idea to life'.

After all, if agencies are serious about being paid for consultancy/less for mindless hour clocking, then defining just what it is they should help solve is paramount. Clients and agencies should be partners. Not, in a worst case scenario, an expensive time-saver for both sides. The job of a partner is to keep you in check; to tell you when a direction might not work, and, ultimately, to try and come to a better solution.

'Sciency' Communications & Partnerships...

How a lot of ads are made...

The title of this post might confuse anyone who's not read Douglas Holt's latest book, 'Cultural Strategy'. If you haven't (and you're reading this whilst in possession of a job on communications), you owe it to yourself to have a look. It's really very good.

Anyway, in the book, Holt uses the term 'Sciency' to refer to the vast majority of measures that marketers use to measure communications. Pretty much any brand tracking or ad evaluation, in Holt's eyes, falls under this lens.

It's something that I'm sure a large number of planners and researchers would violently agree with (and especially Rupert Howell - read a fragment of his 2000 MRS speech). Using rubbish measures to assess the efficacy of work has led to a short termist (or at best, medium-term) culture, one where the number of long lasting brand strategies can be counted on the finger of one hand.

Don't get me wrong, I don't simply think it's as saying 'research is the devil' or 'research needs to be more representative of real life - then it'll work'. Life is far too chaotic for that. Sometimes concept testing does give you the right answer, or a series of clues to test further.

My problem comes when business judgements are made solely as a result of soft metrics. When bonuses are attached to scores on a brand tracker, everybody loses. Marketing becomes needlessly short termist.

It becomes more troubling when the markets aren't immune from this kind of behaviour. Thomas Cook, if reports are to be believed, lost 75% of its market value on the basis of a report about cash flow. One thing led to another, confidence was low amongst business forecasters, and the business suffered. This is the same principle as an ad being judged harshly in research, researcher confirming it, clients passing it on and the organisation rejecting it. A good idea (or business) could take years to re-emerge.

Yet, look what's said by Thomas Cook, amongst those that control the business. Patently, the business wasn't failing, but needed more money in the short term for working capital. However, because this corporate story was read as a potential threat to consumers (it wasn't), the market panned it. If the ad in my example could be proven to benefit the business (focusing on what's happened to the business historically, rather than the mostly short-termist, false idol of brand), then it should be the measure given most weight.

If 'information' or 'Sciency' findings lead to a short term reaction without considering the broader picture (or indeed, what's actually important - that the business's sales come from markets across Europe, or that the ad will be seen in context beyond a darkened focus group room, and - hopefully, as part of a wider strategy), then 'Sciency' conclusions are indeed to blame for a lot of bad comms. They lead to short-termist thinking, and short termist thinking risks undermining the business, in much the same way as Thomas Cook and The City appear to have operated.

And, in truth, it's never been easier (or indeed, more seductive) for the metrics obsessed marketer to fall into this trap. What IS my Klout score? Likes on Facebook? Number of RTs for my tweet?

Or, indeed, the notion of 'awareness or brand loyalty as a 'key metric'. It's deceptively simple to gain awareness; parading your agency down the street starkers with your brand name emblazoned across their chest would do the trick. And the notion of loyalty, as Ehrenberg has demonstrated, is largely false.

No, what needs to happen is a return to business basics. Over a significant period of time, what has happened to sales? Why? How can we isolate this activity? What happened in the test market versus the control market? What does the overall competitive landscape look like in terms of sales? Are we representative? Yes? No? Why, or why not? Who buys what brand/s, and do they make up the majority of the share?

If we can answer some of those with authority, we might just be getting somewhere. If we can't, no amount of social media monitoring will make a ha'penny jizz to your business performance. It might put a sticking plaster over some of the 'Sciency' metrics, but not a lot more.

Thinking about this further, there is a very real need for partnerships as a means of growing business and brand appeal. Marketers; your brand is not the white, shiny snowflake you'd like it to be. To punters, it's just another toothpaste they sometimes buy.

But, if your communications wants to move the needle from A to B, to tap into a behaviour that is relevant and interesting for your brand (that you've tested to see - and not just ad testing; ethnographic findings/google search analysis/SKU purchasing over a significant period of time) and business - why not consider some form of partnership?

It would seem to me that nothing is created solely on its own, if indeed it ever was. People buy into brands for a myriad of reasons, but there's usually a contextual reason why. It may be you buy a Philips electric shaver because your father did, and you're assured of the brand's quality.

If I wanted to move the needle for you to consider my Braun shaver, I'd have to tap into something potent, with obvious cultural resonance, that meant something to you. No amount of boards in a darkened room (or indeed, fully finished ads on the telly) would do that.

But my friends might. And, if I knew that my friends were buying or doing something which related to shaving in some faint way (such as using a Braun as a result of a cultural tie up with Movember or something similar), then I might switch.

Heck, if I was the Braun Marketing Director, I might just try this out. And I might see if it moved the needle. Not in a month. Not in 3 months. But over years. Medium term measures could be moved away from if I had access to a robust database of the kind of people I wanted to target from another, receptive and culturally relevant brand I'd tied up with - this would go some way to avoiding a 'the ad's shit' response from my colleagues. I'd have proper data at my disposal, and some way of tapping into the hard responses - checking brand buying behaviour from those who liked Braun AND were doing Movember.

Then, and only then, would I consider my Marketing a success. Not when celebrity X retweeted my campaign, or the number of hits on Youtube. I've watched all sorts of things on Youtube; if it led to purchase in any way, I'd be in the possession of about 5 cats that could play the keyboard.

I guess what I'm really driving at is getting businesses to base their decisions on what's happening to sales of a product/service over time, or by consulting a robust database (either their own or a brand's that they've partnered with) and then getting into more spur of the moment research.

That'd stop the small-minded, short-termist pissing money away, and, I'm sorry to say, it's only likely to happen with a long-term relationship with an agency that was allowed access to historical data from which to make decisions, and these are all too rare. A business that understood historical business data, and was quick enough on its feet to help navigate where the brand could play culturally...that's the dream, I think, whether you're a client or an agency. Wouldn't that be nice? We might actually be *gulp* business partners.

Not all data's created equal...

The famous class inequality sketch from Cleese and the Two Ronnies.

Hello there.

I've been away for a little bit, visiting the US, so sorry for no posts during the past few months.

Being in the States got me thinking; whilst I was there, I was struck by just how much of the US journalism adopted 'Metro style' reportage - articles that were basically glorified press releases with some poor branded polls to support some nonsense thought; barbecue sauce gives you cancer or something similar.

And it got me thinking about the importance or unimportance of data. Though I think he's often an insufferable arse, Ben Goldacre published a good article in the Guardian (and a decent rebuttal to criticism about the first piece) about how far people should trust medical data, something which is fairly close to my heart - I don't like the idea of spurious surveys being used to 'prove' some faddy nonsense that does people more harm than good.

His point was that some 62% of data published in national newspapers in the past two weeks would have failed the World Cancer Research's Scale for provable claims; the data would have been 'insufficient'.

I worry a bit that in an age where statistics can be generated/read about as easily as tying your shoelaces, that it has become ever harder to try and sort the wheat from the chaff. Frankly, if I was a client, I simply wouldn't believe half of the 'data points' that my comms agency (be it Advertising, PR or any of the above) came up with.

So why try to regurgitate stuff they already know; or, indeed, fill presentations with evident stuff? Far better to use data in a creative way (and no, I'm not talking about every planner's wet dream, the infographic) to enlighten, and to use to help support lateral thinking. Not telling Sony about the TV market. I'm all for demonstrating that planning/agencies understand the landscape, but oh so many data/'scene setting' new business presentations do little more than add a rudimentary few slides, almost as a embarrassed beginning.

I'd far rather we got on with the business of surprising and delighting our clients, rather than '8 of 10 cats believed'. Show human reactions to things. Proper ones, not some manufactured focus groups. How do people REALLY behave in the juice aisle? (Yes, I'm aware this may involve people being booted out of Sainsburys, but it's undoubtedly worth it).

It is a concern that in a world of MROCs/personalised panels et al that we're far too quick to outsource data gathering to those who are only a piece of the puzzle. After all,' facts only make sense in the light of an idea', as Stephen King put it. Far better to acknowledge what we don't know to a client, to be honest and grown up - and seek to surprise them with genuinely insightful information that isn't easily garnered by their own research department.

This would, I hope, partly stop the endless use of 'post-rationalisation planners' (though it'd never stop it; sometimes a good idea DOES come at the 11th hour). I don't want planning to be relegated to a 'backer up' of creative ideas that aren't founded in thinking about the business. In a dream world, planning would be a conduit, able to surprise creatives and clients, using research in a creative way.

I think it's no coincidence that TNS have appointed a creative director. As a nation filled with dubious 'quick surveys' in our national papers, the likes of TNS, more than anyone, have a need to stand out. I just hope it goes beyond infographics and focuses on why people do what they do. God knows, we've never needed to know that more.

Grit makes the Pearl...

It looks like a variation on a G. Could be wrong, though.

Hello. Happy Easter, first of all. I'm enjoying the chance to potter at home, to play a little golf and reflect on the past four months or so since Easter.

Anyway, I thought you might like to know that since Christmas, I've begun to try to learn the guitar. Now, this is a bit of a new thing for me; I've never, ever learned to play any musical instrument. It's kind of odd, especially when you consider that I love music - I've spent thousands of pounds on it since my teenage years.

And, well, let's just say that it's not as easy as it might seem, this guitaring. I've spent hours and hours practicing my chord changing, learning basic pentonic scales and beginning to learn bits and bobs of songs I like. Perhaps most notably - I can now play the beginning to 'The Funeral' slightly slower than Band of Horses can. Heh.

It's been fun, so far, partly helped by the fact I have no expectations (save to be able to play songs/be able to noodle). I don't have any desire to pack it all in and become a musician, but I do find myself getting cross when I can make a chord change quickly enough.

That in itself's been interesting; my guitar teacher's got me using a metronome to get quicker, and that led to an admission from my flatmate (a former teacher of guitar himself) that he'd never used one. No, he'd just used his ear, and never been taught the 'proper' way, and wished he had, as he admitted his tempo wasn't up to snuff, and that would've helped. He, like me, played to amuse himself.

Now, I want to learn the 'proper way', even if I at a later date I short-hand it. I know what my musical desires are (though my teacher tells me that as soon as I play with other musicians, I'll want to kick it up a notch), and am happy enough. I'm sure there'll come a time when I know more to challenge some of the things I've been taught, though.

What interests me about all of this is that I think proper practice does require proper grit; to learn things the 'right' way and ask pertinent questions as you go along. I've always wanted to learn the way it's been done, historically - to challenge what's been accepted as the norm, and find out when it's useful/when it can be disregarded.

Running AdGrads, I have met a lot of graduates. Many incredibly talented, many incredibly conscientious...with the odd one that's so talented that they'll re-write the way the business is thought of.

What I find most interesting (bearing in mind AG's been in existence for about 4 years now) is to track the progress of those who have been successful the first time round versus those who've had to work at it and those who've given up and done something different.

Without question, there are some brilliant, brilliant people in communications. Like my flatmate's guitar playing, they've demonstrated a natural ability. But, occasionally, they get to about two years in, and stall. They've made it. To the average person (and client, in a lot of cases) they know what they're talking about. Yet they're disillusioned; they've put so much into the goal of getting in that there's no real incentive to push on. They're able to play their songs, tap out their beats and, ultimately, be a cog in a business. I think this happens most often to the planners I've seen - there's no real job title change, short of getting in and on.

It's the triers that do best in both businesses; those who can internally motivate themselves, be gritty and ask the right sort of questions. These callous-finger-tipped sorts don't just 'settle' for things. So you can't move from F to C quickly enough? Keep working. Find another way of doing it. Hum along to the song you're trying to master to learn a better way to play it than the oft-wrong tab pages suggest to do so. When it comes to comms, don't just accept that because you're two years in and working in London that planner x's word is law, or that what a client says is the way it always will be.

Get out there, meet different sorts of people, and apply some real life to situations (as Rob's excellent post points out). Don't just listen to Twitter or Campaign Magazine. Those promote a very 'media' way of thinking about the problem at hand.

It's perhaps no wonder that the public no longer thinks that the ads are better than the programmes - so many communications initiatives are created as much to please the 'in' crowd as anything else. I don't give a fuck what famous planner Y thinks of my campaign. If it met/exceeded its objectives (which, in truth, only you and the client will know), then it's worked. It's like this tweet; I have no doubt whatsoever that the people they wanted to talk to weren't 20-30 something comms professionals in London. No doubt at all. So many people judge 'the work' not as punters, and that's a big problem.

I think lazy judgements on the work is another symptom of a lack of grit; a lack of willingness to think about just how real people (remember them?) will behave when work like that is placed in front of them.

To take this back to the guitar again - my guitar teacher, Ryan Carr, is trying to make a go of a career as a full-time guitarist (rather than as a 50/50 teacher/guitar player split). He has a refreshing attitude to the notion of grit. On my second lesson (after buying some more kit - a capo/metronome from a nearby shop), I asked him why most people in Denmark St music shops were such dickheads. Most of them sneered like bastards when I asked some pretty simple questions about just what brand of capo I should buy. He said to me that most of them were washed up, the sort of guys who had/have some natural talent, but were unwilling to ever chance their arm and try for full time careers as musicians. He knows that he's in a risky position, and that he's got some difficult creative decisions to make - to the T-Mobile example earlier, just how populist does he make his music? Regardless of which way he goes, I respect him for giving it a go, and being true to what he actually thinks, and not a sneery musical sycophant.

It's the worrysome nature of creative careers that it's often easier to sit in the sidelines, being in with the in-crowd, going along with the popular consensus because you're too frightened to make something happen or venture how you really feel.

And, frankly, I think that's a bit sad. I think, for the likes of comms folk, that we shouldn't be frightened of arguing fully for the work, about just why it will/won't work, and be less frightened of just blithely nodding along with what famous planner/creative x says. If we don't do that, we run the risk of sitting, working in the ad equivalent of the music shop from High Fidelity, where people wank on for hours about gamification - something, which whilst wonderful as a theory, just might not sell more bars of soap.

I like working with people who have strong beliefs. People who don't work in a culture of fear, who say what they think and argue about the direction of accounts. People who I can raise my voice towards and go to the pub with afterwards. People who have their comms callouses, who love what they do and have tried to get better. Not people who've glided in, grown disillusioned and are too scared/lazy to do something about it. That's where the best work comes from, whether it's a song, an event or an ad.

Anyway. Back to trying to learn the Crane Wife 3.

Consultancy with Conscience...?

I wonder if it's Santa. Photo via jurvetson. Usual rules apply.

After what seems to be a (sadly) typical four month pause in blog posts, I've decided to get off my arse and write another. Prompted by Neil's excellent Firestarters evening at Google, I began to think a little bit about agencies, and just what will endure or be left behind in the next ten to twenty years and beyond.

I've talked a little bit about my slight skepticism about the notion of 'agile'. I think it works well from the get go, when it's a founding principle, but when you're dealing with disconnected/disassociated big businesses whose PR and Advertising departments don't even talk to one another, it starts to ring a little hollow.

To be honest, I think that it's a good principle, but won't work all of the time. For an agency like Made by Many, who make their name on iterative development and working in close proximity with clients and as a smaller business, it makes sense.

Now, what I'm really interested in is attitudes and behaviours which foster good work. Organising principles are all well and good, but they can easily gather dust if the mindset's not right inside and outside of the business.

The one thing I want to think about today is conscience. Since the beginning of the agency world, every half-decent shop has realised what's needed it is a strong professional conscience - it doesn't matter what type of employee you are. All considered folks realise that yes, the work's difficult at times, joyous at others - but there's really only one method of ensuring you don't go mad, whether you work all the hours given, or have an enviable ability to get everything done, please the client and have a life outside of the day job.

It's a sense of good conscience. The best places know that they've set parameters with their client ahead of time (often odiously referred to as 'managing expectations' on occasion, which sounds like an excuse for a fuck-up) and if something's thrown this into doubt, have had the wherewithal to raise it with their clients quickly.

In all honesty, they've behaved like a proper consultancy, not just a simple provider of service. In my experience, providers of a service and nothing more get taken advantage of. I must confess, to thinking back to my long running part time job between University; there were similar situations where people had no empathy when you were busy and short staffed, asking for everything now or sooner, if possible.

Those people are just as likely to come with an MBA and live within a Marketing department as they are to sit in a burger queue or be after a pint at your local. So, if we acknowledge that those people exist, why not deal with them honestly, demonstrating a considered professional opinion and setting what can/can't be done ahead of time?

The further splintering of creative disciplines promulgates this 'can't you just?', service only approach - it's too easy to treat each part of the puzzle as that and nothing more. People chase after easy to prove 'vanity metrics' (a wonderful phrase, nicked from Neil's event) which are short-term and satisfy that their 'bit' of the puzzle is working.

If a client has chosen to split their budget across a spectrum of agencies, and there's no clear lead (as would appear to be happening more frequently these days), then it's got to fall to the group to set decent, longer term measures and not just fight for control over their bit or a little more.

To promote your way of working as the best in this scenario just doesn't ring true. It comes across as more agency willy-waving. Be shown to be the agency with the conscience, those who are empathetic to what goes on in the agency circle/with the client, along with explaining why something can or can't be done, and I'm sure rewards will follow.

You'll be respected for your counsel, something which appears to have gone missing in the search for dwell time and youtube hits. When it doesn't work (which happens), you'll be in a better position not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and just change the creative/approach. It's got to about learning, not lurching from execution to execution without a guiding principle or pre-set parameters.

Agencies shown to have good consciences will be able to (shock!) answer the client back if they don't agree, behaving more like they used to. After all, you SHOULD be employed for your point of view, not just because you can argue the production company to do it a couple of grand cheaper, or ensure celebrity x turns up to party y.

Mystique will only get so far. And, to be honest, the only way to start fires is to behave like a considered, thoughtful, conscience-riddled grown up, not like some reactionary child.

Johnson, Writing, Briefing and Orwell..

It's been a little while since I updated here. A combination of laziness, work bits and bobs and just not really having much to say has meant I've left WAM well enough alone.

Anyway, after going to see a lecture at the LSE by Steven Johnson (which was excellent - he's very good value) on the topic of his new book, all about where good ideas come from, sparked a thought.

Recently, I've been getting a tad fed up with the use of buzzwords in the communication industry. 'Glocal', 'Agile', 'Transmedia', 'Platform' - all of these make me wince whenever they're used.

Yes, most are shorthand for a bigger thought, but I don't find them particularly helpful.

And there was one thing that Steven Johnson referred to - the need to make your ideas as easily understandable as possible, to increase the size of your network. Basically, ensure that what you're saying can be understood by many, to increase the likelihood that it'll be picked up, adopted and shared.

Jen, my colleague at work, pointed to a T.S. Elliot essay, 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', which asserts the need of creative work/ideas to have some nod to the tradition in which it is born into, in order to be understood and be accepted.

And, after reading that, I began to think about the odd good idea I have when I write briefs. Without exception, the best thinking happens (or, indeed, the best selling to client) when complicated things can be translated into simple language, which can easily be shown to be spreadable - people read it, and it leads to a debate or a thought from it.

Not something which is self evident (I'm looking at you, Transmedia) and has a word attached to it which confuses the 95% of the world that don't work in comms - and some of those who do. When words like that get accepted, I think they lead to exclusivity, and not great ideas.

Now, I don't mind words which coin something brand new - but they should be able to be understood from the get-go. Otherwise, I don't think Planners are doing their job, which is (partly) to synthesise complex topics, encourage lateral thinking, new, useful ideas and, ultimately, behaviour change.

So, I decided to have another look at my writing Bible, George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language'. If you haven't read it, stop reading this and take ten minutes to sit down, have a cup of tea and pore over it.

Like Richard, I'm a very big fan of George Orwell, and thought it was worth splicing in some of his thinking with Johnson's lecture, and what we know about Eliot. This next quote is a great introduction to how to write decent briefs (especially propositions, for my money):

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"

And, next, Orwell continues to explain (much, much better than I can) about why using lazy, shorthand phrases is wrong:

"But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent -- and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself."

The last point is crucial. Certain industry buzz words don't help foster innovation or lateral thought - they have the effect of confusing most people, and acting as lazy shorthand, not helping people express what they mean. For my money, if you have to explain it to your creatives, account team or client and it's not clear, take it out. Simpler and shorter is almost always right, not academic and perplexing. You aren't doing your job if it requires a BA in Cultural Studies to 'get it'.

In his essay, Orwell also does a neat job of explaining just how you can express what you think is a good idea. Interestingly, it's not always found within language, and this next passage is fascinating:

"When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally."

In short - think about what will best sell your idea. What combination of pictures and sensations will most easily lead to your idea being sold? Don't simply risk using the comms word of the day.

To bring this back to the Steven Johnson lecture, he talked a lot about the 'Architecture of Serendipity', environments that take advantage of the slow burning nature of ideas, that make the connections between people. Comms agencies need to not quash these thoughts, not impose artificial environments (I'm looking at you, lazy briefings and brainstorms) which don't help.

You can see in your mind's eye, can't you? A planner with no time, cobbling together some of the latest shorthand buzzwords, confusing the creative/account team, and pissing in the well of inspiration.

Those three writers are why I have a natural tendancy to dislike whatever the comms word of the month is. I like analogies, because they tend to do the sensation and image part much better than an 'Agile' or a 'Platform', which already lead you to the wrong places.


I'm aware of the need to coin a term, but most, I don't think, are that helpful. The lazy definition of a planner as 'the smart one' encourages this, in truth. Heck, just look at the Big Society - it reads like it was written by a bunch of planners with not enough time.

The folly of categorisation...

Harsh, but fair.

In recent years, I've become a bit of a muso, as the odd post on this blog (and how I spent my student loan) should testify.

And, in no other part of my life do I get as much pleasure as recommending a new band, or an old band that no-one else knows.

There's the old horse chestnut when you have to describe a band to someone else, and compare them to others. I'd argue that there are bands or artists who take such a right turn from their usual sound (though I don't like him, witness Plan B recently, or say Radiohead for Kid A) that they defy categorisation.

This sort of thing is why I worry a bit when people apply arbitrary labels to people to explain their behaviour. An 'early adopter' for one product doesn't necessary apply to the next one they release. I love the iPod, but would I buy a Mac? No, and there are a variety of reasons. I would consider Nike for running shoes, but fashion trainers? Not a chance.

Segmentation is fine when it works for broad behavioural patterns, but the whole Gladwell bell curve attempt by agencies to neatly fit people into an assumptive model, or to assume buying patterns somehow have a rational pattern is bullshit.

Much as I find him to be a grumpy bastard when he writes, this is something I cede to Taleb. People are too chaotic, and life is too random, to assume that the most middle of the road strategies are going to work. Why not do a combination of the safe and highly dangerous when planning or executing campaigns?

Middle of the road means your market share will atrophy. Grouping consumers as early adopters means your values will parallel theirs; witness brands which chase an ideal too strongly; one which has gone out of fashion (say most mobile phone brands and having an eye on the future) - or those which succeed by re-harnessing an ideal which has come back in (say, Old Spice or Hovis).

Daily, people defy audience segmentation. So why do we bother? Increasingly, it looks like something which results in jobs for the boys; a lazy back up plan for weak-willed Marketing directors.

I'd far rather be a brand which did the basics brilliantly and hedged its bets on consumer behaviour, rather than executing a strategy which has been passed around so many people that it now bears no resemblance to what was first presented.

Given these trading conditions, strategies either have to be so, so basic (I'm thinking of a certain jeans brand's recent work) as to seemingly insult the intelligence of its audience and not really say anything, or contain a lot of mixed messages which don't DO anything.

We talk in hushed tones about a 'purpose idea' or a 'brand ideal', but all of this is bullshit if it relies on the sort of Stone Age segmentation which a lot of marketers seem to be so fond of. People just aren't a brand character; they have more interesting little niches or jagged edges - it's those which'll make money going forward, those fascinating gaming inspired Easter Eggs (like Google's Pacman display, or Dole's approach to labelling) which tell you more about the people who are going to be your consumer for the next twenty years, rather than an empty current figure.

In fact, gauging the lifetime value of a consumer is interesting these days. A Facebook 'fan' is obviously not a reliable metric here. As discussed on twitter, there's quite a gap between being a fan and being an advocate, someone who will keep on buying.

A personal example - I love Adidas trainers. I like the style, I admire the Predator connection, and love their golf clobber. Yet, I think their marketing (compared to Nike) is often a bit amateur hour. I wouldn't favourite their stuff on Facebook, but give me some money off some Stan Smiths, and I would buy. Nike, I'd love the thinking behind the work, but would I buy their trainers? Not a chance.

Digital metrics are great. I think it's wonderful to be able to gauge the sentiment behind work, and see how well it's been received online. But would I rely on them to knock out a segmentation, or be able to tell how easily my product would fly off the shelves? Not a chance. Would I use them to figure out how to place my budget, and how much of it is for straight promotional activity and how much of it is for more chaotic activities? Damn right.

Obliquity: Why You Shouldn't Behave Economically..

Hello there. It's been a little while since I've posted. Sorry about that. Been busy at work, doing a variety of new business bits and bobs, along with trying to hire a Junior Planner for the burgeoning department.

One of the more fun things which has happened has been getting a book budget (a bit sad, but very exciting if, like me, there's a lot you want to read). And, one of the first books on the list was Obliquity by John Kay, which has been oft-trumpeted by the IPA.

Now, if you click on book's link, you'll find it's had a bit of a panning by certain people, who claim the book only contains one idea. Well, they aren't wrong. And, it is short. That said, I wasn't expecting more than an idea in 180 pages.

Anyway, on with the review. Kay merges some of Taleb's Black Swan thinking with Kahnemann et al (which makes sense, as an former think-tank employee and a senior financier) to come up with the central hypothesis about life and problem solving. Essentially, all what he calls 'high level objectives' (life objectives like being successful/happy et al) are best achieved indirectly. Life, for Kay, is too complex to try and map a direct solution onto it.

Most people, in his view, after they have achieved something, back their opinions up with post-rationalisation (sound familiar, planner folk?) as they can't adequately explain all of the factors which governed what they did. He calls this Franklin's Gambit, in homage to Ben Franklin, who wrote about how he made moral decisions:

“Divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then, during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different times occur to me for or against the measure.

“When I have got them all together in one view, I endeavour to estimate the respective weights… I have found great advantage for this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra.”

This was known as Franklin's Rule, but it is rarely so black and white as that when dealing with major corporations, government or the like - decisions have already been made internally, or a narrow picture has been painted and acted upon, so any work done creating models or the like is simply justifying the decision that's already been made.

Does this sound familar to anyone who works in oooh, Advertising, PR or Management Consultancy? Kay preaches the need to get started, to focus on those small tasks which work towards the larger goal; new problems and thoughts will occur.

I'm somewhat divided by this book; part of me thinks it's terrific, and a very good justification for trying, failing and carrying on, and has useful ammunition to stop clients deciding that the communications solution is black before they've ever contemplated white.

The more cynical side to me agrees with the Amazon critics; for all its worthy case studies and writing, it does essentially play the same note throughout the whole book. Yes, of course people act with a sense of pluralism - no-one (save the brain damaged) can focus wholly on one goal and never be shifted. Real life's not like that; a small child could let you know that it's not fair, never mind a FT columnist/former Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

I would say to you (whoever 'you' are) to have a look at it - particularly if you've not dealt with many big corporations in your time; it's a welcome voice of sanity when it comes to goal setting and focusing attention on getting the small things right as an absolute necessity. It also does a good job of justifying some of the more obscure bits of Planning, in my opinion; i'm not surprised the IPA liked it so much.

Far too important to leave to chance..

They aren't a comfortable pillow, believe me.

This blog was originally started with selfish reasons (aren't they all, to begin with?) I wanted to get into the ad business, and I wanted to be heard. Happily, it worked.

Now, as time went on, the need to stop people doing what I did (or learning from what went well and why) became more of a primary focus. So much, in fact, that it helped spawn AdGrads, and I'm delighted that it continues to help people into the business.

It helps throw the curtains open and show (I hope), just what goes on the murky communication world, and what agencies are really looking for, even if they don't always say.

However, there's still an itch on my part - there are some massive, massive barriers that the creative industries suffer from, and this is sort of a plea to my readers to help out:

1) Staffed by people "like me"

I am white, middle class and British. I don't have data to hand, but people like me make up the overwhelming majority of the UK advertising industry. I'd like to say this is fine. I really would. But I can't. If you get people who think the same, act the same, go to the same places, live in the same area, you get vanilla work. It's not helped by archaic agencies only allowing those who are vaguely related to people who work there get work experience.

Now, I can't help my background (having spent most of my degree course apologising, it would seem, for being responsible for the world's literary ills, and I don't mean my shoddy undergrad essays), but I recognise that diversity is not just an old, old wooden ship, and will lead to more interesting places to work, and better, more focused work.


2) Economy and Geography

It is BLOODY expensive to move to London, and it is hard to relocate to a big city where you know few people. The web's helped to minimise this, to some degree, but if you're not from the South East, you have a far harder time getting into the industry, especially given pretty piss-poor starting salaries (yes, they get better, but £18k when your flat costs £550 a month before bills means you'd better love free museums in the first year in the business).

This needs to change in some way shape or form - people need to have a way of justifying being paid just a little bit more, and the comms world needs to see beyond the borders of Kent or Surrey when it recruits. A broader recruitment policy, and paying just a few thousand pounds more would help a great deal.


3) Prizing academic qualifications over practical ability

I've met an awful lot of Oxbridge graduates since working in communications. Many are bright, erudite (as you'd expect) and well suited to their jobs. But, on the other end of the scale, i've met those who really, really aren't - there's no hunger, no passion or fire, and no real interest in the career. They signed up because they wanted an academic exercise and aren't sure what to do with themselves. Some should be academics. Some should just do something else.

And, given what I know about how agencies recruit, red brick University status shouldn't be everything. The IPA have done their bit with Diagonal Thinking, but more needs to go on. There needs to be more stories of people starting in the post room and working up. The comms industry needs to get better at marketing itself - there's a curious reluctance to, partly because whenever a camera comes into one, agency people behave like tits, and parts of the job seem faintly unreal to those who spend their days in front of organograms and spreadsheets.


4) Lacking hunger

Through AdGrads, I've met an awful lot of people who want to get into comms. Some are very bright, others who aren't as bright but are damned persistent, and those with the magic combination of both.

Part of it is because the industry doesn't promote itself very well - so those who are genuinely bright aren't as hungry as they perhaps need to be because they don't know the ins and outs of the job. Generally though, whilst it's easy to decry passion as being somehow a misdirected trait, I want to see people who will turn their hand to anything. It's more important than a first in your degree. The future belongs to people who care about what they're going to do - you can always teach people the basics, but you can't teach them how to explore new things. That's born, not made.


What you can do

Now, with all of this said, I had a very interesting meeting last week. It appears there are other people who are committed to coming up with a solution to those four problems, rather than just blogging about it, like yours truly.

I met a man called Marc Lewis, who is Dean of the newly (re)formed School of Communication Arts. Marc was the last scholarship student of the school when it existed in its previous incarnation. A successful career later, and he's now committed to helping break down those barriers by encouraging those who'd have been put off otherwise to apply for his school's accredited qualification. They accept scholarship pupils, and encourage entrepreneurial folk to get involved - watch the video on the site to understand more.

Now, the reason this post is on WAM rather than AdGrads is because it concerns you, dear reader. Their syllabus is written entirely by wiki by people who are currently in the industry. They are not far off from opening for a new term, and need YOU. You can do as much or as little as you'd like, which is always a good thing. I've signed up, and think you should too. Have a look here.

After all - I want to be sure the industry's still in rude health, and finds the best people. Who knows? You may end up employing some of the school's alumni.

Time, Time, Time..

The title of the post allows me a spot of Waits. Good stuff.

How long is too long? Does it really take weeks and months to write a thoughtful piece of creative work? What would happen if we tightened the screws and made it days and weeks? Why do some people need years to summon up the courage to tell someone they love them?

Flipping it - when does quality begin to suffer with not enough time? Coming up with a decent creative solution shouldn't be like keeping battery hens and expecting a golden egg every time.

I'd think that this would vary depending on who you asked, like the Tom Waits song of the same name. Account handlers would always like more time. They are those who are often placed in battery hen situations, and it's nice when you have a select few who can rise above it and see the blue skies. I think the reverse happens to planners, in truth. We don't often have particularly concrete deadlines for our work (save pitches and big bits of client scheduling).

And, as the Fast Strategy conferences touched upon, there may be some merit in speeding up the whole planning process now and then. You can have too long to think about something. I bring this up because, well, PR planning has a lot less time than Advertising. You get a month to pitch? We get two weeks. When faced with this sort of thing, it's easy to understand why there's a historical divide between the two disciplines.

Personally, i've always been an advocate of it taking as long as it takes. Yes, I know that sounds incredibly woolly, but to assume that you can come up with anything more than a semi-decent strategy in a day is fallacious. I think the bosses i've ever worked for have understood this - you can come up with a piece of thinking on Sunday that's infinitely better than a week's worth of work when you're obviously trying to think about it.

Strategic thinking's not a linear process, and any job which is actively engaged with the creative process should recognise this. It's not a simple matter of hot housing ideas or thinking. It's about doing stuff to take your mind of it, often. Cwoffee is an extension of this, or even something like my banal twitter account. The aim of both is almost to take my mind off the day job, so I can allow my unconscious mind to chug along to a more interesting solution.

It's also why it's so heartening to realise that most marketeers are beginning to reject the notion of a straightforward purchase funnel. Real life isn't like this, so why the hell should a 'buying process' really exist? It's comforting, but it's damned wrong. It's why the idea of lining up or organising your organisation like a client troubles me; we're The Agency. We are the people who should surprise, shock or delight their clients. Not mirror them. If clients can mildly ape what we can with some talented staff writers and Mac-ites, then proper lateral thinking is the best weapon we have. To foster that, we need to not be tied to being a little sub-client doing factory which you find in many of the agency client relationships around the world.

And when this comes to media, as discussed before, it really puts a lot of the big buying shops under the microscope. Why would you bulk buy media packages? Why wouldn't you be more reactive and creative? To buy even a series of TV spots around a certain type of programming ever more looks like you're spunking money up the wall. Find out where people are inspired and reactively buy. This jars horrendously with the big meeja agency shop's principle of having largely junior staff to fill in spreadsheets and bulk buy, with a smattering of senior staff overseeing the process. Why wouldn't you entrust where the message goes to those who come up with the creative messaging, and actually have RESEARCHED the audience, rather than some limp and out of date dataset which tells you nothing more than what people who like filling in research said, at best, six months ago?

With all of that said, I don't think being thoughtful and being fast are as oil and water as many seem to think they are. To have a set of base principles which inform upon action, which are flexible enough to allow new discoveries to change things (in much the same way Nokia changed its focus from engineering to mobiles many moons ago) seems to be the way to go. To rely on a silo to ensure business success has never seemed so inapt.

Of PR, 'The Sell', and Advertising...

Hello gang. I've been curiously quiet on this blog for a little while. I'd like to claim that was because of a lack of time, but in truth, I've been thinking about what to say next.

And, in truth, one topic kept bobbing up. I wanted to write about what i've noticed the differences are between Advertising and PR, as it's almost been four months in the new gig, which is pretty astonishing. Time's moving quickly.

There is no such thing as a perfect form of communication. We flutter and stutter on the phone, we misplace commas when we write, and get coy face to face. My background's that of someone who's spent his whole life in and around the Advertising industry, and to suddenly have that change in the last four months has been a very strange (but very nice) change.

Some thoughts, then:

1) Generalists vs Specialists

Next to Advertising account handlers, PR people do a far, far, FAR greater number of things. There are no creatives here, remember, so they have to be the ones selling in their own ideas to journalists or clients, making sure everything's on time, on budget and to the required level of creativity that the client expects.

And, they have to attend the events which're put on, which may not sound like a hardship, but you just try maintaining a sense of optimism when you not only have to talk to a client all day, but have to socialise with them in the evenings. The range of skills they are expected to pull off is quite remarkable.

There are obvious similarities in some of the roles, and I might venture that the structures are such that there's a need for different labels at times. I mean, in Advertising (rightly or wrongly), I tend to associate Account Directors with not necessarily being uber-creative, but having a strategic and business mind. In PR, there are aspects of all of these within each AD - though one side is always stronger, because, let's face it, as human beings, we're always better at one thing or the other.

Now, there's a need for the debate about the kind of skills a 21st century communications professional has to have. I value specialists, and always will - but the nature of the way PR bills (by the hour and less by the product in the same way an Advertising agency does) means there has to be generalism, by and large. How do you integrate the two, and stop one seeing the other as meaningless fluff that complicates the job? That's something forward thinking agencies of both discipline will have to wrestle with going forward. One thing's for certain - it has to be more than *just* a service in order to ensure strategic and creative relevance.

2) The more things change the more they stay the same

To any ad or communications wannabe who's chanced across this blog, and is wondering whether to go into Advertising or PR, I would honestly say it doesn't matter. The world may be changing at a ferocious pace, but there's no 'right' way into the two businesseses.

You still need to have a sense about how your clients are going to react to a new idea, and how receptive they'll be to some of the tough conversations you're inevitably going to have with them about budgets/timings/approaches/who they talk to.

The one thing which is absolutely paramount for both disciplines (and indeed, the marketplace in general) is a sense of optimism, tempered by a realistic sense of what's possible. If you don't have a sense of 'making things better', you absolutely, positively shouldn't consider either a viable career.

I'm not talking about being blindly optimistic that things will get better (because that's just naivety in another form), but being able to deal with rejection. You have to be empathetic about why a client has said no to your latest 'game-changing' idea, and why they doubt some of your attempted positioning statements.

There's also never been more of a need for an agency to act, not just as a service, but as a partner. Being a partner means you need a set of account handling antenna to know when things are about to be ballsed up, and when to talk honestly about the direction you think things going, and how to fix them. Both disciplines can be very good or very bad at that depending on the client relationship - but it's something which absolutely has to happen regardless of your background.

3) Replicating client models isn't right (whatever the industry)

Next to Saatchi & Saatchi, where I work now has been the biggest agency I've ever worked in. It has many different departments and moving parts. I still don't know half the names of people in the building.

It's been an interesting time for me, moving into a world where planning isn't automatically thought of, as it's such a new thing. It's not been around in PR since the 1960s like account planning, so there's an element of explaining just how and why you can be useful.

Clients haven't met PR planners before, and we need to explain how and why we can fit in. I think it's bloody helpful to be parachuted into different situations; not to mess with the status quo, but to prevent things becoming too comfortable - it's too easy for agency people (of both sides, I hasten to add) to get used to the day to day with client x and not challenge it. And this, after all, is why planning was invented; to offer a different point of view.

Not - in my opinion - to become as naturalised as it's become in certain spheres of advertising/marketing, where the planner is nothing more than a sense checker before the work leaves the building. Planning SHOULD be a bit bolshy and difficult, and being a shiny new resource is a good thing, because we can be a force for change. We're not here to match up with how client x sees the world, and I think that's always helpful.

4) Selling stuff remains a core skill

The wheels tend to come off any agency when they forget themselves, and their overall role; it's to sell ideas and thinking to clients. This may, or may not involve flogging product. Often (and excitingly) in PR, it's about shaping CSR strategy, or advising on just what a client is doing in country x and y and how to manage that.

There's a danger when any agency tries to client please too much, and presents too many ideas. Both sides can be guilty of this - the risk it runs is that even if a client loves them all, it looks like the agency hasn't been able to make its mind up. I understand why Richard harks back to a time when the agency only presented one route, rationalised it, and tried to sell it. The agency was a true partner then, and (though I think presenting one route is sometimes dangerous) had the courage of its convictions.

Both industries NEED salesmen/women to help push the business forward. Those people who can bring to life ideas through the force of their will, and borrow from James Webb Young, show a sense of 'salesmanship'. This doesn't mean death by PowerPoint, it means considering just what would move that client to a different place, and help them think laterally about a problem. Those people hold the keys to the kingdom, same as ever, regardless of discipline.

5) Idea generation has no silver bullet

The biggest change for me has been working in a place where there aren't 'creatives' in the sense there are with Advertising. My favourite part of the job within Advertising was spending time with the creatives and shooting the breeze.

To suddenly come somewhere where a lot of ideas are generated through brainstorming (with, as mentioned before, a lot of account handlers/client leads) is a bit strange. However, I will say that i've seen just as many good ideas generated quickly in PR as Advertising. It is interesting though, that there's a lot less navel gazing about the 'key message' as there is in Advertising - it's more about what the story will look like when it eventually comes out. It's a mindset shift, and a bit of a headfuck for me, as I've never worried or thought about this sort of thing.

BBH used to say 'how can we make this idea famous', and moving to this (arguably more PR centric) conversational approach is, I think, the right thing. Craftsmen will always be important, but thinking about the story and working backwards is a bloody useful approach when it comes to proposing the idea - and one both disciplines should always bear in mind when generating ideas.

So there we are. Five musings on the differences between Advertising and PR. Add your own. I'd love to hear 'em.

Decoding Decode.

If only real life was a bit more like this. Photo via Tim_D (usual rules apply)

Hello there. Been a bit silent on the old blog front in the last month. Sorry about that. It's been rather work-tastic, which has been excellent, but keeping me from writing about of the stuff i've been up outside of work in the last few weeks.

The most interesting thing i've seen has easily been Decode. It's on at the V&A until April, it is only a fiver, and YOU NEED TO GO.

It is the kind of thing that Lauren would fall head over heels in love with, were she still in London educating ignorant people like me about the wonders of contemporary art. Me, I liked it because of all the interactivity and bright colours. But then, i'm a simple beast (albeit one who likes to do star jumps when an exhibition calls for it).

I'm not going to go into detail about the specifics of the exhibits (We Feel Fine was there, natch, as was the video/visualisation for a Radiohead song - House of Cards), but suffice to say, they were a glorious mixture of the fantastic, the obscure and the intriguing. And a few of them were broken, but it made me feel less intimidated and less like a luddite.

No, what i'm going to talk about is the booklet I snagged from there, which features interviews with a few of the leading exhibitors. It really opened my eyes about how certain segments of the art world are facing the same debates as the comms world - about physicality, of how information is managed and dealt with, and how to manage the blurring between logic and magic. (NB: I'm not claiming communication is art, or even getting into that debate right now...heh).

Daniel Rozin (the man behind the 'Weave Mirror' exhibit- check it out here) in particular had some fascinating things to say. When asked about his work, and how much it represented an evolution of a new practice, or whether it was a brand new discipline, he had this to say:

"I certainly think of my work as part of a continuum of artistic expression that is constantly evolving. The main issues of my work - interactivity, point of view, human perception, image creation, participation etc - are by no means new subjects of thought for art. Artists have been thinking about these issues for centuries. The tools that I currently use are tools of technology (and artists have always used new technologies for their art). So I feel like my tools are different, and with the new tools come new opportunities, but the sensibilities are the same."

And there was another good one. When he was asked about the nature of his work, and what it posed for museums and established collections, he said this (shortened slightly):

"On the artistic side of things, both museums and collectors need to build up a literact when it comes to digital art. It takes a certain amount of experience and knowledge to be able to identify the outstanding and significant pieces from the more ubiquitous pieces which are merely flashy technological demonstration."

Now, this is interesting. I can barely code, but like to think I have a reasonably firm grasp on just what to look for in a good piece of communication (digital or otherwise). I do think there are those who don't have much of a digital mindset - by that I mean a lack of an appreciation that pieces of communication are there to be useful, to be shared and to be inclusive.

The facility for identifying this in pieces of communication, or to be able to tell when a tool presents a new opportunity - those are the traits which I think should be valued above all else. Thinking about the space in which things are going to be consumed, how cross pollinated things will be, how contrary people are, how likely things are going to be played with and remixed - those are skills which should always be applied. Slapping a tired old demographic on something, or a hackneyed, banal cliche - that's the enemy of lateral thinking.

Decode taught me that - you had grandmothers doing a dance to change the colours, and small children acting INCREDIBLY seriously around pieces of interactive art (as if they owned it, and it was only performing for them)...it opened my eyes a bit.

And i'll leave it to Golan Levin (creator of the fabulously named 'Opto-Isolator II') to have the last word. He was asked what digital technologies allow you to do that design technologies don't:

"I can create behaviour".

Music of 2009...

Most of the music I liked featured guitar in some way. Quelle surprise.

I don't know about you lot, but I fucking hate lists. Lists of banal things which you'd not previously thought about in the year. I really don't even like making lists at work - usually there's one or two things which are actually important to do, and the rest just sorts itself out.

Anyway. With that said, i'm going to turn on my heel and announce the albums which've been doing it for me in 2009. And, y'know, they'll be in reverse order, pop pickers. I've also made a Spotify playlist of some of the tracks I've liked a lot from these albums. Go 'ere to find it (along with some other tracks from the past year which haven't quite made the list).

10) The Leisure Society - The Sleeper



The Leisure Society are one of those bands I'd have never, ever listened to without a friend encouraging me. Garnering critical praise from the likes of Guy Garvey, Chris Martin and others who inch towards bed wetting music, I was a wee bit worried when a mate gave me his copy to listen to.

I needn't have been worried. This is brilliant stuff. A debut album, but you'd never ever know it. Upon hearing Mumford & Sons (who are also a good band, but not in the same class with their album, in my opinion), I had a little smile; if the Leisure Society had half of the commercial backing, they'd be all over the airwaves.

The music itself is sugary sweet, but in a good way, not in a 'I need to abuse several household pets' vein. Ahem. I've not heard better harmonies this year. A sweet folksy indie album. We've had a good year for them, but these guys have been amongst the best.

A note on the album - I bought the original version of the album, which isn't what's linked to - the new (and cheap!) version has a fucking amazing cover of Gary Numan's cars (a live version's also on Youtube). Check it out.

9) Decemberists - The Hazards Of Love



The Leisure Society don't have the monopoly on folksy indie music though. These guys probably have as much of a claim to it as anyone. I was introduced to them by an old girlfriend, and dismissed them as oh-so much folk meandering, designed for people who still loved their very first compass. This was back in 2005, with the release of Picaresque. I liked some of it, but most of it wasn't for me.

Now, I rather liked the album they did before this, The Crane Wife. About half of the songs were tip top, and all told rather bizarre stories about gun fights and mythical cranes (the bird, not the equipment, though that would be brilliant).

Come 2009, and they released The Hazards of Love. It's kind of an odd fusion between folk, prog and indie. The pretentious lyrics are still there, but somehow i've grown to like them. Colin (the lead singer) Meloy's voice is an acquired taste (someone from Oregon singing in what sounds like an affected mid 60's English folk singer), but I think it's gotten better, and sounds less affected. It helps he's singing duets or harmonising a lot of the time.

Anyway, it's easily the best folk/prog/concept album of the year. And, it's worth mentioning - they are fantastic live. I saw them live at the Coronet with Anjali (I believe Neil was in the crowd too, somewhere), and they were cracking. Check them out.

8) Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures



Now, this is probably a pretty easy selection. But, in my mind, it's not the best rock album of 2009. Early pretenders to the throne included Jack White's new side project, The Dead Weather. They were cracking at Glastonbury...but the album was slightly disappointing.

Now, Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John-Paul Jones are the Crooked Vultures. I was desperate to listen to this album, ever since I listened to the 15 second leak during the summer. I'm pleased to report that the Amazon reviews on this album (and in various music mags) are spot on; it's a great record. That said, some tracks are obviously better than others - Elephant and Nobody Likes Me (and Neither do I) are the ones to listen to. It's an album to crank up and run with, or to play when everyone else's out of the house.

It's very derivative of Led Zep, but I don't care about that. I like Homme as a vocalist/lead guitarist, love JPJs's basslines and Grohl's powerhouse drumming.

I was gutted I couldn't see them live, but it'll hopefully happen next year. I hope.

7) A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head



These guys came out of leftfield entirely. I heard reports about a band which were the loudest band in New York City. Bearing in mind the Yeah Yeah Yeahs come from there, it was a bold claim. Then someone on twitter (I forget who - probably Mr Kendrick) linked me to a track from their new album, Exploding Head, telling me to listen to it turned up. That track was Ego Death, and it was LOUD.

To describe their sound, it'd be like combining the Jesus & Mary Chain with shoe gazing bits and pieces. I really like that sound, even though I think I got a bit fed up with over-listening to Glasvegas last year.

It's easily the loudest album in the list, but it's really cracking. Heartily recommended, especially if you like your music loud and raw. I want to see them live in 2010.

6) Gomez - A New Tide



Gomez's debut album in 1998, Bring It On, is one of my favourite albums ever. In the top 5 debut albums ever, in my mind. Now, I love Gomez. Love them to bits. They've always, like the SFA, been able to do slightly odd things with music (though it always trended towards the bluesy side of things, given Ben Ottewell's voice) and make it sound fantastic.

I'd bought every Gomez album up to Split The Difference, which was just...ok. I thought they'd lost it in truth. Not enough long tracks (which the band are famed for), not enough melodies...it just sounded like a band devoid of ideas. So, I didn't buy the album after. And again, wasn't sure about buying another one...until a friend of mine told me their new album was a cracker. And he was right.

Tracks like 'Mix', 'Airstream Driver' and 'Little Pieces' would all sit very nicely on a Gomez best of. Pop, but not...all with enough quirks to keep me entertained. If you don't know Gomez at all, this is actually quite a good introduction. Then buy Bring It On.

5) Joe Gideon & The Shark - Harum Scarum




I first heard these guys live in the basement of a pub in 2008. There was something captivating about a tall, swaying preacherman whose bluesy voice barked tunes over a jangling electric guitar, whilst the drummer and ex-model (his sister) was in command of the sticks. A bit White Stripesy in lineup, but they sounded nothing like them. Actually, I was reminded of Nick Cave tracks (always a good thing) like John Finn's wife or even earlier. A lot of storytelling, which always makes me happy.

So when they released Harum Scarum in 2009, I was dead chuffed. 'Johan Was a Painter & An Arsonist' was better on record, 'Kathy Ray' finally made sense, and 'Civilization' was just as bonkers as I remembered it.

They're starting to get a little bit more mainstream attention these days, but I for one think they wholly deserve it. Have a listen. It won't be to everyone's taste, but if you like bluesy storytelling (some of which is very peculiar), you'll love 'em.

4) Fanfarlo - Reservoir



Another band I saw a year or so earlier - Fanfarlo are an indie band who did the small venue circuit (rather like Florence & The Machine) in London for a year or so. Having heard a few of their tracks - including this one, which for some unknown reason, didn't make the final album - I was hooked. That they had a massive band with a lot of drums and a brass section made me very happy indeed.

So, when they decided to launch their album by effectively giving it away for a pound, I downloaded it and had a listen. By this time, Coldplay (urgh) had decided to give them a support slot with them, and they were beginning to be widely listened to. Tracks like 'Harold T.Wilkins', 'The Walls Are Coming Down' and 'Fire Escape' were absolute corkers.

The sound is...i'll be honest, quite like Arcade Fire. And yet, I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about with Arcade Fire. I really like some of their tracks, but they were a bit..glacial. There's much to admire, but little to enjoy. Whereas these guys are all about crafting really great indie pop songs, and it shows. Go and see them live - the last time I did, they came into the audience with a few instruments during the encore, and did an excellent version of Neutral Milk Hotel's 'In An Aeroplane Over The Sea'.

The album's well measured, has some excellent strings...if I had to criticise, I'd have to say some of their best tracks weren't included on the album. Seek them out, they're on Youtube. Still, a cracking album.

3) The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Pains of Being Pure At Heart


I have a friend called Ben, who writes some excellent music reviews here. Not a man to get overly enthusiastic about bands for no reason, he trumpeted a band called 'The Pains of Being Pure At Heart' as one of the best he'd heard all year.

And, having downloaded the album over the Summer, I had to agree, he was damn right. There's something about this album which is all about being young, loving the sunshine and just believing there's something vital about a band with guitars and a sense of euphoria which can only be understood when you listen to the tracks for the first time.

'Come Saturday', 'Contender'...they're all quality tracks. It's an album lovingly devoted to the three minute indie pop song. There've been criticisms online that they sound like C86, a band I don't know, but to hell with it - this is music at its most vital. And for the half an hour or so the album rattles through, I bet you'll agree. They are also cracking live - I saw them with a mate at the Scala this month, and was delighted they could pull it off.

2) Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions



I've had a bit of a strange relationship with Biffy. Part of me, when I heard their first few albums, was determined (despite the obvious musicianship) to write them off as another My Chemical Romance, full of pretension and screaming. Yes, screaming. I didn't much like it then, and I don't really like it now.

Now, over the years they've been active (pretty much my University years onwards), I've softened towards them, culminating in seeing them live in Bristol in 2005. They'd just released Infinity Land, and I thought some of the tracks off that - most notably Glitter & Trauma and My Recovery Injection - were excellent.

An album released in 2007, Puzzle, divided fans. More obviously poppy than the earlier stuff, it won them a whole new legion of fans. I sort of ignored it, to be honest, partly because I was more interested in...uhh, moving to London at that point.

So come to 2009. A mate invites me along to see Biffy at Brixton. I thought i'd better check out their new album, 'Only Revolutions'. And bugger me if it isn't the best thing they've released. Obviously poppier than the early recordings, it retains the musical schizophrenia and melodies of the earlier stuff with more grown up (strings! on a Biffy album!) elements. I then buy Puzzle, and understand the shift. The last album was quite a lot poppier, and more of a straight rock album. This is a move back towards the older stuff, but not losing the more refined elements.

Josh Homme, I'm told, was involved with 'Bubbles', and it shows. Tracks like 'The Captain', and 'Golden Rule' are proper slices of rock though. Here's hoping they've influenced him too. And yes, they are quality live; you'll be amazed so much sound can come from three Scotsmen.

1) Idlewild - Post Electric Blues



Idlewild's 'The Remote Part' is probably my album of the decade. It had everything; hard rock, soft acoustic numbers, and brilliantly clever lyrics. And, i'll be honest, I love all of their albums. From the punky start of the Captain EP through to today, they've evolved as i've grown up, which is cracking.

The album before this, 'Make Another World' was a return to the slightly louder Idlewild and had more obvious riffs than the folkier stuff. Roddy Woomble, the band's front man, had begun to pursue solo projects, which were EXTREMELY folk orientated (but still quality albums). I think it was to try and keep the projects separate.

So when the band decided they'd release their latest album, 'Post Electric Blues' by themselves first of all (before the label release), I decided to order a copy. And it really didn't disappoint me. It took elements from Roddy's latest solo project, 'Before the Ruin' (most notably, the backing vocals of Ms Heidi Talbot, who made my favourite track from 2008; the studio track's here) and mix it with the more guitar based sound from the prior album.

And the result's, in my opinion, the album of the year. Tracks like 'City Hall', 'Younger Than America', 'Dreams Of Nothing' and 'To Be Forgotten' are all utterly brilliant. And, naturally, when I saw them in Camden in November, they knocked it out of the park, with a nice mixture of tracks from their whole career. Quality stuff.

Also Recommended:

The Wave Machines self titled debut album is very promising; if one half of the album was like the first four and final track, it'd be top 5 album for sure. Check out 'Punk Spirit' and 'Dead Houses'. Kasabian suffer from their perennial problem - they only make half an album. While that half an album is probably the best thing they've ever done, it's still not worthy of all of the hype. They are quality live though, if you can get by most of their frankly nuts fans. Bat For Lashes' album 'Two Suns' is worthy of a listen, especially if you turn off half way through. It's great going to bed music (and I mean that in the nicest way), but it's not coherent, though I understand that was kind of the intention.

The XX's debut is sort of worthy of its plaudits. They do sound like no-one else, and it's a great sound. The problem? Every song sounds very, very similar. If you can put up with that, then it's an album you should own. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs album 'It's Blitz' is their best yet. It took me a while to get into (being such a fan of their earlier stuff), but 'Zero' is one of the songs of the year, definitely.

The Raveonettes' new album 'In and Out of Control' is an absolute corker, and only isn't in the top 10 because i've only very recently discovered them. Give it another week, and i'd probably have put it in. The Golden Silvers were brilliant live, and I love a couple of their tracks, but the rest of the album is damned patchy. 2009 was also notable, because it was the year I finally saw the point of the Maccabees when I saw them at Glasto. Their new album is a good 'un. I also was introduced to Andrew Bird, and liked him a lot (especially live), but I don't like all of his album, so it's in the top 20, but not the top 10.

Finally, the SFAs. Their album 'Dark Days/Light Years' deserves plaudits. Like most SFA stuff though, I tend to lose interest halfway through; the songs meander a bit too much. I think it's the best album they've released in years, but 3 or 4 tunes stop it from denting the top 10.

Live:

The best live gig was probably Neil Young at Glastonbury. I was instantly converted, and now own a lot of his stuff. The second best was Drever, Woomble, McCusker and Talbot all performing folksy stuff in the Union Chapel in Islington - 'Cathedrals' is my most played track on Last.Fm as a result, and I discovered the joys of Kris Drever. I love the venue too.

Fanfarlo at the ICA were great, along with Biffy Clyro at Brixton, Idlewild at Camden, Massive Attack were good at Brixton (I can't wait for the new album), Pains of Being Pure At Heart were cracking at the Scala, Red Snapper were quality at Glastonbury, Blur were good at Glastonbury, Andrew Bird was very very good at Shepherd's Bush Empire, and the Decemberists at the Coronet were cracking too. I also was finally able to see the Secret Machines at the Carling Academy in Islington, and they didn't disappoint; the drummer has the biggest kick drum i've ever seen.

Finally, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds were good at Glasto. I don't know how any band could've followed that. They're consistently the best live band i've ever seen. See the full line up, and witness the genius of Martyn P Casey, Warren Ellis and Nick Cave himself.

Here's hoping 2010 is a good year for music. I enjoyed 2009. You can hear my favourite tracks from 2009 here and here.